Why monopolies make spying easier

New title: Why backbones make the web centralized and therefore make spying easier.<p>From a satellite&#x27;s view, the internet does not look like &quot;mesh&quot;, as it would if it were decentralized.<p>It looks more like several pieces of thick rope, unravelled into many strands at the each end. The &quot;rope&quot; portions are the &quot;backbones&quot;.<p>With all traffic funneled through these backbones, the internet is quite centralized. This make surveilance quite easy.<p>If you &quot;wiretap&quot; the internet nearest the backbones (the thick rope), upstream from where the rope unravels, where the tier 1 ISP&#x27;s connect, you can get a complete copy of everything they get, and thereby everything their customers[0] get.<p>0. The monopolies: Facebook, Google, etc.<p>What could be easier? Could any network engineer say &quot;no&quot; to a spy agency asking to install a wiretap?<p>There seems a preoccupation with &quot;direct access&quot; to &quot;servers&quot; (e.g. ones receiving your personal info). But (perhaps) there&#x27;s no need for direct access to any web company&#x27;s servers under PRISM. (Perhaps) this is not how PRISM works.<p>(Perhaps) PRISM targets upstream routers close to the backbone. If so, it copies everything coming through those routers. The web companies don&#x27;t control those routers. Major ISP&#x27;s do (like AT&amp;T). The web companies, the &quot;monopolies&quot;, are their customers.<p>A prism deviates the path of a light beam, such as the light travelling through a fiber optic cable that plugs into a router near a backbone. If you divert the bit stream flowing out of a backbone, you can get a copy of all the bits headed for all the monopoly web companies. A company called Narus makes devices that can sort out the traffic for you. It would be quite easy.<p>If you want details, including a photo of the door to a room where (perhaps) some &quot;prism&quot; tapping is being carried out right now, read the sworn testimony made by former AT&amp;T employees. The lawsuit was covered by Wired years ago.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;filenode&#x2F;att&#x2F;presskit&#x2F;ATT_onepager.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;filenode&#x2F;att&#x2F;presskit&#x2F;ATT_onepager...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;filenode&#x2F;att&#x2F;SER_marcus_decl.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;filenode&#x2F;att&#x2F;SER_marcus_decl.pdf</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;filenode&#x2F;att&#x2F;SER_klein_decl.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;filenode&#x2F;att&#x2F;SER_klein_decl.pdf</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cryptome.org&#x2F;scott-marcus.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cryptome.org&#x2F;scott-marcus.pdf</a><p>Credit: Steve Gibson Jeff Jarvis (quoted in newyorker article) provided a link to Gibson&#x27;s disclosure: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&#x2F;commentisfree&#x2F;2013&#x2F;jun&#x2F;17&#x2F;chilling-effect-nsa-surveillance-internet" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&#x2F;commentisfree&#x2F;2013&#x2F;jun&#x2F;17&#x2F;chilling...</a>

Don&#x27;t get hung up on the word &quot;monopoly&quot; here. The relevant issue being discussed is centralization vs decentralization.

The author suggests one of the remedies to the monopolies is &quot;At the federal level, this means vigorous antitrust enforcement&quot;<p>That&#x27;s a great idea, really. Sadly it&#x27;s unlikely that the feds will bust monopolies when those same monopolies are so damn convenient for them for spying.<p>We&#x27;ve got a problem here. The government, which is supposed to be trustworthy, isn&#x27;t. And that means that some of the other checks and balances that the government is supposed to provide will be defeated internally. And we&#x27;re stuck with the consequences. Rad.

Even though the intent of this article is good, I dislike that the article starts out with the false premise that monopolies exist on the internet. A majority or even dominant market share does not imply that a monopoly exists.<p>A monopoly is properly defined by the lack of an ability to introduce competing options. If it was illegal to build another search engine or competing social network, then a monopoly would exist. There are clearly competing options for all of these services and it is legal to introduce competitors, therefore, no monopoly exists.

<i>These days, America has one dominant search engine, one dominant social-networking site..</i><p>Correction:<p>These days, the <i>world</i> has one dominant search engine, one dominant social-networking site...

I could imagine this article being talked about in the preschool, to teach little fellas, but on HN?<p>Of course it is easier to subvert 1 company than to subvert... well n&gt;1.

What, you mean the web isn&#x27;t Facebook and Google?<p>We&#x27;ve seriously let the centralization of the net get out of control, and nobody seems to really care.