May I suggest a single line agreement.
We, the undersigned, shall not infringe on any communication, conversation or data transfer while bringing the Internet to those without.
That is all.
Time is running out for the world to agree on a new ITU treaty, which will define how countries communicate electronically with each other. The daylight is failing and three words still present immovable barriers to consensus - unless the chairman can magic them away. Meanwhile, voting guidelines are starting to circulate. At …
Ah but how would you define infringe?
Is it infringing on the communication to introduce enough delay to make it worthless once received. Is it infringing on it to take a copy for analysis later? Is blocking access to a resource infringing if you've a policy banning that type of content.
Obviously I'd answer yes to all of the above, but I can quite believe that some governments may want to argue the toss on at least one or two.
This is why I would rather have Google as my Internet overlord than the ITU. They at least understand how the darned thing works.
Governments are a local monopoly on force. Since humans are self-interested, they will always try to leverage that monopoly into total control. Therefore you have to provide strong limits on government power, such as constitutional guarantees of certain rights and limits on their ability to meddle in things they should not.
If you want to make certain actions illegal (possession of child porn is the poster child (pun intended) for such actions), make the possession illegal. Don't go breaking use of networks, video cameras, studio rentals, and cash because they *might* be used for that purpose. They have other uses that are perfectly legitimate, so you end up punishing the bystanders and not just the criminals.
"The same Google that has now decided what users in the USA can and cannot see by making safe-search mode compulsory?"
https://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=510:
"Disable the SafeSearch filter
Here's how to disable SafeSearch:
Visit the Google Preferences page.
In the "SafeSearch Filtering" section, uncheck Filter explicit results.
Click Save Preferences."
You must have a different idea of 'compulsory' than I have...
It's possible to mangle addresses to force the filter to 'on' regardless of user settings; the university I attended and one of the companies I worked for did just that. That may be your problem...
Alternate solutions include "You're an idiot and didn't do it right" and "You're a troll who's trying to get people fired when they run that search at work."
"I would rather have Google as my Internet overlord than the ITU"
It only takes one guy to be arm-twisted or convinced to do a bad thing, rather than hundreds who have to be inconvenienced to gather somehow into a solitary place...
Benevolent dictatorship beats Democracy every time... until the genocide begins... then everyone wants to have their say & choice...
"The traditional standard of clarity of a language is a cultural inheritance which should be carefully guarded. Language is one of the most important institutions of social life, and its clarity is a condition of its functioning as a means of rational communication." The open Society and its enemies by K.R. Popper (1945), Ch 12 note 30.
The ITU should stick to technical standards for the same reason we set standard voltages on electrical outlets or standard symbols on highway signs. We didn't vote these guys the powers to decide anything political, so they should keep their mitts out of issues like security, public vs private, and what constitutes content and speech.
I have to agree that technical standards are one thing but as soon as philosophy, politics, religion, social norms or any of the other soft issues come into view the battle is lost. I have not been to one of the ITU meetings for 15 years or more, they were 'interesting' and I would not have missed their 'technical' games for anything. (The issue of end to end encapsulated signalling was going so well until one delegation suddenly started to understand what it was all about!)
The land of the free ruled their delegation with something more like a rod of iron, move out of the pre-agreed commercially set delegation line and you would be out within minutes. Other countries had a far more laid back attitude with no fixed line to be toed. Perhaps we should have been more rigid in our approach but then we would not be who we were.
The issue latest issue of the internet control was never going to end in anything other than tears given the mainly political rather than technical issues it had to face.
Probably better to be AC even though I have been out of the business for some years.
or shut up shop. (The word "shop" is optional in the previous part).
Just how hard would it be to setup an alternative "Internet" that just simply ignores the people / governments who abhor freedom? Including Theresa May's Home Office, if necessary ...
Not very. But the politicians are too dim to understand what they want to regulate - if they don't understand it, and want to regulate it, they should simply be fired for such ignorance.
(Yeah, I've been reading the Communications Data Bill, and want all Home Office civil servants and politicians to die*, tonight, in a very horrible way. Unless they admit they are MORONS.)
*(bit strong?)