Is Britain a ‘failing state’?

March 24, 2009 — xanthippa

What is a ‘failed state’?

A ‘failed state’ is a state which has completely failed to function.  The exact definition is debated by the experts, but, a ‘failed state’ is often described as having the following characteristics:

  1. inability to maintain its territorial integrity
  2. loss of monopoly on policing and judiciary
  3. failed social structures
  4. corruption of its governance structures (failure of its government to function as it was meant to)

Now, a ‘failing state’ has not quite become a ‘failed state’ – yet – but is certainly heading in that direction.  Some suggest that a failing state may attempt to assert totalitarian-type control over its populace in its last attempts at remaining in control…

Yes, I know, my definitions are not perfect – I don’t have the technical lingo down pat.  Yet, from the little bit of reading I have done, this seems to be the ‘rough’ idea behind the concept.

Britain is not a failed state – yet!  My question is, just how far on the road to becoming one is it?

Let us look at the major characteristics of a ‘failed state’, as per my definition, and see if they are applicable to Britain:

1. Inability to maintain territorial integrity

This is a tough one:  Britain has bartered away the control over immigration to Britain in a series of treaties with the EU:

‘It is therefore actually both impossible and illegal for British immigration officers to obtain hard facts on why people are entering Britain, because an EU passport gives someone from Poland or France as much right to enter this country as I do – no questions asked.’

All right – it is not a ‘failure’ in the ‘classical sense’, but rather the surrendering of responsibility for its territorial integrity to a supranational legal structure.  Yet, it also means that the British government has, in a very real sense, lost the control over maintaining its territorial integrity…

2.  Loss of monopoly on policing and judiciary

Last year, it was revealed that a parallel legal system, based on Sharia law and in no way answerable to the state, had been operating and deeply entrenched in Britain.  In September 2008, acknowledging that they cannot control or abolish this parallel legal system, the British government formally recognized its legitimacy.

Even though this parallel legal system is not based on British laws or traditions, and is completely outside the control of the British government, it is fully functioning and its authority is officially recognized by the British government.

In other words, the British government has failed to maintain a monopoly on its judiciary.

Of course, many people would argue that Britain has also lost its ability to police its society… or even the ability to understand their basic role to charge those who disrupt peace, not those who protest the disruption.  That is not functional policing…

3.  Failed social structures

When a state begins to issue civil court orders known as ASBO (anti-social behaviour order)  against toddlers, it is a rather unequivocal sign that its social structures are failing.

How is an ASBO issued against a person?

Well, according to Wikipedia, the accuser brigns their complaint against the defendant in front of a magistrate (my emphasis):

‘Applications for ASBOs are heard by Magistrates sitting in their civil capacity. Although the proceedings are civil, the court must apply a heightened civil standard of proof. This standard is virtually indistinguishable from the criminal standard. The applicant must prove that the defendant has acted in such a manner beyond all reasonable doubt.’

OK, you might say, so what is the problem?  I know lots of toddlers who display ‘anti-social behaviour’!  Beyond all reasonable doubt, most toddlers DO engage in ‘anti-social behaviour’…  After all, they ARE toddlers.

Yeah, right… But  ASBO is usually issued against ‘football hooligans’ and unruly youths and so on, forbidding specific behaviours.  If the order is broken, and the individual engages in the behaviour prohibited by the order, that individual is subject to arrest.  In other words, it’s sort of a ‘probation’ thingy for specific behaviours.

So, could an ASBO ever be issued to a two-year-old boy?  In England, apparently, it could… and against his sisters, aged 4 and 5 (one of whom is autistic).  From Dvorak Uncensored:

‘A boy aged two has become the youngest Briton ever to be threatened with an Asbo.

Lennon Poyser received the warning along with his sisters Olivia, five, and four-year-old Megan, after neighbours complained about their behaviour.’

And, yes, the kids had been told they could be arrested if they continued in their anti-social behaviour.  While the whole thing had eventually been cleared up as a ‘mistake’, the fact is that such a complaint did go before a judge, been proven to be true ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ to a standard which ‘is virtually indistinguishable from the criminal standard’ and the order was issued and delivered – ALL IN ERROR?!?!?

Sounds to me like things are seriously breaking down in England…

While all this is going on, what are the local councils worried about?  Are they addressing the breakdown of their society? Are they working hard to plug the holes in their governance structures, so 2-year olds won’t get tossed into jail for kicking a football?

Well, not so much…there is no time for that, because they are busy banning apostrophe’s from public signs and Latin phrases from daily speech!

Of course, these are not the only examples – there are too many to fit into an itty-bitty blog post… One would need a few volumes to even scratch the surface!  And, if THIS is how the local councils are attempting to fix their failing social structures, then, in my never-humble-opinion, England is doomed.

4.  Corruption of its governance structures

Britain is the cradle of our modern-day democracy:  the home of the Magna Carta (or is calling it by its Latin name no longer legal in England?)  Its parliamentary system is designed with checks and balances.  It ought to work!

But, when one unelected parliamentarian can assert his will by threats of terrorism – and do so openly, with impunity, and which no consequences – it is unequivocal that the British government has failed in its function.  It has become corrupted and dysfunctional.

And, if this letter can be interpreted as anything other than a threat of increased domestic terrorism should the British government not submit its foreign policy to the will of the Islamist lobby, then I don’t know what it could possibly be.

So far, I think it has been demonstrated that Britain is slowly but surely advancing on the road towards becoming a ‘failed state’.  Are there any signs that it is behaving according to the patterns of such states?  Is it beginning to attempt to impose some totalitarian, oppressive policies it its desperate attempt to stay in control?

Well, perhaps admitting that the state is unable to keep peace after dark is the reason for the imposition of a curfew which bans all teens from being out at night.  And the populace’s response?  They are squabbling about the ‘how’, not the ‘what’ of the order…

Or, how about this?  The British government not allowed – by EU treaties – to control its immigration, so they are going all out to ‘big brother’ every Briton’s travel plans?

That does not even scratch the surface of the British censoring, choking and monitoring of all internet traffic…some of the blarmiest laws about the internet ever!

If THAT were not enough, now the British government is actively encouraging its citizens to go through each other’s garbage in order to report ‘anything suspicious‘…. and attempting to villify anyone who does not approve of being monitored by cameras 100% of the time!

Having considered the above – how far along the road to ‘failed state’ do you think Britain is?

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Existing laws may already allow ‘Thought Police’

March 23, 2009 — xanthippa

Over the last little while, I have been ranting about the ever-increasing legislation to censor our communication.

Let’s not kid ourselves:  governments today are opposed to information being freely available to their citizens.  ‘Regulating’ things gives governments power over its citizens and collecting fees for ‘regulating’ is an important source of revenue for them.  From UN on, the aim of governments is to ‘regulate’:  it gives them both power and money.

It is only when we, the ‘unwashed masses’, show up – wielding pitchforks – and threaten to our legislators with defenestration* that they will unwillingly and grudgingly step back and allow us to keep some of our inherent rights and freedoms!

Still, when we do, we can make a difference:  the New Zealand government is backing off implementing its controversial ‘Section 92A’ of their copyright law, which would force all ISPs to cut off internet access to anyone even accused of copyright violation!  It looks like the internet petition, protests from all sides (except the movie and music industry) and the loud, loud outcry which echoed worldwide did have some effect:  the government will send that section ‘back to committee’ for re-drafting!  But, the fact that they are re-considering it does not mean they will come to a different conclusion… and passing it quietly, once the fuss had died down.

The fact of the matter is that governments will censor and restrict (sorry, they prefer the term ‘regulate’) as much as we, the citizens, will allow them to!  Once something becomes ‘accepted practice’,  there is grounds for it to become part of our laws, whether we like it or not.

What I’m about to write next is a little bit of ‘reductio ad absurdum’ argument, and I freely admit that.  Yet, it does illustrate what I think is an important principle which we ought not loose sight of…

All around the world, we have accepted that governments have the right to regulate ‘the airwaves’.  Of course, the word ‘airwaves’ is a misnomer:  what is mean by this is the transmission of information using electromagnetic radiation (waves) which travel through the air.  Whether it is the US FCC, Canada’s CRTC, Ofcom in Britain,  ARCEP in France or any other nation’s body – the common thread here is that EVERY governments has established that IT has the RIGHT to regulate the transmission of information vie EM waves through the air.

It is on this basis that it licenses – and censors – radio and television stations. It regulates who is allowed to access which wavelengths, and when, and how.

Most of us have come to accept this as their ‘right’ – if not their outright role, and therefore DUTY.

We seem to have simply ‘accepted’ the premise that governments HAVE the right to regulate the transmission of information using EM radiation.  And, undoing such an assumption will be difficult!

Now, I would like to remind everyone of my first law of human-dynamics:  if a law can be abused, it will be!

How often have our legislators (or the bureaucrats who actually control the implementation of any government policy) passed a law, only to later expand its application in ways the populace never dreamed of – and would not have approved, had they understood just how twisted this law can be?  (If you can’t remember, here is an example from Australia…)

Back to my main point:  how does fMRI work?

Well, in layman’s terms, it is a medical imaging device which measures the EM transmissions of our brain as we think.

As in,when we think, our brain actually converts our thoughts (or, perhaps, makes our thoughts) as a form of EM radiation, which it then transmits these waves outside our brain… where this nifty machine can detect them.

But, did we not just accept that our governments have the right to regulate these???


Please, think about it!

Note:  *defenestration – when talking about ‘open-source code’, the word ‘defenestration’ (meaning, ‘out of windows’) becomes a bit of a pun…
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What an evening!

March 21, 2009 — xanthippa

Tonight (OK, so by the ‘clock convention’, it was ‘last night’ – but the sun has not yet risen when I write this, so, to my ‘regimented mind’, this is ‘tonight’) was awesome!

The Neeje Foundation put on an excellent ‘do’!

And, while I would usually avoid (like the plague) an organization whose name and mission statement appears to be as misandristic as this one appears to be.  Yet, the ‘panel’ – as well as the moderator – were irresistable!

While I knew one ‘ought to’ expect brilliance from Tarek Fatah (he is one of my heroes!!!) – and Barbara Kay is no lightweight (metaphorically speaking), either – the whole panel was most awesome!!!

And, I must admit, the topics on which they spoke (and what the panelists said about it) were very relevant:  both in the realms of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the separation of the mosque (church) and state, but also in the fact that both the female panelists addressed (and lamented) the denigration and disenfranchisement of males in our society!

Since so many awesome and brilliant bloggers (and journalists, too) were there (I sat with Kathy Shaidle – she, too, is one of my heroes!!!), I fully expect that there will be most awesome accounts of what was said tonight, written by people more focused and better at actually writing than I could ever aspire to, very, very soon!

Let me just make some simple observations of my own…not necessarily of what was said, but also of what I made of some of the ‘connections’.  Please, note that the following is my construct – I am not quoting the panelists and I do not want to pretend they said the following ‘stuff’ – this is just my interpretation and musings which are the results of my thoughts in response to what was said tonight…  In other words, my conjecture, this should not reflect negatively on anyone else but me….

We are all aware that in many Islamic countries, women have the legal worth or 1/2 that of a man:  from legal testimony to other aspects of life.  Some of the most Islamist countries legally regard women as 1/2-human:  on par with a boy-child, as far as the legal system is concerned.

Now, this is a very contentious issue:  back in the time of Muhammad – in the region of the world where he lived – to be recognized as 1/2-human was a MAJOR step forward in women’s rights!  And, while I have met Muslims who have ‘frozen’ this interpretation of the status of women in Islam at 1/2 that of a man’s status, I have also met Muslim men who have shown that the eventual ‘goal’ of Muhammad was ‘full equality’ of the sexes – he just had to start somewhere!  And, these Muslims insist that the message of Muhammad was NOT to ‘freeze’ the status of women at 1/2-a-human status, but that by ‘taking the first step’, Muhammad was ordering all Muslims to work towards an eventual equality of the sexes.

OK – so this is NOT the interpretation many Islamists are atuned to.  Granted.  But…

Now, I would like to jump to the ‘other part’ of tonight’s presentation:  the minimization and denigration of the importance of the role of ‘father’ and ‘husband-for-life’….  We all know the popular culture is guilty of this – and the panelists provided some very thought-provoking examples, too.

So, this got me thinking….

What happens if a young man is exposed to BOTH messages???

What happens if he is bombarded with the very palpable social message that he is ‘not necessary’ and that he is ‘weighing down’ his beloved and preventing her from achieving ‘true happiness’ through her own denial for the need of his companionship…..AND he is ALSO bombarded by the message that in the most radicalized forms of Islam, the male (husband, father) is not only an integral part of the family – he RULES it?

Would this combination of ‘denial’ on the one hand, and the exaggeration on the other, have a profound impact on Muslim youths???  Could it not be the very vehicle through which their radicalization could be achieved?

I don’t pretend to have the answers…

In fact, it is rather late at night – following a busy and thought provoking evening.  Yet, if you have ideas of how this combination of social pressures might affect our young people, I would love to hear from you!

UPDATE: Deborah Gyapong has a much better post on what was actually presented and discussed by the panelists at the event.  And, she took pictures!

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‘It’s the message that is being censored’

March 20, 2009 — xanthippa

FACT – Freedom Against Censorhip Thailand:  Thought Crime in Bankok and Rangoon-Rule of Lords

I have never heard the principle expressed so clearly and concisely!  (my emphasis)

‘Win Maw, Zaw Min, Aung Zaw Oo and Chiranuch in reality all stand accused of the same crime: a commitment to free speech. Their offences have nothing to do with the technology after which the draconic instruments they purportedly transgressed have been named. The medium offended no one. The stuff that passed through it apparently did. These are not cybercrime laws at all. They are thought-crime laws.‘

This is an important distinction:  the technology did not offend anyone (well, the very existence of it is threatening to some who would like to control all our thoughts, as well as our actions) – the ideas which were passed through this technology did!

All this ‘internet regulation’ is nothing less than thought-crime legislation.  It’s time we started calling it by its real name.

And remember: if a law CAN be abused in any way, shape or form – it WILL BE!!!

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Pat Condell: ‘Free speech is sacred’

March 20, 2009 — xanthippa

Posted in atheism, freedoms, ignosticism, opression, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Xanthippa’s First Law of Human-Dynamics

March 19, 2009 — xanthippa

‘Xanthippa’s first law of human dynamics’:

IF there is a potential for ANY law (rule) to be applied IN EXTREME ways – never forseen when the law was first ‘accepted’ – eventually, it WILL BE!!!

Therefore, every law(rule) MUST be examined in the MOST EXTREME WAY POSSIBLE before it can be ‘accepted’!

Using ‘hyperbole’ or ‘reductio ad absurdum’ when examining the potential impact of any law/rule – existing or proposed – is not just a good thing to do, it is a very, very necessary one.

In order to demonstrate, please, allow me to walk you through this exercise:

Example #1

Several years ago, a law was passed in Australia in order to protect innocent children (we ALL want to protect our children!).  This law’s aim was high and lofty:  to get rid of internet sites which propagate child pornography.

Nobody in their right mind would want to protect anything that might shield child abusers!  So, the law was passed quickly and quietly, with very little scrutiny.  Not ‘only’ would such scrutiny be seen as ‘immoral’ (are YOU on the side of pedophiles?), it would be political suicide (do YOU want to be seen as ‘protecting pedophiles’?)!!!

So, the law got passed by the legislators and accepted by the populace, with very little scrutiny.

Years went by – nothing much happened.

At least, nothing much was SEEN to be happening – for a very, very long time.

Then, about a year ago, the Australian government announced it would ‘begin to apply the law’ more fully.  MUCH more fully!  Now, the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are legally bound (well, they were before, but now it is enforced) to choke and censor and do all kinds of bad things….

The Australian government now has a highly secret list of websites which are banned:  that means, the ISP’s are not allowed to let anyone in Australia access them – and, if someone somehow figured out a way around this, the citizens can be persecuted for accessing them anyway.  Of course, this list is highly secret.  Linking to any of the sites – or, indeed, the very list which informs you what sites are forbidden – can get you $11,000 per DAY in fines and 10 years in jail.

The funny thing is that this super secret list contains a number of sites which are not illegal under this law.  Sites like dentists, or gambling sites – or, political sites, like anti-abortion ones.  Of course, these could be ‘honest errors’ – there must surely exist a mechanism for these ‘error listings’ to get off the list, right???

SO, HOW DO YOU GET OFF ‘THE LIST’???

IF you admit you KNOW that a site is blocked – you are admitting you BROKE THE LAW by attempting to access a ‘banned site’!  10 years in jail for you!!!

And, if you don’t admit you know a site is wrongfully blacklisted – HOW do you ask for it to be removed?

Ah, is that a ‘tiny’ blind spot I see???

Example #2

New Zealand has some pretty ‘nifty’ laws regarding the internet, too!

Here, the legislators were ‘trying to protect intellectual property’ from being stolen.  Apparently, this is necessary in order to comply with the international (and, especially the US) copyright laws…

After all, EVERYONE knows that BAD people are stealing music and movies over the internet!!!  One HAS TO protect the poor little dears who need to eek out a living distributing all this ‘content’!  So, these leeches ‘entertainment industry insiders’ have not evolved with the technology:  they have not adjusted their business-model to the new practice of movies and music being a ‘participatory’ medium…they got stuck in the era where ‘they’ got to dictate ‘content’ and everyone else had to ‘consume it’.

Well, we( the ‘unwashed masses’) are no longer ‘consumers’ – that term implies ‘passive recipients’.  Now, we are all ‘participants in a dialogue’!  This makes it MUCH more difficult for the former ‘producers/distributors’ of content (not the artists – rather, those who decided which ‘content’ has the ‘right message’ and therefore ‘gets distributed’) to control the messages and ideas propagating over the internet!

So, according to the new laws in New Zealand, if ANYONE accusses a person of ‘breech of copyright’, their ISP has to cut them off the internet.  If a site is accused of ‘breech of copyright’, it is no longer allowed to be displayed – by the ISPs, the search engines, or anyone.  The key word here is ACCUSSED!!!  No trial, no hearing, no nothing… you just get ‘cut off’ – and even places like libraries are not allowed to grant you internet access if YOU have been black-listed…and if THEY fail, then THEY get cut off…

Ask Google what THEY think of this!

Example #3:

Each and every one of the ISP’s in England is now legally bound to monitor each and every one of your clicks, emails and messages – to make sure their content is ‘politically correct’!

And – just to add insult to injury, just about EVERY civil servant WILL have FULL ACCESS to their neighbour’s ‘internet history’…

Ah, yes.  We ALL trust every single civil servant with this kind of info… After all, they ARE our ‘Big Brothers’!!!

Couple this with Britain’s submission to the EU – and their ‘Blasphemy Resolutions’ – what would the Inquisition not have given for this kind of power?!?!?

And that does not even mention Canada’s ‘Section 13’ – the ‘Thought Crime’ law!!!

Do I REALLY need to go on?

Just like ‘Murphy’s law’ says that ‘Anything that CAN go wrong, it WILL’, Xanthippa’s first law of Human-Dynamics says that if any law CAN be abused, it WILL!!!

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The first rule of censorship is that you are not allowed to talk about censorship

March 18, 2009 — xanthippa

WOW!!

This sounds like a bad movie!

(Not that ‘Fight Club’ was a bad movie – just that a ‘Government enforced’ version of ‘Fight Club existence’ would be a very, very bad movie!!!)

This is beyond comprehensible!

OK… I’ll slow down enough to fill you in on what I’m talking about.

Imagine a dystopia where the government has a ‘black list’ of things you are not allowed to do and not allowed to talk about.  Or, perhaps, a list of websites you are not allowed to click on.  They are still visible, you are just not allowed to click on them.  IF you breach this strict prohibition, you will be hunted down and punished, with the full weight of the state hurled at you to crush you.

Pretty bad, right?  Where would you say this is taking place?

Well, on the surface of it, you might suggest places like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and, perhaps, Pakistan.  Yet, I speak of a different place…

Perhaps more clues are needed in order for you to recognize the country I speak of:  would it be helpful if I told you that there, this ‘black list’ is actually secret?

Yes, you read this correctly:  nobody KNOWS they have broken the rules until AFTER they have broken the rules!

Do you not believe such a thing could happen today???

Well, you would be wrong.

Not only does it happen in our world, it is happening as we are having our virtual conversation:  and it is happening in a ‘Western Democracy’!!!

The ‘black list’?

Is it some ‘democracy-in-name-only, a country stiffeled under the yoke of the EU oppression?  As in the manner of ‘Prison?  Then is the world one…in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’worst!’

I’m sorry to disappoint you – I am not speaking of a EU nation-state.

I speak of no other place than Australia!!!

Yes, Australia!!!

The Sydney Morning Herald from 17. March 2009 reports:

‘The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites.’

Aside:  Just in case you happened to be in Denmark, or wanted to travel there, and did NOT want to run afoul of the local laws by accidentally clicking on one of the thousands of websites banned in Denmark, the ‘Wikileaks’ page listing them is here.

But, please, consider the implications of this action!!!

  1. A number (a very big number) of websites get banned – people get fined for accessing them, and their internet providers are legally obligated to monitor their subscribers’ activity online and notify the government (and provide them with the necessary documentation, to be used in court) if ANY one of their subscribers accesses one of these sites.
  2. An internet website publishes this list of banned websites:  after all, people ought to KNOW where they are not allowed to click – right???
  3. The internet pages actually providing this public notice are themselves banned – for the very reason that they ARE informing people WHAT is and is not legal!!!

In other words, our governments are wrapping themselves in the cloak of righteous indignation over the ‘problem of internet pedophilia’ and banning websites, left, right and centre (though, mostly right of centre)…NOT just sites that (horrid and reprehensible as they are) abuse kids.  And, to make sure that nobody notices EXACTLY WHAT it is they are banning, they will ALSO ban any pages which actually tell people what it is that is banned!!!

So, the first time you will find out that a site is ‘blacklisted’ is when you loose your internet service and get dragged to court for having ‘clicked on something’!!!

And, if you think that only websites that contain ‘child pornography’ (or whatever euphemism you want to use for this horrible, horrible abuse of kids) are being put onto these ‘blacklists’, please, think again (my emphasis):

‘The site has also published Thailand’s internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian blacklist – 506 sites – would be classified R18+ and X18+, which are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.’

To infinity 10,000 sites – and beyond!!!

‘EFA said the Government’s “spin is starting to wear thin” and it could no longer be denied that the ACMA blacklist targets a huge range of material that is legal and even uncontroversial.’

And, yes, Australia’s ‘blacklist’ of banned websites is also very, very secret.  As a matter of fact, the article suggests that it was the fear that the Aussie list would also ‘get published’ which prompted the Australian government to ban (block access to) sites which list the Danish ‘blacklist’.

Is THIS what our democracies, the only defenders of the individual’s inherent rights to make his or her own choices, have been reduced to?!?!?  If so, then I want a ticket out of here!

(Sorry, I get really, really worked up over this stuff – this is NOT just some hypothetical thing, this is a REAL THREAT to our freedoms!  Now, let’s get some of you people ‘out there’ – who have the right background to make this technically possible – to start working on a censorship-proof subnet… which will, eventually, replace the now so obviously dying internet‘!)

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Making things mesh

March 16, 2009 — xanthippa

In my last couple of posts, I have bemoaned how our beloved internet is being more and more choked and censored.  If you’d like to read them, they are here and here.

It seems to me that as long as the internet is delivered to our homes via physical infrastructure, it will necessarily be endangered.

Why?

Because this infrastructure has to be physically delivered to our homes and offices by someone.

This someone is a public or private company.  Either way, this someone is subject to government regulation.  Therefore, if the government imposes unreasonable demands on this someone, this someone must comply or loose their license to do business in that country.

So, what is the answer?  How do we throw off the shackles of virtual oppression?

In my never-humble-opinion, we must find a way of building up an internet-type place which is accessed without any physical infrastructure.  No satellite signal provider.  No telephone or cable cables carrying our bits and bytes back and forth.  There MUST be another way!

The question now is:  what is the BEST way of doing this?

There are several ways of going about it.  I simply lack the depth of knowledge in this field to know which would be the best solution.  Therefore, I would like to ask everyone’s opinion on some possible ways to go about this…

One possible solution is to build a world-wide mesh.

This is actually rather neat! An area has a whole bunch of little receivers/transmitters which automatically find the best path for a signal to take.  The drawback here is that these nodes have to be installed by someone and one of them has to have a physical connection to the internet itself.  In other words, there is still a problem.

Yet, this could perhaps provide a partial solution…

Do you remember that most awesome initiative by the High-Tech people to help kids in Africa learn:  the ‘one laptop per child’ initiative?  Here, kids in Africa (and elsewhere) would be given some pretty awesome, specialized laptops: this wold allow them to hook up to the world-wide internet and provide them the opportunity to learn!

Yet, the initiative faced a problem:  how can these laptops connect to the internet, when they are given to kids where no internet infrastructure exists?

This was solved by making each and every one of these specialized laptops also work as a node in a mesh network!

That built a ‘mobile ad hoc network’.  The communication protocols for this have already been developed…

In such a network – were it to be spread worldwide – there would not be any central channels or ISPs which could exert control over communication.  Of course, there would be a whole slew of problems with this solution that would need to be worked out before this would be a practical solution.

What I would like to know is if this would be a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

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Divide and Censor

March 14, 2009 — xanthippa

The internet has succeeded in breaking down borders:  political (to some extent) and geographical – with great success.  Paradoxically, it is precisely this success that has created new types of borders.

These ‘virtual borders’ are now between various ‘virtual communities’ which have sprung up around specific fields of interest.

These communities may not be physical, in the old-fashioned sense of communities which get together in one room, yet they are very real communities: rich and vibrant within themselves.  However, there is very little interaction between most of the ‘online communities’.  And, the interaction between these various groups is pretty non-existent.  After all, when there is no reason to interact – why would they?

Yet, this is also our ‘Achille’s heel’ which allows us to be manipulated…

The very fact that there are so many people on the internet, that there are so many different ‘groups’ and ‘communities’ means that we cannot really ‘absorb’ them all into ‘our world’.  Our brains are used to only interacting with a certain number of people (groups) – anything outside of that, we can only conceive of in terms of ‘labels’ and ‘stereotypes’.

(I have gone on and on about this phenomenon in my series of posts on ‘scaling up communities’:  the whole ‘monkeysphere’/’Dunbar’s number thing… the reason why one death is a ‘tragedy’ while a million deaths is a ‘statistic’.)

This is not a bad thing in itself – it is simply the natural way our brain operates.

However, it means that the ‘online community’ is not really one ‘online community’:  rather, it is a mosaic of many, many communities, divided by the strongest border there is:  the border of ‘non interest’

How easy it then becomes for those who wold like to ‘divide and censor’ to manipulate these stereotypes, in order to strip us of our rights, one ‘virtual community’ at a time!!!

Please, consider the following:  for ‘non-techie’ types, what does the phrase ‘peer to peer network’ bring to mind?  Or the name ‘Bit-Torrents’?  Or ‘Pirate Bay’?

Unless I am terribly mistaken, this will make most non-techies think of ‘stealing movies‘:  people who abuse the internet to steal ‘content’ and make it difficult for everyone else.

Yet, my husband and his brother use this method to transmit our family photos to each other:  this way, if our server ever ‘blows up’, we have backups at his house, and vice versa.

My son likes to download ‘public domain’ (i.e. no payment required) games and programming tools, using Bit Torrnets.  No laws are being broken – to the contrary:  many of these people are working hard to improve the internet experience for all of us – free of charge to everybody!

And, there are actually legitimate businesses which use the ‘Bit Torrent’ technology for legitimate, legal, copyright-upholding transactions.

If the terms ‘peer to peer’ and ‘Bit Torrents’ DID make you have a dismissive – or even more negative – reaction, then YOU have been a victim of some wonderful ‘spin’ designed to ‘divide and censor’!!!

And, that does not even take into consideration what happened with ‘Pirate Bay’:  this company was operating WITHIN THE LAW!  Yet, the US movie industry did not like what they were doing:  so, they ‘influenced’ the US lawmakers, who ‘influenced’ the Swedish government, who – despite the advice of its own lawyers that the company is not breaking any laws – Swedish or international – the Swedish government ORDERED A POLICE RAID on the company’s business and siezed its assetts!!!

How is that even possible?

Yet, most ‘online communities’ think this is ‘just kids stealing movies’ – why loose sleep over it?

WHY?

Because it sets precedents, that’s why!!!

In my never-humble-opinion, I have found that most ‘online communities’ outside the ‘dedicated techies’ just could not care about the issues of ‘Bit Torrents’ and ‘channel choking’!

On the other hand…

I have as yet to meet ‘dedicated techies’ – on or off-line – who pay much attention to the ‘Free Speechers’!!!  Yeah, a bunch of people, going on about court cases and nazis – so what?  Instead, they try to figure out how to technically circumvent the latest form of censorship of their channels…

Then there are the people who are fighting the ‘Creeping Sharia/Anti-Islamists’ – they do, to some extent, overlap with the ‘Free Speechers’.  But, not totally.  They show little interest in the curbing of free speech, if it does not involve Islamists – come on, be honest!  And the Free Speechers do support the ‘Creeping Sharia/Anti-Islamists’ to a great extent – especially when it comes to the suppression of free speech on the topic of Islamist atrocities….

I suggest that the overlap between these two groups is so great because they are currently both threatened from similar sources.  And, I suggest that the ‘techies’ do not overlap with these two groups because the danger to them is coming from a ‘completely different direction’!

But, is it???

I suggest to you that it is NOT.

I know, I am not doing a good job of expressing here what I am trying to say.  I have re-written this at least 5 times, and it is getting worse, not better….  I feel like my ‘focus’ is slipping away as I try to make my explanations understandable – while when I gloss over the explanations and focus on my main point, the whole thing sounds hollow, because the explanations are too shallow to make much sense…

So, please, let me try to speak more plainly….  I’ll go to point form – then, whatever needs to be covered deeper, please, comment on and I will do my best to expand on it.

1.  We can only enjoy our level of online freedom (which translates into practical freedom in ‘off-line’ life) if the internet remains ‘free’ (NOT monetarily – just as in ‘not censored’)

2.  Freedom of Speech is constantly being attacked in our society… several completely different guises and excuses

3.  The ‘ human rights’ component:  the ‘Free Speechers/Anti-Islamists’ are aware of this one
– The UN submission to ‘Blasphemy laws’ (and their desire to force all of its member nations to comply with these)
– The ‘Human Rights Commissions’ and their thought police, political correctness busybodies…
– The EU’s manipulation… even legalizing pedophelia under the guise of ‘tolerance’ -Lisbon treaty… mandatory…
– Can you say ‘Geert Wilders’?

4.  The ‘commercial/IP rights’ component:
– Powerful lobbies from entertainment AND soft&hardware makers are succeeding in reducing ‘consumer rights’
– ‘Fair use’ is more and more limited – companies have the right for more and more intrusive ‘monitoring’
– ‘Consumer privacy’ is being legislated away

5.  The ‘community protection’ component
– Under the guise of ‘community protection’, more and more privacy is being legislated away
– More and more intrusive methods of monitoring are being implemented: ostensibly to protect kids from pedophelia (!!!)
– ‘Accussation’ of something triggers penalties as if one were found ‘guilty’, to stop them ‘doing harm’ IF they were guilty…
– And, this falls loosely into this ‘community protection’ – but we are talking about the ‘environmental fascism’ movement,  which is also pushing for more intrusive ‘monitoring and compliance’ for ‘stuff’ in order to ‘protect’ – yet which is also practicing censorship in a very real way…  Personally, I think these are eco-statists, who are undermining the health of our environment by attempting to ‘freeze it’ in its current state – but that is a different rant.  Yet, they ARE a very real part of this ‘censorship’ puzzle…

To sum it up:  this is a bit of a ‘picer move’ happening.  No, I don’t think there is a wide-ranging conspiracy thingy happening! Yet, the effects of each of these separate forces are in the same directions, and are supportive of each other. Sort of like wawes, that build upon each other, rising in amplitude as one is superimposed over the other….until it sweeps all notions of ‘Freedom of Speech’ out to sea!!!

Because there IS a connection:  the GOVERNMENT is the connection.  It is our government which controls the laws on how ‘human rights’ are – or are not – observed.  And, it is the government who passes the ‘consumer’ laws.  AND, it is the government which REGULATES the industries:  and, any industry ‘actor’ which would not ‘comply’ with government regulation will loose its license to do business…while compliance with the government policies in a highly regulated marketplace usually equals (or comes close to) a monopoly for the company doing the complying…

All the ‘threads’ lead back to the same place… givning our governments grweater and greater control over every aspect of our lives.  And, while I think most democracies are not ‘intentionally evil’, I AM very suspicious of the bureaucracies which run the governments…  I have seen too many high-level bureaucrats who are much too skilled at handling the elected governments…

So, what we need to do is to get all these diverse groups which would be affected by the end of the internet as we know it (and as I have written about in my last post), and begin comparing notes.  Because, people may not always be ‘smart’, but we are always ‘clever:  those who would oppress – whether for ideological or commercial reasons – there are laws which give someone (government, business – whatever) an ability to oppress, people will ALWAYS find the maximum possible way to do the oppressing.

That is just human nature…

So, we need to seriously begin comparing notes! Not to dismiss each other, because of the ‘labels’ applied to the different online communities by those who would like to eliminate us!  Because, if we stay divided, each of us will only see a bit of the picture – and none of us will build a sufficient defense…if that were even possible!

I suppose one could call it a case of ‘DIVIDE AND CENSOR’!

And, perhaps, we need to begin to build an alternative to the internet:  something where there will not be centralized ‘providers’ who can be contrlolled by governments (and thus become tools of censorship) – yet, which would connect us all, the way the internet does now.  A sort of an ‘ungerground internet’, if you please… a SUBNET!  I don’t know HOW, but knowing we must beging to think about it is a start!

Sorry to have rambled on so long….and for sounding so ‘preachy’.  Perhaps it’s my Cassandra complex that’s kicking in.  It’s just that – I can see it happening!

And I don’t know how to fix it… and it really, really frightens me!

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, religion, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

‘Ham radio’ internet

March 12, 2009 — xanthippa

OK, this is getting very, very scary.

A while ago, I wrote about a proposed idea to alter the way Canadians access the internet:  instead of ‘connecting’ to the ‘Great Wide Web’ and navigating it freely, this ‘model’ would more closely resemble the way Cable companies allow customers to access various TV channels.  The internet denier provider would ‘bundle’ the most ‘desirable’ websites, just like TV channels are ‘bundled’ by Cable providers.  Accessing anything outside of these bundles would be either very, very expensive – or not available at all.

Couple this with the calls by Barbara Hall of the Ontario ‘Commission for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice’ Human Rights Commission to shackle ALL journalists and bloggers with a ‘Canadian Broadcast Standards Council’– like body which would censor ALL the written (virtual or printed) words in Canada!  Not a pretty picture!!!

Yet, my beloved Canada is  not the only place under siege!

Now, the UK is proposing EXACTLY the same scheme!!!

This would mean that unless a website or blog was ‘influential enough’ to muscle its way onto the ‘approved’ list for a particular ‘bundle’ of websites ‘offered’ by an ISP, it would be 100% invisible and unaccessible to the UK internet subscribers!

Yes, this is even more limiting than the Canadian proposal, which sought to make ‘non-approved’ sites economically unavailable.  This model would make them ‘virtually non-existent’!!!

And, let’s not forget UK’s recently adopted policy of allowing the police to routinely hack into private people’s internet accounts without a warrant….

And, that is barely the tip of the proverbial ice berg!!!

Let’s look at the laws proposed for New Zeland:  at the end of March (miracle notwithstanding), ALL internet service providers will be legally forced to cease to provide any and all internet access to any IP address which has been ACCUSED of a copyright violation!

No, you did not misread this.  The mere ACCUSSATION by the movie/music industry that a person MIGHT be in violation of a copyright held by them (third party accussations would be ‘acceptable’) will LEGALLY BIND the ISP to STOP providing any and all internet access to that IP address!

All this is made ‘possible’ by Section 92A of the Copyright Act of New Zealand.  It was supposed to come into force at the end of February, but, due to the online petition opposing it, the NZ parliamentarians delayed the implementation for one month.

And what of Australia?

THEY have passed laws giving up any and all internet privacy rights – and the access to the internet – years ago.  These laws were passed in the name of ‘protecting children’ from the evils of the internet:  pornography and pedophelia.  Right…  As a parent, I take active part in the raising of my kids:  and I do NOT need ANYBODY ELSE to monitor my kids’ online activities!  And, I really, really resent the implication that I am (or, rather, the Australian parents are) so irresponsible or incompetent that the state has to step in and raise my kids for me!!!  This is insulting in the extreme!

Of course, most of the people in Australia had been lulled into a false sense of security because these laws had not actually been applied – to the full letter of the law – for quite a while.  So, if people NOW started to protest these laws – even though these had been in place for years – they would look silly….  Yet, it is only now that the Australian government has announced that they plan to enforce these laws to the EXTREME LETTER of the law!

This is a beautiful trick.  Governments draft a law – like the Australian government did with this law – to ostensibly ‘protect our children’.  Nobody (especially politicians) wants to look like they want to ‘enable pedophiles’ – so these types of laws often get passed quickly, with little dissent and little  close examination.

Yet, as I am fond of pointing out, if there is an ‘extreme’ way to interpret a law – especially if this extreme gives some decisionmakers the power over the populace – it WILL (eventually) be applied to such an extreme!!!

Of course, now we also have the UN attempting to FORCE its member states to make its ‘Blasphemy Resolution’ legally binding within their jurisdiction.

PLEASE – PUT ALL THIS TOGETHER!!!

Soon, we may loose the internet – in the form where we know it now!

Which is why I am putting out a challenge to each and every one of you:  let’s find a non-IP-dependant alternative!!!

Just like ‘ham radios’ operate without a central service provider, but rather form a wireless peer-to-peer network, so WE need to find a similar way to build an alternate internet network.

OK, so the’ham radio’ bandwidth is very, very narrow, and thus subject to jamming and environmental disruptions and all kinds of other problems.  Yet, it provides a useful model for us to emulate.

We need some of you, brilliant young scientists and hackers, to think long and hard – and find a working solution.

Yes, there was the idea of consumers actually owning their own internet connection….yet, under the current political climate, I doubt this will ever come to be – even if the technology is perfected and affordable.

So, please, get started on developing this new idea – no-provider, no-censor, no-control new-fangled version of the internet!  Because what we have now is about to die…and, without a ‘new generation’, this whole past 30-year period will be consigned to be no more than a note in dusty, locked-up and guarded (lest people read them) history books!!!

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Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . 10 Comments »
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