Is The Global Internet Disintegrating? (bbc.com) 249
'The global internet is disintegrating," argues BBC Future, calling Russia "one of a growing number of countries that has had enough of the Western-built, Western-controlled internet backbone...aided as much by advances in technology as by growing global misgivings about whether the open internet was ever such a good idea to start with."
"The new methods raise the possibility not only of countries pulling up their own drawbridges, but of alliances between like-minded countries building on these architectures to establish a parallel internet..." It's DNS that Russia has been setting its sights on... The plan -- which was met with skepticism from much of the engineering community, if not dismissed outright -- was to create a Russia-only copy of the DNS servers (the internet's address book, currently headquartered in California) so that citizens' traffic would be exclusively directed to Russian sites, or Russian versions of external sites. It would send Russian internet users to Yandex if they typed in Google, or the social network VK instead of Facebook. To lay the groundwork for this, Russia spent years enacting laws that force international companies to store all Russian citizens' data inside the country -- leading some companies such as LinkedIn to be blocked when they refused to comply...
According to estimates from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, China is now engaged in some 80 telecommunications projects around the world -- from laying cables to building core networks in other countries, contributing to a significant and growing Chinese-owned global network... One possibility is a scenario where enough countries join Russia and China to develop a similar infrastructure to a point where they could sustain each other economically without doing business with the rest of the world, meaning they could shut themselves off the Western internet. Smaller countries might prefer an internet built around a non-Western standard, and an economic infrastructure built around China might be the "third way" that allows countries to participate in a semi-global economy while being able to control certain aspects of their populations' internet experience.
Maria Farrell of the Open Rights Group (an internet freedom organisation) tells BBC Future that "Nations like Zimbabwe and Djibouti, and Uganda, they don't want to join an internet that's just a gateway for Google and Facebook" to colonise their digital spaces. And there's also fears about western espionage.
"Along with every other expert interviewed for this article, Farrell reiterated how unwise it would be underestimate the ongoing reverberations of the Snowden revelations..."
"The new methods raise the possibility not only of countries pulling up their own drawbridges, but of alliances between like-minded countries building on these architectures to establish a parallel internet..." It's DNS that Russia has been setting its sights on... The plan -- which was met with skepticism from much of the engineering community, if not dismissed outright -- was to create a Russia-only copy of the DNS servers (the internet's address book, currently headquartered in California) so that citizens' traffic would be exclusively directed to Russian sites, or Russian versions of external sites. It would send Russian internet users to Yandex if they typed in Google, or the social network VK instead of Facebook. To lay the groundwork for this, Russia spent years enacting laws that force international companies to store all Russian citizens' data inside the country -- leading some companies such as LinkedIn to be blocked when they refused to comply...
According to estimates from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, China is now engaged in some 80 telecommunications projects around the world -- from laying cables to building core networks in other countries, contributing to a significant and growing Chinese-owned global network... One possibility is a scenario where enough countries join Russia and China to develop a similar infrastructure to a point where they could sustain each other economically without doing business with the rest of the world, meaning they could shut themselves off the Western internet. Smaller countries might prefer an internet built around a non-Western standard, and an economic infrastructure built around China might be the "third way" that allows countries to participate in a semi-global economy while being able to control certain aspects of their populations' internet experience.
Maria Farrell of the Open Rights Group (an internet freedom organisation) tells BBC Future that "Nations like Zimbabwe and Djibouti, and Uganda, they don't want to join an internet that's just a gateway for Google and Facebook" to colonise their digital spaces. And there's also fears about western espionage.
"Along with every other expert interviewed for this article, Farrell reiterated how unwise it would be underestimate the ongoing reverberations of the Snowden revelations..."
On behalf of small ISP's everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't wait until I can blackhole all of Russia and china's IP addresses. My ssh logs clearly show that the majority of login attempts come from dictator land.
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I can't wait until I can blackhole all of Russia and china's IP addresses. My ssh logs clearly show that the majority of login attempts come from dictator land.
Install CSF, ipset (preferably), and enable the following in /etc/csf/csf.conf:
LF_IPSET = "1"
CC_DENY = "RU,CN"
https://configserver.com/cp/csf.html
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I can't wait until I can blackhole all of Russia and china's IP addresses.
Exactly why we need to get around the damn ISP! If I want to communicate with the Russians, what gives you the right to block me? Fuck that. We need to pry the internet open, tear down the fences, not build more.
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It's fairly well established at this point that the DNC colluded with the Russians who fabricated the Steele dossier, which was used in FISA court to justify the Mueller investigation. It's all unraveling delightfully. Some of those former government agents may do time.
Re: On behalf of small ISP's everywhere (Score:2)
So the Steele dossier want written by Steele?
Re: On behalf of small ISP's everywhere (Score:2)
Wasn't*
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No. It appears that it was written by his supervisor from Fusion GPS, because the same information was used in an attack against John McCain AND Steele didn't seem to know his own facts when talking to bureaucrats at the State Department. It was funneled through Steele so that the FBI operatives could claim that it came from a verified source.
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Why are you switching subjects? Whether there was "obstruction" or not, and single Senator's opinion is not proof of anything, and it does not change the legality of the investigation starting in the first place. People are going to jail for lying to a FISA court, among other things.
Before calling people our, you might want to talk to a professional about your TDS.
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Fortunately, the investigation into the Collusion hoax has been ongoing for a while, so you won't have to wait long to see how deluded you are.
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"I can't wait until I can blackhole all of Russia and china's IP addresses."
Why can't you do it right now?
I block all my country's addresses on my media machine with peerblock, don't ask, but it works.
Re:On behalf of small ISP's everywhere (Score:5, Informative)
No. If you open up a device and monitor it, the scripts try to brute force login. Can't get feedback if its spoofed. spoofing is for dos. These bots are trying to crack. Most are performing a straight up dictionary attack.
Re: On behalf of small ISP's everywhere (Score:1)
Do tell how you spoof a TCP connection.
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Ummmm.....hmmmm....errrrrrr...by a fuqn VPN or SSH tunnel???
What do I win?
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The word "spoof" is often used casually to refer to a bot based attack or one forwarded through various intermediate hosts, particularly via VPN. The originator's TCP connection is concealed by the intermediate host.
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I find they are all spoofed from USA based IP addresses.
Nice try, Krimvax.
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Hey, it's APK.
Just because you've stopped signing your AC posts with "APK" doesn't mean your broken writing style doesn't stand out a mile off.
Make no mistake (Score:2)
Re:Make no mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
Putin won't be around forever. The question is what happens after him. We had a long period of countries deciding that it was better economically to treat other countries as partners and not enemies, and trade as better than war. That seems to be reversing itself sadly with the rise of nationalism and isolationism. Maybe someone will be around after WWIII to find out what's going to happen.
Putins demise is dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
Putin is a gangster. But a bit like The Godfather, he runs the gang to make profit, and keeps it under control.
When he goes there will be huge power plays. And Putin has destroyed all the national institutions that could keep them sane. There are elections of sort, so I suppose that is better than what happens when Xi Jinpin goes.
But dictatorships and monarchies are fundamentally unstable. When the dictator goes, there are no rules for succession, and some very unsavory figures can emerge. That is how Stalin crawled to the top.
Re:Putins demise is dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting that you group dictators and monarchs together. As far as succession is concerned, they're complete opposites, since, in general, a monarch has a successor defined by birth looooooooong before the monarch croaks.
It should be noted, by the by, that most monarchies consider democracies/republics unstable since they have no "rules for succession" - the old guy leaves office, the new guy chucks the old guys policies en masse, and starts working on doing the opposite of the former guy.
Re:Putins demise is dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
There's hardly any monarchies where the king/queen rules in anything but a ceremonial capacity left. The ancient kings were essentially dictators with a self-proclaimed divine right to rule. As for successors most dictators groom one and more often than not it's family, if they don't it's no different than a monarch that dies without heirs. And it's not like they have a lot of motivation to tear down their predecessor since they're dead and power now yours. That's what you get in democracies, parties always trying to blame each other. I kinda like our King, even though he's something of an anachronism it's more a personification that the country is something different than the prime minister that we swap every few years. It's not like we'd really die to protect "king and country" in that order anymore.
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There's hardly any monarchies where the king/queen rules in anything but a ceremonial capacity left. The ancient kings were essentially dictators with a self-proclaimed divine right to rule. As for successors most dictators groom one and more often than not it's family, if they don't it's no different than a monarch that dies without heirs. And it's not like they have a lot of motivation to tear down their predecessor since they're dead and power now yours. That's what you get in democracies, parties always trying to blame each other. I kinda like our King, even though he's something of an anachronism it's more a personification that the country is something different than the prime minister that we swap every few years. It's not like we'd really die to protect "king and country" in that order anymore.
Very few monarchs actually ever held absolute power, even if they did they only ruled over small feifdoms, not entire nations.
Monarchs of old Europe used to rely on lords to enact their laws, meaning the lords had to be in agreement with the king (if the king started lopping of the heads of nobility, they didn't remain king for long). The lords then relied on lesser nobility to do the same thing. This was called the feudal system and lasted up until the middle class of Europe started rising. Basically th
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But as fair as the concentration of power goes they are identical: completely in the hands of an unelected individual. The last time that monarchies had any influence on international politics (ignoring the current ceremonial bunch) was the eve of WWI. Then the world saw how similar monarchies and dictatorships were - especially in the cases of the Kaiser and the Tsar.
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Such power is never _completely_ in the hands of that leader. Even Caesar had budgetary limits, and the risk of assassins, to limit his behavior.
sucession does not matter (Score:3)
* does the leadership reflect the will of whom they lead ?
* is the leading evolving, e.g. with the society ?
* is the leadership able to handle change of head leadership without much chaos ?
* is the leadership able to form long term plan ?
The various form of leadership you mentioned (democracy, monarchy, dictatorship etc...) all have trade off. Usually dictatorship and monarchy fails at 1 and 2 (reflection/evolution) as one single individual tend to encrust itself and no
Re:Putins demise is dangerous (Score:4, Funny)
Old Soviet joke: What is difference between Czarism and Communism. In Czarism power is passed from grandfather to grandson. In Communism, power is passed from grandfather to grandfather.
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It's interesting that you group dictators and monarchs together. As far as succession is concerned, they're complete opposites, since, in general, a monarch has a successor defined by birth looooooooong before the monarch croaks.
Theoretically that is true. However, in practice it can get a bit messy. [wikipedia.org] With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense to group dictatorships and monarchies together when talking about the inherent instability of giving massive power to one individual for life.
It should be noted, by the by, that most monarchies consider democracies/republics unstable since they have no "rules for succession" - the old guy leaves office, the new guy chucks the old guys policies en masse, and starts working on doing the opposite of the former guy.
Which is why most republics (I group democracies with republics because very few direct democracies exist and are functionally equivalent for this purpose when they do) work by establishing institutions and respecting precedent. Institutions allow the
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If you think that taxpayers will magically get that money back, you're going to have a rough time.
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Putin is a gangster. But a bit like The Godfather, he runs the gang to make profit, and keeps it under control.
When he goes there will be huge power plays. And Putin has destroyed all the national institutions that could keep them sane. There are elections of sort, so I suppose that is better than what happens when Xi Jinpin goes.
Putin is also the devil we know. That makes him easier to deal with.
When Putin goes, it'll be the same as when any powerful gang leader dies, infighting and breaking up into smaller gangs who will eventually whittle themselves down until an outside player manages to topple them and seize control. It's what's happening in Iraq now, we'll have a new Saddam in there within 10-15 years. Its like what happened when Pablo Escobar was killed, the Envigado group squabbled until the National Police were able to t
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Putin won't be around forever.
You have no proof of that.
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I'm interpolating.
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Again, old soviet joke: There was a saying in Soviet Russia, "Lenin's body is dead, but his cause is alive" (a word play on delo, cause and telo, body).
Most people would have preferred it the other way 'round, though.
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Re: Make no mistake (Score:1)
It has nothing to do with nationalism. China and Russia have been culturally isolationist for decades.
Re: Make no mistake (Score:2)
Architecturally, going off and making your own damn internet is pretty trivial. It's actually easier than dealing with some of the things-tricky-at-scale problems that you can run into when clicking into the global internet; and it doesn't require any new tech: IP software and switching hardware and such all treat intranets as fairly well behaved proper subsets o
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Given that almost everyone uses an ISP these days, controlling internet access isn't so difficult. Just require your ISPs to use your regulated DNS servers, then upscale your monitoring of universities who are the most likely to find ways around it. You don't even have to have that tight of a control either; if 95% gets fed state controlled news then it doesn't matter if the remaining 5% know the truth.
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Ha, yes. The USSR wasn't viewed overall as being excellent at engineering. However there were some small pockets here and there that were excellent. I know a few people from other countries inside the iron curtain who would recount stories about being asked to use inferior USSR products (tractors, etc) rather than the higher quality locally made variants. For computing, they definitely copied the PDP-11 and x86.
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I keep hearing this cockroaches meme but it was debunked by Mythbusters. Cockroaches are still too big to be immune to ionizing radiation. All that will be left alive are gnats, and perhaps a few unlucky and highly-mutated strains of fruit flies.
Re:Make no mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
After WWII. The rise of the European Union, the United Nations, World Bank, etc. The same institutions that are condemned by nationalists because they work together internationally.
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That's not why they're condemned you complete fucking idiot. It's because they are subverting democracy in member states, causing the very problem (nationalism) you think they exist to solve.
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They work together with banksters AGAINST their people.
Re:Make no mistake (Score:5, Informative)
We had a long period of countries deciding that it was better economically to treat other countries as partners and not enemies, and trade as better than war.
Really? When did that happen?
For North America and Europe, it started at Bretton Woods [wikipedia.org] in 1944, when the post-war monetary and trade system was established. Other institutions for free trade and economic integration soon followed, including the ECC (which evolved into the EU), GATT (which became the WTO), along with a collective security umbrella (NATO).
Nationalists and populists are trying to weaken and destroy these institutions at our peril, preying on foolish voters that believe peace and prosperity are the default condition of humanity, and can be taken for granted. This is why studying history is important.
Re:Make no mistake (Score:5, Informative)
Wish I had mod points to vote this up.
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Are you fucking kidding me? It's the economic integrators at Davos and the Bush/Clinton mafia types who believe peace and prosperity are the default condition of humanity and can be taken for granted, that trade will always lead to more peace, and
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I don't think you will find too many people that disagree with the intended purpose of these organizations.
You will probably find quite a few that disagree with the implementation.
For instance, the US doesn't need to be isolationist. But neither should it shoulder the overwhelming brunt of the cost for security of Europe against the 2nd world.
Likewise, the EU shouldn't be dragged into trumped up conflicts the US decides to pursue.
If everyone paid their agreed upon share and coercion wasn't needed to secure
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A NATO think tank really knows the will of the people? A German political advisor? A French NGO?
A cult? A religious group? The UN? The EU? A really wealthy person? A really wealthy person with a "charity"? A foundation? The CIA? MI6?
A UK not-for-profit organisation? The owner of a social media company? An actor?
Who gets to tell Russia how to "internet"?
Would any nation like to see a media proprietor, social media owner, another nations broadcaster pontificate on
Re:Its a beautiful Culture (Score:2)
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I would love to see more Russians online, but there are very few. There are many Chinese online surprisingly enough... which is nice. :)
There's a good reason why you don't see a lot of Russians around.
For example, I believe that the OP is needlessly alarmist and Russia isn't going to disconnect itself from the rest of the Internet. However, there would be three issues with that point. First, there are actually Russians who are afraid that the authorities might introduce a white list of websites accessible from our country. I don't believe that is going to happen, but I can only speak for myself. Not for all Russians in general. Second, supp
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Do you not understand what a discussion site is designed for?
No, I have a pretty good idea what a discussion site is designed for.
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Perhaps you just don't see them because of the language barrier.
One day Google's translation engine will advance to the point of true seamless use. The effects will be interesting. And possibly violent.
Re:not Language barrier (Score:2)
This breaks the Internet (Score:2)
Fine. Russia wants to do this? Take an axe to the backbone connections to Russia and make it a 'walled garden' for them. Let's see how long that lasts until they scream to put it all back the way it was. I'll give them a week before that happens. Hell, they might even depose Putin over this.
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The good part is you get both.
The wider global internet for everything that the internet offers.
A nation ready system that can provide the same full experience when needed.
Web still works, email, chat, shopping, VOIP, social media. All language ready and with trusted brands.
A nations "internet" that is ISP ready to carry all communications when needed.
Sports can be watched, movies work, chat works, video and images can be "shared".
Nations that are not ready will be
Re: This breaks the Internet (Score:2)
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I let you in on a secret: The DNS service you get is already likely a filtered, faked and forged one. There are already legit DNS requests that are blackholed.
A lot of providers do blackhole DNS requests to known malware CCC servers. With some you can specifically request that they resolve them correctly (e.g. when you're an antivirus researcher you might have an interest in that), but to the great public, this is already a "service" they do.
Question: You think this is a good or a bad thing?
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Will you people please just go kill yourselves? Thanks.
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No. It doesn't.
DNS is nothing more than a convenience function for humans. Shutting down DNS completely does nothing to block me from typing an IP address into whatever program I'm using to access internet resources. A "broken" DNS can be patched with a host file.
Zimbabwe, Djibouti, and Uganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to join an internet that's just a gateway for Google and Facebook, either...
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I don't want to join an internet that's just a gateway for Google and Facebook, either...
Maybe you should re-evaluate how you use your internet then.
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If you have an IP, you don't need a domain name to share information. DNS is not required for a functioning internet.
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That's such a quaint meme at this point.
You need to ask him how much the DNC is paying him.
The Birth of National Intranets... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's about the only way China (or any other country, really) could conceivably shut out unwanted outside traffic, allowing for any form of unilateral, nation-wide censorship, or otherwise information filtering.
So far, I am shocked that there hasn't already been calls by other countries to have data and DNS control for their own citizens. That is all based on the US not having their own foreign interests (and security) in mind. Complicate that by the US possibly having their fingers in it all, too. They'd never admit to it, of course, but hey. Who'd expect them to, right? Outside access is a privilege that must be granted by the government. It would also be monitored heavily (for national security reasons, of course) and possibly subject to a number of further restrictions as well.
At least, it's a possible revenue stream.
At worst, it's isolationism and censorship on a national level.
And you thought Cloud Storage was secure. Wait until it's all under governmental control and see if you still feel the same way.
Yep. Isolationist National Internets are coming, and I seriously doubt it's too far away.
Re: The Birth of National Intranets... (Score:1)
Hmmm....I wouldn't feel censored by not being able to visit Russian or Zimba websites.
Their country, their rules. Don't like it? Well, I don't think they care what you think. Why should they? Are you going to liberate them with our Western ideals?
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Other countries have been blocking sites for years. For example the UK started using the "Cleanfeed" system decades ago. It's a secretive site blocking system that uses DPI, and is completely unaccountable and not subject to public oversight. Once they broke Wikipedia with it.
And that's just the government stuff, various ISPs block sites based on lawsuits filed against them by the copyright industry.
Take the Pirate Bay as an example. It's accessibility depends highly on what jurisdiction you are in and what
Re:The Birth of National Intranets... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about the only way China (or any other country, really) could conceivably shut out unwanted outside traffic, allowing for any form of unilateral, nation-wide censorship, or otherwise information filtering.
China is way smarter than that, they've understood that it's impossible to block out the rest of the world without turning into North Korea. The key is to treat it more like an infectious disease and decrease the contagiousness to the point that it's not a threat anymore. Say you manage to tell one Chinese person about Tiananmen Square, but like you're one random person out of the blue. He's never seen it on Chinese TV, never read about it in Chinese newspapers, never had it in history class. He checks his Google-clone, nothing. He checks his Wikipedia-clone, nothing. Are there videos on his YouTube-clone? Nothing.
He checks his Facebook-clone, either nothing or you get redirected to a government planted story that totally misrepresents what happens or you get sent to a site full of otherwise obviously false crackpot tales to discredit it by association. Even one-on-one communication like email will get shit holed if you try using your Gmail-clone. And all of this gets you flagged as a potential troublemaker, so if you try to spread the news on you'll be shut down. Not that it's limited to information, they feel the same about products, services and money. If you don't tow the party line expect to be sidelined.
This is why the idea of free trade with China is so foolish, yes they tolerate foreign products because they don't want to end up in the rut the Soviet Union was in and they can't get access to foreign markets without at least paying lip service to it. But every dependency is ruthlessly cloned and pushed as the domestic alternative, they don't want stable tit for tat swaps. Their goal is a billion people plus economy that's basically self-sufficient, it can sell goods but it doesn't need any. A trade war can accelerate that program but it's already the end goal they're aiming for already.
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The sad part for the hysteria mongers is that you don't need to point to "your country's" root server. Every network configuration I've seen has a field that you can set to configure the DNS server. All anyone in Russia/China would have to do is configure their system to point at a different DNS.
Walled Gardens. (Score:1)
Before 1990 none of these counties had an appreciable computing infrastructure, even Europe was out of it until the United states began exporting its know-how.
These countries used the internet as a way to engage in psychological warfare, and while the US has been doing covert warfare for decades, they weren't prepared for anyone to go on the offensive. As soon as the US Government began allowing FANG companies act in anti-competitive ways, this became an issue.
The open internet won't end because at the end
No (Score:3)
Some morons support governments that will reduce the value of the Internet drastically for their countries, but that is it. Just ordinary human stupidity at work.
Who is behind this? (Score:2)
On every side!
Is there something in human chromosomes leftover from primeval times forcing this type of voracious behavior having to follow this insatiable urge?
Look at the top honchos - what drives them to behave in that manner?
What a nonsense game...
I think the article misses on a few points... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Internet" wasn't designed to be a global network. It's a network of networks (to end all networks, if you want to sound dramatic), always changing as some networks join and others leave. I will admit I suspect the former vastly outweighs the latter these days.
For influencing those minds that don't think critically and question everything, sure, setting up a country-wide walled-garden internet probably sounds like a great idea to some of the leaders in foreign lands (and don't be so sure that some at home might not like the idea too), but to sever it globally (if you'll pardon the pun) only hurts you at the business level. Like it or not, the Internet's role in commerce is here to stay. If I'm a factory manager in China and I can't e-mail my parts consumer in the U.S. who just placed $1 million worth of orders for my doodads to confirm they shipped, how does that help my business, much less my country?
Those that wonder if a global, open Internet was a "good idea to start with" are, in my opinion, in the minority, and missing the point that a global, (relatively) open communications infrastructure helps unite us as a global community. People who talk to each other and who trade with each other don't generally kill each other as much as those who don't do none of neither.
I may not agree with it, but countries like China and Russia are absolutely free to control how their regional networks communicate with the "global" Internet. Walling them off completely is just dumb on so many levels, and I suspect they know it, and I find the likelyhood of what the article describes coming to pass pretty small. If it's anything beyond what they're already doing (e.g. Great Firewall of China), it'll be more subtle.
But hey, if they do, like others have said, less log- and e-mail spam for the rest of us.
Re:I think the article misses on a few points... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's pretty much my attitude towards it. Traditionally every network has been the responsibility of it's admins, the only thing the Internet governing authorities have concerned themselves with is whether or not a network is causing problems for and disrupting other networks (eg. by publishing bogus routes). If Russia and China want to lock down and isolate their own networks, let them. If they want to run their own DNS, let them. Yeah it's going to bring up technical problems, those are their problems to solve. If anything they do disrupts other networks, then the networks they connect to handle it in the traditional way by cutting off the connection until the disruption's fixed.
This all may cause political, social and financial problems for companies that do business with those walled-garden countries if network connectivity to those countries becomes unreliable. IMO that's a problem for those companies to deal with just like any other problem with operations in foreign countries, and there's plenty of economic and diplomatic options just like there are with eg. a country nationalizing foreign-owned mines.
Not that it'll work too well for the walled-garden countries anyway. Connectivity's too simple to set up, you need to physically isolate your network to keep people from setting up back-door routes and that's something the walled-garden countries really don't want to do (they want to control the terms their people access everyone else's networks, but they still want access because it's too valuable). Face it, we were moving email and files around long before the first IP-based network lit up. At worst standards like v.32bis and PPP become well-known again.
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Awesome (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally I'm all for cutting Russia and China off from the internet and letting countries decide which internet they want to be connected to, Western or Russia-China. My servers will be safer and I don't see any downside, certainly personally. I get nothing of value on the internet from those countries, only hack attempts.
"colonise their digital spaces." (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a garbage phrase used by garbage people [battleswarmblog.com] who want to be able to control what others say on the Internet.
The idea that web addresses are "colonized" like European powers conquering and dividing up Africa is ludicrous. Nothing is preventing you from creating your own digital space. Go for it.
This is just more editorializing in the guise of a "story."
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Exactly right.
There was no such thing as "digital space" before Darpa developed it. The idea that western powers are "colonizing" it is fucking absurd.
Does it Matter? (for me, not them) (Score:3)
One of the most loved 'aspects' of the Internet has always been it's organic, adaptive nature. It wasn't designed so much as grown. If it ever goes in the wrong direction, the assumption has been that it would, eventually, correct itself, or at least split away from the broken part and become something else.
Isn't that what we see happening? I don't see any sort of 'doom and gloom' in the evolution of the Internet. If Russia builds a parallel DNS system in order to punish their own citizens does that affect me. (yes, but quite indirectly) If China wants to build more redundant infrastructure, is that a bad thing for me?
Now, if Russia was attempting to poison the DNS so I went to Yandex instead of Google, that would be a problem. (Going to a site that I THOUGHT was Google but lied to me would be worse.) If China was sabotaging the infrastructure that I used, that would be a problem. However that's not that the 'summary' said. I'm not sure I'm afraid of what the summary said.
However, that's a purely selfish point of view. Just like the theory of 'open source' the more people looking at something should help find the problems and keep it honest. So for a country to block itself off from the rest of the world seems more like an attempt to be able to lie to them rather than the stated purpose of keeping other lies out. So, do I think it's good for the Chinese and/or Russian (or Zimbabwe or whoever) people to be segregated from the global Internet? Nope. Ironically, that's an ego-centric point of view as well.
Content (Score:3)
The value of the internet is only partially related to the connectivity. The real value is in the content. If no businesses had a presence on the internet (like back in the early 90s), then the value of the internet is extremely low. Now, I'm talking about value to the public in general here - the consumers. Not us computer geeks that have use for networking for the sake of networking.
The value of the internet content for the general populous of the west is created by, and physically resides in, the west. It is very, very rare that I interact with foreign websites outside of the West (North America and Europe). I think that is true of most people in the west as well.
So I take two things away from that. First off, for most of us, fragmentation of the internet in this way means nothing is lost to us in the west. If Russia totally went off the internet right now, I wouldn't even know it (with the exception, as others have already lamented, that my servers would be seeing a lot less attacks from Russia).
However, they lose access to our content and our far more open social networks, news organizations and other sources of free speech and ideas.
Russia, of course, spins this as they need to keep hostiles out of their country, when the truth of the matter is they just want to exert more control over what Russians see, what they can say, etc. They have tried, but have not been very successful at, forcing foreign entities to submit to their controls (for example by requiring that data relating to Russian citizens must be physically hosted in Russia).
The Internet was designed to route around assholes (Score:5, Interesting)
umm I mean problems...
Access to content is pretty much driving Internet traffic.
If other countries and "federations" want their own "Internet" with local blackjack and hookers, and without the content of the global Internet, that is their decision.
If the people of those affected don't like it, they can elect a government that allows global connectivity. (assuming they have real elections)
I just hope there is still some way for Russians to upload car crash videos.
Good (Score:1)
Global internet has been a complete disaster. Close the doors, lock the gates, separate countries.
We're not ready for this technology, at this time. There's a reason things like broadcasts, radios and other mass media technologies are HEAVILY regulated. In the wrong hands, they can cause unbelievable damage to our societies. Internet is unregulated mass media, and it's being soooo abused.
Licensed users only please. Like amateur radios. This is serious technology and not just anyone should be allowed.
DUH (Score:3)
splinternet (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this not already called the Russian–Chinese splinternet?
Hopeless (Score:3)
Dictators are as dictators do. Quit rationalizing it.
Wide-Open Floodgates (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a particular reason grandmas who only use email (or Facebook nowadays) on their Windows PC need to have an internet connection that's open to packets coming from dubious sources, 24/7/365? E.g. if country X tends to target country Y, why would it be good for Y people to always be exposed to connections from X? They should have to do something special (say, call a toll-free number and say to a virtual assistant "I want to unblock X") to let something through, in the unlikely event they actually intended to do so. So if they want to VOIP their niece in China, they have to do something that unblocks connections to China for the next hour. If someone is tricked into connecting to a Russian phishing site, well it's blocked unless they do something to unblock Russian sites temporarily.
Like a firewall with a filter based on source, with an override, only above that level so your firewall/modem/router can't get hacked by those sources prior to the data being filtered out.
Re: (Score:2)
In the dark (Score:2)
Due to automation, more jobs will require business social knowledge. Censoring the population's access will put China and Russia at a disadvantage.
Classic proof of why internet != Internet (Score:2)
Toobadsosad. I love you Russia. I love you China. (Score:1, Flamebait)
They have finally had enough and are taking their toys and going home. Can you blame them? So much hostility, hatred, and mean spirited bile directed toward them by American patriot hillbillies and chicken-hawks who want to go back to the cold cold war, to a time of darkness and fear.
The open internet was a great dream, but it relied on an optimistic principle of human goodness when the reality is the opposite. Human beings are vile scum who do not deserve to survive even for one more night. For the good of
Re: (Score:1)
This is about autocratic countries restricting their citizens' access to information outside their control. It has nothing to do with China and Russia being the target of some media campaign orchestrated by evil nationalistic westerners. But if you prefer their system I would encourage you to join them and live happy ever after.
Given the Nation-State Level of Hacking (Score:1)
Given the behavior of the USA (Score:3, Insightful)
Is The Global Internet Disintegrating? (Score:2)
Author seems confused - Internet vs Web (Score:4, Interesting)
Mamma's gonna help build the wall (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to be me that at least one country built a wall around itself - and for decades people tried to escape. Until finally said wall was torn down.
What emerged from behind that wall though was a civilization that had stagnated. There was more to it of course - I don't feel "the wall" itself caused the stagnation, but rather the mindset of those who thought building the wall was necessary.
In this digital world I'm sure many will attempt to jump the wall. History may repeat itself. From this side of the proposed wall it appears to be countries interested in thought-control, monitoring and tracking the daily activities of those who use the system.
Exercise in Futility (Score:2)
Good luck with that Russia and China. I have the defeat for your censorship attacks right here:
https://askubuntu.com/question... [askubuntu.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Except you seem to conveniently forget that both the Internet and Tor were created by US government money and military, the Department of Defense and DARPA+US Navy respectively.
It's only bad when the everyone else started using those technologies is my point, creating and spreading the disease and offering the cure afterwards.
Re: (Score:3)
IDK, keeping Google and Facebook out seems like being sensibly cautious. For example, if FB and Google happened to be Chinese would you, as an American, like them infiltrating your whole country? Russia and China almost certainly won't wall themselves off completely, but it seems ... pragmatic to limit how much control one other nation (the USA) has over their network infrastructure.
Re: (Score:2)
It is almost as easy as routing around any broken forked DNS.
Re: (Score:2)
Your trait #5 is incompatible with the others. If there's freedom (i.e. the government isn't able to prevent communciation, and communication is between anonymous parties), and you're sending information about yourself to others, then you'll have no mechanism (neither technical nor legal) to force the receiver to not store and use that information.
If you want to monopolize your personal information, you either have to stop sending that information to others, or else you need the government to know who you'