Internet and freedom of communicating with fellow human beings

[passingby]

While trying to stay non-political, I think there is a need to discuss these issues where governments stop certain services in certain parts of the world. What if a part of the world is completely cut off? What if tomorrow, Google groups is stopped from being accessed from a country? In that situation how should fellow human beings communicate/share-resources on internet? 

Are we at mercy of governments ( well, yes, we are, but..)?

[Mat]

(I personally welcome off-topic discussions if they are few and also have some relevance like this one does even if just barely... but you should perhaps prefix the topic title with [off topic] or similar)

I think TW is very much created in the "freedom" spirit. Unfortunately it's most important project in this direction is still not quite here even if it is close (federation). There was some attention on the Beaker Browser project a few years ago, with some vague connections to TW. If I understand the project ambitions right, it makes every computer be a server.

Your post talks about the political question at large though and I can only agree with your hinted concern. If Google groups was blocked, which is totally likely in some places, and possibly even the case in some other, then... yeah, what can we do? We're all citizens somewhere. I guess we'd do what they do in Hong Kong and Moscow just now? Or, better yet, prevent governments that oppose free speech from taking root to begin with, by educating people about how different forms of government work and not permit such forces to take charge. The most concrete action I can think of is to use your voting rights while the government is still not corrupt - and to shout out whenever there are tendencies in the wrong direction. Freedom is not for free.

<:-)

[Mohammad]

I recommend to watch the movie by Oliver Stone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film)

The Snowden movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film)

You will learn much better about what governments interpret the word freedom!

--Mohammad 

[Jed Carty]

We are making reasonable progress with the inter-wiki federation so far. I am working on a project at the same time that uses hyperswarm (it is inspired by the BitTorrent DHT but it is made to make communication easier in the sense of finding specific peers instead of just some peers). It will be much harder to squish than most existing methods.

That doesn't mean it will be impossible, in order for it to not be possible we need to get a working large scale mesh in place (speaking of other projects I am working on....)

But yeah, it is always going to be a race to see if people can find new ways to communicate before the existing ones are put under the control of some type of authority.

If it makes you feel better, most of the inspired engineers that I know are strongly anti-authoritarian (hail eris anyone?)

[@TiddlyTweeter]

passingby, good to see your post!

It was a serious mistake that governments were stupidly slow when the net evolved. So far behind it is now a joke. That went so far that "common cause" has become reduced to "consumer trends".

The net--Google et al--is largely organised by corporations at the moment focused on markets.

It is a double whammy in that governments pressure those corps at points to, for instance, block Iranians. Giving the illusion government run things on the net. They don't.

The day to day logic is corporate, based in the dominant economic model, hugely successful economically. THAT is dangerous.

Its a weird situation to say the least.

IMO. The large corporations on the internet are far too big for a healthy future.

I actually think government is currently the lesser evil.

Thoughts

TT

[passingby]

This is a bit of rant here.

From a layman's point of view, I feel the talk and ideas of software and concept of sharing and openness has changed a lot. It seems internet is no more the internet which it was envisioned to be.

A long time ago, I used to think if something was open source, it was trustworthy, free in terms of money, and free in terms of freedom, that nobody controlled it. I used to think that a software which was open source was something which stood in defiance against companies whose main motive was money and dominance. In this spirit I was a fan of firefox for a long time. Then Google Chrome came along and I became its fan. Later on I heard there are new smarter phones with touch screen and they are based on Android which is open source. I readily adopted it, and my next phone after a Nokia symbian phone was Samsung s4. 

Well fast forward to current times, I now realize that open source or not, the products are tightly controlled by companies. Companies control what update is rolled out, when it is rolled, and even in which region it is rolled out. I had no idea that Google could choose whether or not to allow a company to use its version of Android. I had no idea that even if a software was open source, it was still a controllable creature. Fifteen years ago when ever I came across the word ecosystem I thought it was just another word used by experts to sound like experts. 

I have to agree that there may be times where blocking of communication may be warranted. But I have seen its instances of misuse. I know a few instances of this happening in India in past couple of years. There was a police crackdown in Haryana state not long ago and the government totally cut off social media apps for several days, because they wanted to shut down live or almost live news sharing. And nobody spoke out. Nothing happened. They did their thing and life went on. Later I got to know that it was happening elsewhere too.

If a machine runs on electricity, no matter how smart that machine may be, all that needs to be done to defeat that machine is to cut off electricity. Governments control ISPs. A simple court order, brought about by the power that be, can make them fall in line.

Understandably, if internet connection is shut down, and that too with legal tools, there is nothing common person can do. But there should be tools to communicate and share when there is at least some internet going on. That is something which deserves support.

[HansWobbe]

I absolutely agree that mutiNational corps are a bigger problem that sovereign governments.  One of the compelling arguments is the "too big to fail" argument put forward to justify the bailouts of the Banks from the 2008 financial crises. 

That "too big to..." argument is now evidently extended to include:

* "Too Big To Manage" ( with only celebrity executives )

* "Too Big To Punish" ( Facebook's share price went up when the markets realized that a $5billion fine was a trivial cost of doing business )

* "Too Big To Control" (by any country worried about job losses to another or via Trade Wars)

* etc.

Things will change simply because elected representaives will not restrict the growth in taxation.  In Canada, Taxes are now larger than the costs of living.  This is an unstable situation that will have consequences.

Open communication technologies that counter government "spin" are essential to efficient progress.

~Hans

[Mat]

For anyone interested, here are some articles by Dr Ben Goertzel. The latest one ("What's so disturbing about Microsofts OpenAI investment") touches these matters. Dr Goertzel is the chief scientist behind SingularityNet, i.e the brain of the robot Sophia that you've all seen, but with the actual aim to create an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) that is decentralized and democratized instead of controlled by some company or state. Here is an interview with Dr. Goertzel from just the other day (the link skips the introductory scare mongering that is mandatory when talking about AI but which does not represent the interview at all). BTW, do not dismiss him as some hippie who doesn't know what he's talking about. Hippie perhaps but he is one of the foremost experts on AI in the world.

...

HansWobbe wrote

In Canada, Taxes are now larger than the costs of living.  This is an unstable situation that will have consequences.

Wanna come to Sweden? The average worker pays 53% in tax. Used to be even much more.

<:-)

[TonyM]

Folks.

I care deeply about these issues.

But the first point I would make is we should ensure there are a Divercity of communication channels known to most if not all enthusiasts making it hard for one or more channels closing to stop communication. When we establish the ability for every tiddlywiki to open a communication channel it will help.

Regards
Tony

Regards
Tony

[passingby]

When we establish the ability for every tiddlywiki to open a communication channel it will help.

 

Tony,

Are there any ideas out there about how this can be done technologically wise?