Does the U.S. Government Control the Internet?, page 1

This excellent documentary says, YES! Check it out, leave your thoughts behind.

Vid

Originally posted by hinky
The Government can't control the internet per se. This doesn't mean they can't monitor the messages based on www. prefixes, usenet, ICQ channels, P2P programs, or even E-mail.

It can be shut down regionally or even nationally with just a few switches opened at some conveniently located communications centers.

True, it can be monitored, and it is, but there are good ways of encrypting your communication if you are worried about this (SSL, PGP etc).

The Internet is based on the TCP\IP protocol, and in essense this is a distributed network. This means there is no central server controlling it, and hence you can't shut down the internet with a few switches as you say. It was developed specifically to be able to provide a working communication network AFTER a nuclear attack. The idea here is that taking out a server here or there doesn't really affect the network as the data will just be routed through whatever servers are left.

Seeing how anyone anywhere in the world can set up their own server, there is no way to control it or shut it down. The idea that the US controls the Internet is plain silly. As others pointed out, why are there then Jihad websites being allowed to operate? Because the US can not go to the country where the server hosting that site is located and remove it...

The only real weakness of the Internet is the DNS "backbone". This is a collection of servers that remember domain names (such as abovetopsecret.com) and connect them with the IP address of the server hosting the site (in this case 75.126.76.151). If these servers were all shut down you wouldn't be able to access any websites without knowing their IP address. Since most people don't go around remembering IP addresses, DNS is a vital service. But even with it removed, the servers and all their content is still there! It's just trickier getting at it. And hackers have tried shutting doen these servers with DDOS attacks, but it didn't have any real effect. They were able to slow down or stop a few of them for a few hours, but there was plenty of redundancy left to keep the Internet working just fine.

So in short, no the US can't control the Internet. They actually designed it that way... They can however deny you access to it if they controll your ISP, but then again there are lots of ISPs to choose from and lots of different ways to connect, so in reality this kind of control is impossible.

Edit:

The vid talks about the US controlling IP allocation, and is in a way true. ICANN does this job, and I guess it's a US company, but wikipedia lists it as a non-profit corporation. Maybe somebody else here have some dirt on them?

"Prior to the establishment of ICANN for this purpose, IANA was administered primarily by Jon Postel at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, under a contract USC/ISI had with the United States Department of Defense, until ICANN was made to assume the responsibility under a United States Department of Commerce contract."

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

So if anything is controlling the Internet is commercial interests I guess=)

[edit on 9-11-2007 by DrLeary]

The world’s largest public gathering (collaboration) of international law enforcement, intelligence network, defense analysts and telecom operators.
www.issworldtraining.com...

An appraisal of technologies of political control
jya.com...

UN 2008 - From E-Government to Connected Governance.
www.unpan.org...

And as for other information

Google was initially funded by NASA, DARPA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). www.nsf.gov...

Peter Norvig, formerly employed by NASA’s ARC, is now Google’s
Director of Research since 2007
en.wikipedia.org...

Earlier this year (2008) Google signed a 40-90 year lease at NASA's
Ames Research Centre (ARC) www.nasa.gov...

Google has acquired Youtube and a lot of other thing. Scroll down to see list of products and aquisitions.
en.wikipedia.org...

Google also acquired Neven Vision, the worlds most advanced machine
vision firm.
www.searchenginejournal.com...

Google's Singularity Summit 2007
blogs.zdnet.com...

Europarl report on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI)
www.statewatch.org...
13.1: Conclusions:
"That a global system for intercepting communications exists, operating by means of cooperation proportionate to their capabilities among the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand under the UKUSA Agreement, is no longer in doubt. It may be assumed, in view of the evidence and the consistent pattern of statements from a very wide range of individuals and organisations, including American sources, that the system or parts of it were, at least for some time, code-named ECHELON. What is important is that its purpose is to intercept private and commercial communications, and not military communications."

Also see sections: 5.3.2.1: 5.3.2.2: 5.5.1: 5.5.2.4

7.4: Conclusion: "To sum up, it can therefore be said that the current legal position is that in principle an ECHELON type intelligence system is not in breach of Union law because it does not concern the aspects of Union law that would be required for there to be incompatibility. However, this applies only where the system is actually used exclusively for the purposes of state security in the broad sense. On the other hand, were it to be used for other purposes and for industrial espionage directed against foreign firms, this would constitute an infringement of EC law. Were a Member State to be involved in such action, it would be in breach of Community law."

A guide to ECHELON
www.indopedia.org...

Video - Echelon: The Most Secret Spy System
video.google.com...#

In November 2007 Raytheon Systems Ltd of the UK headed a consortium which won a £650 million Home Office contract to track, profile and check against everyone entering and leaving the UK. Raytheon USA is the parent company.
www.statewatch.org...

Global Surveillance
www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

Mass Surveillance
en.wikipedia.org...

Government databases
en.wikipedia.org...

This is apparently the UK's leading mag on the Surveillance community
www.lobster-magazine.co.uk...

UK Gov: Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG)
www.cesg.gov.uk...

SS8 - The Architects of Intercept - Lawful that is. I read an article a while back which said SS8 were expanding their operations in Europe.

Vint Cerf: The person most often called 'the father of the Internet'
en.wikipedia.org...

Bob Kahn also worked at DARPA
en.wikipedia.org...

Vint Cerf had at one time worked for DARPA and is now with Google.
www.google.com...

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