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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."
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.
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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.
remain in the hands of its creator, Al Gore.
Remove .com, .net, .org, all TLDs
.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.
.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.
Yep, that's right. Just get rid of the whole TLD structure and make people go to
Just let each country control their
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
I doubt having a bunch of arguing governments would be any better than having one incompetent government in charge.
In my opinion what is needed is three corporate based committees (US, EU, JP/Asia for example) each 'in control' of a portion of the internet roots.
Any disputes could then be resolved via a 3 way 'vote'.
Two things need to be avoided at all costs.
1. US government control (either direct or inferred)
2. A root split
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Well - it is broke.
How would the US feel if China or the EU could turn off www.whitehouse.gov by passing a law ?
Like it or hate it - the internet is now a critical bit of planetary infrastructure.
It needs fixing - but NOT through UN involvement.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
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.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Trust is a hard thing to maintain, it took years for the US to get the world to trust it, and now it's all going away. I don't expect much to happen w/r/t this issue today, but the future might hold something much more diverse/complex than today's internet... because the "borderless" nature of the internet wasn't compatible with the differing views on intellectual property of the nations of the world.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Those TLD's were great back at the beginning.
.com, .org, .net (.edu, .mil, .gov) addresses.
.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.
.com, anyway.
But now, all new sites should be *.*.cc (slashdot.org.us).
The ONLY issue here is the
Who cares? If the other countries don't want the US to control the
Country codes are far more scalable than
How many times are we going to discuss this topic? I mean I get posting it again IF there were some new/significant developments, but there aren't. Enough already.
Yet we see nothing about Riots in France, International Lawsuits against Apple over the IPod, Sony announcing no X-Box live-style servers, Meryl Lynch's analysis on how MUCH the PS3 is going to cost Sony, and the list goes on and on and on. There is some NEW news, its just we are getting it on Slashdot.
Does anyone else feel this way? About seeing this post again, and not getting to see other news that is worthy of discussion?
Any Internet governance system that gives up the current free and open nature of the internet (courtesy USA) in favor of a body that may contemplate censorship for any reason is unacceptable. In the case of the UN, the behavior of numerous member states with regard to regulating internet use has been unacceptable (including but not limited to France, Germany, and especially China), and therefore the UN cannot be trusted with this duty either.
If the UN ever adopts a satisfactory doctrine of human rights (including freedom of speech) AND enforces it amongst its member states on pain of expulsion, then I might reconsider. But as is realpolitik, not principles (never mind humanist ones), rules the day at the UN.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Lawmakers Support U.S. Control Of The Internet
Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet
EU Claims Internet Could Fall Apart Next Month
Internet Power Struggle Reaching Climax
EU, UN to Wrestle Internet Control From US
U.S. Insists On Keeping Control Of Internet
Why Talk About Internet Governance?
Behind the Fight to Control the Internet
And I wonder if we didn't discuss it enough ?
Why does it make a difference when a lot of websites are localised anyway?
.COM domains were resolved, they could point traffic to some other Google-looking destination totally under their control. Or worse, they could do that with messaging, banking, or other traffic. In a situation where something like the UN security council plays a role in these things, you might end up not getting your new .COM domain name registered until someone at the UN decides it's OK for you to have that domain name. And if, as they have now, China or another large presence doesn't like some aspect of new domain registrations, they might act to block them.
It's not about where the web sites themselves are (or are hosted). It's about what IP address you're pointed to when you type in "www.ibm.com" or any other address that depends on DNS to get you where you're going. Let's say that the Chinese government suddenly decides that they don't like how often Google comes up with information about human rights (well, they already have said that - but work with me here). If they controlled how
That's why.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
..avoid making tired, old, jokes, that turn them into mindless lackeys of political hacks.
This is over and done with. Can we please read this before making these jokes? Or maybe not make them at all? Or mod them down whenever they occur?
The technical answer, I think, is we need more addresses, so each enitity of control can have its own reserved range. IPV6 could solve the problem nicely, but we need a strategy for making the transition smoothly. Getting everyone to agree on that strategy is a problem.
FP: The EU and several countries say that their "nuclear option" would be to set up a rival ICANN, resulting in two standards for the Internet.
Homer^W Dubya: "Nuke-u-ler. It's pronounced nuke-u-ler."
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
But there's no reason why you couldn't have multiple root systems.
And there's no reason (except for the confusion it would cause) why we can't ALL be called Larry Lessig.
-larry
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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?
All the debate in the world won't change the single most important underlying fact, the US in the form of ICANN currently controls a tremendously valuable resource that they do not want to give up.
If they plan to debate, it should be on what kind of compensation they plan to offer in exchange for a piece.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
If the U.S. shut out Chinese websites, all China would have to do is set up their own internal DNS server to server their government sites (I suspect this is what they probably do already for government sites), and there is no way the U.S. could restrict access.
And China and EU CAN shut off www.whitehouse.gov, at least to their own citizens, by passing a law. They would just have to reconfigure their DNS servers. I suspect that they do this already, although not with www.whitehouse.gov.
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.
It's beginning to make sense to me... taking a stand against the US on an issue without severe economic impact. Testing the waters before taking a stand on issues with greater impact, like trade or fishing rights.
I think the reason is because the internet does have greater economic impact. It was fine for the US to run things as long as the EU had little to lose, but now as Europe has become more dependent on the internet, the stakes are higher and the fear from the EU is that the US has unilateral authority to damage their economies. On the flip side the US is afraid of giving up control because then some international organization will have the ability to damage the US economy.
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It's broken.
It was stolen by intellectual property attornies working for primarily three letter multinationals, mostly US based. They outspent everybody and captured the root zone via the DoC. You have no idea of tens if not hundred by now of millions or dolars they spent to do this.
Just out of curiosity why the gag order on Lessig about IP rights? Cough.
If you primary the root zone for yourself, this governance quesiton is not an issue.
Need Mercedes parts ?
"Well - it is broke.
How would the US feel if China or the EU could turn off www.whitehouse.gov by passing a law ?"
What does that have to do with the internet? That's a broken government thing, not a broken internet thing.
And if you think that fixing the internet by involving MORE governments is a good idea, especially when those governments will keep the internet "broken" and be able to "shut off www.whatevertheywant.com" in EXACTLY THE SAME MANNER AS THE US CAN NOW, then I can't really see how it's been fixed.
And the best part? Censorship is codified into the standards for the UN's version of the internet. How come you never bother to bring that up?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The question isn't "Should the United Nations control the Internet?" but "Should the USA control the Internet?".
It should come as no surprise that nobody wants the USA to control the internet except for some groups in the USA itself. By phrasing the question in a way where you can start summing up all the negatives about the UN trying to control it you are forgetting that there's a whole bunch of other negatives involved by keeping the root name servers under control of some (non-profit) corpation in the USA.
How can anyone expect the rest of the world to keep the USA in control of something as essential for 1st world economies as the internet. With a press of the button the USA could disable a large part of the economy in every first world country they choose, nobody is going to take that chance. The discussion is pointless in my opinion. To the international community there's no convincing reason whatsoever to keep control in one country. The only solution is to put in under control of an international body, the UN is a possibility, maybe a seperate organization is better.
If the USA does not relinquish it's grip on the root nameservers OR another satisfactory solution is found, it's a very very very high probability that alternate roots will come up. In the end it is a national security issue for anyone taking the time to research the ramifications.
They can do what they want with it. However that still doesn't give them the right to tell the US waht they have to do with their part of it. You can exert control over the part of the Internet you own, but don't presume you have a right to force others to do as you want them to. Thus the answer for those unhappy with the US root system is "make your own" not "the US should give their's up". Remember the roots DNS is largely a US operation. All but two roots are operated and paid for by either us private companies, univerisites or the government, and ICANN itself is a US entity.
I would actually very much like to see an alternate root system. Make it compatible or incompatible with ICANN, doesn't matter, but setup a large scale, credible ICANN alternative, then let people choose. I would say the best way would be to mirror the ICANN space, and then extend it, while of course allowing ICANN to mirror your extensions. I think it would work well to have a number of cooperative roots, each which mirror everything, but are only authoritive for a part of it. Then, if one of the root system had problems, they others could keep mirronring their last current version of their zone so nothing went down.
However it isn't right to demand that the US give up their DNS systems. The "but everyone uses it" argument isn't compelling. Everyone uses Google too, that doesn't mean that they should be forced to give themselves up to the UN.
So basically the European argument is:
1) We hate George Bush
2) We hate the Iraq war
=> France and China should control the Internet.
That above argument seems fairly crazy to me.
I think you can dislike George Bush without wanting the Chinese government to read your e-mail.
"in order to participate in Summit-related events Lessig had to promise not to talk about intellectual property."
Dear Doctor Jones,
The committee of the WHO invites you to open the World Summit on Global Health Policy with a brief speech. Please don't talk about Malaria, AIDS or other minor diseases.
Dear Senator Bloggs,
The Board is pleased to offer you the opportunity to open the World Summit on National and International Security. We request that you do not bring up irrelevant matters such as war and terrorism.
Dear Professor Smith,
The organisers are pleased to offer you the opportunity to present the opening address at the World Summit on Climate Change. We ask only that you avoid subjects not directly relevant - such as greenhouse gases, temperatures and sea levels.
There's no doubt that the US Congress is no speed demon, but as far as I know, there are very few, if any, issues before ICANN that require congressional approval. They're fairly autonomous, so there decision-making process is most certainly faster than any political body. The only valid question is whether or not ICANN truly acts in the best interest of the entire world. I personally don't know enough about the situation to have an opinion on that.
Correct on censorship and don't forget taxes. The UN REALLY wants the ability to start imposing global taxes on this or that. Give them control of a major part of the net, you'll see taxes and even more corruption, and this time with a body that has NO directly elected members by any "global citizen".
Bad idea. Normally, I think the US fed gov is sort of out to lunch in most matters, but *not* in this instance. The UN can go do something else with their spare time. The address system is working perfectly fine the way it is.
This isn't a case of moving control of the TLDs from a completely independent body to China, North Korea or Iran. It is a matter of moving control from a US controlled organization to a truely independent organization. As said in a previous discussion, it would be ludicrous to suggest that UNICEF is controlled by china to deny food to children.
.xxx controversy shows that it is not independent from US influence. It is not too much of a stretch to foresee there is a great potential conflict with US foreign policy. Consider the situation where Chinese seat at the UN was held by Taiwan (ROC) until 1971 despite the PRC taking over the entire mainland in 1949. In 1971 the PRC was acknowledged as being the rightful holder of the Chinese seat on the UN over the objections of the US. It is not unreasonable to imaging that if control of the .cn TLD was in dispute, the US might pressure ICANN to refuse to transfer control to the PRC. Even now, although most of Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban, the .af country code is assigned to the US supported government.
ICANN has done a pretty good job, but the recent
It is certainly true that ROC is a lot nicer than the PRC, but that is besides the point. It is also true that the official UN view of geo-politics is not always completely accurate, but it is closer to the global understanding than the US's.
The rest of it doesn't really matter. Google can find pirate software just as easily whether it's www.pirate-software-example.com or yarrrrr.co.jm or http://big-hosting-example.com/pirate-software/for sale.htm. UN control could theoretically let China close down sites that it doesn't like, such as falun-gong.com or possibly all of .tw, but it's unlikely.
The main change UN control could make is that ICANN has been dragging its feet on non-7-bit-ASCII internationalized character sets for DNS, which would be resolved in some manner relatively quickly (at least for China.) To cut ICANN some slack, one reason they haven't done much is that most of the proposed solutions are technically bad, except the proposals from Verisign/NetworkSolutions which are highly connected politically and technically suck even worse.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Exactly. Having things the way they are keeps a lot of the international politics out of the picture."
Boy does it ever. The Bush adminstration just nixed the last tld that was supposed to go intot the legacy root.
So instead we get US federal politics. Whoo hoo!
Need Mercedes parts ?
While at first I thought ICANN screwed up by not approving .xxx, I got to thinking and realized that it was a good thing, for exactly the reasons the UN wants to admin TLDs... .xxx is another TLD and whatever is allowed there would be based on US rules and morals, which are quite different than say what's allowed in Japan or Brazil.
.xxx.us or .xxx.br or .xxx.jp so each country can set the appropriate standards.
It would be better to have a
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.