17887294
submission
mpawlo writes:
Since a few years I have been thinking about a Kyoto style protocol for net.freedom. I am thinking about a protocol for nations to follow to establish some ground rules to keep the Internet freedom alive, just the way the Kyoto protocol did for the environment. Sure, the Kyoto protocol has so far not saved the environment. But it keeps the issues on the agenda. So will a protocol for Internet freedom. I think five basic principles would be enough to ensure "Internet freedom" (whatever that is). The five principles are: "Freedom to access", "freedom to encryption", "non-censorship", "no surveillance" and "this is not about copyright". My suggestion involves setting up a task force to actually carve out a text states can sign plus carrying out the diplomacy involved in getting it done. I am sure someone can draft this more eloquently and please do. I am aware of previous tries carried out by the EFF and others, but I think they all have been too ambitious. Keeping it this simple will be hard enough. Not many states today would sign-up for freedom to any of the five basic principles. But should we accept it?
With Wikileaks being more or less thrown of the Internet I thought it was time to actually publish my ideas and see what happens. If my naivety makes you laugh, well, then at least I created some more happiness. Wikileaks is interesting, because I am not even sure I like what it does. But I think it deserves better treatment as a netizen. And so do many more. So here it is. My suggestion for a Kyoto style protocol for net.freedom.
17856764
submission
mpawlo writes:
It seems like Wikileaks is finally starting to learn that corporations do not provide free speech or services as such. This week Wikileaks has not been able to use Amazon's cloud service, then its domain name hosting got into trouble, then some of its other hosting disappeared and now Paypal "permanently restricts" Wikileaks account. This due to EULA violations, namely "payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity". The Web and the Internet is fantastic to facilitate free speech, but in practice there is no real safeguards for it, when the sh*t hits the fan for real. You may be a supporter or a non-supporter to Wikileaks, but that is in my opinion the real story here.
15443134
submission
mpawlo writes:
Hari Prasad, a researcher working with J. Alex Halderman, Ed Felten and Rop Gonggrijp on a (highly) critical study of flaws in Indias e-voting system was arrested by ten police officers in Hyderabad, India yesterday. It appears this is a political arrest to unveil the groups anonymous source whom provided a voting machine to the group's study.
15405652
submission
mpawlo writes:
According to Swedish tabloid Expressen, Wikileaks founder Mr Julian Assange is wanted in Stockholm by the Swedish police, suspected for rape. According to the article the rape suspicion concerns two women. If this is real or a setup, I have no idea...
196721
submission
mpawlo writes:
Patrik Wallstrom of Gnuheter fame has released his new privacy project Creeper. Creeper is basically a picture you place on your blog, website or bittorrent tracker site. Creeper will check the IP of everyone accessing the blog, web site etc and do a lookup into a predefined database over governmental agencies. The result is aggregated on a publicly accessible web site. Creeper will disclose a lot of interesting information regarding how and when governmental officials use their computers and what they monitor at work.
The project was initiated in Sweden a few weeks ago and has already raised serious concerns over privacy matters in Sweden.
One of the three letter combination-agencies was discovered monitoring a password protected piracy bittorrent site, i.e. it hacked the web site and kept track of everything happeningthere. This will probably keep happening for six months or so, until all agencies will learn to cover their tracks and use other IP numbers and so forth. Or perhaps the ignorance will continue... Meanwhile, we can all learn what to expect in terms of surveillance and Big Brother tendencies online.
An independent German "Creeper" should be released any day now ("überwach" it is called and is not related to Creeper). Patrik is willing to offer the code to anyone interested in releasing the corresponding service in other countries.
