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[Aklyon]

Posting to watch this, I've got a good pic to add to the pirate v music thing, but too tired to find it right now.

[Aqizzar]

If it's the "Internet Piracy isn't Piracy because you're not stealing stuff on the high seas" pic, I think we've all seen it.

Now, I thought the "Net Neutrality" argument and the desire for non-ISP connectivity, was because of that wacky "new" bill that keeps threatening to pass Congress - ISPs could take money from website hosts to provided faster or slower connectivity, or none at all, to other websites or specific users or something, so you could have rival companies shutting down each other's sites, or ISPs just demanding more money from specific customers based on usage or which sites they go to, or something.

Honestly, I thought it was all just more sky-is-falling stuff that wouldn't actually do anything, but I'm totally out of the loop.

[Aklyon]

nope. different pic.

[Kogan Loloklam]

You know, between the promise of a pic that won't be here for a day and a linking to the cursed pit of doom, my evening is ruined.

Also, this isn't about any congress passed bill or threatening bill. It started out as a "Man that's wrong, that there ACTA thing." then somehow it took a direction that lead to T3, which via a twisted path lead to me wondering if it was possible to create a global internet without organized infrastructure using existing technology. Not likely, but just believable if it were in a story (you know, where the author can literally control the minds of everyone)

[dragnar]

It is completely possible to do this. But there are a number of problems that make it infeasible. First, there would be terrible bottlenecks of data(as someone else mentioned) for a while until the connections could become ubiquitous. Second, it would require a complete rewrite of internet protocols, which is possible, but it would take a while. Third, and most importantly, security would be a nightmare. Shuttling data from across the globe through everyone's wireless connections? Hackers would have a field day with that one.

[Astramancer]

Data transfer would be pretty fantastically retarded through such a scheme.  Consider that until the system knows where to find the data you want, it literally has to ask EVERYONE.  Say I'm at Starbucks, and want to download something from home, half a mile away.  Somebody in Cleveland (I'm nowhere near Cleveland) will hear about that file request.  Heck, if it's ubiquitous enough, somebody in Korea will probably hear about it.  It's very possible that your request will circle the globe and get back to you, probably after you've finished your download.

One of the big thing that ISP's do for you is have a gigantic database of URLS and IP addresses.  The DNS servers (Domain Name Servers) are very important to keep traffic flowing promptly.  You type in google.com, and it tells your computer where to send those packets of data to establish the connection.  With a decentralized internet, there would be no DNS's, and your part of the internet may very well have 100% of it's connection used just to process routing requests for searches that have long since completed.

[dragnar]

Which is why the network protocols would have to be totally rewritten. It is feasible, but it would take a while to create.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

I'm not sure why you'd want to get around regulated internet except for software piracy and kiddy porn, but whatever creates an anonymous network for communications between rebel freedom-fighters in a future dystopia, I'll support.

Thank you for so perfectly proving my point about the population being sold censorship as "FITAN TERRISTS (CUZ DOWNLAODING FREE MUSIC IS TERRISM BY SOME REASONING) AND KIDDIE PRONS".

I'm telling you, it's Mafia and Kiddie porn!

What kind of American associates money laundering with Bin Ladin? We aren't going after oil, we are going after those nasty ponzi schemes!

And the music industry. Them nasty pirates are taking the gold-plated pacifiers out of the drug-hazed rap stars' mouths.

I'm talking about how it's generally spun to the public, since most Americans think the mafia is dead/only something that happens "to them foreigny folk"/only in movies about the 1930s, not actual reasons regulators/congressmen may have (whether or not those reasons are valid or the product of hallucinations and/or delusions of grandeur, and certainly not whether or not the measures they propose would actually make a difference in the issue they're ostensibly to prevent).

[techno65535]

Talk about a global mesh network. Reminds me of Shadowrun 4th edition actually.

Could it be done this very day? Doubt it.

Could it be done in the near future? Yes. Will it? Doubt it because the major backbone companies aren't going to want to give up their business and will pay congress out the ass to prevent it.

[Nikov]

I'm not sure why you'd want to get around regulated internet except for software piracy and kiddy porn, but whatever creates an anonymous network for communications between rebel freedom-fighters in a future dystopia, I'll support.

Thank you for so perfectly proving my point about the population being sold censorship as "FITAN TERRISTS (CUZ DOWNLAODING FREE MUSIC IS TERRISM BY SOME REASONING) AND KIDDIE PRONS".

I'm telling you, it's Mafia and Kiddie porn!

What kind of American associates money laundering with Bin Ladin? We aren't going after oil, we are going after those nasty ponzi schemes!

And the music industry. Them nasty pirates are taking the gold-plated pacifiers out of the drug-hazed rap stars' mouths.

I'm talking about how it's generally spun to the public, since most Americans think the mafia is dead/only something that happens "to them foreigny folk"/only in movies about the 1930s, not actual reasons regulators/congressmen may have (whether or not those reasons are valid or the product of hallucinations and/or delusions of grandeur, and certainly not whether or not the measures they propose would actually make a difference in the issue they're ostensibly to prevent).

I'm just saying I am ignorant as to why you would need a completely deregulated internet. Thank you for not enlightening me with your responses to my post.

[ein]

Slippery Slope Fallacy.
If the government gains a little bit of control, then they'll eventually gain complete control.
We can prevent this by never letting them have any control.

[Nikov]

Why do you people trust the government to regulate your health care but not your porn...

[Muz]

Ah cool, I'm doing a degree on data communications, so that means thinking about this stuff is as good as studying

Well, for one thing, you can already do this to an extent. But you have to connect it to that other computer which already has a connection to the Internet. If you take it to an extreme, do note that it'd eat up a lot of CPU power and bandwidth. By asking the ISP to do it, you don't have to, and they handle all the traffic regulating. I, for one, don't want to forward someone's 3GB worth of porn packets.

One of the things an ISP traditionally does the physical part of the data transfer. Your telco handles the DSL stuff as well as other infrastructure. That's why some ISPs can't provide service for certain telcos. Now someone will have to do this. You can regulate that someone, even if it's some public access line.

Security. All your packets going through random computers are going to be ridiculously easy to sniff. Encryption? Well, you'll still have to negotiate your ciphers and the negotiation will be going through multiple computers. It becomes much, much easier to sit around waiting for bank account data and cracking it in time.

Traffic. Today's Internet protocols should be able to handle it, IIRC, because they're already suspicious of everyone. Small rewrites are OK too. But yeah, you'll get bottlenecks. It's not like a physical highway. Some people will be grabbing ridiculous amounts of data and they'll jam up your laptop's network card.


Personally, I think this'd knock our capability back a generation, but it's not impossible. And should be cheaper if everyone does it. But right now, the evils of regulation don't exceed having a high-speed connection. After all, between non-censorship and porn that loads up faster, most people would pick faster porn (ironically).

[optimumtact]

You could always roll out ethernet to your next door neighbours! The ideal way would be a global network of sattelites owned by citizens.

[Aklyon]

He's the pic I promised last page (Warning, really big):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)