Centralized world power and Net censorship

Centralized world power and Freedom of Speech cannot coexist!

We live in a small world where the actual power structure is hidden and centralized. On the other hand, the Net is all about freedom of speech. Clearly, centralized power and the Net cannot coexist. It is obvious that centralized power is well entrenched so naturally it is the Net that has to back off. This backing off manifests itself in many ways such as malware, P2P clogging, complexity and cost of Internet access, sluggish roll-out, non standard components, obsolescence, information overload, lack of customization and so on.

But the most sinister factor is Google's dominance. The lack of competition allows Google to stick to its keyword centric syntactic strategy where it is able to censor websites much more easily. This SIGNAL vs NOISE kind of censorship is able to confuse even the most determined searchers. In any case, Google is more about Ads than about Search.

The only way to bypass such censorship seems to be to search on the basis of authors as opposed to keywords. This is the only way to keep the SIGNAL NOISE ratio from getting out of control. What is more worrying is not ideology, it is spin. This is the reason we should give up even on authors and follow only individual commenters. The logic is that authors are looking for numbers and only spins see propagation.

To follow individual commenters, we can click on their names, which is usually a link to their website or a page containing other comments made by them. We can also try and Google their name. Savvy commenters pick quirky (hopefully unique) screen names for this very purpose.

But never mind, here too, our rulers have found a way out: botnets. The common perception is that botnets are moronic spreaders of spam and some of the less moronic botnets even try and phish out our passwords. To a certain extent this is true because email is the purest form of addressability so our rulers need spam to dilute it. And also financial scams and economic hardship have forever been used to keep people under control. That such actions keep the insurance and security companies humming is welcome too.

In actual fact, botnets are highly sophisticated networks which are not only able to unceasingly dodge detection but also troll ALL forums and add to the NOISE everywhere. Even complex captchas are no deterrents to these sophisticated bots. It is amazing how many of the comments posted are actually from sophisticated trolls that never be exposed because these behave like human commenters and come from innocent IPs. Recent studies have confirmed that botnets use SEO techniques to capture search engine traffic on controversial keywords.

Moral of the story: Suspect anything and everything because PERCEPTION CONTROL is the biggest game in town.

Internet Censorship Alert

Internet Censorship Alert: Alex Jones exposes agenda to 'blacklist' dissenting sites (March 14, 2010) As I predicted, the Obama Administration is trying to shut down the Internet - at least the parts he doesn't like. Barack Obamas regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein has stated that he wants to ban conspiracy theories from the internet. Think about what this means - Every video, every website, every blog, every email, that exposes or just criticizes the government for any reason whatsoever could be labeled a "conspiracy" and taken down. Your home could be raided in the middle of the night, and you could be carted of to jail for criticizing the government. All they have to do is call it a "conspiracy theory". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqAWmBLFodE

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Where is The Economy Going?

Recession.org
Where is The Economy Going?

http://recession.org/library/where-is-the-economy-going

Fifteen key economists, policymakers and strategists weigh in on the current volatility and economic turmoil.

A Meltdown: Nouriel Roubini - professor of economics and international business at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Financial Folly: Kenneth Rogoff - professor of economics at Harvard University.

U.S. Recession: Stephen Roach - chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

Innocent Victims: Robert J. Shiller - professor of economics at Yale University and a cofounder of MacroMarkets LLC.

Losing Momentum: Jim O'Neill - senior economist at Goldman Sachs, specializes in emerging markets.

A Return to Growth: Holger Schmieding - head of European economics at the Bank of America.

Tug of War: Mohamed A. El-Erian - co-CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO.

Discontent: Ruchir Sharma - head of global emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Averting the Abyss: Barton Biggs - managing partner of the Traxis Partners hedge fund in New York.

Much Uncertainty: Heizo Takenaka - director of the Global Security Research Institute at Keio University and Economics minister of Japan.

We Need Greater Transparency: Lawrence Summers - professor of economics at Harvard University and a managing director at D.E. Shaw & Co.

The Prospect of Stagflation: Sri Mulyani Indrawati - Finance minister of Indonesia.

Now We Have a Mess on Our Hands: Robert Reich - secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, is the author of "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life"

Now the Illusions Are All Gone: Masaaki Kanno - chief economist at JPMorgan in Tokyo.

Optimistic: Rupert Stadler - chief executive officer of Audi.

No comments: