Communications of the ACM
Russia Is Risking the Creation of an Irreversible 'Splinternet'
Were the internet allowed to fracture, it could prove impossible to repair.
Credit: MS TECH
Facebook has been blocked entirely by Russian authorities, Twitter is almost completely cut off, and many more companies have voluntarily withdrawn from the Russian market. But more profound splits are in the cards—provoked by action on both sides.
The moves have raised fears of a "splinternet" (or Balkanized Internet), where, instead of the single, global Internet we have today, we have a number of national or regional networks that do not speak to one another and perhaps even operate using incompatible technologies. That would spell the end of the Internet as a single global communications technology—and perhaps not only temporarily.
From MIT Technology Review
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