Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Won't Let Go of DNS
An Anonymous Reader wrote in with a story on the Eweek site, reporting that the Federal Government is going to keep control of the Domain Name System rather than handing it over to ICANN. From the article: "...the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS, and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file..."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/01/061825 0&tid=103
rooooar
Because ICANN is the follow-up organization to the IANA - the Internet Authority for Assigned Names and Numbers. That's a good part of what DNS is about, isn't it?
I think the real question is "why does the USA want the DNS root servers" (most of them, anyway)?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
here.
Yeah well, the agency within the UN that would administrate the TLDs, should the US release control over them, is the very same agency that made sure that the world has one telephone standard, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The ITU was founded before the UN was, and oviously, it has very little to do with human rights issues, they just happen to share some organizational structure.
This constant ignorant whining of the "the UN is a worthless piece of garbage" kind, is getting on my nerves. Educate yourself instead of repeating soundbites you heard on the news.
More info here: ITU history
I think Internet ownership pretty much ends at the borders. Perhaps it's time for alternate root DNS? Sounds a lot like a job for the UN. Sure they'd probably fuck it up with even more politics than US ownership, but it still sounds like a UN project.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What about physical security? How can you guarantee that if the root servers are spread out across the world?
The root servers are spread out all over the world. It is that, in fact, that guarantees physical security, because the system is physically distributed. There is no central point of failure to attack.
That's rather the point of the Internet.
KFG
Basically, the identities of the root nameservers are defined by the contents of the root hints files in the nameserver software used by every company and ISP on the planet. If a release of BIND comes out and it has a certain IP address in its root hints, then that's what the people using that release of BIND will use. If Windows Server 2010 uses a different IP address, people using that nameserver will get that root server instead.
So, most of the big nameservers out there are using BIND, with dedicated Windows shops running AD or running BIND on Windows and everyone sane using UNIX, it's really up to Paul Vixie at ISC. So long as he plays ball with the Commerce Department, nobody needs to get hurt...
If the government controlled DNS, it would be completely screwed up and the porn sites would be deleted. Also, the CAN-SPAM legislation would not have been necessary. They would just delete spammers.
Daily News http://newsblaze.com
If I am so ignorant of the real, good accomplishments of the UN, the please post them here. Let's see them.
No problem. Some googling resulted in this list of UN accomplishments.
Please take some time to read it. There's some pretty good stuff in there, I think.
Some highlights:
5. UNICEF spends more than $800 million a year, primarily on immunization, health care, nutrition and basic education in 138 countries.
9. Over 300 international treaties, on topics as varied as human rights conventions to agreements on the use of outer space and seabed.
11. The UN was a major factor in bringing about the downfall of the apartheid system.
12. More than 30 million refugees fleeing war, famine or persecution have received aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
41. Improving global communications Regulated international mail delivery, coordinated use of the radio spectrum, promoted cooperation in assigning positions for stationary satellites, and established international standards for communications, thereby ensuring the unfettered flow of information around the globe.
45. Improving education in developing countries 60% of adults in developing countries can now read and write, and 80 percent of children in these countries attend school.
Like the GPS system (also US taxpayer financed in the billions and used by the world without gratitude or financial consideration), if people in other countries or Americans don't like the US govt administering it, go build your own.
Got ya
.What god? Oh you mean that figment of the imagination of those who need an emotional crutch.
The UN is the world's last best hope for peace.
... will mean perpetuating war."37
This cliche has achieved near universal acceptance because of sheer repetition; it has been repeated so often that people assume it must be true. However, only by some tortured application of Orwellian "Newspeak" can the UN be referred to as a "peace" organization.
During the summer of 1945, Ambassador J. Reuben Clark, Jr., one of America's foremost scholars in the field of international law, prepared an analysis of the UN Charter. His learned appraisal and cogent remarks fly in the face of popular platitudes and conventional "wisdom" concerning the "revered" document. Ambassador Clark's examination led him to conclude that the Charter "is a war document not a peace document," and that it "is built to prepare for war, not to promote peace." The Ambassador noted:
[T]here is no provision in the Charter itself that contemplates ending war. It is true the Charter provides for force to bring peace, but such use of force is itself war.33
Moreover, said Ambassador Clark,
Not only does the Charter Organization not prevent future wars, but it makes practically certain that we shall have future wars, and as to such wars it takes from us the power to declare them, to choose the side on which we shall fight, to determine what forces and military equipment we shall use in the war, and to control and command our sons who do the fighting.34
The Ambassador's predictions were soon borne out -- first in Korea and then in Vietnam, the first two wars America fought with UN involvement and the only two which the United States has ever failed to win.35
Dr. J. B. Matthews, former chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities and one of America's outstanding scholars on Marxist-Leninist theory and practice, was but one of many leading Americans who exposed the UN-as-peace-dove myth. Dr. Matthews was not one to mince words. "I challenge the illusion that the UN is an instrument of peace," he said. "It could not be less of a cruel hoax if it had been organized in Hell for the sole purpose of aiding and abetting the destruction of the United States."36 Senator William Langer (R-ND), one of only two senators with enough courage and foresight to vote against the UN Charter, said "I feel from the bottom of my heart that the adoption of the Charter
The UN's monstrous war against the people of Katanga should forever lay to rest any reference to the UN as a peace organization. The UN and its supporters may persist in the charade of calling the UN's warmaking powers "peacemaking" or "peacekeeping," but no sensible person of goodwill should give the slightest credence to such patently deceitful abuse of language.
Ron Paul