Does the U.S. Government Control the Internet?

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

Vid

I highly doubt it, with all the anti-America, anti-bush and jihad websites out there. Plus the insane amounts of spam, warez, adult material and virus/spyware, the internet is becoming a toxic waste land of crap that cant be fully controlled. But government can try to control, but they may never fully control the internet .

I probably shouldn't post before I watch the doco but I believe that the http: code directs all pages through a US Server, is that correct?

I think originally back in the late 60's or something, the internet was a US army project as an internal network, so it is quite possible that the US government may have some influence today to.

The internet was a project started by the U.S.A.F

If you think the goverment can't control it after one of thier departments created it I wouldn't know what to say to you.

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.

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]

Wild irresponsible reply: The Gov doesn't want to control it, just to tap it.

As previous post.

Keeping a terror website open is good.

1. Helps people think 9/11 happened
2. Leads to more arrests of people who browse the site

Im sure the government monitors the internet, but to say they control it kinda doubt it. The internet is to wide spread and diverse to be controlled. The reason why I love the internet, is well take a look around .

The people control the internet.

It kinda makes you feel pretty sh!t ay....that the governments are always checking out websites, e-mails, phone calls, and so on, and we allow it.....

Every commutative device, is recorded and reviewed by governments, when you use the house, or mobile phone, the government can and will record the conversation.

It sort of makes you feel helpless, the government already has so much control over us....

No, I do not believe the government controls the internet. The government cannot control itself how can one expect it to control the net?

I have enjoyed this thread very much. It took me back to the good old days of internet. During the early 90's I was a member of several different internet gangs, oh I mean groups. I never did anything for monitary gain...my pleasure was in being a big pest. Getting into peoples computers and playing with them was great entertainment.

Even more fun was going into chat programs and knocking a persons connection out. There were many other "games" played that were even more fun.

Thankfully I grew out of all that hackie stuff. I do believe that hackers are responsible for the sofisticated computer protection programs we have now.

The internet belongs to the people. The "good" hackers will always find a way around any government ploy to control the net.

they already passed it the govt has full control over the internet in a couple years everyone will have a log in name and password that they have to sign in on to even get on a computer.. they dont want us communicating they want to shut down all the sites that know what is really going on.. this is only one of the many steps they are taking to turn us into prisoners.

The US does in fact own the internet. Its a product of the Manhattan Project. Slowly developed over the decades the government itself DOES hold all the patents etc for nearly every piece of net infrastructure you can think of. As far as I know all the worlds biggest server hubs are stateside.

Im trying to remember where I read all this but Im pretty sure it was an issue of Scientific American a few years ago. The Washington Post sometimes runs stories about how yes, the US gvt IS monitering nearly everything anywhere at all times online and have every right to since nearly all web traffic on the planet goes through US gvt owned servers.

Originally posted by blowfishdl
Does the U.S. Government Control the Internet?

Not yet. But it will. At some point the liberal-facists will need to take over the last source of truth in order to complete the take over of America. They've got the media and the education system. The only thing left where truth can be found is the internet.

Absolutely. They may not be able to control every fetish site and wacky thing on the intertubes, but DARPA designed it and you'd better believe they engineered ways to put control mechanisms in it to track and monitor you if they so choose.

I just found this site, and I'm already worried my name's on a file somewhere like what they did with the Anarchist Cookbook back in the day.

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...

The us goverment monitors certain aspects of the internet with red flag word reconition technology.They use there powerful carnivor computer systerm to identifie key words and phases to identifie possibel threats.The threats are set up in different levels of security protocols.Most people on the net would not even breach level two security protocols.Once in a while someome may breach level three protocol.If your one of the unlucky ones who could breach level four security protocol.Well you had better get your runnning shoes on if you do not want to turn up dead within six hours.The goverment has secret codes given to them by the software makers.They can use thoses codes to enter anyones computer and extract or attach infomation to there computers.I would say they are monitoring this ats web site too.

Lets start with certain goverment internet security protocols.They are set in three levels of internet security protocols.Level one records key words,names and places and usually most people would never even breach this level.Action usually taken within two weeks.Level two security.A level with a higher security threat.This would be more serious.If by any chance you breached this level you would be watched very carefully.The goverment would access your computer straight away and see what else you have on your computer.You would be cutoff from the net and proberly they would destroy your computer with a nasty set of viruses.action taken within one hour,Don't even think of breaching level three.Your post will be erased straight way.You will be cutoff from the net within twenty minutes after they place false increaminating evidence on your computer and within one hour the goverment will be at your door to arrest you and take your computer with the incriminating evedence they planted on your computer 40 minutes earler

[edit on 3-7-2009 by GORGANTHIUM]