Lessig on Internet Governance

tcd004 writes "Should the United Nations control the Internet? That's the subject of a heated debate slated to take place at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis later this month. The European Union is pressing for a U.N. role in governing the Internet, which is currently in the hands of a U.S. nonprofit. Lawrence Lessig breaks down the debate and offers his views. An interesting point: in order to participate in Summit-related events Lessig had to promise not to talk about intellectual property." From the article: "What people are afraid of is that there will be a split within the single hierarchical system which would result in two different populations of the dot-com domain name system existing out there. Then there would be a real conflict. My view is that if in fact there is a separation like that, there are a lot of incentives for these two separate roots to figure out a way to coexist. There would be lots of anger [when] you realize that you're not getting the IBM.com you expected. But there's no reason why you couldn't have multiple root systems."

Comments

Internet Success

[augustz]

The internet succeeded because of the lack of regulation. This was a tradeoff. The incredible value of not having to sign contracts to do everything, be able to innovate much more freely etc. The downside, piracy, websites that spew hate and all the rest.

I'm just curious if some group on the UN level asserts much stronger control over the net, it is such an obvious place to control things, could see a ton of impacts. Connect with WTO as a natural partner in the fight and voila.

Simple answer to this issue

[Mr. Sketch]

Remove .com, .net, .org, all TLDs

Yep, that's right. Just get rid of the whole TLD structure and make people go to .NN where NN is the country code. Let each country control their own country code. There would be .com.NN for the old .com, .org.NN for old .org, .net.NN for old .net, etc.

Just let each country control their .NN country code and have all the additional .whatever.NN they want. So if some countries want a .xxx.NN they can have it and if they don't want it, fine.

NOT currently in the hands of a US nonprofit

[fuzzy12345]

I can't agree that the the 'net's naming/numbering system is currently in the hands of a US non-profit. While ostensibly true, Verisign seems to have de-facto control, as illustrated by the recent "we promise to stop suing your ass into penury if you extend our .com monopoly until 2012" ( http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/25/19 19243&tid=95&tid=123 ) fiasco.

Pointing to a non-profit with broad representation (oh, wait, less broad than it used to be, isn't it?) on the board looks like a PR whitewash once we realize how easily the organization gets bullied around by financial stakeholders - it doesn't have a war chest or a strong organization behind it. Since the US government supports the status quo, I'm left with little option than to believe that Uncle Sam likes the way Verisign is currently running things. I'm not comforted.

Stop issuing .com!

[khasim]

Those TLD's were great back at the beginning.

But now, all new sites should be *.*.cc (slashdot.org.us).

The ONLY issue here is the .com, .org, .net (.edu, .mil, .gov) addresses.

Who cares? If the other countries don't want the US to control the .com addresses, they don't have to use them. They can setup their own root servers and manage them. Their ISP's can point to those servers and everyone in that country can bitch at their local government if they don't like it.

Country codes are far more scalable than .com, anyway.

Of Course You Can Have Multiple Root Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

But there's no reason why you couldn't have multiple root systems.

Of course yes when it comes right down to it, there's no one pointing a gun at my head or writing laws forcing me to point to DNS servers that point to DNS servers that all ending up someway or other pointing back to the root DNS servers stored in.... gods know where.

I can, and am free if I so choose, to point to DNS servers that are not connected to the root servers. Of course then slashdot.org could take me off on a whirlwind tour of a shady snuff movie site, but this is what I signed up to when I left the (somewhat effeciently) managed root DNS servers.

Now if a law gets past in the EU telling me I have to point my DNS to this "new" root server, then, given the extreme dependance of just about every net based program on my computer, the percentage of which increases daily, I can expect, for some time, extreme annoyance as essentially, nothing net based works. I can expect this irritation to continue until everyone in the EU sorts themselves out and things start working again. At least in the EU "subinternet".

Now you may say, "That why the DNS servers should stay under current (US) managment". However, consider this.

Let's say I live in a EU country. Let's pick one at random. Saayy... France. Let's say that France, for whatever reason, becomes involved in quite a nasty dispute with the US for whatever reason. Wine sales, say. Or France bans Holloywood movies.

Further assume that as a result of this, some smart alec in the DoC or on Capitol Hill, takes a patriotic stance and disconnects the French, and quite possibly EU DNS servers from the root servers. It's a fairly simple operation. Now, unless the French cave in, there will be no correct DNS for messers in France, and they'll be stuck with whatever demands the US would seek to impose before they can browse happily again.

Now I'm not French, or in France, so this doesn't bother me as such. But I will put you a middle case.

Supposing there was a website called, say, saddamhadnoweapons.org, or something. Suppose again, that the current US administration, takes exception to this sites content in some way. Now legally, it's unlikely that the administartion can force the DoC to take the address off the DNS servers for americans. But here's the thing? Could they force the site to not resolve for DNS servers not in the US? Mightn't this be legal?

Come to think of it, wouldn't they be doing this already for "sensitive" sites like military ones at some address?

Vint Cerf and Karl Auerbach

[Dotnaught]

I interviewed Dr. Vint Cerf and Karl Auerbach about Internet goverance and alternate roots recently. Not surprisingly, Cerf wasn't a fan of alternate roots. Auerbach, however, has some provocative things to say on the subject.

Re:The UN is too indecisive

[Pinkoir]

I think UN control of anything technological will fail. They take far too long to make up their minds, so any technological standards that need to be implemented will be agreed upon when they are obsolete

This isn't true. Take the example of high-tech automobile headlamps. The UN body responsible for global headlamp regulations (GRE) is very close to finishing rules that will allow for LED headlamps. NHTSA, which does the same thing in the US has completely given up on making _any_ LED regulations for the forseable future because it's so hard to get safety related stuff through congress. In this case the UN is far ahead of the US in technical rule-making and you can see evidence of this in the relative technology contents of a typical American vehicle and a typical European vehicle.

-Pinkoir

Re:Objection to UN control in a nutshell

[cryptochrome]

They block free speech today
in China.

That may be all they can get away with now, but what makes you think they would stop there if they could exert influence over the name system in other countries? There'd be no .tw domain for starters, I'll tell you that.

Cisco and the rest's complicity in China's censorship program is indeed disgraceful and should be punished, but off topic.