6 ms·

Germany wants a German Internet as spying scandal rankles

46 points by r0h1n 13y ago

adventured 13y ago
It's incredible to me that the country that made the Internet possible, has changed so much in four or five decades that it is now in the process of destroying the Internet.
- smackay 13y ago
  It's because they hate our freedoms - sadly. This only going to result in a giant leap backwards in time to 30 years ago when there was a patchwork of networks (with universities providing the main internet backbone) but now the networks will be segmented by country - much, much more convenient for governments at the expense of everything and everyone else.
- ithkuil 13y ago
  Why incredible? Don't anthropomorphize countries, there is absolutely no obligation for a country to behave in a way that's consistent with it's behavior a few years back; countries are not individuals, please stop attaching human values to countries.
  - workhere-io 13y ago
    Countries are run by humans, and in a democracy we can and should expect politicians to do what's right for citizens and to behave ethically.
    - linux_devil 13y ago
      True , but these days, democracy : "Buy"/by the people , "Far"/for the people , "off"/of the people
      - workhere-io 13y ago
        Depends on which country you're talking about.
    - noarchy 13y ago
      How is it that this democratic ideal has failed to deliver on many of these things, of late? To be sure, some are content with what government has brought to their lives in some areas, yet the complaints remain. Are our democratic systems failing to actually represent us, or are they delivering as-expected...or both?
      - workhere-io 13y ago
        I'm not denying that the US democracy is broken; I'm countering ithkuil's argument that since countries aren't human they shouldn't exhibit moral behavior.
    - shiven 13y ago
      What democracy? In letter or spirit or both or neither? Politicians are borne of the people who let them come to power, stay in power and get away with mostly acting in their (politician's) best interest. Over time, power concentrates in the hands of those who have have it and can muster the resources to keep growing it. Eventually becoming the face of the people and the country. That's my cynic's view of democracy. Not that I know of a better system. Yet.
    - ithkuil 13y ago
      That's the right thing to expect and require! But we cannot be surprised if a country that was behaving in one way in year X is behaving in a radically different way a few years later. As you say, a country is run by humans (note the plural) but many of its accomplishments or errors are done by part of that population, not necessarily sharing the vision and ideals of the whole population.
  - adventured 13y ago
    Countries very specifically are made of only individuals. There's nothing else a country can consist of but the people that make it up. The culture of a nation is the total compilation of all of its individuals, to the extent of their contribution and its net effect. Thus, a country does possess human values. Some countries are more far more charitable across the board than others. The reason for that is the culture derived from the individuals that make up the country. As one simple and obvious example. When a country turns back from the brink of making a terrible decision, that is due solely to human values held by the people. Why does Germany respect privacy to the extent that it does? Because of the values its people hold and enforce upon the government. All decisions made by a country are human decisions made by someone. Countries consist of The People and their values, and ultimately a nation will reflect the values of its people.
linux_devil 13y ago
Concerned countries should work together to achieve same goal. Month ago, similar signals came from Brazil.
GFischer 13y ago
Does Germany produce routers? Firmware? Would it be "airgapped" with the U.S. internet? Having Merkel's phone monitored must have been a blow. That said, having a nationally routed Internet makes sense. (edit: article says 90% is already routed nationally) The article itself says it's not practical, and mostly posturing. "The only way to change this would be for Germany to require local hosting of websites, a drastic move according to experts that has not yet been pushed by German leaders. Deutsche Telekom declined to say whether it would lobby for such an approach. Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, angered by reports that the U.S. spied on her and other Brazilians, is pushing legislation that would force Google, Facebook and other internet companies to store locally gathered or user-generated data inside the country."
- lazyjones 13y ago
  > That said, having a nationally routed Internet makes sense. In general, it probably does. But in the case of Germany, it's just plain ridiculous since they have US military and spy bases within their territory (and the politicians who run around like headless chicken currently have been defending those and limiting citizens' rights near them - the bases themselves are US territory, but just showing up nearby gets you in trouble).
  - stannol 13y ago
    I've lived near a US base in Germany all my life (I can actually see the "border" from my house) and I can't think of any way to "get in trouble" by showing up nearby. The only way to get in trouble here is to actually enter the base without permission.
    - lazyjones 13y ago
      > The only way to get in trouble here is to actually enter the base without permission. Try filming, protesting or flying RC drones nearby ...
  - walshemj 13y ago
    NO a balkanised Internet does no one any good except maybe for a big tax payer subsidy to national champions. Also violates the spirit and legal requirements of the EU charter in several ways.
VMG 13y ago
I think it's just a ploy for Telekom and some large companies make a buck. Any sane person shouldn't trust the German government and Telcos more than foreign ones. I certainly don't.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  So you're saying German citizens should trust their own government less than the US government? ;)
  - shiven 13y ago
    Goes for every country's citizens and government. No reason to Trust any government without constant Verification. Always suspect ulterior motives when giant organizations, asymmetrically wielding extensive power over you, tell you: "Just trust us. We are the good guys."
  - hwh 13y ago
    "Not more" doesn't mean "less", it means "less or equal".
    - mtrimpe 13y ago
      I realized that after I posted but given that trust is hardly a discrete variable I'd say 'equal' is somewhat unlikely in this case.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
matthiasl 13y ago
It seems that they have an internet in mind where you consider packets that left the country to be less secure than ones which stayed in the country. One way to implement that would be something like RFC 3514, except that the E bit gets set whenever a packet crosses a border, and never cleared.
this_user 13y ago
The amusing part about this is that Deutsche Telekom is partly responsible for German Internet traffic taking routes that pass through other countries by refusing to do peering. They instead leverage their large customer base and demand other companies pay them for the privilege of a direct connection to their network.
Sprint 13y ago
Wouldn't educating and deploying proper end-to-end encryption be a much better way of protection?
lignuist 13y ago
Well, I read: Germany wants a German internet to be able to better spy on its citizens. Germanys government really did absolutely nothing to protect the privacy of German people in the past and deserves the same amount of trust as the US government. The mentioned encrypted mail-service is actually legally backdoored. If they were interested in enhancing privacy, they would support the development of open standards like GPG. Instead they are trying to force people to install closed source software for their tax declaration, which is probably spyware. Sorry, nothing good to expect in Germany. Edit: The german government seems to have supported GPG in 1999. (second reference in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- biafra 13y ago
  The german government is supporting the development of gnupg. Yes, with money.
- vixen99 13y ago
  On the other hand Germans might be saying 'They might be snooping bds but at least they're our snooping bds'.
  - lignuist 13y ago
    Actually I would prefer to be snooped on by a foreign country, because they have less influence on me.
    - furyg3 13y ago
      I'm not so sure. I think these guys are all in it together ("Hey, could you spy on our citizens and let us know if there are any terrorists? We're not allowed to do it"). In a democracy, I'd rather that the actual snooping was done by my own government, as (theoretically) I could do something about it. I can file a lawsuit, or elect new representatives. Not that this always works, but at least it's something.
drill_sarge 13y ago
This is just snake oil marketing from the politicians and german ISPs. First they did not care at all when 82 million people were spied on (they literally said, that this debate was over and all question have been answered) and now they make a huge deal of it because it affects them personally. Also the whole proposal does not make sense, because it is known that our own intelligence is sniffing traffic too and Telekom and others complied with them. Not to mention that our intelligence service and the NSA working together, hence the NSA even has spy equipment here which is tolerated by the government. Also implying that "national routing" is any kind of defence against spying. And all that wouldn't even affect people using Google, Facebook etc. just lol
biafra 13y ago
The german government is supporting the development of gnupg. Yes, with money.
- lignuist 13y ago
  The only source I found for that is from 1999, which is a long time ago and especially pre-9/11. Second reference in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg
- abcd_f 13y ago
  Source, please.
- drill_sarge 13y ago
  gpg4win was an initiative of a government department
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rowyourboat 13y ago
Reuters has mucked this story up. Germany does not want a German Internet, that's just plain silly. Deutsche Telekom just wants to rearrange its peering with other German ISPs so that requests that originate and end in Germany never leave Germany. Seeing as DT's current peering costs are the reason that some packets take a round-about way in the first place, it's just a marketing move.
- atmosx 13y ago
  That makes sense and most countries should do it. Some routers support this feature, custom ones can be made though.
gioele 13y ago
Ah, the irony. It is funny to see these proposals coming out of Germany, the biggest proponent, together with France, for a EU-wide data exchange and wiretapping program codified in Schengen as article 40 [1] and SIS (Schengen Information System, police access to all national DBs). The latest update to the Schengen treaty (2005) allows the exchange of sensitive and biometric data such as DNA and fingerprints. [1] Germany and France are also the biggest pushers for data retention laws that force ISPs and other business to retain and make available all the communication metadata and some of the data of all the information exchanged through them. The governments of Germany, France and UK have also been the main shields against the pressures from the EU parliament to avoid data-sharing initiatives with the USA. It must also be noted that there seems to be a schism in Germany between the acts of the governments (pushing EU-wide anti-privacy measures) and the acts of the parliament (pushing strict pro-privacy regulations inside the German territory). [1] http://www.hri.org/docs/Schengen90/body3.html http://www.hri.org/docs/Schengen90/body3.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Convention
venomsnake 13y ago
Whenever I hear a country calling for "national" internet I got a feeling that the policy makers have no idea what net stands for in internet.
harshpotatoes 13y ago
I feel like this legislature would be a huge cost to startups wishing to do business in Germany, and would likewise be a huge cost to already established businesses. Of course, I suppose there is the added benefit that many companies would now be legally required to have a physical presence in Germany, requiring the creation of many more local data centers. Presumably this would boost the already high performing German economy. I wonder how this would effect IRC servers. Would you have to forbid connections from Germany if there already was a user connected from Germany? In that same line of questioning, wow would a teleconference work? Two german companies and two american companies are communicating in a group call via skype or something. The server is located in the US. Does this mean that the two German companies are communicating with each other and therefore the server must be located in Germany? If the US had the same laws, does this mean it is impossible for the group call to be made at all? How much more difficult would it make telecommuting if multiple telecommuters are located within Germany? What if user A located in germany wants to send an email or instant message to user B in germany, but is VPNed to a server in another country. Maybe User A is on a business trip to germnay and is VPNed to their work, or something. How could such a message be routed completely within the German borders? Would the VPN have to detect the nature of the message and reject it? Am I understanding everything correctly?
- memracom 13y ago
  I don't think that you are understanding it correctly. First it helps to understand some history. In the ancient voice telecoms networks of the 20th century there was the principle that "he who dials the number pays the bill". Therefore, when a telecom provider (like DT) tried to connect a call with another telecom provider (such as BT in the UK), both telecoms companies knew that there was money flowing into DT's pockets. So the recipient's provider (in this case BT) wanted some of that money. This became a principle worldwide that interconnects between two networks had to be bought and paid for. Of course, calls went both directions over the interconnect so the concept of peering was born. What it meant was that the two companies would count up the calls at the end of the month, and the one with the most calls would pay the other company. Then came US telecom deregulation, CLECS, the growth of the American-centric Internet, and a new way of making connections. On the Internet, one party opens a socket and superficially that seems to be similar to dialling a phone call. But the big difference is the the party opening a socket is not paying anyone a fee to do this. And they aren't paying a per-minute fee for using the socket. In fact, the party opening the socket is paying money for the use of the whole network, and the party whose socket is being opened is also paying a fee for the whole socket. Thust the concept was born that interconnects should be free because they are a cost of doing business as an ISP. And then began much confusion and strange business dealings as telecom management wrestled with how to reconcile these two worlds. The result was that deregulated US providers charged a lot less for interconnects, and the international telephone calls of the world started to take a detour through the USA. And internet connections did the same thing. So basically, there should be no extra cost if Germany implements this. Some companies might get into arm-twisting battles if significant traffic flows shift from one circuit to another because they will likely need to upgrade some interconnects, but that is just a one time hit. It should not increase fees at all.
znowi 13y ago
I wish it was a sincere initiative to protect users, however, I suspect it's a political campaign in order to get some preferences out of the US.
memracom 13y ago
Deutsche Telekom is complicit in this spying. It is because of DT's policies on peering that Internet companies in Germany send traffice destined to another German company, via other countries. Germany could fix this by requiring all German ISPs to supply free bilateral peering to any other German ISP with more than X Mbps of traffic. This is not actually free, but it means that no ISP can use peering as a profit centre. In fact, both parties to the bilateral peering have to pay for their own routers for the interconnect, and pay half the cost of the interconnect circuit if it is not done in the same building. This would be an improvement in speed too because within the borders of Germany you should be able to get 10 ms round trip times to any other point. In fact, companies who want their VPN traffic to stay in Germany will often specify 10 ms RTT in their RFPs as a euphemism for "keep our traffic in Germany". I used to work for GTS, a competitor of DT and we had an extensive enough presence in Germany to meet that RTT which rather surprised DT because I think they invented the requirement hoping that it would mean "only DT can win this bid". It would be better if all countries had laws/regulations about exchanging local traffic locally, because this would improve Internet performance for everyone.

46 points by r0h1n 13y ago

It's incredible to me that the country that made the Internet possible, has changed so much in four or five decades that it is now in the process of destroying the Internet.

smackay 13y ago
It's because they hate our freedoms - sadly. This only going to result in a giant leap backwards in time to 30 years ago when there was a patchwork of networks (with universities providing the main internet backbone) but now the networks will be segmented by country - much, much more convenient for governments at the expense of everything and everyone else.
ithkuil 13y ago
Why incredible? Don't anthropomorphize countries, there is absolutely no obligation for a country to behave in a way that's consistent with it's behavior a few years back; countries are not individuals, please stop attaching human values to countries.
- workhere-io 13y ago
  Countries are run by humans, and in a democracy we can and should expect politicians to do what's right for citizens and to behave ethically.
  - linux_devil 13y ago
    True , but these days, democracy : "Buy"/by the people , "Far"/for the people , "off"/of the people
    - workhere-io 13y ago
      Depends on which country you're talking about.
  - noarchy 13y ago
    How is it that this democratic ideal has failed to deliver on many of these things, of late? To be sure, some are content with what government has brought to their lives in some areas, yet the complaints remain. Are our democratic systems failing to actually represent us, or are they delivering as-expected...or both?
    - workhere-io 13y ago
      I'm not denying that the US democracy is broken; I'm countering ithkuil's argument that since countries aren't human they shouldn't exhibit moral behavior.
  - shiven 13y ago
    What democracy? In letter or spirit or both or neither? Politicians are borne of the people who let them come to power, stay in power and get away with mostly acting in their (politician's) best interest. Over time, power concentrates in the hands of those who have have it and can muster the resources to keep growing it. Eventually becoming the face of the people and the country. That's my cynic's view of democracy. Not that I know of a better system. Yet.
  - ithkuil 13y ago
    That's the right thing to expect and require! But we cannot be surprised if a country that was behaving in one way in year X is behaving in a radically different way a few years later. As you say, a country is run by humans (note the plural) but many of its accomplishments or errors are done by part of that population, not necessarily sharing the vision and ideals of the whole population.
- adventured 13y ago
  Countries very specifically are made of only individuals. There's nothing else a country can consist of but the people that make it up. The culture of a nation is the total compilation of all of its individuals, to the extent of their contribution and its net effect. Thus, a country does possess human values. Some countries are more far more charitable across the board than others. The reason for that is the culture derived from the individuals that make up the country. As one simple and obvious example. When a country turns back from the brink of making a terrible decision, that is due solely to human values held by the people. Why does Germany respect privacy to the extent that it does? Because of the values its people hold and enforce upon the government. All decisions made by a country are human decisions made by someone. Countries consist of The People and their values, and ultimately a nation will reflect the values of its people.

linux_devil 13y ago

Concerned countries should work together to achieve same goal. Month ago, similar signals came from Brazil.

GFischer 13y ago

Does Germany produce routers? Firmware? Would it be "airgapped" with the U.S. internet? Having Merkel's phone monitored must have been a blow. That said, having a nationally routed Internet makes sense. (edit: article says 90% is already routed nationally) The article itself says it's not practical, and mostly posturing. "The only way to change this would be for Germany to require local hosting of websites, a drastic move according to experts that has not yet been pushed by German leaders. Deutsche Telekom declined to say whether it would lobby for such an approach. Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, angered by reports that the U.S. spied on her and other Brazilians, is pushing legislation that would force Google, Facebook and other internet companies to store locally gathered or user-generated data inside the country."

lazyjones 13y ago
> That said, having a nationally routed Internet makes sense. In general, it probably does. But in the case of Germany, it's just plain ridiculous since they have US military and spy bases within their territory (and the politicians who run around like headless chicken currently have been defending those and limiting citizens' rights near them - the bases themselves are US territory, but just showing up nearby gets you in trouble).
- stannol 13y ago
  I've lived near a US base in Germany all my life (I can actually see the "border" from my house) and I can't think of any way to "get in trouble" by showing up nearby. The only way to get in trouble here is to actually enter the base without permission.
  - lazyjones 13y ago
    > The only way to get in trouble here is to actually enter the base without permission. Try filming, protesting or flying RC drones nearby ...
- walshemj 13y ago
  NO a balkanised Internet does no one any good except maybe for a big tax payer subsidy to national champions. Also violates the spirit and legal requirements of the EU charter in several ways.

VMG 13y ago

I think it's just a ploy for Telekom and some large companies make a buck. Any sane person shouldn't trust the German government and Telcos more than foreign ones. I certainly don't.

mtrimpe 13y ago
So you're saying German citizens should trust their own government less than the US government? ;)
- shiven 13y ago
  Goes for every country's citizens and government. No reason to Trust any government without constant Verification. Always suspect ulterior motives when giant organizations, asymmetrically wielding extensive power over you, tell you: "Just trust us. We are the good guys."
- hwh 13y ago
  "Not more" doesn't mean "less", it means "less or equal".
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    I realized that after I posted but given that trust is hardly a discrete variable I'd say 'equal' is somewhat unlikely in this case.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

matthiasl 13y ago

It seems that they have an internet in mind where you consider packets that left the country to be less secure than ones which stayed in the country. One way to implement that would be something like RFC 3514, except that the E bit gets set whenever a packet crosses a border, and never cleared.

this_user 13y ago

The amusing part about this is that Deutsche Telekom is partly responsible for German Internet traffic taking routes that pass through other countries by refusing to do peering. They instead leverage their large customer base and demand other companies pay them for the privilege of a direct connection to their network.

Sprint 13y ago

Wouldn't educating and deploying proper end-to-end encryption be a much better way of protection?

lignuist 13y ago

Well, I read: Germany wants a German internet to be able to better spy on its citizens. Germanys government really did absolutely nothing to protect the privacy of German people in the past and deserves the same amount of trust as the US government. The mentioned encrypted mail-service is actually legally backdoored. If they were interested in enhancing privacy, they would support the development of open standards like GPG. Instead they are trying to force people to install closed source software for their tax declaration, which is probably spyware. Sorry, nothing good to expect in Germany. Edit: The german government seems to have supported GPG in 1999. (second reference in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
biafra 13y ago
The german government is supporting the development of gnupg. Yes, with money.
vixen99 13y ago
On the other hand Germans might be saying 'They might be snooping bds but at least they're our snooping bds'.
- lignuist 13y ago
  Actually I would prefer to be snooped on by a foreign country, because they have less influence on me.
  - furyg3 13y ago
    I'm not so sure. I think these guys are all in it together ("Hey, could you spy on our citizens and let us know if there are any terrorists? We're not allowed to do it"). In a democracy, I'd rather that the actual snooping was done by my own government, as (theoretically) I could do something about it. I can file a lawsuit, or elect new representatives. Not that this always works, but at least it's something.

drill_sarge 13y ago

This is just snake oil marketing from the politicians and german ISPs. First they did not care at all when 82 million people were spied on (they literally said, that this debate was over and all question have been answered) and now they make a huge deal of it because it affects them personally. Also the whole proposal does not make sense, because it is known that our own intelligence is sniffing traffic too and Telekom and others complied with them. Not to mention that our intelligence service and the NSA working together, hence the NSA even has spy equipment here which is tolerated by the government. Also implying that "national routing" is any kind of defence against spying. And all that wouldn't even affect people using Google, Facebook etc. just lol

biafra 13y ago

The german government is supporting the development of gnupg. Yes, with money.

lignuist 13y ago
The only source I found for that is from 1999, which is a long time ago and especially pre-9/11. Second reference in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg
abcd_f 13y ago
Source, please.
drill_sarge 13y ago
gpg4win was an initiative of a government department

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rowyourboat 13y ago

Reuters has mucked this story up. Germany does not want a German Internet, that's just plain silly. Deutsche Telekom just wants to rearrange its peering with other German ISPs so that requests that originate and end in Germany never leave Germany. Seeing as DT's current peering costs are the reason that some packets take a round-about way in the first place, it's just a marketing move.

atmosx 13y ago
That makes sense and most countries should do it. Some routers support this feature, custom ones can be made though.

gioele 13y ago

Ah, the irony. It is funny to see these proposals coming out of Germany, the biggest proponent, together with France, for a EU-wide data exchange and wiretapping program codified in Schengen as article 40 [1] and SIS (Schengen Information System, police access to all national DBs). The latest update to the Schengen treaty (2005) allows the exchange of sensitive and biometric data such as DNA and fingerprints. [1] Germany and France are also the biggest pushers for data retention laws that force ISPs and other business to retain and make available all the communication metadata and some of the data of all the information exchanged through them. The governments of Germany, France and UK have also been the main shields against the pressures from the EU parliament to avoid data-sharing initiatives with the USA. It must also be noted that there seems to be a schism in Germany between the acts of the governments (pushing EU-wide anti-privacy measures) and the acts of the parliament (pushing strict pro-privacy regulations inside the German territory). [1] http://www.hri.org/docs/Schengen90/body3.html http://www.hri.org/docs/Schengen90/body3.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Convention

venomsnake 13y ago

Whenever I hear a country calling for "national" internet I got a feeling that the policy makers have no idea what net stands for in internet.

harshpotatoes 13y ago

I feel like this legislature would be a huge cost to startups wishing to do business in Germany, and would likewise be a huge cost to already established businesses. Of course, I suppose there is the added benefit that many companies would now be legally required to have a physical presence in Germany, requiring the creation of many more local data centers. Presumably this would boost the already high performing German economy. I wonder how this would effect IRC servers. Would you have to forbid connections from Germany if there already was a user connected from Germany? In that same line of questioning, wow would a teleconference work? Two german companies and two american companies are communicating in a group call via skype or something. The server is located in the US. Does this mean that the two German companies are communicating with each other and therefore the server must be located in Germany? If the US had the same laws, does this mean it is impossible for the group call to be made at all? How much more difficult would it make telecommuting if multiple telecommuters are located within Germany? What if user A located in germany wants to send an email or instant message to user B in germany, but is VPNed to a server in another country. Maybe User A is on a business trip to germnay and is VPNed to their work, or something. How could such a message be routed completely within the German borders? Would the VPN have to detect the nature of the message and reject it? Am I understanding everything correctly?

memracom 13y ago
I don't think that you are understanding it correctly. First it helps to understand some history. In the ancient voice telecoms networks of the 20th century there was the principle that "he who dials the number pays the bill". Therefore, when a telecom provider (like DT) tried to connect a call with another telecom provider (such as BT in the UK), both telecoms companies knew that there was money flowing into DT's pockets. So the recipient's provider (in this case BT) wanted some of that money. This became a principle worldwide that interconnects between two networks had to be bought and paid for. Of course, calls went both directions over the interconnect so the concept of peering was born. What it meant was that the two companies would count up the calls at the end of the month, and the one with the most calls would pay the other company. Then came US telecom deregulation, CLECS, the growth of the American-centric Internet, and a new way of making connections. On the Internet, one party opens a socket and superficially that seems to be similar to dialling a phone call. But the big difference is the the party opening a socket is not paying anyone a fee to do this. And they aren't paying a per-minute fee for using the socket. In fact, the party opening the socket is paying money for the use of the whole network, and the party whose socket is being opened is also paying a fee for the whole socket. Thust the concept was born that interconnects should be free because they are a cost of doing business as an ISP. And then began much confusion and strange business dealings as telecom management wrestled with how to reconcile these two worlds. The result was that deregulated US providers charged a lot less for interconnects, and the international telephone calls of the world started to take a detour through the USA. And internet connections did the same thing. So basically, there should be no extra cost if Germany implements this. Some companies might get into arm-twisting battles if significant traffic flows shift from one circuit to another because they will likely need to upgrade some interconnects, but that is just a one time hit. It should not increase fees at all.

znowi 13y ago

I wish it was a sincere initiative to protect users, however, I suspect it's a political campaign in order to get some preferences out of the US.

memracom 13y ago

Deutsche Telekom is complicit in this spying. It is because of DT's policies on peering that Internet companies in Germany send traffice destined to another German company, via other countries. Germany could fix this by requiring all German ISPs to supply free bilateral peering to any other German ISP with more than X Mbps of traffic. This is not actually free, but it means that no ISP can use peering as a profit centre. In fact, both parties to the bilateral peering have to pay for their own routers for the interconnect, and pay half the cost of the interconnect circuit if it is not done in the same building. This would be an improvement in speed too because within the borders of Germany you should be able to get 10 ms round trip times to any other point. In fact, companies who want their VPN traffic to stay in Germany will often specify 10 ms RTT in their RFPs as a euphemism for "keep our traffic in Germany". I used to work for GTS, a competitor of DT and we had an extensive enough presence in Germany to meet that RTT which rather surprised DT because I think they invented the requirement hoping that it would mean "only DT can win this bid". It would be better if all countries had laws/regulations about exchanging local traffic locally, because this would improve Internet performance for everyone.