Not sure if this belongs in the Pol tab but it will probably end up here… so…
It’s a matter of time before martial law gets declared. Part of that will likely be a partial or complete shutdown of the internet as we know it. Obviously conservatives already control a large chunk of social media. I’m talking more about shutting down websites or limiting web traffic for sites or even geographical areas that may irritate Trump’s gizzard..
How completely can the internet be controlled? Can it be crippled to the point where nobody would dare use it? Is it even possible to “shut it off”? What would be the fallout from such attempts? What, if anything can be done in preparation for this?
I’m sure the techie-heads will jump in here, but as I recall, the thing about The Internet is that it can’t really be controlled because there’s no central… um, centrality. It’s not like The Phone Company or The Electrical Grid (remember that great movie Sneakers?*) that you can hit some hub and cripple it.
Like that giant fungus that runs for miles underground with only small outcroppings above ground. Yes, the internet is a fungus!
* Carl: So it’s a code breaker. Martin Bishop: No. It’s THE code breaker.
The internet is controlled in many countries, N Korea, China, Iran to name 3. In Iran it is common for the government to switch it off a their whim. It’s not out of the question that it could also be done in other countries as well if the leaders make it so. And if you are worried about the financial loss to the nation for interrupting things like banking, ATM’s, and other things like grid power and water and oil flow, you have to ask yourself how does that hurt the man in power.
You know what those nations have in common? Their critical Internet infrastructure is owned and operated by their governments.
Here? It’s owned by a variety of corportations. You would have to descend to “armed government troops seizing every television station company-owned network routing colocation center” before it could happen.
And in the event of Trump trying to give such an order, the more likely result would be a three-star admiral giving a press conference and announcing that he’s been named Acting President until such time as a nationwide special election can be held.
Trump’s not in a position where he’s popular enough to pull off a self-coup successfully, nor does he have the mental werewithal. This is a man who just today declared that “we need open borders” after spending a decade railing against the idea, claimed the Nazis loved the Jews and would sneak them extra food in concentration camps (while sitting next to the Prime Minister of Israel), got Turkey confused with Syria, and who thinks “groceries” is an old-fashioned word that nobody uses anymore. I’d honestly be surprised if there aren’t multiple factions in the government and big business trying to figure out how to get rid of him.
Trump has been replacing the military leadership with his toadies, that won’t happen. Either they won’t ever rebel, or one will simply declare themselves dictator and keep power for himself.
I thought that the law in China also required blocker software on all computers as well. I cannot remember where I read that and I cannot say for certain that is true. However, I do find it plausible.
One of the Facebook groups that often pops up in my feed is dedicated to antique radios. I have no reason to doubt what I learned in one post- At least some radios made and sold in the USSR came tuned to a government station and could not be tuned to any other station without a soldering gun and a few simple parts. Naturally, some people defied the law and modified the radios.
This would be considerably more dificult when dealing with blocker software. To know you had tampered with the radio, somebody would actually have to see it personally. It would be simple to check an online computer going through a government operated network to see if the blocker software is present and functioning properly.
As elected dictators go, Trump is consolidating power quickly, but there are limits (besides that over-quick power consolidation efforts can backfire).
If really worried about this, one can, prepper-style, set up a VPN just in case. Google China and VPN to see discussion. But I’m not a prepper myself.
Commandeering the internet cannot be done quickly. There would be a period of time when you could share ideas with real-life friends on how to set up a VPN, and even discuss it here.
He kind of already has. For the vast majority of people “the Internet” means social media. Twitter obviously is in his pocket, Zuck is clearly in team Maga (or so frightened and sucking up to Trump as it makes no difference) so thats facebook (and Instagram, etc.), same for Bezos and it looks like Amazon will buy Tiktok. So just by winning over or cowing three oligarchs Trump has the vast majority of “the internet” in his pocket.
Independent websites like SDMB make up such a tiny sliver of internet use that’s its not worth considering. Sucks but that’s the way it is.
The global internet is robust and has lots of redundancy but it wasn’t designed around the idea of a bad actor deliberately sabotaging it from within. Cut some underwater cables and take over global DNS servers in the US and you’re most of the way there. Trump can ask his buddy Putin if he needs any advice on how to cut the cables. Elon probably knows where the global DNS servers live. If government employees couldn’t stand up to these dingleberries, how is private industry supposed to send them packing when they kick down the door in the name of “National Security”?
Is that what happened when Elon Musk’s DOGEbags were going around to various government offices deciding which ones got to stay open and which ones didn’t? Because that could have been a trial run for seizing anything else important to ensuring Trump’s continued rule. And is this theoretical three star general listed in the phonebook so concerned citizens can call him when the stormtroopers come knocking? After all, they just have to say that these servers are helping terrorists (which would be true enough to give them a fig leaf of cover legally - every terrorist who ever looked anything up on the internet went through one global DNS server or another) and they have a wide variety of options for shutting them down.
You mean the same Elon “if the Dunning-Kruger effect was a person” Musk who owns one of the world’s largest ISPs? Yeah, I’m sure he’s gonna be thrilled with the idea of shutting down the entire internet.
This kind of paranoid fantasizing about soldiers on every street corner doesn’t help us do anything about the REAL harm Trump is causing.
And the big difference between Trump and the leadership of China is that Trump is an idiot. Shutting down the Internet isn’t impossible, but it’s really hard. Too hard for a guy who can’t figure out that tariffing penguins doesn’t make sense.
On the contrary; it’s much easier for somebody who is too stupid and narcissistic to care about the damage done. China didn’t shut down the internet, they just decided to control and censor it. Trump deciding to burn it all down and to hell with the consequences would be a much easier task.
Not shutting it down but we know from Twitter that he’d be happy to wall it off into his own personal echo chamber. The Trump administration is big on control of information as we can see from the Signal scandal among many other things.
I don’t think it would take soldiers on every street corner. I don’t think it would take soldiers at all and the quantity of quasi-cops involved (as with DOGE, who as far as I know are not actually police of any kind) would be astonishingly small. There are only 13 root name servers in the world and 10 of them are in the US.