I can see one potential problem here.

Story: The Internet May Eventually Be ScrappedTotal Replies: 0
Author Content
cr

Apr 14, 2007
4:16 PM EDT
The Internet is no longer American property. All of those open standards, and robust infrastructure built largely on open-source software, have been taken and implemented around the globe. All the USA will accomplish, if it tries to shut down or hobble the existing Internet, as if they were necking down lanes on Interstates and posting Work Area -- Speed Limit Change Ahead -- Speeding Fines Doubled In Road Crew Areas, to shunt traffic over to where they want it to go, particularly into the new No-Privacy zones, will be to turn those sections of the US Internet into virtual slums and backwaters where commerce and communications don't work well and dollars don't flow because people won't go.

The Internet is global, now, and well able to route around damage (except for ICANN, but I think that patch is coming too -- since it's a single point of failure for the system, it's equally vulnerable in that it only has to fail once). It has an established method of dealing with perceived netwide problems, centered around open discussion and RFCs followed by incremental improvement, and any attempt to supercede the process with government fiat is likely to repeat King Canute's demonstration that some forces are greater than any defacto monarchy.

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