Lecture 8 summary

Today's lecture focussed on "internet Censorship", "politics" and "Content File Sharing"

• Politics: refers to the power relationships between people, "lower case p" politics
• politics matters to us on a level other than the government.
• hackers are people who explore what is possible
• what our personal rights and responsiblities are, towards other people and institutions.
• politica can be race, gender, age, social economic status, and money.
• politics is who is going to use power over you.
• citizen hacker: what are our rigths in the internet age?
• In europe you get '3 strikes and your out' polocy in regard to downloading 'illegal' material, where after these 3 strikes the government will shut off your internet.
• what are our rights as citizens in regard to new communication technologies.
• Sweden/ Uk has strong internet censorship
• However, you as the citizen have the choice as to whether to turn this on or not. "opt-in system"
• Australia in 2007 the government wanted to introduce mandatory internet filter.
• this came from interests outside of Australia
• Liberal government wanted to introduce a mandatory internet filter.
• this was a technical solution to a social problem
• however, issues with poilicing the list (from being linked), and giving someone a blacklist of all the censored information.
• issues with more expensive broadband
• moral issues: criminals using dodgy websites which are organised and underground, censorship will not work as the site names can be easily changed etc.
• Filesharing: the law lags behind expecially with the internet.
• Content industry offer services on behalf of the creators.
• the internet's main purpose is to copy.
• Content Oublisher->$->creator->creative commons (cutting out the middle man)->PD
• the problem comes down to revenue
• Film we watched: at the foundation of existence is communication and the spreading and copying of knowledge.
• Early in history copying and print was seen as the work of the devil, however copying of information is inevitable and had become more and more widespread.
• advances in technology lead to the invention of networking computers and the INTERNET.
• the Internets primary function was the reproduction and distribution of knowledge.