Slashdot Mirror
Continuing the Distributed DNS System
bs0d3 writes "Last year, piratebay co-founder Peter Sunde gathered coders to begin a decentralized dns system. This is a direct result of the increasing control which the US government has over ICANN. The project is called P2P-DNS and according to the project's wiki, this is how the project is described: 'P2P-DNS is a community project that will free internet users from imperial control of DNS by ICANN. In order to prevent unjust prosecution or denial of service, P2P-DNS will operate as a distributed and less centralized service hosted by the users of DNS. Today the project continues, barely. A majority of interest shifted to namecoin once the idea was realized, but coder Caleb James DeLisle continues on the first project. So far he has DHT nodes and routers worked out, and awaits help on his IRC channel whenever volunteers are willing to join."
Yawn, I've said it many a time, anti UN whinging about this is just stupid and demonstrates massive ignorance. The UN already objectively handles this sort of thing well with it's management of international telephony (ITU), international maritime standards (IMO), international air standards (ICAO), international post (UPU) and so forth. The fact you apparently don't realise this is a testament to the great job they do, have you never wondered why you can easily send post to different countries with no wonder about htf it's going to get there? have you never wondered why there's no problems with planes flown by people from different countries with different cultures, speaking different languages crossing tens of borders within a single flight? have you never wondered how painlessly you can make a phone call abroad despite the plethora of different national telecommunications laws, concepts, and technologies between countries?
The UN is perfect to this role, because unlike the US it means no single country can enforce anything, it means consent is required of all member nations to push through things like web blocking. That means no more arbitrary US censorship with ICE, no more arbitrary effective shut downs of other country's companies corporate sites because some Texas patent troll court wins an injunction the victim never knew was filed against them, no more ability of redneck states to shut down the likes of Antigua's online gambling industry domains simply because of their own ass backwards moral standards. That's of course before you go into the drama of the new buy your own TLD plan which destroys the hierarchial structure of DNS, is technical idiocy, but was allowed through because it means far more cash for ICANN's staff and directors to pocket.
Global consensus in a world with such vast disagreement meaning controversal stuff inevitably finds itself at least one veto, whilst mundane stuff that's pretty essential (like changes relating to DNS Security) passes easily is far more sensible than everything goes P2P, or everyone being forced to adhere to the lowest common denominator state of moral standards in the US.
As for WIPO, would now be a bad time to point out that WIPO worked well like this originally too, with poorer nations vetoing over the top IP protection for the pharmaceutical industry so that the suffering amongst their populace could afford medicine and the like too, but as a result of this, primarily the US, pushed this sort of thing into a new organisation - the WTO precisely so it could bypass the fairness that WIPO originally offered?
Yes, that's right, the UN isn't the problem, a minority of countries like the US is, which is precisely why it shouldn't retain control of ICANN. The only parts of the UN that don't work well are the parts that aren't truly representative of the global community - the likes of the security council, the WTO and so forth, though even these are still better than organisations controlled unilaterally like ICANN. This is why ICANN should be moved to a representative UN organisation like WIPO was before America gimped it, like the ITU, ICAO, UPU etc. thankfully still are
Yes, the UN generally does an OK job, except for that bit where they want to censor speech that makes other parties feel bad.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/01/14/2009-01-14_unacceptable_censorship_the_united_natio.html
There is not one common standard for "defamation". An atheist might say that it is impossible to "defame" a religion, since they're all made up anyway. A hard-line Christian or Muslim might conclude that any criticism whatsoever was defamation. Additionally, the freedom of speech in member countries is not synchronized in the least. Consider that in the UK, a newspaper can be ordered to not publish certain articles about individuals, which is practically inconceivable in the US. German courts have ruled that the names of criminals cannot be published alongside their crimes, regardless of the fact that they actually committed such crimes (not "may have committed", but "actually did commit").
Where does it stop? Once we allow the UN the toehold in determining what is acceptable speech, where is the line that cannot be crossed?
"My God...it's full of trolls!"