<story><title>Russia may deem civil servants’ use of Gmail, Facebook ‘high treason’</title><url>http://rt.com/politics/gmail-facebook-treason-high-521/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ihsw</author><text>&amp;gt; If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won&amp;#x27;t be run by an american company.&lt;p&gt;Who&amp;#x27;s to say we&amp;#x27;ll ever see a major international company like that again? I foresee a future where DNS root server control is yanked away from the USG and the internet is partitioned.&lt;p&gt;The pendulum has peaked at globalization and now it&amp;#x27;s swinging towards isolationism. Whether we like it or not borders have been drawn along the previously wild-west-like internet, and it may take on the form of virtual Berlin Walls.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully someday we can enjoy the same euphoria that followed Germany&amp;#x27;s reunification but on a global scale, and that day may take a century to get here.</text></item><item><author>beloch</author><text>I honestly don&amp;#x27;t see how american-run social media companies can disentangle themselves from the NSA now.  It remains to be seen if the public in most countries will even take notice, but this kind of response will not be the last we see from foreign government agencies.  If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won&amp;#x27;t be run by an american company. International trust in american companies may be fundamentally tainted now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wladimir</author><text>Yes, I can&amp;#x27;t wait to apply for virtual visas to visit foreign internet sites, which I guess we&amp;#x27;ll need after a full scale balkanization of the internet.&lt;p&gt;On a more serious note, I hope the internet stays together, but that the pendulum will start swinging back from &amp;quot;cloud&amp;quot; to decentralized, federated or even P2P protocols and services. Wasn&amp;#x27;t it originally meant that way? (with NNTP, email, ...).</text></comment>
<story><title>Russia may deem civil servants’ use of Gmail, Facebook ‘high treason’</title><url>http://rt.com/politics/gmail-facebook-treason-high-521/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ihsw</author><text>&amp;gt; If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won&amp;#x27;t be run by an american company.&lt;p&gt;Who&amp;#x27;s to say we&amp;#x27;ll ever see a major international company like that again? I foresee a future where DNS root server control is yanked away from the USG and the internet is partitioned.&lt;p&gt;The pendulum has peaked at globalization and now it&amp;#x27;s swinging towards isolationism. Whether we like it or not borders have been drawn along the previously wild-west-like internet, and it may take on the form of virtual Berlin Walls.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully someday we can enjoy the same euphoria that followed Germany&amp;#x27;s reunification but on a global scale, and that day may take a century to get here.</text></item><item><author>beloch</author><text>I honestly don&amp;#x27;t see how american-run social media companies can disentangle themselves from the NSA now.  It remains to be seen if the public in most countries will even take notice, but this kind of response will not be the last we see from foreign government agencies.  If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won&amp;#x27;t be run by an american company. International trust in american companies may be fundamentally tainted now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dsirijus</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d definitely read a sci-fi book based on those premises. Preferably, lead character would be developer. &lt;i&gt;Not&lt;/i&gt; hacker; I&amp;#x27;m not interested much in that point of view.</text></comment>