Microsoft Proposes Government Licensing Internet Access
State should have power to block individual computers from connecting
to world wide web, claims Charney
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, October 7, 2010
A new proposal by a top Microsoft executive would open the door for
government licensing to access the Internet, with authorities being
empowered to block individual computers from connecting to the world
wide web under the pretext of preventing malware attacks.
Speaking to the ISSE 2010 computer security conference in Berlin
yesterday, Scott Charney, Microsoft vice president of Trustworthy
Computing, said that cybersecurity should mirror public health safety
laws, with infected PC's being "quarantined" by government decree and
prevented from accessing the Internet.
"If a device is known to be a danger to the internet, the user should
be notified and the device should be cleaned before it is allowed
unfettered access to the internet, minimizing the risk of the infected
device contaminating other devices," Charney said.
Charney said the system would be a "global collective defense" run by
corporations and government and would "track and control" people's
computers similar to how government health bodies track diseases.
Invoking the threat of malware attacks as a means of dissuading or
blocking people from using the Internet is becoming a common theme –
but it's one tainted with political overtones.
At the launch of the Obama administration's cybersecurity agenda
earlier this year, Democrats attempted to claim that the independent
news website The Drudge Report was serving malware, an incident
Senator Jim Inhofe described as a deliberate ploy "to discourage
people from using Drudge".
Under the new proposals, not only would the government cite the threat
of malware to prevent people from visiting Drudge, they would be
blocked from the entire world wide web, creating a dangerous precedent
by giving government the power to dictate whether people can use the
Internet and effectively opening the door for a licensing system to be
introduced.
Similar to how vehicle inspections are mandatory for cars in some
states before they can be driven, are we entering a phase where you
will have to obtain a PC health check before a government IP czar will
issue you with a license, or an Internet ID card, allowing you to
access the web?
Of course, the only way companies or the government could know when
your system becomes infected with malware is to have some kind of
mandatory software or firewall installed on every PC which sends data
to a centralized hub, greasing the skids for warrantless surveillance
and other invasions of privacy.
Microsoft has been at the forefront of a bid to introduce Internet
licensing as a means of controlling how people access and use the
world wide web, an effort that has intensified over the course of the
past year.
During this year's Economic Summit in Davos, Craig Mundie, chief
research and strategy officer for Microsoft, said that the Internet
needed to be policed by means of introducing licenses similar to
drivers licenses – in other words government permission to use the
web.
"We need a kind of World Health Organization for the Internet," he
said, mirroring Charney's rhetoric about controlling cyberspace in a
public health context.
"If you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you
are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is
fit to drive and you have to have insurance."
"Don't be surprised if it becomes reality in the near future," wrote
ZD Net's Doug Hanchard on the introduction of Internet licensing .
"Every device connected to the Internet will have a permanent license
plate and without it, the network won't allow you to log in."
Just days after Mundie's call for Internet licensing, Time Magazine
jumped on the bandwagon, publishing an article by Barbara Kiviat, one
of Mundie's fellow attendees at the elitist confab, in which she wrote
that the Internet was too lawless and needed "the people in charge" to
start policing it with licensing measures.
Shortly after Time Magazine started peddling the proposal, the New
York Times soon followed suit with a blog entitled Driver's Licenses
for the Internet?, which merely parroted Kiviat's talking points.
Of course there's a very good reason for Time Magazine and the New
York Times to be pushing for measures that would undoubtedly lead to a
chilling effect on free speech which would in turn eviscerate the
blogosphere.
Like the rest of the mainstream print dinosaurs, physical sales of
Time Magazine have been plummeting, partly as a result of more people
getting their news for free on the web from independent sources. Ad
sales for the New York Times sunk by no less than 28 per cent last
year with subscriptions and street sales also falling.
As we have documented, the entire cybersecurity agenda is couched in
fearsome rhetoric about virus attacks, but its ultimate goal is to
hand the Obama administration similar powers over the Internet to
those enjoyed by Communist China, which are routinely exercised not
for genuine security concerns, but to oppress political adversaries,
locate dissidents, and crush free speech.
Indeed, Internet licensing was considered by the Chinese last year and
rejected for being too authoritarian, concerns apparently not shared
by Microsoft.
Any proposal which allows the government to get a foot in the door on
dictating who can and can't use the Internet should be vigorously
opposed because such a system would be wide open for abuse and pave
the way for full licensing and top down control of the world wide web.
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