WI Internet + Cold War?

zeitenschmiede

What if the Cold War didn't end in 1990, but continued up to this day. The internet revolution proceeds as IOTL. What would the internet look like? A virtual Iron Curtain?

Remember that you can't just say "look at China IOTL"
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Look at Technocratic German Reich vs. Chinese Empire vs. Socialist Block in my Chaos TL.

Thread moved to After 1900.
 

Mark E.

The information age ended soviet communism. Though in its infancy in the 80's, pre-Internet with its phone modems and electronic data transfer forced the USSR to make a choice: open up communication or fall into the third world.

The Cold War we remember could not have continued with the Internet. As for China, it is getting harder and harder for the government to sequester communication.
 

PaleHorseRiding

Banned
The west lead in technology gets bigger and bigger and bigger and the Soviet union becomes a bi word for backword shithole

This would be great because alot of younger people are very communistic because they see no real communist societies around
 

Atreus

Solomaxwell6 said:
You sure? I don't have much knowledge in this field, but I know someone who's been visiting China, and he had very little problem bypassing the blocks.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I've heard a mix of things (one of which is that google censors it's chinese version to comply with the PRC).

On a related note, didn't we once work out that this site is blocked in Mainland China?
 

Temujin

Atreus said:
Honestly, I've heard a mix of things (one of which is that google censors it's chinese version to comply with the PRC).

On a related note, didn't we once work out that this site is blocked in Mainland China?
Click to expand...

Of course the the official line is that the government can control all web traffic, but if you know how it's quite easy to bypass. I imagine in future years this is going to lessen as well.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Solomaxwell6 said:
You sure? I don't have much knowledge in this field, but I know someone who's been visiting China, and he had very little problem bypassing the blocks.
Click to expand...

True, but the real indicator of the PRC's success is how few people ever feel the need to bypass the blocks. For instance, if you were to run a straw poll of Chinese high schoolers asking them whether they knew what happened in Tianenmen Square in 1989, probably less than 1% would have any idea.
 

the_lyniezian

Banned
ninebucks said:
True, but the real indicator of the PRC's success is how few people ever feel the need to bypass the blocks. For instance, if you were to run a straw poll of Chinese high schoolers asking them whether they knew what happened in Tianenmen Square in 1989, probably less than 1% would have any idea.
Click to expand...

Probably because you can only find it if you were actually looking for it in the first place.
 

bard32

Banned
zeitenschmiede said:
What if the Cold War didn't end in 1990, but continued up to this day. The internet revolution proceeds as IOTL. What would the internet look like? A virtual Iron Curtain?

Remember that you can't just say "look at China IOTL"
Click to expand...

The internet was invented during the Cold War. In 1969, ARPA, the Advanced
Research Projects Agency, (now DARPA,) created ARPA Net, which later became the internet. ARPA Net was only for the military and universities.
In 1972, the first e-mail was sent. In 1986, the first case of computer hacking
was documented. Then Al Gore invented the internet and now everything's hunky dory. :D
 

danielb1

One possibility is a technological "iron curtain". The first internet server in the Soviet Union, demos.su, only came online in 1991 or so, right as the Soviet Union was collapsing.

Assuming a continued Cold War, with late 1980s or earlier POD, its quite possible that the Soviets forbid internet connections outside the Iron Curtain, at least at first. The People's Republic of China, for example, did not connect its network to the Internet until 1995. A 'hostile' Soviet Union may not do so at all, and instead use a rival network (though likely also TCP/IP-based), with built-in 'policing'. I believe North Korea has its own 'mini-internet' OTL with similar policing (although its kind of unnecessary, given how 80+% of the population wouldn't even be allowed near a computer).

If China has a less reformist government due to butterflies, it may choose a similar route, forming a third internet.
 

metalstar316

bard32 said:
The internet was invented during the Cold War. In 1969, ARPA, the Advanced
Research Projects Agency, (now DARPA,) created ARPA Net, which later became the internet. ARPA Net was only for the military and universities.
In 1972, the first e-mail was sent. In 1986, the first case of computer hacking
was documented. Then Al Gore invented the internet and now everything's hunky dory. :D
Click to expand...


And in 1978, the first SPAM email was sent. How far we've come, eh? :rolleyes:
 

aktarian

danielb1 said:
One possibility is a technological "iron curtain". The first internet server in the Soviet Union, demos.su, only came online in 1991 or so, right as the Soviet Union was collapsing.

Assuming a continued Cold War, with late 1980s or earlier POD, its quite possible that the Soviets forbid internet connections outside the Iron Curtain, at least at first. The People's Republic of China, for example, did not connect its network to the Internet until 1995. A 'hostile' Soviet Union may not do so at all, and instead use a rival network (though likely also TCP/IP-based), with built-in 'policing'. I believe North Korea has its own 'mini-internet' OTL with similar policing (although its kind of unnecessary, given how 80+% of the population wouldn't even be allowed near a computer).

If China has a less reformist government due to butterflies, it may choose a similar route, forming a third internet.
Click to expand...

SU could limit availability of needed gadgets on the market. Black market would exist (can you have black market internet anyways?) but would be limited.
 

Communist Wizard

danielb1 said:
One possibility is a technological "iron curtain". The first internet server in the Soviet Union, demos.su, only came online in 1991 or so, right as the Soviet Union was collapsing.

Assuming a continued Cold War, with late 1980s or earlier POD, its quite possible that the Soviets forbid internet connections outside the Iron Curtain, at least at first. The People's Republic of China, for example, did not connect its network to the Internet until 1995. A 'hostile' Soviet Union may not do so at all, and instead use a rival network (though likely also TCP/IP-based), with built-in 'policing'. I believe North Korea has its own 'mini-internet' OTL with similar policing (although its kind of unnecessary, given how 80+% of the population wouldn't even be allowed near a computer).

If China has a less reformist government due to butterflies, it may choose a similar route, forming a third internet.
Click to expand...
I think the idea of the 2nd/3rd Internet is the most plausible...
 

Temujin

aktarian said:
SU could limit availability of needed gadgets on the market. Black market would exist (can you have black market internet anyways?) but would be limited.
Click to expand...

Not with the kind of technology accessible to the Soviet public in those days.
 

Ivan Druzhkov

Of course, there is also a very good possibility that the Internet might never be created in a continuous Cold War environment. While larger and larger computer networks are pretty much a given, I don’t think there’s any reason to assume that that these networks will coalesce into one unified civilian-maintained system that transcends national boundaries. Keep in mind that the Internet as we’ve come to know it is really a product of the 1990s, of a time when everyone assumed there’d be no more wars and borders would fade in the face of globalization and personal freedom. If people in the West still think in terms of blocs and iron curtains, our Internet would look like a massive security risk that could never be adequately safeguarded. Personally, I tend to think that such an environment would produce self-contained regional networks, possibly designed to be unable to interface with other networks without specialized programs or equipment. The Soviets would not have to do anything to secure their information monopoly because, for them, there would literally be no one to talk to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top