This may not go here, but...

[Gato_Solo]

The good news is that plans to propose a U.N. takeover of the Internet at this week’s World Summit on the Information Society seem to have been shelved for the moment,. Faced with a storm of protest, and difficulty in agreeing on what to do, the governments who favored such a move have backed down for the moment.

The bad news is that they won’t stay backed down. The Internet is too much of a threat to the world’s governing classes to go unanswered.


The other good news is that the longer they wait to try to set up a regime that will give government officials control over what people read and say, the harder it will be for them to pull it off. And in this game, the delay works very much in the interests of freedom. Bureaucracies — especially international bureaucracies — tend to move slowly. Things on the Internet, on the other hand, tend to move quite rapidly. This means that the Internet is “inside the decision curve” of the bureaucracies.

The other bad news is that that’s a huge advantage, but not an insuperable one: The bureaucracies may not have time or technology on their sides, but they do have guns, and access to a lot of (other people’s) money. Despite the brave talk of the world’s cyber-libertarians, if push ever really came to shove, governments could probably shut down the Internet, or at least the parts of it they don’t like.

Interesting read, eh?

 

[Gonz]

Tried it & nobody carred. I find it fascinating though. At least we have a couple of years of peace & mayhem left.

 

[MrBishop]

I see, in my minds eye, mile after mile of servers in Switzerland, echoing pages which used to reside in Free-America.

They'd have to literally take down the whole internet and at the rate at which it is growing, this would be a nigh impossible task. Hell, taking it down 15 years ago would have been difficult, can you imagine trying to stop it now? Ha!

Let'em try...they'll ahve so many viruses on their networks that they won't be able to type the letter "h" before rebooting

 

[Gato_Solo]

I see, in my minds eye, mile after mile of servers in Switzerland, echoing pages which used to reside in Free-America.

They'd have to literally take down the whole internet and at the rate at which it is growing, this would be a nigh impossible task. Hell, taking it down 15 years ago would have been difficult, can you imagine trying to stop it now? Ha!

Let'em try...they'll ahve so many viruses on their networks that they won't be able to type the letter "h" before rebooting

Considering that the internet was a US government invention, don't you think that they'd have incorporated some kind of failsafe...just in case?

 

[Kawaii]

Hah! I'll go any lengths(well, except suicide or severe crippling) to see to that the Internet isn't taken over by the UN. This is our slice of heaven. Don't you fucking dare touch it.

 

[AlladinSane]

Considering that the internet was a US government invention, don't you think that they'd have incorporated some kind of failsafe...just in case?

in fact I ever counted on it. Though, american invention or not, the structure and technology is ordinary knowledge these days, so that if only US tried to poof it out it could be rebuilt with at least part of its strenght...

 

[chcr]

Considering that the internet was a US government invention, don't you think that they'd have incorporated some kind of failsafe...just in case?

I don't know, Gato. I'm sure they think they can, not so sure they could. Occasionally they're pretty technologically inept. I think the Arpanet relates to the internet as my old TRS-80 relates to my Athlon 2200. Nukes in the upper atmosphere would probably do the job though (EMP).

 

[Gato_Solo]

I don't know, Gato. I'm sure they think they can, not so sure they could. Occasionally they're pretty technologically inept. I think the Arpanet relates to the internet as my old TRS-80 relates to my Athlon 2200. Nukes in the upper atmosphere would probably do the job though (EMP).

Nope. Guess again. The government has enough clout to actually shut down all communications if it's decided to be 'in the interest of national security'. That means no telephone, television, nor internet. If you think there is no 'off' switch, you are sadly mistaken. Satellites are encoded, and guess who has the master code for all US satellites? I know several people who can tap into any satellite in orbit, if needs be. The government is more technologically savvy than you think.