UK government to force Internet content blocking

The British government is trying to force search engines and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block content and websites

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The claim by Whitehall that it is predominately aimed at porn sites and especially child porn to prevent also and especially children accessing such materials does not hold water as, first of all, accessing child porn is a crime and secondly that no one can believe anymore what they say.

The “for the good of the children” claim has become a mantra under which the freedoms of the individual are being eroded by increments, in the UK and the USA. Blocking porn is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

So-called extremist websites are also in the cross hairs of the government's gun sight and we can take a sure bet that many survivalist sites and such like will also be considered and affected. And, no doubt, alternative media sites such as Russia Today and many others.

In the end we will only be allowed, for our own protection and that of the children, obviously, to access such sites only as are approved by the powers-that-be.

The British and American governments keep harping on about freedom and scream blue murder when the Internet and social media are being censored and restricted by China, in Arab countries, and so on while, at the same time, they are aiming to do the very same at home. The term “double standards” does not even come close to conveying it properly.

While they insist that the Internet must not be censored – and it should not be – as far as what they class repressive regimes such as China, Iran, etc., are concerned a different set of rules are applied to their own citizens. What are they afraid of?

© 2013

Internet Freedom

The Internet and Internet Freedom as a human right

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When the oppressed people's only means of raising awareness to their plight is found online then the freedom of the Internet is not a technological, political or social issue; it is a human rights issue.

Recently the Bundesgerichtshof, the highest German Federal Court, has ruled that Internet access is a necessity of life and thus has come down in its ruling almost to stating that it is, indeed, a human right.

Having said that, however, they are still, in Germany, playing with data storage of people's activities on the Net, in the same way as in the UK and other EU member states, almost forced upon the countries by the European Commission.

On the other hand Slovenia is one country where this has been totally ruled illegal and where, so the government says, it cannot and will not be implemented.

Someone give that country a big round of applause and force our countries to be as strong as little Slovenia and do the right thing.

It is amazing always when the countries in the so-called Free World, who now want to restrict their citizen's activities on the Internet and keep a data trail of each and every email, web search, website visit, etc., tell others, such as China, Iran and such like, how bad they are for restricting the Internet and the access to it. As in so many things it is a case of “do as we tell you and don't do as we do”.

It is the same in regards to torture, but that is just a “by the way” here, when the Free World tries to tell everyone else that it is a no, no, while the CIA and others happily carry on with the practice, often outsourcing the service.

With the double standard that the so-called Free World applies it is no wonder that the rest of the world mistrusts the “West”. Using drones to kill people also could have something to do with that as could regime change so that the big guys can get their hands on the countries' wealth, be it oil in Iraq, or minerals in Afghanistan, etc.

© 2013

Browser exploit allows for secret flooding of hard disk

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The new website Filldisk.com uses a dangerous HTML5 security hole which affect browsers Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer. Alone clicking on the website makes it possible that in only a few seconds many Gigabytes of picture of cats will accumulate on the hard drive of the PC. Only users of the Firefox browser currently cannot be attacked.

The developer responsible for the website is the programmer Feross Aboukhadijeh who already on February 27, 2013 presented the “HTML 5 Hard Disk Filler API” on his Blog.

By means of a script can any website get prepared in such a way that within seconds the hard drive of each and every visitor will be flooded with a great mass of data. In the case of the demonstration by Aboukhadijeh on Filldisk.com (Warning! Already by simply opening the website the download begins and the hard disk will be flooded) every second an almost uncountable amount of picture of cats are being transferred.

While it is possible, in this case, because it is a demonstration, to erase this data garbage again with a simple click, a serious attacker intent on doing harm, however, will, more than likely, not offer such an option to any victim.

The reason that such an attack is at all possible is due to the new localStorage function of HTML5. This makes it possible instead of small cookies with just a very small amount of bytes also to deposit large amount of data on the computer of the user.

The browser's job is, indeed, to limit the possible amount of memory use of each and every website and, depending of the software every domain can deposit but 5MB of data, but that is a case of “theoretically”.

The developers of Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer have, unfortunately, not considered that such misuse could come via many subdomains. The exploit Aboukhadijeh's gains access over 1.filldisk.com, 2.filldisk.com... so much on hard disk space as it would like.

In the official documentation for HTML5 the developers have actually ywarned about this possibility but only users of Firefox receive at the demonstration website the message that the bug does not exist in their browsers. Yet again a reason to choose and use Firefox, methinks.

Despite the fact that Aboukhadijeh has informed, via the bug reporting systems, all of the developers of the affected browsers but so far no steps have been taken to rectify the matter in the affected browsers.

© 2013

The USA: Now also the Internet policeman?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Not content with its self-appointed role as world cop the United States now have decided it also must police and have total control of the Internet, with full power of decision as to what is allowed and what is not.

This is rather interesting if we consider that if and when Iran, or China or any other any other country block access to certain sites, especially American propaganda ones, the US is the first to call “foul” or “illegal censorship”. It appears there are two standards and two set of rules; one for the USA and one for everyone else.

While, according to the USA, it is foul and illegal censorship when sites, especially American sites, are being blocked by China, Russia, Iran, it is not, it would seem, when it is done by or on behest of the American government and its backers.

A variety of supposed justifications are put about as also in the latter half of January 2012 when Megaupload, a major file sharing and -hosting platform, was shut down but the US authorities and four people were arrested in conjunction with this in New Zealand on order of the FBI.

The SOPA proposals are not even law as yet and still the US takes it upon itself to close down websites or orders, and I stress orders, other countries to shut them down.

America is getting too big, way too big, for its little boots. A serious counterbalance is needed. Someone, some country, who is prepared to put the US in its place but there is no one left out there.

The USSR, which was the counterbalance, faulty as it was, is history: Others just simply do not exist with the possible exception of China.

When President Obama came to power it was hoped by many that the excesses and abuses of the Bush era were at an end. Alas, it was all but rhetoric and business continues as usual.

The SOPA proposals began under Bush, if I am not mistaken, and Obama and those that actually pull the strings behind the scenes – yes, all any US President is is a puppet – want this power and even more in order to totally control the Internet.

The Powers-That-Be do not like the freedoms of the Internet (and of digital publishing) and the fact that it gives ordinary people a voice as citizen journalists and -reporters, as Bloggers. The fear the Blogger like nothing else.

The Internet allows – in its current state – people to publish and distribute their own books without the control of publishing houses and the censors and that too goes very much against the grain of The Powers-That-Be.

To The Powers-That-Be the Internet, and the freedom that it gives people, is an anathema and while they may – as a cover – have a go at the likes of China with regards to restrictions imposed there on Internet usages, etc., the restrictions that they have in mind to impose on the Internet per se are even more draconian than those restrictive countries employ.

They know that the Internet can be a tool used against them and hence they will try to find a way, under guises and excuses, curb the Net and its freedoms, if we are not careful.

The most dangerous government is not one that is (openly) hostile against its people and its neighbors but one that seems to be benign and friendly. It is those where we let our guard down at our peril for they are capable of lulling us to sleep.

The Powers-That-Be, which control the US, and probably, by proxy, also the UK and the EU, are not benign and the Internet, and the capacity that it gives to the people, gives them the jitters. And while, as said, they may rant and rave when during demonstrations and actions such as in the “Arab Spring” the Internet was cut in places such as Egypt, Libya, etc., they intend to do the very same if protests happen on their patch.

America, however, is the one that wants to call the shots and that absolutely everywhere, as one can see by the actions against Megaupload (and the attempt to silence WikiLeaks). One can but wonder as to what was really being distributed by Megaupload. Was it a movie about something sensitive or what?

The US government has ordered YouTube before to pull videos and user accounts with regards to footage from demonstrations such as the Occupy Movement ones and the related brutal police actions against peaceful protesters, and others. So, I guess we may as well wonder...

We need to have a counterbalance again and in the lieu of the USSR is will have to be “We The People”.

© 2012

British Internet sluggish during early February cold spell

by Michael Smith

According to anecdotal evidence, but also witnessed myself, during the recent snow weather that stopped many people from being able to get to work and instead worked from home via their PCs (or used the PCs for other purposes), the Internet in the UK slowed down rather considerably in this time.

This was even more so in evidence on the second day, the Tuesday, February 4th, when things were slowly, in some areas, grinding down to a trickle and the Net behaved like very thick molasses. Some services, like the BBC iPlayer, were not responding at all on the evening of that Tuesday.

As there is no other way of looking at this and as the frost and snow itself will not have had an impact on the speed and reaction of the Internet in the UK during this time – for it sorted itself out by Wednesday, when the majority of the people had managed to get back to work – the Internet in the UK is not ready, as yet, for the majority of us working form home. Sorry to say this, but it appears to be the truth.

Britain, on the other hand, is much better equipped in this regards though than the USA, for instance, where only a small minority can get access to broadband connections. Most of the USA, as soon as you get out of the major conurbations, are reduced to dial-up and some cannot even get 56kB connections. At least in Britain only a small minority cannot get – as yet – high-speed Internet from about half a megabyte upwards.

The problem, however, is that, as the snow problems have shown, the infrastructure of the British DSL Internet is not, as yet, up to the task of having that many people tele-commute.

It would be nice if all those that would like to do just that could but, alas, it would appear that it is still going to be some time off. That also means that the environment, unfortunately, will still have to put up with people commuting, often long distances, to work.

Hopefully though some day in the not too distant future the network will support all that want to work from home and all those that have to and all those that are at home being online at the same time. It would be nice, would it not?

© M Smith (Veshengro), February 2009
<>