The Internet is All Wrong

It is because of companies like Facebook, Yahoo, and Google that there can be such heinous intrusion by government into the private lives of people.

The solution is to self-host everything: run your own mail, contacts, calendaring, file hosting, web, and other servers.

This can be done and its not too difficult for anyone with moderate knowledge of Systems Administration, especially Linux Systems Administration.

Even better would be to have a modem/router box that you can buy at a store, connect to your Internet, and it sets up and runs all these for you with a minimal amount of hassle.

That is the way the Internet is really supposed to be. It should be private. You pay for a line and that line is yours to do whatever you want with. Watch tv. Broadcast tv. View web sites. Publish your own web sites. Etc. etc.

The line should be provided by a public utility, not a private company. The line is public infrastructure and it is perverse to allow it to be controlled by private interests.

These companies are really fucking things up and we should do everything we can to get as far away from them as possible. These companies, despite the farcical public displays of indignation they make, are equivalent to the surveillance state. They are part and parcel of the architecture of oppression which Edward Snowden has risked his life and welfare to warn us about.