Slashdot Mirror
US Government Withdraws IANA Contract From ICANN
mbone writes "The 'no cost' contract between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN over hosting the Internet Assigned Names and Number Authority (IANA) was supposed to be re-let this March. Now, it has been withdrawn, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) says that 'we are cancelling this RFP because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community.' This is a pretty stunning vote of no confidence in ICANN by the U.S. government, on the eve of the 43rd ICANN meeting in Costa Rica. Speculation is that this is related to the attempts of the ITU-T to take over Internet governance, but it also could be over the new global top level domains. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about this in the weeks to come."
first post!
All your bases are us...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I Am Not A contract?
"Apple Inc. plans to create a $304 million campus in Austin, Texas, which will add 3,600 jobs over the next decade, more than doubling its labourforce in the city. The Cupertino, California, customer device huge already employs thousands in Austin, whose tasks include handling customer issues and support."
The headline is a bit misleading. What NTIA did was withdraw the RFP. The IANA contract still stays with ICANN (contract extended until the end of September), and there will likely be another RFP.
However, it is indeed a big rebuke, because in the NTIA Notice they stated that " we are cancelling this RFP because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community" which is another way of saying that ICANN has not been acting in the global public interest.
No seriously, what does it mean?
ICANN: Okay, we've been thinking about it and it's hard to see what's wrong with a XXX domain - at worst we still get porn everywhere on the internet, like we already have, and at best some of it's a bit more centralised where people can filter it.
US Government: AHHHHHHH it's like admitting sex exists. Don't do it, don't do it!
ICANN: Ah, well in the absence of any coherent arguments, we've decided to go ahead with the XXX domain.
US Government: WTF? We only went with an independent body for this sort of thing on the understanding that you'd follow our every whim. Right, we're not going to let you do it any more.
ICANN: So who is?
US Government: Ah, well, still you then okay, but we're cancelling our RFP and , uh, renewing you for another six months anyway until we have to renew you again after that,
Slashdot: BIG NEWS! Contract withdrawn, stunning vote of no confidence!
Huh, that's certainly obscure. Some should make memedot.org and mirror all slashdot stories there, just so people could get it out of their system :P
But actually, what puzzled me just as much was the summary.. I guess I'll have to actually click the links then, oh boy. Shit, that was a meme. Meme meme meme. Meme.
Hey, thanks ^^
consumer device giant already
pretty easily becomes
customer device huge already
if English is not your first language.
cat
ICANNT amiright?
Thanks, this makes it clearer. The US is just speaking for their puritan roots.
'Nuff said.
And why it was necessary to put in FUD about ITU-T that isn't even mentioned in the article -- we will never find out.
Collaborating with the American government? But that's currently our Kenyan Socialist Czar Anti-Colonial Mastermind Barrack Hussein Obama, who I am told, with the utmost confidence by the right-wing noise brigade, is completely and utterly against America.
Ergo, cooperation with the American government is anti-American.
ICANN has been rolling out TLDs in order to profit its core constituency: the registrars.
.xxx -- except the registrar who pushed it and is now using extortion
tactics to pressure people into buying domains in it, e.g. "get yours...before someone
else does".
.info -- what, domains in other TLDs don't contain "information"?
(Well...alright...spammers needed it, and quickly overran it. It's been a best practice
in anti-spam engineering to block *.info and whitelist what you need for many years.)
But registrars stood to profit, especially from the spammers buying domains by the
thousands, so it was created.
.biz -- because we already had .com. But it was a chance to sell
the same thing twice, always a great business opportunity for registrars, so ICANN
made it happen.
.pepsi or .google or .dell.
Nobody needed
Nobody needed
Nobody needed
And nobody needs hundreds of additional TLDs, either. There is no clamor of voices among the billion people on the Internet for
It's not an exaggeration to say that the majority of domains in existence today are used for abusive purposes: spam, phishing, typosquatting, search engine manipulation, etc. Yet ICANN wants to do whatever it can to explode the number, to keep the cash registers ringing at the registrars.
What ICANN could be doing -- but isn't -- is to reign in the epidemic abuses. There are registrars that are owned by known spammers, for example. Another thing it could be tackling are domain confiscations (by the USG) without due process: ICANN can and should push back hard against that. But none of this will happen: ICANN is corrupt to the bone, a textbook example of regulatory capture, therefore it will do whatever maximizes the profits of its masters.
and at best some of it's a bit more centralised where people can filter it.
Eh... I wouldn't say that's a good thing.
Even if it's porn, I'd prefer it not be censored at all.
So why should we just go ahead and capitulate ownership? I mean, seriously? I'm all for helping out the world and all that, but I'm getting just a little sick and tired of everybody else trying to steal all our stuff.
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
Collaborating? The US Government created ICANN in 1998 owned it until 2009. But thanks for your insight.
I don't think you know much about the Puritans, they drank, had tonnes of sex and dressed in bright colours. What they did not do was get drunk, have sex with people they were not married to or dress like emos.
I wonder if this has to do with the US authority over the Internet. We've already seen .com TLD takeovers, but maybe they want to do it in every country for the RIAA and friends. I have a feeling this is related to some new power grab.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
US Government: AHHHHHHH it's like admitting sex exists. Don't do it, don't do it!
This is Insightful? Give me a break.
First, .xxx solves absolutely no problems. It will not make porn easier to filter (why use .xxx if everyone is filtering it?). Arguments about specific TLDs aside, I seriously doubt that .xxx in particular has much to with this situation. Rather, .xxx is a symptom of a larger problem.
ICANN has stopped working to serve the public's interests. The proliferation of new TLDs, including .xxx, has been brought about for a single purpose: to make registrars more money. With .xxx its been nothing but a blatant extortion campaign against large companies -- "register, or else". If the goal of this direction is to fundamentally change the hierarchical nature of DNS (say, to move from www.microsoft.com and yro.slashdot.org to www.microsoft and yro.slashdot), then that is probably a good idea in the long run, but the way in which they're going about it is nothing more than a money grab.
Put simply, ICANN has stopped working for a better and more stable public Internet and has instead taken a dive directly into the registrars pockets. I personally would like nothing more than to see the US stick it to ICANN if it will help put them back on the right track (or work towards their outright replacement).
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I didn't read the summary or the article, but I am guessing it is some non-English speaker trying to say "The huge Cupertino, California, consumer device [manufacturer] already employs..."
Maybe if you do a few round-trips thru google translator, then ask Siri what it means you will be enlightened even further.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Is this real or parody? It's honestly so ridiculous that it seems like a joke, but it's not like this kind of idiocy hasn't turned up in the international community before.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I suppose now the US will form a shadow imperial government dedicated to it's own dark deeds while publicly displaying a facade of pro-Democracy and anti-Authoritarianism until they amass total power over the world economies. Oh, wait...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
at worst we still get porn everywhere on the internet
No, at worst you have people spending millions of dollars to pay for domains that they don't need or want, but have to get for defensive purposes. The XXX domain is bad porn sites (since it leads the way to further censorship), it is bad for the fundies (since it does not involve sticking their head in the sand), and it is bad for all other corporations (because they have to buy domians for defensive purposes). The only people who benefit from having more generic TLDs are the registrars who will rake in tons of cash selling them.
None of these seem terribly far-fetched as regulations on the Internet...
Palm trees and 8
... if they will not be able to keep their lifestyle, going from country to country making 'meetings' in luxury hotels. Costa Rica is beautiful.
Put simply, ICANN has stopped working for a better and more stable public Internet and has instead taken a dive directly into the registrars pockets. I personally would like nothing more than to see the US stick it to ICANN if it will help put them back on the right track (or work towards their outright replacement).
The only flaw I can see in this reasoning, is that the US government has not shown any evidence that it wants "a better and more stable public Internet", at least not when there is any conflict between that and doing the bidding of the corporations who, ultimately, fill every politician's campaign coffers. Or conflict with repressing their political bête noire of the week.
I wonder if ICANN was making unhappy noises about domain seizures.
Request For Proposal
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
sounds like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_Law in a nutshell
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Huh, that's certainly obscure. Some should make memedot.org and mirror all slashdot stories there, just so people could get it out of their system :P
No thanks, that'll put the domain under American jurisdiction, better make memedot.br or memedot.cx, even memedot.cn would be safer.
ICANN has been bowing to pressure from the US government to allow the overtake of .COM domains. Whatever the details, it is excellent news that this corrupt organization is loosing.
I'm not suggesting this was majority opinion, but my understanding was some companies in the porn industry did want .xxx so that it could be filtered. Not all of the porn companies are douches, I believe some help companies that make filtering software because they agree children shouldn't be accessing that content.
I don't know everything.
I Am Not A ... fan of ICANN but I don't want the US government deciding what TLDs there should be.
That "register or else" thing must have been purely in the mind of the companies in question. Even before the .xxx TLD it was possible to register domains in a country where a company doesn't operate and do all sort of nasty things with it. But back then it was no big deal, presumably because a company could easily sue for trademark infringement and everyone knew that. And everyone still knows that so I don't see why .xxx would be more extortionate than the previous situation already was. It just doesn't make any sense, sorry.
None of these seem terribly far-fetched as regulations on the Internet...
But they do seem terribly tyrannical.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I am somewhat puzzled by this story. Checking out the IANA's site, looks like they are responsible for coordinating some of the key elements that keep the Internet running smoothly. Whilst the Internet is renowned for being a worldwide network free from central coordination, there is a technical need for some key parts of the Internet to be globally coordinated – and this coordination role is undertaken by IANA.
Aside from the TLDs, the IANA also gets things like Internet Addresses from the IETF, which it then doles out to the various Regional Internet Registries, such as ARIN, APNIC, et al. While these organizations are not subsidiaries, they do get their number resources from IANA, which ensures that resources are properly managed.
So the thing that surprises me is - how does the US government get involved in IANA and various TLDs? The only TLD they should be bothered about is .us. I guess one could make an argument for .com, .org, .net and others, but there too, they are assigned to non-US organizations as well. While the US may have 'invented the internet', its management as a worldwide resource has to be free of any country's government, even if the bulk of that organization's activities happen within that country.
Which is why it puzzles me that the government should be in any way involved in the relationship b/w ICANN and IANA.
One point in that RFP is that the contractor cannot create new gTLDs without permission of the U.S. Government. All they can do is recommend them.
ya know what's funny about that beef bit ...go research how much Canadian beef you eat. ....well we should have went full on to processing for ever cutting you out of a lot a jobs.
NO really we even let you take our beef process it and send it back and when you decided to stop all beef shipments that one incident which was taken care of
OH and we still want the billion you stole for softwood lumber.
AND next govt we get were gonna raise out oil royalties with a chinese exception so we got another miltiary to back us up.
YA we dont need you you need us. OH and to prepare we got samsung to move a solar array plant here so we really will have lots a oil to sell.
OH and tell hollywood were gonna cancel all foreign copyrights for ever and patents too. BOY i can see how wealthy we become while you drive your tanks around some deserts....on dreamed up oil. Part of your yankie attitudes is you just think people will take your lame insults.
THE internet was invented for everyone to use like are you watching cable right now? that was invented in canada....PERHAPS we should come and unplug all the cable in the USA ...SORRY OUT OF SERVICE TILL YOU START ACTING NICER>
why use .xxx if everyone is filtering it?
Just stop looking at porn at work. Or if you're underage, stop using your parents' computer for porn.
Why not tell the ITU and other countries to get F’d, and then restrict our own government to the issues of national security, bodily harm, and the use of forceful or extortionate methods of coercion – having a country law, a GAC rule, or an IANNA process to discourage those harms via the internet makes sense. No other country law does.
We should not have any other such law in the US. And countries that disagree can always just unplug themselves. They all need the US more than the US needs the rest of the world all put together.
The US Government and all other governments have no legitimacy or rights, they are merely in possession of significant ability to inflict physical violence, which they may or may not chose to use to protect their citizens from others and/or from each other. And they should be allowed to do no more.
It's about time that the Internet cut it's ties with a government that has shown to have no respect for it's International character. If I had a vote, I'd vote for both ICANN and IANA to be distributed over several well informed, democratic countries that have no real political or economical ties to each other, or to single large other countries. Sure, it's hard to find those, you may have to compromise, but anything is better than to have a corpocracy rule the Internet by yanking domains and deciding what TLDs are allowed.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
What are they actually good for?
Beats me...
> The proliferation of new TLDs, including .xxx, has been brought about for a single purpose: to make registrars more money.
The basic idea of .xxx is sound, it follows the idea of a topical structure. It is in line with .biz, .info etc, which are working well, even if not tremendously popular.
But the handling was shameful, that's true. They even charged (serious money) if you wanted to prevent your name from being used on .xxx - which by all means should be a free or at least nearly free service.
Of course there is the argument that all things adult would be forced into .xxx - but honestly I can't find anything wrong with that, as long as the definition of adult is reasonable and not too broad. I mean just look at a page 3 - and that is available to the general public.
Obviously a joke. 2 and 3 would never happen. The author is a delusional US right-winger who sees the UN as anti-corporate (LMAO!) and anti-American.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I already pimp slapped him around for a couple of posts where he wasn't even able to read properly. hell the moron can't even quote a post correctly and he has a BAD case of Voldemort which you might want to point out next time you slap him around as its soooo funny! Voldemort is where a foaming at the mouth FOSSie can't say the words "Microsoft or MS or MSFT" because they are afraid the boogey man will jump on and get them, so they HAVE to put "M$" or "that other OS'. Its a perfect sign of delusional persecution complex. But hey, what do you expect from a guy that followed me around for 6 months all over the web just so he could post "die you fat fucker die" only to move onto you when he got his "brilliant" theory that you and i are the same guy even though we aren't even in the same time zone or have anything in common other than we both occasionally post here.
I personally think its funny as hell he's so afraid of that sentence of mine he's afraid to quote it correctly, its "As far as the users are concerned there is no command line in windows" which of course is 100% correct as you could remove CLI tomorrow from the worlds Windows machines and more than 95% would never notice. Can you imagine if you put out a patch that removed CLI from linux? they would treat it as a terrorist attack LOL!
BTW you might want to give Comodo SecureDNS a spin as i've been trying my damnedest to infect a machine i plan on wiping while using SecureDNS and so far it hasn't let shit through, not a single malware site or infected ad has made it past them. i bet if you combined it with your HOSTS file you'd probably have greater than 98% protection. I know it integrated nicely with my recursive DNS and actually gave me about a 12% speed boost when it came to lookup speed and its 100% free, pretty nice. Oh and just FYI but if you haven't done so you really ought to sign up for the Tigerdirect emails, they are letting their thuban X6 chips go for like $109 as long as stocks last but only through their email coupons. I snatched one up and its a transcoding monster with more OCing headroom than I've ever seen in a chip, I managed to get up to 3.4GHz without raising volts until I thought "WTF do I need the extra speed for? its already a monster" and dropped it back down. Pair it with an Asrock board and a Hyper n520 and you have a fricking badass PC for less than the cost of building a Pentium G series PC. Oh and Geeks has the HD4850s brand new for $50, works kick ass in CF, just saying.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
RFP? Is that a Rearward Facing Penis? I'd like to see that.
Felines. That's how they spray their territory.
All those asking about change, should of course be attending ICANN in Costa Rica, and make those thoughts heard. That is where they give Public Forums voice to international concerns. Me for one will be there to ask that registrars no longer allow 'private' registration of domains. It is all well and good that the idea of posting phone numbers and email addresses might be seen to be a problem when exploited by spammers and other nefarious individuals, however there should be a requirement, that if someone wants a domain, which inherently is meant to serve public information, there should be requirement for ensuring that domains that get registered, publicly list the operator,whether personal or corporation, and validate that information. This makes it easier for all those in security, enforcement, spam protection etc to determine the reputation of the domain name. Many TLD's are not serving 'whois' information, and this should be a requirement, as well as putting the onus on the registrars to ensure that there is an accurate account holder publicly available via simple 'whois'
I guess I should have logged in first, rather than posting as anonymous..
"Speculation is that this is related to the attempts of the ITU-T to take over Internet governance"
I'm not sure who with a modicum of knowledge would speculate that, given that the ITU and ICANN are utterly separate bodies and don't like each other very much. Not re-signing with ICANN is not going to annoy the ITU at all.
however there should be a requirement, that if someone wants a domain, which inherently is meant to serve public information, ...
Says who?
It's ok for me to have a domain, so I can connect to my own computer without having to remember its IP-address.
"serve public information" also sounds a bit like "running a webserver". The Internet is a lot more than port 80 and 443, you know...
This makes it easier for all those in security, enforcement, spam protection etc to determine the reputation of the domain name.
It also makes it easier to track down people who doesn't share the public opinion, which can easily lead to (self-)censorship.
I CANNOT. Hahhaha...
wtf is this elf-serving shit?
EOL.
Sorry I don't serve elves, I hate the little pointy eared fucks and think they should be sent back to the forests, little pointy shoed bastards they are. And if you don't know what he and i are talking about perhaps you should simply stay out of it, yes? because the FOSSie in question actually stalked me for over half a year across the web, all so he could post "die you fat fucker die" over and over AND OVER and the ONLY reason he isn't now is he has this delusion that APK, a guy I've never agreed with on pretty much anything other than Oakgrove is batshit, surely MUST be me since he dared to disagree with him so now he stalks APK across the web going "die you fat fucker" over and over and over.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
funneh... these elves you expand upon... I never see their posts(or this APK person you reference.) I see just your posts. I begin to question your sanity.
Stay out of it? Nah. You posted on a very public thread. How could you NOT expect comment?
Seems like you need to unplug for a bit, buddy.
Then you obviously have your settings blocking him as he has dumped his account right in the shitter, hence his posting as AC and karma whoring lately. go into your settings and allow negative posts to be seen and i'm sure you'll find them or just look for the dumbasses misquote that he thinks by posting HALF a sentence it proves...well i still haven't figured that part out, that he is too fucking stupid to use copy/paste maybe? Anyway the misquote (which he now uses as a sig) is THERE IS NO COMMAND LINE IN WINDOWS when the actual sentence is "As far as the users are concerned there is no command line in Windows as it simply isn't needed". But if you will look at the above or simply post a few negative posts about his "precious" I'm sure you too can enjoy having your very own batshit FOSSie.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.