Slashdot Mirror
Behind the Fight to Control the Internet
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The battle over control of the Internet and ICann (previously slashdotted here and here) gets placed in broader context in the Wall Street Journal. The article explains the role of 'other nations' discomfort with the U.S. as the world's only superpower, unafraid of taking unilateral action,' a fear intensified by the U.S.'s move to halt the introduction of .xxx domains for pornography sites. In a related column, Frederick Kempe opens the floor for a debate between the diplomat leading talks for the U.S., and the former journalist from Luxembourg leading the effort to move the Internet away from U.S. control. 'Today, in a globalized world in which the Internet has become a global resource for freedom of expression and for economic exchange, this monopolistic oversight of the Internet by one government is no longer a politically tenable solution,' Viviane Reding says. Kempe also suggests ways the two sides can split the difference."
Splitting up would probably be a bad thing - I dream of the old days of one domain registrar - now you have to jump through 13 hoops to update dns servers, domains, etc... Imagine if you have to do the same for IP? no thanks...
Yea, for about the 4th time. But since the subject is so inflammatory and gets about 600 posts each time, that means more ad revenue for Slashdot (well, except from those of us who use adblockers).
I'm surprised this hasn't received more mainstream coverage in the U.S. I've heard nothing from CNN, Headline News, Fox News, or MSNBC about this. I don't get CBC or BBC News here, so I don't know if they've covered it. Something with such wide-sweeping effects really should be getting an appropriate amount of attention.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I'm selfish. But I suspect I could be representitive of a fair chunk of the population.
I live in New Zealand, live for computers, love my internet, games(many violent), and my credit card gets a workout on porn sites.
My concern for many of the world's events is orientated around how it might affect my internet.
However, in NZ, our tech infrastructure is near 3rd world, We rank 22 in OECD broadband surveys. We have a fibre optic cable that runs from our coast to the US west coast(Oh how I wish they'd run it to Taiwan).
All this stirring by the US worries me:
- The re-interpetation of the US 2257 porn laws, with examples of prosecutions now. - The
The only saving grace might be the fact the cable runs thru us from Australia, who are effectively, just another state of the US now. Thus they need us.
I fear the US's attitude to that uppity free thinking(anti-nuclear) nation, New Zealand. Where the Crazy frog ring tone videos play at prime-time with his attributes non-censored.
I can hear the sound of US scissors snipping my beloved fibre optic cable.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
There is a reason why important jobs generally require years of experience...not just an education.
Other countries have been running root servers for many years, they just have been making sure the domains ICANN is running are in synch with the U.S. root server list. Also, most countries have been managing their own country specific TLD servers and allocation of domains for many years. Exactly what other experience, other than implementing a UN agreed upon, rather than US agreed upon root list would you like them to have?
" Other nations don't trust the US anymore. "
The truth is that the US doesn't trust the UN and for pretty good reasons. I do wonder how many "countries" really care about the US having root control. I am all for the US keeping control or the root domains but I would be willing to allow the UN to control it under some conditions.
1. No censorship of political or religious speech in any nation that uses the Internet. Each nation may establish rules on pornography.
2. Pricing to be set by the US and for it to uniform for all nations without any taxing of the rich nations.
3. Strict oversight of running of the DNS servers and a way for the US to step back in quickly if the UN fails to keep the infrastructure working.
4. The company and all employees of the UN running the root domains be held to US standards of financial reporting and laws on fraud.
If the UN and the EU want the US to hand over control of what it currently owns they need to make it worth it to the US. Isn't that fair. If not why should the US turn it over? Would it make the rest of the world love the US? Trust it? Nope. So give the US a good reason to do it besides "We want them too".
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
1) "solely responsible for creating the internet" well german more or less inveted the diesel motor. Why it is that the US do not consider that the german are sole inventor of the diesel motor ? Answer : Because once the genie is out of the bottle, and used by most economies as a "resource", you have no "special" or "natural" right anymore to control it. And german+diesel engine is not the sole example of inventsion coming from one country but then get its usage wide-spread.
.com search engine and ICANN, and the blow and settlement they got recently, and other small "incident", well it is not as clear cut.
As for your second arguement, seeing the stuff which hapenned with the
Additionally and most importantly. If the US has no intention of using its control/veto, why the hell its is so adamant into remaining in control ? I would wager that somewhere, someone in the US administration want to remain in control "just in case a switch has to be put on off".
2) as pointed by a +5 poster above , many country ALREADY have their alternate DNS server for their own domain name. Everybody asking for the control to be an international institution might just want to AVOID this problem of miscommunication. And before you serve again the old tired argument about the UN being bad, well, you know who handle the international phone communication standard ? I have a news for you : not the US neither the UK. And yet the telephone is one of such example cited in 1) above.
3) already happenned see 2).
Which, in turn, is trumped only by the arrogance and narrowness of vision of this statement itself. What you are implying is that without content from the U.S. of A the Internet is worthless and crippled. Have a slice of humble pie while you contemplate the creative potential of the billions of people who aren't between the right and left coast. If they choose fragmentation it will not mean imminent death.
.xxx domain than at a .com domain.
Except for one thing: it's not me making that argument. It's the "experts" and pundits *opposed* to continuing US control. They're the ones saying that a fragmented internet significantly reduces its value and utility. So your assumption that I'm somehow saying US content is more important is an incorrect one, and my statement is based on the assertions of *opponents* of US control warning about fragmentation.
ICANN should remain, and it should be free of government control. No "international bodies" or U.N. review or U.S. censorship because the christian right is more afraid of kids seeing boobies at a
How is it "censorship" if, as you imply, the content is still easily accessible via the same means it always has been?
More like the UN wants control so they can TAX people... Censor people.... etc
s /2005/10/17/dont_give_un_control_over_internet/?pa ge=1
More info here:
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/article
That's from the Liberal "Boston Globe" newspaper. No choir boys there... They hate this administration, but it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the UN being inept at doing anything correct.
"imagine a UN member with a lot of clout, and a very low regard for freedom of speech -- China, say. ICANN accredits the companies that sell domain names to Internet users like you and me. Suppose a democracy activist wants to register domain names like downwithchina.com. If China had a say in ICANN affairs, it could push to have such domain names prohibited."
That article speaks volumes, and is a HELL of a lot better written then the parent post.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
if .xxx comes to be, then material that now stays buried under the weight of "public decency" will suddenly have a legitimized place to pitch a tent, which will, one suspects, result in generally wider availability of more of it. (E.g., a red-light district puts more prostitutes on view.)
Umm, have you ever tried doing a web search? This town has more brothels in it than it does other businesses combined. You see, porn is legal, unlike prostitution (in most of the U.S.). And it is getting to the point where it's hard to find bagels because for every bagel shop there is a "girls doing nasty things with bagels" shop that you might stumble into. The idea of moving porn all to one TLD would simply be a huge boon for accurate discovery of both porn and everything else and anyone who is arguing against that, is most likely either simple minded or arguing from an ulterior motive.
No offense, but you example doesn't help your argument as far as I'm concerned. Does somebody really need a domain for photos of their 19 month old kid? Why not just a page on the family domain, or even on the ISP domain under their username? The domain namespace is pretty cluttered, maybe a higher barrier to entry would reduce the number of frivolous domains like that, and encourage people to use existing domains more effectively.
That said, there are a lot of (IMHO) appropriate reasons to have a small domain that still aren't worth $500. The technology is there to make life a little better for people, so why make it prohibitively expensive for many of those people.
Watch "Loose Change" and then tell me again who you'd like to be in control of "teh interwebnet."
The best coverage of the issue I've seen so far is from Foreign Affairs:
6 02/kenneth-neil-cukier/who-will-control-the-intern et.html
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84
They place it in perspective, but also point out the nations who are shouting the loudest are also the least free. Overall, a good read.
Lets see ICANN has been doing this around for 5+ years with no problems or scandals. And then imagine if UN did take it over, we would see "DNS TLDs for money" scandals. As for ICANN being under US control, you should take a look at their board of directors, notice how Americans are the minorities compared to the total amount of foreign directors.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Umm, God already has his own TLD on the non-ICANN free DNS system, but I digress.
.xxx is for special intrest groups, just like .biz, .aero and .pro TLD's that are currently under ICANN's charter. If you are going to pick on special interests, and if you really don't have a political/religious agenda, why single out .xxx?
You're right
If you want .XXX based solely on its POPULARITY then you must also accept a .GOD TLD, because sheer numbers say just as many people are into .GOD as into .XXX. And you must also accept a .NYC because, hey, New York is big, and lots of people would like a .NYC TLD. ad infinium[sic]
If there is enough interest in a .pee domain and enough traffic to that site to warrant it, I'm fine with it. The same goes for .kkk and .god. New York city already has a lower level domain and they seem to being doing just fine with it. Popularity is sort of like democracy no? If most people want it then it should be created, ala the will of the people, or have you come up with a better method of decision making? Perhaps a dictatorship where you make all the decisions for everyone else and decide which domains are too icky and which are acceptable? What the world is demanding is representation and a world body to make these decisions, rather than one country deciding for the whole world. Your religious and sexual hang-ups are no concern of mine, just don't try to enforce them on the majority who disagrees with you. You might want to talk to a shrink about them too.
You're suggesting the "play OUR way or we'll take our ball home" stragegy. Well, the U.S. seams to have plenty of balls of its own and doesn't need yours.
No one forced any one else to interconnect. The Internet started in the U.S. and others connected voluntarily.
Now, if DNS were developed in Helsini, .fi, things might have turned out differently...
Well, no, not really: the U.S. would have just seen the value of a distributed name service and started it's own.
So, do the same.
You could've hired me.
I thought extraterritoriality only applied to embassies and consulates and such, not to Internet hosts. That is, if a server is in another country, isn't it entirely subject to the laws of that country? Which means, I hazard, that any "controlling" US business interest can exert only so much "control" as the host country feels like allowing? Am I missing something here?
I mean, there's this odd recurring question I've seen of: "What happens if the US government turns Evil?" Well, in that case, what's to stop the countries in which these servers are actually located from seizing the servers and operating them as they see fit? In fact, seeing as how the entire DNS system is just basically a large collection of text files appropriate distributed, I don't see why, if the US government turns Evil, the rest of the world can't just reprogram the whole DNS shebang in about 10-20 days, tops. Problem solved! Or am I missing something again?