F-Secure's Hypponen: The Internet Is a 'US Colony' 263
nk497 writes "Web users are vulnerable to mass online spying because the U.S. has too much power online, according to a leading security researcher. Discussing revelations of U.S. spying at his LinuxCon keynote speech, F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hypponen argued that the internet had 'become a U.S. colony,' at the expense of democracy. 'We're back in the age of colonization,' he said. 'We should think about the Americans as our masters.' Hypponen argued that its dominance over the web gave the U.S. too much power over foreign countries, noting that while the majority of European politicians likely use U.S. services every day, most U.S. politicians and business leaders don't, for example, use Swedish-based cloud services. 'It's an imbalanced situation,' he said. 'All the major services are based in the U.S.'"
if it wasn't americans, it would be someone else.. (Score:5, Insightful)
People act like the US is the only country to have ever spied, when really, in this case, they just got caught. How do you know that others wouldn't be doing the same sort of monitoring? How do you know that they're not already?
Yeah, so? (Score:3, Insightful)
We built the original infrastructure. The original backbone was developed here, and nearly all the funding came from US sources. Everyuthing else is an extension of that, and built on that framework.
Don't like it? Build your own, like China or Iran, and see how well corporations and people flock to use your "Internet".
Re:Yeah, so? (Score:3, Insightful)
As the FOSSolytes say: It's all open, fork your own if you don't like our implementation.
never left the age of colonization (Score:5, Insightful)
Israel has been colonizing the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights since 1967l. Turkey has been colonizing Cyprus since 1974, probably encouraged by the example set by Israel. China has been colonizing Tibet since the 50's.
There are probably other examples but these are three of the most notable that continue today.
Only have yourselves to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are the non-US-based search engines, social media sites, video hosts, and email providers? Yes they exist, of course, but there are almost no notable standouts. For every Vimeo there's a dozen US-based YouTubes.
You only have yourself to blame for complacently letting US businesses dominate these fields. The internet is based on open protocols and open networks. The playing field is level other than the minor niggle of ICANN's control of domain names and DNS root servers (minor since the internet works without DNS and could be replaced with something else). Hell, most countries have an advantage over the US considering our antediluvian telecom infrastructure.
"Colony"? (Score:5, Insightful)
On ye olde intertubes, it's sort of hard to 'colonize' somebody (especially since, unlike land, which hasn't been available in the "actually not populated by somebody you'll need to shove if you want to 'discover' it" flavor in centuries to millenia, the internet exists because it is built, and you can build more if you want more), except on the very limited scale of cracking their server and stashing stuff on it.
It seems that it might be fairer to say that the internet is more of an American shopping mall. It is true that, to a surprising degree (especially surprising in areas that have never liked us much, or for which we never bothered to do much localization), that lots of foreign traffic crosses into American-held internet infrastructure to work, play, and do business; but (unlike a 'colony') that isn't because that infrastructure used to belong to somebody else until we grabbed it, and the locals are still stuck there; but because once it was built, people came.
Anybody who doesn't fancy being watched by Uncle Sam, or a EULA-serf of a major American multinational(including US residents) should definitely give some strong consideration to how much of their activity is currently firmly within the grasp of the US government and a few cooperative (except on taxes) corporations; but if they want to get anywhere, the line of thought is going to have to be closer to "So, why does everybody go through $AMERICAN_COMPANY$ anyway, and why isn't there a homegrown equivalent elsewhere?" rather than following the misleading road of some sort of post-colonial process. There simply was no such colonization, so expecting to decolonize is going to fall into exciting category error fun time.
Out of the frying pan... (Score:4, Insightful)
The solution is to bring our own US government back in line with the Constitution, and recognize the spurious nature of arguments about mass and warrantless surveillance.
Making chunks amenable to foreign countries, with less protections (see arguments about Europe spying being literally 100x more intrusive) is just an insensate knee-jerk reaction: it is useful in practice only to bring pressure to bear against the US government to be more open and restricted.
Re:stfu. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies ....
You Ingrates should have shown more respect to your Sovereign (and the Crown's treasury) and should
not have started that rable-rousing "revolution".
Quiz: The above statements are:
- Ironic
- Bloody right
- Probably made by a no-good, towel-headed communist liberal hippie hommo
Re:Only have yourselves to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
Where are the non-US-based search engines, social media sites, video hosts, and email providers? Yes they exist, of course, but there are almost no notable standouts. For every Vimeo there's a dozen US-based YouTubes.
You only have yourself to blame for complacently letting US businesses dominate these fields. The internet is based on open protocols and open networks. The playing field is level other than the minor niggle of ICANN's control of domain names and DNS root servers (minor since the internet works without DNS and could be replaced with something else). Hell, most countries have an advantage over the US considering our antediluvian telecom infrastructure.
For the examples you mention, yes, I agree. But I work for an European based DropBox competitor, and we have had an explosion in interest and sales after the Snowden revelations. Some people like to say "it's all the same", but it is *really not*. We only respond to specific official court orders, and they are quite rare.
Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'd prefer American's do the spying instead of Russians or god forbid Mujaheddin army from the garden variety of middle eastern kingdoms/banana republics.
You would really rather be spied on by a country that has the capability to summarily execute you anywhere on the planet via drone strike, than a bunch of radicalized extremists living in tents, who couldn't get close enough to harm you, even if they really really wanted to?
Pardon me for finding that an odd position to hold.
Re:Dominance over the web? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so? (Score:5, Insightful)
As the FOSSolytes say: It's all open, fork your own if you don't like our implementation.
That's the problem, if countries *do* fork off their own internet, it's going to make things worse for everyone.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2013/09/17/brazil-fights-us-internet-hegemony-wants-to-shield-brazilian-data-from-nsa/ [foxnews.com]
Imagine a fractured internet, where if you want your site accessible from the world, you have to buy domain names and have your site be vetted by every country that you want your site accessible from.
Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think most people believe the US is the only country that does this, just the one with the most cognitive dissonance.
Re:"Colony"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd argue that "Colony" is sort of an unfair term
I'd argue that the judging by the summary, TFA is a crock of shit. European countries that are themselves not US colonies own the entirety of their Internet infrastructure, a.k.a. the tubes. They can (and do) run their own DNS if they so please. US has colonized the German Internet about as much as it colonized the German forests. US plays a huge role in the development of the world-wide network, but that influence is more akin to the influence of Hollywood on film. Like you say, "colony" is not the right word. A "captive audience" is not a right word even, since the audience loves it. More like, US have captured the world's imagination.
Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so? (Score:4, Insightful)
As an American, I don't care if someone in Iceland accesses my website. It would be nice, but it isn't necessary for the site to function or make money. If iceland decides to wall of it's internet, then it's citizens won't get access to things like, say, Facebook, which hey may want This is then known as the "Iranian solution"
As an American that pays attention to what happen outside of our borders, I appreciate being able to reach any site anywhere in the world and vice versa.
Additionally, much of the FOSS software that I use and count on to do my job has heavy contributions from developers across the world. I'd sure hate to lose that easy collaboration because Iceland doesn't trust the USA's internet.
I think Facebook as more to lose from cutting off access from the rest of the world than the rest of the world has to lose without facebook - it wouldn't take long for home-grown competitors to arise.
Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els (Score:5, Insightful)
You would really rather be spied on by a country that has the capability to summarily execute you anywhere on the planet via drone strike, than a bunch of radicalized extremists living in tents, who couldn't get close enough to harm you, even if they really really wanted to?
I find it rather amusing that you consider England, Russia, and China to be a bunch of "radicalized extremists living in tents".
What this article is bitching about is essentially "Everybody goes to the US to setup companies, data centers, hire tech people, and that's not fair". Bullshit, there's nothing the US does to force people to setup their stuff in the US. There's nothing the US does to penalize anybody in other places.
There are a wide variety of reasons why the internet is "US-centric" for most services, but US having some kind of vague, undefined Authoritarian Control is not one of them.
A lot of people avoid the EU because of Net filters and (in their mind) excessive privacy regulations. People avoid China and Russia because they have little or no confidence those governments are not going to simply take their assets. And more to the point in the case of Russia and China, most people assume they'll have all their data and intellectual property straight ripped off... of course no mention of that recently because right now the NSA is the bogeyman people are hiding from.
If you don't want the internet to be US-centric then it's easy to solve it- make your own country a more appealing place to setup shop. The US offers relative stability in terms of economy, infrastructure, and laws, and if you look at the planet and where communications lines run it's "centralized". You could try setting up in a country in the Middle East, but political instability, poor infrastructure, and lack of a wealth of advanced educational services make it a pretty piss-poor region to consider right now. So if you're going to try and offer Internationally available services the US is currently the logical place to be.
And what are you going to gain by moving elsewhere? Technically the NSA's job IS to spy on other nations, the controversy is that they got caught doing it to US citizens. You still have to worry about the NSA everywhere else, in addition to the local governments. Sure, setup shop in Saudi Arabia, that sounds great until the local Dictator decides you're violating some religious requirement and shuts you down. China? Get ready to see your products show up on the black market with a minimally altered logo affixed. South America somewhere? Nope, there's crap for infrastructure and political stability is a major issue. Asia? Sure, some countries are appealing, but again you're looking at connections to the rest of the world having to go either through the US, or politically unstable regions.
Pardon me for finding that an odd position to hold.
Hold whatever position you desire, but please at least try to base it in some type of semblance of reality.
Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:stfu. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had my way all those shitheads in Washington would be tossed on their fucking ears, and all their assets would be put into the US treasury. Too many politicians these days are in the hip pocket of corporate America.
Re:"Colony"? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, Nkrumah's own career is not a hopeful bit of reading from the perspective of somebody looking to decolonize on the internet:
His ability as an anticolonial leader, and at least the beginning of his post-independence period went very well. Then things went... off the rails. A lot. In that 'elected dictator for life and father of the revolution by 99.1% of the alleged electorate' sort of way. If there's anything that puts a sad note on your struggle for independence, it's throwing off the chains of foreign occupation and then taking up the chains of local dictatorship.
On the internet, since it isn't built on land or particularly scarce, the revolution is easy. (You probably have your very own free and independent LAN right now!) Building alternatives to the hegemonic American cat-video/industrial complex? Less easy. Building alternatives that succeed and aren't under the thumb of authoritarian surveillance nuts or ruthless corporate titans who are just as unpleasant as their American counterparts and live closer to you? Harder still. That seems to be Europe's problem at present, also common in other areas, to varying degrees (China's language barriers and blatant willingness to exercise mercantile favoratism seem to have rendered them partially immune, in terms of web services, though I haven't heard of Red Flag Linux burning up the sales charts...)
Europe has culture, and money, and networks, programmers, and guns; but apparently they still flock to US web services (either directly hosted/operated in the US or physically located in Europe as appendages of US companies and subservient to them) in numbers large enough, and for business important enough, to raise TFA's author's concerns.
Re:stfu. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies...
No, the colonies did becuase George III, a porphyric idiot, started upping the taxes to pay for England's little imperialistic chessmatch with France. The Crown bestowed no gifts. Or was the Boston Tea Party a little fraternity roughhousing?
No, just bunch of traitors and terrorists.
Hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
They are not bitching about spying. They are bitching about America has too much power to do spying.
Personally what I finding hard to deal with is the amazing level of hypocrisy. The US tries to project a picture that it is a beacon of democracy, high moral values and an all round "good-guy"...and then spends its time going around behind all its friends and allies backs spying on them. It is probably correct to assume that other countries do this too and there may even be good arguments for it in some cases (although I have trouble understanding the motivation for bugging European leaders' phones) but nobody else tries to claim that their country is some amazing paragon of virtue that everyone else should follow.
So while I might agree that if I'm going to be spied on I'd rather it be by the US than by others the rest of the world would really appreciate it if you could lay off the hypocritical good-guy act. The US may come off looking very good compared to some of the more troubled nations on this planet but compared to some of the better ones they are beginning to look rather dodgy.
Re:Perhaps a new constitution. (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the claimed benefits of a Constitutionally limited government was that each State had the power to experiment, and try different paths. This was supposed to allow States to govern based on the local desires, rather than force everyone to agree on everything on a Federal level. Sadly, Federal scope creep has made States mere administrative units.
Re:Eurotards are just jealous (Score:4, Insightful)
You forget that this was the time before effective delivery vehicles were available - all you have is bombers. The reason why it was so easy to nuke Japan is because their air force was already decimated. I don't think that a bomber carrying a nuke to, say, Berlin would have a good chance of getting there if you take the hypothetical "Great German Reich from Atlantic to the Urals" scenario, with all the industrial base and resources of Europe and USSR at its disposal. You'd need to send several to get any reasonable chance of getting one through, which is very costly, and even then would probably only work for the first attack, since afterwards they'd just start going after bombers disregarding any losses.
No, the nukes were as much a wunderwaffe toy as German V-2. What won the war was the determination and courage of soldiers on the ground, and the sheer manufacturing capacity that Allies had - US and USSR both. The turning point was really in 1941, when blitzkrieg in Russia failed before taking over Moscow, and Soviets succeeded in fully relocating their industry to the Urals and getting it up and running on full capacity. Germans were good at blitzkrieg, but they simply didn't have the resources for a prolonged meat grinder kind of warfare, and that's what they got into in the USSR.
As far as who contributed most to victory, I think it's a fair assessment that USSR bore the brunt of the war in Europe, and US did the same in the Pacific. Everyone else was kinda tagging along - yes, even Brits. It's all really obvious when you look at losses and inflicted casualties. 5 out of 6 Axis soldiers killed in Europe died on the Eastern front, and this also represents about 2/3 of total Axis casualties everywhere. Most of the remaining 1/3 are Japanese soldiers dead from American action.
As far as lend lease goes, it was certainly a noticeable aid to the USSR, esp, in 1941-42, but it is unlikely to have been decisive - it didn't play much role in stopping the Germans at Moscow in 1941. Without it, it would probably have taken an extra year or so for Soviets to build up enough to be ready to go on the offensive, so Kursk (or equivalent) would have been somewhere in mid-to-late 1944, with the corresponding cost increase in human lives. So I think that USSR is by all rights entitled to a claim of being the country that defeated Germany in WW2 even with lend lease in the picture, much as US can claim victory over Japan.