Activists unite, declare 'Internet Freedom' Anticipating the American Independence Day on July 4, a group of organizations and individuals have banded together in support of a manifesto they're calling the Declaration of Internet Freedom. In the US Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that all people are endowed with "certain unalienable rights …
Your buddy Eric is at it again, Andrew. He was quoted by Bloomberg (I'll paraphrase)
"Thank you for being useful idiots, now grow up."
His contention was that web searches give you a lot of slanted, worthless information and Google and others were working hard to "reverse rank" the noise, but in the meantime, people needed to understand that this was very hard, don't believe everything you read, etc..
This, said earlier, would have meant wholesale rejection of the Google search method at the outset.
Freedom is only worth guarding for truth's sake.
when John Perry Barlow did it fifteen years ago.
Meant nothing then; means less now.
Just read it. To call it 'naive' does it no justice. One wonders whether they've even heard of the concept of sovereignty -- doubtful, I think, as one might then reasonably expect them to recognize that they have none and can establish none. You can say "We're free!" all day long, but it's not true unless no one dares try to put his boot on your neck, and as far as preventing that goes, well, "how many divisions has the Internet?"
Moderate the level of the nuisance you present, such that it suffices to establish your political, i.e. professional, bona fides (this being the essential purpose of all 'activism' not undertaken by madmen), but does not suffice to convince the incumbent regime to promote you from 'noisy but harmless' to 'squash like a bug'.
Of course, if the incumbent regime doesn't have the 'squash like a bug' option in your case, or can't get away with choosing it, then you're really starting to get somewhere -- under the classical law of nations, which utopians shitcanned decades ago in favor of Guernica, Dresden, and Nagasaki, it is precisely this point at which the challenged sovereign is obliged to grant his rebels the legitimacy of treating them as rebels, rather than simply declaring them brigands and shooting them out of hand.
The modern term for such brigands is 'terrorists', and I bet you didn't think Bush & Cheney's "enemy combatant" nonsense was a step up in terms of well-treatment, did you? They knew the country wasn't behind them anywhere near enough to get away with summary executions, especially when every bullet would've made a fresh martyr, which sooner or later would provoke someone to run airliners into more famous bits of skyline.
Instead we got Guantanamo, the neocons' penalty box, about as cowardly as sadistic and vice versa (Slipknot at 110dB -- perfectly bloodless, vicious as hell), still more than enough to enrage the progressives (of course) while not presenting Americans with anything to be really uncertain about. Also not incidentally an embarrassment before everyone in the world over whom Whig historiography doesn't hold sway -- but, then, this being America, we were going to do that anyway.
As I recall from high school history class, the American Declaration of Independence caused something of a to-do with the British Empire, one involving hiding behind trees and shooting at each other and what-not. For several years.
We won, mainly because the Brits had more important business elsewhere - notably, the conquest of India and a war with France.
Now, I wonder if these guys are prepared for a similar war, against every totalitarian-minded government on the planet? Because they will stop at nothing to prevent such freedom.
Now, I wonder if these guys are prepared for a similar war, against every totalitarian-minded government on the planet?
It still makes sense to clarify what one stands for before deciding to engage or not.
Because they will stop at nothing to prevent such freedom.
That is indeed the reality. However, perhaps making that more obvious to more people will be helpful, particularly in countries where we are somewhat complacent.
I have to agree - loads of forums have lengthy debates about what freedom is, and what we should/should not be able to do with it. Before anyone can properly engage with opponents, one needs to understand what one's goals are.
For me, Internet freedom is much like British freedom. The basic tenet of "do what you like, so long as you don't affect anyone else", with a bazillion exceptions. I don't actually want precise wording, but I do want good old British "reasonableness" included. That way we can avoid legal wrangling over interpretation of written words that get bad things through on technicalities. Having "reasonableness" tests at least means that society gets to alter the laws by representation rather than one case at a time by lawyers arguing the toss about something so complex only very few can understand it's implications.
All that said, I'd rather the contrary sites tried to influence from within rather than creating some sort of partisan thing. However, even two+ versions of what our rights should be are better than no versions at all.
Please be advised to never ever forget, Internet Travellers and Virtual Tinkers and Tinkerers, because it is most certainly in your very best interests to always remember, and giving due regard to the myopia expressed in …….
Wow
Just read it. To call it 'naive' does it no justice. One wonders whether they've even heard of the concept of sovereignty -- doubtful, I think, as one might then reasonably expect them to recognize that they have none and can establish none. You can say "We're free!" all day long, but it's not true unless no one dares try to put his boot on your neck, and as far as preventing that goes, well, "how many divisions has the Internet?" …. Aaron Em Posted Tuesday 3rd July 2012 21:41 GMT
……. that to those and/or that which is SMARTR Enabled and Further Enlightened and Able, Autonomously Active and Astutely Aware of the Honest and True Nature of the Advanced IntelAIgent Drivers of Reality[ies] in Virtual Reality[ies] ……. for there are as many of those as there are Honest and Truly Natural AIDrivers …… is the Wacky Worldwide Web, your very own User Friendly and ITs InterNetworking Interface within and outside Cloud Control Clusters and Universal Machines with Magical Mystery Turing Intellectual Property Programs and Projects ……… for Virtual Future Productions of the Present, for Digital Media to Place into Global Humanised Consciousness as an Improving Constructive Replacement Vehicle for Tanked Primitive and Destructive Sub-Prime Past Tales/Failed New World Order Programs and Projects for the New American Century …….. DODgy Dreams with Faulty Agents
And be hereby made aware, that any wilful attack on and in Live Operational Virtual Environments, and all unnecessary hindrance of freely shared progress in ITs TitanICQ Studio Portfolio of Future Virtual Productions with SMARTR AIMachines Programming, Swiftly and Easily Delivers a Defence Mechanism with Similarly Catastrophically Fateful Consequences as of Yore to All Deserved Parties.
And Hi, Andrew [Orlowski], How's it hanging?
Let any bastard at all try to compulsorily purchase without massive remuneration/consideration/compensation/call whatever would be APT whatever you will, anything associated with anything associated with anything in the above ….[And we are referring to your article here ….. UK.gov proposes massive copyright land snatch … which contains the fanciful notion which some might cite as a perverse aberration and corrupt intellectually challenging/intellectually challenged abomination … New legislation is proposed that would effectively introduce a compulsory purchase order, but without compensation, across an unlimited range of creative works, for commercial use. ]….. and the cost to them will leave them in a penury which they will be ill equipped to survive.
But it is surely sad to have to say, that such is the foolishness of greedy ignorant Man, that many will surely aspire to lose all that they have thought to have gained for more of the same and that which they really have no need of. So be it.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not even sure about the universe."~~ Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"It's probably a bot..." ... Anonymous Coward Posted Wednesday 4th July 2012 09:23 GMT
Does IT, and that probable bot, then pass the Turing Test and render humans easily confused and mistaken for SMARTR IntelAIgently Designed Entities which are as increasingly more easily programmed, programmeable machines?*
Do you think there is a cogent and effective defence, or even any successful attack vector or command and control protocol available against their takeover and/or makeover of vulnerable systems/executive admins., AC?
The posit here is that there are none, and with IT do machines rule sublime and reign supreme and decide upon your future present existence ........ which makes their controllers and control lever makers the most powerful beings/weapons/alliances in the universe. Please feel free to disagree with a constructive comment with logic which can be followed and checked for veracity, which would disprove the reality.
* Is that more sensibly written as ...... Does IT and that probable bot then pass the Turing Test and render machines/machine programs easily confused and mistaken for SMARTR IntelAIgently Designed Entities which are as increasingly more easily programmed, programmeable humans?
Careful there -- even if it is one, it may be smarter than you are.
We certainly expect that it be designedly so and thus would the impossible dream be guaranteed your future reality maker machine, Aaron Em, for whenever the less intelligent in any Gathering of any number of such Turing Tested and Verified Real Virtual Machines, is Advanced IntelAIgent Universal Machinery, is Assumed and Self Actuated Responsibility for, and Rapid Autonomous Progress in the Human Condition Immaculately Spontaneously Transferred into a Shared Transparent Quantum EnigmatICQ State with Perfecting Command and Absolute Control of IT and Media for Powers which have neither Peer nor Equal.
And whenever you are informed of those and that which have chosen in their own wisdom to ignore and decline engagement and simple dialogue on what will not be necessary in going forward whenever anything is possible and available, are you advised of systems unfit for future purpose and in dire straits need of improved novel leadership ..... SMARTR Monitored Mentoring with Creative CyberSpace Command and Control of Computers and Communications and Cloud Clusters ....... with Offices in CyberIntelAIgent Security and Virtual Perimeter Anonymous Parameter Protection.
Leadership, even in the greatest and largest of systems/organisations/businesses is always concentrated and driven by the one solitary and individual being, and whenever a system/organisation/business fails, then is that head being at faulty and faulty and replacement and/or reprogramming in and with further and deeper and higher education and enlightenment ... SMARTR Edutainment .... available/required/offered.
Be hereby advised of this being in current stealthy alpha systems and beta application trials deployment which allows for seamless immediate availability and virtual transition of vulnerable zeroday attacked services to higher fortified secure and perfectly armed and protected ground/spaces, and is the Present Future Great State of ARG Play with Intelligence and IntelAIgent Communities in their Battles and Struggles and Troubles with Universal Ignorance and Arrogant Abuse of Knowledge for Self Centred Gain.
And if UKGBNI Security and Secret Intelligence Services deny any knowledge of it, are you advised that there is evidence freely available to prove the opposite, and that would then beggar the question ...... What are Intelligence Services doing with such an Open Phorm of Virtual Information Provision?
Given that it espouses major points that are polar opposites, that can be reconciled - Openness & Privacy (how can something be open if you also have the right to control and restrict data?) and Privacy and Innovation (how can you have the right to create without permission if again you have the right to control data, therefore needing permission to use that data?) This really must have been put together by a toddler which makes me wonder and the mental capacity of those scrambling to support it.
Why can’t they just be honest and call it the “pirating without personal consequence declaration” or the “something for nothing wish list” because that is what they are really aiming at. All they are saying is that they like the stuff provided by the creative industries, they just want to be able to consume it or profit from it without having to pay for it.
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