The Bitcoin Dilemma: Can the Internet be shutdown?

[Overman]

If Bitcoin could feasibly be made inaccessible through the shutdown of the Internet, then its value is limited. Otherwise, it should be immortal.

What does the future likely hold for Bitcoin?

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[marked]

If the internet is shutdown there are more fundamental problems than the utility of bitcoin.

marked

[Raoul Duke]

Ask this guy:

[Nicotinefreek]

If the internet is shutdown there are more fundamental problems than the utility of bitcoin.

marked

Yea that is a light way to put it. Nowadays it is hard to imagine a world without internet, those images are reserved for nightmares lol

[ThePanCakeKid95]

All I can say is if the internet goes, my life is over lol Its like saying if the United States fails, wouldn't the USD be worthless ?

[Nicotinefreek]

Yea I would see a boring future ahead if there was no internet. But then again people did it before, we could do it again lol

[FreeMoney]

Yea I would see a boring future ahead if there was no internet. But then again people did it before, we could do it again lol

Not really. Once you grow into a place having it scorched doesn't put you back were you are, it puts you fucked.

Obv some people will make it, but 'we' will be fucked.

[Stephen Gornick]

Consider the attempt last year for the government of Egypt to block cross-border Internet traffic.   Sites like gmail, Youtube and CNN even were not accessible by those within Egypt.  But the traffic within the country was still functional.  Eventually the bitcoin client would find peers within the country (or helped a bit by manually specifying which peers to connect to) so all that needs to happen is for one of those nodes to connect to the rest of the internet for the blockchain to be kept current.  That could occur over dialup if nothing else.

There are other ways the Internet could survive if disruptions to massive subcomponents were to occur (e.g., if consumer access providers were to block all traffic, for instance).  Metro-wide networks built using mesh networking technologies with inter-city peering links could some day make reliance on the existing Internet infrastructure.  You wouldn't get Facebook but you could still route e-mail, transfer data files and transact using bitcoin.

Here's one approach for a quick-deploy emergency internet:
 - http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Byzantium#Project_Goals

[marked]

All I can say is if the internet goes, my life is over lol Its like saying if the United States fails, wouldn't the USD be worthless ?

depends on how many trillions are stored in Iraqi and Chinese warehouses by the container load.

marked

[finkleshnorts]

I can picture it now in bookstores: "The Bitcoin Dilemma: How a specific paypal alternative for moonlighting libertarians will lose value of the Internet stops existing." thanks for the sig quote bro

[Gabi]

Maybe one day we will have an internet where you can only use APPS from legit stores/marketplaces. Any unofficial APP won't work.

After all, even today good luck for ifail user to get the bitcoin client APP, it keep getting removed from the APPstore and they have to jailbreak and get the korean one.

Do you remember good old days when you just downloaded and installed the software?

[finkleshnorts]

I love trolls.

[wlofgen]

Metro-wide networks built using mesh networking technologies with inter-city peering links could some day make reliance on the existing Internet infrastructure.  You wouldn't get Facebook but you could still route e-mail, transfer data files and transact using bitcoin.

This is something I wouldn't be surprised to see within the next twenty years if net-legislation continues down the path it's on.

I'm unsure whether I see that as a bad thing or a good thing.

[Matthew N. Wright]

This thread smells like Atlas.

[Raoul Duke]

This thread smells like Atlas.

eh WB Mat

[Dutch Merganser]

This thread smells like Atlas.

Yeah, runny baby shit and punk bitch tears, that's the odor.

[MoonShadow]

If the Internet is brought down as a whole on a temporary fashion, Bitcoin will just pick up right were it left off upon the reformation of the network.  There is only one way to stop the Internet long term, and that's a global nuclear war.  If that happens, your gold is worthless too.

Bullets, maybe not.

That said, even the compete destruction of the Internet does not necessarily result in the breakdown of the Bitcoin network, although it would certainly disrupt it.  If two bitcoin clients survive, and can establish a direct link to each other, then Bitcoin survives.  Many copies keep data safe, and bitcoin takes that method to an extreme.

[MoonShadow]

Metro-wide networks built using mesh networking technologies with inter-city peering links could some day make reliance on the existing Internet infrastructure.  You wouldn't get Facebook but you could still route e-mail, transfer data files and transact using bitcoin.

This is something I wouldn't be surprised to see within the next twenty years if net-legislation continues down the path it's on.

This is something that I expect to see in the next five years regardless.  It's already being done in many cities.

[Gabi]

As i said, what i fear is that the internet change and become like current smartphones, with only approved APP given on approved STORE

Or, a lot of places where you have to register accept facebook profile instead of registering a new account, next step will be accept ONLY facebook profiles.

So the internet freedom become a small niche of us nerds instead of now

[MoonShadow]

As i said, what i fear is that the internet change and become like current smartphones, with only approved APP given on approved STORE

Or, a lot of places where you have to register accept facebook profile instead of registering a new account, next step will be accept ONLY facebook profiles.

So the internet freedom become a small niche of us nerds instead of now

Such fears are based upon a fundamental lack of understanding about what the Internet actually is. 

And as for smartphones, ever heard of 'rooting'?

[Nicotinefreek]

If the internet is shutdown there are more fundamental problems than the utility of bitcoin.

marked

I agree with marked.
If the internet is shut down, BTC would not be one of the top concerns for many people at all. This will not happen for obvious reasons. I wouldn't worry.

-Reece

Watch the south park episode where the internet is gone It's Just Gone and it will tell you everything you need to know about this subject lol

[SgtSpike]

In other news...

Iran expected to permanently cut off Internet by August

[MoonShadow]

In other news...

Iran expected to permanently cut off Internet by August

This would be a good opprotunity to see if bitcoin routes around the block.  Do we have any forum members from Iran?  Considering that access to this forum may be blocked later, I wonder if we could set up a means to test bitcoin penetration into Iran after the block.  Say, perhaps, get the bitcoin address of a volunteer in Iran.  After the block, other volunteers could send small bitcoin amounts to this address, and if the user in Iran can see those payments, return them to the senders.  If one person sent a small amount each day, and the volunteer agreed to return those payments as quickly as reasonable, we could track the effectiveness of the block.

[JusticeForYou]

The Internet can't be shut down. However, it can be greatly slowed down. The electronic communication between computers is what is assumed to be the 'internet'. Anyone with the correct ham radio and software can have the internet, although don't expect to be watching youtube videos.  

But Bitcoin could still work over the airwaves via a mesh network internet. Ideally, NFC (Near Field Communications) could be employed within devices to further enhance the ability.

2-Meter Radio, I believe can be bought on sight without tested licensing.

[MoonShadow]

2-Meter Radio, I believe can be bought on sight without tested licensing.

Pretty  much any ham gear, but using it is going to get the feds on your tail, because hams aren't going to suffer you for long.  It's a fine emergency communications plan, however, and an attack on the commercial Internet infrastructure might just qualify.  In a true emergency, anyone has the right to transmit.  True emergencies mean that life or property is in immediate danger, not that you can't read your email.

To be honest, however; Marine VHF gear has been in use by unlicensed users for some time now.  As long as you are using it far enough from the ocean, and yield to primary users, that you don't tick anyone off, then no one calls the FCC and thus no one really cares. 

[JusticeForYou]

2 - Meter is the easiest to get into. The technology has vastly improved with trunked spread spectrum, etc...

Of course any serious user would upgrade and become licensed probably with a General License. Radio Modems have significantly improved throughput. You can always fallback on J3E (TEL), F1B (DSC/TLX), A1A (CW), etc...

Don't anyone get excited, equipment can range into the thousands and 10's of thousands of dollars.  There are relatively inexpensive ways to get started though. I believe the Novice License can be issued at the store for 2-meter (don't quote me, not sure). I had to do a pretty long course.


But as you bring it up...

Notice anything unique about this search:

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=frgbld&gs_nf=1&gs_mss=hamcompu&pq=hamcomputers%20gpumax&cp=19&gs_id=2z&xhr=t&q=hamcomputers+gpumax&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=hamcomputers+gpumax&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=69fd871f5b2bc427&biw=1279&bih=664&bs=1

[N12]

This thread smells like Atlas.

Funny you say that, my Atlas Detector immediately started peeping as well.

[MoonShadow]

Notice anything unique about this search:

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=frgbld&gs_nf=1&gs_mss=hamcompu&pq=hamcomputers%20gpumax&cp=19&gs_id=2z&xhr=t&q=hamcomputers+gpumax&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=hamcomputers+gpumax&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=69fd871f5b2bc427&biw=1279&bih=664&bs=1

Is it your's?

[MoonShadow]

http://pskmail.wikispaces.com/

If you have a ham license and a HF rig, You are never out of touch.

I wonder how difficult it would be to modify this server code to move bitcoin messages.

[btccomm]

Consider the attempt last year for the government of Egypt to block cross-border Internet traffic.   Sites like gmail, Youtube and CNN even were not accessible by those within Egypt.  But the traffic within the country was still functional.  Eventually the bitcoin client would find peers within the country (or helped a bit by manually specifying which peers to connect to) so all that needs to happen is for one of those nodes to connect to the rest of the internet for the blockchain to be kept current.  That could occur over dialup if nothing else.

There are other ways the Internet could survive if disruptions to massive subcomponents were to occur (e.g., if consumer access providers were to block all traffic, for instance).  Metro-wide networks built using mesh networking technologies with inter-city peering links could some day make reliance on the existing Internet infrastructure.  You wouldn't get Facebook but you could still route e-mail, transfer data files and transact using bitcoin.

Here's one approach for a quick-deploy emergency internet:
 - http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Byzantium#Project_Goals

what if all major interchange points were shut down like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-East and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-West  the result would be an overload of traffic on the rest of the system making the internet essentially worthless. Think cascading failure,  it would be like a denial of service on the network

[Kettenmonster]

YES It is possible! ... just successfully switched of my Internet!
Guess what, I had to reload it all! It´s really dangerous!

Imagine!

If politicians switch of their Internet, you will no longer know what they are ... uhm ... but still ... sounds scary!

[JusticeForYou]

Consider the attempt last year for the government of Egypt to block cross-border Internet traffic.   Sites like gmail, Youtube and CNN even were not accessible by those within Egypt.  But the traffic within the country was still functional.  Eventually the bitcoin client would find peers within the country (or helped a bit by manually specifying which peers to connect to) so all that needs to happen is for one of those nodes to connect to the rest of the internet for the blockchain to be kept current.  That could occur over dialup if nothing else.

There are other ways the Internet could survive if disruptions to massive subcomponents were to occur (e.g., if consumer access providers were to block all traffic, for instance).  Metro-wide networks built using mesh networking technologies with inter-city peering links could some day make reliance on the existing Internet infrastructure.  You wouldn't get Facebook but you could still route e-mail, transfer data files and transact using bitcoin.

Here's one approach for a quick-deploy emergency internet:
 - http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Byzantium#Project_Goals

what if all major interchange points were shut down like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-East and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-West  the result would be an overload of traffic on the rest of the system making the internet essentially worthless. Think cascading failure,  it would be like a denial of service on the network

Yes, you make a good point.

I would propose though that 'efficiency' shouldn't be the sole model for durability. Imagine someone ddos'ing FIDO Mail. It would be a futile exercise.

Decentralized meshed networks, might not be efficient, but they are durable. Also, by just slowing down the information a little, it deters attacks on a system.

Remember all those BBS's that would call each other once a day or so and pass on information? Hard to stop that especially when there are so many lines of transfer of information between them.

[btccomm]

Consider the attempt last year for the government of Egypt to block cross-border Internet traffic.   Sites like gmail, Youtube and CNN even were not accessible by those within Egypt.  But the traffic within the country was still functional.  Eventually the bitcoin client would find peers within the country (or helped a bit by manually specifying which peers to connect to) so all that needs to happen is for one of those nodes to connect to the rest of the internet for the blockchain to be kept current.  That could occur over dialup if nothing else.

There are other ways the Internet could survive if disruptions to massive subcomponents were to occur (e.g., if consumer access providers were to block all traffic, for instance).  Metro-wide networks built using mesh networking technologies with inter-city peering links could some day make reliance on the existing Internet infrastructure.  You wouldn't get Facebook but you could still route e-mail, transfer data files and transact using bitcoin.

Here's one approach for a quick-deploy emergency internet:
 - http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Byzantium#Project_Goals

what if all major interchange points were shut down like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-East and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-West  the result would be an overload of traffic on the rest of the system making the internet essentially worthless. Think cascading failure,  it would be like a denial of service on the network

Yes, you make a good point.

I would propose though that 'efficiency' shouldn't be the sole model for durability. Imagine someone ddos'ing FIDO Mail. It would be a futile exercise.

Decentralized meshed networks, might not be efficient, but they are durable. Also, by just slowing down the information a little, it deters attacks on a system.

Remember all those BBS's that would call each other once a day or so and pass on information? Hard to stop that especially when there are so many lines of transfer of information between them.

yeah i  was around in the BBS days,  and yes the internet is durable.  but going back to the functional level of the '90s  seems like a big cluster to me.  but it would better than nothing

[MoonShadow]

yeah i  was around in the BBS days,  and yes the internet is durable.  but going back to the functional level of the '90s  seems like a big cluster to me.  but it would better than nothing

Big cluster, yes.  But the root point of this thread is that Bitcoin would not be greatly affected by that.  Neither would email.  But Facebook, Viop and my Steam games would be completely useless.  Likely Twitter and the other high speed social networks, even if they deal in short fits of text.  Simply because they deal with so much text headed towards one single choke point.

Bitcoin does not have a choke point as long as the individual user can get any bandwidth.

Miners would be screwed, however, because any blocks they mine would take too long to propogate.

[finkleshnorts]

If miners are screwed then so is everbody

[JusticeForYou]

If miners are screwed then so is everbody

Beg to differ. Miners would not fail. Difficulty would fall due to lack of latency and profitability. Pools would become less important than solo mining. I don't think this is bad. The tendency is to mine at full capacity and bet the other guys. If everybody mines a little with reduced difficulty, it still works. PPS wouldn't be really effective but solo would do fine but it would be more of a lottery. Maybe you win, maybe you don't.

[SgtSpike]

If miners are screwed then so is everbody

Beg to differ. Miners would not fail. Difficulty would fall due to lack of latency and profitability. Pools would become less important than solo mining. I don't think this is bad. The tendency is to mine at full capacity and bet the other guys. If everybody mines a little with reduced difficulty, it still works. PPS wouldn't be really effective but solo would do fine but it would be more of a lottery. Maybe you win, maybe you don't.

If a new block takes more than 10 minutes to propagate across the ENTIRE Bitcoin network, then yes, everybody is screwed.  And I can't imagine a network of VHF radios being able to propagate transactions very quickly.

[JusticeForYou]

If miners are screwed then so is everbody

Beg to differ. Miners would not fail. Difficulty would fall due to lack of latency and profitability. Pools would become less important than solo mining. I don't think this is bad. The tendency is to mine at full capacity and bet the other guys. If everybody mines a little with reduced difficulty, it still works. PPS wouldn't be really effective but solo would do fine but it would be more of a lottery. Maybe you win, maybe you don't.

If a new block takes more than 10 minutes to propagate across the ENTIRE Bitcoin network, then yes, everybody is screwed.  And I can't imagine a network of VHF radios being able to propagate transactions very quickly.

Yes, a slow mesh network would take time if done like the old BBS communication system.

VHF, UHF, HF, etc... Well, that wouldn't take a lot of time at all. You realize voice, video, and text are currently being transmitted around the world at the speed of light. An NFC Mesh Network would be a little slower but still pretty damn fast.

[thezerg]

I think the real interesting question is what would happen in the case of a netsplit (used to be common in IRC) -- today one would probably be caused by a totalitarian regime implementing a countrywide firewall (google "great firewall of china").  First question is how well bitcoin could route around it? 

The second question comes from the observation that clearly after a few weeks passed we'd then have 2 independent perfectly consistent blockchains.  After a few weeks, months, or years, when the great firewall finally goes down, how does the bitcoin network rejoin?  In theory it would be possible to rejoin perfectly.  In practice, I think that anyone with a communications pathway (possibly even paper) could double-spend their coins on either side of the firewall, causing major chaos.

[SgtSpike]

I think the real interesting question is what would happen in the case of a netsplit (used to be common in IRC) -- today one would probably be caused by a totalitarian regime implementing a countrywide firewall (google "great firewall of china").  First question is how well bitcoin could route around it? 

The second question comes from the observation that clearly after a few weeks passed we'd then have 2 independent perfectly consistent blockchains.  After a few weeks, months, or years, when the great firewall finally goes down, how does the bitcoin network rejoin?  In theory it would be possible to rejoin perfectly.  In practice, I think that anyone with a communications pathway (possibly even paper) could double-spend their coins on either side of the firewall, causing major chaos.

I don't think it would be possible to rejoin the chains after such an incident.  Preferably, there would be some way to differentiate the two, and keep them separate.  Double-spends would stand, because there's nothing you could do about them.  Theoretically, if everyone double-spent on both chains, you'd then have twice the number of coins in circulation (42M instead of 21M).

I think the only way to rejoin them would be to orphan one of the chains, which obviously wouldn't be possible after such a long period.  All it would take is one bad transaction (i.e., one double spend) to ruin the whole chain and make them incompatible with each other.

[JusticeForYou]

I think the real interesting question is what would happen in the case of a netsplit (used to be common in IRC) -- today one would probably be caused by a totalitarian regime implementing a countrywide firewall (google "great firewall of china").  First question is how well bitcoin could route around it?  

The second question comes from the observation that clearly after a few weeks passed we'd then have 2 independent perfectly consistent blockchains.  After a few weeks, months, or years, when the great firewall finally goes down, how does the bitcoin network rejoin?  In theory it would be possible to rejoin perfectly.  In practice, I think that anyone with a communications pathway (possibly even paper) could double-spend their coins on either side of the firewall, causing major chaos.

Very Good, This is testable and it doesn't need to be a country wide isolation.

Have 3 Bitcoin clients and 2 miner bitcoind exposed to the internet. Then disconnect the internet but continue transactions between the clients and allow the miners to continue to find blocks. The difficulty will drop and you will quickly start finding blocks. After 2 months, expose the network back to the internet and see what happens.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I think the real interesting question is what would happen in the case of a netsplit (used to be common in IRC) -- today one would probably be caused by a totalitarian regime implementing a countrywide firewall (google "great firewall of china").  First question is how well bitcoin could route around it? 

The second question comes from the observation that clearly after a few weeks passed we'd then have 2 independent perfectly consistent blockchains.  After a few weeks, months, or years, when the great firewall finally goes down, how does the bitcoin network rejoin?  In theory it would be possible to rejoin perfectly.  In practice, I think that anyone with a communications pathway (possibly even paper) could double-spend their coins on either side of the firewall, causing major chaos.

The smaller segment (i.e. china vs rest of world) will have a shorter blockchain.  When the network rejoins all the blocks from the smaller subnet will be oprhaned as nodes replace them with blocks from the larger subnet.

Any non double spend tx would simply revert to 0-confirm and would be included in the next block (or blocks because blocks will be very full depends on how long the split lasted).

All coinbase tx will be orphaned.  There is a 120 block limit on spending but a split of >120 blocks would mean any subsequent tx will be invalid. 

Intentional double spends would be the largest issue.

Smart thing to do in a network split like that would be to make a paper backup of your wallet and wait to rejoin the network.

[JusticeForYou]

I think the real interesting question is what would happen in the case of a netsplit (used to be common in IRC) -- today one would probably be caused by a totalitarian regime implementing a countrywide firewall (google "great firewall of china").  First question is how well bitcoin could route around it? 

The second question comes from the observation that clearly after a few weeks passed we'd then have 2 independent perfectly consistent blockchains.  After a few weeks, months, or years, when the great firewall finally goes down, how does the bitcoin network rejoin?  In theory it would be possible to rejoin perfectly.  In practice, I think that anyone with a communications pathway (possibly even paper) could double-spend their coins on either side of the firewall, causing major chaos.

The smaller segment (i.e. china vs rest of world) will have a shorter blockchain.  When the network rejoins all the blocks from the smaller subnet will be oprhaned as nodes replace them with blocks from the larger subnet.

Any non double spend tx would simply revert to 0-confirm and would be included in the next block (or blocks because blocks will be very full depends on how long the split lasted).

All coinbase tx will be orphaned.  There is a 120 block limit on spending but a split of >120 blocks would mean any subsequent tx will be invalid. 

Intentional double spends would be the largest issue.

Smart thing to do in a network split like that would be to make a paper backup of your wallet and wait to rejoin the network.

The man knows what he is talking about.

Now, can you foresee a Financial War (literally), i.e China vs. U.S.

[thezerg]

Its an interesting question.  The firewalled subset would not necessarily be the smaller blockchain if it used bitcoins heavily would it?  What I'm trying to say is that the side that everybody thinks should "win" (due to other criteria like being the "majority" of the world) might not actually be the bitcoin "winner".

Also, what about a malicious attempt to increase blockchain length?  I guess "they" could only double spend known coins so a malicious country would have to prepare by remembering every coin that passes through its system...

I need to read the papers and code I guess...

@DeathAndTaxes:  Its good to know that non double spent are separable from suspect coins...

what do you mean by: All coinbase tx will be orphaned.  There is a 120 block limit on spending but a split of >120 blocks would mean any subsequent tx will be invalid.

thx!

[MoonShadow]

I think the real interesting question is what would happen in the case of a netsplit (used to be common in IRC) -- today one would probably be caused by a totalitarian regime implementing a countrywide firewall (google "great firewall of china").  First question is how well bitcoin could route around it? 

This kind of thing has been discussed to great length in prior years. The end conclusion is that it is assumed that a network split of this magnatude cannot be maintained for any significant period of time.  Partly because of the nature of the bitcoin network, it only takes one live link between these two networks (between two bitcoin clients) to prevent the lesser side from dropping behind, and even that can be intermittent.  There is also the fact that there would be some rather creative people on both sides of the split with vested interests in undermining any intentional split.  A single thumbdrive with a copy of the longest blockchain smuggled into China would completely destroy the shorter blockchain and update the entire minority network in under an hour.

However, to our knowledge this kind of thing has never happened on any significant scale, so it's all speculation until it happens.  This is why I said that Iran might be a neat test case.

[MoonShadow]

Its an interesting question.  The firewalled subset would not necessarily be the smaller blockchain if it used bitcoins heavily would it?  What I'm trying to say is that the side that everybody thinks should "win" (due to other criteria like being the "majority" of the world) might not actually be the bitcoin "winner".

No.

Also, what about a malicious attempt to increase blockchain length? 

That's mathmaticly impossible.

I guess "they" could only double spend known coins so a malicious country would have to prepare by remembering every coin that passes through its system...

Any existing coins that could be spent on either side of the split would be limited in scope.  That said, there are methods for detecting a split.  Most importantly, there are methods for automaticly detecting that 1) there was a network split and 2) you're on the minority side.  Which is important because any double spend attacks are really attacks against the vendors on the minority side, because it's very very unlikely that a reconnection of the blockchain leaves the vendors on the majority side on the short end of the stick.

I need to read the papers and code I guess...

Or the whitepaper.  Bitcoin doesn't work like you are imagining that it does.

[MoonShadow]

what do you mean by: All coinbase tx will be orphaned.

Any blocks produced by miners caught on the minority side of the split will be over-written by the blocks produced on the majority side upon reconnection of the network split.  Thus, transactions included in those abandoned blocks will return to 0/unconfirmed and have to be reincluded into a new block.  Any 'coinbase' transactions (i.e. the transactions that gives the miner of a block 50 btc for his efforts) and any transactions based upon those same coinbase transactions that occur on the minority side of a split will be invalid after reconnection.  This is why coinbase transactions take 120 blocks to mature, while regular transactions take only 6; to limit the possibility that a temporary network split (due to non-malicious failures of the Internet) could be used in a follow up transaction that would prove invalid later.  The truth is, temporary network splits occur regularly, likely about once a day, but are expected and the bitcoin protocol has a method for self-correction.  If you mine solo, and ever get a block that the network rejects, it is because someone else also found a block at about the same time and beat you to half of the network.  However, if there is another tie on the two sides of the network, the split can continue until a block is found that isn't a tie, and then the side of the split that lost that race updates to the winning blockchain.  It's not uncommon for there to be two or three blocks in a row that 'tied' before a tie-breaker block was found; but I don't think that it's ever even hit 6 blocks in a row, much less 120.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The firewalled subset would not necessarily be the smaller blockchain if it used bitcoins heavily would it?  What I'm trying to say is that the side that everybody thinks should "win" (due to other criteria like being the "majority" of the world) might not actually be the bitcoin "winner".

All that matter is hashing power.  It is a mathematical certainty that given enough time the subnet with more hashing power will build the longer chain.  My example only refered to larger and smaller subnets.  The larger one would biuild a longer chain and thus overwrite the consensus of the smaller one.

Usage, number of tx, number of nodes, population, geography are all irrelivent.  When there is a split both sides of the split form a subnet and the one with larger hashing power will prevail when the split is resolved.

Also, what about a malicious attempt to increase blockchain length? 

There is no way to find blocks faster than brute force.  In a dispute the side with more hashing power will always win.

I guess "they" could only double spend known coins so a malicious country would have to prepare by remembering every coin that passes through its system...

I have no idea what you are saying here.

what do you mean by: All coinbase tx will be orphaned.  There is a 120 block limit on spending but a split of >120 blocks would mean any subsequent tx will be invalid.

1) All coinbase rewards on the smaller shorter chain will be orphaned.  So any coins earned directly by miners on the smaller chain will be erased. 

2) The Bitcoin network tries to limit the effect of "accidental double spends" due to orphaned chains by making generation tx unspendable for 120 blocks.  If the split is longer than 120 blocks then they could be spent.  Regardless of who is holding those coins when the network re-orgs that generation becomes invalid and thus any "downstream" tx are invalidated too.