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US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

reuters.com

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Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#141

Post by rootusrootus »

reactordev wrote: post #40
schoen wrote: post #38

I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today, where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them. I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agen…

It goes deeper than that. The U.S. Government funds it, discourages other nations from using it, and spies on all web traffic as a result of it. Almost 80% of communications go through a data center in Northern VA. Within a quick drive to Langley, Quantico, DC, and other places that house three letter agencies I’m not authorized to disclose.

When I worked for a CLEC (during that moment in history when they were briefly a Thing), we had a USG closet at our main datacenter, and we are nowhere even close to NoVA. I expect they still handle it this way rather than try to funnel any significant amount of traffic to a particular geographical region.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#143

Post by suhputt »

Henchman21 wrote: post #131
Aurornis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost 80% of communications go through a data center in Northern VA Nobody who understands the scale of the internet could possibly believe this is true. Routing internet traffic through a geographical location would increase ping times by a noticeable amount. Even sending traffic from around the world to a datacenter in VA would require an amount of infrastructure multiple times larger than the internet itself to…

Never tapped a port, eh? Edited to not be so flippant: I work in HFT/finance where recording all traffic is required I think by law and definitely for one's own sanity. We're able to maintain nanosecond trades while capturing ALL the traffic. It has zero impact on the traffic. This is normal, widely used tech. Think stuff like Ixia passive taps and/or Arista Metamako FPGA-based tap/mux devices.

the time it takes for light to travel from los angeles to virginia is 12 - 16 ms, round trip is 30ms lets say - that is a noticeable delay, and it could be easily disproven that 80% of traffic is literally routed through VA

now.. could they just copy the traffic and send it to VA on a side channel? probably?

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#144

Post by Aurornis »

Henchman21 wrote: post #138
Aurornis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think there's an entire shadow infrastructure across the United States or world that carries 80% of all internet traffic all the way to VA? It would have to be several times larger than the internet infrastructure itself due to the distances involved. All built and maintained in secret?

No. That isn't required at all. Fundamentally you lack understanding of how this happens. Yes, there is some port duplication. Yes it costs money. But it is not anywhere near as onerous as you assume. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

> Fundamentally you lack understanding of how this happens. Yes, there is some port duplication. Yes it costs money. But it is not anywhere near as onerous as you assume

No, I understand networking hardware quite well actually. I'm also familiar with Room 641A. Room 641A did not capture 80% of internet traffic. If you think 80% of internet traffic could be routed through Room 641A you're not thinking about the infrastructure required to get it all there. It was a targeted operation on backbone lines that were right there.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#145

Post by bitcurious »

touwer wrote: post #83
mlh496 wrote: post #64

Sad that western Europe is pushing so hard for limits to free speech & privacy. I'm not surprised given their history, but it's sad nonetheless.

It's not sad. It's smart to ban hate speech, blatant lies and things like that. We know, we had the Nazis. Seems the US still has to learn a lesson or two, considering the current political situation. Hope it will not be as bad

>We know, we had the Nazis.

Yes, I keep thinking about the bastion of free speech that gave birth to the Nazi movement. If only the Weimar Republic had anti-hate speech laws, perhaps the Shoah could have been avoided? Oops, turns out it did have those laws, and those very laws were subverted to suppress dissent.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#146

Post by wasabi991011 »

Henchman21 wrote: post #131
Aurornis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost 80% of communications go through a data center in Northern VA Nobody who understands the scale of the internet could possibly believe this is true. Routing internet traffic through a geographical location would increase ping times by a noticeable amount. Even sending traffic from around the world to a datacenter in VA would require an amount of infrastructure multiple times larger than the internet itself to…

Never tapped a port, eh? Edited to not be so flippant: I work in HFT/finance where recording all traffic is required I think by law and definitely for one's own sanity. We're able to maintain nanosecond trades while capturing ALL the traffic. It has zero impact on the traffic. This is normal, widely used tech. Think stuff like Ixia passive taps and/or Arista Metamako FPGA-based tap/mux devices.

But you are only tapping your own data that's already passing by you not? Not 80% of the internet that has nothing to do with you.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#147

Post by zmgsabst »

jadenPete wrote: post #107

Then won’t foreign governments just ban freedom.gov? This problem has already been solved with networks like Tor and I2P. It seems like it would be more strategic to fund those projects instead.

Sure — but the UK or EU has to accept the constant rhetoric of “you clearly don’t support free speech, you block freedom.gov” when discussing with the US.

I don’t think it’s meant to be a perfect solution; I think it’s meant to be a political tool.

Also, the US does fund Tor — originally US Navy + DARPA, now through Dept of State. Entirely possible that they’ll eventually operate a Tor onion site for freedom.gov too.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#149

Post by Aloisius »

PolygonSheep wrote: post #128
sublimefire wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What limits? You can do pretty much what you want but make sure you can defend yourself in the court. I feel there is a bit of a disconnect in terms where people get the news where in US you kind of expect biggest news providers to be biassed, eg Fox, hence reliance on social media. In Europe gov media is quite strong and objective, and the idea that it restricts something is odd. A great example is the banning of RT…

I have heard of RT lying but I have never actually seen examples of specific lies. Is there any list out there where they list any specific ones? If they do it a lot, it should be quite easy, no?

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?disinfo_keyword...

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#150

Post by zmgsabst »

carlm42 wrote: post #136
MiiMe19 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't know where you live but I've been able to express myself without any form of approval. Granted, I tend to not encourage genocide or glorify fascist regimes, but that's just me.

Sure — you just deny those same rights to anyone you deem a “fascist” in a secret report. Much like say, the Stasi would allow you to speak your mind unless you were a capitalist subversive, as clearly documented in your secret trial.

Obviously we should censor fascists and subversives!

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