-January 5, 2020

Things are different in the year 2020. As projected in the early part of the century, the World Wide Web has grown to epic proportions. Everything is online these days: shopping, education, social communities… even sex. It is now known, as it has been touted by the corporations in charge, as “The Network”. However, to those of us who remember the good old days of freedom, it resembles something more like a cold Siberian prison cell.

ISP’s, backed by ridiculous government regulations and overzealous senators, have completely taken over. Who you pay for internet service determines which company’s “channel” you can view. Websites are a thing of the past. Things like licensing fees and access costs have cut the little guys out of the equation. What used to be free expression on the internet is now reserved for the rich. We used to run this place… now we watch from the sidelines as those in power have taken yet another medium and turned it into their pulpit from which to preach the foul-smelling propaganda that we came here to escape in the first place.

I remember when it happened. We all thought it was a joke at first, this “police force” created by the UN to keep order on the web. “Overzealous bastards!” we would tell them, “Go back to Geneva and eat shit on a stick, you fagblower. You have no power here!” At first, they didn’t have any power. All they could do was “report” us and all was good.

Then the US and EU, in conjunction with the UN, passed the “Freenet” act of 2012. The name was misleading. It had nothing to do with freedom. It gave ISP’s the legal right to filter accessible websites. It was a right they used expediently, thoroughly, and with great prejudice. Webmasters were required to pay a fee for users from certain ISP’s to be able to visit their sites. That is, if they weren’t on the black list. (I was) The only folks who could afford the steep prices were corporations which began to dub their websites “channels”. Of course there was a loud rebellion. That’s where the UN’s “internet police” came in…

They were hired by ISP’s and corporate websites to keep things calm. They were like moderators of sorts, except with the power to shut off your internet service with the click of a mouse. Being banned from one of the corporate websites for an off-color comment now meant losing internet service altogether. They used it often (Some say too often) and it worked. The ruffians of the web were silenced.

Despite their success with the social control aspect of the web, the powers that be still couldn’t stop file sharing. Instant messaging became a virtual hub for the pirates of the internet. Underground networks flourished as people flocked to the last island of freedom left in the electronic world where we once got away with pretty much anything.

It was July 4th, 2015, that was the beginning of the end for file sharing. The Internet Police released a sophisticated virus onto the IM networks that would actually set a victims hard drive on fire. Several of the larger pirate networks were targeted. The “IP” referred to the action as a “sting” and dubbed it “Operation Fireball”. It was the first of many. Soon, people just stopped.

Fear rules these days. It has become impossible to live without being connected to the network in some way. Soccer moms and religious nuts love it. Guys like me… well, every time I log on for one reason or the other I just get this empty feeling. Almost like there was something we could have done all those years ago. The sweet taste of freedom still lingers somewhere in the back of my mind. It nearly stings me to action…

It is far too late though. If only I could go back in time and somehow get through to people how important it was that we protected the internet as we once knew it. It really was worth fighting for. Hmm… I guess you only realize that about something after you have already lost it.

Posted: 09|5|07 at 10:25 am. Filed under: Internet.
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