millsworks

Great post in BoingBoing today from Cory Doctorow about CBC Radio’s Search Engine interview with the folks at the University of Toronto’s CitizenLab regarding their uncovering of a global hacker spy-ring. As Doctorow points out, the major focus of the interview – and the most compelling – is how this “signals a turning point in the ongoing militarization of cyberspace, and whether this demands a comparable peace movement for the Internet.”

You can find the full interview at the CBC Search Engine site or just listen right here:

I’ve pointed out before on this blog the fucktard antics of the U.S. Air Force in their attempt to achieve dominance (their words) in cyberspace and how the Pentagon has classified the internet not just a potential theatre of war but as a potential enemy – the internet itself as an enemy which must be controlled and, if necessary, defeated.

Whatever those dicks are smoking I want a pound of the other stuff.

I’m not adverse to being defended against those who would seek to do us, or anyone, harm – but I’ll be damned if I’ll agree to live in a dictatorial police state in order to have that protection.

The genie is not going back in the bottle. The net isn’t just the next wave of communications toys destined to fall away to the back shelves of an antique shop along with the old radios and television sets. The net is becoming our Main Street. It is where we are going to be living. Yeah, sure, the real world will carry on, for better or worse, under our inept efforts to manage and care for this garden – but the net will form a large chunk of where and how we live our lives. The net will be where we define ourselves as human beings.

Look around. Look on the street where you live. How would you feel about it being a battleground? A lot of folks in the world already live that hellish physical reality. Can you imagine troops on your street telling you where you can and can’t go? Imagine being followed, listened in on and told what you can and cannot say or hear. Imagine speaking to a friend and seeing them be whisked off the street and taken away without explanation. It happens already – all over the world – even in our neck of the woods.

That’s the digital equivalent we are speaking of. This same shit is happening in cyberspace, where there are no rules of international law governing the behaviour of governments and corporations for the protection of the unwashed masses known sometimes as cattle, sheep, peasants or – perhaps more quaintly – people.

If we are intent upon reclaiming the rule of law in our world we need to include cyberspace in that effort. A peace movement for the internet? Sign me up.

Pay attention. Make noise. Don’t be afraid – be pissed off.

Cheers.