Sep. 22nd, 2012 10:19 am
How is bad internet policy formed? How?
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unjapanologistI'm increasingly convinced that all schools from the primary to higher level should establish new classes on the history and functioning of the internet. Every adult in the world should be forced to attend at least a semester of such a class. Policymakers who are involved in regulating the internet should be forced to attend and come back for remedial classes at regular intervals, because they need a well-developed bullshit radar to deal with the horrendous policy proposals that are lobbed at their heads all the freakin' time.
The latest crazy is coming from the EU, and for once, it's not the copyright industries that are trying to delude lawmakers into creating wildy, horribly bad and anti-consumer internet policy; it's the internet security industry. At issue is CleanIT, a project that was announced in February of this year by the European Commission. (That would be the non-elected body that has still not given up on pushing through the ACTA treaty, in spite of unprecedented opposition from the elected European Parliament.) The purpose of the CleanIT project is to do, um, something to keep terrorists from using the internet.
That's exactly as ominous as it sounds, as a leaked document with policy recommendations coming from the CleanIT project proves. EDRI has all the details, and Techdirt provides the following analysis of the scary bits. Long, but that's because there are a lot of scary bits.
The noxious influence of business interests is strong in this one; EDRI calls the whole initiative "little more than a protection racket (use filtering or be held liable for terrorist offences) for the online security industry". What's kind of shocking here is not that business interests are trying to influence policymaking, though. That's been happening ever since businesses and policymaking came into existence. The real issue is that these sorts of recommendations have some chance of getting somewhere. They may or may not make it into law, but they will almost certainly end up influencing the policymakers who will lay eyes on them. Far too many of these people have no earthly idea how the internet works and what is necessary to keep the internet gears from turning. They don't have the necessary background knowledge and practical experience to recognize these "recommendations" for the harmful crap they are the moment the papers land on their desks. I shudder to think that serious lawmaking people will be looking this over, nodding along and assuming these ideas are very reasonable and terrorist-stopping.
Nobody can be expected to have a thorough grounding in every topic in existence, but the internet is no longer a "special" issue that you can ignore until some proposals come around, at which point you call in a "nerd" to explain things and tell you what to do. Knowing about the workings and needs of a functioning internet is as essential for a 21st-century public official as knowing about traffic rules. Every time you make a new rule, you should consider the effect it will have on the internet, and you should know how to do so. Back to school for everyone.
The latest crazy is coming from the EU, and for once, it's not the copyright industries that are trying to delude lawmakers into creating wildy, horribly bad and anti-consumer internet policy; it's the internet security industry. At issue is CleanIT, a project that was announced in February of this year by the European Commission. (That would be the non-elected body that has still not given up on pushing through the ACTA treaty, in spite of unprecedented opposition from the elected European Parliament.) The purpose of the CleanIT project is to do, um, something to keep terrorists from using the internet.
That's exactly as ominous as it sounds, as a leaked document with policy recommendations coming from the CleanIT project proves. EDRI has all the details, and Techdirt provides the following analysis of the scary bits. Long, but that's because there are a lot of scary bits.
Instead of tackling concrete problems, the vague threat of "terrorism" is constantly invoked -- without ever defining what that means -- to justify a range of extreme measures. At the heart of the plans lies the "voluntarism" we discussed a few weeks ago:
Governments should stimulate self-regulation by Internet companies
And where there are laws, it must be OK for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to ignore them and have content taken down on demand:
It must be legal for LEAs to make Internet companies aware of terrorist content on their infrastructure ('flagging') that should be removed, without following the more labour intensive and formal procedures for 'notice and take action'
Due process, who needs it? The plans also require some interesting new laws, like this one criminalizing merely posting certain hyperlinks:
Knowingly providing hyperlinks on websites to terrorist content must be defined by law as illegal just like the terrorist content itself
Here's another proposal -- no more anonymity online:
Internet companies must allow only real, common names. These must be entered when registering.
So what happens if you have an uncommon name? And then there's this:
Social media companies must allow only real pictures of users
Presumably you're not allowed to smile, either. Talking of social media, the Clean IT plans include the introduction of friendly "virtual police officers", constantly spying on, er, watching over Europeans online:
Virtual police officers must be used to show law enforcement is present, is watchful, in order to prevent terrorist use of the Internet and make regular users feel more secure.
The idea is that "virtual police officers" will be keeping an eye on you -- for your own safety, you understand. Other ways in which users will be protected from themselves is through the use of filters:
All kinds of Internet companies, LEAs and NGOs, but not governments, should promote the use of end-user controlled filters among their clients, the public and supporters
Note that "not governments" part -- people mustn't get the idea that this is censorship, oh no. Also required will be automated detection systems, because we know how well they work:
Automated detection systems must be used by LEAs, NGOs and Internet companies.
Among the even more interesting proposals in the leaked document seems to be the idea that the authorities can order encryption to be turned off, presumably to allow eavesdropping:
In some cases notice and take action procedures must lead to security certificates of sites to be downgraded.
But surely the most bizarre proposal for dealing with "abuse" -- an attempt to dress up as lamb the tired old mutton of "terrorism" -- is the following:
The use of platforms in languages abuse specialists or abuse systems do not master should be unacceptable and preferably technically impossible.
Incredible though it might sound, that seems to suggest that less common foreign languages would be banned from the European Internet entirely in case anybody discusses naughty stuff without the authorities being able to spy on them (haven't they heard of Google Translate?) You could hardly hope for a better symbol of the paranoid and xenophobic thinking that lies behind this crazy scheme.
We've seen a lot of bad recommendations for internet policy in the recent past, a lot of it related to misguided copyright enforcement initiatives, but this is really special. No anonymity? Constant oversight? Only real pictures as avatars? No using languages that the internet police doesn't speak? How on earth does this sort of baffling nonsense make it into the recommendations of an official body made up of grownups with brains? Governments should stimulate self-regulation by Internet companies
And where there are laws, it must be OK for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to ignore them and have content taken down on demand:
It must be legal for LEAs to make Internet companies aware of terrorist content on their infrastructure ('flagging') that should be removed, without following the more labour intensive and formal procedures for 'notice and take action'
Due process, who needs it? The plans also require some interesting new laws, like this one criminalizing merely posting certain hyperlinks:
Knowingly providing hyperlinks on websites to terrorist content must be defined by law as illegal just like the terrorist content itself
Here's another proposal -- no more anonymity online:
Internet companies must allow only real, common names. These must be entered when registering.
So what happens if you have an uncommon name? And then there's this:
Social media companies must allow only real pictures of users
Presumably you're not allowed to smile, either. Talking of social media, the Clean IT plans include the introduction of friendly "virtual police officers", constantly spying on, er, watching over Europeans online:
Virtual police officers must be used to show law enforcement is present, is watchful, in order to prevent terrorist use of the Internet and make regular users feel more secure.
The idea is that "virtual police officers" will be keeping an eye on you -- for your own safety, you understand. Other ways in which users will be protected from themselves is through the use of filters:
All kinds of Internet companies, LEAs and NGOs, but not governments, should promote the use of end-user controlled filters among their clients, the public and supporters
Note that "not governments" part -- people mustn't get the idea that this is censorship, oh no. Also required will be automated detection systems, because we know how well they work:
Automated detection systems must be used by LEAs, NGOs and Internet companies.
Among the even more interesting proposals in the leaked document seems to be the idea that the authorities can order encryption to be turned off, presumably to allow eavesdropping:
In some cases notice and take action procedures must lead to security certificates of sites to be downgraded.
But surely the most bizarre proposal for dealing with "abuse" -- an attempt to dress up as lamb the tired old mutton of "terrorism" -- is the following:
The use of platforms in languages abuse specialists or abuse systems do not master should be unacceptable and preferably technically impossible.
Incredible though it might sound, that seems to suggest that less common foreign languages would be banned from the European Internet entirely in case anybody discusses naughty stuff without the authorities being able to spy on them (haven't they heard of Google Translate?) You could hardly hope for a better symbol of the paranoid and xenophobic thinking that lies behind this crazy scheme.
The noxious influence of business interests is strong in this one; EDRI calls the whole initiative "little more than a protection racket (use filtering or be held liable for terrorist offences) for the online security industry". What's kind of shocking here is not that business interests are trying to influence policymaking, though. That's been happening ever since businesses and policymaking came into existence. The real issue is that these sorts of recommendations have some chance of getting somewhere. They may or may not make it into law, but they will almost certainly end up influencing the policymakers who will lay eyes on them. Far too many of these people have no earthly idea how the internet works and what is necessary to keep the internet gears from turning. They don't have the necessary background knowledge and practical experience to recognize these "recommendations" for the harmful crap they are the moment the papers land on their desks. I shudder to think that serious lawmaking people will be looking this over, nodding along and assuming these ideas are very reasonable and terrorist-stopping.
Nobody can be expected to have a thorough grounding in every topic in existence, but the internet is no longer a "special" issue that you can ignore until some proposals come around, at which point you call in a "nerd" to explain things and tell you what to do. Knowing about the workings and needs of a functioning internet is as essential for a 21st-century public official as knowing about traffic rules. Every time you make a new rule, you should consider the effect it will have on the internet, and you should know how to do so. Back to school for everyone.
no subject
I also cling to hope that I will live in the Batcave one day, so we should probably remain vigilant too. And educate, educate, educate.
...The Administration looks really interesting. Is there any story you'd recommend? I cannot get sucked into that whole thing right now, I cannot, but I kinda want to read just a bit of it.
no subject
If you keep a small space in your Batcave for me, I'll be happy to join! *g*
Administration: Just start with the first story (Mind Fuck) and work your way down from there. The stories are chronological, so I wouldn't skip one or start in the middle. It's basically one big plot arc splitted in parts that can be read as standalone stories.
no subject
Aside from influence from lobbyists, I think a lot of people just don't think about the secondary effects of their proposals. Forcing everyone to sign their real names to anything they say online will make it easier to track down terrorists (in theory), which is what they're trying to accomplish. Forcing everyone to sign their real names would also kill all sorts of discourse and activities that require pseudonymity/anonymity, but these proposals sound like they just drew up a list of what would make it easier to track terrorists online and didn't give two seconds of thought to the secondary effects of those measures.
Or they could be trying to establish an extreme position from which to negotiate, so they can eventually get at least some of this signed in to law while making it look like they made concessions with the people who oppose the proposals. /cynism yay
The Batcave is in my head, so there's room for all my friends and their ponies! Make yourself at home.
*bookmarks Administration*