Free Talk Live

Surveillance means safety. This is the argument wherever and whenever governments seek new powers to monitor their citizens. Proposed legislation in the UK to enable police and intelligence services to access emails, Skype calls and Facebook messages is another such example. It is also another case of the unnecessary and dangerous expansion of state power, in collaboration with companies, into our online – and offline – lives.

For years, China’s net nannies turned the other cheek to a loophole in their vast online censorship apparatus. Anyone who wanted access to blocked overseas websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and more recently, the New York Times, need only download foreign software called a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent the Great Firewall. But in recent weeks, even these tools have begun to falter, frustrating tech-savvy Chinese and foreign businesspeople who now struggle to access Internet sites as innocuous as gmail.com and imdb.com.

The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.

A Guide to the Open Internet

Network neutrality is the idea that your cellular, cable, or phone internet connection should treat all websites and services the same. Big companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast want to treat them differently so they can charge you more depending on what you use.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently debating legislation to define limits for internet service providers (ISPs). The hope is that they will keep the internet open and prevent companies from discriminating against different kinds of websites and services.

"Dear citizen, according to received information, you have been influenced by the destabilising propaganda which the media affiliated with foreign countries have been disseminating. In case of any illegal action and contact with the foreign media, you will be charged as a criminal consistent with the Islamic Punishment Act and dealt with by the Judiciary".

A Bitcoin transaction services company says that hackers broke into one of its brokerage accounts last week, nabbing more than $12,000 worth of the digital currency. That attack knocked Bitinstant offline over the weekend. The company says that while it lost Bitcoins, no customers were affected by the hack.The criminals were able to take control of Bitinstant’s internet domains by convincing its domain registrar, Site5, to hand over control of the company’s Domain Name Service.

Ron Paul recently stated on a radio show he wished to rightfully own his Ronpaul.com domain name. After hearing this, the current registrants of Ronpaul.com contacted Paul with a large demand for cash saying they do not wish to vacate easily from the lucrative domain without substantial payment. This unlawful act dealing with celebrity domains has forced Ron Paul's lawyers to begin a cyber-squatting legal challenge, using the proper channels, against these domain squatters.

In Europe's last dictatorship, a crowd estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000 people gathered in Minsk to peacefully protest the re-election "victory" of authoritarian President Lukashenko, amid widespread allegations of fraud. Then the government police moved in to initiate force. Here's a video smuggled out of Belarus.

The president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko once again confirmed his reputation of the last dictator of Europe.

During his visit to the wood processing factory “Borisodrev” he came up with a new decree, according to which the employees of the factories undergoing modernization are not allowed to quit their jobs.