Like any great recipe, the quality of ingredients, the order in which they are added, the way they are mixed, how it is baked all need to be done exactly the same way every time to get the same cake. Adding extra salt, changing the amount of baking powder, or flavoring, all change the cake and it's not the same cake as before. This is what will happen with the Internet and the NSA's surveillance will fail in it's current format.
For every layer in the cake, a simple change will break the Internet as it is today.
One of the many layers that is changing is described as Internet Balkanization or Splinternet, where various forms of sub-division will be implemented on the Internet. One way to understand how this will work is using the train tracks for analogy. Train tracks come in different widths called Track Gauge, when a train comes to a track using a different gauge, the train stops, the train cars are shifted onto a set of wheels matching the new track width or passengers have to move from one train to another, then everyone proceeds until they come to another track gauge change.
All countries have the ability to turn off the Internet at will. We can see this in the Middle East and other countries in conflict, when governments just turn the spigot off. This is a different method than Balkanization, where the Internet is completely severed. It doesn't last too long because businesses need to do, well, business.
Splinternets may be parallel Internets that would be run as distinct, private, and autonomous universes or have more “stop” in their “stop sign”, like the Great Firewall of China (Golden Shield Project). Some countries have already declared their intention to break off from the current set of “internet track gauge one size fits all” and move to their own. Brazil and Russia are two of the newest declarants of this process.
The common cry is “But... but... but... NOTHING will work!” And that's exactly right. It won't work … the way it is now. It won't be the same. It will be different. And all the NSA surveillance options on this layer of the cake using this ingredient will fail.
There are many more ingredients that will change too. This is only one of them. Each layer has a weakness that is exploited not just by the NSA but all malware developers. The NSA has a lot in common with malware developers and employ some of the best the FBI can arrest. The NSA with their internal cadre of malware developers and independent business malware developers, both will have to develop new techniques to exploit not just each item on the ingredient list and each layer but for each type, style, size and flavor of cake. That will take time and of course a lot more money. Their current investment will yield less and less over time. The echo effect of changes may accelerate changes in other aspects of the current system.
There will be a lot of gnashing of teeth and crying in the wilderness in the process. It won't be “fun”, it won't be “easy”. It will be “messy” and “nasty” and very “inconvenient”. It will take some time but like an avalanche, a small change can make a big heap of snow fall down the mountain. The NSA will try to influence all the changes, they will try to get “back doors” and “encryption keys” on demand. They will try with all their might to hold on to what they have.
Those of us in the USA may be subject to their demands and FISA warrants and secret courts (there are many) and ex parte legal proceedings and “wrong check boxes” being ticked on purpose, renditions and “enhanced interrogation” methods (by any other name known as torture), mourning the disappeared and all the other NSA activities disclosed not just by Edward Snowden but by whistleblowers all over the globe. The NSA maybe able to silence some but not all; not all the time and not forever.
The scope of the changes to the Internet is world wide and is already being implemented. Each change reveals more and more that The Emperor has No Clothes.
And like the story, in the end, The Emperor is Naked.
[Editor's note: This story is Part 3 of 3 and was written by KimB.]
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| Internet Connectivity Access Layer |
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| Internet Connectivity Distribution Core |
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