this is indeed the question… one perhaps that will never be answered, at least not for a while.
I guess in the real world if i had detailed plans of a building and instructions on explosives (i am not going to blow anything up it’s just an example!! before i get every agency watching my every move) and the police turned up and found it then i would be put before a court and a judge would decide if i am lunatic or just have an interest in chemistry and architecture. But there are no judges on the internet and no (perhaps a little?) police. Which is why i come down on the side of thinking that some sort of control is better than none at all.
Taking the april fools above … is it actually a bad idea that people have to have a course on internet security? I’ve read articles claiming that online fraud etc provides vast amounts of money to terrorist organisations. Would it not be better to cut that supply off by making people understand how to be safer?
Using the above examples - are you saying that you can think of legitimate uses for recipes for home-made explosive devices and child pornography? Or can we agree that there are some things on the Internet that are just bad, period? I’m not saying I’m interested in censoring the Internet or not, just interjecting that your seeming implication that the morality of the knowledge is all dependent on its application doesn’t ring true to me. Now, there are many things that are in that grey area, but there are many that are definitely not.
Comedian Ron White (and others, I’m sure) says that you can’t fix stupid. Forcing people to go through a course to educate them on security and privacy sounds like a great idea, but it’s not a guarantee that people will actually USE what they learn (if they learn) in real-life situations. The idea of a license to use the internet is totalitarian, elitist, draconian, and provides a system that is prone to abuse by those who empower it. (If you like the show “Seinfeld”, think of the soup nazi on a global network scale. “No internet for you!”)
The weakest link in any secure network is: the people who use it. Which is why phishing scams and social engineering tactics are so successful. As a federal contractor, I am required by contract to participate in annual training for information assurance. Still, even with these exercises, social engineering and phishing / spear phishing approaches still have some success. Yes, cutting off their supply of money might make a difference, but I don’t know how much of the money they get is from scams, and how much of it is from oil bought from the middle east, and how much of it is from people who are radicalised by ISIS/ISIL/whatever-they-are-calling-themselves-today who willingly provide funds and then agree to perform terrorist acts on their behalf.
Someone (not in this forum) suggested that technology should be implemented that will automatically disable any and all technological processes that allows ISIS to radicalise youths via Twitter and Facebook, etc. Immediately (knee-jerk reaction) it sounds like a great idea. The downside to that is it will only push them further underground where they cannot be monitored. They’ll still be successful, we just won’t know about it, ahead of time. Censorship, of a nature, will only make things worse for freedom loving countries (infidels).
As abhorrent as child pornography is, no, I cannot think of a legitimate use for it. However, the sites that host it are on the same servers that host legitimate information - blocking them also blocks legitimate sites. Can we filter? I don’t know, I’m not that technologically apt.
Legitimate use for recipes for home-made explosives? Yeah, actually, there are. Farmers who are tearing down an old silo to replace it with a new one, for one example. Sure, he could take it down piecemeal; at a high cost and slow process. Or he could plant a few strategically placed home-made charges and be done with it. I’m sure there are other legitimate reasons for home-made explosives, but I’ve already used too much work time on this topic and need to get back to work.
Fair enough, I’m just ensuring that you didn’t actually intend to say that every bad thing on the Internet isn’t always bad.
Off topic:
Incidentally, in this era, a farmer tearing down an old silo who builds basically an IED or ten to take it down is probably going to be facing some regulatory issues if anyone finds out this is the 21st century. It’s also possible, depending on the type of device, that it’s illegal in many places.
ok so extremes aside (sorry i tend to go to the extreme options in a debate) surely it would be a benefit to the entire country (whichever that may be) to provide courses to minimise online fraud. We have gone from no internet to everything in a very short period of time. With phones now linked to all your accounts and online banking etc etc it is now ripe for the picking. The older generation (generalising here) often aren’t up on the latest threats and use the same password for most things. It doesn’t even need to be them personally that is hacked as we are well aware, one website with your details gets hacked and they are in your inbox looking for your bank details before you even know the money has gone.
Just like driving licences aren’t a guarantee people won’t drive like idiots, we still have them for a reason. I’m not suggesting a licence as such but surely some form of free training/advice/anti-virus software.
this is the 21st century. It’s also possible, depending on the type of device, that it’s illegal in many places.