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The World Wants to Break Up with America's Internet
- crbnw00ts 13y agoSo, the rest of the world is "shocked, shocked I tell you" that the US is monitoring the internet? Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same? I bet all the world's governments can be divided into just two groups: those that are monitoring the internet, and those that are trying to.
- efdee 13y agoThere aren't many other world governments that yield the same kind of international power on the Internet. You might have a point about governments in general, but I think the situation actually gets better if no single government can wiretap on such a large scale. That being said, the tone of your comment makes me think you are not interested in an argument, but rather just want to deflect attention away from what the USG is doing. Because everybody is doing it, right?
- jafaku 13y agoAgreed, that "argument" is getting tiresome. > Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?
- bobbydavid 13y agoHere's my interpretation of GP: since every governmental org wants to snoop, it is not enough to "break away" from the US* because it doesn't solve the underlying problem: insecure internet. Let's find solutions that presuppose the government is trying to snoop. *Unless you don't mind being snooped on by your own government.
- crbnw00ts 13y ago> That being said, the tone of your comment makes me think you are not interested in an argument, but rather just want to deflect attention away from what the USG is doing. Because everybody is doing it, right? Quite the opposite. In no way am I trying to excuse what the US is doing or say that it is "right" in any way, shape, or form. I think what the US government is doing in terms of internet surveillance is unequivocally wrong. The issue is: viewing it as a US-only problem will lead to everyone being vulnerable to similar surveillance from other parts of the world. Countries which are currently grandstanding about the US's actions are almost certainly motivated in part by wanting to deflect attention from the fact that they are either already using similar systems, or scrambling to build them. Freedom from internet surveillance should be viewed as a human right that applies no matter where one lives. Framing it as "the US vs. everyone else" leaves everyone wide open. Before the Snowden leaks came out, there was widespread skepticism about the reach of the US's internet surveillance. Now that that skepticism has been (hopefully permanently) dissolved, I find it strange that there is any skepticism left in regards to other governments.
- snowwrestler 13y agoIf people want to leave "America's Internet," the logical next question is: where would they go? So whether other national governments are doing the same thing is directly relevant. If they are, then nothing will be gained by leaving one surveillor for another.
- 7952 13y agoThe big difference between the US and other countries is the way it projects itself. There is a history of subjecting foreigners to the vagaries of American justice (extraordinary rendition, Kim Dotcom). America presumes to extend its sovereignty across the entire globe in the interest of self defense. This makes people worried. If China was extraditing Americans to Beijing and making them stand trial with evidence based on intercepts the US Government would go ballistic.
- atlantic 13y agoAs you say, it's likely that most governments monitor domestic internet communication to some degree. It's very unlikely that any government but that of the US is trying to monitor international internet communication in its totality. So the two groups you are looking for are: those that monitor the internet domestically, and those that monitor the internet internationally. The US (with assistance from a few allies) is the only country to fall into the second group.
- consultant23522 13y agoI would assume any country with a big enough economy/budget is monitoring international internet communication in its totality. Or at least attempting it. Of course there's really only a hand full of nations that could likely pull it off.. This list is obviously purely speculation but in the game are probably: China, Russia, Germany, UK, maybe India.
- alexchamberlain 13y agoThe point is that the American government have no right to monitor my communications with a website outside the US, given I live in the UK (we'll ignore that I work for an American company for a bit). If the UK government decides they need to monitor my communications, fair enough. I am, afterall, subject to UK law.
- atlanticus 13y agoThe UK gov shares data with the US.
- alexchamberlain 13y agoIt can only share a certain amount under EU Law. There would have to be some sort of criminal threat.
- bobbydavid 13y agoIs there any check/balance on the definition of "criminal threat"? Because that's a pretty loose definition a priori. "We believe a terrorist exists in GB. That constitutes a criminal threat. To catch him or her, we need to run big data analysis on all communications."
- alexchamberlain 13y agoThat doesn't follow - that wouldn't allow the export of European data to the US.
- workhere-io 13y agoDoes anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same? This argument is often used, and it's a bad one because it ignores that there are different levels of surveillance. No one is saying that other countries don't respond to illegal stuff going on on the Internet. But not every country in the world has opted for the all-out, monitor-every-law-abiding-citizen thing that NSA is doing. Save for the UK, I can't think of a single Western European country that goes to the extreme lengths of surveillance that the US does.
- crbnw00ts 13y ago> Save for the UK, I can't think of a single Western European country that goes to the extreme lengths of surveillance that the US does. People were equally skeptical about the extent of the US's surveillance until the Snowden revelations. It always seems far-fetched ... right up until the moment it doesn't.
- workhere-io 13y agoThe big difference is that in the years before the Snowden revelations there were a lot of signs of things going on (e.g. when Washington Post revealed that 800,000 people worked in US intelligence and had a high security clearance [1] ). Signs as big as that have not been present for the EU, even when you count in Echelon. 1) http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...
- Zigurd 13y ago> "Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?" Do you believe anyone except maybe the Chinese government has a system like FOXACID for deploying exploits? Do you believe that there are more than a handful of governments spending what it takes to develop their own zero-day exploits? Do you believe any other government than the US has built out the backhaul needed for global dragnet surveillance? The US spends more than the rest of the world combined on weapons and intelligence. Some guy in the Latvian secret police might wish they had an NSA, but all they've got is a potato.
- cabalamat 13y ago> I bet all the world's governments can be divided into just two groups: those that are monitoring the internet, and those that are trying to. Which is even more reason for people to use strong encryption. And for states to, if they think their traffic might be read by someone with conflicting interests to theirs.
- oscargrouch 13y agoIf my government is spying on me, at least i can try to change this, by voting, by pushing popular laws to my country congress.. If its overseas.. how can i change that? Are the democracy of US listening what its own people has to say? as somebody looking from the outside, it looks the answer is that is not.. perhaps the government are too busy listening to the elite class, that have their own agenda, and as long they are taking some profit out of it, its fine.. (but as a plus, and to our shame, in what country that is NOT the reality) If its my government at least i can try to make them be reasonable in some way.. as im a citizen; But how can we do that if we are not the citizen of the country who is abusing and breaking what we think is our civil rights? Can we citizens of all others countries spied by NSA knock on the doors of the white house? So the "Your country are doing the same" line of thinking so popular here doesnt stick.. Sorry Pal
- n008 13y agoAmerica's Internet? shrugs People from all over the world have been contributing to the development of the internet, web, computers et cetera. Yet, it is America's Internet.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- efdee 13y agoI assume the point is that countries don't want to break with "The Internet", just "The American Internet".
- n008 13y agoCould you define "The American Internet"?
- sparkie 13y agoThat might be how it's being played - the NSA surveillance is a useful story to push individual countries agendas, but what they're really after is complete control of domestic communications. It's not countries "breaking free from the US", rather the beginning of the balkanization of the internet.
- walshemj 13y agoBack to the good old days when all communications where under the countrys PTT and in third world country's was a nice source of foreign cash to be spirited away to a Swiss banck account. Thats why Postmaster general was such a plum Job in that sort of country.
- praptak 13y agoThe article could be less fluffy. I believe the most concrete piece is: Another portion of their [Directors of all major Internet organizations present at the Uruguay meeting] released statement asked to accelerate “the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing.” Sounds more like "wrestling the centralized control from" rather than "breaking up".
- Fuxy 13y agoI'm going to miss google a bit but I'll live :P
- rurounijones 13y agoIf you want to break up with the US on the web you need to do at least two things (and probably many more). 1. Start laying (more) cables between countries that do not pass through US territory. [1] 2. Encourage home-grown innovation and services so that people are not all using services under authority of US sovereignty. [1] And try and stop the US from tapping them... Good luck...
- cabalamat 13y ago3. encourage end-to-end encryption. If all the US sees is encrypted traffic, it makes it a lot harder for the NSA to extract useful information from it.
- rurounijones 13y agoYes, I was going to mention that but first you need #2 done since, as we have seen with Lavabit, End to End encryption is no good if one end can be forced to surrender their keys.
- Coffeewine 13y agoThat applies much less to non-US entities communicating to other non-US entities who happen to have significant bandwidth between them running through the United States.
- cabalamat 13y ago> since, as we have seen with Lavabit, End to End encryption is no good if one end can be forced to surrender their keys. I'm not sure I made myself clear: my position is that the encryption needs to be done on each end-user's PC, not on some centralised service such as Lavabit. While the USA could extract the secrets from one person, if that person is living in the USA, it is harder fro them to do so to people outside the USA. Although they could burgle people's houses and extract information that way, it doesn't scale and they certainly couldn't do it to all the people in a country.
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- ethanazir 13y agoGovernments on the 'same footing' vs. human beings on the 'same footing?' I respect people everywhere sure; but dictator x is not deserving of disproportionate influence.
- fuqua 13y ago"Keep in mind here that Chehadi was appointed by the US government, who has remained silent on this matter." No, he wasn't. ICANN appoints its own President/CEO. There is no US confirmation of that position. None.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoAsses. Everyone. Everywhere. Unconscionable asses. Outside the US the internet is under the worst sort of attack. Filtering, censorship, and worse. Even in the most free countries in Europe or Asia the idea of an unrestricted, unfiltered, uncensored is under forceful attack. In countries like China, India, Turkey, or Russia the internet is already censored or filtered. In other places like the UK, France, and Australia plans for filtering and censorship are gaining steam. Meanwhile, the idea that other countries are not pervasively snooping on all manner of internet communications is simply a fiction. Indeed, many such programs outside the US have been well known since before revelations of NSA internet surveillance came to light. I'm not sure which is more deserving of ire. The assholes in the US government who abused and overstepped their authority and in the process validated every single fear (rational or not) about the US being so central to the internet. Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship. The idea of a free and open internet still existing a decade from now seems to be slipping out of our hands by the moment.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago>> "Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship." How do you judge which is more serious? For example you mentioned the UK. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. ISP's have to block The Pirate Bay (easy to get around through a proxy) and when you sign up for internet some ISP's ask "do you want us to run our filtering software to protect your children from porn?". You say "no" and they don't filter. Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does.
- grey-area 13y agoThose things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does. The UK has surpassed the US in surveillance - the Tempora program attempts to capture all traffic in the UK and store it as long as possible. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc).
- njharman 13y agoI wonder if history will look back at this as the decade the USA lost "governance" of the "free" world / leadership among nations. US Dollars losing defacto currency of the world status. Internet balkinization in response to spying. China and India overtaking US as places to make money selling consumerism. Leading up to now; no more unifying USSR threat -> NATO's lack of relevance, growth of EU, USA near unilateral military actions and wars. The world is rapidly realizing not only do they not need the USA anymore, they are better off without it.
- atlanticus 13y agoThat is a lovely fantasy but the world is run by grownups. Intelligence like defense has been outsourced to the US and Europe shows no signs of resuming their own defense. I think you will be in for few disappointing decades, probably longer.
- bowlofpetunias 13y agoMethinks Europe is realizing that a) most of that defense and intelligence is aimed at enemies created by the US in the first place, and b) outsourcing defense to a nation that massively violates the civil rights of European citizens is about as appropriate as outsourcing protection to the mafia.
- skj 13y agoBy definition, Europeans do not have civil rights in the United States.
- cobrausn 13y agoYeah, violating the civil rights of Europeans should be done by European governments only - they all have similar spying programs in place, and have had them for a while now. They are probably pretty concerned about the appearance of being concerned, however.
- diego_moita 13y ago> Intelligence like defense has been outsourced to the US and Europe shows no signs of resuming their own defense. Disclaimer: Brazilian here. This is where you don't get it: there is a growing gap on what "defence" means to the US and the rest of the world. And this is precisely where the problems arise. Gradually the US will have to spend more and more to protect national interests that no one else cares about. Eventually the costs will outweigh the gains. This is part of the story of the British Empire fall. G.W. Bush also thought that "America can go alone". Then he discovered that military power is too expensive to be the only way to implement hegemony. You also need the "soft power", the ability to persuade people without using guns. This is precisely where US power is eroding.
- exodust 13y agoWhen we start embedding sensors and microchips in our bodies, it'll suck when we ctrl-alt-delete on the running processes in our bodies, and see Google Play Services in the task manager. Try to kill it and it pops back in your sleep. I just hope the current passive evil ever-present corporate interests aren't forced upon us at the biological level. I don't want my body violated by the NSA.
- Sagat 13y ago'Murica has some good points but it's a pretty destructive and unsustainable culture. I'm also worried about the fact that they have no qualms about blowing up people with drones or sending people to shady prisons without trial. You might say that China and Russia are worse, but they have nowhere near the power and technical possibilities open to Murcans.
- rit 13y agoYou confuse decisions by government with those of the American people. I can assure you, as an American, I have qualms about blowing up people with anything, including drones... and I hold due process to be one of the most fundamental human rights.
- shaghab 13y agoI wonder what impact this will have on cloud service providers.. I guess an opportunity for cloud vendors to develop "national cloud" - a public cloud inaccessible outside a particular country/region/state etc.