Saturday, January 31, 2009

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

by John Perry Barlow

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland

February 8, 1996

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

TechWorld

An article on who doesn't want it and why.

ZNet Poll

ZNet ran a poll on Net Filtering. Now Mr Wallace loves his polls but this one seems to be saying the opposite of the polls he was making his decisions on.

Many of the concerns outlined in the comments in favour of the filter can be addressed by people installing their own filter software. One comment indicates that the PC based filter didn't work as well as the writer had hoped. So, does he expect that the technology will work better deployed on an ISP server? Wouldn't it yeild similar results.

ZNet - Conroy tries to gag oposition (Oct 08)

This is an old article.

The article states that Conroy tried to silence vocal opponents of his plan to completely stuff the internet.

Comments:

In the comments one person indicates that the current 128 bit encryption may be dropped down to 48 bit encryption. This would mean that banking would cease to be secure. If the government wants to look at encrypted data do they imagine that there would be anything to stop criminals from looking too.

Gamers:

A group that I never considered was the online gamers. Slower internet speeds will introduce lag. So, essentially, when you are playing a game against other users slow internet will mean that you will have been shot and not know it or you'll be shooting at someone but they wont be there anymore. People like these games. They are legal to own and play. Many have spent substantial money on XBox or Play Station units. Much of the functionality will be gone.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A Survey

Netspace did a survey of its clients on whether they wanted Conroy's filter. Mr Wallace will probably ignore this data because it doesn't agree with his position. The overwelming percentage of respondents did not want mandatory filtering. Even people who would take up an optional filter that would reduce their internet to a G rating didn't think it should be compulsory.

The about 5% of people wanted it implimented. This is not a mandate for Conroy's filter. This is a frightened minority forsing its views on the public.

Letter SMH

After Mr Wallace's attack on everyone who didn't attend his church from the 25th it is a relief to see that he did not get a single letter of support in the SMH letters page. Perhaps the SMH letters editor put his letter up as a straw man so that everyone could attack it. If so good on them. The likes of Mr Wallace are always doing that and the public seems to lap it up.

Letters page 27th - link to come

Letters page 26th

Technical difficulties

For all the people out there who say: "well, why don't we just try ISP filtering" or similar this is your answer. ISP companies are trying to tell you that this wont work. If you want to know whether it is a good idea to run your car on metho instead of petrol you ask a mechanic. Do you then say that he doesn't know what he is talking about and abuse him for not letting you just try it?

Internet professionals know enough about ISP filtering to know that what Conroy is proposing wont achieve the stated goals and will give false results and allow too much targeted content through.

Bob Debus

"[P]reventing information flow, communication or the exchange of art, film and writing on the internet is a task only King Canute would attempt."

Bob Debus, (then) NSW Attorney General, Speech at the OFLC International Ratings Conference 2003.

Wont somebody think of the children!?

I say: "Wont somebody think of the adults!?"

I don't want a G rated internet. I want it to be intellectually stimulating and challenging. Conroy wants it to be Play School. Idiocracy here we come!

Monday, January 26, 2009

GetUp

Porn Generated Economic Recovery

The Rudd government is out painting rocks with its net filter rubbish. Larry Flynt and Joe Francis of Hustler and Girls Gone Wild respectively have a much better idea. Why don't they offer a stimulus package to the normal pornography and adult industry? They would have to be careful that all this extra sex doesn't cause a spike in the take up of baby bonus payments.

News.com.au
guardian.co.uk
Yahoo News

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Nick Minchin

Once again I find myself distrubingly aligned with Senator Minchin. I hope I'm not turning Liberal (the party, I'm already liberal in my attitudes).

The Senator once again points the finger at lazy parents who blame the government for their lack of ability or desire to parent teenagers.

How the secret list will be abused:

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) found themselves on a blocked list run by SurfWatch in 2000. The EFA does not have and has never had explicit content... however, they have always objected to internet filtering.

Link:

Rhetoric from the current government suggests that everything is different now and that lists will be carefully (but secretly) maintained. I suggest that every site criticising the idea will be on the list. History doesn't repeat but it often rhymes.

SMH - Jim Wallace

Jim Wallace's opinion piece is best described as lazy and dogmatic.

So, I've opted for a lazy, unstructured stream of thought response which I typed as I read his opinion piece.

For a start, the title: "Filtering the Filth". Who are you to tell me what is filth? Why would I value your opinion over my own? Mr Wallace mistakes the nature of his forum. He is not standing at a pulpit preaching to a room full of doe-eyed, wish-thinking Christians looking for a free ride to heaven. In this public forum you need to offer some proof for statements. Your dusty old book is not proof here. Jesus is your imaginary friend, you do what he says.

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl Sagan

Why would I trust your spin on the minimal effects to internet speeds and usability over the considered, informed opinions of internet experts. You are talking outside of your field of expertise here, Mr Wallace. You may hope that a net filter wont the harm the internet but your opinion in this matter is not supported by industry experts. I suspect that you, like most Christians, fear the power of the internet, its power to allow people access to information so that they can form their own opinions. This is the intellectual laziness that most Christians wallow in.

Why would we want to implement a system that wont work in the hope that it will work in the future? This approach doesn't work with the mass changeover to green power or electric cars. They clearly can't fulfill our current requirements so the onus to perfect them first is put back onto the developers. They need to show that their idea is working now. Your refrigeration model differs to the current argument in that refrigerators were not made compulsory during their developmental stage and we aren't being told to degrade a system that 95% of people (based on the low takeup of the Howard government's free filter) just don't see as being broken.

93%?
. EFA says it is a misleading statistic:
. 2003 is ancient history in internet time.
. 377 is not a conclusive poll
. the filter discussed in the question is different to the filter being offered now.
. 5% take up of current free government NetAlert software speaks more of the public's desire for filtration.
. If you don't know how, your ISP would have helped. ISP help desks were not overrun with people concerned about this.
. Your computer shop would have put NetAlert on your computer if you'd asked them especially if your insisted before paying for it. It would be a 5 minute job for a junior staff member.
. Even if you have to pay for it, it would be cheaper than the ISP level filter on offer. Remember, tax money is your money. It doesn't come from a magic money tree.

As his letter rolls on, Mr Wallace's arguments tend towards the real issue. This filter is not to stop child pornography. It is trying to legislate hysterical christian anti-porn laws. Teenagers looking at pornography is not child porn. That is young adults being curious. Real education would satisfy their curiosity with real information but real sex education is discouraged by church groups.

GetUp's campaign has been supported and funded by 95,000 people. This is not a flash in the pan. These are people who have seen a problem and gone looking for a solution. Mr Wallace's main problem with GetUp, is suspect, is that people joined GetUp to change society instead of joining a church. Joining a church to change society is like trying to drive only looking in the rear vision mirrors. They never look forward they just cling to the past.

Again, refrigeration is not a good parallel buying a refrigerator was never going to be made compulsory. Similarly, owning a computer or being online is not compulsory. If people are that concerned about porn don't go online.

Now the argument has moved to the sex industry. Mr Wallace does not understand that child pornography, normal pornography depicting normal sexual acts between consenting adults, just like him, and prostitution are entirely different things. I have never seen an online brothel. I don't see how the concept would work, frankly.

It is one thing to say that we are having a trial only at this stage. Conroy gives so little information about what the trial will entail and is pushing so hard to have this scheme implemented that I do not believe that the results of the trial will have any influence on whether the filter will be implemented. He has been told that this wont work by industry experts. What if engineers told him that building a skyscraper from used tissues was a bad idea, would he order a 40 million dollar trial. Ideas that will not work don't need to be trialed to show that they wont work. Wait... I'm talking to a Christian... illogical ideas that don't work are your favourite kind.

92% success is not successful blocking, this is just going to make 8% of websites very popular with Australian surfers. The other 92% of websites will not take long to catch up with that 8% of how best to be ignored by the filter.

I don't think that the trial will prove me wrong. I think that the trial's results will be ignored and Conroy will bow to mindless pressure and implement it anyway regardless of the consequences.

Harm to children:
If up to 84% of children have been harmed by porn, what are their symptoms? What is the treatment? Does it have a medical sounding name that we can all be very frightened of? Was the exposure accidental of were the teenagers involved looking for porn. If it was purely accidental why is the figure skewed towards boys? Wouldn't that indicate that these teenagers were looking for it?

Don't try to medicalise your religious view that teenagers shouldn't learn about sex because sex is only for adults who's union has been sanctioned by your church. The church uses sex as a way to gain power over people. If the church loses its mandate over matters sexual, like it has lost its mandate over most every issue, it will cost at the tithe box. That's all that matters really.

How do you know that bestiality sites show images of non-consentual sex? How much consent does a dog have to give as he's humping away there? This is not to my taste but you have to show that it was non-consentual sex if that's your claim.

Rape and child porn sites are abhorrent. This money would be better spent tracking down and prosecuting rapes and child abuse.

Parents need to parent. They are smarter than the average pew-bots that Mr Wallace has contact with. Why should society be reduced down to the lowest common denominator? Idiocracy here we come!

What are the dreadful repercussions again? You are saying there are dreadful repercussions. I would expect that if 80% of male teenagers have seen porn online that there should be thousands of teenagers walking the street mentally and physically ill choking the medical and psychiatric systems... wait, that's not happening. Perhaps their parents are treating them at home for these serious porn injuries.

Mr Wallace has stated his claims but he hasn't made his case. He has made the paper and that will probably keep church funding coming in at acl.org.au and keep him in a job.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Helen Razor

Helen Razor makes a valid point with her article in the SMH. Why isn't she allowed to look at pornography? Why is she allowed to look at a cookbook when she is uninspired in the kitchen but not allowed to look at pornography when she is uninspired in the bedroom.

If she is less able to function happily in her sexual life without access to normal pornography doesn't that make pornography part of her sexual orientation? Is the government making laws against people of this sexual orientation? Is this against their own anti-vilification laws?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Atheist Bus Campaign reviewed by the Advertising Bus Campaign

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has cleared the Atheist Bus Campaign. Complaints were lodged but the ASA ruled that the "campaign did not breach the advertising code or mislead consumers and that it therefore would not launch an investigation."

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Moral Panic Begone

A US task force has discovered that the threat to children from online sexual predators is nominal at best. Another blow to Conroy's idea that the internet's real world equivalent is a dark back alley full of armed, crack-pushing pedophiles with huge erections.

The New York Times article is a bit more detailed. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, dismissed the report thus:
(The report) “downplayed the predator threat,” relied on outdated research and failed to provide a specific plan for improving the safety of social networking.

“Children are solicited every day online,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Some fall prey, and the results are tragic. That harsh reality defies the statistical academic research underlying the report.”

So, what he's saying is that the report doesn't support his fear campaign. The bog-standard dismissal of non-supporting data as based on nasty statistics and research looks like the usual trick to keep the voters frightened.