All Stupid Politicians, Come Join In
- 2
- Add a Comment
After suffering from the removal of the entire alt.* hierarchy from Verizon’s newsservers just today, I now see that the Governor and Attorney General of California have gone soft in the head also.
Why? It could be obtaining political capital with the religious right, but it may just be stupidity. I would not count either one out.
As I have said before, I would give up the entire capacity of Usenet if it would stop child pornography. It won’t.
What will is using what the government already has; the ability to sniff the packets being sent and received. Why are they not using this power? It is certainly more effective to catch the perpetrators of the problem, rather than chase down those who might download it. It has the side benefit of stomping on the rights of the fewest people.
Apparently, the Governor of California, after appearing in so many science fiction movies, is not aware of the science fact, that makes tracking the origination of the offending material possible. I’m not clear on why catching the perpetrators, instead of closing access to a method of communication, would not be more splashy for those who need to make impressions on the public.
Surely, the some of the people who advise these politicos know the method of tracking someone on the internet. They cannot all be ignorant. All these people need do is look up how the RIAA has made the internet work against those who move illegal music. Since pictures are usually sent in binary form, the very same methods work. One thing for sure, it can be done by any entity that is not too stupid or lazy.
Maybe, if we all say something, the Governor, and the Attorney General, will wise up, and show that they aren’t too stupid or too lazy. This has happened in New York, now it is happening in California, what states will be next?
We have already started down the slippery slope, and global warming is
melting the ice, making it an easier slide with each day. Those who think that this is simply about some Usenet groups is not thinking this through.
original article on Ars Technica
-
Technorati Tags: citizen rights - ISP - Usenet - RIAA - loss of freedom - tracking methods
2 Comments
leftystrat
June 24th, 2008
at 3:16pm
rest assured that they’re using the sniffers. Generally the effect has very little to do with what they’re proposing.
This simply looks good if you don’t think about it. And we’re very good at not thinking about it.
Btw, notice that the number of high profile pedophile arrests is on the upswing? It’s pretty sickening, but it goes further up the chain.
the oracle
June 24th, 2008
at 10:09pm
I must admit, I have not been looking for the arrests of pedophiles - if they are that high profile, they should surely show up on the nightly news - (not that I dispute what you say, but these arrests don’t seem to be hitting the national news)
The average user doesn’t seem to know the power of Usenet - how it is easy to get better help than many othr places with many things, the ability to fine tune buying and selling, in a community much older than e-bay - and with no fees for either party, etc.
There are many things in alt.* besides child pornography (I have never seen any, so one truly has to be looking, as with many other things on Usenet) - it is a huge hierarchy - this is truly throwing the baby out with the bath water.