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US Keeps Control of the Internet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-thank-good-thats-all-settled-once-and-for-all dept.

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."

11 of 1,057 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "the unelected EU parliament"

    Of all the EU institutions you picked the only ELECTED one to call it unelected. It's the COMISSION that is unelected.
    Not that it makes it much better but you still gotta be accurate.

  2. The headline should read.... by tpgp · · Score: 5, Informative
    The headline should read:
    Private Sector will probably retain control of the Internet.

    From the TFA:

    the compromise's ultimate decision is that leadership of the Internet, and its future direction, will remain in the hands of the private sector, although some critics contend that the U.S. government, which oversees ICANN, if only nominally, could still flex its muscle in future decisions.


    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.
  3. Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting by mdecarle · · Score: 3, Informative

    The commission gets elected by the parliament. See also: the problems Barroso had when he proposed that italian guy in his commission. The European institutions are no different than any other democratic government. The only problem is that is parliament opposes one memeber of the commission, it has to oppose the whole of it.

    Do the US vote who gets to be Secretary of State? Defence? DHS ? Didn't think so.

  4. Get our of your hole by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Informative
    ... and stop being so biased.

    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).

    1. Re:Get our of your hole by Guysmiley777 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, I think Russia has the U.S. beat hands down for combat casualties. 7 to 8 MILLION Russian soldiers died. Of course their combat strategies sometimes resembled "jam enemy tank treads with bodies", but that is beside the point. And yes Virginia, the Commie Pinko Russkies were on the Allied side (gasp) against Herr Hitler and friends.

      --
      Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
  5. Re:and who better than the US... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're lying. In germany you can discuss nazi history all you want. In fact I doubt that there is another country that discusses its own history as much as germany. You can buy nazi memorabilia and use them as a teaching aid or for art purposes. In fact there's even a turq guy (forgot his name) touring through germany reading "Mein Kampf" by Hitler.

    Now in the US, how many torrent trackers were forced to shutdown? Free speech my ass.

  6. Re:A monopoly is a monopoly by arevos · · Score: 4, Informative

    DNS resolves in a hierarchical structure, and therefore there are root DNS servers that sit at the top of the tree. This has to be the case in order to guarentee DNS entries are consistant. Without a central authority, how would you decide who gets a certain domain name?

    Given this, a monopoly is a necessary evil. The question is who controls this monopoly. Currently ICANN, a private US company oversees this. ICANN has its faults; more public involvement would be nice, less kissing up to large multinationals wouldn't go amiss either. However, ICANN has not screwed up too badly, and the US doesn't interfere with ICANN too often.

    The alternative to ICANN is a group created by a bureaocracy of counties that all want a piece of the pie. Many people are leery of such an idea, as there's a strong possibility that this will turn out to be worse than ICANN.

    Better the devil you know, in other words.

  7. SecDef does have power over the military by tomcres · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!

    1. Re:SecDef does have power over the military by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Informative

      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!

      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. I recall reading on 9/11 that both Rumsfeld and Cheney tried to give the military the authority to shoot down suspected hijacked flights before Bush was able to do so. Neither one of them had the authority to issue this order and the military was under no obligation to follow it. Of course one would hope that in a scenario like 9/11 that the Generals would take some initiative and issue such an order themselves -- but it doesn't change the fact that neither SecDec nor VPOTUS could legally issue such an order.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  8. Re:THBBBPPPPPP!!!! by terrymr · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

  9. Sorry, the gp poster is correct... by sean.peters · · Score: 4, Informative

    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