19.626 Google

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 626.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: Dimitar Iliev <d_iliev_at_abv.bg> (52)
         Subject: Re: 19.621 Google

   [2] From: Patrick Durusau <patrick_at_durusau.net> (66)
         Subject: Re: 19.621 Google

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 06:02:33 +0000
         From: Dimitar Iliev <d_iliev_at_abv.bg>
         Subject: Re: 19.621 Google

>There are certainly people capable of doing this, but I do not think
>it is wise to advocate criminal activities that amount to (cyber-)
>terrorism.
>
>What _is_ possible that allows to anonymise messages so that the source
>can be guaranteed not to be determined in the network, those are used
>by political dissenters -- and paedophiles alike -- such as Freenet
>designed by former MSc student Ian Clark from Edinburgh, which is now
>widely deployed.
>
>What is _not_ possible is to forget about the law and just turn grad
>students into Cyberwarfare activists. In a democracy, such things are
>left to the executive branch of the system, and it should be the
>signpost of a democratic society that it uses only democratic means,
>even against those who do not themselves subscribe to democracy.
>
>A democracy that turns itself toward terrorist methods would not be
>worth having.
>
> Regards,
> Jochen

The watermark of democracy from Antiquity onwards
has always been that the abstract general
principles of what law and justice are and should
be stand above any paricular law. This gives the
citizens the right to rebel when the particular
laws dont work according to the general principles of democracy and justice.
Now, legislation that makes possible for those in
power to control what information the citizens
receive, but doesn't make possible for the
citizens to have access to all the information
they want unless they're ready to be imprisoned
for that, is by no means a democratic
legislation. and thus should be fought.
Breaking censorship and gaining access to levels
of information that the authorities claim should
be inaccessible for the common public does not
(at least not always) amount to terrorism. We
should be careful in using this commonly misused
term. terrorism is hurting innocent people for
causes, just or unjust, they have nothing to do
with (see the London and Madrid bombings).
Breaking Internet censorship virtually hurts nobody.

Best regards,
Dimitar Iliev
phD student in classics
University of Sofia
Bulgaria

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http://mm.music.gbg.bg/

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 06:03:19 +0000
         From: Patrick Durusau <patrick_at_durusau.net>
         Subject: Re: 19.621 Google

Jochen,

Lest David Gants be associated with the post you find objectionable,
let me point out that I was the author of that post.

David had to forward it because I had used the incorrect address for
the Humanist list.

>On Fri, 17 Feb 2006, Humanist Discussion Group (by way of David Gants) wrote:
> >Surely there are world class hackers at the various universities where
> >most of the Humanist subscribers reside. The software and hardware used
> >by the Chinese government couldn't be any better than that offered by
> >most vendors. Rather than writing trivial viruses to annoy millions of
> >users, why shouldn't they try to do something that is a real benefit to
> >others?
> >Perhaps graduate seminars on breaking censorship firewalls, free
> >software to avoid them (perhaps embedded in commercial/free software) or
> >academic prizes for the same?
>
>There are certainly people capable of doing this, but I do not think
>it is wise to advocate criminal activities that amount to (cyber-)
>terrorism.
Criminal activities? In whose eyes?

The US State Department is starting an activity with the same goal.
Oh, I had not read your entire post. That must be the criminals in
the executive branch of the US government.

>What _is_ possible that allows to anonymise messages so that the source
>can be guaranteed not to be determined in the network, those are used
>by political dissenters -- and paedophiles alike -- such as Freenet
>designed by former MSc student Ian Clark from Edinburgh, which is now
>widely deployed.
>
>What is _not_ possible is to forget about the law and just turn grad
>students into Cyberwarfare activists. In a democracy, such things are
>left to the executive branch of the system, and it should be the
>signpost of a democratic society that it uses only democratic means,
>even against those who do not themselves subscribe to democracy.
I wonder how effective democracy would have been in opposing any of
the fascist regimes of the 20th century?

>A democracy that turns itself toward terrorist methods would not be
>worth having.
Then none of the current examples of democracy are worth having. All
of them have engaged in terrorist activities.

Note that modern terrorists learned the lesson about attacking
civilian populations from historical terrorist organizations, i.e.,
traditional military forces. Rather than simply attacking those who
might be morally responsible for some action, it is always the
civilian populations who suffer from sanctions, deprivation of tax
revenues, or military adventures.

I feel certain that civilian populations who suffered from any of the
military adventures of the 20th century felt terrorized.

The definition of terrorism that should be given is: Not in my interest.

During the civil rights movement the government did not have the "T"
word so it called protesters anarchists.

Again, the definition was: Not in my interest.

Granted that the partial success of that movement has been enshrined
in contemporary culture and is no longer questioned, well, other than
by Senator Lott, but aberrations do happen even in "democracies."

Self interest is served by obedience to unjust laws while waiting
upon them to change by whatever means.

But that is of little comfort to those suffering under those laws.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Patrick_at_Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005
Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!