DoC to Extend ICANN's Control of IANA

Luminous Coward writes "I first saw this on The Register. Kevin Murphy of Computerwire reports: The US Department of Commerce last week quietly published a document detailing its decision to "sole-source" the contract for the so-called IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) function to ICANN, as opposed to opening the contract for competitive bidding. ICANNWatch explains why this is a bad idea. They also report that the ccTLDs and the Internet Multicasting Service have expressed interest in running IANA."

Comments

Well...

[cK-Gunslinger]

IANAL, but if ICANN takes control of IANA, then the ccTLDs just SOL and the IMS are FUBAR'd, IMHO.

Power Grab

[sstamps]

IANA and the RIRs are pretty much the last vestiges of the "independent Internet" authorities as we know them. Once ICANN gets their grubby hands on IANA, I think the final nail is in the coffin of the "free (as in speech) Internet".

What part of this does anyone NOT see as hideously WRONG?! Every day, another domino falls, and I feel more and more like a slave to the Pharoahs of Washington D.C. Is there nothing left for us to do except just sit the hell down and accept our yoke of submission like a good little peon?

What banner do we have that the vast majority of us can rally under to stop this stupidity? I mean, we all pay lip service to "supporting the cause", but action is pretty thin right now. I'm one to talk, too. :(

Re:Power Grab

[NoTheory]

Perspective is a funny thing. What can be classified as "life threatening" depends highly on the level of integration of whatever technology we happen to be discussing. Since computer networking, and in particular global networking has become so vital to the economies of the world (and hell, life as we know it. I met my g/f online first, long before we met face to face), it is not surprising that the people who are currently in power wish to make sure they have a firm hold on it. But, as always, government control does cut both ways. So is it life threatening? No. Is it threatening to way of life? Perhaps.

Re:Power Grab

[rabidcow]

Its just a couple computers strung together with some wire, air waves, and carrying a few bits.

The printing press only produced a bunch of letters on paper, and look what it has achieved. Don't trivialize communication.

I sense a 180 coming up

[unitron]

Whatta ya bet Dyson's gonna try to jump back on the ICANN bandwagon she just jumped off of?

Maybe the best solution

[haplo21112]

Perhaps its time that the running of the internet be taken out of any one nations hands. Perhaps the correct solution is to no longer leave the controlling body's in the hands of the US. Perhaps the running of the internet should become a United Nations function?

Re:Maybe the best solution

[Elwood P Dowd]

Perhaps its time that the running of the internet be taken out of any one nations hands. Perhaps the correct solution is to no longer leave the controlling body's in the hands of the US. Perhaps the running of the internet should become a United Nations function?

It is perfectly clear that no body whatsoever should be in control of the internet. ICANN holds no enforceable positions. They don't sway judges. They are in control because all the large companies that do the business of running the net are in control of ICANN. So long as those large companies all operate under the ICANN rules, then it's as if ICANN rules the net. There's no way to force them to rock the boat at ICANN except to take away your dollars.

I think the only important thing to do is remove public funding of ICANN. Once Verisign/Worldcom/Whoever has to run ICANN on their own dime, then we won't have this kind of confusion. If they want to keep public funding of ICANN, then they better damn well make *every* seat open to public elections.

Re:Maybe the best solution

[Mr. Slippery]

Perhaps the running of the internet should become a United Nations function?

I was just thinking that perhaps it should be handed over to the ITU. If they can get the world's phone systems talking to one another, the Internet should be a piece of cake in comparison. (You ever look at telephony protocols? You don't want to. Trust me.)

Good idea... bordering on brilliant

[unicorn]

Because god knows the UN has proven to be a wise organization, capable of managing almost all the worlds affairs. Preserving peace, etc. And nobody would ever dare to do things that would go against UN decisions, or would sidestep the UN entirely.

history DOD funded internet Ra and D..

[linuxislandsucks]

History lesson DoD funded internet devlopement..

our master want us back under control..

I guess they figured out that they cannot nuke everyone :)

Re:Good idea... bordering on brilliant

[onta]

The problem that makes the UN impotent is not the fact that many countries are ruled by dictators (the idea behind the UN is to be a forum for *all* countries, not just democracies).

One of the biggest problems is the US's behaviour. For years the US refused to pay its quota, and has only paid its debt with the UN when they wanted something from it.

US's respect for UN resolutions is not very good either, and the UN does not have the capability of enforcing the resolutions, that's just impossible. Just two examples here:

• There was a UN resolution telling Israel to move out of the occupied territories. Israel has obviously not moved out, and while many countries have said it should, the US just lets Israel do whatever they want.
• Last november the UN said Iraq should disarm and sent inspectors, now the US wants a resolution that will allow them to attack Iraq, there's nothing wrong with asking for a resolution, except that Bush said he would only follow the resolution if it said what he wanted.

Now, how could the UN be useful if the single most powerful and influent nation in the world does not want to know anything about it, except if it is for its own benefit??

Earth to DoC

[SubtleNuance]

That is very interesting news considering This article at The Register . The article talks about how Eurpoean top-level registries take over the technical task of running the Internet if ICANN cannot be relied upon to do a proper job -- because ICANN cannot seperate their Political machinations from the technical aspects of the DNS.

A good example would be ICANN's desire to create a artifical scarcity of TLDs to maintain 'value in the namespace'...

Re:Good idea... bordering on brilliant

[gorilla]

I think it's a mistake to think of "the UN". The UN is really a loose grouping of many related organizations. UNESCO and UNHCR are very different to the Security Council and the General Assembly.

And in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

To better reflect its changing mission and increasing scope, the company ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has changed its name UCANT (Universal Controller of All Network Traffic).
--
Propz to the dead tuesday nighterz.