[ NNSquad ] Re: Ex-AOL CEO Calls for Internet Censorship -- Demonstrates His *Utter* Cluelessness

[Barry Gold <BarryDGold@ca.rr.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> Ex-AOL CEO Calls for Internet Censorship -- Demonstrates His *Utter* Cluelessness
>
> http://bit.ly/bSulVb  (Barry Schuler's Synapsis)
>
>    Barry Schuler loudly proclaims:
>
>    "WikiLeaks is in the news this week and I can assure you this isn't
>     a 36 hour news story.  This is a big deal and the circumstances
>     around WikiLeaks might mark be the beginning of the end of the
>     Internet as we know it."
>   
I think we can learn something from what's going on in China: it _is_ 
possible to censor the Internet, in the sense that you can block the 
casual and/or clueless from the sites you don't like.  The more 
dedicated information seekers (and those who already understand How 
Things Work) will simply find a way around your blocks.

What this means for sites like Wikileaks: The government may -- at 
considerable cost in both money and our freedoms -- be able to prevent 
information from getting out to the general public, but those who really 
want it will still get it.  As a consequence, using "SECRET" or "TOP 
SECRET" to keep embarrassing information private may work (for a 
while).  But the "clueful" will almost certainly include enemy spies, so 
it will be completely useless for keeping secrets from other countries.

This is, of course, completely backward from the supposed purpose of our 
Classification system.  It won't stop the bureaucrats from trying.

Also, Schuler _does have a point: one of the side-effects of "Web 2.0" 
(the rise of user-generated content) is that many of our traditional 
social controls have broken down.  Privacy?  Forget about it -- anything 
you let anybody else know about may end up on the internet.  Double that 
if you let somebody take photographs or recordings, but even casual 
conversations can be recalled, summarized (accurately or in-) and 
posted.  And once out there, there is no recalling it.

What he calls Journalistic Integrity: not precisely the right word, but 
it's true that in the days when it cost money to distribute information, 
reporters and editors usually
  a) tried to fact-check things before publishing them
 b) when something was nominally classified or simply private, editors 
would stop and think, "is this important enough to justify printing it 
and letting everybody and his k/i/d/ b/r/o/t/h/e/r/ spy know about it?"

Similarly, we are subjected to a constant barrage of advertising, scams 
of various sorts, viri and other malware. Some newsgroups have become 
completly useless due to spam.  If Vint Cerf and Jon Postel had seen 
this coming, I wonder if they would have designed more authentication 
into the Internet.

And many sites _are_ rather cavalier with what should be private 
information.  Facebook is a particularly notable bad actor, but it's not 
the only one or the worst one -- just the biggest.