Vint Cerf on Internet Governance and Beyond

scebo writes "With the first phase of United Nations World Summit (WSIS) held in Dec of 2003 and the next phase to be held in 2005, there have been extensive debates regarding Internet Governance. Can it be governed? Who should govern it? What is Internet governance? Vint Cerf has offered his own opinion on the subject over at CircleID which attempts to answer some of the key questions raised: 'It has been suggested by some participants in the WSIS discussions that the role of ICANN might be undertaken by the traditional International Telecommunications Union (ITU). While the ITU has served the world as the international forum for the handling of many international issues associated with traditional tele-communications, the Internet has disrupted the neat categorization of various telecommunications media. It is the potential bearer of every form of communication. ICANN has evolved international processes and structures over the last six years to cope with a limited set of issues associated with this rich, complex and rapidly evolving infrastructure. The world needs an effective and well-supported ICANN but the participants in the World Summit on the Information Society and the Working Group on Internet Governance now need to turn their attention to the full panoply of public policy issues that, as discussed above, lie outside the mandate of ICANN. These need a thorough and open airing in this next phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.'"

Comments

I nominate the following candidates:

[Anonymous Coward]

The FBI
The CIA
The NSA
The MPAA
The RIAA
The USA

That was long.

[Anonymous Coward]

It had big words. Now I'm sleepy.

And since I'm not a reader. Let's pick a Texas company at random and make them wholly responsible, and we'll give them a blank check. And when we learn about the inevitable graft and pending implosion, we can say, "It's hard work. I'm working hard! I'm going to take half of July off with my normal August vacation. Which is hard."

Governed?

[Anonymous Coward]

No way, man. The internet should be free, man. Information wants to be free, man. You want the truth? YOU WANT THE TRUTH? You need the Internet. Cause when you reach over that hill and your inbox is a pile of spam, it's Chinatown baby.

Lennon on taking over the government.

[AtariAmarok]

"Begin with Telephone, Telegraph, Railroads. "

Imagine there's no telco.

It's easy if you try.

No voice mail, no phone lines.

Above us only sky.

Re:Lennon on taking over the government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine theres no /.
It isn't hard to do
Nothing troll to or flame for
And no BSD is dying too

follow the leader

[spoonyfork]

If the leader of the free world believes there should be less government in our world then let's follow his example. Ban internet governance.

Unless of course you're a young woman who's been raped and wants an abortion. Need more government there. Oh, and hot man-on-man monogamy needs more government too. Did I forget steam cell research? Yes, I did. Need more government there as well.

Re:I couldn't help but notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like this idea. Disgruntled postal workers could be used to solve the spam problem.

Re:Lawbreakings

[dgatwood]

I think we can pretty much all (spammers and scammers notwithstanding) agree to:

I am root. Thou shalt create no other root before me.
Thou shalt not steal,
Thou shalt not kill (other people's servers),
Thou shalt not copy thy neighbor's files, and
Honor thy name server and thy router.

Beyond that, all bets are off.

Re:Lawbreakings

[lachlan76]

Thou shalt not kill (other people's servers),

Well, it's been good while it lasted