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Asses. Everyone. Everywhere. Unconscionable asses. Outside the US the internet is under the worst sort of attack. Filtering, censorship, and worse. Even in t

Asses. Everyone. Everywhere. Unconscionable asses. Outside the US the internet is under the worst sort of attack. Filtering, censorship, and worse. Even in the most free countries in Europe or Asia the idea of an unrestricted, unfiltered, uncensored is under forceful attack. In countries like China, India, Turkey, or Russia the internet is already censored or filtered. In other places like the UK, France, and Australia plans for filtering and censorship are gaining steam. Meanwhile, the idea that other countries are not pervasively snooping on all manner of internet communications is simply a fiction. Indeed, many such programs outside the US have been well known since before revelations of NSA internet surveillance came to light. I'm not sure which is more deserving of ire. The assholes in the US government who abused and overstepped their authority and in the process validated every single fear (rational or not) about the US being so central to the internet. Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship. The idea of a free and open internet still existing a decade from now seems to be slipping out of our hands by the moment.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship." How do you judge which is more serious? For example you mentioned the UK. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. ISP's have to block The Pirate Bay (easy to get around through a proxy) and when you sign up for internet some ISP's ask "do you want us to run our filtering software to protect your children from porn?". You say "no" and they don't filter. Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does.
- grey-area 13y ago
  Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does. The UK has surpassed the US in surveillance - the Tempora program attempts to capture all traffic in the UK and store it as long as possible. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc).
  - Toenex 13y ago
    That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc). Sorry are you suggesting that we in the UK can't have an open discussion on surveillance?
    - grey-area 13y ago
      Yes.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Right. They're only filtering for porn and piracy, no big deal of course. But then again, the NSA is only looking for terrorists, right? If you're not a terrorist, then that's no big deal either. Right? Do you understand the problem or do I need to explain more clearly?
- Digit-Al 13y ago
  I too live in the UK, and it seems to me you are forgetting two things. Number one is the UK governments complicity in spying on UK citizens; and number two is that once the systems are in place to filter porn (and lets not forget how badly they will probably perform), who knows what else they will start censoring. [edit: grey-area has said it better than me]
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    I definitely have a problem with UK spying - and I didn't forget about it. I was responding to the parents idea that local government censorship is much more serious than the extreme surveillance we've recently been made aware of. I'm more worried about the surveillance than the censorship. Obviously with the censorship we have the problem you've mentioned ("who knows what else they will start censoring") but I think that's something citizens actually have a chance fighting against. The internet isn't the only way of distributing information. If the government wants to censor something it's going to be very, very hard. As we've seen with the surveillance there is little we can do - the governments aren't listening to their citizens and doing something as extreme as stopping using the internet isn't enough to stop yourself being surveilled.
bad_user 13y ago
No surveillance agency in the world has the resources or the technical know-how or easy access to a selection of the world's finest companies offering Internet-enabled services and operating systems and standardization committees for encryption algorithms. The US government also has the longest arm in terms of demands it can make to other governments. And us foreigners have no chance of fighting the NSA, because we aren't US citizens, remember? (surprise, us foreigners have feelings too) And "filtering, censorship and worse" happens in spite of US governance. So we have to worry about the US government, in addition to local threats. Because 1 + 1 = 2. And don't get me wrong, we never trusted the US government, but we trusted US companies to do the right thing, given your strong and stable Constitution. But apparently your government found ways to coerce your companies into doing whatever they want and make you shut up about it. And that's why it's not the US government's governance I'd worry about, but rather I'd worry about the bottom line of your companies that have brought so much innovation and that are going to get punished in the international marketplace while not being guilty. The US really needs to do something to repair their image and fast. And statements such as yours really do seem disingenuous or ignorant about what this whole thing means for us and does nothing to repair the loss of trust.
chiph 13y ago
I am reminded of the ITU meeting a few months ago, where they wanted to make content filtering by nations easier to do, and the adoption of a "sender pays" billing scheme. As well as remove ICANN from under the US aegis. As bad as the NSA vacuum is, it's a problem that can be solved under the current system.

k-mcgrady 13y ago

>> "Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship." How do you judge which is more serious? For example you mentioned the UK. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. ISP's have to block The Pirate Bay (easy to get around through a proxy) and when you sign up for internet some ISP's ask "do you want us to run our filtering software to protect your children from porn?". You say "no" and they don't filter. Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does.

grey-area 13y ago
Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does. The UK has surpassed the US in surveillance - the Tempora program attempts to capture all traffic in the UK and store it as long as possible. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc).
- Toenex 13y ago
  That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc). Sorry are you suggesting that we in the UK can't have an open discussion on surveillance?
  - grey-area 13y ago
    Yes.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Right. They're only filtering for porn and piracy, no big deal of course. But then again, the NSA is only looking for terrorists, right? If you're not a terrorist, then that's no big deal either. Right? Do you understand the problem or do I need to explain more clearly?
Digit-Al 13y ago
I too live in the UK, and it seems to me you are forgetting two things. Number one is the UK governments complicity in spying on UK citizens; and number two is that once the systems are in place to filter porn (and lets not forget how badly they will probably perform), who knows what else they will start censoring. [edit: grey-area has said it better than me]
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  I definitely have a problem with UK spying - and I didn't forget about it. I was responding to the parents idea that local government censorship is much more serious than the extreme surveillance we've recently been made aware of. I'm more worried about the surveillance than the censorship. Obviously with the censorship we have the problem you've mentioned ("who knows what else they will start censoring") but I think that's something citizens actually have a chance fighting against. The internet isn't the only way of distributing information. If the government wants to censor something it's going to be very, very hard. As we've seen with the surveillance there is little we can do - the governments aren't listening to their citizens and doing something as extreme as stopping using the internet isn't enough to stop yourself being surveilled.

bad_user 13y ago

No surveillance agency in the world has the resources or the technical know-how or easy access to a selection of the world's finest companies offering Internet-enabled services and operating systems and standardization committees for encryption algorithms. The US government also has the longest arm in terms of demands it can make to other governments. And us foreigners have no chance of fighting the NSA, because we aren't US citizens, remember? (surprise, us foreigners have feelings too) And "filtering, censorship and worse" happens in spite of US governance. So we have to worry about the US government, in addition to local threats. Because 1 + 1 = 2. And don't get me wrong, we never trusted the US government, but we trusted US companies to do the right thing, given your strong and stable Constitution. But apparently your government found ways to coerce your companies into doing whatever they want and make you shut up about it. And that's why it's not the US government's governance I'd worry about, but rather I'd worry about the bottom line of your companies that have brought so much innovation and that are going to get punished in the international marketplace while not being guilty. The US really needs to do something to repair their image and fast. And statements such as yours really do seem disingenuous or ignorant about what this whole thing means for us and does nothing to repair the loss of trust.

chiph 13y ago

I am reminded of the ITU meeting a few months ago, where they wanted to make content filtering by nations easier to do, and the adoption of a "sender pays" billing scheme. As well as remove ICANN from under the US aegis. As bad as the NSA vacuum is, it's a problem that can be solved under the current system.