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U.N. To Govern Internet?
Falmarian writes "Apparently the rest of the world isn't happy about the US franchise on internet governance. A news.com article discusses the possibility that the U.N. will make a bid for control of such governing functions as assigning TLDs and IPs." From the article: "At issue is who decides key questions like adding new top-level domains, assigning chunks of numeric Internet addresses, and operating the root servers that keep the Net humming. Other suggested responsibilities for this new organization include Internet surveillance, 'consumer protection,' and perhaps even the power to tax domain names to pay for 'universal access.'"
No thanks, I prefer having the internets run by a group with at least a partial background of competency.
Whenever a new area of freedom opens up, eventually government seeks to control it. We are never really free, just constantly staying one step ahead of the beaurocracy.
12:50 - press return.
I think the U.N. should get involved in all aspects of the internet. After all, aren't these the same guys who want more regulation of cell phones?
After all, that's what we elected these people to do, right? Oh wait a minute. nobody elected the UN, it's a treaty organization.
I'm not trying to sound reactionary, but this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. The internet is fine the way it is. If the U.S. Congress has managed to keep its hands off it so far, the U.N. should follow suit, imo. The more politicians we get involved in managing the net, the worse it will perform for everybody.
Being Your Own Customer
As the internet was invented, created and distributed in the United States by the US military a few decades ago and the US controls the root domain (.), how can the UN decide that they can control this?
The US _does_ control root, right?
Given the UN's proven track record of success, efficiency and effeciveness, I don't see how anyone could be against this.
...don't fix it. Verisign's monopoly aside, I haven't heard of any cases in which the internet has been abused by the United States or any organization assigned to administrate it. This change is fixing a problem that doesn't exist and may create problems that do. Other than political niceness, what does internationalization of the internet's control really offer?
Just stop already with the TLDs.
In fact, get rid of them entirely. They aren't truly necessary except to maintain backwards compatability.
This way when there is a dispute over ip addressing UN peace keepers can just observe the dispute while the parties kill each other...
-- David inquired...
Or not. Whatever hardware they own, they can govern themselves. While US companies owns 70-80% of the hardware that makes the internet run, the US will govern our own, thanks very much.
My initial knee-jerk reaction to this was "Why not the US, after all, we invented it?". But after thinking about it for a few seconds it occured to me that since the internet is global you really need a global entity to be ultimately responsible for it. If there was a single global government then it'd be a no-brainer, but since the closest thing we have is the UN then why not? Yeah, I realize that there are all sorts of arguments like the UN is incompetent, etc. but when you're talking about something that impacts the entire world what better and more universally recognized body do we currently have?
Let me get this straight. I agree it's a good idea to remove tld's from US controll to avoid being controlled and manpiulated by such a large and powerfull political entity that coulnd't care less about my rights online. Anyone else see the irony here?
...then maybe. Not before.
so if the UN runs the internet, I suppose that attacks against 3rd world computers will be ignored until millions of computers are slag. then when they do intervene, it will be half-hearted with the help unable to actually help, just stand around watching shit burn.
And the British practically belong to us, so what's your point?
I'm thinking this was meant as sarcsm, but I'll bite. The internet as we know it, is running along just fine. Why we should let it out of our hands and into the hands of a multinational organization is beyond my scope of reasoning. I'm a bit hungover this morning, but aren't oppressive countries (i.e. against freedom of speech and though in this case) part of the UN? China anyone? So, say we hand over root to Kofi. Then what? My freedoms to publish and say what I want on the internet could possibly make me an international criminal or worse yet A TERRORIST!!!! Not having lived in other countries, all I can say is that I enjoy my freedom of speech, and keeping the internet in the united states control really dosen't seem like such a bad thing.
Seriously this is one Bad Idea. I'll keep my intarweb like I like my slaves. FREE.
We will give you 1 year to take down your website, before 'more drastic' measures will be taken.
One year later ...
Resolution 30357B - Illegal File Traders:
Oh, did we say one year? We meant two. Take two years. But take it down! Don't make us unleash the fury!
Two years later ...
Resolution 30357C - Illegal File Traders:
We at the UN can't help but notice that you haven't taken your site down. We strongly disapprove of your actions. So much so that we're giving you three more years to do it. But you'd better believe that when those three years are up it's clobbering time. Seriously.
Three years later ...
Resolution 30357D - Illegal File Traders:
It seems you are still running your illegal website. We downloaded several Chingy tunes today (thanks for the UN discount!). But you seriously need to take that site down. Seriously. To show you how serious we are, we're going to start a plan of denying aid to people not in any way affiliated with you. Yes we know this won't affect on you personally, but it makes us look like bad-asses. Five more years! That's all we can give you. Then out come the meat hammers!
Five years later ...
Resolution 30357E - Illegal File Traders
- Rider A: Condemnation of Israel for refusing to just fucking disappear like the Mayans
- Rider B: Pay-raise and trips to Disneyland!
Maybe it's us. Are we doing something wrong? Is there something we could give you to make you take that site down? Because, seriously, we're all pussies here at the UN and don't want to do anything drastic like follow through on our empty resolution statements. So why don't we go ahead and give you as many years as you like to take that site down. Just keep those kickbacks coming! And remember, we are the world's last resort for justice!
My bet is Bush'll nominate someone anti-UN to the UN to make it ineffective so this UN thing isn't an option. Oh....
I think we need to remember that the internet, although global, has many freedom based goals inherent to it. Just remember, /.s favorite internet blocking country China would now have a say in the final product. If that idea fails to scare you, then I can't reach you.
Call us cowboys, but a lot of the world doesn't want our freedoms, and would be more than happy to stop them for all of us. I don't think the spirit of the internet could survive a bunch of unelected corrupt dictators setting the rules.
Rule of the open mind
People who are resistant to change cannot resist change for the worst.
You've pretty succinctly explained why this shouldn't be done.
This kind of turf war is likely to happen with a UN controlled internet.
For example, what happens when countries like China, North Korea, and many more. Demand that the UN aid them in "filtering" the internet for their citizens.
The root servers are pretty stable and things are working fine right now. Theres no need for a change to a venue where politics will rule the technology (I know there are politics already, but were talking orders of magnitude difference here).
God help us all.
Which one?
-b
myselfmusic
In Panama, the UNICEF money was a great source of wealth for politicians. UNICEF had not good mechanism of auditing and keeping track of the money, and ensuring that it was actually spent on children.
- sigs are for wimps.
How about the "entitlement" non-Americans that think that because they can use the internet they are somehow entitled to owning a portion of it, despite the fact that the basic research and developement of it was done in the US, and most of the hardware is owned by the US?
I don't think they have any room to point fingers.
Oh and lets not forget that the solution is to take a system that has been working perfectly fine and give it to an unelected group of people with a incredibly bad track record. A group of people that have members who don't believe in little things such as freedom of speech, which is pretty darn fundamental to the internet.
As another person stated, do you really want China, responsible for massive censorship of the internet, to have a say in how its run?
This is a solution in search of a problem. The only real problem is political, and politics is something that the internet can do without.
NO! NOT THE DUTCH!
ANYBODY BUT THE DUTCH!
Next thing you know, the streets of the internet will be littered with sites trying to sell sex and drugs.
Let's play this out. The U.N. takes over assigning TLDs, etc. How long would it be before someone at the U.N. (Kofi Annan) is accepting bribes, or he hires his son, or daugther, or the son of the guy who cuts the grass at the U.N. to oversee this. And then $$$ or euro's if you prefer start getting redirected to someone's personal account.
As a forum for international discussion, dialog and negotiation, the U.N. is a fine organization. The U.N. as a body is, though, not actually accountable to anyone. This is why the U.N. should not be thought of as a government, or even a meta-government (a government of governments). Any body that is not accountable to (as in, risks being voted out of office or power), eventually becomes corrupt.
How much money went to Sadaam Hussein in the oil for food program? How much was actually used for food? Little if any. How much money was skimmed off the top by people at the U.N.? A lot, but we can never know how much because these people neither represent my (or your) interests, nor are they accountable to me (or you)!
I think a lot of people need some slight perspective with regards to the recent problems that the UN has faced.
It's not overly effective in some respects (stopping invasions, oppression) but that's a fault of the countries involved not the organisation itself.
Without the UN, there might still be apartheid in South Africa. There would be lots more people starving to death. There would likely still be smallpox. Free and fair elections would be unavailable in many countries. AIDS (and tuberculosis and malaria) would be far greater problems. Those accused of warcrimes might not be tried.
While it's easy to knock the UN following recent scandals, get a sense of perspective. It's extremely difficult to coordinate things on a world scale without any real authority but the UN does do an extremely admirable job.
Whether it would handle the root servers well or not is a separate issue but don't critise out of a hand an organisation that has saved millions of lives.
Manta
First, unfortunately for the rest of the world, the US is in control of ICANN and doesn't have to do a damn thing if it doesn't want. Unfortunately for us, that leaves open the option that the rest of the world does take their toys and goes home, i.e. "invents" a new internet and leaves us out of it. I was about to say that neither extreme seems very likely, but given the current political climate I'm not so sure.
.xxx TLD was really stupid - such a domain could make it easier to filter out porn sites if one wanted - because they are NOT going away. I like the internet just the way it is, thank you very much.
I'm sorry to have to agree though, the idea of the UN controlling the Internet is scary, for exactly the reasons that people have mentioned. It's currently largely unregulated (another word for that is "free", get it?). The comments from UN reps in other countries (e.g. Syria) revealed amazing ignorance of how the internet works, and an explicit desire to exert firm control over content. The complaint by Brazil about the
So far I have yet to hear either a good technical or policy-based argument against leaving it in US hands. I'm willing to be convinced, but so far all the arguments against US control have boiled down to, "we don't like you and/or don't want you to have it." Not good enough for me, sorry. I'm going to write my Congresscritters and ask them not to turn it over.
Love, Squeedle
If the rest of the world doesn't want to be a part of our DNS, they can set up their own. But we already have ccTLDs that expressly give such authority to governments. What do you want for nothing, a rubber biscuit?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic.. please explain to me what the UN did that damaged/curbed anyone's freedom? Have you concrete examples or just opinion? IMO UN peacekeepers in the Lebanon, East Timor and elsewhere have done a lot to advance freedom in thwe world.
I heard a great quote along the lines of "The UN is the place where governments that suppress free speech demand to be heard." It's quite true, the UN isn't composed of a group of free and democratic countries, it's composed of some of those, and some that are rather less free, and some like Syria, which is a military dictatorship. These aren't the kind of nations I want having a say in what is the greatest source of free information, given that a free flow of information is very threatening to them.
Another problem is that the UN isn't an elected body. It's diplomats that are appointed and are not answerable to the public they supposedly represent. Politicians do enough shady shit when they ARE directly answerable, it gets far, far worse when there's no accountability.
I mean for a good example, see the receant Tsunami crisis. When the Tsunami hit, the important thing initally was getting basic aid there immediatly, food, water, and medical attention. A number of nations did just that. Both their military and civilian volunteers went over and worked their asses off to save lives. The UN, sent a group over to survey the damage and fact find, they gave some soundbites to the media, and whined that the troops over there should be wearing UN blue, rather than the uniforms of their countries. All the while people were in desperate need of immediate help.
That's just a good example of the general problem. Look at the UN office in New York. The oppulance is simply unbelievable for an orginization that is supposed to be a representitive of so many poor nations. Then realise they have offices like this all over the place.
Now for the US there's an additonal consideration in that the UN may decide they want regulations on the Internet that are unconstutional. The constution can't be overriden just by some treaty orginization, it overrides all other law in America (well, it's supposed to at any rate, politicans seem to forget that sometimes). So for example China might want to push a regulation that says no subversive political speech is allowed, and they'd have plenty of backers on that. Well, sorry, but that's unconstutional.
While I think we can work out a more equitable solution than the US running the Internet, having the UN run it isn't the right answer.
The thing is look at the list of countries that want control of it. China ok they would want to censor everything. Brazil they don't want any porn on the net cause they are over 90% catholic so more censorship. Syria......hot bed for terrorists, the list goes on. None of these countries are say Britain or France or Germany. Why is that. Well it would cost billions of dollars to make a totally separate internet and so far the US has yet to restrict what can be put on the web. So as long as us 280 million people in the US want to foot the bill for maintaining the nets root why should other countries care.
I've said this before, on Slashdot, even: There is no Internet. Not the way we like to think of it. It doesn't exist as a cohesive whole. You can't connect to "the Internet". The most you can do is connect your network to somebody else's network. Maybe multiple somebodies. But still, you're just connecting to their networks. Then they do the same with some others. And so on. That's what we're talking about here. An inter-network. A bunch of individual networks. They are operated by businesses, organizations, governments, and individuals.
Right now, almost everybody agrees that US-centric organization like ICANN get to govern top-level things like the root domain. But there is absolutely nothing keeping people following their own set of standards. Indeed, some already do.
I don't even worry that much about "fragmentation". The Internet is already horribly fragmented. It's no longer safe or consistent or well-organized, which you used to be able to count on. If, say, we end up with multiple conflicting namespaces, someone will create some meta-directory protocols or search engines or something.
Of course, it would be nicer if that didn't happen. No sense making things worse then they are.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Every time the U.N. comes up, in any capacity, the rah-rah America faction-- especially, I find, the portion of that faction with "blogs"-- just explodes falling all over themselves to denounce the U.N. and talk about how horrible and evil it is and how everything it does is wrong.
Looking at the U.N. myself though I don't really see an organization consistent enough to draw any conclusions about it. It is an evolving entity. Look at its state over time since oh, say, 1985, and you'll realize there are almost no points over this time period where the U.N. in practice clearly resembles the entity it was just five years before. The U.N. had a clearly defined role during the Cold War; now that the Cold War is over that role no longer applies, and it is trying to find its new role. I don't think there's any way to predict right now what that role is going to be. The U.S. has the option of taking an active hand in shaping the U.N.'s new role, if we want (there have been parts of the last 20 years where we've done this, though right now is not one of them); however, what we can't do is make the U.N. go away. It's going to stay around, and it's going to develop into something. That isn't our choice. Our only choice is, will it develop into something with us or without us.
One thing that it occasionally worries me the U.N. might develop into is a bloc organization that basically represents "everyone but the U.S.". That is, I think it is possible that as the U.S. increasingly acts only in its own immediate interest to the exclusion of anyone else's interests, other countries will use the U.N. as a platform on which to band together and represent their interests in common, until the U.N. eventually becomes something which pens in the U.S. the way NATO penned in the USSR. As an American, I don't think this situation would be good for me or my country. However, I think it is possible. I also think that trying to push hard against or de-emphasize the U.N. does more to make the above "U.N. vs U.S." outcome likely than it does to make the U.N. weaker. The U.N.'s potential strength stems from the countries which wish to align with it; it's exactly as strong if the U.S. appears hostile toward it as it is if the U.S. appears apathetic toward it. However if the U.S. appears hostile toward the U.N. we do begin to set the stage for a situation where the U.N. begins to behave antagonistically back.
I see this DNS thing as a small but noteworthy step toward this situation.
Four or five years ago if the U.N. expressed an interest in controlling the DNS servers (and they did) there would be no point in taking this suggestion seriously (and no one did) because there was already an independent and international body (ICANN) on track toward running the DNS system. Now the U.S. has decided to make ICANN no longer a meaningfully independent body, and the governance of the DNS servers a U.S. national issue rather than an international one. And now, as a result, we are starting to see movements where service providers and governments outside the U.S. are starting to look into ways to break away from the U.S.-commerce-department-controlled ICANN system and into nameserver independence. In this light, the U.N. proposing they control nameservers takes on a very different tone. It underscores that if the U.S. does not wish to administer the nameservers under its control in an international fashion, there are other entities perfectly willing to assume that job.
If other nations choose to break away from the U.S. controlled nameservers, well, it's likely they'll do so together, meaning that we will have the U.S. commerce department running DNS for the U.S. and an international body running DNS for "everybody else". And who will run this international body? Well, the U.N. is a likely choice. The steady smear campaign against the U.N. doesn't exist in the same way outside the
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The UN is more democratic? The first question is what part of the UN would run it?
I could just imagine the UN Security council trying to run it.... Wait, nothing would ever happen because you need unanimous consent of all nations involved to do anything. Getting some of these to agree is a far fetched notion.
Of course we could always let the general assembly run it. There's a brilliant idea. Give the United States as much say over the internet as every other tiny country in the world. Thats fair and democratic?
They could also do it by population. In that case China has a huge advantage. That would be great.
Under any system we'd allow the wrong people to get our hands on it. Is letting china, libya, cuba, north korea etc telling the rest of the wold what to do with the internet really the definition of DEMOCRATIC PROCESS?
A big part of the problem is the UN has no accountability. When the UN starts using it to push their viewpoint (as the topic said universal net access) what then. What do we do when the internet becomes a vehicle for corruption? Who do we call and say change this? Someone will be getting rich while the internet collapses. Currently ICANN doesn't have the power to tax the net like this, or to create filters etc. In the hands of the UN. . . who knows what power it'll have. The UN has zero accountability. If ICANN tryied this now they'd be stopped in a second.
What I find the most amusing about all of this is how so many Europeans are all about this idea. As if they'd actually have a say over it? It wouldn't be the EU's internet, it would be the world. Under the UN that means security council or general assembly. Tell France or Germany that Uganda has as much say over the nets infrastructure as they do. Or that China has more say (due to bribing other countries) or whatever. The EU would lose out on the deal, but the only possible thing that would make them like it is the fact that it hurts the US more than it hurts them (kind of like Kyoto). Stabbing yourself to hurt the US is not a good idea.
While maybe some more international control could be used for the internet, I would say that there is no reason for the UN to have any say over it. The UN is corrupt and getting worse. There's zero accountability. Whats the best option then? Well tell us legitimate problems with the internet as its being run and maybe we'll examine them on that basis.
Phil
I'd rather rely on the world as a whole retaining freedom of speech (Enough countries can vote down China or anywhere else) than be entirely dependent on the US retaining freedom of speech, especially the way things have been going over there recently. But maybe that's just me.
I am trolling
Before I go on, please aknowledge that I am from Germany and I think the UN is a great idea.
It is really bad as it is now. Every independent board member that has overseen ICAAN actions has said this. But putting it into the hands of the UN per se would just make matters much worse.
Also I have the strong feeling that many people don't have the slightest clue what the UN really is and what it does. The funny thing is everyone seems to have an opinion about it. Either they hate it or love it or like it or dislike it. Germans like it and left leaning Americans like it. French like it and conservative Americans dislike it. I don't know about Americans, but I know that Germans don't have a clue what it is they like.
Some basics:
The UN is made up of different bodies to which countries are elected. Each world region (like Africa or Asia) has a certain quota for how many countries they can vote into a certain comitee. Then there are also organizations for specific purposes. Like UNAIDS or the UN high comissionare for refugees.
The UN is very good for diplmacy for example. All nations can go there and resolve conflicts instead of starting wars. Granted, it hasn't work very good and could be made better, but I don't see any alternative. Kofi Annan for example pushed through some very important reforms in his first two years of office.
Anyways, I could go on for hours, but maybe You can just check their webpage. It is quite informative.
Just reading the UN Charta would most likely be very invormative to many people here I suppose.
The UN is many, many things at the same time. Maybe if a sensible set of rules would be put together for some kind of organization under the UN umbrella it would appear international and at the same time remain efficient. But is not going to happen anyways. So keep cool and keep cursing Verisign and their control over ICANN.
The idea that the US is currently in control of the internet is already silly.
The other root servers could stop mirroring A, ISPs could stop pointing to the current root servers, or the end users could stop using their ISPs domain servers.
If the UN wants to set up and control their own root server, they should just do it, there's nothing stopping them.
-- Should you trust authority without question?
aren't oppressive countries (i.e. against freedom of speech and though in this case) part of the UN? China anyone?
aren't oppressive countries (i.e. against freedom of speech and though in this case) part of the UN? The USA anyone?
Living outside the US, all I can say is that having the US control the Internet is a bad thing.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
From a year ago for example, a large number of leading indicators showed progress in Iraq's infrastructure. Compare that to the Congo or Haiti in which the UN is running peacekeeping operations.
Pardon me for being Mr. Obvious here but there is a big difference from running a peacekeeping operation and trying to rebuild a country after largely destroying it (first with sanctions, then with bombs).
"Men from roughly 50 different countries make up the U.N. forces in Congo, and the United Nations does not conduct background checks. Furthermore, U.N. troops are exempt from prosecution in Congo."
Can you say "International Criminal Court?"
While the US has made mistakes on the ground dealing with Iraqi and Afghani Prisoners and civilians, at least widespread allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of women, boys and girls havn't been happening like they are happening in the Congo.
As others have pointed out, this never happend in Vietnam or anything, right?
Also a lot of this type of activity in the Congo has been happening between the warring factions. Sorry, but blaming the UN for their actions is like blaming the US when insurgents attack an Iraqi police station.
"Didier Bourguet, a U.N. official from France, is pictured here in an image found on his hard drive, which was obtained by ABC News. Also on the hard drive were thousands of photos of him having sex with hundreds of young Congolese girls."
If that is the case, then someone has an obligation to prosecute him. IANAL, but last time I checked, I think the country of nationality had the first right to prosecute in these matters, followed by the country where the crimes were committed, and following that, there is no reason why the ICC couldn't prosecute. Oh, wait, the ICC is a dirty word here in the US, sorry I forgot...
I would further point out that there is a large contingent of French, British, and German troops in the Congo under the EU (*not* NATO) flag, the first EU peacekeeping deployment outside Europe.
People forget that a large extent of the issue is that conservatives (the media insofar as most large media outlets are owned by other corporations such as Disney, GE, etc have inherent in their organizations a conservative bias) are largely upset that the US is no longer the dominant power in the world (except militarily). Every major trade war with the EU has ended in a US defeat. The EU has a larger population and a higher per GDP than the US. And the have two permanent seats on the UNSC, and many seats in both the GA and the WTO. Compare that to *1* for the US in each organization.
We in the US can hold our own against China and any other nationalist state. However, because we don't see internationalism as a worthy goal, we cannot hold our own against states who work together to set up common economic policy, as the EU has done.
Note that the parent poster, like many, seems to equate the UN with "France" and/or "Germany." This is further evidence of the building propaganda war against the EU. But what will happen if the EU ends up with three seats on the UNSC at some point (if, say, Russia were to join)?
I fear we are heading into a new type of cold war against an opponent we cannot hope to defeat. Thanks "New American Century..."
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Africa's real problem is that they ate the milk producing cows and goats. That's after they slaughtered the rest of the herd that was going to breed the next generation. This is because they got desperate and ate next year's seed instead of planting it. Everytime the rest of the world trys to kickstart their food production with breeding stock or seeds, they just eat it.
I thought I'd seen it all on slashdot, but your summation of hundreds of years of colonial exploitation and invasions, arbitrarily defined states (often encompassing many ethnic groups) which war with each other over resources, corrupt government, civil war and finally skewed trade laws which make it impossible to climb out of poverty as
'they ate their milk producing animals'
really does take my breath away.
If the UN know what they're doing, they'll surely be rushing lots of well informed teenage geniuses like yourself over to sort it out right now.
The League of Nations planted the seeds for WWII and the UN created Israel to plant the seeds for WWIII. This single act contributed more to make terrorism the worldwide phenomena that it is today than anything. The lobbying efforts of the arms dealers paid off very handsomly.
You don't get off so lightly. What about the Carter (and later Reagan) Administration's "Join the Jihad" campaign aimed at recruiting militant Islamists and getting them together in Afghanistan (with training from the US) to fight the Soviets?
See, it is all the fault of two presidents from different political parties... At least as far as Al Qaeda and any collegiate international terrorism organization goes.
And Regarding Israel--- The history of the founding of Israel between WWI and 1949 is quite interesting and full of material that will make almost anybody uncomfortable regardless of political disposition. However, it was all started by the British who claim to have wanted to reward those Jews who fought for Britain in WWI by trying to promote British Palestine as a place where they could go to as a homeland provided that the existing Palestinians were not displaced (read the Balfour Declaration). The time between the end of WWI and 1949 was full of terrorism on the part of the Zionists and Arabs (continuing today often on both sides despite efforts of moderates on either side). And, most interestingly, the attempted collaboration between the ELHI brotherhod (in part lead by Yitzak Shameer) and Hitler (one might add that the ELHI brotherhood had no shortage of good things to say about the Nazis). As punishment for his efforts and sympathies, Shameer was later elected Prime Minister which should tell you a lot about Israeli politics.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP