11-19-2010, 11:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-20-2010, 12:52 AM by turtledude23.)
Google has a strong interest in net neutrality because the more information they gather the more accurate their search algorithm is, that's one of the reasons why their goal is organizing all the worlds information. The more central reason, in my opinion, is that they have a genuine love of knowledge and believe all people are entitled to all knowledge. Alot of people like calling Google a privacy threat and big brother and stuff but honestly I haven't seen anything to indicate that, quite the opposite: the Chinese government demanded Google give them access to a dissidents gmail account and they refused (so China hired hackers to hack them, "Project Aurora", also see GhostNet). Google was a large contributor to Obama's campaign and Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) is on some kind of technology advisory committee to the president. They could stop this.
Vint Cerf, one of the creators of TCP/IP says government control of the internet is impossible: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1420...14?sp=true
With encryption tools like Off the Record Messaging plugin for Pidgin, VPNs, HTTPS, it becomes very hard to decrypt messages if the sending and receiving system is well implemented. The only threat to our current systems of encryption is quantum computing, which won't be viable for 15 years by some estimates.
While this is true governments will want to take down specific web sites/servers, not routing nodes, which there's usually only one copy of, unless you have a smart system like WikiLeaks does. That's the weakpoint of the internet, not so much DNS. But there are ways around that: anonymous P2P and darknets like Freenet and GNUnet are decentralized, P2P-based alternative to HTTP.
There are ways around blocked website like proxies, VPNs, Tor, I2P and Psiphon.
In other words: even if the governments of "developed" countries started censoring websites (like Australia is doing), we'd find ways around it. The worst case scenario is that the mainstream doesn't have access to real news and only the tech savvy underground would, but most people don't really care about how corrupt their government is, or at least, they don't care enough to do something about it.
edit: the only absolute weakness I see is that internet access is in the hands of ISPs, who could - if laws permit - charge insane amounts of money, with slower speeds, thereby discouraging non-essential internet activites. the solution would be creating a new global data exchange network, a task that becomes more feasible over time as technology advances and becomes cheaper. where there's a will there's a way.
edit2: this article in Wired summarizes the issue well http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/c...ship-bill/
Vint Cerf, one of the creators of TCP/IP says government control of the internet is impossible: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1420...14?sp=true
With encryption tools like Off the Record Messaging plugin for Pidgin, VPNs, HTTPS, it becomes very hard to decrypt messages if the sending and receiving system is well implemented. The only threat to our current systems of encryption is quantum computing, which won't be viable for 15 years by some estimates.
Quote:From an engineering point of view, Ali is right that there is no difference between a node that disappears because it was hit by a bomb, and a node that disappears because the government censored it. All remaining available nodes automatically participate in rerouting the traffic.
While this is true governments will want to take down specific web sites/servers, not routing nodes, which there's usually only one copy of, unless you have a smart system like WikiLeaks does. That's the weakpoint of the internet, not so much DNS. But there are ways around that: anonymous P2P and darknets like Freenet and GNUnet are decentralized, P2P-based alternative to HTTP.
There are ways around blocked website like proxies, VPNs, Tor, I2P and Psiphon.
In other words: even if the governments of "developed" countries started censoring websites (like Australia is doing), we'd find ways around it. The worst case scenario is that the mainstream doesn't have access to real news and only the tech savvy underground would, but most people don't really care about how corrupt their government is, or at least, they don't care enough to do something about it.
edit: the only absolute weakness I see is that internet access is in the hands of ISPs, who could - if laws permit - charge insane amounts of money, with slower speeds, thereby discouraging non-essential internet activites. the solution would be creating a new global data exchange network, a task that becomes more feasible over time as technology advances and becomes cheaper. where there's a will there's a way.
edit2: this article in Wired summarizes the issue well http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/c...ship-bill/