Re: [gaia] Blog on AFRINIC proposal

[Adam Burns <[e-mail]>]

+1 your +1 :)

Promoting communication diversity at the edges as well as flows around
national pinch points are not only continuous technical challenges but
also issues of education, publicity & advocacy.

On 04/06/17 19:19, Arjuna Sathiaseelan wrote:
> +1..
>
> Probably the only option for encountering this is to have alternative
> methods of access (e.g. the firechat during the hongkong protests) -
> so that the govts know that there is no point shutting down networks..
>
> decentralisation is a form of resiliency..
>
> arjuna
>
> On 4 June 2017 at 16:43, Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 03, 2017 at 05:09:51PM +0300, Nicolas Pace wrote:
>>> One could be cross boarder links, or border IXPs... But I'm not that versed in these things to give an opinion
>>>
>> A government sufficiently motivated to "shut down the Internet" will
>> shut down those links and IXPs too, unless they are of sufficient
>> density and number that the government can't go after them all.  The
>> "numbers" problem is actually _part_ of the problem.  (This is also,
>> of course, why increased concentration in "tier 1" transit providers
>> is dangerous for the Internet.)
>>
>> But the more basic problem with the proposal as presented is that it
>> is attempting a tech fix to a social problem.  Governments who
>> intervene in this way have decided that access to the Internet by
>> (some subset of their) citizens is less valuable to them than control
>> over communications.  This pattern is the same whether it is shutdowns
>> by any government anywhere, or (in my opinion) less catastrophic but
>> more corrisive attacks such as overall weakening of cryptographic
>> algorithms or the hoarding of network-effective vulnerabilities.
>>
>> The answer to all of that is to continue to make the Internet ever
>> more valuable both in its own terms and in social terms.  We want to
>> create the conditions in which, when governments say they're going to
>> "shut down" the Internet, they look absurd because they're going to do
>> most damage to themselves.  I want it to be as the scene in _Blazing
>> Saddles_: "Nobody move or the prisoner* gets it!"  That's not
>> advocacy, of course.  It's instead, "Everything over IP."  Still a
>> good slogan.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> A
>>
>> * note: not the actual word in the scene.
>>
>> --
>> Andrew Sullivan
>> [e-mail]
>>
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>
>