Yesterday I wanted to google for a cartoon in order to show it to my wife. I joked that the keywords would probably get me on a watch list. My wife said I was a fool to use those search terms. Did I need to “prove” myself by googing those terms? When I said that if I stopped looking for information using those terms, I was already accepting that the police state is real. She said, thanks for making it harder for me, should I want to visit the United States again.
Needless to say, the argument was a bit longer and a perfect Saturday was ruined with a late night discussion about the current state of the world– surveillance society.
Recommended reading: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet by Bruce Schneier.
Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#NSA #USA
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Yeah, I’m taking you off my blog roll.
– Sean 2013-08-12 01:22 UTC
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Sounds dramatic but don’t you see the debate as renegotiating the bargain struck by a democratic society? How we’re going to get to there from here is probably going to be messy.
– Alok Singh 2013-08-12 02:58 UTC
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Absolutely. The debate is about renegotiating our values. The problem with a surveillance society, of course, is that debate concerning the surveillance itself can be problematic. I also wanted to point out that chilling effects happen on a very personal level, long before we can talk about censorship or self-censorship.
– Alex Schroeder 2013-08-12 19:35 UTC
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The UK government is going to require everyone to “opt-in” to be able to access porn on the internet. Which I think is a good idea in theory, but what worries me is that it seems that if you don’t opt-in it’s not just porn that is going to be blocked but all manner of other stuff too.
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/sleepwalking-into-censorship
P.S. I just found out about your Old School RPG Planet site last week. That’s very useful, Thank-you!
– Akiyama 2013-08-13 10:57 UTC
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Janne Jalkanen wrote about the slippery slope from anti-porn activities to more dubious activities in Finland. It was along time ago but it’s still pertinent. At the time it didn’t seem that all your failed attempts to contact various sites would be recorded. The Panopticon at work. 🙁
slippery slope from anti-porn activities to more dubious activities in Finland
– Alex Schroeder 2013-08-13 11:49 UTC
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In today’s news - the British Library’s wi-fi filter blocks people from accessing Shakespeare’s Hamlet due to “violent content”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23680689
– Akiyama 2013-08-14 07:40 UTC
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As Kristian Köhntopp likes to say on Google+, “All the hands of all the gods of the hindus cannot facepalm enough...”
– Alex Schroeder 2013-08-14 14:33 UTC