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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."
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.
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
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.
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.
...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.
Bittorrent is an itty-bitty part of the services available on the Internet. And if you let search engines serve as your source for finding the location of resources you need, how is that better than DNS? It seems to me that you're just swapping one directory service for another, the second being corporately owned and changeable at their whim. Besides, without DNS, how are you going to even get to Google? http://64.233.161.99? Or maybe you prefer http://64.233.161.104/ or http://64.233.161.147?
Maybe you don't use DNS a lot, but the rest of the world sure as heck does. It's a basic network service that the Internet is almost useless without. Personally, I think it's pretty scary that one country that, frankly, the world doesn't find very trustworthy right now, controls it.
But I guess that's just me. Oh, and the rest of the world. (And for what it's worth I am American...)
It is so nice to see so many Americans voice their opinion here and really show how little they know about the UN.
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 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.
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.
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
#
The point is that it's not the right of the United States to force this lack of censorship upon every country in the world.
,everyone else is saying "you invented it, deployed it, put it to first major use... now gimme gimme gimme".
Then let the rest of the world make their own DNS servers. There's nothing stopping them. I'm sure if Austria invented the internet and built the major initial infrastructure, they'd have developed the main root servers themselves and hosted them, too. Basically
Besides, most of the root servers aren't even in America, if I recall.
This is just a bunch of whiney bitches wanting to edge in on something they didn't do the work for but reap the benefits of. Let's not forget where the net (darpa) originated, eh?
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
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
You're mostly correct. Today, right now, DNS is needed. So are fax machines and Liquid Paper.
Yet the future of the Internet will only seek out more competition, fewer regulations and restrictions, and less dependence on older standards. I do believe the Internet could operate just fine without a central DNS authority. Yes, it would be an enormous problem if DNS broke today or even attempted separation, but it won't happen. Those who depend on the voluntary choice of their customers would immediately find a fix in the event of an outage or separation.
The US is wrong in wants to continue to control DNS root services. The UN is even more wrong in thinking taking control would make things better.
In the long run, newer protocols and information sharing services will give people the information they want without the need for DNS. Most people communicating over IM don't even see domain names. Most people communicating over BT don't either. As bandwidth goes up and newer forms of hive-communications are created, we'll see less and less central control.
I remember running my first BBS. 1 node. Local users only. No sharing of data with other BBSes and only 1 user at a time. Then multinode, then FidoNet, then UseNet, then Gopher, then E-mail, then WWW, then ICQ, then Napster, then BT, then ???
Information is getting less centralized or tied to a location in ever faste steps. DNS is ready for replacement.
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.
A hypothetical situation : Your neighbor is a drunken, violent man who you regularly overhear beating his wife and children in a most extreme fashion. They are regularly covered in bruises, and you suspect the man may even be raping his own daughters. The police are contacted, but the man is in business with the police chief and mayor and corruption has made them unwilling to prevent any of this. You are the biggest man on the block, and could easily prevent the man from harming his family any further with little risk to yourself.
Do you have a moral duty to stop him? If you choose not to prevent his actions despite your ability to do so, does it mean you are partially responsible for the continued abuse?
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
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
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!
If you have a hard time finding boobs on the 'net, you seriously need to learn how to use a search engine. No one is preventing the show of boobs on the 'net.
Television, somewhat; Internet, no.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
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.
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.
Great idea Taco - keep posting it every few days!
I certainly can't dispute your assertion that the US government is untrustworthy. The problem is, so is every other government on earth, and the UN is worse by at least an order of magnitude.
The current, largely unregulated structure isn't perfect, but it's vastly better than anything we're likely to see coming out of governmental control, EU control or, heaven forbid, UN control.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
DNS works and should stay the same.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
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.
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.
That you omit certain key facts about Coleman's victory over Mondale--namely, that Mondale came out of retirement to enter the race mere days before the election after Paul Wellstone died in an airplane crash--speaks volumes in and of itself. Coleman's victory was seated in complex, confused circumstances; to ignore this fact is to lie by glaring omission. (Consider, too, his vocal pique at the fact that speakers at Wellstone's funeral--a man who defined modern hardcore liberalism--had the temerity to express their political views in the course of their eulogies. Classy.)
The one thing you can count on Norm Coleman to do is to ally himself with whomever he thinks will be holding the strongest hand. It's a great political strategy, and you're right--it'll probably help his political ascendency...but make no mistake about it; Coleman is the textbook definition of a facile politician. He'll slip right off the RNC's radar the minute it becomes apparent that the Democrats have the upper hand again--whether that's in one year or twenty.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I'm *not* American, but my bullshit detectors go off hard when I see China and Saudi Arabia slavering for control of the free-est communication network known to man. And it's sad to see elements in the EU joining with these countries to promote their own bureaucratic agenda (and many Europeans have noticed).
And the ironic bit is that Tunisia, where this free-the-DNS-from-US-shackles gabfest was held, has an extremely lousy record on Net freedom.
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.
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.
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.
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.... 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.
Your analogy is fatally flawed. First, there is not one well, but a dozen well systems we (the U.S.) control. Second, nearly half of those well systems and more than half of the actual, physical wells are not in our yard, but those of our neighbors. Third, this is not about two neighbors, but one guy who runs the "well access system" for all the wells both on his land and other peoples land, for everyone in town. Fourth, the neighbors paid to drill those wells on their properties and paid for all the plumbing. Fifth, we (the U.S.) have our little cousins charging money every year for entries in this control system. Sixth, The guy running this control system is a violent psycho who breaks the town ordinances, beats people up, and has been caught outright lying in town meetings over and over again. This guy also has running feuds with about half of town (it's a pretty rough town).
What the U.N. nations are likely to do is just what you suggest, start their own naming service and switch over all the wells and well systems on their own property. And here is where your analogy completely collapses, because while the value of wells is supplying a resource, the value of the internet is in the connections themselves. It is a transport mechanism, not a commodity. What our dear congress critter is proposing is legislation that says all those neighbors can't do what they want with their wells, which they will promptly ignore. It might go so far as to threaten sanctions or poisoning of the existing system if other countries try to switch, which is also useless.
I see no "control" being exerted over the Internet here. What do they fear?
They fear that they will have to keep paying money to use their own networks and they fear that the U.S. will shut off or redirect DNS service to foreign countries. They fear being economically and socially dependent upon a resource that they have paid to develop and pay to maintain, while that resource can be shut off by the U.S., whom they do not trust. For that matter, I thought the U.S. was supposed to be about representation for all and democracy. What is democratic about one country making decisions for the world without giving them any sort of representation? The U.S. should be championing this move to distributed DNS in many countries with redundancy against a single (political) attack. Instead they are claiming to know better than the world, and that they should be able to make decisions for everyone. It is sad how broken, nationalist, and adversarial American ideals have become.
2. Regulation/licensing of certain speech (campaign, medical, educational?)
3. Profit!!! (for the cronies who sell domain names)
There are other, far more important, reasons for government control:
4: Guaranteed reliability
5: Accesibility during conflicts
4: Whoever has interest in a stable internet (i'm assuming governments have) will want some assurance of the reliability. Although ICANN's track-record is fine, I (not being a US citizen) have absolutely no guarantee that it will continue in the future.
5: If some conflict should arise between a nation and US, that nation will still want to be able to use the internet. As the internet becomes a more critical part of infrastructure, this point becomes more important.
Given the current political situation, a country such as Iran may value this much higher than cencorship or regulation.
To make a dumb analogy: /. post?
How would you feel, if i - someone you have no reason to trust (or distrust) - owned the road outside your house? If i could, for any reason, close it, regulate traffic, charge draconian road tax, remove it?
If there was a possibility - however far out - that one day, you could come home from work only to find that you can't get to your home, because i disagreed with your latest
My point is just that some things are too important to be left in the hands of other people/nations.
I keep hearing this, and I still have no idea what it means. Some of the protocols used on the Internet originated in the USA, some did not. Does that matter? Many of the implementations didn't. If you're using Linux then you may well be using a TCP/IP stack that originated a few hundred yards from me. I guess this means that people from outside Sketty, Swansea, don't deserve to connect to any servers running Linux.
The USA did not lay the cable that comes to my house. They did not lay any of the cable in the UK.
We did create our own version of the 'net. So did the French. And the Germans, and the Chinese and many, many other nations. And we joined them all together to create an internetwork.
The USA did not create the Internet. The USA created the first segments of the Internet. Since then, everyone has been creating the Internet. Everyone will continue to create the Internet whatever the USA does, but I hope the USA will choose to remain a part of it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
> 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.
Bwahahaha....
Saddam's Iraq was a U.N. member, while Taiwan wasn't (and isn't)
Say that part again, about how U.N. membership is available to all peace loving states?
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
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.
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?
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.
As do I. Unfortunately, the ITU can't seem to even keep a web site accessible (http://www.itu.int/ so how could they possibly be put in charge of administering DNS? The gory details on the upcoming conference should be available at http://www.itu.int/wsis -- at least that's the reference from the UN home page. I'd love to see just exactly what's being proposed before I decide whether it could be useful. I would hope that other /. participants would like to know the details before they shoot their mouths (fingers?) off. Doh! I forgot where I was, didn't I?
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
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/
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.
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.
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.
cliffs for people who dont want to read ...
1. america invents internet
2. america shares its new toy
3. eurotrash want the toy
4.
5. profit?
lose != loose
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
Do you have a moral duty to stop him? If you choose not to prevent his actions despite your ability to do so, does it mean you are partially responsible for the continued abuse?
This is the fundamental problem of dilemas, and free will. Are we morally obligated to protect his family? It's certainly not our job to do so. There's certainly no responsibilities that we have that might carry innately to protect them, beyond that we're human, and they're human, and we're aware of their plight. I see you're not arguing that it might be the responsibility of some person half way across the world to stop him. I'm sure you could certainly find someone in the world, who would be much better suited to the task of stopping this guy than yourself. Why would they not be responsible?
For that matter, what does being the largest person on the block have to do with being morally bound to stop him? Because you can? So, you're only responsible if you're aware of it and you are physically able to stop it? Couldn't one argue that no matter what your capability to stop him, it's your moral responsibility to try your best to stop him?
Bringing God into this just for a sec (as a piece of argument, you don't have to believe in him, you just have to accept that some people believe him to exist, and this question matter is important for them), since God is surely able to stop this (omnipotent) and he's surely aware of it (omniscencient) wouldn't that make it his moral duty to stop it?
You've already said: "The police are contacted, but the man is in business with the police chief and mayor and corruption has made them unwilling to prevent any of this." So, it's obvious to say that there are a number of people who have a moral duty to stop this, but already are not. So at issue here is not just the man beating his wife and kids, but also that the whole system is permitting this behavior and you consider it wrong, and you want to take action.
Now, say you're the Simpsons living next door to the Flanders. Your kid Bart is a horrible brat. Not only that, but you're a lazy bum, and just about everyone in your family has their problems. If you were the Flanders, is it your moral duty to rescue the kids from this situation, and give them a better life? You certainly could. Now, if you were the Simpsons, do you want them butting in on your business?
One may draw the line of moral responsibility to react only when they're breaking the law, but you have to understand that everyone will respond the same way, "this is my business not yours" no matter if it's a legal issue or not. That family-beater is going to tell you to mind your own damn busieness, you can be sure of that.
Fundamentally, it is not the responsibility of the individual to enforce the laws of their nation, state, county, and city, or other such divisions as they may exist. If the police department and the city government is not doing its job, then you let the next level up know, until someone does something to clean up that corruption, and save that family. You have no right to walk over and beat the shit out of that man, even if he is beating his family. But hey, free will, you can choose to ignore that you don't have a right to do it, and just go and beat his ass anyway, and teach him a lesson. Just expect consequences as a result of it. Is saving that family worth you going to jail for assault? Especially when it's not guarenteed that you'll save them permanently?
Rosa Parks knew she was going to get in trouble, and get arrested when she did what she did. She wasn't some clueless idiot who was just tired and didn't want to move back. Just because you believe that you are morally justified does not mean that you'll escape consequences for doing something. Most people into civil disobedience seem to forget this.
Anyways, I'm obviously ranting on a range of topics here. My answer: You're morally responsible for that family only if you feel or believe that you're morally responsible. You're also only at fault for allowing it to continue, if you feel or believe that you are responsible to stop it. No one else can dictate this moral duty upon you.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
It seems implied in your comment, based on your specification of the hypothetical man's size, that your only solution to the scenario is more physical violence, showing you to be no different than the wifebeater, except in your choice of victim. You may feel you have a moral obligation to defend that man's family, but what gives you the right to cause the man himself physical pain in accomplishing this? Perhaps another solution should be explored before going over there with a bat and knocking the guy out. Besides... what's to say he doesn't take your actions and use them to appeal to all of his corrupt police friends, who later show up en masse at your house, armed to the teeth and ready for slaughter? It seems to me there's no better way to get yourself killed than to go in there and try to play the good guy. Maybe that's just me, though. *watches mods tag me as flamebait*
Menus: Linux=function, Windows=vendor, OS X=as little as possible. Makes a statement, don't you think?
If they can't even prevent their site from being slashdotted, I sincerely doubt they can handle the acre-sized server farm that ICANN uses for, oh, about a billion connections?
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
The ignorance of some people in regard to this is amazing. The internet was created, developed, and funded right here in the United States. Period. Look up the history of it. I'm not going into it here. Just because other nations chose to JOIN our network, doesn't mean that anyone outside the US is entitled to any control over it. Most PC's in the world run MS Windows, so using some peoples logic on this, should we take away control of windows from Microsoft (all joking aside here.) and let the UN put together an international group of programers to manage and develop future versions because so many people in the world use and rely on windows? Since so many people in the world use windows that means that no one corporation should control it right? It's a global thing. With this kind of logic all products and services that reach out globally should be turned over to the UN immediatly. All of this stems from anti-US setiment. It's amazing how much other countries will bash us, talk shit on us, and the minute some disaster or some idiot who thinks he should rule the world invades your country, who do you go to? the UN right?...and just who do think the UN calls on when it's time do the hard work? When it's time to send in troops or send money or aid? Yeah, say what you want assholes, but you know it's true. France wouldn't even exist if it weren't for us.
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.
A question for you to consider, sir: Your neighborhood is full of men like this. One of them lives in a mansion and has huge sums of gold and riches inside it. The others do not.
Do you stop him and not the others? Why, pray tell?
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
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....
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.