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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.'"
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?
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...
Come on now, be civil. The internet belongs to the world. It's only fair that 60% of the TLD servers are in the world's poorest countries, and they charge $1 and take 15 minutes to do a lookup....
...then maybe. Not before.
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!
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).
You really want to hand control of something so economically vital to the U.N.? You really want to allow the U.N. to impose taxes? Talk about taxation without representation...
I tend to agree with most everyone else here: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I don't agree with the idea that "the US invented it, therefore we should control it". I don't think that's a good approach or attitude, but I also think that the internet has been humming along just fine without any real government control.
Really...what would *anyone* have to gain from allowing the UN to control the internet from a practical standpoint (no, "sticking it to the US" doesn't count)? I think it's pretty obvious that the cost/benefit ratio is really, really bad in that scenario.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
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?
The UN doesn't even vaguely resemble a world government. It's more like a country club for national governments. There's no real money in helping refugees, feeding starving children, or vaccinations; the UNHCR, UNICEF, and the WHO are decent branches of the UN. There is staggering amounts of money in "overseeing" oil and other commodity sales and there's probably also staggering amounts of money and power involved in domain name control. Do you really want an organization made up of unelected and unaccountable politicos running another program with money involved given the UN's track record in that regard?
Ask the starving people in Africa
They'll usually tell you that they in general blame unfair trade practices. For example, even with their low labor costs, African farms often have a hard time competing with subsidized US and European ag exports. First world nations do a lot of pretty nasty stuff as far as import regulations go (for example, declaring the Vietnamese catfish as not being a catfish, to subsidize the US catfish industry)
Not that many of their problems aren't their own fault, mind you.
Ask the people of Darfur how the UN has failed to even try to protect them
Because they *weren't authorized to intervene by the Security Council*. What, are you picturing some huge security council debate over whether cmm.com is typosquatting on cnn.com? We're not talking about troop deployments, we're talking about the internet.
"/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit is a gimp plugin and must be run by the gimp in order to be used."
Ask the starving people in Africa how well the UN has managed things. Ask the people of Darfur how the UN has failed to even try to protect them from genocide. But given that the UN lacks any real enforcement powers, I for one am not too worried about them trying to tax the internet.
My dad worked in Africa "de-mining". Why not ask Africans whether they'd prefer life without the UN. My experience was many Africans (and this wasn't your Cairo/Jo'burg Africans, this was twenty-years-of-post-colonial-conflict-sponsored-b y Washington-Moscow-London-Paris-Havana-Beijing Africa, by the way) respected the limited work the UN was able to do in extremely difficult circumstances.
The UN may be shite, but it's better than nothing. And it's a lot better than the League of Nations, which in turn was a lot better than... bugger all international cooperation.
And regarding Darfur, I've been following this since long before it hit the mainstream media. The UN's been there a long time, dealing with entrenched resistence from the (sovereign) government of Sudan, and from neighbouring states. It's not always possible - or even desirable - to just move into and occupy a country to effect change.
This is where the serious fun begins.
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
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.
How many mass murderers has the UN stopped?
The UN isn't in the business of overthrowing governments.
I think you might want to read up a bit on why, exactly, the United Nations was founded. This article may or may not be believed in its entirety, but the fact of the matter is one way or another, the UN was conceived during WWII and was officially founded directly afterwards specifically to prevent dictators running roughshod over their neighbors all over the world. That was the original mandate, and that's why the five permanent members of the security council are who they are.
Even the UN's official history is perfectly up front about its origins as a tool of the Allies in fighting Germany and Japan during WWII.
Now you see why many people in the US (and other countries) think the UN has gotten so far off track from its original mandate that it is no longer relevant. It was intended to at least contain, occasionally fight and if necessary overthrow dangerous governments like those of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Whether you want to believe it or not, and whether you agree with that cause, that is the truth.
I am no neo-con (or even a traditional-con); I voted against Bush both times. But I get just as annoyed as anyone when people speak of the UN as if its purpose is to keep anyone from fighting, ever. That was not why it was created. It was created to keep rogue states in check - that is the entire reason it exists. It was created during wartime, with a mandate that specifically told member nations to keep fighting. Yet nowadays, it is only ever used as an excuse to do nothing because of competing political interests from those who have something to gain by standing on the sidelines.
As for the UN taking over the internet... read any of what I just posted (either the two links or my commentary, whether you subscribe to the same view or not) and tell me how this would make a lick of sense.
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
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