Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
U.N. eyes curbs on Internet anonymity (cnet.com)
16 points by chaostheory on Sept 15, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments


I feel that as the United States has lost some international status and openly disregarded the UN, the UN has become co-opted by those who have stayed in the game (often China, Russia, and right-wing states). As the UN Human Rights Council gets into defining defaming Islam as against human rights and countries like China start using the UN to quasi-legalize/justify their brutality on basic human rights issues, it just seems like the UN has lost its way.

But maybe I'm naive. Maybe the UN was never meant to live up to its charter or expectations.


The UN's behavior is nothing new - it's pretty much always been this way.

It's the United NATIONS - it is concerned with states and govts, the majority of which are totalitarian. The individual rights frosting is full of weasel words and is basically intended to give regimes that kill their citizens the ability to point to other countries and say "they're doing bad too".

The UN has, however, become more effective at random corruption.

Yes, the UN had some role in reducing smallpox. We can argue about that would have happened faster and with less cost if the UN hadn't been involved.

Perhaps the UN's greatest sin is that it sets things up so basically decent countries like the Netherlands become involved in atrocities. Then again, the Dutch still support the UN, so ....


It's not just the internet where they want to restrict freedom. The US is now the only nation that allows over-the-counter sales of natural/herbal medications without first jumping thru beauracraticatic hoops. Even then permission is often not granted.


Laws like this will just push everyone into using Tor. There will always be one country that doesn't sign this, and that's where the Tor nodes will live. (And AFAIK, running a Tor node in the US isn't a legal liability right now -- common carrier and all that.)

Of course, I suppose that country could be removed from the Internet, but I think the world governments are too incompetent for that to happen. Another option is for the UN to make a lot of fake Tor nodes, but I have a feeling those will be blacklisted in about 30 seconds after their creation.

You can't regulate the Internet -- stop trying.


Sadly, few people understand the value of freedom.


OH NOES! No moar 4chan?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: