Government Denial of Service Attacks
Those who read this list or watch the news of the "Wired Curtain" that is attempting to be drawn across the Net know that there is a theory out there that government Denial of Service Attacks (GDOS) are a real threat. The GDOS theory holds that if government legislates or even threatens litigation against the provision of a particular service, the providers of the service will fold and the public will be unable to obtain the banned service. In the case of the net this is the "Do Not <--'Enter" theory. The governments claim that by threat, deception, or nuclear weapons, they can keep millions of us from hitting the <--'Enter key and thus transmitting banned material. That is a very fine control regime indeed. (Original meaning of 'fine' of course.) If the governments had this GDOS power; this Do Not <--'Enter power, then the article on the front page of today's New York Times could not have been written. "Behind a Suburban Facade in Queens, A Teeming, Angry Urban Arithmetic" is the annual NYT article on the spread of illegal apartments throughout the Region. From the humblest urban ghetto to the swankiest suburbs, denizens of the TriState area are converting one- and two-family dwellings into two- three- or four-family (and denser) dwellings. These illegal apartments are commonplace and illegal. This has been true (and written about) for years. Here we have a physical service (apartment rental), difficult to hide, and illegal which is offered by hundreds of thousands of property owners in this area. The GDOS theory holds that this can't happen. "All they have to do is pass a law." Note that the GDOS theories that involve our activities say that once the government passes a law, no one (or hardly anyone) will offer an anonymous Net account, or an uncensored ISP connection, or an un IDed financial account, or an uncensored news server, etc. That all government has to do is pass a law and all transactions will be carried out in rigid conformity to its dictates. I say nonsense. If the government can't keep thousands of property owners (with their physical property at risk) from offering it for rent illegally, in an "open, notorious, and continuous" manner; then they aren't going to be able to keep very many of us from hitting <--'Enter. DCF "During Fiscal 1996, the Government of the United States collected more taxes from the American people than any government had ever collected before in the history of mankind. During Fiscal 1997, the Government of the United States plans to collect more taxes from the American people than any government has ever collected before in the history of mankind. And still it's not enough."
DF writes about "GDOS", government-denial-of-service. you make some very good points that it is impossible for the government to stamp out activities which it deems illegal but the public disagrees and flouts. but you don't consider the situation of harassment. if something should be legal in a country, it costs the population a lot for it to be illegal. I don't know if there are government regulators in NY handling the "illegal apartment" thing, but this "crime" surely costs the public a lot. what is your argument? that laws against things flouted by the public are meaningless? the laws have a very tangible effect of harassment upon the populace, and in fact the government might assert that enforcement is not necessarily the point. it may still be that there are far fewer of these apartments than there would be if such a thing was legal (actually, this seems pretty obvious). the point is, even laws that are only selectively enforced can be useful to the government. it is true that imposing an absolute situation like censorship may be impossible, but that doesn't mean that lack of absolute enforcement is not useful to the government. as others (TCM etc) have pointed out frequently, selective enforcement is a very useful tool in the government arsenal. in other words, you can't really make the argument that you seem to be making (as I interpret it), that laws that don't have good enforcement potential have no value to the government. they may in fact accomplish exactly what the government wants. I agree with you that they have poor social value. the key is trying to get the government in synch with the population. what you are pointing out in the core, I would say, is that a government out of tune with the population is a society in the midst of a downward spiral.
"During Fiscal 1996, the Government of the United States collected more taxes from the American people than any government had ever collected before in the history of mankind. During Fiscal 1997, the Government of the United States plans to collect more taxes from the American people than any government has ever collected before in the history of mankind. And still it's not enough."
I will not coment on the correctness of the U.S government's funding allocations, however the above statement is clearly designed to be deceptive. Given the GDP of the U.S as a whole during fiscal 1996 was greater than that of any other country at any other time, including the U.S in previous years (the U.S like most other countries has postive growth), of course the absolute value of taxes collected will be larger. -- "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+ |Julian Assange RSO | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union | |proff@suburbia.net | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID = | |proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 | +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+
participants (3)
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Duncan Frissell -
Julian Assange -
Vladimir Z. Nuri