The Fracturing of the Internet

farrellj writes "There is currently a major conflict between the US and the rest of the world about the control of the Internet. They are fighting over who will control the root DNS servers and assign IP addresses. The US is against an independent international body to do this. This could fracture the Internet into multiple country and regional mini-internets, with conflicts over IP and Domain Name assignments, with no interconnects between them." From the article: "... the Bush administration said in July that the United States would 'maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.' In so doing, the government 'intends to preserve the security and stability' of the technical underpinnings of the Internet. Without consensus, some experts say that countries might move ahead with setting up their own domain name system, or DNS, as a way of bypassing Icann." Update: 09/30 20:45 GMT by Z : I believe this to be another view of the discussion we had a while back.

Comments

Time warp

[pmike_bauer]

We had a discussion about this the other day
My flux capacitor is out of whack; the earth now rotates ~every six hours.

Re:Time warp

[jd]

Are those American, Imperial or Metric Hours?

Re:Time warp

[CyricZ]

It must be nice forgetting what you did six hours ago. I mean, let's say you went to the pub. You drink a bit, and in the end you fuck another man. I mean, you nail his ass raw, and he splatters his man juice all over your face. You feel guilty and filthy for six hours, but then you completely forget it even happened! Now, it's good that you don't feel guilty about it, but what do you go and do? You go to the pub, drink a bit, and you're off fucking men again.

Such forgetfulness has its pros and cons, I suppose. You don't feel bad about your mistakes, but you make them again and again. Of course, since you don't realize you're repeatedly making mistake, you're quite happy, in a naive sort of way.

dupe

[anaesthetica]

If by "the other day" you mean earlier today, in a story posted by yourself! Unbelievable. Simply stunning. I thought dupes couldn't get any more absurd, but this one takes the cake.

Fractured Internet?

[rackhamh]

Duct tape!

Cool...

[fragmentate]

...more contract work for me!

Whatever the U.S. can manage poorly, a conglomoration of bureaucracies can do poorerestly.

It has already Begun

[Brahmastra]

Starting with Slashdot's fractured editorial communications, posting duplicate stories on the same day?

Re:If it ain't broke..

[WilliamSChips]

I really don't want the internet to become another great cockup of the least organized, least effective polital body that has ever existed.

Don't worry--FEMA doesn't run the Internet.

ob Bender

[steveness]

So we'll create our own Internet! With blackjack! And strippers!

On second forget the blackjack. And the Internet.

Here's approx 0.33 of the posts (some collapsed)

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not broke...(Score:5, Insightful) by FIT_Entry1 (468985) on Friday September 30, @09:46AM (#13683886) don't fix it. [ Reply to This ] Re:It's not broke... by KjuibFriday September 30, @10:18AM Re:It's not broke... by mwilli (Score:1)Friday September 30, @10:54AM Re:It's not broke... by rabeldable (Score:1)Friday September 30, @11:01AM Re:It's not broke... by pembo13 (Score:1)Friday September 30, @11:40AM Re:It's not broke... by Dwonis (Score:2)Friday September 30, @04:11PM Re:It's not broke...(Score:5, Insightful) by fitten (521191) on Friday September 30, @11:02AM (#13684732) Personally I think the internet is broke. back in the day the internet was free. Napster was legal. A dial-up connection got you anywhere. Email was important. I think the US did break it. Though, I believe the UN can do nothing to fix it. The Internet was never "free" in either sense of the word. You may have had an Internet connection but someone paid for it. In my case, the university I attended paid for the connection and we got use of it in exchange for going to school there. Napster was never declared "legal". It simply wasn't noticed and when it was, some people had problems with it. Just like if you steal a candybar from a store and never get caught, does that mean you didn't break the law? A dialup connection can still get you anywhere if you have the right service provider. Email is important, still. Just like anything else, there's always someone out there who will piss in the pool - spammers looking to make a quick buck or virus writers who do it for the hell of it. Do you have any specific examples of where the US broke the Internet? I'm entirely convinced that the UN can't even fix itself, which it needs to do badly before worring about taking on more responsibility (for anything). [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:It's not broke... by Anonymous CowardFriday September 30, @12:10PM Re:It's not broke... by John Courtland (Score:2)Friday September 30, @12:49PM Re:It's not broke... by Dahan (Score:2)Friday September 30, @12:50PM Re:It's not broke... by ThJ (Score:1)Friday September 30, @12:58PM Re:It's not broke... by fitten (Score:1)Friday September 30, @01:29PM Re:It's not broke... by Cat_Byte (Score:2)Friday September 30, @02:58PM Why the U.N.? by QuaintRealist (Score:1)Friday September 30, @03:19PM Re:Why the U.N.? by Maclir (Score:2)Friday September 30, @04:09PM Re:It's not broke... by Holi (Score:2)Friday September 30, @03:24PM Re:It's not broke... by Mac Degger (Score:2)Friday September 30, @11:05AM Re:It's not broke... by lscotte (Score:1)Friday September 30, @11:13AM I don't know...(Score:5, Funny) by bullitB (447519) on Friday September 30, @11:15AM (#13684858) 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... [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:I don't know... by chris macura (Score:1)Friday September 30, @11:52AM Re:I don't know... by dustinbarbour (Score:2)Friday September 30, @12:03PM Re:It's not broke... by Anonymous Coward (Score:3)Friday September 30, @11:26AM Re:It's not broke... by notsoanonymouscoward (Score:3)Friday September 30, @12:40PM Re:It's not broke... by pdgill (Score:1)Friday September 30, @11:35AM Re:It's not broke... by Anonymous CowardFriday September 30, @03:56PM Such Short Memories(Score:5, Funny) by Zane Hopkins (894230) on Friday September 30, @12:18PM (#13685717) (http://www.top-find.com/) Its not about being broken, its about trust. Do none of you remember back in 95 what happened to NeverNeverLand. 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

Re:What happened to "send a message"

[Concerned Onlooker]

404: Country not found.

Re:And fragmentation is bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

You bring up a good point...without access to foreign pr0n there's really no point to the internet, imo.

Re:Govern

[DaveFromChicago]

Shouldn't someone check with Al Gore before they go messing with his internet?

Re: Pussies

[RentonSentinel]

Exactly... these people are using something we have graciously provided to them. Now our generocity is rewarded with bitching. Bitching that they want to OWN what we built. They want to OWN what we let them use.

And they even bitch at the idea that they build their own! Jeez... I guess we shouldn't have built the internet. We should have just bitched about how nice the French phone system was, and how mean it was of the French not to hand it over to us. All that complaining might have got us a French phone system right about now. But it would not have created the internet. Only willpower can do that.

These ingrateful, rude, international socialists need to take a good look at their soul. What in the fuck is keeping them from being as successful as we are? Why can't they make their own network? Why do they have to constantly bitch and complain that we arent' giving them enough? Why does Bush control their destiny? Why aren't they in charge of their own lives?

Do you think our ARMY our DARPA cried and whined when the Soviets made some kind of tech advancement? Do you think we went to the UN and wrang our hands about how "unfair" it is? I swear to god, Slashdot users are the most coddled babies on the fucking planet.

don't agree

[diegocgteleline.es]

It doesn't directly control ICANN, but it does retain a veto--a right which it has infrequently exercised.

Somehow I find that Internet would be much better by the "intergovernmental body" the EU is proposing than by a PRIVATE entity. We all saw what happened with verizon, when they set the IP addresses of all the unregistered .org and .org domain names to their own search engine page. Yeah, I'm happy that governments aren't able to defend people's rights when such things happen...

AHHHHHHHHH

[ImaNihilist]

The third world war will not be fought over land, power, or religion. The third world war will be fought over DNS and IP addresses. In the midst of the fight, Google will release GoogleNet in an attempt to unify the internet under a single problem. At 11:10am on March 7, 2014 Google will become self aware and launch a nuclear attack against mankind.

Re:Govern

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> Ok -- this is Slashdot -- I think we all understand the 7-layer model.

dude, this _is_ slashdot. Half your audience is thinking "pastry" when you say "7-layer"