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It sounds evil but balkanisation of the Internet is a natural result of the erosion of trust in corporations and other stewards of this medium. The NSA/GCHQ sca

by cyphunk 12y ago

It sounds evil but balkanisation of the Internet is a natural result of the erosion of trust in corporations and other stewards of this medium. The NSA/GCHQ scandal only pushed it a little further. We all know that any great medium starts out as a bastion of understanding, sharing and common good until a bunch of trolls show up to ruin it all (ahem, reddit, ycombinator, digg, etc). Until that moment we enjoy all the freedoms that such a medium offers and we assume it is something of and unto itself, never to be destroyed. In the Internet's case the trolls were capital coming to understand how to modify the Internet to extract wealth and governments looking for a competitive edge over others using the Internets structural flaws to obtain that edge. The erosion in this case is more harmful to many people than trolls showing up to reddit. So I think it's natural that people recede slightly from the idea a globalised common communal identity created by the Internet and look toward their national structures to protect them. As Snowden said in some QA "Our founding fathers did not say that all [US persons] were created equal". Until the irony of that statement is not cleared up internationally and human rights are absolutely universal balkanisation of the Internet will come. Russia, despite being an odd democracy, is only jumping onto a boat that already sailed in Brazil and other locations.

walshemj 12y ago
where the FSB can easily access it without those pesky court orders - this is part of Putins crackdown along with banning certain words from use period.
- oddx 12y ago
  Secret court orders isn't problem in USA [1] nor UK [2], Russia only tries to keep up with Five Eyes. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#Secret_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... 2. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/apr/04/clarke-defends-secret-courts-plans-clegg http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/apr/04/clarke-defends-se...
  - walshemj 12y ago
    Say what you will about the NSA SIS etc they at least do have some independent oversight.
spindritf 12y ago
balkanisation of the Internet is a natural result of the erosion of trust in corporations and other stewards of this medium Not even close. This is another regime looking to suppress dissent, just like China has been doing all along. They don't trust their own citizens, not "corporations and other stewards of this medium." You're buying a flimsy excuse for cracking down on free speech. Their problem has never been that some company cooperates with the US. It has always been that multinationals couldn't be easily strong-armed into cooperating with the local authorities. And no, it wouldn't matter if the US had the same problems.
- hopeless 12y ago
  I could easily see the EU strengthening our data protection laws in the next few years to take us in this direction. In light of the NSA scandals there's probably a strong justification for this… except that the UK is a bigger danger to privacy and it operates within the EU.
  - Amezarak 12y ago
    Nearly every EU country is documented to have similar programs, not just the UK. Some are even much more aggressive about industrial espionage - for example, France. When European politicians make noise about using European-based services, it isn't so they can be sure your privacy is protected, it's so EU-based organizations can access those servers without having to negotiate with the NSA. As a side benefit, they can claim it's good for the local economy. The NSA revelations are just a pretext. Every European country knew exactly what was going on; they were complicit in it and they had varying levels of sharing agreements with the NSA.
    - mercurial 12y ago
      It's not as clear-cut. The motivation of pro-privacy MEPs from the left-wing EU parties are most likely entirely different from the ones of the Council of Europe. But your point about most EU intelligence services being engaged in spying on EU citizens stands, unfortunately.
    - 12y ago
higherpurpose 12y ago
Exactly - this is only the "natural" response countries should take to both punish US for its shameless foreign spying, but also for national security reasons (which US touts an excuse so much, for everything), to protect their data from being stolen. The only action US companies can do now to avoid more countries doing this (short of US gov creating serious and radical reforms of its spying, along with radically stronger and more transparent oversight - which let's face it, is not going to happen anytime soon), will be to turn more and more of their services in "trustless" services, where you don't have to trust the company for keeping your data protected, because you know solid encryption system is keeping it protecting, along with open sourcing as much as possible of their software (especially if they are hardware manufacturers).
rayiner 12y ago
> So I think it's natural that people recede slightly from the idea a globalised common communal identity created by the Internet and look toward their national structures to protect them. Communal identities are built along lines manned by people with guns. All that's happening now is that the internet has become an important resource, and countries are seeking to control it, like they do with any strategic resource.
benihana 12y ago
>We all know that any great medium starts out as a bastion of understanding, sharing and common good until a bunch of trolls show up to ruin it all (ahem, reddit, ycombinator, digg, etc). No, we don't. I don't agree with your statement and I don't think you should be speaking for other people. None of those places were bastions of any of those things. They were places where like-minded people gathered to talk about common interests. Don't make the mistake of thinking because they represented your interests that these places were bastions of all that is good. That is such a dim and cynical and solipsistic view to take. I don't agree that the people who came to those networks are trolls just because they showed up after me. This is a natural consequence of networks getting popular, not a bunch of trolls coming to ruin the things I love because I love them. It's like saying that the people who came to America after the initial European colonists were trolls because they had different interests from original colonists. This is such a common tactic on internet 'debates.' To call someone who disagrees with you a troll, thereby absolving you from the mental work of understanding their viewpoint (I don't need to engage this troll, they're just fucking with me) and dealing with the possibility that someone has different opinions than you.

by cyphunk 12y ago

walshemj 12y ago

where the FSB can easily access it without those pesky court orders - this is part of Putins crackdown along with banning certain words from use period.

oddx 12y ago
Secret court orders isn't problem in USA [1] nor UK [2], Russia only tries to keep up with Five Eyes. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#Secret_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... 2. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/apr/04/clarke-defends-secret-courts-plans-clegg http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/apr/04/clarke-defends-se...
- walshemj 12y ago
  Say what you will about the NSA SIS etc they at least do have some independent oversight.

spindritf 12y ago

balkanisation of the Internet is a natural result of the erosion of trust in corporations and other stewards of this medium Not even close. This is another regime looking to suppress dissent, just like China has been doing all along. They don't trust their own citizens, not "corporations and other stewards of this medium." You're buying a flimsy excuse for cracking down on free speech. Their problem has never been that some company cooperates with the US. It has always been that multinationals couldn't be easily strong-armed into cooperating with the local authorities. And no, it wouldn't matter if the US had the same problems.

hopeless 12y ago
I could easily see the EU strengthening our data protection laws in the next few years to take us in this direction. In light of the NSA scandals there's probably a strong justification for this… except that the UK is a bigger danger to privacy and it operates within the EU.
- Amezarak 12y ago
  Nearly every EU country is documented to have similar programs, not just the UK. Some are even much more aggressive about industrial espionage - for example, France. When European politicians make noise about using European-based services, it isn't so they can be sure your privacy is protected, it's so EU-based organizations can access those servers without having to negotiate with the NSA. As a side benefit, they can claim it's good for the local economy. The NSA revelations are just a pretext. Every European country knew exactly what was going on; they were complicit in it and they had varying levels of sharing agreements with the NSA.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    It's not as clear-cut. The motivation of pro-privacy MEPs from the left-wing EU parties are most likely entirely different from the ones of the Council of Europe. But your point about most EU intelligence services being engaged in spying on EU citizens stands, unfortunately.
  - 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

Exactly - this is only the "natural" response countries should take to both punish US for its shameless foreign spying, but also for national security reasons (which US touts an excuse so much, for everything), to protect their data from being stolen. The only action US companies can do now to avoid more countries doing this (short of US gov creating serious and radical reforms of its spying, along with radically stronger and more transparent oversight - which let's face it, is not going to happen anytime soon), will be to turn more and more of their services in "trustless" services, where you don't have to trust the company for keeping your data protected, because you know solid encryption system is keeping it protecting, along with open sourcing as much as possible of their software (especially if they are hardware manufacturers).

rayiner 12y ago

> So I think it's natural that people recede slightly from the idea a globalised common communal identity created by the Internet and look toward their national structures to protect them. Communal identities are built along lines manned by people with guns. All that's happening now is that the internet has become an important resource, and countries are seeking to control it, like they do with any strategic resource.

benihana 12y ago

>We all know that any great medium starts out as a bastion of understanding, sharing and common good until a bunch of trolls show up to ruin it all (ahem, reddit, ycombinator, digg, etc). No, we don't. I don't agree with your statement and I don't think you should be speaking for other people. None of those places were bastions of any of those things. They were places where like-minded people gathered to talk about common interests. Don't make the mistake of thinking because they represented your interests that these places were bastions of all that is good. That is such a dim and cynical and solipsistic view to take. I don't agree that the people who came to those networks are trolls just because they showed up after me. This is a natural consequence of networks getting popular, not a bunch of trolls coming to ruin the things I love because I love them. It's like saying that the people who came to America after the initial European colonists were trolls because they had different interests from original colonists. This is such a common tactic on internet 'debates.' To call someone who disagrees with you a troll, thereby absolving you from the mental work of understanding their viewpoint (I don't need to engage this troll, they're just fucking with me) and dealing with the possibility that someone has different opinions than you.