
The World Wants to Break Up with America's Internet - seky
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-world-wants-to-break-up-with-americas-internet
======
InclinedPlane
Asses.

Everyone. Everywhere.

Unconscionable asses.

Outside the US the internet is under the worst sort of attack. Filtering,
censorship, and worse. Even in the most free countries in Europe or Asia the
idea of an unrestricted, unfiltered, uncensored is under forceful attack. In
countries like China, India, Turkey, or Russia the internet is already
censored or filtered. In other places like the UK, France, and Australia plans
for filtering and censorship are gaining steam.

Meanwhile, the idea that other countries are not pervasively snooping on all
manner of internet communications is simply a fiction. Indeed, many such
programs outside the US have been well known since before revelations of NSA
internet surveillance came to light.

I'm not sure which is more deserving of ire. The assholes in the US government
who abused and overstepped their authority and in the process validated every
single fear (rational or not) about the US being so central to the internet.
Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right
into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship.

The idea of a free and open internet still existing a decade from now seems to
be slipping out of our hands by the moment.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right
into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship."

How do you judge which is more serious? For example you mentioned the UK. The
only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. ISP's have
to block The Pirate Bay (easy to get around through a proxy) and when you sign
up for internet some ISP's ask "do you want us to run our filtering software
to protect your children from porn?". You say "no" and they don't filter.
Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does.

~~~
grey-area
_Those things don 't bother me at all. US surveillance does._

The UK has surpassed the US in surveillance - the Tempora program attempts to
capture all traffic in the UK and store it as long as possible.

 _The only censorship /filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn._

That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for
example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK
because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc).

~~~
Toenex
_That 's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas
(for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK
because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc)._

Sorry are you suggesting that we in the UK can't have an open discussion on
surveillance?

~~~
grey-area
Yes.

------
njharman
I wonder if history will look back at this as the decade the USA lost
"governance" of the "free" world / leadership among nations. US Dollars losing
defacto currency of the world status. Internet balkinization in response to
spying. China and India overtaking US as places to make money selling
consumerism. Leading up to now; no more unifying USSR threat -> NATO's lack of
relevance, growth of EU, USA near unilateral military actions and wars.

The world is rapidly realizing not only do they not need the USA anymore, they
are better off without it.

~~~
atlanticus
That is a lovely fantasy but the world is run by grownups. Intelligence like
defense has been outsourced to the US and Europe shows no signs of resuming
their own defense. I think you will be in for few disappointing decades,
probably longer.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
Methinks Europe is realizing that a) most of that defense and intelligence is
aimed at enemies created by the US in the first place, and b) outsourcing
defense to a nation that massively violates the civil rights of European
citizens is about as appropriate as outsourcing protection to the mafia.

~~~
cobrausn
Yeah, violating the civil rights of Europeans should be done by European
governments only - they all have similar spying programs in place, and have
had them for a while now.

They are probably pretty concerned about the appearance of being concerned,
however.

------
praptak
The article could be less fluffy. I believe the most concrete piece is:

Another portion of their [Directors of all major Internet organizations
present at the Uruguay meeting] released statement asked to accelerate _“the
globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all
stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing.”_

Sounds more like "wrestling the centralized control from" rather than
"breaking up".

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rurounijones
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...

~~~
cygwin98
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
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
>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
Heh...

So can the American Government.

The difference is...

if your own Government puts you in a cage...

you actually have rights.

~~~
krapp
But - the American government probably isn't going to care if you say terrible
things about your own, or if you're looking at porn, or cheating on taxes or
denying the holocaust, or about any number of things that could get you into
trouble on your home turf.

I'm not saying America in this case isn't a threat, it is abstractly, but it
can also be the lesser evil.

------
n008
America's Internet? _shrugs_

People from all over the world have been contributing to the development of
the internet, web, computers et cetera. Yet, it is America's Internet.

~~~
efdee
I assume the point is that countries don't want to break with "The Internet",
just "The American Internet".

~~~
sparkie
That might be how it's being played - the NSA surveillance is a useful story
to push individual countries agendas, but what they're really after is
complete control of domestic communications. It's not countries "breaking free
from the US", rather the beginning of the balkanization of the internet.

~~~
walshemj
Back to the good old days when all communications where under the countrys PTT
and in third world country's was a nice source of foreign cash to be spirited
away to a Swiss banck account.

Thats why Postmaster general was such a plum Job in that sort of country.

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crbnw00ts
So, the rest of the world is "shocked, shocked I tell you" that the US is
monitoring the internet? Does anyone really believe there aren't similar
entities in other countries doing the same?

I bet all the world's governments can be divided into just two groups: those
that are monitoring the internet, and those that are trying to.

~~~
efdee
There aren't many other world governments that yield the same kind of
international power on the Internet. You might have a point about governments
in general, but I think the situation actually gets better if no single
government can wiretap on such a large scale.

That being said, the tone of your comment makes me think you are not
interested in an argument, but rather just want to deflect attention away from
what the USG is doing. Because everybody is doing it, right?

~~~
jafaku
Agreed, that "argument" is getting tiresome.

> Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries
> doing the same?

------
fuqua
"Keep in mind here that Chehadi was appointed by the US government, who has
remained silent on this matter."

No, he wasn't. ICANN appoints its own President/CEO. There is no US
confirmation of that position. None.

------
ethanazir
Governments on the 'same footing' vs. human beings on the 'same footing?' I
respect people everywhere sure; but dictator x is not deserving of
disproportionate influence.

------
exodust
When we start embedding sensors and microchips in our bodies, it'll suck when
we ctrl-alt-delete on the running processes in our bodies, and see Google Play
Services in the task manager. Try to kill it and it pops back in your sleep. I
just hope the current passive evil ever-present corporate interests aren't
forced upon us at the biological level. I don't want my body violated by the
NSA.

------
Sagat
'Murica has some good points but it's a pretty destructive and unsustainable
culture. I'm also worried about the fact that they have no qualms about
blowing up people with drones or sending people to shady prisons without
trial. You might say that China and Russia are worse, but they have nowhere
near the power and technical possibilities open to Murcans.

~~~
rit
You confuse decisions by government with those of the American people.

I can assure you, as an American, I have qualms about blowing up people with
anything, including drones... and I hold due process to be one of the most
fundamental human rights.

------
shaghab
I wonder what impact this will have on cloud service providers.. I guess an
opportunity for cloud vendors to develop "national cloud" \- a public cloud
inaccessible outside a particular country/region/state etc.

------
Fuxy
I'm going to miss google a bit but I'll live :P

