Slashdot Mirror
How The U.S. Government Undermined the Internet
sakshale writes "The Register has an article about U.S. Government backed policy changes that have led ICANN to redelegate top level domains in such a way as to provide 'greater state-controlled censorship on the internet, reduce people's ability to use the internet to communicate freely, and leave expansion of the internet in the hands of the people least capable of doing the job'" More from the article: "At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. The previous owners, KazNIC, had been created from the country's Internet community. ICANN then immediately used that 'precedent' to hand ownership of Iraq's internet over to another government-run body, without accounting for any objections that the existing owners might have."
Slashdot needs a "saw that coming from a mile away" category
2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet...
Yea, never mind things like the Tsunami or Katrina or in the U.S. all of the controversies in government... I'm sure when I'm 85 years old this is exactly what I'll remember about 2005.
WTF, if the internet is in another country, the government of that country can do whatever they hell they want with it. That's how international law works. It's called respect for sovereignty.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I remember how in the beginning of 1990 Finland had some issues in having faster connections to internet. Some people in the US thought that the Finns were only goint to download software, not contribute to the net. Then came Linux, which was first distributed from the Finnish server at nic.funet.fi, and there was more traffic to the US than to Finland. Afterwards we did have quite fast net connections overseas.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
So the ICANN handed over control of a couple NICs to the government of those countries. Did I miss something else in the article?
Shouldn't the own governments handle the NICs in their own countries? I have to be missing something - otherwise all I can think is this is what the UN would probably have done anyway.
When the US government took over Afghanistan in 2001, it was fortunate in that the current ccTLD owner was killed during bombing of Kabul. It simple forged the man's signature on a piece of paper handing over control to the US-created authority and the job was done.
Really? They have plenty of other links to information in that article but nothing about this particular tidbit. I did a quick search and found nothing in the first 100 results. Granted, I didn't do as much homework as I should have but I would have expected that the author of this article would have provided something more than a simple paragraph making such a claim.
Anyone else have some more evidence or is this another piece of sensationalist journalism that's meant to fire everyone up over nothing?
If ICANN can "turn over" ownership TO a government body, then what is to keep it from being able to turn over ownership AWAY from that government later? Assuming enough outrage arises over the first turnover, of course!
I've said from the beginning that DNS is a government mechanism for censorship -- it was, it is and it will continue to be. The typical authoritarian response (from slashdotters no less) is that other countries can run their own DNS TLD's, but this will just lead to multiple censors, not real freedom.
Regulation does not help the needy or the poor. It does not help those who can not do something for themselves. Regulation does not make a safer or better product, and it does not create a cheaper marketplace.
Regulation gives those in power the ability to put friends, family and cronies into high paying monopolistic jobs, determine which companies can enter a market and prevent everyone else from competing or making a better product.
Those who know me (even if you don't like me) know I am anti-DNS. I don't have a free market solution YET, but I think about it every day. DNS will be the fall of the Internet, until there is a decentralized version, and I believe that Google or another major search company will find a way to replace the central authority version.
I know we need DNS today -- links, bookmarks, advertising, all that. I also know we needed coal burning stoves just 40 years ago in some parts of the U.S. Without government, society tries to find ways to become more free by competing with others. Everyone wants a profit, but we believe we'll earn more by underpricing our competition and offering a better product. With government, society tries to find ways around the bureaucracy, red tape and restrictions. We have markets that have an excessively high cost of entry, but it is not always because of the equipment needed -- many markets are expensive because of government regulations and restrictions.
In the end, our freedoms are destroyed, our hard work is overtaxed and our children are left with the burden of paying off our mistakes.
Should actually be "How ICANN Undermined the Internet"
before people get so annoyed with a country exerting excess control that they set up an alternate DNS root. Maybe one that mirrors the original by and large - but has some differences of opinion. You get to choose which one to use in case of a dispute, or just take one or other as it comes. Could it happen? Will it happen?
Sleezy principal #2:
"Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS."
If that doesn't say 'we'll control your country's domain name space', nothing does.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
... that TFA is a bit biased and its tone more than a bit sensationalist, but still the point is valid: the ICANN is behaving like some god-sent authority, without any respect for, uh, the people who actually matter: those who MAKE and USE the internet. Come to think of it, it's a US-sent rather than god-sent authority. And then, you wonder why we don't like its being the absolute ruler of the DNS?
Global warming is a cube.
ICANN is making sure that TLDs for countries are controlled by the governments of those countries?
And what is wrong with this? Isn't this how it's supposed to be?
Nice use of the word nuclear, by the way. Its good to see that propaganda is alive and well.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
They replied, "because ICANN"
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
This is simply how it's supposed to be. I know we all love to think we live in "cyberspace" etc etc but behind the bits are physical networks and governments. ccTLD's are supposed to be soverign to the country that they stand for. What is so horrible about that? If governments use their ccTLD to be more repressive, take it up with the government not with ICANN.
Amazing how some people scream censorship at the drop of a hat but can't see where they censor each other.
Isn't calling it censorship a bit of a stretch. What we are talking about is who controls the domain rights within a country. Now in the example they give for Kazakhstan, they point to their removal of Sacha Baron Cohen's website borat.kz. Their excuse is actually laughable, but who is to deny anyone, government controlled, influenced or not the right to protect their perceived "integrity".
.kz all together and people will still be able to see it.
Now, is this right? This is debatable and surely will be debated over and over here. Is this censorship? Hardly. We are not talking about some Great Firewall preventing the people from visiting any site of Cohen's. This is the WWW afterall and he can easily have the site with a different domain avoiding the
To say this is the beginning of state sponsored censorship is ridiculous, of course we are trusting on an article from The Register, so inflammatory language is a requirement, as is misinformation. Trust me, if a country was really wanting to censor anything they would do it one way or the other even if it meant "cutting the line". So let us all calm down and put the little tin foil hats away.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Whoop-de-do.
If this is news to you in 2005, you need to read the front-page of a newspaper once in a while.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Is it possible to have a Decentralized Internet service of sorts with no Government controlling it? Something like Bittorrent where there is no need for 'root' servers or super nodes of any sort.
Probably just a speculation but something worth looking into. If it is possible then it could very well be the next phase in technological innovation, especially at a time when governemnts of all countries are publicly or secretly wanting control over how their people live their life.
Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs Presented by Governmental Advisory Committee
The relevant section (I think) says:
And there is a lot more language like that. The way it reads to me, ICANN does what the local government says regarding the TLD, as soon as possible - and this has been policy since at least February 2000.W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
While governments might try to take over TLDs, as geeks we have our own nuclear option.
.us to goatse, we can.
In the end, no politician knows how to edit a zone file. It's up to some geek somewhere to do it. We hold all the cards, and if we want to redirect
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
you live in a world where Internet is used by hostile individuals patiently planning subversive attacks. If you only care about your porn and your funny video downloads and your privacy rights are "threatened", don't use email or browse the web anymore from home, go to an Internet cafe. In the real world, real honest people don't have anything to hide and don't want another 911 to happen.
Ah, so that's why Linux was written. Linus was really a time-traveller from Finland's porn-starved future, sent back in time to alter the course of history and get Finland an OC-3.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
There's nothing preventing us setting up alternate roots, no government wants that ;-)
Is it just me, or was one incredibly poorly written article? I won't bother picking apart the content - that's like slapfighting a quadripilegic.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I'm sure when I'm 85 years old this is exactly what I'll remember about 2005.
As of 2005, in Kazakhstan, women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.
Very niiice! High five!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
.UK Expect it to be *slightly* biased.
The Register has about as much credibility as a news source as this administration has on free expression. These buffoons still think Andrew Orlowski is a journalist.
But setting aside the Bush administration's shoddy record, it is somewhat contradictory that the article first criticizes the US Gov't for maintaining too much Internet control, and then criticizes it for inducing ICANN to forfeit Internet control over to non-US entities.
While I'm not a supporter of this administration, it seems they can't win either way.
If we were talking about .com and .net TLD's, then I would be pretty pissed.
However, it's hard to justify not giving control of a COUNTRY'S TLD to said country's government.
Another poster posted ICANN's guidelines for the country code TLD's and they clearly state that the government's wishes with regards to it's TLD management are of paramount importance.
That's just how it should be.
At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. How can the writer make a statement as indicting as this without mentioning exactly what the US government provided reason actually? Admittedly I didn't follow the story too closely at the time but either the writer is assuming his other readers have or he's just irresponsible.
http://www.worldsoccerbars.com
I think every network device lets you select the dns-server manually. In fact you are free which censor you like to use, if you can find an appropriate dns server. The idea for a "free" internet would be to have a bunch of generally available free-dns-servers spread over different countrys with different censorships. Combining all those dns-results would give an uncensored dns table.
www.uncensoreddns.org anyone ?
Neither of the examples detailed in the article seem "wrong". The rules were changed to not require the previous owner's consent if the government of a country wants to take over its own ccTLD. So?
Now, when a country is is such a state that there is disagreement on what is the valid government, then we might see some interesting arguments. The US government will likely start leaning on ICANN to pick the "good guy" in such cases, but it's not really time to start complaining about that yet.
DNS is just a technology, and it works pretty well.
The IETF's motto is "rough consensus and running code." When you've got a running-code alternative which does not use DNS, but still provides the hostname IP address mapping as effectively as DNS does, then I'll be interested. Until then, being "anti-DNS" is roughly like being "Anti-IP": not going to get you very far.
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Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.
Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.
Instead of looking at the content of your communications, traffic analysis tracks where your data goes and when, as well as how much is sent. Tor aims to make traffic analysis more difficult by preventing websites, eavesdroppers, and even the onion routers themselves from tracing your communications online. This means Tor lets you decide whether to identify yourself when you communicate.
Tor's security is improved as its user base grows and as more people volunteer to run servers. Please consider volunteering your time or volunteering your bandwidth. And remember that this is development code--it's not a good idea to rely on the current Tor network if you really need strong anonymity.
We are now actively looking for new sponsors and funding. If your organization has an interest in keeping the Tor network usable and fast, please contact us. Sponsors of Tor also get personal attention, better support, publicity (if they want it), and get to influence the direction of our research and development! Previous funders include ONR, DARPA, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (who still kindly hosts our website).
P2P Anonymous Distributed Web Search: http://www.yacy.net/
Ok, who are the proper owners? I'll update my DNS server, and fix it. Anyone can do it. There's no rule that says you HAVE to use ICANN's root servers.
Yup. True.
However, since when did US start contributing anything to the internet after 1995?
Maybe traffic to US domains should start dropping.
Finland has the highest inernet penetration (pun intended).
USA has rural parts where even telcos won't provide telecom lines let alone broadband.
And, no, DRM enabled iTunes traffic is not counted as traffic.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
The Top-Level Domain extensions for each nation is described in the sidebar of its wikipedia entry. .iq .kz
I was curious and figured others must be too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan is
So Al Gore created the internet, and now George W Bush will destroy it?
If you shouted the former, do you believe the latter?
If not, explain...
Grotesquely-attired monster struggles in ingenious, home-made trap.
Fred: "Now let's see who's really trying to control the Internet!"
Fred pulls off mask.
Velma: Jinkies!
Shaggy: Zoinks!
Daphne: Why it's...
All (in unison): Jack Thompson!
Thompson: I have to save the world from itself! Too much garbage on the Internet, perverting the minds of our children! And I'd have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Yes, it is definitely a slow news week. This is the second non-issue story in two days that those who hate the Bush administration have made into major issues just because there's nothing else to talk about. So, why not stir up some anti-government or anti-U.S. feelings just on a lark to end the year! w00t!
The title about the U.S. undermining the Internet is proof that Zonk wants to spice up the end of the year. Hey, Zonk! Why not just come out and ADMIT that you have the U.S. government?
Al Qaeda.
What is it with people who think that ANY kind of government control of ANYTHING, ANYWHERE is unacceptable? Newflash people, "ownership" is a concept that _only_ exists within the context of a governmental legal system. Remove that and ownership becomes little more than possession.
That someone would complain about giving the Afghani or Iraqi government control of something that is by definition associated with the national state--immediately after the previous government has been removed from power--is simply astounding. Perhaps we should just hand it over to warlords and drug runners and let it descend into a bloody mess.
This anarcho-capitalist "ICANN is evil" saw has reached its nadir. If you want to live outside of government control, I invite you to move to Western Sahara and send us all a postcard telling us all about your newfound utopia.
Between GW Bush saying "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" and Kazakhstan banning Borat's website, is this really surprising?
ccTLD should be under the control of the government of the corresponding country. OTOH, gTLD should be managed by governement-free, international organisations. IMHO, there are better fights to do like:
1) Remove the (possible) control of the gTLD by the US governement
2) Stop the abusive contract signed with Verisign
3) Provide cheaper gTLD domains (real price) -- today it is too expensive for the inhabitants of a poor country)
4) Set at least one gTLD registar in each country
Million Dollar Screenshot
What an odd comment from someone who READS SLASHDOT.
First, it doesn't seem like a big deal that government agencies should have control over that country's TLD, even if that means taking the ownership from an individual. Or did I misunderstand the article?
Second, who needs all those TLDs anyway? I know it's been tried in the past but I see a day where a successful "alternet" will be created, with TLDs and DNSs and everything else completely run by individuals and non-governmental organizations.
People are pretty satisfied by how things run now, though. An Internet connection is becoming a utility, like electricity or water. Why should your average person care how it works or really who controls it, as long as it works when needed and it's not too expensive? The behind-the-scene wranglings of governing bodies won't affect 99.9% of Internet users.
flizame-bizait...
Let's also not forget the contribution the women of Finland have made to pornography on the internet.
2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet, despite widespread opposition by the rest of the world.
Well now I'm interested, pray tell why?
At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. The previous owners, KazNIC, had been created from the country's Internet community.
All right, the article is getting away from me here. I supposed the reader will need to get through "jumping the shark" on this one to figure out what this "government-provided reason" is. I do know that now it wasn't a US government power-grab or direct involvement because ICANN made the decision and used some sort of "reason" to make a decision according to this author.
What you come to discover is that this insidious intrusion by the US Government comes down to the fact that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) made four declarations prior to the UN meetings on Internet governance. Contrary to what the author contends these weren't a "warning shot" for the international community. Instead they were statements of reassurance to the international community. Specifically, other government concerns regarding their country top level domains. Do not think for a second a UN body wouldn't have granted these governments control over their top level domains. Here is what the NTIA said...
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/USDNSp rinciples_06302005.htm
The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Intern
If you're going to filter what comes through here, please filter this crap. I honestly don't care who is pissed at the US and who the US is pissed at. It's all from individual perspective anyway, and it takes up space on my favorite site. It's old already. Please, no more.
For all the little kiddies out there who were still in diapers when the US Gov't did the research, defined the protocols, and funded the construction that BUILT the original internet, here's a clue. The US magnanimously shared its incredible invention witht the rest of the world for the good of mankind. /etc/hosts files got too big to manage, the domain system was created. At that point, every country recognized by the UN was generously given a two-letter country code TLD. Some of those countries were too disorganized to manage their TLD, and allowed commercial companies to do it. Now the ICANN is givng those TLDs BACK to their RIGHTFULL OWNERS. Complaining about this is analagous to college students who have rented apartments in a house, now graduating and refusing to move out, claiming that they rightfully own the house where they were renting rooms. Quick, call the waaahhhmbulance! /etc/hosts file to resolve the IP address for j&rk0ff.k!dd!ep0rn.kz - no one can stop you.
When the internet grew, and the
If you don't like it, go back to using your
But, if I were you, I would save your silver bullets. I kinda suspect that you're gonna be really pissed when IPv6 comes along, and the DHS starts requiring you to register a permanent IP address with your name and SSN, and keeps track of all the sites you visit to see if you are a "terrorist".
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
Who oversees the overseers?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The pricipals of domain managment have preserved trademark rights. This should hold true for sovereignty and TLDs.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
When Internic was the monopoly over the registration of internet names, a group decided that they would want to set up their own Domain naming system. They urged people to change their computer's internet connection setting to use their nameservers. They also urged small ISP's to use their name service as well. Threats of people setting up their own domain naming systems is partly responsible for opening up domain registration to competition. May be this is what is needed again today. I also try to encourage people to experiment with off the shelf wireless equipment in order to create local networks such as FreeWans, Muninets, and so on. If the networks such as the Internet are to remain free, then we the people must take physical ownership of its infrastructure.
Well, I don't know, but I think I might be able to find a few small U.S. contributions, post-1995, to the Internet.
JavaScript and AJAX, of course, CSS, streaming media, online ordering, instant messaging, distributed filesharing, Firefox...er...I'm sure there's more...
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
In Soviet US, the Government controls the Internet.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Freedom of speech is important. I'm from New Orleans and still live in Louisiana. That ICANN is handing portions of the Internet over to government censors bothers me, and I consider it a large problem. Is my perspective warped? No. Without free speech, everyday can be like Katrina because your government can do whatever it wants to you. Just ask people from the former Soviet states what government housing and shopping are like.
Other disturbing US trends include re-centralization of telco into less than friendly hands. The destruction of smaller ISP continues. Blatant anti-competitive behavior by the remainder is tollerated and even encouraged. 2005 was another bad year for the world of ends.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Can greedy, private corporations be trusted with the Net? Can corrupt, evil governments be trusted with the Net? You guys bitch about ICANN then you bitch about InterNIC. Make up your minds. Someone has to control it - the Internet can't be this free-for-all tech orgy or it will collapse.
Redelegate, or re-delegate?
If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no songs.
So do thieves. Everything that is yours, is mine.
But, thanks for being pedantic.
Like it or not, the internet has been an invention of the United States government. Its explosive growth beyond that, and the seeming "openness" of it has been an illusion created by the incredible power and flexibility of the internet as a communication system. It is much like the Global Positioning System in that it has proven to have incredible utility beyond the military uses originally envisioned for the system. That the United States Military has <sarcasm>graciously</sarcasm> allowed use of the technologies whose creation they fostered has created the illusion that this is a "free for all, free as in beer" system; in fact, this has only been permitted because the use and implications of this technology balooned faster than the agencies behind its invention could adapt to limit and control it.
Now, of course, the problem is that the internet truly is both far larger and far more important to (global) society than was ever anticipated by DARPA. Control of the internet was largely lost (witness the fact that it's the one communications mechanism which our military was unable to completely disable when they invaded Iraq); is it any wonder then that the United States government is actively attempting to preserve whatever control it can over this medium?
Of course, given how enmeshed our society has become with the internet this leads to some disturbing issues. To accord the government (any government) the kind of power that control of the internet entails is tantamount to surrendering the vast majority of our individual rights to privacy. This is especially disturbing in view of recent spying actions by the United States government directed against its own citizens, actions which many view as diametrically opposed to the constitutional freedoms which we are ostensibly guaranteed as U. S. citizens. Are there any so naive as to think that the United States government doesn't intend to maintain its hold on internet governance, that the U. S. government will voluntary relinquish this incredibly powerful position? Or that having this powerful position, the United States government will permit constitutional limits to be applied to what can be done with this position?
It has been demonstrated (see the multiple {RI|MP}AA abuses of late) that the internet does not enjoy the same guarantees which telephone or postal mail does regarding privacy. The United States unstated (but demonstrated) position is "our bat, our ball, our rules". Constitutional guarantees (which prevent the government from reading our mail and used to prevent wiretapping our phones) do not apply to the internet.
</RANT> *puts on flame-retardant suit and gets ready to be baked alive*
If the United States government had taken similar steps five years ago, it would likely have been perceived quite differently. Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the world's perception of the United States and it's government hasn't changed this drastically since World War II. Even our strongest allies no longer trust our good intentions.
How do you think World War II and the post-war period would have played out if Curtis LeMay and Douglas MacArthur had been in charge instead of FDR, Marshall and Eisenhower? Most historians agree that the Cuban Missile Crisis would have resulted in the Global Thermonuclear War if Kennedy has listened to LeMay and invaded Cuba. Damn Massachusetts liberals.
Of course, if Truman had listened to MacArthur during the Korean War, we wouldn't have made it to 1962.
I'm looking around, and I don't see a new FDR, JFK, or Eisenhower waiting in the wings. Or maybe they are there, and the polarization of American politics is silencing the moderate voices of reason.
We've now been fighting the War on Terrorism longer than we fought WWII, how do you think the results stack up? If George Bush had been president during the Cuban Missile Crisis, do you think he would have listened to LeMay and invaded Cuba?
I am likely confused, as the article is light on details, but as I see it this seems perfectly legitmate, as much as I might disagree...
.kz domain was set aside for a particular country, so It seems to me that they somewhat 'own' that, since it is labeled with their name. Hence, if that government decides that there is something utilizing their .kz domain which they do not approve of, then it seems reasonable that they would be able to remove it, right? Don't get me wrong, I completely disagree with it, but that is beside the point.
The
They aren't 'censoring' the site per-se, they are just saying they don't want it to use their name, the site can be posted under plenty of other domains, and is of course still accessible via it's IP address.
If I let someone use my domain for their site, and then they put up a webpage bashing me, I would likely remove the DNS entry, making their site inaccessible via my domain.... I think that would be reasonable on my part, given that my domain reflects directly on me.
I will be eager to hear feedback, I expect that perhaps the issue here is not the particular events that have occured, but rather the broad reaching effects that may infringe on other aspects of internet usage, so please do advise.
On a side note, does it not seem reasonable that if you want to put up a site that is somewhat 'extreme' or that you fear would be censored by various governments, that you try to keep it independent of any government control? Are there ways to do this? I can use different domains, or are all of these controlled by some government? Must I simply have my site accessible by IP address and without DNS to avoid outside control? Is there someway that someone could/would still shutdown access to my site even if I do not use DNS?
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
yo yo yo this sux some ballz
Im a self made linux nigga in a town wif no malls
In mah spare time I be fixin' window boxes
cuz muh parents have a brain fulla roxes
ma and pa niggaz be pressin' all da wrong keys
I just be shakin' muh head and saying "nigga please"
I'm just another homie wif some krunk ass shit
I'll forget it all soon when I take another hit
I be trippin all da way to ma PC
To rack up da killz in Quake numba 3
When the fuck did life get dis way?
Doin' all dis IT work wif out no pay
I don't fuckin know all deez windows kinks
so why don't deez bitches stop clickin' activeX links
Getting upset because of the visibility of complaints about government is like wondering why the News is always bad news??? Murders and carjackings, etc. just outside your door! ahhhhhhhh.
Yes - it's another flamebait article from Zonk. Look at all of these "The Big Bad USA is ruining the whole internet!" articles. All posted by Zonk.
It's just flamebait, that's all.
Bzzzzt!
All written by H1B's from India!
I suppose you don't keep Kosher or no anybody that does. I can travel to any country that has a large enough Jewish population to support financially viable Kosher supervision, and can eat food knowing that it is up to my standards. In the US, most dry foods are up to Kosher standards and thus supervised. We have our own network of butchers that follow Jewish law.
.5% of the American population can maintain a private standards certification system, why can't the other 99.5%? Should be sufficiently large market to support 5-10 such organizations without trouble. In fact, the extremely small organic market had third party supervision, until the FDA got into the act and created garbage standards supported by agri-business that more or less shut down the organic food market.
The point of this comment?
The Jewish community in America is well less than 2% of the population, and the percentage of American Jews that keep Kosher is less than 25% of that population. So if
Government run solutions aren't the only possible ones, but once the government gets involved, it tends to crowd out all other players, lowering the standards.
How do you get food from anywhere in the Kosher world? Reciprocity and web of trusts. Each Orthodox synagogue has a list of "approved" Kosher symbols, that means that the Rav of the Shul, or someone that they trust, has verified the standards of that supervising organization.
In fact, it would be even EASIER in the rest of the marketplace, because Kashrut in Judaism has been taken into the province of the Rabbis, who can avoid scrutiny because of religious credentials. A neutral third-party supervisory organization wouldn't have that shield, and people could choose the level of safety (and therefore price) desired.
Clealry you didn't read those articles. I suggest you start at the beginning.
Should? Hmmm . . . centralization leads to too much power in too few hands (we have that now). Decentralization leads to a fragmented, discontinuous medium, tremendously reducing the utility and efficiency of the internet (and still leaving often unqualified hands with more power than they desserve).
The United States government should maintain its control of the internet until such time as a standard for decentralized management can be devised, agreed upon and implemented. A horrible solution; essentially, "it's busted but it's running. Don't fix it until we have replacement parts."
Next up, how the US government is using Chinese patented censorship technology and what it means for free thinking people everywhere...
You cannot be saying that you do not see how and why the US might be interested in those "non-US" entities like Afghanistan and Iraq? You cannot possibly be that gullible.
"I've said from the beginning that DNS is a government mechanism for censorship -- it was, it is and it will continue to be. The typical authoritarian response (from slashdotters no less) is that other countries can run their own DNS TLD's, but this will just lead to multiple censors, not real freedom."
There are probably a half a dozen ways in which DNS isn't anywhere near the weak point you suggest. For one thing, DNS only gives an authoritarian thug marginal censorship abilities beyond what you'd otherwise have. Either a site is hosted in an AT's jurisdiction or it's not. If it is, well, the AT can take it down by leaning on the ISP, DNS or no. If it's not... the AT *could* always exercise their authority to remove the DNS entry, but you know, that's only if the site in question happens to have a tld under the AT's authority. With dozens of others to choose from, it's really not a big issue. Now, a smart AT could force their ISPs to block specific IPs, but that's not really a problem with DNS, now, is it?
And to some extent, the search engines already have introduced a solution to DNS: search itself. You don't have to remember a URL, just a sequence of appropriate keywords. It doesn't work for every situation, but if you've got something important enough, having it up at http://66.35.250.150/ with a couple of people linking to you will make it accesible.
I suppose a really oppresive AT would probably do something like block whole TLDs, and cooperate with Google or Yahoo to filter out undesirables, and filter out blocks of IP addresses, but again, by this point, we're well beyond problems with DNS having much to do with the issue. IP addresses and willingness of private entities to collude with state entities (regulation statutes or not) are the bigger fish to fry.
"Regulation does not help the needy or the poor. It does not help those who can not do something for themselves. Regulation does not make a safer or better product, and it does not create a cheaper marketplace."
Why is it that market fundamentalists are so quick to see the (true) positive effects of profit incentives, and so impossibly blind to the negative effects? What exactly is going to increase, say, the makers of Vioxx, to be more forthcoming about information about their product if the FDA goes away?
If you really want liberty, you have power checking power. That *includes* checks on private power, as well as checks within a public system.
Tweet, tweet.
(1) - extinquish once and for all the possibility of independent thought, and
(2) - conquer the whole surface of the earth.
There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is:
(1) - how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking. And the other is:
(2) - how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning before hand.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I'm a U. S. citizen (hence unlikely to knee-jerk respond against my own nation).
I have acknowledged that the current state of affairs, while unacceptable, is nonetheless the only one which works. Please find a better replacement and I will happily do all which I may to support it; for right now, the status-quo is the best thing going.
You seem to be painting this as if someone in the US was limiting internet access for Finland and they were somehow convinced by Linux to let Finland "join the club". I think it is more likely that changes in Finland's telecommunication regulations and deployment of ATM between Finnish Universities had more to do wtih it.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Your copy has some obvious problems. Allow me to propose some revisions.
> From Chapter 7 of the Karma Whorer's Manual:
> In order of precedence, and to maximize your karma-whoring potential, you should always speak out against the
> first thing you find on the list:
1. Microsoft
2. The US Government
No, most slashdotters LOVE government. What they HATE is President Bush. If Kerry were President, for example, this current story would be one continious love fest over the Enlightened European Intellectual seeing reason and bringing in more countries to share control over the Internet and cutting out those wicked corporations.
So #2 has to be President Bush
3. The military
But most slashdotters would never admit this. Like most other Democrats they preface any attack on the Military Industrial Complex (code for Haliburton) with expressions of their profound patriotism and love for the troops.
4. The patent system
5. The republicans
6. Any government agency collecting information via the internet
7. emacs
Nope, the vi/emacs flamewar is 'just for fun' and has nothing to do with the political 'daily hate' threads that slashdot tries to ensure flare up on a daily basis.
8. karma-whores
Well make that karma-whores, trolls and conservatives.
9. Jack Thompson
Oh yess, Damn him straight to hell (or Redmond).
10. CowboyNeal
Democrat delenda est
If ICANN wants to maintain control of the root servers, then the way to enlist support (or deflect criticism) is to give other governments their own little spheres of sovereignty.
Politics is ugly, but I think this is more workable than having the UN in charge.
Isn't time for "us" to start and run our own "internet"?! Yah yah - I know it can't be done - a phrase that I have heard so many times - but of course it turns out to be hardly ever true. Who "owns" the MBone?
I wrote the story in question. You clearly didn't look very hard. Here is a link to a pdf of the letter "signed" by Mohammed Stanekzai - http://www.iana.org/cctld/af/stanekzai-to-iana-10a ug02.pdf.
You can read the IANA report here. You should also note the miraculously good timing of the letter in terms of US administration control.
I tried to contact Mr Stanekzai by phone and email after the takeover and failed. No one had heard a thing from him from the first day of the bombing of Kabul. And yet the US on the ground had found him and got him to agree to hand over the whole Afghan internet domain. Incredible. US representatives were also unfortunately unable to tell me how I might be able to contact Mr Stanekzai. For a man that ran an entire's country's Internet, you would think Mr Stanekzai would also be able to access his email.
Kieren
I have not stated that the U. S. is responsible for anything that has happened; merely that the United States created the aforementioned technologies. While I disapprove of the current state of affairs I cannot concieve of a better solution than to continue permitting ICANN and IANA to perform their assorted functions, although it would be naive to the point of idiocy not to acknowledge the undeniable presence of the United States' hand behind both of those governing organizations.
As for returning ccTLDs to the countries who are supposed to control them, by extension that means the United States should only be capable of controlling the .usa domain? After all, .com, .net, .gov, .edu, .org, etc. . . . these are all not ccTLD's, right? I guess these should be completely un-governed?
The United States is responsible for nothing in this regard. If we choose to permit other nations to manage their own ccTLD's, well and good; but I don't percieve any moral reason we should be required to do so.
(By the way, an indicator of a recent news article? Uh, am I about to get a visit from the G-Men?
What is this? China!?
Dear Kazakhstan and Iraq: The U.S. owns you, the U.S. runs you.
Dear Internet nerds: Same.
Dear U.N.: Suck it.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes, cats do recognize ownership. If it's not nailed down and covered in cat repellent, they own it. In total disregard for US law, cats also own humans.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Let me see if I can get the play book right here. There are 4 things that seem to be at issue:
1. Ownership of general domain names (x.com, x.net, x.biz)
2. Ownership of country-specific domain names (x.eng, x.usa, x.fr, etc.)
3. The mapping of general domain names to to IP addressess
4. The mapping of country-specific domain names to IP addresses
3 and 4 are kind of related since they may conflict if not coordinated and thus perhaps should be considered as one. Or else we can add another one:
5. Assign suffixes and IP ranges to countries.
#2 obviously seems to best be left to specific countries. If the IP addresses are blocked off such that groups/ranges are assigned to countries, then #4 could be left to individual countries also. However, #1 and #3 and #5 seem to require a central or cordinated body to manage.
I believe the US wants to keep control over #1 and #3 and some of #5 because they don't trust a UN-like governing body, partly for allegedly being slow and wasteful.
If other countries don't like the US control over #1 and #3, then they can simply use or demand country-specific domains and IP's be used by their consituents, skipping domains such as x.com. Maybe groups of countries can be given "group" blocks, such as x.euro or x.asia or x.groupfoo or x.alqueda (just kidding) domains and related IP ranges.
Table-ized A.I.
There's the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I paraphrased that elsewhere with "it's broke but it's still running; let's not try to fix it 'til we have replacement parts."
I'm running on empty at this point. Have you got any good suggestions? I've heard about distributed DNS, but that just seems to move the problem, not fix it.
How about almost every illegal media file on every torrent site on the net?
The Internet still seems to be running, so I guess that shutting down the Internet didn't pan out for the EU.
Anyway, I understand that people want to take a whack at the US for their role in that debacle, but, would the UN have done differently? I don't know that they would have.
I don't necessarily think that the US should have done what they did, but bouncing out to say that somehow international control would have resulted in a different outcome seems a bit incorrect. Am I wrong?
Yes, Bram Cohen's real name is actually Burma Coheen, and he is from west Manhattan in Delhi!
Somebody around here has a perfect sig for this moment:
Four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
(Incidentally, I understand why the administration was so adamant on the point of WMD's in Iraq - we friggin' delivered them ourselves, for use by the anti-soviet forces in Iraq. Now we're finding mass graves. Hmmm . . . I think we may be able to guess where all the WMD's went, eh?)
Anti-US sentiment? Where? Iraq? Afghanistan? Great Britain? Israel? Iran? China? Germany? France?
Sorry, pal - looks like everybody (present company included) has their own agenda. Gotta fall back on the old "might makes right" philosophy. Maybe it's terribly flawed, but in the arena of international politics, it's the only game in town.
Not my idea of perfect. Just sayin', is all. At the end of the day, the US still pretty much is large and in charge when it comes to internet governance. Don't blame the messenger.
I said something to this effect last week! http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171832&cid =14310329
The point is that the US via ICANN are self appointed judge and jury over the entire internet! ... This isn't about attacking capitalism or even the US or ICANN.
.af and .iq to the point that it is impossible to separate the issue. However, that does rather draw question to your claim that this isn't about attacking the US or ICANN.
/. for "Why ICANN SUXX0RZ." It would probably comprise 20% of the site.
Uhm... The country-code TLDs were designed to be controlled by the recognized governments of the territories represented by those codes. There is absolutely nothing questionable that with a clear, catastrophic change of government in a region that ICANN would "redelegate" that domain to the proper identification of that new government.
What you seem to be saying here is that the US is largely determining who that recognized government is which is a valid criticism and _certainly_ is applicable in the case of
For that matter, they should have a top-level category on
Just because I don't know how to fix it, and just because it's still functioning doesn't mean I shouldn't point out what I percieve to be flaws.
I may not know how to improve it, but at least I refuse to complacently accept that this is how it is and that's all there is to it. I still assert that the power of internet governance is too great to trust to any single centralized authority - even if that central authority is my nation's government, and even if I feel my nation's government to be perfect.
It all comes down to "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." That (in theory) is why the United States government is comprised of three major branches, with checks and balances built in (it works, BTW, but not perfectly).
They killed Kenny!
Darn that US! Before they got involved in the internet, it was great!
In fact, I wish the US government realized that a little earlier. Then, there would be no help to moujaheddin in Afganistan, who were presumably fighting with the Soviet troops, but eventually produced Bin Laden. Then, there would be no war in Iraq, since Saddam could control his people pretty well. There would be no mess in former Yugoslavia, etc., etc., etc.
Stop spreading democracy!
Apparently if we allow governments to run their top level domain names the way they want to, we are endorsing censorship.
However, if we do the opposite and give control of ccTLDs to other organizations if we judge the country's government to be 'wrong' in some way we are Meddling American Imperialists interfering in the affairs of another country. Then everyone starts screaming that control be transfered to the UN.
We can't win no matter how we do it.
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
In a truly, completely free market, if the economic analysis shows it that you will gain a competitive advantage by bumping off your competitor, there should be nothing to stop you except, perhaps, a few body guards. Nobody really wants the truly free market. Some people only think they do, because they haven't experienced that kind of anarchy. The debate is about the extent of restraint.
Here is an interesting idea: Start a new system of DNS & add support to all the open source browsers. But, unlike DNS, don't restrict yourself to blah.blah.com, just allow any string at all, but enclose them in quotes. i.e.
http://imap./"joes butt"."Fuck you mama"/
would be a valid name. You would still respect ICANN's opinion on TLDs without whitespace or funny characters, but you start lessening your own TLDs with whitespace & funny characters.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The entire country of Finland is slightly smaller than the state of Montana, one of 50 in the U.S. It has a population of a little over 5 million people. These two facts just might have something to do with why it's easier to get broadband to most of Finland's population than it is to do the same with the citizenry of the U.S.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
it *used* to be, ICANN was there for the little guy. I used to run the domain disputes department at an ICANN accredited registrar company based out of San Fransisco. We went HEAD to HEAD all the way up to the supreme court with a Very BIG *name removed to protect my sorry ass from being sued* company over a domain name bought by a little guy that was generic enough for him to fight for and we won because ICANN was on our side. unless ICANN upper echelons have changed drastically either someone has their wires crossed, some misinformation is being spread or ICANN is being leaned on HEAVILY by the government. Has it *really* gotten that bad down there?
-Mag
-Magdalene --"there are 10 types of people in the world, those who read binary, and those who don't"
of course it is... you should turn yourself on to kurzweilai.net; this guy is quite neat to listen to... anyhow, the internet is changing the planet; it is a threat to centralized power and the centralized powers know it... there is a hurdle to cross in terms of a decentralized internet, and that is devices and networks knowing who is who and where to get signals from or send them too... but hell, even cellphones these days can take on packet distribution roles... we're talking a new protocol here... i know people think, 'oh dang that's too hard' and maybe it IS hard... but not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. And then what happens? Well, you get an internet that is for all intents and purposes immune to censorship, immune to destruction, etc... But make no mistake... such a thing coming about would be the last nail in the coffin of the world as you know it (think borders, language barriers, politics, war, news, etc etc etc).
You can read about Kazakhstan's new internet laws here: http://www.kub.kz/article.php?sid=10751
.kz domains must use name-servers located in Kazakhstan.
When the US gave the government of Kazakhstan control over the TLD, they gave them permission to censor the Internet as much as they wanted without repercussions.
The newest requirement is that any
All nameservers are under state control, and are EXTREMELY expensive. Not only is this a means of censorship, but also highly profitable.
A side-effect is that most sites will be forced to shut down, or pay exhorbitant sums to government-owned internet providers.
Thanks America!
hahahah that was great
thanks for the laugh
The parent is one of those "IQ less than 120" people.
I'd mod this a +5 Alternate Reality.
This war has seen the largest protests in the history of the world.
When Bush last visited England, they had half the police force protecting him and holding off protesters.
More Europeans will come to see the light as the Islamists continue attacking Europeans in Europe. It is amazing how quickly that clears the mind.
So, how's that war on terror going? The Taliban has been good for GWB and GWB has been good for the Taliban. Terrorism is a tactic, and will always be with us as it is the only way for armies that are poor and don't have cruise missiles and tanks to fight superior enemies. My tactic for a war on terror would be using international police cooperation, and enforcing better labor practices around the world so that more people are employed and more people can be fed. Also, by not commiting acts of terrorism ourselves and supporting tyrants. You know, like Saudi Arabia, where 17 of the 19 terrorists came from who hit the world trade centers (although not so sure of this now, since some of them have shown up alive and are working as commerical pilots in Egypt and Saudi Arabia).
NATO is in Afghanistan So what is your point? Yes, even the French are helping us there. Even still, the rebuilding is being botched there and we only have control by bribing warlords. Opium production is off the charts.
Coalition forces in Iraq now number fewer than 23,000 from 24 countries, down from about 50,000 from 38 countries in 2003.
Yes, the ones we bribed or harassed into going are pulling out. Many because of the unpopularity. Other than England, their sole purpose was to make it look like we had support. Costa Rica and Uzbekistan? Were they used as an honor guard?
The Cuban Missile Crisis...
If Kennedy had provided air support they probably would have been successful -- but he chickened out. One of his biggest mistakes. Actual missiles aimed at us, I would think, is a compelling reason. They even had photos of the missiles -- not drawings that Colin Powell had to trot out. The less known part of this story, is that Kennedy agreed to pull out his missiles from Turkey if Russia would pull out missiles from Cuba. It repaired Kennedy's image somewhat -- but it was also a good trade. Actually protecting the people of America is a good thing.
Collin Powel could have been another Eisenhower, unfortunately, many on the left would find a black moderate Republican president intollerable.
I think we liberals should be allowed to talk for ourselves. Dems voted in a Moderate with Clinton. Powel never defined himself by either party. If you bothered to check, the polls and the actual interests of Dems showed a big interest in Powel as a president. But he hitched his horses with Bush. Then, he made the biggest mistake of his life (his words) when he presented that phony evidence before the UN. Why don't you point to actual events to make a point? If we'd had our choice of Republicans, Powel would have been more palatable to Liberals than Bush. Perhaps the DLC would have an issue -- but that's their own game of playing politics. I can easily distinguish the two.
Oddly enough, JF Kennedy is more similar to GWB in terms of foreign and domestic policy than to JF Kerry.
Did JFK fail at every business he ran? Did he take property by the power of the government and give it to financial backers? Did JFK murder the English language and embarass the country? They both had corrupt ancestors -- so, maybe that's what you mean by similiar.
We poured enormous resources into WW2. This war is being fought practically on a shoe string budget in comparison.
WW2 was a real war. In Iraq, we invaded a more or less defenseless nation. Before the "declaired war" in Iraq, our planes were dropping ordinance on Iraq to soften them up for about 6 months (heard that from a pilot). The Iraq war could have been run on a shoestring budget if we had hired Iraqis to help rebuild -- and if we had people who k
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
There were ten articles saying UN, EU didn't want control in the hands of the US.
Now the US has abused control by unilateral transfer of some sites to governments. The result being the gov having censorship power.
The exact sorts of abuse you might expect independent (ish) bodies like the UN would point at and go this is what we were afraid of.
Imagine combining - Canada's University of Toronto's CanX-2 nanosatellite - which is the size of a carton of milk (shot out of a high veolcity canon - also a Canadian invention) - with WiMax. No more phone lines (also a Canadian invention) for the new publicly owned controlled internet.
Now we know the crazies in the USA shadow government will try to jam the system - but I am sure that a 15 yr. old hacker could solve those issues in a few days.
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/050829-1595.asp
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The article said that after the "redelegation" in Kazakhstan, the new owner of the ccTLD "shut down a web site". This claim about shutting down web sites is a Big Lie. The web site was not shut down, only expelled from its place in the domain name system; it is still accessible to anyone who cares to reference it by IP address instead of doamin name (and the web site owner will also have the option of getting a new domain name from somewhere, unter a gTLD).