[Gllug] Re: Shutdown of the Internet in the UK? - OT

[David Irvine]

Wouldnt it make more sense if you wanted to shut down the internet in the 
uk, just to shut down telehouse and a few other big datacenters since almost 
every UK bound packet travels through them. 


The only problem with using phone lines is that if the government wants to 
control information its very easy for you to be disconnected. Bt lines are 
bad enough at the best of time, but if there was an attach the chances of 
them working would be slim to none, what you would need is sneakernet 
between a few core hubs say 4 in london, 1 in Brum, Manchester, Leeds, 
Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. You would then have a number of 
physical carriers carrying data between each one say once a day, each one 
updating the other, in the event of one node failing then the routes would 
just be adjusted until that node was back up again. 

Each major node could have a number of seed nodes within the nearby area, so 
say for Birmingham, you would have smaller nodes in Walsaw, Wolverhampton, 
coventry etc which would update from the birmingham node etc. 


<political rant> 

Can we claim refugee status in other countries yet? Can we play the 'If i go 
home I'm likely to disappear (From the internet) thanks to our glovepuppet 
warmongering government' card or do we still need to start making friends 
with anybody who owns a nuclearbunker.net *hint* 

</rant> 

/me thinks about hiring a boat and sailing to the middle of the pacific to 
watch the fireworks. 

Have a nice hogmany 

David 


Xander D Harkness writes: 

> The call has already gone out to employers who have employees on the Armed 
> Forces Reserve list.  
> 
> When you leave the forces you remain on the reserve list for six years.  
> You are issued with combats and Numbers twos which you are bound to keep 
> in good order for this period. 
> 
> The UK has a very strong grip on the print and televised media in this 
> country.  There are a lot of events relating to Northern Ireland which are 
> newsworthy but not printed in mainland Britain due to suppression  of the 
> press, this is just one area where the UK government believes that it is 
> in its best interest to restrict information. 
> 
> I am concerned that the UK government is scared of the information freely 
> available on the Internet and in the escalation of the impending conflict 
> will possibly seek to close this down. 
> 
> In many respects the seeds for this have already been sown.  There has 
> been considerable talk about how terrorists  have used encryption and the 
> internet to plan events.   The government could suggest  to the few ISPs 
> that they  do not have enough staff to continue following the call up of 
> reserves.  The government could also suggest that terrorists plotting 
> against the British public are using the Internet and that in everyone's 
> interest it should be shutdown temporarily. 
> 
> The government has refused to debate this possible conflict with other 
> members of the government, if it refuses to consult within the elected 
> members I see very little hope of it listening to the public. 
> 
> My point (eventually) is that as there are only a few ISPs in the UK and 
> if these were shutdown is there an alternative? 
> 
> There is the consume network; however that does not provide full coverage 
> of London, even ignoring the rest of the country.  
> 
> I was thinking that in many respects it would be a return to the old 
> Internet where a few hubs would dialup to one another to dump mail. 
> 
> Distributed networks such as freenet would not work as they require a 
> permanent connection and the data would quickly fade. 
> 
> If you instantly think paranoia also think about laws such as the RIP bill 
> parts of which are not possible to implement and which was abused the 
> government departments far inexcess of the concerns I expressed to my MP, 
> which he poo pooed. 
> 
> Have fun
> Xander 
> 
> -- 
> You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first. 
> 
>  
> 
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