Sunday, March 6, 2011

Can the Internet Survive Tyrants?

Folks,

Below is a visual representation of our global Internet, a snap shot of photons, electrons, bits and ideas humming across our world wide Neurosphere at one moment a few years ago. The brightest spots are where the most science, medicine, literature, dumb old emails, bad snap-shots, 'Net phone calls from Mom in America and her daughter in Iraq, and porn are routing in and out.

In the past few weeks some of those dimmer lights in cities across the Middle East and North Africa winked out. Bureaucrats and cops, working at the behest of tyrants, choked off access to the 'Net to uppity Humans that wanted jobs, food, and freedom. It has commonly been thought that even nuclear war could not achieve this. But, in fact, we are only really dealing with miles of wires and piles of machines that undergird the network of networks. Yes, you can turn off access to the population of an entire nation.

However, motivated folks with some junk in their closets or office server rooms, can route around the challenge of censorship in time of revolution. Here are a couple of ways that it can be done.

S