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The Internet China Government United States

Is the US about to Split the Internet? (bbc.com) 165

The BBC reports: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he wants a "clean" internet. What he means by that is he wants to remove Chinese influence, and Chinese companies, from the internet in the U.S.

But critics believe this will bolster a worrying movement towards the breaking up of the global internet.

The so called "splinternet" is generally used when talking about China, and more recently Russia. The idea is that there's nothing inherent or pre-ordained about the internet being global. For governments that want to control what people see on the internet, it makes sense to take ownership of it. The Great Firewall of China is the best example of a nation putting up the internet equivalent of a wall around itself. You won't find a Google search engine or Facebook in China.

What people didn't expect was that the U.S. might follow China's lead.

They're reacting to U.S. president Trump's executive order to block all transactions with TikTok's parent company (starting September 20) to "address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain." An opinion piece in the New York Times calls the move a "foolish and dangerous edict" that's "deeply misguided and unproductive" which suggests that "the United States, like China, no longer believes in a global internet." In the BBC's article Alan Woodward, a security expert at the University of Surrey, calls the U.S. decision "shocking."

"The U.S. government has for a long time criticised other countries for controlling access to the internet⦠and now we see the Americans doing the same thing."
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Is the US about to Split the Internet?

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  • To a certain extent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by skovnymfe ( 1671822 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @01:39PM (#60380391)

    This has already been happening for years.

    What's the first thing you do when you want to put something on the internet? Put it behind a firewall and geo-block/ip-block China, Russia, and Brazil.

    This decision will absolutely impact mega corps, but everyone else is going to be like... "eh..."

    • by shanen ( 462549 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:23PM (#60380537) Homepage Journal

      This has already been happening for years.

      What's the first thing you do when you want to put something on the internet? Put it behind a firewall and geo-block/ip-block China, Russia, and Brazil.

      This decision will absolutely impact mega corps, but everyone else is going to be like... "eh..."

      What a surprise? A provocative and thoughtful FP modded fairly? Or are the trolls about to arrive with a herd of sock puppets with anti-mods? [Now I'm wondering if the moderation abuse games could somehow be played the other way, to prevent earned favorable moderation?]

      My main response is that I think "free" is confusing everyone one again. Yet to meet anyone who can even figure out my "freedom" sig, even in the Slashdot-limited version. I think this is a largely a problem with the English language, where too many senses are overloaded onto the word "free". The relevant sense of the adjective is strongly controlled by the associated noun, but even then there is confusion. A recent discussion brought "free software" into the related Tik Tok topic, but "free software" carries two primary senses of "free" different from "free trade" and "free Internet". [In Japanese many of these senses require distinct words. But there's also a directly imported English word to screw things up...]

      The "free Internet" and "free speech" topics are really messy, so I'm going to focus on the easier "free trade" side. Easier because the advocates are lying so obviously. However the "universal" Internet (of freedom and openness and all that jazz) is frequently linked to free trade.

      Free trade is an easy target for analysis because the advocates are usually insincere, wrong, or worse. Most free trade advocates really think free trade is a "Heads I win, tails you lose" game. They think their own team is winning. If they said that part out loud, they would use countries. "Heads the US wins, tails China loses" in the example of this story. They only advocate free trade when they think their own side is winning.

      I don't think Trump understands the game that deeply, but some of his puppeteers think the Internet is a game where we can take our ball and go home and China will be screwed. China is not playing that game, but is busily making more balls where we can't see what is going on. [If there were any actual and physical balls involved, then this would be the place for a joke about Uighur "reeducation" and labor "summer" camps. (Hey! Is it still racist when gawd Mao did it to atheist communism-worshipping Han Chinese first?)]

      If the US intelligence reports are accurate about China seeing Trump's instability and insanity as "too annoying", then it's "Game Over". Why wouldn't China upset the chessboard? Make an example of Trump by picking the best response time to maximize the political damage to Trump. The stock market has been volatile this year? Maybe you ain't seen nothing yet. Xi can bottom out the stock market just before the election. Think you can convince me Xi can't do it? Good luck.

      • Sure Xi can bottom out the stock market - in fact it could be argued that China already did that earlier this year when they knowingly let the Coronavirus traverse the globe during those precious days when they knew it was highly infectious but yet prevented this fact from being known.

        The reason they don't is that they still need people to buy their "stuff". They apparently know about those consequences. But not the consequences of the countless human rights abuses because of the rampant censorship they are

        • Sure Xi can bottom out the stock market - in fact it could be argued that China already did that earlier this year when they knowingly let the Coronavirus traverse the globe during those precious days when they knew it was highly infectious but yet prevented this fact from being known.

          Gee, and the times I said basically this, pointing out the military advantages to such an action, I was called crazy. Yet here is someone else with basically the same idea. Who'd've thunk it?

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @07:38AM (#60382213)

          And censor what is being said about Chinese interests including ongoing horrible humans rights abuse in China.

          I have my doubt that this has any relevance at all. The west has known about Chinese abuses for decades. We don't care. We've proven we don't care. Oooh the iPhone is assembled by 10 year old, quick remove that one 10 year old from the assembly line to show how much we care!

        • If we have to recreate our own networks, where free speech is allowed unhindered, I'm fine with that.

          You haven't thought this through all the way.

          How can there be Free Speech unhindered without China being able to do what they want on that Network? How can you keep them out? The Internet is about as perfect as it can be right now. Any restrictions placed on it restrict Free Speech.

          I suspect that you have the idea that it is possible to create Free Speech by restricting Free Speech... yeah, you should think this through.

      • They'll never be able to actually block China though. Half the US buys its cheap shit from China (probably more like 90%, but I have no hard data), imagine what would happen if you told most of the population they can't buy a $3 LED remote caddy with free shipping included any more?

        Even if you discount the public, industry needs its cheap Chinese shit as well. Needed to get a soft-start controller for a lathe recently. Cost from the US, $500. Cost from Aliexpress, $20. And if we'd got the $500 one we'd

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The biggest difference here is that we are going to have to take control away from the US if it starts to abuse it. Until now we have tolerated the US having control of the root DNS and other key infrastructure because it has behaved itself.

      If it ever starts to abuse that responsibility then DNS will split, maybe IP blocks will be duplicated, routing will get screwed up etc. I.e. a proper split, not just a country level firewall, multiple incompatible networks.

    • The walled garden of facebook, sort of like a private shooting range of bewildered herds of doe-eyed consumers that rich companies can buy for safaris, is your clean internet. It exists. come on in.

    • Blocking IP blocks belonging to China and Russia goes back to the late 90's in the earliest days of the Internet.

      Nothing of value to Europe, North or South America will be lost if we de-peer them. Mega corporations with continued ties to China or Russia will just have to make do with paying for dedicated non-routable circuits using the existing transit that lets those two peer with the world today.
    • Well, after the ISOC corruption with .org and the sustained leadership of Mr. Sullivan I believe our ideals of a "global internet" only fuel a corrupt elite.

      American Global Internet is colonial hypocrisy as Trump shows.

  • Oh well. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @01:40PM (#60380393)

    The internet was fun while it lasted. Guess we'll go back to stupid tribal wars thanks to nationalist fools.

    • Re:Oh well. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @01:51PM (#60380435)

      Strange how certain high-ranking US officials are also the first to complain when other powerful organisations, such as the EU, attempt to reign in US companies that are doing much the same thing in terms of harvesting data without good security and privacy controls, attempting to control critical infrastructure, being subject to secret interventions by their host government that may compromise the security of their customers, etc.

      How many days is it since the EU-US Privacy Shield was struck down in the European courts because it didn't provide adequate safeguards that were up to European standards? And that was the second time such an umbrella data sharing protocol between the EU and US was struck down by the courts, with an almost identical story each time.

    • The internet was fun while it lasted.

      We'll still have the internet.

      Here is the thing; right now, China has a separate intranet. Effectively with one-way internet gateways.

      If we say that places that are shut off to our internet (by technology or by policy) will have our internet shut off to them also, we didn't lose anything. We only reduced parasitic access.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
      The tribal wars have simply spread onto the internet. This was just a matter of time; a global society simply does not work because people are different and eventually beliefs and ideals conflict.

      -So many push for everyone to be the same, but that sounds boring.
  • by longk ( 2637033 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @01:40PM (#60380395)

    Not a fan of this idea.. but always thought it was bound to happen. Where we "saved" the Internet from commercial entities doing this by passing net-neutrality laws, there's nothing that protects it from governments.

    What's the future? Meshing Wi-Fi routers?

    • For the technically skilled and determined, sure. And covert encrypted overlay networks. Content addressible distributed storage. Stenographic traffic. Lots of ways... but how many are accessible to the masses who are just curious to see the international news or entertainment? Would they want to go through weeks of studying, or would they just find it easier to go back to state-approved media?

    • by shanen ( 462549 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:37PM (#60380571) Homepage Journal

      What's the future? Meshing Wi-Fi routers?

      I wish had a favorable mod point to give you.

      I also wish local solutions such as Wi-Fi meshes could happen. My first comments advocating this kind of decentralized approach were back in the '80s... I still think it makes economic sense, especially considering the bias towards popular content that can be cached locally, but I've apparently gotten older and wiser and less optimistic about "economic sense". I think the main reason it can't happen is because big governments and big companies want control over our data. From that perspective, China's main sin is saying the quiet part out loud.

      I still think the solution approach is smaller companies and smaller governments with more choice and freedom, but I don't see any continuous way to get there from here. Some of the steps are obvious, but corporate cancers insist on getting bigger. (I also foresee a bleak endgame. Infinite growth is not sustainable or even possible. If peaceful evolutionary change is blocked too long, then... Once you go discontinuous, you can't predict where you'll land.)

      • by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @05:06PM (#60380907)

        It did, for a time. Back in the 80s and 90s there was a world-spanning decentralised network set up by ham radio operators. The bandwidth was tiny by today's standards - high speed local links were 1200bps, and the long-range, trans-continential were 300bps. But it existed - hams had bulletin boards, real-time chat and email systems running on it.

        It almost entirely died off when the internet and mobile phones came along. It wouldn't be easy to build today, as well - the power levels you need for long-range radio are not available without licensing, and the low-volume production makes it pricy too.

        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          My vision was basically about resource swapping. Some people would participate and earn reputation by providing short-range resources such as storage or local relays, while other people might be providing gateways to the long-range Internet. You'd get more reputation by focusing on scarce resources, with your neighbors attesting to your contributions... Now I'm studying Blockchain and wondering if it could be adapted to such purposes.

          • A lot of people have tried. The problem is always the same: Range and demand. For that to work, you need to have people within range - and range is not very long, for unlicensed radio - who are also running the same platform. But who is going to do that, when they have the existing internet available? The standard internet is cheap, reliable, and high-performance. There's no way any experimental decentralised mesh system can compete with that in the cities, and outside of the cities where there may be no in

            • by shanen ( 462549 )

              Sorry for my lateness, which quickly moots most discussions on Slashdot. Been busy, but this is basically the ACK and concurrence. However I don't see what the 802.11a has to do with it, and I'm not familiar with h (or have forgotten it).

              • 802.11ah, not a. It's a little-known standard in the 802.11 wireless lan family that focuses on range, at the expense of throughput. It's fully compatible with standard IP networking, looks just like any other wireless network - except that you get sub-megabit throughput, and multi-kilometer range. I would like to use it, but it never achieved commercial success so it's just about impossible to get hold of actual hardware.

    • What's the future? Meshing Wi-Fi routers?

      No. The future is having to connect to a different DNS network for addresses outside your side of the "1st World"/"2nd World" boundaries.

      And perhaps having separate IP systems, and needing to specify a gateway to those addresses on your network. And having to add entries to a hosts file if you're trying to connect to systems with conflicting numbers, or else toggle which network you're using at the time.

      Personally, I rarely want to visit .ru or .cn sites anyway so I wouldn't notice.

    • What's the future? Meshing Wi-Fi routers?

      I've always liked that idea, but it breaks down because traffic isn't random, people want to go to the same places, so you need thicker pipes. If you have a wifi mesh network, it really sucks if your live next to a Google data center, because all traffic will want to go through your node.

      • You can partially mitigate that with content-addressible storage and aggressive caching. We don't do that right now because bandwidth is cheap enough to waste without much concern.

    • "we "saved" the Internet from commercial entities doing this by passing net-neutrality laws"
      Well this is a load of false BS. WE saved IT!
  • ICANN (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @01:50PM (#60380429)

    So, explain to me why giving up US control of ICANN was a good idea?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      To prevent this bullshit from happening?

    • Re:ICANN (Score:5, Funny)

      by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @03:07PM (#60380641)

      So, explain to me why giving up US control of ICANN was a good idea?

      The trick is, we can make a new one whenever we want, arbitrarily. It is only a scarce resource because it is the resource that Americans use. If we switch, the value switches automatically.

    • Re: ICANN (Score:3, Informative)

      by blastard ( 816262 )

      It is not a good idea, but is done to placate the nations that did not build the basis of the internet, and don't like someone holding the keys to the very thing the person built.
      I was at ICANN when it was still effectively run by USC, and they were trying to make lots of groups happy. Sadly at the time the voices most listened to were large corporations and the entertainment industry. That first shift in focus kept leading us away from the ideals of Jon postel. (Capitalization intentionally not used be

    • So, explain to me why giving up US control of ICANN was a good idea?

      Because Strawmen are cool and we can dress them up pointlessly to derail important discussions.

  • As opposed to the other powers that have already done so?
  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:10PM (#60380485) Journal
    This is INSANE what trump and trump's ppl are doing. Putin has to be proud of the damage that his minion is doing. Just proud.
  • book burning (Score:4, Insightful)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:10PM (#60380489)

    This looks like modern day book burning. I only hope that we have a change in power in the US sooner than later. Seems like the US is scared of China using exactly the same tactics as already used in the US. The funny thing is that the more we fight China the more we look like China, which isn't conservative or American.

  • by Carrier Lifetime ( 6166666 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:14PM (#60380507)
    The Trump administration is dangerous to the US, to its global position, and to its interests. Obama's approach to contain China through trade partnership with countries around China would have worked much better. Trump is an idiot because while he is trying to pick up a fight with China he is also making additional enemies. He was obviously shielded all his life and never got involved in brawls. He doesn't act like he would know that before you pick up a fight you want to fight one opponent at a time and at the very least you don't want to make more enemies and at the very best you want to bring to the fight people on your side.
    • He was obviously shielded all his life and never got involved in brawls.

      Well, being the child of a multimillionaire will do that - doesn't matter if they're old money or a slumlord, their kids aren't going to be exposed to the same sorts of things as the rest of us.

    • The people of the US voted for him, and they have a chance not to vote for him.

  • to build several parallel nets that are 100% separated from the internet. In particular:
    1) for military use. It should be open to western nations/allies only, and should have stiff security on it.
    2) Utilities. Seriously, each nation should have their own separate Intranet for dealing with utilities. In NO CASE, would any business computers be allow direction on it. IOW, a Utilities HQ could not hook up to it. OTOH, a power plant, might have a 1-way connection to the HQ so that they pull the data and then
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      And, of course, to get the messages across the cables under the ocean the various networks would need to be combined somehow...let's see.........what should we call that combined network.....

      You're advocating the way things were before the internet was created.

      • Actually, no. Back when when Internet was started as part of DARPAnet, it was on the same sets of wires as our Ma Bell System. It was never physically seperated. HOWEVER, it was not open to all nations. It was only used by western nations. So, NO, it is NOTHING ALIKE.

        BUT, it would accomplish the same thing. That is, by running it on Dark Fibers. The more I think about it, perhaps Medical could be ran over regular internet, just strictly vpn.

        But for National Security, Military, Utilities, FAA, Trains,
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yes, it WOULD be cheaper to run them over the same internet and sets of wires. HOWEVER, it would also be prone to being cracked.
        By being on its own sets of fiber, the chances drop way down. And 2 of those are about national security. In fact, I would also run the FAA equipment over the Utility lines.
  • by Plugh ( 27537 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:38PM (#60380575) Homepage
    Everyone who complains thereâ(TM)s nothing on Tor but CAPTCHAs, drugs, and CP, remember â" Tor is our best protection, right now, against governments undoing the work we have done over the last 3 decades. Use Tor. Use it for mundane browsing, checking news, browsing pr0n, social media, whatever. Every time you do, you help provide anonymity to people living under regimes that censor their information. Regimes that you may live under, soon.
  • Interesting that places like China, Russia, etc. have been splitting and censoring the internet for years. To the point the slashdot has an icon for the great firewell of China. But when the US reciprocates starts blocking Chinese companies suddenly it's "splitting the internet". It's completely absurd that China blocks western companies with impunity, but the media starts crying when the US tries to level the playing field.

    • by jjoelc ( 1589361 )

      I believe the point is that we are supposed to be BETTER than them, not sink to their level...

      • The point is to have free trade, not one way trade. It's a complete shame that the Chinese digital companies can sell to the US but not the other way around.

  • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @02:48PM (#60380605) Homepage
    Some can't help but pee in it. That is the current state of the internet.
  • I'm sure Pompeo would like a perpetual motion machine, too, but that's not feasible, either.
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Yes, it's possible. That doesn't make it desirable. The internet didn't always exist. There used to be LOTS of separate networks that couldn't talk to each other.

      OTOH, it would be quite expensive, and would damage the economy (which is already in a tailspin) pretty extensively.

      Of course, you can't ever really go back to where you were. And a lot of people would be really pissed off if you killed Netflix.

      • And a lot of people would be really pissed off if you killed Netflix.

        Or pornhub.

      • How's that? China won't let anyone else in, why should we let them out? How would it hurt any economy except China's, given that we aren't actually losing access to anything of value? China's one-way economic and network relationships are hideously unfair and damaging to the rest of the world. If they want access to the rest of the world, the world should have access to them. Otherwise, they are a nothing more than a parasite on the global economy.
  • by JThundley ( 631154 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @03:28PM (#60380667)

    Read another way, the headline is "U.S. envies China's totalitarian control of the internet, wants to copy it."

  • by dmitch33 ( 6254132 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @04:53PM (#60380877)
    The Internet has never been a whole. As you even point out in your preface to the article, China's Great Firewall splits it from the whole world. Iran, North Korea, Russia, and many third-world nations have split the Internet into a fraction for their own uses. As is pointed out. So don't flame about the U.S. is about to split the Internet. So many angry children. So few functional minds.
  • by SlashDev ( 627697 ) on Saturday August 08, 2020 @06:12PM (#60381035) Homepage
    Sounds very much like what China, Iran, Saudi Arabia do with "their" internet.
    • Yeah, except the exact opposite. China cuts off access from everywhere. Cutting off access from China, but leaving it open to/from everywhere else that allows open access, is hardly the same thing.

      If they want to restrict access to China, then restricting access from China is only fair.

  • Unbelievable (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by whodunit ( 2851793 )

    Unbelievable how many people are shilling for Chinese malware because Orange Man Bad.

  • He's got about 5 months to do it, and unless the next administration follows suit, then it's not happening. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if future admins continue the trend.

    I'm sure people will reply saying, "good, he should kick China out". The thing is, China is the future, whether we like it or not. We're only going to insulate ourselves, and accomplish little to nothing. We should be finding ways to stop aspects of their belt & road initiative which is the beginning of their domination.

    I don't

  • What did China do? Cut themselves off from the rest of the internet to control access to everything. What is the US talking about doing? Cutting off some Chinese applications. Would that "split the internet"? No, of course not! The proposition is absolutely absurd!

    China has effectively set itself up for one-way access to the internet. It can go out and do whatever it wants, but the rest of the world can't come in. This is neither fair, nor open, nor sustainable. Restricting China's access to the

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