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The internet community as a whole is going to have an uphill battle against telecoms, spy organizations, and law enforcement agencies ...probably forever. I ho

The internet community as a whole is going to have an uphill battle against telecoms, spy organizations, and law enforcement agencies ...probably forever. I hope that at some point John Q Public realizes that digital privacy and free flow of information are more akin to advancing society scientifically and spiritually much more so than terrorism, child porn, human/drug/weapon trafficking, et al. After the Snowden revelations it was quite apparent that the average citizen would gladly exchange a lot of privacy in order to fight an enemy that doesn't exist. I hope we can stop going to war with ghosts and focus on moving society forward. An open internet can be a great tool for this.

kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
The average citizen doesn't care as long as they get their bread and circuses.
- orthecreedence 12y ago
  Well the average citizen cares about certain things such as "jobs are good" or "terrorists are bad" where they don't necessarily care but they at least make associations with certain topics. I guess I hope that privacy/open internet will become one of those simple things people can understand.
abandonliberty 12y ago
>The internet community as a whole is going to have an uphill battle against telecoms, spy organizations, and law enforcement agencies ...probably forever. Wishful thinking. Way things are going we will lose that war soon.
fit2rule 12y ago
>>I hope that at some point John Q Public realizes that digital privacy and free flow of information are more akin to advancing society scientifically and spiritually much more so than terrorism, child porn, human/drug/weapon trafficking, et al. The trouble is, there is no way to accurately measure this factor, nor is there any recognition of it - because using the Internet for free and open, honest communication, is the majority case. Unless we can come up with some way of acknowledging the good, and really getting the good counted in a way that is statistically significant in the discussion, this piece of the pie is going to be impinged upon by the loud, attention-getting, criminal activities. But this circumstance is not unique to the Internet - it has been true of all media, since the days of Gutenberg. The good rarely gets attention; only the violence, the hatred, the terrorism gets real attention in our world. Nobody turns on the news to hear what good has happened in the world - for some reason, this is not interesting to the majority. If there were only some way to change this situation, we would see some light at the end of the tunnel - I suppose acknowledgement of the positive in the world does happen. But we need to get off our junky fix for the disorder and chaos in this communication age, and figure out ways to measure the good that open, honest, and most importantly free communication brings to the world. We need a metric that makes sense in light of the death statistics, the crime rate, and so on ...

kevin_thibedeau 12y ago

The average citizen doesn't care as long as they get their bread and circuses.

orthecreedence 12y ago
Well the average citizen cares about certain things such as "jobs are good" or "terrorists are bad" where they don't necessarily care but they at least make associations with certain topics. I guess I hope that privacy/open internet will become one of those simple things people can understand.

abandonliberty 12y ago

>The internet community as a whole is going to have an uphill battle against telecoms, spy organizations, and law enforcement agencies ...probably forever. Wishful thinking. Way things are going we will lose that war soon.

fit2rule 12y ago

>>I hope that at some point John Q Public realizes that digital privacy and free flow of information are more akin to advancing society scientifically and spiritually much more so than terrorism, child porn, human/drug/weapon trafficking, et al. The trouble is, there is no way to accurately measure this factor, nor is there any recognition of it - because using the Internet for free and open, honest communication, is the majority case. Unless we can come up with some way of acknowledging the good, and really getting the good counted in a way that is statistically significant in the discussion, this piece of the pie is going to be impinged upon by the loud, attention-getting, criminal activities. But this circumstance is not unique to the Internet - it has been true of all media, since the days of Gutenberg. The good rarely gets attention; only the violence, the hatred, the terrorism gets real attention in our world. Nobody turns on the news to hear what good has happened in the world - for some reason, this is not interesting to the majority. If there were only some way to change this situation, we would see some light at the end of the tunnel - I suppose acknowledgement of the positive in the world does happen. But we need to get off our junky fix for the disorder and chaos in this communication age, and figure out ways to measure the good that open, honest, and most importantly free communication brings to the world. We need a metric that makes sense in light of the death statistics, the crime rate, and so on ...