In a new book the WikiLeaks founder says Google and Facebook are as dangerous as governments.
A Julian Assange supporter with
a poster of the WikiLeaks founder Photo: JOHN
PRYKE
The internet has become the “most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we
have ever seen”, according to the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
In Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, a series of
interview transcripts originally broadcast on Russian state-controlled TV
channel RT, Assange discusses government and corporate surveillance, anti-file
sharing legislation and the social media phenomenon that has seen users
willingly collaborate with sites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter who wish
to collect their personal data.
Using the internet is like “having a tank in your bedroom”, says Assange, and
a mobile phone is simply a “tracking device that also makes calls”.
He continues by saying “the universality of the internet will merge global
humanity into one giant grid of mass surveillance and mass control”. Only
through encrypting your online activity, he claims, will it be possible to
create an information network that the state will not be able to decipher.
Written in a stirring style that will delight his fans but seem a touch over
the top to the sceptical, Assange writes in his introduction that “it is time to
take up the arms of our new world, to fight for ourselves and for those we
love”.
Full story at The Telegraph
Full story at The Telegraph
