There Is No Person More Dangerous Than A Stupid Person

Governments, even the democratic ones, will do anything to assert themselves over the people they rule. Usually this means an utter lack of sympathy or humanity, but sometimes it can mean pushing the limits of human stupidity.

The Indian government's decision to ban Blogger is a shining example of just how unbelievably illogical a bunch of human beings can get if they put their minds to it. They have asked ISPs to block a number of blogs for various reasons and have refused to disclose the list publicly. Not to be outdone, the ISPs have risen to the occasion by blocking the entire blogspot.com domain name instead of just the blogs in the above list.

I ask the luminaries at CERT-IN:

1. Blocking a blog site is not a solution to combat terrorism. Terrorists can still send emails, can't they? What will you do, block all email traffic?
2. If a system on the scale of The Great Chinese Firewall can be breached, what good do you think the simple act of blocking a site will do?
3. You can't even read all information being transmitted across the Internet. Haven't you heard of PGP?
   

The bottom line is that Internet censorship is not merely unethical, it is infeasible. People will always find ways around roadblocks. For example, here is a list of methods you can use to bypass the current ban, courtesy of the punkster.

We will not be made scapegoats for our decision-makers' inadequacies in dealing with our problems. Keep blogging, and show them that free speech cannot be curtailed just that easily.


P.S.
The title of this post is a reference to the Fifth Basic Law of Human Stupidity from the famous article by Carlo Cipolla.