Slashdot Mirror
ICANN Troubles At UN Summit On Internet
Internet Ninja writes "The UN/ITU-organized World Summit on the Information Society currently happening in Geneva, and in attendance is Paul Twomey from ICANN, who has been ejected from a preparatory meeting, along with all other non-governmental observers. Obviously Twomey wasn't happy about that, saying: 'At ICANN, anybody can attend meetings, appeal decisions or go to ombudsmen. And here I am outside a UN meeting room where diplomats, most of whom know little about the technical aspects, are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet. I am not amused.'" We've previously reported on this meeting, which may help decide governance of the Internet, albeit in the longer-term.
Unlike ICANN, who of course, have members of the internet at large on their board. Oh, wait a minute...
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
That is unbelievable. When are these people going to realize that they need to get the input of someone that at least represents the people that they are going to 'govern'?? He's got a right to be pissed, and I would honestly be pissed too.
-=*(CC)*=-
Yet again, the people who use the technology have no control over the technology... a prime example of the folly of Mr. Moore's 'Stupid White Men'. Everyone at the conference should be tested before entering- they should all be able to figure out how to turn on a computer. Ick.
nice way to shoot your self in the arse UN... NO way in hell ICANN will left a singel finger to help them in any way and will now probally actively hinder them and get industry to motivate the US to kill it if it ever comes up for vote
If the UN ever controls the Internet, forget it: I'm building my own damn (inter)network. What do we want controlling the Internet: a bunch of stupid diplomats, most from dictatorial nations, or a democratic, open ICANN? Granted, sometimes ICANN does screw up, but it does a decent job.
Politicians, no matter which country they come from, are only concerned with their adgendas. Why would they want actual technical advice on this sort of topic? Look at it this way: if they come up with good ideas now, how are they supposed to claim success later on when they come up with better ones? But if they screw things up right off the bat, they can all point fingers and blame one another, then propose ways to "fix" things.
Unfortunately, the UN is about as anti-US as they come. The move to take control of the Internet goes along with the rest of the UN's practices - to break down boundaries of countries and slowly form a single world government. While that sounds like a good idea, the UN is a little too socialist for my likes. They openly state in their charter that all humans have certain rights, like freedom of speech, as long as using that right doesn't interfere with a stated goal of the UN. This will mean censorship of the Internet and probably will cause coutries to isolate themselves from the rest of the world to avoid the negative effects of a UN run Internet.
I found this interesting
Top biggest delegates in the World Summit on the Information Society:
1. Malaysia 137
2. Romania 116
3. France 108
4. Canada 101
5. Cuba 88
6. Japan 85
7. Russia 80
8. Iran 79
9. Nigeria 69
10. Gabon 66
They should just make their own internet if they want exclusive control. Ther nothing prohibiting them from doing this.
The UN is a waste. How are you going to get a group of people representing every ethnicity, religon and country on earth to agree on anything?
Life in Orange County
I don't remember where I read it, but MIT actually has more IP's than the whole of China... If you still don't catch the drift, well, then I don't really know...
Seems futile anyways, weren't they(UN) going to only appoint some group that was going to watch ICANN, and their motives? (:
falxx
It's funny, I don't often feel sorry for ICANN. Along with the bulk of /.'ers I've found them heavy handed and only occasionally democratic. Mind you, they're better than some... but that's another story altogether.
c hnologyNews&storyID=3972352&src=eDialog/GetContent §ion=news)
That said, they don't deserve this. They are an NGO with an expertise. Not being interested in their opinion, or even giving them a glimpse of how and why decisions are made is worrying to the extreme.
On the positive side, this UN conference seems pretty unlikely to do anything. Mugabe (the "elected" President of Zimbabwe) has already used it to rail against such horrible (liberal, Western, bourgeois) things such as a free press. (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=te
Let us not forget either; it's probably more important to bring clean drinking water and telephones to developing nations than Google and Slashdot.
--- My dad's political betting
If they make a decision you don't like, you ignore it.
now not only will we have secure computers thanks to MS we'll have people who know nothing about the internet telling those of us that do what do do with the 'net.
Chuck
The UN lacks the authority to regulate the Internet. It is a non-democratic organization comprised of unelected diplomatic representatives, a number of whom do the bidding of unfree regimes that want to block and censor the Internet. They claim to do this in the interest of preventing pollution of their culture by outsiders, but, in reaity, they are merely seeking to all possible means of internal dissent. (For examples, Iran and China.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
from the kofi-and-elmo-presiding dept.
Personally, I'd prefer it if Elmo was presiding. Elmo makes more sense than all the diplomats put together.
So what if the UN decides it owns the Internet? It's not like they can do anything about it! What are they going to do, take it? The US is the military of the UN (unfortunately). I say let the UN make dumb pronouncements and let them fade into obscurity all the sooner, corrupt bastards...
To hell with the UN. The ICANN member means well, but they are almost as rotten. I have come to this conclusion: as long as there is connectivity, there
will be a Internet in one form or fashion. I personally know of several Gibson inspired hackers
that have been thinking out different implementations of the "walled city" project.. basically a user routed Internet using VPN tech.. There are SEVERAL of these projects going on with the same name.. These guys aren't going to stand by and be idle, and neither am I. What can the UN do with the connections? Can they take my line? Can they regulate it? They might tell me what countries I can and cannot access, and every design of the walled city (cities?) defeat their possible controls.
If they want OUR Internet, they are going to have to take it, with force.
Pot... Kettle.... "Black!"
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
We need to pull another Iraq on the UN.
./er know more about how the internet is run and works than all the dipomats combined.
UN: "Hand over control of the internet to us (the un), and take it away from icann."
Bush (or whoever's president at the time) needs to say "Screw you. No."
We've done it before, no reason why we can't do it again. I'll bet that almost every
Link
As in the UN that named Lybia as head of the Human Rights Commission?? They would probably pick some island nation with a population of 12, none of which have ever used a computer, to head the "Internet Commission." Also, at every meeting France would bitch about how everything needs to be written in French.
"diplomats, most of whom know little about the technical aspects, are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet."
Doesn't this pretty much describe just about every IT department known to man? PHBs and suits making uneducated decisions on how things will run based on buzzwords, corporate kickbacks, and their own job security while those who DO know what they're doing get ignored or brushed aside.
Welcome to IT, dude.
ICANN take over the internet.
NO YOU CAN'T...
It's highly unlikely that these delegates will be discussing which technologies to support and whatnot. It seems much more likely that they'll be considering means of legislating abuse of the system , how technology impacts national/international laws, and what to do when these laws are breached.
I think that's an admirable thing, and it's time for some international co-operation regarding persuing SPAMers, Hackers, and other individuals that would use the lack of international legislation to perpetrate their nastiness.
I hope you've all read yesterdays post about security breaches. The author found linkages between no less than 4 countries hosting servers in order to send out SPAM.
Honestly i think we should just let them fuck up the internet.
I dont know where these 3rd world people get off being all angry that we didn't think of them when creating technology.
we should just leave them in charge for a while, and when we are communicating with drum signals again, we can see who was right and who was wrong.
Finally there are a few EU countries (France) that really like the idea as well. They want to protect their innocent youngsters from "American Culture which is so pervasive on the Internet". The gentleman from ICANN wasn't a native French speaker, he definitely shouldn't be allowed to participate.
The Internet is a wonderful experiment, but it is almost entirely dominated by the US, and the english language. That rubs many the wrong way. I'd am VERY suspicious of such meetings, the motives behind them dont seem very "egalitarian". They are self serving, and mostly trying to prevent the free exchange of ideas IMHO.
Angry People Rule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
"the UN is about as anti-US as they come"
A few major players in the UN may be anti-US, but the effects are negligible; the US doesn't obey the UN/international treaties on issues the gov't feels would have a major negative (or prevent a major positive) impact on the country/economy (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol, Operation Iraqi Freedom, bioweapons).
G
Verisign has a monopoly on root servers. Where does that come from?
MIT has more public IP addresses than China. Where does that come from?
ICANN is chartered as a non-profit California-based corporation. Why should it be so? Why California, why not Peru or Japan or Spain? Is there something fundamentally Californian about today's Internet?
It's about time that the public resource constituted by Internet addresses and DNS servers be handled by a truly international standards body, just like it's the case for telephone numbering.
Thanks to the US for creating many of the technologies that make the Internet possible. But as is the case with the phone numbering plan, it's time for the Public International Internet to be managed more openly and cooperatively.
In the articles I've read, I haven't seen mention of how the UN expects to have its claimed governance of the internet acknowledged by current authorities.
If the UN claimed governance of the airwaves, wouldn't the FCC simply laugh? I realize that the FCC is a national body and ICANN is international, but unless the UN plans to set up its own root servers and coerce everyone to use them, how will this be enforced?
Can anyone comment on this?
Then Paul Twomey should send Kofi Annan a 200 foot high message through the Hello World project. Here are webcam pics of the four displays in different parts of the world. One is in Geneva.
The full list for those interested. I guess group 8 got kicked out.
n ce d_summit_participants.pdf
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/draft_annou
The UN can hold all the meetings it wants about taking control of the internet, but in the end, this will probably occur:
UN: The communities of the world have decided that it's best we run the internet. We demand control.
USA: Demand? How bout this, you go fuck yourself, and maybe we'll allow the UN to exist for a few more years.
What are they gonna do, take it by force?
I'm no fan of ICANN, but ICANN is better than the UN. Last thing we need is the chinese fire wall on a global scale.
Fuck 'em. The End.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
As opposed to politicians and diplomats, most of whom know little about anything save how to kiss lobbyist/mafia/dictator ass and keep their job, deciding how billions of people should live their lives?
In the US, have you ever noticed that most of your government representatives are, to quote Dilbert, Dumb As Toast? In one of those strange twists, however, Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and probably one of the best educated presidents we've had in a while. His diplomatic talents are practically without comparison.
As far as dumbest, in recent history- it's a tough choice between Regan and Dubya. Dubya certainly takes the title of Worst Diplomat, save maybe his father, who liked to throw up over foreign dignitaries. His father, however...
could say more than
four words at at time.
God bless
America!
Please help metamoderate.
To the stupid posts above mentioning that "diplomats" are not competent to handle the technical issues: diplomats are there to focus on the process, not the specifics.
ITU (this is a UN-ITU joint summit, isn't it?) is perfectly competent to handle the technical issues linked with numbering and naming. They do it very well already for the phone and for a portion of the OID tree.
will be free speech. You mark my words in stone.
The rest of the world is P.I.S.S.E.D. at the level of free speech exercised on US based servers and they seek to stop it at all costs.
The US has the most liberal speech laws in the world and the rest of the world can not allow that.
You watch and see, they'll institute international tribunals to arrest speech violaters (thought criminals) and whisk them away to The Hague for a trial by tribunal and internatinal justice for thought crimes...
Now, in a not so strange twist, there are reports that current and former ICANN members have disappeared. Why?
Prepare for the new world order. At least the new bigbrother internet will run 90% faster when 90% of the population has been murdered.
If i remember correctly, the only time in recent history that the UN has gone against the wishes of the U.S. has been on the unilateral attack on Iraq. Many of the santions that are placed on other countries are with a US agenda and seeing that the US is also part of the security counsil, if the UN truely was anti-american, the US could veto almost all resolutions.
grg
Haven't you read "Schrodringer's Cat" by Robert Anton Wilson?
Explains things perfectly
Here is a cut and paste of what I said in the other Slashdot discussion about the UN trying to control the Internet:
The reason no one can control the Internet is because there is no "Internet," lest we forget the early 1990's when newbies would ask us about the "Internet Company" and you would explain that there is no one company, just a bunch of network providers that are interconnected.
The only reality is that there are lots of computer networks variously located in many sovereign nations that happen to be cooperating at this time (the networks, not necessarily the nations). Just like everything else in the world, it all comes down to where the wires and the servers sit. If I say "fark the UN" on my website hosted out of Texas, I am protected by the US Constitution...which is the law of my land.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
That said, it's probably safe to say that no one in the meeting knew a switch from a hub, or even if it would be feasible for the UN to dictate the shape of the Internet. Somebody from ICANN would probably be the best bet if you'd want to know how the Internet "should" operate. And the fact that Twomey wasn't invited as a delegate, or even a visitor, underlined their obvious ignorance.
The UN is worse. They are a bunch of mindless bureaucrats who are a waste of oxygen. They are less trustworthy with regulating the Internet than Michael Jackson is with your kids.
Obviously they wouldn't let the ICANN guy in because this meeting is about REPLACING them. While I think ICANN NEEDS replacing, the UN is ever LESS DEMOCRATIC than ICANN, even LESS accountable, and even more corrupt.
Corporatism != Free Market
Four words:
At large members, plurality.
Now fsck off, Twomey.
Now fsck off, Bush.
ICANNOT Believe this fool... You lost your righteousness when you became a political organization and shunned the grass roots.
Now the UN's uber-bueracracy is out-slogging them. AND NO ONE CARES...
Used to work for a company and new the lead tech for internet connectivity... Everytime we aquired a company she would look down the IANA list and go Damned - no class A.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
... lest you become the very thing you despise.
Darl Mcbride Sayes that He owns the UN and now plans to charge for the internet.
I think something similar to this happened in the British Parliment. Which soon led to the American Revolutionary War, which later inspired other countries to revolt, etc. etc. etc.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
Almost certainly this is a non-technical meeting. It will be concerned with internet governance, standardising terms-of-use etc.
Techos should be more active in the technical arena. Let the various world governments be move active in the gonverning area.
you said 'large members'
"There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
No spam. File sharing. No government regulation.
The five continents they refer to are Eurasia, Australia, Africa, North America and South America.
Whatever, the UN is relatively toothless when it comes to any sort of enforcement...especially if it is for something like this, or even minor little things like human rights violations.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
What does it matter? Since the goal of the murders in charge of china is to place the entire country behind a massive filtering/logging firewall does it really matter how many they have?
nuff said
The more government gets involved with anything, the more fucked up it gets.
This is like taking all the most fucked up managerial ideas in history and rolling them all into one. Its like having someone who knows nothing about cars deciding the specifications for an engine. They have no fucking clue how it works. It isn't like their regular social programs they regularly screw which are somewhat forgiving when politicians screw them up. You mess up a soup kitchen, the poor probably won't starve, they'll just find somewhere else to get food. Computers are no where near as forgiving. Just watch, they'll probably come up with some 'great comprimise' implement it on the net and then wonder why the fuck it complete crashed the every server on earth.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I have all of 1., 2., 3,. 4., 5., 6.,7.,8.,9......
we'll all be talking about this old network called "The Internet". We'll talk about how cool it was before the UN and an bunch of delegates came in and screwed it up. Historians will look back and trace why exactly the Internet fell. It will look something like this:
2005: Having survived the bad press, the RIAA and the MPAA split off into their own countries, gained admission to the UN, and outlawed the use of any digital music or video across a network.
2007: The world, angry at the U.S.A. for their 3rd war with Iraq, put sanctions on the U.S.'s use of the world wide web.
2008: After a year of web sanctions, the U.S. launches a military campaign on Malaysia since they had the most votes for the U.S. sanctions. This brings the number of current U.S. military campaigns to 10.
2010: The countries of RIA and MPA (remember, they dropped that last "A" back in 2005) successfully defeat the U.S. whose military was spread really thin due to their most recent war with England.
2012: The RIA, now the most powerful member of the U.N., indefinitely bans all world-wide Internet use since they are still complaining that artists are not getting paid for their work.
2014: The Open Source community, fresh off a victory against SCO, start building their own network called "Linet". It goes live with 30 million users connecting to it within the first 24 hours.
2015: "Linet" achieves self-awareness and launches an attack against the humans... the end.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
When it seems painfully clear to me that almost everything the UN does is done solely to spite America? This is certainly no exception.
That aside, this seems like the most extreme PHB nightmare possible.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Good one.
Serve Gonk.
will not be fought for land, oil, or money...it will be fought for information. The internet will be become more valuable than anything and governments will compete to control it.
It's an agreement, it's not a thing.
What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else. - Must read for any person that cares about technology.
If they don't like the DNS system, they don't have to use it. Same for HTTP. Same for TCP. Whatever.
ICANN can continue to define the standards and American companies will continue to implement them. Do you think people in France will be thrilled when France decides to do something different? That they can no longer access all the other sites.
Who needs global standards when you have defacto standards.
A speech...
Um, from your mind? I'm looking at the list of root servers and verisign runs, er, 1. It may be made up of more that one, but it's just 1 IP.
Several schools and .com's run others. Mr Vixie (who has some interest in working with big ass DNS servers) runs F (which is several not amazing machines. Used to be a 486/100 with 1GB of RAM. Was cycled out due to its age. DNS isn't a big CPU killer.).
In continuing the myth killing, I believe AOL ran the biggest DNS servers - where the root and com servers get their data cached quickly, AOL had to server all their subscribers. A lot.
MIT [and apple] have Class As (/8s in CIDR speak). China doesn't. I know where it comes from (MIT was one of the first couple ON the arpa^WInternet). Where does it go? IPv6 baby.
I have something like 65k INTERNETS of ipv6 addresses for my place.
The UN is a partisan political body that's been fairly ineffective in many things. ICANN has been a negative force as well (/me misses Jon P). Should governments run the net? Should corporations? Can I choose "no" to both?
We made it on to a list!
Beer for everyone!
When are these people going to realize that they need to get the input of someone that at least represents the people that they are going to 'govern'??
Oh they realize it all right, they even have a model for it - the International Labor Organization. It was formed as part of a burst of post WWI Wilsonian idealism and has a unique structure for an official internationla organization (and now forms part of the UN system). In addition to the government representatives, each country sends representatives from their business and union organizations - and these folks have full voting rights in the meetings and so can't be thrown out as "observers" can. Of course having set up one organization with a structure like this, the governments of this world have made sure never to do it again - why should the people who are actually involved in an issue area have any say when there is government to government horse trading to do. Much more convenient to have "observers" that they can lock out - which, of course is par for the course considering the track records on free speech and openness of most of the governments doing the talking.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
Hell from what I see, the vast feeling here in the US is pretty well summed up by the bumper sticker I'm seeing more and more often, "Take US out of the UN."
Don't shoot the messenger.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 7 (2000)
Internet users: 5.7 million (2002)
Population: 23,092,940 (July 2003 est.)
Area - comparative: slightly larger than New Mexico
(source - CIA World Fact Book)
With 25% of the population connected the small number of ISP's likely isn't an issue.
The UN, in general, is the largest collection of unchecked egos you will find pretty much anywhere. Even in the Us government, you have to produce something for someone in order to stay around. Name me one thing the UN has produced beyond useless and baseless resolutions?
And now, someone wants to turn over the internet to these fools? This is a simple matter of the UN wanting to control how information is spread over the world. Despots do not like information, the UN for sure qualifies as such.
Why can't ICANN just say no? Even better, why can't we just say go right the hell ahead and get on I2?
Let the unwashed have the internet. Let them wallow in bandwidth hell. We need to get to IPv6 and on a new net and let these fools fight over the chaff. If we do not, they will keep fighting to control us. We have our freedom, not due gurentees set forth in any laws, but by the very fact that the geeks have been able to stay one step ahead. We are losing that edge...
War TUX!!!
So, the UN guys decide whatever they want to decide, and we still use BIND and connect to whatever root servers we want to use.
All the bureacrats in the world can't change what we actually run on our machines.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Interesting. There are only 3 or so countries there that form a appreciable online presence. France, Canada, and Japan. Of those, Japan has the most right to speak on the internet: they do the most out of all three. In raw numbers, the US, Japan, Britain, Germany and perhaps Canada are the people who should run the Internet. Sorry, but thats how democracy works. Definatly Africa and the South Pacific Islands are not large presences online. Why should Iran dictate internet protocol? Their track record for technology alone is excrable, not to mention their extremly democratic society. *hem hem* Anyway, the pols will always win any fight that they are allowed to get a foothold into. Thats the nature of beauracrats; they want power. So the best thing is not to let it get into political hands(slimy things that they are).
/b
|f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
Just give Microsoft control. They'll know what to do!
...And Al Gore.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Oh the wonderful irony of it all - outside expert views gagged by the UN on Internation Human Rights Day, the anniversary of adoption of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" back in 1948.
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
Are you saying that ICANN, that was created by the US government and still answers to it, composed mostly of white men from developed countries with capitalist agendas should have the authority? I don't know about you, but I'd prefer people who are a little more representative of the world.
That said, it's probably safe to say that no one in the meeting knew a switch from a hub
Dr Richard STALLMAN, President, Free Software Foundation, rms@gnu.org
Mr Marco CIURCINA, Speaker, Free Software Foundation marco@hipatia.info
Mr Juan Carlos GENTILE, Speaker, Free Software Foundation, jucar@hipatia.info
Mr Loic DACHARY, Artisan Logiciel Libre, APRIL - Association for Promotion and Research in Libre Computing, loic@gnu.org
Mr Georg GREVE, Representative, Delegation of Germany, greve@gnu.org
(thanks to s.o. who posted the list with all participants - which is rather frustrating to go through, though)
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
This was in the NY times like 6 days ago... a little late?
The UN Security Council's "Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms" calls for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control and praises the restrictive gun polices of Red China and France! The UN wants helpless citizens under the thumb of UN stormtroopers and Black Helicopters.
"Reject UN Gun Control" by by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
cpeterso
In other news, the UN announces the name of the committee that will oversee the Internet will be known as ICANN'T.
>> Are you saying that ICANN, that was created by the US government and still answers to it, composed mostly of white men from developed countries with capitalist agendas should have the authority? I don't know about you, but I'd prefer people who are a little more representative of the world.
Nope. As you undoubtedly noticed, I did not say that ICANN had the authority to regulate the Internet.
You're attempting to insert race into the argument, which I reject, as I do your attempts to insert economic theory.
If you wish to see an organization created with legitimate authority to regulate a global activity such as the Internet, then the only way to do that is to create a global democratically elected organization to which existing states cede a portion of their sovereignty. An undemocratic organization like the UN can never create legitimacy where none exists simply by appointing people of different skin colors and different ideologies to some committee.
Democracy is the only legitimate form of government that can claim to be representative, and it isn't created by fiat of unelected bureaucrats who themselves lack legitimacy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
In case you haven't noticed, that's exactly how the Internet is constructed. Everybody builds their own TCP/IP networks. This has been done since TCP/IP was specced out.
It is the connecting them together that creates the Internet. Just a fraction of the networks that comprise the Internet are US-owned today.
You suggest that those who don't like the US having the final say on everything should go play in their own yard. How unusual. Well, every country has their own TCP/IP networks, already. To say that one particular country should own all worldwide connections BETWEEN such independent networks is arrogant, naive, and unhelpful.
This is something that's built together, so it makes sense that it should be looked over by a common body.
The rest of the world has brought us Radical fundamentalism, naziism, racism, hatred, greed, french/belgian attempted control.
No no no no no.
Its horrible what europe has. They make nice fiddly cathedrals, and great german cars, but no thank you to an internet run by the UN. We'll have things about "Dignity" and bans against things some diplomat says shouldn't be allowed.
Ugggh. Its the worst of all possible worlds. Its worse than 1984 because at least in 1984, the government was so obviously bad. The world governments are awful, but they put a pretty face on it.
Uggghg. THe thought of UN control of the internet is enough to make me sick an puke. Just a horrible horrible thought.
The problem is that they have to first define what constitutes an abuse of the system. And knowing how restrictive some of the countries are, there is a danger that the expression of political dissent, among other things, would be defined as abuse, and then their effort isn't such a good thing anymore.
The same UN that has Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Togo, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam on its Commission on Human Rights.
we all know how the UN has made the world a better place.
The Internet is functioning great and is fairly democratic. We dont need the UN . We are happy.
how small is infinity?
we should just leave them in charge for a while, and when we are communicating with drum signals again, we can see who was right and who was wrong.
;-)
Um, this has already been done.
By Americans.
You just haven't been paying attenion.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
i think you can easily foresee the internet that they have planned. any time these governing bodies ask a question and can't understand the answer, they will just say 'we cannot have that on the innernet. cut that out of the flowchart.'
whatever roms and processes they expect will be required to operate online will be easy to copy or spoof, keeping the illusion of their dumb terminal in front of your preferred machine. the problem won't be hacking around their off-limits innernet, the problem will be data laws that people keep crying for to solve every little problem such as spam and DOS.
see even if you decide to spoof the dumb terminal, all you will be able to use your coveted secret computer for is local processing of data. you won't be able to 'surf' so to speak, unless it appears to be the dumb terminal doing the surfing, which means you may as well just stick to the DT. even by hiding your real surfing steganographically within seemingly innocent or innocuous DT surfing, the stego will appear to be erroneous data and you will either be asked to stay offline until your terminal is repaired or your house will just be burned down. in any case, nobody will be out there to stego surf with you except other people who've hidden machines behind spoofed DTs.
the problem, again, are the laws attempting to control data. it will just become against the law to produce unpredicted data. this will be seen as a way to eliminate both errors and malice. the conclusion is that the internet will cease to be a thing that once inspired dreams of a vast neural network coming 'alive' and will instead be something like kitsch wallpaper with about as much function as 'ta-da!' a toaster (or credit card.)
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Gee, if the UN controls the internet, I can just see all the Arab countries voting Israel to be disconnected because .il is not a "recognized" TLD... just like the Magen David Adom (Red Jewish Star, the ambulance service in Israel) was forbidden entry into the Red Cross association by the Arabs because the Jewish Star is not an "officially recognized symbol"... Is this the type of Internet you want? This type of nonsense is not limited to the Arab-Israeli situation but can be transposed to any similar situation... perhaps Russia v. Chechenya for example?
"I have a crippling back injury so I have to take my trust fund and go skiing"
HP has one of the largest internal networks in the world, if not THE largest.
Buying the folks who made the PDPs (you remember, they were many of the machines on the Internet for a long time) didn't hurt. Sure they could return the Class A and the C's that are redundant. Do YOU wanna change from one major network to another number? How fast? Just gonna change the DHCP servers and reboot? Good luck with that.
If we pretend ICANN has no authority and act like that, will they go away? (it's how most countries treat the UN).
"ITU (this is a UN-ITU joint summit, isn't it?) is perfectly competent to handle the technical issues linked with numbering and naming. They do it very well already for the phone [itu.int] and for a portion of the OID tree [alvestrand.no]."
The ITU takes forever to decide that a ball is round.
Its a typical french/diplomat thing. The ITU is as relevant as...well, the UN.
it seems like most of the internet is already stored. wouldn't forking the implementation be expected?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
...is good for the gander.
Now he knows how it feels, for all those ejected from ICANN GAC meetings.
Now he knows how it feels, when the ICANN public comments meetings are skipped over entirely.
Now he knows how it feels, when all the non-commercial interests within ICANN are ignored.
Suck it up, Paul. It's just one of your own chickens, coming home to roost.
.@.
You see the Internet isn't really ruled by the US. There is nothing stopping any nation or any person from doing things there own way. Don't like ICANN and the roots? Setup your own DNS root servers. It not only can be done, it HAS been done. OpenNIC is a great example (www.opennic.unrated.net). They run their own roots and offer TLDs that ICANN does not. You, your country or block of countries is free to do the same.
Same thing for the network at large. No one says your IP based network has to connect to the internet, or obey the same rules. An example of one that doesn't would be Internet 2. It's a network in the US that allows only research instutions (schools, research labs, etc) to connect to it. Normal Internet traffic never passes over it. Run by Indiana University primarly.
You aren't required to play by ICANN's rules on the Internet, nor are you required to be a part of the Internet to have a large IP based network.
... it's true. I've been much happier since I started ignoring the UN. It's not like the UN has any relevance whatsoever in the contemporary world. Now if we could just get them to relocate to Geneva and free up valuable space in New York city ....
And I, for one, welcome our new UN overlords...
ICANN is a pain in da butt, and from what I recall is becoming more so with the outing of the "netizen representatives". *sigh* These tie wearing techno-nitwits are going to screw the system up good. ICANN, UN, whatever. If it is not built and run by geeks (read: technologically proficient) I have little faith that anything good will come of it, which brings me to the point.
OpenNIC is a geek run DNS system. Just change your DNS servers to point at theirs and go, or if you are a little more gung ho get your ISP to run a tier3 DNS server. Will resolve OpenNIC and ICANN domains and is transparent to the end user.
It is also a fully democratic system with the OpenNIC members voting on new domain TLD's and membership is open to all not just MegaCorps. Jump over and take a look, I think their success will be a good thing(tm).
Maybe since this private organization all of a sudden figures out that their "power" is just as arbitrary as we all knew it was, this is puts more weight on the UN members to have good counsel. Think about it, it is most definitley in each of the members best interest to have a very good tech counsel at hand for this no matter what agenda you think they are working tward. And what counsel do you think that is? not ICANN members, I can tell you that. So good, now those holier-than-thou ICANN members who tried to cut out all real debate are cut out of the discussion and the world takes ICANN's _utterly_ arbitrary power away just a little bit. Good, I'm glad.
glad, glad, glad, glad.
That, as you correctly pointed out, the UN is NOT a world government. They have no real authority to do anything. Basically it's a forum for nations to try to come to an agreement, but with little that can be done if a minority says no and does their own thing.
The problem from this is then that so many people, including many of the UN diplomats, feel that they ARE a world government, and should be allowed to impose their will. Like claims that the US and crew went against the UN on the war with Iraq. Well that implies that:
1) The UN told the US et al not to go to war. (They didn't, the US would have vetoed anyhow)
2) That they had the authority to do so. (They don't)
3) That they could do anything about it if the US disobeyed. (They can't)
Well that's not the case. What happened was the US failed to convince the other nations to commit to a war with Iraq (via the UN) and so went ahead with a war without their support. Since the UN isn't an international government, there's nothing they could do.
Video compression standards for the last 2 generations have been pretty much ITU build, with a MPEG stamp of approval for appearances.
The meeting will address four topics: Internet governance, the use of excess bandwidth to help development, connecting more people to communications networks and finding the appropriate technologies. At the heart of each of the four discussions will be the question of what role government and intragovernmental agencies should play.
So they're trying to facilitate all these aspects. I now everyone is a bit worried about issue 1, governance. Fair enough. But every other issue they are discussing is good. And if they can address them in a global manner they may well improve the digital world.
Back to issue 1, just forget for a minute any preconceptions you have about how crap you think the UN is, or how lame dipomats are and read and think about what the meeting is for:
1) The fact that ICANN runs the Internet's address system is not necessarily good. They are a private company, why should they be in charge of all the addresses? Should MIT *really* have more IP addresses than China?
2) If you're talking about human rights violations, why isn't having the UN excerting some pressure on nations where connections are firewalled to *not* monitor Internet connections good? (they may not be out to impose chinese firewalls on the rest of the world, perhaps they don't want china to run the firewall they do)
3) Of all the people who are supposedly at the meeting (including Tim B-L, Nicholas Negroponte, Esther Dyson) don't you think it's a bit weird that there's such a fuss because they kicked out the ICANN guy. I don't think this is a major conspiracy, it's just a conflict of interest having them there.
The UN might be spineless, and this whole meeting will probably amount to nothing, but I don't think everyone should be rubbishing it so much. The UN isn't out to make life tough for everyone, and they do have some admirable goals.
Dont let it fall in the hands of people who have no other motive than making money either ... at least not if you dont have some power over them.
... we need a third option.
Rock, hard place
Are you out of your mind? These people used their newspapers and TVs to incite ethinic cleansing - to coordinate a genocide in detail, even broadcasting instructions to the troops doing the actual killings. How long do you think a radio or TV station would last in the United States after it started inviting people to kill their black or Jewish neighbours? Are this the people you are defending?
"NRA may buy TV station: Would allow group to avoid limits on campaign financing"
cpeterso
I remember Esther Dyson speaking at SIGGRAPH 2002 in San Antonio. She talked about how DNS was the first truly global, flat address space where everyone could have their own little plot of land, so to speak.
Apparently she'd never heard of (a) the postal system, or (b) the phone system. Both of which reach much further than the internet does.
I actually got up and asked her about all this 'value-added' crap we're being sold; asked her exactly why it's being sold to people who've shown no interest in it whatsoever. Eh, it was more than a year ago, and the exact memory grows faint. Point is, I did a Q at a several thousand person Q&A, and pimp-slapped Esther Dyson.
Bah. She never seemed relevant to me. A remainder from the era of 'cyber' and 'HotWired' and the internet buzz pre-1997.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Unlike the rest of the first world, they refuse to stop using landmines and rarely condemn the occupation of Palestinian land outside Israel's borders. They've also got one of the world's largest caches of
Oh yeah, and they keep prisoners of war in prison camps outside their country for years on end without access to lawyers.
They also could put pressure on Israel to sign the anti torture decree, but don't
No, we don't. Quite frankly, we haven't noticed and wouldn't care if we did. I don't know where people are getting that tired old line, but it's pretty much meaningless.
Only corporations which successfully order their governments to support the American war on terror will be allowed to do business on tomorrow's Internet. Anything else is a security risk.
However, we must make some concessions to China, so that the workers making 65% of their exports to America who are working directly for American corporations don't get wrong ideas, and subvert Wal-Mart's (which sells 20% of our imports from China) security.
[And the banner says: "Exclusive: Microsoft's new security strategy."]
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The rest of the world couldn't care less if this or that DoD Cold War project, where millions upon millions of US tax dollars were dumped, turned out to be a good idea after all.
Can the US afford, at this point, to be left taliking with itself? Really? How would all the American companies exproting jobs, plants and projects talk to their slavas, I mean, contractors across the world? By phone? No, that is regulated by the same body discussing the Internet now...Are the US interested in an American only network? I don't think so - there is too much money to be made keeping the communication lines open.
So, get over it. The rest of the world does not give a flying fuck that American citizens paid for the American network (because they haven't paid for the infrastructure elsewhere). If a global network exists, there is nothing wrong that a global body controls it and not some company taken out of the White House's hat...
In principle they support the killing of anyone, anywhere, by anyone else.
Obviously HP had its own class A, and DEC acquired from Compaq would have another A. But didn't Compaq also have one?
UN: "Hand over control of the internet to us (the un), and take it away from icann."
Bush (or whoever's president at the time) needs to say "Screw you. No."
Yes! Then when the whole thing turns into a massive shitfight, the net will be controlled by spammers and crackers with a few US based commercial organizations guarding over the good stuff.
As another reply mentioned, the dominant language on the Internet is English because that's the way it developed, not because of some conspiracy that should "rub people the wrong way." People are free to do whatever they want. English is the language of choice among air-traffic controllers and pilots around the world, also. Should English-speaking nations apologize for that, too?
The postal system was created by the UK, in the UK. The rest of the world wants to take control of something they did nothing to create.
Everybody knows each delegation, no matter how big, has only one vote, right?
The list above, in most cases, screams "travel opportunity" for poor country diplomats...
Don't think so: Compaq's internal cpqcorp.net adopted DEC's 16.*
Quite frankly, we haven't noticed.
You rarely do. Honestly go read an international paper or something. Seriously... you really think CNN and FOX are going to tell you what a lot of Australians, Britons and Canadians think of your country?
To be fair, I'd say it's more US foreign policy and general disregard/disdain for the rest of the world that people dislike so much about the US. The "if they disagree with us, well who cares, we'll bomb the crap out of them anyway" attitude. Like a spoiled brat who doesn't get what he wants so he storms off and ignores the rest of the kids, only stopping to kick the shit out of a stray dog on the way home.
No, I'm *NOT* defending these people.
I'm simply pointing out that the UN has decided to appoint itself as the arbiter of speech rights.
is available at his blog on O'Reilly. It points out that there is supposed to be no organization with power over the internet and that ICANN has always claimed just to be a sort of "technical facilitator". It mentions the Open Root Server Coalition and although it doesn't mention the OpenNIC guys, it's worth having a look at their more serious project.
I notice a lot of fighting in the comments about whether the UN sucks or not and whether they're worse than ICANN. Simple fact of the matter is that neither of these bodies (or any body that isn't truly democratic) should have any control over OUR internet. Fighting over which master we bow to is a bit ridiculous.
I did notice. But there are only two choices right now.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but economics and race are relevant to this. There are a lot people in many countries who know that the rich in (overwhelmingly caucasian) developed countries have a disproportionate share of money and power, and they want to make sure they have more say in what is going to happen next. This is about money, this is about ideology, and this is about race, but more than anything, it is about the symbolism. This would be a less of an issue if ICANN were truly independent and autonomous. I imagine just the idea of the whole Internet somehow being governed from California is unpalatable for some people.
I agree that the UN is undemocratic, but I think it is the best that is available right now, and the question over who governs the internet will need to be resolved before any good replacement for the UN appears. I agree with everything you say about the right way to do this, but I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime.
To get back to your original comment, there are countries that may find a legitimate need for some amount of regulation on data flow (Canada has been doing it on traditional media for decades), and the fine line between justified regulation and the countries you mention is the one that whoever governs the internet will have to tread. Although I'm sure that ICANN is competent enough to do it, the US government and the way they approach international and domestic affairs doesn't fill me with hope for the future. So in my opinion, the ITU/UN wins this one by default.
What you may really mean is "why hasn't America invaded". There is no oil there don't you get it(ha, ha). So basicly you aren't for going to war against a murdurous dictator, but against a (relatively) democratic state, the only (well really closest to) democratic state in the region. Another often voiced attitude is "don't do it anywhere if you can't do it everywhere. Trust me we do try, but reality dictates that we can't. Beside anyone who thinks that it was Gulf War I and II, is blind it was really Parts I, II, III, we had been fighting a low grade war on Iraq since Kuwait was liberated. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Bush and I intend to vote against him again next year, but I aways find it amazing that some people "cannot see the forest for the trees".
Besides, if you still think that Isreal (Palistine) needs to be liberated, I suggest that you take it up with your own government, our (the U.S.) military is already a little over extended.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
They can build their own ass-nets which no one will use.
To quote uncommon wisdom, "Fuck them. Fuck them in their stupid asses."
The reasonable countries will want to either be part of the internet, or seemlessly interoperate with it. The dumbasses can choose their own beds and lay in them. ICAAN might be somewhat short of ideal, but it is worlds away from the pit of corruption and legendary incompetence that is the UN.
You want to get shot? Step one: Tell an American what he must do with his stuff in his own house for your convienence. Step two: Bang!
And to the world: Fuck you very much. I'm so sorry that my tax dollars, and my parents tax dollars weren't spent with you foremost in their our hearts and thoughts. I can't tell you how much it pains me that our lack of precognition, and magnanimous generosity in creating a super-network without a cover charge have resulted in a situation that doesn't suit everyone's momentary whims. Boo fucking hoo. I cry for you I really do, if only because your world is so small. Maybe if you didn't bitch about every boon, and non-problem that you found yourselves confronted with, maybe we wouldn't get it in to our heads that if it needs doing we'll have to do, regaurdless of what the world has to say. It's not like you know what you want anyway, beyond a vague desire for someone else to pay for your comfort that is.
You want a say? Pony up. Each country who wants to be on our internet can pay the (GDP_internet/GDP_World) x Some_constant x GDP_of_member_country. Then you can have a fucking say.
Their draft declaration is only available in MS Word format. So whose REALLY in charge I wonder.. :P
You obviously know little about ferrets if you think it only might get lonely if forced to spend thirty seconds (or, dear god! a whole minute!) alone....
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
for one of the most insightful posts I've read on the topic.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
The only other genuine threat to the Internet also occured in the late 1980s, when the Europe and the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) tried to replace the Internet TCP/IP communicaton protocol standards with something called OSI/TP4/X25. Basically it was an attempt by the world PTT (Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone) monopolies to wrest control of the Internet out of the hands of the US government. The PTT monopolies are especially strong in the 3rd world countries and they dominate the ITU, which sets world telephone standards.
The ITU is a big reason why phone calls to 3rd world countries are so ridiculously expensive. The bureaucracy of the ITU is Kafka-esque: The OSI documents for TP4/X25 are written in uncomprehensible legalese and you must pay through the nose just to peek at them. (This was one reason why OSI failed - TCP/IP was evangelized through the wide distribution of the source code of BSD Unix; OSI had no equivalent.)
If the EU/ITU/UN had taken over the Internet 15-20 years ago with OSI/TP4/X25, today instead of paying $29.95/month for your megabit DSL you would be paying ten times that amount for your X25/ISDN connection at 64kps.
But this is all on the dustbin of history. The war is over and decentralization has won. The modern Internet is a concatenation of millions of independent networks that all agree to talk to each other voluntarily (the word "Internet" comes from the term "inter-network"). World connectivity happens through an untold number of independent bi-lateral contractual agreements between peering ISPs.
The only centralization on the Internet is at the root DNS nameservers. These suffer ICANN only by the grace of their respective independent owners. (The largest owner of root nameservers being the US Department of Commerce.) There is nothing to prevent them from bolting and setting up their a new root DNS, or from anyone else using an alternet root DNS.
The transnational progressives and lefty social engineers can chit-chat all they want at their UN workshops about how they want to govern the Internet. But as a practical matter it is a waste of hot air. Kind of like meeting to create World Peace or end World Hunger. The real world just doesn't work that way.
This debate seems to have become too nastily focused directly on the UN.
If you forget about the UN, the point is that the internet has become one global infrastructure, and although everyone acknowledges and thanks ARPA, Licklider, IETF and ICANN and all the others that built into what it is, the point is that many aspects of it are international, and the various aspects of its management (I say that rather than use the loaded word 'governance') need to be looked at and kept in check. Basically it looks like the UN is facilitating this: and although the outcomes of the UN could be criticised the actual outcomes of the UN, but it's widely acknowledged that the UN is _at least_ a forum and meeting place for discussion between nations. Also, places like the UN council aren't some entity by self: they're basically just a representation of nations: to say that the UN has failed - e.g. in the case of iraq - is not quite correct: what failed was nations to come to an agreement. And it's okay for nations to fail to come to an agreement because this is a good sign of dissent.
The problem here is that ICANN has no real authority either. People only listen to them because it's more convenient to listen to them and agree on a standard than it is to go with some other system. IANA still controls IP addresses, and they only did that at the whim of the RIRs, so your argument is invalid.
Abiding by decisions made by ICANN (Or IETF or IEEE for that matter) is completely voluntary. But then again, so is being connected to the Internet in the first place. The Internet has always worked on the system of "We'll all get together and agree on a standard. If you don't like the standard, convince others that your idea is better. If you don't agree, we don't have to route your packets." And it should remain that way. Does that mean people in the nations that worked on making the Internet what it is today get more say than nations being hooked up currently do? Of course! But then again, with nigh on forty years of experience in making this thing work, they should!
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
2022: Prophet
(1) IP6. The solution to whatever IP address shortages there are - no matter if they are perceived or real. Split the space using ISO country codes for the two most significant digits of the 128-bit address space, leaving 112 bits for each country to allocate as it sees fit.
.COM / .ORG and the like should be global. Country codes to be used, eg:
Nobody should give a damn what another country does with their own nameservers, provided root lookups are accessable to the outside world. If you want to buy a domain in another country, deal with that country's registrar.
I've never felt that addresses ending with
slashdot.org - From within the US
slashdot.org.us - Globally
microsoft.com - From within the US
microsoft.com.us - Globally
This is logically the way it already works - if you're inside the XX.YY domain, you can forget the YY part when addressing locally.
(2) Make the routers less dumb. If you do this, spam and DDOS attacks are both solvable problems. Sender address verification when the message is sent should make ISPs responsible for hosting spammers. You could even get routers to listen to real-time black-hole lists, stopping spam right at the edge of the network.
If the routers are allowed to talk to each other with control parameters, it should be easy to get them to "throttle back" their throughput all the way upstream to whoever is attempting a DDOS attack - but to prevent abuse it should only obeyed if data did recently pass through from the given source IP. The warning / throttle level could even be passed back down to the end-user's DSL / cable modem or computer and used to signal an "I'm being bad" light / buzzer to let the user know their computer is being used for evil.
Anyway.. I didn't think that ICANN was doing a good job, I think that the UN will be equally bad. The second that money or political motives enter the picture it all goes to hell anyway.
I've never felt that addresses ending with .COM / .ORG and the like should be global. Country codes to be used, eg:
" >Page 2</a>
slashdot.org - From within the US
slashdot.org.us - Globally
microsoft.com - From within the US
microsoft.com.us - Globally
Ok, so here's what happens:
<a href="http://www.ignorantdevelopers.com/page2.htm
suddenly results in Host Not Found for every user residing outside of the host's country.
This is one of the long-standing "truths" about the Internet that is pure FUD, mostly repeated by IPv6 pundits to pressure people into adopting their not-yet-fully-baked technology.
A link might set you straight.
Lots of comments about need for expertise not politics.
...
Politics is starting point. Every country should have same goal regarding internet. That is way diplomats are discusing internet and not experts. When diplomats get to agree what laws are they willing to support experts will do what they can in boundarys of law.
It is not best solution but it is more democratic then let one organization dictate what is technicaly best.
The Question is: will US agree with others or it will go after its on interests and make others agree with them. US will probably said that regulatory function of internet should be in hands of US goverment because it is in interest of national security. Then they send marines
Point is: everybody agree that UN is a joke but that is beacuse US makes it. No matter what UN proposes regarding internet US will have better plan how to capitalize on internet.
IANA is under the control of ICANN, so it does have some authority. It sounds like things may have changed, so this might not be the case now. Even if they have no real authority though, it is the symbolism of it that is making the whole thing a big issue.
I think that's the way it should be for technical standards, but the Internet is not just about technical standards anymore. People and governments are looking for social standards, and legal guarantees and protections. With these things, the "show us a better way or use ours" approach doesn't work. This probably goes beyond the scope of what's being discussed in Geneva, but I think it's important to keep this in mind.
The rest of the world ALREADY has its "own" internet. For mutual benefit it is connected to that of the US. Despite the fervent sweep of nationalism in the US, it had better realize pretty soon that it actually can't survive on its own, and pissing off everyone else is not so great of a plan. International commerce drives the economy everywhere, including the US. You don't really _want_ the rest of the world to disconnect from "your" internet, because you'd be screwed.
Alphanos
Say what you will regarding the lack of free speech in the US at the moment, but it's still defensible via the Supreme Court. The thought of an international incident coming from using the word "Nazi" in a Slashdot post is truly scary.
Political correctness can, for now, be somewhat trumped by rational individuals, but an international trial for "crimes" not even applicable to the country of the origin of the offense is way over the line.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Hello! This is Slashdot. Nobody RTFA. What we do is reload the article constantly until the site goes down. Then we can't RTFA anyway.
Next site, please!
This is the kind of thing I want to see asked at presidential debates. With all the talk of these Democrat candidates of felating the UN into taking over in Iraq, I want to know what they would do with the internet & ICANN. I can just see one of those assholes giving the UN whatever it wants and completely fucking over the internet in the process.
Atleast with Clinton & Bush ignore the UN, but these new guys seem like they would do anything to get the UN on their side.
Politicians, no matter which country they come from, are only concerned with their adgendas [sic].
As opposed to techies, who are concerned with... ???
I disagree with the common techy notion that having politicians run the Internet is a bad thing. I would find it a horrible breach of public trust if governments did NOT track what was going on with the Internet.
Elected officials, trying to make sure that the interests of the parties they represent are met. Shock!! Horror!!!
I know the little Libertarian in most geeks screams "Don't Tread on Me", but I think it is important for governments to be aware and possible control some Internet activity. Otherwise only the profit motive will control what is going on. Which is not necessarily best. In many cases yes, but not in all cases.
Consider the break up of AT&T. The US government broke up a company that was providing high-quality service to almost all Americans. End result? Extreme price reduction, and increased service. Not all government actions are evil. Letting markets and other forces run uncontrolled is not always a good idea.
"I don't know if the Iraq decision was right or not, but what the UN did was wrong"
How about all that money being made on the internet. They feel the need to redistribute that wealth doncha know.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
1441 was not the needed "validation" for the attack on Iraq. do yourself a favor and go read all the resolutions that preceeded.
FWIW, the original peace that allowed Saddam 10+ years of peace was dependant on his obeying the terms of surrender. Any violation left him open for military action.
As for Israel, I can't recall a single "SECURITY COUNCIL" resolution authorizing force or similar against them. There are numerous GA resolutions, but those are meaningless, let alone simply vicious attacks backed by money from third-world dictatorships.
As for supporting terrorist states, name one country not guilty of it? We cannot do much about it, and needless to say, no one else would either. Do they threaten their neighbors? For the most part the only countries allowed to do that with IMPUNITY are Russia and China. Amazing how the Eurocrats never bring those two up when it comes to unwarranted, unsanctioned, or otherwise attacks.
If you want the moral authority to judge then hold everyone to the same rules.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Last time I looked they were locking up free speech advocates.
We want these people planing on the future "internet?"
I sure as hell don't.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Ok, here goes my short rant; before all I should warn you that I'm what people tend to call "communist".
So, about the War in Iraq, the US and the UN, and the existance of a resolution allowing intervention. Who cares? Why should it be important? I find it amusing that people say it would be OK for the USA to invade Iraq under a UN mandate, but if they go solo it's "not democratic". Laughable. The Security Council *is* the UN as far as this matters are concern. Saying that having the blessing of 9 countries in the world, all there because they either won WW2 and/or have mass destruction weapons, constitutes a wordly mandate that bestows dignity on the receiver is absurd. The members of the Security Council are there because of military power. The US as that, and plenty of it. Ergo, the US does what the US wants, period. At this point I don't even care if it was right or wrong: if it was in the interest of the USA, well, why the hell not? Having a UN resolution means *nothing*. The UN itself, based as it is on a dictatorship of countries, means very, very little. All countries act on their self-interest first, the exception is that the USA actually takes actions.
In the end, the power remains in the hand of who has the means to use the weapons they have (be it warheads or multinationals). It hasn't change a bit from the same rules we had 1000 years ago, and sometimes I think that the UN only exists as a mean to make this fact less visible by hiding it with words like "rights", "law" and "democracy".
The "ridiculous" in the US won't have you buried in a field with hundreds of others. It won't have your family picked up and buried there too. It won't have you and your friends disappeared.
Sorry, you mock the suffering many people go through daily with such a stupid comparison.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The point is that nobody runs the Internet. Not ICANN, not the US, not anybody. Certian people, groups, companies, and contries run or at least influence some control over parts of it, but its'a decentralised entitiy that no one runs.
Different groups can impose different rules and do their own thing, and that's cool. Like I think it would be great if the EU started their own DNS service. Setup some root servers, get a registration system that offers non-ICANN domains, etc. Then, offer to partner with ICANN, the EU roots carry ICANN data, the ICANN roots carry EU data.
This is the way to do things. Use the Internet's totally open nature to setup your own services and either compete with or work with those that are out there.
The UN thing reeks of a few countries that are, all said and done, irrelivant to the Internet trying to grab control. Not technical control, I can't see any of the diplomats knowing or carring about those issues, it's content control. All contries have things they don't want on the Internet. They want to try and use the UN to force other countries to comply with their wishes.
Well forget that, I want the Internet like it is. I don't want an inefficitive entitiy like the UN trying to tell contries what they may or may not put on the Internet.
Also, the people with the most control are actually the large telecoms, people like AT&T and Level-3. If a number of them simply shut of their routers it would destroy the Internet as we know it for quite some time.
why aren't you a poletician, then? if you are so much better than they? i suppose perhaps you live in a repressive third world nation of some sorts, and if that's the case, i'm sorry to hear this.
in my country, our poleticians tend to be as clueless as the public, but for the most part they are good-willed. even the most 'far right' fascistsic of them tend to really want to help the people who they serve. of course there's very little resulting difference as far as results go, but what you need to solve this problem is more democracy and mabye some more education/thinking in your home country.
if the public is onto stupid blame games, and other poletics-as-usual, playing them becomes less and less important, in a darwinistic way.
on the other hand, if the public is stupid, theres little you can hope for beyond a stupid ruler...
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
You made an excellent point and you are using your intellect instead of emotion.
/.
This is
Flying off half-cocked and over-reacting is encouraged.
The average poster here is something of a cross between chicken little and Agent Fox Mulder.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
First, it should be noted we developed the protocols and the resolution methodology. As the current level of success of the internet seems to indicate, we're proficient in the field without forcing it on anyone.
Second, we are the rest of the world. 99.8% of the US population has completely 'foreign' ancestry. Spitting and railing against the US is no more intelligent than spitting and railing against your own family, and vis versa.
If the UN has some legitimate concerns about the current administration of the internet, it can hardly exceed the complaints vetted here. Out of respect for our own populous, we should at least listen to suggestions offered without experiencing immediate cardiac arrest.
After all, we get a yearly infusion of the best and brightest people from everywhere; the very least we can do is listen in bemused silence, and THEN start lobbing hand grenades. If secreat meetings @ the UN actually caused anything to happen, the US would've disappeared in a blazing white vapor decades ago, so having a sense of humor is probably in order.
The same slashdot crowd who are agaisnt pantents, copyright, censorship. Now they are saying you spend money developing it you can do whatever the fuck you want with it, and others shouldnt be able to use it?
The use of the UN to regulate the Internet won't, based on previous UN behavior, do anything at all to improve the health and wealth of poor nations. (Look at the Sec-Gen's loopy remarks yesterday the Internet.) But, it will provide some of their governments with another means to restrict the freedom of their citizens. Trading illusions of national dignity for personal freedom is a very bad mistake.
The Internet doesn't need government regulation. It needs agreed technical standards and the freedom of people to use it. People who want to regulate Internet content are simply using the Internet as an excuse to regulate content creation. It's analgous to governments 500 years ago claiming that they needed to regulate the printing press. I wasn't the press that scared them, it was all those books.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
ICANN is not alone in being excluded from important WSIS-related meetings. Representatives of both the U.S. government and ICANN were excluded from a meeting convened by the President of Switzerland. At the meeting, a senior official from the International Chamber of Commerce, apparently acting on his own behalf, proposed placing ICANN under the U.N. umbrella. For more information, please see www.ICANNfocus.org.
There is a VERY good reason why Israel hasn't been invaded - they have comprehensively kicked the shit out of every one of thier neighbors who have tried - all within the confines of conventional warfare, in spite of being a nuclear nation. Which one of thier neighbors is really up to getting smacked down again these days? That is the NUMBER 1 reason Isreal hasn't been invaded. In fact, the US spends a lot of money to both keep Isreal strong enough to do that, and to keep some level of influence of when they do it. I'm neihter condoning nor condeming these policies - just stating that they exist.
The heights of genius are only measurable by the depths of stupidity
Gee, thanks, U.N.! Tomorrow they'll tell us "Oh, we figured it out! Let's just wait for low-tech countries to use the web, since when they need web pages in their language, they'll create them!"
This ought to rankle you more: "Sara Kyofuna, a spokeswoman for the group that is looking for a donation of a million PCs for the continent's classrooms, said open source software is too complicated for some schools to run, and, if something goes wrong, there are no support staff."
Of course, Slashdot noted all kinds of support systems, including the technology community, that top the centralized, paid-only tech support that boys like Ballmer provide.
I guess real world government trumps virtual government.
Are we 'netizens' with any unalienable rights? Or, is this just a pipe dream?
Those of us who do not wish to descend into a vanilla world of producers and consumers, and controls on how we lash up our machines need to set up an 'Alternet' based on long distance WiFi and a broadband version of a mesh network.
Granted, the military could jam us off the air. I don't think we would be worrying about our network freedom as much as our physical freedom at that point anyway.
While this is probably paranoid drivel, it does concern me that someone in a room far away can decide how I can use a socket connection to my Dad's computer (halfway accross the continent) over the internet. Will the 'haves' decide that the 'have nots' are abusing the technology at the expense of their bottom lines, and butcher the net to create a new kind of 'television' - producer/consumer model? If so, what can we do about it?
When networks are outlawed, only outlaws will have networks.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
This pretty much summarizes all of your misconceptions about the UN:
Ummmm, duuh. That's why the title for the human being who sits behind the "UNITED STATES" placard is "Ambassador". Like all of our ambassadors he is appointed and it is his job to represent our country. Strictly speaking, Ambassador Negroponte isn't a member of the UN. The United States is a member of the UN. Ambassador Negroponte is our representative to the UN. Like the rest of our Ambassadors, our Federal Judges, and many other positions in our country, he's appointed, not elected.
The UN is a place for all of the nations of the world, even ones who are at each other's throats, can get together and try to work things about. Convincing everyone to stick around is a tricky job and means you have to be absolutely even handed, even if being even handed seems stupid. The big picture is that it's important to keep these people talking so we can try and move forward through peace. Judging a country evil and throwing them out isn't going to convince them to shape up. They'll still be evil, but they won't be talking to us. For example...
Anywhere where you want to be inclusive. Is it worth throwing them out and risking the delicate political structure that brought them to the table? There isn't any risk of these countries pushing some evil agenda through the Commission. There are 53 member countries. Do you think at least some of them might stop such an evil scheme? Furthermore, who has the authority to judge the acceptability of a potential member. Do we need a Commission on the Commission on Human Rights to screen potential members? And a Commission on the Commission on the Commission to screen them?
International politics is hard. Just getting everyone to the table is hard. Don't dismiss that effort out of hand.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Man mod this person up.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Maybe they make most of their money from the US, and maybe it's a pain to abide by regulations etc. overseas. But even if the overseas markets aren't as profitable as the US ones for such a company, it still increases shareholder value to sell overseas. Don't believe me? That's how pharmaceutical companies operate - and they're still willing to sell even in coutries which artificially limit the price of drugs.
Now for countries based somewhere other than the US, they have to abide by local regulations anyway. A hypothetical UN DNS system would just be another regulation, like all the others they have to follow.
Wow, with a belief system like that, I seriously would not be surprised if during your life you are convicted of murder or rape. Either that or you're from the midwest.
This is flamebait? How? Its on topic, and its true (if you don't agree, prove it otherwise rather than trying to censor me).
I own my piece, you own your piece, there is no "public" component.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Until MIT sends me more spam than China does that is.
Need Mercedes parts ?
(a) I didn't actually say the postal system/phone system comment at the Q&A. Note that I didn't say I did. My question was on the proliferation of 'value-added' crapware.
(b) So, wait, just because someone speaks at an event, they're relevant, smart and right? Shit, someone needs to slip the President a memo on this one!
If growing up means that I can't criticize the stupid, the irrelevant and the foolish, then boy, am I glad to be a kid.
*still pissing into the wind*
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Last time I checked, niether the UN nor ITU were standards bodies or members of the internet community. They can hold all the meetings they want but that's won't affect 'The Net'. If they want input in to how the internet works, they'll have to participate in the process like everyone else does, and that includes working with ICANN. Otherwise, there little more than another hitless web site.