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Will the U.S. Lose Control of the Internet?
MattSparkes writes "The first UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting is taking place next week in Athens, which aims to 'contribute to a better understanding of how the internet can be used to its full potential.' It is likely that several countries will object to the US monopoly on Internet governance, as they did at the last meeting, where the US cited fears of a loss of freedom of speech as the reason for retaining power. Other topics to be discussed include online security, access for non-English users and spam."
With things in the US going the way they are, I think the freedom of speech argument is moot. This seems to be more about maintaining control then preserving freedom. I'm guessing there will be tons of arguments on both sides, but in the end we will pressure them into leaving control right where it is now. .xxx domain.
Personally I believe that the internet would be better served by the release of control, and I can't site any better evidence for this then the whole debate over the
DeviantArt Page
NSFWthat several countries will whine and whine and whine about not having Internet infrastructure and intead of investing thier own resources in building out their own infrastructure will guilt and bludgeon the rest of the world into paying for it.
They blocked the .xxx domain, which is unfortunate, but it was part of a stupid concept to begin with.
Just imagine what China, Iran, etc. would do with control?
The US started the internet and everyone joined our network. So it's totally understandable if the US retains "control". The only reason I would actually be unhappy with an international commission or department taking control is that it would just mean another level of bureaucracy to cut through whenever you wanted to do something.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
At least the U.N. would try to keep things fair for everyone.
Yeah - until there's a "Food for Bandwidth" scandal.
More
Will the U.S. lose control of the Internet? One can hope.
I don't know where this insane notion came from that the U.S. is capable of governing the Internet any better than the world community at large. In case you haven't been watching the news, we can barely govern ourselves right now.
The U.S. has a fine history of coming up with a really nifty idea and developing it to the point that it's useful, and then totally screwing it up to the point that someone else has to come in dominate the market in that particular field. Witness the auto industry. Or computer chip manufacturing. Or cell phones. Or videogames. Or more recently, programming.
Also, if I were another country, I'd be mad as hell that certain parts of my industry are completely and utterly under the control of another country. Witness what's been going on with Spamhaus. Also, check out how our own leaders react when someone like, oh I don't know, Sadam Hussein starts threatening to impact the availability of our oil resources.
So go ahead and mod me a troll or baiter of the flame if you have to, but it doesn't change that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world stands up to the big bad U.S. and says, "Enough." And frankly, speaking as an American, even I think that that's a good thing.
Online security, access for non-English users and spam? Yeah, right. Other topics to be discussed include spying on the US, countering United Nations efforts, hacking for military secrets, laundering money, limiting access to information (such as news, especially from the West), and whitewashing history ("June 4th Incident, 1989? Never heard of it!".)
ROTFLMAO
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
At least the U.N. would try to keep things fair for everyone.
Do you seriously trust the UN more than the US? Even under the current administration?
No wonder you posted as an AC.
As much as I do not support the Democratic party, this administration will pass and cooler heads will prevail. That's not even to say that I think the Republicans doesn't have their fair share of cooler heads, before anyone decides to play partisan politics with my post.
I'm not strictly against other nations having their say in the internet and it's not that I don't support an independent governance of the internet, I just do not see the UN being the best solution.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
everything, mostly because we insist on too much control of everything.
The tighter you squeeze the more slips twixt the digits..
We're losing control of EVERYTHING. We just don't know it yet.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
Vous dites que si les USA ont perdu control il y aurait plus de liberté d'expression. Alors comment ca? Déja, qu'est-ce qu'on fait pour la limité? Les cites web qui contradisent et critiquent le gouvernement restent sur l'internet. Vous faites comme on ne peut pas parler comme on veut sur l'internet. N'importe quoi
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
Does anyone believe that if Al Gore were president 2000-2004 (and maybe still), that there would be any significant global anxiety about US governance of the Internet, compared with the terror Bush has spread since being installed in the office?
BTW, here's some poison for the trolls who will insist on repeating the Republican lie that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, when he simply took some credit for the work he did in government to ensure its inventors succeeded. Compare that to the guy who understands the Internet as well as he understands Camus.
--
make install -not war
This kind of issue highlights the importance of "soft power". For those of you who have never heard the phase, it basically means the power you get from people trusting you, and from having moral authority.
As you might have guessed, it is out of favour with the current administration, who prefer military "hard power". Previously, the USA could have said to the rest of the world "trust us to manage the Internet" and much of the world would have gone "ummm, ok!". Now the USA has lost much of its soft power, it makes it much harder, and "hard power" doesn't work well in this kind of situation!
If the U.S. keeps control, eventually the corporatocracy will kill off everything.
What are you referring to, exactly?
What have 'they' done thus far to impede the internet?
Last time I checked, I can still download illegal files, go to any website on the web, and e-mail anybody in the world.
Sure, some things may end up with me in the FBI's hot-seat, but that has nothing to do with corporations.
It is likely that several countries will object to the US monopoly on Internet governance
WHAT governance? The sections of the network owned by people or businesses in the US are governed by THEIR OWNERS. Germany can outlaw swastika's and regulate their own country's infastructure, and the US can regulate theirs. That's what made the internet the powerhouse it is today--give people incentive to build infastructure by giving them control over it.
THE ONLY reason to give power to others is so they can assert control over US-OWNED NETWORKS. If they're pissed because some companies ban foreign traffic, tough bananas. Go ahead and ban US citizenry from using your network, if you think you can take the financial hit.
Nice try, UN.
When the US economic power slows, and the EU (or whatever group) has more power, maybe then will the tables turn and it will be the US complaining about lack of power online. Until then, deal with it.
Latewire
The UN which allows human rights abuses of the highest order to be involved in its human rights commission or the US which at least still has the 1st amendment and other rights on paper? Here's a thought for non-Americans who care about freedom of speech. You are probably a real minority. You want more, not less, American governance of the internet. The ideal solution for you would be total governance of the Internet by American jurisprudence. We have significantly higher standards for free speech rights than the rest of the world and when a foreigner comes to America, they even have officially all of the rights of a citizen WRT the courts. And those of you who want to bring up the MCA or other Bushisms, STFU. That has no relevance here. No court in America is going to allow Bush to hold you as an enemy combatant for suing him over Internet policy.
My government sucks. I'll be the first to say that about the US government, but it sucks a lot less than the EU, China or the UN.
And it is insightful wisdoms like this that show why the internet couldn't possibly govern itself. It'd be pretty hard to get anything done with half of it's denizens screaming "teh fags!" and "joo sux0rs!"
:)
n00bs
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
access for non-English
Read: Requirements for language translations on web-sites.
online security
Lets have people register to run a web-site! That way we can track things better and "protect" children! And no more defending the Nazis if you want to after the French and Germans get into this.
spam
No more sending email unless it's through state-approved servers.
Yeah, this is gonna be great... We're from the government, and we're here to help!
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
the freedom of speech will gain a lot.
Considering that it is the middle eastern and Chinese governments that are pushing hardest for this I would say that this is exactly opposite to what will actually occur.
Ruling by UN means voting by more than 1 country about it's future. It's fair - internet is not only used in US. At the same time I can see a lot of problems because of that. What is going to happen if they can't agree on something? Like .xxx domains? Some countries will apply it and some will ban it. How can it be productive solution?
And don't forget that UN is kind of EU-centric. EU is already over policed with all crazy laws. The only thing we need is to have some new ones applied for Internet.
BTW: I'm European. That doesn't stop me to say things that I belive are right only because they're agains Europe. Hear me States!
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
The internet is not what it was 5 or 10 years ago. It has become a matter of many countries, so it is completely logical that control should pass to a group of countries instead of one. I suppose the US will refuse again to relinquish control, but it is only a matter of time until they have to succumb to the pressure.
It is also a matter of honesty and democracy to allow others a reasonable amount of control. Here in Europe, we learned that this is the best way - the US, being a continent and a declining super-power, has to learn this lesson also.
less is more
We don't have KFC in my country, Uruguay.
In the 1.5 million people city, we have about 10 of McDonalds, and one Burger King.
Das Problem m.E. ist nicht, daß zur Zeit seitens der USA wesentlich reguliert würde (obwohl man auch so durchaus argumentieren könnte). Vielmehr besteht die Angst, daß sich die aktuelle Situation durchaus wesentlich zum schlechteren ändern könnte.
Was vielfach übersehen wird, ist, daß auch ein zentrales Gremium außerhalb der USA keine Verbesserung darstellen würde: es wird hier nur der Teufel mit dem Beelzebub ausgetauscht.
So, jetzt bitte eine weitere Sprache.
I can envision the comments already. Rednecks spouting their crap while moronic hippies spew their BS, both of them thinking they're somehow "right". .com as a first choice and everything else as sub-standard.
You know what, if a country wants to do as they please with their part of the internet, all they have to do is update a couple of DNS servers. As simple as that. In fact, I'm already looking into using an alternative DNS root.
NO debating is needed. NO decision needs to be taken. All those who want a non-USA-regulated net have to do is START using the internet the way they like, simply disregarding USA rules. And, well, be ready to be cut off from any USA network, if the USA were so inclined. What's that you say, your citizens won't like it? Tough luck buddy, that's the price of freedom. It goes both ways.
On a side note, maybe it's time we did away with non-national TLDs. But that can only be done when people stop treating
Global warming is a cube.
I for one hope the US and its Ministry of Truth keeps control. I'd hate to see obsolete information or the lies of the enemies propogated throughout the news sites I frequent. /sarcasm
What is there in the Internet to govern anyway?
If the sole issue is "what name points at what IP address in the most common DNS system" then who cares?
It's only when you get out of the technical realm and into the craziness of taxes, "legal" versus "illegal" sequences of numbers to send across the lines, and similar oddities, does a question of "governance" even come into the picture.
My take is: just have a central body for managing the DNS namespace (which is not "hardware enforced" anyway) and that's it. I honestly don't understand what the huge issue is, other than the fact that for many people it's too easy to get food and shelter so they sit around and create other things about which to fight.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Since when?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
At any rate, the Internet in its current form is the place with the freest speech in all the world.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
And as long as that is your messioner of 0wn3r5hip we won't worry to much about the likes of you...
Do I care that the internet is not multilaterally governed. A bit. I don't think it would take long for a new for of IP regisration to emerge if 'THE US' decides to play silly buggers with it.
Because you can - or because you should?
the US doesn't *own* the "internet", we are just using mirrors of their DNS servers and we can very well stop doing so in a day or two.
For all of its recent political evils, the US has done surprisingly little meddling with the internet. The standards are still based on non-governmental organizations, there is no effective taxation, anonymity is still possible, etc etc. The internet of today doesn't appear to be run significantly differently than the internet of 10 years ago.
What possible motivation could there be for other governments to want to seize "control" away from the current scheme?
Because they're not happy with the above.
So one should surmise that an internet under new management would feature
- easier support for taxation
- technology "standards" created by government bodies
- less baked-in anonymity
As pissed off as I am with the current US political climate, do you know what government I trust even less than my own?
All of them
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Each nation already controls their own domains, nobody's stopping them from setting up their own root DNS servers, nobody's complaining about centralized assignment of MAC addresses, so what the heck is the problem?
If the Internet split into two or more parts that would be a "good thing" - competition is the source of all evolution.
Clear, Dark Skies
slipping in human rights, becoming totalitarian... whatever.
NO other country in the world has a more absolute view on Freedom of Speech. Not France, not Germany, not even the UK. Reasonable people may disagree on whether that's the right position for a society. But for he who controls the domain registry, it most certainly is the best position to take.
And what is the alternative anyway? The UN votes on which domains get to stay online? We have countries take turns with holding the "Presidency of the Internet" the same way the EU passes the torch from country to country? Or even better, we have an unelected international bureaucracy that decides by committee who gets to have freedom of speech and who doesn't?
How about if it isn't broke don't fix it?
As corrupt and stupid as US politicians are, they're bush-league amateurs compared to UN diplomats. The UN is the single most corrupt organization on the planet, and I have no intention of ever letting them have control of anything without putting up the most resistance that I possibly can. I have no love for US politics, but I detest world politics. Can you imagine the security council having say over censorship on the internet?
Sorry, I only got the two :)
I assumed the parent author was French because of his name and his sig so... it made sense to respond like that.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
That have no actual power.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Come up with a constitution governing it, and a way of amending that constitution (but a fairly long and involved process so it's not amended willy-nilly). Have a legislative branch and a judicial branch. You can even have an internet "security council" with veto power over proposed changes. Then have every nation that wants in on the governance sign the constitution.
You can include things like freedom of expression and spam control, just spell it out in the document. Then the U.S. can relinquish control of the internet and still know that its concerns are being addressed.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
Uh what was the problem they are trying to solve again?
.co.uk, or could even have used a registrar in Europe.
The US has control over the parts of the Internet that's within the USA. And that's fair enough.
Other than that, it doesn't really have control nor should it ( with the exception of political and military "influence" of course, and the fact that much of the popular sites are in the USA).
Same for the rest of the countries.
If the countries really don't like it they form groups and set up their own root name servers and tell ICANN to get lost. Same for the other stuff - routing, IP allocation etc. The problem is it might splinter the Internet - but it's not as if network administrators have never ever blocked parts of the Internet they didn't like.
So if the USA makes a crappy enough decision or allows something stupid to be done(e.g. verisign's wildcard DNS stuff), network and sys admins around the world could decide to change things.
Thus, tell me again, what is the problem those people are trying to solve, and how is their solution not worse than the "problem"?
People like Spamhaus could shift to
If the US starts threatening economic sanctions or military action, well they do that all the time anyway, and it's nothing to do with the Internet needing any special treatment.
And only the typical idiots that hate the US because it exists would think that the exact same thing wouldn't happen if the UN or some other body controlled the net. And it would have to be the UN because it makes no more sense for the EU to control the net than the US. And the UN is the most corrupt political body on the planet, as well as the most useless and ineffective.
If the UN controlled the net, Spamhaus would have had zero recourse because 360 would have gone to the WTO complaining Spamhaus was intefering with international trade, and the WTO always sides with the most corrupt side -- they pay more in bribes.
The UN isn't much better. If the UN has control no country will feel represented, the US (and corporate forces therein) can still bully, and bureacracy will prevent progress.
Really the internet stopped being useful when it became popular.
Large group of other countries : Hey US, We want you to give us control over the internet because we want to know you don't have control over the internet, even though you kinda created it...
US-Govt : Hold on.. let me check here.. oh yeah... go DAIF.
Large group of other countries : But But But... Freedom of the internet.. we should have as much control as you do!
US-Govt : Then go make your own.. and oh yeah.. DIAF.
Geez, one thing the US has done reasonably right and the international community wants to kick us in the mansack over it. sheesh.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
That some people will complain about the huge monopoly say, Microsoft has, and will actively seek alternatives and provide suggestions, but when it comes to the monopoly the US has on the Internet those same people will vehemently defend the US's "right" to maintain near complete control. Now, is this because these people are just patriotic Americans that because they have hold of one of the world's most important assest, just cannot stand the thought of letting go? Or because they just really believe that this monopoly is a good thing? In which case, how is it? Especially considering the vast contributions made to the Internet & the technology from other countries. IMHO the US hasn't done a bad job to date, but considering the value and importance the Internet infrastructure has become to the world as whole, one country shouldn't have near complete control, when the Internet wouldn't be what it has become today without the input and development from others. The US citizens claim to believe in democracy and freedom of speech, thus I feel it's time this dictatorship came to an end.
"where the US cited fears of a loss of freedom of speech as the reason for retaining power."
Because we're doing such a bang-up job protecting speech in the US now!
The US, complaining about the loss of freedom of speech...really? Anyone else sense the irony there?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
I think it would be awesome if the UN took over.
Why you ask? Well I'll tell you
I would like the UN to take over is because I think the Internet should be regulated by an entity that really could be disbanded at anytime. Can we say League of Nations?
I mean it's not like two nations make up 40% of the UN's funding (*ahem I'm looking at you US and Japan*)
Wait... maybe that's not a good idea.
I can clearly see both sides of this debate, as a US citizen I say we shouldn't give an inch (go with the devil you know as they say). But, I can also see that if I weren't a US citizen I would want more global control, and to that I say "we made it, neener neener neener!"
"access for non-English users "
Um, access you got. Want content? You got Unicode.
Want everything translated into some languages other than English? Sure. Start the movement.
Want *ME* to translate my pages into something other than English? Not Happening. I Don't Care.
Blame Canada.
-rick
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If you really think that, you're a fool.
There might be a few countries that would do a better (by which I mean 'freer') job of internet governance. But it's a very, very short list. Many European governments are even more censorious than the United States; say the wrong thing about the Holocaust in Germany, and you can end up in prison. Perhaps some of the Northern European countries (particularly Sweden) would be good stewards, as they seem to have been doing a good job of not knuckling under to corporate interests so far, but I wonder what they'd do if the pressure of the world was put upon them.
There are a lot of countries, on the other hand, that would be far, far worse stewards of the Internet than the U.S. has been. Countries like Iran, China, or even Turkey, all have significantly more barriers to free speech than the U.S. does. Plenty of other countries have non-secular governments that don't hesitate (or even see a problem) introducing religious dogma into political decision-making. Would you really want a Sharia court having a say in domain-name disputes? I wouldn't.
The U.N.'s regulatory bodies have had success managing basically uncontroversial issues where a mutual need for coordination is clear (for instance, the radio spectrum), and there is a lot of delegation to national authorities. With the internet, none of this would be the case. The nature of the network prohibits much meaningful delegation to lower levels of authority; it's not like radio spectrum, where every country can just arbitrarily decide what the standards will be for content that is broadcasted to their own citizenry. Either regulations are universal, or they don't exist at all (or you fragment the network behind national firewalls in order to produce spheres of influence that can be independently regulated -- but at that point, it would barely be the Internet anymore). There would be a variety of controversial issues (do we prohibit child pornography? If so, what's the standard for "child"? How about 'hate speech'?), and that's only if everyone actually agreed that regulation was necessary at all, which is unlikely in itself.
I can understand some people's frustration with the United States. But it's foolish to think that the U.N. would do much better; at least the U.S. has a large stake in making sure the Internet survives as a medium, so that there's a self-interested brake on any politically-motivated changes that might destroy the net completely. To put control in the hands of a governmental body that includes many countries that could care less about Internet governance, and would just use it as a political football in the negotiation of other disputes, would be jumping out of the frying pan and into a very hot fire.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It only serves to encourage another US vs. the world comment-war.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
However, there is an inordinate amount of Intellectual Property censorship that takes place on the internet. I'm not arguing that it is right or wrong for websites to offer access to copyrighted works or "anti-sites" to exist or not...just that without US dominance over the internet, these sorts of sites could operate outside the reach of the corrupt US judicial branch (this includes the posturing and puffing of attorneys to force IPs to stop hosting domains)
The end result for this might not be beneficial for large corporations that own Intellectual Property rights, but would be great for the whole rest of the world.
As much as I distrust the current administration, I think it's probably best for everyone if the U.S. keeps control of the internet, and this is why:
A Dutch forum-friend of mine once remarked that if the principles of The Enlightenment are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, that the United States puts the weight on Liberty while Europe puts more weight on Equality. (No one, he says, seems to care about Fraternity.)
The United States reveres the freedom of speech much more than European countries, who tend to crack down on unpopular speech that disturbs the peace (or the "Equality") such as Germany's crackdown on anything, pro or con, having to do with Nazis. So far, we've kept the internet in more or less a state of social anarchy. And this is during our current *conservative* phase. Europe might be better at social welfare for this reason, (and that's nothing to sneeze at,) but it's also a reason why internet administration is better left to the generally libertarian United States.
Hopefully the "pendulum" analogy of American politics will hold true, and we'll eventually go back to revering social freedoms in general. Or if it spirals downward, I suppose you guys could always create a European splinternet.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
where the tubes will go then, and where will they be filled?
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
Access for non-English actually means something entirely different from what you think. Right now DNS names are restricted to ASCII characters. If you live in China, Japan, Russia, or any of a number of other places, you can't use your own alphabet to get to a website. Even if the entire site is in your native language, you still have to use English to get there.
/.???
There's something called IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) that is an effort to change that by allowing DNS to use Unicode characters. That way you could have native language DNS names.
How would you like it if you had to type in something in Chinese to get to
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
At least up to now, even if the UN is corrupt, they do not ship people in other country for torture, do not hold them indefinitly without judgement, do not invad any other country. Face it, the UN is corrupt, but the UN is a bunch of nation together. more often than not, it change nothing and leave everything in status quo. OTOH the US is a single nation, and as we saw in the last 12 years, can turn to less democreatic and less freedom. And we might not even have seen the bottom. True US is way better than many country on the democratic side, but better a bunch of people wishing for status quo, than one good guy which can turn very bad indeed.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I find it hilarious the way americans think they invented and run the internet.
God Be Gone
U.N. fair? Oh you're funny...really...if you were serious, this wouldn't be funny but thank goodness you're not.
Ethay oblempray isway otnay ethay eedomfray otay aysay
omethingsay utbay ethay actfay atthay ouyay usedway otay ebay
ableway otay oday atthay easonablyray anonymouslyway. Ethay
eligioray- ascismfay inway ethay ountrycay isway undercuttingway
ethay asicbay ivilitycay ("eway areway allway americansway")
atthay ademay ingsthay orkway.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Taking the sole power from the US would definitely be a good thing, I can't see how freedom of speech would be compromised if any other country had power over the internet. Am I missing something or is the US just making excuses as usual?
Do you seriously trust the UN more than the US? Even under the current administration?
Speaking as a British person, I can answer that statement with an emphatic YES!!!
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
The internet is out of control already. The question of who assigns domain names is not really relevant. The USA will control routing within its sphere of influence, including Space. Time Warner, Sprint, MCI, etc. will still own their infrastructure, and they will lease capacity for a profit, regardless of who claims to be in charge. If there is a demand for a service, it will be provided. The decisions regarding rights, privileges and penalties will be decided on legal structures of International Law, possibly a model akin to Maritime Law. Standards are continually being developed whereby entities communicate with each other. If one part is deficient, another part will grow to meet the demand.
The Internet is an interconnection of networks. New networks will appear to meet new, unforseen needs, and in the face of oppression, they will be more clever than previously conceived. So, the question is whether we allow the US Government to cede rights guaranteed us in our Constitution. Cooperation, yes, but NO to any attempt to deprive us of our freedoms. These are the issues of "control" that need to be better defined.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
The OFFP was successful in its mission. Saddam didn't make all that money mainly be circumventing OFFP regulations, but through oil smuggling, something the UN itself didn't have the power or mandate to stop. The US did, however, and not onyl failed — with they even helped with the smuggling.
So, to counter your argument with something similarly simplistic, the Internet will be fine under US control until your politicians start a War on the Internet, Operation Internet Storm or decides for an online regime change.
"Can you imagine the security council having say over censorship on the internet?" Sure, it's easy to imagine how things would be. In that case there wouldn't be any censorship of the Internet at all, since the security council members will never be able agree on a [new] definition of "censorship".
Surely you mean you are a fat bastard.
..........
If McD's and KFC are the best of American exports then
Well heres to a lettuce sarnie
Linux user #349545 (GNU/Linux)iD8DBQBAzWjX+MZAIjBWXGURAmflAKCntuBbuK
>What have 'they' done thus far to impede the internet?
Prosecution for linking to DECSS?
At least the U.N. would try to keep things fair for everyone.
Using the UN as any sort of model for fairness has got to be a joke. Having this as the first sentence of your statement removes any possibility that anyone will listen to your second sentence. (The 2nd sentence is the one that actually makes sense!)
I see that the US government is completely incapable of managing technical legislation and regulation. ("The internet is a bunch of tubes...") Corporate lobby money is in the process of gutting the RFC and protocol based underpinnings to turn it into a platform for an additional revenue stream. It won't cost them for any new infrastructure. They only have to pay the lobbying money for this change to take place.
The US has shown an abysmal track record of protecting "We the People" against "We the Corporations" in the last 20 years. The only real protections that we have against huge companies has seemed to come from the EU slapping multinationals hard enough that we see the benefits of the protection here in the US. (Look at the track record of the DOJ in cooling Microsoft's heels compared to the real enforcement of the EU.)
If the US could show that they want to control it correctly for every person (instead of every company) I would be adamant that we should retain control. As it stands I would like to see a balanced responsible agency other then the US take control.
The UN, if given control, will probably have an Internet governing council. This council, aside from running the technical aspects of the Internet with the UN's usual bureaucratic incompetence, will be comprised of a rotating set of members. It is these members that will be responsible for policies, such as freedom of speech.
The UN Commission on Human Rights counted among its members Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia. After much criticism over the membership of such countries where mass violation of human rights is policy, it was replaced with the Human Rights Council, which includes in its membership -- you guessed it -- Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia.
The UN apparently believes in using the fox to guard the hen house. Does anybody really want Cuba and China to have a say in our freedom of speech?
THE ONLY reason to give power to others is so they can assert control over US-OWNED NETWORKS
Maybe, but right now the US is asserting control over everyone else's networks.
Here's a real-life example for you: I was sued in a US court for a part of my website. I am a German. I've been to the US once, 15 years ago. I've never been to that particular state. The website is hosted on a server that has never been outside Germany (except probably to be assembled in China). The domain is registered to me, on a german address. The registrar is german, as is the ISP. Until that day, I knew nobody in California.
Jurisdiction wasn't even checked. I learned that it was my job to challenge it - by paying a US lawyer to appear in a US court to tell them "erm, did you notice that Germany happens to not be a county of California?".
No. Wake up, fool! This is not about anyone else wanting to control US networks, it's about getting the fucking US out of our networks. If you morons were to accept that there is an Internet outside the US, we wouldn't want to desperately get you to give up control.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You forgot Wal-Mart
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
"The internet was paid for by my tax dollars"? Tune down the bloodshot eyes and get a clue. The majority of the infrastructure out there (you know, in 'the rest of the world') is paid for by ISP subscribers and businesses. Oh you're talking about the *design*, in the early days of the net? If you are a typical slashdotter, most likely you weren't even paying tax yet when that happened. If you're worried about your tax dollars, maybe you should act *now* against your own government - a great deal more of your tax dollars is being wasted on things far less useful than the Internet.
"If France wants to run the internet then they can build their own." Get another clue. At this moment, the Internet is large enough that any individual effort of 'rolling their own' will naturally end up integrated with the Main Internet. This doesn't diminish the value of the Internet; it is in fact what gives the net its tremendous value. One giant worldwide network for all to use. As you seem to be against this degree of freedom, are you sure you are living in the right country?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I would much prefer if the swedish Pirate Partyhttp://www2.piratpartiet.se/international/eng lish/ controlled the internet!
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Anonymous Bushworshipper Coward, how many times will you waste more of our time insisting I "get a life"? My full life includes the lazy sport of trollblasting. I'm at the top of the Cheney Leagues, but with a lower lawyer count.
Thanks for another easy point!
--
make install -not war
Go build your own Internet.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Well in response to to someone's post about what makes the US more capable than another country to be "in charge" of the internet, my response would be "experience and ownership."
Exactly what is the problem that needs to be solved here? Maybe I should expand the number of sites I visit on a daily basis, but I don't think I've ever been blocked from visiting anything that I wanted to look at. Hell, I don't think I've ever even been blocked from things I DIDN'T want to look at. I fail to see why the current management needs to be ousted or even given this much bullshit in it's general course of business.
I'd like to know where this would lead? I'm assuming that it's really the commercial aspect of the internet they are after control over. Perhaps a UN mandated internet tax of some sort, or even better, an online commerce tax mandated by the UN. Certainly we can't say that the Academic aspects of the internet are wholly owned by the US Government, as it's (unless i'm mistaken) pretty much a multi-naitonal group of researcheres and universities sharing information, who could just go ahead and build their own network anyways.
At best, this is just another attempt by a useless neutered organization to grab at power (and money/tax revenue) it dosn't have. At worst, it's a consortium of poorer and/or angry countries picking on the US for all that we have. It kinda makes me think of those arguments where people say "The United States has xx% of the resources but only has x% of the population," and then proceed to ramble about how it's not fair, and we owe it to the world to be their resource providers for free.
Get real. Build your own network or shut up and be thankful we let you be a part of ours.
Whoever is in charge of the Internet will try to enforce their own version of "morality" upon us all.
Right now, the US is refusing to allow ".xxx" domains, and is banning online gambling, the alternatives would be equally unpaletable.
More usefully we would have a system where the "speech" is 100% free on the part of the author, but the system would be enclosed such that any part of the net could refuse or block certain data. China does not want it? Fine. The US doesn't want it? Fine. The UK wants to prosecute someone publishing something from their soil. Fine, the framework needs to develop sure, but banning everything down to the "least-common morality" is going to make the 'net a very quiet place.
Okay pie-in-the sky I agree, but while speech should be free, I reserve the right to wear earplugs. Personally I think that ".xxx" domains would more easily allow us to filter porn from minors, and how does online gambling differ from insuring your car on line:
1) "I bet that the next card is an Ace, here is my credit card number".
vs.
2) "I bet I won't have a car crash in the next year, here is my credit card number."
Ho hum. Governments... Pah!
Enjoy Y2K? Roll-on Year 2037!
if you think "international" control of the internet won't quickly lead to balkanization and the loss of freedom of speech and information.
I am an internationalist on many issues, but not this one. Not yet, not when so many governments have proven to abuse censorship power whenever it's given to them.
+++ATH0
Think about it this way: if you are sending information via e-mail to a colleague, and neither he or you is in the US, that information passes through the department of commerce in the US because that's where to root servers are.
So The US knows that someone in funet.se is talking to someone in aol.de - if it's a problem to you, then just set up some mirrors of the root servers in the EU and let corps use those. Now there's no info going through US servers.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
As far as i know the US invented the internet when it ran lines between government agencies's an Educational institutions oh about 40-50 years ago this started an spiraled outward from there. So IMO why should we be forced to no longer control something we invented?
Here's a real-life example for you: I was sued in a US court for a part of my website.
How is that relevant? If the UN controlled the Internet (whatever that means), some tool in Cali can still sue you. As it is, just write to the judge or call them up and explain matters. If you haven't been there in 15 years, what's a judgement going to accomplish?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
"We Invented It, We Get To Do What We Want... It's too bad others might have a problem with it, but the US invented the Internet, and successfully guided its development without any problems for years. There's no rational reason for continuing to do business as usual, since nobody has a better alternative. I, for one, do not want the UN taking over. It's already an asylum being run by the inmates. Bottom line, the only argument for taking away control from the US because they don't like that we have the ball, and nothing else."
Sun Microsystems fully appreciates and supports your amazingly perfect logic.
...I guess my question would be why does any country have to govern the internet? The internet being what it is I find it kinda hard to believe that any one country could or should have control.
Russia, and other similarly "free" regimes... Be careful, what you wish for, Illiberals.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
THE ONLY reason to give power to others is so they can assert control over US-OWNED NETWORKS. If they're pissed because some companies ban foreign traffic, tough bananas. Go ahead and ban US citizenry from using your network, if you think you can take the financial hit.
Nice try, UN.
Hell yeah! That UN shold stop staring blindly at their narrow 'world view' and take a step back to look at the wider US picture! These 'United Nations' that try to wrest away control over every American's Internet from the Leader of the Free World can just go ahead and try!
Seriously, wtf? The Internet is global and currently the US controls ICANN. Believe it or not, roughly 180 countries see this as a problem. It's not as if the UN is going to hand sole control over to China.
I guess I just don't understand the howling about this. What are we actually losing control of? It's not like Indonesia is going to drop by the front door and demand we packup a root server and hand it over?
I'm not sure that there should be any centeralized control over the structure of the internet. I think it would end up being a better system if everybody was able to extend it in every direction and didn't have to ask permission.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
It's ironic how anyone who frequents Slashdot can say it's a good thing for a less choice. The whole Windows/Mac OS, locked-down source code programs versus Open Source should make everyone want to be able to modify or control anything to do with control over anything to do with Internet.
He should get some credit. At least that is what these two "bozos" say.
Besides, only Gore understands the Internets are a series of highways. Not tubes, buy highways. You put your information on the dump truck where it is carried to its destination.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I think the reaction from kids (or most people) to that would be a big 'yuck'. What sort of damage do you think will happen to them? If they see a picture of someone eating poop, do you really think your kids are going to want to try that? I doubt it.
Yes, I beleive that if Gore were president, governments would still pose serious risks to people. Look at the recent Spamhaus case, where a judge ordered a domain registrar to take away Spamhous' domain, not due to squatting or spamming or violation, but simply due to Spamhous publishing opinions about who is a spammer. Look at some of the laws that were passed (and signed by president Clinton) in the 1990s, such as DMCA and COPA.
Did these things have anything to do with Bush? Is there even a shred of evidence that Gore would have vetoed COPA or DMCA, or that Gore would have brought about changes to prevent courts from bullying domain registrars? Did Gore ever run on a platform of reducing government power or decentralizing internet authorities? That's ludicrous. I'm not Bush fan, but Gore (or any other recent major-party politician) posed no less of a threat.
I just listed what would make someone less of a threat. Show me a politian who says they're going to make government smaller and less capable. Show me the one who says they're going to remove the internet from the influence of the US (and every other) government. That's the only one I might trust.
As long as people keep voting to expand government power to solve the problems of today, they're voting to expand government power to create the problems of tomorrow. That's what makes it so fun to ask republicans what they think of all the power they are handing to President Hillary -- when you put it that way, most republicans squirm because know they're doing something wrong and self-defeating. I guess they think they can get all these new laws repealed in 2009. Yeah, right!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ah yes, OilForFoodFacts.com - I am sure that there is a place to get the truth. Nope, no spin-doctoring there at all. I would expect that to be at the site OilForFoodLies.com
Programming: Its not just a job - its an indenture.
To have a kid who is gay or into kinky sex
or
To have a kid who is a skinhead and beats up gay kids
Your aversion to sexual images and lack of concern to hate speech makes me suspect you would be more embarrased to have a gay child than a murderer.
"where the US cited fears of a loss of freedom of speech as the reason for retaining power."
Oddly enough, this is also the reason other countries were objecting to the US monopoly...
Not that it's up to me, but I think whatever party can guarantee in the most absolute terms, with the greatest accountability, should have control over whatever infrastructure needs to be in control of a government agency.
In particular, I'd endorse any group which:
(*) Will not discriminate (thereby censoring) on the basis of fear of explicit sexuality (Looking at you, USA).
(*) Will not discriminate (thereby censoring) on the basis of unpopular political or social views (Racism, nationalism (including the worst sort of Nazism), fascism, anarchism, communism - insert yours here) (Looking at you, Germany, China, some others). I can decide for myself what's offensive, dangerous, or bunk. Don't want any government making that decision for me. Don't really want anyone involved in governing any aspect of the internet who doesn't understand why it's a paradox to use authoritarian tactics and policies to prevent authoritarianism. I don't need authoritarian tactics to be used to protect myself from cults, either (China - Falun Gong). And I sure as hell don't need any governmental organization, should this (god forbid) happen, telling me not to read something like Al Jazeera. If your own population can't resist going all screwy in the head because it is exposed to certain kinds of expression, you are *not qualified* for this job, as a country.
(*) Will not discriminate (thereby censoring) on the basis of language or insist on any kind of language requirement. I'm all for working on better internationalization of domain names (I don't understand much about this, but I've read other posts and I'm all for domains in other character sets, to the extent this is possible, technologically).
(*) Will not attempt to levy taxes on any individual, except as is necessary to fund, non-profit, the physical maintenance of root servers and so on (Looking at you, governments of the world, some more than others).
(*) Will not attempt to discriminate (thereby censoring) on the basis of religion, for or against. Falun Gong, radical hate-filled Wahhabist (whatever term you use for the cult wing of Islam) rants against my own country, the USA - I'll make my own decision on what to read and what I think about it.
(*) Will not attempt intellectual property voodoo or otherwise exercise power over websites with controversial (in some governments) approach to intellectual property. These questions and issues - piracy and so on - need to be dealt with outside of the realm of DNS, domain ownership, and so on.
Any group which can guarantee *not* to do any of these gets my vote.
Domain names need to be *cheap*, *registered without discrimination or censorship concerns*, and every domain owner must have a reasonable set of rights that ensure that domain's accessibility by all locations on the globe. Frankly, just because this is so fundamental to freedom of speech, I don't even think domain names should be taxed - anywhere on the globe.
I'm tired of these pissing contests about which government is least bad. All governments are bad. The one which is most powerful and offensive today, will eventually fade as all empires do, and another will take its place. It's not enough to simply resist certain governments, *today*. There are no governments in the world, nor in history, that couldn't use more shackles, more limits, more checks - there are no politicians or political enforcers who couldn't stand to live in more fear and paranoia of the citizens they claim to represent.
If I can get iron-clad guarantees, enforceability, accountability, and so on, I will support whatever organization or entity guarantees me maximal rights.
But I am unwilling (such that my opinion matters at all) to subject such a system to so-called "democracy" or the means by which one party shoves its sensibilities down the throat of others (I am sorry, but I do not give a shit whatsoever about France's language issues, Germany's bizarre issues with neo-Nazism and free expression, or my own govern
In the last few years, the EU has tried to censor the net as best as they could. We know that 1/6th of the word's population (China) wouldn't object ot a massively censored internet. Throw in crazy radical muslim nations (Iran, etc.) and you've got one hell of a internet organizational mess (kinda like the UN, thank god for veto powers or else you know there'd probably tons of utterly ridiculous propositions passed on top of a few good ones that were unfortunately vetoed).
Hmmm... Pie...
The reason why people prefer centralized authorities is because they are more effective. For instance you could have either all 50 states outlaw something or just have a federal law outlaw something. Even if the states and feds outlaw the same thing with the states you'll get 50 different versions of the law with varying penalties. Its stupid. I understand the whole "states rights thing" but many times it just ends up allowing loopholes for criminals to pick one state over the other to commit their crimes. Seriously though, I get the whole anti-federalist argument. The only problem with that argument is it really breaks down when the country balloons to 300 million people. If you want to be vigiliant about states rights and their soverignty then you've also got to put in more EFFORT. And by their votes and actions delegating power to the Federal Government the people have spoken loudly and clearly that they have better things to do with their time than impliment in their state the 50th version of some law that could have been handled more simply with a federal law.
Separately there's also the issue of association. I as an American in any part of the country am associated with Americans in every other part of the country. Some states may feel its their right to chose a path that sets them up to basically consistently perform worse than the rest of the country and become the backwater region of the nation but that doesn't mean the rest of the country is happy about it or wishes to allow it to happen. States like Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Oaklahoma and Louisianna are already bad enough as they are. There's no need to allow them to get even worse under the mantra of "states rights." If folks are THAT intent on maintaining third world conditions in a first world nation lets just give them a carribean island and let them name it "BackwardsFuckistan" or "HeadInTheSandLand" or "WeLikeBeingAssBackwardsLand".
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Classic ad hominem.
There'll be plenty of censorship... The UN will say tons and tons needs to be censored.... Nothing will ever actually get censored mind you but there will be lots and lots of paper decrees saying what needs to be censored.
How exactly is the government squeezing it's grip on the internet? They don't really do a whole lot other then govern how it's handled here in the U.S. and make sure no laws are broken. I guess we do run most (but not all) DNS root servers but I'm not sure how that makes us a powerhouse. There are other root servers and it's not like we are using them in any power play or ransoms.
Hmmm... Pie...
What an absurd concept!
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Would you be willing to exclude the following countries from having any say about internet governance (since they seem to be unable to play nice in that regard):
Turkey
Greece
China
Germany
UAE
(a bunch of southeast asian, south american and african countries I can't remember which are most egregious)
Basically we're talking about the G8... minus China. That's not the UN.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The situation you pointed out is a problem, but it has nothing to do with "who controls the Internet." It's a legal issue, one of many examples where the laws have not really caught up to the times. Let me slightly modify your example to show you how complicated it can get: Let's say Bob lives in Germany. His server is located in... oh, I don't know, the UK. Jill lives in the US.
Jill thinks Bob has (for example) libeled her on his website. Where was the crime committed? IE, which court is going to have jurisdiction? Germany, where Bob lives? The UK, where the material in question resides and where one could argue Bob "went" to transfer his material to the website? The US, where the person who is claiming a tort resides?
Imagine instead of the server being in the UK, it's in some country with extremely lax laws or even no laws at all regarding things like this. A free pass to do absolutely anything they want? Your example might not be fair, but neither is that.
The two most logical, workable choices would be either Germany or the US. In the US, we believe that our citizens should be able to petition the courts. The obvious problem with US jurisdiction in the case is that they are basically powerless to enforce their decision, unless Germany decides to help. German jurisdiction also makes sense, but it really is little better; it simply shifts the potentially heavy burden of the suit from Bob to Jill.
It has nothing to do with malice. Nothing to do with controlling the Internet. It's a simple case of different places having different laws, and nobody really knowing what to make of this new-fangled Internet-majig. I'm sure numerous /.ers will pour in with their immense legal wisdom (and of course a IANAL disclaimer), but contrary to their opinions, these really are not simple problems with simple solutions. These are issues of international politics and international law. If you think it's hard to get good decisions made within a country, boy, try lining 100 different countries up and asking them to agree on something.
And you never told us what happened with your case. Did you hire a lawyer and was the case dismissed afterward? Because if it was, it seems to me that the process worked alright.
Your ISPs are going to cache the MX records in your respective countries. That email will never cause a single packet to cross an ocean (let alone outside the respective countries and intervening territory).
You fail at internet. Please turn in your license.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The US DOES NOT control the internet and the internet is not entirely web-based either! First of all, there are two main regulatory bodies: IANA and ICANN. IANA manages IPs and has sub-organizations, notably the Number Resource Organization which is an international body composed of Regional Internet Registries (RIR). For the most part, ICANN has been managed by the University of Southern California (ooo look liberals here!) under a Department of Commerce contract. Not to mention, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an international organization/group open to anyone during the early 1990s. So despite the necessary funding, the US Govt has thankfully kept it's hands out of the pot. So what it seems to me is that all this talk is a bunch of talk by a bunch of blowhards who want to satisfy an uninformed constiuency.
A company in California can sue anybody for any reason no matter who is in control of domain names on the internet. Of course, you have the right to countersue (and/or in California, receive SLAPP compensation) for such a frivolous lawsuit.
.coms are handed out has next to nothing to do with anything about who sues you for content on your website.
Who gets to control how
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Cripes, the EU can't even agree on a Constitution. ...making them perfect at preserving the status quo and not introducing any new freedom restricting measures.
by all means, run it in a country where the offending party does not have a presence.
The US can't stop allofmp3.ru, for example. They try to pressure credit card companies into not supporting them, but they can't block access to it.
So what the hell are you talking about? How will that be any different if the UN had control?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think you are right in that promiscuity is a legit concern. Teenage pregnancies and STDs are not good things. That being said, I think children are going to get a lot more sexual ideas from watching TV (anytime) and from popular culture.
.xxx and .com? Certainly. Will most of them? Probably not.
I dispute that the nastiness you see on the web is going to inspire most children, even those without a supportive upbringing. Most kids with even marginal empathy are also not in that much danger if they read hate site, but hate sites are written for an audience that is feeling misunderstood and outcast (a phase teens do go through).
I am not advocating banning any sort of website. I simply believe the XXX site would make it easier for parents to filter out a lot of questionable content. Would sites register on
The US doesn't control the Internet and hasn't since it became global. Or, going back a bit further, since multi-nationals picked up the medium.
Now, the US can exert direct control over the physical and data layer of that part of the net they can get their hands on, mostly on soverign ground and any country they invade. They could institute a filter policy similar to China's, or rip everyone's lines out. That's control, I tell ya.
They can also put pressure on other countries (and I include multinationals here) to try and extend the scope of power. Treaties and 'alignment' of laws across jurisdictions and laws multi's that desire to do business in the country go a long way here. But in the end, whoever is willing to exert the most force to secure the physical layer has control and largely that control resides in the governments of every individual country on the net.
Unique franchises? Do they by chance got spaghetti? And blankets?
How is a court going to review your imprisonment if they never know about it? The removal of habeus corpus is all about the removal of oversight - if you are deemed an unlawful enemy combatant by a tribunal or by the President, you will disappear. No court will have any power or knowledge to uphold or deny your imprisonment.
MCA2006 has relevance because it indicates that people in power in the US will abuse their powers if its people will let them, and with the internet that means that the whole world will feel the effects in their ability to access information. Of course, since the US is ill trusted by our allies at the moment, they really didn't need this to mistrust us anyway.
The will to power is present everywhere, and there isn't a reason to expect that the UN will be any better at avoiding its seduction. They haven't shown themselves to be trustworthy in protecting the rights they propose to safeguard nor do they necessarily have the will to stand up for those rights when it is unpopular, so it doesn't seem like they constitute a better choice to run the internet.
I think you are confusing the fucked up US lawsuit system with Internet governance. If the UN "owned" the Internet in the same way the US "owns" it, you still would have been sued. Don't get me wrong, I think that the US system of lawsuits is fucked up, but handing over control to t he US isn't going to make the US lawsuit system get any better. They will still merrily (and stupidly) sue across the Internet.
Regardless of who "owns" the internet, US, UN, does not matter and will not affect whether a Plaintiff can file a case in US Federal Courts. As long as the person filing the claim, provides some reason why they believe jurisdiction is proper with some reasonable case law/cites to back this up...then the case can be filed. Now, whether jurisdiction really is proper, that requires the opposing party to contest that. This is the adversarial nature of the US judicial system. It probably differs from Germany law or not...
So, contrary to your rant, who "owns" the internet in your case will not matter one iota...
Additionally, your "getting the fucking US our of our networks" statement makes zero sense... the US does not own whatever the physican network is in Germany, Russia, Thailand, etc... nor does the US control or own the ISPs that provide you service or the company that Hosts your server... in essence, the US controls nothing about your network in Germany or any of the ancillary parts that allow you to do whatever it is you do in Germany with your website.
Matter of fact, the US has nothing to do with German law and the way it polices internet law within its borders...
From what I understand, it is able policy, that the control the US has concerns setting policies with respect to domain names, root servers, IP allocation,etc...
Even if it were, say, France pushing for it, I'd be worried. As sick as it is to have martinlutherking.org run by white supremacists, that's the degree to which the US is willing to go to ensure true freedom of speech. Most of our allies go for the cop out solution of banning hate speech, and I would be worried about what happens if even our friends took over, much less the more oppressive regimes that make up a sizable fraction of the UN. On this issue, I will be very upset if governance is made a UN capability.
This has nothing to do with the Internet and more to do with law in general. Just ignore it like Spamhaus! You are no different than the rest of the anti-US blowhards - fool.
As a preface, I, as of yet, do not have a specific opinion on US vs UN governorship over the Internet.
To say that if decisions controlling the internet were made by a UN body would somehow make things worse is typical political bi-polar thinking. "Everything's perfect now, obviously. So if we give it to someone else, it will obviously be worse." Could things get worse? Maybe, but they could get better. You simply can't make that assertion without making a well founded logical argument with reasonable facts.
Now, idealistically, a process that has it's roots in a democratic system and overseen by a stable, minimally corrupt UN would be a good thing. The UN isn't perfect, because it's made up of representatives from selfish countries. Well, how does that differ from the US, because it's made up of representatives from one selfish country? Being in the US, I can say the internet is working okay now, but I worry about it's future with tiered internet access being pushed on a government body proven time and again to be corrupt and full of corporate shills. Also, being in the US, I have no knowledge of the problems other companies run into. Because I can't seem to find a good article describing the issues other countries have with the way the US runs the internet, I can't make a judgement here, but neither can someone spreading Russia and China FUD.
Also, to say Russia and China would have a say is stupid on two levels. One, they already do have a say. China pushes companies to censor content on the internet constantly. They have control over the content in the domain. Two, the major push for taking control of the internet out of US hands is being done by European powers in the EU, which doesn't include Russia! China and Russia are happy at the moment to "stay the course." What if the new UN government body, if it comes into existance, says that in order to be on the internet you cannot censor and you cannot influence or coerce companies to censor? That would be bad for China if the penalty was having their TLD turned off. Suddenly China would no longer be so economically attractive to international investors if it wasn't connected to the same internet.
Let's have a discussion of the facts for once and stay in the 21st century. One red scare was enough.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Let's be clear. This is not going to happen. Full stop. Because of its structure, the UN is wholly incapable of any action that does not have the unanimous support (defined as lack of opposition) of the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China. Consider the interests of these 5 parties, and now you see why the UN does nothing that has any actual teeth. Surrendering the oversight of ICANN to any foreign body runs counter to US interests. Therefore, it will not happen.
It may not be just, but it is fair, and that is more important.
it's a lot like the international community demanding we hand over control of our international airlines. After all, look at all those European, Asian, and African people who have to use them to fly into the US!
No?
The US internet is run by private companies for profit, just as the airlines are. Other countries already have their own physical infrastructure set up, and if they chose to could easily set up their own DNS roots and alienate the US if they wanted to badly enough. Heck, all it would take is for the EU to band together, form their own DNS and IP addressing, block the US, and get Japan on their internet. There, now the US is no longer in control of your internet.
It may not be a perfect analogy, but it's not that far off either.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Has ICANN done a good job up to now?
Your answer will answer the question on where or not America should keep control of the internet.
IMHO, I think ICANN has done an alright job. And America does have better infrastructure to maintain the internet.
\
When the US economic power slows, and the EU (or whatever group) has more power, maybe then will the tables turn and it will be the US complaining about lack of power online. Until then, deal with it.
Considering the exponential ever increasing national debt of the US ($8 trillion dollars and counting!) and the exponential ever increasing economic power of China (which owns a good deal of that US National Debt) I'd say we have... Ohhh... About 5 to 10 years left of a US economic superpower.
Our housing market was actually propped up by China buying our debt, however that has slowed and we are about to see a major crash in that sector. Hope you invested wisely and brushed up on your Madrian!
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
eventually
And your website was shut down, when?
Oh, right, it wasn't. The US isn't exerting ANY sort of control over use of the internet in Germany at all...
A frivilous lawsuit in the US has nothing to do with control of the internet. You could just as easily sue someone who is sending international junk mail, and nobody is making the idiotic claim that the US controls the postal service around the world...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I don't think it would take long for a new for of IP regisration to emerge if 'THE US' decides to play silly buggers with it. :"what's wrong little boy"
just switch to IPv6 we'd never know! It would be like this:
COP
US: "I can't find my parents" (in whiney sniffling voice)
COP: "where do you live?"
US: "in that house right there"
COP: the one with the for sale sign out front?
US: The furniture is gone too, they left while I was in school and no one told me! wahhhhh
COP: you was picking on that Spamhaus kid again weren't you!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Whoever modded parent up, please get a clue.
I actually had a long phone conversation with a judge in California. Here's the short version of the jurisdiction insanity:
* Showing up in court, sending a letter to the court, making any statement on the case whatsoever is automatically interpreted as you accepting the court's jurisdiction
* Not showing up yields you a default judgement
* There is only one way out of this dilemma: A "special appearance to challenge personal jurisdiction" - but that a) still requires you to hire a lawyer halfway around the globe and b) is a bit tricky because if it isn't executed flawlessly can easily cross into the first bullet point, and if it fails you're back at the second point.
In short: One way or the other, if you're sued in the US, you are fucked and your only hope is that your country won't enforce the judgement. Which I wouldn't count on - most western countries have treaties about these kinds of things. I was actually served the court papers (the whole 2000 or so pages of them) by a clerk at the townhall. He was kind and helpful and explained a few things about how this works, and that he is bound by law to serve me those court papers as if they were from a local court.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
doesn't make it wrong
Like shit, the US have control of the internet. No-one does.
You can't stop the signal.
So, what's the converse? If some guy sues me in germany because I said something nasty on slashdot, do I have to the same absurd dance?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
This old myth again.. Yes, the US did invent the basic Internet. However a European, Tim Berners-Lee, invented the Web while working at a research institute in Europe (CERN). So what part do you insist on keeping? Because if its this old argument again - Europe keeps the Web - the US can keep the Newsgroups and FTP :)
For the life of me, I can't think of a single decent thing the UN's done recently. The ineffectiveness and corruption start right at the top. And the UN wants to givern the internet? I am gobsmacked.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
There's no such thing as control of the internet. There is only "the will to control".
Er Galvão Abbott - IT Consultant and Developer
I always find it strange, when people who are intimately associated with the Internet, allow the word "internet" to appear in place of "Internet".
;)
The lowercase word is NOT "the Internet". An internet can be any two connected networks, whereas the Internet is the vast collection of networks we know and loathe.
This is an important distinction I believe.
Call me pedant, and mod me down if you wish - but it won't change the fact semantics matter.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
The premise of this post is totally wrong, but there's plenty of reason why you should check out the IGF. The IGF has been designed to be about all the issues that we as Internet users actually care about - spam, security, privacy etc - and to *avoid* the ongoing arguments about the US government and ICANN. I know because I'm sat here in Athens. There's some great discussion going on about freedom of expression, Google and China, bloggers being arrested, new solutions to spam. It is all being webcast and whatever you think, you are all going to read what I write, and I will not read your responses!
"Maybe, but right now the US is asserting control over everyone else's networks."
No, they are providing an indexing service whereby a host's IP address can be obtained from a very large hierarchical look-up table.
The only thing that makes this particular index "the" index, is that everyone has agreed to use it. If anyone doesn't want to use it, they are free to make an alternate one. Alternates exist, but no one uses them, because the current system is good enough.
Personally, I wouldn't mind it if DNS was restructured to look something like this:
http://us/org/slashdot/
http://uk/co/amazon/
http://com/ebay/
etc.
There's no reason that someone accessing web content should care which part of a URL is the host and which part is the directory, and it would blur the artificial status barrier that exists between hosting a domain, a subdomain, and a directory within a domain.
I don't see why the whole ".xxx" thing is such a big deal. Why don't we all just agree that the following are flagged as porn:
xxx.domain.com
domain.com/xxx
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
Splintering DNS and having each country that disagrees with the US is a crazy notion. One thing that has made the internet so accessible is that it *isn't* splintered.
.xxx is a good idea and so sets up its own DNS that allows for the registration of .xxx domains, all is well and good. But then next year a change in US government decides that .xxx isn't such a bad idea. However as there has NEVER been a .xxx in their minds (i.e. they don't see the splinter as legitimate) they start registering domains that ARE ALREADY REGISTERED in the splinter.
.xxx to deny its legitimacy, but what if the splintered .xxx hasn't really taken off and there's only two or three hundred domains? Chances are that ICANN would (a) decide to ignore it as it is too small to bother with or (b) require RE-registration along with a fee for those in the .xxx domain. (Even if it HAD taken off, option b is still likely to happen)
.xxx, they pass the technical requirements, can show that it's generic enough that it's worth the DB space on the root servers and they have the ability to follow the One Rule themselves, then grant them the management of .xxx.
If the rest of the world thinks that
Sure, maybe it's unlikely coz you have a huge list of existing
While I disagree with US control over DNS, I'd rather that than a splintered internet. Whoever controls it, however, needs to follow the One Rule: The granting or denial of domain names should only EVER be a technical decision. If you have some company that is willing to be the registrant for
No, the parrent was right. This has absolutely nothing to do with US control over the root name servers. None.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now. - Ed Howd
Seriously, wtf? The Internet is global, but the US payed for and installed a large majority of the infrastructure and DNS systems required to run it. The rest of the world is using our systems and want us to give up control. Believe it or not, roughly 50 states see this as a problem. It's not as if the US is going to hand over control of something we paid for.
Man up and set up your own DNS if you don't like it. We built it, we're retaining control.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
I always imagined that the Internet was founded on the experiment of having a standards-based networking (as much as TCP/IP is considered the only "real" standard) of many, many different localised networks.
What form can governance take when it comes to a virtual construct such as this?
I tell you, it comes down to what's made available. If the government has a problem with one part of the Internet, they can rule that the regional network relays should block it. It's not very different from IT policy in our own corporations; they can enforce what we see on the 'Net if they really want to. It's no mystery that DNS/routing can be modified to make targeted sites seem non-existent, or block specific IP addresses.
When you get down to it, any nation that claims to "control" the Internet is only speaking of what it will allow for its own constituency.
Will the US lose control of the internet? If you ask me, we already have. I believe it happened right around 1992. (Thanks, Al!)
Wonderful, ain't it?
What concerns me is the day that any, one World Power attempts to physically take control of the Internet; one m-f'in hu-gi-normous undertaking, to be sure. Should that day come, that is the day I take to arms. I'd kill for that freedom. I'd die for that freedom. No shit. It's a bigger freedom than any one of us, because it is about the potential hidden in all of us that blossoms when we come together.
===When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts.
When you have the law on your side, argue the law.
When you have neither, holler. —Al Gore
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
Why should the US keep control of the internet tubes? It's been close to 30 years since the DOD started it. Nobody noticed it's now a world-wide network?
China's not expansionistic? Tell that to Tibetans and Formosans.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's times like this that I wish I had mod points!!!
The dept of commerce only controls the root zone file, which is distributed nightly to the root name servers, which are located all over the world.
The only traffic that goes to the root name servers is from your ISP which most likely will cache it and deliver it to you without even querying the root servers.
Your data is then routed directly as possible to the destination.
You can use the tracert command to see what machines your data traverses. I guarantee the commerce dept of the US is not to be found in your tracert, unless you or your destination are in that office.
Moron.
Granted, America has been at the forefront of technology - with much help from the rest of the world. The space program with German scientists is a good example. And granted that Tim Berners-Lee created a protocol, an application and so on. Why did the US give Europeans access? Because cooperation of this kind breeds innovation. Would it have happened anyway? Please consider the French Minitel.
;) He probably arrived on the Mayflower..
The network itself is no longer in American hands - what part of that network is owned by the US today? Very little. In Europe and the rest of the world its owned by national and private companies. It would be impractical to restrict or demand that the world stop using this technology now anyway.
I believe the issue is mostly one of the West versus the Rest - why would the democractic nations want to surrender any control to the likes of China, Iran or even Russia? Yes, I love freedom of speech too! In fact my countrys embassy burned in Syria because of a silly cartoon! The ITU has worked very well for decades now - you dont see China restricting your phonecalls? People confuse the issue of UN control with the General Assembly chaos and other programs (Oil For Food). I dont care much for the UN - but I believe the ITU functions well enough.
Now for some Wikipedia quotes:
The telephone:
The identity of the inventor of the electric telephone remains in dispute. Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention.
Electricity
Though Benjamin Franklin's famous "invention" of electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm turned out to be more fiction than fact, his theories on the relationship between lightning and static electricity sparked the interest of later scientists whose work provided the basis for modern electrical technology. Most notably these include Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, André-Marie Ampère, and Georg Simon Ohm. No to mention such giants of electrical engineering as Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, Antonio Meucci, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Werner von Siemens, Charles Steinmetz, and Alexander Graham Bell.
The Transistor
The first patents for the transistor principle were registered in Germany in 1928 by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld. In 1934 German physicist Dr. Oskar Heil patented the field-effect transistor. It is not clear whether either design was ever built, and this is generally considered unlikely. The first practical point-contact transistor was built at Bell Labs.
Aviation
Currently, the Wright brothers feat is officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) as being the first controlled, powered, sustained flight involving a heavier-than-air vehicle, using mechanically unassisted takeoff. Nevertheless, the Wright brothers' claim to this aviation "first" has been subject to counter-claims by various parties. Much controversy persists around the many competing claims of early aviators.
Light
Obviously God was an American!
We are precisely speaking about domain names, specifically the role of ICANN.
And there is no way in hell you could set up an Internet court. There are too many flavors of law to cover and too many non-internet specific laws and issues in play; you might as well have a global court system. And that DEFINITELY isn't happening.
You know, it'd be trivial to set up a parallel set of root DNSs if the UN believes that ICANN can't be relied upon. Look at OpenNIC... and that's supported by donations.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Since DNS is the "brain" of the Internet, and the US controls the brain, the US controls the Internet. Not to say that other countries don't control thier own sections of the internet to a certain extent, but they don't hold the root DNS.
If these other countries don't want the US controlling the root DNS servers then they can create their own. Nothing is stoppng them, the US isn't holding a gun their head saying they will use the DNS servers the US controls.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Of course the Web would be very little worth without the actual network - however is it unique or impossible to duplicate or even improve? First of all consider Tim Berners-Lee role in inventing the World Wide Web. He is certainly a Major player - and again he is not American. Dont forget all the other contributors is what I am saying.
:D
I agree with you on the whole never-ending debate - we could go on and on. The UN was created by the US. Today it should probably be reformed anyway. The issue is not with the chaos of the General Assembly and the impractical nature of the organization. The ITU has worked very well for international telephone communcations - and I believe something like the ITU would work for the Internet as well.
The European Union has the right to regulate its market all it wants. If Microsoft is convicted in court and accepts this verdict so be it. Any company wishing to sell products in the EU market has to obey European regulations and laws. This is no different from the US market. Why should it be any different? This is all a game anyway between the big players (MS and governments).
I do not want Microsoft to leave Europe entirely - but we do have the European creation "Linux" in case you forgot. And I love my Macs! No problem there. The US ingenuity has always been a product of the great variety of influences and not least the people arriving there from all over the world. And notably scientists from Europe..
The really interesting point here is not that of a US-EU trade conflict at all - this is about Western democracies opposed to countries like Iran, China, Saudi-Arabia etc. We should realize that the US and EU most of all - agree - on the important questions in life. Democracy, freedom of speech, religion and thought. We should unite and form a new and equal union of TRULY democratic nations - and leave the UN to die. But we would still need an international organization to regulate the Internet.
I think, sadly, that you're pretty close to the mark with that, but, as I always do with my posts here, I have to bring up historical references. We were in a worse place 50+ years ago with McCarthyism. It was worse still further back during the first world war. My grandmother, born here but of German-born parents, Americanized her name in response to all the anti-German feelings of the time.
I'll it even further back in history, to Benjamin Franklin. He wanted to bar Germans from immigrating to the US.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The Internet is fantastic. It is a monument to freedom of information. It transcends law and can be different in different countries. It's flexible, so China censor their little corner of the Internet (despite statements that they do no such thing), while the US can let just about anything go. All countries can have access to it on their terms.
Please don't impose the US on the Internet. It's the last place I can feel truly free.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I just listed what would make someone less of a threat. Show me a politian who says they're going to make government smaller and less capable. Show me the one who says they're going to remove the internet from the influence of the US (and every other) government. That's the only one I might trust.
You mean like Libertarians? Because the Libertarian Party wants to reduce the size and power of government they get my support.
FalconShould there be a Law?
(1) The US government *does* exert control over ICANN (refer the 'XXX' domain fiasco)
(2) Even if ICANN is a mythical company *with no government oversight* (it's not, no company in the world is) then the UN would still have exactly the same beef, but with ICANN directly rather than the US in particular.
Oh what a load of reactionary bullshit. The UN is NOT FUCKING DOMINATED BY CHINA AND MIDDLE-EASTERN GOVERNMENTS.
Contrary to this fucked up idea you red-necks have, the US is not the only place in the world that cares about democracy and freedom of speech.
No thanks. I'd rather actually have a *say* in the matter. At least with the UN, my country gets a voice. With the US I get what the US thinks is best for me.
If you, er your country wants a voice in how the interent is run then your country can build and install it's own DNS servers and other infrastructure. Nobody is stopping it. You can have all the say you want to then.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In other words, you have no evidence, there are any difficulties... Maybe, you should take my word for it? Someone's who can read Ukrainian and Russian, and converses regularly with friends abroad?
What FUD? That Russia kills overly critical reporters, and sues overly outspoken businesmen into bancruptcy? Or that China has political prisoners and blocks access to certain political sites? Or that they both threaten neighbors with military force?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And the strange thing is that people are so adminant to give US constitutional protections to people it doesn't apply to. Nothing in the constitution applies to foreignors or non citizens unless a law says it does. The constitution applies only to citizens and it's interactions with it's own governments.
Can you show where in the Constitution of the USA it says rights only apply to US citizens? No you can't, because they apply to everyone in the US. Even Thomas Jefferson defended a couple of British soldiers in court believing they had the same rights.
FalconShould there be a Law?
To control the Internet is to control the free flow of information for which every company, government, and organization around the world wants badly. Recognize it and fight against it - it may be your last true "right".
-MerkX
It is also a matter of honesty and democracy to allow others a reasonable amount of control. Here in Europe, we learned that this is the best way - the US, being a continent and a declining super-power, has to learn this lesson also.
If you want control of the internet then build your own. I don't want anyone controlling mine.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Bullshit right back at you. I didn't say the UN was dominated by these countries. I said the primary nations involved in pushing for international control of the internet are middle eastern theocracies and China. Read the news stories. It is quite transparent that these governments consider the Internet to be one of their greatest enemies and want control of it by any means possible.
Here are quotes from an articles published mostly in British papers last year:
"A number of countries represented including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control, but it refused."
"Then there is human rights. China has attracted criticism for filtering content from the net within its borders. Tunisia - host of the World Summit - has also come under attack for silencing online voices. Mueller doesn't see a governmental overseeing council having any impact: "What human rights groups want is for someone to be able to bring some kind of enforceable claim to stop them violating people's rights. But how's that going to happen? I can't see that a council is going to be able to improve the human rights situation."
"This discontent finally boiled over at the UN's World Summit on the Information Society, the first phase of which was held in Geneva in December 2003 (the second phase is set for November in Tunis). Brazil and South Africa have criticized the current arrangement, and China has called for the creation of a new international treaty organization. France wants an intergovernmental approach, but one fundamentally based on democratic values.{See Footnote 1} Cuba and Syria have taken advantage of the controversy to poke a finger in Washington's eye, and even Zimbabwe's tyrant, Robert Mugabe, has weighed in, calling the existing system of Internet governance a form of neocolonialism."
And here are some quotes from a Chinese official in the ITU:
"The ITU, a United Nations agency, would like to change that. "The whole world is looking for a better solution for Internet governance, unwilling to maintain the current situation," Houlin Zhao, director of the ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, said last year. Zhao, a former government official in China's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, has been in his current job since 1999."
I don't have any particular problem with international governance of the Internet, SO LONG AS IT IS BASED ON TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS AND ABSOLUTE FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION.
Will that happen in the current climate? I DON'T THINK SO.
The people & government of the United States of America developed the internet (ARPANET) which was a way the defense department could keep information saved in case of a nuclear attack from the "peace loving people of the USSR". The internet developed from that! If the U.N (useless nations) gets control of the internet, YOUR freedoms will be squashed. We (USA) developed the net, if those that don't like the way it is run don't like it, screw you and build your own. If it is better, then you'll have a great following. Leave governance of the net to the USA. It's our party, and we'll run it how we see fit. Bug off!
According to memory and Wikipedia a node in London was added in 1973 through a sat link via Norway. The network has always been international in nature. What would the DARPAnet have become without it? Well Tim Berners-Lee would not have created the WWW without the CERN institute being connected. It just goes to prove that the initial network might have been fully American and US funded at one time - but for the last 40 years it has been a shared project. I speaks well of the international cooperative aspect of the project - or at least for the democratic nations included.
The question of the telephone is a very good example of this:
As you yourself said with regards to the transistor the patent is interesting but the actual inventor more so: "Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent the telephone."
To quote the Library of Congress: " Attributing the true inventor or inventors to a specific invention can be tricky business. Often credit goes to the inventor of the most practical or best working invention rather than to the original inventor(s). This happens to be the case of the invention of the telephone! "
The House of Representatives passed a Resolution on June 11, 2002, honoring Meucci's contributions and work. A European scientist that emigrated to the US
Ultimately this does not matter as long as humanity enjoys the fruits of their labours. It is all a matter of national pride and vanity. Something we should all try to rise above. As friends Europeans and Americans should certainly try our best to cooperate to reach common goals - and agree to disagree on other points.
I beg to differ on this point and I have two issues that need resolution:
The question of legal jurisdiction and sovereignty
When the US legal apparatus takes aim at legal entities in foreign jurisdictions attempting to apply US legislation on sovereign countries. This could not happen under ITU control.
David Linhardt, owner/operator of a Chicago-based bulk email outfit e360 Insight LLC that was listed by Spamhaus for sending spam to Spamhaus users, filed a lawsuit in an Illinois court with no jurisdiction over the United Kingdom and obtained a default judgement ordering Spamhaus in the United Kingdom to pay Linhardt damages, to remove evidence of Linhardt's spamming from Spamhaus' ROKSO database and to cease blocking Linhardt's spam sent to Spamhaus users. Link
And the matter of language and culture
Today it is not very well adapted to international users needs in terms of domain names and non-ASCII characters used in European languages and Asian alphabets.
In other words, you have no evidence, there are any difficulties... Maybe, you should take my word for it? Someone's who can read Ukrainian and Russian, and converses regularly with friends abroad?
My point is that I have no evidence, and you haven't provided any evidence. So at the beginning of this discussion there is no evidence. And the lack of evidence supports my point that we have no idea what might happen, and that your comment it's just an emotional plea over the issue. But then again it's beside the point because you've taken my comment out of context and of course dodged all the important points in my post.
And one should never take someone elses word for it. I'm a skeptic. I'd ask you to debate it but that point is neither in debate nor is it central to the issue.
What FUD? That Russia kills overly critical reporters, and sues overly outspoken businesmen into bancruptcy? Or that China has political prisoners and blocks access to certain political sites? Or that they both threaten neighbors with military force?
You took my comment out of context, and what's worse you completely misinterpreted my comment.
My points:
1) China and Russia don't give a shit how the internet is run right now, because they can censor, kill, bully or do whatever the hell they want right now. All those things do happen regardless of the very existence of the internet, much less who controls it. The internet is about total freedom, and with that also comes people, organizations, and regimes, which exploit that. Evidence suggests China and Russia like things just fine. As I said, nations of the EU are behind the push to make the internet regulated by an international body. Russia and China aren't part of that.
2) The EU nations have a gripe over the internet. They want a stake, they want a say, and they don't trust the US. Most of the information I have surrounding the reasons for this are sketchy and I made a point to say that why the EU wants this is unclear, except that the US acts like the school yard bully and doesn't like to share it's toys, and the EU is worried one day they will stop sharing. What needs to be made most clear is what they want and how they want to do it. One has no proof if giving control to a UN body would be bad or good. And that's the key. I did NOT say give control to China/Russia, which is what your emotional plea is saying. I said UN body, which is a different animal all together, and it's what the EU has been calling for.
3) Your FUD is the emotional plea that if this happened, somehow Russia and China would subvert the internet would collapse or something. I seriously doubt that. Like I said, everything seems to point to the fact that Russia and China like the internet the way it is. They can control the traffic within their servers just the way they want to. You basically in order to make a point, made the jump that a UN body governing will make the internet something it's not right now. You don't know that, so your plea is simply an emotional plea against change. It's a hyperbole, and exaggeration. It could be true but I doubt it.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
They can push all they fucking like, they don't dominate the UN therefore they won't dominate any UN decision. How fucking hard is that for you to grasp?
They may WANT to dominate the Internet, but 1/180th of the UN is still sweet fuck all. Check out that "Democracy" idea and how that works again.
The relevent questions are as follows:
Is this control property of the US government?
If not, what right does the US government have to sieze this private asset?
If not, what right does the UN or any nation have to demand that the US sieze this asset?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Europe, Japan and China could do that very easily. We would not end up with a Internet of course. I believe we all still want one, right? In reality you are discussing the history, intellectual property rights and the patents behind the network - when the US government is worried about censorship, regulations and jurisdiction.
I will of course grant you that the US did create the network - however the real question should be what [part of the physical network] did you pay for? Most people on
Why shouldnt the world simply decide to set up a new regime of root servers under their control? Hardly a great feat. The US would simply be left out of the loop. Most people would not miss it either - local content is what the masses want. The US would of course suffer from a decrease in economic activity and innovation. The Chinese are already constructing their ChinaNet - making it impossible for foreign companies to offer products and services.
Do you even get it?
If I'm sending international junk mail, I am actively sending to someone in the US before he can sue me.
Running a website isn't sending international mail. It's not the same and doesn't even compare.
As for my website - they dropped the case some US guy sued in the same case put up a defense until they ran out of steam. I don't know what would've happened had they won, because they didn't.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Are we talking about the same congress that passed the insane laws that he made up? And the same courts that found no problems with his violations of things like the Geneva Convention? And the same people that re-elected him?
Yes, the same Supreme Court that told Bush he couldn't hold people at Gitmo indefinitely without charging them. The same with Jose Padilla. Unfortunately congress has been rubber stamping what he gives them. And though I don't have the stats more than half of the people who voted in 2004 voted for an opponent of his, unfortunately most elgible voters didn't vote. My vote was for Michael Badnarik.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Please stop mixing these up. They have subtle but important differences.
Table-ized A.I.
No, you could just as well be sending to an address in your country, which just happens to be forwarded internationally, or something like that.
You can be sued for almost ANYTHING you do outside the US, if it falls outside of US laws. Of course, unless it's serious enough for extradition, the only punishment is that you can't travel to the US again, unless you're willing to face the punishment.
I realize that. If you did know, you wouldn't be ranting and raving about it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
though i don't live in the us or even an american, my take is they just let the us take control. after all, they invented the internet. for those people who are discontented, just create your own dns entries, ip address allocations, as allocations to be separate from control of the us.
though the actions of the us through icann may be questionable at times, i don't seem to find any difference if let say the un will be managing it. it will not stop china from censoring content. as far as resources (ip and as) are concerned, the us started with the wasteful class based allocation that improved to cidr. requesting blocks from registries such as apnic are not much of a problem (you just have to justify it.)
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
You — advocating a change — need to present evidence, that the change is needed. I don't. It is called "burden of proof". Look it up...
I could not do that, even if I tried (I did not) — because you did not provide any context. You are doing it now — kinda...
Why are you so patient with EU's unreasonable (you admit, their reasons are "unclear") wants, and so angry at US, who is apprehensive about others (unreasonably) wanting to codify the sharing of the toys, which US has so far volunteerly shared anyway? You call US a "school yard bully" — what does that make EU? A "school yard loser"? Your whole "bully" analogy would've made sense, if we robed someone (EU?) of the toys, but we did not — Internet is our toy to begin with.
You know this, but still defend EU's requests, which they make for reasons unclear — and criticize America over its reluctance to give up its own "toys". Would one be correct calling you a Euro-phile anti-American?
Directly to China/Russia (which nobody is talking about, fortunately) or to UN is irrelevant. What matters, is that China/Russia (along with France and Germany) will have more control and say over Internet, than they do now. That is what I don't want to see happening — not by iota. That is what my original subject-line said, BTW...
The increase in their control over it — and the increase will happen — is a bad thing in itself. One does not need to be "emotional" to understand this...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Right.
That's what I said.
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It would be nice if the internet could be relied upon to deliver low latency services, it is about all that is left in the network that we could care about (beyond more bwidth). I'm not going to weigh in on the proper way that could be done, I see many perfectly reasonable (but anti-monopoly) ways of doing it. The point being, the larger the commitee involved, the less good the result.
Nice solution.
I highly recommend that you submit it the the UN, thus making the committee they've formed to deal with a null point.
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Thanks for the insight.
Jackass.
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No. No DNS lookup you'll ever do will recurse all the way to a root server, or even your local mirror (you do know that root-servers.net has many subdomains and mirrors in your region, right?) Your ISP's DNS server will be pulling updates from gtld-domain.XX.YY, referenced from it's root-server.net mirror, to populate its cache for XX.YY domains.
Most ISPs are configued to seldom recurse on lookup miss, instead to simply allow the normal replication to occur and to do batch transfers from authoritative sources at non-peak times.
For recently accessed domains, no UDP DNS packet would ever leave your ISP's or even your office/school's network. That's how its supposed to work.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
As far as 'control' is concerned, the US government has already demonstrated that it will exercise control over ICANN ('XXX' domain)
If not, what right does the US government have to sieze this private asset?
(1) Governments (and the UN) regulate Telcos for exactly the same reason - they're strategic assets
(2) The US and the UN don't need anyone to "sieze" the root servers - they just need to set up different root servers.
(3) The root servers are not a "private asset", ICANN was set up BY THE US GOVERNMENT SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSES OF MANAGING THE ROOT SERVERS - they do not own them.
If not, what right does the UN or any nation have to demand that the US sieze this asset?
Already answered (3 above)
All your points are falacious.
I'm not a Dixie Chicks, but I think I have a point here !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
I see your point and the distinction is a valid point - I did make a mistake in reading "control" into it. Of course the US is entitled to feel strongly about a project it gave life to :)
When I claimed China was building their own "ChinaNet" I was of course only putting a subjective label on their efforts at regulating, censoring and policing their own population. I just want to point out that this is of course just my view on their efforts and that they in no way have made this a matter of public record. Like many technologies the world uses the Chinese are actively working to co-opt and lock non-Chinese out of their domestic market. I believe this fits into their greater scheme of things, perhaps a bit sinister but the evidence speaks for itself in the form of the following: their own DVD format, cellphone protocols, CPUs, computer operating systems (based on Linux) and of course network routers designed to isolate "their" Internet..
The Chinese have actively pirated, reverse engineered and disregarded patents for quite some time in efforts aimed at developing China and enabling their economy to actively compete with the Western world on every level including developing technologies - not just producing them any longer. I believe China is seeking to "catch up" and restore their national pride. They rightly belong amongst the worlds greatest nations they just do not seem to be willing to wait for long.