Message-ID: <1545184936.20040811001613@bssc.edu.au>
From: ben at bssc.edu.au (Ben Ryan)
Subject: iDEFENSE - New Tricks [web censorship!]

[Len and others:
Some info on iDEFENSE and their attempts to censor sites they believe are
'dangerous'.. considering their hatred for the principles of speech and full
disclosure in security, if this snowballs way out of control, could FULL-DISCLOSURE be
next??]


Remember them? Didn't they try selling chocolate teapots as cures against the
"global terror" facing information technology?
(They told me Robert T Morris was working for Al-Qaida, is that true??)

Having achieved little of consequence, and with their "alliance" about as effective as a motorcycle ashtray,
it looks like iDEFENSE are "relaunching or "reloading" as "iNTeRNeT guardians" against the terrible plague
of free knowledge infesting the iNTERNET. As defined by them, obviously.

According to figures involved, idefense (don't they have a dictionary?) put the
squeeze on QWK (www.qwknetllc.com) to shut down the "Rogue Science" website and
forum (www.roguesci.org). For no purpose other than they disliked its content.
As far as we know, none of the content violated any laws such as DMCA (law
or joke, you decide), except perhaps some fair use copyrighted material
reproduced for research purposes.
No legal reason or order was produced to force the ISP to close the site, it
merely did so under 'duress' or pressure.

This seems to be just a continuation of the sort of behaviour that this group
condone: secrecy, anti-open/anti-freedom, closed-shop, obfuscation, possible
blackmail/threats. We all know how they would like to have sole control of info
on all the nasty security holes, and keep anyone from knowing about them. Except
people who pay them money. And maybe the people who might abuse them for
'national security' reasons.
If you deal with these people, beware. And if you support a world where
information is free, refuse to deal with them. Make the the LAST to know.

[ http://www.roguesci.org/ - This is a forum and website devoted solely to the free discussion of information
amongst participating members. While some its content was controversial according to some,
it was just information. Not: 'hate' speech, political lobbying (RIAA/MPAA), sponsoring 'terrorism',
advocating violence, wanton damage, obscenity (extreme/child/illegal or
otherwise), religion.]

thanks for listening, and by the way, they didn't kill roguesci.org. It has
reopened, with multiple mirrors and encrypted distributed backups.
And the people who use it aren't happy.

And thanks iDEFENSE, you just redoubled the resolve of the people you were
trying to censor!

--
mailto:ben@...c.edu.au

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