megimoo
12-05-2010, 04:57 PM
Attacks on WikiLeaks are part of an attack on free speech, aided by the companies that make up the Web's backbone
The WikiLeaks affair is highlighting the Internet's soft underbelly: the intermediaries on which we all rely to store our information and make it available. We are learning, to our dismay, that we cannot trust them. Combine that with increasing government intervention, we're also learning that the Internet is somewhat easier to censor than we'd assumed.
This should worry anyone who believes that we're going to move our data and online lives into the fabled "cloud" -- the diffused online array of hardware and services where, proponents say, we can do our online work, play and commerce without the need for storing data on our own personal computers. Trusting the cloud is becoming an act of faith, and it's time to question that faith.
And the situation should absolutely chill everyone who believes in free speech -- and especially the people who call themselves journalists. Sadly, however, too many of them have been cheering on people who want to make WikiLeaks disappear. Do they realize that it could be their own turn someday?
WikiLeaks has been under attack all week from governments that want to hide their misdeeds, not just legitimate secrets. That's unsurprising, to put it mildly, despite the hypocrisy of official Washington's loathing of Internet blocking in other countries while it works so hard to make it happen here.
http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/03/the_net_s_soft_underbelly
The WikiLeaks affair is highlighting the Internet's soft underbelly: the intermediaries on which we all rely to store our information and make it available. We are learning, to our dismay, that we cannot trust them. Combine that with increasing government intervention, we're also learning that the Internet is somewhat easier to censor than we'd assumed.
This should worry anyone who believes that we're going to move our data and online lives into the fabled "cloud" -- the diffused online array of hardware and services where, proponents say, we can do our online work, play and commerce without the need for storing data on our own personal computers. Trusting the cloud is becoming an act of faith, and it's time to question that faith.
And the situation should absolutely chill everyone who believes in free speech -- and especially the people who call themselves journalists. Sadly, however, too many of them have been cheering on people who want to make WikiLeaks disappear. Do they realize that it could be their own turn someday?
WikiLeaks has been under attack all week from governments that want to hide their misdeeds, not just legitimate secrets. That's unsurprising, to put it mildly, despite the hypocrisy of official Washington's loathing of Internet blocking in other countries while it works so hard to make it happen here.
http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/03/the_net_s_soft_underbelly