Added to that I recently read that the alternative news is the second fastest growing industry on the Internet, second only to porn.  So again that highlights people stepping away from the current systems.  For the controlers the Internet is one of the single most largest threats to them.  However they have also come to heavily rely upon it.

When and if it does become totally regulated, it will be of little use to most of us.  And yes as E3mpirical says I imagine there will indeed be a virtual war, as many of the best hackers around the world begin to bring the whole thing crashing down.  The removal of the Internet at that point would little affect most of us.  But it would be a massive blow against the corporations and governments.

The controlers really are very short sighted...

Let them try to run everything, all the limitation they create for people will eventually free everyone... the more limitations, the more people will "wake up" and choose freedom!

I considered that if the Internet or later the "Internet 2" become so regulated, people will return to using dial-up to access bulleten boards like in the old days.  So groups like NR would comprise of a number of computers that we just dial into in order to access and post information.  But then there is this; I will just quote a small part from the article as it is fairly large:

So basically this could be extended to make any wide-area-network other than the government approved internet..."illegal".

It will be interesting to see the sort of propaganda that will be created over the next few years to get people to go along with this.  That AOL stuff is just a taster I imagine.

(Interestingly the "Internet is bad" video is quite how I imagine the Controllers feel about the masses having access to such a wealth of information).

Then there is the new AOL ad campaign http://discuss.aol.co.uk/home.aspx?id_Content=2 made to look like a debate on the pro and cons of the Internet.  On the top right hand side of the page there is a little box where you can watch the Good ad and the Bad ad.  The Bad one really gives me the shivers.  The "Good" one says the power is in the hands of the people, to to me suggests by implication "...and look what the people have done with that power".

Those two ads are currently being shown in cinemas across the UK. Both played (with other ads sandwiched between them) before the start of Munich last week.

Then there is the new AOL ad campaign http://discuss.aol.co.uk/home.aspx?id_Content=2 made to look like a debate on the pro and cons of the Internet.  On the top right hand side of the page there is a little box where you can watch the Good ad and the Bad ad.  The Bad one really gives me the shivers.  The "Good" one says the power is in the hands of the people, to to me suggests by implication "...and look what the people have done with that power".

It will be very sad when the Internet is no longer what it is.  But then it has already changed a lot...

""By upholding the FCC's March 2002 Declaratory Ruling that classified cable Internet as an unregulated "information service," ""

Oh right so everything that is unregulated must be regulated...

But it's funny, if not disturbing, how effective that irrational logic is for many people. They either accept it as self-evident or get tongue-tied trying to refute it. It's the type of statement that psychopaths and neurologinguistic programmers use to manipulate minds because it hits at a common intellectual blindspot.  One response would be, "If I have nothing to hide, you have nothing to see."

People who spout this nonsense should be asked how many times a week  they make love to their partners and if they would comply with having a CCT camera in their bedrooms/houses and places of work, 24/7
and they should be of course first in the queue for implanted chips as they have nothing to hide.
Get them to send a list of all their habits, likes and dislikes and political leanings to MI5 as they nothing to hide.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/0 … 05238.html

An extraordinary statement by the US government has sent shockwaves around the internet world and thrown the future of the network into doubt.

In a worrying U-turn, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has made it clear it intends to retain control of the internet's root servers indefinitely. It was due to relinquish that control in September 2006, when its contract with overseeing body ICANN ended.

The decision something that people have long feared may happen - will not only make large parts of the world furious but also puts ICANN in a very difficult position. The organisation has slowly been expanding out of its California base in an effort to become an international body with overall responsibility for the internet.

The US government is professing its full backing for ICANN (which it created) at the same time that it awards itself control of the net's foundations, which will have the inevitable effect of pulling the organisation back into the US.

This is particularly relevant at the moment as a UN review of internet governance will report later this year and indications are that the team is considering handing over elements of internet control to a UN body, possibly the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

In fact, it is the UN report that has most likely focussed the US government's attention and prompted the statement, made yesterday at a communications conference in Washington DC.

The decision is transparently a result of the culture permeating through Washington as a result of the Bush Administration's world philosophy. In an extraordinary presentation, assistant secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Michael D. Gallagher, outlined new "US principles" regarding the internet.

"The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet’s Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world’s economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorising changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file," is the first of a four-point statement which can be found here.

The second point is that world governments can run their own country-code domains (like .uk for the UK or .de for Germany). The third says ICANN should be the organisation running the internet. And the fourth that "there is no one venue to appropriately address [internet governance] in its entirety" - which is basically a warning shot across the UN's bows.

But what is most disturbing about Gallagher's presentation, is how it endlessly refers to the president. The first slide has a picture of George Bush. The second begins "Thanks to the president's policies, America's economy is strong". The next slide is "The president's broadband vision". The next slide leads with a quote from Bush and two pictures of him. And on and on it goes. There is barely a single slide that doesn't quote from the president.

Clearly the internet has entered the Bush administration's vision and the resulting DoC statement - which boldly tells the rest of the world that the US will continue to run the Internet and everyone will just have to lump it - is very in keeping with how the US government is currently run.

The big question now is whether the rest of the world will be cowed. ICANN has yet to release a statement on the DoC’s surprise declaration but it knows which side its bread is buttered on and so will probably make a careful and broadly supportive statement.

The vision of a US-controlled internet infrastructure will be anathema to large parts of the world however and it is a demonstration of the US administration’s failure to think globally that it doesn't recognise that there is surprisingly little preventing other parts of the world from creating a second Internet outside of US control.

An already fractious situation has just got more difficult.

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Well, that was a bit meatier than the American media versions.  I don't think anyone here would be comfortable with the UN controlling the internet either.