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Last post Author Topic: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates  (Read 214236 times)

Vurbal

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For those as may be interested and for your action: There is a potentially useful crowdsourced(?) report at OpenMedia.org to push back against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Internet censorship plan with a positive alternative from the pro-Internet community: OUR DIGITAL FUTURE

I actually think it may be like the proverbial "p#ss#ng in the wind" as the TPP rather looks like it was a done deal at the outset.
Democracy it ain't.

ACTA looked the same way until protesters in Europe buried it in a matter of weeks.
I learned to say the pledge of allegiance
Before they beat me bloody down at the station
They haven't got a word out of me since
I got a billion years probation
- The MC5

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ''crackpot'' than the stigma of conformity.
- Thomas J. Watson, Sr

It's not rocket surgery.
- Me


I recommend reading through my Bio before responding to any of my posts. It could save both of us a lot of time and frustration.

IainB

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...ACTA looked the same way until protesters in Europe buried it in a matter of weeks.

Yes, but, like hydra that seems to be rising again. The potential "Internet freedom killers" are remorseless and, like rust, never seem to sleep - plus, they are apparently extremely well-organised, despising of democracy, powerful and highly motivated.
I'm not sure whether Internet freedomnicks are up to it for the long haul - whether they have the stamina or motivation, or even really understand/care all that much about what is going on.
Would loss of Internet freedoms really be so bad? "Freedom" is, after all, just something that can be likened to a feel-good concept that people have been taught to believe is their natural right, and we know that a "belief" is an irrational thing. They could easily unlearn that if they become sufficiently fatigued by the battle and its creeping, incremental erosion of individual/democratic freedoms predicated on "for the sake of the good of the many", or something. There could be some sense of security, after all, in benevolent collective enslavement to what seems to be a form of state corporatism - a sense of all being the same and having a trust in the masters. Most Western democracies and many other nation states have  arguably already gone, or are going through this process, which is apparently being spearheaded by the US.

Renegade

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Hey, look on the bright side. Australia and the UK are definitely leading the US in criminalising speech and thought. Though only the UK has had the strength of vision and fortitude to suggest re-education camps... so far.

What was that about empires in decline looking inward for enemies?
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Vurbal

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...ACTA looked the same way until protesters in Europe buried it in a matter of weeks.

Yes, but, like hydra that seems to be rising again. The potential "Internet freedom killers" are remorseless and, like rust, never seem to sleep - plus, they are apparently extremely well-organised, despising of democracy, powerful and highly motivated.
I'm not sure whether Internet freedomnicks are up to it for the long haul - whether they have the stamina or motivation, or even really understand/care all that much about what is going on.
Would loss of Internet freedoms really be so bad? "Freedom" is, after all, just something that can be likened to a feel-good concept that people have been taught to believe is their natural right, and we know that a "belief" is an irrational thing. They could easily unlearn that if they become sufficiently fatigued by the battle and its creeping, incremental erosion of individual/democratic freedoms predicated on "for the sake of the good of the many", or something. There could be some sense of security, after all, in benevolent collective enslavement to what seems to be a form of state corporatism - a sense of all being the same and having a trust in the masters. Most Western democracies and many other nation states have  arguably already gone, or are going through this process, which is apparently being spearheaded by the US.

Of course its rising again. For starters, defeating ACTA, was a single battle in a larger war. Additionally, once this war is over,it's just on to the next.  As I've said many times before, that's just the normal care and feeding of democracy. The price of freedom really is eternal vigilance,  certainly against outside threats,  but even more so to protect us from our own inherent weaknesses.

Fundamentally, what we're experiencing today is almost identical to what the British colonists went through leading up to the American Revolution.  It's cosmetically different,  due to the fact our 'colonies' are purely economically based, due purely to the nature of modern economics.  However,  in every way that counts, this is a revolution against the power elite in the US.

Unfortunately, the majority of the US population doesn't recognize it. Those of us who do simply have to rely on the rest of the world, particularly in Europe, but also in Australia, New Zealand,  Brazil, and a handful of other countries, to do most of the heavy lifting. All I can really do in this case is to help people like you stay informed, and also to assure you that it does make a difference - no matter how well the enemy hides it - especially from themselves.
I learned to say the pledge of allegiance
Before they beat me bloody down at the station
They haven't got a word out of me since
I got a billion years probation
- The MC5

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ''crackpot'' than the stigma of conformity.
- Thomas J. Watson, Sr

It's not rocket surgery.
- Me


I recommend reading through my Bio before responding to any of my posts. It could save both of us a lot of time and frustration.

IainB

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...Fundamentally, what we're experiencing today is almost identical to what the British colonists went through leading up to the American Revolution. ...
_________________________

Very good point, and quite possibly true.

IainB

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...Though only the UK has had the strength of vision and fortitude to suggest re-education camps... so far. ...
_________________________

LOL. Yes, one has to admire them for that... so much for "the birthplace of Westminster democracy".

Renegade

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The UK is a wonderful utopia of the most sensitive and caring people. Heck, if want to publish an autobiography (where nobody disputes any facts), and it could potentially, possibly hurt even just 1 person's feelings, well, you don't get to publish.

Now, try and name just 1 other country where people care so much. (North Korea doesn't count.)

;)
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

IainB

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OpenMedia.org request for help/contributions to counter TPP
« Reply #357 on: November 03, 2014, 12:48 PM »
Email from openmedia.org
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
This is the last email we send before Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Trade Ministers meet at the APEC summit in Beijing.1 This meeting is “...seen as an occasion for concluding the TPP talks”.2
We need you to please take this final opportunity to contribute so we can reach people with our powerful new free expression video.
We know that the more people know about TPP Internet censorship, the harder it will be for political leaders to advance it.
That’s why we need our video to spread like wildfire -- Will you take this last chance make sure it goes viral?
$10 will mean our video is seen by 100 people
$20 will mean 200 people watch our video
$50 will get us 500 views
$100 will get us 1000 views
Any amount at all will help

Recent leaks show that negotiators are closer than ever to reaching agreement,3 and sadly, the TPP is still pushing reckless Internet censorship that will make the Internet more expensive and policed.
Your support today will mean we can buy the social media advertising we need to make sure our powerful new video goes viral. Can you chip in today?

For Free Expression,
Meghan & Jason, on behalf of your OpenMedia team

P.S.: The APEC Summit starts tomorrow, and trade ministers are meeting this weekend. We have to act quickly to get our message out -- please help us tell the world what’s at risk in the TPP by donating today.

Footnotes
[1] ‘TPP Ministers to meet Nov. 8th in Beijing: minister.’ Source: Global Post
[2] ‘Japan, U.S. trade chiefs seek to clinch bilateral TPP deal.’ Source: Mainichi
[3] ‘Wikileaks’ free trade documents reveal ‘drastic’ Australian concessions.’ Source: The Guardian

At their website: https://openmedia.org/expression
REVEALED: “Chief negotiators” are stepping in to finalize a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) plan that could censor expression online for generations.1 2

Your comments on mobile platforms, content on YouTube, and posts on Facebook could be censored. Whole websites could even be blocked.3

They are trying to finalize this censorship plan in secretive TPP meetings from which the public and civic interest groups are completely excluded: Let’s raise a loud global call for TPP chief negotiators to back off and save free expression before it's too late  ------>

TPP negotiators received citizen comments in a recent face-to-face meeting with OpenMedia,4 but now chief negotiators are stepping in to ram the censorship plan into place.

62,780 signatures (and counting)!

Renegade

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"We Must Fight The Net." - PDF page 10, document page 6, US Department of Defense "Information Operations Roadmap":

Screenshot - 2014_11_09 , 12_24_58 AM.png

Source:

http://news.bbc.co.u.../27_01_06_psyops.pdf

Is it any wonder the treaty freaks are alway at it? At least the military speaks a bit better English so that not everything is newspeak.

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Renegade

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A US marshal just had my blog (where I commit through crimes) taken down. I've got it back up now.

No further comment except in the Basement.

Lesson Learned: Yes. It can happen to you.

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

J-Mac

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How did that happen? Why did he have it taken down?

Jim

Renegade

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How did that happen? Why did he have it taken down?

Jim

I don't want to get into it here in the Living Room. Short story, I posted publicly and freely available information that the United States Marshals Service didn't look kindly on. The information was incidental to the actual point the blog post was about.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Renegade

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Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker


IainB

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^^ Hahaha. Bad luck there @Renegade. What you say? - Ars Technica lying? Surely not!    :D

Ars Technica though - what an embarrassment that seems to have become lately. It used to be so good too.
They now have "discussions" on there which sometimes seem to be heavily biased propaganda or just plain misinformation, and where discussion can often turn into a moronic stream of ad homs by selected attack dogs against any luckless soul who dares to question a preferred line. Critical thinking apparently not required. I think the rot may have started when they tried coercing readers to switch off their AdBlockers (remember that?) - it set off a bit of an adverse reaction from some regular readers who just walked away (myself included).
I reckon the editors probably know exactly what they are about and do it deliberately - i.e., with the express purpose of simply encouraging/generating clicks from irrational and "hot under the collar"  commenters. It must pay dividends or they wouldn't do it.

IainB

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www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/trans-pacific-partnership-a-recipe-for-corporate-dictatorship-mun-loong-won
Highly relevant info there.
yes, that's a scary one.
There's also the related EU/USA version TTIP or TAFTA :-(
https://en.wikipedia...vestment_Partnership
https://en.wikipedia...tnership#Controversy

@Renegade: Thanks - the themalaymailonline.com article is quite telling.
@tomos: Thanks for those links. One never knows whether they are at liberty to disclose the whole story though.

IainB

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Paper: Assumptions in Cryptography - Koblitz and Menezes (2010)
« Reply #366 on: November 23, 2014, 08:49 PM »
An interesting paper from 2010: http://www.ams.org/n...03/rtx100300357p.pdf
The Brave New World of Bodacious Assumptions in Cryptography - Neal Koblitz and Alfred Menezes (2010)

Also some accidental irony in the conclusions where there is an implication of the role of the NSA as some kind of approving authority on the matter, rather than as we know it today  - i.e., as an apparently State-sponsored national and international security hacking authority.
    :o

IainB

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German bureaucracy is pragmatic - and ironic, but honest with it:
German Government Refuses FOI Request By Pointing Out Document Already Leaked | Techdirt
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
rom the well-played dept

Freedom of information requests are a powerful way of finding out things that governments would rather not reveal. As a result, requests are often refused on a variety of grounds, some more ridiculous than others. The Netzpolitik blog points us to a rather unusual case concerning a request by the politician Malte Spitz for a letter from the Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery to members of a commission investigating intelligence matters. The request was refused on the grounds that the document was already freely available (original in German):
    The information you requested may be obtained free of charge on the Internet by anyone, in a reasonable manner. The letter from the Chief of the Federal Chancellery, Federal Minister Peter Altmaier, to the chairman of the first committee of inquiry of the 18th legislature, Professor Dr. Sensburg, is publicly available and published in full at the following link:

    https://netzpolitik....-strafanzeige-droht/

The Netzpolitik link included there leads to an article that a few weeks earlier had not only leaked the document requested by Spitz, but also noted wryly that the letter from Altmaier threatens anyone leaking documents with legal action.
The German bureaucracy should be applauded for taking the adult view that once a document is leaked, it is publicly -- and officially -- available. This contrasts with the childish attempts by the British government to pretend that Snowden's leaks never happened, and its refusal even to pronounce the name of some of the surveillance programs he revealed.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Renegade

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^ That's funny!
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

IainB

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With the uneasy feel of having a burglar tell me how to take care of my house keys, I got this letter from one Derek Slater of Google:
SOPA is back,
In 2012, millions of Americans rose up to help defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The public sent a clear message to Congress: don't censor the web.

Now movie industry lobbyists at the MPAA are trying to resurrect web censorship via a back door. As revealed in the press, they've organized a campaign to achieve SOPA by other means, and are still more than eager to break the way the Internet works to achieve their agenda.

The MPAA was worried this strategy would "invigorate and galvanize ... the SOPA debates." Let's prove them right!

Together we defeated online censorship once—let's do it again. Share this graphic and tell the MPAA to kill the #ZombieSOPA.
Help defeat web censorship once and for all.

The MPAA needs to know that all of us who truly care about the Internet won't just stand aside and let them ruin what we love.

Thanks for stepping up,

Derek Slater
Google Inc.

P.S. Here's what we had to say today. 

© 2014 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

You are receiving this email because you asked to receive updates on Internet legislation and initiatives from Google. To opt out of future communications, please click here.

Regarding that matesy "Thanks for stepping up" bit, one gets the feeling that the correct response might be "Yeah, right" and to keep one's hands firmly in one's pockets.

SeraphimLabs

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German bureaucracy is pragmatic - and ironic, but honest with it:
German Government Refuses FOI Request By Pointing Out Document Already Leaked | Techdirt
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
rom the well-played dept

Freedom of information requests are a powerful way of finding out things that governments would rather not reveal. As a result, requests are often refused on a variety of grounds, some more ridiculous than others. The Netzpolitik blog points us to a rather unusual case concerning a request by the politician Malte Spitz for a letter from the Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery to members of a commission investigating intelligence matters. The request was refused on the grounds that the document was already freely available (original in German):
    The information you requested may be obtained free of charge on the Internet by anyone, in a reasonable manner. The letter from the Chief of the Federal Chancellery, Federal Minister Peter Altmaier, to the chairman of the first committee of inquiry of the 18th legislature, Professor Dr. Sensburg, is publicly available and published in full at the following link:

    https://netzpolitik....-strafanzeige-droht/

The Netzpolitik link included there leads to an article that a few weeks earlier had not only leaked the document requested by Spitz, but also noted wryly that the letter from Altmaier threatens anyone leaking documents with legal action.
The German bureaucracy should be applauded for taking the adult view that once a document is leaked, it is publicly -- and officially -- available. This contrasts with the childish attempts by the British government to pretend that Snowden's leaks never happened, and its refusal even to pronounce the name of some of the surveillance programs he revealed.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

I have to disagree with their refusal to comply on the grounds that it already leaked. This becomes a means of defeating freedom of information requests.

To exploit this, they accidentally on purpose leak a fake version of the document that is either censored or contains a different message than the actual message being requested.

Compliance should be required anyway as per the law, and since it already apparently leaked they should have no problems in doing so because people already know what it should say.

IainB

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...I have to disagree with their refusal to comply on the grounds that it already leaked. This becomes a means of defeating freedom of information requests. ...
Yes, that was the ironic thing about it.

Renegade

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I have to disagree with their refusal to comply on the grounds that it already leaked. This becomes a means of defeating freedom of information requests.

To exploit this, they accidentally on purpose leak a fake version of the document that is either censored or contains a different message than the actual message being requested.

Compliance should be required anyway as per the law, and since it already apparently leaked they should have no problems in doing so because people already know what it should say.

Yup. It goes to chain of custody being an issue.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Renegade

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The psychopaths never give up.

http://gizmodo.com/t...me-as-the-1679496808

The New CISPA Bill Is Literally Exactly the Same as the Last One

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results. That's a cliche, but politicians often follow the hoariest routes to power, and attempting to enact change by doing the same thing repeatedly is one of them. When word broke last week that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the twice-defeated bill known as CISPA, was being re-revived by Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), it wasn't clear if the zombie legislation would be updated to address the myriad concerns with previous versions. We combed through the full text of the bill and, nope, it's exactly the same, word for word for overly broad data-scooping power-granting word.

More at the link.

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

TaoPhoenix

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The psychopaths never give up.

http://gizmodo.com/t...me-as-the-1679496808

The New CISPA Bill Is Literally Exactly the Same as the Last One

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results. That's a cliche, but politicians often follow the hoariest routes to power, and attempting to enact change by doing the same thing repeatedly is one of them. When word broke last week that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the twice-defeated bill known as CISPA, was being re-revived by Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), it wasn't clear if the zombie legislation would be updated to address the myriad concerns with previous versions. We combed through the full text of the bill and, nope, it's exactly the same, word for word for overly broad data-scooping power-granting word.
More at the link.

Well, that first sentence is one of those "logical fallacies". It's not insane if it works. In this type of situation it's clearly about exhausting the defensive resources through attrition.

And if it DOES work, it's "insane" not to. Ethically it's (Insert seventeen Renegade words here), but not insane.