Fwd: [ NNSquad ] Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law

[Ginger Paque]

Another approach, lacking realistic technical foundation and funding, but
interesting nonetheless:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16367042?print=true

Excerpt:
Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship: *Computer hackers plan
to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own
communication satellites into orbit.* *The scheme was outlined at the Chaos
Communication Congress in Berlin. **The project's organisers said the
Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground
stations to track and communicate with the satellites. **Longer term they
hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon. **Hobbyists have already
put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of
time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget
projects. **The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to
contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of
internet censorship had motivated the project. **"The first goal is an
uncensorable internet in space. Let's take the internet out of the control
of terrestrial entities," Mr Farr said.*
Ginger (Virginia) Paque
Diplo Foundation
www.diplomacy.edu/ig
VirginiaP at diplomacy.edu

*Join the Diplo community IG discussions: www.diplointernetgovernance.org*




On 3 January 2012 17:15, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:

> Hi Alex.
>
> Indeed there are too many questions in these two issues. The first one is
> related to the narrow-sightnedness of law makers in these countries. Using
> an analogy, data and information are a lot like water - you need to control
> it (so you can use it for the right purposes), but if you lock it too
> tight, it will somehow find an escape route.
>
> I am very concerned that the example from Belarus may inspire other
> countries into doing the same.
>
> And the same reasoning is applicable to SOPA and PIPA, I think.
>
> These schemes are all but an invitation to build an underground Internet.
>
> Imagine you are in the US and you need to access a forbidden site. Say you
> type www.pirata101.org (to use the portuguese word for pirate). Your
> browser will tell you "Ops! BrowserX could not find www.pirata101.org"
> because it searched the DNS tree and the answer was that this name is not
> registered.
>
> But imagine that alongside with this, your browser does also tell you
> "Would you like me to try the alternative DNS database?" and answering yes,
> you would end up looking the name in an completely independent DNS system.
> It would not even had to have the same syntax. It could be something like
> www-pirata101-org or www~pirata101~global or whatever string you fancy to
> use (check http://www.dashworlds.com/).
>
> You would use the browser as an intermediate DNS broker, placing queries
> that could be answered by the software of the browser manufacturer, in the
> cloud, somewhere where your lawmakers could not get their teeth at. Your
> standard TCP/IP protocols would still be able to work because for these
> what really matters is the IP address (IPv4 or IPv6 address) of the end
> machine. And, in the event of the country firewall blocking the IP address
> (like many corporate firewalls do), even then, the content could be
> transmitted through changing IPs (not too hard to do in the IPv6 space) or
> though a general purpose gateway somewhere in the cloud.
>
> I tried to talk about this sometime ago - I sincerely believe that the
> fate of ICANN and of the DNS structure relies in the hands of the browser
> manufacturers or, in the hand of software developers who can build
> extensions that circumvent or complement the current DNS query system.
>
> For me it boils down to this: if politicians and lobbies try to control
> (own) the Internet like they seem to be so eager to do, this will happen
> sooner or later. Let me give you a hint: every rookie knows that if you
> want to find a movie to download, Google is not the place to start looking
> for it.
>
> Now, we are on the verge of disrupting the Internet status quo. I'm not
> sure if this is good or bad in itself, but, it will surely be a whole lot
> different.
>
> Getting back to Alex's question: in Africa, as well in developping
> countries (I've been teaching a PhD course in Addis Ababa last year - what
> an enriching experience!), using a free and coherent Internet is a powerful
> tool for development (I can't even imagine what is the idea on the Belarus
> politicians' heads). I remember my early college days - we used a pirate
> copy of Borland's Turbo Pascal (sorry Borland, than you for that!). And I
> can surely tell you that while I do not advocate for piracy at all, I share
> the thoughts of a policeman who fined me 250 euros last month: "I rather
> see a person in the street selling a counterfeit t-shirt, than see it rob a
> person at the point of a gun". I would add, I would rather see that person
> in a regular job, or in school, but helas, our world is not perfect.
> Sometimes (many times) because of politicians like the ones behind Belarus
> laws and SOPA or PIPA projects.
>
> Warm regards to all, and please enjoy the New Year,
>
> Nuno Garcia
>
>
> On 3 January 2012 20:07, Alex Gakuru <gakuru at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Nuno. Coudn't help reflect on "What does SOPA/PIPA mean for Africa?
>>
>> http://codepolitical.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-sopa-pipa-mean-for-africa.html
>> Regards, Alex.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all.
>>>
>>> Geographically Belarus is part of Europe.
>>>
>>> And these are extremely bad news.
>>>
>>> BR,
>>>
>>> Nuno Garcia
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com>
>>> Date: 3 January 2012 17:54
>>> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane
>>> Law
>>> To: nnsquad at nnsquad.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law
>>>
>>> http://j.mp/xIK0Vk  (Gizmodo)
>>>
>>>   "Belarus: small. Proud. Kvass-drinking. A long history of dubious human
>>>    rights and piddling dictatorship. And now, bound to a law that makes
>>>    it illegal to browse foreign websites."
>>>
>>>  - - -
>>>
>>> --Lauren--
>>> NNSquad Moderator
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> nnsquad mailing list
>>> http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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