WWW Inventor Prefers Public Protest Over VPN Uptake

[shamu726]

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the world wide web, has been speaking about online privacy. Branding the recent repeal of browsing history legislation as "disgusting", he spoke about the role of VPNs and Tor, and how he would prefer people to protest in the streets rather than take technical measures.

 

From being viewed as a somewhat niche interest product, VPNs were thrust into the mainstream in recent weeks. Long the go-to tools of privacy advocates and file-sharing enthusiasts alike, VPNs are now on the lips of countless non-tech savvy individuals.

 

That boost in awareness is largely down to recent moves by the Trump administration to repeal rules that forbid Internet service providers from selling the browsing histories of regular Internet users. After a not particularly long process, the amendments were written into law this week.

 

While the development possibly won’t have the massive short-term impact some are expecting, the changes have focused the minds of millions who are now aware that what they do online is far from secret. They see VPN use as a massive step forward in reclaiming their privacy online generally, and they’d be right.

 

Of interest, however, is the approach of Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the world wide web. After being honored with the prestigious 2016 Turing Award this week for his “major contributions of lasting importance to computing”, Berners-Lee took time out to discuss a number of topics, with privacy high on the agenda.

 

“That bill was a disgusting bill, because when we use the web, we are so vulnerable,” he told The Guardian.

 

“There are things that people do on the web that reveal absolutely everything, more about them than they know themselves sometimes. Because so much of what we do in our lives that actually goes through those left-clicks, it can be ridiculously revealing. You have the right to go to a doctor in privacy where it’s just between you and the doctor. And similarly, you have to be able to go to the web.”

 

Describing privacy as a “core American value”, Berners-Lee says that if things start going bad with their current supplier, people will switch to more privacy-conscious ISPs. Others will seek out more radical technical measures, such as Tor and VPNs.

 

“People would start using Tor. They’d start going through proxies so that instead of your Internet traffic going straight to your house it goes to a VPN,” he says.

 

“Normal people in America will basically go into defense cybersecurity lockdown against their ISPs. Everything will get encrypted. People who care about it will find ways to deprive their ISPs of data. There’ll be a great market for people who provide that technology.”

 

Indeed, a number of VPN and security product providers have contacted TF indicating that searches for their products increased dramatically as news of the browser history repeal hits the mainstream. But for Berners-Lee, a man with technology in his bones, doing something in the physical world is preferable to electronic counter-measures.

 

“I’ve got [VPNs] available to me here, but I ought not to do that. Actually, you shouldn’t,” he says.

 

“[You should be] going to protest so the world outside becomes one where you don’t need to cheat to get around this problem, so that you don’t have to use skills as an expert to get around this problem.”

 

Of course, there have been protests from both citizens and companies (Private Internet Access spent a rumored $600,000 on a newspaper advert challenging the repeal last week) but it doesn’t appear that those in power are listening – or particularly care.

 

Whether we like it or not, the web is now largely financially sustained by the farming of our online activities and it seems likely that no amount of protest is going to be able to stop that juggernaut anytime soon.

 

File-sharers and other privacy advocates have known this for a much longer time than most and already realize that if people don’t look after their own privacy, someone else will do it for them. Protest is certainly good, but it doesn’t hurt to have some solid backup in the meantime.

 

Image: Paul Clarke (CC-BY-SA)

 

 

Source: TorrentFreak

 

[steven36]

Tim Berners Lee is just as bad as isps  he is the  reason browsers have baked in DRM   witch is a big privacy gap.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/berners_lee_web_drm_w3c/

He rather people complain about there privacy than actually doing something to prevent it. from happening   VPN are businesses just like ISPs  are so there protected just like ISP and other tech firms are and they have a right to protect you're privacy or not protect it  just like ISPs and Tech Firms do.

 

Just like Google have a right to spy you and other search engines have a right not to track . And  any ISP  can sell you a service based on  they do not track if they wish.  There is no mandatory data harvesting laws like they have in some countries in the USA . ISPs and  Tech Firms do it because it makes them lots of money is all, but you can make lots of money from not doing it too.

 

Tim Berners Lee live in the UK under a  whole different set of laws, witch is the most privacy intrusive country in the  so called free world. He dont have no say in what we do here in the USA!
 

Quote

 

The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.[1] The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s,

 

 

 

If it were not for the Clinton administration following through with various bills to make it legal they never would been a www  .  Tim Berners Lee did not invent internet it already existed. He was the one who commercialized the internet in what we now know as the WWW  if someone would of made it with privacy in mind we would not have all these problems but it was made to make money and  not respect you're privacy . Hes just as much to blame for it being a gold diggers platform as anyone.

 

People get confused the internet and the WWW are not the same thing WWW is the application the internet use which more apps that use it spy on you than dont now days . for the governments,  tech firms and isps It's nothing too brag about .. Be it a browser or P2P or any other app that uses it.

 

Quote

Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web, or just the Web, interchangeably, but the two terms are not synonymous. The World Wide Web is the primary application that billions of people use on the Internet, and it has changed their lives immeasurably.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet