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Internet or Splinternet
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The US and the National Security Agency may well have just dug their own grave where the internet is concerned. Outwardly the eavesdropping and the spying has outraged the leaders (although they have done little in retaliation so far) around the world to actually do anything of any worth towards the United States except say ‘this is just not the done thing’ and ‘we’re friends, aren’t we?’. Despite the fact that their reactions might change in the growing row over the privacy of the countries on which the NSA has been (is still?) spying simply because the leaders of those countries might be more afraid of losing their own power if they sit back and do nothing. Inwardly, there is an opening for a grabbing-match to take place and for the Internet blanket to be pulled closer to their side of the bed. The NSA may have just opened the door to the balkanization of the internet: the division into smaller, and at the very same time more-hostile, separate entities that will bring about personal profit and gain for each country. As the world turns already in upon itself for protection and fear of immigration or scapegoating par excellence become the order of the day, this may just be another step in the process of ‘I’m-alright-Jack’ economics and self-protectionist measures. It’s time for the internet to be regionalized and split. Welcome to the splinternet.
Jockeying for a Place
There are countries in the world that are already out to get a piece of whatever there is to divide up after the split takes place. Brazil and Germany are both making proposals today that will open the path to a different era of internet.
The scramble is on as there may be an opportunity to exploit the fact that the USA has used (and abused) digital means of accessing communications. This will enable traffic to be routed locally.
There may be a downside of rapid growth being hindered and changes or innovation taking longer than today, but countries would have (greater?) individual control over what happens to their citizens’ communications. Brazil has also put forward the defense of a secure national email service. Others will have little possibility of avoiding following suit. Although, it begs the question as to whether this would actually stop the availability of openings in the systems to allow the NSA to continue its surveillance.
India has even reverted to using typewriters as diplomatic staff have been told to protect sensitive documents in embassies around the world. Although, is this the real answer to protecting privacy today. Eavesdropping might have existed for centuries and it might be one of the oldest practices of any government anywhere, but today the digital and technical means make that much easier to do. They will be using pens next!
In the EU, Germany’s privacy commission has put forward plans to keep internet traffic out of the reach of the USA and within EU borders. But, there is the added problem of the UK involved in all of that since they aided and abetted the NSA in their eavesdropping. Last week at the Internet Governance Forum 2013 in Bali, there was an overriding element in all discussions: the US (and UK role) in the internet surveillance and individuals’ privacy.
Privacy is Important
According to recent research in the USA
- 3.5 billion people in the world use internet today and they go on line every day.
- 59% of the people aged 18-29 in the USA believe that the internet shapes their lives today.
- 38% of people over 65 also believe the same.
- Nearly 90% of people of all age groups are concerned about their privacy on the internet.
- 86% of people on line have taken the necessary measures to attempt to mask their footprints (email encrypting and cookie removal). Although, it has been proved that this has had no effect on the NSA.
Some say that the internet is just like the banking system. It only works just as long as people say that it is workable. As soon as people start pulling out of the system or disbelieving in it, then it collapses. If the system collapses because people want their own Cloud systems in each individual country, their own email provider, their own internet, then they could mean extra costs for companies in the future and losses that might amount to $35 billion of the internet market alone for the USA.
At one time it was the US that made the world a safe place to live in (apparently, people were told). Now, they have lost all credibility in the US and countries around the world are determined to find alternative ways to providing their citizens with the privacy that they believe to be so important. If they don’t, then the power of the ballot will be stronger than the bit. If they do it, then those countries will benefit from increased business. Why on earth did the Chinese set up their own personalized form of internet? Was it really to stop the population from accessing ideas and subversive information that would bring the Communist regime down? No, they were far too clever and more economically-minded than that. They just made the West believe that, while they carefully and methodically built their Great Firewall to protect their domestic internet market. It was a wall not to protect those inside from getting out, but those outside from getting in.
We will all possibly lose out from individual internets, or from being told that we need authorization to cross an ‘internet boarder’ into another country. Will we need passports to travel virtually across the web or will there be a warning that we are entering dangerous territory as soon as we enter the US. But, the commercial side of the advantages might just outweigh the fear of the citizens of countries around the world and also governments that are not willing to complacently allow the spying to continue.
Well done the NSA for making sure that the internet gets Balkanized. Welcome to theSplinternet. It’s not sure we will make gains in the name of freedom and access to information.
Originally posted: Internet or Splinternet
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something doesn't add up.
#1 we already have firewalls to try to stop anyone identified from certain networks (and locations by proxy) from getting in (if we want) with the usual failure rate due to spoofing.
#2 86% of people encrypting & erasing cookies? Try 8% if that. 90% concerned with privacy on the internet? Try 9%.
No fucking joke, most people act like I'm nutso for even MENTIONING keeping your pictures or updates of where you go secret, say "I've got nothing to hide" and so on.
Encryption? By itself rather than combined with 'encryption or erasing cookies' try 0.008%. Seriously.
SRSLY.
Anyone who uses encryption these days and isn't a techie type of person or scared shitless is just using built in 128 bit encryption that's built into their browser. it's not email, it's just the packets. Nothing is encrypted for storage prior to sending or after.
They don't even think twice about it.
Ever.
When shown they ignore it or don't understand the interface for how to use pgp, gpg, etc.
What does it mean when one says the Internet works?
Works for whom?
Don't these guys get it? The Big Bang happened because the Universe itself rejects centralization. Folly, all folly.
Probably the best news on this site certainly today and for a long time...
The sooner the likes of Germany, France, Italy and the BRICs divest themselves of "internet central" and build there own network(s) outside of the Anglo-American establishment the better off the World will be.
I see AT&T and Verizon losing tons of business in the coming year!
Every head of state dreaMS/desires to maintain power and control. Surveillance is a means of doing that and it's so much easier when it's kept within the country.
The www has already been seriously compromised; by search engines filtering and screening for their own profit, the profound censorship and disinformation campaigns waged against the alternative truth, and also the storing of information - down to the keystrokes of the rough draft to the likes we click on.
Balkanization is like federalism. It disperses power. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," Lord Acton. Fools trust giving total control to some entity will turn out well. The worst always get to the top, because they have no boundaries.
It is becoming the SphincterNet.
Other countries are ready to fill voids created by lack of trust in the United States.
How important is a new Russian navel port in Egypt? Putin guarding the Suez Canel from perhaps the Port of Alexandria?
Blowback is going to be a bitch... it is early in the game.
Snowden continued intel releases will string out revelations of the NSA and Obomber administration misuse of technology.
Historic power shift is happening before our eyes.
You are mistaken to believe that the methods employed by the NSA, or any other governmental body, began under Obama... And no, I am not an Obama supporter... In fact, I voted for Romney... the last time I will get suckered into voting for the lesser of two evils.
We appear to have to primary factions vying for the soul of this country... the Socialist Democratic Party.... currently headed by Obama, backed by Soros and his demonic handlers and primarily representing the banking interest, and the Neo Cons... Bush/Cheney and their ilk, representing the oil interest. Both are backed by Wall Street and drug money. Both are fundamentally fascist. Neither have anyone's interest but their own. Both receive the tacit or direct support of an immoral people who have long since lost their right to independence and freedom. And both are dragging this country straight to he'll. IMHO
No Bush was a turd puppet.
This is not a party thing... Obomber is the actor in charge today.
no, Obomber like Bush follows the motion of the puppet strings.
I think the whole Bush klan has more skin in the game like the Clinton gang. They are a biut further up the food chain than O puppet. They are all company men. And who the **** goes to the old USSR during the cold war? Bill Clinton and this DeBlasio who may be the next mayor of NYC.
Technology is ALWAYS a double-edged sword. Yes, it enables the NSA to snoop w/abandon (for now), but technology can also be used to thwart snooping. See for example, Albrecht's Start Page and companion mail service that anonymizes seach and email. Also McAfee is working on a device that anonymizes all traffic from the point of generation, and he claims, will be hack proof...we shall see. These are just 2 examples; there are doubtless more.
Low tech works too. The Indians using typewriters is a comical extreme in this regard, but on the flipside, notice how a low-level functionary and purported high school graduate named Ed Snowden managed to take megabytes worth of incriminating data w/o so much as an internal security eyebrow being raised. Despite all their vaunted security bordering on paranoia, a thumb drive has proved to be the NSA's undoing. The irony is so thick, it's delicious.
Bye bye, Bitcoin.
On the contrary, hello Deep Web, and long live Bitcoin, as the two combine to upend the statist quo and usher in an era of ever-increasing freedom, privacy, opportunity, prosperity, and peace:
http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/31/the-deep-web-has-washington-worried
You do not seem to understand that Bitcoin and Deep Web are both predicated on an unrestricted and unfirewalled Internet without national borders: Without international compute nodes, Bitcoin is dead in the water. Without access to a global audience, Deep Web will only be a national issue, not an international one.
Did you even read the article, or did you just skip down to read the comments?
You got it. A fractured internet would force bitcoin to go regional.
You couldn't have separate networks having the same bitcoin transaction history.
"Without access to a global audience..."
Excuse me, but how in the world will access be denied, especially with "dark mail" making its debut— http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/11/01/lavabit-and-silent-circle-for... — and Bitcoins capable of being sent accordingly?
Face it, we are in the early but rapidly developing stages of a revolution the likes of which the world has never seen, and the state will be left using a hammer (which is all it's ever really had) to pound sand.
Because of firewalls. Those who can't prove they are from a confirmed accepted access point will be denied. 100% packet denial.
Virtual mimics physical
I would loved to see Silicon Valley and Redmon companies smashed to shit over this spying crap. Any of the US tech companies involved in spying. There are enough good programmers in Europe, Australia, Russia, New Zealand (Kim.com) to build cloud storage, browsers, improved LINUX OS, community web site and other tools to totally go around anything made in America.
The ****ing libs in Silicon Valley and Redmond voted for this. F them.
Yes. And while virtual can not exist without physical, physical cares not one whit about virtual. It exists independently. True, simulcra is traded as if real, but only for convenience and only temporarily.