****Re: I haven't figured out how scary this is...

[Craig White]

On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 18:56 -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> On 1/17/08, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:

> > Indeed, what has been happening under Martin's stewardship is nothing
> > short of criminal and it just seems to fly under most radar - which is
> > just another example of the corrupt main stream media.

>   Thats why I keep bringing it up.  :)
> 
>   Martin is a scum bag and America needs to know about it.  Since when
> is it ok to burn federally funded research reports?
----
if the president wasn't impeached for starting a pre-emptive war on what
was clearly faulty, unsubstantiated intelligence, do you think people
are going to get their knickers in a twist over this? I can't go on...it
would get too political.
----

>    Well I think the advent of commerical civilian digital networking
> offered a viable alternative, but it is without a doubt under threat
> at this time.  Obama does appear to be on point with Net Neutrality,
> but I have my doubts as to whether these things will get put into
> effect.  It seems though that we are moving with a quick pace to erode
> all rights to privacy and eliminate the neutrality of all carriers.
> The Democratic party were the primary builders of the commerical
> network we have today, unfortunately they are not helping much to
> preserve it.
----
I think you're giving the Democrats too much credit. Yes, Clinton was
president during the big Internet boom of the 90's which gave the
telco's plenty of incentive for wiring the infrastructure but I think
the telco's had profit in mind.

Net neutrality is probably toast...sad to say. More on this further
down.
----
> > The Ashleigh Banfield story http://www.alternet.org/story/15778 and Phil
> > Donahue's story http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0303-06.htm tell you
> > all you need to know when the supposedly 'liberal' cable news network
> > fires it's most popular stars simply for political reasons.
> 
>   Clearly traditional media formats are far too susceptible to this
> sort of thing and we need to maintain a flexible END-TO-END
> infrastructure in order to maintain the state of free speech.
----
where mass media is concerned, the free speech is entirely an illusion.
Why are there so many right wing radio stations and so few liberal radio
stations? Answer, the right wing owns the radio stations. How else do
they get away with kicking the Dixie Chicks off the radio?
----
> > That these megalithic corporations such as Clear Channel (now Bain) or
> > News Corp. or whichever are basically buying large numbers of media
> > outlets ultimately will serve to kill competition, become the final nail
> > in their empires because they serve their agenda's and in the end,
> > people just aren't that stupid.

>   Stupid enough to allow it to persist for a decade or two.
----
sorry, I don't share your pessimism.
----
>   Forget NH, take a look at the housing crisis!  We are currently in
> one of the worst financial crisis in US history, and the MSM was
> telling us everything is honky-dorey less than a year ago!  And the
> public goes right back to watching it!  Why would they do such a
> thing?  There are no choices.
----
some of this, I'm gonna let pass.

there's no way to know yet what the extent of the current economic
situation is yet...it's way too soon. At this point, this still is far
short of the great depression of the 1930's
----
> > But honestly, that wasn't my intent of tossing the article out for
> > everyone. I guess what worried me most about Microsoft embedding 'spy'
> > mechanisms is part and parcel of things like the FISA legislation which
> > obligates computer software manufacturers to embed spy software if
> > deemed necessary for national security and I'm thinking that it might
> > not be reasonably safe to sit in front of a computer any time soon...for
> > a lot of reasons.

>   I don't think this particular technology has any spyware
> implications.  I don't think it is usable without the user knowing
> about it.
----
ahhh...now the subject I want to rant about. Spyware? You betcha

>From the original article linked at times-on-line...
**
The Information Commissioner, civil liberties groups and privacy lawyers
strongly criticised the potential of the system for “taking the idea of
monitoring people at work to a new level”. Hugh Tomlinson, QC, an expert
on data protection law at Matrix Chambers, told The Times: “This system
involves intrusion into every single aspect of the lives of the
employees. It raises very serious privacy issues.”
**

It represents an assault on your physiological and psychological being -
that is the point of their patent...it's going to monitor you.

Now, when you talk about things like 'Net Neutrality', most people think
that your Internet experience will be colored/bothered by assigning
packet flow priority based upon who they can get to pay for preferential
treatment which of course puts the notion of Internet startups at an
extreme disadvantage. It's already worse than that. Some Internet
providers are already trying to packet filter stuff like P2P and now
they're creating a new class of intrusion called Deep Packet Inspection
(DPI). With this they would track your usage, purporting to provide
predictive ads, but all the while knowing that this is all about big
brother control.

Anyway, I thought I would end with some links on this stuff...

- Glenn Greenwald (today), Lawbreaking telecoms still conniving to
obtain immunity from Congress -
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/17/telecoms/index.html

- Russ Feingold on FISA
http://www.progressivepatriotsfund.com/issues/fisa.html

- Chris Dodd on FISA and leader of the filibuster the last time FISA was
discussed in the Senate -
http://whitehouser.com/policy/domestic/senator-chris-dodd-fights-fisa-legislation/

Deep Packet Inspection 
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection
-
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/deep-packet-inspection-meets-net-neutrality.ars

Craig