[LINK] Canada demolishes parody websites, climate policy unchanged

[Stilgherrian]

The Yes Men's announcement is at:
http://theyesmen.org/canadareacts

On 30/12/2009, at 7:50 AM, Jon Seymour wrote:
> * it looks like the _German_ ISP made the mistake of knocking out the
> entire block

Cock-up rather than conspiracy, but it does demonstrate the risk to 4500 unrelated businesses and other entities from a single mistake. A highly networked world with big data centres means one mistake can have massive consequences. When constructing policies, the risk assessment of "getting it wrong" needs to consider this scale of potential impact, not just that one business or entity could be affected by the mistake.

What error rates are actually acceptable in this environment? Very, very tiny ones, I'd suggest.


> * the Canadian government has no formal authority over the German ISP
> (except perhaps a commercial relationship)
> 
> I do not think there is any suggestion the German government pressured
> the German ISP on the Canadian government's request.

Nevertheless, when you get a communication on a government's letterhead, it's very easy to imagine terrible consequences if you don't respond -- even if there's precisely zero jurisdiction. 

Let's turn it around. Your Australian hosting company gets a polite but stern communication from the US State Department. How likely is it that they'll tell them to sod off?

Now there's nothing wrong with a government sending a request. Indeed, it seems more polite than some other methods.

But this does show that a modern Western democracy is perfectly prepared to silence critics.

Stil


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