Who owns the Internet?

DiscoDave said:
For all intents and purposes the Internet is a decentralised system, every single person who has a router at home with a Internet connection has a chunk of the Internet, even if it's just a routable external IP address. The US could shut down root dns servers, hosting companies and could exclude a lot of content, but still, it couldn't just flick a switch and turn it off, unless they have access to every single piece of network equipment from all ISP's on the planet.

Also, ask yourself this : If the Internet was a centralised system with a single entity overseeing it, imagine the security implications.
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This as far as the "physical" existence of it goes. Everyone with a computer connected to the internet owns a part of it.

In terms of the content... The copyright holder for that content does I would presume.
 
orderoftheflame said:
This as far as the "physical" existence of it goes. Everyone with a computer connected to the internet owns a part of it.

In terms of the content... The copyright holder for that content does I would presume.
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True, but for this discussion the OP is just focusing on the underlying, physical infrastructure, and the possibility of a "kill switch" or something similar.
 
orderoftheflame said:
This as far as the "physical" existence of it goes. Everyone with a computer connected to the internet owns a part of it.
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It occured to me that it's kind of like speech. Different people developed the protocols it runs on (IP etc. for the web and language for speech) and different people own different sections of the hardware it runs on (servers, telecoms networks, voice boxes and ears). Depending on which nation you live in, the hardware and protocols are subject to different national laws (freedom of speech, libel, censored web content and data protection/secrecy acts) but as for speech and the internet themselves it isn't really possible for anyone to own the entire thing. It's just not a possessible entity.
 
Art said:
It occured to me that it's kind of like speech. Different people developed the protocols it runs on (IP etc. for the web and language for speech) and different people own different sections of the hardware it runs on (servers, telecoms networks, voice boxes and ears). Depending on which nation you live in, the hardware and protocols are subject to different national laws (freedom of speech, libel, censored web content and data protection/secrecy acts) but as for speech and the internet themselves it isn't really possible for anyone to own the entire thing. It's just not a possessible entity.
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Precisely. Even if a government managed to find reason to shut an ISP down and make them dig up the cable that that ISP controlled, they'd only be restricting it to small areas that they could in force it into. The internet is just a big network, even if the current internet as we know it disappeared entirely, the equipment and tools for creating a new one are readily available for anyone to create their own, then it's just a case of scaling it bigger and bigger.

The worst I could possibly imagine would be disconnecting continents through removal of the under-seas cabling. I don't think they'd get very far with that though. :p

http://www.orderoftheflame.co.uk/RandomImages/seacablehi.jpg
 
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The internet is owned by the interlords, the true size of the Internet is 30square centimetres and doesn't weigh anything
 
theinternet.jpg
 
America invented everything including God! :o

/sarcasm

Wow, I cannot believe in this day and age people don't yet know how to use Google!

OP: Come on, I am sure you knew that the US didn't invent the WWW you could have Googled that before creating thid thread unless you wanted these kinds of responses :) Anyway, at least now you know that America didn't invent the internet if they did you wouldn't have had the chance to create such an absurd thread!
 
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