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The Dotcom disaster

If media reports are to believed (and I'm the first to acknowledge that believing what you read in the mainstream media these days is not always wise), NZ authorities are making a dog's-breakfast of the whole Dotcom saga.

The other day I read reports that Dotcom has been told he can't get copies of the data that was on his computers and other devices because making such copies could alter the original data.

My first thought was "what muppets do they have in their IT department?"

Even the most heavily encrypted hard drive can be cloned without risk to the original contents so that excuse really didn't hold any water -- although the great unwashed public might take it at face value.

But then we're told that copies of those hard drives have already been sent to the FBI in America despite previous assurances this wouldn't happen without the defense being advised.

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Eric Schmidt is on to it

According to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, the internet will play a crucial roll in bringing down corrupt governments.

So from this we could draw the logical conclusion that "only governments with something to hide have anything to fear from the internet".

It therefore stands to reason that whenever you see a government attempting to crack down on the freedoms of the Net, you ought to be asking "I wonder why?"

The reality is, as many Kiwis are now learning to their surprise, no government is free from corruption -- not even those in little old Godzone.

Just look at the number of incidents of corruption within NZ's government that have surfaced in recent times and you'll perhaps see why there have been moves even here to clamp down on internet freedoms.

While on the one hand we have government keen to roll-out hi-speed UFB around the nation, they're also working very hard to make sure that this medium is carefully controlled and monitored.

Changes to our search and surveillance laws have clearly been made with the Net in mind and again I repeat the statement so often used by those in power and bounce it right back to them: "only those with something to hide have anything to fear" from a free and open Net.

Of course the shamefaced politicians will retort that it's essential that we clamp down on things such as pornography, terrorism and cybercrime -- which may have some veracity. However, we don't provide the postal service with the tools and right to open and inspect every item of mail just because someone might be posting pictures of naked children to each other -- do we?

We also have effectively covert net-filtering, implemented by some of the country's largest ISPs on the behest of DIA. A good thing if it stops child-porn and the other more abhorrent content on the Net but a bad thing when it is mis-used to limit the rights of Kiwis to access information simply because it might be contrary to the ideology of the government of the day.

Of course that would never happen -- would it?

Remember (as we've discovered) there are often very strong links between large companies and government -- to the extent that if a corporation (such as an ISP) believes it can gain commercial advantage by "supporting government", chances are they will do so.

Look at the fiasco surrounding SkyCity and their deal with government over the pokies.

Eric Schmidt seems to focus his comments on emerging third-world nations with despot governments but I think his words are applicable to every government, even those in the "free" West.

Power corrupts and the internet is proving that on an almost daily basis.

What do we, as Net users do?

Do we just meekly accept it whenever the government of the day seeks to further control, restrict or censor our Net access -- in order to try and hide the corruption that is intrinsic to all government?

Or do we stand up and say "no, we do not accept your attempts to hide your corruption"?

You tell me.

Have your say in the Aardvark Forums.

Forums Are UP!

Woohoo.. better late than never (I hope).

I'm afraid you'll have to re-register and there are bound to be issues but at last we can get the discussions going again. Remember the word "aardvarkrox" when you go sign up.

The Aardvark forums.

And yes... the Sci-Tech headlines links are updated again today with some great stories!

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