Thread: The Internet a USA National Asset?

Originally Posted by abaddonxi

Root nameserver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyone up for compiling summary notes on this? Read it but don't understand fully what it all means.

If the DNS things still have multiple remote sites (through Anycast?) doesn't that still mean whoever controls the master controls the remote site also?

uumm think of them as a big directory lists

you type in an address like Aulo.com and the directory computer tells your computor what computor AULO.COM is actualy on

Originally Posted by steve_35

They need to control the net so they can control the economy of he world rather than there own country

In the modern world you could destroy an economy of a entire country overnight basically
stock trades
If you cant trades stocks your broke pretty bloody quickly

I note your location is listed as "Area 52" is that so that the government will not know where to look for you when they enact their conspiracy.

Why is it when someone has an opinion that differs from that of Channel 604 they are a conspiracy nut

Why is it so hard to believe that the US government would do something to protect there assets

Area 52 refers to the state of the Murray river at the moment its a local joke

Originally Posted by windsock

Anyone up for compiling summary notes on this? Read it but don't understand fully what it all means.

If the DNS things still have multiple remote sites (through Anycast?) doesn't that still mean whoever controls the master controls the remote site also?

Umm. Without getting all technical the nameserver system makes copies of addresses so that when you request a website or some other resource the system can quickly find it and send the data back to you. To make the system really efficient there is a hierarchy of nameservers from top level, to country level, to to lower levels within that. It is that level of copying that does two things well: 1, It means addresses are resolved quickly because the data needed to resolve them is readily to hand on a nearby server, and 2, if any part of the network were to be destroyed there are already copies of the same data held elsewhere on the network so that the same requests can be resolved. It also means that if part of the network were to be destroyed it can be easily rebuilt by re-establishing that part of the network that was destroyed and the missing data is automatically copied back onto it.

There are only a few top level domain name servers and they are situated in various places around the globe. Some are military, some are commercial, and some are academic. This reflects the origins of the Internet. Overall they are governed by ICANN which, although it does have a strong US influence, has representations made to it from multinational lobbies.

ICANN is non-governmental and since its inception has moved more toward a commercial role. For that reason alone, where money is at stake, it is less likely that members would allow a government agency to hold the power switch. That is not the American Way.

So far as localised governments who try to block content, none have been totally successful. For example on a recent trip to Vietnam I found certain sites such as Facebook were blocked. This was easily resolved by using, for example, OpenDNS.

Alan

Originally Posted by Frenchie

Time for the world to start developing internet hubs outside of the US so we can function without them.

Unfortunately that won't work. As mentioned in the article, the USA controls DNS and there can only ever be one DNS. (if you want to talk to anywhere else in the world) A separate DNS just for Australia would have a totally out of date database in 10 minutes.

Also the bit about American ownership amuses me. I always believed - and still do - that Tim Berners-Lee (a pom) "invented" the internet.

Originally Posted by e3j

Also the bit about American ownership amuses me. I always believed - and still do - that Tim Berners-Lee (a pom) "invented" the internet.

And working in Switzerland at the time

But actually he didn't "invent" the Internet, he coined the phrase Worldwide Web (I have a copy of his research article in which he did that laying about here somewhere), which is what most people think of when they think of the Internet but it is a lot more than that.

What we know as the Internet has more to do with Vint Cerf than Tim Berners-Lee, although Lee has been more influential since then as founder of Web Foundation.

Alan

so if there are main DNS servers situated around the globe whats the big deal if the US shut down their end?
OK so maybe it would take a little longer to resolve addresses and the rest of the world would be not be able to access US sites but so what, it won't affect the rest of the world that much, or am i missing something?

I do agree for the US government to do that it would be bordering on withdrawing civil liberties like that try to in china and Korea and they should not do it but it didnt stop the australian government with the content filtering, what the governement wants the governmanet gets, screw the people.
Its the same in every country, we have a democracy yes, but while there is a someone in power with a "bright" idea there's bugger all you can do about it.