US Control of Internet Remains an Issue

Hugh Pickens writes "A UN-sponsored Internet conference ended with little progress on the issue of US control over the domain name system run by ICANN, a California-based nonprofit over which the US. government retains veto power. By controlling the core systems, the United States indirectly influences the way much of the world uses the Internet. As the conference drew to a close, the Russian representative, Konstantin Novoderejhkin, called on the United Nations secretary-general to create a working group to develop ''practical steps'' for moving Internet governance ''under the control of the international community.'' The United States insists that the existing arrangements ensure the Internet's stability and there's little indication that the US government and ICANN plan to cede their roles over domain names anytime soon. ''I think (there are) a small number of countries that are very agitated and almost don't care what the facts are,'' said Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, who stepped down as ICANN's chairman earlier this month. ''It's a very small vocal group bothered by this issue. ICANN has existed for eight years and done a great job with its plans for internationalization.'' With no concrete recommendations for action, the only certainty going forward is that any resentment about the American influence will only grow as more users from the developing world come online, changing the face of the global network. The next forum will held next year in New Delhi, India."

Comments

Not really an issue

[Xaositecte]

Many are quick to point out the question "Why does the United States deserve to control the internet?"

This quickly spins into a ridiculous flame war consisting of something along the lines of "We invented it" - (A claim contested by swedish apoligists), or some kind of line about how Libya is in charge of the UN council on human rights, whatever that has to do with it.

These points, and many other historical arguements, are irrelevant. The only issue here is that the United States currently has control, and is being presented with no good (or even clear) reason why it should give that control up.

Re:Not really an issue

[Professor_UNIX]

What exactly is the US "controlling" anyway? They decide who is responsible for the content going into the root DNS servers and who assigns IP addresses, but that's about it. Nobody really HAS to use our DNS root structure, but everyone that has tried to setup an alternative one has failed miserably. Logically someone *should* be responsible for at least allocating IP addresses so they are globally unique or else you're going to have a ton of problems... but who is anyone really complaining about the way the ARIN/APNIC/RIPE arrangement is working? It seems to be handing out IP address space pretty efficiently.

Re:Not really an issue

[Red Flayer]

Maybe one can find a majority that does not like it ( http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm ).

So?

I mean, not to be callous, but just because something is unpopular doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

I believe that a big reason a lot of people don't want the US in control is because that's the status quo, and people find reasons to dislike the status quo, deservedly or not. Another reason is the general ill will that exists towards the US government worldwide. Yes, there are concerns about network neutrality, and there are concerns about the US abusing its position.

However, when the time comes that the US implements policy that damages the internet in a meaningful way, then we'll see alternatives used. It's how the internet works.

For now, the status quo is fine. Why do we waste so much energy trying to fix something that works?

Re:Not really an issue

[zerocool^]

Agreed. I love America, but I recognize our many flaws, and am quick to point them out, in order to facilitate the making of a better America. But, come on. For starters, this is one of the few international projects that we've gotten almost completely right! Secondly, as a sys-admin, I (and many others on slashdot) will be first to tell you: "If it ain't broke, and the new model doesn't add any needed functionality, don't fix it".

I'm pretty sure this is just bitching about America because it's cool to kick the guy when he's down. If you're going to bitch about America, take a look at our foreign policy, our unilateral support for Israel on the UN security council, our plummeting currency valuation, our mixed-bag relations with China, our disappearing middle-class and rapidly-growing-richer upper class, or the state of our healthcare and education services. Leave ICANN alone.

~Wx

Re:Not really an issue

[magarity]

I believe that a big reason a lot of people don't want the US in control
 
It's not "people" who don't like US control, it's "people who run oppressive governments". Look at the summary: a Russian is complaining about US control at the same time his government is busy trying to copy the Chinese filtering techniques.
 
Let's look at the Internet Usage By Region graph linked above that innocently labels by continental land masses as if all populations of the world yearn to be free from the USA's oppressive Internet policies. Compare it to the Internet Censorship worst offenders list on Wikipedia. Oh, look, apparently as a suprise to many /. readers, the USA is at the bottom of the list, mainly for laws aimed at restricting offensive materials from children that are under constant attack in the courts. No one is in Chinese or Russian courts fighting to remove censorship there because it would just get the plaintiff disappeared. And don't be fooled by the Europeans. France and Germany are #8 and #9 of the top 10 list of Internet censors.
 
Of all the major players in the world, the US has the by far best track record (not perfect, just best) of keeping the internet open.

Re:Not really an issue

[Kadin2048]

Why can't the international community create a parallel DNS system and administrate its own domains? I mean, bits are bits, right? Wouldn't just be as simple as setting your DNS servers to ones on a "WorldDNS" network that don't communicate with the US lead system? They can. You could create a new "root" DNS server in an afternoon if you really wanted to. There's no technical reason stopping you or anyone else. Then it's a question of money to put it in a datacenter with good uptime and fast pipes and building in a lot of redundancy.

But this isn't really what the people bitching about U.S. control want. They don't really want control over the system as much as they want to take it away from the U.S. I doubt they would do anything different if they had the opportunity (assuming good faith on their part, i.e. that they wouldn't build in some sort of horrendous censorship features, which I think is a serious risk), and honestly I can't imagine they have much interest in the day-to-day operation of what's mostly an automated system.

It's just a political football, nothing more. The countries involved know that the U.S. will never give it up, so it's an easy way to score points at little to no cost.

The economy is the only thing I worry about.

[RandoX]

I'm going to start requiring my traffic to be sent in Euro packets. These American packets don't hold their value across long ping times.

Gee Just what I predicted

[Sycraft-fu]

In the last thread (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=356717&cid=21311105) when this came up I said rather than sit down and discuss what could be done, they'd just bitch. Well there you go. No talk about solutions to the problem of US control like, you know, actually setting up non-US groups to do this stuff, just whining that the US should "give up control."

To me this seems similar to a bunch of kids whining that the kid who owns a really nice toy that he shares and lets them all play with should "give up control" of it to the rest of them.

This is especially true since any sort of ceremonious handing over of control would do nothing to the reality of the situation. Sure the US could, in theory, tell ICANN they answer to the UN now (though there are limits to what they can legally make a private entity do). However it wouldn't change who really has ultimate control if everything remained in the US. If the government wanted to, they could still force ICANN to do what they said since, well, they have the guns.

It would be the same thing as if you used a server in my house. Let's say it was my hardware, hosted on my net connection, but I let you use it as you pleased. However you didn't have root to it, I maintained it for you. You demand that since it is your server, I "give up control" to you in the form of root. I do that. Ok great, but I didn't really give up anything. Why? I still physically and legally control the computer. So at some point in the future I decide I don't like what you are doing I tell you to stop, you say no. I just go and unplug the server and change the configuration offline. The "control" you had was an illusion, I was still ultimately in charge because I maintained physical control and legal ownership.

Hence for a real system that isn't US controlled, it requires other countries to set up their own services. Setup your own entity like ICANN, set up root servers that operate under it. Initially, have it just devoted to mirroring ICANN's zone file (there are some small DNS projects like this). However once you've got an established system that works well with good infrastructure backing it, then maybe you approach ICANN about splitting the zone. You take the TLDs relevant to your part of the world, they keep the rest, and you swap zone information. You might find they are quite open to something like that.

Now if that was done in a number of places all over the world, you'd end up with a real robust DNS system that nobody really controlled. If any of the top level entities flipped out, the others could just stop accepting updates from them and their roots would continue to work fine. There wouldn't be any way for a single group to mess up the Internet.

That's what I want to see, something where there really isn't ANY country in charge. However what all these idiots want to see is something where the US just pretends to give up control, we still have something the US retains ultimate control over, except that the day-to-day decisions become run by the UN and are incredibly bureaucratic.