Slashdot Mirror
EU Claims Internet Could Fall Apart Next Month
freaktheclown writes "The battle for the control of the Internet could hit a climax next month, with the EU saying that it could 'fall apart.' From the article: 'The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the Internet will split apart. At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the Internet's address structure, called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between the world's computers. It is managed by the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under contract to the US Department of Commerce.'"
Icann, and you can't.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Only $14.99 on Pay-Per-View. Check your local listings for details.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Let them all start their own DNS systems, breaking the Internet into segments. Let their own stupidity be their punishment. First, they will legislate that ISPs operating in their countries will no be allowed to use root DNS servers other than their own...
Then, their citizens will realize that this effectively isolates them from anyone smart enough to stick with the current, very functional, system. Then, the break away group will begin bickering back and forth as some members want to use their control of DNS to influence both local and international political views. It will further splinter into smaller useless segments.
At some point the citizenry in some of the smarter countries that broke away will realize how stupid this is when they can't use credit cards controlled by US banks, or interact with US companies easily. They will usher the bureaucrats out to the gallows and the hole problem will be solved.
====
This whole thing is about controlling the flow of information. The currect (US led) system has 0 political control of domains. The US government doesn't tell ICANN to remove a root DNS entry if they have a problem. The find the server and seize it according to the law. If it is overseas, they work with the local government.
We bitch about the government restricting freedom of speech here in the US in general, but Europeans and especially China and the middle east are the the people with no real freedom in that respect (they can't even legally complain about not having freedom of speech in may cases). Allowing governments like that any control over the Internet on the international scale would be a disaster for free speech and a victory for dictators and autocrats that want complete control.
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
Does that mean that (shudder...) I won't be able to receive spam from Russia and China anymore?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
My God, who's manning the internets!
But... what will all the Slashdotters do with their time? Surely you can't expect us all to... *gulp* leave our computers?
I say destroy it completely, and rebuild it right.
Go, Europe, GO!
Nice f*cking job boys.
What can happen is that a bunch of governments set up their own root servers which no ISP in their right mind will direct their DNS servers at. Nothing will change and the world will continue as it was, except someone gets to look a bit silly.
Evil people are out to get you.
...a whole new definition to the term "netslpit"...
An anonymous source known only as "C. Little" announced that the "sky was falling." More news later as details come in.
PREPARE FOR THE ALMIGHTY NETSPLIT. Pay me $50, and I'll prepare you for it!
There will be Internets after all.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Shouldn't the headline read:
"EU Claws Internet Apart Next Month"?
This is a deliberate act by our European govfriends, not something that "happens" on its own.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Good.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
While having DNS providers battle each other might be somewhat disruptive, at least people could choose between alternative DNS servers. What I'm worried about is if these yahoos try taking over ICANN's IP allocation system. If THAT happened we'd see all sorts of routing problems, and would probably have to isolate the US's networks to keep things from becoming completely disrupted.
Just to restate - the internet's not going to "fall apart" on it's own. They're planning on breaking it. The terminology they use makes it sound like the network's fragile and about to break. That's not the case.
This would require everyone in the EU to reconfigure the nameservers to point at a different set of root servers overnight. It's just not going to happen. Speaking as someone in the EU running a number of nameservers I'm not going to do this if it effects my ability to resolve domain names correctly. I might, overtime, add some additional EU nameservers if they are none disruptive but this will be a gradual process.
----
I, for one, welcome our new EU overlords!
This just in from Chicken Little- The Sky is Falling. Isn't it amazing that now suddenly if they don't get control the whole thing is going to fail? Wonder how it has held up all of these years.
Just Europe discovering again that they are in bed with the worst nations in the world in terms of human rights, gender equality and religous freedom.
But hey! Let's be equal. I demand that GMT time now be set in the United States. It's not fair that it is only in Europe!
After all, he invented the Internet, I'll bet that he can keep it working!
There's absolutely no reason why the Internet has to fall apart. If it does then it's because they want it to. I think the countries behind this push for change should seriously consider whether they're doing more harm than good... if you were a citizen in a country that decided to "break off" from the rest of the Internet, wouldn't you prefer to keep your access to the old one rather than start over from scratch?
I would expect to see a huge demand for access to the primary Internet, and the new one would just sortof shrivel up and die.
Let them split...just see how long it will last. The article says China, Brazil, Russia, and some Arab states may end up creating their own versions of the internet. I say go ahead. I don't read Chinese, Brazillian-Portuguese, Russian or Arabic anyway. If the EU decided to jump in on this too I say go ahead it won't last long. No matter how much pressure the EU puts on the US to gain partial control of the root servers the bottom line is by splitting the internet you are going to piss off 225 million+ internet users in the EU who no longer can get to all their favorite sites anymore. For many people this might just be enough to cause a massive loss of business which would bring pressure from the thousands of ISPs throughout europe against the EU. I applaud these countries for wanting to actively participate in the architecture of the internet but I think they should remember not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
They will usher the bureaucrats out to the gallows and the hole problem will be solved.
:-)
I assume by this you mean filling said holes with bureaucrats after they are finished with Project Gallows.
Happily, this may also reduce required funds for road maintenience so it's really a win-win.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because they US can't be trusted not to destroy it.....
Will this make it so those nigerians won't be able to share their many millions of dollars they just inherited by coup with us common folk in america?
My shiny toy! Mine! Mine! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Help me out here: I understand the politics here. That part makes sense.
But who are the corporate winners? Call me a cynic, but I'm far too jaded to believe this is all one big "f*ck you" to the US. And I refuse to believe its about "control" when our control isn't the least bit restrictive.
Someone's going to make bank off this. Politicians are puppets not puppetmasters.
Who profits?
Follow the money.
Any insights?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I assume that it's mostly the French govt. pushing this. Perhaps they could develop their own alternative to the Internet. It could be run by the French telecom which could use telecom infrastructure and distribute some kind of network appliance to all of their customers. Oh, wait ...
[Insert pithy quote here]
Yum, Laugenbroetchen. If you've never had them, you don't know what you're missing. It's a recent discovery for me, and I can't get them here in the States - without them arriving through the mail - so I might not enjoy them as much if I actually lived in Germany, but still, Laugenbroetchen. Yum.
(Loosely translated, Laugenbroetchen means pretzel rolls - they are rolls that taste like soft pretzels. However, somehow they taste a lot better than soft pretzels.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
So I'll just start pointing to their DNS servers in addition to the current ones, and everything will work just fine.
What's the problem?
... will be located in China to help them accept and build to an internet-free live.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Film at 11. USENET cliche by 1989. EU resolution in 2006... 2017? 2038?
...and I don't see the US backing down.
ICANN is not a multi billion $ mega corporation. If it were one no country would have bothered about this. All the politicians would have gotton some kickbacks and would have been happy letting them control do what ever they want.
Why not just setup contry-controlled 'root' DNS for each country-specific suffix? Leave the incumbent com/net/gov/mil/us to the US. So instead of being configured with a list of a dozen or so root servers today, each DNS will have to know of 100+. I don't think it's a big problem.
.iq (heh, sorry, ok, i'm leaving now)
P.S. I hope Iraq has enough iq to manage
with the EU saying that it could 'fall apart.'
The EU could fall apart in a month?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
FTA:
The EU plan was applauded by states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, leading the former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt to express misgivings on his weblog: "It seems as if the European position has been hijacked by officials that have been driven by interests that should not be ours.
"We really can't have a Europe that is applauded by China and Iran and Saudi Arabia on the future governance of the internet. Even those critical of the United States must see where such a position risks taking us."
As I've said before, I'll be happy if the issue of IP address allocation is handled by the ITU. DNS should not be under the control of a central organization.
Notice that in the U.S. you are permitted to use any DNS you may like? Sure the root DNS server is Icann moderated, but you can select anything?
Anyone believe Iran (I'm 1/2 Persian) will allow that? Or China?
Or that China will permit a Taiwanese TLD in the New, UN-moderated, EU-sponsored DNS governing association?
Places like S. Arabia, China, and Iran can't wait for DNS to be controlled by the UN, because all kinds of silly nonsense happens in UN politics. Although China may have its sights set on the RoC, as of know, its insane to posit that Taiwan isn't an independant nation.
Yet the UN does not recognize it as such.....
Just my 2 cents.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
"called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between the world's computers"
I could have sworn that IP/bad routing/mac's made "communication between the world's computers"
other than slashdot i don't use dns much.. yea sure e-mail but that is only so people can bug me..
people that believe that DNS runs the net have no idea how messed up dns is and how much of an after thought it was..
I don' know where i am going with this other than. i don't think i care
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Although my time here on Slashdot has been short, I have learned three truths.
1. People like to post early, too early
2. People don't read the articles
3. There will be dupes
The tile "EU claims internet could fall apart next month" is misleading. Its more like "break apart" or better yet "become divided".
Fall apart sounds too Humpty-Dumptyish. Its more like it will become divided between different countries than break up entierly. The messages in this thread will for the most part be based on the Slashdot blurb on the front page and have nothing to do with the article. With a misleading title, it will only be worse.
At last, a chance to deploy IPv6!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Why not let them leave? I can't see why it would be so bad.
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
Mine, Mine, Mine, ... Mine, Mine..... *sigh*. The real problem comes in domain name ownership. I can see it now people asking the question "Am I at http://www.wellsfargo.com/ the bank or http://www.wellsfargo.com/ the Nigerian scam site. What it really boils down to is taxes. The internet is a system that exceeds the lawbreakers(makers whatever) ability to grasp in a manor that they can wrap a tax around.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I move for -5, Retarded on the whole thread. What's the worst that happens here? I add an extra line to my amazingly complex /etc/resolv.conf to use an extra nameserver? Or worse, I configure bind (or djbdns, what have you) to search yet another nameserver if it doesn't know? How harsh! What a failure! The agony of the potential pain!
This is total crap. Someone with a say in the EU tell their bureacrats to STFU. Mod me down in you want, but this whole thing is Flamebait and screams Attention Whore.
So from next month I won't be able to view /.? This is bad! I'm a dupaholic. What am I gonna do now? ;)
Finally, something exciting happening online, been waiting for that for years.....
You will have the Working internet controlled by Icann and the only sometimes working lead by some third world country.
We invented the internet, why should we hand it over to anyone else? 95% of good internet content is based in the US. All we have to do is threaten to cut the rest of the world off from accessing our websites and the rest of the world's internet would fade away due to lack of interest.
Personally I can hardly wait. Although the majority of people in these countries are probably very nice I don't think China, Russia and Brazil have contributed to the success of the Internet. American built the Internet with DARPA funds (okay some ideas can be traced back to research in the UK and lets not forget CERN's contribution). European and other countries have contributed to the Diaspora.
Viv obviously isn't too good at negotiating. Its like saying "you do what I want and I will keep sh*tting in your back yard".
Anyway it is all hot air. With outsourcing going on at full speed these countries would be mad to cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Viviane Reding is an idiot. Sorry but that's my conclusion.
Than I won't have to see this g&%$&m dupe again.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
We'll just get Al Gore to fix it! I mean, he invented the damn thing, right?
Well if were splitting does that mean all those EU address space frees up?
No more spam from russia and china, No more idiots in Britian selling on ebay US. No more nigerian lottery winners bugging me, no more non-english music and videos clogging the torrents.
Sign me up.
Step one: Split the Internet.
Step Two: Get the US out of the UN..
Almost 1/2 way there.
Just have the UN issue a "condemnation" of the situation every year for say 10 years, and then when they don't comply the US will invade... oh wait, that won't work.
Pornography and other sexual pastimes performed between consenting adults is under threat in the united states as we speak.
I don't think you can say that the USA has the "most free speech".
Blar.
Can't someone think of the children!?
What will happen to goat.cx if the christmas islands get control of their own dns? We MUST save these beautiful works for future generations' posterity!
ICANN does not control IP allocation at all. IP blocks are allocated by IANA to regional internet registries (ARIN for the Americas, RIPE for Europe and APNIC for Asia to name a few). The regional registries then allocate smaller blocks to organizations in their area.
Routing is different still. No registry guarantees the IP blocks they allocate will be globally routable. Most network providers have their own criteria for determining which networks they will accept routes for.
So, as you can see, ICANN has no part in the allocation or routing of IP addresses.
Look, you can put down English meat n' potatoes, and you can mock the French hoity-toity cuisine, but the Germans? They sell whole rotisserie chickens by the road-side, and drink beer from glass pitchers! Boil a bratwurst in some beer and taste the difference, my friend. The Germans may not mean much on a global scale, but they have truly conquered my stomach, and therefore my heart.
I choose to believe that the gastrological abominations of saurkraut and beets were inadvertantly imported from some inferior neighbor. Like Luxemburg.
Hmm...
F* them and let them start their own networks. We should help, however, by giving them the AOL user-base. :D
There will be no split. As was suggested in a previous /. post on the subject, no politician in his/her right mind will do anything that could possibly disrupt internet service to so many of their citizens. It would be a suicide decision, politically.
This is simply posturing to see if the US will back down, not a definite threat. This whole deal reminds me of a common saying - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
How will I get my WoW fix in? Or will I only be able to play with the domestic rabid 14-year olds?
..But isn't the internet essentially defined by the US websites? I realize that there are other countries on the World Wide Web, but for the life of me, I've yet to visit on in my daily surfing travels. Hell, even the gaming servers I use are in the U.S. I fail to see how I will be significantly affected by this -- but do remember that I have no 'personal' ties to anyone outside of the US.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
If it means spammers in China, Russia, or anywhere else US anti-spam laws don't apply are using a separate Internet than the US then why wait a whole month? Let's split the Internet now.
Erik http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~rattles
"Viviane Reding, European IT commissioner, says that if a multilateral approach cannot be agreed, countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states could start operating their own versions of the internet and the ubiquity that has made it such a success will disappear."
I think it's inevitable that the internet will splinter. It's probably the only method left to please all parties involved. Then nations of the world will then have control of each of their own little slice of the internet. The next step would be for the world to decide on how all the slices begin to talk to each other again.
I really dislike the idea of a segmented internet, but the world does not have a uniform face. Each nation has its own idiosyncracies and political bigwigs grasping for power. It was only a matter of time before each of the parties involved started falling out with each other. Maybe it'll lead to a stronger internet in the end, maybe not. I just hope that those who have enjoyed freedom of speech in countries where it is often censored are not suppressed too much.
Then again, we might just watch these new versions of the internet just crash and burn.
They must be disassembled by people with brains.
'The list (root zone file), held on 13 machines across the world, says who runs these domains and where to find them.'
Sounds like a plan for world domination judging by all the sci-fi movies I have seen.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Six month's since the Internet fragmented into a thousand separate networks, companies across the globe report an astounding 600% increase in productivity on average. Said one spokeperson, "Not only have computer virus infections fallen to an all time low, we're saving over 98% of our bandwidth costs. Plus, we have so much budget left over each month from our IT operations, we're rolling out a profit sharing plan to all our employees." Numerous businesses report skyrocketing demand. For example, print media said they've seen an explosion in demand for magazines. Of course, all is not good news. Some technology companies have reported a drastic drop in demand for many of their products. "We are having a real tough quarter," said one Symantec sales manager, on condition of anonymity. Cisco also reported much less demand for it's high end networking boxes. "We can't give 'em away. I've never seen anything like it."
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Rats! There goes my Euro-Porn. Just as well I guess. I could never figure what the two guys and the drunk yak were up to. Does this really matter? I heard that Google was buying Europe and most of the other continents before Microsoft could scoop them up.
Hmm.... I've been in Italy and the UK on business, and I've seen some strike behavior that I found odd. 3 hour public transit strikes, for example.
Does the EU experience this kind of thing with the phone system?
Would we expect to experience this kind of thing with the DNS system?
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
They are trying to act as brokers between this position, which is not in the interest of the EU, and the maverick US position, which flatly disclaims any notion of international coordination on these issues. Repeat after me: the EU is not trying to split the internet, they are trying to maintain the current cohesion.
They are a broker between two arguments, and should be applauded as such, rather than vilified and slandered as 'splitters' or malcontents.
'The EU does not intend to scrap Icann. It would continue in its current technical role.
Instead Europe is suggesting a way of allowing countries to express their position on internet issues, though the details on how this would happen are vague.
"We have no intention to regulate the internet," said Commissioner Reding, reassuring the US that the EU was not proposing setting up a new global body.
Rather she talked of a "model of cooperation", of an international forum to discuss the internet.'
[Taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4327928.stm
Nothing is more AirWolf than AirWolf!
"Viviane Reding, European IT commissioner, says that if a multilateral approach cannot be agreed, countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states could start operating their own versions of the internet and the ubiquity that has made it such a success will disappear."
;)
If China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states start their own Internet like networks I can get rid of the RBL lookup code on my mail system. Excellent!
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
A confederation of disgruntled DNS servers, of which OpenNIC is one, has been running an alternative namespace to ICANN for a long time now. Looks like opennic.org and opennic.net have been taken over by evil cybersquatters in the ICANN namespace -- but point to opennic.unrated.net and expand your DNS horizon...
Thank Bush that our new UN ambassador, John "Blow Up the UN" Bolton, is so widely respected for diplomatic consensus building and multilateral internationalism. His committment to peaceful cooperation among all American allies and enemies, as well as his softspoken manner in reconciliation behind selfless American leadership, will surely manage this crisis. And his love of the Internet as a global medium unfettered by politics will certainly prioritize this matter beyond the usual politics.
--
make install -not war
We MUST save these beautiful works for future generations' posterity!
:^)
Did you mean to write "We MUST save these beautiful works of posterity for future generations?"
I know China has a Great Firewall worthy of the last Wall they built, but they are actively interested in keeping their people in the dark about their government's thuggery. Most European Governments aren't quite so interested or even very vigilant about such suppression tactics of their citizens.
So I wonder if any of this will really matter, as it would likely be easily worked around?
Or am I missing something?
Cheers to all.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Again...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I don't agree with one country's moral constructs governing a global community/resource. ...But I'm not in favor of change for the sake of change either...
Greatness. It comes in many forms, sometimes it comes in the form of sacrifice - that's the loneliest form.
If EU/UN/!ICANN controls "Teh Intarweb" (DNS), then they can tax it. Anybody up for a "Universal Service Charge" attached to every domain name registration and lookup?
Lucky for us, this whole thing is retarded, and we'll just keep our resolvers pointed where we want while anybody else does fuck all for what we care.
Sadly, the people who will be trying to legislate this issue will no doubt be just as clueless.
*hint: addresses are numbers and all namespaces are voluntary
I don't understand the desire to make this all EU politicized... Each country has been given its own TLD (.uk, .au, .fr, .jp, ...) doesn't the governments of these countries have DNS administration authority over those domains? They can do what they like and everyone else (sane countries that support the DNS root) can just append the appropriate suffix to those names... France want to give www.ebay.com.fr to a site talking about the evils of selling Nazi items then let them do so. If French residents want to set their DNS root to a French server they can query www.ebay.com and get what the rest of the world would call www.ebay.com.fr and if they really want to go to ww.ebay.com the French domain name server can map the global DNS Space back into .us (actually .us.fr !!!) so that www.ebay.com.us.fr = www.ebay.com.
DNS works by delegating authority over domains to domain administrators. The only special thing about the root is that we all agree on it being the root.
I think the main problem is that at any time, the US can have a veto right on what happens. Think whatever you want, but as a country, if a foreign country has that much power on my infrastructure and public service I would quite simply do whatever I can to get out of the situation. That is what is happenning here. The WORLD does not want any country having a veto power over their own service. You think most country want to policy internet you are quite missing the point. They could ALREADY simply do it without DNS control by policing to hell the ISP (if you want to sell internet connection then you have to obey the local law). They do not need control of the DNS server. They only want to make sure that even if the US suddenly want to impose policy change, then their infrastructure won't be criplled overnight or influenced...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
See, the rest of the world (Ask your local geography teacher for more infomation) can poke fun at you as well. Must run, as I live in Europe and am horribly oppressed.
The Internet is(was) doing absolutely fine. The only reason it will bork is if they (the UN, and the EU to a lesser extent) get greedy and start interfering, yet they are to fscking blind to see it. The Internet WAS an American creation, and its not like our government has any direct control over it. They just want attention, and they are creating a problem to make the US look bad and make them look like the saviors on the international scene. The UN cant do politics right, it stagnates. What makes them so bold as to think they can administrate a massive global network?
I am Spartacus
here here to the U.S. of A
Look at the countries which *WANT* control... "countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab States". Do you think they are interested in a free internet?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
As you wish.
What is going to happen when the EU and a large number of countries splinter the Internet because the US refuses to release sole control of the primary DNS servers?
Sure, customers in those countries may be upset over not being able to access their favourite US-based websites, but how upset do you think the large US multinational corporations are going to be when the lose their entire overseas web customer base overnight?
I think the EU is playing it smart, betting on the fact that the buck has such powerful sway in the US that if the government doesn't agree, they will be made to in very short order when the large US corporations start pressing to get their customers back.
This is not a sig.
Isn't this a classic example of 1) There not being a problem in the first place 2) Management trying to solve the problem, when it is a technical matter.
Damnit - I wanted my nick to be "WouldIPutMYRealNameOnSlashdot"
I work for Internet.
Dude, can you get me an interview? My dream job has always been working for the Internet. I worked for the Web for 10 years so I am really qualified to move up the ladder.
For future Europeans who might be reading these comments on a mirror or cache, you can get to Slashdot at one of the following addresses:
http://66.35.250.150/
http://66.35.250.151/
No more Swedish beastial kiddy porn...
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Viviane Reding, European IT commissioner, says that if a multilateral approach cannot be agreed, countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states could start operating their own versions of the internet and the ubiquity that has made it such a success will disappear.
The Internet that China sees is already far different from the Internet that the rest of the world sees. How is that a success?
Good. No more Russian spam clogging my inbox.
No more korean "I love you" virius's taking down US systems.
No more Chinese WOW SUPER-PLAYERS online 24/7.
No more Alkaida using the internet to coordinate terrorism.
and BEST of all, all CS/IT jobs going offshore (Tech support by some Indian Dude) will be forced to come back to the states because they can't access the US corp servers for customer support info.
WOO HOO!
*hello, mai nam es i-keed, ann I wan you to know I amm joken.*
Sounds like they are f'in themselves, while WE reap the benefits.
Let the lame leg cut itself off! No more Gout!
"the internet will split apart"
Let's ask Jules and Ringo:
"You don't want that, and I don't want that, and Ringo here Definitely don't want that, so let's see what we can do. But I can't give you what's in this case. It don't belong to me. And besides, I done been through too much shit this morning just to hand it over to your dumb ass."
Take the US out of the World Wide Internet? I don't think so.
Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit
So I'll have to add another forwarder to named.conf
oh, OK, let me be amongst the first ten to say... FUD! (on the part of the EU, that is. The report that they've said this ludicrous thing is presumably factual.) Someone needs to tell the EU that "Collapse of Internet imminent" is a joke, to which the punchline is "film at 11."
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Only 53,169,119,831,396,634,916,152,282,411 IPv6 addresses per person???
:)
TO WAR!!!
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
...another multi-national group wanting to controls things that they have no knowlege about!!! I mean, hey, the UN is their model and they are doing such a bang-up job.
w00t!!! Idiots and Bureaucracy rock!!!
Which principle is more important: ICANN remaining a US company; or protecting free speech on the internet?
Is every solution that guarantees free speech dependent on ICANN remaining under US control?
Which principle should be safe-guarded, and which one is negotiable?
If this is really what the debate is about, I can kind of understand the EU's concerns in specific hypothetical circumstances, though I don't understand the intransigence of the US representatives.
I suspect though that this is just a dick-size war, and we'll find out later on that it's really all posturing to show a position of strength for GATT negotiations.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
Is this the part where the EU wants us to believe that their splitting from the current global standard is going to hurt the rest of us more than it hurts them?
I'm glad that porn is completely legal here. I mean, it's not like Max Hardcore just got raided, or that Red Rose Stories got seized and shutdown by the feds, despite being a not-for-profit textfile archive.
Oh, shit. Wait. Never mind.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Yeah! Well, I'm gonna go build my own DNS. With blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the DNS!
With the current government in power in the USA, much credence is being given to fronge religious peoples. It is quite possible considering the new Justices being appointed to the SCOTUS would change the flavor of the court and result in challenges to pornography protection being successful!
c le/2005/09/19/AR2005091901570.html
Perhaps this is what concerns the EU? Have you not heard of the "anti-obscenity" squad/taskforce/whatever being put together by the FBI? Google "War On Pornography" if you don't like my sample here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Personally, I'd rather be forbidden to use racist speech on the internet than to be forbidden pornography! Racism hurts people and divides societies, pornography does not despite all the complaining from the moralizers.
Blar.
Won't this just be like that one time with the two popes?
Will the different internets have their own armies? I can't wait!
Insane. Europeans just don't get it. The net is working just fine now. Keep your grubby French hands off it.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Didn't most of EU claimed that the Iraq problem could be resolved with out going to war?
Wouldn't be the first time that they were wrong
How are the jails in your country? Comfy, I hope, for your sake.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
.... After all, that's Elliot Spitzer role isn't it?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Reg: The only people we hate more than the Romans are the flippin Judean People's Front.
Stan: Yeah the Judean People's Front.
Reg: Yeah.
Stan: And the Popular Front of Judea.
Reg: Yeah.
Stan: And the People's Front of Judea.
Reg: Yea...what?
Stan: The People's Front of Judea.
Reg: We're the People's Front of Judea!
Stan: I thought we were the Popular Front.
Reg: People's Front!
Francis: What ever happened to the Popular Front?
Reg: He's over there. (points to a lone man)
Reg, Stan, Francis, and Judith: SPLITTER!
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Obviously the EU has joined the elusive Axis of Evil and we cannot tolerate nor give into the terrorist demands! The EU are hiding weapons of mass destruction in order to destroy the Internet. And all this time, I thought the real terrorists were in Iraq!
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Why do they (the EU) care about the root servers? The root servers aren't where the real power lies - the TLD servers are!
.com domain.
.com over to some EU entity - and see that NOTHING really changes, because everybody will continue to use the current .com registrars, and the current .com servers.
OK, let up wave the magic wand and POOF! the EU is in control of the root servers. What power does that give them? The only "power" they get is the ability to add or remove top level domains.
So if I create a "www.theEUsucksbigtime.com" domain, they cannot block it - all they can do is block the
Sure - they could hand ownership of
EU residents, I beg for forgiveness for this, but it seems to me this is nothing but posturing by the EU politicians - cashing in on the zeitgeist of "America BAAAAD! EU GOOOD!".
I just don't see the motivation for this....
www.eFax.com are spammers
Gee, that would be a shame. I'd have so much trouble getting to all those Tunisian websites! How will I know which pop singer graces the charts in Tunisia? Where will I get the Cricket scores? Camel race statistics?
Notice that the big players in the EU (France, Germany, etc) haven't mentioned factioning themselves from the Internet? Might funny, I'd say...
But that's okay, because half the world is going to die of the bird flu anyway, and then the terrorists will explode whoever's left.
See, I believe all of the doomsday scenarios that the media spreads. Surely they wouldn't deliberately engage in misleading fearmongering, would they?
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
I apparently goofed about ICANN, but IP allocation was one of the things the UN wanted to take over, along with DNS.
Instead Europe is suggesting a way of allowing countries to express their position on internet issues, though the details on how this would happen are vague.
I am sorry, but what exactly prevents countries from expressing their positions on internet issues?
If Iran or China or whoever wants to set up its own root DNS servers it can do it right now, without asking anyone. That's rather suicidal, of course, and I am all for letting them find it out the hard way...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I personally wouldn't mind having 2 internets. We could (well, probably not, but it'd be interesting) patch up the current one and make it much simpler, then build a brand new internet for all the geeks (with IPv6, so we can have our toasters on it as well). Then we could enjoy a really decent network.
Of course it's not going to happen, but it'd be pretty cool. I imagine they would run on the same layer 1 hardware, but be separated in some way. Any idea on how this would be deployed?
43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core Dumped
Film at 11!
:-)
Sorry, it had to be said!
--
AC
How else will I correspond with the man from [insert poor African country here] that just inhereted $45 million dollars and needs me to hold it for him?!
the US government created the internet. why shouldnt they have some say in how its run?
Create a new standard:
{some domain name}.{DNS server IP address}.dns.int
Think of {DNS server IP address}.dns.int as similar to a country code for phone numbers.
All well-behaived systems worldwide would go to {DNS server IP address} to resolve {some domain name} and return that.
Not-so-well-behaved countries like China can have their DNS servers and firewalls set up to return no-such-machine if you follow a link using an unauthorized {DNS server IP address}, plus track you down and send you to the nearest re-education camp.
Now there won't be any ambiguity as to what
www.yahoo.com.{USA-controlled DNS server here}.dns.int means - you either get the one true web site or you get an error and handcuffs, not some site put there by the Chinese Central Committee.
Of course this will take years to phase in, and existing addresses will continue to work, subject to balkanization as they are interpreted by their ISP- or country-default DNS servers.
Don't laugh - something like this may in the end be how its done. I don't expect any visible-to-the-press progress in the next year or two though.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yeah and that would explain why the freedom-hating regimes in Iran and Syria are applauding their efforts.
...is that people are paying attention to it. It is a complete non-issue that has legs only because we let it.
Seriously, if everyone in the US simply ignores it, the bitching and moaning will go away either (a) because the EU realizes that they can't force anything on the US in this matter if the US doesn't listen, or (b) because the EU sets up their own DNS servers and the two become partitioned and slowly move out of sync. Either way is fine with me.
[ home ]
You know that this might be ONE circumstance were encrypted P2P would be legitamite.
Of course I don't think that people will go that far. The entire DNS list can be stored on a CD-ROM for anyones use. At best the EU could filter at the borders all the DNS servers it knows about.
--
The "are you a script" word for today is defying the EU.
Al Gore gave us the Internet...and he can just as easily take it away.
Don't taunt the Gore.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
What this comes down to is a bunch of politions with thier heads firmly planted up thier arces threating to throw a tantrum that thier not getting thier way.
We don't need no stinkin' EU internet!
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Eternal Battle for the Domination of the Internet begins.
.com domain.
Random target selection: the
Value: one billion, eight hundred seventy million dollars.
Play.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
They claim the Internet shouldn't be under one country's alleged control since that's a 'bad thing', mainly due to the reasons of more freedoms, more choice, and better decentralization that would come about from a multi-nationally controlled system...and then their tactic is to claim they might disrupt the Internet, thus providing ample evidence that they themselves are the cause of reduced freedom (by supposedly directly disrupting so people can't read or reach sites), choice (they want to take over the system instead of coming up with a separate, independent, non-disruptive option), and disruption (by causing it themselves)?
Then they are politically stupid enough to name and give a timeline, that being roughly a month. So if it disruptions do happen, the complaining countries will look like asses because they will be seen as the main cause (esp. as such disuptions would require action by them for the screwups to occur). In turn, if it doesn't happen, they will be seen as impotent and their claims will be shown as false, undermining one of the many reasons why they think multi-national control is needed.
Further, and let me see if I have this right, the EU is suppose to improve trade and relationships between nations, but what they are really doing instad is disrupting a massive worldwide communications medium by their whims, and that's not supposed to be perceived as direct sanction or trade threat (given the amount of economic traffic that flows online)? This is the EU? What the hell. I'm starting to understand the complaints US companies had with the "increased EU standards" that came about last year; it's not about trade, but about deliberating hindering a system forcing a lesser or economically high-cost system to be implemented.
Might get some work done for a change, and kiss outsourcing good bye.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What does China have to do with anything? China is not in the EU. I'm quite sure had I made that post from the UK, or France, or the Netherlands or Germany that there would be no problem.
Sounds like you are a "True Patriot" who can't stand some constructive criticism of his nation. I love the USA and that is why I still live here. I feel it can be saved from what I see as an attack by irrational religionists.
Blar.
Americans like yourself only care about america (though not all americans are so blind to rest of the worlds needs, like climate change).
And who are you, frickin' Mahatma Gandhi or something.
Here, let me clobber you with a cluestick: These "Americans" you speak of are self-interested. Sure.
But so are you. You think it's in YOUR best interest to 'globalize' the Internet for the same selfish reasons Americans might think otherwise.
So STFU, and stop thinking you're some kind of saint because you have views contrary to Americans'.
If you want to argue the merits of an issue, go ahead, but don't pull that crap about how "Americans are so america centric.". Everyone except saints looks out for their own interests, you included, as you are most certainly no saint.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first Bionic Internet. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.
ICANN controls IANA, IANA controls IP addresses, get the picture? ICANN has not yet exerted much control over IP addresses because there's no money there for people to fight over. But one day there will be.
Well, if the EU controls the roots, they could redirect the .com domain to servers they control rather than the ones run by NetSol. That'd let them take control over any TLD they wanted.
Thing is, the US and ICANN don't control the root servers. NetSol publishes the root hints file and the root zonefiles, but the servers themselves are mostly run by private entities. If those entities say "Sorry, we're not downloading your new root hints file and zonefile.", there's not a lot the US, ICANN or the EU could do about it. And as long as the majority of the world's still using the old hints file, those servers will remain authoritative no matter what kind of control or authority anyone else claims to have.
The Germans may not mean much on a global scale, but they have truly conquered my stomach, and therefore my heart
Yeah, and the arteries thereof.
The EU can't even pass a constitution, and they think they should manage the internet. They are out of their mind if they think that the rest of the world isn't going to want to be part of the US internet at the end of the day. We still spend the most money, and provide most of the sites. When the dust settles it will look like it does now, except a few hundred sites on Frances "supa dupa" internet.
I say encourage the split, it will fail miserably, and really won't effect me or my fellow citizens at all. I don't need to read the BBC. Most Americans won't even notice, and only punish people in other countries. If Bush backs down on this he will cement his place with conservatives as one of the worst presidents in US history.
Meh, I don't care if they break the internet. I already have several copies of it on CD kindly provided by AOL.
If the internet falls a part in multiple internets, will there be a hypernet connecting them?
with hyperdns?
Tristan.
You know - France, Germany, Russia, etc.?
Assholes.
Checklist:
- Make a list of trackers and/or hubs that will be accessible
- Make a list of communication methods (email, IMs, forums) that will still be accessible
- Sync your repositories and check for alternative rpm/apt/cvs mirrors
- Stash food and water
But most importantly:
- Download as much porn as you possibly can, just to make sure
The potential disruption of internet service isn't what bothers me. Internet outages happen, they get fixed. This isn't about an internet outage. This is about censorship. Let's back up to June. ICANN approves the concept of an .xxx domain, but in August the Bush Administration steps in and, next thing you know, the Department of Commerce is telling ICANN to hold off on the .xxx domain. The US government felt the need to step in and restrict the flow of information online. This is censorship, nothing less. A precedent has been set. The internet has been censored. Two months later, everyone wants to get in on the action. Again, I am disgusted by the actions of the Bush Administration.
Teh Interweb is Falling!!!!!!!1111111!!!ONE!!!!ELEVEN
To shreds you say...
"they are trying to maintain the current cohesion."
There is no grievance except that:
1) Iran, China et. al *do* want to censor the net. They don't like the current situation.
2) The EU is trying to be relevant here. And they'd like a way to control the internet for taxation purposes. They've stated that many times in the past.
3) The EU is teaming together with a bunch of 3rd world, tin-pot countries to "demand" something from the U.S. that we built and administer perfectly. Oh, except for giving EU taxation powers, and third-world countries censorship powers.
4) Lets fact it the EU has a fundamentally different view of free speech than the U.S. we can't reconcile it here or anywhere, so that disagreement will always be there.
5) The EU is only fooling idiots in that its trying to be an independant broker.
6) The U.S. is running the DNS servers the way they ought to be run: free from governmental control.
If China, Iran, and Brazil break away, I don't care. It doesn't affect me even a little bit. If the EU breaks away. Fantastic. CU later. Buh Bye. Sorry to see you go.
on the london version of the internet..... Hey we can all go meet in the pub afterwards. Plus we get to slag off the americans without them realising it.. Hey we do that already! but not on our london internet. We can force every website on the london internet to have a picture of tony blair at the top of every page!
Ahhh! You had me for a moment! Stupid viral marketing!
This is all really to promote the plot for the next season of 24, right?
...and every day it seems more and more people do NOT trust the USA.
I make a difference between people and government.
For long I did not trust the government....but seeing they are still in power....I'm starting to wonder whether to trust the public any longer.
I would not mind several internets...as long as I can access them all.
And 'freeer" speech in US is laughable....
If China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, are all going to turn the internet into a vast state-controlled beurocratic top-down information chain (which is the inevitable result of a U.N. controled internet), then I have no interest in the Internet any more. I will stop using the Internet and find some other information network (maybe packet radio, which doesn't need any centralized resources).
Certain asshole control-freak crazy technologically incompetent nations want a say in how the internet is run (China? Iran? Brazil? these are not nations which have ever been a positive influence on the internet; their major contributions range from facist censorship to international crapflooding. Next tell me that Nigeria wants a say.). The USA wants to continue to run what they created in the way that has been demonstrated to work.
And you're claiming that the EU wants a compromise between these positions as a defense of their idiocy?
'Mericans, it's been nice to know ya.
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
... too many cooks spoil the broth.
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden criticizes what they're doing in an International Herald Tribune article entitled Keep the Internet Free. Here's a quote:
I once heard a remark that went, "Belgium is like Germany but with meglamania." Since the Germans have a rather ugly history of meglamania themselves, I couldn't figure it out for the longest time. Then it came to me in a flash--Yes, the Germans have an inflated sense of their own importance, but the Belgians are even worse. That remark seems to apply with equal force to Belgian-based Eurocrats. They're too full of themselves.Repressive regimes like China, Iran, North Korea, and Vietnam certainly could take themselves off the Internet. But along with all the Internet's free speech, they'd lose the considerable economic benefits of being wired to the world. So the answer isn't to follow what is undoubtedly yet another example of spineless European appeasement--letting nasty countries censor and punish blogging disidents in order to keep them online so they can look at (and prehaps buy) overpriced French wine and German cars.
Maybe that adage could be modernized to: "Eurocrats are like chickens, only more so."
--Mike Perry, Seattle, Untangling Tolkien
What a ludicrous and utterly unbelievable tantrum. The amount of damage it would do to their economy, I don't believe it. If I were the US, I'd call their bluff, cancel the meeting and see what they do. Just how long do you think this little stunt would go before business interests in Europe said "Fuck you, EU".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The US government is operating a service. Like GPS, the root DNS is operated by a government-controlled organization. Like GPS, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
The EU doesn't like GPS because it's US controlled. As a result, they are creating their own system.
The EU doesn't like the current DNS system because the root servers are US controlled. Bummer. Go create your own system. But don't mandate that your ISPs switch to it. And don't complain that the US doesn't want to release control.
Part of the problem is that ICANN acts as if it was a sovereign body, or at least one with UN sponsorship. How would you feel some NGO sponsored by Iraq took the .US domain down and refused to assign it to the US Federal government? The .IQ situation is just one of the cases where ICANN has acted in a seemingly-arbitrary manner when dealing with supposedly-sovereign states. ICANN is absolutely begging for an intervention.
.BIZ, .TRAVEL, .XXX, that's the horse of a different color you've heard tell about. But then again, some of us Internet alte cockers think that there was never any need for more than .COM, .EDU, .MIL, and .ORG and that those shouldn't be US-centric.
There's just no way that ICANN should be involved at all in the delegation of the country-code domains. That's a task for a globally-accepted multi-lateral bureaucracy, like the ITU or ISO. Most of those organizations get their legitimacy from the UN, and ICANN doesn't want to go there.
Now
Okay then, how about free(er) speech than most of the world? Of course, there is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech, but the US is unique among the world when it comes right down to it, expecially when considering the nessisary autonomy required for the internet to work. First, you have to go a long way toward matching the the US in terms of our free speech standards. Then you have to ensure not only are they economically stable, but economically vibrant as well, as in being able to recover from 9-11 type events, te demolision of an entire city due to hurricain and STILL hold the ability to fund other countries forgien aid AND turn right around and send extra> disaster relief to places like Afganistan.
I'm not citing all this to toot the US horn, but right now the internet is based in a country with stong freedom of speech standards and an excellent economic foundation. And there are plenty of other elements that make the one of the few countries that you would actually want preciding over the net as opposed to a loose coalition of countries. Come on, do you really want the UN on the internet?
More to the point, do you really think the internet would have grown and propered the same if it had started out as a UN-like activity? Honestly, I think you're kidding yourself if you think it would have.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"[...] the internet will split apart"
With all the spam I get from the EU and other parts of the world, my first reaction: "Is that a promise?"
Sean
In previous discussions about this matter, I already thought this would happen! At one side, it makes me happy: finaly the EU stands up for it's rights and makes a point to US unilateral actions and domination based on nothing more than 5000 nukes! World domination was originally based on economic power, something that has slipped the US since the 70's! So, some nationalistic feeling overcomes me, of which I wonder if it's good or not? At the other hand, it saddens me, as my fiance is a US citizen, and currently staying in the USA for some time to come. Splitting the internet makes us not being able to communicate other than by that expensive "relic" called a phone........ But, hey she thought her government was tough and smart by defending his citizens rights, now I can claim the same...... and I prove my point to her, that such a policy in this globalizing world is stupid, ignorant and devastating! conclusion: sad tough, vive l'Europe!
The wise are not erudite, the erudite not wise!
This is just further proof that the EU is as evil as a Galactic Empire. I mean meeting in Tunisia that they are really only looking for a young man working on his uncle's moisture farm.
They require the www prefix: www.opennic.unrated.net.
IANA is a division of ICANN. Proposals have in the past been made to separate IANA away from ICANN but none ever went through. Global routing is indirectly impacted by number allocations, and delegations of AS numbers by the regional registries.
Yes, the nation that taught us it can solve its problems through war
Correction: we solve all of your problems through war.
Sovereign nations never like being beholden to outsiders. If you don't believe this then look at the middle east.
Whilst it might be true that it is a cloaked attempt to stifle free speech (although you have to wonder why the EU isn't doing it in the non-internet domain already), it is far far from obvious.
And finally, whilst it may be true that the free speech of americans is protected under US law, it is (I assume) not true that the law protects the freedom of anyone else. Especially if you're French ;-)
* By disconnect, I do of course mean refuse to resolve names. From a practical point of view (and over small timescales) this comes down to the same thing. I think.
But this time, the "rest of the world" says "Tough!" to the USA. Interesting how the UN position has got stronger in imposing their views against warmongers who say "ni"..or something similar.
OK, I accept your description of what the EU has in mind. What you haven't addressed, to "EU Bashers" or anybody, is why this is important. Let's say China, Brazil, and Iran set up their own root servers AND somehow force everyone in their country to use them. (This MIGHT {or might not} be technically possible by blocking IP level access to all the other root servers in the universe, but I'm willing to concede it for the sake of argument.) So what? If you live in one of those countries you're not going to have unfettered access to the Internet - Duhh - these countries like fettering the lives of their populations. The rest of us don't seem to see the down side. OK, I'll also lose the prospect that the folks in those countries won't find out about all the goodness of living in the EU or US, so they won't yearn to be liberated by us. So far that doesn't sound too bad to me. For the EU or UN to effectively convince everybody to cooperate with the likes of these three countries, we need some idea of "What's in it for me?" So far, losing access to the wealth of good ideas in Iran doesn't ring my bell. I recognize ideals that I hope are universal truths, but I'm not willing to impose them on these three countries. And vice versa. I'm more than convinced that the bulk of valuable internet content won't be on their side of the split.
I recall before Yahoo ( man those were the days). It would be as simple as jumping on IRC and doing finds for people serving internet websites info. I miss IRC. Well with the birth of a regulated internet there will also be a rebirth of the unregulated undernet. Here Here for the good old/new days
Let it burn.. Let it burn. Its brought more harm then good to the world.
Too bad its just a bunch of FUD to scare people into supporing the EU's wishes.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That it was designed to fall apart and still have all the individual pieces still work independently.
Even if the current situation may not be ideal from a political point of view everyone must admit that it actually works (at least most of the time). If anything - this just is another of those issues driven by the central EU heads to which we all europeans are required to donate some of our income. (but this case is a complete waste of money)
If anything - this will actually be a larger threat to world economy than anything that Al-Qaeda can cook up. The WTC crashes was just an excuse to trigger the downward economic slope that was ripe to happen anyway. The economy swings in intervals of 10 to 13 years so no big surprise there.
It looks like none of the EU heads understands what impact this will have on small and medium-size businesses today. Large companies are handling their own networks so they will actually suffer less (albeit they will take some dents).
OK, it seems like we get the politicans that we deserve - Invent an enemy and go to war (economic or whatever) no matter the cost. Maybe the cold war wasn't that bad anyway. Then we all knew who the enemy was and didn't indulge ourselves into unnecessary internal conflicts.
Or maybe somebody is willing to hand me a BFG (quake warning) and a ticket to Brussels.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Honestly, China, Brazil, and Iran can do what they want to. The EU has no authority in the situation, and the UN is sounding like a child not getting its way. The EU happens to be the "European Union", and all the mentioned countries are *not in* the EU. They really should probably try to get out the story more that they are not trying to hijack the system.
I don't think that Brazil is that likely to run their own independant system. They might set up national cache servers, just in case, but they get no benefit and significant disadvantage by splitting off from the existing situation.
China will probably do it anyway, unless they are the ones running the system through the UN, and then *everyone* would suffer. The government in that country is more than just a little totalitarian, what with the lack of any real freedom and the state run censoring of everything. Unless something changes there, I certainly wouldn't want to use any Internet service that they set up.
Who knows about Iran... they have an awful lot going on. I don't think running their own DNS is at the top of the list.
Anyway, it doesn't matter what the EU thinks it is trying to do. The point is that the *result* would be the large-scale fracturing of DNS. It is of course good to encourage diplomacy and discussion, but this has started to go a little further than that. This article is helpful, in that it says they don't want to dismantle what is already there. However, after all that has been printed up to now, I think they should do a lot more to quell the paranoia.
The root servers should be relocated to the North Pole...in CANADA. No hurricanes or earthquakes. And the server room will be cold (just leave the window open). Maybe the Canadian government will be willing to make this area "international" (a small global country). I'm serious! Hmmm, maybe have backup servers at the South Pole?
US could claim to have invented internet protocols TCP & IP, layers that encapsulate and abstract over different physical layers. http, is a Swiss invention (if any country should be tied to it, note that Switzerland is neither EU nor US).
Notice that DNS was introduced at U. of S. California in 1983 by a Greek US citizen Paul Mockapetris. Althogether, US has done some major contributions to what we currently call the internet, but it's silly to call it an "American invention".
Use it or don't use it.
Al Gore would be rolling in his grave if he heard this kind of talk!
We developed the Internet for speech and no country without our level of speech should control a major portion of its operations. The problem is that if we don't start rolling out Internet2 then we don't have leg to stand on when it comes to solutions.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Screw the EU, and UN!! We are America, the most powerful country in the world. We answer to ourselves and God, but the ****ing EU or UN. We control the internet and it works beautifully. If the EU or UN got a hold of its control as they want, how long before we can expect them trying to censor us like China is censoring their citizans??
F the EU.
The FBI went after a porn-maker Max Hardcore over 5 titles containing fisting and golden showers. In California. All done consensually. This is obscene? It's not to my taste but nobody is being hurt here, why should it be illegal? It's not being broadcast, you must be 18 to buy it (18 is old enough to carry a gun and die for the nation) so why ban it?
I see nowhere in the document any language which says 'community' means the locality in which the business operates. This is a huge hole which will be exploited by a prohibitionist government.
Blar.
What resource or service are the complaining countries being deined under the present regimen? I see have only seen complains that are ego based being made. I can see why China and Iran are unhappy with the present setup but I don't understand why Brazil or the EU (other than ego) is upset. How is the present day internet interfering with Brazil's internal tax collection? Is someone complaing that they are being denied sufficient IP numbers? Is it because of the recent foolishness surrounding the .XXX TLD? Ego stroking aside, what's wrong with the present state of affairs?
Naked people in public is NOT free speech.
VOICING OPINIONS on whether people should be naked in public IS.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
What the EU hoped to achieve by this I don't quite know. It would have been better for them to delegate country-code TLDs to individual countries, and set up mirrors of the root servers. It would have at least been less confrontational.
At least good old IP addresses will still work.
The system works as it is. And I don't want any organization that includes the French running the Internet.
Just my $0.02 worth.
(Sorry, couldn't resist. Perhaps I should have, but I'm surprised that nobody else has alread done it. Sure, the quote was originally about Usenet, but it's close enough ...)
www.root-servers.org/204.152.184.66
There's nothing forcing you to use *their* servers, yet.
Although the internet has always been about freedom of choice the fact that DNS has been under the iron fist of one entity has been a big reason the naming structure HASN'T collapsed. This is what we call a natural monopoly. It doesn't make sense to have a redundant, fail-over, heirarchichal planetwide system run by multiple independently controlled entities. It doesn't really work well for IP routing *COUGH*COGENT*COUGH* and it certainly wouldn't for DNS.
If multiple regulatory comissions in charge of multiple root structures were the ideal we would already have it. (IMHO) Still, I seriously doubt ISPs will deliberately segment their *customers* from *services* they are no doubt expecting regardless of this regulatory stupidity. SLA's/guarantees/contracts for uptime, intelligent Network Admins/Engineers and business decision makers won't let this happen anyways.
There is one thing that could slaughter this... And that would be for China to do the equivilant: "iptables -A FORWARD -p udp --DPORT 53 -j BLOCK" on their "great firewall" network. If they blocked DNS at their perimeter and only provided the *New* rootservers as alternatives things would certainly break. Then again, maybe it'd be good for the rest of the world's spam filters if China dropped off the map.
The whole situation stinks of personal motives. Whoever proposed this was surely green, in regard to the internet, or with envy. It doesn't make sense to do so for the greater good of the internet as a whole. But that doesn't mean there couldn't be potential for certain individuals to profit greatly in the event of a major shift.
"Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then."
-MLF Lullaby, Tom Lehrer
I think this sums it up pretty nicely. Europe cyclically decides to be an imperialistic pain in the arse in the name of one thing or another in one guise or another over and over, evidently taking the place of Rome, Greece, Persia, and other older power-mad pains in the arse, and someone else pays the price. If the US decided to do this sort of thing as often as Europe and its disparate gang of idiot states (they look this way thanks to the governments thereof elected, bought, or contracted like a disease) then the rest of the world would have bought into Soviet communism at the first chance and the US would have ceased existance faster than a joint accidentally left in front of Keith Richards.
The US pioneered the Internet, and gave the world something that they could bitch, moan, whine, and otherwise act like children on instead of doing it with weapons, bad television, and the chicanery of trade legislation. Now they want to tear it all down since while the people themselves were perfectly happy to abuse each other virtually, the alleged governments there seem to be only happy when they're abusing the people.
Given that the biggest moneymaker on the net is pr0n, and that they'll be shortly trying to cut off the supply thereof to the people of Europe by way of this forced net split, it seems to be rather elegant proof of the long term suspicion that those who govern Europe are in bad need of getting laid.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
But Bolton is EXACTLY what we need in the UN -- someone to look out for US interests. So that when stupid ideas like this pop up, Bolton can tell the EU where to stick it.
The obvious result of the creation of multiple internets is that someone will develop a protocol to interconnect them. It'd be clumsy to name this thing the "inter-inter-network", so perhaps it will be the "Interweb".
This interweb protocol will feature a unified naming system, access to porn, and everything else we've come to love about the internet. The only difference is that there'll be an extra layer of distributed control.
Ultimately, busines as usual.
Opinions my own, statements of fact may contain errors
To stem any argument that I am doing this out of pure selfish models or that "if it isn't broke, don't fix it", I am doing this for the children. And the children's children - all the way to infinity. So while everyone else wants to get control for material reasons, I am doing it for the children. I am THINKING about the children.
So please everyone, be the first to welcome me as your new internets owning, children remembering, overlord.
Did I mention when I control the internets EVERYONEs posts will be 'first posts?
"It's ours we built it" America.
Does Al Gore know the Germans are trying to steal his invention?
As far as I can see, the Internet is more 'foreign' than American. If the rest of the world removed the USA from the equation, would anyone really miss it? Everything important is international anyway, like Google and whatnot. The world can survive without the US, but not vice-versa I think.
Not flamebait or trolling, just thinking out loud.
C17H21NO4
There can be a real European political will. Correct me if I am wrong, but controlling the DNS and lot of certificat authorities allows basically the US to do large-scale phishing for intelligence purpose.
In that case, as crazy as it may sound, there may not be any corporate lobby behind ...
--Go Debian!
Hmmm the US invests time, money, and manpower in creating the internet. Anyone in the world has access to it. Now the EU is trying to wrench the fruits of our labor from us and we have the maverick position..
EU = Grasshopper, US = Ant
As far as I can see they are ripping the DNS apart and not the Internet...
...and the IP-address space has allready been "segregated" afaik...
...and that is the worst possibilyty.
...so your boss will not be able to surf blacksonblondes.com but you will probably still be on slashdot... at 66.35.250.151
Sounds more like a robber holding the gun towards himself during a stickup. 'Give me control of the net or I'll shoot.'
The current system works, its not perfect, but its highly functional. In a best case scenario the European Union's solution, and others will take years to actually implement correctly. Years in which the internet does not function as smoothly as it has been. Years of headaches and frustrations to get their model working up to snuff.
But thats the best case, more then likely if they were to do this, as others have said, they will isolate their own countries from the wider network, something their citizens will not tolerate (except for perhaps Iran and others who this would be a blessing). Sadly this isn't going to cause any public outcry until it actually happened.
I think the US realizes that they're negotiating from a position of strength. I think the EU needs to come to this realization. I'm not saying they shouldn't drop their push for some reforms in ICANN and the internet as a whole, but they really shouldn't be spouting of nonsense about splitting away from the net, when its going to do them more harm then us.
Does anyone actually believe the politicians arguing for this really know what they are talking about? Politician: Is it done yet? Why are you firing rockets on on your computer? Nameserver geek: Oh, see those little guys running around? Those are US servers I have to disconnect. The rockets unplug them. Politician: Fantastic, when will it be done? Nameserver geek: Oooh, another three weeks overtime at least.
Yes! And let's put a giant positronic/cybernetic brain at it's core. We can give it control over the world's defense systems. We'll call it... uh... cloudgroup... nah... wait, I got it... SkyNet.
Informatus Technologicus
No matter what governments decide to mandate, if it is perceived to be moving backwards, technology will find a way around it.
This is EU speak, which will turn out to mean regulate, in accordance with the wishes of some association of large companies and various political interest groups. Forums in EU speak are not places where people just talk, and models of cooperation do not mean just sharing ideas. If it gets started, it will have a life of its own, and it will be amazing where it will go. You doubt this. Research the history of the Recreational Craft Directive.
will we be possibly using www1.____.com and www2.____.com and www3.____.com... etc. etc. soon?
That China could set up thier own web and then break the connection to the US for a while?
Woohooo! No Chinese gold farmers in WoW for a while! W00t!
Could someone explain to me what's the matter with countries creating their own domains which they have control over? Let anyone who wants to (patriotic citizens / organizations) move over to these new local domains while the US (ICANN) retains control over what it already has. This would ensure DNS integrity for their own sites no matter what happens to ICANN. It seems about as simple as adding a new domain like .xxx to the current infrastructure. Maybe this is already the case...
1) there will be no Internet
2) I won't have a job
Screw EU.....
film at 11
Let's see. I've been hearing that in one form or another since 1983.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I know intelligent, calm, educated people these days who would not blink or care if a meteor took out the heart of the US. They don't even consider you allies anymore, and easily imagine a day soon when you might be active enemies.
You've got no coin left. No credibility. Nothing. Dick. Nada. Zero dot zero.
So don't act all amazed and astonished when the US's bullshit gets loaded on catapults and fired right back, this time lit on fire.
FUD FUD FUD, FUD, am I missing anything? Oh yeah, FUD.
Why not let each country manage their own top level domain? Maybe the US can keep .com, .gov, etc. since we started them, but what's wrong with letting .uk be completely controlled by the UK? Am I missing something? Does France really think they have a right to have any say in .com? We came up with it. If the French had started the Internet, it would've been .ent or something.
That's why combative people like you ordinarily aren't allowed to represent the US in the UN. Because your "take no prisoners" approach causes more damage than it's worth. Yeah, the US just keeps getting walked on in the UN. Like when we unilaterally invaded Iraq, despite the UN charter we signed- that we wrote. I guess if you're interested in more invasions, you'll be perfectly happy with Bolton. Until they turn out like Iraq, and the way this Internet kerfuffle will likely explode in our faces. No wonder the US no longer gets the benefit of the doubt internationally: the doubt is all against us, backed by the hamfisted demands of people like you. A fortunately shrinking minority.
--
make install -not war
Before getting a wide-screen with a cabinet that had glass doors on it, we had our old tv on a stand with the DVD player and VCR. Never had a problem with out first child other than he liked to watch the DVD tray eject.
Comes the second child, after she got big enough to move around on her own, she would also play with the DVD player eject. I come home from work one day, wife says that the DVD player won't eject all the way and even if you can get a disk in it, they do not play. I chalk it up to age of the player and the little girl probably broke the tray mechanism.
Move into a new house, decide for the hell of it to open up the play and see what is broken. Turns out the little one had shoved a baby wipe into the tray opening, which had gotten caught, and in addition to not letting the tray open all of the way, was also covering the laser head. I pull it out, wipe away some of the rust that has hit the metal components, and voila, working DVD player.
Was quite glad since this was an early generation DVD player that had cost me THREE HUNDRED dollars back in 1999...
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
You are talking about Europe, not China.
You are talking about Europe, not Us.
Of course it is about control.
It is about control of one of the more important strategic resource of the XXI century.
It will be a political irresponsibility to let another country control all your communication infraestructures.
My city: Barcelona.
The DNS system will break apart. That will be the best news for nerds in years. Nerds will be required to type in the IP addresses of the servers everywhere. This will be more fun if ipv6 is implemented everywhere at the same time.
Different groups will create their own DNS trees. There will also be spam DNS trees of course. The DNS trees will be updated not through bind, but through P2P mechanisms, run only with the help of slashdotters everywhere.
You'll see IP addresses on billboards everywhere. The structure of people's email addresses will change. Such pressure will finally usher in the widespread use of mbone, and alternate decentralized DNS systems. Each country will have their own DNS tree, and will import DNS entries from other trees where they will see fit. Universities will all have microsoft.com pointed to goatse.cx, and hotmail.com pointed to gmail.com.
The destruction caused by the addresses of windowsupdate.microsoft.com will also finally bring Linux to the desktop, and long with it, Duke Nukem Forever since their developers will finally be able to stop playing WoW III, and get back to developing.
I'll just browse the various BBS servers in the city through my 9600 baud modem using telix, and play doom on dialup.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
As I recall, the U.N. wants to tax internet stuff. They claim the money would be used to bring 3rd world countries online - it's for the children... IMHO, the UN should not be given any money - else they actually become a world government thereby taking power from all countries. Like the US federal govt continually trying to take power from the states. Like the new EU trying to take power from their members. It's an effort by the U.N. to grab power.
This whole argument can be summed up by Crow T. Trollbot's iTunes/RIAA comment: "What does it do?" "It lays golden eggs." "Do we own the goose?" "No, but we get half the eggs as long as the goose uses our nest." "We ain't got to do nuthin' and we still get half the eggs?" "Yep." "But we don't own the goose." "Nope." "I say we kill it!" - Crow T. Trollbot
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
Die. Just freaking die.
but this seems to me like a thinly veiled attempt to steal domain names from their rightful owners and give them to "deserving" people in other countries. ...And so begins the first great cyberwar, ride that shockwave.
Actually I think the EU is just being dicks. They should shut up and go back fixing stuff that matters.
Maybe it's just my Anglo mindset, but I've found the Economist to be roughly right on just about every issue I care about, and well worth the subscription price. I just wish I had time to read something else besides...
It seems all my spam comes from China and Europe.
I'm trying to think of a reason why I give a crap if they go it alone.
Seriously, it's not in their interests, they are just bluffing.
The US is the biggest consumer in the world and a large amount of money is spent on the internet. If the EU and others decide to cut themselves off, then so be it, the US market will buy locally, from the US (which I can't help but think is a good idea anyway).
So, bring it on EU, cut yourselves off (at the knees)
I'm a European (ashamed to admit it in this case.) I mostly disagree with US policies on various things but the EU has gone all downhill with this. Why bother forcefully taking control away? ICANN has been doing a decent job at what they do. Like they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well what exactly is the problem? The current system has been working since...well since the birth of the internet. If the UN takes control, that will open the doors to various nations requesting specific policies on it such as removing all the porn (bastards), blocking another nation from accessing them or some such things. You get the idea. Sure the States could be up to something but as they uphold Free Speech, "Democracy" and so forth I really see no reason for handing control to the UN. And how exactly could the 'net "fall apart?"
Maybe an answer from someone who actually lives in the EU will clear things up!
Do you really think if the EU splits the internet, no EU citizens will have access to US webpages?
Do you really think that US companies will just forget about their EU consumers?
They will just create a special version for the EU citizens with the appropried domain name and keep the old one fos US citizens.
In the end they may even forget about using US root servers because the US governement will not force them to!
Point is, though, that the internet shouldn't /be/ regulated. All it needs is wires (or wifi) and a place (places) to look up adresses. And that's it. Nations shouldn't be allowed to "express their position on internet issues"...they should have nothing to do there except track and kill pedophiles.
Restricting the internet is like choking off the goose which lays the golden eggs...the internet is such a success purely and ONLY because of it's un-restricted nature. So it makes sense to wrest controll from the US (at the very least untill they find a new president, prefferably one who can read) and place it in an NGO's hands.
It doesn't make sense however to then put the controll into the hands of the likes of China and Saudi Arabia (or even into an NGO where those two have any influence). Not if the internet is important to you, because the reason it is important, and why it works, is because of that unrestricted access and the fact that everyone can put up a website.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
... to the building of Arsenal Gear.
DNS a problem? Just ditch it, and change IP.
Instead of 4 digit and 6 digit IP numbers,
let's just go ahead and switch everything to 100 digit
IP numbers, and let the ascii characters in the domain names
be the IPs, and just make some fancier routers to handle it all..
foo.com == 102.111.111.46.99.111.109
Of course 'someone' will still have to manage who gets what name.
But at least 'name resolution' only needs to be done once..
when the name is registered. Then no DNS servers.. yay!
Routers handle it all.
What, you wanna be able to change your IP but not your domain name?
Nahh.. in the IPV100 universe, that'd be as 'crazy' as wanting to change
your area code.. "too bad". Routers would handle all the special cases.
What about the 'illegal' characters below ascii 32?
Maybe those could be used for secret 'out of band data'.. ooo!
Routing bits, Broadcast flags, encryption bits, watermark bits..
Vendors, hackers, and bit sniffers can have a field day.
What about taking up 200 bytes per packet just for the src and dst
addresses? Hey, just make the ethernet frames bigger..! The 1970's are over;
data isn't pennies-per-bit anymore.
Welp, that was some cup of coffee.
Now that I've solved the world's problems, it's back to crawling under this rock..
This will cause one big riot in the USA. You do understand that 90% of pr0n is on European servers? Also 90% of p2p stuff (like piratebay and torrenspy) are on European servers. Hell the only thing worthy in US servers is /.
Ok. I'm just thinking out loud here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the U.S. government create the foundation for the Internet back in the 1960s (ARPANET)? It was to be a communications system for the military and other government agencies. Then the government decided to open it up to colleges and unversities. Then the first email program was developed and soon after that TCP/IP. Almost 10 years passed before the University of Wisconsin developed DNS. From there private companies in the U.S. started replacing the 50kbps lines with T1s and T3s.
As soon as the early-mid 1990s we were no longer relying on government backbones, but instead we were using private backbones provided by MCI, AT&T, etc...
With as much as the US government invested into the Internet why would they want to give up "control". (I use the word control loosly because there are very few restrictions, if any). I seriously doubt that if any other country had developed it, that they would give it up. So far, no one has given a valid reason why the U.S. should give up control. The U.S. doesn't and can't regulate what other countries make available on the net. Plus there are root DNS in almost every developed country in the world. What else is there?
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
mmmmm, pork...
DNS shouldn't even exist.
:~) ).
It, in fact, is the reason 'the internet' (www) has even the most remote chance of 'breaking'.
We have this happy little network, all running fine using P2P IP addressing schemes, router tables all created automagically behind the screens (for most users).... and then we go ahead and add a single point of failure (or, if you are feeling kind, 12 or so points in the US, more abroad - but if any 3 of those go down, the 'net is 'dead' to 99% of the internet (www)-using public -- 2 sites and the www is SLOOOOWWWWW).
So instead of A connecting to B directly, A has to ask C who the hell B is, so that A can talk to B.
All of which could be fixed by having a few smart people sit down in a room and create an algorithm to turn a raw IP address into a 'word' (or vice-versa). Think 1-800-die-slow. Same idea as using a phone mnemonic.
Then IP addresses become the only thing which are issued to individuals -- something which is already handled rather well, I must say. Aside from handing them out like freak'n pez back in the day.
Is it perfect? No. But holy crap, it sure is better than breaking the web to allow the ability to make domain names 'anything you want'. Do you see any requests for text-based phone numbers (heh -- phone 'addresses'
Bah I say! Bah!
Love to hear why this idea is crap. Good, thought out reasons only please; I can see all the superficial ones.
You want to do something interesting, albeit fairly slow? Set up a bunch of ipsec tunnels and start routing traffic over that. We can tunnel ipV6 over our own network, using the current internet. It just takes some trust, some planning, and some spare computers. Set up non-conflicting TLD's ( think .geek, and sorry about the pun) and there you have it, the under-internet.
.xxx TLD, no problem. There's no reason not to. We could have a .porn, .anal, .hentai, whatever your kink. I'd love to have a .linux domain, and if I had the resources, I'd set it up. I'm on an unmetered connection, I could run a few 5k tunnels without hurting my gaming (Did I mention that it would be slow).
We could run our own internet, and try to run it right. We want a
For those who didn't get that, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel
+Pete
Score:-1, Funny
We can always move over to Internet2.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
We should all encourage China and the UN to set up their own Internet. Let the free market rule, those that want to move to the new net, with all of its value addded, can do so. The rest of us can continue as we are, and stumble blindly down the long path to Hell, like we have been.
Screw DNS. For that matter, trash IPv4. It's time the world move to IPv6 anyway. EVERY UNIX variant supports it, MS might not, but that's thier fault, isn't it? As for DNS, Well, it's messy. Rewrite it from scratch and this time put the TLD at the start. org.tech.news.slashdot com.tech.dev.apple com.tech.dev.crap(er, com.tech.dev.microsoft!) You get the idea. Bye
"...it is working, and is not being abused..."
For now.
The truth... is we don't trust you "americans" anymore. Too much power in the hands of too few people. Corruption is just a matter of time.
I don't have a sig.
I'm confused...don't country top level root domains already exists?
.fr wants to do their own thing...do so.. .uk wants to do their own thing...administer it...
Can't they maintain each counties domain underneath each of theses?
Although I will admit, ownership of each of these is always questionable (someone in the US or some other country may be administering another countries domain).
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
Domain name collisions. No one seems to be touching on the fact that creating an EU dropping out of the current system, will allow duplicate domains (though I doubt they would be that dumb as to allow it, but ya never know) in the US and EU... dividing the internet in two since using both US and EU root servers wouldn't work. Ugh, I can just imagine the copyright battles that would arise if the EU started their root servers clean of all existing ICANN controlled domains.
You may find my appearance and demeanor foolish, but it is you who plays the fool.
We still have Microsoft. Seriously though, Threatening to create competition to the internet? Go ahead and try. I would encourage it. In order to come up with ANYTHING sustainable they would have to prove they have something superior to the massive information network that is the internet. I think it's a bunch of hot air and an appeal to fear. But if they do have something superior behind the curtain, I'm anxious to see it before I turn in what I have.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Yeah, I guess you wouldn't notice. That's part of the problem. Wake up. There is civilisation outside the US.
The "problem" is completely and utterly contrived by the EC. There is NO problem with the internet right now. There is NO problem with DNS right now. There is NO chance that this will change next month, regardless of what the EC is trying to do.
And, what is the EC trying to do? Right now, they are trying to wrest control of the internet for themselves and they have publicly stated that if they are not successful, they hope to destroy it in the next month! Why the fuck would I want to give control of the internet to a group that is already threatening to destroy it. (As if they even had the ability.)
The problem is NOT, as you suggest, US centric thinking! The "problem" is fucking twats like you and the EC trying to "get yours" or at least one up the US at any cost! Quite frankly, I hope that they cut themselves and fuckwits like you, off of the internet. It would do wonders for my blood pressure. Hell even Russian Bride is within the United States!
So if something is beneficial to the world, and is administered by individual entity or country(ies)...we must turn it over to someone else..
So I suppose since oil is of such benefit to the world...we will take away control of the worlds oil from Opec (this is not entirely true since they don't control all of the worlds oil, but the point is there) should be handed over to the UN maybe?
Or maybe those wonders of the modern world like the Eiffel Tower, Great Wall of China, etc should be given over to the world body as well.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
Sing it:
Icann do anything EU can do better,
Icann do anything better than EU
Look at the bright side... This means I might have less spam in my inbox coming from servers in other countries!
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Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
...we should write down the IP numbers of our favorite sites now? :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
If all these people break off from the Internet that we know and use today, does that mean that switching to IPv6 is no longer an issue?
Think of all the IPv4 addresses that we'll get back!
"It was hell!" recalls former child.
Use the Wayback Machine to see what red-rose-stories.com was hosting. It was plain text, as you say, but it did not only depict "consenting adults", and frequently not in a "fantasy" setting. There was rape, and child molestation, and sometimes a heady mix of the two. So, of course, it's a little harder to defend. I mean, I'd feel a bit strange getting up on my soapbox and saying, "I will defend this woman's right to spread stories about raping infants to my very last breath!"---wouldn't you? And that's the point; there's a difference between being tolerant in general so that you aren't offended very often, and really believing that the legality of text shouldn't depend on whether or not you're offended.
I suppose we'll see how well the internet's swaths of civil libertarians stand up to being called pedophiles.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The fact is that it has done a DAMN good job thus far managing DNS, and despite some hiccups, the First Admendment is still in affect here. Freedom of speech must be absolute short of causing immediate physical threat to people like shouting FIRE in the theater. The only way not to start down the slippery slope of censorship, especially when it's as easy as changing a DNS entry, is to not take that first step.
And who exactly is it that wants control of DNS? France, so they can shut down Nazi websites and threaten E-Bay into removing WWII memorabilia listings? China, so they can be absolutely sure that their population is ignorant of anything the Glorious People's Revolution doesn't want them to know about (like say, Tinamannen Square or the Great Leap Backwards)? Iran and Saudi Arabia, so they can block out the evil west and keep their people from finding out that all Westerners are not, in fact, evil blood-crazed monsters who want to destroy them? Cuba and North Korea, so they can block the websites of the Evil Capitalist Exploiters of the Common Man?
In other words, politicians whose agenda involves using DNS to censor the Internet and pervert it into nothing more than a state-controlled interactive TV. Say what you will, but so far the United States has done a remarkably good, fair, and unbiased job of handling DNS. Those who want to take control hate the fact that it's been fair and unbiased because they want to use it against their 'opponents.'
Dear North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, France, China, Russia and co: Leave your meatspace BS in meatspace. I refuse to let your petty bureaucratic empire-building destroy the greatest medium of information exchange ever to exist.
If Russia, China, Brazil and Arab states support something as group, that something is obviously wrong. I'm Brazilian, by the way.
. . . can suck my balls.
I paid for it, it's mine.
Al Gore
The latest issue of The Economist had an interesting article on this. A couple key quotes:
"The EU proposal, announced by Britain, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, was intended as a compromise between the UN supporters and America. It would create a new organisation to set policies over distributing routing numbers, creating new domains and the like. Because of its role as chair, Britain, usually America's closest ally on internet issues, had to stay neutral and could not beat back calls by Denmark, France, Spain and the Netherlands for greater government influence over the internet. After the announcement, Brazilian and Iranian delegates rushed to congratulate British officials, whose faces dropped when they realised the EU policy was being lauded by America's loudest opponents."
"However, the disingenuousness of the position was made clear during the meeting last month in Geneva. Some countries demanded that groups representing business and public-interest causes be thrown out of the room when governments drafted documents for the summit in November. In one instance, delegates from China and Brazil actually pounded on tables to drown out a speaker from industry."
"The good news from the UN meetings is that governments increasingly understand the importance of technology to society. The bad news is that the internet risks becoming suffocated in their embrace."
I'm not worrying about the EU or the UN taking over "control" of the internet. Oh, gee...they gave some demand for getting it done by next month or they'd do it themselves. This is the friggin' European Union[sic] here! By the time they've come up with an alternative solution and gotten it implemented, we'll all be on fiber connections to the Internet 2 or 3. OK, let's say they get a plan together within the next 30 days and set it up. Who hosts all of the servers? 1 for each country? Sure! Then when France decides they don't want to recognize Yahoo! anymore, they fuck it up for everybody. When Germany decides not to recognize Poland as a web presence and shut down the .pl TLD, there is utter chaos. None of the EU countries is truly dedicated to the EU over their own national interests. The US has done an admirable job of holding the reigns of the internet for the past 40 years. On the internet, the entire WORLD has the right to Free Speech! If the US doesn't like that some guy in Iran is posting bomb building instructions on his blog, they don't drop the host. But you can bet your ass that if somebody posts "Chirac has farty pants", the site will be inaccessable from anybody in .fr.
I say Australia, Canada(-PQ), the U.K., and the U.S. get together and have one internet, and everyone else can have their own frickin' internet. I'm tired of all those non-English articles being returned by google anyway - get them off my internet. :)
Would that make everyone happy?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
So it has been predicted since the Cabal (There Is No Cabal) fought the creation of the alt.* usenet hierarchy. We're still here.
It can withstand a nuclear attack, but not a bunch of beaurocreeps and adminimonsters? OK, fine, we can go back to Fidonet. At least it had no spam problem.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This is nothing but a bunch of FUD.
if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
As shocking as this may be for some, this discussion about who controls the Internet, or Internet Governance as it is called, has been going on for quite some time. I've been there on a few ocassions and I've heard arguments from representatives of various countries.
:)
For most of them, the issues of routing, IP assignment, Domain Name Registration and operation of key infraestructure such as root DNS servers are part of the same, blurry concept or "governance". A few are worried that "the government does not have control of this country's Internet"; However, this sentence means different things to different representatives.
I've even heard some of them agree on the need to reallocate all the IP space, based on country size/population/what-have-you, to insure "fair" usage of the IP addressing!!! Never mind that the current model guarantees that the IP space is allocated as needed, and countries that are "un-friendly" to the US have all the IP space they need (China, Iraq, Libia even Venezuela).
Some of the pressure comes from ITU, where bellheads are trying to apply the same models behind the old telephone networks, to the world of packets...
If you need me, I'll be looking for my X.25 modem to hook up to the next generation Internet
Why is it that the United States refuses to participate in a democratic process? Internet is more and more part of the daily life of the entire planet, not just the US. If the US fails to understand that and participate in a democracy with it's neighbourgs it will be left aside at some moment.
-- EOF
Well. That is just fine with me!
My hosts file is 23MB, DNS is for the lazy.
So shut up and go build something, you bastards!
Let's start with an assumption - the EU is just another version of the US with a lot more infighting, languages, and bureaucrats, less freedoms, etc. Different, but as far as national organization goes, not that much different compared with the other relevant superpower - China.
I dislike the fact that our government controls ICANN, but only because I dislike government controls in general. I'd sure as hell rather the US DoC controls ICANN than anyone else. Despite the current administration, we have a decent track record on free speech and openness issues, and as many others pointed out, many of the most vocal opponents of US control oppose us *because* of that track record (China, Iran, etc - nations who still don't get the whole "freedom" thing). The EU is just engaging in a biggus diccus contest, because they want relevancy in the internet sphere - they claim they oppose us because they don't believe our track record of openness and lassez-faire operation will continue, and in the process, they have allied with nations who hold the exact opposite view - they fear we will continue with our current record, and there will be too much freedom floating around. That, in my book, puts them somewhere between dumb and evil.
Really, I don't understand you. Why are you so worried that we might take teh intarweb away from you? Do you have a clue how DNS works? If so, you should know what we will do is simply set up our own root servers. If not, I wonder why you're posting. Either way, the hysterical screams of bloody murder around here that I hear everytime Europe does something are astonishing. Why do you hate us so much, rednecks? Why do you envy so much, young grasshoppers?
Oh well. I guess I know.
Global warming is a cube.
How quickly people forget about the problems that are inherit with the UN. How quickly people forget about the history of the UN.
If you took out the security council, then you would find that the UN is based on a majority but a majority of what? My understanding is that there are more non democratic countries than there are democratic countries. Currently the EU seems to overlook state sponsored terrorism to help avoid any issues with internal migrant populations, this is most obvious with France.
I'm all for international oversight, but I am very wary of what will happen. Just look take a look at recent events at IWC (International Whaling Commision), Japan and other pro whaling countries paid for votes. They even got countries to join up, while providing the fee for joining as well as prommising aid to the countries, implication is that they will vote with Japan. It's a wonder that commercial whaling has begun again!
International control of the internet will end up being the same. At the best we could hope for the addition of protocols so that places like China can control what is accessable easier, and the removal of anonymity.
I for one will not welcome our new international internet overlords.
I should note that when i mention non democratic countries, i include countries that are considered to be democratic but by their size and average wealth, are easily brought by promises of foriegn investment and aid. When those plus non-democratic countries are put against those who are democratic with the freedom to do what they beleive... well the future doesn't look bright... just veery dark.
"When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes
I get your joke, still, don't forget Europe has 50 flavours of free speech... Some are better than US laws, some are simply different. We really should not say better/worse, who are we to judge? Especially since you do NOT know what those laws are - now, do you?
A Tale of Three Brothers
Bob was a happy-go-lucky guy. He was built rather large, but had a boyish charm that all the girls loved. Bob had his own farm which was on the opposite side of a lake from the farms of his brothers, Pierre and Wolfgang.
Pierre and Wolfgang were older than Bob and a bit less work-oriented. While Bob was out plowing his fields, Pierre would nap. While Bob was harvesting his crop, Wolfgang was either drinking beer or racing his Mercedes down the highway trying to pick up girls. Because of their bad habits, their crops often withered in the fields, but if they came up short of cash or food, Bob would row across the lake and bring his brothers whatever they needed.
Sometimes Pierre and Wolfgang would get into terrible fights and Bob would row across the lake, split them apart, force them to make up, and then dutifully clean up the mess the fight had made. Then he’d make sure they were comfortable and fed, and row back to his farm on his side of the lake.
One day after plowing, Bob invented the internet. It helped him run his farm better and was mighty entertaining in the evenings. Bob organized his internet so things were nice and manageable, and all of his addresses and servers worked properly.
Bob wanted to share his new invention with his brothers, so he strung cables across the lake to his brothers’ houses, and told them what to do to get on his system. He added more servers to his basement just to handle the expected load and paid the electricity bills all by himself.
Pierre and Wolfgang started happily using Bob’s internet and even added their own websites after Bob showed them how to do it.
During this time, Wolfgang and Pierre started getting along a little better and would even visit each other in the evenings and have a glass of wine together. However, the animosity they had harbored all their lives was just below the surface and sometimes after drinking together they would start to direct that animosity towards Bob, since he wasn’t there and fighting among themselves wasn’t fun anymore.
They had come to resent the fact that Bob did so much for them. It made them feel stupid and lazy and less like men. They began to criticize the way Bob dressed, walked, talked, etc., and after all “mama always did love him more than us”.
Because of all the ill feelings they were building up inside them themselves, they began to fear that Bob would get wind of it. At most times, their drunken tirades against him were drowned out by the wind, but sometimes on a clear cold night their voices would carry across the lake and they were sure Bob had heard some of the bitter things they had said.
In the meantime, Pierre and Wolfgang had become very fond of their time on the internet. They became afraid that Bob would grow angry with them and cut them off or restrict their access.
Neither older brother had the time or money to invent their own internet, so they sat one night by the fire and came up with a plan to steal Bob’s internet. “How do we get his servers out of the basement?” asked Pierre. “We don’t” replied Wolfgang. “Those servers are too heavy and they use too much electricity”. “We have to figure out a way to leave them there so that we control them and he still pays for the upkeep”.
“I have an idea” said Pierre. “Father always liked us the best and he lives next door to Bob. If he tells Bob to give him the servers, Bob will have to do it because he will not be able to disobey Father”.
“Yes” replied Wolfgang “and Father can order him to sign over his basement to us, so that we may come and go as we please”. “ I bet Bob won’t be so happy-go-lucky now. And if he refuses to dress like us, and think like us, and talk like us.......well...... we can cut off his internet access until he does!”. “That’ll bring the big oa
But in Spain there's a "thing" (I can't call it a person) that speaks in a morning radio program that says every day that our goverment was put there by terrorists, that they are making hidden treaties with terrorist, that our King is too lazy to do anything about this. Is there someone in your beloved US saying such things (or something like them)? Anyone says openly in your country that George W. Bush is a traitor to the US? Of course, without being send to Guantanamo.
so they will just take their ball home and pout.
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
The EU's entire argument stems from gross distrust of the United States. Interestingly, the American counter-argument stems from distrust (and ineptness) of the supposed 'international' body. For my own part, I would NEVER heed control of something so critical to our national infrastructure to a body composed of Pakistan, China, and equally totalitarian countries. 'Yeah! Let's give the REDS control of our main communication medium!' If our country submits we will have officially failed to live up to our own ideals. What a shock that would be...
...opening your web browser will result in seeing this message:
The internet is over.
Thank you for playing.
A winner has been declared! Congratulations to:
The Star Wars Kid
All your base are belong to us
Extreme ego is EVIL.
- Convince the EU to splinter off into their own DNS systems, screwing up the linkages between ICANN's root servers and the ones elsewhere.
- Then, since interconnectivity slows dramatically, we get less downloading of Linux (SCO) and less downloading of music (RIAA).
- We return to the good old days of everyone using outdated versions of Unix, and paying USD$16.99 for CD's.
- The RIAA and BPI returns to the real fight at hand, Home Taping
Foolproof, actually...
If the French or some other country in the EU had control of the root domain server and US DEMANDED that it was turned over to the UN what the reaction would be? And if when they refused the US threatened to unilaterally trash the current DNS system what the reaction would be?
I do wonder what countries will shoot themselves in the foot with this bright idea? I would bet that a lot of the EU nations will stick with the current system and not risk cutting themselves off.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Maybe China, Iran etc. want the Internet to "Fall Apart", and bring their citizens back under pre-internet control? Nowadays it's difficult to prevent people from learning about other countries and their political systems, perhaps especially China's propaganda machinery would have an easier time of controlling the populace without the Internet. The E.U. probably isn't interested in that, but stupid politicians isn't a unique phenomena limited to the U.S., I wouldn't be surprised if European politicians actually believe the Internet will fall apart if they don't get the magical ICANN boxen moved over to Europe ASAP. :P
I don't think this person has any idea at all about what Europe is about. It seems to me he/she has the same bad conceptions about what the laws in Europe are about as the average European has about the real domestic laws in the United States.
Every well informed person knows the freedoms in most European countries far exceed those in the US. Sure you have the right to make money the best way you can, regardless of any social or environmental considerations but basic rights such as the right to marry who you want (God is against intersex marriage, are you a fundamentalist or something? Heard of secularism?) or the right of self determination of ones own life( end your own life, are you sure? yes? Ok but we will inform you against it but it is your choice in the end)
This kind of backward, uninformed redneck comments is exactly what is driving Europe and the US apart in a way that is unprecented. The foolish notion that the US is the most free country in the world will someday be so apparently false that you will then eat your words and wish you had emmigrated to Europe a long time ago!
Please let us all consider the fact that any culture that has so much blatent arrogance as the US right now, has always gone under up till now in recorded history.
Believe me that I have no problem with Americans but I do have a problem with the present American bully culture!
P.S. I call dibs on what stuff the FBI doesn't end up taking.
By all means, split the net and block the idiots from all U.S. servers. It would mean less spam from china pretending to be ebay, palpal wanting me to VERIFY my passwords.. It would mean fewer french speaking pricks tking in the online games...oh and less lag from the idiots that link up with a 500+ ping. Yes i am being childish, but far less childish then these EU jerk offs..screw em! /sarchasm off
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
How would you know how 'restrictive' the EU is compared to the US? I think don't know squat about it. In fact I think you don't much about the European Union at all since you don't even know that it's not in charge of constitutional issues such as free speech. In fact that's not what the EU is focused on trade issues, everything else is a matter of national sovereignty [which still remains within the EU]. I am a European lawyer with knowledge of several constitutions including the US. My view is that some nations have better freedoms than the US, some have different approaches (not worse). There are 50 nations in Europe (far from all of them are EU members).
> I don't see that as likely to happen.
Might want to take a quick gander on how the EU is considering handling Galileo funding...
12.The Commission considers that levies on receivers and operating licence fees are further possibilities for revenue. These would need to be introduced throughout the European Community.
27.The Government believes that users will pay for a service only if it meets their requirements and if no cheaper alternative is available. The Government understands that the maritime community sees little need for a new satellite navigation system at present and that a need will continue to exist for conventional aids to navigation such as lighthouses, buoys and beacons. Therefore the possibility that certain uses of Galileo may be made mandatory to generate revenue and to make savings through the withdrawal of conventional aids is of concern. Aviation and other users may have similar concerns. Hence, the Government considers that users' requirements and benefits need greater investigation and cost-benefit analysis.
I wonder how EU-DNS will look like to EU-citizens when all the dust has settled...
"The EU is not trying to destroy the internet, it is trying to do quite the opposite; it has recognised that countries like China, Brazil and Iran are making strong moves to setting up their own independant root servers, irrespective of the US."
I call bullshit. Then let those countries set up their own independent root servers and quit threatening wholehandedly that the *entire* Internet is going to destabilize because the *US* has alleged central control.
This play has become indicative of previous EU tactics--pretend to play peacemaker or broker, make the US appear bad by not agreeing with multi-national/international concensus, and cater to countries who have malicous plans of their own. The US gets egg on face for acting like a bully in this regard, the EU looks like the new major player in town, and everyone suffers under a worse system and at least frets unnecessarily by their shielded threats.
If the US wants to keep their control of the internet, that's fine for me. They are controlling already far more of the world as they should be. But than the whole world should be able to vote the president of the US.
The whole matter reeks of corruption in my view. Here are a few links, FYI...:
More criticism piled on .Net report .Net report speared a third time
.Net report was fudged
.Net report slammed again
.net report .net report criticisms
Denic damns 'errors' in
VeriSign responds to
Quite an entertaining read.
... because ...
If we apply that old Watergate adage, "Follow the money", and examine the financial implications of this, we quickly see that multinational corporations are the ones whose oxe gets gored.
What will happen to Wal-Mart (or any of a bazillion other companies) if they cannot easily communicate over the internet between Arkansas and China? How will Apple ship iPods in a timely manner, given the very close connections between the Apple Web Store and the manufacturing plants in China?
There's an incredible amount of money riding on the continued smooth operation and openness of the internet. Globalization depends upon it.
Maybe Kim Jung Il will be able to live without the commerce managed over the internet, but the list of countries that are so isolated as to be able to get by is a very short one.
The internet will continue unchanged, due to its dual nature, the other side being globalization. As soon as anything upsets the rivers of money flowing around the world via the internet, the true rulers of this small blue orb, the multinationals, will stomp it to death and return things to their previously smooth operation. Not even China dares disrupt the flow of commerce. One might say that China has the most to lose by tinkering with the internet. If the Euros would shut their collective pie-hole and think for just a second, they would see the reality of the situation as well.
Wake up rulers, your power has slid away over time. Now you are just a symbol some of the weaker need. You have no real power and where you are given power you are continuously fucking up.
Greetings from a free world.
Eminent Domain does not apply to the internet.
People can argue semantics all day long until they're blue in the face about who invented this and that, what the US payed for or invented, or what CERN's role was.
However,none of that really matters.
The US owns some DNS servers. The rest of the world piggybacked on them, and that led to the creation of the "Internet".
The US didnt force countries to put their infastructure on the web.
The US didnt prevent them from designing their own networks.
The US didnt
The US invented a really cool, fun toy that everyone became dependant on. However, it is still the US's toy. You dont have a right to it because you feel you "need" it. People lived before the internet and people can live after.
The rest of the world piggybacked their networks on the US' to create the internet. Dont go over and build a city in the US then expect it to become international territory because most people who live there now arent in the US.
Dont like No? Then get off the land! Go build somewhere else!
But I for one welcome our European and American DNS overlords.
The problem isn't that people don't like the US. Let's say that in a few years, Iran continues to develop its nuclear technology, and the US decides that the country is "evil", kinda like they did with Iraq. Then they decide evil countries don't deserve the Internet anymore, and tell icann to pull the plug on all Iraq domains. That would be bad. It hasn't happened yet, but that's the main fear. I do agree that quickly changing who controls DNS is a bad idea, but ultimately it has to go to an International organization.
that .mao domain they have always wanted.
I have no problem with the EU wanting to setup redundant infastructure to what the US has. If it becomes large scale and well managed, I have no problem with saying that some of the root administration (for example any Europe related domain) should be handled by it and the US will peer with it.
.aep TLD for you computers. Only works on your internal network, of course, but it's just for you anyhow. So a couple of your neighbours notice your fast DNS server and start using it. They also ask you to setup domains for them, which you do. Time goes on and your whole neighbourhood is using your DNS server. However, you're a nice guy and have no problem with this.
The problem is that's not what the EU wants. They want the US to hand over control of infastructure paid for and administered by US companies, universities and the government, and located in the US. They aren't proposing moving the roots or anything, just that they ought to be able to tell the roots how to do things.
No, wrong answer. Setting up your own system is fine. Telling the US "You have to give us control of your system because we like to use it" is stupid. If I let you use something for free, that does not give you the right to take control of it.
Take an example for your personal life: Say your entire neighbourhood is on broadband. It's good service, except the DNS servers. The ISP has really flakey DNS servers. So, geek that you are, you setup your own DNS. In additon to the ICANN domains, you setup a
Then one day, you get a knock on your door and it's your home-owner's association. They tell you that you need to give them control of your DNS server. They still want you to run it on your line and equipment, they just want control. They claim since everyone uses it, it's not fair for you alone to control it.
See the similarities here? Nobody is stopping the EU from setting up their own redundant root DNS system. Nobody is stopping them from adding non-ICANN domains to it, or even ignoring ICANN entirely and re-using ICANN domains. However they are just bitching and insisting that no, they like the current system that the US has, but they should be allowed to run it (or rather the UN should).
I'm not too sure what they are complaining about, but isn't this what IPV6 is supposed to fix? Actually, ICANN is already a non-profit, non-government entity (they won the contract to control everything a while back). So, the real question is what is the EU planning that they want to reinstate political control over the internet?
I say let em "split off" and I can guarantee that within a weeks time, the companies that do business with the US will be asking (demanding) to be put back on the US network. Not only that, but imagine all of the services that would be unavailable to those countries outside of the US...Wikipedia, Google, Microsoft, Slashdot, Electronic Arts...I understand that some of these have geographically located server farms to make access easier from different parts of the world, but without access to the "home" US servers, these systems will not be updated and bug fixes like those from Microsoft would be unable to make it to countries outside of the US...
However, what I would advocate is that the US should setup our own system. We would build our own root service. It would be a redundant version of what Iran ran. Then, if Iran wents nuts and did something against US intrests, we could simply not accept that change to our system or, if need be, completely break away.
.com). However, for that to happen, other nations need to make their own credible root systems. The answer isn't that the US should give up control ove rthe one they've made, but that other nations (or multi-nation groups) should make their own. Have the EU setup a root authority that mirrors ICANN and have K (the only European run root) start listening to that. Then setup some more European roots. Talk to the BIND people to get it to localize so when in Europe it prefers the EU roots, and when in the US is prefers the US roots (maybe by IP space checks).
Personally I think it would be ideal to have multiple root authorities. Have one per country, or maybe one per region. They can then administer regional domains, and they can all vote on new generics (like
Then, once this credible mirror system is running, talk to the US about peering. Say "Look, we think that our roots are as capable as yours, and we'd like to have control of the domains that relate to that such as our contries' domains. You keep your stuff and we mirror that, however we'll take the European stuff and you mirror it." My bet? The US would be totally fine with that. Then we have two peer root authorities. Hopefully more people would then start doing the same thing.
That would also allow each nation or area to have a root that conforms to their values. They can block domains if they don't like them. Of course people can always go use the roots from other countries, unless they do some Great Firewall of China thing, but it would solve the majority of the bitching.
But that's not what these nations want. They want UN control over DNS, and more than DNS, so they can force other nations to implement their restrictions for them. They don't like a free and open Internet.
...download all the porno you can before the Internet collapses.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
...You're not allowed to take over the world. Yes, we're aware that you'd like to, just like any other political body on the planet these days. That in itself makes no difference."
Seriously, I'm detecting a note of desperation, here. The EU/UN know very well that the majority don't want them to get their grubby paws on the Internet, and I suspect that in the quiet of their own minds, they also know that there are valid reasons for that. It's basically the EU software patent case all over again.
You've got a canary in a cage, suspended from a ceiling, with a cat sitting on the floor watching the canary. Every so often the cat will continue to try and leap for the cage in an effort to eat the canary, but if the cat gets whacked upside the head with a broom often enough, although it will need to be done numerous times, the cat will eventually get the message...that it's not getting the canary, and it's only going to cause itself continued pain and suffering by continuing to try.
Same deal here. The EU needs to be told repeatedly that in terms of them getting governance of the Internet, we hear them knocking, but they ain't coming in. We might have to do it ten, fifteen, or twenty times, but eventually they'll get the message.
From my slashdot journal... War-Porn Webmaster Arrested So much for freedom of speech, eh.
If you will, allow me to say just one thing, and end this discussion in it's tracks:
IT AIN'T BROKEN!!!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's funny because none of this really matters... none of the UN meetings, none of Europe's lost sleep over this, even none of the posts or responses below really matter... because NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE!
The United States invented the Internet; the United States invited other countries to use its invention; the United States controls the Internet and the United States has made a decision to continue controlling the Internet.
Europe's fascination with American technology is cute when it feeds our economy, but it's annoying when they demand we hand over the result of hard work + free-market economy.
Hmm, if there is going to be anarchy we will see a war over lotsa domains - especially the expensive ones.
:)
The IP idea: yeah nice, what will happen to the virtual services (e.g. http virtualhosts) ????
But hey, important IP's you can bookmark, for the others you just use searc engines.
It might also clean up the 1000identical sites on one network issue.
Hmm actually le'ts use IPS
True, except ICANN is the IANA. The IANA is a function, a duty, defined by the contract with the Dept of Commerce. The IANA is also responsible for IP port number assignments, and IP protocol numbers.
Y2k, anyone?
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
Thank-fully, I have \.'s IP in my hosts file.
aoeu
Like there haven't been attempt allready, I know when internet was very new. We Swedes who was actually computer nerds back then had to call up a UK server with our modems. There was another network provided by a UK company called something Qserv Ithink, I can't remeber exactly now. It wasn't very big but the protocols used allowed for me then what http did back then. Just like the french telecommunicating system where you accesed the network thru a monitor on your phone station. The network was/is provided by the french telephone companies which offered a lot of the services on the network if I have understood correctly.
The Internet was invented by the U.S. military. We can and should have control of it. Let them split and burn like the original poster said. I have had enough of European stupidity in my life. My only hope is that the Democrats here keep acting like Europeans...they will kill off the Democratic party.
...57 minutes later...
I never trust anyone that claims to be neutral. On the other hand, I never trust anyone who believes one thing but opposes that belief in the interest of fairness or to appear neutral. There must be a psychological term for this.
In a sort of related matter:
Then again, this always gives me problems when major jury trials come up. I mean, if, for example, they found 12 nimwits for the OJ trial that had NOT heard anything about the case...is this trial by peers?? WTF? Seriously...what did they do?
911: "Nicole is dead?"
Caller: "Yes!!! OJ did it!"
911: "OMGWTF! Please hold."
911 to County Clerk: "I need you to transmit a list of 144 eligible jurors immediately. Thank you."
911 to SWAT: "Sir, I am transmitting a list of potential jurors to your computer now. Please pickup these people immediately and lock them in sealed rooms. Report back to me when it is done."
SWAT: "Yes Ma'am!"
911 to caller: "Sir, what genre of music would you like to continue holding to? Pop and Hip Hop require that I play a 23 minute public service ad from the RIAA."
Caller: "OMG WTF!!! Are you sending the fuzz and the medics?!?!"
911: "I am not familiar with that genre. Oh, and yes, they will be on their way shortly. Please hold and enjoy Beetoven's 9th, courtesy of the BBC."
SWAT to 911: "Ma'am, we have 144 potential jurors in custody...wait, make that 142...my men flashbanged one to death and the other got sniped. Oh, and we need the coroner at 1501 W. State St. Twelve of my men flashed the place, took out the front door with a DAO-12 shotgun and...and, uh, there were 4 old people in there. They don't look so good."
911: "That will be fine! Thank you! Oh, and I am showing a memo from last month that says a deputy coroner was assigned to your squad."
911 to caller: "Sir, we have....actually, they tell me they are at the scene now. Hello? Hello? Sir?"
Ferman: "Who is this?"
911: "This is 911. You aren't the man that called. Who is this?"
Ferman: "This is Detective Ferman. It appears that OJ killed the caller too."
911: "How did you know it was OJ then?"
Ferman: "Oh...ummmm...ummm. I don't know, but it has NOTHING to do with the dinner I had with Nicole a few nights ago nor with the evidence I have planted!"
Why not let Google take over the DNS responsibility, then we'll know it'll be run properly at least...
This could be the best thing that happened to the internet. With no more Eurotrash suggesting how inferior the American government is and practicing their english skills by denouncing George Bush on random forums, we'll have that much more time to spend inventing things for Europeans to liberalize. It's a win win situation!
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Splitting up the internet sounds like a great idea.
Let's start with those idiots from Nigeria and their email scams.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
>> which no ISP in their right mind will direct their DNS servers at.
>They will enact laws requiring it.
This would be hilarious! Let's complain about Evil US Gummint Human Rights Oppressors controlling root servers (which they don't anyway), and then the only way to enforce this is - governments ordering their ISPs to use their own root servers!
Just pay the EU or UN ministers or whoever the bribes they want and this tempest in a teapot will go away.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Gotta love that EU and that UN. They work so hard for humanity, and yet no one shows their appreciation. Not even a nod. That's just not right.
So when global warming buries half of the continent U.S. because we didn't adopt Kyoto and we go from an age of science and reason to a new dark age of barbarity, brute strength, and bloody ignorance because the U.S. didn't want to hand control of Internet over to an enlightened bureaucracy, we'll know who to blame. After all, they did warn us.
Of course, if we get nuked by Iran, who'll give a damn?
Let's turn the internet into a real democracy.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
I really do. It might add more cost and instability for
oursourcing work to China, India and others.
What can I do to enhance this argument?
Can I write the UN and tell them that they don't have the balls to follow through?
I know that once these incompetent politicians get a hold of
their own DNS servers, corruption and grift will destroy their
economic success from the internet.
Sincerly,
Jaded but Hopeful
"This will crack the Internet in half!!!111!!1"
I remember the last time I heard that, and how nothing happened whatsoever...
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
I think we should give the ip guys all the control.
What the fuck does the US flag have to do with international politics? Surely if you have the US flag as contextual in this case where is the EURO flag. Hint, there is a bigger and better place than just the US.
The routing tables will take care of the problem by forgetting about the ICANN servers, as the EU servers will be closer. Nobody's computer will need changing, because the addresses will remain the same. Those with tunnels from the EU to the US could direct DNS traffic through the tunnels, but honestly - why bother?
Why should the EU take control of the DNS tables? I can think of some good reasons:
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So, why should they be willing to give up control over it?
"You've got no coin left. No credibility. Nothing. Dick. Nada. Zero dot zero."
I agree with you and as a U.S. resident I suggest:
1) you don't use the root servers, start your own.
2) get away from any part of the Internet that comes in contact with the U.S.
3) let people know it was the europeans who invented the internet... oops, you've already done #3.
But that will teach us americans if all the Chinese and Iranians didn't use our root servers! That will teach us but good!
He's the highest post to point out that internet communication is not based on DNS. Anyone having taken basic networking can tell you that all DNS does is match a name (xxx.com) to an ip address (127.0.0.1). Do these people (the buerocrats) even know what an IP address is? I highly doubt it. And they get to DECIDE these things!!!
Com'on Harold, grab the duct tape, we've got work to do....
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Geeks and nerds everywhere are staging revolts and some are committing suicide because of lack of a complete "net fix", as they call it. There are rumors of the "underground" world-wide network starting, but it is believed only the ones calling themselves "1337" and using software called "linux" have access this mysterious technolody.
Meh.
"Ok, and what is Joe Blow American going to do when he can't buy his latest model Nokia cell phone over the internet because the DNS is misrouted?"
.com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov?
Can you explain how that would happen?
On a social level, nobody in the U.S. buys cell phones directly from Nokia. Perhaps "nobody" is too strong. Almost nobody.
On a practical level, if I go to www.nokia.com, where precisely do you think you're sent? What servers are authoritative for
But lets look at this on a more practical level. If I go to www.amazon.com, I don't really care where some root server in France points. Its irrelevant to me. And sure, the EU could really fracture things by taking existing TLD's pointing them to some other which disagrees with the U.S. servers, but so what? If some ISP in Ireland wants to point "slashdot.org" to some other place, I suspect its the people in Ireland that lose out.
With the Internet being founded in U.S., the founding institutions would still be here and would be largely unaffected by the EU move. The infrastructure is here. Its one thing we didn't outsource.
Finally, the EU is a "talking" organization. They have no authority beyond a a little in few countries in europe and absolutely none outside it. So my reaction is that (a) the EU would never do anything like what they're threatening (b) They will likely debate in brussels for about 5 years (c) on the offchance they actually do something, it will have zero impact on the U.S. and will simply hurt people with ISPs too dumb to point to the actual root servers controlled by ICANN.
I think you'll find both conservatives and liberals speaking with one voice on this issue in the U.S. And that, my friend, is probably the most impressive thing the EU has done this year.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
America gets 58% less spam, Everyone Else gets 42% less spam.
If this were to come true, which it obviously won't as there is too much money to be made by the corps to keep it the way it is, there will be a lot new IT positions opening. The support and maintenance of this split-internet system will be a mess and companies won't be able to outsource as easily anymore.
Meh.
Could the EU just do everyone a favor and go away somewhere where someone cares? The EU has no clout to control anything on the internet. The people who really control it are the mega corps, and they'll be dammed if they are giving up their cash cow.
In soviet russia, internet splits EU!
No, I think the EU root servers will still query the US root servers so that all American sites will be accessible to Europeans. It would be the Americans who cannot reach many European sites, instead.
Note that this idea is not exactly new, there are several alternative DNS root servers already (e.g. ORSN) which are effectively splits of the Internet as discussed here. Users of these systems can reach the regular Internet domains as well as the alternative ones.
THE EUROPEANS (who are the chief architects of this potential schism) are doing exactly what they were doing when they began construction of their own GPS system even though it is completely redundant.
THIS is occurring for exactly the same reasons as Americans like to argue "makes sense".
NATIONAL SECURITY.
You can't discuss what is going on with ICANN without considering the larger global politics first.
The US generally does a good job of maintaining free speech on the Internet. However, leaving primary control of ICAAN to the US obviously puts other nations national security at risk. Apparently it seems America has no problem dismissing international input so the world now (rightly) lives in fear of who the US might pro-actively invade next (Syria, Iran? Why not try North Korea? Oh wait they can defend themselves). It 80 plus years of Soviet power taught the world anything-- it is that freedom cannot be imposed. It must be a volutary decision to work. American did not invent freedom nor did American impose freedom on Russians by "winning" the cold war. (The Russians would have nuked them if they had tried.)
They simply chose freedom because they saw their system sucked.
However America seems to think everything it does is "right" which is clearly not the case. Had the US stopped at Afghanistan then this may have been a non-issue but America chose to alienate the rest of the world by unilaterally invading you-know-who.
Our governments (including the US) appear set on creating a new cold war. However this time it seems like it may be the US versus the rest of the world as they represent the invaders. Ironically this from a nation that used to have high moral ideals and helped found the United Nations. Incidentally FDR coined the word "United Nations" because he believed it was a great idea to resolve disputes with international legitimacy even though the world was filled with Nazi's and Stalinists at the time.
It isn't the first time America has tried to go it alone. Check out what happened the last time some of your citizens suggested isolationism was a good idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First
America is a pretty nice country but not as nice as it used to be. Don't blame all the citizens for their distorted image of reality though. There is serious manipulation going on with the mass media that is distorting truth similar to what the Chinese do-- but with different people at the controls. For instance all 170+ Fox news outlets came out in favor of war in Iraq-- this despite the fact a healthy percentage of your population disagreed. In other words-- the main media is currently heavily controlled by powerful business factions that let Americans see what they want them to see while playing violins and waving flags to manipulate emotions.
There is no question that America is the single most powerful nation on the Earth. However there already exist nations on earth where the citizens are freer, safer, and live longer. Furthermore China is set to surpass everyone economically within the next couple of decades with the option (at their discretion) to dominate militarily as well. Chinese citizens may not be free but it seems likely they will be rich.
The cold war is over but Americans still compare the rest of the world to that of failed third world nations. I can assure you that citizens of the first world nations have all the amenities you have and many of their average folk are starting to have even more. I've been through Western Europe and a number of US states to validate that most other nations don't have nearly as many trailer parks or slums like America. And despite all the gibberish about superior freedoms---they seem to be freer as their governments don't nearly spy on or arrest their citizens with nearly the frequency of the America state.
Putting aside th
he guy
the minitel was great !! i got my first e-mailbox in 1985 on it, what's about you ?
hot chat, phone directory,online train/plane booking, news.
really cool and the "computer" was free.
in 1982, it was the first internet but national only.
Now, freedom of speech in America is non-existant... as for the EU, I'm convinced it's a whole let better than in the US. However, I do believe that the main reason that the EU wishes to take the control over the internet away from ICANN is from a) fear for misuse by the states in future and b) a bit of jealousy. How much I may agree with that vision of the EU towards the US I really think it would be a bad idea for them to take over. This for one simply reason : when it comes to organisational skills, the EU and UN are a bunch of fuckups.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
It all seems like very strong words for people with essentially no leverage at all. Give us control or we'll break a large number of websites for our citizens and hardly inconvenience anyone in the US. Yeah that'll work so go ahead and try it and lets see who capitulates in a month. Maybe next time I'm late for work they'll stuff my pockets full of money to weight me down as punishment.
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." -Voltaire
More French revisionism. The internet was around before 1982.
More than likley the rest of the world is afraid someone will get really pissed at the US and pop a nuke in orbit frying every server (and every car, and blender made after 1975) thereby wacking thier economys as well.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
PATRIOT act time! No judge, no nothing. And all you need is a vague claim that you thought they were funding terrorists. See how easy? I mean, if the Prez can start a war by leaning on his intelligence agency to selectively interperate surveilance photos...shit man, they can do anything they want!
Blar.
OK, ok. If you look at my posting history, I'm a little proud of my country. Maybe not it's government, but my country itself.
I might not be an expert, but it seems to me, that if we can do one thing damn well, it's build a network.
The interstate system. Your country may have the same, but your country probably doesn't have 6 million square miles to access. Maybe not every area is the BEST road in the world, but even without a map, if you can find a US Interstate, you can go anywhere. The numbering system makes sense (with few exceptions, I-99 where I live, for example), and there are many other US Highways and state roads that blanket the land. Even before this, we had the railroad system, which was just as complex and thorough in its coverage.
Rural electrification. If you haven't noticed, the US is fucking HUGE. My state itself is pretty rural. The electrical grid covers every last inch of PA as far as I've seen.
Cable television. My borough of 300 is served. Not just by some rural provider, but by a company that provides 75 analog channels, cable modems (5MBit/128kbit last I checked), digital cable, digital DVR/on-demand service, and cable telephony.
THE TELEPHONE COMPANY. Ma Bell wired this goddamn country so tight that Joe Redneck can call his neighbor 20 miles as the crow flies away, or his uncle/father 1,100 miles away in the middle of BFE. Hell, he could even video conference with him - the CO that serves my borough of 300 is DSL Live, I just happen to live 7 miles from it. Ever heard of the Telephone Pioneers of America? They truly were the pioneers of the 20th century. Take a drive through the woods in the US, and I guarantee you'll see phone poles and do-not-dig markers dotting the forest. They literally explored areas where nobody but deer had seen for years to bring telephone service to everyone. Not only that, but the engineers of Ma Bell and now Lucent, AT&T (SBC) and others built a network where every single one of us can pick up a telephone, and KNOW that there will be a dialtone. The system was built for 5 nines uptime. Even cell phones here are a feat - We may not have the coverage that some countries do, but look how big we are! We're lucky we get service anywhere but big cities at all!
These same people have taken the Department of Defense's original network and expanded it to the commercial entity we know today.
But there is one thing that I didn't mention: Federal oversight. The Federal government designed this road system. The Public Utilities comission was in charge of rural electrification. To this day, they continue to regulate the natural monopolies these companies have. They built the original Internet. And you know what? Pork barrel projects or not, they DID A GOOD JOB. A DAMN good job at that.
So maybe, EU, you should sit down, and think about history here. We're doing the best at what we DO best - Connecting ourselves. We're going to keep it running the way its run since the beginning because it makes us money - that is, private businesses. Thats why these networks exist, and why the federal government takes such care to make sure they are good. We're not going to cut you off jsut because we don't like you, or we'd have already done it. And chances are, you probably won't do as good a job as us at running your own sector of it. Don't fix something that ain't broke.
Fredoil wrote: in 1982, it was the first internet but national only.
ARPANET - 1969
UseNet - 1979
UUCPnet - 1981
BitNet - 1981
[Insert pithy quote here]
Should be called Imminent Domain (no pun intended), if they take it away, and the US wants it, just like if your house sites on land that they need to build on, they will just take it because they need it.
We can't let the ICANN fall into the hands of terrorists, this is a national security issue.
We don't want any of this
google.com -> alqueda.com
yahoo.com -> jihad.com
Can't you see why the US needs to control this?
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
Excellent comment on the foibles (hypocrisies?) of human thought.
However, you seem to imply that there are no "universal values." As an American, I was brought up to believe that the rights of freedom of religion, speech, press were universal and objective. Everyone has those rights, and they are not subject to the prevailing powers' contstraints. The fact that many governments attempt to restrict those rights was an injustice to be righted, not to be tolerated. Meaning that, humans instrinsically have those rights, and the governments over them should be unable to constrain them. Do you believe otherwise? Can the case be made otherwise?
I don't pretend to have the answers, and a stable civlization will have a few guidelines on the use of those rights, such as keeping pornography from children without restricting it from adults and the classic 'shouting fire in a crowded theater.'
seg fault
Use the OpenNIC which has been superseeding ICANN for years.
its unlikely to happen anytime soon without someone putting effort into breaking it
- My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
However, this is all academic. It's easy enough to set up your own root servers and just peer into the ICANN ones, append all .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .etc entries found there with .us, and go from there.
.com) they all have to go to a common server to process the transaction: Again that's run by ICANN's contractor.
That doesn't work. The joker gets played when you try to "go on from there".
The first time the ICANN and the UN separately assign "new-domain.com" to different customers, both new customers are broken.
When they assign the same block of IP numbers to two different customers they break, not just the namespace, but the routing tables. At that point the ISPs MUST cut the net apart (in at least that IP range) to insure packets get through.
And heaven help innovation if they both assign, say, the same new port number to different services or the same new protocol number to different protocols. B-(
The point of the ICANN is NOT to run the root servers.
The point is that certain identifiers on the internet ("Assigned Names and Numbers") must be unique. (The root servers just publish their decisions on the domain namespace.)
Assigning unique identifiers pretty much requires a singular authority to make the indivisible transactions. A hierarchy has been established so some of the large, busy namespaces can be divvied up into chunks that can be administered separately. But somebody has to administer the bottom-layer chunk and right now that's whatever contractor is deligated by ICANN (Network Solutions Inc.). And while multiple registrars are allowed to hand out names in some chunks of the namespace (such as
Even if you tried to solve this distributed update problem with something like a byzantine generals algorithm, somebody has to decide who are the members of the authoritative set of byzantine generals. Oops! Back to square one.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Somoene quickly put up a torrent of the internet before it's gone.
Many of your points have some solid grounding. But here's one that proves you're parroting propaganda rather than speaking from experience:
...) and law ("hate speech", "campaign finance reform") to suppress their opponents.
Just ask the guy who was against the Iraq war in a red state; just because it's not written into the law but enforced by your neighbours (who'll beat you up for wearing anti-bush t-shirts), it's still censorship.
You'll generally NOT get beaten up for speaking out against the right-wing in a "red" state (or wearing a T-shirt to do it for you). But just try saying anything anti-PC in a "blue" one!
In general the American Pluralist ("red state") ideology still believes in free speech - often to the "defend to the death your right to be wrong" level. (But they're usually quite willing to argue right back.) The Liberal ("blue state") ideology, on the other hand, believes in free speech only as long as you agree with them, and has quite the track record of using both violence (assault, theft, vandalism, arson, bombing,
It's not that cut and dried, of course. There are some hotheadded nutcases - and splinter nutgroups - in every culture. But when it comes to quantity of violence, or institutionalization of violence, against political opponents, nothing else is in the same ballpark as the left wing.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You actually believe what they say? The UN is corrupt! Their desire is to whittle away at every countries sovereignty until we are beholden to the UN. Think they won't levy a tax when they are in control? Think again.
No, I think the EU root servers will still query the US root servers so that all American sites will be accessible to Europeans. It would be the Americans who cannot reach many European sites, instead.
.com domains end in .com.us when accessed from a EU DNS server
Agree...
Let's have all US
With multiple internets, outsourcing costs will skyrocket. Looks like some of those programmer jobs are coming back to the US. Also, for all of the countries that are bitching, my guess is the majority would remain on the US system for economic reasons. Hundreds of thousands of internation B2B systems coming to a halt simultaneously would plunge any country into economic chaos.
Other common spam assumptions:
-- Everyone has a penis that is too small and too soft
-- Everyone has breasts that are too small and too soft
Not sure which country this identifies...
You think China would abuse this power if it was given to them? I can't believe it. Just the other night I was watching a great documentary on Tiananmen Square. Do you know where the worst of the slaughter was? It wasn't actually Tiananmen Square. It was on a road called "the road of eternal peace" leading into Tiananmen Square. The Peoples Liberation Army opened fire on the peoples that had come to block them via human shielding from Tiananmen Square and the heart of the protest.
Okay, I will give you that the Chinese might not be totally into freedom speech, but you at least have to respect their powers of irony. Come on, using the People Liberation Army to slaughter unarmed people on the road of eternal peace MUST score them some points.
Let the Chinese have the Internet, what could possibly go wrong?
the USA is one of the original founding members of the UN (Britain, China, France, Russia & the USA).
Not Russia, but USSR.
Cuz the good ole US of A is the leading producer of DUCT TAPE! We'll just slap some good ole Duct Tape on that there inner net and it will all be good as new. Last year, uncle Slappy caught him a big ole catfish and it tore his net up. If Duct Tape fixed uncle Slappy's best fishin net, it kin fix that there inner net all dem younguns is talking bout these days.
Dang! Ma told me to git outside an fix 'at bug zapper! Gotta go!
blah blah blah
Australia bans GTA: San Andreas
New Zealand Censor Bans Manhunt Outright
New Zealand bans Postal 2
Australian government bans Sydney Film Festival movie
Australia now has Net Censorship And you're saying that the free speech of the Internet would somehow be better in these hands?
Um, neither did the US. Some radio stations did, and some didn't. It's self-imposed, similar to the Black Eyed Peas' previous efforts -- "Let's Get Retarded", which was played as "Lets Get It Started" on a good portion of radio stations. Self-imposed != required.
Annnnd let's juxtapose all this with the most ironic bit from your post --
You've got a ridiculously naive view of freedom and censorship if you somehow believe New Zealand or Australia to be some sort of beacon of free speech to be admired by all. The US has lots of trumped up bullshit that (I believe) falsely dictates what can and can't be said/sold/viewed. But for you to ride in on a high horse proclaiming that the collective US body is "ignorant"
So they create a .eu structure and let it compete directly with .com, .org, .net, and all the rest. Big damn deal.
Unless they start taking fire axes to the trans-oceanic fiber bundles, or similarly isolate themselves, they will be a merely be a peer to an existing, thriving network (the Internet).
They would have to go to IPv6 and call it the Ubernet or something to be really dramatically different.
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
Just because someone thinks the EU is corrupt and people like you are stupid doesn't mean they support bush.
For example, I think Bush is the worst president since before the Civil War. I think he's dumb and deluded.
But I think the EU is roughly on the same level as bush, except they have no army.
And to bring it home, I think Bush is a genius compared to you.
Meaning that, humans instrinsically have those rights, and the governments over them should be unable to constrain them. Do you believe otherwise? Can the case be made otherwise?
... they're not about to gain new territory anytime soon. (This would be the "Guns, Germs and Steel" explanation of why human rights are important :-)
I don't believe there is such a thing as an "intrinsic" human right. However, there are some principles that we know are essential to a stable society (e.g. no unregulated killing), and some that are conducive to a culturally/socially healthy society (freedom of religion/speech/press). We've progressed far enough in our history to know that these freedoms are important, and that when they are taken away, it is all too often for the benefit of the rulers over the ruled. We are confident enough of these principles to call them "universal," to write them down as important documents, to berate regimes that flout them. And, by and large, when some country/society has said, "You don't understand us, we don't need/want your human rights," it has been the word of someone not suffering the violation of those rights (e.g. men vs. women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere).
Of course, a big part of it is also that societies that follow the general notion of human rights have reaped many economic benefits as an indirect result (e.g. free speech -> intellectuals -> technology), and in turn, strong militaries. North Korea, Zimbabwe et al.
iSKUNK!
Whos the moron that rated the above comment ':-1, Flamebait'
Otherwise you'd be speaking german, and learning about Hitler being father of "This Great Reich of Ours".
Oh, and I suppose all the Jews would be gone too.
froggy got pw0n3d
Time to start writing down the IP addresses of those sites you depend on! Otherwise you'll not be able to use the internet in a month's time.
Or you could just put it all down to EU and UN FUDdery (sp?), and keep using the internet as usual.
Hell, a collapse of the DNS system would be a boost for OSS - we could restructure the internet in our image, because at the end of the day its us "enthusiasts" with the knowledge to get it done quickly. As long as routing wasn't affected.
I don't fear the regulation of information on the internet, because I have seen enough examples of private networks stretching across tens of city blocks to know that if such things occurred, a free, unofficial internet would continue to exist in its place, even though it would have reduced functionality (international links could be difficult, I would imagine).
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
The EU has no practical interest in causing a separation of the Internet. I do think that the DNS should be decentralized, but not run by governments. This isn't the GovNet, it's the Internet. We are all the "owners" of it. But the EU won't let the Internet fail. It would be suicide for them. With a stronger US dollar, the EU makes more profit on exports to the US. Businesses would shit if the EU tried to do this. Besides, the organization is so backwards that it can't even ratify a Constitution in three prominet countries (France, Brussels, and the Netherlands). The EU is really a joke. If Europeans really can come together under a Franco-German dominated alliance and not begin killing each other or brawl like guests on a Jerry Springer episode, then maybe the EU would work. As of now (and forever) it is just weak and powerless. As long as Germany and France don't hold to their own strict rules, the EU will just be a wastebasket of free trade blocs. This threat is completely unfounded and is a typical European threat. They can't really think that the rest of the world will fall for that. We'd be just as good without a European Union. In a global world, they have no choice but to submit.
"There exist outrageous levels of crime that create a powder keg every time the police isn't controlling the streets."
l e_id=4797/ 2002520986_katmyth26.html0 05-09-29-after-further-review_x.htm
b lick.htmU nited_States_(People).html#p73
This is not correct. The crime rate in the U.S. has been declining since 1993:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance.htm#Crime
And the reporting of violent crimes in New Orleans is mostly devoid of facts (i.e. sensationalism):
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?artic
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2
"Did you know a typical Chinese peasant now lives longer than a US citizen? (Bet they don't mention facts like that on Fox)"
That's an interesting theory, but not proven by sources. A typical Chinese citizen lives just under 71 years, but a typical US citizen lives just under 78 years.
http://www.china-club.de/english/chinaguide/ueber
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500824_4/
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The NN in ICANN stands for Names and Numbers. IANA is just a part of ICANN now, and has been for many years. While a DNS split is bad enough, a split in the numbering authority for the Internet would essentially render different parts of the Internet unroutable to each other. Then there truly would be two Internets. Maybe one of them will run IPv6. *rimshot*
US citizens are fat and lazy. We will take u down!
Setting up your own DNS servers is not a way to express an opinion. It's just a way of unilaterally doing things.
Probably what the EU intends is to make the ICANN accept input from other countries (IMHO a good thing), with the split as a last resort (meaning failure to negotiate).
In the end, ICANN (or whatever replaces it) will have input from multiple organizations/countries. The current US position is stubborn and not very rational. If the US does not change its policy regarding ICANN, pressure will increase as other countries/organizations begin to feel unrepresented too. Once they reach a certain critical mass either ICANN will change policy or a REAL split will happen with the majority, unlike now (leaving the US unrepresented in the process).
GPG 0x1B479C78
Yes, the nation that taught us it can solve its problems through war
That's special, coming from a continent in which 60 million people were killed by their own governments in the last century.
???? tell me you were able to book online, pay online, get a phone directory, watch pictures, chat online ?? i do not think so (and i know ;-) )
it was the first network of its kind, like www
half of the french population had a minitel !!!
it was great
dont laugh but in europe we are more cutting edge than US when it's come to use the technology : gsm/broadband etc...
I'd like to see the countries of origin for email in my junk folder jettisonned. These are primarily China, Korea, Brazil, and Italy. Howabout Nigeria too, because they haven't wired the money to my bank account yet.
So, the US Government executed a search-and-siezure warrant, signed by a federal judge in a court decision on public record, against the operators of websites it accused of violating its laws within its borders?
Meaning, it didn't just wipe those sites off the internet, using its total, unilateral control over the DNS?
Would you seriously expect the UN/EU to be this accommodating should they assume control over the DNS?
This is about nothing if not battling the American arrogance.
This part is absolutely correct. Whether we're talking about forking the root servers, negotiating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, or removing Saddam Hussein, the primary European concern is battling American arrogance.
I understand why Europeans feel this way. When you encounter somebody who is wildly successful and totally full of himself, it is only natural to want to knock him down a peg.
The question is, what price is Europe willing to pay for this?
Do Europeans think it is a good idea to fork the root servers?
Do Europeans think it was a good idea for Chirac to encourage Arafat to walk away from the Paris accords in 2000?
Do Europeans think that Iraq deserves Saddam Hussein?
Do Europeans think that a strong PRC without human rights reforms is a good thing?
For a great many Europeans the answer to all of these questions is a firm NON.
The European response in each case is that those Arrogant Selfish Americans are acting as if they own the World, the Internet, or the Middle East. "We don't disagree with their goal, just the way they go about it."
You're right. We have acted arrogantly, as if we own the world. Its an arrogance that comes in part from a history of looking back on the consequences of our past arrogance and being satisfied with the results.
Not least of these results is the Strong, Free and Democratic Europe which hates our guts and which would not exist (twice over) were it not for the American desire to remake the world to conform to American values.
Europeans Beware!!!
If Europe keeps on fighting America, Europe will eventually start winning some battles.
You may fork the Internet.
You may destroy American efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
You may prevent the United States from attacking the next Saddam Hussein (can you say Kim Jong Il?).
You may create a dominant PRC that doesn't have any reason to care about human rights.
Europe has to decide which European values can be sacrificed on the altar of sticking it to the Americans, and which European values must be upheld, even if it means tolerating American Hubris.
I know this much:
If European leaders think that setting up their own root servers or sabotaging a diplomatic accord here or there will cure the Americans of their Arrogance and end American Unilateralism, they fundamentally misunderstand America and the American Spirit.
well i drive an x5 but don't always pay by credit card when i fill up my 80 litre monster. Whats your problem with good old cash ?
Sometimes it does seem that way, but I do believe that there is absolute truth and absolute right and wrong. I also believe that my opinions about those absolutes are the best approximations of their actual values that I can come up with, and that others have different opinions. The real interesting question, though, is coming up:
In the end, I have to say "I'm not sure." From a naturalistic perspective, rights are a matter of opinion, consensus and force. Yawn. From a Christian perspective it's more interesting: just what is a 'right'? Something that a person deserves? Christianity says that we deserve death, but that God grants us what we do not deserve and that we should do likewise in our dealings with others.[0] So one possible conclusion for a Christian to make is that there are no natural rights, but that we should treat others with grace, mercy, and kindness anyway. Or, a Christian could conclude that our obligation to treat each other with grace, mercy and kindness constitutes a 'right' -- that therefore, everybody has the right to be treated with grace, mercy and kindness, because that is what God wants.
[0] The operative word there is "should". If Christians could actually live up to their supposed ideals, the world would be very different.
Because Max Hardcore can afford lawyers, he's back up and running. Some woman running a text file archive out of her own pocket isn't. I don't like his stuff (I never got what was so great about being mean to the girls), but I'm sure glad he's not shut down permanently.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
IF the EU is going to break it next month then they are terrorists.
Go build your own ya bitches. The Internet stands for what the USA is, was and will always be. Don't liek it.. Then GTFO my Internet and go build your own.
Grammar and spelling aside, this is not quite true. The
I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
Add the EU to the list of terrorist orgs. Add Commissioner Reding as a known terrorist. Right in there with these sick puppies: tracked here at
This is SO EU. The EU is an organization of European states brought together through a mechanism of consensus-at-all-costs and an incredible aversion to conflict, which perhaps may appropriate since the entire reason for this economic and now political grouping is to prevent conflict on the continent. Recall, these are the people who support two seats for their EU parliament, transporting the entire body and entourage to and fro at great expense and inconvenience, for nothing other than propping up the vanity of a once-powerful and once-consequential large member nation that speaks a precious form of gutter Latin.
There are things in this world which are not open to, and should not be open to, consensus. An insane aversion to conflict may work well in Europe, but not in all things. Not all viewpoints are valid. Some are wrong, and should be called wrong, right in the viewpoint-holder's face.
Take Iran. Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. Pretty much everybody involved believes that. The United States doesn't want Iran to build them, nor does the EU. Iran does. The EU believes that through the amazing magic of seemingly endless dialogue, they will create an understanding and consensus, and, with the aid of mucho bribery of course, convince Iran to no longer desire to acquire nuclear weapons and continue on its course to become a major regional player and power broker. But what they are being dragged to realize, kicking and screaming and violently shaking their heads from side to side somewhat like my one year old son, is that Iran wants nuclear weapons. The EU and the US do not want that. Iran wants those weapons and endless dialogue and mucho bribery aside, at the end of the day, Iran wants those weapons. Of course the EU being the EU, they'll likely in the end throw their hands up in the air and state that "We did EVERYTHING humanly possible! We held meetings and listened to them, we attempted to achieve consensus, we talked (and dragged huge heavy bags overflowing with gold and "development aid" behind us OF COURSE), and talked and talked during our international dialogue sessions... well, I guess we'll just have to live with Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Well. Not all is lost. Perhaps we can sell them some components now."
If China, Brazil and Iran don't like the Internet being open and free, if they don't like the Internet being used to support and promote viewpoints dangerous to their despotic rule, the civilized and appropriate response is TOUGH FUCKING SHIT. Not an attempt to wrest control of an incredibly liberal and liberating technology from the sole global superpower which is dedicated to 100% free political expression and is your long-time military, social and political ally, to throw that control to the vagaries of "international" consensus in an attempt to curry favor with despotic and fundamentally WRONG regimes.
If this is the reason that the EU has publicly trotted out for their attempt to forcibly remove control of ICANN from the United States, then the EU should be vilified for far more than being "splitters" or "malcontents." If the EU really wishes to push this, perhaps in a fundamentally misguided notion that we can be understood as like Europeans who will be amendable in the end to some type of compromise decision reached through dialogue, then I imagine I speak for most Americans when I say "here we come splits-ville!" Americans don't take well this type of brinksmanship.
Larry
Amen, the UN is the dictators' frat house that puts such bastions of freedom as Syria, Libya and the Sudan on their human rights committee. The place that bred the Oil for Food scandal, probably the greatest single fraud ever perpetrated on the poor and downtrodden of the world. Nobody in history has ever stolen as much bread out of the mouths of starving children as the thieving bureaucrats of the UN.
I don't consider the UN to have any moral authority whatsoever. It does not represent the people of the world. It represents the viewpoint of the autocrats and dictators of the world, and a tiny, privileged, corrupt, Westernized elite within those dictator's countries. Fuck them. Kick them out of here, and start over, with an invitation-only club for democratic nations.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
FOAD
66.35.250.150
Same back atcha.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
We are probably going to see things like > " Visit my fan site www.rocker.com on Internet 1". ,b>Internet 3 "
or " Google Browser debuts on
We may have to choose the Internet Number before typing out in the browser,because the same site name has different content according to Internet No.!!!
Why does yahoo do this
Once this theft is pulled off then the "tw" domain for taiwan will be blocked by a PRC tantrum. At that point none of us will be able to download new bios of drivers for our motherboards and PCs. We loose!
If the internets should break, how will I get my daily dose of "OMG ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKE! ^^"?
-----
"This is not correct. The crime rate in the U.S. has been declining since 1993:"
-----
So what? You seem to forget what happened after Katrina and Rodney King trial. Your massaging of the data also neglects to mention by what standard your judging and why crime is decreasing. Pay close attention what countries resemble your murder rate, rapes, drug use and assults. Nothing remotely like a fully developed first world nation. (per capita)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap (
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_rap
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_dru_off
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_ass_cap
Not that you not trying to arrest people. For a "free" nation you seem to have BY FAR the highest incarceration rate in the world despite all the high crime stats.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_pri_per_ca p&int=50
For the real badasses there is always enlightened execution to "fix" the problem. (Right up the their with China, The Republic of Congo and Iran.)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_exe
"That's an interesting theory, but not proven by sources. A typical Chinese citizen lives just under 71 years, but a typical US citizen lives just under 78 years."
Hmmmm... I did read this somewhere however the balance of sources makes me think I have been misinformed on China's status.
HOWEVER----- it really doesn't dismiss the general point I was making as you seem to rank 48th in the world right below Puerto Rico (this despite massive technological leaps in the 20th century and supposedly the best medicine money can buy)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea_lif_exp_at _bir_tot_pop&int=50
Furthermore the point also made on the comment on the possibility of decreasing lifespans in the short term. This is only a theory but pay close attention to which "journal" this was published in.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/352/11/1 138
Of course there are plenty of things nice about America. Unfortunately your adversion to violence, greed and pollution are not among them.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fi g&int=-1
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/env_co2_emi&in t=50
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_eco_aid_do n_cap
Cold war is over. No reason to not join the human race now-- that is unless you have something else in mind? Let's see what the extreme right wing in the US has to say on this?
http://groups.google.ca/group/humanities.philosoph y.objectivism?lnk=sg&hl=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_th e_United_States
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
So in the end the world is protecting it's interests. Maybe they'll stockpile a new collection WMDs as large as your own eventually. Congrats on the new philsophy that everybody take whatever you can get and don't give
That's rather suicidal, of course,
Why would it be suicidal? Nothing prevents ANYBODY (not only countries, but everyone with static IPs) from setting up their own root dns, seeding it with the regular ICANN managed root zone; and then tweak it as much as they desire. Granted, it's not a sensible thing to do, but technically, it's perfectly possible.
Say, country .xz wants two things:
Nothing prevents that country (or that individual btw) from mirroring ICANN root, adding .zzz to it; and redirecting .com, .net, .org and other tlds to DNS servers they control; which would mirror most of the official original zone files, minus the ones they want to censor.
This is technically pretty well straightforward. The real difficutly would be for them to force client machines to use those alternate DNS roots instead of the current ones. That essentially means putting pressure on Microsoft and their own ISPs.
So if they want to do this, let them do it. It's their business anyway. They would be incompatible with the rest of the world, if they are not very careful with it; but that too is solely their problem.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
sure http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=119004 4
I've read many of the comments that you people posted,and i really can't understand you! I read about people is US trying be defensive,like the people from EU are trying to steal something from them..I read comments from people from EU trying to be offensive against US people...What's wrong with you people???Can't you see it's ONLY politics?People from US write that China is trying to control the internet access in their country,don't forget that US companies like Yahoo and Microsoft(and many more) are HELPING China to shut down "illegal" sites,and sites talking about politics.And people from EU,don't forget that US have made also many good things too,in the world of Internet,of course i don't mean the US goverment,but there are great US scientists and educational institutes that helped a lot during these years. So people,be united,the Internet is GLOBAL,it doesn't belong to companies or anybody else,it belongs to the USERS!
I personally can't wait for the UN to take over the Internet.
.1 is the first internet, and we could even go weirder ( but it would work ) and have www.google.com.61 which would be the google.com domain in country 61 ( Australia ) agian no real issue routing that puppy around.
The sooner America looses it's current control over the internet ( and don't kid yourself that this isn't the case ) the better.
Companies like the evil Google and such will then have to deal with real world economies. I would give my life savings to see Google and their ilk get put at the very long end of a thin link accross the ocean like the rest of the world, and then see what those wankers do - make them pay $250 a gig of data, or $0.25c per meg - let them deal with having to suck the internet through a straw, and then let's see what wankers like Google do.
It has been a long time coming, and it's of their own doing, but the USA and their illegal invasions of soverign nations, illegal takeover of oil fields, endless attempts at causing terrorism fueled scare tactics to take focus off the real issue, being that the USA and all Americans, are falling into the same mess the Romans of old fell into.
Any country which can't rescue it's own people from a flood, that has people who when cramped into a sports stadium, have gangs rape women and children, and more recently, there are reports of now gangs who raped babies! god knows how you do that but apparently there's policemen who have now commited suicide as a result of the horrors they saw their own people the Americans, do unto each other!
Is this the nation we want running our internet? no.
Full credit is of course due to those who did so much great to bring about what is the internet, no issue there.
But frankly that time has come and gone, and like many things, the telephone, telegraph, and now the internet, the USA does some great work with them, but there is a time when they have to realise that the USA is not "the world" and they have to play nicely in the sand pit with all the other children.
And currently, the USA and Americans on the whole are not.
So time to hand the Internet over, let the UN do what it's been chartered with, as the USA should have when they saught permission to invade Iraq and the UN returned a strong, clear and resounding NO WAY!
The USA has to behave, they do not rule the world, and if they don't start acting like a decent global citizen, they we'll vote their ass off this planet so quick they won't know which way to look.
Shit, by their own definition, America in infact THE Axis of evil, so where do they stand on that!?
As for lots of little internet's around the world, well we've had that before with the Telegraph and now with the Telephone, there's no reason we can't run multiple intenets - sure there will be some technical issues, but like all technical things, there will be a technical fix.
I can just now see something like www.google.com.1 for example where
I personally am in favour of being able to take part in building one of many little internet's, and being able to take part in whole new routing tables, root servers, as it's more likely I would get to play with that stuff if my country had control over local version fo such things, as I have no chance in hell of the USA letting me get my gurbby mits on such things currently - they would send me down to GITMO for ever, I'd be another fucking David Hicks, a war criminal being left to Rot with no rights by a bunch of true War Criminals ( Americans ) who have broken every basic rule in War by causing one illegally by invading nations, then not complying with the rules of war in the handling of prisoners and the trial of those prisoners.
America, you're fucked - you're a joke, you're a self proven failure of how democratic nations should not be run, and the sooner you sink and die the better, and in the mean time, hand over the fucking internet you arseholes!
And take those arseholes a
ad 1) We do own and operate root servers. Look it up.
ad 2) If we did that, you would lose quite a market. The USA has as much (if not more) to lose from a netsplit as the EU.
ad 3) The internet wasn't invented in Europe. Some important internet technologies (like the World Wide Web) were invented by Europeans. Pretty much every country on this planet has contributed to the technological foundation of the internet and every country has built its own part of the net. You do not own the internet.
If you can not reliably send email to China after an administrative split, then yes, that will teach you. Politicians of most industrialized countries are over there, asskissing the totalitarian government for better economic relations to that huge source of a) cheap labor and b) demand for just about everything. Your economy wouldn't take a split lightly.
If you read most of the comments here, you get the impression that EU is threatening to split the internet. Then if you read the article, you understand that EU is only worried about some other countries like China doing so as their next move.
Conclusion : As usual, most people, Americans, slashdotters and others, don't really care about the fact, they just want an opportunity to show there dick.
But If the US airwaves are censored by self controlling corporate interests obeying free market principles, then why did the FCC (a govt agency IIRC) issue fines for the Janet Jackson thing?
"Every year between 2003 and who-knows-when, betwen 100,000 and 200,000 innocent people will NOT be killed because we chose to act."
And just how many civillians have died since you've been there? Oh right, the figures have been suppressed because it would damage your administration.
The United States has a stronger free speech than most of Europe
Are you doing drugs? Where is exactly that more than 50% of the population thinks that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks? That your civil rights should be limited because of your religion? And you call that freedom of speech?
Actually, I didn't massage any data; I simply gave you websites that appeared to refute a couple key points. Emotion aside
I thought it undermined your entire premise, but as you're posting AC, its difficult to hold a reasonable discussion if you're going to try to refute reason with emotion.
You understand yet another reason that we should hold onto the root servers now.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
- Most banks have horrible hours, so many people use check-cashing services, or direct deposit + ATMs
- ATMs only give out $20 bills -- which makes it a pain in the ass to carry any significant amount of money on you
- ATMs have limits on how much you can withdraw at a time (~US$200-US$500, depending on the ATM).
- Most ATMs try to hit you with a 'surcharge' every time you withdraw money, if it's not your local bank (and then your local bank hits you with a fee, too)... so you might have to pay US$4 extra to withdraw US$20
- The largest US denomination is currently US$100 (but of course, to get it, you have to go to a bank when they're open) Which, with inflation, makes it bulky to carry more than about US$3000 on you. (useful for when you go to geekfest or similar)
- When you buy stuff in cash, if you have to return the item, vendors are required to give you cash
... which is a problem when they put larger bills in drop safes, so you get back $350 in US$5 and US$10 bills. - Many places that do small transactions won't take larger denomination bills (US$50 and US$100) (luckily, the 'U-Scan' lines in grocery stores will, which is where I go to break them)
- People look at you like you're crazy when they find out you carry cash on you.
- It makes it so you have to lie when you want to stiff the panhandler with the phrase, 'I don't carry cash'
- Paying cash at a gas station means you have to go inside -- most US gas stations have credit card readers right at the pumps. (some take debit, too)
I'm sure there are probably other reasons, but those are the ones that I can think of (mostly because they're ones I've run into, because I prefer cash over credit.Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I don't believe there is such a thing as an "intrinsic" human right.
I would disagree. Certain moral principles aren't relative, but absolute. And these would include simple, painfully obvious things like the right to pursue your continued survival, the right to defend yourself and your property (violently, if need be), and the right to not be enslaved by others. I could give a rat's ass if other cultures, or cultures at other times in history, don't agree with these rights; all that proves is that culture in question is barbaric and inhumane.
Moral relativism is for idiots and philosophy students - not for those of us who live in the real world, and know first-hand and up close the horror it is to have or see these rights violated. Murder, theft, slavery - these are universally evil things, and it doesn't matter for shit what the cultural 'justification' is for these practices.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Didn't you know that Al Gore invented the internet. He holds the patent and everything. EU can go pound sand... wankers. ;)
According to the article the ones that are talking of breaking off are countries like Russia, China, and some Arab countries, not the EU. Most of the countries mentioned spend their time trying to limit the internet anyway. If they really want to form their own internet there isn't anything stopping them.
I am glad that the US has control, DONT GIVE IT UP TO THE EU!!!!
I'll be writing an open letter to the Justice Department about this. It worries me precisely because Max Hardcore is a creepy fucker, and because it'd hard to explain that yes, I am sticking up for that lady who liked stories about toddlers being fucked solely because of the principle of the thing---'cause this isn't so much about Max Hardcore or kiddie porn stories, it's about getting their foot in the door.
The only legal justification for cracking down on real child porn (Again from SCOTUS case law) is the fact that real children where exploited in the production.
Mmm. And that's why that nonsense about "simulated kiddie porn" was struck down. But now we've got those asinine record-keeping regulations which seem designed to stamp out amateur internet porn.
I was all excited about Lawrence v. Texas, when Scalia, in his dissent, made it clear that a whole raft of morality-based laws and procedures were now in danger, that legislatures would be "confined to preventing demonstrable harms". Which seemed fairly obvious to me, but perhaps only because I'm some sort of flaming liberal.
Regardless, we now seem to be moving in the opposite direction. I'm disappointed.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You changed your mind from "it's commercial and public pressure that's the reason" to "well actually we have laws limiting it".
The whole free speech zones thing sickens me.
(To maintain fairness I'd also like to add that the proposed protest exclusion zone around parliament square here in the UK also sickens me, I'm not just anti-USian, I think the whole of the west has problems at the moment.)
Maybe killing the Internet is the point.
Maybe someone somewhere finally figured out that the ??AA can sue whomever it wants, the USGOV can pass whatever brain damaged laws it wants, we will always find a way to share on another port, or on a random port, or to shoehorn our P2P traffic onto port 80, etc. etc. ad nauseam.
Maybe bittorrent clued them in, if they try to make the protocol illegal, we write a legal protocol. If they try to attack the protocol's weaknesses, we write a stronger protocol.
The only way to stop P2P is to partition the Internet. Divide and conquer.
--
You can't stop the signal.
-- "Have you ever seen your own brain?"
Maybe the rest of the world should have paid for the R&D that developed these things they want to control.
Yeah; I agree entirely on the free speech zones being sickening. It's a great case where Lawyers have been successful in creating a situation in which it's impossible to avoid lawsuits. Sure, its good for the lawyer's job security, but it sucks for the rest of us.
OTOH, there are a few people who take their right to free speech a bit too far; it's rather uncivilized to scream '@#$% whore' at a new bride the instant she leaves the chapel. (Sure, in a single case it could be a disgruntled ex; but doing this indiscriminately to everybody, for weeks on end?)
Radio spectrum is largely considered as public as the city hall, and is held to the same standards; police can and will arrest and/or fine somebody who walks around a city naked ('free speech' or no). I doubt there are many countries that differ in this behavior.
There is also little distinction drawn between a live person expressing nudity on a city street, or a public advertisement doing the same. (in the US, I mean)
As for commercial and public pressure -- it's still quite true. There is absolutely nothing (legally) from keeping a cable TV network from using hardcore porn to advertise on its network; the cable network is not a public property. But you can be sure that the cable company would lose more customers (and money) than they could hope to gain by doing so.
It's also cheaper to go with the status quo than it is to challenge what little (content) regulation exists. Gradual change is almost always cheaper than sudden change, and companies are in the business of profit.
As I just said -- stores are known to pull magazines (and other goods) from their shelves to avoid customer backlash; that's not censorship -- the store is a private entity, and is free to choose not to sell something.
Government censorship isn't really the issue; it's the censorship of the public at large (whom write letters of 'outrage' to public officials, who feel they have to act in order to improve their approval rating) that is the issue. Then the courts strike down the cowtowing of the elected officials. It's all part of the great circle of life...
By the way -- the Internet is not considered a publically owned resource in the U.S.; it's owned by the various companies that own the networks and have laid the cable, and by the companies that own the servers. As such, it doesn't have to meet the standards of 'public decency' that broadcast TV has to meet.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
an international forum to discuss the internet? wtf? how about comp.admin.policy? leave it to bureaucrats to start a shitstorm like this, which will only end in more "panels" and "committees" and "reports", when all they had to do was download Pan.
Let me start by stating that I do not know it all nor do I presume to try to. This is just another point of view.
That having been said, I at least some ignorance and arrogance all the way around, in the US and out. On all the points except those I addressed below, I agree with you to at least some degree.
Do Europeans think it is a good idea to fork the root servers?
Most of the root servers are outside US. What other coutries want is just a system where one stupid president cannot shut off the whole (or part of) internet in his fight agains "terrorism".
George Bush does not have the authority to shut off the internet. If he or ANYONE in the US government tried, it would be the end of their political career and would cost their entire political party greatly in the elections next year. If that didn't take care of it, the world would be reminded why the US has the 2nd Amendment.
Do Europeans think that Iraq deserves Saddam Hussein?
Maybe we should let the Iraq-people decide ?
You cannot believe that US attacked Iraq because of Iraqians' human rights ? It was NOT because of terrorism or WMD, it was NOT because of human rights, it was because of controlling oil reserves.
The Iraqis are deciding on how their country should be run. It is called elections and they are having them right now.
As for the war on Iraq, it was about Iraq not following the UN resolutions as the cease-fire of Desert Storm demanded. You can say whatever you want about WMDs but the reality is the same - Iraq was not obeying the rules. When it was clear that the UN inspections were a decade's worth of nothing, the war was on. If you ask me, the war was about 8 years too late. We should have gone right back in the minute Iraq stopped cooperating with the UN, but we had Bill Clinton as a President and major powers in the UN were too busy earning money off Saddam's regime to want to go to war.
Not least of these results is the Strong, Free and Democratic Europe which hates our guts and which would not exist (twice over) were it not for the American desire to remake the world to conform to American values.
Now don't forget that the american civilization would not exist without european immigrants.
My grandparents came to America because Germany and its economy were in shambles after WWI. They came to America, worked hard, and raised a family. That is the American way. We are German-Americans, but we are still Americans. I hold my grandparents in a different light from my family that stayed in Germany.
And as for the "War For Oil" concept, sorry. If we went to war with Iraq for oil, we would not be paying $3.00+ a gallon for gasoline right now. We were paying about $1.25 before the war.
You may destroy American efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
You must be joking. It is the US which has kept the war between Israeli and palestinians going. Without US support Israeli would have agreed to a Palestinian nation long ago, and that would have soothed the area.
Major groups of Palestinians have backed terrorism and declared that they will not stop fighting and killing Isrealis until all of Isreal is destroyed. How do you plan to keep that from happening?
If European leaders think that setting up their own root servers or sabotaging a diplomatic accord here or there will cure the Americans of their Arrogance and end American Unilateralism, they fundamentally misunderstand America and the American Spirit.
We have seen that it is "the American Spirit" which allows a coutry to start a war without a reason. Before Bush it was latest done by Hitler and Stalin. Few Americans know that attacking Iraq was not accepted in ANY other country. Even UK officially supported, the majority of people were against.
More of us are aware of world opinion than it sounds like you think. The problem is not that we are aware but that we so s
"Actually, I didn't massage any data; I simply gave you websites that appeared to refute a couple key points. Emotion aside"
I gave quite a few points that are highly accurate. The two minor points you tried to provide as "proof" of the inaccuracy of my thesis weren't even that really. Did you actually read my reply?
"I thought it undermined your entire premise,"
Overall crime is unquestionable far higher in the United States than any civilizated nation on earth. How does pointing out China's mortality rate is lower (when your still 48th in the world) undermine my argument of my entire premise? YOUR the one that is emotional and flag waving because you can't acknowledge the unpleasant facts because it interferes with your national pride. (I couldn't care less about my nation beyond the confort of my friends/family)
" but as you're posting AC, its difficult to hold a reasonable discussion if you're going to try to refute reason with emotion."
What does AC have to do with emotion? The main reason I post AC is because I don't want a bunch of haters on my back when I say something unpopular (e.g. FOAD). I don't personally hate the US, I don't even hate the entire right wing, but I certainty don't applaude the extremist government in power at the moment. Guy-- they teach "intelligent design" in schools, squash life saving stem cell research, proactively invade foreign countries for "WMD", spy on it's own citizens, deny global warming for ideological reasons, give huge tax breaks to big businesses with a massive deficit and non-universal healthcare. I could go on all day.
Seriously before arguing with me (I'm not trying to be patronizing)-- you need to dig into the neocon and objectivist links I provided you to get at the heart of the philosophy and people driving America today. It is EXACTLY why you are alienated from the rest of the world. People don't hate freedom and aren't jealous. That is a mythology propagated by your media (controlled by a few big businesse with similar agendas) to explain to YOU why they dislike you.
I used to love America and would visit once or twice a year until just a few years ago. Very few people in my nation (who used to be great friends with yours) have much good to say about your politcs nowadays. (the people are another matter-- plenty of heroic types still)
However this can change-- it you admit your mistakes and fix them. You need to understand if people live in fear of your actions they will act to protect themselves. It's human nature. If you pumped a couple of hundred billion into aid rather than tanks they might feel different. The cold war is over and yet you are even more milarily active today. How is it a bunch of scattered A-rabs are more dangerous than a fully nuclear armed Soviet Union again?
"You understand yet another reason that we should hold onto the root servers now."
I understand something for sure. Your nation has been deluded by Hollywood movies to believe it is "superior" in every respect when it CLEARLY is not. Your strength is in united numbers not on a per capita basis (by which you should measure your lives)
You apparently don't know how the Interent works. You don't have to build or change anything at all for the Europeans et al. to take control of the domains in question for their juristiction. They won't "break" the Internet in America (other than potentially machines that depend on foreign content)
Personally I think it's an hot air for now. There are potentially extensize side-effects and economic consequences by subnetting the Internet. However if the US continues to play holier-than-thou morality games it will problem happen eventually for....
national security.
I'm not sure what your arguing on behalf of here, Global warming? Crime? Lower mortality rates? Do you enjoy being profiled by your gove
i vote to do two things;
1 - let ICANN do their thing.
2 - encourage the rest of the world to put
their own system into place.
if the rest can make a better internet, a more
functional internet, a more speedy and
helpful internet on their own root DNS system,
we should be happy to check it out...
and improve ours.
How would these kernel mirrors be updated if Linus can't connect to them and they can't connect to kernel.org? What, is Linus going to call the webmasters up and fax it to them, page by page?
www.linuxpenguin.net
Simple as that. You've had them back for some time. That and far more, but it's just not good enough is it?
"Umm, it always was one from the very beginning, by design"
:)... words evolve in meaning and use. Without getting into post-Modernism and noting that this reality upsets Libetarians and some extremist Randroids-- "Democracy" (the word) for the rest of us has come to include indirect Democratic systems (like Republics) in normal usage. Don't take my word for it though.
Technically while true by very old defintions, you miss that...ummm... (friendly jab back
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=democracy &db=*
This is because there is a great deal of overlap in concepts and a 100% democracy (as political scientists generally seem to conceptualize it) has never really existed--even ancient Athens had slaves.
The U.S was founded on ideals borrowed from the French revolution that directly adopted principles from ancient Greece and Rome. After the frustration of dealing with a bunch of power hungry babbling elitests (not really elite--just power hungry) they overthrew their control in favour of everyday citizens having a say. The logistics of Democracy made it difficult to institute a true democracy on structures larger than a city state -- so they decided to go with a Republic.
However over the last two hundred years more and more people have a say in how the nation is ruled (blacks, women, the poor etc...). This by definition is what the spirit of democracy is all about. Individual participation-- not paternalistic institutions or individuals that make all the decisions. Our dominance of this planet is build on co-operation built on individual decision making. We are not ants reporting to some queen. We are composed of similar grey mattter and most of us seem to recognize the natural efficiency of using everyone's brain to build a better world.
Institutionalized elitism has been around since before the Pharoahs. Although now the norm--allowing all of your citizens to participate in governence is relatively rare historically. This is what Democracy seems to represent. The countries that have stronger democratic principles historically usually seem to dominate intellectually relative to their peers (not necesarily militarily-- as most intellects that actually improve this world don't waste too many thought cycles on this over emphasized barbaric subject). It follows that the US being the biggest in this respect (unlike India with a caste system) would be dominant intellectually the past few centuries.
Sanger and Wales dispute over Wikipedia shows why democracy is clearly a superior system than centralized systems. If Sanger had his way-- Wikipeidia would have been some obscure dead link. The true elite can and do create something from nothing--and don't require acclaim or support from society beyond equal footing as a starting point. Even then, if Bell had not existed, the phone WOULD have been invented. Everyone is replaceable-- even the elite.
What we often associate with the alleged (keyword) elite though-- is generations of inbred money and power that although they seem to contribute a great deal--in reality are basically economic parasites that waste resources inefficiently building a variety of effigies amusing themselves. While this is not necessarily a terrible thing for the average individual--the powerful have a disproportionate allocation of resources at their disposal--- and therefore are held to a higher bar of personal responsibility (for which they are more than fairly compensated)
You can argue the morality/politics of such things from here to eternity but this is a natural rule of human behavior demonstrated countless times throughout history. While it is in vogue in the moment that "greed is good"--have no doubts if it went too far there would be a cleanup of the gene pool. This is why in the
Are you proposing a crusade, where the Christian peoples of the world hand eneryone else two alternatives - convert, or die?? Which particular brand of Christianity would we be pushing?? Roman Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Anglican, Lutheran, or what??
Yes... and?
Yes! A crusade of grace, mercy and kindness. With military efficiency, heeding no obstacle, we will be nice to everyone, even when treated poorly. We will storm the walls of intolerance and salt the fields of injustice. It's an uphill battle, but it is a fight that must be fought.
Pushing? I don't suggest we push anything. People choose how to live; it's not like I can force someone to believe something.
Mod parent up
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.