Yahoo’s Blockade Continues

With more important things happening than dealing with some crap from a company that refuses to do anything about stopping me from emailing friends and family who are with them, I forgot to say that a technician from Pipex called me on Wednesday afternoon. He said that Yahoo had installed a new updated spam filter, and it had blocked lots of accounts (including his). Pipex had tried getting through to Yahoo, but there was no response. He suggested that I kept on trying.

I did point out that I was merely a single individual, that Pipex was in a better position to tell Yahoo that they were blockading innocent customers. We laughed then at Yahoo’s deal with Microsoft, where Yahoo were relying on making money from their existing customers – something that would be curtailed by Yahoo’s accountholders not getting mail from their friends and family who are being blockaded.

Today, I laughed when I saw the report on the BBC entitled “The internet's conscientious objectors” and the high-minded words of Martha Lane Fox (unelected, appointed as Digital Champion) “I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online” she said. We are not online citizens, we are users of systems. We have no rights, but merely accept their terms and conditions. How then can we be proper citizens, when the best we can hope for is to be part of a community.

Time I dusted off Hobbe’s “Leviathan”, as we humans have not changed much in over 300 years.

by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seat of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the Peoples Safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill War, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let Us Make Man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

We are a species that uses communications and tools for advancement. The Internet is merely one of these tools. Online or off-line, we are all part of the leviathan.