LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Neil Ridley <n.ridley@SACBH.com.au>
  To  : 'Linux SA' <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 14:26:43 +0930

RE: Opinions on New Internet Bill (While I am still allowed to express them)

Fine, we will just start another Network, "We can call it Air Net or
something like that".
     

NEIL RIDLEY
n.ridley@sacbh.com.au

>----------
>From: 	O'Connor, Steven[SMTP:Steven.O'Connor@boral.com.au]
>Sent: 	Thursday, 27 May 1999 11:41
>To: 	'linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au'
>Subject: 	Opinions on New Internet Bill (While I am still allowed to express
>them)
>
>
>It will be very interesting to see what sort of 'content' the powers-that-be
>declare to be offensive ....
>
>Consider these points (presented in no particular order)
>
>- During the Vietnam War, things went very wrong for 'The System' mainly
>because of open reporting.
>
>- By the time that the Gulf war came around, the media representation of the
>war was very much back under the control of 'The System'
>
>- Closely followed by Somalia, we even had cameras and film crews all setup
>on the beaches BEFORE the troops turned up.
>
>- Now with Yugoslavia who knows what is going on - we get 'ameteur video'
>shots of Serbian tanks driving around quite clearly in the open, and yet the
>USAF seems intent on blowing up bridges, refugee columns, and water storage
>facilities ... huh ? The only media that we get is straight from the US
>Ministry of Truth.
>
>- Yugoslavian radio stations, satellite relays, and internet broadcast
>capabilities have been targetted very agressively by NATO (while the Serbian
>tanks are free to roam the countryside). - huh ?
>
>- An article in the age
>(http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html) shows how 'The
>System' has admitted that all comms into and out of this country are tapped
>and scanned, and analysed by computers. (Purely to protect the Australian
>people from anti-social elements, of course)
>
>- We have Mr Gates virtually buying AT&T in the US, to own the
>infrastructure for comms over there, and now he is making a big move on
>Deutsche Telekom, to own the European comms and cable internet
>infrastructure.
>
>- Bill Clinton ..  Big mover & shaker, or pawn of 'The System' ? Whatever
>the case, whoever controls the Media certainly had the power to put him in
>there in the first place (remember those pathetic im-promptu performances on
>the saxaphone ?), and will certainly have the power to decide whether or not
>he stays or goes. Look at the procession of 'electees' in the USA - Reagan
>(actor), Jesse Ventura (WWF Wrestler / Actor) , etc, etc. If Bill Clinton
>does not toe the line, who will be next ? Leonardo DiCaprio ?, Tom Cruise ?
>Bill Gates ?  .... dont laugh too loud, just wait and see whats coming.
>
>- Australia, home base for US signals intelligence, rushes a law through the
>parliment that effectively gives 'The System' enormous powers of control
>over the internet in this country, all under the guise of 'protecting the
>people'. What exactly does this Bill achieve - does it protect children from
>porn and dissident opinion ? - No, not at all. We know that, and They know
>that. What we all know, is that within a very short time of this Bill
>becoming law, virtually every ISP in this country will be technically guilty
>of an offense under the act. Will there be prosecutions ? - NO, NO, and NO
>again. The System will not be interested in charging anyone under the act.
>It will appear as if it was a big fizzer, and life will go on as normal, in
>fact, every unpunished offence that goes by each day gives Them more
>leverage when the time comes to act. 
>
>The Future :
>
>This is how I reckon it will pan out :
>
>- The first people to go down will be ISP's who offer extended services like
>building intranets and other applications for customers. These first victims
>will be non-Microsoft shops who for one reason or another, are not helping
>Mr Gates in his cause. Lets call this company XYZ Pty. Ltd. The issues at
>hand will be about market share, and control of technology. XYZ Pty Ltd will
>be building and hosting sites using standard protocols, whereas MS will be
>asking that they convert everything to COM / ActiveX / Office-2000 / MS-XML.
>XYZ P/L's products and services will be competing very nicely in the market.
>One day, XYZ P/L will go too far, and produce some plugin or other that
>allows netscape to view IIS-6 pages, or allows Samba to mount an NTFS-2
>drive. 
>
>- The first thing that the masses will see of this will be a show-trial,
>mostly on TV. Suddenly, several years worth of log files will be dragged
>out, showing a collection of smut and offensive material that has passed
>through XYZ P/L's servers. The simple fact that those same downloads may
>have passed through BigPond, ninemsn.com.au, etc, on their way to XYZ P/L's
>proxy server will be ignored completely by the prosecution. Every TV news
>report will cover the exact same story - showing lurid pictures of half
>dressed ladies, throw in a snippet of some 'youth' taking a drink out of a
>Vodka bottle at a Marilyn Manson concert, toss in a picture of a web page
>bearing a swastika, and point the big ugly finger of guilt all at XYZ Pty.
>Ltd.  'Here is an example of the sort of filth that these monsters at XYZ
>Pty. Ltd. have been pushing on our children'.
>
>- The masses will be only too happy to see XYZ go down, and have their
>customer base moved over to someone safer, like ninemsn.com.au for example.
>
>
>- Over time, there will be no more ISP's as we know them. They will either
>become branch offices of MSN, investing big bucks to bring all their
>operations into line with the MS-way, or face the consequences. The ultimate
>consequence will be to be hauled up before the media as a 'Drug peddling,
>rascist, paedophile'.
>
>- Once this experiment has been successful in this country, expect to see
>other countries adopt the same model.
>
>- Will there ever be a prosecution against msn.com.au ? ... what do you
>reckon ?      If we all ran background processes to anonymously pull porn
>and offensive material through msn 24 hours a day, and reported all of the
>downloads to the media, do you think that there will be any mention of it at
>all ? - I dont think so.
>
>-- 
>Check out the LinuxSA web pages at http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
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>

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