Backbone operators in the US should not be allowed to connect to networks that connect to low trust countries.

ACCount37 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

This boneheaded idea of "just block the Bad Countries from our Good Web" needs to die a miserable death.

Countries like Russia or China spend billions on controlling the flow of information on their own land. Countries like Iran go out of their way to blackhole the traffic whenever any disruptions or political violence happens in the country, and for every Nepal, where this backfired terribly, there's a dozen cases of countries doing that and getting away with it. And you're proposing we just help the authoritarians out by doing their dirty work for them.

Sure, let's do that! Give their propagandists a win, leave everyone who's in those countries now hang out to dry in an information black hole! Let the abuses perpetuated by their own governments go unseen and unheard! All to preserve the Good Web, For Good People Only.

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radiator 3 days ago | parent [-]

I find the notion that propagandists only control the flow of information in countries like Russia, China, Iran - but they don't in the West - misguided at best.

	▲	Ylpertnodi 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think that is the point.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've often wondered if that is even possible (whether it is good policy or not is another question entirely). Could we disconnect Russia from the Internet effectively? Let's say that Europe could be pressured to cooperate, what then? Well, here a couple of years ago I finally got the answer I wanted: we can't. China would never abide any such sanction, and there must be a few overland backbones connecting the two (even if I'm wrong here, wouldn't take decades for those to be built).

Likely, the country that wanted to do this finds themselves isolated on their own network, not their target isolated from the internet. Even if that country as is large and powerful as the United States. Perhaps the answer might have been different, 20 years ago or even 15, but everything has changed and there's no going back.

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iamnothere 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly, this would just result in a global game of whack-a-mole. It is possible in autocracies that are mostly excluded from global trade, like North Korea, but China for example can’t afford to cut itself off without collapsing its economy. (It has the Great Firewall, but that does not block entire countries, and is often quite leaky.)

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tiahura 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It would be easy. Require the backbone CEO's to certify that their networks don't connect to networks that connect to China, Russia, Nigeria, etc. The burden would then shift to them. If they couldn't get a guarantee from a peer or customer, they would have to disconnect them.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

>It would be easy. Require the backbone CEO's to certify that their networks don't connect to networks that connect to China, Russia, Nigeria, etc.

And when other countries don't play ball? Then we shut down those backbones, and it's the United States that is isolate, not Russia (though please feel free to pick another target if you don't like Russia). No one's cutting off China, not without their economy dropping dead. Sure, maybe there's some country that you could do this to... but that country is so unimportant that they're probably already almost-cut-off anyway. You don't even get to to do this to a Brazil or Indonesia, let alone any country that matters.

	▲	cpursley 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, exactly. They were cut off from SWIFT and yet they do ample international trade. These think tank ideas from "domain experts" and political types rarely work in the real world. Russia, China and others do the same, block stuff - but people get the content, products, etc anyways.

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inemesitaffia 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Nigeria really?

Don't use that brain to cross the road

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deeth_starr_v 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I doubt this would be legal unless proven to be a national security issue (1st amendment grounds).

	▲	mminer237 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The First Amendment doesn't apply to non-citizens in foreign countries.

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pjc50 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Wow, coming on to HN to demand the end of the Internet.