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Pardon my extreme language but Fuck! How on earth do bills like this come to pass without uproar widespread enough to quash it. Shit like this seriously makes

Pardon my extreme language but Fuck! How on earth do bills like this come to pass without uproar widespread enough to quash it. Shit like this seriously makes me want to give up on the internet and walk away from it despite it having been my lifeline and the foundation of my income since I was in my teens almost 30 years ago.

zigzigzag 10y ago
The reason such bills get proposed and passed is because, broadly speaking, they are popular with the electorate or at least not unpopular. The reason they are not unpopular, the root problem, is because the downsides are perceived as theoretical and in the future whereas the upsides are seen as real and in the present. Put simply the arguments against look like this: Oppose this bill because the government COULD abuse it and PROBABLY will abuse it in future i.e. it's all vague arguments about probabilities, and the arguments for it look like this: Support this bill because it WILL help the fight against terrorists and paedos right now For better or worse the British government has a relatively high level of trust amongst the British people. There is no British constitution and we can now see how a minority of the population is trying to convince Parliament to override the results of an actual referendum on the grounds that people are too stupid to rule themselves, so must be dictated to by small enclaves of their betters. That attitude is widespread, even if it is kind of dumb - MPs are just ordinary people too, after all, it's not like there's any filter on them beyond voting. But given that the governmental "elite" imposing its own morality and wisdom on the majority is practically a sexual turn-on for non-trivial numbers of voters, this kind of thing shouldn't surprise us. We can and probably should argue that this trust is misplaced. There's plenty of evidence of that, along with the fact that surveillance is invariably paired with secrecy so it's hard for people to judge whether the government can be trusted to begin with. But that's why such bills happen. The solution is probably not VPNs. Ultimately in a fight between internet technologists and lawmakers, sufficiently determined lawmakers will always win: China proves this. The UK's lawmakers may not be sufficiently determined but if they are the only solution is to continue making the argument to the electorate that the government cannot be trusted with such powers, and that they won't help fight terrorists and paedos anyway. Pointing out that Trump now controls the NSA might be a good start.
- balabaster 10y ago
  I'm not sure if there's any truth to these anecdotes, quite probably not but I feel they're particularly poignant given the situation: When the U.S. first decided to send man to the moon, they spent billions of dollars inventing a pen that would write in zero gravity. Meanwhile the Russians used a pencil. Again with the race for hacking computers in the Russian Embassy to spy on the Russians, instead of spending billions of dollars securing their computers in a cyber arms race, they switched to typewriters. I find the simplicity in their solutions to these problems remarkably satisfying. It is this simplicity that calls me to just say fuck it, if you're going to act like that, I'm just not playing any more. I'll go do something else interesting that doesn't involve you.
cr0sh 10y ago
> Shit like this seriously makes me want to give up on the internet and walk away from it You echo my thoughts exactly - I've recently been thinking about moving to a small town north of where I currently live, where land prices are cheap, and you can get 10 acres for nothing. Bad part - little to no internet access. Part of me thinks that's a good thing.
- balabaster 10y ago
  That works if you can make that 10 acres work for you... I've been trying that model for the last little while on top of my full time job. I can tell you from first hand experience that while it may be rewarding, the amount of work and money it takes to get those 10 acres working for you is not trivial and has the serious probability of burning you out before you make it. I wouldn't recommend doing this on top of a full time job if time is of the essence. It's probably something you'd want to do over the period of a couple of years because trying to get 10 acres working for you inside of a year is an insane amount of work - it's literally more than a second full time job. I know this, because that's exactly what I've been doing for the last 9 months. The shitty internet access will be beyond frustrating at first. Again, speaking from first hand experience, you will become accustomed to it and find workarounds. I sometimes think that not having any internet access at all would be easier than dealing with the outages that I deal with on a weekly basis. Eventually you stop caring about it and think fuck it, I'll just do something else with my time, read a book, go out on your land, learn useful things like small engine repair or carpentry or whatever... Not having Internet and TV can be frustrating and boring at first, but finding hobbies and learning skills to fill that time instead can be extremely good for your confidence and your soul.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    I know this is a late reply and such - but my first modem was a 300 baud screamer (heh) - so a slow connection could look fast to me otherwise (not as fast as what I have currently, tho). As far as getting 10 acres to work for me - well, I wasn't thinking that route (ie - farming). More just doing odd jobs to make the tax payment; I'm pretty good with mechanically inclined stuff - I also can work a welder, plasma cutter, grinder, etc. Or - maybe I could get a cheap 3D printer and/or laser cutter and do stuff with that. Everything else would be completely paid off, and otherwise I'd be off-the-grid (electric from solar/wind, water from a well, then a septic tank - I guess I might have to budget for maintenance of that stuff, too). I'm thinking, though, I might still be able to commute into jobs - where I'm thinking about locating isn't too far away from work - though it'd be a long commute (50-75 miles each way).

zigzigzag 10y ago

The reason such bills get proposed and passed is because, broadly speaking, they are popular with the electorate or at least not unpopular. The reason they are not unpopular, the root problem, is because the downsides are perceived as theoretical and in the future whereas the upsides are seen as real and in the present. Put simply the arguments against look like this: Oppose this bill because the government COULD abuse it and PROBABLY will abuse it in future i.e. it's all vague arguments about probabilities, and the arguments for it look like this: Support this bill because it WILL help the fight against terrorists and paedos right now For better or worse the British government has a relatively high level of trust amongst the British people. There is no British constitution and we can now see how a minority of the population is trying to convince Parliament to override the results of an actual referendum on the grounds that people are too stupid to rule themselves, so must be dictated to by small enclaves of their betters. That attitude is widespread, even if it is kind of dumb - MPs are just ordinary people too, after all, it's not like there's any filter on them beyond voting. But given that the governmental "elite" imposing its own morality and wisdom on the majority is practically a sexual turn-on for non-trivial numbers of voters, this kind of thing shouldn't surprise us. We can and probably should argue that this trust is misplaced. There's plenty of evidence of that, along with the fact that surveillance is invariably paired with secrecy so it's hard for people to judge whether the government can be trusted to begin with. But that's why such bills happen. The solution is probably not VPNs. Ultimately in a fight between internet technologists and lawmakers, sufficiently determined lawmakers will always win: China proves this. The UK's lawmakers may not be sufficiently determined but if they are the only solution is to continue making the argument to the electorate that the government cannot be trusted with such powers, and that they won't help fight terrorists and paedos anyway. Pointing out that Trump now controls the NSA might be a good start.

balabaster 10y ago
I'm not sure if there's any truth to these anecdotes, quite probably not but I feel they're particularly poignant given the situation: When the U.S. first decided to send man to the moon, they spent billions of dollars inventing a pen that would write in zero gravity. Meanwhile the Russians used a pencil. Again with the race for hacking computers in the Russian Embassy to spy on the Russians, instead of spending billions of dollars securing their computers in a cyber arms race, they switched to typewriters. I find the simplicity in their solutions to these problems remarkably satisfying. It is this simplicity that calls me to just say fuck it, if you're going to act like that, I'm just not playing any more. I'll go do something else interesting that doesn't involve you.

cr0sh 10y ago

> Shit like this seriously makes me want to give up on the internet and walk away from it You echo my thoughts exactly - I've recently been thinking about moving to a small town north of where I currently live, where land prices are cheap, and you can get 10 acres for nothing. Bad part - little to no internet access. Part of me thinks that's a good thing.

balabaster 10y ago
That works if you can make that 10 acres work for you... I've been trying that model for the last little while on top of my full time job. I can tell you from first hand experience that while it may be rewarding, the amount of work and money it takes to get those 10 acres working for you is not trivial and has the serious probability of burning you out before you make it. I wouldn't recommend doing this on top of a full time job if time is of the essence. It's probably something you'd want to do over the period of a couple of years because trying to get 10 acres working for you inside of a year is an insane amount of work - it's literally more than a second full time job. I know this, because that's exactly what I've been doing for the last 9 months. The shitty internet access will be beyond frustrating at first. Again, speaking from first hand experience, you will become accustomed to it and find workarounds. I sometimes think that not having any internet access at all would be easier than dealing with the outages that I deal with on a weekly basis. Eventually you stop caring about it and think fuck it, I'll just do something else with my time, read a book, go out on your land, learn useful things like small engine repair or carpentry or whatever... Not having Internet and TV can be frustrating and boring at first, but finding hobbies and learning skills to fill that time instead can be extremely good for your confidence and your soul.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  I know this is a late reply and such - but my first modem was a 300 baud screamer (heh) - so a slow connection could look fast to me otherwise (not as fast as what I have currently, tho). As far as getting 10 acres to work for me - well, I wasn't thinking that route (ie - farming). More just doing odd jobs to make the tax payment; I'm pretty good with mechanically inclined stuff - I also can work a welder, plasma cutter, grinder, etc. Or - maybe I could get a cheap 3D printer and/or laser cutter and do stuff with that. Everything else would be completely paid off, and otherwise I'd be off-the-grid (electric from solar/wind, water from a well, then a septic tank - I guess I might have to budget for maintenance of that stuff, too). I'm thinking, though, I might still be able to commute into jobs - where I'm thinking about locating isn't too far away from work - though it'd be a long commute (50-75 miles each way).