infrastructure that makes up the internet is owned by like 6 companies.
GAFAM holds a large chunk of social media HTTP/S traffic, plus cloud crap. That’s all application layer.
Do they own main trunk IP routers too?
Comment on Age Verification Is Coming for the Whole Internet
krashmo@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoWhat do you mean by that? Most of the infrastructure that makes up the internet is owned by like 6 companies.
infrastructure that makes up the internet is owned by like 6 companies.
GAFAM holds a large chunk of social media HTTP/S traffic, plus cloud crap. That’s all application layer.
Do they own main trunk IP routers too?
They do wade into the IP / transport territory a bit but those are not the 6 companies I was referring to. I was thinking of Verizon / AT&T / Lumen / Zayo / etc.
Those for sure… in the US.
Which international ties to they have? I know Vodafone is present in a lot of countries (the brand, it’s a different company altogether in each country) but don’t know many more… nor do i know of any that has a global monopoly of network nodes.
Lumen and Verizon both have subsea cable connections to Europe. EXA Infrastructure is in the process of acquiring Aqua Comms, both of which own subsea cables. Google, MS, and Meta have all invested in subsea infrastructure to varying degrees as well. These are not monopolies in the classic sense of the word but they’re not exactly owned by benevolent interests either.
That said, the point is that a malicious government with sufficient pull, for example the current Trump administration, wouldn’t have to bully very many people to severely limit the flow of information between North America and Europe. So much of the internet depends on US infrastructure that this wouldn’t be terribly far off from censoring the entire internet. In that scenario there isn’t much that can be done about it. Europe can control their own information flow to Asia and Africa but at minimum this would be a severe disruption for a significant amount of time. Other entities might take such an opportunity to impose their own restrictions and make the situation even worse.
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I2p exists
krashmo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So do a million different forms of encryption. That doesn’t make the infrastructure any less centralized. If the people who own the fiber decide to only allow pre-approved types of traffic to cross their networks then it doesn’t make any difference what sort of protocols exist. Building free cross-country or subsea fiber routes is not economically viable and the internet doesn’t exist without them.
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Please look into how i2p works. It’s not just some form of encryption.
krashmo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Please explain how you can bypass carrier enforced traffic shaping policy.
From geti2p.net:
The people involved in the project you’re referring to acknowledge that governments can, by influencing carrier policy, disrupt and subvert the project’s intended function. Why then are you implying they are incorrect?
sexy_peach@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
That’s a very different story than requiring I’d for some websites
krashmo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No it isn’t. Either traffic is allowed to flow freely or it isn’t. Once you start down the “isn’t” path there’s not much that can be done to get around the fact that a few people control a huge chunk of the infrastructure.