Wayne Porter started a discussion today about a very interesting subject:

Is the web moving towards an organized, centralized network, where exchange of information will be under control?

In my previous post about ‘Torrentspy, ThinkSecret and the declaration of independence of cyberspace‘, I argumented that the recent development of the TorrentSpy, ThinkSecret and Yahoo cases show traits of such movement; Large corporations and governments silence popular blogs, torrent hubs and search engines. I quoted John Perry Barlow’s ‘Declaration of independence of the cyberspace‘ to advocate for the freedom of speech in the Web.
The role of decentralization in a scale-free network

I agree with Wayne, that decentralization (along with anonymity) is a very important key to guarantee freedom of speech and free exchange of data on the Net. Indeed the Web is vast decentralized network, a fact that makes it robust in any attacks. Bringing some nodes down, will not effect the network as a whole.

But the Web is a scale-free network, which is defined by a power law distribution. Indeed, this suggests the strength of the system. But it doesn’t mean it is invulnerable. The work of Albert-Làszlo Barabàsi on the subject, arguments that scale-free networks are vulnerable when a specific number of their hubs goes out of service. The system’s interlinkage suddenly breaks down. This happens because hubs collect the biggest number of inbound and outbound links (The 80/20 Rule).

So, yes indeed decentralization can provide online users an uncontrolled environment. But if the hubs of the network were ever down, the network wouldn’t be decentralized any more. Actually, there wouldn’t be a network at all.

My conclusion

I know this is a far fetched scenario. The hubs are numerous and the web is enormous and extremely interconnected. But when governmental and other institutions attack Yahoo (a search engine hub), TorrentSpy (a torrent hub) and ThinkSecret (a blog hub), it just makes you wonder. I’m not saying that we are at a gates of a new era of web control, but I see some steps towards this direction.

There was the past days also a discussion (are you willing to pay taxes on your blog?) about applying taxes on the internet. Maybe this is just a way for the government to put her hands on more money, but I also see it as a form of regulation. [When you don't have money to pay for your blog, you are not allowed to talk].

Update: By the way check this one out: Could Fake Steve Jobs be about to go away?