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India's Proposal For Government Control of Internet To Be Discussed In Geneva
First time accepted submitter cvenky writes "The Indian Government is proposing to create an intergovernmental body 'to develop internet policies, oversee all internet standards bodies and policy organizations, negotiate internet-related treaties and sit in judgment when internet-related disputes come up.' This committee will be funded and staffed by the UN and will report to the UN General Assembly which effectively means the control of the internet passes on to World Governments directly."
That should work out well for a free and open internet, eh?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
No. Just no.
By the same token, Mercedes-Benz invented the car, why should you have one?
By the same token, Mercedes-Benz invented the car, why should you have one?
Are you fucking high?! America invented the car!
In fact you're lucky we even let you exist, America invented people!
India: "Hey, has anybody thought we should try controlling the 'net more?"
Korea: "Nah, that's a terrible idea. Maybe a law keeping ISPs from blocking stuff they don't like would be better."
Germany: "Yeah, that sounds good."
Sweden: "Add a clause telling the movie and music companies to stop suing people for more money than some of *us* have, and you'll get my vote!"
Eritrea: "Hear, hear!"
And then the law gets passed and nobody messed with the internet again and we all live happily ever after, the end. ...
Hey, if *they* get to talk about *their* crazy future scenarios, I get to talk about mine.
Is a European lecturing us on fiscal discipline? Let the flame wars begin!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
For now things are in the hand of ICANN (that is, USA), and it is illegitimate enough that it cannot make crazy moves, otherwise some states will start creating their alternative DNS roots. I wonder if a UN based organization would be more capable of wrecking the Internet without partionning it.
Note that whatever the governing body is, we have no chance of having democratic oversight no it, anyway.
There are a lot of Indians in very high places in many global technology companies. No matter what passport they are carrying, all of them are VERY VERY LOYAL to their homeland, India.
And do what?
What kind of a lunatic creates a web page consisting of 94 individual flash animations??? It's like Hamster Dance!!!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The US has done far, far worse than expected, ICANN has shown that they really can't and the FCC has utterly destroyed any possibility of it doing anything by treating the Internet as not a communication system. The major ISPs are acting like gangsters, using extortion and running protection rackets via the death of network neutrality.
Leaving it where it is WILL kill the Internet as we know it. You WILL lose what freedoms you still have, if power doesn't shift soon.
I don't know if the UN will do any better, but they sure as hell can't do worse and there are no other international organizations capable of the task.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Setup a different set of root servers. Start out by mirroring the ICANN root file to your root authority, and then passing that to your servers. Then maybe talk to ICANN about splitting authority over the root zone so your country/countries run the root for that part, ICANN for the rest.
Oh what's that? It is expensive and you'd rather just tell the US how to run it shit? Screw you then.
See the thing is right now the Internet doesn't have any global law over it, not even the US. It is all just a set of conventions. ICANN has the power because almost all DNS servers trust the root-servers.net roots, and they trust ICANN. However not only can you set up other roots, people have. Look at OpenNIC for one example. So while the US does have nominal de facto control, they have no de jure control and people can start ignoring them and building their own infrastructure any time they wish. It can even be an individual. You can run your very own root service, if you wish.
However, you start making it international law, then it is the kind of thing countries have to enforce, the sort of thing you can't just go your own way on. The people with guns will be saying what goes on.
So how about no, let's not have the UN in on it. Particularly since for all its faults, the US doesn't want to censor speech like China, Iran, and so on do and they all sit on the UN.
Most nations take International Treaties as something that has the highest force of law. In the US, that is specified in the Constitution and many other nations have similar provisions. So, if the nations get together and hammer out a treaty that says "Such and such UN body shall have ultimate authority over the 'net and we agree to do what they say," that is pretty binding. Other countries can go after them to enforce it.
So right now if you make an anti-Iran website in the US, there is little Iran can do about it. They can whine but the US says "Sorry, that is free speech here," and that is that. However if there is UN authority and the UN group says "That's mean it has to go down," the US will need to listen to them and make you take it down.
Likewise right now you have companies like Slysoft selling programs (AnyDVD HD) that the US media cartels and by extension the US government really don't like, but there's not much they can do about it because it is legal in Antigua and Barbuda which is where Slysoft is. However with international treaties covering it, the US could ask the UN body to take Slysoft offline.
Remember that right now all the US can do in terms of shit outside their borders is take away domain names registered with US registrars. So if you register a .com domain, they can nab that because Verisign is the authority for .com and they are a US company. They can't take away your IP or server, unless the country they are in cooperates, they can't even take away domain names run by other countries unless that country cooperates, or they were willing to go scorched earth and have ICANN remove the whole TLD from the roots, and even then some of the roots might decide not to listen to ICANN (they aren't all US based).
Sure it is more power than any other country, but it is pretty piddly shit overall. Someone could host something in China on a .cn name that the US didn't like and there is fuck all they could do so long as China was happy with it.
However a UN body that had authority by international treaty? They could do, well, whatever the treaty gave them authority to do.
Just WTF do they think they are going to when all Internet standards bodies unanimously refuse to be overseen? Shut down their mailing lists and brand all members terrorists?
There are a lot of Indians in very high places in many global technology companies. No matter what passport they are carrying, all of them are VERY VERY LOYAL to their homeland, India.
The influential Indian diaspora might just be the key for India to push its _Gag-the-Net_ agenda across the proposed global meeting in Geneva.
Solution: we employ guard cows in every server room. The Indians won't dare upset their sacred beasts. Problem solved!
Moreover, we hire people Dalits (Indian untouchable caste) as security. Now they can't even get into the building!
Hey, ain't nothin' wrong with using a country's ignorance against itself.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Now now, we are getting a bit ahead of the line, aren't we ? "Guard cows", "Dalits", and most importantly your entire last line. I don't know where you get your ideas from, but you see India is an extremely diverse country. Yes, there are some places where cows are considered sacred and some people considered as untouchables, heck, people even kill their daughters for loving a boy of a "lower caste" But that's not the whole picture. Its just a common stereotype that the world has made of us. The rest of India is as "civilized" and modern with any other place. Now if we come to the topic at hand, there are talks going on to block some sites. In fact some service providers have already started blocking torrentz, piratebay, torrenthound etc. But again, a weak attempt. You can get the IP by pinging the site and the IP works ! Just a simple DNS block won't stop people from accessing websites. I only hope that the people trying to set the policies regain their senses, otherwise its the dark age all over again for us.
That won't work, the cows will eat the spinach, and then the Americans will eat the cows.
Simple : he assumes that indian ideology is pro-blocking the internet (which it on average clearly is, no matter the local situation), and then attempts to show that his own ideology is more advanced than this mythical average indian ideology. Which is partially true, if a gross generalization.
He is wrong in the way you say. But you also paint the situation much nicer than it really is : India is in an long-winded war with Pakistan (heh non-muslim vs muslim ... I wonder who attacked first). The large majority of Indians are not very progressive, only a very vocal minority (at least on the internet) is.
As for the topic at hand, you know perfectly well this is not about blocking a few sites. This is about a challenge to the power of the government to dictate reality to it's peoples. If they wanted 2 or 3 sites they'd ask for just that. But they're asking for a process that will essentially guarantee them any blocks they want in the future.
If wishing something happened made it so, then why didn't Obama change the US into a heaven on earth ? Frankly, I hope you're right. I just think you're wrong.
In India > 800 million people live on 2$ per day. Are you seriously suggesting they are progressive thinkers ? I'm not saying it's their doing or their fault or anything like that. I just find it really hard to believe it is any other way.