I fear we are heading more and more towards the end of free speech and the possibilities of the internet.
I fear that in a few years we will look back and will not believe what freedoms we had on the net.

"TPTB" try for a long time already to gain control of the internet, attempting to make new laws and trying to put barriers and censorship wherever they can. Some countries (China etc.) do this already.

For TPTB, which includes corporates and basically all Ruport Murdoch, Ted Turner etc. types...the internet poses a big problem because FREEDOM means less control, and less control means less profit.

Today, it is STILL possible that a single person can make a site, forum or blog and start making money from it. Or you can make a blog and state your opinion etc....and there is not much TPTB can do about it.

This is unheard of since with other media, eg. you cannot simply make your own TV channel or radio show..without going through lengths of government control and regulations. But on the internet, it's STILL possible.

For how long?

One common trick used by TPTB is to pull laws out of their hat and giving them disguises like "to protect children"....or "against terrorism".

The recent SOPA bill *only* reached so much outrage because TPTB failed to give it a proper disguise, they labelled it "Anti Piracy Bill" and it was more or less clear it would threaten privacy and freedom of speech.

But other laws are to come which are better disguised, and i fear that those laws will be stricter and less recognized by the general public as how dangerous they are actually are, simply because of better disguises and ALLEGED "good causes". (Because, to be honest, who would NOT like laws against child pornography etc..and i fear such laws will be made and slowly change the internet as we know it.)

FREE information-flow is something really valuable and rare, and GOVERNMENTS and CORPORATES hate it!!

They hate it so much that regimes and some governments forbid their citizens access to free, unbiased information..or try to regulate it and decide what is deemed "ok", and what not.

Any information which i can receive for free is information where WITH OTHER MEDIA i would need to pay for. [In Europe (for example) you would actually need to pay a monthly fee if you own a radio or if you watch TV].

If someone wants to get the latest newspaper or magazine..they are not free either, neither is the latest movie or book.

Ever since the internet exists, TPTB wants to regulate this and forbid, come up with ideas like "internet tax" and similar since they know very well that any FREE information we can get is actually MONEY THEY DO NOT MAKE.

I fear that in some years, we will have an abomination of the net where WHAT we see, watch and send online is recorded and controlled and where you need to pay fees to access certain types of information. (Or whatever is left of the information...)...and we should be very careful and watch those developments.

Don't fear it. Do not fear your government. Your government should fear you. Why? Because we are given the right to overthrow the government if we don't like it. How many people do you know actually are happy with the government?

As soon as t even one site on the Internet is censored (i.e. MegaUpload), riots and protests will begin to break out. See the outrage beginning? With ACTA and the bill for "protecting children from pornographers" (which really just gives the government the ability to go througo everything we do online) becoming more and more heard of (like SOPA), people are getting angrier and people like Lamar are getting cold sweats because they know that if they can't control us soon enough by censoring the Internet, we will learn more about the corruption and overthrow our current government before another SOPA can get through.

So don't fear a censored Internet. The government should be afraid of a censored Internet because I, for one, will not let them censor MY free speech. They will attempt to copyright my artwork and make me pay them for it. Why? Because they need to have more money. Why? I don't know. Maybe they grind it and snort it.

Do not fear the government. They're like spiders: they're more afraid of you than you are of them.

i pay for my internet
so its hardly free

Originally posted by stopmakingsense
i pay for my internet
so its hardly free

Bu dum tss

Originally posted by stopmakingsense
i pay for my internet
so its hardly free

You pay your ISP some $29,99 a month...but Murdoch, Turner, MPAA, RIAA are rotating because they don't see any money from that respective are "losing" money simply by people being online and getting stuff for free.
(This does not even mean copyrighted stuff).

And those people have $$$ and money and the power to make LAWS! And this is the scary thing!

There's money to be made, but it will require more stringent laws that define content online, specifically what's "copyrighted" and what's not. Since EVERYTHING can be considered owned by someone, everything you do should cost money, because someone else created it or bought it.

It's kind of like how Monsanto is trying to buy all of the food patents and gene's for animals, and even humans. People want to legally be able to OWN everything...

Originally posted by Avalessa
Don't fear it. Do not fear your government. Your government should fear you. Why? Because we are given the right to overthrow the government if we don't like it. How many people do you know actually are happy with the government?

As soon as t even one site on the Internet is censored (i.e. MegaUpload), riots and protests will begin to break out. See the outrage beginning? With ACTA and the bill for "protecting children from pornographers" (which really just gives the government the ability to go througo everything we do online) becoming more and more heard of (like SOPA), people are getting angrier and people like Lamar are getting cold sweats because they know that if they can't control us soon enough by censoring the Internet, we will learn more about the corruption and overthrow our current government before another SOPA can get through.

Agreed. Should make for an eventful year

I, for one, have been taking measures to protect my freedom from ages ago.

People typically do not value their freedom enough. Today so many use proprietary software and sign the user-subjugating EULAs without a single glance, not knowing how much freedom they are giving up.

Anyway, regarding the internet, theoretically perfect anonymity networks exist, like Freenet. (You can google it)

The theory goes like this: (I've proven it earlier this week, in fact)
1 Any sequence of single connections can be sorted.
2 Any sorted sequence has its endpoints clearly visible. (Therefore, no anonymity)
3 A sequence with N connections forward and N connections backward, where N > 1, is impossible to sort. (This was the part that needed proving)
4: From 3 and 2, since it is impossible to sort the sequence, anonymity exists.

So lets all switch to Freenet before it becomes illegal to do so!

Another free software darknet is GNUnet. It's like Freenet but developed in a much more academic manner. It's a lot more powerful but less developed. We have to wait for this one to mature.

but I agree, the next few years are going to be terrifying. Luckily, I enjoy relaxing offline. We might end up doing that a lot more often.

Ahh tell me wise one ,, what was the INTER-NET,,

well seeing u asked and i then might reminice,,just a bit,,,,,ahhh the old days,,

It all started shortly after Roswell,,

an AirForce Col. help a press confirence for a company, called I.B.M,, and any other press,,
ahh the old days,,,
Anyway this Col. sat at a desk,, rather large,, with a T.V monitor above the desk,, well thats what the called t.v's back then,, yup,, a t.v monititor,, imagine that ,, any way this Col.. had what looked like a
MOUSE,,, thus the name stuck forever,,,
and a key board,, and he typed a "command" and you COULD actualy see what he was TYPYING on this TV/Monitor,, well let me tell you it was the strangest thing,, ,,said it was done by,, some kind of electrical signal stuff,,

anyway,,




Ps there is actuall video of that historic moment on youtube somewhere,,, yup that was the birth of the INTER-NET.

Me.

Originally posted by BobAthome
Ahh tell me wise one ,, what was the INTER-NET,,

well seeing u asked and i then might reminice,,just a bit,,,,,ahhh the old days,,

It all started shortly after Roswell,,

an AirForce Col. help a press confirence for a company, called I.B.M,, and any other press,,
ahh the old days,,,
Anyway this Col. sat at a desk,, rather large,, with a T.V monitor above the desk,, well thats what the called t.v's back then,, yup,, a t.v monititor,, imagine that ,, any way this Col.. had what looked like a
MOUSE,,, thus the name stuck forever,,,
and a key board,, and he typed a "command" and you COULD actualy see what he was TYPYING on this TV/Monitor,, well let me tell you it was the strangest thing,, ,,said it was done by,, some kind of electrical signal stuff,,

anyway,,

edit on 24-1-2012 by BobAthome because: (no reason given)

Ps there is actuall video of that historic moment on youtube somewhere,,, yup that was the birth of the INTER-NET.

Me.

edit on 24-1-2012 by BobAthome because: (no reason given)

that was the birth of the INTER-NET

and these were it's creators,, and ye they worshipped the creators of the INTERNET,, j/k

William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.


well some did,, ibm,,hp,,,microsoft,,,google,,,adobe,,,these were the children of the internet,, but thats another story,,,

So a bunch of scientists funded by wealthy people, said ye let us put this transistor on GERmanium,,and some said NO SILICON,,,, and thus there was a great dividing of the minds,,