Internet Wars: Wikileaks vs The Pentagon

The Internet Wars for dummies (or those who just don't have time to read up on the subject).

No room for Internet censorship in a democracy

"There's no room for Internet censorship in a democracy. The EU should impose Internet censorship."

In other words, the EU should not be considered a democracy. This might not be what Folkpartiet politician Cecilia Wikström meant to say, but it's the message she's communicating in this letter, where she promotes Internet censorship as a means of fighting child pornography despite of her own reasoning that censorship will have little or no effect. That's like saying "we know banning action films from TV won't stop the violence, but we still want to do it". Why?

What's with these Folkpartiet Cecilias who are hellbent on Internet censorship without being able to present any credible argument that it is in fact a good idea? Stop hiding behind the ridiculous "think about the children" tactics and just come out and tell us who's paying you to stick to a stance that you don't even believe in.

The alternatives to Internet censorship have been discussed a million times before, so I won't go into details, but keywords are due process, shutting down and prosecute the offenders if they're found guilty. That's the way of a democracy.

Photo: Wikimedia.

Politicians against freedom

This is (according to Europaportalen) the shameful list of MEP's who voted for the infamous Smile29 declaration in the European Parliament. This is a list of individuals who want to crush your right to privacy completely by making it impossible to surf the web anonymously. That's the entire purpose of this utterly revolting declaration, according to its creator, Tiziano Motti.

Shame on you, haters of freedom and democracy.


Konservativa EPP (198)
Janos Ader, Ungern
Gabriele Albertini, Italien
Magdi Cristiano Allam, Italien
Laima Liucija Andrikiene, Litauen
Roberta Angelilli, Italien
Antonella Antinoro, Italien
Elena Oana Antonescu, Rumänien
Alfredo Antoniozzi, Italien
Pablo Arias Echeverría, Spanien
Sophie Auconie, Frankrike
Jean-Pierre Audy, Frankrike
Pilar Ayuso, Spanien
Georges Bach, Luxemburg
Raffaele Baldassarre, Italien
Burkhard Balz, Tyskland
Paolo Bartolozzi, Italien
Elena Băsescu, Rumänien
Regina Bastos, Portugal
Edit Bauer, Slovakien
Christophe Béchu, Frankrike
Sergio Berlato, Italien
Sebastian Valentin Bodu, Rumänien
Vito Bonsignore, Italien
Piotr Borys, Polen
Jan Březina, Tjeckien
Simon Busuttil, Malta
Alain Cadec, Frankrike
Wim van de Camp, Nederländerna
Antonio Cancian, Italien
Maria Da Graça Carvalho, Portugal
David Casa, Malta
Carlo Casini, Italien
Pilar del Castillo Vera, Spanien
Giovanni Collino, Italien
Lara Comi, Italien
Michel Dantin, Frankrike
Joseph Daul, Frankrike
Mário David, Portugal
Anne Delvaux, Belgien
Luigi Ciriaco De Mita, Italien
Albert Deß, Tyskland
Tamás Deutsch, Ungern
Agustín Díaz de Mera García Consuegra, Spanien
Herbert Dorfmann, Italien
Frank Engel, Luxemburg
Sari Essayah, Finland
Rosa Estaràs Ferragut, Spanien
Diogo Feio, Portugal
José Manuel Fernandes, Portugal
Carlo Fidanza, Italien
Santiago Fisas Ayxela, Spanien
Karl-Heinz Florenz, Tyskland
Carmen Fraga Estévez, Spanien
Gaston Franco, Frankrike
Michael Gahler, Tyskland
Kinga Gál, Ungern
José Manuel García-Margallo y Marfil, Spanien
Elisabetta Gardini, Italien
Salvador Garriga Polledo, Spanien
Jean-Paul Gauzès, Frankrike
Marietta Giannakou, Grekland
Luis de Grandes Pascual, Spanien
Mathieu Grosch, Belgien
Françoise Grossetête, Frankrike
Pascale Gruny, Frankrike
Andrzej Grzyb, Polen
Cristina Gutiérrez-Cortines, Spanien
Enikő Győri, Ungern
András Gyürk, Ungern
Małgorzata Handzlik, Polen
Ágnes Hankiss, Ungern
Esther Herranz García, Spanien
Jolanta Emilia Hibner, Polen
Jim Higgins, Irland
Monika Hohlmeier, Tyskland
Danuta Maria Hübner, Polen
Salvatore Iacolino, Italien
Ville Itälä, Finland
Carlos José Iturgaiz Angulo, Spanien
Iliana Ivanova, Bulgarien
Peter Jahr, Tyskland
Lívia Járóka, Ungern
Sidonia Elżbieta Jędrzejewska, Polen
Elisabeth Jeggle, Tyskland
Filip Kaczmarek, Polen
Jarosław Kalinowski, Polen
Sandra Kalniete, Lettland
Othmar Karas, Österrike
Ioannis Kasoulides, Cypern
Martin Kastler, Tyskland
Tunne Kelam, Estland
Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Tyskland
Lena Kolarska-Bobińska, Polen
Eija-Riitta Korhola, Finland
Ádám Kósa, Ungern
Georgios Koumoutsakos, Grekland
Andrey Kovatchev, Bulgarien
Jan Kozłowski, Polen
Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, Grekland
Werner Kuhn, Tyskland
Eduard Kukan, Slovakien
Alain Lamassoure, Frankrike
Vytautas Landsbergis, Litauen
Giovanni La Via, Italien
Constance Le Grip, Frankrike
Peter Liese, Tyskland
Krzysztof Lisek, Polen
Veronica Lope Fontagné, Spanien
Antonio López-Istúriz White, Spanien
Petru Constantin Luhan, Rumänien
Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska, Polen
Astrid Lulling, Luxemburg
Monica Luisa Macovei, Rumänien
Bogdan Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Polen
Marian-Jean Marinescu, Rumänien
Clemente Mastella, Italien
Barbara Matera, Italien
Gabriel Mato Adrover, Spanien
Iosif Matula, Rumänien
Mario Mauro, Italien
Hans-Peter Mayer, Tyskland
Jaime Mayor Oreja, Spanien
Erminia Mazzoni, Italien
Nuno Melo, Portugal
Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, Spanien
Alajos Mészáros, Slovakien
Miroslav Mikolášik, Slovakien
Francisco José Millán Mon, Spanien
Gay Mitchell, Irland
Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, Frankrike
Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, Litauen
Tiziano Motti, Italien
Cristiana Muscardini, Italien
Mariya Nedelcheva, Bulgarien
Rareş-Lucian Niculescu, Rumänien
Angelika Niebler, Tyskland
Lambert van Nistelrooij, Nederländerna
Jan Olbrycht, Polen
Csaba Őry, Ungern
Alfredo Pallone, Italien
Georgios Papastamkos, Grekland
Maria do Céu Patrão Neves, Portugal
Aldo Patriciello, Italien
Alojz Peterle, Slovenien
Markus Pieper, Tyskland
Bernd Posselt, Tyskland
Hans-Gert Pöttering, Tyskland
Konstantinos Poupakis, Grekland
Jacek Protasiewicz, Polen
Hella Ranner, Österrike
Herbert Reul, Tyskland
Dominique Riquet, Frankrike
Crescenzio Rivellini, Italien
Zuzana Roithová, Tjeckien
Licia Ronzulli, Italien
Paul Rübig, Österrike
José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Spanien
Potito Salatto, Italien
Marie-Thérèse Sanchez-Schmid, Frankrike
Amalia Sartori, Italien
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Polen
Algirdas Saudargas, Litauen
Marco Scurria, Italien
Czesław Adam Siekierski, Polen
Sergio Paolo Francesco Silvestris, Italien
Csaba Sógor, Rumänien
Renate Sommer, Tyskland
Bogusław Sonik, Polen
Catherine Soullie, Frankrike
Peter Šťastný, Slovakien
Theodor Dumitru Stolojan, Rumänien
Emil Stoyanov, Bulgarien
Michèle Striffler, Frankrike
László Surján, Ungern
Alf Svensson, Sverige
József Szájer, Ungern
Salvatore Tatarella, Italien
Nuno Teixeira, Portugal
Eleni Theocharous, Cypern
Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, Polen
Marianne Thyssen, Belgien
László Tőkés, Rumänien
Rafał Trzaskowski, Polen
Traian Ungureanu, Rumänien
Vladimir Urutchev, Bulgarien
Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Spanien
Jarosław Leszek Wałęsa, Polen
Manfred Weber, Tyskland
Anja Weisgerber, Tyskland
Iuliu Winkler, Rumänien
Corien Wortmann-Kool, Nederländerna
Anna Záborská, Slovakien
Pablo Zalba Bidegain, Spanien
Paweł Zalewski, Polen
Iva Zanicchi, Italien
Artur Zasada, Polen
Milan Zver, Slovenien
Tadeusz Zwiefka, Polen

Socialdemokratiska S&D (60)
Magdalena Alvarez, Spanien
Luis Paulo Alves, Portugal
Francesca Balzani, Italien
Luigi Berlinguer, Italien
Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, Litauen
Rita Borsellino, Italien
Victor Boştinaru, Rumänien
Salvatore Caronna, Italien
Alejandro Cercas, Spanien
Sergio Gaetano Cofferati, Italien
Silvia Costa, Italien
Rosario Crocetta, Italien
Francesco De Angelis, Italien
Paolo De Castro, Italien
Robert Dušek, Tjeckien
Edite Estrela, Portugal
Richard Falbr, Tjeckien
Elisa Ferreira, Portugal
Monika Flašíková Beňová, Slovakien
Iratxe García Pérez, Spanien
Eider Gardiazábal Rubial, Spanien
Louis Grech, Malta
Zita Gurmai, Ungern
Jiří Havel, Tjeckien
Edit Herczog, Ungern
Ramón Jáuregui Atondo, Spanien
Maria Eleni Koppa, Grekland
Stéphane Le Foll, Frankrike
Jo Leinen, Tyskland
Bogusław Liberadzki, Polen
Antonio Masip Hidalgo, Spanien
Guido Milana, Italien
Katarína Neveďalová, Slovakien
Justas Vincas Paleckis, Litauen
Pier Antonio Panzeri, Italien
Antigoni Papadopoulou, Cypern
Mario Pirillo, Italien
Gianni Pittella, Italien
Vittorio Prodi, Italien
Teresa Riera Madurell, Spanien
Edward Scicluna, Malta
Olga Sehnalová, Tjeckien
Joanna Senyszyn, Polen
Debora Serracchiani, Italien
Adrian Severin, Rumänien
Peter Simon, Tyskland
Brian Simpson, Storbritannien
Monika Smolková, Slovakien
Georgios Stavrakakis, Grekland
Gianluca Susta, Italien
Hannes Swoboda, Österrike
Csaba Sándor Tabajdi, Ungern
Zoran Thaler, Slovenien
Patrice Tirolien, Frankrike
Patrizia Toia, Italien
Kathleen Van Brempt, Belgien
Derek Vaughan, Storbritannien
Kristian Vigenin, Bulgarien
Henri Weber, Frankrike
Janusz Władysław Zemke, Polen

Liberala Alde (32)
Liam Aylward, Irland
Catherine Bearder, Storbritannien
Cristian Silviu Buşoi, Rumänien
Chris Davies, Storbritannien
Luigi de Magistris, Italien
Marielle De Sarnez, Frankrike
Pat the Cope Gallagher, Irland
Nathalie Griesbeck, Frankrike
Marian Harkin, Irland
Filiz Hakaeva Hyusmenova, Bulgarien
Stanimir Ilchev, Bulgarien
Vincenzo Iovine, Italien
Metin Kazak, Bulgarien
Wolf Klinz, Tyskland
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Tyskland
Ramona Nicole Mănescu, Rumänien
Gesine Meissner, Tyskland
Louis Michel, Belgien
Norica Nicolai, Rumänien
Kristiina Ojuland, Estland
Siiri Oviir, Estland
Vladko Todorov Panayotov, Bulgarien
Antonyia Parvanova, Bulgarien
Frédérique Ries, Belgien
Niccolò Rinaldi, Italien
Hannu Takkula, Finland
Michael Theurer, Tyskland
Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, Spanien
Giommaria Uggias, Italien
Viktor Uspaskich, Litauen
Adina-Ioana Vălean, Rumänien
Gianni Vattimo, Italien

De Gröna (5)
Francois Alfonsi, Frankrike
Malika Benarab-Attou, Frankrike
Michèle Rivasi, Frankrike
Werner Schulz, Tyskland
Michail Tremopoulos, Grekland

ECR (30)
Robert Atkins, Storbritannien
Adam Bielan, Polen
Lajos Bokros, Ungern
Tadeusz Cymański, Polen
Ryszard Czarnecki, Polen
Peter van Dalen, Nederländerna
Nirj Deva, Storbritannien
Derk Jan Eppink, Belgien
Hynek Fajmon, Tjeckien
Jacqueline Foster, Storbritannien
Marek Józef Gróbarczyk, Polen
Malcolm Harbour, Storbritannien
Michał Tomasz Kamiński, Polen
Sajjad Karim, Storbritannien
Jacek Olgierd Kurski, Polen
Emma McClarkin, Storbritannien
Marek Henryk Migalski, Polen
Miroslav Ouzký, Tjeckien
Mirosław Piotrowski, Polen
Tomasz Piotr Poręba, Polen
Struan Stevenson, Storbritannien
Ivo Strejček, Tjeckien
Konrad Szymański, Polen
Charles Tannock, Storbritannien
Valdemar Tomaševski, Litauen
Oldřich Vlasák, Tjeckien
Jacek Włosowicz, Polen
Janusz Wojciechowski, Polen
Roberts Zīle, Lettland
Zbigniew Ziobro, Polen

Vänstern GUE/NGL (14)
Lothar Bisky, Tyskland
Cornelia Ernst, Tyskland
Takis Hadjigeorgiou, Cypern
Jacky Hénin, Frankrike
Elie Hoarau, Frankrike
Jürgen Klute, Tyskland
Jaromír Kohlíček, Tjeckien
Jiří Maštálka, Tjeckien
Marisa Matias, Portugal
Willy Meyer, Spanien
Miloslav Ransdorf, Tjeckien
Vladimír Remek, Tjeckien
Helmut Scholz, Tyskland
Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, Cypern

EFD (14)
Bastiaan Belder, Nederländerna
Mara Bizzotto, Italien
Mario Borghezio, Italien
John Bufton, Storbritannien
Lorenzo Fontana, Italien
Claudio Morganti, Italien
Jaroslav Paška, Slovakien
Fiorello Provera, Italien
Oreste Rossi Italien
Nikolaos Salavrakos, Grekland
Giancarlo Scottà, Italien
Timo Soini, Finland
Francesco Enrico Speroni, Italien
Niki Tzavela, Grekland

Grupplösa (18)
George Becali, Rumänien
Slavi Binev, Bulgarien
Andrew Henry William Brons, Storbritannien
Philip Claeys, Belgien
Diane Dodds, Storbritannien
Bruno Gollnisch, Frankrike
Nick Griffin, Storbritannien
Jean-Marie Le Pen, Frankrike
Marine Le Pen, Frankrike
Krisztina Morvai, Ungern
Mike Nattrass, Storbritannien
Franz Obermayr, Österrike
Nicole Sinclaire, Storbritannien
Francisco Sosa Wagner, Spanien
Csanád Szegedi, Ungern
Claudiu Ciprian Tănăsescu, Rumänien
Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Rumänien
Frank Vanhecke, Belgien

Who's trying to control the web?

Google have just released this nice little tool showing us which country's governments have made requests for Google to release user data, and who has made requests to have information removed from the web.

"Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship."

googleblog

The problem of acknowledging Internet as a global distribution channel

Aaargh!!! It never ceases to amaze me how certain companies refuse to acknowledge the wonder of the global distribution channel called Internet. Instead companies are clinging on to the idea of old geographically fragmented and costly distribution models where you would have to establish agreements in each country or region with wholesalers or retailers, you would have to have a lot of logistics in place to ship your products around the world... Sure, I could understand that certain products were only available in certain parts of the world back in those days, or that they had different launch dates in different parts of the world.

But downloadable software..."not available in your country"...really? I can't believe a company like Microsoft, who likes to think of themselves as innovators (of course in reality they're quite the opposite, but that's another discussion...), just recently opened up for European users to download and install their free security software Security Essentials, six months after making the same piece of software available for the Americans! That's just so 1990's.

"Good job, China!"

Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt met with Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping, and discussed among other things the Chinese censorship of the Internet. Might we assume that the conversation went something like this:

Fredrik: Hey Xi, great job you're doing on that Internet censorship.
Xi: Why, thank you.
Fredrik: We're actually working on a similar project ourselves, but being a democracy we're don't really have a long history in restricting the public's opportunity to share thoughts and information. Perhaps you could share some experiences with us? We would like to have it in place by 2012.
Xi: Sure, no worries, with your technology and eagerness to restrict the public's access to information you consider "inappropriate" this could be up and running in no time.
Fredrik: Cool.

A taste of what is to come

The Americans got a little taste of what is to come in the near future when due to a DNS error they ended up behind China's "Great Firewall". This meant websites with inappropriate content were blocked.

Personally I don't understand what the fuzz is all about. I mean, they better get used to it as both the US and the EU are planning to incorporate similar Internet filtering, where the governments will be able to decide what information their citizens should be allowed to part-take in, and what should be considered "inappropriate" and blocked.

If all goes according to plan, the EU will join the likes of Iran, North Korea, Australia and China by 2012, with the US probably not far behind. Congratulations, you miserable enemies of freedom.

Can I be an Internet expert too, please?

DN published a letter on what was supposedly freedom and Internet today by a guy called Peter Strömbäck. This wouldn't be a problem if they didn't go ahead and wrongfully call him an "Internet expert", something he's clearly not. His CV suggests he's rather an intellectual property expert and/or a lobbyist, anything really but an Internet expert. And that shows clearly in his letter, where he promotes more regulations and intellectual property protection on the Internet. Because clearly more rules and regulations means freedom. Also the argument on Telia's dividend is a pathetic, classic lobby argument. "Bohoo, the ISP's make billions aiding their customers in commiting copyright infringements and stealing our money". Yeah, right.

Why is it so hard for lobbyists like Strömbäck to acknowledge that the same rules and laws that apply in the "analog" world should also apply on the Internet? It's really as simple as that. The mailman doesn't open your mail every day just in case you happen to engage in any criminal activity per mail. Why should your ISP do that? You are able to walk around freely and anonymously in the "analog" world. No one is registering your every step, asking you for "papieren, bitte!!!" at every crossroad. Why should you have to be traced every step of the way on the Internet? Why do lobbyists and politicians want to uphold a DDR set of rules on the Internet and a Western set of rules in the "analog" world?

- Annoyed Citizen, an Internet expert.

Technological meltdown

This post could also be called "Why you should avoid any triple play solution out there".
Unfortunately I'm one of those poor bastards stuck with a triple play solution, through my bostadsrättsförening, homeowners association. Sure, it usually works pretty well, the problem is this is a classic single point of failure solution, where if there's anything wrong with the fiber lan you lose not only your internet connection, you lose your home phone and tv as well, which can be extremely annoying. Especially when the service provider is unable to locate the problem.

Basically I'm in my second day of a complete technological meltdown at the moment. Makes it a bit harder to work from home, watch the Olympics, and communicating with friends and family abroad. To say the least.

So, mark my words, you do not want this kind of solution if you can avoid it. Phone through copper wire, tv through satellite and Internet through fiber lan is your best bet.

Original graphics

Bono says: Look to China!

U2 front man and tax refugee Bono comes out of the closet as a firm believer in China style censorship (more comments on this article are here, here, here and here). Who would have thought a guy who's based his image over the last decade on being some kind of human rights activist, would do a U-turn like this and embrace oppression:

We’re the post office, they tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content.

Sure, why not. Let's make a "noble effort" to monitor all user's Internet traffic (and just forget about details like multiple computers sharing the same ip address and other minor details...) in order to protect an outdated industry refusing to renew itself and instead demanding special legislation in order to keep the profit growing. Yeah, that's the noble thing to do. You complete moron.

I also love the part about the rich, evil Internet service providers and the poor songwriters:

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

Swollen profits? Lost receipts? You might wonder what was in that pipe Bono just smoked. If anyone's making profit ripping off the "poor songwriters" it's the rotten to the core record labels. So please, Bono, stop embarrassing yourself by writing absolute bullshit about stuff you know nothing about, and stop promoting oppression and abolishing human rights in order to boost the profit of a vicious industry. It's really bad for your image.

If you want to read an intelligent piece of text on the subject, go read David Byrne's Survival Strateglies for Emerging Artists here. You don't have to be a slave to the CD manufacturing industry just because you want to write and/or perform music.

Or, if you're a friend of oppression, like Bono himself, read about how the Belarus are about to handle the "problem" of free speech and sharing of information. There are some good ideas to be found there.

Reversed "pay per click"

When it comes to retarded suggestions on how to regulate the Internet in order to maximize the profit of the media industry nothing surprises me anymore. Not even the insane suggestion from the media industry in Germany who want to get paid from anyone linking to (meaning generating traffic to) their websites in "commercial use". A sort of reversed "pay per click" policy, where the websites generating traffic to the media websites will have to pay for the traffic they generate. Just like if the newspapers had to pay the advertisers money for every person who bought a product from these advertisers after reading the ad in the newspaper. Because, clearly:

"Intenet kan inte längre vara en upphovsrättsfri zon"

Yeah, right.

This ludacris suggestion is apparently backed up by severily technologically impaired German politicians.

Public enemy number 1

Enemy of the Internet and the free world, Monique Wadsted, is taking the absurd rounds in the Pirate Bay farce one step further. She's once again used her comradeship with some rotten apples at Stockholm tingsrätt in order to get what is arguably one of the most bizarre court rulings I've ever heard of here in Sweden:

Nu tvingar Stockholms tingsrätt Pirate Bay att stänga ner. De har vänt sig mot personerna bakom sajten och har bestämt att de ska betala totalt 1 miljon kronor i böter om de fortsätter driva sajten.

Mind you it has not yet been established whether The Pirate Bay is illegal or not, and there is no proof that these two gentlemen are actually involved in the website anymore. I guess if I had a friend in that corrupt institution called Stockholm tingsrätt (or a lot of money to bribe one to be my friend), I could accuse Svenska Dagbladet's website of being illegal, and force them to shut down way before the case had actually been settled. Also, I could just point out a random person who I believed was responsible for running Svenska Dagbladet's site and make this person legally responsible for shutting the site down or pay the consequences. For instance, this person could be my nosy neighbor that I dislike. He'll never know what hit him.

Reminds me a lot of The Trial.
Mrs. Wadsted herself is obviously happy as a clam, as she has once more demonstrated the absolute power of the entertainment industry over the court of law, and the complete and utter contempt of basic human rights that this industry stands for. Money über alles.

– I somras fick vi ett förbud mot Black Internet och nu har vi fått ett förbud mot Fredrik Neij och Gottfrid Svartholm säger Monique Wadsted, som företräder Hollywoodbolagen juridiskt i rättegången om The Pirate Bay.

Tuva Novotny on censorship

It's always refreshing to read a piece on Internet censorship that the author has clearly put some thought into. It's all the better when the author is a well known actress, as it lends a certain weight to it. As opposed to the not-so-intelligent rants of another female "artist", best known for her boobs, which seem to be out in the open more than not. Has anyone ever actually heard one of her songs?

Refuse / Resist

Yes, mangling the free Internet was just the beginning. Because, after all, people don't spend all there time on the web. They sometimes travel by car as well, and obviously they need to be closely monitored while doing so.

Det kallas Pay as you drive. Systemet registrerar hur fort du kör, var du kör, vilken tid på dygnet, och så vidare. Baserat på den informationen sätts sedan din försäkringspremie.

(...)

Och precis som med säkerhetsbältet en gång i tiden blir registreringen med tiden lagstiftad och obligatoriskt för alla, uppger Rode vidare i en längre intervju i tidningen På Väg.

Read the grim dystopia that would have George Orwell turn in his grave here. Haven't politicians seen from various dictatorships that have crumbled over the last couple of centuries that complete and total control over citizens is neither desirable nor possible?

I'll just take a deep breath and listen to this old Sepultura classic. These guys knew what they were talking about.

Want to stay anonymous? Incognito might be the answer.

Just read this article on idg.se. Obviously I'll take Incognito Linux distribution for a spin on my old laptop as soon as I get the time.


*Update* Speaking of avoiding the prying eyes of totalitarian governments, it seems Ipredator is finally approaching something that might be considered a public release, adding new users as capacity becomes available. Of course I'll take this for a spin too.

Viva megalomania

American senator Jay "I wish the Internet had never been invented" Rockefeller wants to give the American president power to shut down the Internet "in case of emergency".

I'm guessing an emergency is this case is a single mom sharing a couple of mp3-files...

Crazy megalomanic bastard.

The importance of a free, growth-driven and entrepreneurial Internet

Two clowns by the name of Gerard Versteegh and Shadi Bitar, representing two companies I can only assume deal with entertainment through the internet, film2home.se and earbooks.se, have a reader's letter published in Svenska Dagbladet today. The letter is so filled with wrong assumptions, logical flaws and plain errors that's it would take me more effort to go through it step by step than I'm willing to put in. I'll take the short version:

The letter is basically a poorly executed attack on the Moderat politician Karl Sigfrid, who has profiled himself as the only Moderat politician interested in questions regarding the Internet and integrity, and of course on the politics of Piratpartiet, the pirate party.

I feel one of the very first sentences of this letter sums it all up pretty nicely:

En moderat internetpolitik bör sträva efter ett fritt, tillväxtdrivande och entreprenöriellt internet.

Translated to English: Moderat internet politics should strive for a free, growth-driven and entrepreneurial Internet.

Umm...well, yes, and that's exactly what Karl Sigfrid is striving for and you two morons are fighting against.

Obviously Mr. Versteegh hasn't succeeded very well in being free nor entrepreneurial, and of course neither Mr. Versteegh nor Mr. Bitar will see any of my money any time soon.

Iran is a role model for Europe

Nokia Siemens Network have built Internet infrastructure for the Iranian government, and as a part of this project they have implemented sophisticated ways to monitor the network, allowing the government to save and index information on individual users and their communication.

I'm guessing the Swedish government, and all of EU for that matter, is all ears. Perhaps they could arrange a seminar and exchange information and experiences on Internet censorship and surveillance, and get some good ideas on how to further tighten the screw on innocent citizens? Hey, while you're at it, invite China as well, they might have some valuable input. After all these two beacons of democracy seem to be the ideal for European politicians these days.

"I refuse to take part in the future"

"I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet...(The Internet) created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It's as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, 'Give it to me now,' and if you don't give it to them for free, they'll steal it."

Sounds like a joke, right? Well, it isn't. These are the infamous words of the Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO, Michael Lynton. And the best, or worst, part is they were actually spoken in May 2009!

This retarded bastard could just as well be saying that "I don't see anything good coming in the future. Why improve anything that is sort of working today, and why should we be bothered looking for new business models anyway?". I guess it explains why Sony and the rest of the entertainment industry are refusing to embrace even today's technologies, not to mention the future, and are digging their graves by continuing to not give their customers what they really want, and suing them instead. From the Betamax to VHS to DVD to Blueray, it's still the same, hopelessly outdated way of distributing movies.

Makes me wonder who hires such incredible morons for these positions.

Another ISP joins the list

Swedish telecom company Tele2 announced today that they will follow the example of other, smaller ISP's, and destroy all ip logs and other sensitive information about their customers that could be misused by the entertainment industry following the introduction of the Ipred law. Another fine example of a company that puts its customers' integrity above the greed "financial interests" of the entertainment industry. It's a pure pleasure to add Tele2 to my list of trustworthy internet providers.

*Update: Oh dear, didn't take many minutes for the trolls to creep up from wherever they dwell... Lawyer "Don" Peter Danowsky, representing the mafia entertainment industry, is already threatening Tele2, claiming they're breaking the law by protecting the privacy of their customers. Well, if upholding basic human rights is a crime, then by all means.