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The Internet. ELI5

I don't get how it works, who owns it, who made the laws for it, where it lives?

Like, could a country just go "fuck it, everything that is on the internet in our country is now free for all of our citizens to download, view and stream"?
 
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eddie4

Genuinely Generous
The Elders of The Internet would like to speak to you. ASAP.

the_internet_from_the_it_crowd.jpg
 
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Kayoba

Member
I'm not an expert by any means, but if I'm not mistaken it all boils to top level domains (.ru, co.uk etc). Each country can pass their own laws and each domain will be obliged to follow the laws of said country. If hypothetically Russia don't like yourfavoritegamingwebsite.co.uk, the ISP (internet provider) can block access to said website. Though it's usually a DNS block, which could be bypassed by manually set another DNS, using a proxy or VPN.
 
I'm not an expert by any means, but if I'm not mistaken it all boils to top level domains (.ru, co.uk etc). Each country can pass their own laws and each domain will be obliged to follow the laws of said country. If hypothetically Russia don't like yourfavoritegamingwebsite.co.uk, the ISP (internet provider) can block access to said website. Though it's usually a DNS block, which could be bypassed by manually set another DNS, using a proxy or VPN.
So the name World-wide-web is a bit of a misnomer?

It's more like, selectively-wide-web?

How would one 'kill' the internet? Or is it impossible?
 
The idea was that it should not be possible. In reality a country's data traffic will pass through very few giant hubs.
In NL for example there's the AMS-IX which funnels most of NL traffic: currently (sunday afternoon) 8 Tb/s. Shut it down and you're not going to visit many websites anymore.
Interesting.

Do all VPN traffic going to NL go through the same hub?
 
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