Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Article Poll

Poll Most Likely to be Shutdown By Government Agency
TrueCrypt
EFF Patent Busters
GNU Software Radio
WikiLeaks
CryptoMe.org
Tor
Freenet
CowboyNeal
[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:246 | Votes:7108

Community Choice Award "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Govt"

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:44 AM
from the make-your-sarcastic-vote-heard dept.
News
Last week we took nominations for a Slashdot category at the SourceForge Community Choice awards. Our category was 'Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government Agency'. Your nominations were tallied, and we arbitrarily selected a few that we think are the best. Today is the day where you can at long last determine the winner, using the incredibly scientifically accurate Slashdot Poll. Our nominees are Truecrypt, EFF Patent Busting, GNU Software Radio, WikiLeaks, Cryptome.org, Tor, Freenet, and CowboyNeal.
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Ask Slashdot: Nominations Open For "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government" 629 comments
The corporate overlords at SourceForge asked me to name a Slashdot category for their upcoming Community Choice Awards and to let you guys select the winner. I have named my category "Most Likely to be Shut Down by a Government Agency." We're going to run this like we do an Ask Slashdot call for questions — post your nominations into the comments here. Use moderation to send up good ideas. In the upcoming days we'll post another story where you can vote on the actual winner. Nominations need to include the project name, a link to some sort of official website, and a paragraph of why you think they deserve to win. The project that wins will gain fame, notoriety, and maybe a cease and desist order that they could print out and frame if they had that kind of time.
[+] Idle: Getting Inked for Tux at OSCON 108 comments
OSCON isn't just a gathering for talks on topics like Creating Location-aware Web 2.0 Applications on an Open Source Geospatial Platform and fightin' words from the stage; it's also an excuse for some interesting social gatherings, like this year's Community Choice awards (organized and sponsored by the corporate overlords at SourceForge, as you might recall, and with Slashdot's own special category), at which, among other festive activities, attendees were offered the chance to get open-source-related tattoos. There are shots of some of these up on the SourceForge Community pages, and — with some overlap — even more in this set at Flickr. (My pasty bicep^h^h^h^h^h shoulder is the one now adorned with a circled head of a happy Tux ala IBM; I was expecting it to hurt more than it actually did.) Anyone with techie tattoos, please disclose below.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Community Choice Award "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Govt" 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Most likely to be shut down by the government? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2008, @11:45AM (#23711401)
    Slashdot of course!

  • So I'm guessing (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2008, @11:45AM (#23711405)
    TrueCrypt has already changed it's name to TueCrypt to avoid pursuit.
    • 404. The internet's version of: *Waves hand* "This isn't the page you were looking for. Move along" *waves hand*

  • Government Agency? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by forsetti (158019) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:48AM (#23711459)
    Hmmmm... any government agency? Based on the earlier story [slashdot.org], it seems the U5 governments should be on the list, being shutdown by some Chinese Government agency ...

  • The Most Likely Choice... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fragholio (574860) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:49AM (#23711473)
    ...has got to be WikiLeaks.

    Among the nominees, it's the biggest threat to the governments themselves. And make no mistake, the governments will deal with threats to itself before others.

  • Missing option (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phsdv (596873) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:49AM (#23711485) Homepage Journal
    Missing Option: All of the above...
    • Was about to suggest the same. Give the "intelligence" agencies something as easy to digest as a list of what they should shutdown, and they probably will (you know, subliminal messages like a poll always work). Probably for most they will notice their existence and/or meaning for first time.

      Dont worry, CowboyNeal, we will bring you lime cakes to prison.

  • Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2008, @11:49AM (#23711493)
    Think about it, what exactly has been shut down by the government lately? Freenet or Truecrypt anyone???!!

    I challenge anyone to even find one credible attempt by anyone in government to shut down one of the nominees.

    This story is just hysterical scaremongering.

    • Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Steauengeglase (512315) on Monday June 09 2008, @12:34PM (#23712197)
      I wouldn't call this scaremongering. Just having a little fun.

      There is something about geeks that leads them to be more suspicious of authority. Perhaps it is being ostracized at a young age or the fact that there are simply a lot of really dumb people out there who have somehow manage to get a little power.

      • I wouldn't call this scaremongering. Just having a little fun.

        There is something about geeks that leads them to be more suspicious of authority. Perhaps it is being ostracized at a young age or the fact that there are simply a lot of really dumb people out there who have somehow manage to get a little power.
        I think it's that geeks tend to know a lot about controlling information and how much power that gives a person -- so they tend to see situations that politicians might abuse to gain power that other folk might miss or dismiss.

    • Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! (Score:4, Informative)

      by d34thm0nk3y (653414) on Monday June 09 2008, @02:05PM (#23713543)
      Think about it, what exactly has been shut down by the government lately? Freenet or Truecrypt anyone???!! I challenge anyone to even find one credible attempt by anyone in government to shut down one of the nominees.

      Wikileaks. QED.

      One Example [boingboing.net]
    • In February of this year, a judge in the US issued a restraining order on the domain "wikileaks.org".

      Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.
      This came around the time of an arson attack and a significant DDoS attack. Wikinews article [wikinews.org]

      • Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2008, @04:31PM (#23715999)

        And Truecrypt is legal in the U.K., but you must turn over your keys when asked to. It's not illegal, but pretty much useless.
        That's not true. You just have to know how to use TrueCrypt. The trick that most people don't seem to understand is to use both keys regularly.

        The indication they look for that you're trying to spoof them is that the last modified file dates are all months old in your "cover" partition. So don't leave that kind of a signature. Think of one as the "low security" partition and the other as the "high security" partition. I put work stuff on the low security partition and my own stuff on the high security partition and I use them both all the time. In fact, the stuff in the work partition probably has newer timestamps than the stuff in my personal partition right now.

        There really is no way to tell that I've got another partition, and a dozen files (or more) in the partition I'll reveal have last modified timestamps as of today or yesterday. Also, I'll put up a serious squawk about needing to protect confidential information for my clients, then give them the key. Then when they actually see the confidential information of my clients...

        The best lie is not to lie at all.

  • Tuecrypt (Score:3, Informative)

    by Phroggy (441) <slashdot3&phroggy,com> on Monday June 09 2008, @11:50AM (#23711501) Homepage
    I see a typo.

  • **AA (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2008, @11:50AM (#23711505)
    I've lost track. Is the **AA is counted as a government agency, or is the government counted as an **AA agency? Can anyone clarify?

  • Summary Error (Score:3, Funny)

    by x_MeRLiN_x (935994) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:51AM (#23711527) Homepage
    The current Slashdot Poll is about utensils. The Article Poll seems more relevant.

  • YouTube? (Score:5, Informative)

    by RobBebop (947356) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:54AM (#23711593) Homepage Journal

    I read the earlier story, but it only now just occurred to me that another prime candidate for this is YouTube. The freedom to "Broadcast Yourself" is scary in a lot of general contexts that have already led to a number of government agency censorships around the world.

    Also, giving Google the ability to self-censor the content posted (currently, I believe objectionable violence and pornography is banned by the TOS) provides for a bias on the site.

    • Re:YouTube? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2008, @01:34PM (#23713083)
      The low signal-to-noise ratio keeps YouTube from being considered in my mind. Too much crap, not enough diamonds.

      People are too busy watching their favorite new hip-hop dance or replays of clips from American Idol or whatever the kids are into these days to find the interesting, insightful, and thought-provoking pieces.

      When YouTube hit, I thought it was the perfect place for documentaries and culture works, but apparently it's a place for pop culture trash and soft-core pornography. Never underestimate the reptilian brain of your average Joe Sixpack.

  • Likely? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath (38547) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:55AM (#23711601)
    What difference does it make if something is "likely" to get shut down by a government agency?

    It matters if something is actually shut down. The answers on this "likely" poll are just a measure of the prejudice (in the dictionary sense of the word prejudice [reference.com]) of the people answering the question.

    Where's the answer for "none of them should be shut down, but I prefer to keep an open mind and deal with reality rather than wallow in my own preconceptions about things that haven't happened yet"?

  • Tor? (Score:3, Funny)

    by demonbug (309515) on Monday June 09 2008, @11:57AM (#23711617) Journal
    I don't get it, why would the government want to shut down a sci-fi/fantasy publisher?

    Unless... I knew it! That whole wheel of time thing really WAS a government conspiracy designed to cause me to fail out of junior high/high school/college! I thought it was a little fishy when RJ supposedly passed away just before finishing the final installment.

  • confuse and throw the gov. off the Wikileaks trail.

  • Plugging the 'Leaks (Score:3, Informative)

    by ZackZero (1271592) on Monday June 09 2008, @12:05PM (#23711747) Journal
    It's got to be WikiLeaks. It's one of the only sites to post that completely crazy garbage that Scientology calls the "OT" levels. And who can forget that draft version of ACTA that got mention here?

    Wikileaks has a legal team and the balls to use them to keep running, but that likely won't stop the insensitive clods in the government.

  • Vote None! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mveloso (325617) on Monday June 09 2008, @12:10PM (#23711833)
    The government doesn't shut down websites. They can't, legally, unless there's something criminal going on.

    • Re:Vote None! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bsDaemon (87307) on Monday June 09 2008, @12:17PM (#23711941) Homepage
      Until they figure on some exigent circumstances. "pedophile terrorist communists use freenet!" use of freenet is then banned.

      Someone posts to wikileaks about how the govt made up the charges about freenet, and then freenet gets taken down over "state secrets" or something.

      Notions of law and justice are really somewhat quaint these days.

      • Re:Vote None! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Z34107 (925136) <zealoussniper@ne ... t ['tsc' in gap]> on Monday June 09 2008, @12:38PM (#23712263)

        Just because some of our 535 crazies committed to Congress this session want to shut it down, doesn't mean it'll happen.

        A bill was introduced in 1955 to ban Rock and Roll music, for the same "protect the children" reasons used as excuses to ban anything. Of course, that didn't happen - what would've happened to "Guitar Hero?"

        Congress wants to look like it's doing something - actually doing it is hard. Watch them ban Wikileaks, make a press release, and then do nothing within their (limited) power to actually shut the site down. They get their press time, everyone's happy.

        But, in some ways, that's a good thing. An ineffectual government is better than one with "quaint" notions of law and justice.

    • Whew! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by roystgnr (4015) <roystgnr@ti[ ].utexas.edu ['cam' in gap]> on Monday June 09 2008, @12:28PM (#23712103) Homepage
      What a relief.

      I guess we're all safe, just as long as there aren't any laws [cornell.edu] or regulations [gpo.gov] that these websites might be violating. I'm sure the authors of Freenet double-check their regulatory compliance every week. After all, the index volume for the Code of Federal Regulations is only 1100 pages, and the other 50 volumes can't be too much bigger. And why even bother reading the US Code? You barely have to skim the thing to determine that there could never be anything illegal about providing assistance to third parties who want to covertly transmit large amounts of unspecified data.

  • Not a suggestion (Score:5, Interesting)

    by petes_PoV (912422) on Monday June 09 2008, @12:17PM (#23711939)
    Given that most governments now consider George Orwell's classic: 1984 more as an instruction manual than a warning, someone should make it clear to the govt. that we are not asking them to close these sites down.

  • As much as I think TPTB would like to kill off truecrypt (assuming it's on their radar), it can live on with underground distribution since it's a software project. Development might grind to a halt, since no one could easily validate the source for various underground successor projects. But checksums for the last known, good version would be as easy to find elsewhere as a bootleged disc of code.

    The whole point of Wikileaks is to make things public, so driving leaked documents repositories underground would make them indistinguishable from conspiracy theorists and the lunatic fringe.

  • EFF Patent Busting?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OldSoldier (168889) on Monday June 09 2008, @12:28PM (#23712101) Homepage
    Well.. if the government "shuts EFF Patent Busting down" by fixing the patent system, then that would be a Good Thing.

    Seriously, even the patent office is complaining about the backlog of patents. I think they want a solution as much as the rest of us.

  • Excellent question! (Score:5, Funny)

    by spazdor (902907) on Monday June 09 2008, @02:13PM (#23713703)
    Yes, Slashdot. Tell us. What projects *are* most likely to be shut down by government?

    Listening attentively,
    -US Gov't

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.