Fergie's Tech Blog

No Place Left to Hide on Tomorrow's Net?

Personally, I think IPv6 is a red herring, but interestingly enough, I've never heard this spin before.

Thomas Crampton writes in The International Herald Tribune:

Billed as the next generation of the Internet, a new technical standard enthusiastically embraced by China will allow greater traceability of Internet users, potentially endangering those expressing views counter to the government's.

The standard, known as IPv6, solves technical problems faced by the Internet around the world, but Internet freedom advocates outside China warn that the internationally developed norm would also allow Beijing authorities - or any government or company for that matter - to have a better idea of what individuals are doing on the Internet.

"There is now anonymity for criminals on the Internet in China," said Hu Qiheng, chair of the Internet Society of China, a public-private group founded five years ago to promote the Internet in China. "With the China Next Generation Internet project, we will give everyone a unique identity on the Internet."

posted by Fergie @ 3/19/2006 08:34:00 AM