I like this, but it feels hypocritical after the recent domain seizures and bullshit internet and digital media laws, and past censoring / banning of documents. It's OK to break other nations' walls, but not your own, apparently.
Believing in "The Machine" - a single coherent entity running things seems almost like the belief in Thor, the god of thunder.
Sure, stuff happens for crazy reasons. That's not because of the agenda of some mysterious weather god, or an elusive organization; it's because of a complex system of dumb entities bumping into each other. You can rationalize it as gods or Illuminate, but it's probably just random noise.
Sometimes stuff like the Patriot act can give a single actor a disproportionate amount of power, but they usually have no idea what to do with it; thankfully.
It's another example of shortsightedness by the USG,but fortuitous in this case. The technology described in this article will likely be used to circumvent domestic USG intentions within 10 years.
It's not so clearcut as this. Projects like these give the US government knowledge in how to disturb or thwart those that try to circumvent US-imposed restrictions.
What, because one arm of the US Government is doing something bad at any given time means that another arm isn't allowed to do something good?
These are very separate sets of issues, and I think it's kinda sad that about half the comments in this thread are ignoring the issue this is about and jumping straight to whining about how the US Government won't let you pirate Battlestar Galactica.
No, not separate issues. Our government are hypocrites because they work to undermine censorship imposed by foreign governments on their respective populations, while at the same time imposing censorship on their own people for nothing more than "unauthorized viewing" of Battlestar Galactica.
Or perhaps you think Battlestar Galactica is actually a better reason to censor and oppress than, say, the threat of riots and political unrest. Not being snarky; I really can't tell from your comment.
I never made such a judgement. I would agree that, in general terms, censorship of political speach represents a greater degree of oppression.
However, that's not to dismiss the oppressiveness of our current copyright regime, where the content industries are lobbying for even non-commercial infringement to be criminalized, and our government seems largely willing to go along.
Not at all. But we're all stuck funding all branches, so we do have a right to complain about the bad ones. And they do harm the image / reception of the good ones, as well as waste scads of money that could be doing (more?) good.
As to the differences, yes, this is far from the piracy issues. But not from banning books or bypassing due process.
Amazingly, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) is censoring parts of the Internet in the US, while we try to export the uncensored Internet to the 3rd world.
I guess the Internet should be free, as long as you don't violate copyrights...
I've seen nonsense upvoted, but typically whoever points out the nonsense is also acknowledged and upvoted. (Edit: when I posted, the above comment was far in the grey.)
Folks, the abuses of governments and corporations trying to enforce copyright doesn't make copyright meaningless and/or evil, and you will not win your fight by embracing lazy e-rhetoric over reason.
I'm not seeing the lazy rhetoric of which you speak. The grandparent made a pretty simple assertion; worded a little differently, our government rejects the justifications used by other governments to censor their people, and at the same time seeks to censor its own people using rather more dubious justifications.
Perhaps you have an actual objection to this statement?
Edit: For the record, I have no problem with my government actively undermining censorship in foreign countries, and in fact I heartily endorse it in this case.
The conformity of the geeky echo-chamber on the subject of copyright law worries me. The trouble with echo chambers is not just that extreme opinions (e.g. that media piracy is okay and all intellectual property law should be abolished) start to seem mainstream to those inside them, but that the folks who want to have extreme opinions then have to adopt even more extreme opinions.
Here, for instance, we have the opinion that not only is media piracy okay, but that any government attempt to stop it is not merely as bad as but worse than, say, the Chinese Government's ongoing attempts to censor anyone who dares to say "Hey, the Chinese Government kinda sucks".
I don't think existing IP law is ideal, by any means, nor do I think that it's what I think it should be (and I'm not so arrogant to assume that what I think the law should be and what the law really should be are the same thing, since copyright law is intrinsically a compromise between different types of people, and there's certainly no reason why my personal preferences should take precedence over anyone else's). And I'm happy to engage and argue with people who have extreme opinions, but the correct way to express an extreme opinion starts off with an acknowledgement "OK, this might sound crazy but hear me out..." rather than a bald-faced assertion that "wah wah, enforcing copyright law is like shovelling babies into gas chambers" or whatever.
Well then you're in luck. Read my comment again, as well as illumin8's, and observe that nowhere do we say that piracy is "okay", nor do we ever mention babies and gas chambers.
I'll ask you the same question as cynicalkane: do you have a specific objection to the assertion that U.S. government is being hypocritical here?
I never advocated piracy, but don't you think it's just a little bit scary that ICE has the power to shut off domain names just because a company like Sony said there was naughty content on it?
But there were no extreme positions expressed in the comment you were responding to. The comment is compatible with extreme positions but certainly doesn’t express them.
Even worse, the seizures don't seem to be the result of ICE investigations so much as some industry (RIAA, MPAA, etc) person gives ICE a list of sites, ICE does some mild amount of confirmation, and then sends it off to a judge.
I remember that a number of the rap blogs taken down in the first round, were claiming that the artists themselves (or their PR people) sent the music to them. Now maybe the industry person that told ICE about that site "just didn't know" that the music was legal, but isn't that the point of investigations and due process?
These domain seizures are such a disturbing issue because there is no due process.
I agree. What I reject is the entirely different idea expressed in the previous post, to the effect that violating other people's rights is an essential component of the Internet being free.
The previous post is explicitly referring to a situation that involves gross abuse of rights. Rights far more important than any "right" to copyright protection.
And yes, I am suggesting with a straight face that some rights are more important than others.
The previous post is explicitly referring to a situation that involves gross abuse of rights.
Which I said nothing about in mine.
One might speculate that I omitted such reference because I found no particular fault with what was said about it. I might even agree that domain seizures have various bad properties. If pressed, I might even acknowledge that my objection stems from the same root assumption that people have rights and that having those rights violated is not cool, merely taken to the potentially heretical length that it remains not cool even when it's not a government doing it.
Alternately, one might conclude that because the banner I wave is not purest White that I must be the vanguard of an approaching army of Black, crusading enemy of freedom and probably no fun at parties.
Or, I could just take your refusal to clarify your thoughts as confirmation that you're just here to troll, and never actually intended to make a well thought out point.
Please accept my inclination to never post on this subject on HN again as a sign that I was not trolling. It is always exhausting to try to explain what is to me a fairly intuitive and moderate point to an audience that seems quite devoted to misinterpreting it as another salvo in a battle I have no interest in fighting. I am just deeply tired of doing it reflexively out of some weird sense of obligation that you or I or someone will be the better for it when experience tells me in <h1><blink> that boiling replies are never going to simmer down.
I have no obligation to explain anything to you, nor you to me. Let's leave it at that.
"right" is an odd word to apply to the ever-expanding American notion of copyright. A legal right it may be, but your use of the word seems to be aimed higher. When I see a statement like this, I read, "when has freedom ever meant disregard for the temporary government-granted monopoly over the distribution rights to creative works created by others". A much more accurate phrasing which doesn't beg the question.
I'm not sure what you're asking. Perhaps you meant to ask, "legal rights aren't human rights?" Or maybe, "legal rights aren't inalienable?"
Don't let me put words in your mouth, but your vague use of the word "right" in a discussion of a widely acknowledged inalienable right -- freedom of expression -- begs the question.
The entirety of your previous post was putting words in my mouth, and now you're doing it again by suggesting interpretations of what I wrote instead of what I actually wrote. No, thank you.
No, I'm opining that your use of the word "right" in this discussion is inappropriate. You can throw the word around however you like, but it would be helpful to the discussion if you were a bit more specific.
If you feel my interpretations are wrong, please tell me why.
Money well spent. Anything we can do to increase communications outside of officially sanctioned methods within the borders of these regimes is a good thing in my book.
The article is lite on exactly how communications within a geography link up with the rest of the larger internet but you need to forgive the poor reporters who are obviously in way over their heads technically. I give you nonsense exhibit A:
"Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border."
To the four cool dudes hanging out with briefcase gear on L street in DC: Pack those beasties with mesh wifi AND satellite uplinks. Make a few hundred and let uncle sam distribute them/pick up the bandwidth tab.
> Money well spent. Anything we can do to increase communications outside of officially sanctioned methods within the borders of these regimes is a good thing in my book.
I agree. I would also add that in my book, "these regimes" includes the USA, UK, EU, Australia, etc.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we're so slow in making progress in fighting against the genuinely oppressive regimes in the world -- because when we should be helping those who really suffer from oppressive regimes we're too busy complaining and finding false equivalence with our own.
"Oh yeah, it's a big problem that the house across the street is on fire. But it's also at least three degrees warmer in here than I'd like! It's important that we go get some hoses for the people across the street. But it's also important that we stop my housemate from turning the thermostat up so high. Let me tell you more about my annoying housemate..."
More like we help the neighbor down the street, while ignoring the shoddy wiring in our own house. We save the neighbor's house, while our own lights on fire and burns down.
There's no reason that we can't help others and ourselves at the same time.
Actually there is... time and focus are limited resources.
Meetings and discussions should be focused on one topic---say for instance stopping the abuses of power by a genuinely totalitarian government. If we want to talk about the encroachment on civil liberties in a social democracy, that is good and well but it should be held at a different time.
Conversation about the former shouldn't suffer from interjections by proponents of discussing the later simply because its an issue that's "closer to home".
You have misunderstood my meaning, which suggests I could have phrased my comment better. Of course I believe that Western countries are less repressive than the likes of North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.
The internet offers people an unprecendented ability to communicate with each other. This is causing big social changes, and big social changes always create winners and losers, so that some people who are currently powerful, but who these changes will make less powerful. For example, repressive regimes, or the copyright industry.
The attitude of the USA and other Western countries is inconsistent. They welcome the changes the internet is bringing when it hurts incumbents they don't like (e.g. repressive regimes except those ones allied to the West), and want to stop they changes when it hurts incumbents they like (e.g. major political donors such as the MAFIAA).
So on the one hand they're trying to make the internet more locked-down, and on the other hand they're trying to make it more free. It's obvious that they won't succeed in doing both, and it's also obvious that they are going to be more successful at doing anything if they have a clear goal of what they want to achieve.
My view is that the national interests of Western countries lie in making the internet as free as possible. Yes there will be costs -- e.g. Wikileaks will embarrass Western leaders from time to time, and file sharing will hurt political donors. But these are harms to the leaders of Western countries, not to their populations.
I'm not comfortable with the connotation that "regime" brings, but I had the same thought as you.
This technology and equipment will find itself in the hands of Americans if the US government tries to shutdown the Internet Mubarak-style.
However, I think the difference is that, in America, I could walk down to Best Buy and build a reasonably effective "alternative Internet" today, at low cost.
So the government wants to develop communication links with hot zones. I find it more likely they want reliable communication with agents in conflict zones without needing agents to carry specialized equipment that could tip off local governments [0]. After all, if you install one of these Internet-in-a-suitcase devices in a conflict zone, you're likely there for more than a package delivery. What better way to blend in than mixing with hundreds of local citizens trying to use the same shadow network to communicate with the outside world? The risk still seems high, but it seems marginally better to be identified as a protester than a spy.
[0] Except for, of course, the Internet-in-a-suitcase itself.
Satphones draw attention in much of the world. It's hard to pretend to be an ordinary peasant when you're carrying a device that costs the equivalent of two year's wages. When the US and Afghan authorities are detaining people for possessing a digital watch[1], a satphone is a total liability.
WiFi-enabled smartphones are ubiquitous and dirt cheap - used shanzhai handsets cost just a few dollars. A smartphone's firmware is the ideal place to hide crypto.
I had assumed we were doing this, and am happy to see it confirmed. Creating wifi access points is quite a simple thing to do and the benefits it provides to free speech are quite obvious.
With a budget as big as the U.S.'s, blanketing an area with a ton of powerful wifi points(satellite uplinks, etc.), is incredibly cheap too.
On the other hand, if I were a senior official in the US Government, I sure would want to be the first to know all about renegade gatherings in countries which I do not approve of.
Perhaps I am missing the point, but isn't this just the 21st century version the School of the Americas and the CIAs radio broadcasts / clandestine media efforts?
I certainly don't oppose freedom, but willfully causing destabilization in foreign countries, even if that country has a brutal government seems to violate the concept of state sovereignty, at least a little bit.
Why is the US government doing this? Primarily because, for the low low price of building networks they receive dragnet surveillance capabilities in foreign unstable and potentially hostile countries. See the SF fiber split dragnet surveillance. See the Onion episode about "The Facebook Project" - 'normally it would take CIA operatives weeks of tracking down hotel receipts, but people just put stuff on Facebook now!!'
Is the real reason the US is trying to do this is the fact that it wants to remain friendly to the next people in power? If the US helps the dissidents it seems more likely they will be friendly to the US in the future. Since the next regime may or may not be friendly to the United States.
This is a very simplistic view on development of societies.
Freedom must always come accompanied with responsibilities. In the West, we learn that early in school and (hopefully) life.
I have lived many years in countries where people have not learned that. As a consequence, they all still want freedom (for themselves), but when you start talking about responsibilities, you are not so popular anymore.
But it's very popular at home (i.e. in the West), so who cares about the victimes of all this simplistic "development aid"...
I agree that freedom comes accompanied with responsibilities, but not the simplistic, "don't rock the boat" type of responsibilities that 6th Grade teachers talk about.
Thomas Drake had a responsibility to expose the NSA's massive waste. Elssberg had a responsibility to expose the Pentagon Papers. Assange and company have a responsibility to get the US diplomatic cables out there. Those forsenic economists (http://www.slate.com/id/2203121/, http://www.iies.su.se/~ekaplan/coups.pdf) have a responsibility to figure out who profited from knowledge of US-backed coups in Central America.
Freedom isn't free of cost. We all have a responsibility to spill the beans about immoral actions by secretive organizations.
However, we have learned to not abuse freedom for selfish profit, but to maintain and protect it. We learned that freedom is the freedom of speech for others. And to accept conflicting opinions peacefully.
This is not a given everywhere, though. Where Social Capital is lacking, freedom can easily become a trigger for a breakdown of personal and public security. Where loyalties are mainly based on family ties or group boundaries, freedom can easily lead to more hate and large scale physical violence. Where education is poor, even the most obvious lie will find people that get angry about it and look for "retaliation", often physical.
I am of course not saying that freedom of speech is bad. On the contrary. But is has to be dealed with carefully, and differently in differend societies, taking into account each societies values and development process. Otherwise it may easily (again!) destroy more than it creates. Just think of the "elections" desaster in Africa in the 1990s. A huge (and forseable) tragedy, but it sold well in the West.
Thanks for confirming the censorship in the West regarding this topic. I would have thought I get downvoted more than only (-4) points, though. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me for saying the unsayable.
Btw: I have studied thic topic for many years and have lived half my life in the Third World to learn about this issue in practice. Who would have thought that the main problem is ideological ignorance in the West.
(And now, downvote me again for talking on topic and contibuting first hand information...)
Well, I am not talking nonsense, I am probably much better informed about the topic that most other here.
With "censorship" I do not mean government censorship but self-sensorship. It's implated in the heads that certain things are "correct" and whoever dares to question one of these things gets punished.
That's what "Ideology" is all about. When the reality is ignored in favour of "the Truth".
I actually did the work and lived (and still live) in those places to have a look myself. Nobody cares, because everybody knows "the Truth" already.
Perhaps if you expressed yourself better you'd receive an interesting discussion rather than a bunch of downvoting, but as it is I can't figure out what it is you're saying, except that:
a) You think you're right about something and everybody else is wrong, and
Nobody gets popular anywhere talking about responsibilities. That is a basic fact of the human condition. It would be easier to duck the issue by installing dictatorships everywhere and ensuring nobody ever had to think about their responsibilities ever again. You would make many friends if you implemented such a plan.
However, those dictatorships would have to be run by humans. That is a limitation of current technology, perhaps, but it is a constraint we have to live with now. Humans in power abuse the power they have; it is impossible to imagine otherwise. That is another fact of the human condition.
Sorry, but you completely misunderstood (or wanted to misunderstand, and then attack me by implying I wanted to "install dictatorships" everywhere). Wow.
