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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 08 2020, @11:48PM   Printer-friendly

The Mozilla Corporation is known for among other things the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client, and its current CEO has written an open letter to the European Commission on the upcoming Digital Services Act (DSA) (warning for PDF). In it she vaguely addresses transparency, accountability, online advertising, and digital markets for a European internet, without addressing The Internet itself. The DSA appears to include proposals to split off a European internet from The Internet at large and model it after the great firewall of China in regards to control and isolation.

In the document, New Developments in Digital Services: Short-(2021), medium-(2025) and long-term (2030) perspectives and the implications for theDigital Services Act, the great firewall of China gets praised repeatedly as something to emulate should the EU split of an internet from The Internet:

To make sure these predictions become reality and to prevent the misuse of digital tools, we advise the European Parliament to take a le ading stance in the global digitalisation. Three main recommendations are given in the study: A European cloud / European internet could secure a reliable, trustworthy digital ecosystem in Europe. Funding programmes for eGovernment would use the innovative capabilities of start-ups throughout Europe to create the most digital and advanced government in the world. And all this should be communicated in a visionary and exciting way, making sure the right regulations are in place, but also encouraging boldness and showing a willingness to change (see Figure 2).

[...] Action Plan 1: European Cloud / European Internet

A European firewall/cloud/ internet would foster a digital ecosystem in Europe based on data and innovation. It would drive competition and set standards, similar to what has happened in China in the past 20 years. The foundations of such a European cloud are democratic values, transparency, competition and data protection.

[...] Technologically, it would require a top-level infrastructure, high-speed 5G or a 6G data network and a firewall. Setting up such a network would promote many European companies and therefore boost business and drive innovation.

Like the Chinese firewall, this European internet would block off services that condone or support unlawful conduct from third party countries.

[...] As e-commerce and remote working solutions became widely used and even smartphone tracking to prevent infections met very little scepticism. Now in the aftermath of this pandemic it's the perfect time to act and to push for ambitious goal in digitalising Europe.

[...] Update 2 of the Visionary Communication Programme: i.e. crypto, quantum computing. Here it is important to include visionaries, think tanks and influences to communicate the update to the public.

Phase 2 of the eGovernment Venture Programme: Testing and evaluating first technologies and ideas developed in the programme.

Initialising the European internet: setting up think tanks to creating the cornerstones and possible pitfalls of such a project.

Long term 2025 – 2030

Update 3 of the Visionary Communication Programme: i.e. 6G, European internet, DNA products. Further communication within the Europe of the new digital goals.

The EFF has also responded to the EU Commission on the Digital Services Act, with a request in the opposite direction, that of putting the citizens back in control and avoiding a situation where there are gatekeepers consisting of only a handful of large corporations.


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  • (Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:40AM (8 children)

    by Zinnia Zirconium (11163) on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:40AM (#1048074) Homepage Journal

    Neat!

    I know many things about getting through firewalls but I was unmotivated to learn until capitalist pigs took my unlimited internet away. Through struggle I grow. I rarely ever think of encumbered internet as encumbered anymore since I am so accustomed to bypassing restrictions.

    I spent some time today reconfiguring one of my proxy servers that gets me free internet but I recognize that the work I did was ultimately unproductive because I was writing workarounds for arbitrary restrictions imposed by other people. If those other people would stop imposing arbitrary restrictions then we would all be free to do actual productive work instead. But no. We play the capitalist pig game instead.

    Free internet wants to be free like free as in air. Just give it away already. It makes no difference to me. No way am I paying for internet access.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:59AM (6 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:59AM (#1048080) Journal

    The Internet does not "want to be free." It wants nothing. And it's most certainly not "free as in air." The whole Internet costs money to build and to run. It has no feelings, no wants, no desires. Same as information. Same as software. All these have one thing in common - they have no feelings or desires, and your slogan is just an attempt to bypass the rational thought process.

    --
    SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @02:04AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @02:04AM (#1048085)

      > just an attempt to bypass the rational thought process.

      An effort free attempt where you are concerned.

      Thanks to your meanness, I'm going to lobby the EU on behalf of by Zinnia Zirconium. They should whitelist HTTP/0.9 connections so that php -S still functions.

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:06AM

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:06AM (#1048107) Journal

        Meanness for telling the truth? Slogans are designed to bypass rational thought. In this case, it was also patently false. What a whining baby!

        --
        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:56AM (1 child)

      by Zinnia Zirconium (11163) on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:56AM (#1048118) Homepage Journal

      There should be a generally accepted expectation of free internet access. It could be advertising supported or tax supported or whatever but internet access should be free of cost.

      Back when broadcast TV was relevant nobody expected to pay for advertising supported broadcast TV. TV was free.

      Today nobody expects to pay for music. Music costs money to make but musicians still make music even when access to music is free of cost.

      Through technical trickery and legal loopholes I can get free internet and free movies and free TV.

      Now if only I could get free food for life [soranews24.com] that would be sweet.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday September 09 2020, @07:10AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 09 2020, @07:10AM (#1048147) Journal

        There should be a generally accepted expectation of free internet access. It could be advertising supported or tax supported or whatever but internet access should be free of cost.

        Thank you, but personally, I don't like it the way you describe.
        I'm think I'm better with an Internet with no traffic/destination restrictions, even if I need to pay for it.

        --
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    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:41PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:41PM (#1048262) Journal

      Sorry, but the internet is different from software. Software, in principle, requires no maintenance. (Yeah, that's different from software in practice...usually.) An example of what I mean are most compilers. You only need to change them to adapt to changes in the language specs. If you're willing to use the old version of the language, you rarely need to do anything to maintain the compiler. The same for most static html pages. Make them dynamic, though, and you're using tools that aren't designed to be maintenance free. But the spec keeps changing, and newer html rendering engines eventually stop working with older code. So "in principle" isn't "in parctice", but "in principle" code that's been debugged doesn't need maintenance.

      The internet is very different. It doesn't just have the "passion for updates" induced need for maintenance, it's got the "machines wear out" need for maintenance. So it really *can't* be free. But it's also true that in the US the system has been designed to allow monopoly pricing. It didn't need to happen that way, but bribery, corruption, and politics ensured that it did.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @02:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @02:42PM (#1048317)

      The guard posts may be facing the other way, but the asshats on both sides really haven't changed that much.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:18PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:18PM (#1048343)

    Free internet wants to be free like free as in air. Just give it away already. It makes no difference to me. No way am I paying for internet access.

    See, there's a reason RMS or whoever coined the terms "free as in beer/free as in freedom"--for most of your post it sounded like you were talking about free as in freedom, now in your last line you abruptly switch to "I don't want to pay my ISP."

    So, which one is your personal term "free as in air" supposed to be?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"