Taming the wild west

Tom Evslin adds another voice to those who are on a lonely quest to try to partially tame the anarchy of the internet. In his entry, he notes that:

If the Internet is a law-free zone:

  1. Governments can do whatever they want there including spying and blocking. It’s naïve and illogical to think that governments are governed by law in a free fire zone when no one else is.
  2. Monopolies can do whatever they want including blocking competing services.
  3. Malicious people are free to attack not only other sites but the structure of the Internet itself including its routers and domain name servers.
  4. Threats, libel, and fraud gain immunity from investigation and prosecution by being carried out on the Internet.
  5. The Internet becomes a river in which any conspirator can wade to avoid the bloodhounds of law enforcement.
  6. There are no laws PROTECTING privacy in a law-free zone.
  7. SPAM is as legitimate as any other activity.

For a couple years now, I have been campaigning on a similar platform, especially concerned about Evslin’s item 5.

We’ll be looking at this issue in a special session at The Canadian Telecom Summit in June. Speakers include D/Sgt Paul Gillespie, one of the world’s leading experts in law enforcement tactics to combat child exploitation. You can also check out an earlier posting about this subject.

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