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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.
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 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
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.
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?
66 from Gabon? Sheeesh. No intended offence to the Gabonese (?), but why so many from a country with a population of only 1.3 million? The trip was a good excuse to do some Christmas shopping in Europe?
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.
Are you talking about ICANN or the UN. This is just ICANN getting a taste of what they've been dishing out to the rest of us. Yes it stinks but so does the way ICANN has behaved in the past.
There's a reason the US has a reputation for breaking its treaties, and that would not help matters. Abiding by the decisions of the UN is what we agreed to do when we ratified the UN Charter (which is really just a multilateral treaty).
Don't think we should listen to the UN? Fine. Then we should pull out of the UN, or we're in violation of our treaty obligations. But UN-bashers like Bush, etc, wouldn't dare do that because even though ignoring the UN makes us look like a bunch of treacherous backstabbers to the rest of the world, we get a lot out of being in the UN, particularly out of having a permanent veto on the Security Council.
So put up or shut up is what I'm saying. Either we should pull out of the UN or we should live up to the agreements in the treaty we signed--for a change. Violating treaties left and right made us very popular with the Native Americans, and I suggest it'll do the same wonders for our popularity worldwide. And something makes me think we're not just going to mow down the entire rest of the world as easily as we did the Native Americans.
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
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...
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)