Internet Censorship and Eavesdropping.., page 1

posted on May, 4 2006 @ 01:17 PM

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Increasingly, dictators and repressive governments are realizing that many dissidents are online in blogs and forums. Internet users have been jailed in many countries for what they have posted online.

news.bbc.co.uk
Julien Pain - who heads the internet freedom desk at the RSF and was one of the report's authors, noted: "Everyone's interested in the internet - especially dictators".

Mr Pain said the world's dictators have not remained powerless in the face of the explosion of online content. By contrast, many have been "efficient and inventive" in using the net to spy on citizens and censor debate.

In many nations, the net used to be the only uncensored outlet and the place people turned to for news they would never hear about through official channels.

However, noted the report, governments have woken up to the fact that the people they regard as dissidents are active online. Many are now moving to censor blogs and the last year has seen many committed bloggers jailed for what they said in their online journal.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

It doesn't appear to just be the dictators waking up to the uses of the Internet. The CIA and NSA both actively use Internet sources here to collect and share information. In the novel "1984", George Orwell described a society where everyone was under constant scrutiny.

Couple these developments with the interest of network ready homes and appliances, increasing computational power, and ever larger database architecture, and it raises the question....How much will the 'powers that be', ultimately know about us individually?

Edit: Retitled to better reflect content.

[edit on 4-5-2006 by NotClever]

soficrow

posted on May, 4 2006 @ 03:56 PM

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Great find.

This thread goes hand in hand with this one:

Expansive Free Speech Limitations Proposed by U.N.

Willbert

posted on May, 5 2006 @ 07:55 AM

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This is not differant then any other site/orginization or institution on the net now who have their OWN "I Agree" before accessing and posting info that is monitored.

And those who do complain are those who feel it will infringe on their $$ and/or community that may or may not agree with other faucets of discusion on the net.

So the little guy/gal gets shafted by some site due to not following the SITES rules set out by the OWNERS of that site. Now those same OWNERS will get it from behind from another oragnization or instition and they cry foul..

And I'm not refering to this site specifially. I'm refering to any site or community that puts rules up to suit THIER agenda regardless of why it is online.

thematrix

posted on May, 5 2006 @ 09:52 AM

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Good thing there will always be ways to spread information one way or the other.

If the censorship goes as far as blocking content by filtering out all sites by keywords and location, people will always have a million ways to bypass this and there are a 1000 more methods on the web to obtain information.

This topic is one of the main reason why there has been a rather strong revival of the oldschool BBS type systems.

NotClever

posted on May, 5 2006 @ 10:01 AM

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My main concern about the topic is, while we're spreading ideas, news, and gripes, 'someone' is watching it and using it for their own possibly nefarious schemes.

Look into the future and it can get even scarier. A lot of talk about rfid chips in products, network and Internet ready appliances. The gathering of information on us may be getting out of hand.