One, Two, or Two Hundred Internets?: The Politics of Future Internet Architectures

Author(s): Kevin Kohler
Editor(s): Jakob Bund, Taylor Grossman
Series: CSS Cyberdefense Reports
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich
Publication Year: 2022

The Internet has grown massively since it became commercialized and globalized in the 1990s. Yet, despite its success, the idea that the Internet may lose its global nature has high salience. It comes in two variants. In the first one, the Internet develops towards a “splinternet” consisting of several national internets due to intentional access and connectivity restrictions imposed by governments. A second claim, which emerged with the start of the US-China “trade war” in 2018, is that we are moving towards a bifurcation between a Western and a Chinese Internet. This CSS Cyberdefense Report offers an overview of the discourse on Internet fragmentation and bifurcation.

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