Does the Internet belong to one country?

[Sebastiaan56]

It gets better...privacy?

Web snooping policy shrouded in secrecy

Time to get some really subversive sounding sites going and fill them with Mary Poppins to play with these idiots heads. And I pay taxes for this?????

[kiwigeo]

For the most part most countries are latch ons to what the US and Canada developed - the internet. If Australia is too cheap to develop their own in country network that doesn't rely on outside influence for it's access to the rest of the world then that's their problem not the US's.

The US might be able to make it difficult for the internet to function 100% but I don't see how they could shut it down completely.

This from Wiki:

The Internet is a globally distributed network comprising many voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing body. However, to maintain interoperability, all technical and policy aspects of the underlying core infrastructure and the principal name spaces are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), headquartered in Marina del Rey, California. ICANN is the authority that coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers for use on the Internet, including domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, application port numbers in the transport protocols, and many other parameters. Globally unified name spaces, in which names and numbers are uniquely assigned, are essential for the global reach of the Internet. ICANN is governed by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and other non-commercial communities. The US government continues to have the primary role in approving changes to the DNS root zone that lies at the heart of the domain name system. ICANN's role in coordinating the assignment of unique identifiers distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body on the global Internet. On November 16, 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunis, established the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to discuss Internet-related issues.

[jimbur]

Time to get some really subversive sounding sites going and fill them with Mary Poppins to play with these idiots heads. And I pay taxes for this?????

You've probably used at least two key words in your post - subversive and heads Watch out for men in suits with bulging armpits.

[jimbur]

I suppose that at the moment the internet provides the US with more useful information than it provides aid and succour to its 'enemies'. The same could be said for the United Nations in New York. Will that be closed down if narrow domestic policy thinks it a diminishing asset.
Cheers,
Jim

[cultana]

It gets better...privacy?

Web snooping policy shrouded in secrecy

Actually it is worth reading these two articles:
Govt wants ISPs to record browsing history - Communications - News

Inside Australia's data retention proposal - Communications - News

In some ways the problem is not if one country, ie USA, wants to have a kill button, but what is actually happening in your own little national intranet.

Consider the above and also the use of a nationally controlled secret black list for a national filter, then add in the current intended e-medical number concept and you start having a nanny state.

I was talking to a person who lived through the fascist governments that WWII was fought against. His comment is that here in this democracy we as a nation are going way further than those governments did. What is more worrying is that peopel don't seem to realise what is actually happening, or worse are pleased for it to occur.

[Master Splinter]

About the most the US could do would be shut down the top level domain servers located in the US. That only leaves the top level servers in europe, japan, australia. south america, africa and even new zealand. Top level domain updates would run a little slower, ho-hum.

And as for recording internet history - that's going to be in the same bucket as the internet filter; it just raises the bar for entry a little higher, and it's the sort of thing that will turn around and bite some politician in the #### when details of their expense rorts/shady deals/illicit affairs/policy 'leaks' become known thanks to it.

I don't have problems with the concept, as long as the logs are freely available to browse by all Australian citizens (it's not like Echelon isn't doing this snooping already, let's face it). I'd love finding out what websites members of parliament browse!

[cultana]

I don't have problems with the concept, as long as the logs are freely available to browse by all Australian citizens (it's not like Echelon isn't doing this snooping already, let's face it). I'd love finding out what websites members of parliament browse!

Hmm.. Ok Echelon is public knowledge but not everything sorry.

As for your wish about the logs being public, forget that part straight off. Never going to happen.
What will occur is a tightening of what is being scanned/checked off against a user. Everything is traceable from money movement, phone , snail mail and just wait till CCTV comes outside your door. Ok call it scare mongering but going by the track record of various democratic governments about this small planet this is going to come slowly and you the public will hardly notice.

As for the US and killing the internet all it is supposed to do is at best shut off USA from the world and probably the internal systems. Anything outside the US will not be affected just go slower than normal slow.
As i pointed out earlier it will cause big disruptions to all those US companies that have outsourced to India etc.
In many cases more damage can be done by directly attacking the outsourced sites. This would disrupt a lot more than one may consider. besides it would also hit much of the global economies than just the US.

[kiwigeo]

Kinda strange when people get up in arms about the government having access to their private data but are quite happy to entrust privately run entities such as Facebook and Google with their personal details.

[Big Shed]

This thread is drifting off course somewhat, be nice if the original question could be addressed rather than all the "conspiracy theories"

[hughie]

I know you all hate the US but come on folks

That you don't, its an assumption. I was married in the US of A and have a lot of fond memories as well as many friends there.

The point I was making is that some behave with amazing arrogance, an arrogance born out of past glories that have little if anything do with today.

[cultana]

This thread is drifting off course somewhat, be nice if the original question could be addressed rather than all the "conspiracy theories"

The US can not kill all of the internet. It can but kill off access to the US part of the internet.

The only way that all the internet can be killed off is if a switch code was installed in all the various servers and routers world wide.
Add to that, this US switch to kill the internet had access to the code to shut down every server ad router.
Now that is a conspiracy theory.

[Master Splinter]

China actually makes a lot of the physical hardware used for the backbone of the internet - if anyone has a back door into it, my dollar would be on them!!!

[Sturdee]

. Anything outside the US will not be affected just go slower than normal slow.

My understanding was that this forum were hosted on a US server as well as many other Australian sites are.

In addition most of the internet traffic goes through the US so if it was shut down there would be major disruptions to the net. Also Google and Microsoft are US companies and would have to shut down their facilities world wide.

Peter.

[underfoot]

so if it was shut down there would be major disruptions to the net. .

just made me wonder what would happen without the net ?
for a start I'd have an extra hour and a half of my day I'd need to fill,
(probably just waste it fishing or surfing or carving)

[jimbur]

I think it resolves into two parts.
The first is the US president wanting power to stop internal internet usage in his own country to prevent 'subversive/enemy' communications. This would have unwanted (for the rest of the world) effects but could of course be considered reasonable if a state of war exists.
The second part is far less clear. The US might feel they have the technical expertise to stop all communications on the internet throughout the world. This case would be analogous to blocking commerce on the seaways of the world for combatants or neutral countries alike. This would be against all international law.
Cheers,
Jim