Hi Jonathan

Was a regular contributor until last year, until our IT section blocked a number of websites and unfortunately one of them was yours. It was classed as social timewasting by our IT dept, but I am now able to come back on to your site.

I just wanted to know if their was any news of your appeal being heard? I have heard nothing in the papers, but then I'm not surprised at that!

Best wishes

Mike

The appeal process continues Mike; constant knock backs on technical grounds (for example, not "I could not have committed a crime; I was abroad" but "Ah, when doesn't matter; it's whether that counts") but we'll get there in the end!

Your IT department must have been very narrow minded.

Are IT departments ever broad-minded?

Is the internet ever broad minded Foz? A big question for a little forum. By coping for specialist tastes and delivering minutiae, the internet appears broad whereas in fact it is a community of very narrow minds.

JK2006 wrote:
Is the internet ever broad minded Foz? A big question for a little forum. By coping for specialist tastes and delivering minutiae, the internet appears broad whereas in fact it is a community of very narrow minds.

I guarantee the next big battle is to keep the net free...and it will be a hard fight.

10 years ago there were 9 major media corps in the USA..today only 3 and News Corp's influence is now on every major continent.

If you think the likes of Murdoch want a fee media..the internet..you would be dreaming. Obama is caving in and giving the FBI the right to monitor all US internet activity (a bit like reading your mail..monitoring your conversations)

And I guarantee - the next massive terrorist success, like the Twin Towers, will be the collapse of the Internet.

Now, BR would make the effort to put that in capital letters. It's not much to ask, is it?

imo the internet is too big to be turned off worldwide and there are various independent subnets so users will always find a way to connect.

veritas the net has been commercialized for a decade now but since authorities are unable to close wikileaks when secret documents about afghanistan were leaked (just a recent example), how should they be able to turn off the net.. no way.

servers can be run from any remote island out there and itīs much too important for the capitalist society in terms of online sales, marketing, emails, name what you want, to turn it off completely. restricted maybe? but then our politicians would be on par with china.

that is true...but they will try. Bush nearly gave Murdoch and a handful the right to have 'gates' on the net.

Of there is a way they will find it.

The Australian government has had to put on hold plans to make servers have filters..and 'kiddie porn' is the excuse but it wil be on again after the general election as anyone opposed to the plans is accused of enabling the porn merchants.

I've always claimed that the kiddie porn hysteria is a red herring.

Chiron; who would have thought terrorists could fly three planes into several key US sites (if they did)?
I reckon a terrorist explosion of the internet is not only possible but certain. Banks, hospitals, government agencies will collapse. Just wait and see.

Thanks for the reply Jonathan. And lets hope that justice is served.

And as for my IT department, they don't allow us to go on various websites, so indeed they are very narrow minded.
Glad to be able to come back on this website, they obviously feel it's not social timewasting anymore.

Completely agree that terrorists will target the internet next, whether they can destroy it, is another matter.

The internet is designed to work even if parts of it are "exploded" - the original design was to create a web - so that there is no vulnerable point and communication can continue. Of course you could knock out a country - but it would be near impossible to kill the net now because it is based in every country to some extent.

What can be done is to Gatekeep certain areas of the net - which can be done by blocking programmes. In addition you can drive all material through servers at say GCHQ - so everything is monitored to some extent. But even this can be got round by experts.

The fear that the internet can be shut down is irrational. Only when we have no power to power up our PCs or Laptops and servers will it fail completely.