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Why Talk About Internet Governance?
andyo wrote to mention an article on the O' Reilly network entitled Why They're Talking About Internet Governance. The piece goes into the history of how things came to be in the first place, as regards the distribution of internet domain space. From the article: "Having established commercial beachheads on the Internet, corporations wanted to own the whole terrain. Through the World Intellectual Property Organization ... they were designing a new regime for handling domain names. It was nicely suited to large corporations ... Within weeks of the successful conclusion of the Global Incorporation Alliance Workshop, a lash-up of Internet leaders, Network Solutions, and other back room forces popped a proposal of their own on a surprised and unprepared Internet community. The proposal ... ultimately led to ICANN. Most stakeholders were left out of the decision--even many large corporations were angry--but the Commerce Department approved the proposal, happy to wash its hands of the issue. "
None of the of the above.
If anything all goverments should be barred from having anything to do with internet. Lord know's that one of them will find a way to fuck this up too.
M$ it's whats for diner!!!!!
I think it's a pretty interesting topic, and this article supplies the back story for folks who didn't know it already. Ultimately, the hows and the whys don't matter to anyone who has any real say in this issue, though. This will by and large be decided by diplomats and beaurocrats whose experience with the internet consists of their assistant/secretary spending an hour a day trying to help them use it completely in vain.
What it really boils down to is we either trust the completely untrustworthy, unstable and unorganized UN to handle this very serious responsibility (which we've been handling just fine all by ourselves for years now), or we further degrade our world image by telling the UN where to stick it and keeping the root servers under the perfectly competent management they have right now and have always had.
America is experiencing sort of a golden age of being loathed globally at the moment, which historically has happened to every major world power, especially when they decided to exercise some of their power to improve their position, as we have been doing for the past few years. It is to be expected, and eventually we can expect one of two solutions to occur naturally: A. America reaches a place where it is comfortable enough to slow its expansion/influence, and the rest of the world's grumbling gradually decreases, or B. the shit hits the fan for one of a billion reasons and America's term as world power comes to a halt. It is my opinion that I will live to see "A" happen more than once in my lifetime, and that I'll be dead long before "B" occurs. This root server issue will be solved like every other diplomatic row, in that things will stay exactly the same but a "resolution" will be drafted that strokes the little countries' egos enough that they forget about it for now.
I have finished this thread for you:
>It's not broke don't fix it. (+5, Insightful)
>>Yea but America controls it and I don't like America. (+4, Interesting)
>The UN IS CORRUPT (+4, Interesting)
>> We can just have some countries control it, then (+5, Insightful)
>>> Most of those countries already censor the internet! (+5, Interesting
>>>> At least they don't bomb people! (+4, Funny)
>>>>>We saved your ass in WWII. STFU (-1 Troll)
>>>>>>Arrogant Americans. Just like all Americans. All Americans are ignorant and generalize. (1, Redundant)
>I hate microsoft (+5, Off-Topic)
I am confused about one thing in this whole fiasco. I have yet to hear a single example of what exactly "the world" needs a say in. Or are they just looking to cash in on domain registration fees by tacking on some form of tax?
You can visit the ICANN site and listen to the meeting, informative to say the least. Many sound like they have poor memories, some you can almost hear then snore over the mics and likely many had too much to drink before the meeting.
Someone didn't want ICANN making much decisions so they stacked it with people who would paralyze any further development. This is clear.
The UN is not much different for the most part.
The internet naming is already fragmented and less standard. China for example is using DNS to filter content. We can expect this fragmention to continue.
Ultimately the Internet belongs to the people. And it will be run by the people if necessary. If something becomes popular, ICANN nor the UN could stop it. The Chinese are already creative, using proxies outside their country to bypass the government.
From TFA:
Should bloggers, for instance, meet the same standards for accuracy as professional journalists?
You're proposing a law requiring bloggers to misquote people, get key facts wrong, present nonsense in the name of "balance" and generally make stuff up? Well, sure, if you're going to pay them for it.
Have you ever heard the saying, "The Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it"? I'm not sure who said it, but he/she was right on. To expand on this, we need to look at governance in the same way we look at censorship.
.com, .org, and .edu management to some sort of NGO (ICANN for example), with the purpose being for multi-national corporations, organizations, and institutions of higher education who do not associate with any particular nation (for example would be icrc.org)
If you have never read World of Ends, I recommend you do so now.
The solution to "governance" over the internet is to remain true to the foundations it was developed under. The internet as an agreement cannot be governed. It can only exist while there is compromise and consensus. So, here is what I believe is the best solution to this problem:
1. For the time being, maintain the status quo of having ICANN responsible for the assignment of IPv4 addresses.
2. Transition into IPv6 by assigning blocks of IP addresses to all countries. Perhaps leaving some addresses for space stations, the moon, mars, etc. Do this though multi-national treaties. This is where the United Nations can help out, but the UN should only be a facilitator. Remember, the Internet is an agreement among nations.
3. Have each country be responsible for assigning its block of IP addresses, and for the management of their TLDs.
4. Transfer
The important thing is that the internet remain decentralized. This seems to be the point that everybody is missing. It doesn't matter who governs the internet, because nobody should govern the entire internet. Its works best as an agreement, and that is how we should proceed.
Here's my #1 problem with governments: the committee. These mini-groups tend to debate over what is best for them, not their constituents.
Example of typical bad true Democracy: 51 out of 100 people love large bananas. They vote to regulate bananas, and now only large bananas are available.
Example of typical bad representative democracy: 5 representatives of 100 people form a banana size committee. 2 of them have friends or family who grow medium sized bananas. 51 of 100 citizens prefer large bananas. The 2 reps convince the other 3 to set the definition of 'large' as equal to the medium sized bananas, in exchange for adding pork to the law that helps the other 3 reps.
Example of free market democracy: 51 out of 100 people like large bananas. 30 like medium, and 19 like tiny. Banana growers grow all 3 sizes, selling them at a price set by the supply of certain sizes and the demand for those sizes.
The first two forms of democracy are, well, bananas. Nuts! This is how we live today in the US. The UN is even worse,with almost zero input by the constituents.
Internet governance is best delegated to corporations and individuals. Profit is merely a reflection of a company's ability to meet the demands (price, quality, performance) of their customers. Profit can not be demanded. Profit can not be stolen. Profit can not be fraudulent for long. Except when a company is given monopoly power by government mandate (schools, roads, etc).
The Internet is a group of individuals who pick an ISP. The groups of ISPs choose a backbone provider. The backbones choose to interconnect.
Why is governance needed? If a backbone decides to break away, customers and ISPs will choose another backbone. If an ISP decides to censor or charge too much, users can select another ISP (except when government forces zero choice).
There is zero need for government involvement, except to tax, regulate, censor and control.
If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." -- From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998
... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998
"This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." -- From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others
"Whereas Iraq has consistently breached its cease-fire agreement between Iraq and the United States, entered into on March 3, 1991, by failing to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program, and refusing to permit monitoring and verification by United Nations inspections; Whereas Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological capabilities, and has made positive progress toward developing nuclear weapons capabilities" -- From a joint resolution submitted by Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter on July 18, 2002
"Saddam's goal
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" -- National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998
"Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement." -- Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." -- Robert Byrd, October 2002
"There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we." -- Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002
"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs." -- Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will b
We disowned California a long time ago.
I think there are a lot of Americans collectively wishing for either Mexico to take it back, or to have it fall into the sea. Best case scenario, both would happen, and in that order.
I agree with most things that Oram says in this article. I have one quibble and one major disagreement I will put in another post.
.xxx (assuming it gets popular) is of no difficulty since it is easily connected with important facts you already remember about the site. On the other hand when tlds don't have much to do with content adding more of them can have a negative effect. If you know your favorite blog is computationaltruth.???/blog/ knowing the content or other facts about the site hardly helps you distingush between net, org and com. Since most people and all corporations want to achieve easy memorability when there is no obvious content (or other already known information) based discrimination more tlds can either just increase the confusion encouraging corporations to buy CORPNAME.* for all possible options. Worse too many tlds means some may fade into obscurity and fads keep the 'good' names just as scarce.
.xxx, .edu and .gov. Org and Com and Net are necessery general purpose names but that model shouldn't be followed with things like .biz which just sow confusion (is that a .com or a .biz)? The important question is whether there are enough good new content related tlds and that is something I don't know.
The quibble is that freeing up more tlds won't necessarily solve the scarcity of good domain names. If done incorrectly it could even make the problem worse.
The point of domain names is to provide a quick and easy way to remember and communicate internet locations. So long as tlds categorize sites into content relevant categories they do work to relieve the demand for domain names. For instance if you want to go to fuckedchicks (made up) your favorite porn cite remembering that it is in
Or to put it another way too many non-content related tlds make all domains harder to remember and hence don't solve the problem but just spread out the pain by making every name slightly worse.
So far it seems that the country codes (and perhaps some even smaller geographic codes) are good (in the sense above) tlds as are the
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
As I mentioned in an earlier post I agree with most of what Oram said in his article. I had one quibble about the solution for tlds but aside from that everything he said was correct. However, what he didn't say is even more important.
It isn't just commercial interests that make domain names such a hot topic. DNS is the only possibility for control and management of the internet and that makes governments all excited, especially totalitarian regimes and other countries who aren't big fans of free expression. Sure the internet itself may make complete censorship very difficult but control over the domain name system can make certain types of information practically impossible to access.
For instance imagine a body running the DNS system which decides to crack down on hate speech. They could deny a domain name to every site hosting hate speech (or if they wanted to go really hard core every site linking to hate speech by IP). Search enginge domain names are very valuable and a great deal of pressure could be exerted on google by threatening to take away google.com and give it to someone who promised not to link to offensive material.
While I'm not a big fan of hate speech I do think it is a great mistake to ban it. I think the suppression of racist speech in germany has only given neo-nazis an air of danger and mystery and spread the movement. Since many countries other than the US have laws against hate speech it is quite plausible a UN body might enforce such a scheme if they got control over the internet. Even more disturbingly is that a large number of countries would likely push to expand the definition of hate speech to anything which is sufficently critical of islam.
On the corporate front giving control of DNS to some UN body removes the first ammendment protections for parody and commentary from play. Right now there is some (minimal) legal protection for things like McDonalds-sucks. If it was run by a UN body it would not only remove the legal hurdles preventing the administration in the US (and other countries) from giving in to the corps but also make it so distant from voters that politicians could avoid any serious political harm from giving in (it wasn't me it was the global community).
Most ditrubingly is the fact that many of the biggest pushers for UN control over the internet are also countries with large censorship agenda's like china, iran and others (brazil is an exception). While a full on censorship scheme like I describe above is unlikely to be used against talk about democracy it could be against pornography. More likely, however, is that these countries will push to create a mechanism for per country censorship of domain names, e.g., DNS records will be required to include information about the type of content to allow easier censorship of their populations.
You can find analysis on my part and more facts/links .
Don't get me wrong ICANN is far from perfect but it is mostly incompetant and a bit corporate influenced which is a lot better than some of the possible alternatives. US record on free speech is also spotted, but then again so are most countries records, and the US has some of the best protections for speech the majority finds disagreeable. Moreover, I think DNS administration is safer in any western democracy than in some intergovernmental body where everyone can deny responsibility. I would rather just give the DNS system to england or germany than share it.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too: