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Submission + - India's net neutrality campaign picks up steam, sites withdraw from internet.org 2

arvin writes: The Huffington Post reports on prominent Indian websites withdrawing from Facebook's internet.org initiative.

The net neutrality debate in the country has focused on zero-rating, where ISPs offer a free data plan which provides access to a set of websites that pay to be included. Internet.org provides free access to Facebook, Bing, Wikipedia and a few other websites. Another similar service, Airtel Zero, lost its flagship partner as e-commerce company Flipkart withdrew following a social media backlash.

Net neutrality activists believe that as these plans proliferate, access to the open internet will become extremely expensive or unavailable, innovation will slow as for startups are prevented from reaching the market, and the competitive consumer ISP market will be replaced with a cartel negotiating against internet companies.

In a campaign similar to that in the US, over 630,000 Indians sent responses to their regulator through the website savetheinternet.in.

Comment College Funds? (Score 1) 74

Do you need to earn "Crime pays" kind of money to fund college funds for 4 children in America?

I don't know whether he wants his kids to have a good education or whether he thinks they'll make better master criminals with a degree & a job in Wall Street :)

But at the very least he thinks a child's education is important, which is more than most.

Comment A whole generation grew up with PCQ Linux (Score 3, Informative) 39

I started using Linux before I got internet or was in a university. I wouldn't have started on Linux (and eventually interned at FSF India) if not for those streams of CDs that were available for a very expensive 100rs (approx 3$ back then).

This wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of toolz. And several others who were behind the curtain (I remember calling up the Digit phone # to ask for help with my i810 video card).

The result was a grass-roots up linux community that sprung up all over India, out of curiousity and tolerating lots of lost partitions.

Both toolz & OldMonk, linux-india old-timers recently lost to us, will not be forgotten (at least by me).

Comment Is "Securing elections" a euphemism? (Score 2) 85

That guy: I can secure that election for you, very cheap & virtually bulletproof.

I don't mean to challenge whatever white-hat work that Kevin Mitnick is doing, but the phrase does indeed strike me as something a lobbyist (or well, tout) would tell me. Perhaps I'm just cynical.

Trust in the democratic process is as important as the actual security of the process. So I would suspect that anything Mitnick finds will be discussed behind closed doors - and it's none of my business, but this does not add any more unless I trust Mitnick (viz not at all).

Comment You morons! You are playing right into their plot! (Score 4, Insightful) 129

Wrong forum to say this, but listen to me, all you call yourselves Anonymous!

Forget about "V for Vendetta". Now, take a history lesson from someone who's not of the first world and grew up in a communist paradise.

Guy Fawkes did British revolutionaries a complete disservice. First up, he was a religious nutjob who wanted to kill a king for religious intolerance. The end result of which was that finally the king had a real good & proper reason to hunt down the catholics. The ordinary catholics ended up in a long drawn struggle and bore most of the collateral damage out of the actions of an anarchistic commune. Those thirteen proved to be as bad for the catholics as the original.

With the new "Guy Fawkes" vigilantes are similarly giving ammunition to the government to grab control of the internet, choke down every protest fair or otherwise. You assholes aren't fighting authority, you're just the reason giving their oppression legitimacy in the eyes of the people who don't want to be accidentally your targets for the lulz.

And here's some advice from my dad, "If you really want to be a rebel, live for the rebellion, don't die for it". Now, if you want to be a martyr instead ... don't take me down with you.

Censorship

Submission + - Argentina Censors Millions Of Websites 3

bs0d3 writes: A judge in Argentina ordered ISPs to block two websites--leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com . According to google many isps have simply blocked the ip 216.239.32.2 instead of a targeted dns filter. Several million blogspot blogs are hosted at this ip.

Freedom of speech advocate Jillian York writes:

IP blocking is a blunt method of filtering content that can erase from view large swaths of innocuous sites by virtue of the fact that they are hosted on the same IP address as the site that was intended to be censored. One such example of overblocking by IP address can be found in India, where the IP blocking of a Hindu Unity website (blocked by an order from Mumbai police) resulted in the blocking of several other, unrelated sites. As Andrade points out, "There are other less restrictive technical procedures than the one used, which allow ISPs to comply with court orders fully, while affecting only the sites involved."

Comment NIMBY - Let France do it (Score 1) 364

From what I can see, I hope the European Union survives till then (with Greece, Portugal and Ireland in it), but if it does, most of the new nuclear reactors in France would be powering the industrial complex of Germany.

In some sense, that does make a lot of sense to have a single nation throw their weight behind a tech and sort of specialize in it. On the other hand, naming Fukushima as a cause is just political pandering of the lowest kind.

Comment Yeah! ... The Almighty buck is no more! (Score 2, Insightful) 519

As someone sitting in India, I love this move. Sure my paycheck is going to suffer once they start cashing in all the dollars from their reserves and the rupee strengthens. But as a long term measure this is just absolutely required.

The dollar jumped to the forefront of all this because (IMHO) they managed to ensure OPEC only sells using dollars. But if Russia, China, Brazil and (hopefully) Iran starts selling things in other currencies, US loses the critical ability to just print out more dollars to pay off their deficits or the bring down the world economy just to get out of jail free. Which is what China's aiming for, I guess. And Manmohan Singh was one of the most famous finance ministers in India, responsible for the economic liberalization of the 90s, I guess he knows what he's doing as well.

The fall of the dollar is a big deal for the developing world.

Comment But is it heavier than air? (Score 1) 152

Somehow I get the weird feeling that this is a helium filled lighter than air or at least neutral buoyancy device with wings.

On the other hand, in the video it's uncannily like a bird in its flght movements and extremely agile on turns. I'm guessing this is an experiment to work out the mechanics of creating a flapping wing rather than on figuring out how to deliver lifting power off it.

Comment Pedigree speaks for itself (Score 4, Insightful) 246

The guy's more comfortable with Microsoft, he's got shares in it, he talks to the people, he knows Microsoft. Now, Google is a totally different beast there - they're doing exactly the same thing, i.e just make an OS, but they're not really Mr Elop's circle.

And oh, yeah ... it is also a very distinct conflict of interest when SEC stops him from selling all his MS Stock and buying NOK instead. It's like the rules tilted this particular crusade to a windmill.

I love my Nokia phones and I've never bought any other. For the brief period I worked for Ericsson, I was shocked to realize the depth of their patent portfolio, especially when it comes to UX stuff. I can guess those guns will be aimed at Apple first, while it's leaderless without Steve, but eventually the aim's going to turn around and point at Android.

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