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   Lauren Weinstein (lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:27:04 JST Lauren Weinstein

   L.A. protests ignite anti-ICE demonstrations across the country

   https://www.axios.com/2025/06/10/protests-ice-la-texas-new-york-atlanta

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:26:53 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan @lauren Things move faster when you have modern information infrastructure and huge numbers of media- and organizing-savvy folks all over.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:26:54 JST Brian Sullivan

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     @lauren Took 20 years though.

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     Lauren Weinstein (lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:26:59 JST Lauren Weinstein

     in reply to

     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan Correct. The more he pushes back the more the protests will grow. Mussolini learned this lesson the hard way.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:27:00 JST Brian Sullivan

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     @lauren There's a Catch 22 here though. More demonstrations will be used as a pretense by Trump to send troops elsewhere. I don't have a solution though so maybe escalation is the only way forward.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:37:48 JST Rich Felker

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     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan @lauren Yes they have access to the infrastructure but it doesn't play a comparable role.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 00:37:49 JST Brian Sullivan

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     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @lauren But both sides have access to that information infrastructure. And the government side likely has the upper hand.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:29:08 JST Rich Felker

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     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan @lauren No, I just think it's largely irrelevant to what I was saying. None of the important spread of information depends on ownership of domains by the actual people involved.

     They can and will produce lots of havok and gratuitous work for the people who maintain infrastructure if/when they interfere at levels like this, but that's an entirely separate issue.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:29:09 JST Brian Sullivan

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     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @lauren The DNS infrastructure is completely US government accessible. They seize domains all the time. Other governments control and monitor all internal communications .. you are thinking that it won't or can't happen?

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:41:40 JST Rich Felker

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     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan @lauren Individual particular channels do depend on ownership of domains. Yes, particularly the current fediverse.

     That's different than whether the spread of information depends on it. Just like burning of Twitter was disruptive, burning of these channels could be distruptive, but they will be reestablished quickly. The folks who made the Mastodon migration possible already showed us that.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:41:41 JST Brian Sullivan

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @lauren Lots on distributed platforms (like the one we are using) do. And the owned centralized platforms have complicit owners. I am not sure what you are implying.

     Some non Internet based communication? Non DNS based Internet?

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:46:06 JST Rich Felker

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     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan @lauren More broadly regarding DNS:

     If there is an attack on the DNS root through physical infrastructure presence in the US, I would expect rapid action by EU and other nations to establish a new root the rogue US can't touch. This would not alter any contents. Whether the previously US-controlled TLDs would also be forked is less clear, but I'd kinda expect yes.

     If there is only an attack on technically US-controlled TLDs, not the DNS root, I think it's less obvious what would happen, but it would likely spark a process of figuring out how the international community would deal with it.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:50:43 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan First of all, if they did this, there would be utter chaos they couldn't control. That's why they won't. Payments would be impossible. Travel would be impossible. Etc. Everything would grind to a halt like if it were a general strike. Where we failed to get a general strike over years of wishful thinking, they would have given it to us in one glorious footgun.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:50:44 JST Brian Sullivan

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     • Rich Felker

     @dalias Don't see how it can happen quickly enough. If the current US government seizes the domain infrastructure how does communication move elsewhere? And big complicit telecommunication companies control the physical infrastructure.. you think they will resist?

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:55:24 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan If they somehow did it anyway, and the entire internet was broken because they broke DNS, what would probably happen next is that the furry gods of modern infrastructure would be putting together hosts files of key infrastructure to get basic communications going, bootstrapping a makeshift dns root, and getting the information to point to it out to people running infrastructure.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:58:41 JST Brian Sullivan

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias Control of the domain or physical internet infrastructure does not imply shutdown though? Other large dictatorships (China and Russia for example) control and monitor internal communications effectively without destroying them completely.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:58:41 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan This whole discussion requires much deeper technical specification of what you have in mind than has taken place so far. It sounds like you may not have a very thorough understanding of DNS, and like you have in mind different attacks from what you've suggested by focusing on DNS infrastructure being physically US-accessible.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 02:08:35 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Brian Sullivan

     @briansullivan I mean in how delegations, TLDs, root, etc. work.

     There are multiple very different (in terms of how hostile to the international community they would be) possible physical attacks by US gov on DNS:

     - Seizing US-based registrars and altering customer records.
     - Seizing authority over US-based TLDs and altering contents.
     - Seizing authority over non-US TLDs whose infrastructure is hosted in the US and altering contents.
     - Seizing DNS root keys and using them to sign fraudulent delegations for non-US TLDs under keys US gov controls.
     - etc.

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     Brian Sullivan (briansullivan@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 02:08:36 JST Brian Sullivan

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias Maybe but I have more than a passing understanding, having maintained DNS for multiple domains over the years.