OneWebDay… a little late
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
by alphaxion
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I appologise, I’m 5 days late for this since it happened on the 22nd. Please check out the OneWebDay site for the 2009 event.
For this years OWD I thought I’d cover the 14 or so years that I have been a citizen of the net.
Has it really been 14 years?
More than anything else, the net has really impacted my life and changed the way I do things, the circle of people I interact with and alters my world view more in 1 week than years without it.
Yet, I have to remind you that our great internet is under threat. The freedoms and borderless existance the internet represents has countless countries and corporations scared and concerned.
Through the abuse of technologies such as DPI, web proxies and QoS we are encountering ISPs that will restrict the use and/or bandwidth of specific apps and filters certain dangerous information under the guise of anti-piracy, anti-terrorism and chilld protection campaigns. Yet this is the digital equivelant of burning books (blocking access) and misinformation (altering the data in the stream before it reaches you).
Then we have the assumed - grossly mistakenly - beneign use of DPI in order to extort money out of your privacy monetise their customers in behavioural tracking and analysing in order to serve you ads by scum such as Phorm in the UK and NebuAd in the USA. I recommend everyone reads The Register’s fantastic coverage of this governmental corruption laden scheme. Your jaw will struggle to get up off the floor once you see what is being done under the guise of “improving your net experience”.
Because, in their twisted little minds, the net is such a better place when the adverts are relevant to our interests - ignoring the fact that 99% of people consider ads on the net to either be noise or simply a stopgap measure to fund a cool site until a real revenue stream can be found.
If you happen to visit a site that finds its way onto the government No-No(tm) list then you can expect a knock on your door and your equipment stolen.
Your crime? Reading and learning.
By all means, keep tabs on things but knowledge should never be restricted just because some people might use it to do bad things. This is a very slippery slope that we really shouldn’t tread.
Information should be set free, hopefully the taste of freedom we have gained so far will be strong enough for us to fight for it.
For if we don’t protect it, the greatest development of the modern world will become a sterile, government and corporate sanctioned waste of time.
-alphaxion
