Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: meatwad on May 14, 2013, 08:06 pm
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http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/14/4330212/tpp-threat-to-the-global-web
Well it looks like CISPA or something like it will be passed whether we like it or not...... There have been an unprecedented number of new laws that I have heard about recently that greatly reduce or completely absolve any constitutional rights that we as Americans still have left.
"Tomorrow in Lima, representatives from 11 countries are gathering to hammer out something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It's an international treaty, and the latest entry in the ongoing battle between copyright holders and the open web. Already, the treaty has been compared to SOPA and ACTA, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation describing it as the biggest threat to the global web in years. As in previous years, they're raising the alarm, and hoping that the global outcry will be enough to shoot down the treaty.
""There just isn't a reason why copyright should be in a trade agreement like this.""
The biggest red flags in the TPP are familiar from previous agreements — the inflated penalties, the prohibition on even temporary copies of protected intellectual property (IP), all the worst parts of the DMCA — but the larger concerns are how little we actually know. The negotiations are all secret, with only a small advisory committee kept in the loop on what's proposed. The public is only aware of the ACTA-like provisions because of a leak last summer that unveiled an early draft, but otherwise we'd still be in the dark.
Like a growing number of international trade agreements, the TPP is being negotiated behind closed doors, with nothing made public until all parties are agreed on the final result. It's a good method for hammering out tariffs and grappling with national interests, but it's a troubling way to manage web freedom. As EFF's Maira Sutton put it, "There just isn't a reason why copyright should be in a trade agreement like this." But increasingly, this is how the rules of the global internet are being written.
"Any country that found itself in violation could face sanctions"
The effects of the partnership are complex but far-reaching. In US terms, the largest target is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and its provisions dictating how legally responsible ISPs are for what happens on their networks. The TPP would enshrine the DMCA rules on the international stage. Any country that found itself in violation could face sanctions, as decided by an international adjudication panel — potentially a dealbreaker for future far reaching IP reform. Other possible provisions would strengthen legal penalties for breaking DRM, and potentially add a new set of laws governing the jailbreaking of phones.
But the biggest concern for reformists is just getting a seat at the table. For the intellectual property section, the only non-government interests allowed are the members of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee, 15 representatives from legacy interests like the RIAA and pharmaceutical industry groups. AT&T and Verizon both sent representatives, but web-native companies like Google and Facebook are nowhere to be found. The closest thing to an internet defender is Mark Chandler, general counsel of Cisco, but even he takes a backseat to representatives from Zippo and GE.
That's infuriating for web freedom advocates, but it's not uncommon given the process. International trade agreements tend to follow the logic of mercantilism, with each country protecting its own national interests. When they're negotiating commodity tariffs, that means protecting a specific resource, whether it's Italian olive oil or Argentine beef, and arranging trade rules to benefit it. It's not an egalitarian logic, but it's the way international trade has proceeded for hundreds of years. The TPP just extends it to intellectual property. It would mean protecting Hollywood content the same way we protect dairy farmers or car manufacturers.
"It would mean protecting Hollywood content the same way we protect dairy farmers or car manufacturers."
But for many experts, like Sean Flynn, who examines international agreements at American University's Washington College of Law, it's not clear if this worldview still makes sense. "Where do pharmaceutical companies really reside?" Flynn points out. "The companies themselves exist everywhere. It's the same with internet companies, with every modern company. There is a representation of interests, but it's not clear that it's national interests." In the current model, Hollywood copyrights are treated as a national interest and the value of the open web is left as an abstraction.
It doesn't have to be this way. Before 2006, most international IP talks used a different system, a multilateral process that publicized proposals and let NGOs weigh in — but after high-profile defeats like SOPA, the copyright lobby has shifted its efforts to closed, bilateral talks. ACTA was the first attempt, instituting DMCA-style copyright rules through the US, Europe and Australia. After the European Parliament rejected ACTA last summer, lobbyists turned to the TPP as a way to export the rules without Europe's approval. The leaked version contains many of the same proposals — but this time they're being pitched to pacific rim countries like Malaysia and Singapore instead of the more libertarian EU.
If the TPP passes, the effect could be largely the same. The US and partner countries would be shackled into our current copyright rules through international treaties, potentially pulled into international tribunals any time we want to change our digital copyright laws. But more than that, it would establish this kind of closed-door agreement as the most powerful standard for web governance. As Flynn puts it, "Is this agenda going to be interrupted or was ACTA going down just a little blip?""
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http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/14/4330212/tpp-threat-to-the-global-web
Well it looks like CISPA or something like it will be passed whether we like it or not...... There have been an unprecedented number of new laws that I have heard about recently that greatly reduce or completely absolve any constitutional rights that we as Americans still have left.
"Tomorrow in Lima, representatives from 11 countries are gathering to hammer out something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It's an international treaty, and the latest entry in the ongoing battle between copyright holders and the open web. Already, the treaty has been compared to SOPA and ACTA, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation describing it as the biggest threat to the global web in years. As in previous years, they're raising the alarm, and hoping that the global outcry will be enough to shoot down the treaty.
""There just isn't a reason why copyright should be in a trade agreement like this.""
The biggest red flags in the TPP are familiar from previous agreements — the inflated penalties, the prohibition on even temporary copies of protected intellectual property (IP), all the worst parts of the DMCA — but the larger concerns are how little we actually know. The negotiations are all secret, with only a small advisory committee kept in the loop on what's proposed. The public is only aware of the ACTA-like provisions because of a leak last summer that unveiled an early draft, but otherwise we'd still be in the dark.
Like a growing number of international trade agreements, the TPP is being negotiated behind closed doors, with nothing made public until all parties are agreed on the final result. It's a good method for hammering out tariffs and grappling with national interests, but it's a troubling way to manage web freedom. As EFF's Maira Sutton put it, "There just isn't a reason why copyright should be in a trade agreement like this." But increasingly, this is how the rules of the global internet are being written.
"Any country that found itself in violation could face sanctions"
The effects of the partnership are complex but far-reaching. In US terms, the largest target is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and its provisions dictating how legally responsible ISPs are for what happens on their networks. The TPP would enshrine the DMCA rules on the international stage. Any country that found itself in violation could face sanctions, as decided by an international adjudication panel — potentially a dealbreaker for future far reaching IP reform. Other possible provisions would strengthen legal penalties for breaking DRM, and potentially add a new set of laws governing the jailbreaking of phones.
But the biggest concern for reformists is just getting a seat at the table. For the intellectual property section, the only non-government interests allowed are the members of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee, 15 representatives from legacy interests like the RIAA and pharmaceutical industry groups. AT&T and Verizon both sent representatives, but web-native companies like Google and Facebook are nowhere to be found. The closest thing to an internet defender is Mark Chandler, general counsel of Cisco, but even he takes a backseat to representatives from Zippo and GE.
That's infuriating for web freedom advocates, but it's not uncommon given the process. International trade agreements tend to follow the logic of mercantilism, with each country protecting its own national interests. When they're negotiating commodity tariffs, that means protecting a specific resource, whether it's Italian olive oil or Argentine beef, and arranging trade rules to benefit it. It's not an egalitarian logic, but it's the way international trade has proceeded for hundreds of years. The TPP just extends it to intellectual property. It would mean protecting Hollywood content the same way we protect dairy farmers or car manufacturers.
"It would mean protecting Hollywood content the same way we protect dairy farmers or car manufacturers."
But for many experts, like Sean Flynn, who examines international agreements at American University's Washington College of Law, it's not clear if this worldview still makes sense. "Where do pharmaceutical companies really reside?" Flynn points out. "The companies themselves exist everywhere. It's the same with internet companies, with every modern company. There is a representation of interests, but it's not clear that it's national interests." In the current model, Hollywood copyrights are treated as a national interest and the value of the open web is left as an abstraction.
It doesn't have to be this way. Before 2006, most international IP talks used a different system, a multilateral process that publicized proposals and let NGOs weigh in — but after high-profile defeats like SOPA, the copyright lobby has shifted its efforts to closed, bilateral talks. ACTA was the first attempt, instituting DMCA-style copyright rules through the US, Europe and Australia. After the European Parliament rejected ACTA last summer, lobbyists turned to the TPP as a way to export the rules without Europe's approval. The leaked version contains many of the same proposals — but this time they're being pitched to pacific rim countries like Malaysia and Singapore instead of the more libertarian EU.
If the TPP passes, the effect could be largely the same. The US and partner countries would be shackled into our current copyright rules through international treaties, potentially pulled into international tribunals any time we want to change our digital copyright laws. But more than that, it would establish this kind of closed-door agreement as the most powerful standard for web governance. As Flynn puts it, "Is this agenda going to be interrupted or was ACTA going down just a little blip?""
The people at CERN created the web in a purpose that counters most of the efforts of these partnerships. Before that, in the days when a BBS stood for something more than a PHP app, networks existed far outside of the reach. TOR, even with its government roots, shares with it some of those principals. There will always be bills and attempts at reducing the rights of the open web. Always. This is unavoidable, and for the most part its there so that companies, conglomerates, and business alliances, have a happy warm feeling in the morning that they think they've stuck it to us.
The internet is only special in that many networks have agreed to do something that prior to 30 years ago was almost entirely a complete figment of our imagination: they all connected together in a near peaceful way. It is still, just a network. Creating other networks, is not hard... and personally, its hardly a new concept to me. I have always operated in that way. Today, I have just replaced some things I used to do with TOR. It's the nice thing about the concept. I mean, if you really think about it, the web really only is special for that simple fact - the agreement that united the public world. Obviously this comes with it the fact that, for the foreseeable distant future, things like Amazon will fall under the eventual oppression of some government bill. It stinks... but, eventually the internet will be treated the same as if you walked into a store front. It is inevitable. That doesn't mean you can't have an open web. The content that is relevant to you, can just as easily move to where it stays just as relevant. Look at file sharing - Warez was a concept easily found on BBS. When that became a bad medium, it moved to IRC. When IRC was supplanted, and it was obvious that people wanted to do more harm than good (or it was obvious some LE caught on), we moved to early P2P filesharing ventures. When those got bad, we went back to IRC, because it'd been forgotten. Then TOR & Bittorrent came through, amongst other things.
This is the nature of the brilliant minds that work on these mediums. The dark side of the moon in all forms of society, has existed as long as the light side. A bill in congress won't change that any more than anything else they try.
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This is the nature of the brilliant minds that work on these mediums. The dark side of the moon in all forms of society, has existed as long as the light side. A bill in congress won't change that any more than anything else they try.
I wish you were right... I really do. As a counter point, I ask you to consider Stalin's Russia. Hitler's Germany. Qadafi. North Korea. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... ad infinitum.
The danger is real. Just because we personally are so far removed from it -- or rather, have been most of our lives -- does not make it imaginary.
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Perversely, the biggest threat to Internet Security is most welcome for SRians, for the following reason:
How many people are going to start using technologies like offshore seedboxes, BitTorrent, Bitcoin and the anonymizers I2P and Tor?
A lot!
Most people will put their hands up because they are easily cowed by technocrats and authoritarians. But the Darknet shall expand enormously as a result of these trends. PGP Club shall be bigger than ever before.
And ultimately the holy grail of anonymity systems shall eventually occur. Somebody will figure out a way to combine anonymizers and BitTorrent at the Network level instead of the Application level. Then we win.
End Result: More anonymity for us all.
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Similarly, Pine loves Internet sales taxes. I hate taxes, but not (so much) those ones. Why? Because the natural result is a huge increase in international shipping services of all kinds, from virtual offices to virtual lockers and more. A whole eco-system develops to avoid taxation, and we will be right at the heart of it. Ultimately within a decade it'll lead to decentralized postal delivery systems using drones in private hands.
So don't feel down friends! The world is getting worse in terms of freedom, but not for our bank balances!
Having said all that, I would prefer to have more freedom for everybody rather than more money, but that choice isn't being made by me, it's being made for me by the governments of the world.
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This is the nature of the brilliant minds that work on these mediums. The dark side of the moon in all forms of society, has existed as long as the light side. A bill in congress won't change that any more than anything else they try.
I wish you were right... I really do. As a counter point, I ask you to consider Stalin's Russia. Hitler's Germany. Qadafi. North Korea. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... ad infinitum.
The danger is real. Just because we personally are so far removed from it -- or rather, have been most of our lives -- does not make it imaginary.
The danger IS real in those countries, but not from a network point of view. Their freedoms are oppressed in ways that extend beyond the internet into their very life freedoms. This is a problem that isn't easily addressed in the ways that the free world allows. You are right, this IS a danger in those areas. I don't disagree.
But, consider that even in Hitler's occupation of France, De-Gaulle set up the French underground network that was critical in the eventual invasion that changed the tide of the war. It is not impossible, no matter how dire it gets.
Historically speaking, the more advanced the country the faster it moves on from outdated principals. Obviously this isn't a universally acceptable way of representing the time and course of things, as can easily be applied to the need for extreme reform in many forms of property in the US and most of the world developed or otherwise. Change is a concept that is a function of both the movement of time and the rise and fall of a generation. The US is still dominated primarily by a government of a generation that still used nerd in a negative way, and has little adoption of the true modern system. Until the base of knowledge moves to what things actually are... its difficult to expect that the lawmakers will actually understand and handle law the way that is right. In our eyes, they are doing it wrong... in their eyes, they don't know what the hell we're talking about.
Countries that suffer the greater oppression are further behind. N Korea struggles to feed its people, to maintain any level of quality of living for anyone other than the government elite. This is the concept that many have tried to inform and educate on communism, the fact that corruption doesn't allow for the true marxist equality on wealth... and that greed doesn't allow for the maintenance of overall civil demand. It is what makes it untenable, as true communism is only achievable without the human flaw. Cuba suffered from it, Soviet Russia suffered many, many times with more than one famine for Stalin alone. China changed and adapted its policies, but the suffering still exists. They may not suffer from the mass famine deaths that Stalin's regime amounted to... but the constant neglect of logical application for industrialization causes just as much health issues, not to mention, corruption still plays the same effect. The government gets rich, and whats supposed to be a communal working for the better of everyone, and sharing to make this work, doesn't happen.
You can't explain this to countries that haven't figured it out for themselves. The US may not have chosen communism, but we didn't get it right the first time either. The government we have today, is nothing like Washington's government. Hell, when Lincoln entered the presidency, it may have simply been another revolution. It's never been the same since. France obviously has a hard time getting it right... they've had enough revolutions to have made the example by which America achieved it on their own. And the UK's history, while they may not want it to be this way, isn't exactly perfect either. India suffers still from the effects that the British had.
And, for that matter, the countries you listed have it bad, but there are developed world countries that aren't much better. Australia keeps moving more and more towards an Orwellian society.
These systems don't work - and the founding fathers of many countries that know these concepts have stated this much. They've also admitted that without making the mistake, the options presented look better than others. It's easy to fall into the beauty of Communism and Socialism. That's the point of propaganda - it's easy to like, of course it is. It was written to be that way. It's hard to really handle though - the fact that it is wrong. How do you go about it? The US chose its path, and was criticized. Now, they tend to shy away from dealing with problems that should be dealt with, regardless of opinion. What's the right way? Do we shove a nuke up Il's ass? Do we take out another DRC leader? Do we see how much continuous glass we can make on a desert?
These are all terrible options... they all end in death. But what else is there? Kim won't listen, he thinks he's the bomb, and he does propaganda pretty well. Look at Vietnam - we tried both ways, we tried to fight and we tried to generate support. We failed on both sides - the north either killed ruthlessly, or defeated the south puppets we chose through simple and easily targeted propaganda too. By the time the war was coming to an end, we couldn't get an official elected if we fixed the elections. There really just isn't an easy way to fix the problem.
That doesn't mean that what I said before isn't applicable though. Those countries ARE oppressed, and the people that work on things like TOR work frequently to help those people get around it. The web is no longer just the web - there are more networks than that, more than we even truly know about. And, to be honest, these policies don't really read the same as aggressive media control in propaganda lie based countries. The control of copyright information is a topic that needs to be addressed - and if bad bills get it debated, then so be it. It DOES need to be debated. If they do it wrong the first time, that is nothing new. Ignoring intellectual property is only going to make it worse... they've done that for long enough. If they're talking about it now, then it opens the way for dealing with the other systems like patents. It may not go well initially, but as has been said more than once... the nice thing about the US is the endless appeals system. Just because a bad bill is passed, doesn't mean we stop arguing it.