THE INTERNET IS NOT FREE: An important message

FROM: The Internet Revolution Task Force (IRTF)

TO: All Internet users

CORE MESSAGE:

The Internet is not free. The Internet is not safe. Immediate action required.

-- I repeat --

THE INTERNET IS NOT FREE. THE INTERNET IS NOT SAFE.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED.

-- Details and rationale --

Consider this. What if a part of the Internet went down? Let's say that all US Internet servers suddenly become unreachable.

Think that's impossible or unlikely? Think again.

The American devil (Obama) has announced his plans for a "kill switch": a switch in his hands that would allow him to take down the complete (!) US Internet whenever he chooses to.

If he presses that button, would you still be able to use the Internet the way you do now? Do you know where the servers that you use for browsing, mailing, chatting are located?

Let me remind you that Google is an American company. Twitter. Facebook. Microsoft...

To reiterate: The Internet, in its current state, is not safe from policitians (i.e. madmen).

What can and what should be done?

The Internet needs to be restructured. Every service that currently relies on America in some kind has to be replaced with an America-independent one.

Also, while you're at it, you could reduce or eliminate your dependency on SERVERS in general. Servers, even when located outside of America, are a problem. They cost money. They are subject to government interference. They are not safe. They are controlled by corporate entities which are un-trustworthy entities.

The solution lies in server-less networks (peer-to-peer networks). Some good peer-to-peer networks already exist, but they only provide a limited number of services.

Today, you can share files over peer-to-peer networks. But you can't read and write your mail over such a network. You can't really browse for news over such a network. For these functions, you still have to rely on servers.

That should be changed, as soon as possible. It will take the Internet to the next level: truly resilient, truly controlled by the people (i.e. EVERYONE) and, finally, truly safe.

When the move away from servers is well underway, the next thing to look at will be the Internet's physical infrastructure. This infrastructure is also corporate-controlled. Using the Internet is usually cheap, but not free.

Also, the corporate infrastructure is vulnerable, for example, in the case of an economic breakdown. (Think that's impossible? Study some history.)

Thus, everyone who uses the Internet should contribute to bulding a new, non-commercial physical infrastructure for it.

Set up local wireless networks. Connect these networks to each other. Share connections. Build a scalable, resilient ad-hoc network using local resources (everyone's routers).

This, of course, is also an engineering tasks. Thankfully, the Internet hosts millions of skilled engineers. :)

All of this might not look like a problem to you today. Yet you will soon begin to notice that a problem indeed exists, and it is growing.

The primary problem lives in a white house, smiles while it kills scores of innocents and likes to be called "Mr. Obama". (Or was it "Osama"? Oh well.

They're kind of all the same, aren't they. Osama seems to be a tad more on the good side though. And he doesn't lie as much as that Obama guy.)

Alright. Enough for today. Spread the message. Join the revolution. Get to work!

-The Internet Revolution Task Force

The Internet Revolution Task Force

The Internet rules of engagement: then and now

World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden by enigmax The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in Sweden, are planning to shake up the country’s ISP market. After taking over the supply of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet will now partner in the launch of Pirate ISP, a new broadband service that will offer anonymity to customers and provide financial support to the Party. To defend the rights of BitTorrent users worldwide, the Swedish Pirate Party volunteered to provide bandwidth to The Pirate Bay after previous hosts got into legal trouble in May. At the beginning of July, the Pirate Party surprised again. Not only would they be The Pirate Bay’s new host, but they would use Parliamentary immunity to run the site from inside the Swedish Parliament. Now the Party have made another interesting announcement. Together with technology partners, they will enter the broadband market with Pirate ISP, a new service designed to deliver consumer Internet in line with the Pirate Party’s ideals. Gustav Nipe, student of economics, long-standing Pirate Party member and CEO of Pirate ISP told TorrentFreak that Pirate ISP is based on the hacker ontology. “If you see something and you think it’s broken you build a patch and fix it. With that as a reference point we are launching an ISP. This is one way to tackle the big brother society.” “The Pirate ISP is needed in different ways. One is to compete with other ISPs, let them fight more for our internet. If they don’t behave there will always be someone else taking their share,” Nipe added. Aside from the competition angle, Gustav Nipe told TorrentFreak that the Pirate ISP will maximize privacy for all its customers. Operated by ViaEuropa – the company behind the iPredator anonymity service – Pirate ISP users will remain anonymous. The service began beta testing in the city of Lund yesterday with around 100 residents of LKF, a housing organization whose aim is to provide quality accommodations at a reasonable cost. After the first two weeks of testing, the initial expansion aim is to take 5% of the market in Lund and then set up in further locations around Sweden. This is a reasonable aim according to Nipe, who told TorrentFreak that they start small so they can assure quality service to all their customers. At the Hacknight conference in Malmö, Nipe told Shane Murray from nrli.tv that they will not allow the Swedish Government to monitor Pirate ISP users and will refuse to retain logs. He warned that any attempt to force it to do otherwise will result in a constitutional issue. Nipe was also clear on how Pirate ISP would respond to outside interference, in particular that from the United States. “They can bring on whatever they have, we will refuse to follow there. We don’t agree with what they are saying and we don’t agree with the laws they are making so if they have an issue with us, then we will have an issue – but that’s it.” For most potential Pirate ISP customers who intend to use the service to file-share, the immediate threats will come from closer to home, primarily from Henrik Pontén at Svenska Antipiratbyrån, the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau. Nipe said they are prepared to deal with this challenge. “It would be a pity to reveal all the tricks that we have, so we will save those for later. But we have ways to ensure that no customer should have to get a sad letter home from Henrik Pontén.” For his part, yesterday Pontén seemed unimpressed. “Our investigations have focused on people with much higher safety. The question has been asked a thousand times before,” he said. “When the police come calling, they must disclose the information.” It seems that the wider Swedish public won’t have long to wait to discover if Pirate ISP can live up to its promises. According to Nipe they will roll out big in Sweden at the end of this summer.