I can't remember who said it -- you could probably search it -- but the idea was that as a system designed originally to survive a nuclear apocalypse the Internet would interpret dropped packets as a malfunction and route around. IDK how much this is true any more... the backbone is much more centralized and controlled by a few corps. And anyways, most censorship doesn't occur by dropping packets. People rely on servers hosted by Facebook, Amazon, .win, etc. It's not Usenet any more.
It's still true. Routing is a thing. The problem is that when Google decides to lock you out because you've been branded a heretic, it's not dropped packets. The system doesn't route around bans, only lost data.
The internet has never "routed around" censorship. Every site has always been able to refuse service to anyone they wanted. The reason they didn't in the past was because people would correctly interpret that as a red flag and everyone would leave. Now that they're too big to fail, people don't have that choice any more, so the sites are doing whatever the hell they want with no consequences.
I can't remember who said it -- you could probably search it -- but the idea was that as a system designed originally to survive a nuclear apocalypse the Internet would interpret dropped packets as a malfunction and route around. IDK how much this is true any more... the backbone is much more centralized and controlled by a few corps. And anyways, most censorship doesn't occur by dropping packets. People rely on servers hosted by Facebook, Amazon, .win, etc. It's not Usenet any more.
It's still true. Routing is a thing. The problem is that when Google decides to lock you out because you've been branded a heretic, it's not dropped packets. The system doesn't route around bans, only lost data.
The internet has never "routed around" censorship. Every site has always been able to refuse service to anyone they wanted. The reason they didn't in the past was because people would correctly interpret that as a red flag and everyone would leave. Now that they're too big to fail, people don't have that choice any more, so the sites are doing whatever the hell they want with no consequences.
AH! Okay. God. You're talking ancient history. ASCII age of hieroglyphics.
Ancient history that's probably becoming relevant again for delivering on the promises of remote surgery and the like. But yeah