'Father of the internet': Why we must fight for its freedom ( Important! )

I've felt for a few years now that the internet, immensly popular as it is, is dying.
With all the restrictions placed on it by governments, and with more to come, its only a matter of time before enough people say "to hell with this" and switch over to a completely new electronic communications system with encryption built in from the start, that governments cannot either censor nor examine.

This "other net" will by analogy be similar to old BBS's running FidoNET, in that it is just based on phone calls, and as long as you can make a phone call you can still access it... and NOBODY can shut it down without shutting down the entire phone system of a country.

Now... just need someone to invent it.

reply to post by Hefficide


Calm down Heff, I agree with freedom of speech.
As a Mod you have guidelines to inforce.
The government has the FCC to set laws , rules and regulations for all communications companys in the U.S. (and to protect the lines of communication.) Tampering with communications is a federal crime, and after the patriot act, you can be labeled a terrorist.
Don't get me wrong I'm just trying to explain it.
Our government hides information from us under the term , "National Security". So I agree the term, "Internet Security" will mean more than it implys.
World leaders have always held themselves higher than the rest of us, and believe they know whats best for us all.
The internet gives everyone a voice, instead of the chosen few who bombard us every day with lies, half truths and political slant.
The internet has many lies and half truths, but it also has truth and information, too much truth and information.
Our world leaders see that internet information as a pandoras box , that they don't want it open to the world, because everything would collapse, religions, colleges, industrys, societys and governments.
The truth will set you free, and destroy everything that you thought was true.
Can we handle the truth ?

reply to post by alfa1


Sorry , not trying to be rude but you are clueless on telcom.

Not accusing anyone of anything, but whenever a thread starts to get derailed based on some small issue I always think of this...

Technique #3 - 'TOPIC DILUTION'

Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity.

cryptome.org...

How this started just reminded me of that...and how so often we can't have a fluent discussion of large issues in this world without being side tracked by minutia.

Anyway, the OP article epitomizes one of the huge policy debates: regulation.

Cerf is arguing that international governmental (ITU) regulation is not sufficient in containing the censorship and freedom of speech issues being seen around the world.

But this inter-governmental agency is the wrong place to make decisions about the future of the internet. Only governments have a vote at the ITU. This includes governments that do not support a free and open internet. Engineers, companies, and people that build and use the web have no vote.

The multi-stakeholder model of internet policy development that is the hallmark of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Internet Governance Forum, the Regional Internet Registries, among many others, is the only sensible way forward.

He's saying that companies like Google should be directly involved in policy making...

Not sure on that one, I'd have to learn more about the overall issues...but seems it'd be something like Goldman Sachs having a vote about financial regulation law.

Another thing that bothers me a bit about this article is it's overall tone of placing all blame concerning internet abuse on foreign countries...implying basically China, Middle Eastern dictators, and Latin American socialist countries. When, the Western nations are guilty of a different type of internet abuse (privacy infringment) that is equally concerning.

I also tend to think he must be a player in any NWO, elitist, etc. type of stuff. Must have heavy sway in the realm of significant decision making. He's got horses in the race, and I don't see him as any sort of liberty leader.

But he is clearly brilliant, makes good points, worth listening to for sure. This is the general approach I take with most who reside at the top of the social food change...listen to them, acknowledge their intellect, consider the points, and realize they have hidden agendas.

Originally posted by Hefficide

The internet empowers each one of us to speak, create, learn and share. Today, more than two billion people are online — about a third of the planet.

a book, a pencil, paper, your brain and human contact used to and still does accomplish the same thing without pop up ads, spam, trojan horses and hacks.

i remember when google actually showed you what you were searching for instead of directing you to amazon or ebay.

for example, i once looked up napolean and brandy with free shipping popped up.

Originally posted by randomname

a book, a pencil, paper, your brain and human contact used to and still does accomplish the same thing without pop up ads, spam, trojan horses and hacks.

i remember when google actually showed you what you were searching for instead of directing you to amazon or ebay.

for example, i once looked up napolean and brandy with free shipping popped up.

edit on 1-12-2012 by randomname because: (no reason given)

The difference between a pad of writing paper or a good book ( something I personally enjoy very much ) is the dynamics.

The Internet - especially as proven-out during the Arab Spring uprisings - is a paradigm shifting creation. It was not too long ago in human history that news might take weeks, or even months to move from one population center to another - and even then was usually fraught with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.

Bebe... did you hear. Apparently there were riots in New York a few weeks ago. The Editor discussed it in this weeks paper. Those violent Yanks and their infighting....

This inefficient means of information dissemination worked in favor of Governments and the powerful. It was easy for them to dictate what words got put into history books. Or at least easier.

Now? If a Government orders its soldiers to fire on a crowd of unarmed protesters to make a point to the people? It's on Youtube, Twitter, and FB within minutes - for the world to see. To see, judge, more importantly, to react to. Radio and TV lacked this Interactivity to a large part. An indicator - media, well into to the nineties often included dialogue like "Boss, that story was a hit - the phones area all lighting up!" That was the level of our empowerment, to a large degree. Get angry? Write a letter to the editor or call the local network.

Now if a tragedy or travesty occurs we can interact in real time. We can see the brutal reality of a situation, mobilize opinion, and act as a population in nearly real time.

THIS is what the war for the Internet is about. And what we are trying to protect. THIS is the paradigm shift that the people in power were unprepared for, failed to understand adequately, and are now trying so desperately to control. This instant flow of unfiltered reality.

In 1963, by a very random chance of fate, we got a Zapruder film. ONE film. If Kennedy were shot today? There's be a thousand videos of it, from every possible angle - all available to the general public within hours. No FBI seizures, censorship, etc.

Quite the problem for those who want to misbehave.

As for Google ( or any search engine ) giving commercial results first? I can accept that. They provide a service that I utilize daily - so tolerating ads is fine by me. But, then again, the free market is to blame on two levels for those searches. First, by Google putting those who pay at the very top ( they are moral about this - they do list the advertisers separately ) but also because one of the booming industries right now is based in search engine optimization. Pay a ton of money and a company will use a handful of tricks to make sure YOUR site is on that first Google page of any given search.

IMO the Google issue is organic and part of the evolution of the free Internet. But the UN and US government are both currently trying to hijack that organic growth and make it so all future growth and innovation is by design.

~Heff

Thanks to fellow moderator JacKatMtn for PM'ing me this additional info from PCMag.

Google Warns UN Not to Censor Web at Dubai Meeting

This week marks the beginning of the World Conference on International Telecommunications, a meeting being held in Dubai that could significantly alter the future of how the world accesses the Internet.

Held by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an arm of the United Nations, the gathering has brought together over 1,950 delegates from around the world to work on revising International Telecommunication Regulations. They have been in effect since the 1980's and offer guidelines related to international routing and charges between global carriers, as well as the overall Internet traffic between international network operators.

However, some see the ITU as a closed and potentially damaging organizational move that could inhibit the growth and free flow of information on the Internet. One of those voices includes Vint Cerf, long known as one of the "fathers of the Internet," who currently serves as vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google. In a message posted yesterday on the Google blog, Cerf argued that the meeting could give rise to new censorship and access controls in various regions.

Cerf took issue with the fact that only governments have a vote. "Some proposals could allow governments to justify the censorship of legitimate speech, or even cut off Internet access in their countries," he said.

To read the rest of Cerf's statements, please use the above link.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


I think the best quote I can provide is: "Absolute freedom is anarchy." - me.
While the idea that everyone should be free to share any content they wish, the truth is that some of that content many find morally repulsive and criminally negligent. Many countries will block sites that share child pornography, or attempt to incite unrest by sharing plans for easily made bombs from kitchen ingredients. Many countries are also blocking sites that violate local laws by allowing the purchase of products that are either age restricted or exist within some kind of control structure. Some Internet Service Providers (ISP) will block content from specific IP addresses that are known spammers. That is not to say there is not some blocked content that should be freely available. I am also aware that some ISP'shave attempted to restrict bandwidth to people that they believe may be engaged in "illegal" file sharing or those who may be using products from other competing companies. Now, if I understand Net-Neutrality,(and I probably don't lol) it's about making sure that you always get what you pay for. That if you ask for a 10 gigabit connection, that the provider you are getting it from won't intentionally restrict that connection or block you from accessing competitors web-sites. There has also been talk of an internet cut-off switch that will shut down all internet connections in case of an "emergency". On a purely technological stand-point, that idea is already virtually impossible.
So where do *I* feel the regulation should go?
I feel that service providers should:
A. Not be allowed to restrict access in any way for any paying customer.
B. Connection information should be protected in such a way that it is only allowed to be seen with a customers permission.
C. Be accountable to an agency that will check and advise ISP's on websites that should be blocked because of immoral and/or criminal activity.
Sadly, those basics probably make too much sense and as long as net-neutrality doesn't actually make any one money, it's not likely to manifest unless NOT enacting elements of net-neutrality will cost money.
Now, in the area where I live, cable TV used to be controlled by the local government the later it was deregulated. While the deregulation reduced costs and increased quality, it also allowed those companies to exercise questionable business tactics. The United States also has the FCC that regulates communications that came into being because of the availability of free information through radio transmission. If you look at the history of communications in the United States I feel you will find that the idea of net-neutrality isn't new. This history gives me the idea that net-neutrality could simply shift control from ISP's to a government agency that ultimately will do almost the same thing.
Do we really trust our government officials to not turn it against us? How do we know they aren't going to use this idea as a springboard to violate our privacy without our knowledge?
I feel that if any positive change is going to occur, it will be from laws proposed by common citizens that are able to be applied in a balanced and equal way that does not give control to any one entity, but rather regulates control that already exists.
Ok, I think I've been loquacious and chaotic enough on this topic so that's enough of my $1.00's worth of thoughts.

For the record, I am reporting upon the Dubai Conference in this thread.