As an Information Systems major in college, I'll highlight the important part here:
Pamela Geller is worried that the five FNGs on the ICANN board are going to effectively block websites of groups that keep an eye on jihadist activity, or anybody else they don't like. How does this work?
All devices (printers, servers, PCs, routers, etc.) on a computer network have an IP address that acts as a street number, and a MAC address that acts as the SSN of the resident. A device without an IP address might as well not exist as far as that network is concerned. The Internet is a giant computer network, and websites have domain names mapped to the IP addresses of their servers. For example, this website occupies the domain name "professionalsoldiers.com" and has its server at IP address 74.86.110.213.
Pamela Geller is worried that the new ICANN board members of Middle East origin will find grounds for revoking the IP/domain resolutions of websites they don't like (in this case,
http://www.investigativeproject.org which has excellent source material about terrorism and connections between jihadi groups). All that would be needed in order to implement this would be to "un-map" that website from its IP address. If this were to happen, then the only way to access their content would be by typing their server's IP address into the address bar:
http://66.117.39.29/
EDIT - As it stands, Robert Spencer's website has its security settings ratcheted up so navigating via IP does not work for their site, though it does work for PS.
The interesting deal is that IP addresses are either predetermined/fixed (static) or dynamically generated via DHCP protocol. We have DHCP because everything with a network connection can connect/disconnect at any given time... like teenagers and their cellphones; laptops, even computers that are not always turned on. If ICANN can physically deny somebody from connecting to the Internet (turn off their broadcast antenna, remove wires from their buildings) then we really have trouble.
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18Es take note - you may want to add "Ad Hoc Network Infrastructure" to your toolkit if Ms. Geller's fears materialize-- This way, RF equipment with suitable antennae can be used to connect to any nearby network device. Ad Hoc is like old fashioned pirate radio stations before the FCC came around. With enough bandwidth, a suitable antenna, and battery life, you could run a website with a laptop and a AN/PRC-119 from the backseat of a stryker.
It would be mildly amusing to find this in the "Fieldcraft" section
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hand
Entire post.
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Your profile says software engineer, but you copy/pasted a comment thread entry. I expected better from you.
That "Aleph" character was using decent diction and heavy sarcasm to communicate a point-- leftists and jihadis generally resort to horrible spelling and vulgarity instead of articulated sarcasm. A jihadi would never knowingly call himself "Aleph" out of pride, as it is in the Hebrew alphabet.