Re: Singapore

>  Hallam-Baker obviously thinks that he can thwart my insightful,
>barbed diatribes against him by posting empty messages to the
>CypherPunks list, 

No, I was merely speechless.

If you think that Singapore is a Libertarian paradise then
you are not a Libertarian. I don't doubt that Duncan is
capable of being an appologist for the Signapore regime
just as there were a lot of 'Communists' who used to fawn
over Stalin.

The fact is that Singapore taps every telephone call, monitors
every public place and performs traffic analysis to identify
dissident communities. The fear of being identified in such 
a community is a major means of suppressing dissent.

Duncan and Declan are merely indulging in a very popular
passtime of idealogues, fawning over benevolent dictatorships.


            Phill

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At 05:07 PM 12/7/97 +0800, Harish Pillay wrote:
>I did come across some ill-informed post (not by Phillip though :-)) 
that 
>said that there are national filters to Internet access here.  Well, 
indeed,
>the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers 
to filter 
                              ^^^^^^^^
>out an alleged list of 100 porno sites (you can see that there is an 
on going 
>URL hunt to discover these filtered sites on 
>www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html.  

And if any of those ISP's "chose" not to engage in such filtering, 
how long would they be permitted to stay in business?
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At 05:30 PM 12/07/1997 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>Oh, and the claim we just saw from Peter Herngaard, that:
> > "The distinction is very narrow since those who call for abolition of the
> > hate laws, at least in Germany, at the same time advocate expulsion of
> > non-whites or the establishment of a dictatorship."
>is demonstrably false. There are civil rights groups in Germany calling for
>the "abolition of the hate laws," and yet not arguing in favor of expulsion
>of non-whites or for the imposition of a dictatorship.

I think Peter's point was that most of the Germans who are calling for
the abolition of the hate laws _are_ the hate groups, rather than
civil liberties groups.  Sure, there are a few Germans who think that
free speech and assembly should mean free speech and assembly,
and aren't part of hate groups, but the government isn't out persecuting them
so they've got less incentive to make noise about it.
Also, the folks with pure motives are arguing a pure issue,
while the hatemongers get to combine their calls for the abolition of
hate laws with calls for the expulsion of non-Aryans, use it for recruiting,
and use it as a defense of their position.

>The way to prevent a repeat of Germany's unfortunate detour into national
>socialism is to just not repeat it, to not let government gain the power to
>build extermination camps, raid houses at night on flimsy pretexts,
>mobilize industry, etc.

But Herr Non-Citizen-Unit May, ve're doink this for your own good.
...
>There is also the very real psychological phenomenon of "forbidden fruit
>tasting sweeter." Many suspect the current resurgence of Nazism and
>skinhead ideologies (loosely speaking) in Germany has a lot to do with the
>thoughts being banned.

Certainly had a lot to do with kids becoming lefties in the 60s.
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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At 05:07 PM 12/7/97 +0800, Harish Pillay wrote:

>I am a Singaporean and have lived most of my life in Singapore.  I am no
>lapdog of the government (thank you) nor do I agree with everything the 
>government does.  If it is of any interest to you, you can go to my home 
>page for information on dirt that I have posted about the SG govt.  You 
>can also go to many other sites all over (both within Singapore and outside) 

>that discuss a wide array of issues, (www.sintercom.org) for example.

It should be obvious to those who have read my stuff over the years that I am 
not a fan of Singapore's government.  As an anarchist, that would be 
ridiculous in any case.  All that I ever said was that Singapore was freer 
than lots of other countries that don't get so much bad press.  I mentioned 
Germany and I could have mentioned France.

Liberty is commutative as is tyrrany.  You can add up the restrictions and 
arrive at a total.  You can't analyze a human institution with mathematical 
perfection but you can do better than relying purely on emotional 
stereotypes.  

I think that many of us ("We Are All Liberals Now" -- The Economist, 1997) 
ignore economic liberty when comparing regimes.  

It was this failing in the Freedom House (http://www.freedomhouse.org/) 
survey "Freedom in the World" (http://www.freedomhouse.org/Political/toc.htm) 
published since 1981 that led to two competing surveys being published by 
CATO and Heritage Foundation (as mentioned in an earlier post).  

Freedom House then retaliated with "World Survey of Economic Freedom" 
(http://www.freedomhouse.org/Econ/TOC.HTM) which is vague (both Germans and 
Americans are assigned equal "right to earn a living" scores of 3 even though 
Germans are much more restricted in that endeavor than Americans).  Their 
survey also totally ignores the "takings issue".  A country with a 100% 
income tax could rank perfectly on their scales.  

There are bound to be differences of opinion about living conditions in 
different countries and different weights that individuals would assign to 
different factors.  I was never trying to convince anyone that Singapore is a 
capitalist paradise and everyone should emulate them.  In fact Hong Kong has 
had a better growth rate recently and was a nicer place to live prior to its 
late unpleasantness.

Personally, I prefer Europe's winner in the economic liberty sweepstakes -- 
Switzerland -- or the anarchist paradise where they have many laws but no one 
obeys them -- Northern Italy -- or the US where it remains easy to avoid most 
of the unpleasant restrictions that our rulers attempt to impose on us.

I also am sure that not even the promoters of "Asian Values" can resist the 
transformative effects of the cash and the personal empowerment that 
accompany the growth of MarketEarth.

DCF 

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Hi.  I am appalled at the level of informed intelligence displayed on this
list by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker.

> >  Hallam-Baker obviously thinks that he can thwart my insightful,
> >barbed diatribes against him by posting empty messages to the
> >CypherPunks list, 
> 
> No, I was merely speechless.
> 
> If you think that Singapore is a Libertarian paradise then
> you are not a Libertarian. I don't doubt that Duncan is
> capable of being an appologist for the Signapore regime
> just as there were a lot of 'Communists' who used to fawn
> over Stalin.
> 
> The fact is that Singapore taps every telephone call, monitors
> every public place and performs traffic analysis to identify
> dissident communities. The fear of being identified in such 
> a community is a major means of suppressing dissent.

I would indeed like to know what you take on a regular basis to conclude 
the above.  Tapping phones?  Monitoring public places?  Analysing traffic?
Whichever parallel universe that you are dwelling in in definitely not one 
I would like to be in.  Your utterly misinformed and totally ludicrous 
statements above can only make me conclude that you are not serious in 
making it, except to respond to all the be-numbed responses by previous 
posters.

I am a Singaporean and have lived most of my life in Singapore.  I am no
lapdog of the government (thank you) nor do I agree with everything the 
government does.  If it is of any interest to you, you can go to my home 
page for information on dirt that I have posted about the SG govt.  You 
can also go to many other sites all over (both within Singapore and outside) 
that discuss a wide array of issues, (www.sintercom.org) for example.

I did come across some ill-informed post (not by Phillip though :-)) that 
said that there are national filters to Internet access here.  Well, indeed,
the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers to filter 
out an alleged list of 100 porno sites (you can see that there is an on going 
URL hunt to discover these filtered sites on 
www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html.  You should also visit www.isoc.org.sg 
for additional discussion on this).  Having said all that, this filter list 
is 100% by-passable using sites such as www.anonymizer.com.  

Regards.
-- 
Harish Pillay                             	  h.pillay@ieee.org
Singapore      *** Ask me about Linux *** http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish

At 12:40 PM -0700 12/7/97, Lizard wrote:

>At 05:07 PM 12/7/97 +0800, Harish Pillay wrote:
>... Well,
>indeed,
>>the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers
>to filter
>                              ^^^^^^^^
>>out an alleged list of 100 porno sites (you can see that there is an
>on going
>>URL hunt to discover these filtered sites on
>>www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html.
>
>And if any of those ISP's "chose" not to engage in such filtering,
>how long would they be permitted to stay in business?

That would be doubleplus ungood. It is the duty of all to enforce mandatory
voluntary controls on thoughtcrime.

And anyone who chooses not to comply with mandatory voluntary controls is
clearly mentally unbalanced, and will be treated with compassion in a
Ministry of Harmony recovery center.

***

Seriously, I haven't been to Singapore, and don't plan to visit anytime
soon. But I really can't say whether the thought control regimen is
extremely bad, or just somewhat bad. What I do know is that I am deeply
suspicious of claims that controls are "willingly accepted" by the
majority, as some defenders of Singapore have claimed. Where rights get
interesting is on the margins, not back in the herd where the sheeple live.

Ditto for Germany, where defenders of German censorship claim it is the
will of most of the people that they be locked up should they question
details of the Holocaust, or deny that it occurred, or commit other
thoughtcrimes.

Oh, and the claim we just saw from Peter Herngaard, that:

"The distinction is very narrow since those who call for abolition of the
hate laws, at least in Germany, at the same time advocate expulsion of
non-whites or the establishment of a dictatorship."

is demonstrably false. There are civil rights groups in Germany calling for
the "abolition of the hate laws," and yet not arguing in favor of expulsion
of non-whites or for the imposition of a dictatorship.

The notion that "advocacy of abolishing hate laws" = "calling for expulsion
of non-whtes" is false. (Further, the notion that "calling for expulsion of
non-whites" is itself an actual crime against another person is also false.)

I could, for example, get on a plane tonight in San Francisco and be in
Berlin by Monday evening. I could begin passing out "The Holocaust Myth"
pamphlets, pointing out that the so-called "ovens" at the relocation camps
were actually never turned on, and that most of the so-called
exterminations of Jews never occurred.

All of this without once calling for expulsions of non-whites from Germany.
Or calling for the establishment of a government more dictatorial than the
current one.

So, would I be charged with a hate crime? Surely. And yet the other parts
of Peter's predicate are missing.

The way to prevent a repeat of Germany's unfortunate detour into national
socialism is to just not repeat it, to not let government gain the power to
build extermination camps, raid houses at night on flimsy pretexts,
mobilize industry, etc.

The same goes for the U.S., and other countries. This is partly why so many
of us speak out strongly against the U.S. Emergency Economic Powers
(National Security Decision Directives, FEMA and Office of Emergency
Preparedness orders, Presidential Findings, etc.) and the plans for
possible imposition of martial law (Operation Garden Plot, Operation
Vampire Killer, state militias, etc.).

The best way to dead off communism, national socialism, and dictatorship in
general is through free speech, private communications, lots of guns in the
hands of citizens, a decentralized government, states' rights, strong
cryptography, tax evasion tools, and so on.

Controlling free speech has virtually nothing to do with this avoidance of
national socialism. (For a variety of reasons, too numerous to get into
here. Read Hayek, von Mises, etc. on the virtues of open societies. And
remember that "hate crime" laws almost by definition don't apply to sitting
officials....Hitler would have loved to have laws in 1933 to stop citizens
from expressing certain thoughts, but had such hate laws been in effect
then, he surely would not have applied them to himself.)

There is also the very real psychological phenomenon of "forbidden fruit
tasting sweeter." Many suspect the current resurgence of Nazism and
skinhead ideologies (loosely speaking) in Germany has a lot to do with the
thoughts being banned.

Nazism would lose a lot of its mystique if ideas could be expressed freely
in Germany.

As for the U.S. influencing Germany to crack down on free speech and
freedom of religion, I don't deny this. But that was 45-50 years ago, and
it was under military rule of a conquered nation (and imposed by victorious
generals, who, given their druthers, would have probably outlawed any kind
of free speech at all, given the way the military mind often thinks). Time
for Germany to now have its own laws.

Germany's recent actions agasint the Church of Scientology are also disturbing.

(Some of my friends are active in the War Against Scientology. I am not. I
view Scientology as just another wacky belief system. Think of it as
evolution in action. I cannot condone state actions against religions, no
matter how strange, provided their beliefs do not impinge on my rights and
the rights of others. Thus, human sacrifice of non-volunteers would be
actionable, but not human sacrifice of true believers. Or drug use. Or
whatever.)

Enough for now.

I really do with



The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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On Sun, 7 Dec 1997, Harish Pillay wrote:

[...]

> Well, indeed,
> the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers to filter 
> out an alleged list of 100 porno sites

May I ask why thay have choosen to switch on these filters?

- -- 
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia see the url in my header. 
Never trust a country with more peaple then sheep.  ex-net.scum and proud
You Say To People "Throw Off Your Chains" And They Make New Chains For
Themselves? --Terry Pratchett.  I do not reply to munged addresses.

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? the Platypus {aka David Formosa} shaped the electrons to read ...
> 
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> 
> On Sun, 7 Dec 1997, Harish Pillay wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Well, indeed,
> > the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers to filter 
> > out an alleged list of 100 porno sites
> 
> May I ask why thay have choosen to switch on these filters?

The story goes like this.  The Singapore Broadcasting Authority wanted to 
have a mechanism to filter out "undesirable" sites.  They know extremely
well that it cannot be done successfully but nonetheless, due to political
point scoring (1996 being election year), they had to be seen to be doing
something.  So, they trialed with the ISP the use of filter lists with 
the proxy servers to see how they can implement their censorship rules.

Then when they finally announced the policy, the SBA quickly covered their
asses by saying that they leave it to the ISPs to choose the weapon to do
the SBA's evil deed.  The ISPs, having trialed the filter mechanism, decided 
to continue with it which is just as well, for we can easily work around it.

So, today, there are an alleged 100 sites that are on the filter list.  What
these sites are, are a unknown.  Nonetheless there is an effort to 
independently discover the list (http://www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html).
Also, read http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish/fiasco for an angle on the
whole issue.

Regards.
-- 
Harish Pillay                             	  h.pillay@ieee.org
Singapore      *** Ask me about Linux *** http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish