Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Insists On Keeping Control Of Internet
veggie boy writes "A U.S. official strongly objected to any notion of a U.N. body taking control of the domain servers that direct traffic on the Internet." From the article: "'We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet,' said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department. 'Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable.' Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role in creating the Internet as a Pentagon project and funding much of its early development."
Before this thread turns into yet another Anti-America/Anti-George Bush Slashdot flame war. . .
:)
America did in fact invent the thing so that's probably a good reason why America wants to keep control over it.
Besides shouldn't we ask Al Gore before we go making an important decision about this
I say let the UN have it. It is the Internet after all, to be handled internationally. The US can keep AOL in exchange...
I gave up sigs almost a year ago.
Oil for root, anyone?
--Saddam H.
Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role in creating the Internet
Well, so long as Al Gore agrees he ought to have some say in who controls it - after all he did invent it.
I am my own grammar nazi.
I agree. Every country should have to pay royalties to the US-government for letting them use their TCP-IP-technology.
This just shows the ungratefulness of the European-contries and the Jappers. At least China is developing its own standards.
If Libya is such a glorious Utopia for human rights, then why don't you go live there? Bring your girlfriend and see how much she likes it.
Never give Congress any suggestions with the words "actively intervene" and "screw it up" in the same sentence - they'll likely take you up on it.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
What does the creator of the internet have to say about this...
Next week on Slashdot, we ask you to send in your questions to Al Gore, creator of the internet. We'll give Mr. Gore the 10 best questions. So send them in.
[disclaimer: This is a joke, I am a democrate, I can make fun of my own, and G.W.B because... well because thats easy]
But the only reason the Internet is free is because the companies controlling its infrastructure are not only in a free country, but in the only country founded on individual rights.
ICANN is Canadian?
The ______ Agenda
Fine. We'll build our own internet. With blackjack, and hookers! It'll . . . . . .
It'll be just like the old one!
The French are a vital part of our foreign policy. They have specailized surrender training that the US has never successfully developed.
They are a developing country all right.....developing all that outsourced software...
Sorry, couldn't resist
I got nothin'
Really? What has the US done to hinder your online experience as a non-citizen?
Banned me from bidding on items in the "Adults Only" section of Ebay on the grounds of my Nationality. If I was a citizen of the US I would be able to bid, but according to Ebay, because different countries have different ages of consent, I'm not eligible. I'm damn near 30.
Now admittedly, I don't think that our representitives in Europe are lobbying for the ability of people like me to purchase artwork of the female members of the X-Men engaging in a lesbian dildofest. But I do consider myself hindered!
I think this US control of the Internet is what's been holding it back. Maybe with international bureaucracy and UN regulation, this "Internet" thing will finally take off...
If only we'd kept control of television transmission by the UK when Logie Baird invented it. Just think of the power we'd have over the citizens of the United States...!
~Pev
Any country that can elect George Bush as its leader, shouldn't be allowed to run anything! Most of you probobly didn't realise there were other countries, until you found them connecting to your internet..
In fact it would have better been described as "protecting the f-22 budget" rather than getting our ass kicked.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The US kicked ass at the Bay of Pigs. And they totally put the Canadians to shame in the War of 1812. And they totally stuck it out in Somalia.
Its not about being broken, its about trust. Do none of you remember back in 95 what happened to NeverNeverLand.
.nn websites, so nobody knew what was happening, and you couldn't email .nn anymore. It was like NeverNeverLand just dissappeared off the map, and soon people forgot it was there, forgot it ever existed.
.nn off of the root servers.
The US wanted to invade to close all of the Pirate Training Camps, but the NeverNeverLand government was vocal across the internet in claiming there were no training camps, just theme parks. So what happened, the US kicked NeverNeverLands domain (.nn) out of the root servers. Suddenly no one in NeverNeverLand could email one another, the government collapsed and the country went into chaos.
But worse, nobody could access any
Now it's just an legend, like atlantis, and all because the US kicked
Remember it's happened once, it can happed again.
I for one appreciate the foreign contribution to the internet. I mean just look what Nigeria gave us... a whole Internet sub culture where serious criminals will put loaves of bread on their head. Not to mention the serious amount of network security tests performed by the Chinese, Russians, and eastern Europeans. And how can we forget all those infected Windows machines which act as good little DDoS drones and are found all across asia.
Yup, the Internet has massively dwarfed what the US brought to the table.
OK first, we could make all online discussions really simple if we could come up with some sort of symbol or placeholder for a few concepts which hardly need any further exposition.
(666USA666) - This would be the placeholder for "The United States is evil and I am very angry but also experiencing a vague sort of pleasure in finding another reason to hate the United States." This would not cover extended, dispassionate discourse on the problems of the United States, but rather would stand in for such things as "Loud fat Americans! I HATE ALL OF YOU! I AM EXPERICING SCHADENFREUDE AT YOUR IRAQ PROBLEMS! Also you have no culture and crappy food!"
You could put two of them together, like . This would be vaguely the equivalent of a -vv switch on your favorite command line program. You could even do it three times. We could set a threshold of, say, 5 placeholders in a row to represent, say, a fairly robust, Al Qaeda sort of hatred for the USA, and then maybe like just once would be, perhaps, the way American liberals feel about the USA.
Then we could have:
(AmericaHYUK) - This would be the predictable ugly, dumb response we have grown to love to hate from so many Americans. This could be a stand-in for the trusty old saw, "WE BAILED YER ASSES OUTTA WW2 YOU EUROFLITS!" or "LOL FREEDOM CONSTITUTION LOL," "WE'LL PUT A BOOT IN YER ASS, IT'S THE AMURRICAN WAY!" or whatever it is that Americans say when faced with the fact that most of the world doesn't regard the USA as groovy as people from the US tend to do.
This is my contribution to all debate on the internet for this week. I hereby release both placeholders into the public domain, and this ought to help out with brevity.
Alright as for the whole internet, I say we put the Netherlands in charge.
No I'm not from the Netherlands but have you noticed that for such a geographically small country, they make up 1/3rd the population of the internet (Barring most of Asia, but I can't read their character sets so I typically stay away anyway)? If I just came to earth on a spaceship and spent my time learning about humanity on the internet. I'd guess that the Netherlands was the last remaning superpower.
Also, they tend to speak fairly superb English, which makes it easy for dumb ethnocentric Amurricans like myself. They seem to have an excess of technical skill and don't make a nuisance of themselves. Plus, who has anything against the Netherlands?
I say we put the Netherlands in charge. Here's to you, Netherlands.
You think I'm being sarcastic but I'm not. I love you guys.