-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Saturday 27 October 2001 11:06 am, keyser-soze@hushmail.com wrote: <snip>
A few of the alternatives are: - to support the smaller ISPs doing local peering and who cannot afford to use the major peering points
They still have to purchase their bandwidth from the major players, especially if the government subsidizes or otherwise rewards those ISPs who use the public peering points
- re-awaken FidoNet
FidoNet died because it's slow, cumbersome, and technically inferior - and most traffic still flows through the Internet, anyway, particularly for things like email.
- Purchase and offer 802.11 public access points
Which does absolutely nothing to help the situation. Traffic from access point to access point is still through landlines, still controlled by ISPs, and still subject to monitoring. The source might be obfuscated, but that's not security or privacy - that's just making LEA's work a little harder and spend a little more money which they'll take from us, anyway.
- write letters and emails to the major ISP CEOs warning of the dire technical and personal consequences should their networks surcome to this fed pressure
Um, what consequences? If they don't cooperate, they get shut down. If they do cooperate, they probably get subsidies ("reimbursement"), preference for government contracts, etc. The majority of the people on the internet are, sadly, no longer mainly geeks; they're sheeple who do as they're told as long as they can still watch "Friends" and "Survivor". If you want to fix the problem, spread the word on encryption. Hushmail won't do it, Mr. Soze; it's a central location and a profit-making business, and if you think they won't cooperate with court orders you're dreaming. How would you know if it was secure or not? You don't, you have to rely on what they tell you. Use PGP or, better yet, GPG. Teach other people how to do the same. Get enough people doing it that it becomes an inconvenience to NOT use encryption, then let inertia take over. Join a militia, work to keep the militia from being marginalized or turned into a "fringe" group. Work the militia in your community by forming legal neighborhood watches, taking on the responsibilities of volunteer fire departments in rural areas, form search and rescue teams for emergencies. Be the first on the scene for every sandbagging effort in flood areas. You're doing your job right if the national guard is never needed in your area - replace them, co-opt their members if you can. March in parades with clean uniforms, happy smiles and big American flags. Do everything you can to keep recruitment up and complaints low. Find the local, state, and federal politicians you like the most or hate the least and work to help them campaign in your area - it never hurts to have official friends. Keep educating the people, bless their dear little hearts, on what it means to be free - and use local examples. Don't just say "the government might take away your right to send encrypted email" - they don't care. Say "you know, the government wants to take us away from you. They want to label us the same as they labelled those idiots in Waco and Montana. Who would protect you then?" It's all about PR. - -- Matt Beland matt@rearviewmirror.org http://www.rearviewmirror.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE72wRFBxcVTa6Gy5wRAhPyAJ9X9lIELnwdMyIPZF/5VAcGQmMogwCcD8n9 imsNpaDBsM9iiM3mHEt2XnQ= =I93W -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----