Slashdot Mirror
Governing the Internet Report Released
An anonymous reader writes "After the speculation on earlier this week, the Working Group of Internet Governance
(aka the United Nations attempt to govern the Internet) has just
released their much anticipated report. News
coverage and a helpful
summary point to the four options on the table and the likely
outcome in the months leading up to a final conference in Tunisia in
November."
I'm not very informed about this, but have they set up a group to take over, even before the US has agreed to giving up control?
Clever signature text goes here.
i just don't see the benefits of having people govern the internet.. i guess it will decrease things like spyware and virii.. but other than that, its obviously a cheap attempt to watch every fucking move we make.. Internet2??
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
- ICANN stays but the governmental role changes through the creation of a Governmental Internet Council. The GIC replaces the GAC and assumes the role currently held by the U.S. Department of Commerce in ICANN oversight. There are advisory roles envisioned for the private sector and civil society.
- No need for oversight organization. Stronger GAC and creation of international forum for discussion of Internet issues.
- Creation of International Internet Council that would assume responsibility for the Internet governance issues that arise on the national level. ICANN's mandate would need to be altered based on the development of the IIC.
- Start from scratch by creating a World Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers as well as a Global Internet Policy Council.
Personally, I'm wary of the first option's reference to roles for "private sector" and "civil society." I have a hard time not reading "private sector" as "Microsoft" and "civil society" as "political lobbyists."W.I.C.A.N.N?
I always knew it tooks a certain amount of magic to make the internet run smoothly.
Its full of porn.
and like all things, people will find ways around the law, so what good will being an obnoxious, inconvienant big brother do?
:P
of course, i bet now they'll track me for saying this and send the gestapo to my door.
I couldn't bother to read the report as I know it will never fly. After all, who's going to accept Tunisia as the center of the internet. LOL
In any case, IF the europeans where to branch off with their "own internet" it would only last until it became inconvenient for the USA. At that point the US would declare that the internet should be free and it would "liberate" it from the europeans.
I am sure that there is something witty or even intellegent to say about this but it's just another case of USA vs Rest of World. I vote that we have a little poll here on slashdot about who should get to control the Internet. Now I know that I would never ever get a poll accepted so I vote that we use this message as a poll (karma be damned).
Any one who wants the UN to control the Internet (root servers) mod this message up.
Any one who wants to see the USA run the Internet mod this message down.
Ooooh I can smell the karma buring already.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
They have effective control anyway. If they all decided to point their DNS servers to a certain place, then that would be adefacto domain name registry. I'm sure the same applies to IP addresses.
Sort out some fair means of representation, and get them to select a root administrator. They all have the same ultimate goal - a stable internet - and they al understand the internet. The same cannot be said of the US government or the UN.
It would be nice if they got their CSS/HTML right (opera)
Option 5: Realize this entire discussion is about as pointful as the UN discussing how to run Steak and Shake, should they ever acquire it.
It's not a matter of who gets what hostname. A hostname is juste a convenient way to reach a server, it is definitly NOT the killer feature that will boost marketting for a website. Anyway I see hostnames disappearing in the future. It is already happening, a good rank in Google search results is already way more important than the proper domain name. Another solution implies the distribution of signed IP/hostname pairs by renowned organizations. Such pairs could be copied and distributed by any ISP. If gnu.org, google.com and heywhynot microsoft.com all tell me this hostname relates to that IP I may choose to trust them. I can also be a paranoïd freak and only trust pairs signed by my grandmother, which might limit my browsing experience - the point is I can choose. This is, in my opinion, the right approach to take. Trademark conflicts ? Typos spoofing ? All of this can be resolved by the suggested system. I may choose an authority which privileges hostname on a first-to-claim basis or I may choose an authority privileging a "saner" approach (granting trademarked hostnames to their owners and not to the smartass who registered it first and put pr0n instead).
\u262D = \u5350
...is this proposed UN working group for the Internet going to actually have any control over the Internet, or will they just be a figurehead? If they're going to actually do something, thank G-d - international cooperation will finally enable us to deal with problems like spam and malicious Eastern European hackers and virus authors. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is not going to be the case; it takes a lot of freedom and jurisdiction for an organisation to be able to extradite and punish Internet users from any country, and most politicians probably don't want to give that power to anyone.
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
If the UN takes over the internet, they should be prepared for insurgency on a massive scale. It turns out that sometimes people don't like what they believe is theirs being forcably taken over by outsiders even if the stated aims are noble.
16. Interconnection costs Uneven distribution of cost. Internet service providers (ISPs) based in countries remote from Internet backbones, particularly in the developing countries, must pay the full cost of the international circuits.
05.41622 -6-
Absence of an appropriate and effective global Internet governance mechanism to resolve the issue.
When did the internet become a NESSESITY of life???
Why must thier be a "even" distribution of costs?? If it costs more to get connectivity to your isp then it costs more for that isp to do buisness.
Gadget News at Gizmo.com
Managing the root servers is one thing, but that is not overseeing the Internet. Truthfully Interpol is the only recognized international police force. Interpol is not a court it is a police force. A police force in a country outside the US will be more willing to heed a warrant from interpol then one from the US. Interpol isn't playing with creepy agendas like the US has been of late.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
This would be a great time to implement IPv6 as well... The US invented and implemented the internet... thanks for that, but we need to move on. Starting from scratch in conjunction with IPv6 should be a good idea.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
- there is an unneven distribution of cost in developing countries -- why not offer development grants and support the infrastructure
- they fix internet stabilty, spam -- each country should make their own laws
- intelectual property protection -- figures.
- they will help developing countries with a "forum" -- no way to do this now, is it ?
Basically their proposal is ok as long as there won't be a single country in charge. But I do fear the expansion of this "governance" into other areas.We have said this time and time again, but soon enough india is going to be more important to the American infrastructure of service and support than americns. now there is a 10 year old girl who is more qualified than most of americans, i say this is the wake up call for many, and we need to re-adjust our strategy because it is obviously not working. i can see it now, next year ill be going to mcdonalds and ill hear gupta asking me if id like fries with that, mcdonalds outsourcing to india, it could happen!
I see you're back, Mr. President...
From the summary of the report 4 options were generated as a way of moving forward.
:(
However looking at all the options it essentially boils down to three things:
1. The U.S. cedes real control to the international community
2. The U.S. cedes token control to the international community (option #2 proposes creating an international forum to "discuss" internet issues - read: eventually inconsequential)
3. Start from scratch
While it's tempting to hate on the Americans for refusing to give up control of the Internet's foundations, any kind of sharing would lead to power sharing with nations including China and Russia.
Slashdot has posted numerous articles about the Chinese iron fist when it comes to dealing with anything on the internet. I find it frightening to even think about the prospect of having my internet access dictated in some part by the blatantly power hungry government of this nation. Yes, the Americans are no white knights either, but I'd rather have their faulty system of checks and balances than the outright corruption and byzantine system of governance that still controls much of the world today.
Think about the recent stories of "adopting a Chinese blog" to protect the bloggers from chinese government reprisals. What do you think the Chinese would demand first if they were given real control of our internet access? Control of any content that originates from China - which means these bloggers who almost got away, would be tracked down again.
Eventually the answer is going to come from somewhere in between. There isn't going to be a peaceful transition of the entire system from the americans to the international community. But rather different parts of the world will begin to develop their own networks with differing levels of compatibility, and software and hardware vendors are going to make a killing in providing systems that can handle these multiple formats and networks.
This diversity will arise not only from politics, but from new technology too and I can totally see the European Union developing a "new internet" that provides alternative control to what the americans have -- and then subsidizing the cost of this network so that it is taken up by major subsets such as India and the Pacific, until it eventually supercedes the now "legacy" american systems...
How comes that the UN has a rather good reputation in Europe and such a bad one in the US?
How comes that the same people speaking about democracy and freedom have so much problems to give other nations the right to vote where they are concerned?
BTW, there are no small meaningless countries.
BTW 2, funny that you speak about "random leaders".
I doubt the US will ever cede control over the internet, and frankly it makes me very uncomfortable that Bush is ultimately in charge. Personally, I think the UN should set up it's own DNS servers which every other country in the world can use, and if the US wants to sit in the corner and scream about how it should be in charge because God has given the US the right to impose it's view on the rest of the world, then let's just ignore them, and get on with it.
This is merely Step 1 in a long-term approach to txing internet usage.
1. Form a global council.
2. Make claims of global intellectual inequality
3. The UN, ACLU, and (insert names of politicians trying to buy votes here) decide to "level the playing field" by taxing those who have "won life's lottery" (have a domain name) and redistributing funds to under achieving locations.
Some time in the future.. U.N. Ambassador from Nauru (pop. 10,000) "Mr. Chairman, the people of Nauru beg this body to level the intellectual playing field by providing every man, woman, and child of Nauru a computer and high speed internet access..."
Four years after that..
EBay reports a 0.000002% bump in sales due largely to the army of Nauruvians selling brick-a-brack via their shiny 386 PC's.
I shiver at the thought of the "level playing field." Or, possibly, I've run off in the weeds on this one.
Happy Friday!
Cogito Ergo Sum
After the huge investments of time and money the US has put in to it, really it's silly to ask them to give it up. Nothing at all is stopping any country or the un from making their own. Natural selection will determine sucsess or failure of them both until there's only one dominant net again.
The U.N. needs to show the world that it can consistently manage its programs in a competent, honest and equitable manner before we trust it with such an important piece of world-wide infrastructure.
At least the U.S.A. has a vested self-interest in the internet continuing to work well.
It seems that americans only remember democracy when they decide to liberate some country. How comes other nations should not have a say about the matters of their concern? How comes that the freedom loving americans call other countries meaningless? And lets not talk about random leaders.
Official Bastard (900041)
I'll be darned.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
"The U.N. is a place where governments opposed to free speech demand to be heard!" - Alfred E. Neuman
Circumcision is child abuse.
I've read a few of these articles and I can't seem to figure out what we are trying to fix. The only thing I see is that the US has the root servers, and Europeans don't want it like that any more. I still find myself asking why.
What's broken?
If there's some legitimate problem that we are addressing, someone please educate me. I can't help but think this is little more than more Anti-American sentiment going awry.
I thought from such a technical crowd, this would be the first question that would be asked.
To understand that, you have to get into the mind set of your average US citizen. Here's my simple three step plan for doing this:
1) Think of all the time you spent learning about the rest of the world outside your country of origin: geography lessons, watching or reading news coverage, research or even actually visiting the countries involved. Add all that time together.
2) Now imagine that instead of doing all those things, you spent that time in McDonald's stuffing your face with supersize portions of fat and sugar.
3) Success. You can now think like an American.
1) Because in Europe, the UN is seen as a way to limit US power, and in the US, the UN is seen as a way to limit US power.
2) And who in those nations has the right to vote? It isn't terribly Democratic to give dictators a vote in any form of 'world government' when they haven't been elected to begin with!
3) There are plenty of small and meaningless countries. Many of them are in Africa; some are in Europe.
Yeah, right. Bush would fall far more into the "Leave the Net alone" crowd. Now Gates? Oh yeah, he'd love this (above post).
Oh thats going to go over real well.
It's always funny to see uninformed, ignorant Americans making such rash remarks over the United Nations or over other "small insignificant countries".
If we're to get this world into any kind of peaceful place for future generations, it's through an international forum where every member, no matter how small or large, should have equal voice. The UN is the ideal place for that.
Every country in the world has it's merit, history and culture (of which you only have the first and a bit of the second), and thus contributes to the world as a whole.
The only thing you have contributed to the world as a whole in the past few years is death, misery, suffering and sadness.
Coca-Cola, sometimes War.
Start from scratch by creating a World Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers as well as a Global Internet Policy Council.
WICANN? It's a conspiracy. The witches are always trying to push their sway into the international realm, and now the Internet! This must be stopped!!
You want to govern an Internet... make your own
Oh, and BILLIONS of dollars in financial aid.
When did the internet become a NESSESITY of life???
:-)
I'm glad to see that String.badSpelling.toUpper() Method is still being used by today's blooming programmers
Wow. Yet another report from yet another government agency without any real answers. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that they danced around the real issues. Lets be serious, and consider, in english, what's going on. #1 The "World" (every country that has politicians in the UN) sees an opportunity for power and money by claiming a stake in internet ownership. #2 The "World" realizes that because the US created, invested, and built the majority of the internet, the US isn't going to voluntarily hand control of it over to someone else. Especially since there's a lot of power and money involved in running the internet. Here's my solution. Get rid of all domains that do not end in a country suffix. .org, .net, etc are gone. If you want www.slashdot.org, then it's gonna be www.slashdot.org.us.
Each country handles managing it's own suffixes, or pays someone else to.
Then, that country has full legal rights to enforce their own laws on their own domains, and easily BLOCK any domains from the subversive US, China etc etc etc.
Why wouldn't it work?
Internet is more and more an international network. It's a fact that the network was created and develloped in the US in the early age. So, it's natural that the US creates the ICANN to rule the distribution of domain name and ip address.
Today, the network is not anymore 100% US. A big part of it is owned by other countries and some companies. And every one of them help to maintain and distribute the domain name list. So the real problem is why, when somebody paid $10 to buy a
1. US tells UN there need to be reforms
2. UN still expects US to hand over control of the internet
3. US refuses (duh)
4. UN has a hissy fit.
If the US thinks the UN is corrupt.. why would we turn over control of a critical piece of infrastructure to them?!
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Of course us people living in the real world know that the cause of the Oil for Food scandal was that the American and British governments and ships (which patrolled the waters where the "smuggling" vessels passed) were either incompetent or corrupt... most likely both, actually.
Maybe next time you can elect leadership who are not a bloody embarrassment the world over!
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
hahahaha, almost too funny
"I don't need drugs to enjoy this, just to enhance it" - Otto
How can we be taxed by a appointed group. They do not represent the people, they are appointed by those that do. So how can we possibly be taxed under "no taxation without representation"?
> OT: Wow - /. IDs break 900,000 mark
> I'll be darned.
Just wait till it hits 1,000,000 and the universe collapses into itself!
We went from one dude:
_ for_Assigned_Names_and_Numbers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
To a committee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Corporation
And now we need the whole fscking world collaborating on this?
Seriously. It's a fscking database of IP>Hostname mappings. This is NOT rocket science. Jon Postel, why did you have to leave us to these asshats? We miss you.
-Tom
The UN is like a tiny mosquito to the United States. Sometimes a minor annoyance but usually not even noticed. Let me look at CNN news - not a word. Let me look at Google News - not a word at the front page. Let me check The New York Times - not a single word. Just as I thought, this is not a much anticipated report and the only ones who have much anticipated this nonsense are the folks who like to nip at the heels of the big dog. The US will not give up the ICANN and all the yipping and yapping won't change a bit of that. Kofi can yip and this UN Panel can yap and it will have zero effect.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
recognize that the rest of the world makes a valuable contribution to the internet, however:
The United States developed the internet, with many large investments (DARPA etc.), and now we are expected to just give it up?
So the US keeps the internet but has to give up WWW, because that was European. The internet was created by the US... but made useful by Europe, and made mobile by Japan. The US did the tin, the rest of the world did the vision.
Aside from all the defense networks etc, we need to be able to keep tabs on extremist groups on the web, note that there is a widely circulating how to video about how to cause the most damage with a b#mb on a bus.
So you want to Censor? Who decides what is extremist? I'd vote for those nutters who are terrorising doctors and surgeries that do abortions, I'd also vote for organisations like FOX News being classified as extremist.
we still believe in freedom of speech.
Or not?
Sent any journalists to jail recently? Or listened to FOX News? Or heard a politician REALLY quizzed on their approach and views?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I read the entire 24 page report, with I hope some thought and consideration. What I found very, very interesting is this "fact-finding" body did nothing to examine the current structure of "Internet Control" and the role of the Internet Society and its divisions. They mention the IETF *once*, and neglect to mention that IETF RFCs are now accepted in the Standards community as Standards. International standards -- the ITU says so. Instead, the report concentrates exclusively on the role of the United States Department of Commerce and *one* US corporation, ICANN.
What about the role of the technical committees that have kept the Tier One routers running all these years without too many hiccups? How would they fit into a UN-based "oversight"? Either the routers work, or they don't. Does Grand Fenwick have anything to contribute to that process? Oh, let's not forget that NANOG is not a US-centric organization now...
A previous contributor showed the country breakdown of the participants. For my part, I looked through all the names of the people on this commission and didn't recognize a single name as part of the original Internet Construction Crew (ICC).
The report, if I were grading it on completeness, would get a D+. The report concentrates on those few things that bring certain peoples to a slow boil. I'm sure that one of the most important questions will be how to handle right-to-left writing systems in the current structure. It completely neglects those portions of oversight and control that mean the life and death of the Internet, either as we know it or as people have envisioned it in the future.
My great fear? "Regulation." As in putting together a list of conflicting requirements on users of the Internet that will spawn a whole new industry that generates not one cent of revenue. Oh, and someone has to pay for all this work and effort to make my life as an admin miserable. Can you say "Internet Tax"? I knew you could!
As a system administrator, I will continue to run my network. my routers, and my servers as I see fit. If the UN wants to play power games and screw it all up, then I as an operator and administrator will do everything technically possible to be sure that UN screwups don't affect my customers.
My network, my rules.
They are in public official denial, but the reality is SA is sliding down the tubes to mass criminal anarchy and blatant despotism. Look at Zimbabwe now, that's South Africa in a few years.
This was a most interesting discussion. Why are so many Americans calling people from countries in the UN "they"? Do you realize you are also "they" in that case? Let me say that Europe != UN != US but the US, European countries and many others around the world are also a part of the UN. The great thing about the UN is that it's sort of a democracy - the U.S. has a say as well as all other countries that are a part of it. I'd also like to echo other comments: the US doesn't control or own the internet, neither does any other country or organization. We are ALL a part of it, regardless of if we're situated in India, China, Pakistan, Sweden, Niger, the US or some place else (and using it). For people reading Slashdot and other sites - please realize that not even this "All American site" (or wherever the editors and servers are) is read, used, commented a.s.o. only by Americans - maybe not even mostly by Americans. Just like when I travelled for a year, living in host families throughout the U.S. and Canada, I got to hear from one U.S. host mom the words "Have you invented spaghetti in Sweden yet?". Think. Study. Learn. Are you as a person so much smarter and more righteous than all the rest, living before and after yourself, just because you're an American? Most of us in the world has "freedom of speech", but realize that it's a weapon as well, and even though your comment might not stir up a war, it can hurt people, and it most definitely gives people on the rest of the globe (of which the US is only a small part) a taste of how you're thinking...
This is NOT about the UN looking out for the best interests of the world population. This is NOT about liberating the internet from the evil Americans. This will NOT impact censorship or any freedoms that we enjoy on the internet.
This is about the UN trying to get control and power where they currently have none. They want this power so that they can be more like a government. The problem is, they are a treaty organization, not a government. They are not elected. They are not accountable to the people they want to govern.
Exactly right. I'm all for the world setting up an alternative set of more egalitarian root servers, but ICANN is hardly a democratically run organization, and has, quite frankly, demonstrated even more corruption than Verisign in this context (and that's saying a lot).
People forget that the UN's constituents aren't the people of the world, their constituents are the governments, most of whom are actively oppressing the people. Expecting liberation from a body that, by and large, represents oppressors, and certainly represents rulers, is a fool's bet.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ok, so here's a 'tin foil hat' suggestion to the whole problem: declare CyberSpace as represented by the Internet as a sovereign nation.
Root servers will now be considered diplomatic territory, no matter what country they exist in.
Allow peoples around the world the opportunity to be considered dual citizens (their home country an the CyperSpace) and allow them to vote for representation to manage the space and then provide a representative to the UN.
This would take some doing as some nations (i.e. the United States) do not recognize dual citizenship, but that would be the 'price' to have diplomatic relationships with CyberSpace.
Ok, so it's totaly crazy, but it is a Friday of a very long week.
IMHO, if there is a single organization in the world more incompetent and untrustworthy than the US government, that organization is the UN.
They absolutely should have nothing to do with the internet at all. It has worked very well for the past 4+ decades the way the US has run it, and it has grown from nothing to one of the most important aspects of modern life. If it ain't broke...
The USA has never restricted the use of encryption within its borders. Restrictions on use were discussed with the Clipper chip crap proposed by the Clinton administration, but that didn't go anywhere. What you remeber was the (pointless) limitation of export that was dropped by the Clinton administration in 1999 (?). Products with greater than 40-bit key support were prohibited from export. Eventually they figured out that this was simply hurting American businesses, since the US had no monopoly on strong encryption.
lately, there has been a sharp increase in my citizens googling about things like "revolution" and other inflammatory, innappropriate material. Anyone got any h4x I can use to either 0wn their syst3m or kidn4p th3ir chi1dre|\|?
i guess we just need more people hacking the shit out of government networks
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Because the US sees the UN as not being able to do anything without the US backing it. UN participation does not provide any sort of advantage for the US.
However the UN does do some things for Europe, it allows smaller countries to try to limit what larger countries can do.
How effective is an organization that only functions if the US happens to make the same decission? An example is the Iraq war. The US says its legal and the UN says it is Illegal. What happens? The US invades Iraq. Does the UN do anything to stop what they consider an illegal action? No. The UN has no power unless the US goes allong with them.
But you've only told half the story - now it's time for Americans to learn to think like Europeans:
Because you can't spell "slaughter" without "laughter"
Its control of the key parts of it.
.com, .net, .org etc) be given to one organization who is specifically set up as a non-profit (i.e. is not allowed to make any money or charge more for addresses in the TLDs than it costs them to run things). This organization would be prohibited from doing anything not connected with running the DNS (e.g. setting up sitefinder type ads) and would be controled and managed in a way that looks after the interests of ALL the stakeholders in the global Internet (i.e. governments, ISPs, big net companies like google etc). No one government, country or organization would have control over DNS and the root zone file (which would go back to the central idea of the Internet being a network of networks with those who run the individual networks having collective power over those parts of the internet where their networks link up). .edu, .mil or .gov would be run by the relavent organization (e.g. .mil would be run by the US militay). .uk, .co.uk etc would be run by whoever the UK government decides should run it)
Basicly, the internet consists of the following core elements:
1.The core Protocols that underly it (that are drawn up as RFCs and put out by the IETF). The IETF seems to be doing a good job of this (although its slow to get a RFC out, there is no reason you cant go and use without one plusd RFCs need to be very well thought out in order to work)
2.IP address allocation.
Right now various agencies (I know the IANA used to do this but they dont do it anymore, someone else does) hand out IP address blocks. That function seems to be running right (other than the physical lack of usable addresses that is)
If IPV6 was more widely deployed, you wouldnt have any address problems since IPV6 provides so many addersses that even a home user could have an IPV6 block where the upper 120 bits were fixed and then they would get 8 bits of address to allocate to devices (IANA IPV6 guru so 8 bits for a normal home user might be too much but even 6 bits would give them 64 or so addresses to use)
You could give different countries a block of IP addresses which could then give ISPs and hosts etc parts of that block and so on down to the users.
Also IPV6 adoption would mean a greater adoption of encryption (via IPSecV6 or something similar) and multicasting.
3.DNS. Right now, this is controled by those who run the root servers. And by ICANN and DOC who ultimatly control the root zone file (which points to the ccTLD and gTLD nameservers run by verisign and others). Then, verisign and others control the ccTLDs and gTLDs. What is needed here is for control of the root zone file as well as control over the key gTLDs (like
Special gTLDs like
ccTLDs would be run by whatever agency the governments of those countries decides should run them (e.g.
and 4.the cables, routers and systems that actually make the core of the Internet work. The problem right now (IMO) is that too much of this infrastructure is held by too few companies (a lot of it is held by phone companies/large ISPs)
There is not enough redundancy (and this isnt just to do with a lack of physical cables, its also to do with the fact that the large ISPs and phone cos that own the backbone wont allow/dont want/charge to much for their systems to talk to each other and route data over the other guys links when theirs is down.
In addition to this, the consolodation of data links (including the fact that there are not as many possible ways for data to get from A to B as their should be) makes it easier for governments, police forces, spy agencies (friendly and otherwise), corperations (MPAA/RIAA/etc for one) and others to "Spy on" and "Monitor" and "Censor/control/block" internet traffic.
So, the question is, exactly which of the 4 key parts that make up the Internet as we know it is the part that people seem to think could be run better by an agency other than ICANN or the US Goverment?
The U.S. sure as heck did create the Internet. Please kindly elaborate exactly what other countries contributed to it's creation, and tell us exactly what they did.
If you're talking about the World Wide Web, perhaps you have a point. But then you clearly don't understand the different between the Web and the Internet, and in general really don't understand what you're talking abou.t
Wooo thats clever... an utter nightmare to implement diplomatically but think about it, who needs a data haven when everyone's machine is one? I like it.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Really? Then how do you propose people get to google.com?
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
do you really want a bunch of foreigners running the internet? no, i didn't think so.
Given this article about China using a full onslaught of nuclear weapons agains the US if we defend Taiwan, would you WANT the US to give up control right now? FUCK NO!!!
0 0000e2511c8.html
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-
Life is not for the lazy.
I am not an American citizen or do not have any vested interest in keeping domain registry business in US but I do not want the internet governance run by likes of North Korea, Tunissia, Algiers, China et-al one day due to rotational chiefdom of UN entities like many others.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Yeah, things were so much more civil under Sadam in Iraq and the terrorist rabble in Afghanistan- those places where free speech gets you killed and women were kept uneducated and beaten.
Question: when was the last time you saw an American intentionally explode himself in the middle of a group of defensless children?
Answer: never.
Cogito Ergo Sum
Were you speaking about China or the United States here?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I forgot to mention, I am actually South African, and this country is not going down the tubes and we are not going the way of Zimbabwe.
The people who say differently are usually either conspiracy theorists, racists or both.
Yes we do have our problems, but in general things are on the up.
siener's youtube channel
c:> ping www.google.com ... ... ...
pinging www.google.com [64.25.12.45]
destination U.N.reachable
destination U.N.reachable
destination U.N.reachable
www.google.com could not be reached
sorry couldn't resist 8 )
LOL
l8,
AC
The UN is bad. The UN has stopped as many genocides as ICANN. If anything should be scrapped and started over it is the UN, not the internet, as some posters have suggested. If you disagree with me, ask yourself, "what works better, the internet or the UN?"
Don't fix it. Can't see what's wrong with how it's working now.
First of all, whoever has power will NOT relinquish it.(read some Machiavelli people, really) It's a fact of the matter that the system works now but only because caring and dedicated geeks around the world have colaborated in a true global and human fashion to make it worth having. Whenever we see corporations and governments encroaching upon the liberty and de facto standards of behavior in regards to the internet there is an outcry from the internet community and people mobilize to fix, change, or augment that intrusion on them. And yes I say them, because at its heart the internet is way for every human being to connect and communicate individually with each other, but also to group similarly minded individuals into a larger force of epic proportions. This is why the governments argue over the internet. To control the flow of information is to control the modern world. It is foolish to say that whatever control governments have now or wish to have in the near future would allow anything close to 1984 (i.e. direct manipulation of history, philosophy, and thought) but the more "oversight" is allowed the more they can use this power to "nudge" information and trends in the direction they see fit. The reason the internet stands as our greatest accomplishment is the fact that it is free, uncensored(mostly), and allows people to share themselves in ways our grandparents and maybe even our parents could never have imagined in their youthful heydays.
;) There is no way for you to communicate with people on a global or even a regional scale. Your circle of knowledge and influence would almost extend as far as you could yell. But fortunately for us, smart and gregarious(find the joke... ;) ) people had the idea to connect the world and SHARE ideas and information. FREEDOM - the underlying motivation and intent of the internet. The best way to explain why allowing more "oversight" and "management" will ruin what we have built is the old adage about too many hands in the pot. Fragmenting the control and governance of the internet will only lead to subjugation. Now someone will want to pop me accusing me that I'm saying that handing the net over the Euros will destroy it all. That is NOT what I am saying. We would be handing control to a group that is not *US* (the universal we, the thinkers, the geeks, independant of country of origin and united by true principles of good human interaction) The politicians have an agenda, make no mistake about it. And to answer the charge that I make the case for the American government to continue where it is because "I'm American and we're God's people"; I say that is also NOT my intent. The reason our system works now is *because* it is globally controlled. If you consider how the management of the internet is done now you begin to understand that the American government cannot impose its will and directive on the internet because excepting things like criminal activity, they CAN NOT shut down, alter, change, interfere, and fuck with the internet WITHOUT DESTROYING WHAT IT IS. The internet has become a form of life unto itself. An idea as literally spawned into a reality in such a way to be almost limitless in its potential to raise the human understanding to a level that we could never truely come to by ourselves. The idea that we are truely *WE*, humans, homo sapiens...not americans, or europeans, or arabs, or africans, or asians. People united by ideaology instead of blood, country, or ethicity. We have finally leveled the playing field to the place where it always should have been, the mind. Humans are humans because we think. Good humans are good because they regard the thoughts and concerns of other humans as sacred and valuable, an insight into others is an insight into yourself. And look what we have done, my geek brothers and sisters(few as you are, to my sadness ;) represent ladies
Imagine for a moment, oh Slashdot reader, if there was no Slashdot. No Ebay, no forums, no email, no net porn
Did you know you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
I was surprised when I found out they don't celebrate July 4 in England. ;-)
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
No one country did. That's exactly the point. For a start, the Internet is almost by definition a network of networks, many of which are not in the US. Moreover, there is no clear "creation date"; different aspects of what we know today as "the Internet" appeared at very different times in history.
What became today's Internet was mostly driven by academic research. While I'll certainly concede that much of the initial research during the '60s and early '70s happened in the US, it's still clear that from a very early stage, the research effort was international. For example, ISoc's brief history of the Internet mentions researchers in the UK working in parallel with the US research as early as 1967, until the groups discovered each other and started collaborating.
The infrastructure is obviously international, and for the most part quite capable of surviving without any one country. Networks that now form major parts of the Internet have existed in other countries for over 20 years. (The same history notes the existence of the JANET in the UK in 1984, while another mentions satellite links to Hawaii and the UK as early as 1975 and the creation of EUnet, connecting the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK, in 1982.)
The software side, in particular the established communications protocols for things like e-mail, WWW, Usenet or FTP communication, has come from diverse sources. What was effectively the first TCP/IP standard was presented to an international working group at Sussex University in the UK in 1973.
Bodies like the IETF and W3C have geographically diverse memberships. While the US has by far the largest single category of W3C membership today, it still represents less than 40% of the total, which isn't much more than Europe, for example. There are a total of 28 countries with member organisations.
For any one country, including the US, to claim that this whole picture developed because of it, or wouldn't have happened in a similar way without it, is simply a delusion of grandeur. It might not have happened as fast, or in exactly the same way, but it would still have happened, probably working off the research done in Europe.
I find it deeply ironic that one of the other replies to my GP post was an AC who claimed I was trolling, and challenged me to provide information about other countries that contributed to the Internet's creation, while another accuses me of rewriting history. Fortunately, while a lot of mostly US-based Internet history pages choose to ignore the contributions from outside and focus on the US academic network during the early stages, the kind of information above (all of which is written by the people and organisations at the heart of the Internet) is freely available, even to those in the US.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No you are right we just hit buttons...(I guess some soldiers have the "courage" to actually kill in person)...But I ask you to think about:
What was the outcome of Iraq invasion "shock and awe" to innocent children?
What difference is there in the way people die by bombs? Read about recent bombing of a house by US military in Afghanistan, where women and children died.
Actually, that is another thing that strikes me as being funny.
You adore using power because it looks decisive, active. You can enforce your wishes upon others. Cool.
I have never experience a discussion among adult persons that was resolved by somebody forcing the others to bow to his wishes. This might have worked on the old schoolyard and even there it was despised.
Call me old fashioned, but I do believe in some more chivalric values (very old fashioned then). I do believe that especially a position of power calls for being more careful with the defenseless, the weak, the powerless. It is up to you to decide to be the villain or the knight. And since we might not agree on your goals, it will be the means by which you will be judged.
Most of the London suicide bombers were British (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4676861.stm), so it could happen in the US too.
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
Everyone says that they dont trust the us, yet Everyone trustd the UN? the un is a government with no nation, a usesless liberal dream for crack pots and drug addics. If any thing the US should just pull out of the UN since its body does nothing to help the US only sets it back further. If we want a central world gov, then the US should go and concor the world, since it is the only government with the ability to rule and control that many people. my point is that the UN has not right to take a way US property. and what are they going to do invade the US, with there nonesetint army, since the US army is the UNs army. the UN is A wait of time and money for the US people.
This is more like saying that a major tire maker in Europe has to give their operations to international control, but really it doesn't have an analogue to what you are talking about.
As for censoring and control that is PRECISELY what the US is worried about. You might notice that the only control that ICANN and IANA exert over the net is domans and numbers assignments, and only at the highest level (it's regonally delegated to people like RIPE and APNIC). They don't tell people what kind of content is and isn't allowed, that's up to countries to decide and try and enforce.
However, if you search through the Slashdot archives and find the orignal discussion on this, there's a link to an interview with the UN committe head responsible for this, who just happens to be China's former Minister of Telecommunications (that means he's the guy who worked to censor their people's communications). It's quite clear that he envisions the UN in a much greater supervisory role, where they decide the kind of things that are and are not allowed on the Internet. That worries the US, espically since it is likely to be unconstutional, and international treaties don't trump the constution under US law.
As for if Europe ran it, I'd be just fine with that if they had done a good, hands off job like the US and espically if the alternative was the UN. So long as they allowed countries to decide what they wanted on the net, and let regional authorities deal with regaonal assignment issues, I wouldn't see any problem at all.
The problem I have with the UN is they don't represent people, they represent governments, many of which are dictatorships of one degree or another and thus have an intrest in suppressing the free flow of information. Thus I do not trust them at all on this. I don't have a problem with the US giving up control, so long as the entitiy they give up control to doesn't have an agenda to use that to gain more control over the Internet. We need a body that regulates domains and numbers so we don't end up bumping in to each other. Other than that, there should be NO international regulations on the Internet. What one country feels is acceptable doesn't necessiarly apply to the rest.
ISPs can point to alternate roots if they want, or even create alternate roots. They just don't because it'd be pointless. However no one is stopping them. That people listen to IANA and ICANN is convention, nothing more. You don't have to, you can take over someone else's IP space. Your devices will do it happily. However, your ISP will refuse to route your traffic, since they obey the conventions, but it's not like you'll get arrested for it or anyhting.
Everything about the Internet is just people agreeing to standards and who to listen to. You don't have to run your web server on port 80, just because that's the "offical" port doesn't mean anything, you are free to do it on any port you like, and run whatever you want on 80. However you generally do run it there since that's the convention and what people expect.
That's the reason why people still use the ICANN run roots. It would be inconvenient and stupid to setup an alternative. ISPs have the power, they lack the reason.
Most ISPs are perfectly happy with the root servers now. They work well. So to implement a new set of UN roots, you have to convince all the ISPs, the OS makers, basically everyone who has anything to do with running a DNS server, that they should remove all the root-servers.net entries and replace them with unroots.net (or whatever you call it).
Now if the root servers had all sorts of problems, or if ICANN was prone to simply shutting off domains of countries it didn't like, the move would probably be popular. However seeing as the roots do a very good job, and ICANN deligates domain control to regional authorities (in the case of country code domains) and other orginizations (in the case of other domains), it's not likely there'd be a big move to a new, unknown, system.
To be a success, ISPs would have to decide to use the UN's roots, rather than the ICANN roots. Now, pretend your an ISP. The UN announces new root servers, that compete with the ICANN root servers. They do the same job and thus are mutually exclusive. So you have a choice to either stick with ICANN or switch to the UN. So you inventory what you know:
The ICANN roots have been working since the beginning of the Internet. They are geographically diverse and run by talented people. ICANN itself doesn't actually dictate much to them, they just delegate which reagional authority controls what country domains, and which organization controls what other domains. They do not regulate content of the Internet in any way, and show no intrest in doing so.
The UN roots are new and unproven. They are run by a decidedly non-technical orginization. Further, they have made it clear publicly that they see their role as more than just overseeing DNS, but as overseeing content of the Internet too which potentially means if you had content they didn't like they could cut you off.
Is it really even going to be a choice? I just can't see ISPs hopping over to a new set of roots when, all said and done, the current ones work very well and they don't hassle you about what you do on the net.
You mean, Timothy McVeigh - the Oklahoma Bomber? Or are you making the distinction that it is somehow better that he remotely detonated the bomb, but didn't blow himself up with it? Short-term memory indeed.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Sure if there's a bright center of the internet, Tunisia might be the country that's farther from it. But think of the intangibles. Two suns, flying cars, one freaking huge garbage truck....
Well, depends on your viewpoint.
The importation of tea was taxed by the crown without any input from the colonies. The natural result was people bringing in tea without paying the tax.
This made them "smugglers" in the crown's eyes and heros in the colonies eyes.
I should point out John Hancock was cleared of smuggling charges, although he wasn't George's favorite subject.
So North Korea should have a voice equal to England or Germany? Yeah, right. The only thing the "government" of North Korea cares about is maintaining a regular supply of blonde hookers and fine liquor for their esteemed leader. If they have to build nukes and starve their population for that to happen, oh well. If we're to get this world into any kind of peaceful place for future generations, it's through civilized countries banding together to drag the uncivilized countries kicking and screaming out of the 13th century. If one of the membership requirements for being in the UN was that you had to be an honest to god democracy, it might be worth a crap.
There is a difference between an idea, and a specific implementation of the idea. In your example the United States took the idea for the wheel and fire from Europe and Africa, but did not steal their actual wheels or fires. The UN does not want to take the idea for an internet (other countries are already free to develop their own internets should they choose), they want to take the specific internet that was created in the United States.
The internet is nothing more than an enhanced comunications system, much like telephones and televisions as well as radios. Why is it that someone always 'needs' to govern? Why do we need government at all, all it does is keep the rich wealthy and the poor breaking their backs for survival. Dont take this! There is more of us than them and they are powerless against our numbers! FIGHT!
First of all, whoever has power will NOT relinquish it.(read some Machiavelli people, really) It's a fact of the matter that the system works now but only because caring and dedicated geeks around the world have colaborated in a true global and human fashion to make it worth having. Whenever we see corporations and governments encroaching upon the liberty and de facto standards of behavior in regards to the internet there is an outcry from the internet community and people mobilize to fix, change, or augment that intrusion on them. And yes I say them, because at its heart the internet is way for every human being to connect and communicate individually with each other, but also to group similarly minded individuals into a larger force of epic proportions. This is why the governments argue over the internet. To control the flow of information is to control the modern world. It is foolish to say that whatever control governments have now or wish to have in the near future would allow anything close to 1984 (i.e. direct manipulation of history, philosophy, and thought) but the more "oversight" is allowed the more they can use this power to "nudge" information and trends in the direction they see fit. The reason the internet stands as our greatest accomplishment is the fact that it is free, uncensored(mostly), and allows people to share themselves in ways our grandparents and maybe even our parents could never have imagined in their youthful heydays.
;) There is no way for you to communicate with people on a global or even a regional scale. Your circle of knowledge and influence would almost extend as far as you could yell. But fortunately for us, smart and gregarious(find the joke... ;) ) people had the idea to connect the world and SHARE ideas and information. FREEDOM - the underlying motivation and intent of the internet. The best way to explain why allowing more "oversight" and "management" will ruin what we have built is the old adage about too many hands in the pot. Fragmenting the control and governance of the internet will only lead to subjugation. Now someone will want to pop me accusing me that I'm saying that handing the net over the Euros will destroy it all. That is NOT what I am saying. We would be handing control to a group that is not *US* (the universal we, the thinkers, the geeks, independant of country of origin and united by true principles of good human interaction) The politicians have an agenda, make no mistake about it. And to answer the charge that I make the case for the American government to continue where it is because "I'm American and we're God's people"; I say that is also NOT my intent. The reason our system works now is *because* it is globally controlled. If you consider how the management of the internet is done now you begin to understand that the American government cannot impose its will and directive on the internet because excepting things like criminal activity, they CAN NOT shut down, alter, change, interfere, and fuck with the internet WITHOUT DESTROYING WHAT IT IS. The internet has become a form of life unto itself. An idea as literally spawned into a reality in such a way to be almost limitless in its potential to raise the human understanding to a level that we could never truely come to by ourselves. The idea that we are truely *WE*, humans, homo sapiens...not americans, or europeans, or arabs, or africans, or asians. People united by ideaology instead of blood, country, or ethicity. We have finally leveled the playing field to the place where it always should have been, the mind. Humans are humans because we think. Good humans are good because they regard the thoughts and concerns of other humans as sacred and valuable, an insight into others is an insight into yourself. And look what we have done, my geek brothers and sisters(few as you are, to my sadness ;) represent ladies!). BBS, forums, blogs, livejou
Imagine for a moment, oh Slashdot reader, if there was no Slashdot. No Ebay, no forums, no email, no net porn
Did you know that you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
One word - "Columbine"
Remember the details? Two guys decide to go out in a blaze of glory. They arm themselves to the teeth, go into their high school and start shooting. When it's all done, they turn their weapons on themselves and are now dead.
Sure you can argue motivations, but people die a violent death every day somewhere in the world. In some cases you agree with the motivations, in some cases you don't. In some cases you can understand them and in some cases you can't.
I don't agree with the previous poster's over-simplified assessment of the U.S. contribution to the world, but the first step in managing something is to understand it. Amazingly few Americans understand how and why the rest of the world perceives them so collectively do a very poor job managing their relations with others. That's too bad, because that ignorance is proving amaingly costly...
One last thought - those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.
Can someone please explain to me why they want to do this in the first place? As far as I know, there haven't been any real issues so far. I feel like this is wasted effort and money; Why fix it if it isn't broken? I read through the article and I briefed through the report itself, and I didn't see any mention of serious issues that this would solve.
Love sees no species.
England isn't a member of the UN, so it doesn't have a voice.
Europe invented the World Wide Web, we want it back - now. All your web browsers belong to us, not US.
Stolen From Someone With the Patience to Read:
"The 12 governmental officials on the 40-person WGIG come from Barbados, Belgium, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. The rest are drawn from the private sector, academia and civil society."
Okay, of the 12 nations that had a say in this little report, 4 of them I would give any sort of trust to. China, Cuba, Sudia Arabia, Egypt... really now. Are these the nations you want to have a say over the most important communications tool in the world? Hell, the very fact that these nations are for the proposal is more then enough reason for me to be against it.
"How comes that the same people speaking about democracy and freedom have so much problems to give other nations the right to vote where they are concerned?"
Democracy and freedom have absolutely nothing to do with letting other governments vote on world policy. Only people can have democracy and freedom. China voting in the UN isn't any more 'democratic' then if McDonalds could vote in the UN. Neither organization is democratic, and neither should have a say as to how the people in this world who DO live in democracies should run their lives.
"How comes that the UN has a rather good reputation in Europe and such a bad one in the US?"
During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union tumbled around like two giants with the rest of the world caught in the middle. The US spent its time actively trying to protect and expand its system by any means necessary, and that protection extended to Western Europe. Western Europe at the time was more then happy to have its own super power on its side to keep the Soviet Union away. The Cold War is over. Without the Cold War hanging over peoples' heads, the need to proactively promote democracy is of much less concern to the people of Europe. The US on the other hand is running around with the same zeal that it has for the last 50 years, seemingly indifferent to the fact that the Soviet Union is crushed. If anything, it is almost like the US realized that it just killed their number one foe and have redoubled their attempts to make sure the victory is total.
The trust or distrust in the UN is just a symptom of this, in my opinion. The US is still a super power and it wants to continue aggressively converting the world to democracy. Europe might even agree in principle that a democratic world is a better world. The difference is that Europe is more then happy to let things play out. The slow, bulky, undemocratic, but very stable mechanism of the UN represent the European vision. Anything the UN does isn't going to rock the boat. Anything that all of the permanent members, of security council can agree on something, including the US, China, France, and Russia, it isn't going to be earth shatter or controversial. Under this system where things only happen when everyone can agree, including nations that are not democracies, you get stability and very very slow change. The US on the other hand is dead opposed to this system. It wants the rest of the world to look more like the US, Europe, and Japan yesterday. In any system where China and Russia have veto power, that isn't going to happen any time soon.
I'm not saying one is better then the other. They both have their advantages. The European way IS slow. People will suffer for generations before things are made right if you choose to be so conservative. On the other hand, the US way is reckless, destructive, and has the potential to make things even worse, especially in the short term.
Which view is better? Eh, ask me again in 50 years. Either the US will blast a way to a golden era for the nations that it has touched, like Germany and Japan after World War II, or it will sow the seeds for future conflict with its shortsightedness, like after World War I. Time will tell.
Let me show you why I don't care.
BUSH IS A FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!!!!! THAT LITTLE LIMP DICKED FUCK IS RUINING THE NATION. FUCK BUSH. FUCK REPUBLICANS. FUCK THE IRAQ WAR. FUCK THEIR MOTHERS.
Has the SWAT broken into my house yet? Is my Internet connection cut?
I was in DC during the height of the anti-war protests. I remember walking down the street and finding a dude holding a sign which basically was the above, with a few pictures of mutilated civilian corpses on it thrown in for good measure. Another person was handing out anti-war flyers. There were crowds of protestors milling around, chanting, and having a merry old time. The police didn't give a shit. Hell, there were barely any police at all. The few police that were there were either keeping protestors from getting into the traffic or guarding handful of right wing nut jobs dressed up in American flags and holding "Jesus hates liberals and fags, but loves ours troops!" signs.
I have seen KKK rallies (and the accompanying anti-KKK rallies that always follow them), gay pride parades, anti war marches, pro-life protests, and pro-choice protests. At least once a week communist working the street near where I live try and give me one of their newspapers, and if I am feeling bored, we have a merry discussion over coffee as to why the Revolution is well on its way.
Is the system perfect? Hell no. Is it better then most places in the world? Absolutely. Americans don't even understand what corruption is. Most Americans have never bribed a police officer in their life, or even considered it a viable way to deal with a problem with the law. If someone has an opinion, they never think twice about blasting it across the Internet with their name attached to it in blinking colors. Hell, just open up a Slashdot message article in the politics section and watch as Americans merrily babble on about how worthless their government's policies are.
I am sorry, but Western Europeans and Americans who have never left the first world don't understand concepts like poverty, freedom of speech, and representative government. Sure, they understand the dictionary meaning of those words, but their scale is so skewed they can barely recognize how their own nations relate to them. They take for granted what they have and fail to recognize what others don't. If you ever go to a truly poor nation you will realize that poor people are skinny in ways you have never seen, and realize that the 'poor' people in your nation are fat and more likely to die if a heart attack then from starvation. If you go to an oppressive nations you will see people hesitate to even discuss certain topics even when they are not in public when you wouldn't think twice about having a loud debate on the sidewalk.
Get a grip on reality. People in the US and Europe have it good. Is it perfect? Hell no. Is there corruption... well, it is run by humans, isn't it? Does the corruption, oppression, and poverty that takes place in Europe and the US even fit on the same scale as many other nations? Hell - fucking - no.
Hear Hear!
Mod the parent up!
Favorite
"it's through an international forum where every member, no matter how small or large, should have equal voice."
So X from X'odia should have an equal voice with the US? I don't think so. Go read the US Constitution.
That's like saying Alaska should have the same amount of Representatives as California...
--- We need more Ron Paul!