Hi Alex.
Indeed there are too many questions in these two issues. The first one is related to the narrow-sightnedness of law makers in these countries. Using an analogy, data and information are a lot like water - you need to control it (so you can use it for the right purposes), but if you lock it too tight, it will somehow find an escape route.
I am very concerned that the example from Belarus may inspire other countries into doing the same.
And the same reasoning is applicable to SOPA and PIPA, I think.
These schemes are all but an invitation to build an underground Internet.
Imagine you are in the US and you need to access a forbidden site. Say you type
www.pirata101.org (to use the portuguese word for pirate). Your browser will tell you "Ops! BrowserX could not find
www.pirata101.org" because it searched the DNS tree and the answer was that this name is not registered.
But imagine that alongside with this, your browser does also tell you "Would you like me to try the alternative DNS database?" and answering yes, you would end up looking the name in an completely independent DNS system. It would not even had to have the same syntax. It could be something like www-pirata101-org or www~pirata101~global or whatever string you fancy to use (check
http://www.dashworlds.com/).
You would use the browser as an intermediate DNS broker, placing queries that could be answered by the software of the browser manufacturer, in the cloud, somewhere where your lawmakers could not get their teeth at. Your standard TCP/IP protocols would still be able to work because for these what really matters is the IP address (IPv4 or IPv6 address) of the end machine. And, in the event of the country firewall blocking the IP address (like many corporate firewalls do), even then, the content could be transmitted through changing IPs (not too hard to do in the IPv6 space) or though a general purpose gateway somewhere in the cloud.
I tried to talk about this sometime ago - I sincerely believe that the fate of ICANN and of the DNS structure relies in the hands of the browser manufacturers or, in the hand of software developers who can build extensions that circumvent or complement the current DNS query system.
For me it boils down to this: if politicians and lobbies try to control (own) the Internet like they seem to be so eager to do, this will happen sooner or later. Let me give you a hint: every rookie knows that if you want to find a movie to download, Google is not the place to start looking for it.
Now, we are on the verge of disrupting the Internet status quo. I'm not sure if this is good or bad in itself, but, it will surely be a whole lot different.
Getting back to Alex's question: in Africa, as well in developping countries (I've been teaching a PhD course in Addis Ababa last year - what an enriching experience!), using a free and coherent Internet is a powerful tool for development (I can't even imagine what is the idea on the Belarus politicians' heads). I remember my early college days - we used a pirate copy of Borland's Turbo Pascal (sorry Borland, than you for that!). And I can surely tell you that while I do not advocate for piracy at all, I share the thoughts of a policeman who fined me 250 euros last month: "I rather see a person in the street selling a counterfeit t-shirt, than see it rob a person at the point of a gun". I would add, I would rather see that person in a regular job, or in school, but helas, our world is not perfect. Sometimes (many times) because of politicians like the ones behind Belarus laws and SOPA or PIPA projects.
Warm regards to all, and please enjoy the New Year,