ROBUST discussion

Here's an article from the Guardian. I am reserving judgment.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology...

The thing is no one is claiming, for example, that ICANN is facilitating NSA stuff, and the rest of rant doesn't necessarily apply to the Internet itself, which already is heavily decentralized and not dependent on the US.

Indeed, one of the more darkly amusing things that have come out of this is the revelation that many countries are doing the same thing (note that very much does not make it right, and I'm very displeased with the NSA, and feel their current behavior violates the standards that I was trained to adhere to when I was involved in intelligence). For example, the French were chewing us out about it on the same day it came out that they had a similar program.

So, it's not just a matter of the 'internet' as an entity will be 'Balkanized', it already is on a practical level. And even if saw ICANN was moved to Switzerland or whatever, big deal. It doesn't really affect much. The Chinese

The thing to keep in mind about the internet is it basically just a bunch of independent stuff that works because people agreed to follow a bunch of standards. In many cases, these standards weren't enforced by fiat, but rather because that is what various different agencies and companies.

It's not like the US passed a law that said, "TCP/IP will be the dominant protocol." That just kind of organically arose.

Different servers are in different countries supporting different application, with different websites and different laws (China's "Great Fire Wall" for instance). None of this NSA nonsense really does much to affect those kinds of countries. It's not like the Chinese government was poised to suddenly change their personal restrictions. Those sorts of things are a reflection of governmental regimes.

The US, for example, is ever so cross with online gambling. The British and the Irish don't care. The US trying to put a bunch of pressure and pass laws and threaten banks hasn't done much to stop the existence of online gambling sites.

It's made things separate in the sense that US people have a lot harder time doing online gambling if they so desire, but that's the existing status quo. The sort of total open free internet that a lot of people wax about never has existed.

Really, what could come out of this is more that specific internet companies (e.g., Facebook or Google) losing customers, but it's not the end of the internet if people jump ship to Facebook for a different company or start using an alternative search engine (plenty out there).

Just because someone doesn't like Google doesn't mean another search engine will stop indexing internet content.

Many big web sites have come and gone throughout the years.

This might be an opportunity for independent-minded data island/ark-type places. Yeah, you're always subject to someone's authority, but all it takes is one jurisdiction that doesn't care much, and some encryption, and suddenly the SIGINT guys have a lot more issues, and you can set up your systems in such a way to make it very difficult for people to do much even if they seize your physical servers. You just have to want to set it up that way to begin with (along with some added expense and annoyance).

Start talking about quantum computer-based encryption and what not in the future, well, the game changes for all players.

So, the world really looks already like the Guardian is claiming it will end up, yet it hasn't stopped the internet from growing and enveloping everyone. :)

There is nothing new about gathering information on competitors, opposition, threats, dangers, different mores in different places, even the value of different colours to different societies. The internet just makes it easier. The internet is simply a less reliable version of the annual CIA Handbook that anybody could and did buy for its reliability of basic information that would otherwise be expensive to gather.

Anyone who thinks information will remain secret if it is known by more than one person is an eejit.

The government and corporations been spying on individual citizens for years. What do y'all think a car plate is if not a personal identifier that locates you every time you pass a camera? The ID number on a bank or credit card? The GPS on your cellphone, perforce a two-way system? The locator on your iPad? The cookies on your laptop that log you in without the inconvenience of typing in your email and password?

When the Bolsheviks took over in Russia, the first thing that Derzhinsky, in charge of their security, did was to cut off everyone else's communications. If you weren't a member of the Bolsheviks, you couldn't make a phone call, send a telegram, send a letter, even send a pigeon.

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The paranoia of governments and the more slack-minded talking heads about the internet is amusing.

Far from being frightened of it as a disruptor and a threat, it is their best friend. The free exchange of information is, next to mechanisms for reducing the more obvious disparities of wealth and poverty (particularly a multiplicity of routes by which people can aspire to join a comfortable middle class), the most powerful mechanism for ensuring stability every devised by man. Governments should welcome the net for its opium-like qualities alone.