Slashdot Mirror
US Internet Control To Be Topic #1 In Rio
Crazy Taco writes "It looks as though the next meeting of the UN's Internet Governance Forum is about to descend into another heated debate about US control of key Internet systems. Although the initial purpose of this year's summit was to cover such issues as spam, free speech and cheaper access, it appears that nations such as China, Iran, and Russia, among others, would rather discuss US control of the Internet. In meetings leading to up to the second annual meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janiero on Monday, these nations won the right to hold an opening-day panel devoted to 'critical Internet resources.' While a number of countries wanting to internationalize Internet control simply want to have more say over policies such as creating domain names in languages other than English, we can only speculate what additional motives might be driving nations that heavily censor the Internet and lock down the flow of information across it."
Why would it have to go through America? Not all internet traffic flows through the borders of the US.
The US "control" of the internet is administrative control (address space allocation, DNS stuff, etc); it's not the hub for worldwide internet traffic.
The Internet basically refers to a wide area network of computers connected by TCP/IP. ARPANET was the first network to operate on TCP/IP, which was also created by DARPA. The word "Internet" was coined to describe this type of network in RFC675. The modern internet sprang from NSFNET, a clone of ARPANET created by a few US universities. Sorry, the guts of the internet came from the US. That's why we run the thing.
:)
The web was invented at CERN, so if you're Swiss you can be proud of that. It was an evolution of Gopher, however, which came from the University of Minnesota. Go gophers!
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
In Russia, the state continues to repress the free press. The Russian web and broadcast outlets have become targets for Putin's heavy handed interference.
The US doesn't exactly have free press either. While usually, almost anyone can publish almost anything, the main media outlets are all controlled by a few companies and organisations who rarely publish anything anti-government. Also, anyone can get almost anything censored in the US nowadays by simply sending a DMCA takedown request.
In your free-press nation, try printing an article on how to remove AACS or BD+ from a HD disc.
Try publishing an article that contains something about Prince.
Try publishing an article that talks unfavourably about Scientology doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States
AT&T Censor Pearl Jam http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=3962
CBS News hid Abu Ghraib crimes http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=4396
C-Span Cuts Off Caller Who Discussed Bush Executive Order http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=3848
I don't disagree with you very much, but do you understand what a neocon is? It's a fusion of liberalism and conservatism.
Like you seem to understand, the far right is very much like the far left (look at Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich). Absolute liberty and extreme isolationism, for some reason lead to similar conclusions from the opposite point of view. Socialism in practice sometimes works through fascism.
Anyway, a neocon is similarly blended, but in an attempt to be moderate. It's not really all about israel, that's just a misunderstanding used by demogogues.
Whether we're on the same page or not, you're right to be skeptical of the paranoia above. The fundamentalist christians have less power now than they did yesterday. Their ability to control will never reach what it once was, and just as the GOP is going to nominate a pro-choice neocon with the pathetic blessing of Pat Robertson, the ability of the overly religious in america to exert power is weakening... it may swing back at times int he future, but never back to where it was in the early 90s. They had their chance to dominate, and they couldn't then and certainly won't in the future.
But that's not true everywhere.
The internet, liike many things that were invented decades ago, is an American thing used by the entire world. That's not to the detrimant of the rest of the world, as its productivity seems to be eclipsing the US quite a bit, but we made this internet, and it's fair that we have more control over it. Until we do such a bad job that there is enough incentive to make a new network, we ought to keep what's ours. It's not like we're any more evil than the UN... quite less actually.
If this is about waving dicks around by each nation, then ok. If it's about fairness and justice, then we have the better case.
It is sometimes difficult for Americans to comprehend that their country isn't the most free in the world, and that Europe isn't full of evil communist dictatorships that prosecute people for 'thought crimes'. Because all those European countries such as Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom -- which scored better than the United States of America in the 2007 Reporters Without Borders Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index -- obviously have no concept of freedom of speech and a free press.
Russia is not the entirety of Europe, nor does it make up a majority of the countries in Europe. How did your bullshit manage to get modded +4 Insightful?
yeah, as I said, it's a witch hunt. If you intended to steal something and it turned out it was yours in the first place, and the state tried to prosecute you, the judge would laugh them out of court.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's even more screwed up than that. If you actually have sex with a minor, and you do not know that (s)he is a minor, there's obviously no "intent to have sex with a minor". But it's still a crime.
This is a spurious argument. Many of the root servers are already maintained by and paid for by organisations from outside the US. See http://www.root-servers.org/ for a list of them. It is one of ICANN's great bugbears that it has no direct control over these independent root server operators.
The IGF's official Web site is notoriously useless. A few members of the IGF community have begun a grassroots effort (under the banner of the Online Collaboration Dynamic Coalition) to produce a community Web site at igf-online.net to redress the problem. The new site already hosts a number of useful resources including a community blog, wiki, calendar, chat and needs feeds, most of which were selected for their capacity to support multilingual usage. It also features a specially-designed menu running along the top of most pages of the site, that links in external Web sites including the Secretariat's official Web site and that of the Rio hosts. By registering (or logging in with your existing OpenID) you can begin posting on the community blog, adding events to the calendar, and entering information on the wiki. Hosting of other content will be accommodated on request. Volunteers are needed to help with translating the site's content into other languages, designing a complementary set of themes, and spreading the word.
It is in the very begining part of the charter that provides free speech as long as the government thinks it is important at the time. section 2 gives the free speech but section 1 says that the government can deny or limit those rights if they can "be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society".
Free speech in canada is a gift from the government. Not an inherent right protected by their constitution.