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UN Wants To Regulate Internet
LegendOfLink writes "News.com has good interview with the UN's ITU Director, Houlin Zhao, and his desire to regulate the internet. He says
"One of the most important changes was the early stages, when the Internet started, when ICANN started in 1998. The purpose was to exclude governments (but that didn't work). People realize today that the governments worldwide have to play a role.
People say the Internet flourished because of the absence of government control. I do not agree with this view. I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service? If there are any Internet governance structure changes in the future, I think government rules will be more important and more respected." "
"Countering spam is just one of many elements of protecting the Internet that include availability during emergencies and supporting public safety and law enforcement officials," Zhao wrote in December.
I'm sorry but the Internet shouldn't be limited in speech and this is exactly what could happen if some "governing body" takes over enforcement of Spam laws. Yeah, it would start as Spam but it would quickly move to other communications that aren't as negatively viewed by the public.
I am sticking to the belief that spam is something that should be handled by local groups not government authorities. We just had a discussion yesterday about people not contributing to their governments and instead expect their governments to do everything for them. Well, this is an unnecessary waste of time/money/energy that can be avoided if people take steps to protect themselves and their email.
The slippery slope starts like this remember.
One of the most important changes was the early stages, when the Internet started, when ICANN started in 1998. The purpose was to exclude governments (but that didn't work). People realize today that the governments worldwide have to play a role.
Who realizes that? I surely don't. China is taking a "role" governing their Internet connection to the world and what does it do? It attempts to limit the freedom of information because it knows that it is a possible negative influence on the longevity of its governmental system. I certainly don't want some other body telling me what I can and cannot see because it may negatively influence my views on it.
People say the Internet flourished because of the absence of government control. I do not agree with this view. I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service? If there are any Internet governance structure changes in the future, I think government rules will be more important and more respected.
And when there is direct government control how do you get it? Through the filters that are put in place. The Internet is the one place where you can still dig through millions of different opinions to form your own rather than being fed the same stale bullshit that your government wants you to hear.
Do not fall for their promises of freedom from spam. It will do nothing but erode further the real freedoms that the Internet has created for the global community.
If there are any Internet governance structure changes in the future, I think government rules will be more important and more respected." Um no.. as all governments inevitably trend toward maximum control and subjugation of their citizens, it is every citizens right and duty to oppose information control as information control is the method by which populations loose their freedom.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
The internet brought to you by the folks who brought you Oil for Food!!!
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
I trust this guy about as far as I can throw a Chevy Suburban.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
They have an impeccable record of getting things right. Look at Dafur, Rwanda, Sudan, Food for Oil. Lets hand it over!
There are so many ways this is bad. So it's not a challenge nor even an interesting thought-experiment to write something about why this would be bad.
Instead, I would like to challenge someone to explain how this could possibly be a good thing.
P.S. The minute the UN controls the Internet is the minute I start a new network of unregulated computer systems on all the dark fiber.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
People say the Internet flourished because of the absence of government control. I do not agree with this view. I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service?
This makes no sense. Is the submitter saying that somehow, UN mandates or regulation regarding internet access will guarantee internet access in nations whose governments oppose it?
The UN has no autonomous authority, save for what it is granted by member nations.
If anything, the Iraq situation should have taught us that the UN's edicts are meaningless. There were binding security council resolutions not only allowing, but compelling, member nations to act to force Iraq into compliance, and scores of instances of verified, documented, UN-acknowledged material breach of its binding resolutions on the part of Iraq. And still, there was no meaningful action. Some UN member nations ended up having to act on their own. To say nothing of the massive corruption in the UN's management of the Oil for Food Programme that is *still* coming to light.
UN regulation of the internet (save for standards bodies such as the ITU) is the worst think you could possibly wish for if unfettered access to information via the internet is your ultimate goal.
If the UN were actually run well, as opposed to the debacle it is now, they might have a leg to stand on. They should clean up their own act first before trying to grab more power for themselves.
And that's completely beside the point anyway; the Internet it doing just fine without them now, thank you.
[...] Zhao, a former government official in China's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications [...]
Oh yes, exactly whom I want to manage the Internet. [/sarcasm]
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
"The U.N. is a place where governments opposed to free speech demand to be heard!"
Circumcision is child abuse.
The UN performs some roles well - it brings attention to the plight of some disadvantaged peoples and organizes aid when members feel it is convenient...but as an enforcement agency it is completely toothless.
A chinese communist telling us how the internet should run. That's like having an impotent virgin gay man telling me how to fuck my wife.
I say we start by censoring this guys mouth, then he can tell us whatever he wants.
Will code a sig generator for food
Meanwhile...
Ah, much better. See how well compromise works?
....that only the UN could come up with. "People realize today that the governments worldwide have to play a role. People say the Internet flourished because of the absence of government control. I do not agree with this view. I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service?" Yeah, you mean like China? They dont mind you having internet access, just dont dare actually use it for anything other than finding out how wonderfull the Chinese government is. I also like the bit: "People realize today that the governments worldwide have to play a role." Really? Who are these people that realize this? Governments? Also the whole idea here is assinine, you dont want gov. involvement, what you REALLY want is for the gov.'s to say they will enforce you rules, and to entwine yourself deeply enough with an entrenched and RELEVANT (thats the key word) institution so that when the inevitable days comes that more people say "wtf is the UN even doing anymore?" you can point and say "we keep the internet safe for your govern....I mean kids." No thanks, keep your outmoded sluggish bureaucracy and my own countries sluggish bureaucracy out of the internet. IF they want to regulate the internet they should damned well be forced to contribute. Don't sit there and say how we can and cannot use the internet and then stay out of infrastructure matters and upgrade issues. It's like "Hey I want to tell you what to do but I don't want to be responsible for actually contributing to this, you build it, you pay for it, i'll say what you can do with it after that." NO THANKS
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
This is all we need for the internet. The guy who ran the great firewall of china, running the internet. Government shouldn't be involved with the first and best example of how open standards flurish growth away from the involvment of government. Plus the UN involved just spells corruption at the highest level, like the oil for food program, I wonder what the internet equivilent of that is?
I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service?
Replace the government.
There you are, staring at me again.
People say the Internet flourished because of the absence of government control. I do not agree with this view. I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service?
Non-Sequitur and Begging the Question.
Yeah, let's definitely give the job to this guy.
What really concerns me is that if there were some sort of UN-sponsored treaty, certain countries that don't respect the ideas of free speech (these countries shall remain nameless) might want to include language that would allow them to interfere with activities lawful in other states. Simply put I think many governments fear a free and uncontrolled Internet. The idea that their citizens can directly, or indirectly through proxies, read things that the government doesn't think "proper" drives them up the wall. The Internet is teaching these governments fear, and now they will try to use the UN as a tool to restrain what they view as dangerous knowledge.
I do not have sufficient faith in the UN as it is presently constituted to actually protect what I consider my basic human rights. I do not want an entire mode of expression to be set on a plate where rights-violating states have any ability to moderate what I see.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
- adjudicating disputes between individuals,
- defining/forestalling unwanted behavior,
- pursuing collective goals that individuals can't (or won't) accomplish.
At that level the internet needs "a" government for handing spam, blacklists, DDoS attacks, malware, phishing, standards creation, infrastructure development, etc. What is less clear is which government.The prerequisite for a good government would seem to be: 1) an understanding of the governed system and 2) a confluence of interests that align with the governed system. These prerequisites are the basis for democracy -- who, within limits, better understands the people and is interested (at least self-interested) in the people's welfare, than the people themselves.
The rationale, heretofore, for rejecting traditional, meatspace governments (e.g., the UN) is that these groups neither understand the internet nor have the internet's interest at heart. Until someone can convince me that these other governments will do a good job, they should remain on the sidelines.
Yet I doubt that meatspace governments will remain on the sidelines because the internet is becoming too important in the real-world. Thus, I wonder how the internet community can guide the transition from self-regulation to traditional government regulation with an eye toward helping governments understand the internet and internalize the best-interests of the internet.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
As a supporter of Saddam, I do too.
...who've been as effective as the League of Nations at preventing wars and fostering international peace and a sense of global community. These people are as evil as INGSOC and as incompetent as the USPS. Yeah, let's let them regulate the Internet.
Yet one more reason for nonviolent peaceful non-co-operation being the way to the future on the Internet.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
- Replacing ICANN's US-centric control of the DNS TLD space with ITU control. That's not necessarily such a bad thing - ICANN really cares about only one definition of "IP", which is "Intellectual Property", and making sure that US-style IP owners can get what they want. This shows up not only in name dispute processes, but also in the rabidly anti-privacy requirements that ICANN imposes on all registrars for collecting "accurate" whois information, to make sure that any domain name owner can be served with a subpoena. ITU may not be better; the one advantage of ICANN is that it's theoretically possible to throw the bums out, or to have the ccTLD owners get together to ignore them.
- Subsidizing Internet Connectivity to Africa and other developing regions - Sure, everybody feels bad that poor people can't always get Internet connectivity, and it's good when charities can help. Many of the WSIS types want to imposes taxation on the richer countries' internet infrastructures to subsidize this, which is a bad idea. The right first step is to notice that almost all the countries that have trouble getting internet connectivity have Government-Run Telecom Monopolies, or privatized monopoly providers, which in most cases provide very expensive limited capacity telephones; they not only don't like competition from VOIP, they're not competent at providing Internet access, so subsidizing internet connectivity to them is a waste of money. Typical Internet cafes in much of Africa get service over satellite, which is slow and expensive but doesn't require PTT infrastructure, unlike wired service, and doesn't usually require licensing, unlike microwave service.
- Censorship - China's the biggest promoter of this definition of "Governance", but there are other countries that also don't like free presses and uncontrolled websites reporting about them, typically implemented as a part of cracking down on other violations of public values such as pornography. The "Great Firewall of China" may not be very good at preventing PCs from becoming infected zombies that send spam and DDOS attacks, but they do retain some control over citizens' access to politically incorrect websites and restrictions on internet cafes.
- Spam. Everybody hates it, and governments occasionally try to make laws to stop it. They don't work, partly because the Internet is international and it's easy to move activities to other countries, but ITU governance isn't really going to help; the most effective things they could do would be to enforce universal registration requirements even more privacy-invading than ICANN's, so that anybody with a domain name could be located. It would mainly be used for censorship rather than stopping spam; spammers may be stupid, but they're sufficiently clever and persistent to find ways around it, if nothing else using IP addresses in URLs, or hijacking domains owned by legitimate users.
Overall, it's a bad thing, and a scam.Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Oh, I don't think you have to be a US basher to see that the US government is very good at controlling information, and getting much, much better at it.
You're jesting, of course, but you seem quite happy for the US government to maintain the internet in it's interests, which is a little odd for someone railing against governing bodies attempting to regulate global communications.
It's the year of Linux! To celebrate I have x free hotmail accounts to give away
The Internet isn't owned by any one government. The Internet is the zeitgeist. It is the mass mind of mankind. Without people, the Internet is nothing. The Government does not understand the Laws of the Internet(like the laws of physics.) They think it is another network that they can control.
They're wrong.
And if they wanna try to enforce their control over the Internet with INTERPOL or something equal, they can pry it from everyone's cold dead fingers cause that is what they will have to do. 2 billion dead to control nothing.
They can take a great flying leap, as far as I'm concerned. The last thing I need is China and Saudi Arabia given any sort of input on the sort of content I'm able to see.
Canthros
The internet passes information far too quickly from person to person without respect for international boundaries for governments to be confortable.
Governments are left with few choices but to get involved because rules change drastically from country to country and their web of control is washed away like so much water over rocks. If the Internet is going to remain international, this is inevitable.
However there's the unfortunate break-down which will start to occur over the next 15-30 years. As governments sieze control over international communications on the internet, they will begin dictacting communication parameters. There will be international case law that determines what's allowed and what is not and I anticipate the creation of an government agency (a digital customs of sorts) that will police international data imports and exports. I suspect some sort of digital certificate (x509 or otherwise) system will be created very similar to our current passport system and those certificates will be used to authenticate and authorized international communications.
The technology currently exists. It's just a matter of time, political knowledge/understanding (and perhaps a few military conflicts) before governments realize the depths to which their control needs to run.
There was a time when you could get a letter from China to America so long as you knew how to get it on the boat. Eventually all of those boats came under the eyes of governing bodies and as time will show, so will our routers and data lines.
I really think the majority of replies to this thread have a very limited understanding of the current situation - we're seeing a classic example of what happens when you post the a story involving the 'UN' and 'China' to a mostly-American site.
I'll put this simply. I'm connected through a UK ISP, using UK bandwidth and networks, using UK owned equipment, and connected other than slashdot to mostly european sites/servers. All of this is being governed and controlled by a private registered company in the USA, and they have the power to make policy changes that affect my current happy arangement, without any kind of monitoring or regulation.
Do you honestly feel that your information, and the Internet, is safer in the hands of a private unregulated "not for profit" US registered company that is given it's power by the US government and gives most (if not all) of it's contracts for vital services to US for-profit companies?
Put aside your opinions on the UN and how they don't agree with everything the US says for a minute and realise that in an ideal world, an international democractic UN backed organisation to control the future of an international network is the way things should be. The UN is the best chance we have of this happening. Now I'll be the first to admit the UN aren't perfect, however run correctly (ie. by a team of technical-background individuals from multiple nations, who answer to the UN as a whole) this would be the best way to manage the worldwide Internet as we know it today. This would be infinitely better than the current US private company having full control over the world's Internet experience.
Of course, all of this is wasted, having browsed through the comments so far it it seems people are posting before thinking after seeing 'UN' on their lovely US site. And this is exactly why the situation will never change - after all, can you really see the US giving control of the web to an international organsiation? It's simply not going to happen, and nobody has the power to make them.
The reason they were all General Assembly resolutions is that the US Vetoes every single Security Council resolution that is in any way negative regarding Isreal or its actions.
No, no, please government put all kinds of controls and filters on the Internet.
All this will do is give technically savvy people such as myself much more power and would basically kick off the revolution of the Internet underground.
I like the idea of doing things that 99% of the population can't.
Seriously,
Won't market forces win out over any government regulation?
I mean, the market forces react pretty quickly. They have to. Otherwise, people won't make money. And money talks, baby!
With government regulation, imagine! You think pot-holes on public roads are bad? Freeway construction during rush hour? Lines at the DMV?
Imagine if this were the case with bad Internet service? "Sorry, Amazon can't list the latest and greatest titles, or provide you with intelligent web browsing (e.g. Welcome, Andrew!), because it has to go through the appropriate government committee first, in order to obtain approval for their updates."
Crap man, an open and free market really speeds things up, albeit with some unwanted junk like spam and stuff.
I have one word for government-regulated Internet:
SLOW-BALLS
http://augustwestproducts.i8.com
There's U.S. Government involvement with ICANN? As it should be! Should we change this? Only if we can find a more trustworthy agency to handle what is obviously a world-changing technology. While I'll admit to a native distrust of my country's government, I am also forced to admit that so far they seem to have done a pretty good job of working with the consortia which are currently managing the internet's infrastructure.
To bastardize an old expression, "if it's broke, don't fix it until you have the parts and tools!". With its history of leadership by concensus, do we really want the U.N. taking charge of the internet? What do we do when big nations with veto powers (like the U.S. or China, say) refuse to permit the U.N. to enact global changes because there will be local conditions those governments don't want to see implemented?
Bad enough to let the U.S. government have that kind of control -- to hand off to the U.N. only promises to expand geometrically the number of obstacles to progress which the internet already faces. If one government's involvement seems distasteful, imagine the heinous conditions when MANY GOVERNMENTS WITH OPPOSING AGENDAS are given the reins of power!
Who's rules do you follow on the Internet? The rules of: The country you're in? or the country who's hosting the site/service you're using?
What about conflicting copyright laws, criminal laws, and taxes? And who decides?
How does the physical location of your host affect this? What if you have a web-based retail company in Country[X] but you got a better web hosting package in Country[Y]. Technically the business is done in Country[Y], but the money goes to Country[X]. What taxes do you pay?
These issues are not going to be easy to figure out.
I have applied a small home-made rule to any of the proposed rules, and where possible written to Congresspersons to oppose certain ideas. That rule is - How many Chinese dissidents will it kill? This proposal would eventually and routinely kill a lot of Chinese dissidents. It should be vigorously opposed. Spam is a trojan horse here. The Chinese government does concern itself with Spam, they don't care. They care about dissent and they want a supra-legal support structure to enforce their censorship on a global basis. And turn over IP addresses when asked, thank you very much. I have been on-line since 1995, and have had the same corporate e-mail address for eight years now and I average two spam messages a day. I know this is low for someone in this circumstances, but there are non-governmental ways of limiting Spam. Technical ways, and procedural ways.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
If you actually watched any of those channels instead of getting your marching orders from Limbaugh, you'd know how idiotic you sound. I just got home from lunch after watching coverage on the scandal on CNN and MSNBC. And since I've known about the story since it first broke and I don't watch Fox News (now proven to make you stupid) you can bet that these networks have been covering the story. Plus, UN does not equate to "those foreigners." The only person I've heard of charged (and convicted?) of oil-for-food scamming was an *AMERICAN*. But in all honesty, I haven't been following the story all that closely because it pales in comparison to what's going on in Iraq.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The real reason the UN wants to regulate the internet: to stop the bloggers. Around the world they are being used to provide information for pro-democracy movements. Around the world they are providing information that the state controlled media can't or won't. Bloggers have become an embarassment to Kofi, and he wants them shut down.
The crackdowns have already started. In the US new proposals would give freedom of the press only to FEC approved outlets.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
1 apple plus 1 orange seems to equal 1 fruit salad.
Are you saying then that we live in a Euclidean geometry? I had deluded myself into thinking that Euclidean Geometry, Riemannian geometry, Hyperbolic Geometry and all of that stuff was just different models that we can use to describe the world around us...with different success.
The solution to spam is not government intervention, but better mail protocols. All the laws in the world are not going to fix spam, worms, spyware and various types of net attacks. Better protocols and network management are the solution to that.
I call bullshit.
Spam vs. antispam is a race between weapons and armor. In such a race weapons always win.
Viruses and antivirus tools, ditto.
Like many other forms of crime, Spam is a way to be vastly profitable by misusing other people's resources without permission. And about one person in a hundred is a psychopath, immune to social pressure. So as long as spam remains profitable and without overriding negative consequences it will continue.
Government has a role to play in ending spam: Enabling the damaged individuals to bring actions to recover their damages from the spammers. Enforcing the negative consequences of judgements on the spammers. Cutting off internet access from repeat offenders who are not swayed by purely financial consequences. Making a show of the negative consequences, to deter others considering spamming from starting.
Technical solutions won't work - there's always another hole, and anything that blocks spam can also block legitimate email. Motivational solutions are required. Until the negative consequences of spamming (weighted by their likelyhood) outweigh the positive, spamming will continue and increase.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The UN has done nothing but facilitate the oppression of people and information around the world since it's inception. They think they're the "new world order" for cooperative diplomacy.
I could spend days listing all the situations the UN screwed up just because they can't see past their own selfish policies and outdated mandates. They were created to prevent the takeover of a soverign or aligned territory by another nation and to protect the rights and freedoms of everyone on Earth. They weren't created to regulate anything. They're a diplomatic body, not a regulatory body.
Next the Vatican will say the Catholic church should regulate the Internet.