The World Wants to Break Up with America's Internet
motherboard.vice.com
motherboard.vice.com
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.
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.
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).
Sorry are you suggesting that we in the UK can't have an open discussion on surveillance?
Right?
Do you understand the problem or do I need to explain more clearly?
[edit: grey-area has said it better than me]
And "filtering, censorship and worse" happens in spite of US governance. So we have to worry about the US government, in addition to local threats. Because 1 + 1 = 2.
And don't get me wrong, we never trusted the US government, but we trusted US companies to do the right thing, given your strong and stable Constitution. But apparently your government found ways to coerce your companies into doing whatever they want and make you shut up about it. And that's why it's not the US government's governance I'd worry about, but rather I'd worry about the bottom line of your companies that have brought so much innovation and that are going to get punished in the international marketplace while not being guilty.
The US really needs to do something to repair their image and fast. And statements such as yours really do seem disingenuous or ignorant about what this whole thing means for us and does nothing to repair the loss of trust.
As bad as the NSA vacuum is, it's a problem that can be solved under the current system.
The world is rapidly realizing not only do they not need the USA anymore, they are better off without it.
They are probably pretty concerned about the appearance of being concerned, however.
Disclaimer: Brazilian here.
This is where you don't get it: there is a growing gap on what "defence" means to the US and the rest of the world. And this is precisely where the problems arise. Gradually the US will have to spend more and more to protect national interests that no one else cares about. Eventually the costs will outweigh the gains. This is part of the story of the British Empire fall.
G.W. Bush also thought that "America can go alone". Then he discovered that military power is too expensive to be the only way to implement hegemony. You also need the "soft power", the ability to persuade people without using guns. This is precisely where US power is eroding.
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".
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...
I'm not sure I made myself clear: my position is that the encryption needs to be done on each end-user's PC, not on some centralised service such as Lavabit.
While the USA could extract the secrets from one person, if that person is living in the USA, it is harder fro them to do so to people outside the USA. Although they could burgle people's houses and extract information that way, it doesn't scale and they certainly couldn't do it to all the people in a country.
How would facebook (or the non US equivalent) work if data was encrypted on everyone's PC. There is no PKI that would support that at the moment (Although a social network that also acts as a PKI is an interesting idea.)
Lavabit was the middleman in the communication, not the end; or was it?
Also territories that have data sharing deals and probably most allies.
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.
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.
The American government could put you on a No-Fly list, but your own government could put you in a cage.
So can the American Government.
The difference is...
if your own Government puts you in a cage...
you actually have rights.
I'm not saying America in this case isn't a threat, it is abstractly, but it can also be the lesser evil.
/sarcasm
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.
Thats why Postmaster general was such a plum Job in that sort of country.
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.
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?
> Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?
*Unless you don't mind being snooped on by your own government.
Quite the opposite. In no way am I trying to excuse what the US is doing or say that it is "right" in any way, shape, or form. I think what the US government is doing in terms of internet surveillance is unequivocally wrong.
The issue is: viewing it as a US-only problem will lead to everyone being vulnerable to similar surveillance from other parts of the world. Countries which are currently grandstanding about the US's actions are almost certainly motivated in part by wanting to deflect attention from the fact that they are either already using similar systems, or scrambling to build them.
Freedom from internet surveillance should be viewed as a human right that applies no matter where one lives. Framing it as "the US vs. everyone else" leaves everyone wide open. Before the Snowden leaks came out, there was widespread skepticism about the reach of the US's internet surveillance. Now that that skepticism has been (hopefully permanently) dissolved, I find it strange that there is any skepticism left in regards to other governments.
So the two groups you are looking for are: those that monitor the internet domestically, and those that monitor the internet internationally. The US (with assistance from a few allies) is the only country to fall into the second group.
If the UK government decides they need to monitor my communications, fair enough. I am, afterall, subject to UK law.
"We believe a terrorist exists in GB. That constitutes a criminal threat. To catch him or her, we need to run big data analysis on all communications."
This argument is often used, and it's a bad one because it ignores that there are different levels of surveillance. No one is saying that other countries don't respond to illegal stuff going on on the Internet. But not every country in the world has opted for the all-out, monitor-every-law-abiding-citizen thing that NSA is doing.
Save for the UK, I can't think of a single Western European country that goes to the extreme lengths of surveillance that the US does.
People were equally skeptical about the extent of the US's surveillance until the Snowden revelations. It always seems far-fetched ... right up until the moment it doesn't.
1) http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...
Do you believe anyone except maybe the Chinese government has a system like FOXACID for deploying exploits? Do you believe that there are more than a handful of governments spending what it takes to develop their own zero-day exploits? Do you believe any other government than the US has built out the backhaul needed for global dragnet surveillance?
The US spends more than the rest of the world combined on weapons and intelligence.
Some guy in the Latvian secret police might wish they had an NSA, but all they've got is a potato.
Which is even more reason for people to use strong encryption. And for states to, if they think their traffic might be read by someone with conflicting interests to theirs.
Are the democracy of US listening what its own people has to say? as somebody looking from the outside, it looks the answer is that is not.. perhaps the government are too busy listening to the elite class, that have their own agenda, and as long they are taking some profit out of it, its fine.. (but as a plus, and to our shame, in what country that is NOT the reality)
If its my government at least i can try to make them be reasonable in some way.. as im a citizen;
But how can we do that if we are not the citizen of the country who is abusing and breaking what we think is our civil rights? Can we citizens of all others countries spied by NSA knock on the doors of the white house?
So the "Your country are doing the same" line of thinking so popular here doesnt stick.. Sorry Pal
No, he wasn't. ICANN appoints its own President/CEO. There is no US confirmation of that position. None.
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.