[ryandrake]

Trying to graft the Internet onto physical country borders has been fraught from the very beginning, but they keep trying. When a user in country A, connected to a satellite Internet provider headquartered in country B, through a VPN whose offices are in country C and their VPN server is in country D, looks up an IP address with a DNS server in country E, to a web site whose headquarters is in country F, and request a file hosted on servers distributed across countries G, H, I, J, and K, whose laws should apply?

[gruez]

So far as I can tell this concern isn't applicable, because it's only blocked in Belgium. I tested myself and it's not blocked in other countries.

[markvdb]

In the country where the physical person making the request is located would be a logical solution. Not saying it would be a good solution, but that would follow the logic of most international fiscal law. Super hard to implement though.

[ndr]

How is that supposed to work? If I open port 80 on my desktop I'm suddenly liable in every foreign jurisdiction that has user able to reach me on port 80?

[TZubiri]

This is an interesting question, but the law is well established, and it has an answer.

[AnthonyMouse]

"It has an answer" is not how you decide a policy question. It's rather important that the answer be reasonable rather than capricious, burdensome and ineffective.

[redleader55]

All the laws that we broke out of were established and had an answer to questions of life: land ownership, slavery, social structure, rights of various groups of people, etc.

The laws that apply on the internet are very desperate attempts by people with no technical knowledge to control something that can't be controlled. They work only because ways to circumvent them are not yet easy to use by the masses.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Trying to graft the Internet onto physical country borders has been fraught from the very beginning

I’d argue Silicon Valley pretending there is a natural arc of digital history towards freedom and enlightenment if we just leave everything alone is distinctly reminiscent of 90s free-trade optimism. And like that philosophy, this too one finds its tombstone in China.