Slashdot Mirror
Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet
Martin Boleman writes "ZDNet reports that Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month. "The Internet is likely to face a grave threat, If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on." he said in a statement."
I need my internets.
Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
From the same country that brought you the monopolizing telcos and DMCA? [not to mention crippling patent system]
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
they mean isolating themselves?
Norm Coleman ranked very pro-freedom by the RLC. While he's still a Statist, he seems to have a lightly more freedom oriented strategy for the Senate.
The provisions for the Internet being taken over by the UN or any political body will likely bifurcate the Net into multiple separate networks still interconnected but ready to dissolve from those that censor or regulate the information more than the billions of users want.
Seriously, is DNS control even necessary? My 'utopian' internet future doesn't see much need for DNS. Bit-torrent doesn't need it, Google lets me find information anywhere without needing to remember domain names, and portable bookmarks make my life simple.
My Internet doesn't need DNS as it is set up today. E-mail is dependent on DNS for now, but a combination of BitTorrent and LDAP will shut that need off if DNS gets ripped apart.
There are three reasons for government control of DNS:
1. Censorship
2. Regulation/licensing of certain speech (campaign, medical, educational?)
3. Profit!!! (for the cronies who sell domain names)
There is zero need for any regulation. The Internet could be usurped by any big business but isn't. The ultimate proof of anarchy in action. Companies that try to control the users are beaten by those that provide open access. Companies that want to break free from the global structure will anger their users who want access to anyone else. Verizon could separate their phone network completely but its in their best interest to communicate with their competition.
The UN just wants monopoly power through force and coercion. The private corporations want to be #1 but have to constantly compete with others.
Cuz america will never ever screw anything up.
we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on.
So his plan is to abolish the RIAA?
Seriously, the US government has been trying to erode protections for online privacy and information access for years, why does he think the UN would be any more dangerous?
We can't stop other countries from setting up their own root servers if they want to, except militarily. Are we really going to go to war to stop them (sadly, in this administration, this is not quite a rhetorical question)?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Norm Coleman? Is that the same Norm Coleman that got bitch-slapped by George Galloway?
You're using her as bait, Master!
You know, I work in IT, have a moderate grasp of how the world network operates. Why exactyl is the UN so keen on forcibly taking over the management of the internet? A. We invented it, we set up the first networks, and were only later linked with other countries B. It doesn't appear to be broken, why fix it? Can someone explain this to me?
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
They want to tax e-mail? The UN wants to tax email.... Well they can go straight to hell.
I would propose to have the root name servers entrusted to a coalition of:
China -- to protect the freedom of speech
Poland -- to ensure reliability of connections
Sierra Leone -- to ensure cheap and widely available services
USA -- to curb bottom dwelling scum-suckers like RIAA
But really... if an organisation is to take over the root servers, UN is not far from Al Quaeda and RIAA. Just add corruption and take away any traces of balls.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
NOT!
...the internet, but the United Nations is a worthless waste of space and resources. It should not be allowed the remotest of control over the internet. I would be much happier with an organization set up independent of the UN that actually knows what they're doing.
--------
This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
that some of our politicians have OUR best interest in mind. Its worth noting that as usual, its a republican, while I'm sure Ted Kennedy will be pushing for UN take over... typical and not surprising.
The only real questions that remain to be answered is will Bush back down, and does the EU have the testicular fortitude to follow through with their threat (good luck with France).
This story, with only slight variances, has been up 3 times and the comments this time won't be any different.
This is an obvious -1 Flamebait by Taco.
This was said the last time this story was posted so I'll say it again: Find a +5 mod and copy it and post it here.
Time for the internet to declare it's independance!
...with tongue lightly planted in cheek...
Let's have a Boston DNS party!
Tell the US & UN to get stuffed!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
That controlling the root DNS actually allows any control over the internet at all. DNS is no tthe internet. It's a naming mechanism. That's all.
I think I'll be writing a letter thanking him...I'm trying to think if he's done anything I should reprimand him for though, I haven't been paying much attention.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
... if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Does it really matter to anyone (not counting government officials that want to run everything themselves) who controls DNS? Also, I'm not sure I'd trust the UN to manage the Internet more than I trust the US.
It is so nice to see so many Americans voice their opinion here and really show how little they know about the UN.
The United Nations' firm reprimand--perhaps even a tongue-lashing, or a dressing-down--of the rogue Bonzi Dictator.
A few thoughts:
The US wants to keep control for purely financial reasons. They want to gouge other countries for access, and allow the big telecoms to maintain their control on the flow of information at asinine prices.
Or, they want to keep control for moral reasons. Remember, Alberto "Gonzo" Gonzales has started his Porn Squad (not to attack only kiddie porn sites, but consenting adult sites as well) in some sort of twisted moral crusade. Well, there is a buttload of porn on the net, isn't there. If we keep control, he can stamp it out...
Another reason could be "National Security," though I'm pretty sure they already spend an asinine amount of money to keep sensitive stuff off of the 'Net to begin with. The Internet is no longer a super-secret Pentagon project, and has been publicly available for over a decade. I remember reading somewhere that works of the Government are in the Public Domain. Dunno if that applys to just images and text, or to secret, non-military projects like the Internet (again, now that it's been made public, not prior).
I say we share control with the world at large. Except with the French. The French are too weird. And most certainly not with the UN, corrupt an organisation as that is. It should be a seperate, international consortium with equal power for all countries involved. There shouldn't be one "regulator," and especially not the United States.
But that's just me, and I don't count...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
For once I agree with the US taking a unilateral action against the world community, or at least the UN. I think laws and policies need to be informed by global actions. I also think most need to pass the global test". but just as Mr. Kerry preceded his global test statement with "I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country", I believe that the UN should be kept away from things like root DNS servers, and any internet policy decisions. Arguments between members of the UN are much worse than any usenet flame war.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
How do you find your trackers, by IP?
How does Google find all that wonderful information when you go asking for it?
Maybe you mean there's a way to do without root servers (I imagine there is with lots of peering ala bit-torrent), but DNS is a necessity as long as we can't ensure that IPs are constant.
If you think I'm the clueless one, visit my web site at http://65.39.170.204/ and leave a comment, unless of course the server IP has changed since I checked, or if I happen to move my site to another hosting service.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
The porn industry will decide...
A quick note for the few of you interested in Norm Coleman beyond the usual dKos drivel that infects slashdot. Norm Coleman is a freshman senator from Minnesota (he defeated Mondale) who has quickly become the leading UN watchdog in the senate. He is the guy who is driving a lot of the Oil for Food investigation, and actually called out Kofi Anan because of the conflict of interest between Kofi Anan's son and the Oil for Food program.
He is a up and rising star in the RNC. Keep a eye on him, he will be running for president sooner or later.
How exactly is a non-binding resolution supposed to protect anything from anyone?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
That's fud and simply untrue, no matter how many times people repeat it.
/. falsely reported, but on the contrary the EU is right now trying to find a solution that both sides, the US, that doesn't want to give up control and other nations, the don't want the control in the hands of the US, could live with.
What is happening is that several countries (not the UN) don't want to live with a situation anymore in which only one nation, the US, controls critical parts of their infrastructure. I don't know why such a sentiment should come as a surprise to anybody, I think it's pretty normal and inevitable.
And in case this comes up again:
It's not the EU pushing this, as
Finally, I'm sure we will be treated to about 100 posts whining about how the US invented the internet and the world was so unfair. This is of course utterly laughable, as it simply does not matter who invented what, or how would you react to the Chinese demanding you stop using paper, or, omg, firearms, because they invented the stuff?
But if you want to play this little game anyway, please keep in mind that the world wide web, or rather the technologies necessary for it, were invented in Europe.
... and also the same country that brought you the internet. Or one bit of it at least.
d =E1_QQRRGQQ&tranMode=none
Apparently there are more politics going on with this conflict than most of us realize from reading slashdot stories about it.
The Economist had a pretty good editorial about the whole thing here:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_i
unfortunately it's content you have to pay for. The gist of it is that things are working pretty well right now, and that the countries who really want to change the current situation are countries like China and Iran. If someone were proposing to hand over ICANN to Switzerland or something like that, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but a big UN committee? That's not likely to improve the situation.
The ideal solution would be less government intervention from everyone involved, the US included, not more from a bunch of authoritarian regimes.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
I don't give two shits for Galloway, but let's be fair: the man made Norm look like a complete and utter fool.
Someday our Congresscritters are going to understand that:
So pardon me for thinking Norm isn't all that bright.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
I would assume (given the content of the articles presented here) that most in the Slashdot community support the Open Source / Free Software movement. This movement is founded in the idea that the more people working on and watching over a project, the better that project will turn out. How is it any FOSS project different from the Internet? With one country controlling the root servers, with one organization under the Department of Commerce controlling the naming system, how can the Internet possibly be anything other than a manifestation of that singular country? One might argue against me, saying that all great FOSS projects have a benevolent dictator, say Linus for example. But Linus can only keep up with his project because he has a group of people to whom he trusts absolutely the responsibility to commit changes, &c. These people are his peers, just as the United States should have peers to aid in harnessing the power of the Internet. The power of control should be distributed. I'm sure the Senator is a freedom-loving man, by his statements; what kind of freedom is controlled by one land alone? That sounds an awful lot like the kind of rule that those who founded this country tried to escape from. It is the principle of both our country, and the idea of democracy itself, to balance power and evenly distribute rights and capabilities. Remember the three branches of government? Checks and balances? What about "all men created equal", with the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? So, why should the United States be the only country to control the Internet?
Beside for finding a server IP dns names can be usefull for a lot of stuffs :
...of course if one day the IPv6 rolls in, it'll be easier to have multiple IPs assigned to a single server (one for each website).
..of course with IPv6 this may become less a problem.
- providing load balancing.
By the fact they can point to different IP each time.
You can have a single domain name like "wikipedia.org" or "google.*" or "pool.ntp.org" pointing to numerous servers accross the globe and thus distibute the load.
Old way (providing a list of mirrors) requires the server the contains the mirror list to be able to sustain connextion from ALL users. And adds a cumbersome step to the process.
- server co-sharing.
A server is usually referred by a single IP addresse.
Assigning multiple name to the same server enables you to have different websites depending on used servername.
Most of the cheap server solution uses this.
- dynamic IP
dynip.org and such. (see problems with load-balancing vs. on-line lists above)
- DNS used for everything else, including kitchen sink.
DNS are also used for listing Spammers,
listing botnets and other black-lists,
listing E164 number to VoIP maps,
what ever else.
DNS are often used as convenient lists, with standart interface.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think I should be appointde to run the internet. I'll be a benevolent dictator. And I got lots of guns.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
give DNS root a new life ... move 'em to Vanuatu
this is a very important point many many websites including some very very major ones rely on name based virtual hosting (it makes say using a cluster to serve a group of websites a lot easier).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
explain me just one thing: why http://www.whitehouse.gov/ points to something that should be http://www.whitehouse.gov.us/ ? If aliens would like to see webpage of WHOLE earth's goverment, where would they go?
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I'd rather live on a net where I can't talk about Nazis, than on one where puritanical hypocrits prevent me from seeing boobs!
Blar.
How odd?!
"The Internet is likely to face a grave threat, If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on."
Then this senator can start by saving Chris from the US own censorship machinery?
http://www.freechris.org/
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
the power to levy taxes on domain names to pay for "universal access,"
As taken straight from the article.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I mean, we paid for the research. We set it up. It's essentially an american invention. I don't think it should always be ours, eventually I'd like to see it in the hands of an international organization designated for this purpose (the UN's too messed up right now to handle it), but there's no reason to rush things. It's working fine right now.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
"we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on."
/. story. AFAIK, that doesn't mean the end of the world as we know it. In fact, it may be a good thing long term from a privacy and security standpoint. IMHO, a bunch of Politicans are rallying around a non-issue so that they can look like they're doing something to protect the USA's interests.
I must be missing something. How does the U.N. threaten this? My understanding is that all the UN wants is to take control of DNS services (as evidenced by this
Would that be a correct assessement or have I got it all (or partially) wrong?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
the dmca also PROTECTS consumers... by limiting our access to our data and our devices. the clear skies initiative PROTECTS the environment... by making government inspections into private self-inspections. the no child left behind PROTECTS our children... by creating a hole in the education budget with an unfunded mandate. the patriot act PROTECTS our precious freedom... by ripping holes in the constitution. operation iraqi freedom PROTECTS iraqis... by bombing them. Why is it that whenever I hear the 'pubs talk about PROTECTING something, I start to worry about whatever it is they want to PROTECT? Perhaps PROTECT is actually some kind of acronym equivalent to "Drop your pants and grab your ankles." The Orwellian-ness of it all is excitingly terrifying. But, yes, by all means, let's PROTECT the internet. Is anyone thinking that maybe the gov't will start PROTECTING us from the terrorist content on the internet, the same way China does for their citizens?
Honestly, I wouldn't trust the US (the monolith), to look after my dog - and I don't even own one.
;)
It has always struck me as odd that the internet, which is meant to be the ultimate without-borders, decentralised network.. Is operated by just one country.
But, IAAE
fortune -o
Disclaimer: This is not a flame or troll, it's simply what I think
The USA seems to be becoming more and more totalitarian in the way it handles things in general. I realise this is less evident for those actually in the USA (the same way most Chinese are oblivious to the same type of government) but for all of us outsiders, your government is increasingly hostile and arrogant, even towards those it deems friends.
What we don't need is the DNS root servers being almost all controlled by this one country. Things could go seriously bad in a shockingly small space of time, and before you know it a key part of the Internet we all rely on is subject to the every whim of a crazy man (not necessarily G W Bush). And considering the Internet is now critical to many industries and governments, any kind of manipulation will be a very bad thing.
Now I'm not saying the UN should take control of this, but why can't we have a collection of countries known for their relatively free nature be in charge of this? USA could take a few servers (with it being so big), Canada could have one, UK have a few (because I'm British and biased), scatter some around France, Germany, maybe even Russia (*gasp*).
Why does this need to be a UN issue? Surely these countries could have come to an agreement with the US.
Although the best course of action would be for the major world players to set up their own root servers, provide incentives for ISPs to use those primarily. I don't know if the root servers have the main configuration files available publicly, but surely there wouldn't be an issue of syncing them to non-US root servers? After all it only benefits everyone, and if the US does turn into a total bastard (pardon my French) at least everything won't crumble and we'd still have unbiased root servers scattered about.
C17H21NO4
While all governments and organizations have a level of corruption, the U.N. has to be one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet. Who in their right mind would give control to the Internet let alone the people who want to make the U.N. the world's ultimate governing authority?
There needs to be accountability.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Nice sig.
Guess I need to find a new one. I would think that you copied mine, if Lost wasn't such a popular show.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
This is actually a topic I was hoping would come up again. I know there have been various thoughts and ideas ciculated around as to how one could further decentralize the Net, but let me put it to the Slashdot crowd: What sort of engineering can be done to further prise the Internet from control of any government, anywhere? I don't assume a single solution, and I don't expect that any solution(s) will be necessarily simple or straightforward. This is a political problem that the Net is facing, but perhaps engineers can be the ones to solve it.
I leave this as wide open as possible. We need a reasonable definition of the problem (this is not just a matter of addressing--it's a question of engineering in ways to reliably route around censorship), and some good thoughts as to solutions. Like I said, I'm sure there are plenty of ideas already out there, so if you know of any good schemes, reply to this post and link to them!
People ask if the UN would be any worse than the US. Well, yes. Much, much worse, and you all know it too. To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, everyone acts like the UN is some sort of conventional analogue of the United Federation of Planets, a utopian universal government where everyone comes to peacefully work together and solve the problems of the world. The reality is that a staggering number of UN members are dictatorships (and please, no cracks about the US being one of those dictatorships--you might as well go spit in the face of someone who has suffered under an actual dictatorship to compare the US to, say, North Korea). And make no mistake, these are the countries that most desire to have more and more control over the Internet, since the free flow of information can only undermine the lies upon which their power is based.
So please, let's get the discussion going. The goal? Help keep the Internet out of the hands of those who would strive to destroy it, or twist it to their own purposes. Think creatively, talk about it, and get the links going. Hell, if you've got a really solid idea, pay a few bucks to register and set up a web site about it. Huffing and puffing and complaining about it is one thing: Actually getting ideas out, and pitching them back and forth, settling on some solutions and starting to hack together some code--that's how you can really help to keep the Internet safe.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
He wants the US to be 'the boss' of the internet, just like, for some reason, the US needs to be the boss of everything in order for it to be 'free', 'democratic', 'safe' etc.
I heard the debate on radio, and I assume the only reason you think that is that you agree with Hitchins' perspective. Galloway is a strange character, and you may or may not agree with him, but he's a ferocious debater. Hitchins never had a chance - he did well even to land a few hits.
I do not know about you, but I am from Minnesota, and I will tell you that this guy is not all that he is cracked-up to be. Politically, the guy is an absolute opportunist, who blows around to political winds far more than John Kerry ever might have. Note his opportunistic party switching to illustrate this.
Granted it is easy for you to come to such glowing conclusions from afar, but you miss the big picture here: he defeated Mondale, only because Mondale ran in the late Paul Wellstone's place, after Wellstone died in a freak plane crash only about a week before the state election, thus having inadequate time for a proper campaign to run. Moreoever, any non-partisan would agree that Mondale was a bad replacement on the grounds that he was too old to be credible.
Speaking on behalf of many Minnesotans, he is viewed as a crack.
The same way the UN's resolutions do[n't]?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Nah, I copied it from someone on another forum :-). Why would you change your sig, though? Keep it and help the Numbers spread. It's cool to know there are other Lost fans here, BTW.
By reading these comments it seems that an international body controlling the internet would consist of China, Iran, Cuba, the United States and noone else!
I find this very interesting.
Will code a sig generator for food
The problem with Slashdot is that if this post was criticizing the UN or Europe, it would be modded Troll. Since it is bashing the US, it is modded Insightful. Give me a break.
Not to mention that DNS provides a nice layer of indirection. Change ISPs and you don't have to update everybody's bookmarks. And a bit of clever DNS management allows things like coral and akamai to do distributed web content delivery.
DNS isn't just an option; it's a necessity.
I care more about liberty than about democracy. If you (and a majority of your peers) decide to limit my freedom, I don't really care if you did it democratically or not. Curtailing liberty is wrong. Those who would do so should not be allowed to participate.
Funny, I just read this which is exactly the same idea. Quite the day when a libertarian links to CommonDreams to make a point. Here's another link showing that unfettered democracy is not the best idea. A majority is not right simply because it is a majority.
Constitutionally Correct
The both did WRONGLY invade and take over independant and sovereign nations. Just because he's not gasing 6 million people of one religion doesn't mean he isn't a complete asshole who hasn't set back US/foreign relations 50 years.
By every account, foreign relations, civil liberties, environmental law, deficit spending, job creation, he's the worst President we have ever had. Nobody except for 3rd world hating zealots and Christian zealots can objectivly say he's done anything right. No Christian I know including myself think's the things he has done are what "Jesus would want" or is the proper way for a Christian to even behave. Warmongering, telling americans CONSTANTLY that they are about to be attacked, literally giving polluters carte blanche to destory the enviornment, and holding people without cause or trial are NOT Christian and more importantly to most people NOT American values. Don't even get me started on his nation ruining spending habits.
So is Bush = Hitler? No, don't be stupid and don't try to deflect what he is doing by making such a ridiculous statement.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Please read through the political smoke-and-mirrors.
The aforementioned senator is doing a classic political deceit maneuvre: "if it's not us, it's the non-human enemy monsters!"
It's not that simple. The proposal they really want to combat is meant to give control over the Internet to a commitee of pretty much all countries in the world. It's not like all of a sudden dictatorships such as China will get ultimate power on-line: they will simply be members like anyone else in the commitee.
What the senator really despises is that the control over the Internet will cease to be a 100% american affair and become worldwide instead.
Yes, it would suck if China will get control over the Internet. Fortunately, it's not gonna happen either way.
That SHOULD be the way it works. All domains in any country should have their respective extension, instead of just the .com or .net or whatever. The only organizations that don't have a country extension should be truly international organizations (such as the UN, actually...)
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Is 'informational' even a word? I was thinking the guy was just a dipshit who took speaking lessons from G-dub, but then I looked it up. According to Dictionary.com it is a perfectly cromulent word.
I guess a noble soul really does embiggen the smallest man.
IANAL, but I play one on
Heh. I dislike Galloway for a number of reasons, but you've got to respect (no pun intended) the way he makes his point and his willingness to stand by what he says and make his case.
I think it was one of our better satirical TV shows that said it best, quipping that in response to voluntarily accepting a grilling by the US Senate over his dealings with Iraq, the best George Galloway could do to defend himself was to speak uninterrupted for 20 minutes without notes, refuting every single allegation made against him by citing detailed, verifiable sources.
Considering that during the last US presidential debates, neither of the candidates could speak coherently even for two-minute stints, instead awkwardly repeating the same transparent sound-bites they had presumably been given by their campaign staff, I'd say that's pretty telling.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Great idea Taco - keep posting it every few days!
He wants to 'keep it away' from the UN? I'm not sure he knows how the internet works.
The whole point of the Internet is that it's run by rough consensus.
Apparently, its not, if they have to pry DNS from the US's cold, dead fingers...
-everphilski-
Norm is definitely an opportunist, and with him being a party flip-flopper I didn't trust him one bit. I voted for Kovatchevich.
Constitutionally Correct
Waterloo might have turned out differently. But he didn't. And Sweden didn't. Arguing hypotheticals is nothing more than mental masturbation.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
First of all, if china, all of south america, europe, whoever wants to, they can build a competing product and americans will beat down the doors to use if if they like it. I think it would be great if they did this so we can let the market shake out competing architectures.
Second of all, UN control is a joke, right? It's a club with no entry requirements: any country can join. Who in their right minds would want the UN in control of the internet? That's just a sick joke.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
I'm caught between wondering why a US Senator thinks he has any place to be commenting on the internet, and being amazed that a US Senator has actually heard of the internet.
Of course, perhaps this is one of those politicians who feels they have to make a statement on whatever's in the newspaper that morning.
"Yeah! I have a very strong opinion on, uh... half price sale!"
It's funny really, everyone's going nuts over taking DNS control away from ICANN and the US. The reason for moving control to the UN is that other countries have come to depend upon the Internet as a key piece of their economic infrastructure.
Lets say you have a neighbor who just moved into a newly built home next to yours. The first weekend out, they're in the yard trying to start a garden and want to water in some plants. Sadly, the outside faucets weren't hooked up, so they poke their head over the fence and ask you if they could run your hose over to their yard just so they could get their garden watered a little bit. You, being the nice guy you are, let them use your hose and water... you're on a well so it's not costing you much of anything.
The contractor is slow in getting the problem fixed so they keep using your hose. More and more. Eventually you notice that they've taken to running their own hose directly to your faucet. One day you realize that the water is running 24/7 and the hose in fact runs into their house. You investigate and discover that they canceled their city water service and are just draining water from you. You're peeved, but aren't going to turn the water off on them because you don't want to be an ass.
Eventually, your neighbors grow so used to using your water that they begin to fear what would happen if you ever did turn it off. So they petition the city to have your well made a public asset, so that you can't unfairly control a service the neighbor now says is key to their ability to live.
There is nothing saying other countries can't go and start their own DNS servers. They can provide their own service, there's no obligation on the part of the US to hand over its root servers to anyone else.
In reality though, how does controlling DNS = Controlling the Internet? Does ICANN sit there and deny domain registrations? Nope, all they do is say who resells the domains, and they add new ones periodically. I see no "control" being exerted over the Internet here. What do they fear?
While his involvement in the Food-for-Oil scandal may be seen as laudable, it may also be seen as an attempt by Republicans to deflect heat from their own scandals. Saying he's an 'up and rising star in the RNC' and will be running for president sooner or later sounds impressive, until one considers that the same has been said about Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo.
To me, this is just another grandstanding play by Coleman--something that looks good to the cameras, but has no substance...
Yep. It's ironic that so many people here claim that the US is doing a fine job at present, can't meddle with a private company, blah blah blah. AIUI, the US government basically stepped in directly to block the creation of a .xxx domain. Regardless of your approval or otherwise of pornographic material, it's undeniable that the WWW has reached its current state in no small part because of the porn industry, and it's in the interests of both that industry and responsible parents (amongst others) to respect a separation between their material and that intended for more general consumption. I don't know about anyone else, but I have a problem with a nation that is run by the Christian Right and has a demonstrated problem with abusing its power making that kind of decision for the rest of the world, many of whom don't share the Christian Right's views on the subject.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
He was the guy who said Kofi Annan (spelling nazi alert) was taking bribes in the oil for food program, and after getting ripped apart by the UN, turned out to be correct. So, right or wrong, I can see where he has a very sour taste in his mouth after his last round with the UN.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
Have you guy ever considered, that the USA is also a member of the UN?
It's not like they will have the internet taken away! It's more like
their Ideas are to be facing a democratic system, rather than one Nation
to rule them all.
What the hell are you afraid of? Oh sorry, I forgot, democracy has been
removed two elections ago. What whould I expect from a country without
a democraticly elected President...
insightful and to the point
Finally, I'm sure we will be treated to about 100 posts whining about how the US invented the internet and the world was so unfair. This is of course utterly laughable, as it simply does not matter who invented what, or how would you react to the Chinese demanding you stop using paper, or, omg, firearms, because they invented the stuff?
the difference being paper and firearms are derivitive works. Root DNS servers are not derivitive works, they are the technology that makes *the* internet work. it *was* developed in the US.
But if you want to play this little game anyway, please keep in mind that the world wide web, or rather the technologies necessary for it, were invented in Europe.
Sure. But without a network to run on top of, its utterly worthless.
-everphilski-
The Project For A New American Century is an organization dedicated "...to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests." Among the members are VP Dick Cheney and his currently embattled Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, SecDef Don Rumsfled, Jeb Bush (brother of President Bush), etc. See their Statement of Principals and a list of the signers of this founding document. If you don't recognize some of the names, Google them and see where they have worked in the last five years. Paul Wolfowits, Dov Zakheim and Zalmay Khalilzad are good ones to start with. Here's a nice place to start with Zakheim. And it only gets more interesting from there ;)
In September, 2000 PNAC released a controversial document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses, in which they argued that a "catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor" was needed to speed up their planned re-militarization of America (see pg. 68). Earlier in this document they itemized their core principals, including 'CONTROL THE NEW "INTERNATIONAL COMMONS" OF SPACE AND "CYBERSPACE," and pave the way for the creation of a new military service - U.S. Space Forces - with the mission of space control.'(see pg. 11) On page 57 they go into more detail about how and why America must retain control of cyberspace. Controlling ICAAN is critical to this goal.
Scared yet? Remember, these are the folks that brought us the Patriot Act, forcing a vote on it after 9/11 without allowing anyone to read it, and enabling such great things as holding potential "terrorists" indefinitely without access to family or legal representation, sneak-and-peek searches, warrantless monitoring of e-mail, monitoring dissent groups without any suspicion of criminal activity by them, etc., etc.
As for Iraq, PNAC has been calling for the overthrow of Saddam since 1997 as a way to retain control of world energy supplies, critical to ensuring America's control over the world. But I think they bit off more than they could chew over there.
This group is truly scary, and they have been running our government for five years now.
Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.
Yeah, because passing laws in the U.S. is a great way to control what other countries do, in their own countries, with their own hardware and networks that they built and paid for. Brilliant! This is just another politician trying to capitalize on the "us versus them" sentiments trying to be pushed by a number of factions in the U.S.
There is no reason why any one country should run a single point of failure for a resource vital to communications and commerce throughout the world, especially when most of the gear it is running on, paid for by, and resides in those other countries. The world has spoken, they want a democratic solution with representation for everyone. They don't want to keep paying large fees to U.S. corporations for a naming service that was free before the big corporations got involved and can be free, or nearly free again. Most of all, they don't like an increasingly aggressive and deceptive country to be able to severely damage the economy of another country at their whim. No one trusts the U.S. to be a benevolent dictator and they would be foolish if they did. It is time to remember some of those American ideals, like democracy and representation for all are far more important than the new American ideals of making money and bullying the rest of the world.
To put it simply, the internet is a global enterprise made up of hardware and software running in and paid for countries all around the world. Those countries deserve a say in how the naming scheme works and this sort of "America is superior to the rest of the world" nationalist bullshit is not only useless chest thumping, but it makes the U.S. look like even more of a vicious bully in the eyes of the world. You should be ashamed of yourself Mr. Coleman.
But who forced the ratings system onto the games?
Who decides what constitutes AO?
Hmmmm. Sounds like government sponsored censorship to me.
You do know that most of Afghanistan is back in the control of the Taliban or the Taliban-By-Other-Names, right?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
DNS is useless without the pipes to transmit the data. Currently the major ISP create mutual love hate agreements to pier with each other. Arbitrarily giving anyone control of the DNS system would be a horrible idea.
ISPs for the most part decide what DNS servers are used by there customers. Most ISPs agree to use the same root name servers much like the agree to connect thier networks. But no one forces them, this is driven by customer demand.
This leads lots of room to block and cache any Name resolution an ISP or Country would like. Last time I checked the UN has no power to stop Genocide in its member countries. There is no way they are in a position to counter censorship acrross the globe.
This sounds like a power grab by the UN.
The U.S. Military Invented the Internet... therefore the U.S. should have control over it.
;) )
The Chinese invented guns, therefore the Chinese should have control over them.
You can say it about anything. The fact of the matter is that the internet has evolved because its global. The internet as it is isn't the same as it was when it was a US thing. Many countries depend on it heavily for their economy as the US does, and don't want the root DNS servers hosted by one government. Imagine the next president, lets call him Joe, decides that country X is in some way evil (terror threat? It'd work with the american public) the US could cut off DNS record access to that country, so no domain names would resolve. or they could intentionally fudge them up and send them redirecting to wrong places. Imagine waking up, going to your computer, opening Firefox, and your homepage is now a site telling you that your countries dns access has been halted for war measures. Every domain you try now resolves to this page.
Would this ever happen? Unlikely, but it's still a bad thing for any country other than the US (and Canada... unless the softwood lumber dispute gets out of hand
It's not a matter of the UN having control, its the world, not just the US. Personally I don't want China, North Korea or any other country with a crazy government having root DNS servers, but hell if every country got one (or one per certain amount of capita) then thats decentralized enough for everyones sake.
The downside? China or some country using that power to block their citizens access to certain domains (well, at least stopping them from resolving correctly) As long as their are enough other root dns servers that can just ban getting their stuff sync'd from china then its not bad for the rest of the world, but it's another tool that China/etc can use against it's people which isn't cool.
The U.N. is not a governing body. It is an assembly for discussion.
The U.N. grants voting rights to dictatorships and democracies alike. Making the vote of one man equivalent to all of Australia. Why should I accept government by an entity that has a much lower rights status than my own nation? why should Europe? why should Australia?
What we really need is a new global entity which requires a bare minimum constitutional/charter protected democractic structure and human rights level in order to be eligable to vote. Any nation could participate in discussion but only those who give their masses an ability to affect decisions and protects their citizens rights should be eligable to vote.
Otherwise, I believe the United States should keep the internet under their control (as it was originally a DARPA (Department of Defense) project for national security (created to establish a decentralized communication system). Until an entity which guarantees equivalent or greater protections as the United States' Constitution does for it's citizens I see no point in relinquishing control.
If it is really a big issue, the U.N. should consider investing in a new internet. Heck, build it from the ground up and fix some of the major problems in the current one. (Be nice to eliminate spoofing). They could call it "NewNet"...and I am sure within time, if it is the better mousetrap, it will supplant the current internet and this issue will become moot.
- The Saj
The ESRB is a board set up by the game industry itself. It is self-policing. The government has no involvement in it, besides a couple of states (not national government), passing some laws that merely enforce the ratings at the retail level (where in most states it is voluntary).
And banning children from certain innapropriate content, while consenting adults can freely play that content (and companies can freely publish that content) hardly constitutes censorship. That would be like saying that laws stating a 14 year old cant have sex with a 30 year old violate the 14 year old's rights (whereas most developed countries have statutory rape laws, and consider them a good thing).
Democracy is not the antithesis of tyranny, liberty is. There's nothing "holy" about democracy. Democracy can be used to defend liberty, but it can also be used to create it. Ever heard of "tyranny of the majority"?
Constitutionally Correct
So, I'm probably too late for anyone to notice, but I'll post anyways.
It is completely unnecessary for a change of hands or the root servers to take place. The mechanisms are already there for any country to effectively free itself from the evil grasp of the U.S. At least this is true if the motivating factor truly is a fear of the U.S. crippling other economies by use of it's control of DNS servers.
Any country could simply keep up daily clones of the root servers. They could then legislate that ISPs and Universities use these clones exclusively. The clones could even directly reference the actual rootservers until such a time as access to those root servers is denied, at which point it could failover to it's own database.
This prevents the scenario where the U.S. messes with your country by breaking the rootservers. If we decided to split you at least have a relatively up to date domain name service structure and you go from there.
He hit the nail on the head.
"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
With IPv6 unlikely to be widespread anytime soon, I think this has far more to do with IP space assignment than DNS assignement. The only DNS entries that countries don't have control of already are the .com, .net, .gov, and a few other key root entries. Let every country manage their own root names. The US can keep the root names it came up with .com for company, .net for network, .gov for government....all english based words for a reason.
However, IP range assignments are an entirely different matter. US companies that helped develop the internet have already been granted enormous chunks of IP space and they aren't likely to want to give that space back. If we ever run short on IPv4 addresses, that is when the controlling entity really starts to matter, and we are soon approaching that point.
Somebody down below made an analogy about a neighbor borrowing water from you, and that is exactly what is happening here. It's time for the other countries to pony-up and develop IPv6 on their end so this problem goes away.
UN is not far from Al Quaeda and RIAA
Wow.... its amazing isn't it how the organisation that is responsible for some of the most effective global treaties, charities and welfare organisations. The UN has certainly done more than any single country to promote peace and equality and you are comparing it to a terrorist organisation and the enforcement arm of the media industry....
This is the organisation that is ABLE to do peace keeping in lots of countries around the world where ONE COUNTRY is unable to act as an independent between warring factions. (UN Peace keeping) This is the organisation that the US Goverment is DESPERATE to get more involved in Iraq for instance.
This is the organisation that can get countries together to discuss elements that matter to the whole planet (Desertification) and specific elements like helping out certain groups in countries ( helping out in Laos)
This is the organisation tasked with sorting out the trials of Rwanda and Yugoslavia as well of some of the most important international treaties.
And then of course there is the REALLY bad stuff they do like UNHCR on landmines and of course the scum at UNICEF
This is just part of what the UN has done since the second world war, the vast vast majority of it very good and very effective.
And as for your corruption, "Aid for Food" was indeed bad corruption, how different this is of course from Halliburton and the open White House chequebook is a mute point.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
So, let's look at this from the POV of software development.
You design something.
You give it away for free.
Yet you control the specifications on it.
Now Ned Gruberman comes along, telling you that you suck. That he doesn't like you, and doesn't trust you.
Therefore you MUST give up your rights to control the specifications on your own invention.
Never mind that he already gets free usage of it.
Time to show him the true beauty of Tai Kwan Leep.
Boot to the head....
*FFFFFFFWAP!*
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
And that's it. Real "governance," on the other hand, could bring oversight of content and even transactions by a new international body -- two jobs that Icann explicitly doesn't perform. For an example of how the Internet is governed, look no further than the strict limits China -- one of the main proponents of "internationalizing" the root zone file -- places on Web sites that promote or even discuss democracy.
From The Wall Stree Journal - Review & Outlook, Oct. 17, 2005 (p. a18)
I'm not convinced the UN needs to be involved with the internet admin at all. The one thing I am certain of is that the internal is a global thing now. No one country can be allowed to run it in the future. The more we grasp at keeping the internet 'ours', the sooner it will be that we will have the US internet, and the world internet. That's a bad thing. The internet as itself has a very great skill: routing around "problems". Sometimes those problems are political opression; sometimes there are stupid laws; sometimes they're outages, and sometimes they are simply inter-BigCo disputes.
The internet routes around those issues, and finds a way to get there from here. That's what it does, and it does it well. Is the US keeps fighting this, the internet will perceive us as the problem, and route around us; eventuall cutting us our of a larger picture IMHO.
Every time the subject comes to the front-page, the thread is aflame with uninformed, knee-jerk, and often plain stupid posts.
Half of the people posting here don't even have a basic grasp of how the internet works.
And, no, the internet is not the US. Sever the international links, and then you'll have a US-owned internet. Oh boy, you've lost access to the pirate bay. Hey, you can't get some crypto packages anymore! Please. That's the whole point of the internet.
If the world starts using different root-servers, that's it. They'll talk to the US-only roots to maintain connectivity, and the Us-only roots will talk to the new roots for the very same reason. And if they don't, why, just add them to your own setup.
There. No one was harmed.
Sharing the IP-space will be a bit harder; but that would be a good excuse to move to ipv6 faster.
But short of invading the world, there's little the US can do about it.
I can't see what the fuss is about. Really. Get on with your lack of life.
Burning karma like ther's no tomorrow
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
Someone once observed that the reason there was no German Bill Gates was that "The Ministry of You Can't Do That" is running the country. The garage tech startup would have to get special government permits allowing the use of lightbulbs to illuminate an area used for business purposes, etc., etc. There was a Wall St. Journal article a few days ago about German regulations concerning what name you can call yourself. Hyphens are not allowed. Can you imagine what a country like that would to with a domain names registry?
flatten the namespace (if necessary) and use a distributed directory (maybe DHT). link domain names to keys to ensure authority. i'm sure there are issues to be be resolved, but aren't folks already working on this? i know there is a chord based dns implementation out there, as well as DHT-based resolution in some of the HIP implementations.
anyone working on this stuff that can highlight the major open problems?
Having to choose between a one-party US Government and the UN is like having to choose which testicle to cut off with a rusty knife.
Should the US move its root servers? Any other country and set up it's own. The only reason they don't is... I don't know why. They're just stupid I guess. If they did that then I'm sure corperate/user pressure would force them to peer with eachother.
I vote bomb the next UN meeting. Fuck the world, they don't want us, we don't need them.
It's a good thing I'm not president. Be thankful you pansies.
The one with all the gold makes the rules. That leaves the UN out, I guess.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
"the media threw a shitfest over it because it was SEX."
Yes, because dipictions of murder and violence is ok but if a dinky goes into a yahoo that's intollerable.
What is the root of this stupidity? A lot of it was exported to India when the British ruled them, and hermaphrodites there who were once a revered type of people (because Vishnu has sex with his female half to create the other gods) are now much less tolerated, and a crack down on non procreative sex occured.
A lot of it appears to be the Christian/Victorian viewpoint since in Thailand it is much more open to different sexual identity (they recognize more then 2 genders as far as I know with the difference being that Thailand and other similiar countries were never directly ruled by a european type power.
Who gets to remove "undesirable" countries from the top level domain then? All in the name of safety from terrorism of course.
Deleted
I'll bet a dollar (hey, I'm a grad student, OK) that he runs against Al Franken in his next election -- which I believe is in 2008, isn't it?
Like GPS, the DNS root servers are a service funded by the US government. Like GPS, the US does not want to give up control of the service that it funds. And, like GPS, the EU is welcome to create their own competing service.
But don't whine that the US doesn't want to release control. Regardless of who invented the internet, the root servers are funded by the government. If you don't want to use them, no one is forcing you to.
De facto censorship?
If you KNOW that everyone's going to take a certain action when provoked in a certain way, that doesn't mean the label doesn't apply. Censorship through underhanded methods is still censorship, only less obvious.
This is ridiculous. Norm Coleman is an isolationist control freak and he must be stopped. The U.S. government should have absolutely no role in governing the internet. The internet is a public, global medium--perhaps just the push we need to work toward some global unity. The continued influence of the U.S. on the internet is what is dangerous, wrong, and already leading to a considerable amount of censorship.
Norm Coleman never fails to entirely embarrass both the state of Minnesota and the entire United States of America (not that he needs much help with the latter). And his antics never fail to appear on Slashdot, either, further demonstrating Minnesotans' complete incompetence when it comes to electing political leaders. First we thought Jesse Ventura was as bad as it could get, but we were so wrong. I am surely ashamed to be a Minnesotan today, and cannot wait for the day when I can get an EU residency permit, but until then, I hope people will remember that Minnesota USED to be a decent place, a leader in fact of the shamefully small progressive movement in this country. We're not all bad, and if we work together, we can kick the scum that have invaded MN back to the south where they belong.
You give it away for free.
Protocols maybe, but the US did NOT give 'the Internet' away for free to other countries. On the contrary, other countries have all paid huge amounts of money to install their own network infrastructure in their own countries (and in fact the US charges money for connecting to the US's portions of the Internet - it's a purely for profit enterprise not a charity). I'm sorry, but if I paid to create a network, I damn well have the right to say how it's run and who controls it. Same goes for any country.
Try reading a little, you freaking moron. You can start with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads in part:
Yeah, I think Osama bin Laden wrote that.
The UN has saved billions of lives through the World Health Organization and Unicef. BILLIONS. You remember smallpox, right? Maybe you don't. That's because it's the only major disease that has been effectively eradicated from the planet. Smallpox killed 300 - 500 million people in the 20th century, and you know who killed smallpox? The effing UN! (Why do I doubt you'll even read that link?)
This isn't saying that the UN is blameless or perfect. Like any large organization, the UN has to wrestle with bureaucracy, and the UN has challenges that are unique to any organization. But by any standard at all, the UN is one of the most powerful achievements for freedom, liberty, equality, justice, and health that humanity has ever known. Take some time and learn about what the UN does and about its record for success from people other than Bill O'Reilly. Please. Billions of people around the world whose lives are improved by the work the UN does will thank you for it.
You can be against the UN administration of the Internet without saying stupid shit like the "UN is not far from Al Quaeda". Sorry about the anger of this post, but seeing such blatant ignorance and lies getting modded up really agitates me.
Actually, countries like China and Syria have mad it quite clear that their goals are to restructure the internet such that it is easier to track users, servers can be licenced and tracked, internet services can be taxed, it is easier to block sites, etc.
.uk .us. country extension, and with IP6 to give each country a huge block of IPs it controls). It would solve the problem of the U.S. "control" of the internet, and wouldn't require giving massive power to the U.N., and technologically wouldn't be that different than what exists now.
The whole "They just want to control a critical part of their infrastructure" arguement doesn't come from China, Syria, North Korea, or Cuba, it comes from apologists in the West in order to justify what is clearly an attemt to destroy the free internet as it operates now.
It would be extremly easy to implement a system where no one entity controls the internet (have each country be responsible for there own
This has nothing to do with countries worried about U.S. control of critical parts of their infrastructure (because all those countries have 100% control of their own infrastructure right now!), this is about wanting to end the era of the free, wild, and completly unregulated internet. It is about making the internet an easily controlable medium, like television, radio, and telephone. It is embarrasing for Western politicians to admit that their views on censorship, taxation, and internal survalence of their population is virtually identical to that of China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. So you spread some FUD about the U.S. being in control of their critical infrastructure (which it isn't, and even if it was the problem could be solved without the U.N.), and hope that knee jerk anti-Americanism will blind people to the real authoritarian goal.
Doesn't anyone watch "The West Wing"? A non-binding resolution means nothing. Besides, a law in this country saying the Internet belongs to the US doesn't apply to any other country, ie, the UN. This is just more politics.
This sig is false.
As an American citizen, I want the UN to control the internet. Because that is the only way to ensure that I can still read news that isn't filtered through the US Fascist propaganda network.
Finally, I'm sure we will be treated to about 100 posts whining about how the US invented the internet and the world was so unfair. This is of course utterly laughable, as it simply does not matter who invented what, or how would you react to the Chinese demanding you stop using paper, or, omg, firearms, because they invented the stuff? But if you want to play this little game anyway, please keep in mind that the world wide web, or rather the technologies necessary for it, were invented in Europe. It's not a matter of who invented the technology that makes the internet possible. (besides, we all know it was Al Gore who invented it! :) ). By that logic, the internet would belong to the bright folks living around 2000BC who figured out how to draw non-ferrous wire.
No, it's a matter of who built the infrastructure. The United States built the infrastructure that became what is today the Internet. To be sure, the rest of the world went and built their own infrastructures that tied into ours. But no one is up for telling them what they can do with their own infrastructures - we just want to retain control of our own!
I really don't understand the problem. As has been said many times before in this discussion, if countries want to set up their own Internet, they can easily do so. And then someone will develop gateways between them. Geez, we were doing this with FIDOnet and WWIVnet back in the dial-up days.
Maillemaker
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
This is just Coleman trying to get his name in the paper again.
"I'm sorry, but if I paid to create a network, I damn well have the right to say how it's run"
Yes. On the segment you set up.
If you're opting to partake of this service, which you had ZERO hand in creating, guess what.
You
have
NO
say!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The Chinese invented guns, therefore the Chinese should have control over them.
Revisionist! The Chinese invented black powder. Europeans invented firearms.
Shouldn't that read Reason "1"??
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
This is false;
...
> Search engines relate human concepts (text content) to IP addresses.
No, they resolve text queries to URLs. These URLs may or may not include IPs in them.
Kind of an important point when trying to say we don't need DNS
- sigs are for wimps.
And the problem to be solved is what, exactly?
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
If you think Norm's on your side, you're deluded. His nose is so far up Bush's ass he can smell what's on his fork.
I live in Minnesota, and Norm is the living embodiment of Mayor Quimby right down to the accent. He's shameless. He'll kiss your baby, make speeches about healthcare, then turn around and vote to make it illegal to declare bankruptcy for poor people drowning in cancer treatment bills, pushing them out of their home. He'll say whatever it takes to get the spotlight, kiss up to whoever's in power. He's a caricature of a politician. I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy.
If US doesn't surrender control of the root servers, then be prepared for USNet, ChinaNet, EuroNet.. etc. If one party out of a few hundred doesn't want to play nice ,then the few hundred will gladly play without the one. IMHO the US shouldn't have control anyway.
Norm Coleman is running cover for US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. This neocon crew has so alienated our allies (driving them into the arms of our enemies) that we actually face the prospect of leaving control of the Internet to many incompetents (and worse, tyrants) rather than the reliable US control. We need real diplomats to work this out. Instead we've got John "Detonate the UN" Bolton and Norm "Bomb Osama in Iraq" Coleman. We need to get rid of these renegade Americans turning us into a rogue nation that can't be trusted by international partners. Minnesotans, you've got to wait until 2008 to replace Coleman, and Bolton's antidemocratic recess appointment to the UN expires in 2007. So we're stuck with these foxes in the henhouse until after this UN/Internet risk is averted. Somehow. I hope.
--
make install -not war
I just have one question to the Senator:
Would that include censorship by the US Government as well?
I'm, of course, referring to the
Pot...kettle...black, dear Seantor.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
> The ESRB is a board set up by the game industry itself. It is self-policing. The government has no involvement in it
First off, the content industry learned long ago if they don't self-police then the government will step in and police them. This is why you have stuff like the Comics Code Authority, TV ratings, warning stickers on music, etc.
Now these ratings systems are used and abused by retailers. Many stores simply wont sell games rated violent to people under 18 for the very same fear. Other companies abuse this leverage. For instance Walmart sells so many magazines, it can dictate content such as what goes on the cover. Many publishers submit their covers to Walmart first to make sure the Walmart moralists are happy with it. Not to mention editing of tracks on music.
So, its really disingenious to say that the US lacks censorship because its not done by the government per se. Also, I would like to remind some of the posters here that the FCC does censor content over public airwaves, usually to the wishes of religious moralists. Also state and municipal governments pull books from libraries all the time due to trivial complaints and lately some states have been working hard to erase other "threatening" ideas like biological evolution.
The European criticism is a strong one, but like someone said all censorship is local. These are the countries that are still healing from the horrors of WWII, which to me is a much more compelling reason to limit access to something than the American "Jesus told me he doesn't like it" culture-war bullshit reasons. Also, I'd like to mention that finding a copy of Mein Kampf isn't hard to do in Europe, but libraries in my own town have pulled books for "homosexual" or "anti-family" content.
Also, the US is no more pro-speech on the internet than any other country and all the bills that barely failed to pass as laws to censor the crap out of the internet should give Americans pause about censorship. I don't care if the Germans are "worse," it shouldnt be happening period. Now toss in Utah's big porn control law which is still in effect and you've obviously got real unresolved censorship issues.
Videogames are still new media and the "We'll censor ourselves" approach has worked pretty well, but its still a hot-button issue and people like Jack Thompson and his millions of followers (or at least people who agree with him) are a strong influence in American culture and possibly law. Expect further tightening of "self-censoring" and retailers refusing to sell to minors for more trivial reasons.
Speaking as a former resident of Minnesota and a former NWA employee, and with all due respect to Mr. Coleman, I hardly think he could fill the shoes of a scab at NWA, much less the shoes of one of the AMFA mechanics that used to work there.
I do think AMFA's leadership is a bunch of idiots for the way they've handled things with NWA management, but I respect the hell out of the hundreds of talented folks who kept NWA's aging aircraft flying safely for the decade or so that I worked there.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Is what DNS server you use determined entirely by your ISP? Or can a browser be set to look at a specific DNS? If it is the latter, couldn't the makers of browsers simply agree on a protocol to include the DNS in the URL itself? Something like http:US//www.whatever.com or http:UN//www.whatever.com. And that would become the standard way of making links (a default DNS would be set in the browser for old style links), so that if the internet does split, you can reach any domain name, regardless of whatever DNS it resides in, or in the case of two web sites with the same domain name on two different domain name servers.
Technoli
I mean, the father of the internet and the "information superhighway" should have a say in who controls it. My vote goes that the internet be controlled now by CURRENT, the hip new news network that even Tipper approves of.
Can someone explain to me how the U.S. "controls" the internet? Clearly the U.S. only controls the actual infrastructure in it's own country. ICANN has no real enforcement powers, not even in the United States, it relies completly on voluntary compliance to it's technical standards and protocals, and those are regularly ignored not only in the rest of the world, but in the U.S.. The "root DNS" servers that it uses have no power to push anything onto any other servers, they are completly passive... other countries are not required in any way shape or form to use the root DNS servers that the United States provides (in fact, the root DNS servers are in the U.S. more because of historical reasons of when the U.S. was the only country on the internet than any big decision by ICANN). Countries, ISPs, even ISPs and networks in the United States often have DNS server information that differs from the root DNS servers.
Right now, NO ONE really controls the Internet. The U.S. has a big influence on the Internet, but you don't think the U.S. would have a big influence on the Internet if it was controled by the U.N.? You do know that the U.N. is based in the U.S., is funded mostly by the U.S. (despite what you may hear about the U.S. "not paying it's dues"), and on most issues tends to support the U.S. position (remember, you only hear about it in the news in the rare occasions that there is a disagreement with the U.S. and the U.N.). So shouldn't the arguement not be that "The U.N. wants to take control of the Internet from the U.S.", and instead be "The U.N. wants to take control of the Internet". And the word "control" should give you an idea of what this is really about. Right now the Internet isn't really under control, and that is what the U.N. wants to change. It wants to make the Internet like TV, radio, and telephones: centralized and easily controllable!
Point of info: Chinese invented rockets and blackpowder, not firearms. However, lets take this a bit further. Ok, they invented paper. Fine. We don't want to use theirs, so we can make our own. Blackpowder? Oh, well we just make our own and developed smokeless powder also. So, we invited the internet... you don't want to use ours? Fine, go build/make your own. I'm just tired of hearing about all this SHIT. Countries make your own
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
"don't want to live with a situation anymore in which only one nation, the US, controls critical parts of their infrastructure"
Let me pose a question - why DO these countries rely on the internet for "critical parts of their infrastructure?" It's not like the US suddenly nationalized the DNS servers. Why is Brazil running 90% of their tax collections over a network ostensibly controlled by someone other than themselves?
Here's an answer - DNS service is free, and these other countries were taking advantage of a freebie provided by the US federal government. They have been risking their operations for years, and are just now realizing it, and their response is to demand control over something they don't own instead of developing more reliable systems in house.
As for the EU being a mediator, you are being disingenuous. Nations that don't want the US to have oversite of DNS want simply that - no US control. The EUs' "compromise" position? No US control, but UN control. So the nations that are complaining get 100% of what they want, and the US gets what? Generally, a compromise is when both parties get at least something of what they want. But in the EU scenario, the US is getting the screwing without even the consolation of a reach-around.
No, really - what does the US get out of this proposal? The US government has paid for a service that the whole world has been able to use for free, enabling almost incalculable savings and economic growth to these countries. Now the EU wants the UN to play eminent domain and take that property away "for the greater good" - how will the US government be compensated?
Here's a proposal - let's have the EU and other counties calculate what they have saved in not having to develop their own systems, and offer the US 10% of that. Now calculate the economic growth fostered by this US largess, and offer the US 1% of that. After the 1 Bajillion USD check clears, the US federal government will deliver those little DNS servers to the front door of the UN - after creating our own DNS system for our critical infrastructure (aside from the other networks we already have). Then, since the UN can't organize an orgy in a whorehouse without a multinational committee, much less set up a DNS system that's given to them (who, exactly will run it - the infighting will be endless), the rest of the world will come clamoring back to ICANN and ask to join back up.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Why is it that Europeans, when stumbling on something pristene and good, always have to put their flag on it, claim it in the name of $LEADER, kick out the natives, screw up the borders and then run away when they've well and truly screwed it all up?
And furthermore, will we allow them to continue to do it? It's time the natives got restless!
Didn't the USA invent the internet? Didn't it grow out of Arpanet and a few universities looking for quick ways to share data? Those other countries should feel lucky that we let them come over and play with our toys. My parents taxes paid for the basic research that started the internet. It belongs to America. They'll take the internet away from me when they pry it out of my cold dead hands.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
and waddle your fat ass back to your bible classes.
From the citizens point of view, that doesn't really matter. If you do not get access to the content, whether it was blocked by the goverment or by companies, that doesn't make a difference.
Comparing a cartoonish hidden sexscene (*) to not only rape, but even the rape of children doesn't sound insightfull (as
* And knowing that the cartoonish hidden sexscene was part of an ultra-violent gangstergame where your main objective is to kill either for money or for the "fun" of it makes it sound even more lame to me.
In fact, it's precisely such a "tyranny of the majority" that the US system of government was specifically designed and intended to avoid cowtowing to.
If I knew that the UN would do a better job of handling things, and if there was enough transparency and accountability in the UN and in the process of transfer, then I might support a voluntary transfer of control from the US to the UN.
However, the current attempts by the UN to wrest control through coercion are a far cry from the above.
Just because the UN happens to be an international body doesn't make it the best solution in this partiucular instance, and their Modus Operandi seems to prove that.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I understand the concerns that the other countries have about US control of DNS - in theory. But come on guys, sell us on this idea in practice. How would UN/EU/etc control of DNS improve the system we have now, either technically, administratively, or in any other way? Are there any documented common issues of any kind with the current structure? Isn't there a great potential that such a change would just make things worse?
Another thing, the folks saying "OMG teh internet will splinter!!1!one" should realize that 99% of Americans wouldn't even notice if the rest of the world dropped off the Internet. I was wondering to myself, what sites would I miss if this theoretical splintering of the internet took place, and I could only think of the BBC and some European rally (car racing) sites that I visit. This makes the parties that want this have a really weak bargaining position. And before you dismiss me as an ignorant American, I should tell you I was born and raised in another country.
While I understand your problem with the fact that the US is essentially in charge of the Internet at the moment (at least as far as architecture), I challenge you to find a body that will do a better job of keeping it free, democratic and safe. The United States is a powerhouse when it comes to just about anything. Who would we turn it over to?
The Untied Nations? If we turn it over to them, then it's going to become so entangled with red tape and beauracracy that it will become essentially useless within a couple years. While the US is no model of perfection when it comes to limitting beauracracy, we at least have the luxury of being in general agreement on the fact that the Internet SHOULD be free. If the U.N. got put in charge, there would be so much conflict of interest that it would pretty much grind to a halt.
Another country? Why the hell would we give it up and give it to another country?? The only reason for us to give it up at all would be if it was freeing it more. Turning it over to a different country simply means that we are giving THEM the monopoly on it. Again, no progress is being made.
Are we going to invent a new body simply to manage the Internet? If so, who's going to have a say on who is in this group. Even if such a group were created, they would be under such incredible political pressure from every single direction that in the interest of compromise they would have to give up some of the freedoms of the Internet or else they might as well just be part of the U.S.
I see where problems exist now and where problems will arise in the future with the U.S. in control, but it is still the better choice. We can't turn it over to a different country. We can't turn it over to the only major recognized international body and we can't create a new body that will manage it without giving up these freedoms. So come up with a better solution to this problem rather than simply spouting propaganda about how the US has to control "EVERYTHING!!!!1010101010111".
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
The fundamental concepts of freedom of information and the free flow of ideas would be in jeopardy if you allow the nations of the world to control anything about the internet. There are too many religiously based and politically stifling nations that would censor the free flow of ideas if they were allowed to control the internet.
Hell, China already locks people up in their country for "misuse" of the web. What would the religiously oriented governments do to those that use/misuse information from the web in their countries?
Trust us, we won't forget.
Good post and it touches on a big problem with Europeans being critical of the United States in matters like Katrina and Creationism.
They don't have the first frackin' idea how the United States works and they blanket everything on the Feds and "The United States does X".
OK everyone, first thing to grasp is that the Federal Government doesn't run the United States at every level. The Federal Government does international relations, military, and crap between states. If Tommy murders someone in Detroit, the Federal Government doesn't deal with that, there are no national police to arrest Tommy. If Wilima hits Miami, Bush can't send in troops unless Jeb Bush asks formally for em and so on and on.
The second thing to grasp is the States of the United States have governments of thier own and have many, many more powers than the Feds in terms of the crap that's not in the Constitution of the United States. Oregon and Kansas and Iowa decide on gay marriages, NOT the Feds.
The third thing to grasp are the tens of thousands of lower sub-state governments with the power to tax, levy and call elections, School Districts, School Boards, Local Governments, Counties, Parishes, Townships, Cities, Regional Governments, special entities, etc.
Example - I live in Portland Oregon. So theres the United States - Oregon - Metro (regional government) - Multnomah County - Portland - Portland Public Schools - Oregon Liquor Control Commission - DEQ and a other governments/entities that oversee where I live in basicly that level of importance.
School Districts are the battle ground of the Creationism fight, NOT the United States.
That is just so funny! Ironic too!
ROFLMAO!!!
I'm not a DNS expert but I don't think that would technically be possible. Nothing says that the country in question can't roll back to a previouse version of the database and just not sync up to offending root servers. Heck I can cache DNS results on my own personal server if I wanted. In fact the only thing keeping those Root Servers as TOP Dog is the voluntary agreement by all the ISP providers and Backbone providers to do so. Those Same Providers could if they wished cut the root server out of the deal totally and come up with something else. Which they would if global market pressures required it. That's the thing about free markets. Someone always finds a way.
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
The idea of independence of the Internet is worth thinking of (IMO). Just imagine the Internet as a virtual country with its' users as its' citizens, its' own law, elections, currency and stuff like that...
Or did you miss George's statement that he believed it should be taught as well?
1 school district would be funny.
2 would be funny.
20 school districts and it stops being funny and is really a reflection of our national ignorance of science.
When he was the Mayor of St Paul, I wanted to get him out of the state. Unfortunately, this wasn't the way I wanted to get rid of him.
From the citizens point of view, that doesn't really matter. If you do not get access to the content, whether it was blocked by the goverment or by companies, that doesn't make a difference.
/. rates it) to me.
The general public can get access to this rated material. Just not children in some states, and in other states not from some stores.
Comparing a cartoonish hidden sexscene (*) to not only rape, but even the rape of children doesn't sound insightfull (as
* And knowing that the cartoonish hidden sexscene was part of an ultra-violent gangstergame where your main objective is to kill either for money or for the "fun" of it makes it sound even more lame to me.
Way to strawman my argument. My point was that developed countries will often inact laws that will prohibit certain materials and behavior from children, on the basis that they are not mentally developed enough to understand or comprehend said behavior or materials, or exercise them responsibly.
Many countries have legal drinking ages, driving ages, and ages on voting. Many other countries ban certain materials from being sold to minors. I'm just pointing out that most don't consider this censorship per se, and often consider it a good thing, in order to diffuse the argument that "if children aren't allowed to play the games then they're being censored." This is not the case.
Any adult can play a game that he or she wants to in the United States.
Id hardly call fragging nazi soldiers 'celebrating' the regime.
Have you PLAYED wolfenstein?
peace out!
Norm Coleman was the asshole mayor of Saint Paul who broke campaign promises right and left and spent all his time trying to raise taxes to buy free stadiums for our local sports teams, because everyone knows people with annual salaries in the 7-figure range need a lot of help from people who are hoping to break the $25k line.
Norm Coleman lost a gubernatorial race to a pro wrestler, and this reflected a clear and considered rational choice by the electorate.
I am not surprised to see him spouting random propaganda that he thinks will get him votes.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Where did this whole "Lets get the internet from the US" mentality come from?
and
Everything is (for the most part) running well with the US in control. I think the people who live here in the US should put it to a vote amongst the people first and foremost before we let a bunch of screwballs in underdeveloped countries take away the biggest means of mass communication in the world.
Just my opinion..
Jimi Spier
www.jimispier.com - My tunes
In all seriousness, this isn't a contest. The UN Declaration is obviously inspired by Jefferson's words, and I have no doubt that Jefferson himself would be enormously pleased to see how the UN has extended the scope of freedom of his original document. His Declaration, after all, only extended its protections to men, and not even all men. Black men certainly weren't included. Their freedoms were seen as the very definition of alienable.
The UN declaration is far more comprehensive, if a bit less eloquent for having been constructed by committee.
(For what it's worth, declaring that rights are "endowed by the Creator" instead of inherent in the individual is inferior. It implies that rights are granted to you as a gift by a superior, instead of stemming from your own personhood.)
China is already on the board of directors.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Well it seems like you answered your own question there, you narrow-minded fucktard. But if you're still too dim to work it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyboy
They can demand we stop using paper and firearms all they want if we can demand they stop and never use nukes in the future. ;)
Finally, I'm sure we will be treated to about 100 posts whining about how the US invented the internet and the world was so unfair. This is of course utterly laughable, as it simply does not matter who invented what, or how would you react to the Chinese demanding you stop using paper, or, omg, firearms, because they invented the stuff?
Straw man argument:
No one said that other countries had to stop using the Internet.
Non sequitors:
1. No one suggested that non-U.S. countries had to stop USING the Internet, so your firearm and paper analogies are invalid.
2. Firearms and paper are standalone items. If I go to a rifle range in the U.S., it does not have any impact on China. Given the amount of spam that arrives here from Chinese servers, I can tell you first hand that what China does on the Internet directly affects the U.S.
All that your opponents have said is that the U.S. shouldn't cede control of important Internet infrastructure to foreign governments or corporations. If China (or any country) wants to set up their own multi-computer network which is separate from, but uses the protocols and standards of, the Internet, they are welcome to. But this situation is analogous to Mexico and Canada demanding that we hand over partial control of U.S. roads to them because we allowed them to interconnect their roads with ours at border crossings.
But if you want to play this little game anyway, please keep in mind that the world wide web, or rather the technologies necessary for it, were invented in Europe.
No one is suggesting that other countries should be prevented from using U.S.-developed hardware and software networking standards. But why should the U.S. give up control of root name servers, ICANN, etc., especially when it provides us such a strategic advantage?
What do you mean, "nice try"? They did remove it. It was widely covered. That they later managed to reinstate it is beside the point.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Hey, I think the mechanics take enough crap in the media without folks slamming them here on Slashdot. Coleman probably thinks a "spanner" is someone who watches the US Senate all the time on cable TV and a "D check" is what Clinton let Monica do...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I can I safely say I did not vote for him! Go Ventura!
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
we risk the freedom and enterprise = US government and commerce risks control of internet, meaning potential for smaller profits for US companies and less chance for the US government to bully other countries to US whims
Do you want an organization that puts North Korea on the Human Rights committee to control the root DNS servers?
Want China, Iran, and every little dictatorship to have an equal say as to how it is run as the members of the EU, the US, Canada, and Australia? Anybody want to bet that the majority of countries want an Internet free of censorship?
A political power grab by the EU to look active while really wanting nothing to change.
The US will say no. The EU will say look how mean they are. Everything goes back to normal.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
for providing a partial list of some of the important work of the United Nations. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe people can be as dunderheaded as they are.
Here, Here excellent post. I couldnt't agree more. The anti-american retoric is getting a bit old.
Suppose the road outside your house was owned by a large man. He had never interfered with your use of the road, but he recently whooped the tar out of someone for questionable reasons. Would you take control of that road away from the large, aggressive man, and give it to a known crook who obstructed the roads he was in charge of?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
That depends. Who decides what children should be allowed to see? What if a government would forbid certain parts of history from being tutored at high schools for example? That could surely be considered as censorship imo. Ofcourse, I'm not saying that children should be allowed access to _everything_.
I thought Al Gore created the Internet. Thus we own it. Shouldn't we control it then?
What is happening is that several countries (not the UN) don't want to live with a situation anymore in which only one nation, the US, controls critical parts of their infrastructure
Then they need to change how their ifrastructure works so they can be self reliant.
If I run a business and I depend on a product another company provides to keep my business alive,
I can't go and expect that company to yield control just because the lack of it would cripple me.
Or another analogy:
The U.S. military developed, built and deployed the GPS constellation. It's freely available without charge, and the U.S would not consider giving it up for a second. WHY? Because like it or not, it's a MILITARY system, despite the fact that billions more use it and are dependent on it. The same applies to the internet, it was developed as a U.S. MILITARY asset and was opened up for free use without charge or royalty.
So my point is if you are that dependent on it YOU are the problem, and not ICANN control.
So what to stop the U.N. from using the internet as a way to control other countries?
Lets swap the N with an S there, and maybe you might see the problem that other countries have.
The role the US plays isn't anything a court cannot fix if the powers are ever abused.
Whose courts? And why should US courts have any say over what happens in other nations?
What would the main benefit of letting the UN or EU control it over the US?
Here's whats really going on. The US probably, as a part of trade talks or talks over military matters, mentioned to various groups, including the EU (forget the UN, thats an arena, not an entity, its like blaming the whitehouse lawn for the actions of Bush), that their internet is looking mighty fragile, and whoops, wouldn't it be a shame if someone accidentally knocked it over, as a leverage tool. So, after going away and pondering their options, aforementioned governments tell the US to go hump a pineapple, and set up their own redundant system. That they are doing it publicly (no need to) should tell any observer all they need to know about what's really going on.
Don't think you get to see every power struggle displayed on the evening news. 99% of what counts is never seen, but may be readily deduced.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
In China, by "take control whenever they want", they mean "do what we say or we'll lock you away in a hole Americans wouldn't dare to call a prison, torture you, gun you down in a ditch and then have a bulldozer bury your body in an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere."
All those stories during the Cold War about Russia making enemies "disappear" weren't entirely fiction. Ever wonder what happened to the organizers of the Tienanmen Square protest of 1989? What happened to the sole person who stood infront of the column of tanks? Due process in China is whatever the man holding the AK says, the media is censored so theres no public outcry, the richest are smart enough to get their asses out of there as soon as possible and the government isn't exactly composed of Founding Fathers.
This post got modded insightful? When people resort to this kind of name-calling it means they have nothing more of substance to say. Flamebait in my book.
Sovereignty is not the ultimate right, individual freedom is.
Who forced anybody to use these root servers in the first place?
eTrade SUCKS
Brillant!!!! Brillant!!! I tell you with this system, United States of America will pay off it's National Debt, bring jobs back and a prosperous time like the 50s.
Brillant, I tell you!!!
Brillant!!!
[European speaking]
The whole point with GTA|SA, in my view, is that a stupid interactive sex scene was considered highly outrageous and inappropriate in a game where shooting unprovoked at by-passers, policemen, other gang members with gory detail was the main theme. This was not a game about killing evil, white, shiny, cloned Stormtroopers, or some sort of nasty monster from hell. The people you can kill or carjack in that game look exacly like your neighbours.
Normal and decent people have sex (yes, I realize the irony of writing this on Slashdot), including your parents, psychopaths kill people at random (hope you don't have any in the family). In a videogame, it is legitimate to show people killed at random, and to encourage the player to do so, but if two people consensually have a shag, Hillary Clinton starts screaming "Will you please think of the children!".
In short, all countries have their mass histery. Iran has Islam, Norway has the usage of dialects, Denmark the usage of commas, Germany has the ß removal complex, and the USA have problems with sex.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I've seen this rubbish mirrored so often around here I have almost given up, but what the hell, I will make one concerted effort to put it away. I'll just point out the parts where you are wrong, and you can look up the relevant posts on earlier discussions on this subject yourself.
It was created with US tax money.
Incorrect.
It was created for Americans and Europe to protect themselves from attack.
Incorrect, as it is today.
we paid for it.
Incorrect.
So at the end of the day, we own it.
Incorrect.
I'm writing to my senator and demanding that we don't loose it.
Okay wow, this is wrong on several levels, technically not realistic, and unless you happen to own a major corporation, futile. And spelt wrong.
I would guess that would last about 18 hours. then they would all come back.
Given your ability to get the present wrong, my faith in your fortune telling abilities is less than solid. How does this stuff get modded up? Even true patriots (tm) must realise this is factually incorrect rhetoric from some boob that actually believes the freedom of speech crap for defence of the internet on the american news. Well probably not but I don't give a rats about moderation either way, despite which I have karma to burn and burn and burn...
Anyway, typically enough you have missed the point of these whole shenanigans. I posted this earlier, but I'll probably end up reposting it a few times. Sigh.
Here's whats really going on. The US probably, as a part of trade talks or talks over military matters, mentioned to various groups, including the EU (forget the UN, thats an arena, not an entity, its like blaming the whitehouse lawn for the actions of Bush), that their internet is looking mighty fragile, and whoops, wouldn't it be a shame if someone accidentally knocked it over, as a leverage tool. So, after going away and pondering their options, aforementioned governments tell the US to go hump a pineapple, and set up their own redundant system. That they are doing it publicly (no need to) should tell any observer all they need to know about what's really going on.
Don't think you get to see every power struggle displayed on the evening news. 99% of what counts is never seen, but may be readily deduced.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Indeed. Not like the UN allows China and Cuba on the Human Rights committee, making it a complete mockery.
Oh wait, yes they do.
The Internet is a global technology and must be governed by a consortium of nations. All the arguments I've seen against doing this are bogus. Only archconservatives oppose changing the governance of the Internet.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
>What is happening is that several countries (not the UN)
Remember, we'll dealing with a loudmouth Republican senator here whose career is pretty much badmouthing the UN. Facts are secondary.
Essentially, from what I've read about this issue is that these foreign economies are a bit nervous of doing all this business on a US controlled network, so they write up a few requests and papers for somehow decentralizing DNS or at least sharing root servers. Some of these papers may have come from UN letterhead. Oh, the horrors. New World Order. Microchips in our hands, the second coming, etc.
Back on planet earth, these are serious concerns and someone might make a break for a seperate DNS system or some kinda of solution if the US won't play ball. We're already seeing it in Europe's Galileo system because the EU doesnt want to be investing in GPS technologies considering the US can shut them off anytime it feels like it.
Currently, the US has been a gracious host, but as internet activities become more and more important its simply a good idea for foreign countries to look after their own. The recent spat between level3 communications and SBC (?) is showing people that the current stability of the net is not something to take for granted.
We can trace the roots of the internet back to DARPA projects that related to networking and the construction of a "bullet-proof" network used by the United States government, the military, and educational institutions. In a way, the United States can lay claim to the discovery of the internet. By extenstion, since "we" discovered it and "we" built it, it is possible to lay claims of ownership over it - but these would be historical claims and not something that we could use to control it's use outside of our borders.
Over the years, we have allowed others to connect up and use "our" network and our technology. This has been a two way street with people from all over the world working for mutual benefit. The fact is that while the roots of the network may have sprung from the United States, it is no longer an American institution, it is a world-wide communications network and nobody can lay claim to owning all of it.
Like a geo-political boundary, we can decided what enters our counrty and what we do not permit (like the Nazi paraphanalia issue that Yahoo went through with France). In order to make this effective though we would need some sort of cyber-customs.
Does this then mean that the UN should wrest control of ICANN and other orginizations? What makes the United Nations uniquely qualified to serve as an arbitrator of cyber-space? Is it because we can expect a special sort of nuterality out of them? Is it because they can create international forums to deal with issues unique to the internet and cyberspace in general? If this were the case, I'd be all for the UN running the show. But the UN does not work that way, they are a very political orginization and they tend to mix issues using their influence on one issue to gain compliance in some other realm. Like oil for food. No, the UN has too broad a charter and is too willing to trade one cause for another. I'd feel uncomfortable with the UN having a huge role in internet regulation and control.
Still, I suspect that there will have to be some such agency, something that can rein in the outlaws and bring fair and impartial decisions that relate to various conflicts. How about a completely seperate orginization seeded with people from DARPA, CERN, ICANN and other orginizations that have done more than their fair share to build the internet?
Just dreaming I guess.
I disagree on a number of points you base your argument on.
At the end of your comment you claim that globalizing control of DNS would be the solution to maintaining freedom of the Internet and in the first part you claim that it shouldn't matter what some senator does, the other nations should be able to control their own networks despite whatever one of our senators does. First of all, there is nothing preventing said foreign nations from generating their own DNS infrastructure right now. Anybody can set up a DNS server and map whatever URL's they want to whatever IP's they want. So changing the control of the Internet over the UN would not change this in the least. All transferring such control over to them would do is create a much larger body of "crackpot" politicians that could actually have the potential to do something to the Internet; the difference being that not all of them are from countries that believe in freedom of speech.
As for your belief that red tape will support freedom, I think you missed what I meant by "red tape" or perhaps I did not explain it too well. I don't mean that there will be lots of red tape for politicians trying to inhibit the freedoms of the Internet: I mean that there will end up being a lot of red tape for anyone trying to actually make use of these freedoms. Say someone in China trying to say something about his government: if you add red tape to that, he won't make it through to the Internet with his beliefs. This is loss of freedom. If the U.N. gains control, such problems will arise in any country whos government does not beleive in freedom of speech / press at the moment. This is why I say that the added red tape the U.N. will add is a bad thing.
And what is that whole section about other countries who don't believe in these things usign US technologies to make their own networks supposed to get at?? If you are trying to say that if the U.N. caused loss of freedoms then other countries could still just make their own networks, then I don't see the point. I assert that turning it over to the U.N. WILL lose freedoms. In your case, they are free to make their own networks right now, so that won't change a thing. If you are saying that the ability of other countries to make their own networks using US technology is a bad thing, then you're just wrong: the more networks there are in existence, the better the Internet is because of the wider range of views presented.
If you are saying that the US's inroads into censorship is bad and other countries can use our technology to make their own networks if they disagree with it, then you missed my entire point. If the Internet goes to the U.N. cencorship WILL increase and countries who would do this because of the US's censorship will do it because of the UN's cencorship. So again, giving it over to the U.N. will not improve this situation!
You also seem to make an assumption about my concerns about freedom and tell me that I'm more interested in waving stupid flags ("If freedom is your concern (it's not--it's waving stupid flags)...". I find this to be petty and far off base. While I support the traditional U.S. beliefs of freedom, I am by no means a stupid flag waver. I base my argument concerning the freedom of the Internet on who I believe would do a better job of handling it. As I said in my parent post, give me a better option and I'll be happy to go along with it. In fact, I hope a better option presents itself. As for the ones that are currently on the table, leaving the US in control is the one that best protects the freedom of the Internet.
So don't make assumptions about my motivations in petty attempts to debase my arguments; you have no idea who I am.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
not because shooting make-believe Nazis is "glorifying the Third Reich", but because you saw some swastikas while doing so.
In the game, the nazis were depicted as having vastly superior technology, far advanced from the tech of the time, and were tremendously strong. I don't honestly think the game should have been banned, but I do see the reasoning behind it.
Perhaps it's exactly the opposite.
Aaaaand this is why the rest of the world loves americans so much right now.
I'd trust the answers from a culture that has so far succeeded more than from one that has failed.
Ever hear the saying that I'd rather trust a man who has tried, failed and learned from his mistakes, than one who has never failed at all? The reason for this is that when things go wrong again (and they will), the guy who failed will know what to do next time round. The other guy won't. Not to point any fingers, but there does seem to be a strong theocratic tide surging through american politics right now...
There is very little risk of a new resurgence of Nazi power,
Actually neo-nazism is on the rise in Germany and Austria, partially due to the influx of immigrants from Turkey and the Middle East.
that risk is also increased by training the public to accept and even defend government restrictions on political speech.
So tell me, what is the US position on Al-Queada rallies within its borders? Is burning the flag still a crime? So much has been outlawed over there lately its hard to keep track. And lets say I release a reasoned, well thought out political pamphlet supporting the 9-11 attacks. What is your opinion on governmental censorship there?
So, lets talk genocide. No, really, pull up a chair and pour a cup. Genocide has happened many times in history, one conqueror or another going back to Rome and Egypt ordering the slaughter of all members of a particular tribe. Why is everyone so upset about the Nazis? Is it the scale of it? Not really... What about the very fact of it? Well it's bad, but no different than most other conquering races. So what then?
Its the way that modern industrial techniques and corporate efficiency were applied to murder by the MILLION relatively blameless people. Numbered, signed, stamped and sealed. Factories were built for the tidy slughter and killing of vast numbers of people, who only a few years before were happily productive members of society. Its the picture of Dorian Grey for Europe, the reminder that civilisation is only skin deep. And Europe will never, ever let an atrocity like that happen again within its control. These stark facts ecape many americans, who blindly burble about freedom of speech and constitutional rights, never ever really knowing the truth of what went on behind the concrete walls in rural Germany. Damn fucking right it's glorification is banned, you fuckwits.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
So we go and make our own and you still get upset!
I am NaN
There's nothing to fear about "UN control" as there's nothing to fear about the UN. Again, only archconservatives hate the UN, and they hate it the same way they irrationally hate other things.
But if you want to consider the worst-case scenario, where the Internet does become "screwed up", how hard would it be for the U.S. or the U.S. plus a group of nations to cordon off its own Internet? Not hard at all.
So why are archconservatives wailing about this? They have no leg to stand on.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
The first thing we do during war is cut the physical communications lines.
The US government has been following PNAC's playbook almost line for line since Bush was elected in 2000. Retaining control over ICAAN is a key part of PNAC's planfor retaining control over "cyberspace". Hence, it's now the US government's posture as well.
What's off-topic about pointing out where this plan came from, and a few other things from the same plan?
For example. In the second meeting of this body that wants to govern the Internet, Brazil had this to say; http://www.wgig.org/docs/Brazil.pdf
Madame Chair,
Allow me to focus our discussion on internet governance beyond Principles and towards practical matters that our citizens are in need. Our citizens are demanding cheaper access. This could be translated here by:
a) lower internet interconnection costs;
b) affordable hardware;
c) free and open source software;
c) regional administration of the root server system;
d) national administration of courty code top level domains (ccTLSs);
I'm sure there's a joke in there regarding reasons c & c but the whole flavor of the language is interesting. What even half of that has to do with a hands off administrative control I have no idea. This governing body is somehow going to make all this happen?
The EU reps had this to say; http://www.wgig.org/docs/EU-PrepCom.doc
As we have had the opportunity to state before, the EU believes that the WGIG should concentrate on the stable and secure functioning of the Internet, by addressing issues related to:
The organisation and administration of naming and numbering, including the operation of the root server system;
The internationalisation of Internet Governance, taking into account public interest concerns and participation of developing countries in the governance structures;
The stability, dependability and robustness of the Internet, including the impact of spam.
Spam? Well, that sounds to me like this new governing body wants to control content (which is evidenced elsewhere by UN reps, this is really no revelation but few people seem to see it or wish to look for the motivations behind this move). If all they want to do is sing Kumbaya and peacefully administer some DNS server then why, pray tell would they have anything to do with spam control? What's spam to Brazil, yet information to another? The great thing about the Internet is what makes the Internet a bad place at the same time, freedom. The examples of UN reps citing issues OTHER than DNS administration are numerous and distrubing. They want to actively participate in governing a rich and wonderfully free form of communication and trade. It's time that some government officials here in US started asking themselves why. We need more libitarian thinkers like Coleman and I don't care which side of the political isle they come from.
The Internet is clearly no longer the baby of the U.S. With the entire world using it, and depending on it, the rest of the world has a *moral right* to participate in its governance.
To deny this moral right is to declare some sort of American preeminence that doesn't exist. The U.S. is but a nation amongst nations now, and we need to back down from the imperialistic rhetoric. It's high-time to start being a good player in the world. And handing over the Internet would make a great beginning.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Tell it to the black christians in the Sudan.
Disguised? How is it disguised? People are just too stupid to understand what's right in front of their eyes.
If yes, then America is a repressive dictatorship and it would be sheer idiocy to leave control of something like the Internet under American Government control.
If no, then most of the countries America happily labels repressive dictatorships aren't, and should be entitled to a say in the way the Internet is run.
Besides which, you should bear in mind that although America built the infrastructure that exists in America, it did NOT build the infrastructure anywhere else. Even in the early days in Britain, the Internet was carried as a service over the X.25 lines provided by British Telecom's PSS service. At the very least, those countries that built their own networks, laid their own cables, designed and installed their own routing equiptment, etc, aught to have a voice in how those lines are run.
I'd say that European Internet users probably use as much European equiptment as US hardware, if not more. Telebit, now deceased, actually beat Cisco to a fully-functional IPv6 implementation and had some very nifty virtual networking layers in their routing protocol as part of their security. They weren't the first, or the last.
Manchester's GMING (Greater Manchester Inter-Networking Group) is a metropoliton ATM-based fiber optic network with impressive throughput, with customers ranging from the five Universities to a large number of businesses and corporations in Britain's third-largest city. What business does the United States' DoD have, controlling such a network from afar? And - since ultimately some fraction of any charge for any service must go back to them - what right do they have to impose taxes but deny representation?
I seem to remember reading in history books about some people who kicked out a king who tried running their country from a vast distance. Taxes without representation seemed to play a big part in that, too. Oh, now where was it.... Can't have been America, because they're guilty as all Hell for doing exactly that! They wouldn't repeat the very crime they accused others of, would they?
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)
that this is the exact sameUN that the US is part of. You may also recall that the US is one of a few countries that has a veto.
So the US would not lose control, it would merely have to share that control.
(I am also reminded of someone saying that if China tried to do nefarious things after getting conrol of ICANN/DNS, he would support the US going in militarily. Is it therefore OK if China decide to go in to the US militarily, to win control of DNS?)
Because the rest of the world hates us and does not trust us. Especially as long as we have knuckleheads like Bush in office. If I weren't an American, I'd be demanding the same. I don't know how it will all work out, but the UN is the worst entity to manage the Internet. They're just a bunch of paper pushing bureaucrats who will do nothing but play politics with it. Given enough time, the Internet as we know it would be useless for most.
So, if the US invented it they "own" it?
The Web was invented in Switzerland by a Belgian with a French name and a Londoner. Uninstall your browser and go back using Gopher and Archie.
Gunpowder was invented in China long ago and intended for recreational purpose only. The inventor could never envision its usage for anything else than making children happy, and uncivilised westerners use it today to maim them. Please return your firearms to the PRC. Do keep Charlton Heston.
Ships were invented in Greece to find a golden fleece. They were to be a means of transport and exploration, not military platforms. Please return the Nimitz to Athens.
The Latin alphabet was supposed to be used for Latin and derived languages exclusively. It was developed by legitimate scribes with Etrurian sublicenses, and never intended to be used by barbarians that cannot even write. ("write", for example, should be spelt "VRAJT"). Please send all your keyboards and typewriters back to Italy.
Bread was invended in Egypt as a tasty way of eating flour. It was never meant to be used in (bleargh) Big Macs. Send all your McDonalds to Cairo (though they will probably answer "thanks, but... let's just say like we took them, right?")
The Statue of Liberty was built in France to honour the values of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity, together with friendship between France and the US. It was not meant to symbolise a nation that claims to have saved France in the world wars (in the first the US entered only for one year, in the second they did not enter until attacked), calling the French "surrendering cheese-eating monkeys" (the "eating" remark, coming from an American, is really offensive) while never had a military occupation on their soil since the Brits left, and screwed all the statue was meant to represent by invading a defenseless country with bunches of black sticky liquid, and installing their puppet regime like Hapsburg Austria used to (ok, no sticky liquids back then). Unmount and shove it in a place the French will be all too happy to illustrate.
Cars were invented in Germany to visit the countryside in the weekend, not to be a penis supersizer. Please transfer of GM and Ford motor companies to Mannheim. Not sure whether they want the Humvees. Bikes go to Karlsruhe.
Circumcision was invented by people who had little water and lived in the desert. It was not meant as a way to prevent masturbation, and whoever thought for a second to cut a baby's willy because he might do "dirty things" with it in 15 years' time was a complete psycho. The idea was hygiene! Return to Israel your... oh never mind.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Why are we limited to one set of root servers?
Would it not be possible to have ISP's provide DNS that queries multiple roots?
Sure, there would sometimes be some sites that could not see some domains.
But isn't that the same situation with IP routing? And still the Internet is fairly well connected (recent news items notwithstanding).
If that's your view, so be it.
So if it's their infrastucture they are concerned about, let them control it as they see fit. Which they can already do without taking this action. Nothing keeps them from building their own system. Nothing.
What you miss though is that they want to do is take over ours, a la international eminant domain.
If they want to control their own infrastructure, the US has the right to control its own also. ICANN is under contract from the US Deptartment of Commerce to run the servers. We own and control those records and are under no obligation then to turn over control to an international body or any other nation.
You want to use our records, so be it. We have and will let you. But we are under no obligation then to turn control over to you. Build your own. Frankly, that would be a good thing, but that's not what the other nations want, now do they?
Yeesss... Ok....
I didn't state specifically that I assumed that if you need a 'named' IP address, then you are going to be a 'host'.
For example, if I am *hosting* myrandomdomain.com2 then it is a host -- is this always the case in real life, right now? No, because we've been jacked around by DNS as well as the lack of available IP addresses. You can have multiple hosts on the same IP address even (use port addresses in the DNS record).
If I have an SQL server on that same network, its IP address would be a subdomain. If my house is on a 'named' domain, my toaster would not have its own domain, even if it did have its own IP address.
I would not have crap like myRandomDomain.com2 and myRandomDomainForMySQLServer.com2, and try to run them in the same network.
Realistically, this would increase the number of records that the average gateway would hold on to. The trade-off would be that there would be no need for a DNS cache, nor DNS lookups -- the gateway would handle this 'stuff' instead of a DNS server.
So, my contention is that, yes, that is how routing tables work. Because I am talking about the top-level network when I say 'create a naming algorithm'. Your toaster doesn't need a domain name. And if you really think it does, then buy it a f*ing gateway.
At no point did I say 'every IP address will map to a domain name'. The reality is that you would have to specifiy chunks of addresses to represent 'named IPs' in each of many languages. It would be a hell of a task. In my mind, getting rid of the leech that is the DNS system would be worth it.
We (the USA) hereby officially DARE the europeans to disconnect themselves from the internet.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
that the US is one of the permnent members. As such, if they say a countrybcannot join, that country cannot join. So, the US agreed that they could go in.
...
The US is also busy sucking up to the commies all over. China, Russia, Afganistan. And a lot of hard-line arab states like Saudi, UAE,
Says a *descendant* of those very same Europeans that settled in America... Hope you don't mind the Native Americans taking their land back?
P.S. We really did fuck up the on North American continent I must say. Just look at that mess!
He said "US government has been trying to erode protections for online privacy and information access for years", and you read into that "Bush=Hiter".
Defensive?
The erosion of rights in general has been going on for a long time, arguably since the day the constitution was ratified. Bush as continued it, but so did Clinton, and so would have Kerry or Gore, or Dole, McCain, Dean, or Perot. Probably even Nader.
While control by North Korea or China would be disturbing, they are not the totality of the UN. Purely from a business perspective, I'd imagine the brittish and japanese, among others, might have legitimate problems with US control of the root domain.
Abolish Copyright. Restore Freedom.
You know, if all the root servers went down, it wouldn't be the end of the internet. Most ISPs could reconfigure their name servers in short order to take over the functionality of the root servers and operate without peering for however many months it'd take to get new root servers up and running for a TLD.
So... I don't see that as being how the conversation went. World leaders are not CIOs...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'm gonna take another crack at making a point here..
I'm going to borrow from the three little pigs for this exercise.
There are three little pigs, and a root DNS. The root Dns needed a safe place to call home, to be safe from the big bad wolf that is total global war.
The first pig (China), said, "Come on over here most honorable root DNS, I'll keep you safe and so secure that people will never see you or the internet again. Oh and by the way, my house is made of straw."
The second pig(Europe), being linguistically superior to the first, gave a compelling arguement as to the obvious lack of common sense to hold up in a straw house and let someone else dictate what you can and can't do. Then the second pig invited the root Dns into his wood house for some Tea and some fryed snails.. Oh, by the way, we are currently in a penis size contest with the third pig, if he says or does something we don't like, then I order you to not talk to him or give him the time of day..
The root DNS getting fed up of all the bullshit politics said screw it, I'm gonna stay with the last pig(USA), there is still a lot of retards running the house, but at least I'm free to talk to the other two pigs whenever I want and if the big bad wolf comes then I am going to be safe cause pig#3 has all the nukes and his house is made of brick, metal, iron, with motion sensing lazers and the pig has a kung fu grip to die for..
Ok, its not a perfect example, nor is it a perfect world. The UN is a group of countries looking to exploit this for profit for their countries, which means that eventually they will hold it hostage..
Jimi Spier
www.jimispier.com - My tunes
I believe the issue is control over something that is hugely important to commerce in every country today and in the future. Now, we've seen how bad the US legal system can be - and what views the US has on many issues (biotech, creationism, pornography etc) are often not acceptable to other countries. American legal action against what we consider to be free speech scares me - we actually believe in having freedoms not just paying lip service to them. So when the US controls something that could effectively restrict our sovereign rights as free nations we tend to take that seriously. The European Union is simply saying that's it's not fair that the US should have control over how European nations run *their* part of the Internet. Now, I would like to see it simply split apart and the EU putting up it's own root servers - that would be the easiest solution. It's not about taking it away from the US as much as giving us control over our part. And that's something most people would agree is fair, isn't it?
I would like to appologize.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Uh, censorship IS the repression of material by the government.
A store can choose to stock its own goods.
If you get your way -- that WalMart would have to carry magazines with naked ladies on the covers -- then you've just removed a fundamental freedom we have here in America. The government now controls what stores may stock.
Let's see I'm a moderate conservative, I don't "hate" anything. What I do dislike is the UN taking control of the internet. The internet is a valuable tool used by businesses, governments, and individuals. What is the arguement that we should give up control? Are there problems? Like you said, if a government doesn't like it how it is, then make their own, these are your words. So don't like it, create your own, we'll keep ours.
The UN shouldn't be controlling anything, but that is what the flacid dick called the UN likes to do. Flacid in Africa, Iraq, Iran, and N. Korea.
You see you are compelled to see our outward dislike of "things" as irrational. To a liberal, which has no moral grounding, it is irrational for somebody to have an opinion, to have distaste for some deviant thing. Liberals embrace deviance(organized murder-abortion) like a warm blanket on a cold day. Anything moral or righteous is attacked by deviant liberals. If Demonrats, I mean democrats proposed, like President sodomizer, oops I mean mr clinton mr. Clinton or mr. Internet, er Gore, that the UN shouldn't control the internet, you liberal lackies and shivs would be all over it.
Your blog, BTW, is FUD and exteremely full of lies, there are two sides to every story, exposed both sides and let people make up there own mind, but you liberals don't like that do you? Be a real man/woman or whatever you are and tell BOTH sides, or are you scared? You deviant liberals don't like to allow other view points, as a matter of a fact, if you could shut me up, you would. You don't like freedom of the press, because you own the press, you believe that somehow you deviant liberals are more enlightened, and not constrained by outdated ideals of morality. I hope you get to lie in the cesspool deviant liberals are heading us towards, mark my words, liberals are jack-booted socialists, ask Elian, he will tell you. I lie in cold sweats at night thinking of what would've happend if mr gore were president on 9/11/2001. I don't think I would be allowed to make these comments without jack-booted FBI agents busting down my door.
If Kerry was the answer, it must have been a stupid question.
The UN - The largest "political" cause of death.
not bad thinking,but how would this work ?
What exactly does "we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel" mean? Does that mean that freedom is being risked or that freedom is the risk?
Other countires are MORE than welcome to setup their own roots. Nobody seems to have a problem with that. In fact I've suggested it several times on /. and so have others. However that's not what the UN wants. They want the US to give up control of the existing roots most of which reside in the US and are run by US companies or the government. THAT'S what's worrysome, is that they seem to think they can force the US to give up something created in the US, paid for by the US, and maintained in the US.
So no, there's no worry about the US trying to stop other countires form running their own root servers.
Recall that the internet flourished under the adminstration of a moderate Democrat -- the very Clinton you deride for getting a blowjob (which is something you've never had the pleasure of getting).
As for your rants about "morality," well, let's see -- tell me again about those weapons of mass destruction?
I'm lookin' forward to seeing Rove and Cheney frogmarched to jail. DeLay is guilty. Your boys are all goin' down. It'll be fun watchin' them be somebody's bitch.
... can you pack into one single rant?!? If only any of this tripe weren't founded on a philosophy whose latest adherents' exploits include "debunking" heizenberg's uncertainty principle and Godel's theorem. Anti-scientific AND anti-religious; ravingly individualist yet totally happy with the collectivist system of corporatism. Anti-statist, yet they are happy to have the state use their power in favour of corporate property over individual property. It's quite the "have-cake, eat-too" package.
.
i - This sig provided by
Naturally on slashdot with a story like this you get a lot of posts presumably by Americans saying 'we built it, if they don't like it fuck off and make your own'. Which is a dangerous thing to say. Because if we do, you'll have American on one internet and the rest of the world on another, and won't this fubar Americas economy? Anyway, if we did build our own, maybe we could improve a bit. Maybe roll out ipv6 for a start...
I wouldn't trust any government body with that much control if I had the choice. But then I don't. Damn democracy.
Guantanamo bay?
The issue is not really whether the rest of the world outside of the US can take control of their own nameservers or split off into their own subnets. They can, and there is nothing the US can do about it. What's at stake here is whether the US should cede control of its nameservers to some international body, thereby giving them control of that portion of the internet which exists within the US. As many of the posters here have stated, it is certainly understandable that when a country depends upon the internet to keep a substantial part of its economy or government functioning the idea that a foreign government controls it makes them nervous. You don't trust the US? Okay. So why do you find it so hard to understand that the US doesn't trust China, France, the UN, or anyone else to control OUR access to OUR own portion of the internet?
But of course if various parts of the world wished to spin off their own subnets they would be disconnecting themselves from the world's largest economy, and they really don't want this. And there are a lot of other countries that really would rather be connected to the US version as opposed to the greater UN network or whatever it would be called. If you want to split off--don't talk, just do it.
"First of all, there is nothing preventing said foreign nations from generating their own DNS infrastructure right now. "
I'm glad you recognized that the world can take control of their DNS so obviously what some US senator says is irrelevant. What this is all about is (some) Americans saying the rest of the world is incapable of handling technology or is inferior. In other words "rah rah America". "boo the rest of the world" so America can do whatever it wants.
In case you didn't notice-- there are consequences of such behavior that end up hurting everyone including you.
You need to put your red/white and blue pom poms away. This isn't circa 1960. Plenty of the world is just as free and as technologically advanced as the US. Look at the monitor. Bet it isn't made in America. Take a look at the room around you I can guarantee most of the stuff in your house is made by foreigners. This is true of every citizen on earth. You need to lighten up that the rest of the world is going to destroy the Internet or "freedom". In the Fifties I would have agreed with you. Today is a different story though. If you want to get technical, most of the people in the world today views America as the biggest threat to freedom.
Not every nation is China. Besides if Americans thought China was so horrific than why not petition to remove their favored nation trading status first? You have no problem with having an embargo with Cuba. As usual though, money and power comes second to concepts like freedom. Pretty well sums up every nation on earth I think. I'll give you that some nations are worse than others but you've been watching too much Fox news if you think the US is freer than Western Europe, Canada, or Australia You also need to accept that it isn't just China or Cambodia asking for this control.
"If Internet goes to the U.N. censorship WILL increase and countries who would do this because of the US's censorship will do it because of the UN's censorship. So again, giving it over to the U.N. will not improve this situation!"
Of course the exact methodology of how control would go to the UN still needs to be hammered out. I imagine the US would have veto capabilities as well as a few other important nations. The sky is falling if the UN takes over is not a very credible argument. Don't worry. If the US doesn't like some UN decision the UN won't fabricate a reason to unilaterally invade it to impose its will. Besides, the US is part of the UN-- so discrediting the UN is like shooting your own interests in the foot. It's the only place in the world today that you have any politically credibility that isn't paid for.
Your scare mongering example of nations censoring already exists and it will only get worse because control in the US means control period. China are ALREADY taking advantage of western technology to censor so nothing worse could happen like you suggest.. The US would have exactly the same say as they have now internally--the only difference would be when the rest of the world doesn't agree America wouldn't be able to do things unilaterally.
In the end no one would have full control.... a great thing.
"So don't make assumptions about my motivations in petty attempts to debase my arguments; you have no idea who I am."
All I know is many Americans fear foreigners at the moment. What ironic here is that you are a nation of immigrants. I'm no flag waver but all I hear over and over again is that my country isn't free on competent because I am not an American. Plenty of the world is freer, safer and with a better standard of living once you factor cost of living. So turn off the Bill O'Reilly, get off your high horse and quit complaining about the world and work with it. Trust me. Most of us want to live in peace and freedom just like you.
~ If you cut me do I not bleed?
is DNS control even necessary?
Yes, DNS and DNS regulation is necessary -- at least if the Internet is going to remain something beyond a plaything for geeks. What do think, that businesses are going to start advertising, "visit our web site at 123.456.789.012"... or "Google our company name -- we're the third result in the list"?
And what about security? The integrity of the DNS regulating body is the only reason that a person can type, e.g. "www.bankofamerica.com", get a secure connection, and be confident that their information is going where it's supposed to be going.
You want to give that kind of responsibility to the U.N.??? The Internet will remain free and intact only as long as the U.S. is responsible for keeping it that way.
Grammar Nazi time. Instead of, "I disagree on a number of points you base your argument on," perhaps "I disagree with a number of points on which you base your argument" is less convoluted.
There is everything to fear about UN control. They will screw it up like they have screwed up everything else they have touched. The UN is more bogged down in useless beaurocracy than any government and more corrupt than most.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
why would anyone want to set up a network without connectivity to the largest (no pun intended) consumers in the world? I think the US should tell the EU UN and anyone else to get fucked. If they want to change things on their side let them. The all powerful unseen hand of the market will bitchslap them back in line.
Ok, clueless wonders, before making inane comments about how DNS does/doesn't work; please read the RFCs.
DNS related RFCs
http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/rfc/
And we invented the Colt .45... oh right.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
follow the money...
the U.N wants to impose a "user" tax, and God knows what else...
this is a money grab...
if it ain't broke, don't fix it...why would we want to cede control of a major economic force in our country to outside control..this isn't about "arrrogance" or "totalitarian" control of the internet by the U.S., this is plain old self-interest. Anyone who argues pursuing "self-interest" is somehow bad is just plain crazy....
the U.N crowd is pursuing it's own self-interest...a taxable "international" endeavor that will generate funds for a bloated organization, whose administrators appear answerable to no one.
for those who loathe the U.S., at least we have a system where the politicians can get voted out of office....many of the members of the U.N. have despots, dictators, or "elected-for-life" leaders...you may believe the U.S. has a rotten political system, but rest assured, just about every other political system out there is worse....
That's not the fucking purpose of the UN.
It's a body, where a bunch of countries can get together and debate things to death. That's it. That's all it should be.
Debating things to death is good, it's healthy. It helps us formulate international treaties, which are the basis for international law.
My argument is that you were modded up because you are appealing to /. groupthink and emotivism. Which seems to be the norm these days.
Democracy is all about taking everyone's opinion into account.
What have individuals got to do with the international system of anarchic states where the Internet is a tool of potential power by state actors? Individuals don't have a democratic say in how the Internet runs. Countries do. And as much you like to think you have a democractic say in how the Internet runs - you don't, and you never will.
Right now a power grab in the U.S. could result in the internet resolving to religious messages instead of proper resolution in muslim countries around the world.
Say's who? Essentially the Internet is still free. You are free to post what you want and read what you want. No one is forcing you to read anything and the ability to spread a message top-down to people on the internet is ludicrous. The major messages and memes of the net spread via bottom-up social networks and even then you don't have to read them.
instead the system should be made robust and redundant with control shared by many nations. Democracy is not a cure-all, but it is better than trusting a dictatorship of one nation.
Here's a suggestion: Domestic based political ideas like democracy don't work at an international level. That is why there is a complete study of international relations. Democratizing the Internet will not work at an international level. You know why? Because of balance of power politics. You are giving control to many other countries evenly, but it doesn't work like that. These countries will form coalitions for control of the Internet against other state actors. It's always been that way at the international level and it'll never change for a resource like the Internet.
I find it quite disturbing that you /.'ers put a whole heap of mistrust in solely the US but cannot put that mistrust against all the other state actors. It seems an enemy of enemy is your friend. How's that for ethical behavior? Here's a clue: All countries are out for themselves.
If DNS was discontinued, all the castles in the air built by big businesses would turn to dust. All the very expensive and extremely litigated 'domain-names- would disappear in one fell swoop and thenceforth be known only by their IP dotted decimal addresses. I think this is a good thing. Let the big corporations be shown the fools paradise in which they live and hypocritically defend. Let them now fight over IP addresses that all look like one another. Now THAT is democracy in action. This is probably just part of what that senator referred to as part of his precious 'intellectual property protection' religion.
The guy is a disgrace. Wellstone actually believed in things. Coleman just believed he'd like to be a senator.
Yep, the very same Coleman that Galloway tore a third anus into to go along with his matching set of the one he defecates with, and the one he thinks with.
Coleman is worthless.
The only reason he is a senator is because of Wellstone's tragic plane crash. He was a strawman candidate in a no chance race.
If you can handle the sissification, read a couple of congressional daily reports:
If Coleman had any morals, he be investigating the Americans implicated in tthe Oil for Food scandal, but he is too much of a party hack to investigate family and cronies of the President.
Here's an example of Coleman's compassionate conservatism:
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
WE invented it....therefore it is ours....and no, YOU cannot have it....end of discussion.
I some ways I understand this senator... The UN is an obsolete monster that feeds on insane amounts of money and left wing people's naïvity. So far the US seems to have done a decent job running the Internet, while the UN have failed miserably in the primary task it was created for: Preserving World Peace.
A few years ago the US tried - and failed - to get the UN to do something serious about this warmonger sitting in Baghdad making fun of the UN with a history of attacking three neighbouring countries (Iran, Kuwait and Israel) and mass-exterminating certain segments of his own population (sounds a lot like nazi-germany, right? - the very thing that inspired the creation of the UN).
The UN could only agree to disagree internally, and the US was thus forced to act alone (with the support of a few allies that agreed on the principle that warmongering dictators should be removed with any means nessesary) and still the UN fails to step in and help defeat the Baathists and the Al-Queda wannabees that use Iraq as a violent playground, and thus create the peace that it was founded to create and promote.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I find it peculiar that the article is talking about UN and US, and lots of posters here keep talking about Europe, as if the UN equals Europe. Uh?
UN is an international body of many nations, including the US (who is, btw, it's most important member in terms of $$$$$, if not in brainpower), european and NON-european nations. UN is not EU, get your facts straight before marching your ignorance / stupidity all over the place.
I have no idea why americans believe europe is having a "penis size contest" with the US... Europeans couldn't care less if the whole northern part of the american continent (excluding canada, of course) crawled it's way back to the hole it came from and quietly expired. Ah well.
"ignorance is such a blessing!" - unknown
shana
I don't think you understand DNS. Many of the root DNS servers are not in the United States (probably half of them are outside of the US). I think three of them are notionally located outside the US, and out of the rest that are notionally inside the US, parts of them are in other parts of the world. This is because they have 'anycast' addresses, so a root server can be many machines in many places with the same IP address; routers on the internet will decide which physical root server you'll actually contact.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Germany killed 6 million Jews - slightly larger problem than the one you referenced.
"why would anyone want to set up a network without connectivity to the largest (no pun intended) consumers in the world?"
Maybe because some people don't automatically see the Internet as just another way to sell stuff.
As for the root servers, why not leave it as it is. It ain't broke, lets not fix it just because the U.S. is running it. There isn't even a case to complain about where the U.S. has done something bad. They should be grateful someone else is taking care of it and there are no problems. Making it an international entity under the UN is really asking for trouble. I think you would do better gambling your economic future in a casino. Lets not do that unless it really is necessary. There are far better things for the UN to be spending their time on.
Love the "Um".
This isn't hard. You said:
"So, you know, all those rights -- you can have them as long as the UN says so."
The Declaration denies the ability of the UN to perform any act aimed at the destruction of the rights the Declaration itself recognizes. So the UN has created a document which doesn't allow it to take away recognition of these rights. And the UN doesn't give you these rights, it recognizes them. It's up to the governments of the world to live up to those standards. (On a personal level, despite your seeming hatred of the UN, I think you'd at least have to acknowledge that the Declaration is an inspiring document.)
You also shot back, "The UN still isn't getting any kind of control of the internet"
Maybe this will surprise you, but I'm not currently in favor of the UN or ITU administering the root servers. The United Nations is outstanding at investigating global health issues and mediating global health and justice crises that no other nation will touch. They also have an important role to play as a venue that induces nations to work out disagreements diplomatically instead of with war.
But the Internet isn't broken, and doesn't need diplomacy or mediation. As a system of information exchange, its freedom is unparalleled. It's difficult to see how the UN could improve it, and easy to see ways in which it could injure it. So I don't think administration belongs with the ITU.
That said, there's little denying that the Internet has outgrown the US, and that the multinational interests associated with it deserve better representation. In a climate where "French toast" is eliminated in favor of "Freedom toast", it wouldn't be out of character for the US government to revoke
As an aside, I've been reading over some of your posts, and wondering why you feel the need to lie about yourself. In this post you describe yourself as a "left-wing liberal", and here you specifically include yourself as a liberal, but here you say socialism is distasteful, and just today, you've declared that poor people are dumb.
Looks to me, Randy, like you're a liar. Apparently you're willing to say anything in order to sound more believable. Kind of a shame you don't have more integrity, and that the evidence of your lack of it is on such public display.
Tell me again how you're a "left-wing liberal"? On second thought, nevermind. Go back to your regularly-scheduled mouth foaming, just with some other post. I'm done here.
Wow, you spent a lot of time writing up an incredible strawman logic fallacy abouts cars, the alphabet and so on. Whether it's right or wrong, the argument being made is that the US funded development of the existing internet and therefore want to retain control of it. The argument is NOT that the US should own and control all "internets" developed throughout the world. If you want to make a point about this, at least understand this first.
Someone should point out that the U.S. hardly seems like a country and culture that champions free speech.
Protesters are placed in "free speech zones" (nice euphemism!) where they will not be seen on TV
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/04/hilden.freespeec h/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/01/04/INGPQ40MB81.DTL
A high-school student who made a political poster got a visit from the secret service (they confiscated the poster)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/170992_prosser 28.html
Police, FBI, and Homeland security frequently target and harrass protesters
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/ACLU_sues_Homeland_S ecurity_for_arresting_spying_on_vegans_who_protest ed_0922.html
http://www.progressive.org/mcwatch04/mc1021a04.htm l
The FBI defines peace groups as "terrorists"
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/ACLU_reveals_FBI_lab eled_peace_affirmative_action_group_terrori_0829.h tml
An Ohio paper did not print some story for fear of being jailed.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000976374
The government has misrepresented and altered the conclusions of scientific panels on global warming and other issues.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62339,00. html
Officials how have an unpopular (but true) message are fired (numerous), their wives are targeted (Plame), etc.
The BBC says the "embedded journalist" restrictions on the Iraq calls into question the credibility of Americas media
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/ 20030425/media_nm/iraq_media_bbc_dc_4
People were excluded from church for being of the wrong party.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/church_politics
Airline passengers who ask questions are targeted
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=512&u=/ ap/20040317/ap_on_go_coairline_passenger_screening _3&printer=1
The US has a history of killing non-US journalists in Iraq...so many times that it's getting hard to believe it's not intentional.
People wearing anti-Bush T-shirts arrested
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/21/heckler.fir ed.ap/index.html
Teachers Evicted From Bush Event for Wearing 'Protect Our Civil Liberties' T-Shirts.
http://www.progressive.org/mcwatch04/mc101604.htm
Someone wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt was kicked off a Southwest plane.
and so on...
Certainly, America is not as bad off as Saudi Arabia, but that's not saying much.
This is not a country we can trust to safeguard free speech on the internet.
I think Americans only u
Did you not read the subject of my post? Did you do as it asked? Probably not, or else you would know why I am concerned about the future of porn on a US-controlled internet.
Blar.
I'm not meta-modding the parent, sadly, but I *am* giving your "Flamebait" an Unfair.
You are a fucking idiot.
Nobody's going down except you on your boyfriend, that's why you've had so many blowjobs.
Your party of sniveling socialist jack-booted thugs will be revealed soon enough. mr clinton and mr gore were flacid impotent douche bags, taking heads for a diseased infested liberal sewer. While willy boy was getting a hummer under his desk while pretending to be President, Bin Laden was plotting destruction. History will show the mr clinton was asleep at the wheel while shit was raining down around him. President Bush is a man of courage, he has stood up to you liberal fucktards and put you in your place. I don't like President Bush being a fiscal liberal, but I support him in many areas.
Don't even go into WMD's every country on the Security Council, many DemonRats and Republican Senators and Reps agreed that there was evidence of WMD's in Iraq. Minute quantities have been found, most crossed borders before the war started, these are facts and backed by evidence, if you educated liberal morons actually read something instead of attacking with FUD you would know this. Anyways, I guess leaving Saddam in power would have been OK with you "sensitive and compasionate" libtards.
What about former first bitch hillary, she has commited election fraud, and is under investigation for it as we speak. Overstating donations at fundrasier dinners for tea-sipping libs. She probably won't be SINator for NY next time because of it, that's why she will run for presi-bitch, which is what her coronation and reign will be called after she ass-fucks every working American "IF" she gets elected. Libtards have been practicing ballet stuffing and cheating through the last two elections, I just hope you lying cheaters don't get by with this time either.
If Kerry was the answer, it must have been a stupid question.
The UN - The largest "political" cause of death.