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Fear And The Internet

 
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Maurice Ali



Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 7654
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:08 pm    Post subject: Fear And The Internet Reply with quote

Fear And The Internet


By Maurice Ali, Journalist



Fear and the internet, that statement today could mean many things: identity theft, false accusations, viruses, etc.; but the most common fear is that of privacy on the net. The internet is becoming - more and more - an instrument of necessity in all our daily lives. Who can do without e-mail? What about messenger? BBoards and other forms of discussion venues? Purchasing, renewing.....licences, work from home.....it goes on and on.....

The internet is a necessity for many people, yet the governments would like total dominion over all activity on the net cloaked in the guise of fighting terrorism. It does not really matter what reason is used for justification; governments just like to have as much information and control over it as possible. No terrorism.....how about fighting crime; child pornography, money laundering, the list goes on. Many just try to ignore this intrusion into our personal affairs because they are the government - they have the power and they have the guns.....and we don't. While this may be a reality in some of the more oppressive parts of the world, this is not the case in democracies; we control the government and all it's extensions that do it's bidding.

Rationalizing with people mostly falls on deaf ears. Most people in the United States would have told you they lived in the most freedom loving nation in the world, controlled by a model constitution enshrining individual rights; but not anymore. Today most Americans watch what they say on controversial arguments, they do this because one single terrorist act so shocked them at the time that they let their guard down - in the name of security - and lost most of those much cherished rights. As time from the events of 911 fade into memory, all we are left with is the onerous aspects of the "Patriot Act" and other such laws; they serve to keep dissent down by flaming the tribal concepts of nationalism and fear in the hearts of all citizens. It is this phenomenon that caught my interest, and lead to this study.

Is fear on the internet simply paranoid fantasy - or a modern day reality? I decided to find out.

Once - Happenstance

My study started with a peculiar I.P. address that appeared on my server: .....usdoj.gov. That was the I.P. address for the U.S. Department Of Justice; what the hell did I do? The next day I found out, the Americans had been spamming the internet looking for information that another web-news agency had put forth connecting U.S. Presidential hopeful John Kerry with an intern.. That story has since subsided, but at the time this was a political "hot potato"; the justice department was checking the internet news agencies and passed by ours during that sweep. A once in a lifetime event.....

Twice - Coincidence

Intrigued with the efficiency of the American information gathering ability; I ran a story called "War Cry" and posted it on three other websites and looked for a response. Sure enough I got two military intelligence I.P. addresses snooping around our website shortly after (disa.mil and nipr.mil). Wow.....this was starting to look scary, were we always this vulnerable to "government snooping"? I mentioned in a discussion on that topic that we were an above board operation and incorporated.....and then we got another uninvited visitor.....

Three Times - Enemy Action!

Yes, believe it - we got a visit from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service in the United States Of America) under the I.P. addresses of irs.gov. It would appear that the internet is being scanned and investigated by governments that have the technological capability to monitor large areas of the net.....if not the whole internet. The logistics of this are beyond me; but I nevertheless have come to some conclusions on how they are snooping and how much we should be concerned about it.

TIA For Dummies

Not being an expert on these matters, and not having the information presented for general consumption; I can only offer these generalizations based on empirical evidence collected to this date: 1. You are being watched and nothing is private on the net. 2. The internet is being monitored by robots who search out "key Words" and thus direct government employees to that web page for investigation, almost sure of this based on our experience. 3. "Thumbing your nose" at the government brings more onerous government agencies snooping around for evidence to keep you in fear and to stop dissent. That is all I can say now, as that last sentence was starting to enter the realm of speculation, but you get the point. I should also mention how this investigation affected traffic at our website; traffic dropped by eighty percent! The fact the U.S. Government was visiting us regularly now, by itself, made people fearful enough to avoid us entirely (just to let you know.....the spying has has stopped since I informed these agencies that I was Canadian and out of their respective jurisdictions). The fear is real.....but what do we do about it?

Time For Action

Now is the time to quell the governments of the world in their lust for all-encompassing knowledge of our activities (Total Information Awareness - TIA). In Europe there are bills being enacted to store all internet activity for up to five years for the governments to have access to it if it wishes. This type of thing must stop. The phony justification of "security" for loss of privacy is a fool's transaction. You must stand up publicly and voice your opposition to loss of privacy on the net; and privately in the voting booth. The time is now! Rights and freedoms lost have only been regained through much bloodshed and loss of life. Until a few days ago, we had never had an American post so much as a word on our discussion boards, the fear was that great (especially given the events of late), and many had presented this fear to me privately. However, due to a "dare" on my part, I got an American to overcome any hesitations to post and enter into a converstaiton on our board. This fearlessness was a refreshing change and a hope that people of strong will can influence others through their actions. I know fear is a hard thing to overcome - but the old famous phases still ring true:
We have nothing to fear, but fear itself". How true, and how poignant.




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