Hactivism vs Big Brother...

Net activism offers lessons for ministers. The increasing use of the internet by political activists could provide valuable lessons for the UK Government¸ say experts. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]

9:22:09 AM    

Manhattan Project Revisited

More from the Poindexter files...

Agency Weighed, but Discarded, Plan Reconfiguring the Internet

By JOHN MARKOFF

he Pentagon research agency that is exploring how to create a vast database of electronic transactions and analyze them for potential terrorist activity considered but rejected another surveillance idea: tagging Internet data with unique personal markers to make anonymous use of some parts of the Internet impossible. [New York Times, Nov. 22, 2003]

Remember the stories of the dissension amongst Los Alamos scientists working on the Bomb?  Entire careers were either ruined or permanently tainted as individuals were labeled as "un-patriotic" for questioning the government's application of technology to develop and use an atomic bomb.  Evidently, the same type dissension is developing here.

Several of the researchers told of a heated e-mail exchange in September over how to represent the consensus of the workshop in a report that was to be submitted to Darpa. At one point, Mr. Blaze reported to the group that he had been "fired" by Dr. Stavridou, of SRI, from his appointed role of writing the report presenting that consensus.

In e-mail messages, several participants said they believed that Dr. Stavridou was hijacking the report and that the group's consensus would not be reported to Darpa.

"I've never seen such personal attacks," one participant said in a subsequent telephone interview.

And, if you want the Pentagon's interest in such developments...

In defending herself by e-mail, Dr. Stavridou told the other panelists, "Darpa asked SRI to organize the meeting because they have a deep interest in technology for identifying network miscreants and revoking their network privileges."

At what point do these miscreants become labeled because of political or ideological beliefs?

8:44:55 AM