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>"The simplest outcome is we're going to end up breaking the Internet," said Google's Schmidt. Foreign governments, he said, are "eventually going to say, we wa
by EthanHeilman 12y ago
>"The simplest outcome is we're going to end up breaking the Internet," said Google's Schmidt. Foreign governments, he said, are "eventually going to say, we want our own Internet in our country because we want it to work our way, and we don't want the NSA and these other people in it."
This age of Nation-States, and their private agents, attacking other countries companies through the internet reminds me of the age of piracy in which nations employed privateers acting under a letter of marque to harass and destroy enemy commercial shipping interests. How does any nation think this is an acceptable non-warlike behavior to do allies and friendly nations?
- rayiner 12y ago> This age of Nation-States, and their private agents, attacking other countries companies through the internet reminds me of the age of piracy in which nations employed privateers acting under a letter of marque to harass and destroy enemy commercial shipping interests. How does any nation think this is an acceptable non-warlike behavior to do allies and friendly nations? It's an irrelevant question. They don't have to consider it acceptable--they do it because they can. The only reason nation-states don't engage in piracy anymore is because the major powers' domination of sea power has made it untenable. And the major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more to gain from trade than from piracy.
- EthanHeilman 12y ago>It's an irrelevant question. They don't have to consider it acceptable--they do it because they can. There are many things that states can do but don't. Why states don't do those things can be for self-interested, ideological, social, culture, ethical or constitution/legal reasons. >And the major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more to gain from trade than from piracy. I think there is a good argument to be made that destroying the internet via proxy conflicts for limited intelligence gain is not in any of the big players long term interest (although it may be in the interests of state security organisations as it expands their mission/importance). Schmidt seems to agree with me.
- raldi 12y ago> The major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more to gain from trade than from piracy. Don't you think that applies to the Internet, too?
- rayiner 12y agoMaybe. Spying is less invasive than piracy and less likely to dampen commerce. Is anyone not going to shop at Amazon because the government might spy on the transaction?
- EthanHeilman 12y agoThat is the claim the story makes for instance: >Wyden himself cited a study from Forrester Research that found that surveillance concerns could cost U.S. companies a quarter of their foreign revenue by 2016. The bigger issue is not consumer behavior but how Nation-States react. If they balkanize and securitize the internet then consumers may not be able to access amazon/google/facebook even if they wanted to (see Great Firewall of China). This is exactly the point Google and members of the US Senate are making in the article.
- raldi 12y agoYes; that's kinda the whole theme of the article.
- mikeash 12y agoThey think it's acceptable because they can get away with it. We live in a nation of government and laws and it's so ingrained that it's hard to imagine any other way. But the international stage is pure anarchy. There's no authority, no meta-government, and all that guides behavior is precedent, promises, threats, and reactions. Countries will stop attacking each other through the internet the moment they think that they're better off that way, and not before.
- afarrell 12y agoAll systems that attempt to implement justice are ultimately built upon the monstrously unjust platform of "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".