ITU Meeting May Decide Governance of the Net

NickFitz writes "The Register has an article on the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society, organised by the International Telecommunications Union. It seems that the United States, Europe and English-speaking partners are happy to let ICANN carry on running the show, while developing nations would prefer control to be handed over to the ITU. As the second stage of the process isn't due until November 2005, it could be some time before we see any changes."

Comments

Reliability is all we need.

[grub]

I don't care if it's ICANN or ITU so long as it doesn't interfere with availability of the .cx TLD.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[arivanov]

Well you should. Find anything by the ITU that is free. Even standards.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[gorilla]

That's not really the ITU's fault. Their only income is selling their standards. In the past, that worked out really well for them, since the only people who were interested in the standards were big telcos, who just considered it the cost of doing business.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[arivanov]

Well... And nowm, do you expect anyone but the telcos to participate in an internet run by the ITU? 'cause I do not. It will just become yet another phone system regulated to death and used to feed a few incumbents in a few years time.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[squiggleslash]

The phone system may be regulated to death, but it's never been the ITU that's done that. The phone system is regulated by individual governments, most of whom (the US and Canada being exceptions) took it as far as owning the telephone systems in the past.

The ITU really isn't much more than a standards setting body. It is, however, an important one because ultimately the Canadian system has to be able to talk to the Irish system, the French to the Australian, the Cambodian to the Mexican, and without an impartial, respected, body in place that represents the technical interests of the industry as a whole, such a thing isn't going to work very well if at all.

Whether this means ICANN should be replaced by the ITU is open to question. Ultimately I know two things: ICANN sucks. But the ITU seems like overkill for the job.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[Zeinfeld]

The ITU really isn't much more than a standards setting body. It is, however, an important one because ultimately the Canadian system has to be able to talk to the Irish system, the French to the Australian, the Cambodian to the Mexican, and without an impartial, respected, body in place that represents the technical interests of the industry as a whole, such a thing isn't going to work very well if at all.

Actually its more than that. The ITU has been incorporated into the United Nations (even though it actually predates it). As a result it is a diplomatic treaty organization and has diplomatic immunity. Useful when the main risk is harassment by lawsuit.

The other thing the ITU does besides setting standards is to perform a whole rack of registration functions. Slots for satelites in geosynchronous orbit are allocated by the ITU, as are radio frequencies. In other words pretty much what ICANN was set up to do.

I suspect that there wont be much movement unless the US directs ICANN to do something completely assinine like cutting off Cuba from the net if the Bushies think they need to impress the Florida voters.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[jo42]

...and as long as they tell Verisign to stuff .COM wildcards up Verisign's .cx...

All Hail...

[j0keralpha]

The Great Emporer ICANN.

The real question is who would do a better job. ICANN has made some questionable decisions in the past regarding delegation of authority *cough* Netsol *Cough* Considering that whoever we get is going to be a largely bureaucratic body, what can the ITU give us that will make them a better solution? Bear in mind as well that handing control to the ITU could cost us in that ICANN has traditionally been a bit more... Anglo-centric in terms of policy.

Re:All Hail...

[eln]

The answer to "who can do better than ICANN?" is "it would be difficult for anyone to do any worse."

ICANN has managed to mismanage just about every aspect of the Internet, and has been too busy trying to keep itself in power and settle internal squabbles to worry about how their policies actually affect the modern Internet in the real, modern world.

I think it's high time a more international body took over what is, after all, an international network.

Re:All Hail...

[macshune]

I don't see developing countries doing a better job managing the infrastructure of the internet either from a technological or ideological point of view.

The nice thing about having the USA, UK, etc countries manage the internet is that we are more often than not held accountable and have a great degree of transparency in our decision making. Yeah, there are some problems with seemingly shady dealings with ICANN vis-a-vis other orgs/companies, but compare that with, say, China, a country that blocks a large part of the internet and jails dissenters.

In the end I'd be for a more global approach to the government of the internet. yeah, it's romantic and idealized, but it could happen. there would just have to be total transparency and no one should be allowed to mess with dns.

Re:All Hail...

[mgs1000]

ICANN has managed to mismanage just about every aspect of the Internet, and has been too busy trying to keep itself in power and settle internal squabbles to worry about how their policies actually affect the modern Internet in the real, modern world.

Sounds a whole lot like how the UN works.

Re:All Hail...

[minus_273]

you mean an american network world is using... go read a history book

Re:All Hail...

[mgoodman]

Sure they've made questionable decisions, but all in all everything has worked out so far.

So, netsol is a bit evil, yes, but their corporatization of the internet helped make it highly available to the masses. And let's not forget that with corporatization comes standardization (usually) and more importantly -- accountability. If something goes wrong then there is a higher potential for a huge class action...so not much goes wrong.

Oh, and let's not forget that whole sitefinder crap. ICANN stuck to their guns and netsol (verisign, whatever) took that crap down. ICANN clearly had their priorities straight there.

Re:All Hail...

[jon787]

you mean an american network world is using... go read a history book

No, it started as an American network, it is most definetly and INTERNATIONAL network at this point.

Re:All Hail...

[Anonymous Coward]

but compare that with, say, China, a country that blocks a large part of the internet and jails dissenters.

You do know that the USA has more people in prison than China does, right? Even though China has a billion more people than the USA? Not per capita, actual number of people - over 2 million people in US prisons....

Re:All Hail...

[karl.auerbach]

If ICANN has been centric around any principles it is these:

- Protection of trademarks beyond that enacted by any legislature anywhere in the world.

- Protection of trademarks beyond that enacted by any legislature anywhere in the world.

(Yes, I wrote that twice, on purpose)

- Exclusion of any but those who make money from the internet from its policy making forums (users, since they merely pay money, are relegated to the peanut gallery.)

- Generate lots and lots of fees for the law firm that created it.

ICANN's US/EU centricity is merely an ancillary kind of centricitiy.

The ITU does have many of the same closed door problems as does ICANN. But the ITU's people seem to have some conception that the door is closed and that it was wrong to do it. ICANN, on the other hand, is very proud of its door slamming abilities.

The ITU and ICANN are both captured by those entities that they purport to regulate, and both ICANN and the ITU have procedures that are full of twisty turny passages that all look the same. ICANN, according to its reconsideration committee is as infallible as the Pope.

The ITU pushed OSI and failed - ICANN pushed the UDRP and succeeded. OSI, overly complicated as it was, did at least contain many good technical ideas yet to be mined in more purified and streamlined form. The UDRP on the other hand is unmittigated dross.

So, it's a close toss up. It's often said that the devil we know is better than the devil we don't. Well, we know the ITU devil and the ICANN devil both pretty well.

My personal choice would be for ICANN - but only, and this is a big only, if they allow for 51% or more of the seats on its Board of Directors to be directly elected by the public and retract the UDRP as being an improper usurpation of the role of national legislatures.

Re:All Hail...

[macshune]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. China jails people for dissenting, among other things. That's a pretty crappy reason to jail someone. And the U.S. jails people for non-violent drug offenses (among other things) and is pretty liberal with the sentence length. And yeah, that's really bad that china has over a sixth of world population while we have a good ~5% and have more people in jail.

Anyhow, staying on topic, China's jailing of dissenters and the like represents more of a threat to the intellectual honesty and openness of the interweb, versus the U.S.'s jailing of non-violent drug users and other imho-should-not-be-jailable offenses.

Re:All Hail...

[Anonymous Coward]

WANK ASS BEOTCH

Wel then

[Anonymous Coward]

> while developing nations would prefer control to be handed over to the ITU.

Build your own frickin' Internet.

Re:Wel then

[mgoodman]

flamebait me arse. that was just plain funny you psycho mods!

The unwashed hordes

[heironymouscoward]

The ICANN vs. ITU battle is a stage in the ongoing wars (fought with instruments other than bullets and knives for my fellow slashdottians who take everything uberliterally) between the rich states and the stateless masses.

The ICANN (or should this be called the "UCANT") represents the rich west controlling the Internet, the ITU represents what is laughingly called the "United Nations".

There is about much chance of the ITU taking over the nexus of the Internet as there is of the UN relocating to the Pentagon.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[WIAKywbfatw]

...the ITU represents what is laughingly called the "United Nations".

Funny how outside a certain country in North America, which got very upset twelve months ago when it found out that international opinion wasn't always going to be on its side, the United Nations is still well respected.

I find it the very height of hypocrisy that the US has been happy to veto otherwise unanimous Security Council and General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel for its heavy-handedness in the occupied territories but feels the need to shout it from the rooftops when the overwhelming majority of both bodies oppose a resolution that gives the US carte blanche to wage war.

Somehow, the US standing in the way of world opinion when it comes to Israel is called "diplomacy in action" but when world opinion doesn't tow the line and is heavily opposed to a US plan of action the United Nations is somehow "broken". Gee, nice double standards you've got there, pal.

The current US administrations, through its actions and words, has done more to harm the UN than any other country has ever done. Yet, somehow, that administration and the largely sycophantic US media continues to paint a picture of the UN being the one to blame. Flippant comments, such as the one made in the parent post, only serve to reinforce this absurd state of affairs.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[iamweezman]

and that has what to do with the original topic?

Re:The unwashed hordes

[cheezedawg]

The United Nations is a worthless institution that has doomed itself to irrelevancy. In its entire history, the UN has acted in only 2 conflicts:

- The Korean War (and then only because the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council vote). That war ended in a stalemate, and most of the issues behind the war are still unresolved today
- The Gulf War. The UN got off to a good start, but then showed its true colors over the following 12 years in its inability to enforce its own resolutions against Iraq.

The current US administrations, through its actions and words, has done more to harm the UN than any other country has ever done.

This is pure bullcrap. The UN killed itself. Any organization that can't even enforce its own resolutions is worthless. The United State's actions in Iraq this year have saved the UN from itself.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Otter]

Funny how outside a certain country in North America, which got very upset twelve months ago when it found out that international opinion wasn't always going to be on its side, the United Nations is still well respected.

Well, we'll see. Certainly Syria, Libya, Sudan, Cuba, Mauritania and the rest of the "UN Commission on Human Rights" think the organization is just fantastic. But the Internet exists in its current form because of a certain country in North America. I wonder how many of the people who are happy to entrust human rights to countries with, in two of those cases, systematic slavery might be less enthusiastic about trusting them with the Internet.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN put Libya in charge of human rights and Iraq in charge of something to do with the disarming of weapons.

Yeah, they're real geniuses.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[sharkey]

in the ongoing wars (fought with instruments other than bullets and knives

In space, or on the tops of very tall mountains...

Re:The unwashed hordes

[bigpat]

"between the rich states and the stateless masses"

How exactly do you see the "stateless masses" working through the ITU?

Only states and corporations are represented in the ITU.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[JudgeFurious]

Literally, screw the rest of the world. Screw them early and screw them often. The only reason there is an "Internet" is because the United States gave birth to the damned thing. Allowing the UN to have any part in running the thing would be a very bad joke. The UN is a hopelessly inept organization and we would all have been better off without it.

All of us meaning of course the horrible people in the "rich west". Like I said, screw the rest of the world.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

We own the bitches, case closed. The US says "Jump!" and the rest of the world says "How High" or they better because not one thing is going to get done without our say so. Get used to it because we own it and if we don't then we'll break it.

Sucks to be you "rest of the world".

Re:The unwashed hordes

[tamuct01]

I'm sure the Internet will be managed so much better by the ITU (subset of the UN) than a private organization. Just look at the UN's track-record for examples. Soon they will want to ban certain content (albeit some content needs to go), but first comes management, then comes censorship!

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause, Dubya said so? Right? I think that since the US seems to have no respect for international treaties and cooperation, they should get out of it all. Build a wall around their country (the world to them) and live happily there for ever after, as would everyone else.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet would wotk just fine without the US. Disconnect yourselves from the rest of the world now!!

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

A good ironic comment about the politicisation of the Net.
Let's flame the bastard.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Zeinfeld]

The United Nations is a worthless institution that has doomed itself to irrelevancy. In its entire history, the UN has acted in only 2 conflicts:

Right wing poppy-cock [in the original meaning of the word].

The security council is not the UN. Only fifteen members of the UN are on the security council and of those only five have significant power.

The UN has been involved in pretty much every conflict going on since it was founded. In particular you will find that almost without exception the UN has been involved in the peace negotiations in pretty much every case. The recent ending of the occupation of East Timor was entirely performed under UN direction.

As the French pointed out at the time, the UN does not have the military capability to stop the US invading Iraq. However having invaded the US is quite likely to end up regretting having done so and call on the UN to provide them with an exit strategy.

Since the start of the invasion more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first three years of Vietnam. The Iraqi resistance has steadily increased in its effectiveness. This might have been anticipated and planned for but it was not.

The bottom line is that the Administration called the UN irrelevant when their plans for post invasion Iraq were limited to the routes for the victory parades. Now that it is clear that the situation there is not "a cakewalk" cooperation and consultation with the international community does not look such a terrible idea.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't suck at all. But it definately would suck to be an upstart colonialist like yourself.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Dionysus]

Since the start of the invasion more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first three years of Vietnam.

And the reason for that, is that the three first years of Vietnam, the US only had a few advisors present. It's hard to get killed if you're not there. The US didn't really start getting heavily involved with combat troops until a couple of years into the conflict.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, the number of US troops in Vietnam didn't reach the levels in Iraq (about 130,000) until near the end of 1965. The first "official" troops were sent in March of 1965. At the end of 1964, there were only about 18,000 US troops in Vietnam.

Not only the numbers count. The early US presence in Vietnam was as "advisors". The troops that were there did less front-line fighting compared to later in Vietnam, or currently in Iraq.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

And we own you too. We tell you what to wear, what to eat, what's cool and what's not. We move the economy of the FUCKING WORLD because we're the market with the most money to spend.

Go eat your McDonalds and like it and shut the fuck up or we'll turn off you Internet connection one way or another. Laser guided bombs for a better world BOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGG!

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, please. The US never hurt the UN, because there wasn't anything to hurt.

The central function of the UN, as designed, was collective security. That function has been invoked exactly twice since its founding, despite dozens of qualifying agressions since 1946. And in both cases, the country that did the heaviest lifting in fulfilling the demands of collective security was the US.

In fact, since Hussein violated the terms of the cease-fire of the first war, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was one of the three cases in history an invasion had at least a technical claim to Security Council approval, ever. This stands in stark contrast to, say, the Suez Crisis of 1956, where France and Britain (two permanent members of the Security Council) blatantly violated the UN Charter over a navigation dispute. Or Kosovo, where again the Charter and the authority of the UN were ignored because it would be inconvenient, and an illegal war was waged.

The UN is well-respected by no government on Earth; it is only well-respected by the ill-informed populaces of countries where the local media does not point out its history of abject failure in its central mission and the consistent violation of its rules by every nation on Earth for its entire existence.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Zeinfeld]

And the reason for that, is that the three first years of Vietnam, the US only had a few advisors present. It's hard to get killed if you're not there. The US didn't really start getting heavily involved with combat troops until a couple of years into the conflict.

There were 15,000 'military advisors' when JFK was assasinated. That was steadily cranked up under LBJ and of course when gulf of Tonkin was manufactured that was the signal for all out quagmire.

If the Administration is not bothered by the number of casualties in the gulf why has it stopped broadcast of arrivals of coffins? The last time those were restricted was under Nixon, and for the same reason.

Iraq is far from 'Mission Accomplished'. Saddam is still at large, if the US left today the theocrats would take charge. Exactly what is the great success in replacing Saddam with an Ayatolah?

The only way out of this mess is to build the civil institutions that are necessary to support a democracy. That is going to be much harder for the US going it alone than it will be with the help of the UN that has been involved in practically every successful democratic transition since it was founded.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Dionysus]

There were 15,000 'military advisors' when JFK was assasinated. That was steadily cranked up under LBJ and of course when gulf of Tonkin was manufactured that was the signal for all out quagmire.

But they weren't frontline, combat troops, which the troops in Iraq are.

It's like comparing the number of American killed the first day of US entry into the WW2, and the number of French and British killed the first 5 months in their entry.

If the Administration is not bothered by the number of casualties in the gulf why has it stopped broadcast of arrivals of coffins?

Which has nothing to with comparing the number of troops killed in Iraq and Vietnam.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[GMontag]

The last time those were restricted was under Nixon, and for the same reason.

Humm, how is the press "restricted" from this? If they get the pictures they are free to broadcast them. How did Nixon, who withdrew the US from VietNam and ended the draft, institute this?

Sounds like you are a victim of misinformation, if not an agent of it's spread.

Re:Be prepared...

[shis-ka-bob]

I think ICANN prepare for bad jokes

Follow the money...

[Space cowboy]

It seems that the United States, Europe and English-speaking partners are happy to let ICANN carry on running the show

That's that, then.

Simon.

Re:Follow the money...

[sql*kitten]

That's that, then.

Forget the money, follow the technology. Or rather, trace the technology back to its origins. Sure, India does a lot of tech work... using Western technology on behalf of Western organizations for Western money. It's not politically correct to say this, but for hundreds of years, the only significant technological work has been done by people working in or at least educated by Western (or Western-style, like Japan) nations. I really don't see why nations that have accomplished very, very little should have any say in the running of the Internet at all. Instead they should be grateful that we let them use it!

Sensationalist media at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, the Register. Isn't it the computer equivalent to In Touch / People / Hello Magazine?

ITU needs to work

[bigjnsa500]

Before you start building network infrastructure in developing countries, lets get the countries to feed their starving first.

Re:ITU needs to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you start building network infrastructure in developing countries, lets get the countries to feed their starving first.

And how do you propose they pay for it if they have no industry or communications infrastructure? Don't get me wrong as it may not apply to you, but many people seem to think the first world is somehow responsible for financing the development of third world countries. That seems a little preposterous to me unless they have something to offer in return.

Re:ITU needs to work

[Anonymous Coward]

What does growing food in the ground have to do with "we don't have anything to offer"? Does it take network infrastructure to grow corn? or wheat? or rice?

We (being the US) can't help countries who don't want to help themselves. The 3rd world countries continue to be third world because their leaders are corrupt and the people are uneducated.

Why does China spend 1/3rd of its GNP on defense when 1/3rd of its population are homeless and starving?
Why do African countries continue to commit genocide on their OWN people?

See, there are a lot more things to do first before we get "developing countries" on the Internet.

Re:ITU needs to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does China spend 1/3rd of its GNP on defense when 1/3rd of its population are homeless and starving?

Because it's northern neighbor has about as many nukes as anyone else in the world, it's right there with those crazy N Koreans (and the respective S Korean arsenal), it's close enough for missiles with India and Pakistan, and eventually it would really be nice to give some back to those bastards who raped Nanking and take back Taiwan. Seriously, they're modernizing their military because without it no one will ever consider them a serious military power enough to consider them for diplomatic and economic power. Military spending and buildups have tended to push the civilian markets, since factories that built last years chips for missiles can be retooled to built tomorrow's gameboys.

As for growing food, you realize that the US farm industry is basically only wallowing on subsidy now? We're the role model for the world in luxury use, which everyone wants. We couldn't feed ourselves without healthy kickbacks and our strong trades market, it should stand as no surprise that other countries would try for a similiar business plan.

And genocide? Gee, Europeans and Americans do that pretty good too. Mass graves in Bosnia, concentration camps, the communist purges and the atom bombs - heck, when it comes to good old fashioned DEATH, we make the Africans look like amateurs.

Parallels to the UN?

[Slider451]

ICANN = Unilateralist, pre-emptive "improvements" to the Internet, whether you like them or not.

ITU = Lots of diplomatic talk barely concealing greedy power grabbers, in the end accomplishing little.

On a side note: What does Switzerland do for Internet access?

Re:Parallels to the UN?

[pvt_medic]

Just let the Red Cross run the whole thing. They are the protectors of the Geneva Convention, and headquartered in switzerland. That way we have an unbias group running it.

Re:ITU needs to work - homeless/starving

[HermanZA]

As the USA has such a large population, it probably has more homeless and starving people than most other countries, so maybe you should feed them first...

Bah

[Stile 65]

Let's just all switch our root hints files to the ORSC root servers! Then we'll show them ALL who's boss!

Mwahahahahahaha...

Re:Bah

[mgoodman]

they'll only really be taken seriously if they scrap "confederation" from their name...sounds too much like gun-toting white trash with confederate flags hanging out of the back of their beat-up pickup truck with no muffler and a rottweiler in the back.

Keeping things straight:

[Anonymous Coward]

I always get confused. Are we supposed to like ICANN this time?

Re:Keeping things straight:

[Anonymous Coward]

ICANN is actually a special case, even compared to all the other special cases, and is quite easy to keep track of. We only like ICANN on days of the week that don't exist.

Re:Keeping things straight:

[Anonymous Coward]

What about VeriSign, mister AC? eh? Eh?

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is to be gained from international management of root name servers?
If the US gave over control of any vital part of the internet to China, India, Brazil, South Africa and others it would be a disaster and the end of the internet.

for those who don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain to me exactly what ICANN controls besides the policys on domain naming?

Everyone posting keeps talking about how they are doing a horrible job of controlling the internet, but I thought they only controlled DNS stuff and nothing else?

"Developing Nations"

[Le Marteau]

Whereas developing nations, China, India,...

Whaaa? How long is it going to take these nations to develop, anyway? I mean, they've only been civilizations for, um, how many millenium was it last time I checked.

My brothers, it's time to get off your backsides and get cracking! You snooze, you lose!

Governance?

[mindstrm]

Who's kidding who here?

Ultimately, my network will connect to someone elses however we decide to do so.. and the same will happen with large networks.

The Internet is not a governed, closed system... we pay attention to what the IANA and others do only because they make logical decisions that everyone basically agrees to follow. The only way they can govern is by making good decisions.. their power only comes from cooperation.

Re:Governance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me that I need to add an ACL to my router blocking green haired people today.

Re:ITU needs to work - homeless/starving

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, China and India have more.

Obligitory "I for one..." joke.

[AltGrendel]

I for one welcome the reestablishment of our ICANN overlords.

Re:"Developing nations"

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be the ones who think having a slave trading nation (Libya) as the head of the UN human rights committee is a good idea.

hrm

[Zulu]

word "union" detected, abort.

In my opinion

[suso]

Nobody asked me, but in my opinion and experience, non-technically oriented people have no business running the Internet and determining it's course.

Re:In my opinion

[ViolentGreen]

If I had known you were going to give that answer, I would have asked you.

Seriously though, I agree completely. I assume they would be given recommendations from some kind of committee composed of technical folks but they would still have the final say and probably wouldn't understand the technical recommendations. Technical and non-technical people have different ways of viewing problems and situations.

Re:In my opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

As the ITU is also a technical standards body, that achieved some kind of functionning international phone network from largely heterogenous networks from everywhere in the world, I guess they shouldn't be despised as 'non-technically oriented'.

It is harder to get already existing networks to speak together than re-create a new network from nothing, after all...

Re:In my opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

someone needs some help with its and it's http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail89.html

Re:In my opinion

[wfrp01]

Your point is well taken, although I think there's also an argument for an opposite point of view. Technology is not an end in and of itself. The "higher purpose" decisions are what political bodies are all about. Or supposed to be about. Now I realize it doesn't always work out that way - there are too many internecine turf wars, special interests, and greedy politicians for the "higher purpose" (whatever that is) to actually make it to the table a lot of the time. But I think that's the idea, anyway.

Re:In my opinion

[2fargone]

They used to say that about landowners and voting too -- "in my opinion, people without (substantial) property have no business running the government and determining its course." Exactly in those words... What is a "technical orientation" anyway? Many of the smartest IP strategists and network architects I know don't have PhDs (or even BSs) in Engineering. Like it (!) or not, the Internet is becoming the chief means by which people across the world interact with each other. Be realistic -- just because it is complicated and different from other, more familar domains doesn't mean people are going to entrust this incredibly important thing to the "technically oriented." Rather than futilely demanding that the Internet be left to the experts, better for us all to starting working hard to educate those with the means to influence Internet-relevant policies, so they are clueful enough to use (or not) that power wisely.

Governance?

[RealProgrammer]

The Internet is supposed to be free. Free as in freedom free.

The model in microcosm is this: I have a cable modem and a wireless access point. You have a DSL and a wireless network, too. We agree to share the wireless network to route data on each other's landline. If one of our landlines is down, the other takes the load. If you get impolite with your usage of my network, I block your access, and vice versa. Each of us polices the Internet at our own router.

The power-hungry politicians and small-minded bean counters think my Internet needs "governance". They worry, "Someone will make a profit!" or "Someone will send spam!" or "Someone will have access to {information|music|software} without paying for it!" Someone will charge too much, or not enough, or not let people with green hair use their ftp site, or whatever. Or someone will go untaxed.

Hands off.

Good Point

[Orien]

You make a good point. We should definitely be aware of the underlying politics involved here, because it will have a big effect on how the internet is played out. One important thing to keep in mind is that when capitalist western countries like the USA are in charge of the internet (or have the biggest influence or what-have-you) the policy changes are most likely to be ones that are good decisions for business application, or will make someone some money somewhere. If the internet is controlled by third-world countries the decisions will lean toward crippling the bigger powers to boost their own 'net presence (of course they wouldn't word it that way, but it amounts to the same thing even if you use the words "fairness"). If the internet is controlled by a world organization such as the UN the internet will start to be shaped to answer the objections of the nations involved such as China who wants to guarantee censorship to it's citizens. Change needs to happen, and ICANN has defiantly made some bad decisions but my point is, let's not rush into a change just because we don't like what they have done. Another group could do FAR worse if we are not careful.

Governs the internet? What?

[dacarr]

If nobody really owns the internet, how does one own the internet? I mean, that's why I joined up with OpenNIC earlier this year - is because nobody ever really owned the network.

Unzipping WSIS

[adelayde]

An interesting read here on the WSIS by a chap called Alan Toner. There's a fair bit of hyperbole used to get the point across but it's a sound one and covers a lot to do with the problems of intellectual property amongst other things.

Re:ITU needs to work - homeless/starving

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no starving people in the US (not counting brain damaged, comatose, etc. people having the plug pulled on their feeding tubes).

In fact, the major nutrituion problem among the poor in the US is obesity.

Here's hoping

[Oopsz]

Maybe if we turn over the internet to an international organization, some of the americo-centricism will drop. Hey, maybe the american government will be forced to .gov.us, to match all the other countries in the world!

(yeah, and maybe pigs will fly)

Re:Here's hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe the americo-centricism is because...we built it???

i don't see a problem with the .gov and .mil domains, they should stay the same...think of it as a history lesson about the origins of the net.

Re:Here's hoping

[mgs1000]

So would this site be forced to be slashdot.org.us?

Re:Here's hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

I think, as an Amerocentro, or whatever, that I'd just modify my local DNS responder to assume a tacking of .us onto any bare .com .net and .org it was sent.

Other than people with (in)security issues, is there a solid reason why anyone hates bare .com .gov .mil etc?

Re:Here's hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! And let's all vote to deprive the US of the telephone country code "1". Such blatant favoritism!

Re: Here's hoping

[gidds]

That's less of a problem. At least they have an international dialling code. A better analogy would be if they didn't have one at all, and every time anyone here in any other country dialled a number they'd get a US number unless they put in their own dialling code each time.

(I mean, it's not as if there are any Yanks I'd want to speak to...)

Time to accept it folks

[Anonymous Coward]

World government is coming and you'd better just get used to it. It's going to be a socialist/authoritarian system and if you don't like that well then too bad. You'll have to turn all of your guns in, give up your free speech, and "show your papers" when you travel to the military authorities. You will not have any say-so in the matter. You will be controlled every minute of your life, but I think that it's necessary to prevent terrorism from people who are against a new world order. You are here to serve the state, and if you cannot serve it then you need to be destroyed. You're a slave. If you don't want to see more "Wacos" and "Ruby Ridges" then you are a sick terrorist who needs to be scrutinized by the authorities. You don't want to live in a socialistic/authoritarian dictatorship of the global elites? ...then jump off a cliff. Look what's happening to the expendable trash in Miami protesting against the FTAA. The FTAA is coming and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. Accept global government and slavery and you'll be better off for it.

The ITU can't be bad..

[EvilStein]

Look at the alternative - Microsoft might just try to buy it. ;)

A more robust and resistant net

[Mageaere]

With Big Governments and Big Companies all fighting over how they control a very big part of our lives I would like to see research on making the internet more resistant to control. The internet was originally designed to be resistant to nuclear attack by being decentralised and able to adapt to interference upon the network. I think we need to develop new protocols to actively protect the internet from being vulnerable to control.
I think what we need it a pure peer to peer protocol to replace the heirarchial TCP/IP protocol so that we no longer need anyone to assign numbers and names to us all.
Of course this brings up the question as to how we then find each other. One solution is to do something similar to what NIC's do on a network segment and only allow each host to receive information intended for them. Of course we don't trust host to only read their own packets and not try to spoof other hosts. What we use is umbiquitous encryption. Everything is encrypted and signed and we use various algorythms to make sure that wandering packets do not wander for ever in the network.
With the improvements to the various wireless and other networking technologies the advent of robust, long range, high bandwidth, secure, point to point networking technologies is no longer a pipe dream.
With such technologies a network that spreads from a user to trusted friends, partners to their trusted frends and partners to their ...
would create a uniquely difficult to manage network.
Let Big Businesses and Big Governments keep their heirarchial network protocols.
We can use friend to friend protocols.(a bit sappy I know :-)

Re:A more robust and resistant net

[Spy Hunter]

TCP/IP doesn't need to be replaced. IP is not heirarchical by nature. The Internet is already not a strict heirarchy. There is a sort of tiered structure with big backbone providers at the top, and small companies and individuals at the bottom, but the connections don't form a tree; there are lots of cycles and cross-connections. The problem with a fully decentralized P2P mesh-type network is routing. Solve the routing problem, and TCP/IP will work just fine in that environment. If you don't solve the routing problem, replacing TCP/IP won't help.

Of course this brings up the question as to how we then find each other. One solution is to do something similar to what NIC's do on a network segment and only allow each host to receive information intended for them.

You're talking nonsense here. NICs on a network segment see every packet sent or recieved by everyone on the same segment. On a *switched* network traffic is routed so that only the destination computer sees it, but the switches themselves still see every packet. This kind of thing doesn't scale up. In a global network you really need to do more sophisticated routing, which means you need registered globally unique address ranges. I think you need to learn more about how the Internet works now before proposing drastic changes.

Re:"Developing nations"

[t0ny]

IMO, unless you are contributing to the technical base of people who are running the internet (America, Europe, Australia, etc), you really have no right to say how it is run.

Its like complaining about politics, but never voting. Every time you give the third a voice in how things are run, you end up with chaos- take just about any UN action as an example.

IMO, the third world should focus all their attention on the WTO, and forget the stupid shit like the UN and ICANN; the latter two are not really helping them any.

Or...

[Greyfox]

We could just hand it over to a bunch of monkeys on crack. There'd be a lot more squabbling (and poo flinging -- there's almost never poo flinging in the other organizations) but there'd be a lot less power grabs, they'd often make more sense and we could get on with taking our network back from the corporations.

Bad decision to move it to an international medium

[TyrranzzX]

First of all, most of the internet's equipment is in america and europe, with an exception being made for china, japan, tiawan, and korea which also have substancial investment in the internet. So, letting some small country in africa dictate how the internet is run isn't a good idea, to start with. It can be looked at in a viewpoint of economic warfare; if Britan can get wal-mart.uk and register it to a britan based company instead of to wal-mart the international corperation, they could potentially make a lot of money importing.

After that, you've got problems with international corperations greasing the wheeles all over. The UN is even more corrupt than the US goverment. All the UN does is make "deals" (some of which involve bullying) between nations for resources as well as making it possible for GE to dump toxic waste in korea and if korea doesn't like that they can kiss the UN's sweet behind. This is why, as Jello Biafra says, the kidnapping rich people and corrupt goverment officials in mexico is what corperations like to call a growth industry.

So, if we move all the internets services to an even more corrupt govermental system with absolutely no responsability to a people but rather to goverments who want to supress people, what do you think will happen?

If china wants xyz banned internationally they can probably pull the strings to do that. If some "terrorist" group in the US puts leaked files on a website prooving conspiracy such as Diebold, what do you think the probability of them pulling the DNS registry would be? As long as the DNS stays under control of and protection by the biggest bully on the block it'll serve the needs of the biggest bully and so long as you don't fsck with it, the bully will leave you alone. It's a lot better than throwing it into the middle of a room with people ranging from weak babies to 500 pound strongmen and watching the freeforall.

Or better yet, what if they wanted to implement internet 2 so that stupid dinosaur people run the internet and not the smart people who do now (to put it in a blunt manner)? Hey, we don't like rantradio because it's a free, uncensored medium that's taking buisness away from RIAA affiliated companies so we're just going to take you off of DNS and fsck your internet connection.

I, as everyone else, would love to see the services ICANN trys to implement given real form and direction and be ruled by wise, progressive people instead of large international corperations and a goverment run amok as it does now.

eyecon0meter: newclear power outshines wwwhistfull

[Anonymous Coward]

no contest.

icann name a dozen or so formerly useful wwwords that have been hijacked buy corepirate nazis?

you won't be needing any gathering of stock markup execrable to be able to detect the direction of the winds of change, which are bullowing at gale force/farce?

some of you are still causing damage to the creators' innocents at an alarming rate. lookout bullow on that won.

there is no murder permitted by anyone. should y'all continue to overheat the main processor, nobody is going to be 'winning' anything, although there will be survivors. all this ?pr? ?firm? pretense of impending 'victory' is really scary.

consult with/trust in yOUR creators... the lights are coming up now.

Re:"Developing Nations"

[subzero_ice]

Wake up DUDE! If you make an effort to understand the global political scenario you would understand why the developing nations never developed. The people living in the developing nations don't enjoy living in poor living conditions. Welcome to world of politics.

Re:"Developing Nations"

[Le Marteau]

It was a joke, DUDE! Ay carrumba!

Mod parent +1 insightful

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

I really wish I had mod points for you.

From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The people chosen to run ICANN in 1998 were those who knew more about the technology than anyone else - computer scientists. It was an apparently logical decision but tragically flawed. The characteristics that make a computer scientist are not those that make a good politician or decision-maker.

No doubt believing they were acting in the Internet's best interests, the ICANN decision-making process soon became an abomination. The ICANN Board agreed in private what was going to happen to their invention against the hordes of people outside all clamoring for a piece of the action and it then implemented it despite whatever opposition there might be. It rewrote its rules to make sure outsiders weren't admitted to the inner sanctum so it could keep control of which way the medium went.

I love assertions with no proof

[djeaux]

The Register proclaims:

"The people chosen to run ICANN in 1998 were those who knew more about the technology than anyone else - computer scientists. It was an apparently logical decision but tragically flawed. The characteristics that make a computer scientist are not those that make a good politician or decision-maker.

Now, I'd like to know exactly what characteristics that make a good computer scientist are incompatible with being a good decision-maker. Is the point here that governance is inherently the domain of the clueless?

The choice seems to be between computer scientists (ICANN) & telecommunications suits (ITU). Isn't ironic that the U.S. government is on the side of ICANN?

Re:I love assertions with no proof

[Fastolfe]

I basically agree with your points, but I view the conflict a little differently. I think the fundamental disconnect is between those that want the Internet based on good technical decisions and those that want it based on good commercial ones. The former wants to ensure stability, promote new technologies, and design a robust, scalable system. The latter wants to exploit what we have to make money.

What's needed is a healthy balance: a solid, robust base that can meet the demands of businesses and users that use it.

If you go too much on one side, you end up with what appears to be a great technical achievement, but something that's difficult to use and difficult to commercialize, requiring extensive application-layer work to get around technical decisions that don't satisfy non-technical demands. If you go too much in the other direction, you end up with InterwebXP: an unscalable mess of proprietary "extensions", and ultimately, proprietary commercial replacements.

The problem with ICANN is that they don't seem to be moving forward. They seem preoccupied with making current technology do what Big Business wants it to do. Why the hell are we even using DNS anymore? It's clear that it's not designed to be used as a content label, or a trademark or some other label with intellectual property weight. So why do we continue to use it like that? Why is nobody looking for a replacement?

You can only hack on an implementation so far before you're just making a mess of its splattered remains and amputated limbs. Our technical bodies need to be spending more time coming up with solid technical solutions to requirements of all kinds (both technical and non-technical), and less time trying to hack things in ways that bother the fewest people.

obligatory simpsons quote

[ImpTech]

ITU Meeting May Decide Governance of the Net

GO-VER-NANCE! GO-VER-NANCE!

I'm with you...

[hurtstotouchfire]

At the risk of following a well-trodden groove, isn't there some nice third-party group I can root for?

I've always been a big proponent of accessibility. We try to write clean html code so blind people's programs can read it (right guys?) we use moderation systems, we let everybody in and we let the good stuff float to the top. You know, like that whole free market theory.

But then, like that whole free market theory, we can think the internet is free and unfettered all we want, but dig down deep enough into anything big and there's always someone with money.

So I guess I don't want it to be ICANN because they're blatantly anglo-centric, and they're "...a quasi-autonomous arm of the US government, a private Californian company of technical and business experts created in November 1998. Its remit was to oversee the increasingly global Internet with a view to becoming autonomous in a few years. " Quasi-autonomous arm of the US government? Yeah, that sounds reassuring.

But then I don't really want ITU either. The ITU ...is the body that has been responsible for the roll-out of virtually every form of modern communication. It was started 140 years ago by countries across the world to standardize the telegram and has been at the forefront of every international telecommunication effort since. Logic would appear to dictate that the ITU be in charge of the Internet. And it would be so except for the extraordinary history of the Internet.

I definitely think that the 'governance' of the Internet (I love how they capitalize it, like a country) shouldn't just follow the norm. I think it needs a new model.

Declaration of Principles - interesting addenda

[Lodragandraoidh]

I found it quite enlightening to read the Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action for the summit. The most interesting aspect of this document is the apparent riders that were added to the document later in the draft process [in brackets]. Some selected quotes:

We are resolute in our quest to ensure everyone can benefit from the opportunities ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) can offer...all stakeholders should work together to:...(list of items)...;foster and respect cultural diversity;[recognize the role of the media]...

Governments, as well as the private sector, civil society, and the United Nations and other international organizations have an important role and responsibility in developing the Information Society and, as appropriate, in decision making processes...[The media has a special role in the Information Society]...

[Strengthening the trust framework, including [network and information security] authentication, privacy and consumer protection, is a prerequisite for the development of the Information Society and for building confidence among users of ICTs...

The document seemed like a table tennis match, wherein the countervailing issues had no apparent resolution. In particular, the conflict between the fair use access to free information and the digital rights management and security issues seems irreconcilable. I applauded the emphasis on free and open standards - but again find it hard to reconcile with other issues attached to the document.

This item I found particularly interesting:

Volunteering, [if conducted in harmony with national policies and local cultures,] can be a valuable asset for raising human capacity to make productive use of ICT tools and to build a more inclusive Information Society.

Given the subject of the document, 'Volunteering' in this context would be helping people to learn 'ICT' tools and perhaps building infrastructure. I can not fathom how this would be conducted outside of 'harmony with national policies and local cultures'. This does, however, open the door for suppressing the assistance given to particular groups in a state, if such assitance is not approved by said government. This contradicts the whole idea behind an inclusive Information Society, which this document seems, at first glance, to espouse.

Hand it over to the ITU

[XNormal]

The ICANN is too new. It's still reeling from the bubble and exploring vast new realms of corruption and mismanagement. The ITU is an old, established organization that has already settled to an acceptable level of mediocrity. The amount of damage it can do is therefore quite limited.

Concentration vs expansion.

[aepervius]

Actually this is moe like concentration (what the western buisness men wants, all drool at night over monopoly or being the obligatory passage for any sort of application) vs country which want the pwoer be mroe democratic and think that too much power in the same individual (USA anyone) is imperialistic and none too good for the world at large. And seeing on how on the diplomatic field USA is handling the democratic process (Guatamalo bay, Irak, Afghanistan etc...), then one cannot do anything but understand why many country watch anything americano centrist as the ICANN or any instance under the ehavy hands of American very very carefully. The objection would be probably far far less if ICANN was , let us say german or Italian.

Re:Concentration vs expansion.

[Dhalka226]

Too much power in one person's hands has the potential to be an exceptionally bad thing. It breeds dictatorships and dictatorial attitudes. Everybody should be accountable to somebody. (For the record I disagree about the comments about the US, but I digress.)

However, too little power in one person's hands, in this case, is equally awful. "Too many hands in the pot ruins the soup."

I'll avoid the Iraq situation since it is so hot-button still and instead move back to the situation of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Milosevic (apologies if it is misspelled). Clinton was going to go to the UN for a resolution to authorize the operation, but Russia and China threatened vetos. Russia, of course, had political ties to Milosevic and originally, at least, supported his government. So seeing that route was closed by yet another "too many hands" situation, Clinton instead moved to NATO--perhaps the epitomy of "too many hands" syndrome.

NATO eventually agreed to undertake its first combat role ever, except the "war by committee" approach in NATO barred the US from bombing targets in the capital. The US continued its bombing campaigns according to NATO's bar but found it to be ineffective and that it only increased the speed and desperation of the slaughters taking place. Eventually we did win permission to bomb targets in the capital and soon after, Russia withdrew their support for Milosevic. The surrender came days later.

All in all, it was a success -- but at what cost, in terms of human lives and other assets? And how close did it come to a failure because everybody had an equal say?

In this case, let's not be naive and assume that any international body would be less a political institution than the UN or NATO is. How much would get done if everybody had to be appeased before a project moved forward? It would become a massive political wrangling.

At least as it stands today, ICANN is far less political. Oh, sure, I'm sure it looks after the interests of the United States, but it is at least not being tugged this way and that but eighteen different countries who all want it to look out for their interests. Things get done. Bad decisions are made, of course. Bad decisions are made in nearly every situation, but that doesn't mean the situation is broke. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

your right + link to article in Dutch on this.

[Raindeer]

That my friend is exactly the problem. Many people/governments think that there is alot more to internet governance than what ICANN does. They think that ICANN can control harmful and illegal content, cybercrime/terrorism, regulate internet access, create competition/stop competition etc.

But the only pressure points you have to kind of control who gets access to the existing net and under what conditions, are the DNS and the distribution of IP-numbers. Most of the DNS is done nationally by the ccTLD's and most of the IP-numbers by RIR's, so not much room for ICANN there.
One might think that governments would show there face at the places where the new internet gets thought up. New standards are done by both IETF and ITU/ETSI where the IETF generally thinks up the ones that get accepted by the people implementing the technology. But nobody ever sees governments at IETF meetings, whereas they do attend ITU/ETSI meetings. Let alone that they have a clue of what the new IP-based technology will mean for them in a regulatory sense. (encrypted voice over IP peer to peer networks?)

And when it comes to what runs over the internet many governments still belief that voice runs over phones and webpages and e-mail over the Internet. Many of them have no idea of an integrated/converged IP-based network where application layer services switch as easy from IP-network as IP-connections switch from physical/datalink layer. Heck, many of our laws are still not ready for that. (see for instance media laws vs telecommunications laws)

If you can read Dutch, you can read a bit more about this at hte following URL: http://www.netkwesties.nl/editie73/artikel1.php

Re:Pure Energy

[Coventry]

How is the parent, an obvious Joke if you follow the link, flamebait? if you don't like the humor, thats fine, but flamebait is a post designed to instigate an argument - I don't think anyone with 2 brain cells would say a silly joke is flamebait...

Bring Back Jon Postel

[elfuq]

OK, That's not entirely possible, given that he died a few years ago, but the whole thing ran a whole lot smoother when Jon was the dictator of the entire 'net.

However the institutions of that time, the Internet Architecture Board, the IETF and the Internet Society providing a corporate, but hands-off, home for it all ran a whole lot smoother than the overly beurocratic mess that we have now.

But the ITU would be worse. Remember how they fought TCP/IP tooth and nail?

Re:"Developing Nations"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the only jokes that guy would think is funny begin with, "George Dumb-ya is SO STUPID..." (pause to wait for "HOW STUPID IS HE???")

ICANN is good today

[gearheadsmp]

ICANN is good today, because the alternative lets bass-ackwards dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and the "People's Republic of China" have a say.

Re:ITU needs to work - homeless/starving

[JudgeFurious]

Except they're not starving and while the US isn't exactly paradise it's pretty much running without the need for foreign aid. Third World nations should not be in the business of trying to band together and run things that they have little or no ability to run.

They should be in the business of getting their acts together, feeding their POVS and getting their people some basic freedoms. Basically if your "President" is serving a term of office that's roughly "Life" then you're a fucked up country that needs an occupation.

Does it really matter?

[jcam2]

Currently, ICANN has very little control over the Internet - they merely approve top-level domains and IP address allocation ranges, which is just about the minimum amount of central control necessary for the Internet to operate smoothly.

Even if ICANN was replaced by some corrupt UN body, it would still be unable to cause much harm. The Internet is really just a bunch of networks run by various companies and organizations in different countries that have agreed to connect to each other, in hundreds of different legal juristictions. What possible leverage would ICANN or the ITU have over them?

a certain country

[gid13]

"Funny how outside a certain country in North America"

Damn those Canadians!!!

OK, Let's Throw Them A Bone

[Ken McE]

Let's see now, China and Saudi Arabia, those bastions of free and independent media, want to run the net? Guess that Goatse guy is history...

Let's consider, what did all these 2nd and 3rd world countries do to invent the 'net? to do the intellectual heavy lifting to figure out how to make it work? Build the technology? Fund the demo models? Iron out the bugs? Make it an almost free world-wide utility such as has never been seen in all of history? (Sound of crickets chirping in the silence)

So they have done, ah, roughly nothing to create it but now they want to own it? Riiiiiight.....

Of course I'm not wild about ICANN either, they seem to have this fascination with money. I don't mind if they make a living wage, I mind when they simply make everything available to the highest bidder.

OK, lets throw the ITU a bone. Split off the .ORG domains and throw them to the ITU for say ten years. Comes the year 2014 we'll see how they're doing. They screw up horibly and people can simply flee the .ORG TLDs. I think it might also prove healthy for ICANN to be reminded that they could be replaced.

Re:OK, Let's Throw Them A Bone

[adelayde]

Man don't forget that civilisation as we know it largely came from Africa and the middle east. The wheel for example, we use the arabic system for counting - imagine if we'd stayed with the Roman system, modern writing, the Bible...

Re:OK, Let's Throw Them A Bone

[Ken McE]

I'm aware that a lot of things have come out of the rest of the world. However the internet is not one of them. I mean no generalized slander upon the non-western world. Hopefully their best is yet to come.

.gov.us? THAT's a good idea indeed.

[keeboo]

Well, those Americans (i mean people from USA) are all the time with that talk about democracy, equal rights and such politically-correct blah blah.

Let's change .gov to .gov.us then!
Oh, wait... Is that supposed to be the World Government?
(oh-my-god, now i see... Bush is the president of Earth!!! AAAHH!!!)

Solid reeasons to hate america

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Not being an american and being fed-up of your imperialism.

If you don't want we the poor people from the third world taint you lovely net with our smell and disgusting existance, please turn down the routers on the borders of your mighty coutry.

And if you don't like what I say, because you are a "democracy", come with your toy soldiers kill our women and children like you did on Vietnam and Iraq. We are waiting you with arms wide open and explosives on our belts.

Which one to choose?

[Kyouryuu]

The answer is rather simple. You choose the one that won't sell out to big corporations. Even though ICANN eventually took some form of action against Verisign, it was little more than a slap on the wrist. A meaningful entity would have stripped Verisign of its registrar power outright and made an example of them.

If some organization must "control" the Internet, it must act in accordance with the greater Internet mobocracy. In essence, it should do nothing unless provoked, at which point it snaps like a rabid dog.

Course, I don't trust any government regime to effect such an organization...

Re:"Developing Nations"

[The Cydonian]

Whaaa? How long is it going to take these nations to develop, anyway? I mean, they've only been civilizations for, um, how many millenium was it last time I checked.

While I understand that you were trying to be funny, you perhaps have no idea how infuriating such statements are to those from these developing nations (I wouldn't say 'offended' which would be in the league of racial or ethnic insensitivity, I'm sure you mean well). I, personally, am neither infuriated nor offended, merely irritated, and here's why.

You see, there are many of us out here who tend to think that the so-called 'developed' world has stolen our wealth (considering the relative prosperities of, say, China or India before and after the European colonials took over our trade routes) and is still bent upon subjugation based on their own rules (google for 'agricultural subsidies').

Now, that's obviously only half the truth, the other half is how the rulers of the developing countries themselves have misappropriated the nations' wealth, and to be sure, I'm one of those people who tend to think that the developing countries can compete with anyone (and develop to world standards) if we get our priorities right, but still, just to tell you why many people tend to think people from the developed world are arrogant, brash, condescending and plain ignorant.

Squatter's Rights

[j33px0r]

ICANN. Lets see, now why exactly can't someone have a domain name .art for their art class? Or how about .cars for their auto dealership? Did that .kids thing ever go through? Could potentially make filtering naughty stuff from the rugrats a bit easier.

But then again, we have to consider the rights of those companies that have put $$$$ in domain names and need to cash in on their investments. ICANN's decisions reflect the interests of the people who line their pockets and God forbid China or Japan or some other country with dumb crap on the net have something to say about it. It is our duty as Americans to protect our capitalistic freedoms.

Aw shit... incoming.

[rs79]

I think the ITU controlling the net is wonderfull. I could't be happier about this.

For those of you who are serious, go read Malamud's account of the ITU. And keep in mind how sleazy these guys are.

Any of you who want to be a publically accessible nameserver for the ORSC root zone, drop me a line. Apparantly we're getting to be a bit popular and need to spread out the load a bit. Yo u guys are starting to chew up quite a bit of bandwidth.

Why complain?

[zhiwenchong]

The U.S. (and Canada) get to use the 1 international dialling code because they established the first telephone system. Likewise, the Internet came from ARPA, so the U.S. gets to omit the .us.

This is a standard practice. Looks at stamps. UK stamps (and ONLY UK stamps) omit the name of their country. They have that privilege because they invented the first adhesive stamps.

Re:"Developing Nations"

[Le Marteau]

Fair enough, and well put.

I'm not going to address my post, your post, or anyone's post, just going to say where I'm coming from. I think the Indian's and the Chinese have amazing cultures... I have studied them, learned from them, and am a better man for them.

Their leaders obviously suck... I just found the description of their civilizations as 'developing' highly ridiculous and humorous when I read article, and perhaps my humour needed to have a road-sign attached to it so as to be more clear to those who don't share my sensibilities.

I agree with you 100% and appreciate your input.

Information = sharing power and wealth!

[hughk]

One of the way that dictators (whether 'elected' or not) control their population is by limiting the access to information. I have seen places where the world price of sugar is a secret. Why, because government linked monopolies buy it from the farmers for a few dollars a ton then resell it on the international market.

In many cases they don't need access to the outside world, just the local market prices can be useful. Also, privatisation is great but unless people have a real idea of the value of the bits of the paper they receive, they are ready to be tricked out of them as happened in most of the former soviet union.

As users don't these nations also have a right to be part of the regulatory process?

Re:"Developing nations"

[rduke15]

Every time you give the third a voice in how things are run, you end up with chaos- take just about any UN action as an example.

You mean chaos examples like

- East Timor becoming a free country with the help of the UN?
- Kosovo administered by the UN?
- Cambodia's free elections organized by the UN?

or do you mean chaos like

- Irak after US invasion?
- Afghanistan, where the US supported the craziest fundamentalists?