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Internet Censorship is futile. The internet was designed to treat censorship as system damage, and immediately routes around it. Trying to censor the internet

by maeon3 15y ago

Internet Censorship is futile. The internet was designed to treat censorship as system damage, and immediately routes around it. Trying to censor the internet is like trying to stop birds from migrating north and south by erecting barriers. The birds fly around the barrier.

bad_user 15y ago
The Internet is not entirely based on P2P technology. DNS is maintained by central authorities and a website's domain can be taken down easily. Of course, you could argue that you could get around this restriction just by using a website's IP (you can still block an IP, but it's harder to do it everywhere on this earth), but then again, how many people will know that IP or even bother searching for it after the fact? Then you could say that people interested in censored material could very well combat this DNS filtering by using an alternative DNS protocol (using browser plugins, maybe?). But then, that's no central authority anymore and who's to say that you can still trust the content on said websites? I mean think about it - an evildoer government could very well continue to host the same website, with modified content, with a new (valid) security certificate. And then, the means for distributing said IP are either (a) commercial companies that have to obey the law of their government, like Google or Twitter or (b) insignificant forums that won't make the news if taken down themselves. Yes, you cannot block information for the technically inclined, but you can block it for 90% of the population effectively and I think China sets a powerful precedent here. Not only that, but timing is very important. Sometimes censorship is very relevant to the current world affairs, not having the same impact one month later. I think the Internet is more sensitive to censorship than people care to admit.
killerswan 15y ago
What protocol is it that routes around censorship, exactly? What is the software that automatically prevents a server from being unplugged by a co-location facility? What about TCP/IP prevents a blogger from being beaten unconscious in front of his children, then taken away by plainclothes 'police'? (I sometimes think that only a totalitarian government's propaganda minister would keep repeating this trope about routing around in the age of China's firewalls, etc.)
- wladimir 15y ago
  What protocol is it that routes around censorship, exactly? The "global" part. There is always some country in which a certain thing is not censored. The servers can be placed there, the traffic can be routed through there. This does not prevent anyone from beating anyone else up, that's right, but I don't think anyone ever claimed that the internet would prevent physical violence. Just censorship of information.

by maeon3 15y ago

bad_user 15y ago

The Internet is not entirely based on P2P technology. DNS is maintained by central authorities and a website's domain can be taken down easily. Of course, you could argue that you could get around this restriction just by using a website's IP (you can still block an IP, but it's harder to do it everywhere on this earth), but then again, how many people will know that IP or even bother searching for it after the fact? Then you could say that people interested in censored material could very well combat this DNS filtering by using an alternative DNS protocol (using browser plugins, maybe?). But then, that's no central authority anymore and who's to say that you can still trust the content on said websites? I mean think about it - an evildoer government could very well continue to host the same website, with modified content, with a new (valid) security certificate. And then, the means for distributing said IP are either (a) commercial companies that have to obey the law of their government, like Google or Twitter or (b) insignificant forums that won't make the news if taken down themselves. Yes, you cannot block information for the technically inclined, but you can block it for 90% of the population effectively and I think China sets a powerful precedent here. Not only that, but timing is very important. Sometimes censorship is very relevant to the current world affairs, not having the same impact one month later. I think the Internet is more sensitive to censorship than people care to admit.

killerswan 15y ago

What protocol is it that routes around censorship, exactly? What is the software that automatically prevents a server from being unplugged by a co-location facility? What about TCP/IP prevents a blogger from being beaten unconscious in front of his children, then taken away by plainclothes 'police'? (I sometimes think that only a totalitarian government's propaganda minister would keep repeating this trope about routing around in the age of China's firewalls, etc.)

wladimir 15y ago
What protocol is it that routes around censorship, exactly? The "global" part. There is always some country in which a certain thing is not censored. The servers can be placed there, the traffic can be routed through there. This does not prevent anyone from beating anyone else up, that's right, but I don't think anyone ever claimed that the internet would prevent physical violence. Just censorship of information.