Community Choice Award "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Govt" 246
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.
The Most Likely Choice... (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a suggestion (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Vote None! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Vote None! (Score:3, Interesting)
They can't, legally, unless there's something criminal going on.
You mean, like telling you how to decrypt DVDs [2600.com]?
(Which, incidentally, is why I voted for the GNU Software Radio project. If "Think of the children!" is the constitution's rootkit, "Think of the IP!" is its moneyed, bastard son.)
Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
TrueCrypt (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though it would be delicious irony for them to shutdown TOR - after all, the US Navy created it - I would say TrueCrypt.
TOR (and Freenet) is too easy to co-opt. Anyone can locally modify their copy of the software and deploy "spyware enhanced" entry and exit nodes. Traffic between the exit node and final destination is not (TOR) encrypted. Also, even if otherwise encrypted, traffic analysis is useful due to the fact that entry and exit traffic can be correlated.
TrueCrypt, however, represents a real problem. While it would be easy enough to foist a back-doored version on to most potential TrueCrypt users, the people who are really serious about keeping their private information private, would build from source and be extremely careful about where they got the source from.
On the other hand, truly shutting down an open source project is likely impossible. Also, it is virtually certain that the software has been extensively analyzed for implementation weaknesses, so it might be decided to allow users to think they are secure.
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:So I'm guessing (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Most likely to be shut down by the government? (Score:2, Interesting)
Would it be "course of Slashdot!" or "!esruoc fo todhsalS"
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:4, Interesting)
While Wikileaks can't be held liable for breaking a NDA that never signed onto, they could be sued for Tortious interference by helping a third party to break that NDA.
Yes, I saw it on 'The Insider'
Re:YouTube? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not a suggestion (Score:3, Interesting)
There, fixed that for you.
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. It also refused to comply with any takedown notice according to any law. The way they dont get shut down is because they are hosted in many different jurisdictions. If they are breaking a law in an area they simply leave that area. They do often however break the law before they leave. This means they are blatantly illegal in many situations.
There is not a distinction to be made between who uploads and who hosts the data in this situation. This is because wikileaks never denies to know what people are uploading. They admit that it is often illegal for both the uploader and the hoster. They accept this illegality without shifting blame to the leakers. They consider those that leak the data to be heros.
Re:The Most Likely Choice... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Any Serious Chance It'll Happen???!!! (Score:2, Interesting)