Slashdot Mirror
An Argument For Leaving DNS Control In US Hands
An anonymous reader writes "Ariel Rabkin has a piece over at News Corp.'s Weekly Standard arguing that the US should maintain its control over the Internet. After reading his piece, I have a hard time arguing that it should be handed over to some international body."
It's interesting that a lot of fiction scenarios assumed that the global network would be completely decentralized.. and therefore not subject to anyone's control. This utopian illusion is fading away.. because in reality the global network is just a series of cables, and yes, they pass over political borders. I think it is pretty inevitable that the global network we take for granted is going to change drastically, as every country attempts to enforce their particular political and moral stance on the information passing over their borders into their country. It is quite likely that in the not too distant future the internet will be quite a different experience from continent to continent, nevermind from one country to another.. it's already happening..
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw
Do I want it taken away from us? Heck no. We hold all the power in this area right now. But if we're talking about fair and right, then it really should be handled by the UN rather than any single country.
Well, he's afraid of censorship--at least after reading the first page and scanning the second that's what I gather. Specifically something like a Muslim nation or organization forcing domains with "Mohammad" in them to be automatically rejected or some such nonsense.
That said, he conveniently ignores any attempts for it to happen in the US. And on top of that he doesn't have a real grasp on how actual country by country censorship works today. I mean, it's happening in Thailand occasionally with blocking YouTube on the ISP level or last week with Facebook in Iran. I mean, those things should be done at the ISP level with local law enforcement to stop it.
I say if we hand it over we do so on the condition that certain things stay the way they are. One being that you can't censor a domain but you can allow country by country to force their ISPs to obey whatever stupid law their government enforces. Let their constituents complain.
No one has presented to me a definite argument one way or the other.
My work here is dung.
So what about the International Telecommunication Union? Has the ITU ever had any political disputes that were leveraged over a certain party?
It seems to me (though my perspective is limited) that the telephone network is pretty well internationally compatible. And on the topic of politicization, what ever happened to the .sex or .xxx domain? I thought that was a great example of politic butting its nose into the internet.
Let's say I invent a doorbell system to a large office building, 2,000 offices. There is a panel to type in the office number (1523), the press the doorbell, and the door bell rings in office 1523.
Since some people may not remember what office everyone is in, I decide to be nice and make a directory that I hang on the wall next to the panel, listing name and office number.
40 years later, I'm still taking care of the directory, but a group of offices decide they want a committee to run the directory and tell me to stop working on it and let them do it. I let them know they're free to make their own directory, but I want to make sure my 500 offices that I own are updated in the style I prefer. I will also continue to make updates to the other 1,500 offices that ask for changes to be made.
They get mad, and claim I'm being unfair.
So, by your definition, I'm the bad guy?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.