US Commercial Cyberwar

Hardware Hub Tech Policy & News
1

It's that time again, the time where the US corporate mercs organise large scale cyberattacks on foreign states again.

Now that Netflix has just launched in Europe, I'll highlight some things that have accompanied the launch. If anything, it should definitely change your opinion on netflix being the "good guys" out there, the guys who have to fight the big ISP's alone, etc...

Since some time, CloudFlare is managing the content distribution over the German Telekom network. This is very strange, because it's well known that CloudFlare is not at all effective in protecting anything on the Internet, and is well known to only really do something if there are political agendae in place, like for instance, they provide "support" for online voting operations that - of course - happen to be attacked by DDoSsers, etc...

Also since some time, i.e. since CloudFlare is protecting the content distribution over the Telekom network, content sites like Twitch have been having a lot of troubles with bandwidth. A LOT of troubles. A traceroute investigation shows that the bandwidth blockade for Twitch for instance, is only happening in the Frankfurt Data Center of Telekom, where CloudFlare is implemented... but wait, shouldn't CloudFlare be guaranteeing proper bandwidth content delivery instead of blocking it?

Also since some time, CloudFlare has been set to hijack non-commercial streaming sites. Sites that have user uploaded bootleg versions of movies and series, are entirely legal in Germany, that is, it's illegal to upload bootlegs, but it's entirely legal to watch the content through streaming. Since these sites are not German sites, but rather Swiss sites, it's absolutely illegal to hijack these sites, it's also illegal to censor these sites as they hold no content that is eligible for censorship under German law, and obviously no German administration has any jurisdiction in Switzerland.

The fact that CloudFlare is hijacking these sites without any court order or other legitimate title, is a pretty serious crime according to German Law. It is a criminal offense that should not be treated lightly.

Coincidently, same name sites on other top domains provide a false copy of the streaming sites targeted by CloudFlare, false copies that try to install spyware on visiting windows systems.

All of this coinciding with the launch of a commercial streaming video site.... how very coincidental....

Statistics in mind, I don't believe in coincidence when almost all test results point in the direction of a direct link between the events.

Meanwhile in the EU, the corporations, especially Google, have invested a great deal of money in buying seats in the EU Commission. The commissioners that defended the fundamental rights of the Europeans against the Anglo-American cultural and economical assailants, have been replaced by more opportunistic politobots, that have no clue what they're talking about but have deep pockets. This means that the EU Parliament is going to have to step up its efforts to combat the decadence, now probably also against the EU Commission. The heavily-fought TTIP, which aims at controlling European companies and content delivery through patent and copyright wars under US copyright and patent nonsense, will probably be signed very quickly by the new Swedish Barbie-commissioner, after the former Flemish commissioner did a great job protecting the rights of Europeans. That's the way money works. Together with the institution of the new EU Commission, comes the introduction of Netflix, a commercial streaming service that offers nothing at all in terms of European content, let alone in terms of educational or cultural content, it's plain EEG flatlining all the way. It also doesn't comply with the TV content standards that are set for Continental European TV stations, where a minimum for news, a minimum for educational and cultural content, and a maximum for advertisements are set.

On another note, Telekom has very correctly reacted to the allegations of Level3 with regards to the Twitch bottleneck in the Frankfurt Data Centers, caused by CloudFlare. Telekom has correctly stated that "net neutrality" is just a marketing terms for "ensuring unfair advantages for big US corporations". That is very true, and I do hope that Telekom goes back to a standard nginx setup managed by their own people, instead of letting CloudFlare run the show and poison the entire German content distribution.

2

Germany isn't the only target, I can confirm that other countries are experiencing similar undemocratic snafus.

But I'm not worried at all, because it's just going to be the evolutionary pressure on the File-sharing content public domain re-introduction mechanism. It'l force the the file-sharers to move to freenet, tribbler, i2p etc, another trend is Stenography (hiding "liberated" content inside public domain content), There's a plug-in for chrome & Firefox that lets you see "liberated" books that are hidden inside Amazon storefronts (yes Amazon is hosting piracy). The same is currently happening on video platforms.

I may remind you that piracy does not depend on the Internet. It took off in the 80's with Floppy sharing, continued to gained momentum in 90's when CD-R burners got cheap. Most of the worlds content piracy is still done via data-medium exchange. mostly via dirt cheap 360Gbyte 2,5inch labtop HDs in usb enclosures.

The copy-forbidden business-model is on it's last legs trying to fight with illegal government manipulation. The same happened when cars started to displace horse-carriages.

Wikipedia:

The United States did not accept the automobile very easily. The Farmers Anti-Automobile Association from Pennsylvania drafted a list of essential requirements for cars, including a rocket to be fired out per mile, and a blanket to cover the vehicle when horses approached as such painted so it blended in with the environment. If horses were unwilling to pass the car, the FAAA also required the car to be taken apart and hidden.

They are not fighting against us, they're fighting against market laws:

  • the cost of making copies of digital information is trending towards zero
  • that means that the offer is trending towards infinite
  • with the demand being limited and offer being near infinite
  • the price is near zero

Our economy is set up to manage scarcity by adjusting price. If you want to have a business you need to seek out scarcity.

In the movie & tv industry the scarcity has moved to the decision of whether or not it is being made, they need to move towards a crowd-funding model, once a movie is made, it's released straight to public domain under a creative commons license and serves as advertisement and demonstration of quality, to motivate new customers to fund future products.

Consumers are going to spend money to ensure that their favorite entertainment-thing is being made or continued.

The movie industry needs to start being nice to their customers because very soon VR-experinces that are dominated by game-companies are going to eat Hollywood's lunch. Movies and TV-shows are going to become a niche for admirers of that format.

3

This is a valid argument, I agree that the whole cyberwar on consumers only serves to commercialize an intermediate format, that is presented as "the new distribution system", but is actually already as outdated as the whole patent and copyright system in itself.

I'm sure though that the politicians will agree on the TTIP in the US way, and that things will get a lot worse before they get better.

The time to set up a parallel internet in continental europe is now. In many eastern european regions, mesh networks are already very real, and it's definitely time to implement that in the rest of europe, because there are few things as important as protecting the cultural heritage and educational level, and that is exactly what's under fire now by the US corporate mafia.

4

My worries about TTIP are more focused on the food safety & water-privatization clauses. Because those are going to give rise to right wing fascist-parties.

The anti-piracy clauses are going to be the fuel the Pirate Party needs to outgrow their fringe-status. The more difficult piracy becomes for the average Joe, the more profitable it'll become for the up-loaders. They want to recreate prohibition-mafia boses ? Fine let them stirr up the chaos ;), nobody fights against human nature and wins. or do I have to remind you that there's already a religion around copying. Kopism or something like that.

Anyway mesh-nets are real in central Europe already, it's just that nobody speaks about them on the Internet.

Also throughput is currently abysmal, omni-directional wlan isn't really the ideal basis for a mesh. There are a few projects that aim to use multiple wifi-dongles to imitate multiple antenna ranged directional arrays, but you need a desktop cpu to process the fractal calculations to construct & deconstruct the patterns of 2 dozen wifi antennas. We need to wait until the Internet of things runs into the same limitations that warrant the R&D to create a hardware accelerated chip for these calculations. Yeah it's sad that freedom needs to piggy-bag on the corporate technology-wake. But it is what it is.

 

5

people who understand technology and who value freedom from corporate control and freedom to interact with one another digitally without government control need to organise politically.

it doesn't have to be a political party, or a form of identity politics. It's probably best if it isn't. it could take the form of a think tank, a political/social movement, activism, reportage or a combination of such forms. the idea should be to raise public consciousness/education and to be able to influence political decision making in relation to these issues and values. You know, a world where policy makers would at least know what FOSS means and implies and can think about technology without needing too many distorting metaphors, analogies and euphemisms.

i worry that if you don't get it right in europe, then it will be very difficult for many places outside of europe to resist the corporate multinational, or US government model because a lot of these laws and systems are imported together with the technology transfer that happens from the US to other countries. If there isn't a different model to point to, it generally would be difficult to raise the awareness that there are other matters at stake until the effects actually manifest themselves, i.e. it becomes too late and we end up having to react and adapt instead.

Where i currently live, the government is moving mostly to using Apple products for desktop/laptop users, i.e. client side. They've already deployed in several authorities. It is absurd. There's already a free trade agreement with the USA and economic policy is becoming more neo-liberal although there are still big cultural impediments to it. People here don't notice what happens in Japan and other developed Asian countries, but they do notice what happens in the US, UK and in Europe.

6

Political change comes _after_ technological change, historically there's never been a case where enough people managed to comprehend the situation to be able to preempt the short term fallout of technological change.

Look what humanity did with nuclear weaponry, we needed to stand at the brink of annihilation to see reason. It pains me to say it, but politicians, businesses, military etc now view networked computers as a source of P O W E R. Most People are ignorant about it & won't care until something important breaks catastrophically.

Anyway all the "computer-fuckery" is going to benefit the computer nerds greatly, because they'll be the only ones that understand how to counteract it, that means they'll be the only ones that won't be politically neutralized. it remains to be seen whether that is a good thing.

Keep in mind that technology only benefits the wealthy and powerful in the short run, the populace takes longer to adapt, but once they do, it hits hard and it hits everywhere. So far technological innovation empowered the individual, the only downside is the transitional phase.

My guess is that the transitional phase is going to be very short, because digitally everything goes faster, more people are going to see the consequences of disregarding Richard Stallman's Warning about user-subjugation. There's going to be no political movement until more people feel the pain.

I'm not sure whether you should put great hopes in Europe, my guess is that EU is going to learn from the mistakes the US makes, but I'm not quite sure that it's going to benefit anybody outside the EU because, broadcasting culture & values isn't exactly very European, at least not anymore. If you look at how long the US needed to accept Universal Health-care...

7

Today the German unions demonstrated against the prospect of the TTIP with the US.

Basically, what the US corporate mafia has invested in Cecilia Malmstrom as EU Commissioner for, is to get a few things done:

1. Lockdown on "real crops" in agriculture because of the crazy Monsanto and other US patents on food (yeah... it's a thing you know);

2. Exemption of jurisdiction of the regular EU courts for US corporations that can afford private courts. The US corporations want US based private courts to settle complaints against US corporations violating EU human and civil rights... yeah, that's also a thing you know...;

3. Exemption of US corporations that can afford private courts for anything to do with EU social and labour law. They basically want to bypass the legislation in the EU that prevents people from being exploited and mistreated... because that's also a thing you know.

In my view, there is only one solution for the TTIP, and that's a clear statement that all US corporations have to comply to all EU and member state laws, and that the burden of proof and compliance is on them, just like it is the case with EU corporations.

This is a very dangerous thing. The TTIP in it's present form, that is liable to be signed by Cecilia Malstrom because that's basically why she was piloted in that position with US corporate bribe money, can have two effects: 1. it is signed, and thus US corporations can bypass EU regulations and legislation, which will cause the member states to make individual regulations to protect themselves, which will cause a huge movement to reject the jurisdiction of the EU to prevent supranational appeal, which will basically make the EU fall apart, which is what the UK and US want, or 2. member states keep in line with the TTIP and let US corporations go ahead with their exploitation and massive human and civil rights violations, which will lead to a situation whereby EU companies will really suffer, because they will still have to comply, and thus face unfair competition.

It would be much easier to just end the NATO Treaty and throw dissident member states like Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands out of the Union, but that would also be giving up and giving in, and that's not what the EU stands for. So a very difficult period is definitely about the start in the EU as a consequence of this huge attack on democracy by the big US corporations, and it will become very important to inform the people to not buy the products and services by US corporations that take part in this anti-democratic offensive on the EU.

The EU Commission is smiling now, because they've had their pockets stuffed really hard by the US Corporations that want to destroy the rights of the European citizens in order to make a few more bucks, but the unions and various political movements, and the EU Parliament itself, are vigilant, and the big anti-TTIP demonstrations of today clearly show that when the EU Commission goes too far, unions and democratic organisations are ready to lock out the companies in question the hard way.

What US corporations forget, is that unions are a big thing in the EU. Thanks to the christian-democratic and socialist political traditions in the EU, they think they have it made when they can bribe the commission into signing the TTIP, but they forget that they need to bring their poisoned agricultural crap and their exploitative services into Europe by using affiliates and using means of transportation, and unions can destroy all of those in less than 24 hours, and there is nothing at all they can do about it, unless they want to do what HP has already done, hiring Blackwater mercenaries to keep everyone away from the company grounds in order to avoid labour law controls for the hundreds of Vietnamese workers they have illegally imported in Europe to make laptops 24/7... that's in Slovakia, where the state doesn't have the means to intervene and pockets are easily filled, but try something like that in Germany, and you're starting WWIII.

The US government needs to intervene, and stop the massive attacks by big US corporations on democratic rights, in the US and in the EU. The is very little chance of that happening though, and it's probably going to get really ugly very rapidly. This is a critical assault by the likes of Monsanto, Tyco, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc... on the fundamental rights of the European population, and unlike the US population, the European population knows what the consequences of such forms of exploitative tyranny are, and they are not going to let it happen.

So Amazon, get ready to have your distribution centers burned to the ground, Monsanto, get ready to have your ships sunk in the harbours, Microsoft, get ready to evacuate your executive muppets before they are lynched, and Tyco, you better change a few more names of your affiliates to disguise the fact that they are Tyco companies... it's not going to be as easy as in the US, ask General Motors, they know everything about that lolz.... because these things happen in Europe when you don't listen to reason, I hope they don't, and that reason will prevail, and TTIP will be shot down, and US corporations will behave and stop violating rights and exploiting people, but if the US corporate mafia refuses to behave in a reasonable and intellectual manner, the usual radical protests will happen, and as history has taught us in Europe, there is no way to stop the people from taking the matters in their own hands.

I predict that it's going to get really ugly, because I think it will come to a situation whereby weaponized drones and mercenaries are going to be deployed against protesters. It will fail, the French army was the largest and most modern army of Europe at the time of the French revolution, and it was over in a matter of days, the Dutch were pushed out of Belgium in the Belgian revolution in less than 15 days, there is no stopping a crowd of determined and educated people that know what they are fighting for. The US corporate mafia really underestimates the will of the European people to keep the human and civil rights they suffered for to achieve, and once the US corporate mafia lights the fuse on what they are planning to do, it will immediately explode into a huge social revolt, beyond anything they can imagine, and once it becomes social, it will most certainly draw the attention of powers the US doesn't want to mess with... in casu China! The entire US corporate mafia might find themselves without any production capacity or raw materials in a matter of days if they really push the button they are preparing to push, and China will go to whatever length necessary to support social revolt.

I know that most don't think about this the way I do. I know the thought of these kind of things doesn't even come up in American minds, but there is a HUGE cultural difference between the US and the rest of the world in terms of what is really important to people, and the US doesn't understand a bloody thing of what makes the world tick, they still think it's money lolz....

I have a very bad feeling about what's going to happen, I feel that the actions of the US might lead to serious conflicts between the Gitmo states and aspiring Gitmo states, and the intellectually and culturally evolved nations in Europe. I think really bad things are inevitable, but in the end, it will lead to a much better future, and the hard-fought values will be solidified further.

8

i kind of agree with you, but i would have thought that what we have seen already is fallout enough!?

These things are on TV and in the mainstream business newspapers. I really think tech & science people need to reconnect with larger society. empower them with the tools and knowledge.

i suppose i am looking at it from a less mainstream point of view. i've worked in finance and i try to follow tech, so i'm probably a bit more sensitive to what's going on the world than the average person. tech people on this site probably feel the changes more than the average person as well i suppose.

it's just ominous that most people need more of a wake up call than what we've already had.

9

Over half of the population can't even comprehend the concept behind computers, let alone networks. They are too old, during their formative years their mind never got confronted with the hole concept of a digital or virtual layer to reality. To those people it's not real. They probably even use the Internet, but to them it's just an interactive news paper, that is delivered to them via magic.

You can't imagine how many people bought a network capable multifunction printer-scanner "fax machine" that "has email" so they can type a letter on the computer, print it out , let the scanner module digitize it, then finally send it as an email.

Those people can't wake up until something in the physical world breaks. Until it does we're just talking about a fantasy-world