15 ms·

Is the US about to split the internet?

110 points by dijksterhuis 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sschueller 6y ago
This is exactly why we don't want walled gardens. You can quickly loose your freedoms for the sake of "security".
- readarticle 6y ago
  I agree in a philosophical sense, but I’m not sure how a separate method of distribution would affect this particular situation. Unless the argument is just against gatekeepers in general, like the state.
  - Mindwipe 6y ago
    I would say it's that any centralised code signing source will inevitably be unleashed in a geopolitical fight at some point, and setting them up in the name of security should always bear that in mind.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    The difference is that money is a source of control for it and is needed for fiscal transactions which are readily regulated compared to data exchange. It is far easier to send a Gigabyte of IP packets to North Korea than to send 25 cents. Bitcoin and others dreamed of it for currency but it has failed for several reasons.
msandford 6y ago
Hasn't China already gone halfway to that by putting up the Great Firewall and strongly funding local "copycats" of many companies that were founded and based in the US? I'm not suggesting that what the US is planning is good! I think it's not great. But it doesn't seem to be a pre-emptive thing that's being done.
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  Why should it matter whether China does it, in the decision of whether any other countries should do it? I thought we are supposed to support liberal values even when times get tough.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    Have you even read the second paragraph before responding?
  - The_rationalist 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
    - pinkfoot 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard
  - addicted 6y ago
    Also, the idea that times are tough for the US when it has the largest GDP it ever had, a consistent share of the US economy (which has been stable for the last many decades) and bigger and richer companies than ever is kind of laughable. Yes, lately the US has struggled to distribute that wealth domestically. But that’s not Chinas fault and scapegoating them Will not fox that problem.
    - zepto 6y ago
      There is ample evidence that China’s GDP has overtaken the US on any real measure. And the idea that jobs that were formerly done in the US have not been exported to China is ludicrous.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 6y ago
sneak 6y ago
Is this a sign that the web is now irrelevant, wholly replaced by easily-store-censored (thanks, Apple and Google) apps?
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  This transition has been ongoing for quite some time now.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  Part of me thinks this is good. Not for others, but for me at least. After all, if you can censor 98% of users by focussin on apps, why would you bother implementing technology to censor the lower levels of the internet? Who knows, we might even reach a point where new censorship mechanisms won't even bother with "low-level" traffic like HTTP(S) anymore.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    That is the most naive comment I’ve read in years. More like they would block all network traffic that is not from apps, authenticated via one of the approved cloud providers.
    - DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
      More naive than hoping that there won't be any authoritarian censoring in the first place? Not by much, I'd say, but maybe I'm just being very pessimistic. Honestly I'm just kinda disillusioned. I know most people would gladly go along with this kind of BS and the rest of us would just get dragged along, as has happened countless times already. (Or do you really think we're in a better position now than east Germany was right after whitnessing the horrors of the Nazi dictatorship?)
kgersen 6y ago
it's already split for the average users (>90% of total users) Some countries (like France for instance) impose DNS censorship on ISP to block some domains.
- linschn 6y ago
  This censorship is so easily circumvented that it's laughable. Firefox's dns over https or 'echo 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf' will do.
  - bpoyner 6y ago
    I think you mean 'echo nameserver 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf'
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    "C:\ doesn't have an etc folder" ~Most people. The problem here isn't any one person circumventing the 'censorship', it's influencing mass movements to prevent mass data-grabbing. If every tech-savvy Linux user uses TikTok, it's probably not that big of a deal as it's less than one percent of the population (and arguably the group most well-equipped to deal with the potential spying).
    - xaqfox 6y ago
      Technically it does. It should be in c:\windows\system32\drivers
- unionpivo 6y ago
  Sure France and other countries block domains, in US DOJ just takes them ower (the domains). Most countries will, if push comes to show, find a way to "block" something they don't like and think they can politically get away with. And I think that there is a good reason for ability for doing that to be there. Some countries will abuse that however. [1]https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-courts-order-seizure-three-website-domains-involved-distributing-pirated-android-cell [2]https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/24/politics/doj-botnet-takedown-malware-russia-hackers/index.html There are other examples goolgle search away
ISL 6y ago
The internet would be split if the simplest requests -- TCP, HTTP, and email -- cannot cross borders without inspection/censorship. If people everywhere cannot communicate, we would move toward the stark borders of the Cold War, where simple acts of cross-border communication were notable. One can readily argue that China has already split the internet, to an extent. In the best case, one can imagine that the US is stumbling-toward/leading-the-way into a world where free expression and freedom from monitoring is requisite for unfettered access to the predominant global communications network. I hope that is the ultimate destination. The Trump administration is unlikely to be able to finish that work, but a line in the sand to state that outright monitoring of global citizens is unacceptable seems like a good place to start. To make this work, the United States must also refrain from deeply monitoring the speech and actions of citizens of other countries. It is reasonable to expect the EU to require local hosting of a lot more US cloud services in the coming year. If the world is to balkanize, it may also mean that cross-border interactions are dominated by open-source software and open protocols. A silver lining in a dark cloud.
- superkuh 6y ago
  > The internet would be split if the simplest requests -- TCP, HTTP, and email -- cannot cross borders without inspection/censorship. This is Cloudflare's endgame. It's not just authoritarian nationstates. It's also (in the US at least) authoritarian corporations.
ecmascript 6y ago
I don't know.. it seems like just another country adding restrictions like most countries have. The idea of an open internet doesn't really work when you have countries that are not abiding by the "rules" like China that censor and utilize every chance they have to monitor user activity. It is a sign not that the US is splitting the internet, but that work towards decentralizing stuff and evolve the web in such a way that it cannot be censored should be implemented. Of course, countries can always "cut the cable" but that is too much of an economic hit I believe.
ldoughty 6y ago
With GDPR, Great Firewall, Apple and Facebook's heavy handed gardens... Most of the internet is splintered. I don't have the legal team to negotiate GDPR, so I can't make my website legal in Europe (it probably is, I collect practically nothing, but I can't be sure since IANAL. I don't have an apple product, so my app can't be tested or converted to work in Apple devices and put in their App store.. so if you like what I made, and you don't have an Android device, you can't use it on mobile... If you want to use my web interface, if it's Chromium, you now need to go through an extra step to unblock cookies to jump from one of my sites to another, because the subdomain changes and that's "a different website" now.. Seems like everyone is already splintering the Internet... Most of it is the US's fault, but it's not just TikTok..
- mantas 6y ago
  Neither GDPR, nor Great Firewall are US fault...
  - barryrandall 6y ago
    GDPR was a direct reaction to the USA Patriot act and the Snowden leaks.
contrarianmop 6y ago
The internet is the new TV. It stopped being a paradise for freedoms and ideas once it became popular and commercial. It’s rife with propaganda, politics, conspiracy theories, scams, advertising, and generally speaking average or below average content. The question is what is the next form of communication we can create or where can we take refuge from all this noise, until that becomes average. All guns are on the US because of the political situation but the internet in various countries is already censored or even more aggressively regulated. For those of us who want a free medium we need to create a new medium. Ideally not one where freedom means hate speech or dubious conspiracies, but one where, as the internet was in its original form, borders and censorship dont exist.
DoctorNick 6y ago
"We don't want Chinese companies spying on Americans, that's OUR gig!"
- lihan 6y ago
  Lol
- Galanwe 6y ago
  As a European, all I see is US spying on everyone through their US companies/apps, and bullying other countries that try to so the same... Europe standing clueless in the middle, European council with an average age of 70ish not understanding what all the fuss is about.
  - theredlion 6y ago
    Governments and companies are going to be spying on everybody either way thanks to technology. If asked, given the current state of these two entities, I would choose being spied on by the US government 100 out of 100 times over being spied on by the Chinese government.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      On the other hand, the Chinese have virtually no pull here, while the US has massive reach in Europe, including "cooperation" for all kinds of CIA operations, black sites etc. That's not because "we're friends", that because the provinces do what the empire commands. They'll issue a press release about being disgusted later though. What I'm trying to say: it's better to be spied on by somebody that can't kidnap you. The Chinese can't really kidnap you in Europe, the US very much can. And of course, the third option is preferred: don't be spied on by the US OR China, at least not to that degree. But that would require European Data Sovereignty, and that'll likely not go over well with the US, which is why the EU won't try.
    - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      As a Canadian, and one employed by a US HQ'd company, the US gov't has the power to mess with my life in more ways than the Chinese government does. So, no, if forced to I don't accept your choice. You might prefer being spied on by your own gov't, but I don't accept your gov't spying on me. I'm not going to China any time soon, but I need to cross the border to the US for work sometimes, and for pleasure sometimes, too. Since 9/11 that border has been an aggressive and hostile place marked by frequent highly authoritarian interventions and it has escalated even more under Trump. And its reach extends now onto our phones and thus into our private lives and this spying now extends online and profiles are being made of all sorts of people without them knowing. This has always happened, but its reach is far wider than before. Being flagged by the US gov't hurts me directly, China only indirectly. I don't trust the US federal regime, and neither should (most) Americans. EDIT: love being downvoted along with the other (European) comment. It's clear many Americans still don't get how their government behaves to its so-called allies. Ask Angela Merkel how she felt about having her phone tapped. Maybe the EU and other allies need to start randomly detaining US citizens with "strange names" or "suspicious profiles" and keeping them in rooms for hours, interrogate them, search their phones, then let them go with a smirk and a "have a nice day." Maybe then US citizens will understand how odious this is.
giancarlostoro 6y ago
This would of been a great opportunity for Apple to crack down on abusive API calls to ensure far less spying on mobile apps. The issues with TikTok are basically only working so long as the OS allows them to continue to occur. Mobile apps should be significantly more transparent whenver they do more than just show something on a screen. If they access the network, your location, etc it should be logged somewhere, and you should always be able to go into the app settings (even if it's hidden for "advanced users") and block apps from accessing specified API calls completely. Not sure if Google will do it, or if they do, they might take their sweet time.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  More than preventing access, OSes should allow spoofing information just to make it harder for apps to be like "but I want want waaaaant your GPS coordinates or I won't let you use this calculator app"
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    It would be harder but from a User experience perspective just booting their asses from the store for doing this would be better.
chvid 6y ago
The bans will be blocked by courts and the administration knows that. It pushes the orders forward anyways for purpose of political communication. It is not in the US strategic interest to "balkanise" the internet; as it is now the US has enormous influence over the global internet. Why replace that with something much smaller?
- miracle2k 6y ago
  If it is indeed blocked by courts, this would validate those of us who do not believe that this action should happen, in the way that it does, in a free, open and rules-based democracy. It would shame all those, including those SV thought leaders, who defend the US now engaging in the practice of "banning apps" based on short-sighted opportunism and "what about them" arguments, with now regard to fundamental principals we are supposed to stand for.
- xvector 6y ago
  Will it be blocked by the courts? I find this ban detestable but from what I’ve read Trump has plenty of avenues from which he can pursue this ban, thanks to Congress slowly giving more and more power to the President.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  From the state department publication: https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/ https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-... "Momentum for the Clean Network program is growing. More than thirty countries and territories are now Clean Countries, and many of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies are Clean Telcos. All have committed to exclusively using trusted vendors in their Clean Networks." Looks like the goal isn't to balkanise the global internet. Rather, to create a zone where Chinese companies are banned from accessing it at all by integrating other countries into the Clean Netwok program starting with the US. Unlike China's great firewall which is purely domestic in scope, the Clean Network has global ambitions.
DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
Over the years I've come to believe that an overwhelming amount of people would actually prefer a censored internet. Some might want "obscene" material gone, others would love to eradicate "fake news" and a few people might still be around that would instantly jump at any chance to purge the internet of blasphemy against their sky-daddy of choice. I used to think censorship was really just an instrument of the few to control the masses, but I'm starting to believe that we who just don't want a censored internet are the minority.
- dannyw 6y ago
  I support the tiktok ban because it’s about economic fairness. American tech companies can’t fairly compete in China. But until now, Chinese tech companies _can_. This gives inherent advantages to Chinese tech companies.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    It's a complicated situation in this case. My comment was more about censoring the internet in general, as that seems to be the more important part, with the individual case being more of an excuse to address this issue yet again. I mostly think the tiktok ban is justified, for one because china has been playing unfair for ages now and because it is a national security problem when the chinese government could, at any moment, give itself access to this much information that could be used to blackmail large numbers of people.
    - Normille 6y ago
      You're absolutely right. Just think what havok China could wreak, with access to all those millions of duck-pouting orange-faced selfies and stultifyingly illiterate vacuous conversations, conducted entirely through the medium of txt spk and emojis. It doesn't bear thinking about!
      - Qwertious 6y ago
        The problem is them having access to e.g. location data of everyone with TikTok installed.
andor 6y ago
Please don't derail the discussion by talking about apps. This is not just about TikTok or other apps, and not just about app stores. As the title says, it's about whether we will have open networks in the future. "Clean Carrier: To ensure untrusted People’s Republic of China (PRC) carriers are not connected with U.S. telecommunications networks. Such companies pose a danger to U.S. national security and should not provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States." https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/ https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-... Note that it's also not just about the CCP, but "malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party". Do you think the US administration has enough integrity to be trusted with such matters?
- theredlion 6y ago
  > Do you think the US administration has enough integrity to be trusted with such matters? If they are doing it as a direct response to China, then yes. If China decides to start playing nicely, then we will roll it back. We act in response to how they conduct themselves. China is like a child. If they behave, we play toys with them. If they misbehave, we put them in timeout
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  If they say "national security" as the reason you should never trust them period. They are trying to brain hack you.
agumonkey 6y ago
Sociology will have a field day with this era. A field century even.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  TBF the last 1.5 centuries aren't slouches either in terms of sociological field experiments.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean, beside the overall technological progress. If so this is why I'm stumped by the recent international degradation. I'd hoped sanity would be stronger but actually the modern world may not be a lot stabler than previous centuries. Or at least not a lot wiser.
ppf 6y ago
If you want to avoid foreign "misinformation" (spin that as you will), this is the only sensible thing to do. Arguably, the citizens of the "free" world are incredibly vulnerable to misinformation campaigns run by foreign agents.
- dangerface 6y ago
  All people are vulnerable to misinformation campaigns, the problem is every one has lost interest in accurate information. The only solution people provide is that we need to get rid of the bad information instead of changing peoples motives.
  - chillacy 6y ago
    I hope this is satire. Every totalitarian government says that censorship is for the people's protection. Then the government gets to decide what is or isn't misinformation. A population with good critical thinking skills is necessary in a democracy. Conversely if you don't give people the right to vote for their leaders or policies, you don't need them to think critically (or politically) either.
    - dangerface 6y ago
      > Every totalitarian government says that censorship is for the people's protection. Because this is the messaging the people will accept, a dictator could just say that's the way it is deal with it but they don't, they use the narrative the people will accept. > Then the government gets to decide what is or isn't misinformation. >> The only solution people provide is that we need to get rid of the bad information There is no "the government" its just people, two factions the red flag and the blue flag both get their information from their own isolated sources of what is accurate. The truth is somewhere in the middle ground with both sides deciding that whatever doesn't fit their current clic is misinformation. Democracy is great at giving us two flags instead of one but I don't really give a fuck about flags I care about individual freedom. > A population with good critical thinking skills is necessary in a democracy. 100% and I feel our democracy is failing because people are just not motivated toward critical thinking, its difficult and calls yourself into question, what if you are wrong? or supported something you no longer believe in? in a world with cancel culture and mob justice? Fascism is a low effort alternative for many. Simple problem: all the other flag wavers, simple solution: get rid of them. If democratic countries want to remain that way we need to give up our tyranny and flag waving in support of real freedom. People won't do it naturally we need to change the system to encourage people to think by rewarding them for doing so. Change peoples motives toward critical thinking and democracy and away from fascism and tyranny.
dangerface 6y ago
Censorship by another name is still censorship.
Crazyontap 6y ago
I just wonder if the source of the problem are these "App stores" of the world. If I could just download these apps like I download software for linux, it would be very difficult for the govt to enforce anything like this. Tik-tok banned in India too and by ban it merely meant that the govt. forced Google / Apple to remove it from the play store. There is complete ban on torrent / porn sites in India but that doesn't stop anyone from visiting those either. I think this is just one more argument against these central repos that are aiding censorship and political propagandas.
- kevincox 6y ago
  I think you are right that "app stores" are the most convenient place to enforce this. They get a fairly good effectiveness with low effort. However I doubt that not having them would stop the bans, it would take a bit more motivation, and a lot more effort but unless we have a truly censor-resistant solution I suspect the government would still put in the effort.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    Take a look at how that worked out for attempts to suppress the DVD/CSS ripping algorithm. When software is source code, not just binary blobs, it starts to enjoy (some|more) protection under the 1st amendment.
  - js4ever 6y ago
    History showed us that governments are lazy and will go after the biggest fish and tons of small actors will evade the gov ban. So I believe no app store (or allow sideloading) is better for the peoples
- wobbly_bush 6y ago
  > There is complete ban on torrent / porn sites in India This is incorrect. There are a set of sites which a few judges decided should be banned. There is no ban based on the category of the sites, or in other words newer sites based on these categories are not automatically banned.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
scoot_718 6y ago
No reason to do that, just block their routes. Finish their wall for them.
GnarfGnarf 6y ago
What's to stop Chinese agents from setting up shop in the US or Europe, and disseminating rogue apps from their "trusted" base?
- dangerface 6y ago
  What's to stop Chinese agents doing what the NSA does to spy on Americans? I think it would be better to just let china spy on the 12 year olds that use tictok and encourage Americans to use strong encryption / security by default. Following the Chinese lead of censorship just encourages them to hack American companies like the Americans do.
  - miketery 6y ago
    > let china spy on the 12 year olds That's a ton of kompromat. Even if irrelevant on average and on the whole, it'll impact enough individuals. Why give that kind of leverage away for free? Though agreed regardless, we need to move towards E2E encryption, local storage, and local key management (i.e. no password resets... or complex recovery schemes).
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      There is an easy solution to kompromat - stop being judgemental shitheads for 12 year olds or caring what morons think. Seriously - kompromat is defined in terms of tbe cultural norms and not intrinsic. The LGBT community learned this well before the fucking CIA by being out and proud to tell the mafia blackmailers to go fuck themselves.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  Setting up shop in the US or Europe implies having agents in US or Europe, and those people could be spied on by the US/Europe, or coerced or just shut down. It's a more all-in strategy.
Normille 6y ago
>>Mr Pompeo's reasons for "cleaning" the US network of Chinese companies is very different to authoritarian government's desire to control what is said online. Good to see the BBC [AKA Radio Free America] continuing to uphold its [mostly self-awarded] reputation for unbiased reporting. PS: in the above context, it should be: authoritarian governments' These days, the standard of literacy ain't much to write home about either.
jefftk 6y ago
state department version: https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/ https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-...
cat199 6y ago
as much as i'm afraid of internet balkanization, this is alarmist - noone is proposing blocking all traffic to china, they are proposing blocking individual foreign organizations suspected of criminal activity, which is already what has been happening and what happens in every other sphere.
cmurf 6y ago
This is old style propaganda: clean The alternative network, what we have, is dirty, soiled, unhealthy, blemished - because of Chinese influence. By removing China from the connection, the network is cleansed. It's transparently racist. It is not necessary to use words like this if you have a persuasive argument based upon facts. This is an appeal to ignorance and fear of things that are filthy.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >It's transparently racist. Bullshit. China a geopolitical entity (notably, one of the "authoritarian dictatorship" variety) and explicitly don't support democracy.
cblconfederate 6y ago
If we end up with a balkanized internet and people start using proper decentralized programs, then let's go.
barryrandall 6y ago
(edited for tone) It's not just the US. Countries around the world are slowly coming to the realization that they can really only regulate the portions of the internet housed within their legal jurisdictions, and that data sovereignty matters. Is the US splitting the internet? That's debatable. I think we started the process with the Patriot Act. That led to multiple countries passing new privacy and data localization laws (GDPR in Europe, Data Localization in Russia). I believe that the current proposals coming out of State are best characterized as a (clumsy) attempt at data localization through executive fiat. Of course, this could also just be revenge for a bunch of TikTok users trolling the president pretty hard.
tmaly 6y ago
I think all these walled gardens both foreign and domestic have split the internet. Look at what happened to Usenet, its still there, but many major ISPs don't offer access to it to my knowledge. Larger email providers mark all email from self hosted servers as spam in most cases. Chat is mostly on proprietary apps. The majority of the population does not use open standards for chat.
deleted 6y ago
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csense 6y ago
Requiring certain walled gardens to not publish certain apps is a form of censorship. But it's not exactly "splitting the Internet." Everything's still connected together, it's just that certain sites aren't allowed to host certain material. I have a few questions. Would this apply only to Apple and Google app stores? Would jailbroken phones still legally be able to install the apps? Would third-party app stores legally be able to distribute them? If the government tells an app store not to sell a specific program, isn't that similar to telling a bookstore not to sell a specific book? How does the government argue that the free speech protections of the Constitution don't apply?
JoshuaMulliken 6y ago
China already did this. These are just tariffs for the digital age

110 points by dijksterhuis 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sschueller 6y ago

This is exactly why we don't want walled gardens. You can quickly loose your freedoms for the sake of "security".

readarticle 6y ago
I agree in a philosophical sense, but I’m not sure how a separate method of distribution would affect this particular situation. Unless the argument is just against gatekeepers in general, like the state.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  I would say it's that any centralised code signing source will inevitably be unleashed in a geopolitical fight at some point, and setting them up in the name of security should always bear that in mind.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  The difference is that money is a source of control for it and is needed for fiscal transactions which are readily regulated compared to data exchange. It is far easier to send a Gigabyte of IP packets to North Korea than to send 25 cents. Bitcoin and others dreamed of it for currency but it has failed for several reasons.

msandford 6y ago

Hasn't China already gone halfway to that by putting up the Great Firewall and strongly funding local "copycats" of many companies that were founded and based in the US? I'm not suggesting that what the US is planning is good! I think it's not great. But it doesn't seem to be a pre-emptive thing that's being done.

FooBarWidget 6y ago
Why should it matter whether China does it, in the decision of whether any other countries should do it? I thought we are supposed to support liberal values even when times get tough.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  Have you even read the second paragraph before responding?
- The_rationalist 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - pinkfoot 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard
- addicted 6y ago
  Also, the idea that times are tough for the US when it has the largest GDP it ever had, a consistent share of the US economy (which has been stable for the last many decades) and bigger and richer companies than ever is kind of laughable. Yes, lately the US has struggled to distribute that wealth domestically. But that’s not Chinas fault and scapegoating them Will not fox that problem.
  - zepto 6y ago
    There is ample evidence that China’s GDP has overtaken the US on any real measure. And the idea that jobs that were formerly done in the US have not been exported to China is ludicrous.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
6y ago

sneak 6y ago

Is this a sign that the web is now irrelevant, wholly replaced by easily-store-censored (thanks, Apple and Google) apps?

FooBarWidget 6y ago
This transition has been ongoing for quite some time now.
DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
Part of me thinks this is good. Not for others, but for me at least. After all, if you can censor 98% of users by focussin on apps, why would you bother implementing technology to censor the lower levels of the internet? Who knows, we might even reach a point where new censorship mechanisms won't even bother with "low-level" traffic like HTTP(S) anymore.
- jiofih 6y ago
  That is the most naive comment I’ve read in years. More like they would block all network traffic that is not from apps, authenticated via one of the approved cloud providers.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    More naive than hoping that there won't be any authoritarian censoring in the first place? Not by much, I'd say, but maybe I'm just being very pessimistic. Honestly I'm just kinda disillusioned. I know most people would gladly go along with this kind of BS and the rest of us would just get dragged along, as has happened countless times already. (Or do you really think we're in a better position now than east Germany was right after whitnessing the horrors of the Nazi dictatorship?)

kgersen 6y ago

it's already split for the average users (>90% of total users) Some countries (like France for instance) impose DNS censorship on ISP to block some domains.

linschn 6y ago
This censorship is so easily circumvented that it's laughable. Firefox's dns over https or 'echo 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf' will do.
- bpoyner 6y ago
  I think you mean 'echo nameserver 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf'
- Qwertious 6y ago
  "C:\ doesn't have an etc folder" ~Most people. The problem here isn't any one person circumventing the 'censorship', it's influencing mass movements to prevent mass data-grabbing. If every tech-savvy Linux user uses TikTok, it's probably not that big of a deal as it's less than one percent of the population (and arguably the group most well-equipped to deal with the potential spying).
  - xaqfox 6y ago
    Technically it does. It should be in c:\windows\system32\drivers
unionpivo 6y ago
Sure France and other countries block domains, in US DOJ just takes them ower (the domains). Most countries will, if push comes to show, find a way to "block" something they don't like and think they can politically get away with. And I think that there is a good reason for ability for doing that to be there. Some countries will abuse that however. [1]https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-courts-order-seizure-three-website-domains-involved-distributing-pirated-android-cell [2]https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/24/politics/doj-botnet-takedown-malware-russia-hackers/index.html There are other examples goolgle search away

ISL 6y ago

The internet would be split if the simplest requests -- TCP, HTTP, and email -- cannot cross borders without inspection/censorship. If people everywhere cannot communicate, we would move toward the stark borders of the Cold War, where simple acts of cross-border communication were notable. One can readily argue that China has already split the internet, to an extent. In the best case, one can imagine that the US is stumbling-toward/leading-the-way into a world where free expression and freedom from monitoring is requisite for unfettered access to the predominant global communications network. I hope that is the ultimate destination. The Trump administration is unlikely to be able to finish that work, but a line in the sand to state that outright monitoring of global citizens is unacceptable seems like a good place to start. To make this work, the United States must also refrain from deeply monitoring the speech and actions of citizens of other countries. It is reasonable to expect the EU to require local hosting of a lot more US cloud services in the coming year. If the world is to balkanize, it may also mean that cross-border interactions are dominated by open-source software and open protocols. A silver lining in a dark cloud.

superkuh 6y ago
> The internet would be split if the simplest requests -- TCP, HTTP, and email -- cannot cross borders without inspection/censorship. This is Cloudflare's endgame. It's not just authoritarian nationstates. It's also (in the US at least) authoritarian corporations.

ecmascript 6y ago

I don't know.. it seems like just another country adding restrictions like most countries have. The idea of an open internet doesn't really work when you have countries that are not abiding by the "rules" like China that censor and utilize every chance they have to monitor user activity. It is a sign not that the US is splitting the internet, but that work towards decentralizing stuff and evolve the web in such a way that it cannot be censored should be implemented. Of course, countries can always "cut the cable" but that is too much of an economic hit I believe.

ldoughty 6y ago

With GDPR, Great Firewall, Apple and Facebook's heavy handed gardens... Most of the internet is splintered. I don't have the legal team to negotiate GDPR, so I can't make my website legal in Europe (it probably is, I collect practically nothing, but I can't be sure since IANAL. I don't have an apple product, so my app can't be tested or converted to work in Apple devices and put in their App store.. so if you like what I made, and you don't have an Android device, you can't use it on mobile... If you want to use my web interface, if it's Chromium, you now need to go through an extra step to unblock cookies to jump from one of my sites to another, because the subdomain changes and that's "a different website" now.. Seems like everyone is already splintering the Internet... Most of it is the US's fault, but it's not just TikTok..

mantas 6y ago
Neither GDPR, nor Great Firewall are US fault...
- barryrandall 6y ago
  GDPR was a direct reaction to the USA Patriot act and the Snowden leaks.

contrarianmop 6y ago

The internet is the new TV. It stopped being a paradise for freedoms and ideas once it became popular and commercial. It’s rife with propaganda, politics, conspiracy theories, scams, advertising, and generally speaking average or below average content. The question is what is the next form of communication we can create or where can we take refuge from all this noise, until that becomes average. All guns are on the US because of the political situation but the internet in various countries is already censored or even more aggressively regulated. For those of us who want a free medium we need to create a new medium. Ideally not one where freedom means hate speech or dubious conspiracies, but one where, as the internet was in its original form, borders and censorship dont exist.

DoctorNick 6y ago

"We don't want Chinese companies spying on Americans, that's OUR gig!"

lihan 6y ago
Lol
Galanwe 6y ago
As a European, all I see is US spying on everyone through their US companies/apps, and bullying other countries that try to so the same... Europe standing clueless in the middle, European council with an average age of 70ish not understanding what all the fuss is about.
- theredlion 6y ago
  Governments and companies are going to be spying on everybody either way thanks to technology. If asked, given the current state of these two entities, I would choose being spied on by the US government 100 out of 100 times over being spied on by the Chinese government.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    On the other hand, the Chinese have virtually no pull here, while the US has massive reach in Europe, including "cooperation" for all kinds of CIA operations, black sites etc. That's not because "we're friends", that because the provinces do what the empire commands. They'll issue a press release about being disgusted later though. What I'm trying to say: it's better to be spied on by somebody that can't kidnap you. The Chinese can't really kidnap you in Europe, the US very much can. And of course, the third option is preferred: don't be spied on by the US OR China, at least not to that degree. But that would require European Data Sovereignty, and that'll likely not go over well with the US, which is why the EU won't try.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    As a Canadian, and one employed by a US HQ'd company, the US gov't has the power to mess with my life in more ways than the Chinese government does. So, no, if forced to I don't accept your choice. You might prefer being spied on by your own gov't, but I don't accept your gov't spying on me. I'm not going to China any time soon, but I need to cross the border to the US for work sometimes, and for pleasure sometimes, too. Since 9/11 that border has been an aggressive and hostile place marked by frequent highly authoritarian interventions and it has escalated even more under Trump. And its reach extends now onto our phones and thus into our private lives and this spying now extends online and profiles are being made of all sorts of people without them knowing. This has always happened, but its reach is far wider than before. Being flagged by the US gov't hurts me directly, China only indirectly. I don't trust the US federal regime, and neither should (most) Americans. EDIT: love being downvoted along with the other (European) comment. It's clear many Americans still don't get how their government behaves to its so-called allies. Ask Angela Merkel how she felt about having her phone tapped. Maybe the EU and other allies need to start randomly detaining US citizens with "strange names" or "suspicious profiles" and keeping them in rooms for hours, interrogate them, search their phones, then let them go with a smirk and a "have a nice day." Maybe then US citizens will understand how odious this is.

giancarlostoro 6y ago

This would of been a great opportunity for Apple to crack down on abusive API calls to ensure far less spying on mobile apps. The issues with TikTok are basically only working so long as the OS allows them to continue to occur. Mobile apps should be significantly more transparent whenver they do more than just show something on a screen. If they access the network, your location, etc it should be logged somewhere, and you should always be able to go into the app settings (even if it's hidden for "advanced users") and block apps from accessing specified API calls completely. Not sure if Google will do it, or if they do, they might take their sweet time.

DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
More than preventing access, OSes should allow spoofing information just to make it harder for apps to be like "but I want want waaaaant your GPS coordinates or I won't let you use this calculator app"
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  It would be harder but from a User experience perspective just booting their asses from the store for doing this would be better.

chvid 6y ago

The bans will be blocked by courts and the administration knows that. It pushes the orders forward anyways for purpose of political communication. It is not in the US strategic interest to "balkanise" the internet; as it is now the US has enormous influence over the global internet. Why replace that with something much smaller?

miracle2k 6y ago
If it is indeed blocked by courts, this would validate those of us who do not believe that this action should happen, in the way that it does, in a free, open and rules-based democracy. It would shame all those, including those SV thought leaders, who defend the US now engaging in the practice of "banning apps" based on short-sighted opportunism and "what about them" arguments, with now regard to fundamental principals we are supposed to stand for.
xvector 6y ago
Will it be blocked by the courts? I find this ban detestable but from what I’ve read Trump has plenty of avenues from which he can pursue this ban, thanks to Congress slowly giving more and more power to the President.
magicsmoke 6y ago
From the state department publication: https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/ https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-... "Momentum for the Clean Network program is growing. More than thirty countries and territories are now Clean Countries, and many of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies are Clean Telcos. All have committed to exclusively using trusted vendors in their Clean Networks." Looks like the goal isn't to balkanise the global internet. Rather, to create a zone where Chinese companies are banned from accessing it at all by integrating other countries into the Clean Netwok program starting with the US. Unlike China's great firewall which is purely domestic in scope, the Clean Network has global ambitions.

DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago

Over the years I've come to believe that an overwhelming amount of people would actually prefer a censored internet. Some might want "obscene" material gone, others would love to eradicate "fake news" and a few people might still be around that would instantly jump at any chance to purge the internet of blasphemy against their sky-daddy of choice. I used to think censorship was really just an instrument of the few to control the masses, but I'm starting to believe that we who just don't want a censored internet are the minority.

dannyw 6y ago
I support the tiktok ban because it’s about economic fairness. American tech companies can’t fairly compete in China. But until now, Chinese tech companies _can_. This gives inherent advantages to Chinese tech companies.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  It's a complicated situation in this case. My comment was more about censoring the internet in general, as that seems to be the more important part, with the individual case being more of an excuse to address this issue yet again. I mostly think the tiktok ban is justified, for one because china has been playing unfair for ages now and because it is a national security problem when the chinese government could, at any moment, give itself access to this much information that could be used to blackmail large numbers of people.
  - Normille 6y ago
    You're absolutely right. Just think what havok China could wreak, with access to all those millions of duck-pouting orange-faced selfies and stultifyingly illiterate vacuous conversations, conducted entirely through the medium of txt spk and emojis. It doesn't bear thinking about!
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      The problem is them having access to e.g. location data of everyone with TikTok installed.

andor 6y ago

Please don't derail the discussion by talking about apps. This is not just about TikTok or other apps, and not just about app stores. As the title says, it's about whether we will have open networks in the future. "Clean Carrier: To ensure untrusted People’s Republic of China (PRC) carriers are not connected with U.S. telecommunications networks. Such companies pose a danger to U.S. national security and should not provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States." https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/ https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-... Note that it's also not just about the CCP, but "malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party". Do you think the US administration has enough integrity to be trusted with such matters?

theredlion 6y ago
> Do you think the US administration has enough integrity to be trusted with such matters? If they are doing it as a direct response to China, then yes. If China decides to start playing nicely, then we will roll it back. We act in response to how they conduct themselves. China is like a child. If they behave, we play toys with them. If they misbehave, we put them in timeout
Nasrudith 6y ago
If they say "national security" as the reason you should never trust them period. They are trying to brain hack you.

agumonkey 6y ago

Sociology will have a field day with this era. A field century even.

magicsmoke 6y ago
TBF the last 1.5 centuries aren't slouches either in terms of sociological field experiments.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean, beside the overall technological progress. If so this is why I'm stumped by the recent international degradation. I'd hoped sanity would be stronger but actually the modern world may not be a lot stabler than previous centuries. Or at least not a lot wiser.

ppf 6y ago

If you want to avoid foreign "misinformation" (spin that as you will), this is the only sensible thing to do. Arguably, the citizens of the "free" world are incredibly vulnerable to misinformation campaigns run by foreign agents.

dangerface 6y ago
All people are vulnerable to misinformation campaigns, the problem is every one has lost interest in accurate information. The only solution people provide is that we need to get rid of the bad information instead of changing peoples motives.
- chillacy 6y ago
  I hope this is satire. Every totalitarian government says that censorship is for the people's protection. Then the government gets to decide what is or isn't misinformation. A population with good critical thinking skills is necessary in a democracy. Conversely if you don't give people the right to vote for their leaders or policies, you don't need them to think critically (or politically) either.
  - dangerface 6y ago
    > Every totalitarian government says that censorship is for the people's protection. Because this is the messaging the people will accept, a dictator could just say that's the way it is deal with it but they don't, they use the narrative the people will accept. > Then the government gets to decide what is or isn't misinformation. >> The only solution people provide is that we need to get rid of the bad information There is no "the government" its just people, two factions the red flag and the blue flag both get their information from their own isolated sources of what is accurate. The truth is somewhere in the middle ground with both sides deciding that whatever doesn't fit their current clic is misinformation. Democracy is great at giving us two flags instead of one but I don't really give a fuck about flags I care about individual freedom. > A population with good critical thinking skills is necessary in a democracy. 100% and I feel our democracy is failing because people are just not motivated toward critical thinking, its difficult and calls yourself into question, what if you are wrong? or supported something you no longer believe in? in a world with cancel culture and mob justice? Fascism is a low effort alternative for many. Simple problem: all the other flag wavers, simple solution: get rid of them. If democratic countries want to remain that way we need to give up our tyranny and flag waving in support of real freedom. People won't do it naturally we need to change the system to encourage people to think by rewarding them for doing so. Change peoples motives toward critical thinking and democracy and away from fascism and tyranny.

dangerface 6y ago

Censorship by another name is still censorship.

Crazyontap 6y ago

I just wonder if the source of the problem are these "App stores" of the world. If I could just download these apps like I download software for linux, it would be very difficult for the govt to enforce anything like this. Tik-tok banned in India too and by ban it merely meant that the govt. forced Google / Apple to remove it from the play store. There is complete ban on torrent / porn sites in India but that doesn't stop anyone from visiting those either. I think this is just one more argument against these central repos that are aiding censorship and political propagandas.

kevincox 6y ago
I think you are right that "app stores" are the most convenient place to enforce this. They get a fairly good effectiveness with low effort. However I doubt that not having them would stop the bans, it would take a bit more motivation, and a lot more effort but unless we have a truly censor-resistant solution I suspect the government would still put in the effort.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  Take a look at how that worked out for attempts to suppress the DVD/CSS ripping algorithm. When software is source code, not just binary blobs, it starts to enjoy (some|more) protection under the 1st amendment.
- js4ever 6y ago
  History showed us that governments are lazy and will go after the biggest fish and tons of small actors will evade the gov ban. So I believe no app store (or allow sideloading) is better for the peoples
wobbly_bush 6y ago
> There is complete ban on torrent / porn sites in India This is incorrect. There are a set of sites which a few judges decided should be banned. There is no ban based on the category of the sites, or in other words newer sites based on these categories are not automatically banned.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

scoot_718 6y ago

No reason to do that, just block their routes. Finish their wall for them.

GnarfGnarf 6y ago

What's to stop Chinese agents from setting up shop in the US or Europe, and disseminating rogue apps from their "trusted" base?

dangerface 6y ago
What's to stop Chinese agents doing what the NSA does to spy on Americans? I think it would be better to just let china spy on the 12 year olds that use tictok and encourage Americans to use strong encryption / security by default. Following the Chinese lead of censorship just encourages them to hack American companies like the Americans do.
- miketery 6y ago
  > let china spy on the 12 year olds That's a ton of kompromat. Even if irrelevant on average and on the whole, it'll impact enough individuals. Why give that kind of leverage away for free? Though agreed regardless, we need to move towards E2E encryption, local storage, and local key management (i.e. no password resets... or complex recovery schemes).
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    There is an easy solution to kompromat - stop being judgemental shitheads for 12 year olds or caring what morons think. Seriously - kompromat is defined in terms of tbe cultural norms and not intrinsic. The LGBT community learned this well before the fucking CIA by being out and proud to tell the mafia blackmailers to go fuck themselves.
Qwertious 6y ago
Setting up shop in the US or Europe implies having agents in US or Europe, and those people could be spied on by the US/Europe, or coerced or just shut down. It's a more all-in strategy.

Normille 6y ago

>>Mr Pompeo's reasons for "cleaning" the US network of Chinese companies is very different to authoritarian government's desire to control what is said online. Good to see the BBC [AKA Radio Free America] continuing to uphold its [mostly self-awarded] reputation for unbiased reporting. PS: in the above context, it should be: authoritarian governments' These days, the standard of literacy ain't much to write home about either.

jefftk 6y ago

state department version: https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/ https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-...

cat199 6y ago

as much as i'm afraid of internet balkanization, this is alarmist - noone is proposing blocking all traffic to china, they are proposing blocking individual foreign organizations suspected of criminal activity, which is already what has been happening and what happens in every other sphere.

cmurf 6y ago

This is old style propaganda: clean The alternative network, what we have, is dirty, soiled, unhealthy, blemished - because of Chinese influence. By removing China from the connection, the network is cleansed. It's transparently racist. It is not necessary to use words like this if you have a persuasive argument based upon facts. This is an appeal to ignorance and fear of things that are filthy.

Qwertious 6y ago
>It's transparently racist. Bullshit. China a geopolitical entity (notably, one of the "authoritarian dictatorship" variety) and explicitly don't support democracy.

cblconfederate 6y ago

If we end up with a balkanized internet and people start using proper decentralized programs, then let's go.

barryrandall 6y ago

(edited for tone) It's not just the US. Countries around the world are slowly coming to the realization that they can really only regulate the portions of the internet housed within their legal jurisdictions, and that data sovereignty matters. Is the US splitting the internet? That's debatable. I think we started the process with the Patriot Act. That led to multiple countries passing new privacy and data localization laws (GDPR in Europe, Data Localization in Russia). I believe that the current proposals coming out of State are best characterized as a (clumsy) attempt at data localization through executive fiat. Of course, this could also just be revenge for a bunch of TikTok users trolling the president pretty hard.

tmaly 6y ago

I think all these walled gardens both foreign and domestic have split the internet. Look at what happened to Usenet, its still there, but many major ISPs don't offer access to it to my knowledge. Larger email providers mark all email from self hosted servers as spam in most cases. Chat is mostly on proprietary apps. The majority of the population does not use open standards for chat.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

csense 6y ago

Requiring certain walled gardens to not publish certain apps is a form of censorship. But it's not exactly "splitting the Internet." Everything's still connected together, it's just that certain sites aren't allowed to host certain material. I have a few questions. Would this apply only to Apple and Google app stores? Would jailbroken phones still legally be able to install the apps? Would third-party app stores legally be able to distribute them? If the government tells an app store not to sell a specific program, isn't that similar to telling a bookstore not to sell a specific book? How does the government argue that the free speech protections of the Constitution don't apply?

JoshuaMulliken 6y ago

China already did this. These are just tariffs for the digital age