Slashdot Mirror
US Keeps Control of the Internet
Adam Schumacher writes "As a result of a a deal reached late Tuesday, the US and ICANN will maintain control over the Internet's core systems. A new body will be created to provide international oversight, which will, of course, have no binding authority."
I, for one, welcome our concern-addressing, no-binding-power-having overlords.
HA HA!!</nelson>
burn, baby, burn... karma inferno!
The IRS is the one organization that you don't want to fuck with. Remember, these are the guys who took down Al Capone.
World: We want to control the internet.
USA: No.
World: Come on!
USA: No.
World: Will you at least think about it?
USA: No.
World: If you don't we will be forced to make our own DNS systems.
USA: OK.
World: But that will break the internet.
USA: OK
World: But that would be bad.
USA: Then leave it alone.
World: OK. But we're making a committee.
USA: That's cute.
This
hahahaha
I get it! A *PUN*
DNS--->BIND--->"Authority"
It's too bad I just use a hosts file
(a really really BIG hosts file)
The United States built the thing, and it's not asking for control of all the stuff Europe built.
Le français vous intéresse?
Unilateralism "We will not under any circumstances..." seems to have won again.
What's less obvious, is why?
If the US believes it has national security interests in maintaining control of the Internet, that can only act to undermine the confidence of the rest of the world in the wisdom of using it as a public network.
If there aren't security reasons, has international negotiation come down to a contest as to who is the most macho.. along the now-common split between the US and the UN ?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
...to serve the internet? China?
What other nation of the world could guarantee the free speech implicit to the internet, as sites like slashdot are testament to?
We paid for it so this is correct.
Tim
AHH.. so the UN should be happy then!!
they can waste tons of money on useless and ineffective programs, treaties and resolutions, and atleast know that they "feel" better doing it, even if it doesn't do anything anyway.
Congrats for the UN..
US still does all the work.. and they get to sit around like the useless body they are.
I'm just waiting for all the stories in the American media with headlines such as: "We saved the internet", "Internet kept out of hands of cheese eating surrender monkeys!", etc etc
Seriously, this whole debate was decided by the pressure from big American IT firms and also the furore in the American press about this whole issue. Anyone less well informed than the average geek would think the rest of the world was planning to take the internet, rape it, tie some bricks to its legs and row it over the bridge with the way the press has dealt with this topic.
Another five years till this comes up again.. i'm hoping for a more democratic contest next time.
Hello.
I have connected my computer to my friend's computer with a coaxial cable. Does anyone want to connect to it, we can perhaps create another internet of our own? My friend has ha dc++ hub on it so we can share files and linux distros. My friend even wanted to call it Internet3, hehe.
The US owns the hardware, has all the control, and is expected not to abuse the power. And there's no one that's more powerful that can tell them what to do.
I don't get it.
Some of that content will be wrong, inflamatory, misguided, illegal, and/or offensive, but having that open forum means that a lot of good will show up, too.
antipaucity
I am rather happy the US gets to keep control over the internet. The last thing we would need is for some other European Country or Asian Country taking control and screwing things up. Even if they DO threaten to create their own DNS System etc etc etc, they won't. They would alienate themselves and be like:
"Look we have our own Internet system, what you gonna do now, US?!"
"We simply won't update to allow you access to the REAL Internet, mawahahaha!"
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Oh dear, conspiracy theories are gonna go for the illuminati stories again.
This seems to make sense for now that the US-based organisations remain in 'control' of key elements of internet naming/configuration. But it seems inevitable that one day (probably sooner than some people, and govenrments think) the net will have significant new power blocks among the developing nations/economies.
China, India and the EU will not always be willing to allow the US to control fundamental elements of the network. Also it seems sensible not to have gone further down the UN route, particularly at the moment, with the UN having difficulties demonstrating its organisational efficiency in other areas.
However we should start to consider how net governance (whatever form that should take) will develop in the future, before the future arrives. Just as China, India et al are in a hurry to explode economically they will also be in a hurry to move forward technologically too and if the US or others appear to be moving too slowly they may well 'go it alone' and develop competing networks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I suppose they mean Latin alphabet, yet Urdu and Arabic are both written in the Arabic alphabet (possibly with a few Persian-style letters more?). Anyway, I look forward to my first spam with a Chinese address. I can already see the scams: PCs without Chinese fonts that trick users into clicking on a blank link...
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
US: "That's the way it's going to be. Bend over, beeyotch!"
World: "Oh, thank you for reaming me one more time!!"
US: "No problem. When we're finished here, go get me a sandwich."
The rest of the world just let the US keep it until they can get their shit together, once they have hardware in place, it will become a moot issue and the internet will be a total clusterfuck. Yay!
This is great and all, but who's to say the argument won't spring up in another 3 to 4 years. The only reason ICANN actually has authority is because they say who has control of the root servers. If an international body setup their own root servers and decided they would all use them, then only the US would have control of the current roots. Then, if you wanted your website to look the same to the rest of the world as it does to the US, you would have to deal with both governing bodies (US and world). It could be a headache, and the only thing keeping the ICANN in control is that the majority of the world currently lets them be in control. It can be snatched away relatively easily.
Good, now that a choice has been made I can go pee. You know...because I have been waiting on the edge of my seat for this one.
*sarcasm* I never saw this coming. *sarcasm*
Now if the rest of the world is smart, they'll get to work on setting up plan B servers to bring out on a moment's notice and distributing the info to their big ISPs in case the US suddenly goes nuts. Which has the added bonus of giving the US incentive not to go nuts, and we can all feel better about it.
I love how the world's diplomats "agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge of the Internet's addressing system...." As if they had a choice. That's the UN for ya....
Indeed. Was that "built the thing" as in "work for hire" or "we had the idea first"?
Both are irrelevant, it's always "who has IT now" that counts, and lets just look at how much control ICANN actually has.... hmmm It has absolutely no respect anywhere and slight residual power that is likely to evaporate as quickly as it is used for anything significant in opposition to the rest of the world.
When you say "United States Built the thing" do you mean the same way as in "United States killed Iraqi civilians using white phosphor" and "United States contracts out tortue of suspects to other countries" or in the same way as "United States gave lots of help to Tsunami victims"
Just for the record, much of the internet was built and is owned outside of the USA. Don't forget what "inter" means, it strongly implies co-operation. And thats not co-operation in the sense that "man is co-operating with the police but has not been charged".
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
"... no binding authority."
I thought the EU had developed some plan to take it away from us. How typical. All talk, no action.
How much power does ICANN really have, though? Right now everybody listens to them, but I see no reason why people couldn't just set up their own organizations that performed the same functions, and use these instead. Of course, if they all moved in different directions, there would be big chaos, but as long as they all agreed with ICANN, the Internet would continue to work, right? And then, if ICANN ever took decisions that many disagreed with, people could just rely on these alternatives and bypass ICANN, right?
I know that such a movement already exists in the DNS world (see, for example, OpenNIC).
So, while I resent that one organization - worse, a corporation - has so much power over the Internet, I don't think it's as big a problem as it could be.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
For a moment I even thought - yeah, politicians are such @$#$%%^ that they can screw up absolutely everything.
But somehow we finished good - until next time.
I think in this situation we have lession, brothers - we (and I don't care about the OS, about software, about what care you drive or what your beliefs on global warming are) should spread the world that INTERNET should not be controled by NO politics. Repeat after, me - NO poltics. It is media - as paper, TV, radio. It is necessary for people. It is no more just sex.com or check out lyrics for that Britney song. It is for job, for communication with other dear ones. It is essental for many to survive (yeah, I am not afraid to say that).
So let's send big message - each one of us - to our "dear" politics - please DON'T F#$% WITH IT. Seriously.
Thanks for your attention.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
...perhaps you meant the commission?
Is this what Al Gore had in mind when he said ''There is no controlling legal authority''!
Private Sector will probably retain control of the Internet.
From the TFA:
And it hasn't even been ratified....this is just a preliminary decision.
Have a read of this the register article about the Pakistani Ambassador who made this possible.
My pics.
Hi,
Isn't the whole earth the USA? I was under the impression that every word, deed, and utterance was subject to USA law..... and this somehow changes things?
Your-most subserviant, humble, kowtowing, dry-handwashing, lick spittle
Evanism
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
The Slashdot crowd really intrigues me. On one hand we're adamantly against operating monopolistic tendencies in one regard (Microsoft with Windows and other software ventures), yet we cheer when another one is formed (US having control over the internet).
If there's a difference in philosphy here then can someone please point it out to me? I can't be the only one befuddled by the difference of opinion between the two issues around here.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
...Just look at the UN...
That's a really good solution.
.xxx. (Or something else that tries to inject one country's culture into DNS, which is absolutely unacceptable -- banning any domain names containing "nazi" would be another one that I suspect a few countries might try.)
.com wildcard problem? Where *all* .com addresses always resolved...just much of the time, to a Verisign-run machine with a webserver with ads? If there is a second DNS infrastructure that can be transferred to in an instant, that would put pressure on Verisign not to abuse the DNS system.
While I think that the US has done a pretty good job so far of staying hands-off, and I don't think that many countries would do as good a job, it's not impossible that in the future they'll start to abuse their position and do things like
Second, it's great leverage against Verisign.
Remember the
Finally, IIRC, we use the ISO country codes for CCTLDs. That's probably the thing that most countries want to have input on, since it allows them to legitimize claims to country status in the public's eyes. As long as ISO codes are used, the DNS world isn't making any huge political statements -- it shoves the political burden off to ISO (who probably doesn't want that, but it produces separation of red tape and techies, which is a good thing).
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
If you really think that Europe is for some reason "less free" than the US, than I would suggest you take a look at the http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15333"> Worldwide Press Freedom Index, which lists it in a solid 44th place on the index of freedom of the press, which is mainly what you are talking about when you discuss speech on the Internet, since it is a form of press.
The US has really dipped a lot in this lately (20 places in the past year).
As the majority of people here know, this debate was not about who controls the Internet, but which countries have authority over the body that controls the central DNS servers.
Frankly, I couldn't care one bit where ICANN is based, just so long as politicians bloody stay away from it! If you don't understand it, then it might not be a good idea screw about with it, especially when all of the experts are telling you not to. How hard is this concept to grasp?
To its credit, the US has been quite good about not fucking things up... so far. However, I rather fear that the political fuss over the xxx domain may be the tip of a rather ugly iceburg.
Off topic...but funny as hell.
what?
I think the US should put the top level domain servers under international control the day after all the Middle East countries put their oil under international control. It's the same sort of idea, since the whole world has a vested interest in oil just like it does the Internet. Why shouldn't EVERYONE have a say in how it's used?
Sacre Blue! There are thousands of denial of service attacks happening! Ok, we need to surrender now, and shut off the internet!
If the other parts of the world want control of it they should have invented it first ;-)
Kim Jong Il: Hans Brix? Oh no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans!
Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won't let me enter certain areas.
Kim Jong Il: Hans, Hans, Hans! We've been frew this a dozen times. I don't have any weapons of mass destwuction, OK Hans?
Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.
Kim Jong Il: Or else what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.
Kim Jong Il: OK, Hans. I'll show you. Stand to your reft.
Hans Blix: [Moves to the left]
Kim Jong Il: A rittle more.
Hans Blix: [Moves to the left again]
Kim Jong Il: Good.
[Opens up trap, Hans falls in]
I know how these "internationalists" work. First they'll form this forum or committee or whatever, that has non-binding powers. But once the committee is up and running, they'll never shut it down, and in a decade or so they'll find some excuse to start beating their drums to give it more oversight capability.
Someone needs to put their foot down firmly. While people are free to form whatever little "international internet gossip" knitting circle that they want, the message should be put out that this group will have even less insight to internet governance than the public at large, and all communications from this body will be treated as less than spam.
Do not grant the slightest bit of recognition or credibility to this thing.
with blackjack and hookers.. ..or just with it's own trusted DNS Root servers..
It is not about free speech, it is about the $3B that the domain name business makes. Today china blocks IP addresses, it probably also blocks outgoing DNS requests to a blacklist of sites, having it manage the .cn suffix would probably not change anything for the chinese people's freedom of speech.
If anything, a distributed management could ensure that even sites that violates some US law could be accessed as long as it is hosted in some other country. I don't think that a judge can today request that a certain domain should be erased from the root DNS servers, but who knows what could happen in the strange reality distorsion of the courthouse ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
IP allocation by country.
USA: 1.3 billion. UK: 254 million. Japan: 141 million. China: 72 million.
Something is going to have to change here.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
As a UKian, I'm quite pleased that the UN has decided it cannot stick its nose in where it doesn't belong. I think the USians have every right to maintain control of ICANN. It's their gosh-darned system, ain't it (largely)? They made it - they run it (quite well, all things considered) - I think a modicum of gratitude and respect is merited for this. (Please don't mod me down - I'm actually being very honest!)
Let those who don't like it go build their own internet. Then we'll have internet, and "internet B", and probably "internet C". You'll have to pay a special connect fee, akin to long distance phone charges, to talk to another internet. You didn't make it. You didn't fund it. Stop your bawling! Hmm, kind of like back in the BBS days... (Yes, I'm old!)
Have you heard about the Hooters application process? They hand the girls a bra and say "Fill this out."
Ahead of the summit, rights watchdogs say, both Tunisian and foreign reporters have been harassed and beaten. Reporters Without Borders says its secretary-general, Robert Menard, has been banned from attending.
Assuming this is even true, how is it you're making the connection between what some activists are claiming and some sort of US culpability? Freedom of speech has no better home than in the US, and that's exactly why it's so important to keep root DNS where it is. Left up to Europe, or to China, etc., we'd see the more of the same harsher speech-limiting behavior that we already see in those places. Do you really think that reporters in Tunisia have more to worry about from the US than they do from their own government? The whole idea here is that by keeping the root DNS where it is, the government of Tunisia won't have as easy a shot (via the UN) at limiting where people can go online to read news and opinions from everyone about Tunisia.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's part of the problem. We did listen to everyone else. We believed the French and German intel that also claimed that Saddam had WMDs. The difference was that we acted on the same, shared bad intel.
It's a good job the USA has a patent for the internet or someone else could make it cheaper and better
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
All your base are belong to us.
But the slashdot moderation process creates effective censorship
No it doesn't, you can always adjust your display preferences and read absolutely everything.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Let's be clear about one thing: America is no longer a western democracy. It tortures people, imprisons people without trial and bombs civilians. Why are people on Slashdot happy that this country has power over the currently used DNS system?
It'll be great! Kinda of like the UN!
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
God I hope that was sarcastic.
... solving a problem is identifying the problem you want solved.
What has ICANN been doing that's needs fixing?
From what I've heard, they've been doing pretty good work. Sure, there have been some WIPO conflicts, but that's to be expected. But on the whole, I don't see a need for change.
Chip H.
Damn Bush.
Even the most visible "enemies" of the US (and I say "enemies" with tongue firmly planted in cheek) all have websites. Wouldn't it make sense that, if the US government were the least bit interested in seizing control of the Internet, these "enemy" organizations would have been kicked off a long time ago?
As has been stated before, the US government does NOT control the Internet. If it did, I would be fully in favor of rallying against the oppressive, gluttonous, neo-imperialist regime and wrestling the power from them. But it doesn't, so I'm not.
God, hippies, everywhere, no, stop.
Why must we maintain control? Well, we built it. It is ours. You don't get to ride for free. If you don't like it, leave and start your own. I would much rather have one country running the internet than it turn into another UN fiasco. What programs have the UN ever run that has not been wrought with corruption and mis-appropriation of funds?
Also, when has international negotiation not been about who is most macho? I can't think of a time... even before the UN.
Say, whatever happened to the ".xxx" TLD anyway, the one ICANN wanted to adopt but US christian politicians destroyed through their indirect influence over ICANN through the US chamber of commerce? Free speech, eh?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Yep, that is why the US has "free speech zones"... Wake up, your country isn't better than the others, honestly. And, just for the record, I don't want the EU or China to control the Internet, but the UN. If you don't see a difference there...
Concerning my accusation the violence was US-initiated: Who has a history of killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents, the US or the UN?
It is not THAT something is controlled by one entitity, it is HOW something is controlled by that entitity. MS is not bad for who they are, they are bad for what they do.
Dammit, it's "food trough water", not "wiper"!
I need a life.
Canada could host Internet!
We are free in Canada!
Oh, and some guy from Finnland called. He says he wants his operating system back.
Gore is the guy who set up ICANN to begin with. He's buddies with Cerf and all the other US graybeards Friends-Of-Postal oldtimers.
Although if he were president, the US christianazis would trying to politize US Internet control, which would make things soo much worse. Gore possibly would consider handing it over to the UN just to keep it out of the hands of Pat Robertson.
It's nice to see that newly created Internet Governance is starting things off on the right foot!
Ahead of the summit, rights watchdogs say, both Tunisian and foreign reporters have been harassed and beaten. Reporters Without Borders says its secretary-general, Robert Menard, has been banned from attending.
Fantastic! I don't know about you, but I can't wait to for my new internet tax, limited connectivity, filtering, monitoring and suppression. w00t!!!
more goodness at reporters without borders
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=20
Ahead of the summit, rights watchdogs say, both Tunisian and foreign reporters have been harassed and beaten. Reporters Without Borders says its secretary-general, Robert Menard, has been banned from attending.
These people are obviously qualified to run the Internet. Pity they won't get the chance.
Go somewhere random
... is it any wonder the rest of the world doesn't trust you?
Because if the UN had control of it who knows what would happen. The UN can barely function itself, much less manage the internet...
-everphilski-
The internet/packet switching is arguably the greatest communication invention since the telephone. To think that anyone who invented it would give away control of it doesn't understand the power that one has by controlling it. In a greedy capitalist society, to give up control of the internet would be called 'socialism.'
e t.php
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism "Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that a society should exist in which popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production."
If someone else doesn't like the fact that the US invented and controls it, they should invent their own protocols/switches/languages and start their own system, right? Because the US is not just going to give up control that easily.
Good article to read on this:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/29/business/n
"The United States argues that a single addressing system is what makes the Internet so powerful, and moves to set up multiple Internets would be in no one's interest."
Unless, of course, you find it interesting to set up your own Inter/extranet.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I think it is horrible that reporters where attacked, but why are you blaming the US for this? In all the articles I've read about this, it has been clear that the US had no say in where the summit was held. The UN decided to have the summit in Tunisia for its own reasons. The reporters that were assaulted/harrased/arrested where not even reporting on anything that the US cared about. So it makes no sense to say that the US had anything to do with the attacks and the banning. The reporters were all reporting on the human rights abuses of the Tunisian government. Which the US government is not happy with. So there is certainly no reason to blame the US for the problems reporters had in Tunisia. It's not like Tunisia is an extension of the US.
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. -- Alice Kahn
A summit focusing on narrowing the digital divide between the rich and poor residents and countries opened Wednesday...
Apologies for the awful heading, but this conference was initially to discuss the above. It could be noted that certain countries preferred talking about the easy to bash US point, rather than the complex issues involving the intended focal point of the conference. Perhaps some of these afore mentioned countries have their own issues regarding who of their own people can see, and what their people can and cannot see, using this US - Rest Of World argument as an easy way of getting out of discussing their own policies towards internet governance.
Gosh, I was getting worried there. :)
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
...With blackjack, and hookers! In fact, forget the Internet.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Remember, it was the UN who carried out the weapons inspections in Iraq, which determined that Iraq did not have any WMD. The USA "knew" the UN was wrong and took action anyway, which has lead to the mess today. America is not a functioning country. Did you know that 20% of the American people believe the Sun orbits the Earth? These people should have control over the DNS system?
I agree it was knee-jerk reaction, but when the US achieves it's goals (keeping control), despite the fact that it is against the interest of the rest of the world, my first tought is bullying. And then I read about reporters who were beaten and not allowed to attend. Sounds like someone didn't want them in on the talks... Who might that have been? Couldn't have been the world bully^H^H^H^H^H^Hpolice?
Knee-jerk, unfair and certainly not in-dubio-pro-reo, but my initial reaction nonetheless. I apologize for breaking argumentative protocol on this one.
UN: "Please stop breaking into the DNS servers." ...months later...
...months later...
Hacker: "Ok."
UN: "You have broken in again, please cease and desist or we will be forced to write a resolution."
Hacker: "Ok"
UN: "This is the third time you have broken in; please see the updated resolution stating our resolve to enforce the previous resolution. We are going to send you a nasty letter, you know."
Hacker: "Why don't you secure the server?"
UN: "Resolution UN1231-123-122.1 to upgrade security has passed. We are ok."
Hacker: "No you're not, the server is still open."
UN: "But we have a resolution."
Hacker: "um...."
UN: "Don't push us or we'll send in the men in blue."
Hacker: "The Smurfs?"
UN: "Mind you, our security force is top-notch, they have cans of mace and can insult your mother."
Hacker: "right..."
Hacker: "Do you want some Pay-Pal dollars?"
It's not, and never was, popular speech that needed protection. Until you can freely depict a public figure in the rest of the countries in the world losing their virginity to their mother in an outhouse, and promote a neo-nazi party with genocide of the impure as one of your planks, and blow the whistle of all manner of henious corruption, might I politely suggest you go fuck yourself in the ass with an arabian stallion when you ignorantly muse that all democracies have the same sense of propriety when it some to letting people say what they will. Because rational people might not have use right now of what the majority considers irrational amounts of freedom does not asure us that this will always be the case. That you don't wish to use it, fine. Shut the fuck up and be merry then. That you would deny it to other people, for your failure of imagination, and an imagined nationalistic inconvience, is the consent to tyrany. And in the end, that spills blood.
There's no law of man that demands foreign ass-clowns point to US DNS servers. They should feel free to punish their people with whatever henious contrivances they can muster through byzantine legislative procedures. Just leave us out of it.
Sheesh ... nationalism/patriotism is just inserted into you to control you, just as religion was in midieval times. All of you are been brainwashed, be it by everyday 'pledging allegiance' in the states or other respective brainwashing in other countries.
It's only a model.
... with this issue is that it seems like there is some sort of systematic slander campaign in the US press to make the UN look bad. This thing has gone so far that now every time when someone mentions anything related to the UN, the most vocal part of the crowd will yell things about food for oil program and how the UN is The Great Evil. I don't know, how common this negative attitude is overall, but it's clear that the age-old attitude against the UN is raising its head again.
It has been interesting to see, how surprisingly many will state that the UN is same as the EU, which it isn't, and how ignorant the general population can sometimes be. (To these people I would recommend to take a quick look to the world history and how things have built up.) All this however is (at least in my opinion) a clear sing of some sort of anti-EU attitude that is growing in the USA and this can turn into something bigger and worse in the future. It looks like that the USA would really like to cut all connections to the outside world and start living in the isolation. This is especially sad, because there seems to be more and more issues nowadays that require international co-operation between countries. So, all this anti-EU and anti-UN crap I have seen lately is doing nothing good to anyone.
Personally, I don't care how is controlling the Internet as long as it is kept free and functional for everyone. Things have been working pretty decently so far, so why to change anything. But what I care is this ignorant mentality, which seems to color news stories related to EU or UN.
Finally, as far as I know, the UN is not a "nation". It doesn't have a nationality. This seems to be a thing that most people tend to forget. Also, I have understood that the UN does not have a single body or single agenda, which it is trying to pursue. The UN was designed to be a democratic organisation with different sub-organisations, which try to improve this world we are living in. Yes, sometimes some individuals might have some selfish motives, but in the general, the UN was meant to be something completely different what American people seems to think.
OK, now I stop this ranting. Sorry if my opinions hurt somebody. And sorry about my bad English. It just pisses me off to see this black and white thinking I've seen lately when reading news and forum postings.
Why not have a .porn domain? That's what the content is anyway. There's a .info domain, so it's not as if they're sticking with the 3-letter format.
:-)
I know this doesn't reduce the influence of the Christian fundamentalists. I just hate seeing the symbol of Amsterdam being used to denote all things porn. This is a USA/UK thing; Amsterdam's a lovely city and the smut isn't the thing you'll best remember it for
How typical of so many African and European countries, sit idle and watch the US pay for it, then demand a part of it.
I'm going to start my own, with IPv6 and hookers.
Nah, Forget the IPv6!
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
As far as I know, ICANN already has comittee called Governmental Advisory Committee (http://gac.icann.org/) - how would this be different?
It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end. -Douglas Adams
Damned US imperialists!
Funny how that flamebaiting garbage get's an insightful mod. Think a similar post that had said "Take that you whining pieces of Eurotrash" would have gotten modded up? Fat chance in hell.
And yes, this post of mine is completely offtopic and will probably get modded down. Oh well! Hope the champ who modded up the parent pays for it in M2.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The siblings are missing something here. This only makes sense if you abandon the philosophy upon which the internet is built. The founding principle of openness is just as important as the fundamental technology.
How much hubub has been raised around China trying to sensor its part of the internet? Perhaps not enough, but the paradigm you suggest would allow a state such as China to choose not to make any peering agreements and flood the local "intronet" with its own propaganda. It would become just another state run news outlet.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
So does this mean that the Internet isn't going to fall apart now, like the U.N. was predicting?
Or more precisely, the Internet isn't going to break like the UN threatened to do. Of course, such a move would have carried little (if any) weight. US netizens would continue about thier business, mostly oblivious to the loss of the rest of the world (except for email, that would be a pain) while the rest of the world screams bloody murder at their stupid governments because they can't reach many of the sites they use daily. (Slashot being an example of this.)
That's assuming, of course, that the member countries actually had any way of shutting things down. They have control over their domains, but the machines are still handled by ICANN. Attempting to sieze those machines would have meant police or military escalation. And even then, they still couldn't break much. They would then need every DNS server to redirect to a new root server controlled by the UN. (Since it's doubtful that the UN could gain access to the primary root servers.) They could redirect the IP address, but then things would get even dicer for them, and increase the yelling and screaming from the populace.
In the end the UN did the right thing. They stopped throwing a hissy fit and let sleeping dogs lie in exchange for a token method of voicing their opinions on DNS allocation. Did it buy them much in actual authority? No. However, they now have a central method for disseminating any complaints to the public. (i.e. Rueters: "UNCANN, released a press release today [criticizing/congratulating] the latest moves by ICANN.")
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Given that once you get onto the Internet there is no charge to surf websites (unless it is a pay site) why does it matter (for this case) who controls the domain names? I mean if the UN is going to control it (something the US pays most of the money, but has least of the votes into) does that mean some poor farm family in the rural area's of China will suddenly be able to get a computer and inet access? The UN doesn't need this control right about now...they already have plenty of problems trying to control, well you know, despots.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
LEEEESSSSSS!!!!!
Whose freedom are you talking about? Certainly not mine! Private monopoly capitolists took over ICAAN years ago and are using it to forward their own ends. The United States let this happen when they let it get out of the hands of the military and let colleges on to ARP-NET. Then the United States said nothing when the colleges broadened access to the public. That let ordinary joes into it. Then when big businesses like micro$$$ realized big money was to be made in this, these worthies maneuvered governments and existing agencies to transfer control of ICAAN to these MPAA and RIAA affiliates that control it now. Why not let the United Nations have it. Then we users would no longer be subject to monopoly capitolists like they are now, but to a world full of tin horn dictators that all hate each other. These characters would spend all their time fighting each other and allow us to flourish in the hope that our activities would 'burn the other dictator'. Through the United Nations, which I trust more than the United States of microsoft and thier sock puppets likt the senators from Utah who openly are card carrying agents of the MPAA, we the people of the whole world would have a collective voice that could never be fully silenced. There would be too many politicians to be bought; these might not stay bought; and they would change frequently as governments change so the new ones would have to be bought/blackmailed all over again. Then there was the story of attendees getting beaten up by agents of the governemnt of some private para-military force. Who are these, the RIAA/MPAA secret police?
"the Internet's core systems", "control of the internet", "the internet's core infrastructure"
What the hell, people? What's so hard about saying "the DNS root zone file" anyway? I thought this was slashdot, not channel n morning news. All the above descriptions are horribly misleading anyway (the infrastructure of the internet is distributed among and controlled by many disparate owners, public and private alike).
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
Not to start a political war, but just to provide a counterpoint to yours: there are some in the world that would say the same about the US. I'm not saying that's MY opinion of course, just that your statement can apply to both MS and the US depending on one's perspective.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
The difference would be we wouldn't be as smug as you.
France? Germany? Not likely. Can't even discuss Nazi history there. Can't trade Nazi memorabilia.
I'm getting sick and tired of Americans thinking they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. And enough with this bashing of Germany and Nazi's, geeze, like the Americans didn't do the same basic thing to the Natives. Apeerently you forget about them whenever you want to be all high and mighty at what the Germans did to the Jews.
And dude, wtf, why are you trading Nazi memorabilia anyway?
Nobody would say a thing if ICANN were French or Belgian. The fact that ICANN is based in the US is at the heart of this controversy. In many countries, not just South American countries, it's good politics to attack the US.
All your Internet are bleong to US
Oh great, the U.S. just decided to donate 25% of their IP addresses to Sub Saharan Africa. Now I gotta dick around with NAT all day while Mugabi and his fuckwads get to surf pr0n from a Class A. Fuck that!
We believed the French and German intel that also claimed that Saddam had WMDs.
What parallel universe are you from?
German and French governments many times claimed they did not see evidence that Saddam still has WMD -- even after seeing Powell's so-called evidence. You can't say that much clearer.
We did listen to everyone else.
Yeah, "listened" but ignored everybody else's advice...
I don't need a signature.
...This is one Brit who is more than happy that the US is still in charge. They built it, they run it well and the EU would only mire it in bureaucracy.
Radio on your iPod
U.N. you have a problem with that? You know what you should do, you should sanction me. Sanction me with your army.
OH! WAIT A MINUTE! YOU DON'T HAVE AN ARMY!
I guess that means you need to shut the fuck up, that's what I'd do if I didn't have an army. I would shut the fuck up.
SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.
It doesn't really matter, because all we need is P2P, one day noone will need DNS and WWW.. no popups, banners, and similar crap..
99% of internet will soon be p2p
The French, Germans, and Russians have the morally superior position of being paid off by the world's most brutal living dictator.
(OH NOES BUSHITLERCHIMPY IS THE DIkTATOR Of the AMERIKA!)
For all the people on this post saying "The UN" or "The World" wants this, that is not true.
I'm an Australian, living in London. I find the idea of the UN running this very scary. An indepedent american body is far preferable.
The UN have a very chequered history. Seldom do they stand up for the Big Issues. Take as an example the decision to withdraw UN troops from Sinai in 1967 on the wishes of Assad. Take whatever view of the subsequent war you want, but the UN caved in to the demand to remove peacekeepers.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the US does indeed have more influence over the rest of the world than Europe (or any other single entity).
Right or wrong, the US has enough economic clout to influence political decisions (virtually all international political decisions are ultimately based on a nation state's economic interests). Europe does not yet speak with one economic voice in many cases.
And it doesn't hurt that the US is the only entity that has a military capable of injecting itself enmasse almost anywhere in the world. Always useful when diplomatic means fail :-)
And the UN was acting on the same intelligence. There is a big misconception in the US that the UN hasn't been punishing Saddam. The truth is that it has been doing that for years, ever since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, through economic sanctions, in a bid to limit Saddam's power, and save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Most of the world wasn't against the US in punishing Saddam. They were against the use of force without convincing evidence. Turns out they were right.
I don't really understand why the American public looks down at the UN. Probably because they don't understand its role. Over the years it has done a great job in many places. It's not perfect, of course, but it's always ready to take on the dirty jobs that no one else wants.
How about letting each country make up its own mind? It could work easily. However, it would require retiring .com, .gov, .edu, .mil, .org, .info, and so on. Instead, they would be replaced with a country suffix (.com.us, .org.ca, .mil.cn, etc.). That way, each country could have control of its own domain name space. I suggest this would have little, if any, effect on the common usage of various Internet facilities. As evidence of this, just look at a page of google search results. It is most likely uncommon for the vast majority of visitors to that site to pay much attention, or even read, the domain names. By and large, people don't care if the link they click goes to www.ibm.com, or www.ibm.com.uk. They are more concerned with whether or not the search results are in line with their expectations. This phenomenon is more abstract, and focused on the experience of the people searching the internet, and less focused on the structure of the internet. Its more about whats out there than how to get there.
.com, .org, and so forth, people will become confused, but a more accurate assertion would be that people don't pay that much attention to the domain names in the first place - they are more interested in the content. Thus, retiring the non-geographical TLDs will facilitate local control of domain name space, also facilitating self-determination and allowing the global dns to be more de-centralized, like the Internet itself. DNS disputes could then be resolved locally as well. Hence, if walmart is upset with the domain name 'www.walmartisbad.org.mn', they would need to take its issue up with the government of Mongolia, which could decide for itself what, if anything, should be done. There are obvious downfalls to this approach, but its strength is that DNS would no longer be under one organization's thumb. Entities outside the US would not need to concern themselves with internal US affairs when examining or considering the status of their DNS holdings. Of course, in cases where their local government may have more stringent DNS controls, this may be a disadvantage. But, its always their options to seek opportunities elsewhere, either to the pleasure or not of the local government.
This would follow the moer general phenomenon of how computing facilitates the increased abstraction of data. This is something that will continue long after Moore's law has become irrelavent. Increased abstraction of data will also mandate changes in how data is handled, and existing sociological structures will have to change as well in their approach, or give way to new structures. As the RIAA and MPAA are just starting to learn.
Likewise, DNS will need to change. After all, when DNS started, it had top level domains for countries, and top level domains reflecting the nature of the organization holding the name. One for where you are, and one for what you are. These two different aproaches aren't all that compatible, and the 'what you are' TLDs shouldn't have existed in the first place. Why should universities in the US get the privilege of being a '.edu', and all other universities in the world need to be '.edu.co'? While the arguement can be made that the US started the Internet and 'deserves' special privilege, the end result is inconsistant the the nature of the Internet itself, and this confrontation was inevitable, and will only get worse.
br> Now, one may say that without
This way, if a country chooses to reign back their involvement in the Internet, they miss out on the numerous benefits, too many to list here.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
That's pretty much what you have now, except that traffic between networks is pretty much equal in both directions. You saw what unequal traffic levels do with the Level 3/Cogent thing last month. Things like that would only become more common if you had countries getting in pissing contests; it's a lot harder to change countries than change Tier 1 providers.
And the obligatory "Yay free markets!".
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Let me just say: Woo-Hoo! Yay!
This is probably the best result we could have hoped for. We get to retain control while having a somewhat legit ear to outside concerns (that we don't necessarily have to do anything about if they are being unreasonable). Yay!
Maybe the UN should take over the microsoft board. Perhaps Linux should be internationally governed. You think there are bugs now!!!!
He means that you can't freely discuss nazi history in Germany or France. One could hardly call that freedom of speech.
America also beats, and even tortures people who it doesn't like. Why is America better than Tunisia?
The US to gets to do things, and the UN gets to talk about doing things. Each ends up doing what it is best at. This is a win-win situation.
No it doesn't, you can always adjust your display preferences and read absolutely everything.
Both statements are true. You neglected to mention that if you post too many comments that get negatively modded, then are you banned from posting, which is censorship
Plus, there's all sorts of rules about posting that depends on your karma score, which is a system of censorship here.
Awwww you poor baby communists (China), socialists (in Canada and the EU), and thug dictators (in Africa and the Middle East). Looks like you're going to have to find some other way to censor, oppress, propagandize, and brain wash your people. So sorry for you.
The free network as we know it is over. Other countries are just going to brake away and form their own private "networks." I can just see it now twenty years later. The United States, Europe, and Asia each have developed their own completely incompatible solutions. Well at least maybe there will be a bridge to connect them together. Well, it was fun while it lasted, so long internet!
The USA government may love to regulate things into bureacratic ineffiency, but they still don't do it as badly as the rest of the world! Here's to a (somewhat) free Internet!
I for one welcome the continued presense of our existing ICANN overlords.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I dunno, let's try it.
{in best Jon Stewart voice):
DAMN YOU WHINING PIECES OF EUROTRASH!
Can you modd a topic Troll -1? It seems everytime this comes up it gets over 500 comments. I'll say 650. Anyone else care to wager?
Stop! or I'll yell Stop again!
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Al Gore. Because according to "Dubya" he invented it!
He can't have it back unless he pries it from my cold dead body and even then the GPL won't let him.
You're nuts right .... the root servers are scattered all over the world and run by volunteers. Not ICANN. There would be no military seizing of them.
The internet was invented by Al Gore, an American, so it belongs to America.
end of discussion.
The Donald runs this Pentagon. You need look no further than the Iraq war and its buildup. If you think different, you're living in a different decade from the one I'm posting to /. in. :)
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
I find this funny
I am a US citizen, and did support the war (although I supported it on the basis that Iraq had basically violated a bunch of UN resolutions). I wrote this comment as a joke, it goes back to arguments I've had on IRC with some European friends of mine. In this case I took their side of the matter, but I only meant it as a joke. I read a comment farther down on here stating that the US is the best place to have the internet because this is the only place it will be free and unmodified (+5 Insightful). The part that I find funny is that my comment, an anti-US comment meant as a joke (it's not like the argument was even defended in the comment with some made up point, which in my mind is what a troll does) was modified to -1 troll, and at this point placed in a point where no one will ever read it. My guess is that the ones who modded the comment as a troll are Americans, so it makes me wonder if really we are the best for freedom of speech when we can't even take the slightest bit of criticism without getting upset.
When I just now tried posting, I wasn't allowed "Due to excessive bad posting."
Of course the US is the best place. It means that anyone with the money can get a domain name. US corporations are like cheap trick whores, they'll blow anyone for 20 bucks.
comes Internet3 or the "UNternet", internet 3 will contain new features such as
IPTape- The new IP scheme where you need to fill out forms to fill out fourms to send the packets.
TCParalize- The new 500 point handshake tool. Now not only is the handshake between your server and the server, but a councel of servers will vote to see if your packet is legal. If more than 50% of your packets are legal and your not using UDSleze, all trafic will be halted to investigate why your trafic is legal.
UDSleze- A unoffical subscription service that allows you to avoid the use of TCParalize.
P2Gov- Rather than peer to peer, the new Internet 3 will now help out by connecting you directly to your goverment's legal system. No more resolving IPs for copyrite holders, the new Internet3 will even fill out the legal forms for you! *not applicable to UDSleze traffic*
With such inovations, why haven't you become a UNternet user today?
geeks' programming grip: excellent geeks' political grip: priceles....
That the UN is just a figure head with no real power whatsoever. I am a US Citizen and I agree with the UN's stance that control should be deligated to an international committe of some sort. On the other hand, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. ICANN doesn't have any real power anyway. The standards have been set, and that's that. IPv6 will never take off. We'll be using IPv4 until the end of time, which is not such a bad thing, besides the shortage of addresses.
**** Re-posting a reply to "What bothers me most" I believe China illustrates that indivual nations have control over the content that their nations receive and provide from/to the internet. The US doesn't tell China that they can not level such controls over their countries internet domain. China wishes to put what westerners consider censorship over their .cn and over content coming into China.
This shows that indiviual nations have control over the internet in their country if they seek it.
I do not see where the UN has the technical infrastructure needed to managed what ICANN does. Also, ICANN is being turned over to the private industry, recall that you couldn't get a domain except throught the ICANN arm.
Since the mid 1990's there has been a group working on turning the control over to the private industry at an international level and that is happening, the first of which was the registrants, they are companies from around the globe.
The UN is supposed to the the new and improved "League of Nations". The UN should focus more on political matters. A country that doesn't allow industry the room to manage and grow their business will have strife amongst it's citizenship.
The UN should work to improve individual freedoms around the world and thy must do this at the political rather than business level.
In order for businesses to strive and at the highly competative global level, a political system must be in place that encourages individual freedoms. Strivung globally improves a nations prosperity and therefor improves the opportunities it's citizens can partake in.
The current structure of ICANN is right for the present state of the world, and the future should see private industry in an even greater role worldwide.
The UN has more pressing issues to spend their time and resources on. The cost of these meetings in personnel and costs could have went to Human Rights issues on nations that violate them.
Monique Bizzell
{in best Jon Stewart voice):
Actually, the Jon Stewart reference probably ensures that it gets modded up. At least Funny, probably one Insightful in there.
I guess it's all about knowing how to appeal to the /. groupthink ;) Ah, the irony.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
yes but WWW was invented at ICANN and if I CANN, YOU CANN, EVERYBODY CANN CANN!
We pwn the internet!
So lick my butt and suck on my balls!
The detective pulls a gun from his desk as he says the first line.
Let me see if I can help you out a little here...
We're not smug, we're telling the truth. The United States and Canada have many parallels in the way each country is run...lot of differences too, but the similarities outweigh them. If Canada were to goain control, I really doubt anything would change since the US and CAN are so intertwined that the US would just tell you "Look....we've already been doing this forever, do you really want to re-invent the wheel here, or just let us do what we've been doing"
You're sick of American's thinking we're the best thing since sliced bread, eh? We are a proud country, for right or wrong, but I don't think SMUG is what we are. We may bring our game face to issues that require it, but don't make the assinine assumption that every American is a smug prick. That just goes right up there with Canadians being as rude as the french but not as smart. Aren't stereotypes fun??
I think we have the best system going, which allows me to be able to call the President a fucking asshole and not have to worry about the suits banging down my door.
Enough with ragging Germany? I didn't see anyone ragging Germany because of the Nazi's. I saw people talking about the reasons that they aren't able to discuss the Nazi's or be Pro-Nazi. I guess having a few World Wars will do that to a country, those silly bastards.
We may not make the right choices all the time, but I think the USA has got more "right" than any other country.
If the other parts of the world want control of it they should have invented it first ;-)
You mean like that time that the internet was invented in CERN, but they decided not to panent it? If America had really invented the internet then everytime you dialed up you would be paying fees for using Americas intellictual property.
The issue is that if America decided to they could effectually cut off a country from the internet. And even though (so far) ICANN have been very responsible with their control of DNS that dosn't mean that one day the goverment might interfer for the sake of homeland security.
ICANN can remain in control of DNS, but the US can never be allowed to control ICANN...
I don't really understand why the American public looks down at the UN.
...in a bid to limit Saddam's power, and save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives
Most Americans don't like the idea of a huge corrupt overpowered beauracracy that seems to do nothing but hold month long conferences at 5 star hotels to discuss the idea of having a conference to set the guidelines for a meeting.
The UN is a cesspool of ineptitude and it, at the very least, needs an enema of biblical proportions.
Or maybe we find it curious as to why countries like Libya should be appointed to head the UN Human Rights commission? Or why the only UN employee that has been fired for the Oil for Food scandal was just rehired so he could receive his full retirement benefits! That poor corrupt bastard was going to have to get a new job but now he can retire and live comfortably with money paid by you and me.
Or how the wonderful former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, had a mysterious $160,000 deposit into one of his accounts. When asked where it came from, he stated his aunt had just given it to him as a gift. But before they could ask the aunt in question, she miraculously fell down an elevator shaft. I mean, for fucks sake, that's a scene straight out of a f'en movie.
They were against the use of force without convincing evidence. Turns out they were right.
About the WMDs? Perhaps, yes.
Over the years it has done a great job in many places.
Where and when? Korea? That war is still going on and you've got the worlds most insane dictator running half of it. Sending strongly worded letters don't count, nor does trying to pass resolutions condemning Israel.
Yes, they tried to, and failed. Saddam made billions during that time period in kickbacks and illegal oil deals. The only thing the sanctions hurt were the Iraqi people.
It's not perfect, of course, but it's always ready to take on the dirty jobs that no one else wants.
What would those be exactly? I think you're confusing the UN with NATO and/or the US.
one could hardly call that truth, too.
If the net was broken up into various subnets with their own national nameservers someone would have to sort out the email.
That sounds like the 'programmer full employment act' - almost a UN new deal for coders everywhere. I know it's a bad idea but I could use the overtime.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
internet technology isnt exactly secret, so the EU could build their own parallel internet and connect it to the current internet as they see fit...
can there be such a thing as too much redundancy?
Here's a nice little video, courtesy of the GOP:
Secretary of State Albright, President Clinton, Sandy Berger, Senator Biden, Senator Clinton, DNC Chairman Dean, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Reid, etc, on Saddam's WMDs
You're absolutely wrong. The first thing we learned in Army basic training was our chain of command. Guess who was right up there in it? A certain guy named "Rumsfeld"... wonder who he could be!
It was much more a general feeling of resentment over the dominion of Great Britain over the colonies, and the people in what was to become the United States of America growing dissatisfied with (and alienated from) the powers in charge of them. The revolution was fought not in the name of religious freedom per se; in fact, as far as religion goes, the Declaration of Independence is fairly Christian in undertones and then otherwise very inspecific about matters of religion: "all men are...endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and etc. It goes on to list grievances against the king to justify the revolution, and not one of them is anything at all to the tune of "and he's messing with our choices of religion!"
Furthermore, the whole idea of "religious freedom" isn't as simple as it seems at first glance. Yes, people did come to North America to escape persecution and to have the freedom to excercise their own religious views and practices. But this did not constitute freedom pure and simple. In some cases this inverted itself and became a form of terror and oppression, ex. the witch hunts (a fine western tradition!). Hooray, we have the religious freedom to make decisions based on our religion that affect the lives of people! By ending them, we mean . . .
Now, you could argue "hey, there's limits to religious freedom. You can't let people get away with harming others," but that's exactly the point of the "less free" practices you are maligning. It's a judgement call. Freedom isn't limitless in expansion. One of the reasons that the early United States were so "rah rah freedom!" was because of all the space to live in, you could easily find a place away from others to practice whateverthehell you wanted to do. Your freedom didn't need impinge upon others. However, in tightly woven and close-knit societies, nearly any freedom is going to impinge to one degree or another on other freedoms. We don't have the freedom to drive wherever we want because, well, it takes alot of freedom away when people are dead, and the restrictions of roads and traffic laws and so forth really help cut down on those deaths (though this is a pretty complex issue, let's not get into it too deeply, you can at least see my abstract point).
Often these examples of lack-of-freedom are pragmatic choices. For example, we could let people preach neo-nazi teachings, and only crack down if they start actually being violent . . . but these kinds of teachings will make things uncomfortable at least in certain social interactions, and will lead to unofficial persecution which creates a lack of freedom; more severely, it will probably lead to violence eventually, and it's a decision whether it's more valuable to respect the freedom of people to teach these things or the rights of those that will be harmed later as a slightly indirect result. In places like the States, maybe it leans more towards freedom for the skinheads. In places that have a volitile history of inbred racism, where any tolerance of racist teachings causes a very disproportionate blossoming of intolerance, it is arguably more respectful of freedom in general to cut off some of those freedoms.
I'm going on a bit too long (I wonder if any mods will even bother to read through this far enough to do anything other than skip to the next comment, heh), but I think my point is at least semi-clear. It's all nice to say in theory that we can easily measure where the most freedom is by what is restricted by the government, but pragmatically the actual distribution of freedom doesn't end with just merely what is and what isn't allowed by the officials at the top. So saying that a place restricts people's rights to preach neo-nazi beliefs doesn't so clearly mean that said place is less free than it would be without those restrictions . . . simple theory and complex pragmatic reality clash quite heavily, to the eternal dismay of philosophers looking for neat, tidy and sweeping principles.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
You can discuss it as freely as you can discuss 9/11 in the US:
You can say what you want, as long as you are on the right side.
The concept of a hyperlinked "world-wide-web" was invented at CERN. The Internet was invented by the United States Army in the 1960's, and the various parts of the underlying technical structure of the current inter-network system were invented at various universities and research parks in the US. Those entities in turn passed control onto ICANN.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Last I checked, Ward Churchill still has not faced any criminal charges. You can bet that if Mel Gibsons father lived in germany, he'd have done some jail-time.
Cheap-Viagra-Gets-You-Hot.com domains don't count, they're registered in the USA because they target the USA!
Hmm, I am against government monopoly on internet control, but I must agree that the US has done a good job so far, and, well...
Country with smaller defense budget as internet controller: Look at my awesome backbone!
Random terrorist group: *attacks*
World: *returns to stone age*
I don't think it was sarcastic. I agree. If they want control of the Internet, they can build thier own. The U.S. industry invented it, built it and now control it. This is as it should be. I like the way it works.
Besides, the poorer nations can't even own computers, what good will the internet do them. You notice that it is the poorer nation's government that is crying fowl, not the people. The people don't have a clue because thier govrnments are hogging everything. Until thier governments decide to work for the people, the poorer nations will stay poor.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
The capper is that they ship people off to get tortured for them in client states under a program of 'extraordinary rendition' because both International law and US law says that torture is illegal ... but they still really want to do it, anyway. Their own Senate tries to curb that nasty behaviour but the President threatens to veto their attempt and the Vice President works around the clock to get exemptions for the CIA. I guess there is too much of an investment in those gulags to give up without a fight.
The Project for the New American Century, indeed! I just wonder what kind of century it will be ...
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
you'll also notice that the US request to drop leap seconds has been put in abeyance.
Politicking...
The Secretary of Defense has all the power the President has delegated to him. He is in the chain of command directly below the Commander-in-Chief.
Does this remind anyone else of the UN?
:wq
Are you sure he/she/it is more brutal than all the US's pet dictators?
Usually I'm not for the U.S. having special treatment (equal treatment under law), but I'll make an exception for the Internet. It works, it aint broke, it's internationally very libre and practically gratis. Everyone is also free to explore variations, fixes, improvements, etc. but this should be tested by techies and not bureaucrats.
I'm sure we'll eventually truly integrate Unicode in URIs but since ASCII and the Latin alphabet are at the heart of the C-like languages, *NIX, and Microsoft, it will never go away in computers. Unless of course we have to convert to alien computer technology.
"Remember the .com wildcard problem? Where *all* .com addresses always resolved...just much of the time, to a Verisign-run machine with a webserver with ads? If there is a second DNS infrastructure that can be transferred to in an instant, that would put pressure on Verisign not to abuse the DNS system."
.net domains they were granted.
Do you remember when Verisign/Netsol would email everyone with misleading domain renewal notices (which were really domain poaching emails), using (or rather abusing) the information it had from it's control of the DNS?
Or do you remember the 10% annual price increase in domain renewal fees for
Or do you remember the liability disclaimer they forced domain resellers to agree to so Verisign can't be sued for it's incompetence.
I certainly remember the domain name I lost to Netsol, when they sent the renewal reminder for a domain I had bought to the OLD registered holder, and so I didn't know to renew until I came to use it, when it was too late.
And I remember earlier this year when I criticized Verisign and the domains with my name on them started being reported by Verisign's geolocation as being located in 'Pakistan'. I can't prove it's revenge and not incompetence, but I can think it.
ICANN are scared of Verisign, Verisign control all the switches, if ICANN upset Verisign then Verisign can flick a few switched and blame it on ICANN. So ICANN keep finding ways to award new contracts to Verisign and it's all very cosy, but business like mine get fucked by these shits.
This discussion should clear the different issues. For me, there is at least two things: DN allocation and DN requests. The first one required some kind of centralization, to avoid dupes. Each country is free to manage its own name space. Some international organizations could also get its own, like .eu today. We could have .un for example (i don't know if .un is already attributed). IMHO, generic domains, being international, should be moved to the UN or to the .us domain, to make it clear for every one. .com.us or .com.un), no central root servers
OTOH, the second one should not be centralized. There is no reason for having root servers. Replicating the DNS database is something quite easy so we should have root servers at least in each country (plus some additional ones). Additionaly every one should be allowed to use the root servers they want. Shutting down the us servers would have no effect on users. Massive changes would be detected and stopped. Limited changes would still be possible but at soon they're detected, people would be able to switch to a more 'reliable' root server.
Summary: no generic domain (.com ->
Million Dollar Screenshot
Most Americans don't like the idea of a huge corrupt overpowered beauracracy that seems to do nothing
At least we don't like corrupt FOREIGN beauracracies... Homegrown ones are just fine.
if there was only ONE way to design an automobile and it was the kind that everyone likes. I am not advocating inventing a new system, just pointing out why the US would not give up control of the internet. :)
You are from Germany? I found "Die Open-Source-Rhein-Neckar" I guess that is what you were referring to.
By the way, having everyone drive a Mercedes Benz SLR MacLaren wouldn't be such a bad thing.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Volunteers or not, the respective governments would still have to seize the servers or otherwise coerce the owners of those servers to give them up. Which would most likely (as I said) entail escalation of force. It would also have little impact if the entire country/region is not pointing to the seized root server.
P.S. MODS: Love the mod trolling. Overrated? How brave of you.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The Internet was transferred to the Chinese and Indians in the early '00s.
What America now has is the unprofitable contract to manage the root servers for them.
All your base are belong to US.
First, I don't remember seeing or hearing one mention of this in the mainstream media. I'm absolutely certain that I didn't hear any dire comments about the UN taking over the Internet.
Second, I don't believe there ever was a real debate. That would imply that there was actually something to discuss.
Third, had there been a debate, the UN would have needed to present compelling reasons why this was important. Having utterly and completely failed to do so, the status quo would have prevailed. American IT firms had nothing to do with the decision - they didn't have to.
You make it sound like a sizable number of people actually cared about the issue and the US "won" after a long, heated struggle. Outside of Slashdot, I'd be hard pressed to find a single person that knew about it, let alone cared.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I also remember wanting a name which was expired but held over by Netsol.
It said it would be released for resale on 20th November, but to check you have to use Whois on Network solutions, they would offer to get a pre-order on it for an inflated fee so you wouldn't lose it when it was released for sale.
I chose instead to check each week, since I did not want to use Network Solutions ever again. Each week I checked and it would never be released, this went on way into December until I stopped checking and opted for a different name instead. Suprise suprise, when I stopped checking Whois on Network Solution for a couple of months it was released.
Network solutions abuse the DNS to hang onto names that people show interest in, to get them to accept the high price. It's yet another abuse not curbed by ICANN.
Hello United States, this is the people of the World. Regarding the recent discussion about ICANN. (I borrowed the following from various kids help websites on bullying and modified it a bit)
Signs of being a Bully.
Do you do some of these things? tease, hit, make fun of others kids[countries], damage other peoples things, call people names
Do you think you are: Stronger than any kid[country], Smarter than any kid[country], Street Smart
Think about this- Friends are people[countries] that support each other when you have problems, Friends have fun, People[countries] feel good about themselves when they help each other, Friends don't blame others[countries] for their problems
If you would like to change and have friends here are a few tips: Take responsibility for your own actions, Laugh with people[countries] not at them, If you have problems that you can't work out for yourself or control, talk to your teacher at school [allies], go on, take a risk and trust someone.
What to Do About Bullying
Bullying can be a big pain, but you don't have to let bullying get the best of you and your buddies [allies]. Here are some things to try if you're bothered by a bully:
* Act brave. When you're scared of another person [country], you're probably not feeling your bravest. But sometimes just acting brave is enough to stop a bully. If you walk by as though you're not afraid and hold your head high, a bully may be less likely to give you trouble.
* Ignore a bully. Simply ignoring a bully's threats and walking away robs the bully of his or her [their] fun. Bullies want a big reaction to their teasing and meanness. Acting as if you don't notice and don't care is like giving no reaction at all, and this just might stop a bully's behavior.
* Stand up for yourself. Kids [countries] can stand up for themselves with words by telling the bully to stop it, and then walk away. Kids [countries] also can stand up for each other by telling a bully to stop teasing or scaring someone else, and then walk away together.
* Tell an adult [the UN]. If you are being bullied, it's very important to tell an adult [the UN]. Teachers[politicians], principals[judges], parents[local government], and lunchroom helpers[farmers' union] at school can all help to stop bullying.
* Be a buddy. Kids[countries] who are being bullied can use the buddy system. Make a plan to walk with a friend[ally] or two on the way to school or recess or lunch or wherever you think you might meet the bully. Offer to do the same for a friend who's having trouble with a bully.
* Don't bully back. Don't hit, kick, or push back to deal with someone bullying you or your friends. Fighting back just satisfies a bully and it's dangerous, too, because someone could get hurt. It's best to stay with others, stay safe, and get help from an adult[the UN].
"The Internet lives to innovate for another day," - U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Gallagher
Does this guy work for Microsoft? I absolutly hate this term, it is so meaningless. What ever happened to good old development of new products while improving existing ones?
Such an approach actually has tangible objectives and is far better than 'innovation' which seems to acheive little apart from increased commercialization as R&D funds are diverted to "how can we take more money off our customers" issues, rather than development of the actual product. (e.g.: Much of the new Windows 'innovative' features center around getting customers to buy more products (Media Player, MSN Messenger etc.), not actually making Windows any better).
I think such a statement from the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce shows what the US government (and its corporate sponsors) have in store for the internet, unfortuantly.
Uh, you too New Mexico!
(Somebody, probably European, is bound to think this is a serious post.)
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Dear US,
Please find enclosed an invoice for the following developments:
Your analogy is grossly flawed.
The U.S. is not demanding royalties or a lump-sum payment for inventing the Internet. They are simply insisting on maintaining control of something that they invented.
The U.N. is acting like a houseguest who's demanding a say in what color the walls are painted, who cuts the lawn, and who gets to occupy which rooms. When you're invited into someone's home, you don't get to dictate how that home is run -- even if you voluntarily make improvements. You can point to the neat stereo that you set up or the nice garden that you planted, but that doesn't mean that you get to have your name on the deed of the house.
Your country is free to create your own separate network of computers using all of the protocols and standards of the Internet. We won't ask for a dime in return. Maybe in a few years, you will invite other countries to interconnect. Then they can start trying to wrestle control of your network out of your hands and you can better understand how the people of the U.S. feel now.
that is why the US has "free speech zones"...
That's it, keep drinking that Kool-Aid!
When a group gets a permit to use a public space to hold an event (say, the "Million Man March" or something similar), that group can express a concern to the relevent law enforcement agencies (in the case of the use of the national mall in DC, that would be the park police) that a specific group or groups is looking to disrupt the event. It's specifically because a group has gone through the permitting process that they have a right to use that space without having their parade route blocked by protestors or their message shouted down. What people like you don't seem to understand is that the right to free speech applies to everyone that secures such a permit. Political parties, larger organized protest groups, etc.
Those groups that come right out and say (on web sites, and in e-mail, etc) that they plan on disrupting an event being held by another group are the ones that are offered a place to hold their own counter-event. If that same disruptive group wants instead to hold their own event without getting shouted down by someone else, they also get the same privileges and protection. What's the difference, though, between one group and another? Some "protesters" decide that the most effective way to get press coverage is to illegally block traffic, mess with law enforcement, smash store windows, etc. Those people are not inclined to admit that they can't organize a rational gathering (and make use of a public space permit and the same protections that other groups seek and get). But you have exactly the same rights to gather and make a spectacle as anyone else does. You also have to honor an organized group's permit to use a public space without disruption, just like they have to honor yours (if you bother).
I don't want the EU or China to control the Internet, but the UN
Are you even listening to yourself? The activities of some EU members and China through the UN are exactly what free speech advocates are worried about. China has a long history of making use of their presence in the UN to try to curtail things that would give their own people greater liberties, or that would empower the people they consider their idealogical competition.
Who has a history of killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents, the US or the UN?
That would be the UN (or, members thereof). The US has a history of turning aggressive fascist states into liberal democracies. The UN has a bad habit of tolerating every dictator that pays their UN dues. You might also want to read up on the UN's "peacekeping" presence right down the road from mass slaughters in Bosnia (to which they turned a blind eye), or the routine rape of local women by UN peacekeepers in Africa. It's not what the UN does as much as what they never act to prevent for fear of hurting some slimy little oppressor's feelings. The UN would rather sit by while whole villages are raped in the Sudan than come out and say that it's happening, and have to actually take a position that matters. They would rather watch Saddam kill hundreds of thousands of his own people and fill up mass graves with dead Kurds or Shiites than actually call his regime what it was. So would you, apparently.
The UN's security council can be muscled around by regimes like China and Russia, and the UN's programs are routinely corrupted beyond recognition. In the wake of proof that the Oil For Food program was giant money laundering scheme for individuals profiting from a relationship with Saddam's regime in Iraq (who puchased support for his regime in France, Britain, Russia and elsewhere with stolen UN-supervised oil dollars) exactly one UN employee involved in that program lost his job. And just yesterday, that person was re-hired by the UN because that was considered to harsh of an action. Sorry - the UN is a morally bankrupt organization b
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's real simple. We invented it, we built it. It's ours. Deal with it. All you other loser countries can go build your own if you like. I'm sure we'll hop right on joining it.
Yep, we may not produce much anymore, but it's too damn bad we own everything, eh!?!?!?
These are not single hosts ... here for example is f.root-servers.net :
AKL1 Auckland, New Zealand IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
AMS1 Amsterdam, The Netherlands IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
BCN1 Barcelona, Spain IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
BNE1 Brisbane, Australia IPv4 Local Node
CDG1 Paris, France IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
CGK1 Jakarta, Indonesia IPv4 Local Node
DXB1 Dubai, UAE IPv4 Local Node
GRU1 São Paulo, Brazil IPv4 Local Node
HKG1 Hong Kong, China IPv4 Local Node
JNB1 Johannesburg, South Africa IPv4 Local Node
KIX1 Osaka, Japan IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LAX1 Los Angeles, CA, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LCY1 London, UK IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LIS1 Lisbon, Portugal IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LGA1 New York, NY, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
MAA1 Chennai, India IPv4 Local Node
MAD1 Madrid, Spain IPv4 Local Node
MTY1 Monterrey, Mexico IPv4 Local Node
MUC1 Munich, Germany IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
NBO1 Nairobi, Kenya IPv4 Local Node
PAO1 Palo Alto, CA, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Global Node
PEK1 Beijing, China IPv4 Local Node
PRG1 Prague, Czech Republic IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
ROM1 Rome, Italy IPv4 Local Node
SEL1 Seoul, Korea IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
SFO2 San Francisco, CA, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Global Node
SIN1 Singapore IPv4 Local Node
SJC1 San Jose, CA, USA IPv4 Local Node
SVO1 Moscow, Russia IPv4 Local Node
TLV1 Tel Aviv, Israel IPv4 Local Node
TPE1 Taipei, Taiwan IPv4 Local Node
YOW1 Ottawa, ON, Canada IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
YYZ1 Toronto, ON, Canada IPv4 Local Node
The WWW per se was 'inveneted' at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee. Details here.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
There are many people in Guantanamo Bay who have been a victim of essentially exactly what you are claiming will not happen. They have been held for several years without trial and have been subject to torture. So your talk about free speech is just bullshit.
The US built it. The US paid for it. It's US property, and it's not for sale. You want one, too? Build your own.
I don't really understand why the American public looks down at the UN. Probably because they don't understand its role. Over the years it has done a great job in many places. It's not perfect, of course, but it's always ready to take on the dirty jobs that no one else wants.
It's because we didn't vote for any of the people that represent us in the UN. International Court of Justice, membership dues, etc. Despite having veto power, the US does things with the UN that many Americans are not thrilled with.
To most Americans, the UN is a faceless organization. And it's purpose to provide a place for nations to work out thier differences has been expanded on every year to the point that some wonder if it's going to sprout into a one world government.
Taking on "dirty jobs", as you put it, is not the role of the UN.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And the world lost.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Not to say I told you so or anything. But here's a quote from myself commenting on the original story before the conference,
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
In fact, this whole situation strikes me pretty much as a joke, especially the final result of forming a committee to deal with it.
The only unfunny thing is how much money was spent on this nonsense. I doubt we'll ever see a final tally on that number.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Thank you once again, Slashdot editors, for misrepresenting the issue entirely.
Nice troll, and good results so far in the modding anyway... The idea is that no one country should have "control over the internet" in ways that don't include oversight by others. "Transparency" is the usual jargon. Nobody, including us, has had it.
I've corresponded with some friends in Ireland and France over this one, and it's not like they haven't ever read the word "Carnivore" in a news item, you know? You'd like my friends to trust us because you wave a flag and think rosy thoughts about how we're founded on principles of liberty, or something? While all three branches of the federal government are in the hands of a party whose authoritarian leanings couldn't be more clear?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I see, we disagree on a fundamental level: For me "turning aggressive fascist states into liberal democracies" IS " killing and maiming people of different opinion, or imprisoning and torturing innocents". We can't reach an agreement because of this, I fear.
This might just be my poor grasp of geography, but I thought that SE, UK and JP were Sweden, United Kingdom and Japan respectively. Unless the USA has expanded without notifying the rest of the world, they are most certainly not US servers.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
WAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Where's my mod points when I need 'em! :)
YAY WE WON! Eat that Canada! Oh wait...
I'm not sure that I would call Slashdot's moderation system "censorship", but it does more often than not obliterate dissenting opinions. Just because you have a different viewpoint doesn't make it "flamebait" or "troll". I mean, if you're afraid to post an opinion because you would get modbombed and possibly put in time-out, isn't that sort of a kind of passive censorship? I don't know; just throwing some ideas out there.
In general Slashdot is not kind to conservatives, yet I know there is a relatively large conservative readership. Unfortunately many of them bite their tounge to stay in good standing.
It's both funny and disturbing to read posts about how the mainstream media has covered the issue because, here in Pennsylvania, it was as if it never happened. I read the capital's newspaper front to back practically every day (and another area's every other Sunday) and not a word was printed about this issue. My NBC/Fox news broadcast viewing is admittedly a little low, but still I did not hear a peep about it for the 1-2 months it's been going on.
Thank God for Slashdot.
This shows just how important it is to elect a High Noon Texas cowboy to the White House. They get things done. The world needs someone as President who faces down both the dictators and the Eurowimps. (Both have their equivalents in High Noon.)
If we'd have elected Gore in 2000, he'd be droning on about how, having invented the Internet, he could give it to anyone he wanted, and promptly given control to nasty regimes such as Iran, North Korea and China, perhaps slipping another campaign donation from the last into his pocket.
And if we'd elected "War Hero" Kerry in 2004, he'd have asked himself it giving up the Internet would keep him from marrying a third rich wife if rich wife #2 dies. No, would be the reply from his handlers. Or if it hinders his buying $3000 French bikes. Again they say no. Last of all, he would ask if it would make the French and Germans like us. On being told it would, he would promptly give up control to those same nasty regimes, perhaps with a provison that lets European corporations get rich joining U.S. corporations (i.e. Cisco) in censoring political free speech on the Internet.
Let's hope this do-nothing committee follows in the footsteps of all the UN's other do nothing committees and pockets their checks and merely holds conferences in expensive hotels. It's a small price to pay for a free Internet.
--Mike Perry, Seattle
Yay, the Internet hasn't fallen apart! Now we just need to fix all this invalid pseudo-HTML being thrown around!
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
There's so many to choose from! Ok, how about Freedom House instead? That gives the US an ideal rating of 1 in both categories (1 being most free 7 being least). Western Europe generally does teh same, though it's not so pretty in Eastern Europe. A number of countries there are still rated as "not free". http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/200 5/table2005.pdf if you are interested. We can all find metrics to back up any point of view we like.
You may think it's just semantics, but I think it's simply a matter of making an objective, rational distinction - and not being a moral relativist. An aggressive, fascist country (say, Imperial Japan 50+ years ago) didn't get invaded and disarmed by the US just because it seemed like a good idea. It was self defense. Same for WWII Germany... they were sinking our passenger ships and freighters, killing our allies, and looking to literally take over the world.
... but no action was taken. When the Taliban actively partnered with Al Queda and turned that country into a vacation and training spot for the people that killed hundreds while destroying embassies in Africa, attacked a US Naval vessel, and kept pumping cash into groups like Hamas and Hezbollah - we still didn't act, though we should have. When it became clear that the radicalized Islamists that later killed thousands in the US were trained and coordinated from Afghanistan, we acted to put a stop to that. Afghanis are now holding elections and starting to shake off decades of brutality. It's going to take a while, but then so does prosperity and democracy everywhere, as it's taking hold.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the previous US administration wrung its hands and talked loudly about how women there were shot in the public squares for dressing incorrectly or teaching their daughters to read
Do you really consider removing the Taliban from control of Afghanistan to be somehow oppressing the innocent? If you do, then we definitely won't be able to agree on what "innocent" means. Before you answer, check with a mother there who lost a husband because he played music in public, and then lost her own hands because she dared to try to take a job to feed her kids. People who drag a woman down to what used to be a soccer field in the middle of town, gather a crowd, and shoot her in the head because she was raped by a stranger are not "innocents." Telling those people that they need to leave, and go back to Iran, Syria, or Pakistan and leave Afghanistan to the Afghanis or ultimately, if they refuse, they'll be killed (and then actually doing that) is not "torturing" them. Death and maiming are a byproduct, sometimes of taking action against people who actually celebrate doing that to other people. If you have to kill a person to stop him from a lifetime of killing many other people, you're no murderer - you're the person that saved thousands of lives. If, instead, you're a person that considers all people (and their acts) to be equally valid, then why are you upset with the US about anything? You can't have it both ways. If you don't like death, then don't complain when stopping a hugely murderous regime means that some of that regime dies in the process. The circumstances are determined by the murderers, not those that ultimately must use force to stop them.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Count 'em. How many are in the US, and how many aren't. Which ones are at the top of the list? InterNIC is "a" for a reason.
Anyone who thought that the USDOC and ICANN would give up control of a functioning, reliable network to these freaks is completely and totally nuts. (This means you, EU media, and the BBC specifically.)
sulli
RTFJ.
I know it does. but not within the scope of the disputed claim which is that because of ARPANET it should be an American private company that governs the internet.
To maintain such a claim is to ignore the also HUGELY relevant BUILDING work that was done by OTHER companies and countries.
You made a good point which I agree with, it is because the ROOT of the co-operation is still in the US that the US should still govern the internet.
And that has nothing to do with who built how much of it, or where the first part was built, except as much as the same history also caused the ROOT OF THE COOPERATION to be there.
I keep capitalising INTER because I'm trying to give a hint that the internet is an inter-network and is more than arpanet.
You've finally addressed the real reason why US keeps governent of the internet. I never argued this reason I only argued against foolish babble like "because we paid for it" and "because we invented it"
But it worries me that you can't see what is meant by the statement: "The internet is no more ARPANET than you and your cousins are your grandad." any why you call it senseless babble.
That statement encapsulates the repeated error in this debate. The ARPANET is all WAS and no IS, and can never be a reason to retain government any more than that your grandad has the right to dictate to you on the grounds that you exist because of him. The internet is not the arpanet, only a descendant just as you and your cousins are not your grandad.
So you are right in your reason that the US should (and will) keep government as long as it is the root of the co-operation, but your closing comment leaves me thinking that you think it was just another way of saying "cos (we) invented (it)"
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
while the rest of the world screams bloody murder at their stupid governments because they can't reach many of the sites they use daily. (Slashot being an example of this.)
You wrongly assume that the "rest of the world" eagerly read things on USA web sites.
First, as you undoubtly know, english is not spoken by everyone. Actually, Chinese and Hindi would be a better target language.
Second, there is many similar sites in many countries, which you probably do not know because you'd preferrably read american web sites first.
Third, what "sites" are used "daily" by, say the average people outside of USA? EBay, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, definitly not slashdot. All those big players have portals in other countries. So aside from technical documentation, research papers, american web sites are not so important to the "rest of the world". And you can bet the aformentionned sites or people would make sure the InternetS would both be reachable from where they are. That's how the internet started: exchanging research papers, results and such.
So, no, our american overlords are not so omnipotent that the rest of the world cannot live without them.
Of course, most of the US national debt is owed to US citizens, not to international creditors. In fact, a lot of it is owed to the US government. We've been spending the surplus from social security on other programs and issuing ourself "treasury bonds" for future repayment. The whole thing is really quite absurd. At any rate, we'll start repaying that part of the debt in 10-30 years once social security begins paying out more than it takes in. Fun times will be had for all.
The point is that most (not all) of them are in the US.
Since US corporate policy favors freedom of speech I see no issue with keeping it this way.
Chinese and Hindi might reach a lot of people, but they'd all be clustered in one place. English can reach people in all the continents, not just one.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You wrongly assume that the "rest of the world" eagerly read things on USA web sites.
And yet here you are.
If you think that's bad, you should see how disparagingly the main stream media talks about the US. By the way, the UN does have at least two specific agendas toward achieving world peace and ending poverty. Just because they're not bad doesn't mean they're not agendas.
Well, I wasn't talking about "opressing", but outright "killing" and "torturing" and yes, I think it is wrong the US does this, no matter to whom, but it is especially horrible when done to "innocent" (And I agree, we won't agree what constitutes "innocence") people. We won't agree, you want interference (for reason you consider "right"), I want absense (because "right" reasons cannot exist). Let us conclude that different opinions on these matters exist and that they should all be taken into account by governments, ok?
In 1998 I was in the office of the CTO of the company than ran the A-root. At the time they were not getting along with ICANN. They wanted to sell domain names in any tld they could and didn't see anybody else being able to handle running a 30+ M name com zone file. Other than that they didn't care what happens.
.com nameservers are then you are vulnerbale to games like this. Administration of a net of network numbers so we can find computers on the network is not supposed to leak into the political layers of the TCP/IP stack. Mercifully there's a software patch for this.
The goverment, IBM and ICANN were exerting pressure on them to sign an agreement with ICANN which placed them under ICANN's aegis. Up to this point they had nothing to do with them.
It was feared NSI would "go rouge" and I guess it's ok to say now that there were root servers at NSI that did not carry just the legacy root. Only a handfull of people knew about these but they were a beautiful thing to run dig or dnsq against.
If there was no accord reached with ICANN and NSI was effectivly out of the business it built then one scanario was they'd just keep going and ignore the USG and ICANN and expand the root zone. They owned the IP's the root servers ran on in more than enough cases.
I asked what would happen if they did this before a fallout with ICANN occurred and was told the a.root would be declared a national security resource and the Army would simply come in and run it so don't even think that. Since this CTO used to be in Army intel. I figured he had a good understanding of this. IBM coerced NSI to sign with ICANN (at the famous secret meeting nobody can talk about because of an IBM NDA) and this stuff was all dropped very quickly.
But the lesson is there: the DNS is whatever the US wants it to be, period.
If you rely on somebody else to tell you where the
Primary the root instead http://cr.yp.to/dnsroot.html
Need Mercedes parts ?
Sounds like something to appease the French.
You could've hired me.
consequences such as bodily harm, government repression or corporate SLAPP suits, but free speech can never obviate others' right to criticize your speech or to choose whether or not to associate with you.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Torrent trackers were forced to shut down through legal action from private organizations, not the government flipping the switch for no reason. They are legally bound to do that because of current legislation, good or bad. You have no damn clue what free speech really is.
The parent post is right on. The US is not asking for money, just to keep control something that they created.
"A new body will be created to provide international oversight, which will, of course, have no binding authority."
So they just creat a bunch of seats for fat-ass politicans who will be earning a great amount of money every month for doing nothing and the little they could do has no use. Awesome. Keep on rocking guys, you're great!
Btw: could I apply for one of these positions? I'm tired of working hard and being poor.
and here.
SecDef is absolutely in the chain of command.
POTUS - SecDef - unified commanders - everyone else.
The Joint Chiefs are on the side, as advisors.
Now...does SecDef have the 'authority' to order a private around? Technically, yes. Obviously, no, that doesn't happen.
There's a really big difference though... I fully support an individual website's RIGHT to control what goes on their own website. If you come onto my webforum and start spouting of crap that pisses me off, I will ban you so quick it'll make your head spin. Yes, I am censoring you, but I am not violating anyone's right to free speech because I am not a government entity.
I do not, however, support the government telling me what I can and can't have on my website. That is the censorship we need to be concerned about.
Who cares if Slashdot bans you from posting when the groupmind decides you suck? If that many people decide you suck, then you probably do.
The thing that bugs me most about this is where was Europe's computer industry while ours was building Apple ][s and IBM PCs? Where was European and Japanese companies when we were developing DOS, CPM, Windows, MacOS, Xerox PARC? Why is Japan running computers with Microsoft's OS? Where the hell was Sony and Mitsubishi when all of this was being developed? Were they even trying to create their own technologies?
It kind of reminds me of the airliner thing. France and England got pissed that all the airliners were coming from the US, McDonnell Douglass and Boeing, and so decided to create their own aerospace company from scratch. But where was the British and French aerospace industry? Surely they have fighters built there, right? Why couldn't they build airliners?
Basically, if these countries had been half as progressive as the US was, they'd *already have* control of the Internet because they would have been there setting up DNS with us in the first place. It just bothers me. If you miss the boat, you can't swim out to catch it.
Comment of the year
How did such an ignorant post get modded Interesting?
No seizures would have to take place. The gov't's or any other interested parties would simply have to convince ISP's and everyone else running a recursive nameserver to use the UN's version of the root hints.
Something like this.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
God I hope that was sarcastic.
Serisouly, though, the problem I have with a segmented internet, especially as described by PP of my reply, is that I see that as putting more restrictions/obstacles in the way of me getting information that doesn't originate inside the US. You can at least agree that the best scenario would include no such restricions/obstacles. And yes, I do believe the internet the way it is now is doing a pretty reasonable job at doing that (not absolutely reasonable, for examples read other posts attached to this article). I also understand the fear of foreign countries that all of the above is currently under US control, which they might not see as such a shining example of absolute freedom of speech and expression. But my objection to the parent was not because I think control should be stripped from the US, but that other nations creating seperate internets would be a worse scenario for everyone except those content only accessing domains isnide their own country's internet. Which would absolutely not satisfy me.
Regarding your last point; I was unaware there were stil nations so poor such that the populace is not even be able to own comptuers...care to name a few examples for me?
According to more complete information approxmately 29 of the over 100 clusters are in the US.
Of course all of this is moot, since this was never about controlling servers, it's about DNS zonefiles.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
But a private corporation should be? Riiiiiiight....
fuck you.
Both of you have it wrong (to one extent or another). What motivated many of the early european settlers to (what is now) The United States of America was the promist of religious freedom. England at the time was still enmeshed in the paris system whereby the government devolved to the individual Anglican Parishes. Everyone in the country was expected to a) belong to their local parish, and b) pay for its upkeep (as part of taxes). Additionally public office was typically restruicted to good anglicans.
While other sects such as the Quakers, Baptists, puritans, etc. were not always considered illegal there were waves of repression. It would be okay for a while to have meetongs (so long as your taxes were paid), and then some change in the winds would bring a crackdown/repression.
Armed with a desire to colonize the new world the British Crown was willing to charter the new colonies with some distinct religious freedoms. This meant that they could govern the colonies as they wished so long as the taxes were paid. To the British government this meant that they gained a) new colonies in an otherwize untaxable land, and b) the removal of some of their less-desirable subjects. At one point they also sent many a convict to the new world as a bond slave but that is a different story.
Some of the older colonies (e.g. Virginia) were Anglican and had a church although they faced a shortage of ministers because what good anglican minister would want to leave a decent living in England to come to Virginia before the invention of Air Conditioning? The French areas (e.g. Louisiana) were heavily Catholic. Pennsylvania was a large outpost of Quakers, and other 'puritan dissidents'. It was also the sole property of one William Pitt, an influential purtain, and the richest puritan of his day. King James II gave him the land in an effort to appease the puritans following the Second Civil War in England. Areas like Massachusetts were a stonghold of other puritan sects.
What is crucial is that in all of the colonies, the same repression took place (with the exception of Philidelphia which was the most liberal city of its day). In Massachusetts all members had to be part of a puritan church and were charged with its upkeep via taxes. Moreover only good church members could vote/run for public office, etc. This was also true in Virginia, Pennsylvania, etc. Sound familiar? Religious freedom to many of the original colonists meant a place where they could tell others how to worhip not a place where anyone could worship as they wished.
Ironically, Rhode Island was founded as a colony by dissidents from Massachusetts. They left the colony under persecution for their beliefs and founded their own land where they could tell others how to pray.
Even more Ironically Baptists (the religion of GW) were the original religious pariahs of this nation. They were not welcome anywhere and they were the only religious group that fought for a total abolishment of the church taxation, and the religious tests for public participation/office. Their modern descendents have strayed somewhat from this original call forgetting, apparently how many of their original leaders faced death and torture for supporting true religious freedom.
When the Constitution of the United States was written it was widely criticized both for its lack of religious language (Neither the God of Christ nor any god at all is invoked in it) but also for Article 6 Cl
While there are a few sorts of orders that are reserved to the President, the SecDef can, in fact, order the military to just about anything, without having to so much as notify the President after the fact. If you doubt this, I can send you about a million DoD Instructions signed by... not even Rumsfeld. Subcabinet officials sign them pretty routinely.
I'm a commander in the Naval Reserve, and hence, a lot lower on the totem pole than any of the bigwigs mentioned here. And yet, when I was assigned to a ship (not so many years ago), I had weapons release authority - meaning I could shoot at any targets I felt were a threat to the ship. Didn't even have to ask the captain.
The idea that no one but the President can order the military to do anything is ridiculous. He'd never sleep. The SecDef is part of the National Command Authority, and can (and does) direct the military to do things all the time.
Sean
You did a piss-poor job of checking. Although several attempts have been made to ban flag-burning, all of these have been shot down in the courts. Burning the US flag is legal in every state in the Union.
Sean
What would be inherently wrong with IndiaNet ChinaNet or SriLankaNet, if they should choose to make their own network? Surely, some people in IndiaNet territory may want access to the old Internet, but some may not.
Actually, by now, after having access to the full Internet, a smaller Internet may have problems with their customer base wanting access to the old Internet, despite of the fact that their country doesn't control the domain structure. I don't suppose that it is the people but, the powers that be that have problems with who controls the Internet. As with most people, if the service works, the people are happy, they don't care who's behind the curtain, pulling the strings.
But then America is not a very free country. In many countries in the world you do have this freedom of expression, for example in France and Sweden. Thus, people in those countries are freer than in America. Those countries also don't practice torture, another minor benefit.
no, it would make the folk who live in the country and actually *voted* in favour (explicitly or implicitly) accessories.
Other countries are unable to stop the US. You wouldn't call an old lady who witnesses a fight an accessory because she didn't stop it would you? Same thing.
> You have the .xxx backwards - it was actually a good idea,
.xxx was the dumbest idea to come down the pike in at least a decade. Two options:
.xxx, 90% of the Internet drops a block on the domain and bye bye open Internet. And of course anything remotely non-child safe would eventually be forced into .xxx. If you have any sort of imagination you can imagine how it would play out in the courts. The Internet becomes a lame Disneyland parody of itself.
.xxx.fr or heck, even porn.fr, go for it!
No.
1. All porn sites would be forced (threat of criminal liability) to relocate to
2. Porn sites don't have to move. In which case I have to ask, Just what was the fscking point again?
Longer term the correct solution is to deprecate ALL of the top level domains and deny renewals. Force everyone into the country tlds and this problem vanishes. If the French want
Democrat delenda est
I'm still not sure how that relates to my point. Call me selfish (though I would not have to point out the irony in that) but I'm concerned with what information I can access. If some guy in Sri Lanka has an awesome webpage with whatever content, I want to be able to access it. For free. As things are with a single internet, I can do just that. If there were to be a SriLankaNet, I might not be able to. That's my main concern with segregated internets.
Which is exactly the reason why the UN is the best choice, from a democratic point of view. It keeps single-people-in-power (heads of states) from doing much harm to the whole world by requiring them to more-or-less agree. Just the way a parliamentary democracy works.
Except in your mind, at the end of the day, no changes to administration are made if parties still disagree. This is not always how it works in reality.
For example, lets take a Highway bill, limiting the speed to 55 MPH. One political party likes it, the other party doesn't. But the bill still passes, and we're stuck with 55 MPH speed limits, and a highway bill that cost a suspiciously large amount of cash. Why?
Because key members opposing the bill got various consessions and pork thrown their way by the Party in favor of it. I highly reccomend you wait until the US does something untenable before fragmenting authority over the internet.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Actually the UN have quite a bit of power here. If the committee seems abuse of power, the UN can easily create a second DNS system.
This is basically like dealing with a spoiled fat kid. You let the kid have it's candy on the condition it behaves. If it doesn't, you take away the candy supply. The US only has power as long as the rest of the world "allows" it to in this regard.
Unless the US plans on using it's military to invade every other country.
P.S. the comments in this thread do NOTHING to help improve the image of americans in the rest of the world. So don't whine when you get the cold shoulder while travelling.
World: We want an independent international body to control the internet. ...
ICANN: Uhm, we're already an international body with rotating membership comprised of public and private representatives with actual physical facilities scattered around the globe.
World: But, you're controlled by the United States government.
ICANN: Uh, we send them a spreadsheet and have a conference call once a year, that's all. Hell, we're more beholden to a pissy private university in California than the US Government. Who would you recommend?
World: The UN, ITU maybe.
ICANN: So you're saying, basically, give control to Switzerland?
World: Yes, they're independent.
ICANN: So are we.
World:
Yes, it's called IPv6.
Where was European and Japanese companies when we were developing DOS, CPM, Windows, MacOS, Xerox PARC?
I wouldn't be much of a Slashdotter if I didn't point out that you forgot Unix. Which of course was created by Bell Labs. An American outfit :)
Basically, if these countries had been half as progressive as the US was, they'd *already have* control of the Internet because they would have been there setting up DNS with us in the first place. It just bothers me. If you miss the boat, you can't swim out to catch it.
You don't have much of a reason to be progressive/innovative when you have a 35 hour workweek and can't get fired or laid off.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The point is not controll, but securing internet access. Internet has become extremely important for the economic development for many countries, and it is a problem that USA could "turn off the internet" or block certain countries in an emergency or disagreement.
Censoring the internet is already possible through firewalls, like China does it. So it is not about that. It's neither about domains (xxx, com, net, etc.), thats just a little part of it.
By just builing one or two (mirrored) backupsystems that will make it impossible for the US to "turn of the internet", many countries will be satisfied. Because their internet-infrastructure will work nomatter what.(Yes, I know this solution is more expensive, but you get something back: security)
That's my opinion anyway.
> Besides, what happened in places like the Soviet Union isn't representative
> of what Communism can mean.
Communists never tire of telling this whopper, in the hope of pulling off a Big Lie, hopeing thereby to make it possible to suggest trying it again; this time of course they promise to "Do it right."
Listen up kids, Communism, Socialism, Welfare Socialism, Democratic Socialism, National Socialism, etc. Call it whatever you want, tweak the edges however you want it all falls to the same core defect. We buried hundreds of millions of people during the 20th Century in various failed attempts to get it right because Leftists of all stripes just refused to believe it as every attempt at building their Utopias collapsed into one dictatorship after another, concentration camp after concentration camp and mass murder following mass murder.
It all comes down to force. If you want to install a select elite to make everyone else's decisions for them you have to be willing to put the disenters up against a wall or the great unwashed mass of the people, being much wiser in agregate than your elite experts, will simply ignore them, work around them, etc. All Socialist experiments eventually realize this and instead of humbly facing reality; that people not only WANT to be Free but that they actually prosper without the 'enlightened leadership of the Party' and return to a Representive form of Government they always go for the Camps and the AK-47s instead.
And we now know that no government can repress it's People so utterly that they won't eventually reclaim their Liberty. We are still waiting for the last few Communist holdouts to collapse, but History is now clearly against them. China sorta realizes it and is looking for a way out that doesn't involve the transitional chaos Russia and the former Soviet Slave States are going through. Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam are the last ones who even make a big public show of believing Communism still has a future, but we all know they won't make it another twenty years.
Democrat delenda est
I think that the technical community has failed in its responsibility to explain the implications of "internet governance" to the average non-techie. Maybe if the parties to this dispute had a better understanding of just how the internet is "governed", the dispute would go away, and the U.N. could talk about something important--like making sure those $100 laptops actually get into the hands of people who need them.
I'm not an expert myself--I'm a tech writer. I would like to take a whack at formulating a simple analogy of what "internet governance"--in its present form--is; an analogy that can be understood even by average politicians. Maybe others could help clarify and correct my explanation. Here goes:
The U.S., through ICANN, doesn't control the internet any more than the publisher of a telephone book controls the phone system. All we (the US) do is publish a phone book, and we let everyone use it for free. If you (the customer) ask us for a number, we give you one (we do charge a very small fee for that service). If we didn't, if we got choosy about who we give numbers to, then people would stop using our book. If that happened, maybe somebody else would turn out a reliable phone book--or maybe phone numbers would become useless because a bunch of people are publishing phone books with different numbers in them.
Now, do you really want to "fix" how this works? Do you want to turn the simple job of assigning phone numbers and publishing them to a committee? --Worse yet, an international committee with huge and conflicting political agendas?
Comments anyone?
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
What's this have to do with the UN being an unwieldy beauracracy that moves at an elderly elephant's pace? Please remind me.
duh.
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
This is basically like dealing with a spoiled fat kid. You let the kid have it's candy on the condition it behaves. If it doesn't, you take away the candy supply. The US only has power as long as the rest of the world "allows" it to in this regard.
I love how comparing the United States to a spoiled fat child doesn't garner any criticism but some of my posts in a decent debate about freedom of speech got modded "overated" because I dared to point out how some European nations have outlawed various political parties.
So don't whine when you get the cold shoulder while travelling.
I've traveled extensively throughout the UK, Italy and Greece. I've never gotten the cold shoulder. In fact most of the people I met in the UK would rather be the 51st state then join the EU. We have much more in common with them (Common Law legal systems, political systems, culture) then the mainland ever will. Most of the people I met in Greece and Italy view the EU as Paris and Berlin's method of imposing their economic order and way of life on the rest of Europe.
In fact the only people that have ever been rude to me while overseas were (*gasp*) French. It was even funnier to hear them bitch about us in French because they just assumed that we were all lazy Americans and that none of us spoke their language. What is it about the mere sight of an American that infuriates you so?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Hmm I wonder if i would have the freedom to pass out pamphlets about Hitler's side of the story on some of those top European countries?
Ah that's right, despite the fact that nothing is hack proof, and thus there is no such thing as real privacy on a netowrk the size of an internet, you somehow think you can do better. Perhaps if someone had actually come up with a good reason for the US not to control it, we may not have control. Fact is, no one can. No one will EVER be totally happy with the way the internet runs. NO ONE! It doesn't really matter either. It runs, it isn't broken. We already have all the people that have been running it and know how. There is just no good reason for us not to run it. As a side note though, refering to an entire nation as "filthy obese fucktards" doesn't do much for your image as an intellegent person. As a matter of fact using a blanket statement for any group is not real smart.
Dare I ask which weapons are not made of chemicals? I guess we could use laser or sonic weapons... provided they're not used to blind people, and umm... hmmm.
It's a basic incindiary weapon, though, generally considered to be different from toxins like nerve gas & whatnot. Or so I would've thought. But I still think the most potent chemical weapon is Pb (e.g. hot lead).
"What is it about the mere sight of an American that infuriates you so?"
<flamebait>
I think it's jelousy, after all, the knowledge that we saved them from being over run by dictators in 2 wars and we went to Iraq to do whatever regardless of what anyone else though, lets see them try something like that...face it, America if the 800lb gorilla of world politics.
</flamebait>
I don't care what youre doing so much as the idiotic way you're doing it.
So you're saying there's this ONE guy that goes around Germany and reads Mein Kampf?? Super...
And then you bring up the fact that some of your warez sites got shut down. You sealed the deal; you're STUPID!
I agree that we can and should disagree if we feel like it. The difference between us is that I consider a government that actively stops its people from expressing opinions is not as "right" as one that does not. China, for example, goes to a lot of trouble to interfere with free expression. The same with Cuba. In my example of Afghanistan under the Taliban, free expression outside of their fundamentalist views was a death sentence. How you can tolerate that, I can't understand. Right now, you and I are exchanging views without any concern that either of us will be dragged into a ditch and shot because of it. Do you really consider governments that do kill people for saying the wrong thing to be just as good as those that do not?
By the way: I don't want to interfere for the sake of doing so. Entities like the Taliban have to be confronted because they are a direct threat to democracy. The routinely, and loudly proclaimed that democracy was evil, and that voting is un-Islamic. That's fine, until they start killing people who say or do otherwise. In the US, you can (as many people do) say that you think communism, or Nazism, or anarchy, or anything else is better, and you can vote for people that agree with you. But if you're in China, and loudly say that you think a truly representative democracy and open market is a better thing, and that the government killing protesters is a bad thing and should be talked about... poof! Jail time or worse. Do you truly find both approaches to government to be equally valid? Don't you realize that your ability to freely even answer that question depends on the fact that that is not true?
Imagine you were about to answer my question, and then were arrested and killed because of your interest in doing so honestly. Would you consider a government (and culture) that killed you for your words to be equally as valid as one that has, for hundreds of years, had men volunteer to go into harm's way to defend your right to say whatever you want? We can disagree about what is, and is not self-defense under what circumstances or while facing what threat... but you can't disagree that cultures which allow you to speak are fundamentally better for your individual rights than those that punish you for it. If you can't address that basic truth, then your moral compass doesn't exist, and you have no basis for making any value statement about any action, by anyone, ever.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
> You're right. And the sad fact is that it is in France where the government and the media collude to deceive the public.
;-)
No sign of the American government paying for TV programs pretending to be news then
I'm not an American, and initially when this story came out a couple weeks ago I agreed with handing over control to the UN. After letting it stew for a few weeks and considering the Pros and Cons, I don't think the UN is ready to take control. I believe it does in fact sit in good hands with the Americans, even when American liberty is at an all time low. (Of course I'd feel even better if some country like..
Denmark,Finland,Iceland, Ireland,Netherlands,Norway or Switzerland. Were in control... http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15333 Western democracies lose ground : the US falls more than 20 places
The Good Life
In fact the only people that have ever been rude to me while overseas were (*gasp*) French. It was even funnier to hear them bitch about us in French because they just assumed that we were all lazy Americans and that none of us spoke their language.
Gawd, France was like that thirty years ago when I was there! This one French shopkeeper wouldn't speak to me in English because it was beneath him, even though he know English. It was a very weird conversation. I would speak to him in English, he would understand but answer in French, and my German travelling companion would translate for me.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Before I reply to your post, I just want to make one thing clear. Do you believe that Canada is part of America?
since Al Gore invented it.
Second, the UN is not a government and is not an entity that has as a purpose to send its own troops into battle. It is more a framework for countries to cooperate. Having peace-keepers wasn't really something the UN was made for either, but something that has grown out of the demands on (and successes) of UN.
I guess the problem with ICANN as the so-called independent american body is that it has been shown not to be very independent. If it was a truely independent body, then I guess the discussion would be moot.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
So instead of creating an uproar over softwood, we can create an uproar over p0rn. - a Canadian
Actually, the Annan is trying to reform the UN to make it hard for countries that break human rights to be on the Human Rights commission. Ironically, with the stronger set of rules, it will be hard for the US to make the cut with their current tourtur camp on Cuba. Also ironically, is that the US is one of the countries, together with Iran and Cuba, that works against the current reforms of the UN. Another thing to think about is why countries like Libya works so hard to be on the Human Rights commission. If the UN is so inept, why would a country like Libya be worried about the Human Rights commission?
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Good win for the US. Who knows where the control could have went.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Well, aside from the fact that net penetration in English speaking countries relative to its penetration in India and China might dull your suggestion, English is far more important than you give it credit for.
Hindi is not spoken throughout India - there is only one language which transcends India's cultural and geographical boundaries, one language which you can count on someone to speak whether they're from Punjab or New Deli and it's English.
India could have dropped English years ago, it didn't because it's important to its day-to-day functioning and it's an asset - it provides a uniformity which quite simply wouldn't exist otherwise.
Many Faiths, Many Cultures, Only one language to transcend them all and that language does not share power *cough* err... You get the gist.
"A new body will be created to provide international oversight, which will, of course, have no binding authority."
Just like the UN.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
that's and more is what I've predicted a while ago (http://goolocalizations.blogspot.com/ , 'Googlevision' section)
why would a country like Libya be worried about the Human Rights commission?
Because they keep getting paper cuts from opening all the strongly worded letters.
``You must not be from the US or a conspiracy nut.''
"This is exactly what I meant in one of my points. I voice an opinion that you don't agree with, and BAM, I get labeled as some kind of idiot or enemy. This happens on a large scale, and thus limits free speech, because it makes people afraid to voice their opinions."
I never said that you where an enemy. Not being from the US doesn't make one the enemy of the US. What it does mean is that your view of the US is limited. Just as I am no expert on the press in say France your view of how the government and the press in the US may be limited. If you do live in the US and think that the government controls the press and that is all reporting that everything is great then yes you are a nut case or living under a rock or both.
"Oh, so you know all about every other country in the world, right? And what about the difference between what's in the constitution, and what happens in practice? Having free speech allowed in the constitution is nice, but it's not much use if the police prevent you from exercising it,"
Never seen the police stop anyone from saying that they think the president is wrong or that the government is wrong.
the media won't broadcast it,"
The media isn't obligated to broadcast anything. They are free to pick and choose. You can always print up newsletters or publish a web page or post on Slashdot. Just because someone can't get on CNN isn't a restriction of freedom of speech.
" and the people ridicule you for it." How we have it. You feel that it is okay for you to ridicule people for saying that the US is the best choice but if someone ridicules you then they are infringing on your freedom of speech!
Freedom of Speech means you can say, "I think Hitler was right!". It can not mean that no one else can voice an opinion about what you say! IE saying that no you are wrong, a fool, or a moron. It is not the freedom of ridicule! The only way to do that is to limit other peoples freedom of speech.
" Again, it's not like the US is the bottom of the barrel, but saying that it's the best is a bold claim, and I think it's simply not true."
You are allowed to think that. There maybe a country that has as many protections for political speech as the US I have never seen one with more and I doubt I ever will since I can not see how you can have more freedom of political speech than the US has. I am just talking about political speech the US has some strong restrictions on commercial speech.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I don't know fromwhere you arrogant fuckwits get the notion that the US owns the infrastructures in the rest of the world, you do NOT own the fucking infrastructure.
You never catch me alive
You must have met a select group of people, I don't know many, if any.
First, as you undoubtly know, english is not spoken by everyone. Actually, Chinese and Hindi would be a better target language.
This is incorrect. English is the best language to use becuase it is the most spoken language worldwide. It isn't necessarily the most common first language, but more people can speak English than any other language in the world. According to "English as a Global Language", David Chrystal in the late 1990s statistics suggest that between 1.2 and 1.5 billion people are either fluent or competant in English, and this figure is growing. Chinese comes in at 1.1 billion, and what more Chinese has many dialects (although unified by a common written language).
Hindi is also a poor choice. While at uni I was chatting to an indian student who told me that the offical language of india is English because there are so many different language within India. According to this (first result returned by google), a mere 480 million people speak hindi (180 as mother tongue, 300 as second language).
meh
Maybe the internet will turn in to the callback situation. Other countries cut off links to the internet, private companies take over and provide access to the US internet for a hefty fee, a company in the US comes up with a way to circumvent their expensive services, international governments get involved and block private companies in the US from doing what they do best...
Nothing like this has ever happened to me neither in Paris nor in southern France. One thing that I've noticed Americans often do is start speaking English straight away, which I think is very unrespectful. I'd always start with "Bonjour" or "Bonsoir" or whatever first and then ask if the person spoke English. 9 out of 10 times the answer was "yes, a little bit", accompanied with a friendly smile. The 10th time the person genuinely didn't understand, so we'd go about doing business with my terrible French.
using a hotmail account isn't much smarter either ;p
There are good sides to this... At least we know who's snooping...
Did anybody check with Al Gore to see if he is ready to give up his invention?
Yes, he is in the chain of command. He can relay orders from POTUS to the armed forces. But he can not legally issue those orders himself.
My boss's secretary can relay his orders to me, but she isn't in my chain of command.
IMO, it suppresses speech (note, "speech", not "free speech") via a moderation system that gives registered, paying, ass-lickers a +3 throw. If there were a sort option that put all posts on the same level (say "1" +/- moderation), I might bother to re-register (but would still post AC - that's just Common Sense).
*adjusts the tin foil hat*
;)
Still, I'll go with the GP's point. I'm based in South East Asia, and I made a quick survey of all US-based sites I frequent. He's right; except for community websites such as this one, most big sites (Yahoo, Google, Amazon etc) provide local variants as well, although not necessarily Indian or Chinese in every case.
More than mere navel gazing.
Despite all the posts along similar themes, I've found quite the opposite. I disagree with the majority opinion on slashdot quite a lot in some areas, but I've generally found that articulate, well-written responses do tend to get modded up, even when they're against the majority view.
Of course, there are always more response modded up for the majority view, and the quality threshold for modding-up seems to be lower for them, but they still don't obliterate the well-written opposing posts.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I am not an expert in geography but SE,UK and JP must be states of the Union like NY, CA and NJ.
"Scattered all over the world? As I said, the primary root servers are in the US."
As you said? What you failed to say is that you're an idiot masquerading as someone who knows something. I suggest you learn about a subject before offering rebuttal, rather than showing yourself for the fool that you are. Had you bothered to learn anything about the topology and infrastructure behind the various root servers, the word anycast (among others) would have come to the forefront.
I hate reading interesting stories on SlashDot only to find unqualified idiots offering up intellectually bankrupt explanations and passing them off as facts. On the other hand, I enjoy putting fools like you in their place. I guess you do serve a useful purpose -- that of a bad example.
If the UN gets ahold of the internet, don't you think the first thing they will do is institute a tax? They have been trying to intitute a "world tax" for years...
So when we try to revoke known spaming/phishing domains, France can give aid and comfort to them. Great! I suppose we'll be hearing "Bush lied about spamming" soon too.
Wrong.
The US (which lost about 400,000 soldiers) came off much luckier than China, which lost 10 times as many soldiers, and of course the USSR, which lost 25 times as many soldiers. Both nations were allies of the US---despite what some history revisionists in this thread would try to claim---and both suffered even more civilian casualties than military.
Not that there's much sense in starting a who-did-how-much pissing contest over this; however, the relatives of those 14,500,000 dead Chinese and Soviet soldiers who fought and died for the same reasons our soldiers did would probably prefer not to be forgotten just because you're feeling pissy at the French for falling to the Blitzkrieg too quickly.
> if you've been paying any attention to the oil-for-food scandal, or any
> other story that's popped up in the past decade or so.
Any other story? Such as this one from The Economist which talks about how the weight of evidence clearly shows that UN peacekeeping is extremely effective and cost-efficient at stabilizing and rehabilitating failed states, and has a much better track record at doing so than the US despite spending orders of magnitude less money?
How, exactly, does THAT story make the UN look bad? You made the blanket claim that "any other story" about the UN made it look bad, so clearly you'll have a detailed counter-argument to the study referred to in the article?
Or are you exactly the type of deluded, jingoistic anti-UN fool that the grandparent poster was talking about, and felt like you should provide an example to illustrate his point?
(As for the oil-for-food scandal, yes, that's bad; however, considering that similar bribery and kickbacks were occurring in the Coalition Provisional Authority within months of the invasion, I humbly submit that such corruption is a problem related to large sums of money sloshing around, rather than somehow unique to the UN.)
> Don't keep your mind too open, buddy, or people will throw a lot of trash into it.
Yeah, can't have those damn facts polluting the purity of your ideology, can you?
If it was just the EU saying they'd like more say, I wouldn't mind as much. But this is China and Iran and Iraq we're talking about. That's like asking the wolf to guard your sheep...
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
I don't think you should make assumptions about the existance of my "moral compass", just because it doesn't align with yours, I'm afraid.
I don't consider those governments to be more (I consider them to be exactly as right, namely pretty wrong) "right" than a democracy, and indeed I'm quite content to live in a country that pretends to be one (I could go to length about the question of parliaments as opposed to rule-by-the-people, but this is not the time for that). What I don't do is consider them as "sympathetic" or "nice to live in".
The point being: What I don't consider "right" is to stop other people and governments from doing something else than my preferred way of doing things. It is their peoples choice, if they dislike their government they should overthrow it. If they're not enough to do so, then clearly they aren't a majority anyway... That may sound harsh, but since one can never know what is "right" (Unless one believes in a god who told people so, but then most "terrorists" do as well, and are equally right in it, namely not at all), all one does is violently impose ones own view on people who may not even want it (A lot of wars were fought in the past with the justification of bringing "civilization", etc. I'm thinking of the crusades or "White man's burden" in colonialization). This is about the choice to be undemocratic.
Put differently: No nation has the "right" to police others without some kind of international "constitution" (Just like, on a citizen level, the "real" police would have no right without the contries constitution). International law exists and the UN is something close to a government in that respect. (Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying the UN is always right, but without it or something in its place, there cannot be "right"). The only problem is creating such a constitution that is indeed accepted by all those "governed" by it.
But really, we're not going to reach anything in this discussion. Were I to live in a country that was undemocratic and were I content with that and your country were to "free" me and my countrymen, I'd consider your country an invader and enemy whom I'd fight, for which I'd likely be killed by your country. That is no more "right" to me than being killed by my own country, it is just less expected and more arrogant...
Ok, so if they want control, why don't they just make up some TLDs that don't collide, and go at it? If non-US users want to resolve .com, just have the UN root pass it on to the US root. If there's enough consensus, they'll start laughing at poor Americans who can't resolve .un domains. The ridicule alone would be so acute that customers would start clamoring, and ISPs would start adding the UN root to their configs regardless of what ICANN did.
If the US root/ICANN REALLY wanted to be evile, then they'd just declare their own colliding TLDS - but of course, ISPs can still decide which root gets queried. So, ultimately, it's not the US' decision to "control the Internet"
This is the same free, end-to-end Internet that Doc Searls was just tlaking about keeping, isn't it? It's still free - so far.
Were I to live in a country that was undemocratic and were I content with that and your country were to "free" me and my countrymen, I'd consider your country an invader and enemy whom I'd fight, for which I'd likely be killed by your country.
But would you still feel that way if people living in your undemocratic country actively trained and financed people to kill people in my country? If you would be happy to live in a country where you had no voice, but watched your countrymen attack another country - can you really say that you consider the response anything but self defense? I think you're being hypocritical, here: you consider societies that organize around strength (rather then votes) to be equally valid. Meaning, you're OK with a country that's run by whoever can secure the power to do so. But you're not OK when another group of people use their own strength to respond to an attack from the people that you consider (by exercisizing their own violence locally) to be your legitimate rulers?
since one can never know what is "right"
Ah, now we get to the bottom of it, and to your fundamental hypocrisy. You say that one can never know what is right, but you're stating what is wrong. How do you derive that capacity? One can use simple reason to come up with a rational framework for human society, and a representative, minimally-governed, free-market structure is the natural outcome. No bibles needed, to know that using violence against someone is only rational in heading off or responding to the use of violence by that person. A government that derives its power through force (rather than democracy) - the type which you consider equally valid - cannot, rationally, be supported. Simple logic illustrates the unsustainability of a structure that enslaves its productive citizens through force. That's objectively true, and if you're uncomfortable looking into the light and seeing that, it's because your world view is built on mixed premises and built-in contradictions that you're uncomfortable facing. Some of these truths (to quote some great men) are self-evident. Self defense in face of someone who, deriving his murderous creed from a mystical myth, seeks to kill you - there's no need for the UN to give permission.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Even when my country was killing your people by the millions it'd still not be "right" to the same ("Two wrongs don't make a right", thogh I don't exactly agree, see below).
"Hypocrisy"... Please refrain from "ad hominem", ok? I don't tell you what's wrong, I tell you what "I consider not to be right". That neither states I consider it to be wrong (I can't know it's right, so I can't know it's wrong either), nor that I think you should agree. Moral values are individual, please have your own. (I think it's obvious that this quite the same argument as to why I think people may live their lives however they see fit, even if I don't agree it's a nice or enjoyable one).
"Truth" is something that exists only in math, in real life, there is no such thing as "truth that is self-evident", to claim so, especially if that truth is ones own, is arrogant.
That's why he said it creates *effective* censorship, not absolute. Very few adjust their display preferences to see everything and fewer do so unless they know what they're looking for. And when I see the mod gave you a 5 and gave him a -1, his point has been very well proven. I would also hazard a guess that this moderator has some opinions about articles from amightywind before even reading them.
Your facts or statements that where wrong
"has the media only telling half of the news (the other half censored by themselves - or maybe there is some entity imposing censorship on them after all?)"
Here is where you claim that all the media in the US is censoring the news and that some "entity" may be imposing censorship on them. Which is clearly false.
'the country where disagreeing with the government can get you labeled anti-patriotic or even considered supporting terrorists"
And now this one.
Since many people right now are disagreeing with the government including members of the government this one is also clearly false.
Here is false statement "Having free speech allowed in the constitution is nice, but it's not much use if the police prevent you from exercising it," You later admit that this statement is false later.
"I haven't either, but I have read about free speech zones conveniently located away from the government officials and the public. This effectively prevents those who matter, namely those who weren't already convinced, from hearing the message. Again, not censorship, but it gets close."
"This is exactly what I meant in one of my points. I voice an opinion that you don't agree with, and BAM, I get labeled as some kind of idiot or enemy."
Again this is also a false statement that you admit too.
Even your complaint about free speech zones is kind of odd since you feel that some speech should be outlawed completely.
Not one statement you made except the free speech zones in any way reflects on the protections on political free speech in the US. They are just the very rants and jumping to conclusions that you claim that people in the US make all the time.
I have spent time in the UK and Ireland and was offered a job in Italy that I didn't take for personal reasons. I also do business with many people in the EU, Canada, Mexico, and Hong Kong. It was funny when I went the UK people where shocked that I knew who Nelson was since they where convinced that they knew that Americans didn't know history. Your view and statements about the US are distorted and colored by you personal experience just as a lot of people in the USs is. Some people in the US equate socialism with Stalinism and Nazis since they both high jacked the term. You see the US a powerful giant country that only cares about it's self.
Did you ever consider the possibility that it is you that is getting distorted news and being manipulated. All politicians want power and one of the best ways to control a population is to give them an enemy.
Even if you want to drag Iraq into it lets look at some facts.
Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction before the first war. That is a fact.
Even after the first war and after Iraq said that there where no weapons of mass distruction the US had to pressure UN inspectors to check some sites and guess what they found more weapons material.
Iraq was getting military supplies illegally through the Food for Oil program that the UN was running.
Iraq kicked out the UN inspectors. Iraq claimed they where spies. Well yea isn't that sort of exactly what they where? I mean they where trying to find out stuff that Iraq wanted to keep secert. Sounds like spies to me.
The US believed Russian intelligence when they said Saddam was back working on weapons of mass destruction.
That may have been the huge mistake.
Can anyone honestly say Iraq under Saddam wouldn't have tried to develop weapons of mass destruction as soon as the inspections stopped and the sanctions lifted?
I am not even saying that the war was a good idea but it is not the clear cut case that many media outlets are making it.
Here is the thing that you really need to think about.
"You believe that you get that information because you agree with it.''
Sorry, but that just doesn't make sense. What you agree with or not has no effect on the information that's in a news broadcast."
Some facts just that facts. Sixteen people died in a p
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Actually, the commission gets not elected by anyone, as the parent poster said.
It's the council of ministers who appoint them, but the parliament has to agree to it (or not) - as you say, as a whole, not one individual of the commission.
Unix. Which of course was created by Bell Labs. An American outfit
;)
Based in Cambridge, U.K. btw.
If I really am talking out of my ass...explain it to me with respect so I'll at least pull my ears out to listen.
Reminds me of Spanish speaking individuals in the US; then the US locals here are accused of 'racism' when they request English to be used.
``Some facts just that facts. Sixteen people died in a plane crash or Such and such ship sank. Many things like motivations an even actions have a very large amount of opinion and or spin based on the bias of the reporter. How much you believe the report has everything to do how you view the world.''
"I don't understand that paragraph. What are you saying, and what's the point you're trying to make?"
I know that you don't understand. I was hoping you might. You have made my point, you "know" what the truth is. Anything that doesn't fit must be a lie.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Well, I was just asking for an honest clarification. You could have tried writing that paragraph in grammatically correct English. Instead, you chose to insult my intelligence (again!) and jump to a completely unwarranted conclusion. Just when I was thinking we were getting into a civilized and interesting discussion. Oh well. Welcome to my foes list.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Sorry English grammar isn't my strong point. I was not insulting your intelligence. Many very smart people are sure that they know the truth. I was trying to point out that when looking at a news source it is human nature that one that reinforces your view of the world will be the one you feel is unbiased. Not because it is but because almost everyone feels that they they are unbiased.
To give you an example. At my church I often see people say that our belief is so obviously true how can anyone doubt it. I on the other hand know I took a leap of faith. I can not prove it is true but I believe it. But I can see how others might not.
Not that being on your foes list bothers me. I will say I am sorry. I had a bad day at work dealing with a moron web developer and I may have taken it out on you. Bad manners will never win anyone over.
How big of a moron? He wants to you a none interactive flash animation for your product information page! Yes 400k+ for total fluff. Also wants to use flash menus! If not flash he wants to use PDF! When I said that XHTML+CSS is the standard way to present information on the web he told me that "In his humble opinion there ARE NO STANDARDS of how you present information on the web! Grrrrr...
So please forgive me if you felt I was insulting. I do think you are just as wrong but I really didn't mean to be insulting.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
``Many very smart people are sure that they know the truth. I was trying to point out that when looking at a news source it is human nature that one that reinforces your view of the world will be the one you feel is unbiased.''
;-)
:-/ I'm tired of the discussion, though, so let's drop it.
I see. Well, that's very true.
``He wants to you a none interactive flash animation for your product information page!''
I assume you told everybody who cared to listen how incredibly dumb that is.
``In his humble opinion there ARE NO STANDARDS of how you present information on the web!''
He may have a point, in the sense that people use all kinds of non-standard formats. People like him. And he dares call himself a web developer? I can see how having to deal with that ruins your day.
``So please forgive me if you felt I was insulting.''
Apologies accepted. I hope you enjoyed your stay on the foes list, but that's it. You're being KICKED OUT!!!
``I do think you are just as wrong but I really didn't mean to be insulting.''
That's fine, of course. I didn't think I was going to convince you anyway, I just sometimes cannot stop arguing.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Just for your information. Today I found out that I have to fire the web developer now. My week is just getting better by the day. While he is a pain in my rear I take no joy in firing anyone.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.