
Internet Freedom Is Actively Dissolving in America - Libertatea
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/internet-freedom-is-actively-dissolving-in-america
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pdkl95
> Hillary Clinton actively campaigned at Saturday’s debate for a “Manhattan-
> like project” to break encryption.

Fight this _now_ , tech industry. It doesn't matter how stupid the idea is;
those are _fighting words_.

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javajosh
I don't get it; why doesn't it matter how stupid the idea is? If she wanted to
have a Manhattan project for perpetual motion machines it would be harmless,
right? (And from a Keynsian standpoint it would be better than harmless since
she'd be injecting money into the economy, having physicists and engineers
doing the equivalent of digging trenches and filling them in.)

~~~
pdkl95
The #1 problem when technical people consider politics and law: they expect it
to follow _any_ sense of _logic_.

That is a _threat_ to the tech industry, as part of the ongoing campaign to
paint tech companies as "selfish and unreasonable" or even "aiding terrorists"
in the public eye. At no point is any kind of "Manhattan project" actually
intended. That's just a clever talking point used to frame encryption for the
general public.

The long-term message for tech companies is _" stop challenging our power and
authority"_. Encryption represents a power shift, which is something the
people used to having that power cannot allow. Their traditional weapon is the
power to control the framing of any topic.

The end game isn't breaking encryption. If the tech industry doesn't submit to
the demands for a backdoor, _the tech industry will be declared the enemy_. If
the economy related to the internet and encryption _crashed_ (which can always
be accomplished with punitive regulation), the power situation is improved
form the perspective of traditional politicians.

If they want to survive in anything like their current form, internet
corporations should be fighting this _hard_ to counter the framing in the
public eye. Spending a few hundred million (or even a few billion) spent on
media campaigns to make people want encryption is preferable to being forced
to implement backdoors and watching entire markets dry up.

~~~
javajosh
Okay, I think I get it. It's not the project that concerns you, it's the
attitude behind it, and what that attitude implies about future action
unrelated to this ridiculous "Manhattan Project".

I get it, but I think we have to wait until those future actions actually
happen to get serious. Partly it's because I don't necessarily believe that
your narrative is correct - I think there's a great deal of real, legitimate
ignorance about this technology, and that this will dispel in time. (Don't
forget that Clinton is an old woman, who's made her career in a distinctly
non-technical area. Do you really expect your grandma to understand things
like PKI? Alas that there are no scientists or engineers in the field.)

~~~
Nadya
_> I get it, but I think we have to wait until those future actions actually
happen to get serious. _

Then you don't get it. It's impossible to fight from behind a jail cell.

~~~
javajosh
Let's get specific: which actions do you think the USG will take against tech
companies and users? Will they really try to make general computation illegal?
Surely there are examples among the more totalitarian countries of the kind of
thing you're talking about. I think your argument would have more weight if
you ditched the rhetoric and focused on reason.

~~~
Nadya
Fine the companies and they don't have to do anything to the users. Any
individuals who use encryption by their own means can be branded as terrorists
for using a non-sanctified encryption system/service and imprisoned. All the
ignorant people who have been taught encryption is only used by terrorists
will buy it, no questions asked.

Make supporting encryption without a government backdoor illegal. That same
government backdoor could be abused by third parties. But the ones pushing for
that either don't care about that or don't _understand_ that. The government
has many stupid people in it, but I don't think the NSA director is one of
them. [0] He knows that third parties could use the backdoor, he simply _doesn
't care_.

Notice how this occurring in the USA and not some totalitarian country you
refer to? People aren't afraid for absolutely no reason. They're afraid
because a country founded on freedom is increasingly taking the game plans out
of a totalitarian state play book. People are afraid if they don't fight back
_now_ they _might not be able_ to fight back.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/23/nsa-
director-...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/23/nsa-director-
defends-backdoors-into-technology-companies)

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awqrre
The Government sees the Internet as a treat to the Government itself... this
is not about terrorism.

~~~
kaonashi
I doubt Teh Government sees anything with a single point of view.

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lectrick
Can we get around provider monopoly fees with some sort of new wireless
option? perhaps a new cell provider that isn't actually a cell provider, it's
just a wireless data pipe provider that calls itself a cell provider to fit
within the existing FCC regulatory scheme (and to easily switch to it from
existing cellphones?) Could that be a startup?

~~~
CaptSpify
Is your proposal anything different from wireless mesh-networks?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network)

~~~
lectrick
It may not be, but are there any widespread ones?

~~~
CaptSpify
Honestly I don't know. I've never looked into it

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nickthemagicman
I'm so glad the free market is working so well for Health Care and the
Internet.

~~~
humanrebar
Why do you think either are free markets? They're both heavily regulated.

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dredmorbius
The question isn't free markets, but effective ones which serve society.
_Effective_ regulation is what _makes_ markets.

Economists far more generally speak of _competitive_ markets, which carry
numerous requirements, of which neither healthcare nor Internet /
communications generally satisfy.

Which is how they came to be regulated in the first place.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I think the language itself here is a problem.

 _Effective regulation is what makes markets._

More specifically, free and open markets work wonders -- but dominant players
seek unfair advantage to eliminate the free and open market almost as soon as
it starts working.

 _Some_ regulation is required to keep the market free and open to all
participants, especially as leading players actively change the rules as they
gather more resources. But the critical point is that those same players are
_far_ more likely to use regulation itself as an unfair advantage as they are
anything else. Government is the biggest stick in the room, after all.

So yes, free and open markets work, and yes, regulation is required to keep
them working. But regulations do not make markets any more than speed limits
create the interstate trucking system.

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javajosh
_> Broadband access is declining, data caps are becoming commonplace,
surveillance is increasing, and encryption is under attack._

One of these is not like the others. Broadband access is hardly a freedom
thing; data caps aren't either. And attacking encryption is troubling, but
can't ultimately happen without wholesale outlawing of general computing
devices.

Which leaves surveillance. But even then, it's not really about surveillance
so much as it is _surveillance by people you don 't like_. Usually large
organizations - government that scrubs your data for evidence of threat and
may send goons to your house; companies that broker your info and inject data
into your brain for cash.

Not sure what to do about surveillance, since by definition large
organizations with lots of money control politics through campaign
contributions, and pretty clearly they see surveillance as a critical part of
their immune system (which is actually kind of strange since they've done
quite well without ubiquitous electronic surveillance for a long time).

~~~
njorth
Broadband access is very much a freedom thing if Comcast is your only option.

I live in one of America's wealthiest cities and the undisputed tech capital
of the east coast, yet finding a decent ISP is difficult bordering on
impossible.

There's exactly one good ISP in my city called netBlazr, but they don't
service my neighborhood. So we get Comcast instead: bandwidth rates
approaching a tenth of advertised speeds, outright throttling for certain
services, cheap hardware with limited firmware, ubiquitous surveillance, and
no legal recourse at all.

Freedom.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Uhhh... we get RCN over here in Somerville...

~~~
njorth
RCN's on my radar for sure, but XMission is the standard against which I'm
comparing services.

What assurance is there that RCN won't pull any bullshit like blocking SMTP or
throttling Tor?

