[oniMaker]

The message is probably one we can all get behind in principle.

However, the internet has a real, physical infrastructure that is definitely owned and operated by behemoth organizations like governments and private corporations. In fact, the Internet was created by a government. What makes you think they'd give it up willingly?

If you want to create your own internet, you certainly can. But even if you find the monetary resources to do so, you'll need to house and operate the telecommunications equipment somewhere on Earth (or in LEO). And if you want to protect that equipment from hostile takeover, then you'll need some form of recognized sovereignty including a real military capable of defending your castle.

Cyberspace cannot (yet) escape the real bounds of physical reality. It seems as though some people think of it as a superset of the world, while it very much is still a subset dependent on its corporeal parent.

[throwaway2380]

What about techniques that obscure the source of information?

Whether it be something like Tor, or something like a distributed database, internet communication may require hardware and physical location of data, but there are ways to allow information transmission without being strongly reliant on a fixed physical source.

Also, this capability is not limited to the internet.

[oniMaker]

None of those technologies are bulletproof. Tor can be (and at least partially has been) compromised.

[jcoffland]

Think very long distance wireless. It has yet to be invented but I believe one day it will be possible to communicate point-to-point across the globe with low power devices at high bandwidths. Such a technology would make these arguments moot. Certainly we have to be practical about our present situation but the broader idea of cyberspace is not limited to current technology. In 1996 moderates would have laugh if you suggested today's technology would become common place.

[oniMaker]

Where would you house the wireless endpoints? How would you obscure their source? These aren't magical devices. They're still real-world physical objects.

[GuiA]

> low power

> high bandwidth

> high distance

The laws of physics compel you to choose 2.

[jacquesm]

No, that's wrong. It's correct if you add the requirement that you're omnidirectional but if you want to let go of that requirement then low power, high bandwidth and long distance can be there at the same time.

[jcoffland]

The words "low" and "high" are relative terms. I would argue that by 1990 standards we've achieved all of these.

[sevensor]

There are some severe physical limitations to work around here. Higher frequencies support higher bandwidth, but they tend to go right through the ionosphere rather than treating the ground-ionosphere system as a waveguide. Lower frequencies can propagate further (like AM radio at night), but as you drop the frequency there's suddenly a lot less spectrum to go around. And you need huge antennas.

[jcoffland]

It stands to reason that the technology of the future does not yet make sense to us. Do you believe that we've already achieved the furthest possible wireless communication at low power? I think we can do better. This is pure speculation but I'm basing it on our past performance.

[sevensor]

Yes, I believe we're at the limit of what we can do with electromagnetic radiation. That's not to say that there aren't other forms of wireless I haven't thought of, but we've been trying to squeeze bandwidth out of the electromagnetic spectrum for over a hundred years now, and its limitations are pretty well understood at this point. If we're all carrying neutrino-based communication devices in 2050, I'll be happily proven wrong.

This is not to say that there isn't exciting stuff going on in the QRP DX world (like JT65), but we're not breaking through the power-bandwidth-distance frontier, just finding interesting new ways to trade the three off against each other.