From: alexboko@umich.edu
Date: Tue Mar 25 2003 - 20:01:45 MST
around.
From: "Alex Future Bokov" <alexboko@umich.edu>
X-Mailer: YaBB
Usually I'm pretty good at finding obscure information. So I get used to
the idea that if I need both sides of the story and spend an hour or so
googling, I'll get it. Heck, I can get the serial number to all but the most
obscure software without even having to use S2k, 0-day vulnerabilities, and
remember the big fuss about the Pentagon DNS security hole? Someone I know (a
little) found the relevant pages in about 1.5 hours despite Google pulling the
cache. Now that's all information that's officially *supposed* to be secret.
Naturally, hearing the news about the POWs I was curious to see the footage
that all the fuss was about. I'm a big boy, I can handle it. Guess what? I
can't find it! Anyplace. Not mirrored, nothing. I tried Al-Jazeera...
Neither aljazeera.net nor al-jazeera.net are answering pings.
The traceroute to aljazeera.net deadends here from where I tried it:
P6-0.ncnic202.Nice.francetelecom.net (193.252.101.161)
The traceroute to al-jazeera.net deadends here:
63.168.12.164 (63.168.12.164)
WTF?
In my ongoing Google attempts, I found this:
http://yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1206
Eliezer, could it be that you were wrong about there not being anything that
isn't Googleable? Could it be that we were all wrong about the degree to which
modern communication technology is resistant to centralized control?
Has ANYBODY succeeded in getting either stills or video of the POW broadcast
aired by the enemy TV network? Perhaps someone outside the US borders? Please
let the list know if you have and where you found it. Please let the list
know also if you've had any firsthand knowledge of how this blackout is being
conducted and how far it extends. The fact that a media blackout of this data
exists is ominous. The fact that the blackout itself is all but invisible as a
news item is even more ominous. It's imperative that we map out the borders of
this data hole, and route around it. None of us can route around it, that is
important information as well-- it proves that the internet is a medium that
can be controlled.
For the record, nobody on either side has claimed that information in this
broadcast can compromise national security. Even if it could, how much worse
can it be? Hundreds of thousands of the wrong people have already seen
it by now... can't we be trusted with information that our enemies have
ALREADY seen? Nor is this a hawk/dove issue. It's a free speech issue and
affects those of use who use the 'net more directly than the goings-on in a
dictatorship halfway around the world.
---- This message was posted by Alex Future Bokov to the Extropians 2003 board on ExI BBS. <http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=55309>
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