7 ms·

If 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 tha

If 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 ago
3. 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 ago
  Yes, 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 ago
    That 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.
    - rurounijones 13y ago
      Ah right, I do not consider that a feasible thing right now. How would facebook (or the non US equivalent) work if data was encrypted on everyone's PC. There is no PKI that would support that at the moment (Although a social network that also acts as a PKI is an interesting idea.)
  - gngeal 13y ago
    as we have seen with Lavabit, End to End encryption is no good if one end can be forced to surrender their keys. Lavabit was the middleman in the communication, not the end; or was it?
    - rurounijones 13y ago
      I am talking on the network level. Connection between client and server.
atlanticus 13y ago
> Start laying (more) cables between countries that do not pass through US territory. Also territories that have data sharing deals and probably most allies.
cygwin98 13y ago
This is not impossible though. China has done this with their Great Firewall and web firms such as Baidu (search engine), QQ (like Facebook), Weibo (like Twitter), etc. I believe EU and Russia also have the capability to do the same if they want to. For the rest of the world, they can license a copy from one of the three and host their own server farms. This is not a bright future to have though: the Internet would become an actual inter-net among a few huge LANs.
- bilbo0s 13y ago
  China is way ahead of the game... that's for sure. There's no arguing that. But the rest of the world is pretty dependent on the US when it comes to the internet. This include the EU and Russia. And this is not something that is trivial to change. I am not saying that it WON'T change... I'm saying that for the rest of the world to create a China-like internet for their citizens may be desirable, but it won't be easy. I mean... if I was Brazilian, I would much rather the Brazilian Government watched my internet usage than to have the American Government do so. Because the American Government can put you on a No-Fly list and you have no recourse. (ie - no rights in US Courts). Consequently, you have no easy way off of that list. So I understand the desire... I just think it will be more difficult than flipping a switch.
  - krapp 13y ago
    >Because the American Government can put you on a No-Fly list and you have no recourse. (ie - no rights in US Courts). The American government could put you on a No-Fly list, but your own government could put you in a cage.
    - bilbo0s 13y ago
      Heh... So can the American Government. The difference is... if your own Government puts you in a cage... you actually have rights.
      - krapp 13y ago

cabalamat 13y ago

3. 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 ago
Yes, 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 ago
  That 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.
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    Ah right, I do not consider that a feasible thing right now. How would facebook (or the non US equivalent) work if data was encrypted on everyone's PC. There is no PKI that would support that at the moment (Although a social network that also acts as a PKI is an interesting idea.)
- gngeal 13y ago
  as we have seen with Lavabit, End to End encryption is no good if one end can be forced to surrender their keys. Lavabit was the middleman in the communication, not the end; or was it?
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    I am talking on the network level. Connection between client and server.

atlanticus 13y ago

> Start laying (more) cables between countries that do not pass through US territory. Also territories that have data sharing deals and probably most allies.

cygwin98 13y ago

This is not impossible though. China has done this with their Great Firewall and web firms such as Baidu (search engine), QQ (like Facebook), Weibo (like Twitter), etc. I believe EU and Russia also have the capability to do the same if they want to. For the rest of the world, they can license a copy from one of the three and host their own server farms. This is not a bright future to have though: the Internet would become an actual inter-net among a few huge LANs.

bilbo0s 13y ago
China is way ahead of the game... that's for sure. There's no arguing that. But the rest of the world is pretty dependent on the US when it comes to the internet. This include the EU and Russia. And this is not something that is trivial to change. I am not saying that it WON'T change... I'm saying that for the rest of the world to create a China-like internet for their citizens may be desirable, but it won't be easy. I mean... if I was Brazilian, I would much rather the Brazilian Government watched my internet usage than to have the American Government do so. Because the American Government can put you on a No-Fly list and you have no recourse. (ie - no rights in US Courts). Consequently, you have no easy way off of that list. So I understand the desire... I just think it will be more difficult than flipping a switch.
- krapp 13y ago
  >Because the American Government can put you on a No-Fly list and you have no recourse. (ie - no rights in US Courts). The American government could put you on a No-Fly list, but your own government could put you in a cage.
  - bilbo0s 13y ago
    Heh... So can the American Government. The difference is... if your own Government puts you in a cage... you actually have rights.
    - krapp 13y ago