Cubans Evade Censorship By Exchanging Flash Drives 171
concealment sends this quote from an article about evading internet censorship with the sneakernet: "Dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez on Saturday told newspaper publishers from around the Western Hemisphere that 'nothing is changing' in Cuba’s ossified political system and that 'the situation of press freedom in my country is calamitous.' But Sanchez said underground blogs, digital portals and illicit e-magazines proliferate, passed around on removable computer drives known as memory sticks. The small computer memories, also known as flash drives or thumb drives, are dropped into friendly hands on buses and along street corners, offering a surprising number of Cubans access to information. 'Information circulates hand to hand through this wonderful gadget known as the memory stick,' Sanchez said, 'and it is difficult for the government to intercept them. I can't imagine that they can put a police officer on every corner to see who has a flash drive and who doesn't.'"
Thesaurus game (Score:3, Insightful)
How many word phrases do you know for a removable storage device?
Not comparable (Score:1, Insightful)
Every time someone posts about some awful dictatorship like Cuba, someone on Slashdot invariably equates them to the US. I like putting freedom in "scare quotes," that was a nice touch, but also really lazy. You basically did not have to substantiate or prove your point at all, yet you still got 3 points, phenomenal. I am sorry, but having to swap forbidden books using flash drives dwarfs whatever first-world problem crawled up your posterior and made you feel like you could ever possibly understand what it is like to live in a mind-controlling, life-or-death, blighted country like Cuba.
Re:Not comparable (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be worse in cuba, but that doesn't make what he said about the USA incorrect. Hell, I wish he wasn't correct.
No, the fact that there are not police on every corner makes the original statement incorrect. If you are seeing this, I'd like to know your zipcode. Hell, my apartment complex alone has at least a half dozen law enforcement officers living there, yet I never see them patrolling the sidewalk in front of my dwelling (and my car got broken into once). Hyperbole is one thing; pretending the exaggeration is fact is quite another.
Re:i was waiting for the false equivalency (Score:2, Insightful)
please note you just freely criticized the us govt, from within the usa, and no one stopped you, no one watch listed you, no one knocked on your door, no one cares understand the difference?
Well first, I'm behind 14 proxies. Good luck, assholes. Second, how do you know I didn't get watch listed? It's not like they're published. And I have gotten knocks on my door for criticizing my government... usually for campaign contributions. I know, ha ha, but more seriously, yes I've been visited by the police for criticism of the government. Oh I'm sorry, did that not fit with your worldview?
in your whiny clueless post you have exercised a luxury many people in this world wish they had. and you don't even fucking notice. what does that say about your level of awareness and knowledge about the world?
I think it says that I'm not above suspecting my own government of engaging in the same activities that every other government does, simply because the popular media tells me it doesn't happen here.
i am certain there are whiny clueless characters like you in china, iran, cuba, etc too
According to you, they don't exist, you know, since they're all in jail.
the difference between them and you is they are petrified with fear to say a damn thing about their governments
I seem to recall a major student uprising in Iran... something about the Spring... oh gee, if I wasn't so clueless and whiny, I might remember the name. Oh gosh darn it.
don't be ignorant and count your blessings
Yes. I'll count my blessings... let's see... gay rights? Don't got those. Non-discrimination in choice of housing? Don't got that either. Free healthcare? Yeah no, that's not on the list either. The right to be free of unreasonable searches? Nope... that one's dead. Uhh... the right not to have the President excercise unilateral authority to bomb me using a drone while I'm in my own house because of an unreleased and unknown secret memo that he drafted giving himself the power? Wait... checking... nope, that one's not there either! Well, damn. Do I at least have the right criticize my government? Actually, no. Something about the ability of the government to secretly declare certain areas "national interest zones" and then arrest anyone who protests there, with no prior notification to the public...
But please, you were saying?