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I don't think that point resonates nearly as well under a less-democratic country. There's a romanticism that's applied to the Internet as though it can buck an

I don't think that point resonates nearly as well under a less-democratic country. There's a romanticism that's applied to the Internet as though it can buck any trend or speak truth to power in a way that other prior media hasn't or can't, and there is some truth to that? But that wasn't because of some innate superiority; it was because it developed primarily in the West, where freedom to express oneself is the default, with authorities only really stepping in when needed. This ethos has followed through the Internet's spread to other parts of the world, where this is not always the case, and the reaction in general from companies especially borders on pearl clutching. "What do you mean we have to respect unjust laws and the arbitrary decisions of some banana republic?" Yes, you do. Because within the borders of that republic, regardless of how banana it might be, it is the Government and it has power. I feel like this is the penultimate expression of privilege for Westerners, to find out that the madman running around in tanks and aviator sunglasses in that part of the world, you know, over there, actually does have direct and indisputable power over MILLIONS of people and in all likelihood, is probably killing tons of them. Like, we know that, but we don't understand what that means, not really. How could we? I find it hard to conceive of something further from my reality. And ultimately, for all the legitimate strengths the Internet has to fulfill the dream of these folks, in terms of speaking truth to power, ultimately, Governments can turn it off if needed, as we've seen, if it becomes too much of a problem.

ethbr0 6y ago
I think we're talking about two different things here: companies and code. You're absolutely right in that companies, as legal entities, have to obey laws in whatever jurisdiction they operate. But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. That is effectively influenced by only two variables: the cost of copying and distributing it. Digital technology has driven that number far lower than it's historically existed. And in that, it's a fundamental change. To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). Facebook cares if Pakistan or the US says something must be so. DeCSS doesn't.
- FlownScepter 6y ago
  > But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. Is it company-less, though? Code is useless without the silicon that brings it to life, without the people that maintain that silicon, without the power grid that energizes it, and without the data links that connect it. Like I understand what you're saying, you're saying that the pure technology itself is the liberating part, and I agree with that about halfway. But code doesn't run on nothing. To run your code, you'll need a computer, either in your home or business. That computer is sold to you by a vendor, and it's connected to internet sold to you by a different vendor, and is powered by electricity sold to you by a different vendor. Ergo, your code is dependent upon the infrastructure to which you are in turn beholden to. And none of this changes if you use AWS or whatever, you're just adding more vendors and more middlemen, who in turn are buying the needed things from whomever else, etc. Ultimately, if whatever authority decides you must not proceed with what you're doing, that can be enforced in numerous ways, all of which mean that you will not proceed. Or at the very least, will make it much harder. We saw this recently with the Parler fiasco. > To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). But DeCSS only works with DVD drives sold to you by manufacturers in PC's sold to you by manufacturers, running on electricity sold to you by a utility. The code, the information, that's free. But taking it and doing something useful with it, in this case decrypting DVD's, requires hardware, and if for whatever odd reason the U.S. State Department decided that nobody was ever going to use it in the States again, maybe they couldn't stop it entirely, sure, but they can make it infinitely more difficult to do so.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    That's drawing a lot of absolutes from a lot of very qualified facts. Given the current state of technology, and the diversity of vendors at every level, there is no way any country could impinge on an individual's ability to access general purpose computing. For example, that the US has the power to ban optical disk drives that don't scan for and prohibit certain contents? Ha! Among the ridiculous points this is not reality, in no particular order. (A) General purpose computing would have to be banned. (B) This hasn't even broached the topic of content encryption. (C) The level of control over imports would have to be completely overhauled to something approaching North Korea. (D) Domestic manufacturers would have to be banned from producing programmable processors. This is literally not the world we live in. Even in China. It's not a game of qualified answers. If (1) I have a general purpose computer & (2) I have code that can accomplish the intended activity on that general purpose computer, then (3) no one can stop me from executing that code. The closest example is metadata tracking artifacts in printer documents [0], and previous efforts to technically prohibit currency counterfeiting on then-new color printers. But that's fundamentally different than what we're talking about here: there are a limited number of manufacturers, in a low margin business, that's highly specialized. [0] https://www.eff.org/issues/printers https://www.eff.org/issues/printers

ethbr0 6y ago

I think we're talking about two different things here: companies and code. You're absolutely right in that companies, as legal entities, have to obey laws in whatever jurisdiction they operate. But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. That is effectively influenced by only two variables: the cost of copying and distributing it. Digital technology has driven that number far lower than it's historically existed. And in that, it's a fundamental change. To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). Facebook cares if Pakistan or the US says something must be so. DeCSS doesn't.

FlownScepter 6y ago
> But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. Is it company-less, though? Code is useless without the silicon that brings it to life, without the people that maintain that silicon, without the power grid that energizes it, and without the data links that connect it. Like I understand what you're saying, you're saying that the pure technology itself is the liberating part, and I agree with that about halfway. But code doesn't run on nothing. To run your code, you'll need a computer, either in your home or business. That computer is sold to you by a vendor, and it's connected to internet sold to you by a different vendor, and is powered by electricity sold to you by a different vendor. Ergo, your code is dependent upon the infrastructure to which you are in turn beholden to. And none of this changes if you use AWS or whatever, you're just adding more vendors and more middlemen, who in turn are buying the needed things from whomever else, etc. Ultimately, if whatever authority decides you must not proceed with what you're doing, that can be enforced in numerous ways, all of which mean that you will not proceed. Or at the very least, will make it much harder. We saw this recently with the Parler fiasco. > To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). But DeCSS only works with DVD drives sold to you by manufacturers in PC's sold to you by manufacturers, running on electricity sold to you by a utility. The code, the information, that's free. But taking it and doing something useful with it, in this case decrypting DVD's, requires hardware, and if for whatever odd reason the U.S. State Department decided that nobody was ever going to use it in the States again, maybe they couldn't stop it entirely, sure, but they can make it infinitely more difficult to do so.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  That's drawing a lot of absolutes from a lot of very qualified facts. Given the current state of technology, and the diversity of vendors at every level, there is no way any country could impinge on an individual's ability to access general purpose computing. For example, that the US has the power to ban optical disk drives that don't scan for and prohibit certain contents? Ha! Among the ridiculous points this is not reality, in no particular order. (A) General purpose computing would have to be banned. (B) This hasn't even broached the topic of content encryption. (C) The level of control over imports would have to be completely overhauled to something approaching North Korea. (D) Domestic manufacturers would have to be banned from producing programmable processors. This is literally not the world we live in. Even in China. It's not a game of qualified answers. If (1) I have a general purpose computer & (2) I have code that can accomplish the intended activity on that general purpose computer, then (3) no one can stop me from executing that code. The closest example is metadata tracking artifacts in printer documents [0], and previous efforts to technically prohibit currency counterfeiting on then-new color printers. But that's fundamentally different than what we're talking about here: there are a limited number of manufacturers, in a low margin business, that's highly specialized. [0] https://www.eff.org/issues/printers https://www.eff.org/issues/printers