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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."
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.
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.
Define "control".
It's not so simple as "US vs. rest of world"--it's a balance between "how much do you trust the US to be a fair custodian" vs. "how much do you trust an organization giving weight to what Libya and South Africa and Papua New Guinea want to be a fair custodian".
As far as I'm concerned, having an organization in the US, with some involvement by the US government, "running" things is not a great solution but a lot less worse than, say, whatever the ITU would come up with.
That said, remember that the Internet works on the principle of routing around failure. Neither the UN nor ICANN nor the US government are known as organizations which always work quickly, logically, unbureaucratically and in the best interests of both their constituents and the greater community at large.
The "US", aside from a few fun Internic fuckups in the 1990s, didn't ever "turn off the Internet" or come up with idiotic international requirements. Carnivore? Try enforcing that in France. Nobody's stopping me from using encryption between Ghana and Mongolia. I wouldn't, however, put it past some atechnical third world level 50 career bureaucrat to come up with something stupid wthich might try to do just that.
Not that it'll ever work, but it'll just create more work for everyone. Another thing I'd like to see pro-UN-control folks to ask themselves honestly would be "is this just a pure control question"? I hate to say it, but like Magellan, anyone can always build their own...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
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
- 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.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.
I recognize that the colonists make a valuable contribution to the new world, however:
The British developed North America, with many large investments (buying New York from the Dutch etc.), and now we are expected to just give it up?
The British empire has perhaps the most to lose, economically, if the new world were to "go down(whatever that means)"
No taxation without representation scares me. You don't need a tinfoil hat to see why no taxation without representation is a bad idea and an awful precedent.
The new world has become a security issue- Aside from all the defense networks etc, we need to be able to keep tabs on extremist groups in the new world, note that there is a widely circulating how to pamphlet about how to cause the most damage with a b#mb on a coach.
As popular as "Britain is an Imperialist" sentiment has become, we still believe in freedom of speech. What happens when New York decides that no one should use the word teatime? What happens when Boston decides that the words Your Majesty can't be used?
Just some thoughts.
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.