F-Secure's Hypponen: The Internet Is a 'US Colony'

nk497 writes "Web users are vulnerable to mass online spying because the U.S. has too much power online, according to a leading security researcher. Discussing revelations of U.S. spying at his LinuxCon keynote speech, F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hypponen argued that the internet had 'become a U.S. colony,' at the expense of democracy. 'We're back in the age of colonization,' he said. 'We should think about the Americans as our masters.' Hypponen argued that its dominance over the web gave the U.S. too much power over foreign countries, noting that while the majority of European politicians likely use U.S. services every day, most U.S. politicians and business leaders don't, for example, use Swedish-based cloud services. 'It's an imbalanced situation,' he said. 'All the major services are based in the U.S.'"

Comments

if it wasn't americans, it would be someone else..

[Anonymous Coward]

People act like the US is the only country to have ever spied, when really, in this case, they just got caught. How do you know that others wouldn't be doing the same sort of monitoring? How do you know that they're not already?

Yeah, so?

[xevioso]

We built the original infrastructure. The original backbone was developed here, and nearly all the funding came from US sources. Everyuthing else is an extension of that, and built on that framework.

Don't like it? Build your own, like China or Iran, and see how well corporations and people flock to use your "Internet".

Re:Yeah, so?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the FOSSolytes say: It's all open, fork your own if you don't like our implementation.

Re:Yeah, so?

[Bearhouse]

You're quite right.

Although the www bit was given a major shove in the right direction by TBL at CERN.

Still public money seeding things, of course.

Even if the UK, France, German whoever Govt. funded a "free" Google rival, would you trust it?

Re:Yeah, so?

[hawguy]

As the FOSSolytes say: It's all open, fork your own if you don't like our implementation.

That's the problem, if countries *do* fork off their own internet, it's going to make things worse for everyone.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2013/09/17/brazil-fights-us-internet-hegemony-wants-to-shield-brazilian-data-from-nsa/

Imagine a fractured internet, where if you want your site accessible from the world, you have to buy domain names and have your site be vetted by every country that you want your site accessible from.

Re:Yeah, so?

[timeOday]

Sounds like you're in violent agreement with Mr. Hypponen in the article.

Another possible response would be, "We have overstepped. Soon you will see concrete steps that we are stepping back towards more transparency and less intrusion."

I prefer the second because I think it's better for Americans as well as people everywhere. And it's not an either/or choice, since it ramping down US surveillance and control doesn't preclude people everywhere from developing their own indigenous web services or Internet infrastructure if that will serve them better.

Re:Yeah, so?

[Jane Q. Public]

"We built the original infrastructure. The original backbone was developed here, and nearly all the funding came from US sources. Everyuthing else is an extension of that, and built on that framework."

We did, and that much is true. But even that is not the point here.

TFA is all about the major SERVICES being in the U.S. And they are. Why? Not because we built the infrastructure. But because we innovated and built them. It's called capitalism.

Re:Yeah, so?

[ducomputergeek]

I wrote a paper and gave a presentation in college about the likelihood that internet would become balkanized by 2020, the wild west would be over, and the genie put back in the bottle. (i'm sure I'm missing a cliche there). My reasonings behind it were the increasing capabilities of off the shelf technology to then allow countries to filter and control content would come available and the legal will to do so. The professor of the class, ironically this was a cyber-philosophy class (yes liberal arts college, but it was a fun topic) and the professor did have CS undergrad (UC Berkley in the 1960's), masters in Mathematics, and PhD in Philosophy) who taught us what the idea of "hyper-text" was about back in the 1980s'. (Closest we got to how hypertext was supported to work hypothetically is Wikipedia). So the prof did have actually a good understanding of the principles of things like networking etc..

His counter argument was the "Internet sees damage and routes around it" and "Censorship = damage" and also that technology would evolve to counter what I was envisioning at the time and that the good days of the internet would continue. My main point in the paper & presentation was if you looked at the backbone of the internet, especially undersea cables and satellites, that the core infrastructure was owned at the time by about 15 companies and the first round of M&A and bankruptcies were starting back then with Worldcomm's collapse. It's very hard for the internet to "route around" as the model of the internet worked was less mesh that was envisioned and more a hub and spoke if you got to looking at it. Especially in the US where a few players own the last mile of service. So you have your last mile going back to your ISP, which then to get to someone else's ISP travels through a backbone providers' cables. While it seems like point to point it really isn't. My argument was there would be further market consolidation to around 5 big players. This consolidation would be allowed by regulators because once you got to that stage of oligopoly it would be far easier for government bodies to control them via regulation and large government contracts.

I did end up with an A for the project/paper. I think he wished the utopia ideal would continue, but even by 2000 I think things were beginning to shape up.

Re:Yeah, so?

[hawguy]

As an American, I don't care if someone in Iceland accesses my website. It would be nice, but it isn't necessary for the site to function or make money. If iceland decides to wall of it's internet, then it's citizens won't get access to things like, say, Facebook, which hey may want This is then known as the "Iranian solution"

As an American that pays attention to what happen outside of our borders, I appreciate being able to reach any site anywhere in the world and vice versa.

Additionally, much of the FOSS software that I use and count on to do my job has heavy contributions from developers across the world. I'd sure hate to lose that easy collaboration because Iceland doesn't trust the USA's internet.

I think Facebook as more to lose from cutting off access from the rest of the world than the rest of the world has to lose without facebook - it wouldn't take long for home-grown competitors to arise.

Re:Yeah, so?

[ravenlord_hun]

That kind of thinking only works until the whole EU decides on doing the same. I bet there's a lot of people who would really wish US services couldn't be reached from thier countries, giving them opportunities to catch up/cash in.

Of course, judging by your reply... to you, it probably doesn't matter if the "internet" becomes "arpanet" again.

never left the age of colonization

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel has been colonizing the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights since 1967l. Turkey has been colonizing Cyprus since 1974, probably encouraged by the example set by Israel. China has been colonizing Tibet since the 50's.

There are probably other examples but these are three of the most notable that continue today.

Yes, that's pretty much true

[Chris Mattern]

The problem is, what can be done about the problem that would actually improve matters?

The most commonly suggested answer is to turn it over to the UN, and, frankly, I don't think that there can be much argument but that would make matters immeasureably *worse* for the average user.

Re:Yes, that's pretty much true

[xevioso]

What is wrong with the laws in Elbonia?

Only have yourselves to blame

[wiredlogic]

Where are the non-US-based search engines, social media sites, video hosts, and email providers? Yes they exist, of course, but there are almost no notable standouts. For every Vimeo there's a dozen US-based YouTubes.

You only have yourself to blame for complacently letting US businesses dominate these fields. The internet is based on open protocols and open networks. The playing field is level other than the minor niggle of ICANN's control of domain names and DNS root servers (minor since the internet works without DNS and could be replaced with something else). Hell, most countries have an advantage over the US considering our antediluvian telecom infrastructure.

Re:Only have yourselves to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the non-US-based search engines, social media sites, video hosts, and email providers? Yes they exist, of course, but there are almost no notable standouts. For every Vimeo there's a dozen US-based YouTubes.

You only have yourself to blame for complacently letting US businesses dominate these fields. The internet is based on open protocols and open networks. The playing field is level other than the minor niggle of ICANN's control of domain names and DNS root servers (minor since the internet works without DNS and could be replaced with something else). Hell, most countries have an advantage over the US considering our antediluvian telecom infrastructure.

For the examples you mention, yes, I agree. But I work for an European based DropBox competitor, and we have had an explosion in interest and sales after the Snowden revelations. Some people like to say "it's all the same", but it is *really not*. We only respond to specific official court orders, and they are quite rare.

"Colony"?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd argue that "Colony" is sort of an unfair term: a "Colony" is something that I set up by getting some of my jackbooted thugs together, sailing to your country, and telling you that this is how it's going to be from now on, while drinking gin-and-tonics and exporting your resources to the home country.

On ye olde intertubes, it's sort of hard to 'colonize' somebody (especially since, unlike land, which hasn't been available in the "actually not populated by somebody you'll need to shove if you want to 'discover' it" flavor in centuries to millenia, the internet exists because it is built, and you can build more if you want more), except on the very limited scale of cracking their server and stashing stuff on it.

It seems that it might be fairer to say that the internet is more of an American shopping mall. It is true that, to a surprising degree (especially surprising in areas that have never liked us much, or for which we never bothered to do much localization), that lots of foreign traffic crosses into American-held internet infrastructure to work, play, and do business; but (unlike a 'colony') that isn't because that infrastructure used to belong to somebody else until we grabbed it, and the locals are still stuck there; but because once it was built, people came.

Anybody who doesn't fancy being watched by Uncle Sam, or a EULA-serf of a major American multinational(including US residents) should definitely give some strong consideration to how much of their activity is currently firmly within the grasp of the US government and a few cooperative (except on taxes) corporations; but if they want to get anywhere, the line of thought is going to have to be closer to "So, why does everybody go through $AMERICAN_COMPANY$ anyway, and why isn't there a homegrown equivalent elsewhere?" rather than following the misleading road of some sort of post-colonial process. There simply was no such colonization, so expecting to decolonize is going to fall into exciting category error fun time.

Re:"Colony"?

[melikamp]

I'd argue that "Colony" is sort of an unfair term

I'd argue that the judging by the summary, TFA is a crock of shit. European countries that are themselves not US colonies own the entirety of their Internet infrastructure, a.k.a. the tubes. They can (and do) run their own DNS if they so please. US has colonized the German Internet about as much as it colonized the German forests. US plays a huge role in the development of the world-wide network, but that influence is more akin to the influence of Hollywood on film. Like you say, "colony" is not the right word. A "captive audience" is not a right word even, since the audience loves it. More like, US have captured the world's imagination.

Re:"Colony"?

[mspohr]

We don't send jackbooted thugs to most countries (just a few special "problem" locations... in the last 10 years, for example, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Libya plus about 700 military bases in other countries).
What we have today is called Neocolonialism:
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism :
Neocolonialism (also Neo-colonialism) is the geopolitical practice of using capitalism, business globalization, and cultural imperialism to influence a country, in lieu of either direct military control or indirect political control, i.e. imperialism and hegemony.[1] The term neo-colonialism was coined by Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, to describe the socio-economic and political control that can be exercised economically, linguistically, and culturally, whereby promotion of the culture of the neo-colonist country facilitates the cultural assimilation of the colonised people and thus opens the national economy to the multinational corporations of the neo-colonial country.

Re:"Colony"?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, there are, indeed, a great many ways of getting what you want without (too much, visible, unpopular) overt violence, and we use them.

However, Nkrumah's own career is not a hopeful bit of reading from the perspective of somebody looking to decolonize on the internet:

His ability as an anticolonial leader, and at least the beginning of his post-independence period went very well. Then things went... off the rails. A lot. In that 'elected dictator for life and father of the revolution by 99.1% of the alleged electorate' sort of way. If there's anything that puts a sad note on your struggle for independence, it's throwing off the chains of foreign occupation and then taking up the chains of local dictatorship.

On the internet, since it isn't built on land or particularly scarce, the revolution is easy. (You probably have your very own free and independent LAN right now!) Building alternatives to the hegemonic American cat-video/industrial complex? Less easy. Building alternatives that succeed and aren't under the thumb of authoritarian surveillance nuts or ruthless corporate titans who are just as unpleasant as their American counterparts and live closer to you? Harder still. That seems to be Europe's problem at present, also common in other areas, to varying degrees (China's language barriers and blatant willingness to exercise mercantile favoratism seem to have rendered them partially immune, in terms of web services, though I haven't heard of Red Flag Linux burning up the sales charts...)

Europe has culture, and money, and networks, programmers, and guns; but apparently they still flock to US web services (either directly hosted/operated in the US or physically located in Europe as appendages of US companies and subservient to them) in numbers large enough, and for business important enough, to raise TFA's author's concerns.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[nomad63]

That is absolutely right. They are not bitching about spying. They are bitching about America has too much power to do spying and them (Finnish people ??) NOT! If the balance was tilted towards their side, do you think they would complain this much ? I think not...

Also, I'd prefer American's do the spying instead of Russians or god forbid Mujaheddin army from the garden variety of middle eastern kingdoms/banana republics. I am not a born American by the way, if you are going to try flaming me with phrases starting with "You, Americans always say it like that....blah-blah". It is common sense. Regardless how bad the freedoms are in this country, I'd rather not be anywhere else at this moment in time.

Out of the frying pan...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The solution is to bring our own US government back in line with the Constitution, and recognize the spurious nature of arguments about mass and warrantless surveillance.

Making chunks amenable to foreign countries, with less protections (see arguments about Europe spying being literally 100x more intrusive) is just an insensate knee-jerk reaction: it is useful in practice only to bring pressure to bear against the US government to be more open and restricted.

Re:stfu.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies ....
You Ingrates should have shown more respect to your Sovereign (and the Crown's treasury) and should
not have started that rable-rousing "revolution".

Quiz: The above statements are:
- Ironic
- Bloody right
- Probably made by a no-good, towel-headed communist liberal hippie hommo

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[CanHasDIY]

Also, I'd prefer American's do the spying instead of Russians or god forbid Mujaheddin army from the garden variety of middle eastern kingdoms/banana republics.

You would really rather be spied on by a country that has the capability to summarily execute you anywhere on the planet via drone strike, than a bunch of radicalized extremists living in tents, who couldn't get close enough to harm you, even if they really really wanted to?

Pardon me for finding that an odd position to hold.

Re:Dominance over the web?

[sandytaru]

I think it also helps that English is the most commonly spoken second language in a good many countries. So if someone can't find a particular resource in their native language online, they're more likely to turn to an English based equivalent than they are, say, a Japanese or Danish based one.

Oh quit yer bitching

[WaffleMonster]

You don't need to ask permission or pay a western "king" before competing with google or facebook you just need to execute. Who did the Chinese ask or pay before starting Baidu?

Talk is cheap, whining even cheaper. As a US resident I certainly hope the rest of the world treats NSA as a wakeup call to diversify. The more distributed services are, the more choice there is in the market the more *EVERYONE* wins. Get off your asses and compete.

Re:Lesser of Evils?

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying this as a European, the European one would eradicate all anonymity in the name of getting rid of every last trace of "hate speech", "antifeminism" etc.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[ciantic]

They are, it's just that individual states of Europe has a intelligence budget so low, they couldn't even spy on their own citizens let alone foreigners abroad.

Why should I, as a citizen of Europe, have less rights online than US citizens? Especially when we are talking about companies (Google, Microsoft, etc.) that operates within EU, whom are also forced by US law to give away stuff to US government.

Europe should create laws where service providers (working directly or indirectly in Europe) can't give the user's data to third parties without (very least) informing the user in question. Purpose of these laws should be aimed at conflicting with US's FISA request-law which prevents me from knowing if my data is given away or not.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[CRCulver]

People act like the US is the only country to have ever spied, when really, in this case, they just got caught. How do you know that others wouldn't be doing the same sort of monitoring?

While some level of monitoring goes on in every Western country, most national intelligence bodies don't have the resources to tap at the same level as the NSA. Just look at the budget of the NSA compared to that of Finland or Poland's intelligence ministries. The NSA can tap fiber even outside the US, but even wealthier and more powerful European governments don't enjoy that same luxury.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[Captain Splendid]

True, but no other country on earth likes to boast about FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!!! as much as the US.

I don't think most people believe the US is the only country that does this, just the one with the most cognitive dissonance.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[countach44]

I think the assumption is that if those governments had as much power, then the damage they could inflict would be proportional. If the US couldn't do anything with the knowledge, then no one would care.

Re:stfu.

[lgw]

That's quite a reasonable comment, actually. (Somebody mod the AC up?)

Most consumer-level internet resources are in the US because the datacenters are. The datacenters are mostly in the US because it's still a nice place to start a company, and most of the companies have their HQ here. I'm not sure whether the key is where the corporate HQ is located, or where the datacenter is located, but I'm thinking either makes you vulnerable. Many countries' governments are seeing a problem with this.

That being the case, it presents a real risk for fragmentation of the internet. Countries won't want their people all going to a foreign company and datacenter just to escape spying (better to be spied on by a foreign power that doesn't share with your government), and breaking the internet along government boundaries would be tragic.

Maybe a better answer is to just fix the US. What if we just defunded the NSA, fired everyone, scrapped all the datacenters, demolished the buildings, and salted the earth? OK, we'd be at somewhat higher risk of terrorism because of the loss of SIGINT, and we wouldn't want to lose that forever, plus we'd need SIGINT again before some major power goes to war again (sure to happen inevitably), but I think the cost might be worth the value of the object lesson about government overreach.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[Anonymous Coward]

You would really rather be spied on by a country that has the capability to summarily execute you anywhere on the planet via drone strike, than a bunch of radicalized extremists living in tents, who couldn't get close enough to harm you, even if they really really wanted to?

I find it rather amusing that you consider England, Russia, and China to be a bunch of "radicalized extremists living in tents".

What this article is bitching about is essentially "Everybody goes to the US to setup companies, data centers, hire tech people, and that's not fair". Bullshit, there's nothing the US does to force people to setup their stuff in the US. There's nothing the US does to penalize anybody in other places.
There are a wide variety of reasons why the internet is "US-centric" for most services, but US having some kind of vague, undefined Authoritarian Control is not one of them.

A lot of people avoid the EU because of Net filters and (in their mind) excessive privacy regulations. People avoid China and Russia because they have little or no confidence those governments are not going to simply take their assets. And more to the point in the case of Russia and China, most people assume they'll have all their data and intellectual property straight ripped off... of course no mention of that recently because right now the NSA is the bogeyman people are hiding from.

If you don't want the internet to be US-centric then it's easy to solve it- make your own country a more appealing place to setup shop. The US offers relative stability in terms of economy, infrastructure, and laws, and if you look at the planet and where communications lines run it's "centralized". You could try setting up in a country in the Middle East, but political instability, poor infrastructure, and lack of a wealth of advanced educational services make it a pretty piss-poor region to consider right now. So if you're going to try and offer Internationally available services the US is currently the logical place to be.

And what are you going to gain by moving elsewhere? Technically the NSA's job IS to spy on other nations, the controversy is that they got caught doing it to US citizens. You still have to worry about the NSA everywhere else, in addition to the local governments. Sure, setup shop in Saudi Arabia, that sounds great until the local Dictator decides you're violating some religious requirement and shuts you down. China? Get ready to see your products show up on the black market with a minimally altered logo affixed. South America somewhere? Nope, there's crap for infrastructure and political stability is a major issue. Asia? Sure, some countries are appealing, but again you're looking at connections to the rest of the world having to go either through the US, or politically unstable regions.

Pardon me for finding that an odd position to hold.

Hold whatever position you desire, but please at least try to base it in some type of semblance of reality.

Meritocracy....

[borgheron]

The web is not a US colony it is a meritocracy. In this case the US has most of the services which are essential for NOW. But this may not always be the case. So, Sweden and other countries that are upset should start working on the technological things that might give them the edge in the future.

In this world it is now all about the information and the technology. There is no fair and balanced here. Whoever knows the most... wins.

GC

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[interval1066]

A false sense of WHAT? I cherry picked WHAT??? I'm sitting here in CALIFOIRNIA just sort of shooting off repsonses to idiots, I'm not writing a peer-reviewed article, just an opinion, AS AN AMERICAN, understanding however that the US GOV is OFF ITS ROCKER as a democratic institution, and I'm a european shill now? So much for land of the free... OUR government is out of control. Scrape the shit out of your eyes, brother. This govnernment set out a plate of delicacies called the "Internet", implicitlly said "I will govern this gift with a benevolant hand", and then whosale helped itself to whatever secrets it wanted. That's morally wrong, I don't care what you say. This government is under the illusion that it knows what's right. The last 10 years show it really isn't. To believe otherwise is to be blind, or complicate.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[CanHasDIY]

I think the assumption is that if those governments had as much power, then the damage they could inflict would be proportional.

But they don't, which makes it a terribly inaccurate comparison.

If the US couldn't do anything with the knowledge, then no one would care.

Which is why I find OP's position odd, since the US very much can do stuff with the knowledge. Bad, unpleasant stuff.

Considering probability, it's a lot more reasonable to fear the US government's panopticon than one that Osama bin Deadtowel might have built in some remote Turkaturkastani cavern.

Re:stfu.

[g0bshiTe]

Would we really be at any higher a risk from terrorism? Personally I feel the antics carried out by the US Government (read my country) are all done under the guise of a war on terror. This war will never win and a whole new generation are being indoctrinated into not questioning the government because they are hunting terrorists to keep you safe.

If I had my way all those shitheads in Washington would be tossed on their fucking ears, and all their assets would be put into the US treasury. Too many politicians these days are in the hip pocket of corporate America.

Re:if it wasn't americans, it would be someone els

[xevioso]

I also am in California, and I can attest to the fact that there are lots of lunatics here. Not as many is Florida per-capita-wise, but it's still pretty bad.

Re:stfu.

[qbast]

The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies...

No, the colonies did becuase George III, a porphyric idiot, started upping the taxes to pay for England's little imperialistic chessmatch with France. The Crown bestowed no gifts. Or was the Boston Tea Party a little fraternity roughhousing?

No, just bunch of traitors and terrorists.

Re:stfu.

[jeffmflanagan]

Damn Hommos, getting homm all over the place and wrecking it for the rest of us.

Hypocrisy

[Roger W Moore]

They are not bitching about spying. They are bitching about America has too much power to do spying.

Personally what I finding hard to deal with is the amazing level of hypocrisy. The US tries to project a picture that it is a beacon of democracy, high moral values and an all round "good-guy"...and then spends its time going around behind all its friends and allies backs spying on them. It is probably correct to assume that other countries do this too and there may even be good arguments for it in some cases (although I have trouble understanding the motivation for bugging European leaders' phones) but nobody else tries to claim that their country is some amazing paragon of virtue that everyone else should follow.

So while I might agree that if I'm going to be spied on I'd rather it be by the US than by others the rest of the world would really appreciate it if you could lay off the hypocritical good-guy act. The US may come off looking very good compared to some of the more troubled nations on this planet but compared to some of the better ones they are beginning to look rather dodgy.

Re:Hypocrisy

[michael021689]

You're being delusional. Everyone spies and everyone will continue to spy. Why is everyone reacting like this is something new? Do you all think that we abolished nations after the cold war? Every country that can afford it has been spying on every other country for as long as there have been countries.

Re:Perhaps a new constitution.

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Good luck getting 2/3 of the states to agree on anything, even something as fundamental as "we don't want our own government spying on us." If one side is for it, the other side must be against it (even if it's a good idea), and if someone is neither for nor against it they're probably unable to fully understand it.

One of the claimed benefits of a Constitutionally limited government was that each State had the power to experiment, and try different paths. This was supposed to allow States to govern based on the local desires, rather than force everyone to agree on everything on a Federal level. Sadly, Federal scope creep has made States mere administrative units.

gee, then don't be all socialist!

[TheSync]

1) There is a reason why tech VC is concentrated in the US - our laws don't punish the greedy 0.1% who put cash in high-risk startups. The rest of the Western world is way behind us due to tons of crazy legal restrictions on VC.

2) Companies like Google may be founded and headquartered in the US, but they are really global companies with workers, offices, servers, and taxable incomes everywhere around the world.

Re:stfu.

[osu-neko]

No, the colonies did becuase George III, a porphyric idiot, started upping the taxes to pay for England's little imperialistic chessmatch with France.

psst Kings don't levy taxes, Parliament does. Lord North was the Prime Minister at the time of the American War of Independence. How much of an idiot George III may or may not have been isn't really relevant...

Re:stfu.

[osu-neko]

To a mad tyrant.

This was the common propaganda of the time, despite being a bit ridiculous when applied to a parliamentary democracy like Great Britain.

Scope of WWII

[TWX]

Not just a two-front war, a two-theatre, multi-front war. The US was simultaneously engaged in ground operations in France, Italy, North Africa, and in islands in the Pacific, was engaged in naval maneuvers in the North Sea, the central Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific, and had air/bombing operations over Europe and Asia.

The US was lucky in that vital production infrastructure wasn't located close to the war, and was far enough away that even raid-type attacks were impractical. Contrast to France where they were taken within months, and Russia, that ceded territory like mad until the Germans failed to build out enough to make up for the distance and lack of scavengable resources in Russian territory. The United Kingdom enjoyed at least a modicum of this kind of isolation, insofar as they couldn't be ground-invaded quickly, but their infrastructure was still vulnerable to both bombing and to small-teams insertion, so they had to be particularly vigilant, committing resources that the US simply didn't need to spend defensively.

Insightful?

[Alef]

If you don't want the internet to be US-centric then it's easy to solve it- make your own country a more appealing place to setup shop. The US offers relative stability in terms of economy, infrastructure, and laws, and if you look at the planet and where communications lines run it's "centralized".

What is your point, actually? Are you suggesting that having stability and thereby attracting service providers justifies using those service providers to spy on people? And if you don't live in a country with an economy comparable to the US, you deserve to be spied upon, because it's your own fault for not "solving it"? It's "easy to solve", after all.

I'm not really a fan of those FTFY kind of comments, but for the sake of your own education:

[T]he controversy in the US is that they got caught doing it to US citizens.

I can assure you, that is not what is the controversy elsewhere.

Who is to blame?

[msobkow]

Who is to blame for the fact that no nation other than the US has come up with a paradigm or service that the whole world has decided they need?

I'm as much against US domination of global politics and economic issues as anyone, but I don't blame the US for the fact that they have a lot of successful internet businesses. No one is forcing anyone to use their services. There are competitors in other nations (e.g. Baidu) that haven't spread outside their local markets. There are forums and services which cater to local markets.

It's not like you can claim that it's so outrageously expensive to register a .com that no one from another nation can compete -- far from it.

If you want someone to blame, look to your own citizens who'd rather pony up the cash for an American service rather than buying locally. Take a look at your local services and ask yourself why they aren't achieving greater market share.

I think you'll find they all have one problem in comparison to their American counterparts: they suck donkey balls.

Re:Eurotards are just jealous

[shutdown -p now]

You forget that this was the time before effective delivery vehicles were available - all you have is bombers. The reason why it was so easy to nuke Japan is because their air force was already decimated. I don't think that a bomber carrying a nuke to, say, Berlin would have a good chance of getting there if you take the hypothetical "Great German Reich from Atlantic to the Urals" scenario, with all the industrial base and resources of Europe and USSR at its disposal. You'd need to send several to get any reasonable chance of getting one through, which is very costly, and even then would probably only work for the first attack, since afterwards they'd just start going after bombers disregarding any losses.

No, the nukes were as much a wunderwaffe toy as German V-2. What won the war was the determination and courage of soldiers on the ground, and the sheer manufacturing capacity that Allies had - US and USSR both. The turning point was really in 1941, when blitzkrieg in Russia failed before taking over Moscow, and Soviets succeeded in fully relocating their industry to the Urals and getting it up and running on full capacity. Germans were good at blitzkrieg, but they simply didn't have the resources for a prolonged meat grinder kind of warfare, and that's what they got into in the USSR.

As far as who contributed most to victory, I think it's a fair assessment that USSR bore the brunt of the war in Europe, and US did the same in the Pacific. Everyone else was kinda tagging along - yes, even Brits. It's all really obvious when you look at losses and inflicted casualties. 5 out of 6 Axis soldiers killed in Europe died on the Eastern front, and this also represents about 2/3 of total Axis casualties everywhere. Most of the remaining 1/3 are Japanese soldiers dead from American action.

As far as lend lease goes, it was certainly a noticeable aid to the USSR, esp, in 1941-42, but it is unlikely to have been decisive - it didn't play much role in stopping the Germans at Moscow in 1941. Without it, it would probably have taken an extra year or so for Soviets to build up enough to be ready to go on the offensive, so Kursk (or equivalent) would have been somewhere in mid-to-late 1944, with the corresponding cost increase in human lives. So I think that USSR is by all rights entitled to a claim of being the country that defeated Germany in WW2 even with lend lease in the picture, much as US can claim victory over Japan.

Re:stfu.

[hajus]

Legislation for parliamentary members from the American colonies had already been passed before the American Revolution. Britain's parliament was supposed to offer parliamentary representation to anyone that was being taxed. Taxing the American colonists without representing them violated the guaranteed 'Rights of Englishmen'. Parliament had been trying to fix this since the puritan days of 1640. The governor of Massachusetts had reported in his journal ("Journal of John Winthrop") that he had been asked by Parliament to send representatives to England as either lobbyists or members but he had refused for he didn't want Massachusetts to become tax-liable.

This went on till just before the revolutionary war. People like John Grenville, Ben Franklin, Thomas Crowley, John Adams, and others all debated and wrote papers discussing parliamentary seats in London or federal representation with the empire that would have legal rights to tax the American colonies. However, there was no assembly or request sent to Westminster by the colonial powers.

During the debate for the Stamp Act, (which stated published written paper such as legal documents, and commercial paper like magazines and newspapers, had to be printed on specified stamped paper from England), several delegates from the colonies attended the sessions in New York, but not as members of Parliament. William Knox reported that these delegates were offered membership, but did not do so for they did not want to give England legal jurisdiction to tax them.

From wikipedia: William Knox submitted that,

        whilst [the radical colonists] exclaim against Parliament for taxing them when they are not represented, they candidly declare they will not have representatives [in Parliament] lest they should be taxed...The truth...is that they are determined to get rid of the jurisdiction of Parliament...and they therefore refuse to send members to that assembly lest they should preclude themselves of [the] plea [that Parliament's] legislative acts...are done without their consent; which, it must be confessed, holds equally good against all laws, as against taxes...The colony advocates...tell us, that by refusing to accept our offer of representatives they...mean to avoid giving Parliament a pretence for taxing them.[40]"

The "Conciliatory Resolution" was dated on Feb 27. "The Conciliatory Resolution declared that any colony that contributed to the common defense and provided support for the civil government and the administration of justice (ostensibly against any anti-Crown rebellion) would be relieved of paying taxes or duties except those necessary for the regulation of commerce." (wikipedia)