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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.'"
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.
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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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 : )
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.
"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
Most of the spam comes from the USA. It's a known fact (they send 42% of it IIRC, something like 4x more than the next country on the list).
If you were to be cutoff the rest of the internet, you'd most likely have more spam than ever.
///<sig
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
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.
Besides, most people are reasonably happy with ICANN. I wish they were going after Verisign and the root certs instead, those are the real bastards.
I read the internet for the articles.
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.
Brazil, responding to ICANN's approval of .xxx domains: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."
This is an officially prepared statement from Brazil's UN rep during a summit about Internet control. This isn't an off the cuff remark by a public official looking for some political points on a TV show somewhere. With that said, take a look at some of these justifcations for wresting control of the internet from ICANN. The key words are "values", "my country" and an over all naive approach to pornography in that a domain name would encourage porn rather than provide a mechanism to limit it to audiences that want it. Right now, you can find anything on the Internet. Anything from forums on Quilting, twins in latex to political freedom for Taiwan sites. This isn't about fear of the US controlling the Internet for some diabolical purpose, it's about other countries implementing some sort of content control.
Also, don't believe for a second that these countries see this as some public service. There's money to be had. UN administration taxes for the win!
"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.
China is in the UN, which is the body demanding control of the DNS. Each part of it has their own reasons. China and Iran want it so they can stop their own citizens from reading some things. The EU wants it mainly because they want the US to not have it.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
You really ahven't been following your government recently, have you? Have a look at the new FBI stance on porn; it's considered a higher priority than finding terrorists. I kid you not, go google; you'll find some enlightening statement from the new head honcho's.
Also, while you're at it, google for 'free speech zones', as pertaining to protesters in the US.
No matter what the supremes have done in the past (and there is none, with the new appointee(s)), you're losing it in the US. 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.
"It's intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer that the reason behind this EU and UN grab for internet power is in order to suppress speech they disagree with."
No, it's not obvious. What is obvious is that it's a power grab. 'Why' is open to speculation, but I'd say 'because they don't want a bullying, uni-lateraly acting, militaristic, way-too-opertunistic and aggressive nation headed by an illiterate imbecile to make decisions and exert undue influence on a system which by now is quite important to nation's economies' is much more likely than your, quite mistaken, belief that Europe is living in censorship.
Which is kind of odd, when you live in a nation which fines people up to half a million for saying 'fuck' on radio, and a nation cries out in uproar when a breast is kinda-sorta-not-really shown on tv during of all things a football match.
However, if by cencorship, you mean 'looking at intelligent design and deciding we don't want 'magic' taught in science classes'...well, then you're right.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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
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. Anyone outside the US then just uses slashdot.org.us instead of slashdot.org, and life goes on as normal. Just like with telephone country codes.
This only proves that the USA has a better record on the subject compared to China - which hardly anyone disputes. His point, however, was that the USA is certainly not the "most free" country in that respect either.
... 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.
Because no matter how much we pay lip service to the idea that our values are for us and their values are for them, we don't really believe it. Deep down inside, we believe that everyone should agree with us, unless they're stupid or evil.
This is the general case. In some specific cases, we're willing to overlook the wrong values of others, but in other specific cases we're not.
(The "we" is applicable to anybody.)
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.
Jesus christ, plenty of the world has equal or better free speech laws than the US - New Zealand, Australia, most of Europe.
Here in NZ, we didn't require the Black Eyed Peas to rename their song "Don't Phunk With my Heart", we don't have a corronary when a breast is exposed on TV (I mean, for fuck's sake!). We have adverts using sware words and lewd humour that wouldn't be played in the US. Actually, the Black Eyed Peas were complaining how conservative the US is in comparison to places like NZ when they were here recently.
You Americans are so blinded by your own hype you think the entire rest of the world is some 3rd world dictatorship. Grow up, actually LOOK at the rest of the world and realise it doesn't match your cardboard cutout preconceptions. The average US slashbot view of the rest of the world is laughably naive.
It may be fun to think of the UN as some crazy foreign power ... but the USA is one of the original founding members of the UN (Britain, China, France, Russia & the USA).
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".
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.
Do Europeans think that a strong PRC without human rights reforms is a good thing?
You say that the US was/is preventing it somehow ?
For a great many Europeans the answer to all of these questions is a firm NON.
You and Your fellow Americans always think You know everything. Youre wrong.
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.
Your history is actually very short.
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.
If Europe keeps on fighting America, Europe will eventually start winning some battles.
I heard there were some other parties around this table too...
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.
You may prevent the United States from attacking the next Saddam Hussein (can you say Kim Jong Il?).
You think that US is entitled to attack Korea ?
You may create a dominant PRC that doesn't have any reason to care about human rights.
Again, do You really think the US is somehow helping the chinese human rights ?
How ?
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.
Excuse me.
The US and its private companies built and paid for the Internet. Billions were spent on research and development. We've been at it for over 40 years.
The European countries and its private companies built and paid for the US. Billions were spent on development, people, ships, technology, etc. We've been at it for over 500 years.
Essentially, we stole half the world's resources and shipped them to the US. Can we now have them back?
Impressive. I don't think I've ever seen such a one-sided view put so eloquently.
Do Americans think it is a good idea that their government can exercise control over the DNS (even if they haven't done so so far)?
Do Americans think it is a good idea for their government to fund an army that keeps a system of apartheid alive using unlawful violence in illegally occupied territories?
Seriously, I call bullshit on this one the most. It's American money more than anything that's preventing peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Do Americans think that Iraq deserves al-Zarqawi? No? Then why did they allow him in, by removing Saddam in such a braindead way?
Do Americans think the same? Wherever did you get the idea that the US does more about human rights in China than the EU?
Erm, for your information, a great many Europeans don't speak French.
Really, you write pretty well, your thinking is a lot less up to scratch though. Learn to look beyond your local propaganda.
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.
Thats just scary. Satisfied with Vietnam and Korea? Satisfied with Iran? (if America and Britain hadn't installed the Shah over the more democratic government there would have been no Islamic revolution). How about backing brutal regimes like Pinochet or these days Uzbekistan? Hey they may be brutal dictatorships that kill there own people but at least that stops them being socialist/Islamic.
Deciding to join WWII (even if it was late and only after being attacked) only buys so much gratitude. Everyone is very grateful but it was 60 years and you can't expect people to just keep on being grateful and ignoring what happened afterward. America has proved it is happy to screw over other countries when it suits is purpose, and its refusal to join international efforts like Kyoto treaty or the International Criminal Court make people wary.
Not that the the Europeans countries were any better back when they were the main powers, worse probably because they had empires, but I don't think many modern Europeans would be 'satisfied' with, say, the way Africa was carved up.
Nor do I think America arrogance would be "cured" by anything other than when another country (or block) overtakes them economically and maybe militarily. It would be stupid of European politicians to do something to disadvantage Europe just to stick it to the Americans, but its equally stupid for American politicians to unnecessarily antagonise Europeans.
In the case of the Internet, is it possible for other countries to control copies of the roots such that the US could not turn them off, but that wouldn't impact people in the US, or the US control of their own copies. Seems there is room for reasonable compromise here but both sides are being arrogant.