The Internet (IMPORTANT)

[Syrinx]

I was reading this thread about Internet censorship in Australia.

It got me to thinking.

The internet is going to become something quite different.

We've been "enjoying" the Wild West days of the internet. I put "enjoying" in quotation marks, because all this time we've been spying on ourselves.

It's true that world governments (especially the US and China) are feeling threatened by the open spread of information and opinion via the internet. That's why the nature of the net is rapidly changing right now.

But in the rapidly setting heyday of the World Wide Web, these very same governments (especially the US) have lustily sucked up all the details of our lives that we have happily, merrily volunteered for the world to see.

Unfortunately, I didn't foresee that, and I have painted as revealing a picture of myself as just about anyone else out there, assuming there is anyone with the motivation and expertise to put all the pieces together.

And there is one entity that does have the motivation, expertise, and UNLIMITED computing power to put all those puzzle pieces together. That entity is the fully emerging neo-fascist, police-state government apparatus of very own nation-state.

Ten years ago, I would have called such claims total balderdash or bullshit (depending on my mood), but experience and simple observation have convinced me otherwise.

The government has amassed ream upon ream of information about every message board participant in the world, especially those within the borders of the United States.

The good news is that all of that is going to end soon.

The bad news is the reason all that will end.

While the internet has been amazingly helpful for oppressive governments to collect sensitive information about people all around the world, it has also allowed the unimpeded flow of uncensored information between dissenting parties.

The time has come that, for oppressive regimes everywhere, the negatives have come to outweigh the positives.

The government still collects a lot of "intelligence" and blackmail information, etc., but that is becoming less significant than the power of uncensored news and information that is being traded between the unwitting victims of this project.

The internet, and the World Wide Web, will not disappear anytime soon, but the nature of the network will be changed rapidly by overt means.

Laws and regulations and presidential decrees will be issued that will end the anarchic nature of the internet. (Anarchy is the lifeblood of the internet. I'm against anarchy in the real world, but the 'net would never have been as interesting or as helpful or as threatening without it.)

The Internet will become just another venue for the transmission of advertising and other propaganda, frustrating the will of the common good, salving the worries of the giant corporations, and easing the heartbeats of a ruling class that currently has the people waking to their crimes, and imminently calling for blood, more literal than metaphorical or metaphysical.

I will continue to post my opinions here and elsewhere. I've already exposed too many of my secrets here, naively thinking that I was anonymous, and resigned to the opinion that our country is finished, if I, and individuals like me, simply give in.

I implore you, freethinkers all, to resist any efforts to muzzle the rabble. Those efforts are indeed coming, and we all know that no important social movement has ever been instigated, or for that matter, been impeded without the insistence of the rabble!

So speak loudly my rabble, my sisters and brothers!

Give a big "FUCK YOU" to those that wish to oppress us.

We will not be silenced.

To all the assholes, fascists, and oppressors, my grandma has one thing to say to you, you'll have to pry the internet from my cold, dead, upright fingers:

[annabanana]

1. k&r. . . . . . n/t

[tom_paine]

2. You're right about all of that, Syrinx. K & R.

Very much a good news/bad news situation.

They know who we are and where we are. They know how we think. If they are considering doing this in waves, so as not to startle the herd, we have given them with our information the priorities with which to conduct their future roundups or worse.

And I am as guilty as you of painting a revealing picture of the inside of my head. It is all stored for the Bushies' further use and we know there is a 100% chace they are storing it, if not actively analyzing it, from all of us.

They know who their allies are, the Freepers and the like, they know which of them whom all they have to do is give them the tiniest bit of "permission from authority" to turn them into unquestioning Nazi Stormtroopers.

They know which Freepers (and statistically it is certain there are at least a few if not a substantial number) who would quetsion that, and are therefore "not trustoworthy". Those would probably be left alone, or would find to their astonishment their incarceration with the liberals they loathed, eventually.

This belongs on the Greatest Page.

[Richard Steele]

3. K&R

[Echo In Light]

4. Exactly. Get online and fly your freak flag high

You're correct. Big Brother would sooner have it online than in the streets ... but much of the control the police state has at this point is largely determined through opinion, and how much power the people concede to that anti-democratic system.

[OneGrassRoot]

20. LOL - "get online and fly your freak flag high"

That's priceless! Love it!!!

:yourock:

[SpiralHawk]

5. The K and the R

for this thread...

Set your Golden Compass to Truth


And don't forget to feed your Armored Bear

[Peggy Day]

39. cool graphics nt

[SalmonChantedEvening]

6. What Grandma said!!

K&R :kick:

[flashl]

7. K&R n/t

[Echo In Light]

8. And another salute for Big Brother...

[Yuugal]

9. Nice pic!

I get the feeling Bush isn't getting the usual tin of spiral cookies this year?

[Echo In Light]

10. Auh, no...But truth be told, I hold our populace more accountable for not demanding justice

One has to expect pirates and kings to be dishonest, greedy, pathological, not averse to mass murder, etc ...so at that point it's up to the people to step in. They haven't.

[mogster]

11. Hear, hear

The covert turn around is bound to come, so we must be ready to fight for free speech.

[pleah]

12. Go Granny Go ! K&R

[Greyhound]

13. K & R, and Happy Holidays.

There is much to add, but I have to get ready for work now.
:kick: & R

[Joanne98]

14. You're absolutely right! We need to resist any attempt to change the internet!

[tbyg52]

16. Right on - net neutrality is right up there with paper ballots! nt

[snot]

15. I've been trying to warn everyone -- WE'RE DOING IT FOR THEM

(Quoted with permission)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007
UPDATE: With Our Help, Control Over the Internet is Underway

Free speech in general and the internet in particular seem to worry control freaks.

As of 2000, just five megacorporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) – controlled over 90% of the media industry in the U.S., with General Electric's NBC a close sixth (see here, here, here, and here).

In 2003, despite the largest public outcry in FCC history, the FCC adopted rules loosening restrictions on media ownership (stories here, here, and here). Although courts ultimately threw out the rules, the FCC is now trying again (stories here and here).

Certain people have spent a lot of money to gain all that control, and notwithstanding claims of hard times in the media biz, the investment has proved profitable; but one of the main benefits that might have been hoped for – control over the agenda and messages reaching audiences of any significant size – is threatened by the 'net.

Internet freedom, neutrality, etc. have accordingly been attacked on a variety of fronts.

In an earlier post, I discussed conservatives' plans to replace the internet as we know it with something called the "Worldbeam" (a.k.a. the "Cloud"), a system in which, instead of storing all your personal docs, files, and software on your own computer at home, everything would be stored on larger computers elsewhere, and you would just have a box that would be little more than a gateway to the Beam.

Instead of buying your own copies of applications, the most basic might (or might not) be provided on the Beam for free, and you'd pay license fees for anything fancy, so vendors could force you to upgrade whenever they liked. Although access to your own data would theoretically be protected by a password or other security, the gummint or others who controlled the Beam could access, modify, or simply delete any or all of your or others' data much more easily than now.

The internet would have been transformed into a massive, top-down surveillance system while conferring virtually unlimited power on those who controlled it to re-write "reality."

I was worried, but thought it would be some years before the "Beam" replaced the 'net as we know it.

Duh. It's finally dawned on me, there's no need for those desiring Beam-like control to engineer any single, vast switch-over to a new system. They're simply colonizing the 'net little by little – and many of us are unwittingly helping them.

Think MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, MeetUp, LinkedIn, del.icio.us, Ancestry.com, and yes, Blogspot – you upload or create tons of data about yourself and your activities, opinions, social and other relationships, and personal preferences into online facilities that are maintained and controlled by other people. You may or may not even keep copies on your own computer of everything you put on the 'net. Think online banking and investment, every airplane ticket you've ever bought and hotel you've booked, every comment you've ever posted, and every purchase you've ever made esp. from vendors like amazon that keep track so as to make recommendations. Think on-line spam filter services (I realize AT&T is probably already giving the gummint copies of every e-mail that passes through AT&T's "pipes," in direct violation of our constitutional rights -- see here -- but hey, we might manage to shut that down). When I "google" myself, one hit even discloses how much money I gave to which Presidential candidate in 2004 (I certainly don't recall putting that online).

The fact is, many of us have for some time been eagerly shifting vast portions of our lives into Beam-like facilities that are based somewhere out there and are only nominally under our own control.

(More, including links, at http://c-cyte.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-over-internet-is-underway-all_03.html )

[silverojo]

44. That's why I've never used MySpace, etc.

I won't even use my real name on the 'net--originally it wasn't because I thought the govt. would spy on me, just that it's dangerous to share personal information with lord-only-knows-who out there.

If anyone's spying on me, about all they'll find out is that I'm using an ancient version of Windows, I like anime and Asian pop music, and I've spent way too much time playing Chuzzle. :)

[Political Heretic]

17. It is not going to end at all.

When the internet is tamed, the new underground will begin. You can't "control" information technology effectively for very long.

[f the letter]

19. i badly want to believe that

But with telecommunications companies that own the lines in direct collaboration with our neoconservative and robot overlords, i'm not sure it will hold water.

The fact that 'net neutrality' has seen almost literally no media attention makes me even more worried.. as soon as one has to pay for one's bandwidth use, sites likes this (and mine) are in big trouble. It will be very easy to price access to information out of the market as time goes on.

Anyone have any ideas on how to prevent this from happening? We need to start now

[silverojo]

45. Support candidates who support net neutrality

And visit this site for more info:
http://savetheinternet.com/

[balantz]

18. K&R

I see two things happening: The massive collection of surveillance data; and the 21st century style of book-burning.

When the fascists are done they will have the "goods" on us all, and our beloved and sacred living library and organic information exchange will be a pile of ashes.

Double whammy, handcuffs and mindcuffs.

Freedom will then be only a thing of the Heart.

[JDPriestly]

25. Freedom is always a thing of the heart -- and soul.

[balantz]

29. That is the only sure thing.

[warren pease]

21. Yup. The internet must die...

The only real competition threatening corporate media's stranglehold on official "truth" comes from the internet. It's job is turning our brains into Cream of Wheat and the internet is the best antidote.

We have broadband, YouTube, blogs, forums, discussion groups, political organizing, access to newspapers published in actual free countries -- all taking place in plain sight. I don't think the power elites can afford to allow this nonsense to continue for much longer. People with unconventional (read: humanitarian) ideas are the implacable enemy of those getting rich and powerful via the status quo, and these dissenters will not be tolerated forever.

To the overlords, libraries and independent publishers and book stores are bad enough. But fortunately for "them," libraries are ill-attended, it's getting harder to publish unorthodox material in the US, and independent book stores are getting killed by the Barnes & Nobles of the world.

Not so the internet. It's become the alternate universe for hundreds of millions of people who know and understand that the official story is always and inevitably bullshit. That altruism has never been a function of governments. That governments are always at war with "the people" they pretend to watch out for. That, as the Commander Guy pointed out in a rare moment of clarity, dictatorships ARE easier to run than representative democracies. That power exists solely to perpetuate itself and, when threatened, will defend its position with anything and everything in the arsenal.

Now that's a hell of an alternate narrative, raised as we are on the American creation myth in which the US always acts out of decency and its abiding devotion to human rights. And the internet is the conveyor belt that carries this alternative universe of actual facts, and the seditious thoughts and attitudes and movements they inspire, around the world in less time than it takes a cat to sneeze (as one of mine just did).

Which brings us to "Endgame," as the DHS apparently calls HR 1955 / SB 1959, known officially as The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

Among its dozens of disgusting provisions, this bill, which will probably become the law of the land, actually claims that:

(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.

(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

Um... that would be you and me, and everybody else on this and any other forum, blog or news and information site that isn't exclusively devoted to singing the praises of BushCo and all it stands for.

I somehow doubt that the intended targets here are Freerepublic, Aryan Nations, the Army of God or any of the more horrifically violent and insane right-wing web sites that promote misogyny, racism, bigotry, hatred, intolerance and mass slaughter of brown and black people, all sanctified by some twisted version of religion called Christian Identity or Dominionism. Nope, not with this administration and this DoJ deciding who the evil doers are.

Google now, or forever hold your peace.


wp

This was based on a previous post of mine on the same general theme, then modified extensively.

[EFerrari]

22. Google is part of the problem.

How compromised ARE the major search engines?

Maybe we should figure out a way to build one because I really don't trust that Google or Yahoo!, for example, aren't already filtering for us. I've told the story already of how dear departed from DU mom cat and I were posting stories about the Israeli peace movement starting on one Friday (during the bombing of Lebanon) and by Sunday afternoon, the stories I'd posted Friday night had been scrubbed. That was fairly chilling. But you have to know, if they will filter for China, they'll filter for our government with even more alacrity.

[warren pease]

23. Agreed...

I've seen several people here mention alternative search engines, one being http://www.dogpile.com/">Dogpile. I haven't used it that much, nor do I know anything about their politics or willingness to comply with the federales.

That could be an OP of its own, I guess: Looking for reliable search engines that won't cooperate with the feds.

Of course, as soon as Reid finishes caving on the FISA bill, everything will be all legal and above board anyway and we'll all go back to google and be happy, happy, happy.

And happy Kwanzaa to you, Elizabeth.


wp

[EFerrari]

24. My best to you and yours, my friend.

Thank you for all your amazing contributions to DU.

:hi:

[warren pease]

28. You mean those measly $50 checks I write every quarter? ;- )

[EFerrari]

31. No, I mean you sharing your thinking with us.

And, thanks for those checks, too.

lol

[warren pease]

32. Well, back atcha...

I love your articles and I wish you'd do more of them for OpEdNews or Online Journal.

Anyway, I hope you have a very pleasant, religiously neutral winter solstice celebration based on pagan rituals honoring the sun god.


In our native tongue, take care and have a great week of R&R and decompression.


wp

[Echo In Light]

35. Obedience and servitude...count on it n/t

[L0oniX]

26. The Great Satan

[Stalwart]

27. Structured Information

The internet is structuring information, connecting things bringing increasing order to conceptual stuff.

All this structuring is being done on a rational, logical basis if you buy the idea that humans are generally rational, logical creatures. At least more are than are not.

Worldwide growth in reason and logic can lead to change. When that growth potential is made available to the masses there is danger to those that have powerful but minority positions that are not reasonable, logical, or even moral or legal.

Sometime during 2008 we will see the power of a combination of reasoned, logical thinking, the speed of the internet to spread it and the willingness of people to grasp it as simple as the writing on the wall. We will probably be amazed to find that it does not happen in the USA but starts elsewhere.

Not everything wonderful and glorious started in the USA yesterday:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham

Reason and logic triumph. That is the fear of those that do not believe in that statement.

[lisainmilo]

30. all in the name of "For Your Protection"

When in reality it is for their protection to continue deceptive practices, stop free thinking and turn your brain into mush.

I know what they want us to do, Go to work, watch t.v, eat, take a shower, say your prayers, go to sleep, wake up,go to work, watch tv, say your prayers, go to sleep, wake up, watch tv, eat, take a shower, go to work, eat, say your prayers, go to sleep...wake up, got laid off, company closed, say your prayers, go to sleep, wake up, watch tv, look for work, eat, say your prayers, go to sleep. wake up, water shut off final notice..no shower, electric shut off no t.v., look for work, eat, say your prayers, go to sleep, wake up, make a sign, will work for food, say your prayers, go to sleep.

What grandma said!

[IDemo]

33. Attempts have already been made to do away with anonymity

New Jersey bill aims to stamp out Internet forum anonymity

California Bill Backed by Hollywood Attacks Internet Privacy

[warren pease]

34. The New Jersey one's a bitch...

From the text of the bill:

The bill requires an operator of an interactive computer service or an Internet service provider to establish and maintain reasonable procedures to enable any person to request and obtain disclosure of the legal name and address of an information content provider who posts false or defamatory information about the person on a public forum website.

Once again, quasi-legal verbiage loose enough to mean just about anything anybody could want it to. Any person could easily be, say, Microsoft, since corporations are legal persons. So if I post something about how Vista sucks dead whales, I presumably could be subject to criminal penalties if a few of Microsoft's 35 million obsessed lawyers can prove that my post is either false or defamatory.

Well, it's literally false, since I doubt Vista actually does suck dead whales. And it's certainly defamatory; there's no way such a statement could be construed as flattery.

I guess I won't be coming to New Jersey and talking bad about Microsoft any time soon.


wp

[Fire Walk With Me]

36. This OP is brought to you by Coca-Cola, the official beverage of the Internet.

Kidding.

My username is my actual last name, and is so on every board that I frequent. I will not live as they wish me to live. I will not bow to fear. Even if defiance is the last thing that we may own, never give in.

They cannot defeat a nation that has decided to say "NO".

[jeff30997]

37. So your first name must be...

Twin!Am I right?:) Happy Holidays!

[TalkingDog]

38. So how would one (theoretically of course) set up a "pirate" internet?

There are pirate radio stations.

How would a pirate ISP work?



My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[lostnfound]

40. Been wondering that also, besides the ISPs are SOOOO bad.

Probably there'd be a law against it.

[lvx35]

43. Its totally doable.

The Internet is just a network. There's nothing fancy about it. If you set up a home network, install apache or any other free server on a computer with some web pages, you can visit that "site" at an address like http://192.168.0.8/ for instance. The only other peice is DNS, which you can also install to give your computers names like "mycomputer.com" instead of numbers.

To get the network, like with your neighbors, you can use wifi. You can buy special wifi equipment which allows signals to go very far, or point to point a really long way in a beam. This way you could connect with your buddy's network.

To set up the Internet this way is incredibly rational, yet they don't do it. When I did a traceroute on the signal from my computer, to my college which is within walking distance, I traced the signal going through Qwest headquarters in Denver, thousands of miles away, before it got to my school.

[Ghost Dog]

53. I've wondered in the past if some kind of international

IP (internet protocol) net could be set up running over short-wave radio as the carrier...

Short-wave radio used to be one hell of a powerful medium.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

41. K&R

Granny no doubt listened to Johnny

[Kokonoe]

42. I vote not.

[OxQQme]

47. How much beer you buy

and the brand, what kind of toilet paper, tooth paste, bread, milk, what gas you use and where you bought it, what books you buy, whether you buy a bouquet for Mom on Mothers Day, what size pants you wear, shoe size, restaurants you eat at, how much was the tip, and on, and on, and on, if you use a plastic card (debit or charge).

[valerief]

46. It won't matter. We won't have jobs, we'll be homeless, and we'll

be on death's door. Soon.

Life won't be worth living. The bankers will win.

[gateley]

48. Kick nt

[Plucketeer]

49. Kay & ARE!

[AdHocSolver]

50. The main action we can take to protect the internet is to support net neutrality.

The right-wing, essentially, wants to privatize the internet through a system of charging different users based on bandwidth and content. This would give carriers like AT&T the ability to price web sites like DU out of business. This is the greatest danger. It would give the corporations the capability of censorship.

There already exist many ways for the government or any large corporation to find out all they want to know about any of us without even monitoring the internet. Insurance companies, banks, state and local governments, the IRS, department stores, credit card companies, credit bureaus, medical institutions, and every company you do business with that uses computers have tons of data on every person in the U.S. They share data and are emininently hackable.

I am amazed at how readily people give out personal information without a thought. If you have a store credit card or a store discount card, every purchase you make is recorded in a database. Visit a doctor. Eveything about you is recorded, and if you have insurance, all of that information goes to your insurance company. Many products people buy comes with a warranty card that asks for surprisingly detailed information about one's personal life: age, family members, income level, other purchases, home ownership, etc. Most companies sell this information to other companies, and I read somewhere that the IRS is a big purchaser of these databases. It is crazy to fill out these cards.

Support net neutrality legislation and prevent privatization of the internet.

[theFrankFactor]

51. I Couldn't Agree More! In Fact I Tried and Got My Ass Kicked.

:spank:

[Ghost Dog]

52. Yup. A key theme running through

the slightly futuristic novel I'm supposed to be working on (set mostly in UK and mainland Europe) - where in most parts there are already, have always been, insufficient guarantees on freedom of thought, expression and non-violent action. And don't forget the likes of Echelon and successors as regards phones and faxes...

Assume everything you ever said on the nets is on record somewhere.

Sure, if 'they' are interested enough in you to expend the resources, all the online dots surrounding your identity can be connected (I'm sure the list of details of members of DU is not very secure, for example). Of course, the 'real terra-ists' would be dedicating a lot of effort from their side to protecting their anonimity. 'The system' should be dedicating its resources to tracking them, if, as they've told us, that's where their priorities lie. Using their sophisticated resources to track 'opinionated citizens' would rather give the lie to the story they've told us so far.

I believe that, at least at this stage, if you really want to present serious intellectual opposition to certain political policies, it's best to name yourself and go very public - à la Naomi Klein, for a recent example. And then watch your back.

And for the rest of us: Passive resistance: Keep that finger as stiff and as high as you can.

[TrogL]

54. There was life before the Internet

There was plenty of subversive activity on bulletin boards long before the Internet. I ran a node for a few years. It was all volunteer effort with crappy equipment, but we could get a message across the continent in a few minutes.

[Syrinx]

55. I had a friend that ran a BBS

I'm trying to remember the name of the network, but am running into a blank at the moment. It was the one that used the software that was written by a blind guy. Seems like, and I'm not sure about this, it was written in QuickBasic.

If this rings a bell, please let me know.

Merry Christmas! :hi:

[caseycoon]

56. Net neutrality is a MUST! n/t

[Mosaic]

57. The net will survive

I know I might be accused of being naive, but I don't believe I have any "overlords" other than my elected officials. The internet is more an idea than a thing, the idea of freedom of speech will overpower any attempts to limit our speech. In the end technology will win, free speech will win and the "elite" will lose at long last. That's a given in my book.

[Swagman]

58. I agree..and 'Pedo Panic' is part of it....

these rediculous TV shows that promote grown men to meet up with other grown men/women posing on-line as young teens are continually pushing the line that parents should be terrified that there child is somehow going to be snatched through the computer screen.

The child porn hysteria..although obviously should be illegal ,but outright lies are told to beat-up this problem-from Gonzales claiming (without a shred of proof) that it is a multi-billion dollar industry. This just sounds completely ludicrous but how many millions of dollars are being spent on this type of law enforcement ??

Whereas-as you say this piece is from Australia-in one state alone there (NSW) there was a reported 240,000 cases of REAL child abuse-physical, mental and sexual. Authorities are just chasing whatever will appeal to the media as just the most sensational cases whilst real and harmful abuse reigns unchecked. Why ?

TO EVENTUALLY CONTROL THE INTERNET HAVING WHIPPED UP FEAR AND LOATHING.