European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

LQD: Cataplexis

by Sven Triloqvist
Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 04:43:08 AM EST

On March 25 the German cabinet finalized its own proposal to introduce a nation-wide internet censorship system. Australia and Germany are the only Western democracies publicly considering such a mandatory censorship scheme.

In the coming 'war' between the People and the Power, a transparent internet is our greatest weapon (maybe our only weapon) and should be defended at all costs. It should be pointed out that we don't own or control much of the physical infrastructure, we just swim in it.

Promoted by Migeru

On April 9th 2009, the internet domain registration for the investigative journalism site Wikileaks.de was suspended without notice by Germany's registration authority DENIC.

In war, there are 3 levels: the direct destruction of assets (including personnel), destruction of the logistics that supply the assets (including information and command structures), and the weakening of civilian support.

The situation is similar to the legal dispute between WikiLeaks and the Swiss bank Julius Baer last year. WikiLeaks had published documents exposing hundreds of millions dollars hidden by Baer under Cayman Islands trusts. That case saw the "wikileaks.org" domain temporarily disabled by a California judge following an ex-parte hearing by the bank. Publishing continued on other WikiLeaks domains and following representations by WikiLeaks lawyers and 20 major media and civil liberties organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the EFF, the Associated Press and Public Citizen, the judge admitted his error and rescinded his orders.

Any threat to we-the-peoples' full, unhindered access to communication and sharing needs to be resisted most strongly.

Further reading:

There is no bigger issue then net censorship

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LQD: Cataplexis | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 6)

When I am in an optimistic mood I tell myself the internet is actually operated by 'geeks' in the pay of 'Power' who will see to it that there is a free (if underground) internet for themselves and others to play in.

But it need not be this way, as time goes by and internet technology becomes more and more standard less and less 'geeks' and more and more 'drones' work the guts of the internet and the ability to keep it free diminishes.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 04:47:08 AM EST

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 5)

That is why I have been an advocate of WiMax . The WiMax standard has now dropped by Nokia, for example, but only because they think that a better long range wireless standard can be developed.

However, Nokia also want to leverage the existing networks as far as possible. Keeping existing networks allows them to be controlled: whole regions, if not nations, of mobile phones can be disconnected in minutes. It is a capability 'intended' for use in catastrophes to give priority to emergency services. A very tempting capability for others.

The point of WiMax is that it connects - without an interruptible physical connection -over a citywide area. It could exist and flourish even without the Internet.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 05:03:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 3)

The point of WiMax is that it connects - without an interruptible physical connection -over a citywide area

So it's local radio, and will be regulated as such. The interruptible connection is the transmitter. Sure, you can run pirate broadcasts, but it's pretty desperate if "the authorities" decide to clamp down. And the more desperate it is, the easier it is for them to claim it's subversive.

I'm not saying this because I'm against WiMax, I'm for. But it doesn't seem to me to evacuate the problem.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 05:56:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 3)

The same effect can be achieved by cascading - using every unit (such as my Mac/airport) and having software that will find a route through all the units from one to 'many others'. A WiMax box can be purchased by anyone and put on their roof. It is indeed possible to have pirate systems ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 06:08:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 4)

I'd say nice in theory, but inevitably it will fail as bandwidth gets crucified by teenage filesharers. It might be that for you transmitting political information is important, but for a large part of the technically literate population, the latest film or computer game will be more important. A lack of physical backbone circuits will mean it will fail at choke points, and that will cause people to disconnect from the network and that will fragment and isolate network circuits.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 07:55:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Let a 1000 nodes be born! (4.00 / 3)

It's not either/or. Cities are internally connected in a million ways, from dedicated place-to-place lines copper to FO, to mobiles, PBX, fixed line phones, and all bands of radiowaves across the spectrum. And it's all connecting itself up ;-)

The point of WiMax is relocalize information sharing, with the city as an almost optimal discrete size of ecosystem, since that is the territory size that has conformed the traditional administrative organizations.

Something I am working on is a proposal for how even smaller units of the city -ie neighbourhoods - can be nodes in a metropolitan system that connect all the people who might physically meet, whether sellers, buyers, servers, suppliers or whatever, and lift the information exchange level at these nodes to make them better places to live in. These hood nodes are then connected together to form the virtual/real city.

The ultimate political aim of the proposal is to bypass representative government, and corporations, in true bottom up style ;-).

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 08:22:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 4)

Are you familiar with the history of amateur radio? In the 1920s there were several international conferences where the RF spectrum was allocated to various services, and the European governments tried to shut down all unofficial transmitters. Only through the efforts of the US-based ARRL--with considerable support from Herbert Hoover--were the ham radio frequencies obtained, and they were shut down as soon as WW2 started.
http://www.ac6v.com/history.htm

Governments fundamentally don't like any sort of communication system that they don't control.

by asdf on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 08:16:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Fundamentally... (4.00 / 2)

Precisely. That is why we have to be very diligent.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 08:24:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Fundamentally... (4.00 / 5)

Vaguely linked

Brian Greene » Blog Archive » radio is my bomb

This is a second edition of a pamphlet which we brought out first in 1992. The first edition was concise and contained all the relevant information needed to get you interested in starting your own free radio station. The first edition was not an original idea. A magazine distributed through the anarchist press with the same name "Radio is my bomb" has been very popular with those interested in setting up radio stations. Our first edition did fairly well . Many thanks goes to those at "Catharsis" zine for standing in the photo-copying shop for hours on end to bring out the first edition. Some critics of the last edition said it was too technical and didn't explain itself very well. ??

The original printed magazine runs to 64 A4 pages packed with circuit diagrams. I think i got mine from AK Press (Always an interesting source of unusual, non-mainstream political books for those who don't know of it.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 09:21:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 3)

I don't know what it's like elsewhere, but ham radio in the UK is highly regulated. Political discussion is specifically prohibited.

I wonder why.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 09:48:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 4)

And that's the democracy that "democracy" wants to export to "non democracy". How outright groteque.

by vladimir on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 03:54:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 5)

But it need not be this way, as time goes by and internet technology becomes more and more standard less and less 'geeks' and more and more 'drones' work the guts of the internet and the ability to keep it free diminishes.

And the laws are changed to make keeping the information flowing freely more dangerous!

The UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act means that if I tell anyone* about, or don't respond within 48 hours to, a RIPA request from an 'authorised person' I could be locked up for 7 years for supporting terrorism (or whatever the investigation is about) even if nothing comes of the investigation.

For this aging geek, it adds a certain frisson to answering number-withheld calls at work :-/

* If I understand the Act correctly the only exceptions are the investigating officers and the issuing judge: not my colleagues, nor line-manager or lawyer, ...

by cbatjesmond on Tue Apr 14th, 2009 at 11:41:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Transparency (4.00 / 4)

What are we fighting against? Opacity.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 05:04:48 AM EST

Re: Equality of Access (4.00 / 9)

We are also fighting against inequality of access....

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 05:31:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Transparency (4.00 / 11)

Against ? The top-down soft-authoritarianism of governments that see themselves as rulers of the people rather than as their servants. People who view democratic input as a once every 4/5 years yes/no popularity vote where the information necessary to make effective determinations by the electorate is strictly controlled, rationed and edited by corporate guardians.

They are terrified by the ideas emerging in theUS through dKos etc. The idea of a creative commons, a democratic market place of ideas where individual citizens can get together in common interest groups that serve the people's purposes rather than that of the charismatics who use them as springboards for their own agenda. You cannot hijack something decided in full view. They are frightened that we might decide who our spokepeople might be based, not on access, but on the quality of ideas. Because if access is key, then gatekeepers decide.

As somebody pointed out recently, Obama was the first person to notice that using the internet was the oipportunity to speak directly to people without the intermediaries of media interpreters. He could land in somebody's living room at the time of their choosing and persuade them face to face with only the power of his ideas. No longer dependent upon bogus cheerleaders and a fawning press to sell his ideas for him.

This has only become possible by the internet being a democratic market place of ideas where every voice has equal access and you are judged by what you say. The moment access is filtered, democracic involvement is discredited.

The german govt may think they are being clever, but they are being deeply stupid. Freedoms that are taken away, like prop 8 in California breed deeper resentments than freedoms you never had. This is a hammer to crack a nut and the hammer will rebound in their face.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 07:47:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Transparency (4.00 / 2)

Helen:

As somebody pointed out recently, Obama was the first person to notice that using the internet was the oipportunity to speak directly to people without the intermediaries of media interpreters. He could land in somebody's living room at the time of their choosing and persuade them face to face with only the power of his ideas. No longer dependent upon bogus cheerleaders and a fawning press to sell his ideas for him.

And yet, Obama has turned out to be not an outsider but a member of the Establishment.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 12:35:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Transparency (4.00 / 5)

That doesn't suggest him as an outsider, merely the first politician to make the internet work for him.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 01:05:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 9)

DENIC did not drop the domain by itself. DENIC is a cooperative of domain registrars. The member that was responsible for wikileaks.de dropped the domain into DENICs hands in the evening of Thursday, with a four-day holiday coming up.

So, yes, it's a shame this is happening, but it's more out of confusion than of bad will.

(My company is one of approx. 300 DENIC member companies)

11 years to go !

by pi (etrib@opsec.eu) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 05:37:51 AM EST

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 3)

Welcome pi, thanks for your first comment.

Off topic maybe, but what are you especially waiting for in 2020? (re your sig).

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 06:00:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 4)

So you're saying that they cancelled the entry out of their own files without it being passed on? it's a bit of a screw up if so. You'd normally wait for the person who you'd handed it over to to take it up before deleting it from your own registry.

Dropping someone from the registry without that happening is one of the big career limiting negatives in the domain registry business, as it impacts the perception of reliability in your service.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 08:11:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 5)

Yes, this is exactly what DENIC is claiming: that the provider informed it (at the beginning of a long holiday weekend) that they were no longer administering the domain. (German link).

Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine - Patti Smith

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 11:53:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: Cataplexis (4.00 / 3)

So is there any backlash against that Naming host? I wouldn't be surprised to see geeks transfering off them if they have any campaigning sense.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Apr 13th, 2009 at 01:43:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

LQD: Cataplexis | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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