China pushing internet authoritarianism

Greetings all. Normally I wouldn't be interested in the somewhat goofy /g/ternet, but there may be some things to consider: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ripe-opposes-chinas-internet-protocols-upgrade-plan/ >a proposal to remodel core internet protocols, a proposal backed by the Chinese government, Chinese telecoms, and Chinese networking equipment vendor Huawei. >Named "New IP," this proposal[1, 2, 3] consists of a revamped version of the TCP/IP standards to accommodate new technologies, a "shutoff protocol" to cut off misbehaving parts of the internet, and a new "top-to-bottom" governance model that centralizes the internet and puts it into the hands of a few crucial node operators. This is an overt attack on the possibility (I won't claim it exists, that's another argument entirely) of a free and open internet. RIPE is pushing back, saying the IETF should be the ones to make architectural decisions about how the internet is run. I'm personally all for the IETF as it is an engineering problem first and foremost. Some might say that the age of the free and open internet are over, but we still do enjoy many liberties that an actor like China would surely subvert and remove. I'm deeply concerned by this article, as it reveals that there are nation states (big actors if that wasn't clear) vying to destroy the semblance of liberty that we have online. This is very distressing, as before it was only theoretical, and now it is a very real possibility. So far as I know, nobody else has stood up and shamed/shunned this development, so it is at this moment David and Goliath. China will undoubtedly implement these ideas into their own stack, and thus it will become more desirable since it will become a "turnkey solution" that authoritarian governments can use to circumvent their citizens autonomy on the internet. Such things should concern us all, who value the internet as it currently operates. Please note, this isn't a "web" issue. This is a core infrastructure issue. Points for discussion: >Are others pushing back? Who? >What existing infrastructure poses similar risks? >How can these ideas be subverted? >Is there precedence to create an Alt Internet? >How could such a thing be technically feasible? >Who should "run" the internet? Engineers? Politicians? >What governance structure is ideal for a decentralized internet? >Are there other parallel proposals? >What are the weaknesses of current protocols that could enable this kind of problem?

One of the most salient points is the so-called "shutoff protocol". Here's a slide that talks about it.

They're pushing this through the UN, so there's a real risk of circumvention of the IETF. The UN has taken it upon themselves to have a telecommunications arm. This has the same implications as the so-called "security council", but on a broader scale and directly implicating the internet as a target of attack. >https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/Workshops-and-Seminars/2019101416/Documents/Sheng_Jiang_Presentation.pdf >https://github.com/network2030/meetings/blob/master/ietf106-side-meeting/04-IETF106-Side%20Meeting%20-%20Network%202030.pdf >https://www.ft.com/content/ba94c2bc-6e27-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f?shareType=nongift >https://www.ft.com/content/c78be2cf-a1a1-40b1-8ab7-904d7095e0f2 It should go without saying that an authoritarian body will necessarily invent things in their own image: authoritarian.

Ok first of all, god those slides are awful, I think a five year old with snakes for arms could draw something nicer. So if I understand this right, which let's face it, I probably don't, in order for this to work there has to be an 'auditing agent' at both ends of the connection, this to me seems to imply that this requires both hosts to be 'into' the new technology, if say the end node was not being audited, one could do something funny like routing the packets weirdly so the auditing agent can't tell exactly from where it's coming. Yeah you could cut off the entire connection to all non audited hosts, but isn't that what china is already doing anyway? Now since this requires a physical infrastructure change, I will go ahead and bet it will take bloody forever, it already is taking us an eternity to adopt IPv6, and there's a very real need (and thus monetary incentive) to get on doing that, cause switching infrastructure is bloody expensive, so I will go ahead and say even if this was approved, it would take long enough to catch on where it would stop being effective by the time they do hit that critical mass.

>>27096 I don't think it would take a long time at all. There's no financial incentive for IPv6, but there would certainly be incentives (financial, legal, etc.) to adopt this kind of technology. Law enforcement is all about so-called "lawful access", and legislators have shown themselves pliable to such arguments.

>>27097 >There's no financial incentive for IPv6, but there would certainly be incentives (financial, legal, etc.) to adopt this kind of technology. If this turns out to be the case, then I'm just hoping that the Chinese government is really the only one able to push for this, and that their huge debt, slowing economy, and pandemic/economic crisis topple their entire regime before this can happen.

>>27094 What do you think of Broadband-Hamnet ? Do you think this can be used as an Alt Internet ? http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/just-starting-read-this.html http://wndw.net/book.html#readBook http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/documentation/67-hsmm-mesh-design-philosophy.html You might need Radio operators license for setup & it operates on line of sight RF *** it can only carry traffic that is allowed under FCC Part 97 rules in the US I do not know what kind of data is allowed to be transmitted on RF in other countries the design-philosophy also states it CANNOT be used in any way with your business network & it is NOT a replacement for your home internet connection Can this me modified to be used as a replacement ? Using it will be illegal so will you go against the government & what will you do if cops try to destroy the nodes ?

>>27103 also there are some other projects that I can find but they dont look very active, the project-byzantium is not showing anything on my browser. https://commotionwireless.net/ https://project-byzantium.org/ https://piratebox.cc/ What do you think of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wlan_slovenija

>>27103 >Are others pushing back? Who? https://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/09/30/2043244/hong-kong-protesters-use-mesh-networks-to-organize they also used Bridgefy, based on Bluetooth and allows protesters to communicate with each other without internet connection. Mexico's drug cartels have built their own sophisticated two-way radio communications system https://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/09/30/2043244/hong-kong-protesters-use-mesh-networks-to-organize I can not find the AP article that is linked , they have deleted the links so I cant find what type of systems equipment they are using.

>>27093 Based solely on that slide it seems like an implementation of DKIM for AS's. BCP 38 details the need to prevent the forwarding traffic with a source address that falls in a prefix not owned by the origin AS. So imagine if you have edge routers cartographically sign traffic using a private key, a router at the destination network, or any intermediary, though preferable close to the source, could verify that such traffic legitimately originated from the AS that owns the prefix. You would need something to act as an authority for AS public keys, similar to certificate authorities for TLS.

>>27097 >There's no financial incentive for IPv6 >>27096 explicitly gave a financial incentive for IPv6