3 ms·

I for one can't wait for the day when a government agency can detect that I'm initiating a DDOS from my home connection the second I start and immediately disco

by ZoFreX 16y ago

I for one can't wait for the day when a government agency can detect that I'm initiating a DDOS from my home connection the second I start and immediately disconnect me, without a warrant, court order or trial.

SageRaven 16y ago
Then you initiate it from the McDonald's parking lot, silly! Isn't free wireless grand?
roel_v 16y ago
When you drive too fast with your car, the policy will stop you and give you a fine, or take away your car on the spot. All within the bounds of the law, court-supervised. I'm not seeing the difference. Imagine 100 years ago, when building and driving cars was practiced by enthusiasts only, how they must have lamented the prospect of not being able to drive as fast as they would like to on all roads! I'm not saying I'm looking forward to more control over the internet, but the Wild West days are over, and as the internet and computers become more fundamental in societal functioning, some form of oversight to safeguard a good functioning are inevitable.
- hyperbovine 16y ago
  And thank goodness nobody speeds anymore. Seriously, if you thought enforcing traffic laws was a futile affair, just wait until the other 4 billion people on this planet get online, and the Internet becomes the medium of transmission for literally every bit of shared information on the planet. Think about it: every TV show, every film shown in theaters, every phone call, every book, magazine, and newspaper; things I'm not even thinking of because they haven't been invented yet. (While we're on the subject, every speeding ticket too.) That day will come, sooner than you think. You seriously believe we will have the capacity to police that? I am dubious.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    The point of imposing speed limits is not to 100% root out risky road behavior, it's to set a framework within which a 'generally safe enough' situation is created. Enforcing traffic laws is not a 'futile affair', I have no idea where you get that idea. Are you saying that people's behavior is not influenced by traffic laws? Are you saying that these norms do not transgress from the administrative to a collective social norm, where respect for general road safety becomes ingrained in all well-adjusted participants to that society? If so you have not reflected much on changes in social mores over the last 50 years. You can hardly expect these things to arise overnight. I'm not sure what your point is on all the data that will be generated, transmitted and consumed. There is (in the context of this discussion) no need to track all of that, only to find out what the source is of traffic deliberately causing problems. Of course we will be able to pinpoint the origin of disturbances; when we can't any more, we'll be in Singularity territory, and then all of this is moot anyway. This 'this is the Internet, your norms don't apply to us' nonsense needs to die already. With the internet becoming institutionalized, the same order that has arisen in meatspace will arise online. Of course there will always be the fringes where subgroups hang out in to a greater or lesser degree separate order (like the downtown biker bar in meatspace), but that doesn't prevent order from existing elsewhere.
    - hyperbovine 16y ago
      My point is that the quantity of activity I am talking about will far exceed our ability to analyse and/or control it. Hell, that's already happened; if you don't believe me, I've got a record industry I'd like to sell you. Take your own phase, "pinpoint the origin of disturbances." What exactly is meant by that? There are literally thousands of people all over the world who loaded up LOIC and are participating in this attack. I myself contributed simply by surfing to Mastercard.com to see what all the fuss was about, as I'm sure millions of others did as well. Who is culpable? Assuming it were technically possible, how would you go about solving this problem? I hope you'll agree that the word "pinpoint" is hopelessly inadequate here. Anyways, the entire analogy is flawed. Policing that internet is absolutely nothing like patrolling the highways. How do you account for encryption? The fact that physical presence has no bearing on your online activities? This is unlike anything we've experienced before, and I have a hard time seeing free and democratic societies putting the genie back in the bottle. China is another story.

by ZoFreX 16y ago

SageRaven 16y ago

Then you initiate it from the McDonald's parking lot, silly! Isn't free wireless grand?

roel_v 16y ago

When you drive too fast with your car, the policy will stop you and give you a fine, or take away your car on the spot. All within the bounds of the law, court-supervised. I'm not seeing the difference. Imagine 100 years ago, when building and driving cars was practiced by enthusiasts only, how they must have lamented the prospect of not being able to drive as fast as they would like to on all roads! I'm not saying I'm looking forward to more control over the internet, but the Wild West days are over, and as the internet and computers become more fundamental in societal functioning, some form of oversight to safeguard a good functioning are inevitable.

hyperbovine 16y ago
And thank goodness nobody speeds anymore. Seriously, if you thought enforcing traffic laws was a futile affair, just wait until the other 4 billion people on this planet get online, and the Internet becomes the medium of transmission for literally every bit of shared information on the planet. Think about it: every TV show, every film shown in theaters, every phone call, every book, magazine, and newspaper; things I'm not even thinking of because they haven't been invented yet. (While we're on the subject, every speeding ticket too.) That day will come, sooner than you think. You seriously believe we will have the capacity to police that? I am dubious.
- roel_v 16y ago
  The point of imposing speed limits is not to 100% root out risky road behavior, it's to set a framework within which a 'generally safe enough' situation is created. Enforcing traffic laws is not a 'futile affair', I have no idea where you get that idea. Are you saying that people's behavior is not influenced by traffic laws? Are you saying that these norms do not transgress from the administrative to a collective social norm, where respect for general road safety becomes ingrained in all well-adjusted participants to that society? If so you have not reflected much on changes in social mores over the last 50 years. You can hardly expect these things to arise overnight. I'm not sure what your point is on all the data that will be generated, transmitted and consumed. There is (in the context of this discussion) no need to track all of that, only to find out what the source is of traffic deliberately causing problems. Of course we will be able to pinpoint the origin of disturbances; when we can't any more, we'll be in Singularity territory, and then all of this is moot anyway. This 'this is the Internet, your norms don't apply to us' nonsense needs to die already. With the internet becoming institutionalized, the same order that has arisen in meatspace will arise online. Of course there will always be the fringes where subgroups hang out in to a greater or lesser degree separate order (like the downtown biker bar in meatspace), but that doesn't prevent order from existing elsewhere.
  - hyperbovine 16y ago
    My point is that the quantity of activity I am talking about will far exceed our ability to analyse and/or control it. Hell, that's already happened; if you don't believe me, I've got a record industry I'd like to sell you. Take your own phase, "pinpoint the origin of disturbances." What exactly is meant by that? There are literally thousands of people all over the world who loaded up LOIC and are participating in this attack. I myself contributed simply by surfing to Mastercard.com to see what all the fuss was about, as I'm sure millions of others did as well. Who is culpable? Assuming it were technically possible, how would you go about solving this problem? I hope you'll agree that the word "pinpoint" is hopelessly inadequate here. Anyways, the entire analogy is flawed. Policing that internet is absolutely nothing like patrolling the highways. How do you account for encryption? The fact that physical presence has no bearing on your online activities? This is unlike anything we've experienced before, and I have a hard time seeing free and democratic societies putting the genie back in the bottle. China is another story.