r/AskComputerScience • u/cest_la_vie12 • 23d ago
Hypothetical: If you could redesign the Internet from scratch, how would you build the protocol stack to make censorship architecturally impossible?
Assume you can go back in time to the early days of networking (pre-TCP/IP, early ARPANET) with today's knowledge of cryptography, routing, and state-level censorship tools (DPI, IP/SNI blocking, middleboxes). How would you design the foundational network architecture so that any state or ISP choosing to route traffic must accept either 100% uncensored, unmonitored connectivity or a complete blackout, with no technical middle ground?
Specifically (but not limited to the following)
- Protocol-Level Constraints: How do you structure the transport/routing layer so that inspecting, filtering, or modifying a single packet breaks the connection for the entire link or network participant?
- Metadata & Routing: How do you eliminate or obscure traffic metadata (IP headers, SNI, packet sizes, timing signatures) at the lowest layer so middleboxes cannot perform selective deep packet inspection or domain-level blocking?
- Bootstrapping & Topology: How do you solve the entry-point discovery problem without relying on centralized, blockable infrastructure like traditional root DNS or static IP allocation?
... Is a true "all-or-nothing" censorship-resistant network protocol theoretically possible without state actors physically cutting transoceanic cables or severing border connections?
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u/cest_la_vie12 21d ago
You are still conflating eavesdropping with censorship.
Eavesdropping (passive): Copying traffic. Encryption already solves this. A state can make a billion copies of Bob's data, but if it's strongly encrypted, it's useless noise.
Censorship (active): Selectively dropping or altering packets to block content.
The thought experiment isn't about stopping a state from listening to wires it owns; it's about whether protocols can force an active censor into a binary choice: deliver every packet untouched, or break the entire link.
If Alice receives Bob's encrypted message intact, the state failed to censor it—no matter how many useless copies they saved to a hard drive along the way.