Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Soviet Union TLD Owners Snub ICANN

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nelson-muntz-should-be-quoted-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist has up a post about ICANN's latest decisions about country-code TLDs. The body is making an effort to tackle the problem of Yugoslavia's .yu outliving the country by over a decade but is far from getting its way with the Soviet Union's domain .su. Around 2,500 new .su sites are created every year despite ICANN ordering its retirement — the disgruntled .su registrars have announced an 80 per cent price cut in the price of .su domains in response. 'It makes the much-publicized wrangles over the ".xxx" domain seem tiny by comparison. And it convinces me of the need to reevaluate the existence of the US Dept of Commerce-backed non-profit organisation that is ICANN. The current squabbles are petty compared to the diplomatic arguments that TLDs could cause. An international body like the UN would be a more appropriate overseer, surely?'"

7 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Sure! by Otter · · Score: 4, Insightful
    An international body like the UN would be a more appropriate overseer, surely?

    Absolutely! They'll be glad to crack the whip on registrars of non-countries like the Soviet Union and Taiwan.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Sure! by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean, as soon as someone is criticizing Israel, suddenly it's antisemitism ?

      Sure why not? I mean if you criticize the US, you get called anti-American.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:Sure! by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      and the USA is the only nation who has ever used them in anger

      Not in anger. In a declared war. There's a difference. We didn't hate the Japanese, didn't question their right to exist, would much rather not have dropped Fatman and Littleboy. We just wanted them to stop, and the fire raids (which caused more total destruction than both atom bombs combined) weren't enough.

      Most people seem to forget that, and believe that we skipped conventional warfare and went straight to nukes because, well, we just couldn't wait to murder thousands of innocent Japanese. As it happens, an absolutely incredible amount of firebombing was done before we even considered nuclear weapons, and if you read about how much devastation that caused you wouldn't be slamming the U.S. because it used a couple of 20 kiloton nuclear devicess (had a modern weapon been used Japan would have ceased to exist.) I'd also like to point out that we haven't used another atomic weapon against any enemy, declared or otherwise, to this very day. Neither did the Soviets, although one has to wonder if they'd have behaved themselves without M.A.D. and the various associated treaties. Hard to know what would have happened, but either way I'd say we swept our front door pretty well, and the rest of the world's too, once the nuclear cat was out of the bag.

      Regardless, look past any distaste you may have for the United States or the Bush Misadministration and ask yourself these questions: a. has U.S. management of the Internet (really, of DNS) been sufficiently inept that control should be removed on performance grounds alone, and b. do you really, in your heart of hearts, want the United Nations to run the show? I mean ... really? More to the point, do you have the slightest idea how meaningless, from a technological perspective, it is to say "control the Internet"?

      I mean, DARPA started the ball rolling, and then we let it develop in a way that has worked out to the benefit of, well ... everybody, I guess. Much of Internet engineering is actually pretty international already, when you get right down to it. Everyone is so afraid of the United States doing terrible things to people through the Internet (as if we could) and is behaving in such a petty manner, e.g. "We need to 'wrest control' of the Internet away from the U.S." What the hell does that mean, anyway? We own our parts of it. Everyone else owns theirs. Cripes.

      Wise up. It's in our best interests that the Internet continue to work well, and right now it is. We need it. So does everyone else. Besides, the only aspect of the network that the U.S. could be consider to "control" is the Domain Name System, and that's just a bunch of distributed servers that any nation could duplicate and run in parallel. Nobody has, because then they would lose the benefits of being part of the global community. This is all politics and posturing, there's no substance here. Sure, some day you may get your wish: the root servers may get confiscated and someone else will be in "control" of the Internet.

      Just be careful what you wish for, though ... you just might get it.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  2. Re:The UN? Surely you jest... by damburger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, let's remove an organization whose competence is questioned and replace it with one whose corruption and incompetence is beyond question.

    Refusing to rubber-stamp US wars of aggression doesn't make them corrupt or incompetent. Sure, they are impotent to stop these imperialistic rampages - but that is the the fault of their members, not the organisation itself

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  3. Why ever retire TLDs? by iamacat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doing so can disrupt hundreds of thousands of businesses and personal domains. Let both .su and .yu remain. Most new sites will probably register under names of present day countries to highlight their local ties anyway.

  4. unreasonable editorial remark by drmerope · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The current squabbles are petty compared to the diplomatic arguments that TLDs could cause. An international body like the UN would be a more appropriate overseer, surely?

    The little bit of editorializing in this submission is a little bit too much. I fail to see how making countries directly responsible will depoliticize the process. ICANN, is a flawed organization, but it is an effort to make management of the domain name system independent of governments and technically driven.

    The IEEE is not a UN body; Its voting membership, and its activities are a combination of academics and engineers employed by major technology companies. Given this, I find it hard to see how the "surely" remark in the story summary can even be regarded as reasonable.

    I for one would prefer a more technical, more independent ICANN--not a less technical, more political ICANN such as is embodied by the sluggish and highly politicized ITU.

  5. Re:The UN? Surely you jest... by HuguesT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hello Mr Righteous, I'll assume your from the USA :

    1- Yes the UN costs money, what a surprise. Nearly all the nations pay for it, though. The US likes not to.

    2- Have you never heard of US soldiers raping local women ?

    3- China, Cuba, etc on UN councils. Learn how they work, representative from every country get to be in them in turns. That doesn't mean they run them. At the UN, you are bound to find people from nations you disagree with in various commissions. The #1 rule of diplomacy is that you keep talking to these people anyway.

    4- The UN suck, have never done anything good, etc. The UN weapons inspectors in Iraq got rid of all the WMDs. You are aware the US troops have found none left, are you? Speak of the devil, this particular engagement really showcases the skill and competence the USA shows in dealing with world matters when unhindered by useless international bodies, doesn't it ?

    Given a choice of labeling you hypocrite or ignorant, I'm afraid I'll have to go with the former.