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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."
Lots have people have people have been trying to make big news out of this, but it's really nothing.
i) Control of DNS is not the same as control of the internet.
ii) If the US started to exercise internet control via DNS, alternative root servers would likely appear almost overnight. Remember that old saw about "routing round censorship"? This time it's actually true.
iii) As a Brit, I applaud the current essentially hands-off control the US has. We get all the benefits, US tax payers cover the actual cost.
iv) The UN couldn't find it's arse with both hands. Of course, neither can Congress, but at the moment the system is up and running and they'd have to actively intervene to screw it up. Migrating something as important as this to a new bureaucratic body doesn't bare thinking about.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
> The organization that put Libya in charge of human rights. Yes, Brilliant.
Exactly! Libya hasn't supported or condoned anything like as many human rights abuses as the United States!
The US doesn't want the UN in charge of anything, so this isn't very suprising.
This is only the first internet. There'll be others.
I'm glad that our State Department stood up to the call for us to relinquish control of the internet domain servers to the UN. Let's be honest, the UN taints and screws up nearly everything they touch (ie Oil for Food) and they have no experience in technological matters such as these and supporting such a massive operation. Meantime, for over 30 years the US has rightfully controlled the servers and networks they financed in the first place. I wouldn't trust our networks with any other country in the world... feel free to call me cocky or chauvinistic but we foot the bill, so we should have control.
www.bradgroux.com
Speaking of the other countries metioned in TFA: Brazil, along with Iran, Cuba, China and others has created an impromptu "Likeminded Group" at the PrepCom3 meeting in Geneva that has continually insisted on the removal of US control.
Yea, with a group like that, I'm sure the US is ready to hand over the keys any day now.
I was not touched there by an angel.
"and everybody thought there were WMDs in Iraq"
This is totally wrong and you only believe this due to the very efficient propaganda in the U.S. France and Germany heavily protested because they did NOT BELIEVE ONE WORD of what Colin Powel said at the U.N. The U.N. protested about the claims made by Dick that there were any nuclear weapons in Iraq. There was a really good book written by a former inspector of the U.N. who worked in Iraq, published around 2000, that it was absolutely impossible for Iraq to still have ANY WMDs. But we know that reading is not one of George W's strong attributes.
Greetings,
ecbpro
So, you don't have any objection other than you dislike the current administration? If it were the KerryGore administration would you feel better? If you want to make fundamental changes to stuff like the Internet, you really should have somthing you are going to, not just something you are running away from (just like planning for a natural disaster). What's wrong with the current system and how would the system be fixed if the UN was in control? (Other than the increase in embezzlement and bribery)
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Last night when corresponding with a German friend online I found out she only makes 600 euros a month in an office building.
Little did she know that's the type of wages one can get from working at McDonalds over here in the U.S.
My old job I made twice as much as her, and my current I'm making four times what she makes.
So yes, in a way the U.S. does care more about the people (ITS PEOPLE) because the competition is the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is worse economically for the most part. To be appealing, you don't have to be good, or the best, or perfect, you just have to be a little better than the competition.
But, I guess that's why our medical always sucks. hehe.
I'm just saying it sounds like your standards are based on a world under a united leadership, and it most definately is not. If one country can get a bit ahead at the expense of another, they'll probably do it.
And, if you ask them to relinquish control to the UN. Pft, the UN is going to need some leverage because no one just gives up a possible advantage in a competition.
It all goes back to the Lord of the Flies or Rome. Sure we can all work together in a controlled environment for a while, especially for survival. But, give humans time and they'll break down into factions that compete, eventually. It's how we evolve for Christ's sake.
Your government puts the needs of the people behind the needs of corporations. That is not how I would like to see the internet run.
Absolutely agreed Hamilton should be dug up and shot again for conceiving of the corporation and limited liability for a fictitious entity. Most of the other founding fathers saw this as a sure fire way to create an empire building government. Further Lincoln helped this along by further limiting the liability of corporations and changing laws to please his financial backers in his pursuit of the war against the south. In saying all that though, Americans designed and built the Internet with American tax payers' money as a defense network. The core layers of the internet where bought with our dollars and therefore I do not want my government wholesale giving away my money to the discression's of the likes of China and Brazil. No matter your gripe or how valid it is, with America we built it and we should be allowed, not even allowed, we maintain the right to control our DNS system. If other countries want control, the technology is there. Talk to Microsoft, talk to Linus and have them point the DNS systems to international servers. Developers have a right to make choices for their systems and I would imagine that you would get an open ear from the free software community, but to say that we need to give up something that we built and paid for is ludicrous at best.
USA! USA! USA!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Exactly. If the UN wants control over the internet, they can setup their own UN internet. They can fund a UN DNS system, they can pay for the upkeep, the bandwidth, and trying to promote other people to use it.
I'm quite fine with the current internet how it is. I don't see the US really doing much evil with the internet, and the current 'internet' DNS system IS the US' baby. Look at China, they basically already have their own 'internet'. This is just a bunch of whining democrats who don't know anything, and want control over something that other people worked hard to create and maintain.
To any robotic flag waving idiots,
l
Did Germany force you to use cars, jets, rockets and television? Could you have not banded together to make your own version of personal transportation, rocketry and transmission of images?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_braun
Did Scotland force you to use the telephone, penicillin and modern economics? Could you have not banded together to make your own version of mass communication, antibiotics and economics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
Did Greece and Rome force you to use Republics and Democracy as your form of government? Could you have not banded together and make your own unique version of government?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic
Did China force you to use paper currency or gunpowder? Could you have not banded together and invented your own version of money and method to propel your bullets and fireworks?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_money
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder
Did England force you to use the world wide web? Could you not have banded together and invented your own world wide web?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners_Lee
I could go on all day.... but the point is nationalism makes mush of your brain and helps generate wars which this news thread will attest to. Now imagine if we all had guns in our hands and you'll understand the root of the greatest evil present in the world today.
Warm regards,
Citizen of earth
There's no need to get that defensive - after all, I just think that US administrations over the last century have acted on behalf of their constituents, which is the moral responsibility they bear upon being elected. Who else's interests should come before those whom they represent? That's the objection to ceding sovereignty to the UN, to allowing the ICC jurisdiction over serving US personnel - I think it's very hard to argue against, unless a representative is elected on a platform that commits to serving foreigners as well as the electorate. If your response is to resort to ad hominem attacks, it suggests that your position is the one lacking merit.
The "freedom of the European continent" is a sweeping generalization. To play Devil's Advocate, the freedom of the Europe is due to the tardy actions of the pre-war French and British governments, who actually finally abandoned appeasement and declared war on Germany in support of Poland. The United States did not. Roosevelt was de jure constrained by the Neutrality Acts from taking a side until Germany declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, and de facto from siding with the British Empire, the primary geopolitical competitor to the US. Prewar Annapolis wargames paid equal attention to war with the Japanese in the Pacific and the British in the Atlantic. From a strategic viewpoint, the result of the war was to reduce these two empires to client states, one occupied and the other burdened by massive debt, that largely served as unsinkable aircraft carriers for the Cold War. If Germany had not declared war on the United States, would Roosevelt have been able to intervene in Europe at all, with a war to fight in the Pacific?
- Sig files: contemptibly familiar the second time around.
America is a police state? News to me. This is a land where buying books about Nazi regalia, purely for the historical context, is legal, or you can buy books about explosives, or drugs, or books critical of our government, even books saying it should be overthrown....because we don't ban books here. Unlike in certain other "Free, Western" nations. This is a country where citizens can legally own M-16s. This is a country where anyone can express any political opinion they wish, even call the leadership evil...without being jailed. This is a country where people can vote for or join whatever political party they wish (even if it has a snowball's chance in hell), including the Nazi or Communist parties....without being jailed. And this is a country where people can be any religion they wish, there are various Neo-Pagans, Jews, Muslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Vodunists, and people of many other faiths...there's no law against it, there's no government oppression. Sure most are Christians of some sort or another...but most of those aren't even Fundamentalists of any stripe.
Where? Where is the fucking "police state" you are bitching about? I don't see it. If it were here, we'd overthrow it because Americans are culturally intolerant of tyranny.
God, everyone here is a moron. And I'm talking to you 'pro-UN' people, too. The issue isn't what government is in control, it's if ICANN is in control.
Have you seen what ICANN has been doing the past few years? Remember the 'let's redirect invalid names to our server so we can show ads', that was lots of fun. And that was just the obvious tip of the iceberg, the one everyone could see. The problem isn't that the US is nominally in charge of ICANN. The problem is ICANN, period.
I'd be perfectly happy if root DNS operations were turned over to the IANA or the IETF or even back to the NSF, anyone trustworthy, with ultimate control remaining in the hands of the US. (Who would continue to never use it.) However, the US refuses to do this.
Because the US has let ICANN do whatever the fuck it wants, the US must stop being in control. It is not responsible, it has decided on a 'hands-off approach' to the internet, which is normally fine, but not when the people they have deligated to manage DNS for them are running wild.
That's what this push is about. It's not because of any issues with the US control, it's because the US completely refuses to do anything about ICANN, even when they blatantly violate their charter by removing non-corporate elected people and keep secrets from board members and whatnot.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Some countries have been frustrated that the United States and European countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving developing nations with a limited supply to share.
I'd be pretty frustrated too. You can't say with a straight face that MIT deserves 16 million addresses.
In fact, the issue of voting on the war with Iraq was a major political issue during the last Presidential election, as John Kerry, the opponent to George Bush, had voted for going to war with Iraq....and yet strongly opposed the War in his campaign.
Perhaps you should take a dose of your own medicine there. But it does. We built it, with our tax dollars, for our military....and then decided to open it to the public. That it gained popularity worldwide was a bonus. But it is our property. We made it, we paid for it.