Government Intervention of the Internet Essay Example

enact censorship and regulation laws, while simultaneously preventing techniques that could render such regulations unnecessary.

The censorship of the Internet poses a threat to its independent atmosphere, while implementing widespread encryption could potentially eliminate the need for government interference. The existing body of laws in America does not effectively apply to the Internet. Is the Internet comparable to a bookstore, where servers cannot reasonably be expected to review every title? Can it be likened to a phone company that must disregard the content it carries due to privacy concerns? Or is it akin to a broadcasting medium, wherein the government monitors the information being disseminated? The challenge lies in the fact that the Internet can be any or none of these entities depending on its usage. Under current broadcast definitions, the Internet cannot be viewed solely as one type of transfer medium. It differs from broadcasting in that accessing explicit sites requires navigating complex addresses or links from other sources. As Miller (75) succinctly puts it, "The Internet is more analogous to entering a bookstore and choosing to peruse adult magazines."

Democratic senator Jim Exon of Nebraska is suggesting a bill to regulate the Internet, aiming to enforce decency standards. If this bill is passed, explicit image-displaying commercial servers like Penthouse or Playboy would be required to shut down or face legal repercussions. Similarly, amateur websites featuring nudity, sexual content, or explicit language would also be impacted. Even the act of posting offensive language in Usenet discussion groups – a common occurrence – could lead to a $50,000 fine and six months of imprisonment.

The individuals in charge of a magazine like The New Yorker would be penalized

with $100,000 fines and two-year imprisonment if they were to publish their content online using offensive words. It is confusing how something that is legal when printed becomes illegal when posted on the internet. Even private mail would be criminalized under Exon's bill. As Levy points out, saying something freely on the phone with his brother would become against the law if said on the internet (53). Congress appears to have disregarded the fact that most adult content on the internet originates from foreign sources while pursuing regulations. Nevertheless, there are still many U.S.

Even though government funding supported Arpanet, the predecessor of the Internet, they no longer have control over it. Many Internet innovations, like the World Wide Web, have come from other countries. The distinction between U.S.-hosted information and data stored in other nations is unclear. Accessing data on foreign computers is just as easy as accessing data within America; a simple click of a mouse is all that's needed.

Despite any attempts made by our government to regulate the Internet, we lack authority over content posted in other countries and lack feasible means to prevent it. The initial purpose of the Internet's predecessor was to maintain communication in the event of a nuclear attack by redirecting data to compensate for damaged telephone lines and servers. Even today, the Internet operates based on a comparable design. This design inherently empowers the Internet to surpass any obstacles imposed upon it.

If a major line between two servers, such as those in different countries, is severed, Internet users will find alternative routes to overcome this obstacle. Such avoidance of obstacles effectively thwarts any attempt to isolate an entire

nation from accessing objectionable content from other countries. If it were physically feasible to detach America's computers from the global network, the consequences for our economy would be disastrous. Recently, a prominent university made an effort to control its students' Internet access, resulting in outcomes reminiscent of protests from the 1960s. A researcher affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study on pornography accessed through the institution's computer networks.

Martin Rimm compiled a collection of 917,410 images and kept track of the number of downloads for each image, which totaled 6.4 million. However, due to recent court rulings deeming pictures of similar content as obscene, the school was concerned about potential liability for the content on its network. Consequently, the school administration swiftly blocked access to all these images and the newsgroups from which most of the obscenity was suspected to originate - a decision that caused significant disruption among students and prompted objections from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all arguing that this violated the constitution. However, within just a few days, the college yielded to pressure and reinstated access to the newsgroups. This incident illustrates the potential consequences of government-led censorship (Elmer-Dewitt 102).

Currently, there is software being created to prevent children from accessing X-rated Internet newsgroups and websites. However, since most adults depend on their technologically savvy children to install these programs, the children can easily bypass them. This mirrors situations in real life where these kids would undoubtedly find ways to obtain adult magazines. Despite any software or precautions implemented to safeguard children in the digital era, there will always be loopholes. Hence, it is crucial to educate

children about how to navigate such circumstances offline.

According to Miller (76), altering our perspective on the digital realm has the potential to influence our understanding of reality. In terms of our children, prioritizing good parenting over implementing censorship is crucial. It is essential that we educate our kids about how the Internet mirrors and presents the actual world, guiding them towards embracing its positives while evading its negatives. This duty lies with us rather than the government, implying that not all constraints on online speech should be regarded negatively.

Many top online communication companies have restrictions on user expressions in order to safeguard privacy. While they cannot access private email content, they do have the power to promptly address individuals using offensive language in public forums. It is essential for users and servers to self-regulate to avoid government intervention. A few platforms, such as Playboy and Penthouse, have chosen to regulate themselves by issuing explicit warnings about adult content and specifying prohibited countries.

Both the film and videogame industries willingly adhere to ratings systems, and it's now time for Internet users to take initiative in self-regulation to avoid government-imposed regulations. The primary objective is to safeguard children from adult content, while also preserving the first amendment right of adults to freely express themselves. Government efforts to regulate the Internet extend beyond obscenity and vulgar language, including areas like data encryption. Given its inherent lack of security, transferring data over the Internet involves passing through numerous computers between sender and receiver.

Every computer runs the risk of data being archived and intercepted, particularly credit card numbers which are often targeted by hackers. Encryption is a method of encoding data

using a specific key that allows only authorized individuals to decode it. The importance of PGP (encryption) lies in its personal nature.

The issue of privacy is solely your concern. Whether you are getting ready for a political campaign, discussing tax issues, having a clandestine affair, or engaging in an activity that you feel should not be deemed illegal but is, it is of utmost importance that nobody else accesses your private emails or confidential documents.

Asserting your privacy is completely acceptable. Privacy is just as fundamental as the Constitution. It's possible that you believe your E-mail is not important enough to require encryption. If indeed you are a law-abiding citizen and have nothing to hide, why don't you consistently send your paper mail on postcards? Why not comply with random drug testing? Why demand a warrant for police searches of your house? Are you attempting to conceal something? Assuming you hide your mail in envelopes, you must be either a subversive or a drug dealer. Alternatively, you might be excessively paranoid.

Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their E-mail? What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If some brave soul tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or

not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption.

According to Zimmerman, the Internet revolution has resulted in a reduced level of control by the U.S. government regarding encryption techniques. The proliferation of home computers and the worldwide web has empowered individuals, thereby preventing the government from maintaining exclusive authority over encryption. The advent of impenetrable algorithms poses a significant hurdle for the government as it endeavors to retain its capacity for wiretapping and electronic surveillance in contemporary society.

The U.S. government has heavily regulated the exportation of data encryption software to prevent its widespread use, as demonstrated by the PGP scandal pioneered by Phil Zimmerman. PGP utilizes a "public key" encryption model that employs intricate algorithms to generate two codes for encoding and decoding purposes. To send an encoded message to a recipient, it is necessary to obtain their corresponding "public" key.

The data is encrypted by the sender using their public key, and then the recipient decodes it with their "private" key. During Zimmerman's program development, he learned about a Senate bill that aimed to ban cryptography. This prompted him to release his program for free in hopes of making it unstoppable due to its widespread popularity. An initial user of PGP uploaded the program to an Internet site, allowing people from any country to download it. Consequently, a federal investigator began investigating Phil for violating the new law. Similar to other new technologies, this program has allegedly been used unlawfully and is believed to have code that neither the FBI nor the NSA can decipher. When informed about these illegal uses of his programs, Zimmerman responds: "If I had

invented an automobile and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I would feel bad, too."

However, the general consensus is that the advantages of automobiles, such as transportation for daily tasks like taking children to school and shopping for groceries, outweigh their disadvantages (Levy 56). At present, individuals can access PGP from MIT, where a complex system has been implemented to ensure its security. To obtain the software, users simply need to answer four questions related to its exportation and usage by clicking "YES".

The government is making significant efforts to protect a widely used program. Their aim is to maintain the ability to legally wiretap, but it seems unlikely that they can stop encryption in other countries or ban it domestically. However, the government acknowledges the importance of encryption. They have been supporting a government-sponsored algorithm called Data Encryption Standard (DES) for almost twenty years, primarily utilized by banks. Additionally, the government has always had the capability to decode this encryption using their powerful supercomputers.

The proposed replacement for the government's outdated encryption system, DES, is a new standard called Clipper. Unlike DES, which can now be deciphered by the government, Clipper utilizes "public key" algorithms to ensure stronger protection. Instead of being solely software-based, Clipper is a microchip that can be integrated into various devices such as televisions and telephones. This advanced algorithm employs a significantly longer and more potent key than DES, being 16 million times more powerful. It is estimated that even the fastest computers of today would require a staggering 400 billion years to decrypt this code by trying all possible keys (Lehrer 378).

"The catch: Each Clipper chip is

manufactured with a unique key and a copy is kept in escrow by the Government. Rest assured, the Government assures that these keys will only be used to read your traffic with lawful authorization. However, to fully ensure Clipper's effectiveness, the next step would be to make other forms of cryptography illegal (Zimmerman)." "If privacy becomes illegal, only those who disobey the law will have privacy. Intelligence agencies and criminal organizations already have access to advanced encryption technology."

Both defense contractors, oil companies, and other large corporations, as well as ordinary individuals and grassroots political organizations, have not had affordable access to "military grade" public-key cryptographic technology. However, with PGP, ordinary people now have the ability to take control of their own privacy.

According to Zimmerman, the social need for encryption is increasing, leading to his writing. The government has disregarded the major benefits of encryption. If everyone utilized encryption, it would prevent innocent individuals from accidentally encountering unwanted content. The intended recipient can decrypt and access the information using public key cryptography, while even the sender lacks this capability. Additionally, each encoded message includes an encrypted signature that verifies the sender's identity. By encrypting a signature message with the sender's secret key, it can be effectively "signed."

This paragraph discusses the concept of creating a digital signature for a message. This signature is used to verify the authenticity and integrity of the message. By decrypting the message using the sender's public key, the recipient (or anyone else) can confirm that the sender indeed wrote the message and that it has not been tampered with by anyone else. The sender's possession of the secret key necessary for creating

the signature makes forgery impossible and prevents the sender from denying their involvement. The elimination of hate mail and the ability to forge documents with another person's address would be positive outcomes. The author suggests that instead of banning encryption, governments should mandate it, provided they have good intentions. With the increasing prevalence of the internet, there is a concern about governments using regulations and censorship to enforce their own ideologies onto others. The author laments that conforming to the most conservative government's standards would be a regrettable turn of events.

If an excessive number of regulations are implemented, the Internet will lose its utility as a tool and cease to exist as a platform for mass communication and intellectual freedom. It is necessary for users, servers, and parents worldwide to self-regulate in order to avoid the imposition of government regulations that could hinder the most remarkable communication instrument in history. Should encryption become as widely adopted as Zimmerman anticipates, there would be no need for government interference on the Internet, and the major issue would resolve itself. It is imperative that the government reconsiders its approach to issues of censorship and encryption, allowing the Internet to continue its growth and development.

Works Cited

1. Emler-Dewitt, Philip. "Censoring Cyberspace: Carnegie Mellon's Attempt to Ban Sex from its Campus Computer Network Sends A Chill Along the Info Highway." Time 21 Nov. 1994; 102-105.
2. Lehrer, Dan. "The Secret Sharers: Clipper Chips and Cypherpunks." The Nation 10 Oct. 1994; 376-379.
3. "Let the Internet Backlash Begin." Advertising Age 7 Nov.

1994; 24.

Shock." PC Magazine 10 Oct. 1995; 75-76.

"The Internet goes Crackers." Education Digest May 1995; 33-36.