I'd make this into a science fiction story if I was a better writer. It's not necessarily going to happen, but it's enough of a risk that people need to be made aware of it.
The days of the Internet as we know it are coming to an end. The squabbling we're currently seeing over the root DANS servers is just the start. Links in the network cost money. Real money, not some theoretical service thing. They're currently provided by either universities as a public service that aids the university academically, or by ISPs where the link benefits both. But the expensive ones like the transatlantic cables are all in the former category. (Feel free to correct me on this.) As more and more content becomes illegal in various places, the universities will retreat, routing only academic content. With the rise of DRAM systems and general improvements in cryptography, eventually only provably academic content will be routed. For the rest, you'll have to find someone else whose interest it serves to forward your packet.
There will be all sorts of innovative money-making schemes from people running server sets. For a monthly fee, companies will guarantee routing from any of their endpoints to any other endpoint. Of course, getting the packet to your local endpoint, and ensuring your recipient can pick it up from theirs, is your business. You might find postal-service-like setups who will deliver "door to door", but I wouldn't count on it, and it will probably be priced per packet. A cadre of hackers will offer free routing anywhere, like in the old days, but it will be unreliable and congested. The spread of wireless adds another dynamic to this, because it allows cheap routes between any two basestations within several kilometres, provided they're willing to cooperate. There could well be several networks layered over each other all around you. Of course encryption technology will be advanced and adopted enough that they are no use to you. The really interesting part will be the half-open networks, those that pass unsigned packets based on automated inspection (manual is impossible with the volume of packets around). These rules will probably change daily, and there will be a new rush of hacking crafting encodings for arbitrary data to go from A to B on. It requires cunning and agility, and can't be used with huge amounts of data, but it's doable. Things might be sent with some of the steps being physically moving discs, or links that only work half the day because they're being run by some kiddie hacker and his friend a few miles off. The current routing protocols won't be able to handle it as well as a competent human, meaning hackers will have an advantage over normal people who simply curse their slow link and hope it will work better next time, or pay for a premier routing service. To send a packet around the world will be a tricky feat, maybe even an induction test for those joining the resurgent hacking gangs. Over time a complete economy will emerge, with exchanges tracking the prices of packets between major locations. Neighbourhoods will lay their own cables to popular servers, and anyone who can provide content people are interested in - probably cracked software/music/movies, now very much a rare commodity with the strong encryption, stronger laws, and slow spread of cracked versions - will be able to get their connections free, maybe even have people pay to connect and charge those who route through them. Networks will form around these hubs, and then dissolve as the operator gets raided, one of the leaf nodes perhaps trying to trade their way with what they managed to acquire before the raid. The canny will stay on the edge, not popular enough to attract attention but popular enough to be able to get what they want, much like posters in mp3 newsgroups today. (If you haven't ever been to such a newsgroup, they're worth watching just for the social dynamics, not to mention the mp3s). Bang paths, UUCP, netnews and local BBSes will all see a revival. It will be a wilderness once more, but a post-apocalyptic one, with older hackers reminiscing about the few decades they had when there was free routing everywhere. Eventually, when wireless evolves to a range of hundreds of miles, free networks may see a return, but the rules of mesh networks dictate that the bigger they get the scarcer bandwidth becomes. As normal Internet bandwidth has increased content has grown to fill the space available (text->images->music->applications and video), and although it's hard to imagine a higher-bandwidth successor to current content it seems inevitable that one will arise, perhaps full 3-d simulations. So the Internet will always be an economic entity, and with the increased power hackers get will come a sadness at the loss of that period of freedom.
Anyone know if anyone has tried to write about this kind of idea?
