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This has been on the tip of my tongue for a long while, so I might as well go ahead and say it now. I am ready to acknowledge the power of technology as much as

by scscsc 17y ago

This has been on the tip of my tongue for a long while, so I might as well go ahead and say it now. I am ready to acknowledge the power of technology as much as anyone hanging around here. But I think that dismissing the computer/internet laws currently being passed by countries in the EU as being unenforceable, or being easily solvable by technology workarounds is a great fallacy and the most stupid thing in the world to do. The cat and mouse play between technology workarounds and law cannot go on forever, because eventually you will run out of legal workarounds. This is similar to the cat and mouse play between the police and law breakers. Unless you are in bed with the police, you will eventually get caught. I think that the only viable alternative is to oppose these laws and hope they don't pass.

thaumaturgy 17y ago
Why not do both? Oppose the laws, protest the laws, and when that doesn't work, then develop new technology to get around the laws. This is a cycle that has been happening for millennia. It's not new. Authoritarians come into power, then they amass power, and then they attempt to rule by force. Usually, people first welcome their new authorities, because they want order and they naively expect that authorities are on their side; then they begin to become disenfranchised; and finally, they begin to subvert the authority and eventually counteract it altogether. The only novel thing here is the level of technology that we're dealing with now -- but that benefits both sides. Look at China: they've developed probably the most advanced national communications surveillance and filtering technology in the world (depending on how deep your paranoia runs); and while that works for many people, others are still finding ways around it. Or, look at BitTorrent. Media "authorities" attack centralized distribution; hackers develop decentralized distribution. Authorities attack centralized tracking; hackers develop distributed hash tables. Authorities attack the protocol itself; hackers develop a new protocol. Authorities attack unencrypted communications; hackers develop decentralized, anonymous, encrypted communications. Eventually this cycle of escalation will lead to distributed networks -- "guerilla" wifi mesh networks are already being used in some places -- and the only way the authorities will be able to counter that will be to shut down wired, wireless, and cellular communications for the great majority of the population. How long do you think that will remain popular?

by scscsc 17y ago

thaumaturgy 17y ago

Why not do both? Oppose the laws, protest the laws, and when that doesn't work, then develop new technology to get around the laws. This is a cycle that has been happening for millennia. It's not new. Authoritarians come into power, then they amass power, and then they attempt to rule by force. Usually, people first welcome their new authorities, because they want order and they naively expect that authorities are on their side; then they begin to become disenfranchised; and finally, they begin to subvert the authority and eventually counteract it altogether. The only novel thing here is the level of technology that we're dealing with now -- but that benefits both sides. Look at China: they've developed probably the most advanced national communications surveillance and filtering technology in the world (depending on how deep your paranoia runs); and while that works for many people, others are still finding ways around it. Or, look at BitTorrent. Media "authorities" attack centralized distribution; hackers develop decentralized distribution. Authorities attack centralized tracking; hackers develop distributed hash tables. Authorities attack the protocol itself; hackers develop a new protocol. Authorities attack unencrypted communications; hackers develop decentralized, anonymous, encrypted communications. Eventually this cycle of escalation will lead to distributed networks -- "guerilla" wifi mesh networks are already being used in some places -- and the only way the authorities will be able to counter that will be to shut down wired, wireless, and cellular communications for the great majority of the population. How long do you think that will remain popular?