Slowing the Net - from JSQ
Slowing the Net:
What does a repressive regime do to avoid free discussion?
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's internet service providers (ISPs) have started
reducing the speed of Internet access to homes and cafes based on new
government-imposed limits, a move critics said appeared to be part of
a clampdown on the media.
An official said last week that ISPs were now "forbidden" by the
Telecommunications Ministry from providing Internet connections faster
than 128 kilobytes per second (KBps), the official IRNA news agency
reported. He did not give a reason.
Internet technicians say speeds of 256 KBps, 512 KBps or higher are
increasingly common internationally. Iranian surfers will now find it
much slower to download music or anything else from the Web. Businesses
have not been affected by the move.
Iran cuts Internet speeds to homes and cafes
Reuters, Wednesday October 18, 03:41 PM
If the Internet provides a way to get around the traditional,
and already controled, media, find a way to repress the Internet.
Slowing it down is easier than censoring it.
Meanwhile, in no doubt completely unrelated news:
Michael Chertoff, head of US Homeland Security, warned that people
don't need to travel to a country with "-stan" in its name to become
radicalized and commit acts of violence. Instead, they can now turn to
the Internet. "They can train themselves over the Internet. They never
have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else
and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in
things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination," Chertoff said at a
conference of international police chiefs, according to Reuters. "Those
are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies
and satellites."
US: Terrorists telecommuting to work
by Nate Anderson,
10/17/2006 11:22:49 AM
The U.S. would never crack down on the Internet, right?
Yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller showed up at the same conference
and delivered a similar message. "Terrorists coordinate their plans
cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators
prowling chat rooms," he said, according to CNet.
Mueller took a further step, though, arguing that the US needs stricter
data retention guidelines. "All too often, we find that before we can
catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly
deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders
and protect future victims," Mueller said. The solution? Forcing ISPs
to retain data for set periods of time.
FBI head calls for data retention rules
by Nate Anderson, 10/18/2006 10:29:11 AM
Well, I'd better get back to the no doubt
completely unrelated net neutrality posts.
The U.S. already has Internet connections far faster than those in Iran.
A tenth as fast as those in Korea and Japan.
So this can't be a problem for the U.S., can it?
-jsq