I know what your saying, once apone' a time the Chicago Tribune & others like them where corporate news gurus and what they said was what was, and they made money hand over fist. Now because of the internet most are filling for bankruptcy, cutting their staffs by more then half, or folding all together. I'm sure that they have some pull in Government and have A hand in this.

Well, since the internet is my domain and field of expertise I will chime in on this. First of all - when I read the title of that video of rockefeller it made me rage. After listening to what he said, I find the title to be very misleading - once again one of the things that pisses me off about you guys. Why don't you include him saying "and that's a ridiculous statement" directly after that?

Anyway, what he said about security is for the most part true. At the same time, it's also not as much of a threat as he makes it out to be. Attacks on a network or server (unless the attacker is highly skilled and there are certain vulnerabilities) are easy enough to fend off. The electrical grid and banking system is by no means in any immediate danger. Enough money has been put into securing these networks. Furthermore, this video has absolutely nothing to do with the meeting you are speaking about regarding file sharing. So I have to ask: what's the point?

Yes, the meeting regarding file sharing blows however it is for torrenting and p2p software and media. It is true it may effect services such as youtube and ovguide and may effect the videos posted here. However, to suggest DTV is in danger of being shut down is just absurd. I'm all for p2p and torrenting, I've been doing it since the napster days and even before that. One thing that you all should keep in mind is that there will be hundreds of millions of pissed off people if any unfair regulations are passed -> take net neutrality for example. Thanks to grassroots of developers and end-users that was stopped dead in its tracks and it was a hell of a lot more scary than this international meeting on file sharing. My advice to original poster: stop posting misleading threads with misleading video titles.

I appreciate your post and you make some very important points.

However, I do think there are possible dangers to free information exchange on the net and I'm not a big conspiracy alarmist.

I hope you are right that there would be enough public backlash to prevent a major move towards monitoring and censoring.

If there were an escalation of war or some perceived terrorist threat connected to some unforeseen event, for instance, or a "homeland security" crisis involving home-brewed terrorism, I can imagine a scenario in which the government might try to curtail and control internet activity (like China does) to some degree.

Do you not think such a possibility exists?

And please, Wompas, quit lumping all us DTVers into the same category. You've done it on 2 threads today, and I think it's stupid and narrow-minded to paint us all with the same brush.

If you don't like the site, why are you here? I know there are a lot of random, somewhat erroneous or irrelevant posts, but there are lots of different levels of thinkers and posters here.

Deal with the individual cases, please, and keep posting. You seem like a smart guy and it just gets old seeing attacks on the mentality of the site from people who continue to post here.

Cheers!

youtube has been sending me mail to make money for my videos by letting adds be put before my video starts, i said no of course

well done

I will say that there are a few people who post here who are level headed however the percentage is very low and the more I read the stuff posted here the more angry I get because it propogates a lot of really bad information and you end up with things like 2012 doomsday crap. Completely filled with non-fact based claims proclaiming to be fact-based claims; but that's all irrelevant. Why I continue to post here, I'm not quite sure. Entertainment value I guess.

I will give it to you that some sort of homeland security issue very well could definitely change that. What scares me more than terrorism is that my civil liberties are infringed upon as a result. I'm reminded of that every time I'm flying somewhere, it's getting to the point where you need to strip down to your boxers to go through the metal detector. I blame the people more than the government for that because the people panic, allowing it to happen, and the terrorists have taken away more of our freedoms. While I'm on the airport issue I will say that I do not believe any of the measures recently put in place are effective and make anyone safer than pre-9/11.

People seem to lose all logic at the slightest problem and just go crazy. I'm not even sure how you go about solving a problem like that but that above all else is what will destroy the little freedom we do have. The biggest threat to the internet is lack of freedom to exchange information no matter what that information is and regulation. The internet is one of the greatest things that the people have right now. "Hackers", and I use that term because that's what the media calls them and what people know them as, are really not that much of a threat as the media likes to make them out to be. There are highly skilled people doing their jobs and protecting company systems, government systems, and even you. The government needs not get involved in this and that includes regulation. The current system is sufficient. I'd say the biggest threat to internet security right now would be internet explorer and ignorant end-users. Because of IE you get botnets which lead to DDoS attacks and all sorts of other bad things.

Either way, starting threads and posting videos with misleading titles is just not the way to go about anything. That goes for ALL subjects not just this particular one. Irrational fear is never a good way to go about things it is what leads to real disaster and infringed upon rights.

Good post. I agree with everything you say here.

I believe as well that we have given up our freedoms too willingly, we seem so easily led.

It's a damn shame. I wish I could blame it all on some single enemy (however shadowy, like the NWO, or however obvious, like the Jew or the Muslim), but I can't.

We created all of this. All of us together have created this world, like it or not.

I have no cause to believe in or any answers for myself or anyone else, I just try to remain open and critical and aware.

But I think you are right that we should be careful about what information we help disseminate. If we cut and paste, we should do it discriminately and perhaps even research our sources every now and then.

It's so easy to believe in bullshit, it seems, and there seems to be a never ending supply of it.

End of rant.

Exactly. Well we are in agreement with at least one problem then.

Cheers, Slush

I think it's worth pointing out to Wompas, that Slush posts an avalanche of info and would not necessarily endorse all of the content.

I'm talking about the rockefeller vid and what was stated before embedding the video: "rockefeller thinks the internet shouldn't have been invented" or something along those lines. I am well aware of the current meetings going on but like I said it's not threatening just yet, laws need to be passed first. If it becomes a major threat there will be major backlash as there was with net neutrality which thanks to that backlash is now safe (until people forget and the ISPs are trying to destroy it again).