Death of Internet? True or Hoax?

[Longbowwing]

I dont know this is a rumor or just a hoax.

This is what I got, True or not this is the story. It seems alot of giant corporations around the world is going to shut down the old internet and create "Internet 2" in 2010 or 2012. So in this new internet world you go back to TV subscription style.

Where you sign a contract with your ISP. They make you an account then you need to pay money to go to their sites, if you want to go other sites you need to pay your ISP more money, and they can monitor everything you do, your move, your motive, your life etc. If they think there is something wrong, they will shut you down. Since it is private property under their contract you got no room to protest.

If you wish to go back to the old internet, it is just impossible. Because the ISP have the power to decide who they can subscibe to. So that mean if the sites didnt register to the ISP, means that site will cease to exist.

This is what I hear. Hopefully it is a hoax!

[Usimyoc]

That's just a hoax. Due to some anti-Monopolizing acts and stuff, no company can make its customers sign a binding contract for a service that is not mobile. These laws exist because if someone had that service and moved outside of their area, they would still have to pay even though they weren't using the service. Additionally, under AMERICAN law as well as several INTERNATIONAL laws, no industry has the right to charge persons to access another free person's content, nor do they have the right for force a person to remove content for any reason unless that content runs counter to existing laws. It's simply not legal. AND doing something like that is just business foolish.

However, it is true that there is an Internet 2.0 coming up. Due to the strictly numeric system for identifying individual user computers, the internet is running out of applicable IP addresses for people accessing the internet. As a matter of fact, some 60% of the world's IP addresses have already been assigned.
The new internet will have to transfer to a newer system, likely an alphanumeric system that will increase the number of IP's by a factor of 7000.

So fear not, the internet isn't going to die, nor will it become a pawn of big business.

[Baron_Bukkake]

Usimyoc is right about antitrust laws,
which were created in the US by Theodore Roosevelt
when a business man gained so much power
through owning a monopoly that he once told the President
"Just have your Attorney General
get ahold of my Attorney General
and set up an appointment."

So nobody can LEGALLY do what the rumor says.

[Syn74]

There is just no way that could be real. Can you imagine them getting away with something like that without people freaking out and protesting? Plus there is no chace in hell it could be legal.

[Longbowwing]

Originally Posted by Syn74

There is just no way that could be real. Can you imagine them getting away with something like that without people freaking out and protesting? Plus there is no chace in hell it could be legal.

well I get that in youtube. Some people already freaking out. When I first seen it. I think it is interest to create some debate and how it end up.

[prh99]

I serious doubt there would be much demand for such a limited version of the internet, indeed a lot would probably end up canceling their subscription. It's almost certainly a hoax.

As for legality, well it depends on how it was done. Seems like it would require packet inspection to check the originating IP and destination IP off all packets to and from their customers. That seems to be the only way to do it effectively, cause people can change their DNS. Actively monitoring people's surfing would run afoul of privacy laws in most of the modern world. In the U.S such monitoring would almost certain qualify as wiretapping and therefore illegal under the Electronic Communication Privacy Act. Not to mention it would very likely remove the ISP safe harbor in Communications Decency Act for things like libel. Seems like they'd be incurring a lot of costs when there are easier means of getting money.

[vincent_10_27]

If anything else, only ISP's will have the control regards the matter. Majority of corporate sites may like the idea but they are not technically knowledgeable. In fact, I highly doubt corporate sites will support this since it limits their advertising capabilities. Limited range means limited money.

@prh99:
It would seem that way, but it is quite impossible to determine what kind of data passed through if the packets are encrypted. OK, let's assume most standards use the older TripleDES implementation than the AES, even if TripleDES can be broken in a fashionable manner, it's quite problematic for the observing party since they'll have to decrypt millions of packets everyday which will consume large amount of resources making it not feasible.

Taking the privacy laws aside, unless there is a sure fire way to easy analyze encryption protocols, tracking of individual packets is pointless and a waste of time. The observing can, however, monitor the destination and source i.p. address, average packet size transfers, and any other general statistical data.

Killing DHCP's dynamic allocation method is the only solution and yet still not feasible because dynamic allocation helps a lot in partitioning resources for every data exchange.

@Usimyoc:
There is really no need to transfer the current Internet to a newer system. WWW will just need to redefine its protocol to allow proper handshakes and resolve performance issues when using a newer interface.

[Usimyoc]

I was only relaying what I've heard. But I didn't really mean a serious Internet 2.0. The people who support sites will just have to get a tiny patch to upgrade to a new recognition system. If the entire internet does it at the same time, the problem could be solved worldwide in about 3 seconds.

[prh99]

Originally Posted by vincent_10_27

ey.

@prh99:
It would seem that way, but it is quite impossible to determine what kind of data passed through if the packets are encrypted. OK, let's assume most standards use the older TripleDES implementation than the AES, even if TripleDES can be broken in a fashionable manner, it's quite problematic for the observing party since they'll have to decrypt millions of packets everyday which will consume large amount of resources making it not feasible.

I am not saying there aren't ways around traffic monitoring. Indeed the only way they'd feasibly be able to get around SSL/TLS, is to require their customers to install their(the ISP's) certificate so they could do a man in the middle. Though unless one does tunneling, SSL generally doesn't hide the TCP/IP headers.


IPv6 is the current proposed solution for the limited number IPs. It has 128 bit address space which is a well over of a trillion times increase in the number of possible addresses. For size comparison, with IPv6 a population of 6.5 billion could have ~2^95 (39,614,081,257,132,168,796,771,975,168) addresses for each person. There is reverse compatibility built to it for IPv4.

[kyo500]

It sounds real, but progressing rather slow.
In china and north korea it is pretty much reailty with their heavy freedom restrictions....
Otherwise the "rumour" mostly works for private company sites.

But i wouldnt get surprised if it will become like your scenario around 2013......