I do fear, however, that as the internet becomes regulated more and more, the day may soon come when it will no longer be possible to initiate TCP/UDP connections to arbitrary ports on arbitrary IP addresses
I doubt that it will ever get to this point, unless we are already in a full-scale revolution. That would be like telling people they couldn't leave their houses without getting their destination pre-approved by the government. I mean, look at the stink over "net neutrality," even though this was a relative non-issue. I do share your concerns, however. Please help us by thinking up possible scenarios and the workarounds to avoid them. Nice first post, by the way. Welcome aboard.