Re: [FRIAM] Wikileaks Mirror Taken Down: Host Buckles Under Demands from Upstream Provider | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Douglas Roberts wrote circa 01/03/2011 08:00 PM: Fuck 'em. There are 1,426 other mirrors, plus uncounted stealth mirrors out there ready to go live if needed. That misses the point, though. It's not about Wikileaks. It's about the (some particular, not all) corporations and the systemic culture of fear. It's about SiteGround and SoftLayer and their choosing to shut down a customer just because they can ... or because they fear the consequences of [gasp] siding with their customer. The same thing happened with ATT et al regarding the warrant-less wire tapping thing. The customers of the big corporations have their privacy violated; then those same customers roll right over and buy a bunch of ATT locked iPhones! That'll sure discourage ATT's bad behavior, eh? That's the point. Paying attention to who exhibits good behavior and who exhibits bad behavior (especially when aliases abound and actors are embedded in layer upon layer of obfuscating shells) takes more effort than simply mirroring some one-off set of documents. We have to reward good behavior and avoid or penalize bad behavior. It's important to at least _identify_ SiteGround and SoftLayer as the bad guys, along with Amazon, Paypal, Visa, MasterCard, etc. I'm almost free of Paypal. I still have to use Amazon for work; but I no longer buy anything personal through them. I haven't found a way to rid myself of Visa and MasterCard; but I'm trying. On the one hand, such constraints limit me in what seem to be important ways. E.g. Not buying MP3s from Amazon means I may have to buy actual CDs, with a bunch of wasteful one-use plastic and the costs of shipping (not just my out of pocket but also the carbon footprint of shipping from, say, Europe). Or, e.g., not using Dropbox, because it relies on Amazon, may force me to maintain my rsync-over-ssh nightmare. [grin] But I'd rather make my life more interesting or simple, than reward people for their bad behavior. I am currently looking for a new (cheaper) VPS provider. And I now know I will _not_ use SiteGround or SoftLayer. On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 7:25 PM, Glen Ropella G1 g...@tempusdictum.com mailto:g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/weakest-links-host-buckles-when-upstream-provider -- glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Wikileaks Mirror Taken Down: Host Buckles Under Demands from Upstream Provider | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Glen Ropella wrote: Douglas Roberts wrote circa 01/03/2011 08:00 PM: Fuck 'em. There are 1,426 other mirrors, plus uncounted stealth mirrors out there ready to go live if needed. That misses the point, though. It's not about Wikileaks. It's about the (some particular, not all) corporations and the systemic culture of fear. And I think that singling out the specific individual corporations or people who get caught out acting in the manner which is otherwise generally approved and accepted misses the point as well. BP's gulf spill was not (merely) a simple reflection of their personal, specific bad behaviour, it was a consequence of an entire industry, of the very nature of capitalistic, consumerist industry (what our world, the first world is built upon) and it *intrinsic* search for higher profits through increased volumes and exported/denied risk. It has always been the case that industry has arranged for the majority of the risk or consequences to fall somewhere besides inside their boundaries. This is generally (to owners/shareholders called good business). The coal miners lungs were only the mine's problem insomuch as they needed to replace those individuals in the mines no longer able to work effectively. Exxon Corporation was only risking the loss of a shipful of crude oil and the ship when they allowed the Valdiz to be grounded/punctured as it was. Union Carbide was risking only the loss of a highly profitable plant in Bhopal India when they took the industrial risks (which the Indian Government allowed because they were only risking the loss of a single community if a disaster struck) that lead to the 1984 disaster. Do we buy gasoline or other petroleum products that ultimately came from BP and Exxon, or industrial chemicals/products from Union Carbide still? Many boycotted them as best they could at the time of the accidents, but then either returned to patronizing them after a suitable period of mourning/indignation or pushed their products into wholesale markets where we never see the source but continue to reap the convenience/benefits/marginal-effeciencies of their risk-taking (at other's expense). Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Union Carbide are all still doing swimmingly... in fact I suspect most everyone here with money invested in mutual funds or similar profits (poorly these days) hold part ownership in all three... and probably Amazon too. I'm not trying to defuse the righteous indignation against these things, or the desire to not reinforce bad behaviour, but rather trying to point out that the problems we face are deeper and more systemic than the specific behaviour of specific corporations/groups in specific circumstances. The Swedes complicity with the Assange thing may implicate them specifically, but probably doesn't absolve most of the first world who would very likely cooperate with the USA in the same circumstances. And the third world as well, maybe more quickly to avoid being declared a rogue state and offered up their own helping of shock and awe. Buy.Com is not necessarily a better place to throw your one-stop online shopping than Amazon simply because they don't offer hosting services and didn't have the opportunity to decline Wikileaks hosting, etc. I'd guess they'd do the same in a heartbeat! And Itsy.com for all it's wonderful handmade goods doesn't offer what most of us think we need. I strongly agree with Glen's last statement, the only challenge is to not stop with the most obvious or recent offenders, but to apply it even more deeply. /But I'd rather make my life more interesting or simple, than reward people for their bad behavior./ We are a crowd with at least one thing in common... most of us are rabid technophiles and very likely (over?) optimizers... my experience is that the vocal ones here are generally liberal/progressive in their social ideals, but we have such huge heads that we try to know everything. I'm surely doing it right here, noticing that for every Amazon, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard or SiteGround/SoftLayer there are thousands more that have not had the opportunity (yet) to show their ugly stripes, and we are likely to blindly throw our support to them in indignation over those who got caught before we will actually question the underlying assumptions of what these industries (convenience in purchasing, online/virtual goods, internet services, etc.) imply for us. I know plenty of folks who diss WalMart but live for their trips to Target and Whole Foods. It really only barely computes... or not. I wonder sometimes why, in the frictionlessness of our new economy and virtual marketplaces that we don't have more voluntary, collectivism? Why are there not CoOperative ISPs, Virtual Marketplaces, Credit/Purchase-Card systems, Gasoline/Oil/Mineral exploration/production systems, Insurance (Life, Auto, Health) Systems? Even Itsy and Craigslist are privately
Re: [FRIAM] Wikileaks Mirror Taken Down: Host Buckles Under Demands from Upstream Provider | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Glen - I think maybe we are roughly on the same page. My concern boils down to something pretty simple. I believe that non-human entities, (e.g. corporations, governments, etc.) of a certain complexity, act like simple organisms which often means acting in parasitic and opportunistic ways. I acknowledge that some of these entities which might be operated by single individual humans or very small groups have a chance of being mere extensions of the individuals and therefore more likely to behave in the manner the individuals would. I worry that overly simplistic, or superficial attempts to hold them accountable at best do little and at worst make them stronger and more clever. I think a strong analogy with the misuse of antibiotics and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be applied here. I believe that all of our institutions (government, corporate, religious, etc.) have been trained by us to maintain relatively effective camouflage, to hide their worst depradations while presenting a kinder, gentler, greener, more organic, etc. face to us. I'm not saying that trying to get Amazon and Visa and MC and PayPal and ... to act better by voting with our feet is not motivated and might even have a positive effect. I'm saying, I think it is at best a good start. We are a society of complacency... we will knee-jerk against the latest bad actor while supporting smugly those who didn't get caught (this time). I've been switching cell service providers every few years because I get fed up with the one I have, only to grow to discover that the next one I choose (often with careful research) has a whole different set of bad behaviours... It leads to an a-virtuous cycle... and I fear that much of our attempts to punish the bad actors risks that (or worse, see my antibiotic-resistance analogy above). I'm not prescribing a specific solution here, I don't have one, but I *do* think we need to look (even) more deeply at the problem before we think we have it solved. We may be doing little or perhaps aggravating it unwittingly. - STeve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
