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Rebuilding Iraq's Internet
Anselm writes "According to this article at Wired.com, "The war has left Iraq's Internet infrastructure in shambles. Now, a British ISP hopes to fund the reconstruction through sales of domain names ending in .iq." While I have no use for an IQ domain, the article does make me wonder: Should geeks around the world take the lead in getting Iraq back online?"
Try and feed them first.
How does this help the Iraqi people? All this does is give the rest of the world more domain space, while not giving Iraq the full value of their "property".
Why couldn't it be an Iraqi company that sells the domains? This would allow the country to keep all of the proceeds, instead of only getting some of the value.
I'm not against the UK, the US, France or anybody, but I think this might be one area where this company is being opportunistic.
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at
In soviet Russia, all your us are belong to base!
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
I thought Halliburton had a lucrative contract to do this too?
evil adrian
Doesn't rebuilding the Internet in Iraq require other critical resources first?
You know.... like ELECTRICITY?
Seriously, this is pathetic! Basically some company trying to profit off selling country code domain names to sites not in the country, while there's still too much chaos for anyone inside the country to take notice!
No one said they should spend the money they receive for food and health instead on Internet access. They simply want to build the Internet infrastructure in Iraq into something that can be used by the masses. I would say freedom of information coincides quite nicely with the coalitions effort to build Iraq into a land free people. Pulling these people out of the knowldege embargo imposed by Saddam Hussein and his regime will help freedom survive in an area of the world that is known for it's denial of free information to citizens. Knowledge _IS_ power. When Iraqi citizens can get equal acess to information they can see other side of the coin, instead of the state controlled side only. Why do you think so many totalitarian governments want to control the Internet access to their countries (CHINA)? So it does coincide with the freedom initiative quite well.
Besides you have to start the plans now to rebuild if you want to get it done later. This type of rebuilding is going to last a lifetime and take a tremendous amount of planning and effort.
If people in the US and the UK value their lives, they will resist the impulse to try to turn Iraq into a colony that is run for corporate profit. (And yes, that's what this is, even though these guys are masquerading as a charity: they intend to take a cut from selling the "high.iq" domain). Iraq's domain namespace belongs to the Iraqi people, not to a clever British IT consultancy. Similarly, the decision as to whether to deploy GSM or CDMA belongs to the future Iraqi government, not to a congressman in the pocket of Qualcomm. Next, we'll see a bunch of Midwestern farmers clamor to get the government to buy up their grain and dump it on Iraq, thereby setting back efforts to rebuild Iraqi agriculture (which employs far more Iraqis than the oil industry does).
We're now at a tipping point: we can either insist that Iraq be run in the interest of Iraqis, or we can allow it to be taken over by a bunch of cronies and lobbyists. If the latter happens, we'll generate so much hate that it will be unsafe for Americans and Brits to travel abroad.
The .iq TLD should belong to the people of Iraq. They should have the final say as to who gets access to it. Selling it off like .tv and .cx today would basicly mean that this ISP is taking advantage of these people because their government is in shambles. Shame on them.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Well, from the pictures of the looting, a lot more than a couple days ago.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Sure, they need food and safe water first, but there is a future in Iraq that people can think and talk about. There's already huge aid packages being put together.
Iraq needs an economy in order to become self-sufficient. Things like this ARE going to be important. Let's try to make Iraq into a prosperous country.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
That has been the case since the fall of the Soviet Union and will be true for at least another decade, when China gets its legs.
The point being, now everyone knows it. The gloves are off and the neo-cons will strike while the iron is hot. On the one hand, the U.S. denies that it intends to hit Syria and Iran next and on the other hand they're already setting up to do exactly that.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Absolutely, but not before giving at least a small contribution to the World Food Programme, which is in desperate need of funds to combat starvation in both Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa at the same time. Then there will be enough people alive to use the internet!
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
This is absolutely disgusting. These people are clearly taking advantage of someone else's (Iraq's) misfortune to try and make a buck. This group does not already control the .iq domain, but they know that if they can steal it, it'll be like having a licence to print money. Absolutely nothing is being said on their website about how much of this money they're collecting would actually be going to Iraq, and frankly, I suspect that "paying big salaries at Citri" will somehow also be considered to be an important part of the general welfare of Iraq's IT infrastructure.
Let's see, there's also the small matter of it's not necessarily the desire of the Iraqi people that their domain space be sold off to people outside Iraq. For all we know, they could want a more conservative approach to be taken with it, and have it only be allowed for use by companies and organizations that reside within Iraq.
From their web page:
"The auction is set to continue over an intense two month period, after which funds will be called upon from the winners of each bid, and registrations formalised."
Translation:
s/auction/looting/;
"In the case that a registration is not successful, no funds will be charged, unless the individual wishes to make a donation to the fund."
Translation:
"If the piles of money offered for domains doesn't change the minds of the people in the IANA and get us Iraq's domain, then you won't be out a penny."