I find this interesting as a technology, as a business process, and above all as a system for managing trust on a global scale across different jurisdictions. In a sense, the credit card system accomplishes something that even the UN, international law, Interpol and military mights cannot do: it enables individuals to enter into trustworthy global agreements with minimal effort and risk, and at very low transaction costs.
It's simply incredible, when you look at it soberly - just as so many other things. But unfortunately many people have their minds in a spiritual prison and only know how to complain, without having any kind of perspective on the world.
In Plan 9 you did have a real (synthetic) /net, and could do that and more from any program. You could even mount /net from another machine via 9P protocol and have an instant VPN...
9front lets you play with that on Linux.
Some Plan 9 like /net things are visible in Go libraries... (Rob Pike legacy)
No one mentioned Upspin? A global file namespace (URL, but better...) and protocol to isolate public data users from private governance and storage, by gurus like Rob Pike. https://github.com/upspin/upspin
At least in Finland the jail sentences have been related to extreme widely published antisemitism. Fines have been given for other sorts of hate speech.
If the U.S. wants this to be allowed, it is your business. But it is ours to decide, if we want to allow nazis synmpathy newspapers advocating killing of the jew. Generally, the americans are lost in their arrogance here, as always.
