

The Internet is freest in US hands - tn13
http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2013/09/24/the-internet-is-freest-in-us-hands/

======
tikhonj
It seems that the internet would be freest if it was _decentralized_ \--in
nobody's hands. I think this would certainly be true of things like DNS,
although I'm not sure how to accomplish this.

Of course, in many ways, decentralized systems are rather counter-intuitive.
They're possible technically, and the math is often elegant, but very few non-
technical people encounter enough systems like this to be comfortable with the
idea. Of course, a market is a perfect example of a decentralized system, but
most people don't think of a market as a _system_ per se.

So perhaps this argument comes because the author does not realize or
intuitively grasp the possibility that _nobody_ need control the internet. And
sure, when given the choice of whom to trust, the US is much better than
_many_ countries! Certainly better than Russia or China. And these countries
have serious sway in the UN. Moreover, his point that the UN is not
accountable to anyone is actually very important: while a democratic country
like the US[1] is accountable to the people, the UN is only accountable to
_governments_. Even in the US, we don't vote for our UN representative! (Do
we?) So it's very indirect.

But what if _nobody_ really controls the internet--what if we manage some
decentralized, consensus based system? Or something. (As I said before, I
haven't thought of the details, so let's keep it hypothetical.) Well, that's a
different ball game. Yet people may not even realize this is an option.

[1]: Yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of pedantic argument to be made here, but I
think it's besides the point: the US government _is_ , to some finite extent,
accountable to the people in a way that even China's isn't.

~~~
hitchhiker999
No, you are absolutely correct. It was designed to be decentralized.

Hopefully when we look back in history, from a place where the internet works
that way. We'll wonder how it was ever a single government / set of
corporations that was 'in charge of it.'

~~~
krapp
I can't see how the internet _can_ be entirely decentralized, and still
operate at the scale that it does. There are laws that must be applicable to
the transfer of money and to business done online (at least for any business
that wants to operate legally - obviously this excludes the Silk Roads of the
world), to say nothing of the physical server, routing and power
infrastructure involved. This is not to suggest that the internet must be
centralized but I believe that the bigger it gets the more pressure there will
be for corporations and governments to assert some kind of order onto it. And
I think that for the most part, people want that. Most people want the
internet they believe they have, in which they can check their facebook and
pay their bills online and sneak their porn in peace.

------
FBT
The alternative to US control that we want of course isn't UN control. I would
even go as far as to say that this article is attacking a strawman. What we
object to is the "control" part of "the US controls the internet", not the
"US" part.

If China, or Russia, or Australia, or France, or whatever other country was
doing what the US is doing now, we'd object just as much. Or if the UN was in
control. That's not the point. What we want when we object to US control isn't
foreign control, it's no control.

~~~
tn13
You are mistaken. No one gives a sh __to US spying on Indians, Brazilians or
Iranians. Most of the outrage you see on internet, on HN and everywhere else
is only because US is spying on American citizens. (Control is not same as
spying but I would assume spying to be a subset of it)

That is why as a non-american I don't sign any of those petitions condemning
NSA for spying on Americans.

~~~
hitchhiker999
No, people REALLY do care that the US is spying on everyone. A lot of people
(I assume) also dislike the entire situation we're living in at the moment
(tiresome police state crap).

------
pkinsky
>Why so? Because there is no better political system—the constitution,
separation of powers, civil society and citizens—than the United States today
that can protect liberty and free speech.

We may pass the low bar set by China and Russia, but each of these claims
needs a citation.

~~~
rayiner
Which country large enough to do the job does a better job than the United
States? Leave aside China and Russia. How about the U.K., which put the whole
country under video surveillance years ago? How about France, which is
currently waging a war on head scarves? Read this and tell me which country
does a better job protecting speech than the U.S.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech).

~~~
Spearchucker
How about _all_ of them?

~~~
gibwell
Are you joking?

~~~
jeremysmyth
All != each

------
lnanek2
> The United States has strong and vocal free speech and privacy advocates who
> can hold their government accountable without fear of harm

Then why did Snowden have to run away to a foreign country? Why is Manning in
jail for 35 years?

~~~
anologwintermut
Because, right, wrong, or otherwise, he did actually break the law and not in
some twisted way that's meant to punish people the government doesn't like.
But you are right, it's not a good example.

On the other hand, the fact that the Washington Post can still publish what he
"stole"(from the gov's view) is telling about US respect for free speech.

~~~
felipe
Chen Guangcheng also "broke the law". So in your logic does that excuses
China?

~~~
anologwintermut
In that case, it appears that the Chinese went looking for a law he broke to
get rid of a pesky dissident. I.e. he pissed them off for other reasons and
then they found something.

What Snowden did, in terms of the actual act of disclosing massive amounts of
classified data, was in and of it self very illegal. And it's that actual act
that the government takes issue with, so the situation is completely
different.

Of course, a major question is do Snowden's motivations grant him an exception
to that law or at least grounds of a pardon or such. I'd say yes, though it
also depends on what he leaks.

------
triplesec
This pretty terrible piece of rhetoric using a false dilemma involving the
strawman that "non-US control" = "foreign government control" which is not a
true statement. This strawman sets up the false dilemma whereby a dichotomy is
framed to us so as to make the US control appear to be the lesser of two
evils.

There are many other possible options for internet governance (or non-
governance and de-governance), some of which we haven't yet devised. I suspect
this forum may come up with some decent new ideas.

~~~
gibwell
It's a false dichotomy from a strictly abstract point of view where other
logical possibilities exist, but that's irrelevant. The people who are
proposing to move control of the internet away from the US actually _are_
foreign governments, and in particular Russia and the Chinese. In the real
world it is not a false dichotomy.

If we want other alternatives, we actually have to devise and validate them
before they become real.

~~~
hitchhiker999
"where other logical possibilities exist, but that's irrelevant" \- That's not
irrelevant.

He writes "Indians are much better off putting their faith in their freedom-
loving American counterparts than participating in grandiose international
internet governance schemes." -> that's pretty powerful rhetoric, suggesting a
black/white scenario. This probably isn't accidental.

~~~
triplesec
Quite! Another comment has suggested a distributed model, but I haven't seen a
social or technical mechanism for this yet. I hope we are inspired to come up
with some options and protocols. I'm now putting brain backcycles on this for
sure, and others may be work on this as a priority. I'm wondering if there's
already an .org dedicated to this.

------
maxk42
No -- it's freeest when NOBODY controls it.

Support darknets.

~~~
betterunix
The problem is that most people do not _really_ want an Internet controlled by
its users, because what most people want is a ton of somewhat-reliable
throughput. An Internet run by volunteers out of their homes, cooperatively,
could work -- Fidonet works -- but would likely have much lower throughput
than today's Internet. Overlay networks (darknets included) cannot work if the
ISPs that run the Internet do not allow people to run them or connect to them.

~~~
rhizome
_The problem is that most people do not really want an Internet controlled by
its users, because what most people want is a ton of somewhat-reliable
throughput._

A complete non-sequitur.

------
verandaguy
I can't say that I agree with the author's view on this. The American
organizations that 'control' the Internet (ICANN, W3C, WHATWG, and even the
IEEE, who were involved in the 802.11 standard design) would all more likely
create better, more free standards and specifications if they worked as
committees from countries which

1\. Have no bad blood (so there's no reason to sabotage specs), and

2\. Aren't too closely related, either; collaboration can result in a return
to the current state of the web.

~~~
mhurron
Name the country that fits those two points.

------
hitchhiker999
The internet should continue to be decentralised, as intended, and not be
under the control of any one government or people.

Certainly not the U.S, Russia or China.

That article just wasted 2 mins of my life.

~~~
hitchhiker999
Also, you can't comment on that article - it's moderated, so far the only 5
comments allowed through are either a) neutral b) pro US.

Silly this.

------
NAFV_P
In this thread China and Russia have been mentioned several times. What hasn't
been brought up is the origin of the software they use to surf the internet.

------
jdonaldson
It's hard to claim the US system "works" because of whistleblowers, when the
whistleblowers themselves claim the system is broken.

------
tn13
I can understand the hacker community disagreeing with the author but to do
him justice, the article needs to be read in the following light

1\. Other countries like China, Iran, Russia etc. will use Snowden's
revelations (and likes) to lobby for a system where these countries get an
"equal" say in how internet is being run.

2\. If at all any government wants to "control" internet it better be US alone
than some other nation of mixture of others nations.

~~~
rhizome
What do the scare quotes around "equal" mean? And what trait(s) connects the
countries you list?

 _2\. If at all any government wants to "control" internet it better be US
alone than some other nation of mixture of others nations._

Of course this is what light the article is being read in, isn't it the title?

~~~
tn13
The trait that connects these countries: Sufficiently large countries whose
opinion is reported in newspapers.

The scare quote around "equal" :

It means country X's opinion about how internet is to evolve and run would
matter as much as country Y. Which is to say some countries such as United
States who have contributed to growth of internet would be under represented
and some countries like Sri Lanka will be over represented. This often happens
in UN and eventually the large countries like US or China have to use
different tactics to gain favorable opinion.

~~~
rhizome
So, in what way are China and Iran to be considered equal here?

~~~
tn13
The place where I live China and Iran make lot of news.

------
felipe
> Where is Brazil’s Snowden?

Is the author aware that Glenn Greenwald (the reporter who first reported
about Snowden) ACTUALLY LIVES IN BRAZIL???

This article is just a nationalistic piece written with a very specific
agenda.

------
DanielBMarkham
I've been among the biggest screamers about the NSA and other atrocities
against privacy, but the author is exactly right. Those who call for putting
the internet under some kind of control by the UN or other world organizations
are either purposely misleading people or direly uninformed.

We have a technology problem. The technology we built was made (on purpose) by
us to track people like lab rats in an elaborate zoo. This capability exists
completely outside of where your server is, where your data resides, or any of
that. It's a feature of modern life.

It's this feature of modern life that is the problem. All Snowden did was show
that some Americans aren't going to sit idly by while their government screws
over the world. Defunding the NSA or moving your stuff to an offshore cloud,
or making it illegal for the U.S. government to track you? That's going to do
exactly nothing in the way of protecting your privacy and anonymity.

So yes, let's rise up and take action. But by all means, we should know what
the hell we're talking about. If you want to really see draconian state
surveillance, let each individual country have it's way with the citizens.
What we've seen so far is a cakewalk compared to that possible future.

------
devx
I'm not so sure that will continue to be true. Maybe if Americans convince me
that they can elect a Congress and a new president that is very against these
mass surveillance practices, _campaigns_ on that, and has a proven track
record regarding that, maybe I'll change my mind.

But as long as US keeps giving itself "freebies" with every foreigner's data,
I'm not trusting it. I want some well established rules for how US can access
my data, and only with the agreement my government.

~~~
anologwintermut
I think it's important to draw the distinction between freedom in terms of the
freedom of speech on the internet and freedom from surveillance on the
internet.

The US is the largest monitor of the internet because most of the traffic
passes through points it can monitor. Changing this would restrict US spying,
but it would make it easier for other countries to do it (consider, given the
announced Olympic surveillance plans) if all the traffic went through Russia).
So you'd have to simply hope traffic doesn't get routed through countries who
want to spy on each-other(remember, few if any countries have legal
restrictions on foreign surveillance). It seems the only real solution to
prevent surveillance is end to end cryptography.

The part where it gets dicier is that many of the countries trying to get
control of the internet have much poorer legal protections for freedom of
speech or social acceptance of it than the US (e.g. China, Russia, Saudi
Arabia, Brazil).

~~~
schoen
This is one reason I think it would be helpful to have a clearer articulation
of which functions people are referring to when they talk about "Internet
governance", so that other people can understand whether we want those
functions to exist at all, and (if so) what kinds of institutions we would
like to try to empower to do them. Many things that can be called "Internet
governance" have little bearing on Internet users' free speech or privacy --
but others do.

This might be akin to the way that RMS suggests that saying "intellectual
property" (instead of "copyright", "patent", "trademark", "trade secret", and
several sui generis regimes) leads to conceptual muddles. "Internet
governance" may have the same problem; maybe it's a term in need of some
disaggregation!

------
grecy
> Because there is no better political system—the constitution, separation of
> powers, civil society and citizens—than the United States today that can
> protect liberty and free speech.

Spoken as only a sheltered American could believe.

~~~
atlanticus
This is written by an Indian so I don't think he is sheltered. America is the
only superpower and gets a lot of flack because they have no credible peer.
Some people can't stand it and will be disappointed for a long time.

~~~
EliRivers
_America is the only superpower and gets a lot of flack because they have no
credible peer._

That and all the terrible stuff they do.

