From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 08:49:35 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: censored? corrected [Steve Pizzo cited in The Spotlight]
In-Reply-To: <199511021624.KAA05751@galil.austnsc.tandem.com.>
Message-ID: <Pine.ULT.3.91.951102101918.21219C-100000@Networking.Stanford.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Thu, 2 Nov 1995, Sten Drescher wrote:

> Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu> said:
> 
> RG> On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:
> 
> >> But control of Internet domain name registration means the ability to
> >> remove troublesome-or outspoken-computer systems from the
> >> network. Po- tentially, this control also confers the power to
> >> insinuate "phantom" domains into the network-for surveillance
> >> purposes, for example-or for real-time, automatic censorship.
> 
> RG> Anyone capable of sending this message should have known that this
> RG> was complete BS.
> 
> 	Is it?  This is the _one_ thing in the article (is that term
> giving it too much legitimacy?) that I whought was barely true.  Whoever
> controls the root level DNS servers effectively controls the Internet.
> I postulated a couple of months ago about how the US Govt might attempt
> to censor the rest of the world: "Remove lurid.porno.site.other-country
> from your DNS system within 72 hours or we will remove references to
> your DNS servers from the root level servers.".  (I also speculated that
> if the US Govt tried doing this, that an 'underground' DNS system would
> form almost immediately.)

I stand corrected. SurfWatch already allows people and organizations to do
this voluntarily for anything that mentions sex. I am sure that certain
sites are blocked by China, Vietnam, Singapore, and Fortune 1000
Corporations, for both "moral" and political reasons. 

But it's not the DNS you need to control -- it's the routers. Which are 
still rather distributed. BBN is part of the Eastern Elite, though...

- -rich


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