Interesting quote on the internet and Internet anonymity

Former Lulzsec hacker Jake Davis:

"It was my world, but it was a very limited world. You can see and hear it, but you can't touch the internet. It's a world devoid of empathy - and that shows on Twitter, and the mob mentality against politicians and public figures. There is no empathy.

So it was my world, and it was a very cynical world and I became a very cynical person."

So, pardon me if I spend my time offline.

Good advice

Think for yourself and question authority!  Reading something on the internet does not make it true.

A false, or incorrect quotation is not persuasive.

Orlin should ponder this one well:

I should note that this is obviously a fake quote since there are actually people dumb enough (Orlin Sellers) to believe that Lincoln could have said this.

Why repeating lies and other nonsense won't work

The problem is that when your spout stuff which isn't based in fact, someone can verify the information pretty easily on the internet as this article points out:

There are roughly 30,000 deaths a year in the U.S. due to gunshots. As this week's news makes clear, incidents of children killing themselves or other children are appallingly common. They are also the types of stories -- compact, outrageous, horrifying -- that are readily transmitted through Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media. As such stories spread, they make it increasingly obvious to increasing numbers of people that American gun laws are uniquely insane.

The NRA has been remarkably successful in suppressing government research on gun violence and hindering dissemination of data on guns. Legislators in Washington and state capitals have been ghoulishly accommodating. The Internet, it seems, won't be so easily bought.

So when you try to lie about the meaning of the Second Amendment, say by using the quote:

The great object is, that every man be armed.

Realise not only can people get the quote in its entirety since Patrick Henry’s “That every man be armed” speech found at The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (3 Elliot’s Debates 384-7), Virginia, Saturday, June 14, 1788. Page 386-7 (see also 5 June)
. . .

As my worthy friend said, there is a positive partition of power between the two governments. To Congress is given the power of “arming, organizing, and disciplining the militia, and governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States.” To the state legislatures is given the power of “appointing the officers, and training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” I observed before, that, if the power be concurrent as to arming them, it is concurrent in other respects…May we not discipline and arm them, as well as Congress, if the power be concurrent? so that our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets of regimentals, &c.; and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed. The great object is, that every man be armed. But can the people afford to pay for double sets of arms &c.? Every one who is able may have a gun. But we have learned, by experience, that necessary as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavoured to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case. When this power is given up to Congress without limitation or bounds, how will your militia be armed? You trust to chance; for sure I am that nation which shall trust its liberties in other hands cannot long exist. If gentlemen are serious when they suppose a concurrent power, where can be the impolicy to amend it? Or, in other words, to say that Congress shall not arm or discipline them, till the states shall have refused or neglected to do it? This is my object. I only wish to bring it to what they themselves say is implied. Implication is to be the foundation of our civil liberties, and when you speak of arming the militia by a concurrence of power, you use implication. But implication will not save you, when a strong army of veterans comes upon you. You would be laughed at by the whole world for trusting your safety implicitly to implication.

We can add in this gloss from an expert on Patrick Henry:

In this connection, however, I need to say something about a recent popular misconception concerning Patrick Henry’s legacy and the genesis of the Second Amendment, which states, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Despite efforts of a number of misguided scholars to construe this language as justifying individual, unregulated gun ownership, I am firmly convinced that the Second Amendment is concerned with the state’s power to control its own militia as a civilian alternative to a professional standing army. In raising the issue in the Virginia Convention Patrick Henry several times pointed to Art. I, Section 8, Clause 16, as an example of the potentially threatening effect of dual state and congressional jurisdiction over the militia and the possibly dangerous union of the purse and sword vested in Congress. Yet wielding the scholar’s power of the ellipse several partisans of gun ownership have edited Henry’s remarks about how best to regulate the militia into an inflammatory half-truth “The great object is that every man be armed….Every one who is able may have a gun.” The NRA has blown this up into a poster-sized blurb embossed with Patrick Henry’s image.
This is not, I repeat NOT, part of Patrick Henry’s legacy. Clearly speaking of the problem of militia organization, what he actually said is, “The great object is that every man [of the militia] be armed.–But can the people to afford to pay for double sets of arms &c.? Every one who is able may have a gun. But have we not learned by experience, that necessary as it is to have arms, and though our assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case. When this power is given up to Congress without limitation or bounds, how will your militia be armed? You trust to chance….”
Not to belabor the argument, but cinch it, I would also remind you that the liberty or death speech itself was in support of a resolution to put the colony in a mode of defense, and the plan proposed by Henry’s committee as a result of its passage included a militia law that described in great detail not only the number of men, but the amount of ammunition to be raised by a collective levy, and a very clear procedure for maintaining county and provincial control over the militia system. If Henry’s remarks were intended to cast doubt upon the adequacy of a hypothetical Congressional militia law, they only affirmed his commitment to the traditional method of state control over a militia that, far from being a privatized collection of gun-toting individuals, was a community temporarily called to arms and always subservient to public authority and law.

from  Henry Mayer, A Patrick Henry Essay (No. 5-98), THE POLITICAL LEGACY OF PATRICK HENRY.

And funny how it seems to back up the things I have been saying.

As I like to say, your arguments don't stand scrutiny--and the internet is extremely unfriendly to them.

Shutting Down the Internet

Newsy gives both sides of the story, but my favorite input is from Instapundit.

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Wikipedia, Sure Font of Truth

On the wonderfully opinionated blog, Opinione, I found this very useful essay on Wikipedia, and the internet in general.

Some examples of altered wikipedia entries altered from computers with IP addresses linked to wikipedia entries critical of them include the wikipedia page on Wal-Mart from the original posting on wikipedia, which states: Wages at Wal-Mart are about 20% less than at other retail stores. Founder Sam Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage. A computer with a Wal-Mart IP address was found to have changed it to, The average wage at Wal-Mart is almost double the federal minimum wage (Wal-Mart)

Other examples given had a more conspiratorial flavor, the CIA and FBI of course as well as the site for Dow Chemical.

I personally don't worry about this too much because I treat everything I read on Wikipedia and the rest of the internet just like I treat any statistics I come across. If it doesn't mesh with my pre-conceived ideas, out it goes. It's obviously biased.

What's your opinion? Are there internet sites you trust to deliver unspun truth? Or is it all suspect?

The Amazing New Internet

The New York Times reported on the work being undertaken in Stanford University to create a new internet. The article traces the history of internet viruses, cyber attacks and spam, many of which we're all too familiar with. One of the best examples of the problem was Conficker.

That was driven home late last year, when a malicious software program thought to have been unleashed by a criminal gang in Eastern Europe suddenly appeared after easily sidestepping the world’s best cyberdefenses. Known as Conficker, it quickly infected more than 12 million computers, ravaging everything from the computer system at a surgical ward in England to the computer networks of the French military.

Some experts believe that the internet, as we know it, is doomed to ever-increasing problems of this nature and the only solution is to scrap the whole thing and start anew. To me that sounds a little drastic. Yet, the possibility of millions of "captured" computers working in unison for some nefarious purpose is indeed daunting. What do you think?

The problem seems to be in the explosive growth of the internet. What started out as an academic and military research network has become the depot of the entire world’s communications and commerce. The invention and expansion of the internet, for me, is one of the true wonders of the modern world.

The proposed solutions don't sound too attractive. Basically, they sound like larger versions of the private intranet systems many businesses and organizations now use. These can be controlled and made secure, at least compared to the free-for-all that is the internet at large.

But, isn't that what we like about the internet? Isn't it that very openness that makes it so exciting? One time I wrote a post about Teah Wimberley, the teen shooter in Florida. We had a lively discussion going on when all of a sudden a comment came in from Lucille, a fellow student at Dillard High personally acquainted with the girls involved in the shooting. That's the internet.

Another time I wrote about a former evangelical minister who now works as an itinerant evolution apologist. His mane is Michael Dowd and he himself commented on the post, thanking me for what I had to say. Now, that's the internet.

I realize there's a lot more to it than the insignificant little moments I've described above; they're just personal examples of my own experience as a simple user. The point is, more than sharing photos with family and friends, or communicating by lightning-fast e-mail instead of old fashioned letters, it's the possibility of reaching out to strangers that makes the internet so much fun.

What's your opinion? Is it doomed to self-destruct in some kind of implosion? Do you think there'll be a virus one of these days that will bring the whole thing down?

The article talks about the future internet being a sort-of gated community to which you'd have to be a member. Does that sound inviting to you?

Please feel free to leave a comment.

Google Goes on Trial in Italy

The International Herald Tribune reports today on a fascinating trial which began yesterday in Italy. Prosecutors in Milan charge that Google officials violated Italian privacy laws by allowing the posting of a cell phone video in 2006 that showed four youths taunting a student with learning disabilities.

The first thing that occurred to me was that there must be thousands of videos that do that. Why all the fuss about this one?

The officials did not handle the posting directly, marking the first time that charges had been brought against representatives of a user-generated site for hosting an image without the subject's express approval, prosecutors said.

"What is at issue is whether or not privacy laws that apply to newspapers or to the radio also apply on the Web, or whether it is a sort of free port where anything goes," said Alfredo Robledo, one of the prosecutors in Milan who brought the charges after two years of investigation. "We are raising the issue to show that there are holes in Italian legislation."

I'm not sure what Sig. Robledo means by that, but the case surely has serious implications. And serious questions arise. Should the internet be totally uncensored? Can it continue to grow the way it has without self-destructing under the weight of all those sites that aren't for everybody? If left alone, would a sort-of natural selection process ensure its survival?

What's your opinion? Should certain sites be blocked and certain types of videos be prohibited? Did you know on-line gambling sites are blocked here in Italy? With everything else that is available, I find that quite amazing.

What's your opinion?

Anonymous Anger over the Internet

CNN reports on a phenomenon we're all familiar with: venting over the internet. Whether it's commenting on someone's blog about something you're passionate about, or writing a post in which you express yourself freely, many of us have done it in one way or another.

On political blogs, the invective flies. Posters respond to the latest celebrity gossip with mockery or worse. Sports fans set up Web sites with names that begin with "fire," hoping coaches, athletic directors and sportscasters lose their jobs.

And though there are any number of bloggers and commenters who attempt to keep their postings and responses on a civil level, all too often interactive Web sites descend into ad hominem attacks, insults and plain old name-calling. Indeed, there are even whole sites devoted to venting, such as justrage.com (one screed there was titled, "I don't give a flying f***, so f*** you") and mybiggestcomplaint.com.

My own blogging style, which is still evolving, is one in which I use much less profanity than I do in everyday life. I think the reason for this is twofold; first because I feel the written word carries more weight than the spoken, and second because this is an open forum and I want to be sensitive to the feelings of the readers, some of whom might be turned off by profanity.

What about you? Do you write on blogs exactly the way you speak in face to face conversation? Are you offended by frequent use of profanity? Does using strong language sometimes make it more difficult to hear the message?

Do You Twitter?

I've been hearing about Twitter for a couple months now. Finally I decided to look into it and after reading this article, signed up.

Bye-bye blogs: The net's cool kids are all on Twitter now -- and they use it for everything.

I never really wanted to be one of the "cool kids," at least not for the last thirty years or so, but this thing really is cool. For starters, it's the simplest sign-up procedure I've ever done on the internet. How it might fit in with blogging remains to be seen; although I find many blogs too lengthy for my rather limited attention span, the 140 character limit on Twitter seems a bit extreme. Maybe the two, blogging and twittering can go together.

Do any of you have experience with Twitter?