Father of Web Says China Will Dismantle Great Firewall

[News_Editor]

In this photo illustration, a man holds an iPad with a Facebook application in an office building at the Pudong financial district in Shanghai. (Photo: Reuters / Carlos Barria)

LONDON ” China's rulers will ultimately take it upon themselves to dismantle the "great firewall" that limits its people's access to the Internet because doing so will boost China's economy, the inventor of the World Wide Web said.

In an interview about his World Wide Web Foundation's rankings of the way 81 countries manage the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989, also scolded the United States for undermining the Internet's foundations with its surveillance programs.

Revelations about the scale of that surveillance and poor rural penetration rates pushed the United States from second place into fourth in the survey, which examined Internet access, freedom and content. Sweden came out on top for the second year.

But it was China, which the survey ranked at 57 out of 81, down from a ranking of 29 out of 61 last year, where Berners-Lee saw the greatest potential for improvement.

"The Berlin Wall tumbled down, the great firewall of China”I don't think it will tumble down, I think it will be released," he told Reuters by telephone.

"My hope is that bit-by-bit, quietly, website-by-website, it will start to be relaxed," he said. "The agility of a country which allows full access to the web is just greater; it will be a stronger country economically as well."

China's state Web-censorship system blocks Facebook, Twitter and some foreign news sites as well as content that the Communist leadership considers damaging to stability and cohesion.

“The citizens are not really in a position to smash the great firewall because the government controls the Internet, the Internet companies,†said Berners-Lee, 58.

“All that can happen is that the government realizes it is not in their interests, that it is holding up the economy, holding up the development of the country.â€

Berners-Lee said he was encouraged that the increased use of social media had stoked political mobilization across the planet, but cautioned that growing surveillance and censorship threatened the future of democracy.

Berners-Lee took particular aim at eavesdropping conducted by the United States and Britain, saying the extent of the spying laid bare by US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden showed that rights had been set back.

“The rights of the individual have been severely eroded and eroded in secret,†he said of the US and British surveillance programs. “It is a very serious threat to the Internet.â€

While he admitted the state needed the power to tackle criminals using the Internet, he called for greater oversight over spy agencies such Britain's GCHQ and the NSA, and over any organizations collecting information about private individuals.

"It is clear in the case of the US and the UK that there just has not been that oversight and accountability to the public," he said.

"Whatever oversight you have has to be very strong, have the ability to find things out and strong rights to be told things … It has got to be very seriously independent and accountable directly to the public rather than accountable through some secret route to part of government."

Britain's spy chiefs have argued that media reports about Snowden's revelations have weakened the ability of the security services to stop those plotting deadly attacks against the West.

Britain came third in the rankings, the same as in 2012 but below Norway in second place. Russia, the world's biggest energy producer, was at 41 in the ranking.

A map of the world produced by Berners-Lee’s foundation showed Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as countries which extensively censored political content.

So was it really worth inventing the World Wide Web, and has it been a force for good or for evil?

"Overall, it has been a staggering force for good because it has been so empowering for humanity," he said. "Humanity is basically good, creative and collaborative."

The post Father of Web Says China Will Dismantle ‘Great Firewall’ appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Source: Irrawaddy.org

[Scott]

Moved to World News.

[Publicus]

The CCP will never free up the internet because they want to stay in power and in control of the big money of the CCP-PRC so are only increasing control over the minds of the PRC sheeple. The present leadership Xi Jinping which will be there for the next ten years is arresting people in unprecedented numbers, threatening people, increasing the already 30.000 full time censors the CCP has and shutting down the already tenuous civil society organizations and increasingly influential social media.

Tim Berners-Lee shows his obvious ignorance of fascist dictators and of their inherent nature to censor and control everything to include arts, films, entertainment media. He needs to study the events of Tianamen Square in 1989 to see what fascist dictators do when their power and control over the wealth of a nation is directly threatened.

Further, Berners-Lee needs to do some reading up and some reality based analysis because, if anything, censorship in the CCP-PRC is worsening and moreover is being exported throughout the world. The trends are exactly the opposite of those presented by Berners-Lee.

Whatever is he thinking?!

China to Foreign Media: Get in Line or Get Out

Chinese leaders are showing that they’re ready to completely shut China off from the rest of the world (again).

http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/china-to-foreign-media-get-in-line-or-get-out

China’s blackout of U.S. media can no longer be ignored

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-10/opinions/40487445_1_u-s-web-u-s-embassy-media

Censoring the News Before It Happens

http://www.chinafile.com/censoring-news-it-happens

China dismisses professor advocating free speech, democratic reforms

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-dismisses-professor-advocating-free-speech/2013/10/19/d83951de-3896-11e3-8a0e-4e2cf80831fc_story.html

China’s influence over the media growing globally, says US think tank

China’s government and state-owned companies are putting more pressure on media outlets around the world to prevent and punish reporting critical of Beijing, a US-based think tank has said.

“These measures obstruct newsgathering, prevent the publication of undesirable content, and punish overseas media outlets that fail to heed restrictions,” the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC writes in a report released on Tuesday.

“Indirect pressure [is] applied via proxies – including advertisers, satellite firms, and foreign governments – who take action to prevent or punish the publication of content critical of Beijing,” it said

http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1337248/chinas-influence-over-media-growing-globally-think-tank

The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party’s Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets Around the World

The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party’s Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets Around the World provides a survey of this phenomenon and its recent evolution as it pertains to the news media sector, though similar dynamics also affect the film, literature, and performing arts industries.

- See more at: http://cima.ned.org/publications/long-shadow-chinese-censorship-how-communist-party%E2%80%99s-media-restrictions-affect-news-out#sthash.DfDrY0PF.dpuf

Edited by me to control spacing and font size

[Scott]

Inflammatory post and reply deleted. Please stick to the topic. The topic isn't about spelling, grammar or other posters.

[NeverSure]

I totally disagree with this guy for much the same reason Publicus does so no need to repeat it.

I don't know why this guy is given so much air time, or why he is given so much credit for anything.

Some call him the father of the web, but he didn't invent much. The web isn't the internet which was working fine before he came along. At best he used existing technology such as the internet, hypertext transmission protocol, the domain name system, etc. etc. and created a web page and named it the WWW. To quote is own words:

"I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web ... Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already. I just had to put them together. It was a step of generalising, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as being possibly part of a larger imaginary documentation system." Link

So he agrees that "Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already." So he adds one existing button to an existing shirt and names it a shirt and claims he invented the shirt.

I think he's clueless.

[Credo]

China will dismantle the firewall when the current system of government collapses.

[wolf5370]

I totally disagree with this guy for much the same reason Publicus does so no need to repeat it.

I don't know why this guy is given so much air time, or why he is given so much credit for anything.

Some call him the father of the web, but he didn't invent much. The web isn't the internet which was working fine before he came along. At best he used existing technology such as the internet, hypertext transmission protocol, the domain name system, etc. etc. and created a web page and named it the WWW. To quote is own words:

"I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web ... Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already. I just had to put them together. It was a step of generalising, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as being possibly part of a larger imaginary documentation system." Link

So he agrees that "Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already." So he adds one existing button to an existing shirt and names it a shirt and claims he invented the shirt.

I think he's clueless.

Its a bit rich - name an inventor that didn't have anything to build from? Einstein said, "we stand on the shoulders of giants". It is often the case things have been know about - Bell invented the telephone, but 50 years before the phenomenon was recorded in Russia with a doctor who electrocuted his wife from another room (for health reason! - and he didn't like her screams), but it was Bell that took the idea and made a commercial use of it. The TV was just a merging of the cathode ray tube and radio receiver, both pre-existing technologies. I could go on and on. I used the "internet" before WWW and it was far removed from what we call the internet today - anyone that used it back then will say this.

Having said that, I do believe he is being overly optimistic in the current Chinese regime opening the flood gates on the internet - in deed I think more and more censorship across the world is coming. There is also a district possibility that a second WWW will come about just to shirk off the USA stranglehold on it (holding the central named server).

[Credo]

His area of expertise is the web. I don't know if he has a good grasp on the CCP and how it functions.

[sustento]

I used the 'net before the WWW. Usenet, ftp and archie. Great fun - not!

[Jasun]

And will they release the entombed cyber warriors?

[Scott]

Post with no comment deleted.

[NeverSure]

I totally disagree with this guy for much the same reason Publicus does so no need to repeat it.

I don't know why this guy is given so much air time, or why he is given so much credit for anything.

Some call him the father of the web, but he didn't invent much. The web isn't the internet which was working fine before he came along. At best he used existing technology such as the internet, hypertext transmission protocol, the domain name system, etc. etc. and created a web page and named it the WWW. To quote is own words:

"I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web ... Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already. I just had to put them together. It was a step of generalising, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as being possibly part of a larger imaginary documentation system." Link

So he agrees that "Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already." So he adds one existing button to an existing shirt and names it a shirt and claims he invented the shirt.

I think he's clueless.

Its a bit rich - name an inventor that didn't have anything to build from? Einstein said, "we stand on the shoulders of giants". It is often the case things have been know about - Bell invented the telephone, but 50 years before the phenomenon was recorded in Russia with a doctor who electrocuted his wife from another room (for health reason! - and he didn't like her screams), but it was Bell that took the idea and made a commercial use of it. The TV was just a merging of the cathode ray tube and radio receiver, both pre-existing technologies. I could go on and on. I used the "internet" before WWW and it was far removed from what we call the internet today - anyone that used it back then will say this.

Having said that, I do believe he is being overly optimistic in the current Chinese regime opening the flood gates on the internet - in deed I think more and more censorship across the world is coming. There is also a district possibility that a second WWW will come about just to shirk off the USA stranglehold on it (holding the central named server).

My point was that just because he was one of the pioneers in the WWW doesn't mean he knows jack about China, and he obviously doesn't.

If it was possible to have two WWW's, China would be the first to want it. They even ran Google off to protect their own "google" which is highly censored too.

The internet and the WWW are two of the most freely dispersed and dispensed things the world has ever known. No country has a "stranglehold" on it, and no one owns it. Someone has to have the authoritative DNS or it would fall apart in chaos. It isn't the US government that has it, it is privately done by companies like IBM etc.

The whole world is free to use it and they do, unless they live in a country like China and only China is to blame for that.