Colonial Splinternets

[Kilgs]

DEFINITION (Wikipedia)
The splinternet (also referred to as cyberbalkanization or Internet Balkanization) is a characterization of the Internet as splintering and dividing due to various factors, such as technology, commerce, politics, nationalism, religion, and interests.

I've been thinking about splinter-nets on extrasolar colonies recently. It makes perfect sense since they are, due to physics, separate internets from the "main" one. But it also presents a government or corp with the perfect opportunity to mold the internet into something more favorable to their stance on things.

The only way to fact-check things is to somehow subscribe to an internet archive on Earth that would then transport content to the subscriber in Elysium or Aurore. This content would need to be provided by a company like modern-day Burrells or something. And it would need to be fairly specific, reminding me of Karnak, so you couldn't guarantee that you were getting the truth about everything.

And the time-lag would be anywhere from a few days to a month or more. These companies would eventually need to set up X-boat or server transport services. Even then, with a regular route, news would be outdated.

It gives a colonial government/corporation/group the perfect opportunity to filter, censor and moderate information provided to their citizens. Sure, someone will get the truth eventually but the initial reports (or lack thereof) have already had their impact. Proving a falsity or just that it was slanted is notoriously difficult.

So what kinds of things or which governments are doing this? Colonial governments would likely filter/censor any material regarding unrest in other colonies. The same would go for disparaging news about current rulers/administrations. Would colonial charters even have a clause that allows this type of thing so that citizens would not even be able to complain? Corporate colonies could certainly do so!

Imagine a colony with 20-70yrs of propaganda and how they would react to a specific group or cause that they have manipulated on. Sure there were some fact-checking missions throughout that period but we all know that once something is out there... it's real difficult to get people to set it aside.

Even just the lag itself allows the administration to get THEIR version out first.

 

[McPerth]

IIRC (I read it longtime ago), in the Arthur C Clark's Earthlight this was a true problem for the non Solar system colonies, as the information time lag gave a true advantage to the Earth companies, mostly in Stock Exchange...

 

[whartung]

The biggest issue wouldn't necessarily be the information, but the lack of anonymity.

Today we more have fauxnymity, a pseudo-anonymity. But no doubt if They(™) could change one thing about the internet, it would be that "no one knows you're a dog".

Because the problem isn't the data. Can't stop the Signal, Mal. The data would get through. Data is to cheap and easy to smuggle.

Data still gets in past the "Great Firewall of China", and even in and out of North Korea.

But the lack of anonymity is a powerful tool to keep a reign on un-wanted data.

But also consider internal splinternets. Multiple networks within system. For example the notorious "Dark Net" that we have here, or also ad hoc mesh networks -- from BBSes to Pirate Radio.

 

[epicenter00]

It's actually a fairly interesting question from the angle that every system in 2300 would be a splinternet.

I think after a few experiences of governments trying to "mold" their citizens by controlling information, most governments would give up on doing so and simply let the knowledge of distance do the work for them.

Due to the travel times in 2300, I think we need to put away the idea that people are going to be vitally interested in what goes on over on other worlds, except maybe Earth. Obviously certain stories, like the Kafers gobbling up the French Arm is going to be of great interest, even in the far ends of the Chinese Arm. Many other stories are going to only be of "trivia" interest at most. Most colonists will be well aware of the travel times (and thus sense of distance) from where off-world news is being reported and how they're basically going to be immune to it. They're going to be far more interested in things that go on the surface of their own planet. Exceptions exist, of course, like people on Tirane are probably going to have a fair amount of curiosity about what goes on over on Earth, but I think that's the exception on the rule.

A government that tries to massage information has a chance of alienating its own colonists. While Free Traders aren't as big of a thing in 2300 as it is in Traveller, independent ships and ships from other nations will often pass through your system. These ships are probably much more likely to be able to interact with the colony world because of "safety of navigation" treaties so a merchant vessel of another nation, even if just passing through and discharging stutterwarp still spends about 40 hours in a system before warping out, long enough to trade news and so on. Governments might try to intercept this news, but I think it'd be a pretty clumsy solution - the colonists on the world are going to know its happening. In fact a different problem might be ships from a rival nation warping into your system, then using the pretext of "safety of navigation" treaties to discharge a stutterwarp either in orbit around the mainworld or perhaps around a local moon or something and point a powerful laser at the mainworld to transmit news with their own slant to the colony world that can be picked up by a lot of people on the mainworld because of the inverse square law.

Once that happens, the colonists of the world, already conditioned to find their own local problems more pressing than those outside of their colony world, could likely develop an attitude of "well the Earth masters don't ever tell us the truth anyway" / "they hide the truth from us" / etc. From there, the seeds of: "Why do we need them anyway?" arises which is what a lot of these (supposedly merchantile) colony holders don't want.

There may be a massaging of information, but I think large scale fact-altering / spinning is something governments would avoid; it's better to just let colonists get their information, get glutted with it, and lose interest. Just like what is happening on Earth right now.

 

[aramis]

It's worth noting that, in the 1800's, despite month long steamer and 3 month long sailing one way, people still wanted to know what high society was like on the far side of the atlantic, trade was strong. It was several weeks by land, and a week by sail, to go north or south along the coasts, too, but somehow, from main to georgia, a nation coalesced... and the British Empire was constantly sending officials for a 2-3 year tour of duty that took 3-5 years, counting travel time...

Hell, I remember sending emails to people across the country during the wiivnet era - it took a week to send a message from Anchorage to Florida, and 3 days from florida to Anchorage. (Due to the way WWIVnet hops worked.)

I even ordered some software that way.

There will be traffic. It may be slow, and low volume, but there will be traffic.

 

[McPerth]

Now try to imagine how a board like this one will work if splinted among several systems (with a frachise at each of them, so to say) and being updated by passing ships...

A ships arrive to Tirane and downloads modifications (new posts/threads), then, when leaves, it uploads the actualized board to return to earth, and, about 1-3 days (depending on Warp Efficiency) after arrives to Earth, where it repeats the cycle.

And some users eagerly wait for the ship to arrive and know the answer of another user whom he was discussing something...

 

[Kilgs]

Someone on G+ didn't think it would be much different than nowadays. But this was my response:

I would assume many colonies would bar off-worlders from joining the colony... religious-based, cultural-specific, the aforementioned corporate colonies. And, even if offworlders were coming, the information would be outdated and need to be uploaded onto possibly-controlled servers. In addition, it would not take much to degrade the reputation of off-world information. No way for independent verification... it could be relegated to the status of rumors. "Sure, you read an article about how our parent country is doing Y. But what are your sources? I've been reading our news and they have a completely different account of the situation. And the information is far more detailed and likely credible..." Actual internet service may be strictly controlled or limited to certain groups/status. For corporate colonies or private charters, you could easily restrict internet access through contractual or technological obligations/limits.

The important thing is to consider that the internet doesn't just "spring" into existence on a colony world. It requires someone to create it, lay the cables, deploy satellites or do whatever. On many worlds, the lack of intercontinental cables/cooperation could result in multiple splinternets on the same planet. If I started a colony and built an internet, then another colony joined the same planet, there is no automatic sharing of networks. Maybe I decide my colony will remain separate.

Earth internet progressed differently since it just hopped on already-existing communication networks and ready-made global communications giants. Colony worlds would have none of these.

Perfect example is Aurore... atmospheric interference makes satellite comms very complicated. So did someone lay expensive internet cables between the Tanstaafl and French colonies? How about across the ocean to the Novvy Kiev (or whatever the name)? Who did it? Why? A government enterprise could apply its own rules to such an exchange. A corporate network could encourage economics but stifle competition for their products. A Tanstaafl internet might be comparable to Reddit and Craig's List in terms of freedom... But maybe the French and Ukrainians don't want their colonists having access to it! In light of the Kafer invasion, that might be one of the main objectives for defense is to get reliable comms between them.

We can't just assume the internet will be the same off-world as it is here. Way too many differences in infrastructure, origin and purpose.

 

[nobby-w]

DEFINITION (Wikipedia)
The splinternet (also referred to as cyberbalkanization or Internet Balkanization) is a characterization of the Internet as splintering and dividing due to various factors, such as technology, commerce, politics, nationalism, religion, and interests.

An interstellar Internet as we know it wouldn't exist in a society where communication was restricted to the speed of travel - as would be the case in a Traveller or 2300 universe where there is no ansible technology. It would also be a problem in-system, albeit to a lesser degree. Internetworks may exist within a world and its immediate system but would be fragmented over longer distances. You could, for example, use a browser or video conferencing system between the Earth and the Moon, but the lag to Mars or Ganymede would make that technology impractical.

You're not going to surf the web and hit a server that's light years (or even light-minutes) away interactively. What I would expect to see happening is something more along the lines of an old school UUCP/usenet (or FIDONet) style store and forward architecture. This uses batched transmissions to propogate information, which is then replicated on local servers which in turn propogate data to their downstream clients.

These transmissions need not take place over electronic communication links; they can involve copying to physical media and transferring the media to a local server. I know of an instance where an ISP got its news feed on QIC tapes from the local university for a while, so there's no reason why this sort of arrangement couldn't be done by starship in an interstellar setting. In a Traveller setting, this sort of thing could be done by an Xboat network, for example; in a 2300 setting or other 'verse where this type of network is not present it could be done by contract with merchant shipping.

Over shorter intra-system distances, this data could be transferred over a communication link, although bandwidth gets limited over very long distances. At some point the 'station wagon full of tapes' principle¹ will take over and it will be quicker to physically ship the data on storage media than to transmit it. For this reason, comms may have bandwidth restrictions, and shipments of news, email and other media might come in a shuttle.

This arrangement would be easy to censor in the event of a shipping monopoly, but much harder to censor if the information could be shipped out through alternative channels - for example smuggling the data out on storage media concealed in other cargoes.

This could create a black market in information smuggled through channels not visible to censorship. Any data that's at rest on storage media and not being transmitted over comms links can evade censorship if the media is not noticed by whatever power wants to censor it. Given what can be stored on a Micro-SD card today, information smuggling could well be a big business in a Traveller or 2300AD setting.

Low latency applications of information (e.g. Algorithmic trading) would be impossible over this medium, and stock markets would necessarily be essentially local affairs. This might create an economic incentive to base your company on the same world as large stock exchanges and would perhaps lead to economic centralisation with the outer worlds being left out in the cold.

It would also lead to arbitrage or insider trading opportunities if the information could be intercepted and used before it hit the market news channels. If the information had to travel from an outer world, this could lead to all sorts of opportunities to manipulate the market if it could be acted on before it got into channels. Trade wars, adventure hooks and other consequences are left as an exercise for the reader.

¹ There is a famous quote attributed to Andrew Tannenbaum (IIRC) that goes along the lines of 'Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes'.

 

[whartung]

A ships arrive to Tirane and downloads modifications (new posts/threads), then, when leaves, it uploads the actualized board to return to earth, and, about 1-3 days (depending on Warp Efficiency) after arrives to Earth, where it repeats the cycle.

As Aramis mentioned, it was already sort of like this back in the 80's and early 90's.

In the 90s I was running USENET via UUCP, which meant that data moved at the speed of convenience when intervening hops decided to phone up their peers (like late at night when the phone rates were cheaper) and exchange data. (I used a 2400 baud Hayes smart modem, speedy.) It was very "X-Boat"-ish, even if automated. So posts would actually take days to move back and forth through the network. At the same time, some folks were actually wired in to the actual Internet, so some people had "faster than travel" comms while others didn't.

And the ramifications of it were simply things worked slowly, but folks also, mostly, put more time and effort in to their posts. Ensuring that context is maintained, etc.