Slashdot Mirror
Internet Routes Around South African Gov't
Mister B writes: "In an end-run around the South African government's plans to seize control of the .za domain, administrator Mike Lawrie took pre-emptive action and moved the primary .za zone file offshore. Revealing their naivete, parliamentary committee chairman Nkenke Kekana accused him of destabilising the net! Then again, the opposition think he's a hero. :-) More details on MSNBC."
Um, shouldn't the government be in charge of the .za domain name? I mean who do you think should be? some random person who happens to have control at the moment?
Country codes are for countries, and decisions for the countries are made by their governments.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"It would amount to sabotage if he were to disrupt the Internet and he has to realize that he will be held responsible for any disruption," Kekana said.
Well then ! By the government's argument isn't he doing the right thing?
If it is his job to ensure the internet setup in ZA remains stable, and he believes it will make ZA unstable if the government reassigns his job to someone else without first ensuring that the government has the infrastructure to take on this job, then wouldn't it then be his responsibility to take steps to make sure the government could not carry out any destabilizing action?
Just carrying out his job, he is. No?
I wish the news articles on MSNBC weren't so skimpy. Where's the BBC when you need it? Are there any more clearly-written summaries of all this out there?
A lot (if not all) internet businesses will depend on DNS working fine. And just 1 guy can bring it down? Why? How?
I wouldn't like to live in SA right now. He myght be a hero now, but he may become a non-hero whenever he likes. Also, he may die with some passwords unknown (recall the s. hacker contest for the library), or ran out of resources, etc.
It should be run by an independant goverment agency with stable staff and that directly depends on ICANN. Something like an independant Central Bank, but for hosts/domains.
unfinished: (adj.)
Geeks created the internet and Geeks should control it.
Computer Geeks tend not to be to concerned with politics they have a higher standard "Network Integratiy"
sorry for any typos Ive been drinking
http://Lenny.com
Yes, but what gives him the right? The elected government of south africa should be able to control the .za domain as a matter of course.
.za.
If this person wants to change the way the government handles the way the domain is used, he should lobby them that way. Just taking the zone files out of the country isn't going to do anything.
Btw, all south africa needs to do to get around this guy would be to get the root name servers to point somewhere else for
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Today's Friday where I live, so my slashdot persona is going to be in a more observational and theoretical mode.
I don't like the way ICANN presently works, but it seems a bit wrong for any government to decide it wants to usurp something independent that lots of others have devoted so much hard work and effort towards, just because it's successful. (On the other hand, I know this happens all the time.) I also don't have a whole lot of respect for the current South African government.
The ideal way for a government to deal with something like this in theory would be to set up its own DNS system in competition that's administered by the government under its own terms. Then it would try to convince people and ISP's, both in SA and everywhere else, to use it instead of the ICANN-authorised one. The biggest problem with doing this is that it could turn out to be risky if not completely impractical. There will probably always be people who will never allow anything other than ICANN to reach their users.
There have been lots of attempts at alternative DNS's set up against ICANN, but most haven't been incredibly successful scale-wise. Most of them haven't had a major organisation or government behind them, though. With the extra resources available though, is it technically feasible that a country could do something like set up an alternative DNS that people would trust if it chose to?
...how are we going to route packets to Lesotho? This country is completely surrounded by South Africa!
Satellite
May we never see th
How about Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
It's time everyone gives up the "what if he goes crazy or dies" argument - The .za domain is controlled by a skilled, intelligent, level headed individual. Get over it. If governments can't even get tax returns correct, then there's no fucking way they'll be competent controlling a TLD.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
OK. Right now .za is effectively controlled, along with everything else, by ICANN. And the problem in this case is that ICANN see fit to delegate this responsibility to a particular individual.
.za, they should not be allowed to try. Why break something if it works?
That may be good, that may be bad. Actually in this case it is good, because this guy has done a great job for quite a while (and for free), while south africa has royally fscked things up in their own country quite a bit. Furthermore, this guy is a good guy. He has been asking for someone to take the job off his hands for a while. And south africa are being jerks. The fogeys in the gov't decided to make this man's actions illegal, by means of passing a law causing anyone who controlls state "stuff" to be a criminal.
But the above is irrelevant. ICANN shouldn't decide who controlls top level domain names! thats the job for governements. Or maybe the united nations!
Actually, it is ICANN's jobs. The United States of America created something called "ARPAnet", the departement of defense created a computer netowork in order to survive a nuclear attack. And then it blossomed into the internet, a very american and commercial enterprise. And so the gov't, and some other people, made ICANN.
now, ICANN has some 'issues', but they most certainly do their job. And it is most certainly their job. South africa, if they really care, can make their own internet. They can call it "ZANet," which is somewhat catchy. That would be the governemet's job.
However, until the gov't demonstrates that they can successfully administer
And finally, I get to what I am really ranting about. Geopolitical issues and the internet. I think that it is really stupid that any country should be able to control someone in another country because they can access their data. China and censorship. France and that nazi stuff they were trying to censor. Frankly, I think that if the stuff is hosted here, our laws apply. If someone starts a new country, lets call it "bastardlawsuitland," and then makes a law that slashdot is illegal, can they sue slashot because slashdot didn't make itself inaccessible to them in their country?
By the current laws, which admittedly are very very vague, the answer is yes. And that pisses me off to no end.
Oh, I have karma to burn, by the way. But I am pissed off and this is relevant.
How about Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
That'd never work - with rampant poverty in SA, your datagrams will be eaten by starving africans.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
And they only let their 'friends' get domains, everyone is has to pay by the nose. And also these domains are things that they like, and ofcourse they have all the right to cease and void any domain (not to mention arrest anyone) that violates their silly little rules. Dhiraagu is their crone, run by the facist/imperlistic Microsoftian C&W.
There, now you see what a gov owned TLD can do. I feel ZA would go the same was as MV. And no, I dont think a single person running it is a good idea either. Maybe it could go back to the universities (where ZA zones started) and be run by acadamics again instead of single man corporations spoon fed by ICANN?
Trust the source!
We take a page from B5, being geeks and all, and create an extra-governmental organization dedicated solely to the sanctity and security of the 'net.
:)
Considering the US fathered the net, it'll be comprised of mostly US geeks to start, but we'll include a large number of Japanese geeks just so we can get katanas and manage to horribly mangle ourselves while our comrades emit Homer-esque cries of, 'Doh!'. However, geeks of any nationality are welcome to join the organization.
If a country needs help with their 'net infrastructure, we will help them. If, however, they try to do something stupid, we'll know about it - and so will everyone else. We will offer aid and assistance only as long as the country requests it.
Our creed?
"I am an administrator. We write the dark scripts that no one else dares call. We hog system resources, and no user may compile. We live for the net, we die for the net!"
Okay, okay, I admit, I just really, really, really want a workstation in a self-healing bio-organic case.
Internet namespace, like many other activities, is an activity for civilized society to make intelligent decisions about. Governments sometimes get into power by being the most intelligent people in civil society, like Plato's hypothetical philosopher-kings, but they often get to power by being a bunch of violent corrupt thugs, or by being a more popular alternative group of people who led a popular revolution to overthrow a bunch of violent insane corrupt thugs, but that doesn't mean that either they have any skills for operating an internet or that they have any moral authority for doing so. And apparently they South African government has demonstrated that they don't have Clue 1 about how to run an Internet. It's simply not their skill set, and there's no reason for it to be their job.
Unlike non-country-code domains, where there's no obvious reason why there should be One Root To Rule Them All or why the US government should get to appoint the people to run it, country-code domains do have some obvious connection to the countries they're named after - but does that mean they should be run by the Post Office, or the One Phone Company, or by some internet standards committee (my preference), or by the Chamber of Commerce, or by the [Insert-Country-Name] National Geographic Society, or simply by the First-Come-First-Served rule? It's a hierarchical name space, and that inherently means somebody's in charge. Failing to define that up front, as the internet failed to do, leads to all this Root Wars nonsense, and it's not inherently fixable.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I am always amazed at naivity of fellow geeks when it comes to politics. This whole saga about the .za is about global political manouvering. .za domain control within SA. Obvoiusly, being politicians they will try to laverage power where ever they can. This is a point that Mike Lawrie missed. South Africa has regulatory and NGO bodies that have the power/resources to chalange unreasonable ministers and the bills they propose. Mr Lawrie did not use any of these bodies, he instead went off to the opposition party and asked them to fight off the gov. Now I read he's taken the .za offshore. Meanwhile, institutions that can bring sanity to this situation are left bemused by this action.
Not so long ago there was an post on here about the US government moving to control ICANN. My understanding of the situation is the SA gorvenment is preempting what they see as an attempt by the US to control the Internet. Their primary objective is to have the
I know Mr Lawrie is following this on slashdot. I wish to say to him why hasn't he used the aparatuses provided by ICASA and there is sangonet, I know they do understand and sympathise with your cause (they are part of a powerful lobby within the ruling party).
To everyone who finds the SA gov actions deplorable; This is not the last such case we will see. Most governments are already questioning the legitimacy of ICANN to control a soveiregn country's domain space.
What does a past HIV/AIDS discussion have anything to do with this issue?Next up Fance, who knows?
And lay off the name calling. It may score you mod points but it really is juvinile.
.za file. My poit is that wether they do or no is entirely up to them. The government can't "seize control" if ICANN tells them they can't. Now I haven't seen a statement form ICANN one way or another, so I don't know what they intend.
.za domain and there is little the government can do about it other than challenge it in US court.
.za domain and then that is that. However there seems to be a misconception that the government can somehow usurp authority without ICANN's permission and that is simply not true.
I never claimed that ICANN couldn't or wouldn't accept the South African government's control of the
I am attempting to respond to those that think that the South African government can somehow just take control of the domain against ICANN's wishes (and many who seem to think that is a great thing). No, they can't. If they take over the domain and ICANN choses NOT to accept their authority, their only recourse would be:
1) To attempt to use physical force to make ICANN and the roots obey their wishes. Since most of the roots and ICANN itself are located in the US, this is not possable.
2) To attempt to use legal force to make ICANN obey their wishes. This could potentially work, the courts would hear the case at least.
3) To ignore ICANN and operate their own root level service.
Now again, this is all assuming that ICANN does indeed decide to deny the government's authority. If they say ok to the change over, that's the end of it.
However, the point of my post is to attempt to explain the nature of the whole DNS heirechary to the people that are under the mistaken impression that a government can simply "seize control" of a domain. They can't, ICANN can simply instruct the roots not to listen to them. As with all DNS information, it's based on trust. The roots trust ICANN, most DNS servers in the world trust the roots, the roots trust those that are approved to administer changes to a given domain. Thus, for most people, what ICANN says, goes.
About the only way this will get changed is if the US courts decide ICANN is doing something wrong and force a legal rememdy on them, or a large alternate root network comes to life and gets widely accepted.
Now I'm not trying to endorse ICANN or disparage them, i'm just telling you how it is. For now, they make the rules regarding DNS. They can, at their discression, decide wether to accept the South African government as the new administrator of the
Again, this is all dependant on what ICANN decides. They may well decide to allow the government to administer the
Next time, read a little more carefully and try not to resort to namecalling. It makes you sound like a little kid.
So the question is really begging, but nobody really wants to answer it.
Who can we trust to administer the domain system?
A government, a group of governments, a group of individuals, or a corperation?
My gut response is none, all, some,and sometimes in no particular order
The internet was created on a trusted network achitecture.
That was great in the day when it was military and academic, but as the original architects feared, the net is not scaling well to a commercial and corperate environment.
Solutions?
Several I can see;
1.- Put it back in the hands of academia.
2.- Create a distributed user based system that is 'meta-moderated' something like the slash message system.
3.- Allow, or force a splinter into a sometimes compatible, sometimes not group of trans-internets that would sortof sometimes talk to each other in a fashion related to the way usenet works, and sometimes doesn't.
There's going to have to be medicine taken to fix these problems that have grown and grown, I'm just hopeful that whatever the medicine is, it doesn't kill the patient.