The Internet 'police' Who are they and how successfully can they achieve anything?

[dangerdan 0]

The increasingly global phenomena of the internet is anarchic, without frontier and unpoliced.

 

The US government shut down a company Pricewert who, they claim, hosted "child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing-related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other web-based scams" for other customers.

Fair play to the government, right? But that isn't the full story - Pricewert is a registered company in Belize but most of it's employees are thought to be in Eastern Europe.

Full story available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8084726.stm

 

I don't want to become too bogged down in this particular example because it is just that, an example. The wider point is that the people BEHIND hosting all this illegal content will probably never be brought to justice because of the numerous problems regarding proof of identity on the internet as well as the issue of anonymity.

 

The fact that the internet is so user and content driven is, in my opinion, both its greatest strength and its biggest weakness. This may sound like an oversimplified dichotomy but; a 'good' user will come up with innovative content or infrastructures, whereas a 'bad' user will host illegal content or come up with one of these web scams.

 

Ultimately, I think that the users will always stay one step ahead of "the internet police" ( a term I coin jokingly).

 

How, in your opinion, will the regulation of the internet take shape in years to come? And how effectively can we ever hope to 'police' the internet.

[networker 0]

Hopefully the Internet stays as wide open as it is now.The 'wild west ' aspect of it is what makes it so appealing,not counting twisted child porn sites and such.I fear government regulation could hem the internet in so to speak.Cam you imagine what it would be like if every single website had to applyto a government agency to be online?If every single website had tobe reviewed every year by a government agency? It would take allthe fun out of it. I hope it just stays as open as it does,and people report child pornor terrorist activity sites to the police.That's all you can do.

[dangerdan 0]

I don't think the measures you suggest are feasible (I realise you presented them in such a way) but you say that people reporting is "all we can do" about terrorist activity and child porn.If what we're doing at the moment is "all we can do" then I think its a sad state of affairs. Governments are able to censor any websites they want (The Great "Firewall" of China) so why can they not put more of a stop to child porn or online terrorist materials, instructions videos etc.I think the internet will, unfortunately, get a lot more regulated over the coming years.

[webishqiptar 0]

Internet is not bad nowadays, for me problems occur at buying and selling and making trade all over the world, and child porn and such illegal disgusting activity is happening in the real life, and imagine at virtual world it can be easier to achieve. Government of each country should take care of police and law about internet.