BigBrother.com

A Net of Control

Unthinkable: How the Internet could become a tool of corporate and government power, based on updates now in the works

Christoph Niemann for Newsweek
By Steven Levy
Newsweek InternationalIssues 2004 - Picture, if you will, an information infrastructure that encourages censorship, surveillance and suppression of the creative impulse. Where anonymity is outlawed and every penny spent is accounted for. Where the powers that be can smother subversive (or economically competitive) ideas in the cradle, and no one can publish even a laundry list without the imprimatur of Big Brother. Some prognosticators are saying that such a construct is nearly inevitable. And this infrastructure is none other than the former paradise of rebels and free-speechers: the Internet.

msnbc.msn.com...

It's a horrible thought yet it seems so possible. The internet is the only place where information of almost any kind can be freely distributed and shared. This is a big threat to the freedom taking governments like the Bush administration. The internet makes information so accessible, that it is easy for those who want to open their eyes to see through their lies to us. They would love to have this tool against them eleminated and controlled. We must battle for our freedom and not let them get what they want: silence. Good post slave, it should be sticky.

I've wondered how long it would take the internet to get regulated and taxed. IMO, the best years for the internet were 1995-1997 - before the age of popups, spyware, and bulky webpages full of shockwave crap. As soon as business caught on, it's gone downhill. Does anyone remember BBS systems? I miss those. Long live fidonet.