so ive been hearing a lot lately about the end of the internet as we know it.

in this desolate post-internet world of 2012, will the people truly sit back and let much of the functionality of the most important communications device conceived be taken away from them so easily?

considering recent attacks on prominent internet companies, we must take into the consideration the possibility that attacks like these may eventually be applied in tandem with physical capture of the server sites. eventually, digital revolutionaries would not be able to settle for havoc caused by a few days disturbance of services, and would up the ante to the physical realm.

also, while much of the world could feasibly move to a new set of restrictions on the internet, many third world countries with developing infrastructures would still be allowing free exchange of information. we even have examples of countries with extremely strict internet guidelines making the internet widely available. many cubans, preceding the rule of raul castro, routinely downloaded popular blog posts to usb drives and shared the text outside of the internet, making the data available to many.

it seems appropriate for digital revolutionaries to be making this change. surely, if the us government thinks it will soon be a major problem, you know everyone else must be on top of this too. i am desperately curious about that aspect of it. the us government is usually pretty outdated in the way it views technology, and this stark and realistic assessment of the evolution of the digital revolution is out of character. it makes me wonder if underground digital revolutionaries are more prominent than i thought already. considering the effectiveness of many terrorist cells and individual spies, there is the possibility that there are groups out there.

of course, kevin mitnick was caught. and he has considered to be one of the most difficult to track hackers ever. if tracking technologies are even more sophisticated now than ever, do we even really stand a chance against the burgeoning police state?