Antipodean fruit growers 2 - Canary in the internet coal mine

[Bosky]

Continuation thread from Antipodean fruit grower statement

A statement from the owner reads in part:

Downtime Update as of August 26th, 2022

"What I fear more than losing my site, being sued, or dealing with police is living in a world where [REDACTED] can [REDACTED] little boys and girls into [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], while normal people are not allowed to even discuss it.

The mob has already planned subsequent targets. Should we stay down, they will then attack 'gender critical' communities - especially those ran by and for women. No place can exist online which allows criticism of their [REDACTED], and nothing would excite them more than this power and domination struggle being inflicted on a female space instead."

I would link to the statement on the Internet Archive aka "Wayback Machine" but it has made all pages archived from the relevant site unsearchable (or deleted?).

Mumsnet does not permit links to the site Archive Today so that is out too.

1st Thread Antipodean fruit grower statement
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4620584-antipodean-fruit-grower-statement

[ItsLateHumpty]

It’s up for me, but I know the US can’t get on. Also Jersh just updated

“I'm proud to introduce a new creation which will change the world. For as long as we can remember (the last five days), there have been two global network-of-networks: the internet that can access the Kiwi Farms, and the stinky American internet that cannot.

Today, that wall comes down, and our two internets join into a new single Internet (now a proper noun, with a capital I). A user of this Internet may access any site anywhere on the Internet, even from places like America. This includes the Kiwi Farms.

Enjoy responsibly.

(Changes may take time to propagate. Just wait a bit.)”

[ItsLateHumpty]

I did enjoy the mentions of Marge in the wild, but I’m not jealous that I’ve never posted anything worthy of being noted by the Farmers 😂

[NecessaryScene]

I haven't caught Marge being discussed, but if Marge is then, that's a clear example of how this works - you say or do ridiculous stuff on the Internet in public, then people will notice you and start laughing about you and the ridiculous stuff you say or do. Especially WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THEM.

The KF is 100% (as far as I can tell) a reaction site. People are dumb, they react. So sure, why wouldn't they react here?

Back onto Josh's latest, I think I need to fill in the technical details of the latest Internet horror.

One of the key backbone providers has decided to start throwing away traffic headed to Josh's network. This fundamentally breaks every design principle of the Internet.

They're basically advertising that they can carry traffic anywhere, and listing out what routes they have available, so that all the intermediate hops can choose a route.

So they're saying something like "sure, I can deliver stuff to Josh, in 5 hops" (alongside the info for squillions of other networks) And all the other systems around them who decide that's the best route, then send their traffic to them.

They then throw it away. They're not refusing traffic, they're accepting it and dropping it.

At this point, this generates a technical fault, and ISPs all over the world are being contacted by customers to complain that their routes aren't working ("my packets are getting 7 hops, but then vanish", as determined by a "traceroute" tool). So they're going to figure out where in the chain it's happening, and if this network won't fix it, they are going to have to route around the damage - this backbone provider is malfunctioning, so neighbours are going have to route around it with a rule "don't send packets to X to that network, even if they say they can handle it". Or maybe just "don't send packets to that network at all".

In the short term, this can be patched around, and if it happens rarely, network managers can deal with it. But if they keep doing it, and the practice spreads, the whole network management falls to pieces.

The Internet can't work smoothly when administrators let their machines lie about where they can route traffic to, and everyone else has to have a huge perpetual continually-updated manual list of "where to not send data" that overrides the automatic "where to send data" protocols that computers auto-negotiate.

So, anyway, what has Josh done now? I'm not sure. If I had to guess something fundamental to send route advertisements that rewrite the Internet backbone's routing tables to basically set a load of his distributed data centres around the world to be the optimum route to his network. Automatically overriding any automated choice to go through the bad "black hole" people, by winning on "cost". If he's saying he's got the best direct route to his network from each data centre, all the automated machines will believe him. It automates the route-around.

Arguably he may be falsely advertising too low a cost, so the data takes a longer route than it should, but it's a much less bad lie than their lie. It's a clear workaround, and he wouldn't have to do it if they weren't lying.

They of course could start lying more to try to override his routes.

This could rapidly get out of hand - how far are they prepared to break the entire Internet?

The whole thing works on the assumption of good faith and co-operation, and people not sending false advertisements. If tolerated, it's hard to see how the Internet survives.

[ApocalipstickNow]

I didn’t understand any of that, I’m just picturing very determined bunnies hopping on journeys with boxes of newspaper cuttings about people doing stupid things.

[BordoisAgain]

Any clues on the thread location would be gratefully received 😘

[NecessaryScene]

Something like that!

Basically the Internet's not a series of tubes as someone said once.

I'd like a load of seedy pubs in towns where a load of independent mail stagecoaches stop. Every stagecoach only goes to the next town and back. One "hop".

For anything to be delivered, it has to get from town to town, with each stagecoach handing all their post not for this town over to some random other stagecoach who says "sure, I'm heading in that direction". And eventually, it reaches the town it's intended for.

This has worked for decades, and all the stagecoach operators get along famously, and they buy each other rounds, and they all trust each other with the post they've been asked to deliver implicitly.

Here, a stagecoach operator has gone rogue, is accepting mail for someone they don't like, and is throwing it out of the window while on route.

All the stagecoach operators are now going to be looking at each other suspiciously, and the pubs are going to be getting a bit tense.

(And Josh isn't even there, and has never even visited one of these pubs, but he's going to basically trash the place remotely).

[PomegranateOfPersephone]

@BordoisAgain

Any clues on the thread location would be gratefully received 😘

I did a search for Mumsnet on Kiwi and the second item on the results was related to this thread here on Mumsnet. If that is the thread you are asking about.

[BernardBlacksMolluscs]

people start to take things for granted, don't they? immature people I mean. and then they think they can break things that make life better for everyone and there won't be any consequences

[ItsLateHumpty]

Just search Mumsnet as a thread title, it’s not a huge thread and they don’t all lurve us, but it was a short read and I did smile at the end.

@NecessaryScene much thanks for the tech talk! Do you think he can ‘win’?

On another (related) note, Keffals has taken themselves off the web, I think they’ve lost many friends due to alleged dishonest grifting $$$, possible racism, being white and fragile, and being ableist from what I can make out on Twitter. And that’s from their ‘friends’ 😬

[NecessaryScene]

Do you think he can ‘win’?

No idea. I think everyone can lose. In his latest interview on Rumble, he had a semi-tongue-in-cheek rant:

Look, here's my thing now. I am going to fucking murder the Internet. I'm going to systematically pull this apart, like a child with an insect in his hands. I will destroy this shit, by myself. I am a one-man apocalypse. And this will be the end of the Internet, and it will be my fault. I'm bringing you all with me. I'm going to have this shit regulated, I'm going to bring back net neutrality. I am going to make the Internet miserable, by the time I'm gone. That is my objective, so you'd better be on my side! Cos this is the Samson option. I'm going to collapse the pillars, and the temple's coming down, and you're all going to be buried with me.

- Well, thanks.

- You're welcome.

The foundations of the Internet are crumbling. And it's not anything he's doing himself - it's the people having insane reactions to the complaints from people having insane reactions to his site.

They are choosing to create a world where no-one can be trusted to do their job, and no-one can expect to have their data delivered.

Maybe if that's the way they think they shouldn't have chosen to be Internet operators. Complaining about having to deliver data while being an Internet backbone is like complaining about having to publish books while working for a publisher. It's the same level of idiocy.

[AlisonDonut]

I do have to ask in all honesty Marg, why do you keep bumping the thread? Do you actually work for Josh's PR team on the sly?

Also, why keep bumping on a UK forum, saying it is down when it isn't down for the UK?

I just tested it from France. It got thrown out the virtual window. VPN to the UK however and it went straight through. Perhaps you can assess it that way Marg?

[ApocalipstickNow]

@NecessaryScene

thanks for the explanation- I can now explain to my child how the internet works 😄

[RufustheFloralmissingreindeer]

I do like the way people on here explain stuff, obviously including that stagecoach post from necessary

i like to think I understand stuff…😀

[AlisonDonut]

At the request of a Mystery Mumsnetter...it isn't much but isn't this why Marg keeps bumping the thread, for attention?

[Happylittlechicken]

@BordoisAgain

Any clues on the thread location would be gratefully received 😘

Community watch 😘😘

[Needmoresleep]

Judging from what Josh has posted recently I think he is getting help from people who believe in the internet and care about free speech.

Opposed by people who want to dictate their views and cancel people who think differently.

Those who understand the tech issues are presumably witnessing a real battle. I am just amazed at the arrogance of specialist firms who decide they are entitled to be the arbiters of free speech. Not least when the transparency/sunlight provided by KF has gone a long way to help prevent some genuinely nasty stuff.

Security of supply is a huge issue. Whether it is Toby Young having his PayPal account closed, Putin cutting gas pipelines, or, early in the pandemic, Trump refusing to export vaccines abroad, even though key components were made in Canada. I hope that when the dust settles computer professionals take note of the suppliers/stagecoaches who cannot be relied on.

(I can't get through. But then Virgin is pretty misogynist, so it may be them. On the eve of the GRA consultation deadline they blocked access to the Fair Play for Women guidance. Open internet but not for women.)

[nothingcomestonothing]

Between the determined bunnies with newspaper cuttings and the stage coaches and dodgy pubs, this is why love MN

[NecessaryScene]

Judging from what Josh has posted recently I think he is getting help from people who believe in the internet and care about free speech.

Yes, he's doing really quite technical stuff now. He's clearly getting guidance on how to get the automated backbone to cooperate, and how to drive BGP ("Border Gateway Protocol") - its routing system.

Cloudflare(!) explanation here.

Interesting reading, that:

In 2004, a Turkish ISP called TTNet accidentally advertised incorrect BGP routes to its neighbors. These routes claimed that TTNet itself was the best destination for all traffic on the Internet. As these routes spread further and further to more autonomous systems, a massive disruption occurred, creating a one-day crisis where many people across the world were not able to access some or all of the Internet.

Similarly, in 2008, a Pakistani ISP attempted to use a BGP route to block Pakistani users from visiting YouTube. The ISP then accidentally advertised these routes with its neighboring ASes and the route quickly spread across the Internet’s BGP network. This route sent users trying to access YouTube to a dead end, which resulted in YouTube’s being inaccessible for several hours.

These are examples of a practice called BGP hijacking, which does not always happen accidentally. In April 2018, attackers deliberately created bad BGP routes to redirect traffic that was meant for Amazon’s DNS service. The attackers were able to steal over $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency by redirecting the traffic to themselves.

Incidents like these can happen because the route-sharing function of BGP relies on trust, and autonomous systems implicitly trust the routes that are shared with them. When peers announce incorrect route information (intentionally or not), traffic goes where it is not supposed to, potentially with malicious results.

What we're seeing now is people choosing to act maliciously and betray that trust in order to help Liz Fong Jones cover up personal history.

[NecessaryScene]

I can't get through.

Tor will work, in its simplest "just give the normal URL to it" mode. Brave and some other browsers have a trivially easy "Open new window with Tor" to let you do that.

That effectively gives you an "automatic" VPN - your data will pop out somewhere, and Tor automatically finds a "somewhere" where the connection is working. It autoroutes around the network block, as it was intended to do - to counter state or other firewalls. You're like a Chinese user trying to get past their Great Firewall. (Nice, isn't it?)

(This is different to the "special .onion address" mode that's been used occasionally as a form of DDoS protection - turning off the normal IP access and making it only Tor/.onion accessible is an emergency measure.)

Although from what Josh is saying, that should be unnecessary (soon, when routing changes propagate?)

(Never had any outage from the latest shenanigans where I am.)

[Trustylion]

God isnt this thread at 1000 yet? we need a new one, it's really tedious to try and open on phone now.

This is a great listen - explains everything for the curious:

rumble.com/v1rc6hq-null-on-the-internet-censorship-network-tyranny-and-control-over-the-signal.html

Virgin are definitely one of the ISPs in the UK who are blocking KF on the clearnet. I am in the UK and they are my ISP. I can get through on tor or via VPN back to UK but not clearnet on my UK Virgin.

[Trustylion]

interesting my post immediatly hidden - maybe cos I posted a link to the recent Rumble chat that explains everything.

My other points were:

a) when will this thread be at 1000? we need a new one as it is too big and unwieldy to open on a phone.

[Trustylion]

and b) Virgin is definitley blocking on clearnet in the UK, gits.

[NecessaryScene]

and b) Virgin is definitley blocking on clearnet in the UK, gits.

It may not be deliberate, given what's happening at the minute. Someone one or more steps above them may just happen to be passing it on to the wrong person.

Either way, complain - the service is faulty, unless you're asking for some sort of child protection filtering or something, which could justify blocking it.

I posted a link to the recent Rumble chat that explains everything.

Link is on the Telegram status page. They get onto Mumsnet and the fight against women's spaces at around 1:28 into that.

[Trustylion]

I cba attemoting to speak to Virgin, I have access via VPN and tor so whatever. It could be taking time for everything to propagate anyway.

[ArabellaScott]

I like the internet explained as a series of dodgy pubs. Makes me feel like I almost understand it.