War on the Internet -- What's the RI game-plan?

[JackRiddler]

The copyright cops shutting down entire domains. Attack on Wikileaks and its mirrors and potentially anyone even quoting the damn cables. Countries like Australia considering lists of forbidden sites. Making ISPs liable for hosted content. US military's Cybercom is officially activated. Net neutrality on the brink as ISPs like Comcast look to impose tiered service. Efforts to enforce uniform fair-use rules by law rather than court suit.

I don't want to be alarmist and these are mostly separate campaigns but now it's all speeding up at the same time, as the interests who want to end or control the free Internet for various reasons are on convergent offensives. It can hit RI, too. Can we copy-paste State Department cables? Articles? It's all up in the air. What are RI's risks? What's the game plan for legal attacks? For being put on restriction lists? For more wide-ranging shut-downs or slow-downs or scrubbings of the Web?

I got nothing right now. Can't even find it in me to be worried, more a morbid curiousity to start a discussion on it and see where it leads. You?

PS - Oh yeah, forgot Cass Sunstein's "cognitive infiltration" in the above list, the significance of which is that it was a open policy rationalization for something that, as we know well, has been happening all along.

[82_28]

Honestly, we shall see. I like to read slashdot for the skinny on the technical workarounds. It's an obvious choice. But they are bringing it down. Personally I don't have any idea of what to do. This is an assault on everything that the Internet was, not is today. But we do need a game plan and you are exactly right.

[eyeno]

I am not a long time poster but I am a long time listener. For some reason wiki inspired me to enlist. I have been reading this place for years. If they shut this place down I have no idea where I will go for real news. I sure hope people don't post things here that will get this place shut down. I have been able to glean news here by nuance quite well without people posting obvious inflammatory comment. Simply by the fact that certain items are here alerts me to the fact they need study. I do not know what the answer to this problem is but setting something up as a back drop makes perfect sense because this place is well known. If this collective brain trust gets broken up I will be blinded to a degree that cannot be replaced. I certainly hope alternative measures are in place. Setting up something that people can communicate by simply with nuance if necessary is entirely possible considering the insight of this group. If this group gets separated I swear I will feel like I lost a leg even though I am invisible for the most part.

[eyeno]

I am also willing to contribute a little bit more by nuance if necessary. Whatever it takes. But for god sakes do not let this group get busted up. I will help if necessary.

[barracuda]

Information is always in the process of being created, assimilated, diluted, hidden and destroyed or pronounced off-limits in some fashion or another. Now is no different, but that process is probably more transparently obvious than it used to be.

I do recommend logging off immediately, though, or you may ruin your chances of a future career with the Fe'ral Government.

[Project Willow]

^^ I like that... the feral government.

[eyeno]

eyeno barracuda but eye almost feel a bit panicked by jack's post. eyeno its silly but...

[stefano]

It's not only about what they want to do, it's also about what they are able to do. Of course they have massive means, but they rely on co-operation and acquiescence to a greater degree than most people realise, I think, which is why psy-ops are so important. Like the warning to students about what 'prospective employers', that new boogeyman, will think of their browsing habits. Can you actually imagine a job interview where the guy across the table says "I see you read the Guardian article about x two years ago, can you explain that?" I can't, and certainly not if they have to say it to half the applicants.

Capital also needs a free internet. Business websites are crucial for looking people up and so on, and email has to stay. So even if discussion boards are shut down or censored (I doubt they will be) we'll always have listservs. As far as I can tell the net neutrality thing will affect video streaming first.

So, basically, I'm not bovvered. And it's quite fun seeing the authorities twist themselves into knots of self-contradiction about free speech and such.

[82_28]

I'm sending out a mailer tomorrow to be passed around to each and every member.

[eyeno]

Can you actually imagine a job interview where the guy across the table says "I see you read the Guardian article about x two years ago, can you explain that?

I can absolutely imagine that and it is coming to that quicker than we realize. This is moving so fast lately that it sort of stuns me. I am totally 100% convinced that this wiki, be it planned or not will be used for that.

"we'll always have listservs."

Color me dumbass but I don't know what a listservs is. Maybe I am older than I realize.

[eyeno]

How will that work 82?

[Project Willow]

"we'll always have listservs."

Color me dumbass but I don't know what a listservs is. Maybe I am older than I realize.

Or younger. I ran a listserv for 10 years beginning in the early '90's. Simply a listserver processes mail for an email list. The one I ran required that settings for the list be hard coded into its header.

Don't worry, I'm listed and I know where a few RI folks live, so if the lights go out we can be pen-pals.

[Elvis]

Idea: We flimflam PTB TIA countersubversive search tools by writing the exact opposite of what we really mean. Ultimate nuance. Green secretly signals sarcasm, passing PTB E_H_L_N sniffer smell test. winkwink

[eyeno]

Project Willow I still really don't know what that is and it makes me feel really stupid. And hide behind the couch dude that I am I put in some false email when I signed up here and I also run through Tor. So if you mean this will be based on email we put in here that would leave me out. Right?

[annie aronburg]

In the olden days, we had a thing called punk rock which we used to communicate about things that were bothering us.

If the internet stopped forever, I'd still be annoyed at the way things are, but I'd be caught up on my chores.