On Feb 14, 2006, at 1:39 PM, Paul Bagyenda wrote:
I know this is a 'techies list' and therefore the urge to turn
each discussion into one about bits & bytes is overwhelming, but
I think the important issues are different. For instance:
I find it very annoying and frustrating when I hear things like
"but I have nothing to hide" from a well-known nation. People will
always want to hide their heads in the sand - until it's too late
to do anything about it. These are very important issues indeed and
what makes it difficult at this time is that globally, the trend is
now towards repression. In the US, in China, in Europe, the courts
have been for some time now meddling with the Internet and the
results have *never* been in the direction of liberalization, but
always more in the direction of repression and controls.
To understand this is to recognize the heart of the issue. Internet
was a technical development with idealistic and lofty goals taken
from the desires of the people who created it and first populated
it. They developed their own subcultures (e.g. Email, Usenet and
IRC) which were 'attacked' with the influx of the 'uncultured'
masses from AOL and others.
Since then, email has been reinvented as HTML email (complete with
annoying fonts and crazy looking backgrounds), Usenet has been
fragmented into all the forums and web boards that every site seems
to have sprouted, IRC has been replaced by a series of incompatible
instant messaging systems. The warnings and objections of the
original netizens were never heeded and today, we have the Internet
devolved into a system less than it originally was, but with a lot
more bells and whistles added. That problem is similar to
democracy, where there are a few well informed people, and a whole
bunch of others who do not choose wisely, hence our problem of
always electing 'bad' politicians.
1) Surely this is not the last time ISPs will be required to
block access to a site. That is, what next, a ban on accessing
news.bbc.co.uk? And then after that a ban on receiving certain
kinds of email. Is this not the thin end of the wedge? It is a
rather dark tunnel to find oneself peering into.
It's happening in the US (DMCA, Patriot Act and a host of others),
in China (Great Firewall) etc. I think that within Africa, this is
a process that can be encouraged and driven by the CIA and Homeland
Security Dept. First they will create or tap into the demands of
the ignorant politicians, to raise calls for control of the
internet. Then, it is only they who really have that technology,
and they will sell it to us, and insert their own backdoors to
monitor us in even greater detail. For them, increased monitoring
is the goal and we just walk into those traps. And it's always
promoted as something reasonable (such as tracking down people who
do child porn, never mind that they are very tiny as a group and
the side effects are much larger than that group)
2) Whatever the real technicalities, the ability to block certain
sites creates the impression to the customer that his/her Internet
activities are monitored. Which surely is not an impression any
ISP would like to create.
I think that this is another ignorance that many people have. Yes,
your Internet traffic is being monitored. Just not by your average
African government. The Europeans and Americans have total coverage
of all our international traffic and almost certainly have access
to the local traffic (via mobile phone and land line as well!). The
only way you can have your privacy is to protect it and almost no
one bothers to do so. Its the calm before the storm. And the storm
will occur when governments are able to control the internet again,
so that they can shut up the few smart ones or sideline them, while
herding the malleable and ignorant masses to the slaughter house.
And the typical reaction is the same. <<I have nothing to hide, so
what's the problem with the Americans monitoring me?>> Well, maybe
they want to see what's down the road before complaining. For me, I
don't want to see that. I can already see enough media and mass
manipulation surrounding me to know the chilling effects of
uncritical thinking and blind allegiance to mistakenly trusted
leaders. I can also see to what extent people in very high places
have gotten away with high crimes to understand how this can be
used for great evil under guise of good deeds.
3) And then there is the deafening silence that has accompanied
this action. Almost always a bad sign.
This is something most people don't understand. History. Just learn
from things that happened earlier. Seems too hard for people. Seems
they only understand when it actually happens to them, and of
course, by the time it's happening it's too late to do anything
about it.
Just ask people about small arms. When they have experienced civil
war directly then ask them again. Trouble is that human beings tend
to be too lazy to take the time to think. So we just allow others
to think for us instead (e.g. read newspapers, watch TV) or trust
in the leaders that we vote into power.
There are many such questions that could be asked. Many. And many
lessons from elsewhere. But I guess while we wait for answers,
we'll just keep doing http://www.google.com/search?q=anonymous
+surfing and making use of whatever that brings!
Generally, to my thinking, this is a fundamental issue of legal
mechanisms, or technical mechanisms. Govts and courts favor legal
mechanisms to achieve their goals. Tech companies use tech
mechanisms, but when they fail, or to protect profits, then they
turn to the legal system. My belief is that technology has no place
in legislation because it is eventually obsoleted. My belief is
that the burden to restrict or to protect should be placed on the
person who wants to do it, not on the person who happens to want to
use it.
-- G.
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