[tor-talk] Tor ban discussion at Russian state Duma

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Wed, Aug 02, 2017 at 11:44:45PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 01, 2017 at 05:16:34PM -0400, grarpamp wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 10:59 PM, krishna e bera <keb at cyblings.on.ca> wrote:
> > > Followup: laws passed.
> > >
> > > "
> > > President Putin has signed a law that, as of November 1st, bans
> > > technology which lets you access banned websites, including virtual
> > > private networks and proxies. Internet providers will have to block
> > > websites hosting these tools.
> > > ...
> > >
> > > Accordingly, the President has signed another law requiring that chat
> > > apps identify users through their phone numbers after January 1st, 2018
> > > "
> > >
> > > https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/30/russian-censorship-law-bans-proxies-and-vpns/
> > 
> > This is very poor, as the fundamental concepts of society and
> > interpersonal as we know it require to have private comms on
> > various things, this rational extend from in person to over distance.
> > We have no human capability to even imagine nonprivate world,
> > let alone spy world, as is not human. So fuck RU and FVEY...
> > they idea are not human but maniac. Resist. Do crypto. Do
> > political action for human.
> 
> This is gonna be one of the largest litmus tests the world has ever
> seen, for the human dynamic of
> 
> 
>    tacit consent (compliance, resignation)
> 
>      vs.
> 
>    active non-consent - opposition by conscientious personal action
> 
> 
> 
> It is one thing for a government to target corporations, which are
> natural allies of the spy state apparatus since corporations are
> artificial entities created by the state's fictional statute laws,
> 
> and another thing altogether for the state to criminalize exercise
> by individuals of their commonly understood rights to personal and
> interpersonal behaviour - in this case, communication with one
> another in private, when two humans so choose to do.
> 
> 
> If Russians fail to live their rights on this one and criminal
> penalties prevail over individual humans over some period of time
> (i.e. not enough Russians live their personal individual rights in
> conscientious objection to the law being applied to individual
> humans), then most other countries around the world rapidly follow
> suit (governments will relish this Russian precedent with glee).
> 
> 
> Target the corporations - they are fictional entities anyway.
> 
> But target your humans individually in this way and you ultimately
> create a people who cower in fear of their own government - and
> Russians are no stranger to the tyranny of a government seized of the
> unquestionability of its ideology.
> 
> 
> Good luck, and live your rights if you have the courage..


Now, we in the West just love our dichotomies admitting no
difficulties.  Some present day actual examples of the way Westerners
"think":

 - you either have political anarchy, or you have evil

 - you either have Democracy, or your entire country is evil

 - you're either with CNN, or you're a Nazi

 - the Russian Duma is either evil, or it's irredeemably predatorial
   on its own people


To note a major difference in Russia as compared with say the USA and
certainly Australia - Russia is not an island, and actually has
various actual militant extremists on its border, and certainly a
fair few within its borders.

"The state" holds (at least officially) that while it exists, it has
a duty of care to its people, to protect them against violent
extremist attacks.

This is a logical (if debatable) argument.

The problem with legislated state spying capacity (aka backdoors) is
that invariably there shall be individuals, and perhaps groups of
individuals who obtain election to public seats or non-election to
appointed "administrative" seats of government, and abuse the power
that the government creates/ establishes for itself, even if that
power is initially instituted "for the protection of the people" -
and it's the resulting imbalance of power which "political
anarchists" will always says ought be decided in favour of the
people, and not government, due at the very least to the historical
evidence.


I have no easy answer to the Russian Duma's difficulties.  Those
parliamentarians (and non-elected spy apparatus individuals) who are
officially tasked with protecting the Russian people, have a tough
job on their hands - much tougher indeed than we get anywhere near
experiencing here in Australia, that's for sure.


Unfortunately, with humans being human, and the reality of the states
of consciousness today present on this planet, such conundrums shall
continue to have no simple answers for everyone involved.


So, good luck,