Posts Tagged ‘predictions’

Mark Pesce – Insightful predictions bearing fruit

26th March
2009
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In early 2008, Our Mark wrote:

Child pornography rings are highly secure, highly secretive, and almost entirely invisible. No child pornographer has been detected or caught through filtered network traffic. These rings are cracked because some law enforcement agency has broken into the human network of individuals who trade in these images. Filtering has not, nor will ever stop the distribution of any child pornography. Hence, Australia’s net filter will not do anything to stop or even slow down child pornography. It’s an emotional argument that has zero practical value.

In late 208, Our Mark wrote:

Which means that viewing a clip of The Simpsons on YouTube will soon be as illegal as watching it on television. In particular, videos showing the various times Homer has strangled Bart – which exist – would be very illegal, the equivalent of the most severe child abuse materials. And God help you if you should flip a link of that video to one of your friends. That’d be “distributing” child-abuse materials, because, where we are now, distribution has expanded to include link-sharing.

….

The age of gatekeepers is over. There are no gatekeepers anywhere. There is no way to keep someone from downloading the horrific child abuse that is The Simpsons. There’s no way to keep them from telling others about it. There’s no way to keep them from sharing it. Yet we’re hamstrung by legal processes and a Government which are completely desynchronised from the world at large.

In his own inimitable style, Our Mark was pointing out how both the Judiciary and the Executive branches of Australian government were struggling with the basic concepts behind the internet, and how this would affect ordinary users of the intenet. Before this subject hit the mainstream, before a Television show on our public broadcaster was hijacked over the matter. Truly a man ahead of his time.

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