Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, I’ve been wondering what would happen when anyone could download a set of plans and print their own, for example, Star Wars toys. And more to the point, what would happen when those plans could be pirated. Anything digital can easily be copied; the Internet is [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Power to the People category.
“MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren’t Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought”
Remember the SOPA drama last week? It has given MPAA not-quite-lobbyist Chris Dodd a bad case of foot-in-mouth: he publicly threatened politicians who’d taken MPAA money for not doing what the MPAA wanted. On national television, no less. Un-freakin’-believable. And just this side of actually criminal. Dodd is a former senator — he should know [...]
SOPA and PIPA stopped — for now
Wow. I didn’t expect anything like what happened, and apparently neither did anyone else — including the MPAA. From the e-mail I received from FightForTheFuture.org: The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled. “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA [...]
“Verizon retreats on ‘convenience fee’ for online bill payment”
I’ve often said on this blog that if the governments of the world had realized the power that the Internet would give to their people, they would have quietly strangled it in its cradle. Apparently the wish for retroactive infanticide extends to large corporations as well, which makes sense.
“WikiLeaks and the power of the Internet”
Knowledge really is power — power that the Internet is moving from governments and large corporations to the people. Nothing I haven’t talked about before, though I’m frankly shocked at how fast it’s happening. Let’s hope that the people use it well.
“Silencing Wikileaks is silencing the press”
I’m sure some of you have been following the Wikileaks news recently… how the founder and spokesperson for the organization, Julian Assange, has been arrested in England, over an accusation in Switzerland. There are reports, which I haven’t been able to confirm, that the US is trying to criminalize Wikileaks retroactively and get him extradited, [...]
“Australian seniors ask Pirate Party for help in accessing right-to-die sites”
This is exactly why organizations like the Pirate Party or Wikileaks need to be kept around — because even if they espouse illegal or semilegal behaviors, or provide a safe haven for whistleblowers to air the proverbial dirty laundry, they act as a check to governments and the corporations that essentially run them. If they [...]
“The Green Dam Phenomenon: Governments everywhere are treading on Web freedoms”
If, in the early nineties, the governments of the world had realized just how much power the Internet would offer their citizens, I have little doubt that it would have been quietly strangled in its cradle. Since they missed that opportunity, they’re trying to censor it instead — even in democratic countries that should know [...]
“A Golden Age”
Scott Adams made an entry in the Dilbert Blog today, making a prediction of a coming Golden Age. It’s a lovely vision, and I’m sure the reality will be interesting, even if nowhere near as awesome as he describes. But there’s one thing in particular that he mentioned that bears repeating: Wars appear to be [...]