Resistance is futile if you can’t control our minds

I want to reach out to all governments; they should all surrender to the might of the Internet – any resistance is futile. Unless, that is, they do not pull the plug and kill it. The news of attacks on social media and personal information seems to come in waves. All over the world, governments are trying new methods to control us better. Fortunately, many of these pitiful strategies make it to the news before they cause real trouble for citizens.

AntiSec, a hacker group, posted a file on the Internet on Monday that it said contained more than 1 million of Apple’s so-called UDID codes. UDIDs are a 40-character string unique to each Apple device. AntiSec said it gained the codes from the laptop of an FBI agent called Christopher Stangl. Mr. Stangl works in the bureau’s Regional Cyber Action Team, Wired Magazine reports. AntiSec suggested that the 12 million codes were being used by the FBI to track the associated users. Along with the posted file, the group said in a statement that it had only released 1 million IDs and had scrubbed identifying information, including full names, telephone numbers and addresses.

According to the BBC, the FBI said it had no indication of any link to its agent or computer.

“At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data,” the bureau said in a statement on Tuesday. Peter Kruse, an e-crime specialist with the CSIS Security Group in Denmark, tweeted on Tuesday that the leak “is real” and that he confirmed three of his own devices in the data.

According to the Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey’s Transportation, Maritime and Communication Ministry denied reports that it was preparing to make arrangements that would enable the body to block access to Facebook and Twitter in the event of a “threat to public safety.”

However, it was not a far-fetched thought considering that the same person dreamed about a national Internet.

One of our followers, Recep Özel, posted this remark under the aforementioned news: “There is already massive Internet censorship in Turkey! New laws were passed in December 2011 giving the government censorship rights over anything it sees as offensive. The BTK [Information and Communication Technologies Authority] censors over 20,000 sites offensive to the government and has forced ISPs to offer 4 levels of censorship to consumers. Legally the government has the right to block Twitter or Facebook. What is funny is you have government ministers on TV tweeting during interviews!”

Actually I believe that he hit the bull’s eye with this comment. I also wondered about the logic behind the fact that the authorities always only want institutions, rules and regulations and social media tools when the whole system works in their favor. This is very selfish. I believe that only a politician could think that everything should prosper when it works for her/himself and die when it turns against her/him. That’s why the common citizen still believes that the government is trying to suppress Twitter because, more often than not, Twitter works against the government.

It is very absurd to see a government that speaks so much about freedom of speech and democratization try to control social media. It is a futile attempt because social media is like the forums in ancient Greek times. To control it you have to control what people think. What I suggest to the authorities in the U.S. and in Turkey is to lie back, relax, grow up and face the negative comments with maturity.