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UN Takeover of Internet Must Be Stopped, US Warns
benfrog writes "In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle warned this morning that a United Nations summit in December will lead to a virtual takeover of the Internet if proposals from China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are adopted. Called the World Conference on International Telecommunications, the summit would consider proposals including '[using] international mandates to charge certain Web destinations on a "per-click" basis to fund the build-out of broadband infrastructure across the globe' and allowing 'governments to monitor and restrict content or impose economic costs upon international data flows.' Concerns regarding the possible proposals were both aired at a congressional hearing this morning and drafted in a congressional resolution (PDF)."
The only thing they are worried about is that the US would not control it.
I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
You all kept saying that nobody could mishandle the Internet worse than the US, and the UN took it as a challenge!
The US is not great. The US does things like seizing domain names based on minimal cause and then spending years before they give them back. A lot of those seized have been over copyright issues and in some cases they haven't even been clearly infringing. This is similar to how many states in the US have assert forfeiture laws which allow police to confiscate large sums of money or cars under minimal suspicion of involvement with illegal drug dealing, and getting them back is difficult.
But the UN would be worse. The UN contains many countries with little conception of free speech. Even allies of the US like Canada and Britain have substantially less free speech than the US does. In the case of Britain libel although being reformed is still very much a danger. In Canada, speech which specifically targets minorities or criticizes religions can be labeled as hate speech with fines given. And most of the world, is much much worse. Consistently a large fraction of the Islamic countries have tried to push through anti-blasphemy regulations in the UN. So far they've failed. But it is easy to imagine what would happen if they could actually block pictures of Muhammad. Similarly. China would slaver at the thought of not having to do its own censorship but simply have no websites discussing Tiananmen Square at all. Letting even weak internet control get in the hands of the UN is a recipe for disaster. Maybe in 20 or 30 years when the free speech situation has improved. But not right now.
America is trying to manhandle the Internet. But the UN could give it the death of a thousand cuts. Of course they will run into the reverse problem when they try and run the US, the fact that almost all of the Internet here is privately owned.
In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, countries not named United States of America warned this morning that a United States pizza binge summit in December will lead to continued U.S. virtual dominance of the Internet.
I think the question lies in what you consider worse. Do you fear unlimited, unaccountable, and unbridled surveillance, like the kind that's being proposed in the US, that effectively covers the entire world... or are you more worried about censorship, virtual toll roads that make the doing business more expensive, and totally unrepresented taxation? Not to mention regional fragmentation, which you'll see in some of the proposals. Neither agenda is good, but which is worse? Personally, I don't think either side of this debate understands the internet at all. If the internet is going to be controlled by anyone, it should be the people who work and live in it. It's mine, damn it.
This signature intentionally left blank.
Turns out the black helicopters are actually black wireless routers.
The US did not make the Internet. Quoting from this history, "The earliest pioneers included a Frenchman, Louis Pouzin, who introduced the idea of data grams and an Englishman, Donald W. Davies, who was one of the inventors of packet-switching. Another of the great pioneers in Britain was Peter T. Kirstein, who went to America at the beginning of the Arpanet in 1969 when it was decided that Davies could not go for reasons of national security." And of course as we all know Tim Berners-Lee, another Englishman, invented the web.
The internet was designed to be open and free. Leave it be.
The internet was designed to be unregulated. Leave it be.
The internet was designed with open access for everyone in mind. Leave it be.
The internet was designed to be unhindered, unfettered, unfiltered, uncapped. Leave it be.
For those bastards who think they have the right and the need to control it, regulate it, tax it, reroute it, filter it, cap it, limit it, contain it - leave it be.
Information wants to be free, it will find a way. The internet, like nature will evolve until it does so.
It's pretty common to believe that no central source can control the internet - and it's true for the most part - with one major exception: IANA ultimately answers to the US Department of Commerce.
In order for the internet to function, there has to be a central authority who determines who gets what IP addresses and domain names. That authority is under the control of the US. Sure you could create your own internets (yes, plural) with your own name and number rules, however if you can't all agree upon who gets what IP address blocks and domain names, you aren't going to have a very cohesive and universal network like the one we have today.
Honestly, I am perfectly fine with the US having control over that, and in fact would much rather they hold the keys rather than the UN. If the UN had their way, that would mean countries who have heavy influence of the UN (e.g. China) would have their way.
So far, the US has done a great job. Sure, we've had talks about filtering the internet (e.g. SOPA) many times, but unlike 90% of the other countries out there (Australia, UK, Germany, China, Iran, just to name a few,) we haven't acted upon any of them. Granted, we have taken extraordinary and unnecessary if not unethical measures, such as taking down megaupload, we didn't do so by ordering IANA to break the infrastructure.
The best thing about the US having control, is that we've never done anything to dismantle the infrastructure in the name of politics. The UN wants control because they plan on doing exactly that.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite
The Internet protocol suite resulted from research and development conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the early 1970s. After initiating the pioneering ARPANET in 1969, DARPA started work on a number of other data transmission technologies. In 1972, Robert E. Kahn joined the DARPA Information Processing Technology Office, where he worked on both satellite packet networks and ground-based radio packet networks, and recognized the value of being able to communicate across both. In the spring of 1973, Vinton Cerf, the developer of the existing ARPANET Network Control Program (NCP) protocol, joined Kahn to work on open-architecture interconnection models with the goal of designing the next protocol generation for the ARPANET.
By the summer of 1973, Kahn and Cerf had worked out a fundamental reformulation, where the differences between network protocols were hidden by using a common internetwork protocol, and, instead of the network being responsible for reliability, as in the ARPANET, the hosts became responsible. Cerf credits Hubert Zimmerman and Louis Pouzin, designer of the CYCLADES network, with important influences on this design.
The network's design included the recognition it should provide only the functions of efficiently transmitting and routing traffic between end nodes and that all other intelligence should be located at the edge of the network, in the end nodes. Using a simple design, it became possible to connect almost any network to the ARPANET, irrespective of their local characteristics, thereby solving Kahn's initial problem. One popular expression is that TCP/IP, the eventual product of Cerf and Kahn's work, will run over "two tin cans and a string."
A computer, called a router, is provided with an interface to each network. It forwards packets back and forth between them.[3] Originally a router was called gateway, but the term was changed to avoid confusion with other types of gateways.
Yes the United States did make the internet. You're welcome.
This is all a bit rich, reading the resolution, considering that is is coming from the country which unilaterally seizes domains at will.
Don't forget as well that this is coming from the same government that proposed a kill switch for the Internet. Sounds more like "nobody should control the Internet, unless it is us" (well, this arguably applies to the US part of the Internet).
The resolution also says: "Whereas the world deserves the access to knowledge, ... and the informed discussion that is the bedrock of democratic self-government that the Internet provides;"
I thought that WikiLeaks and cablegate were exactly the kind of things which promote a healthy discussion in a democracy, but I doubt that that's what they had in mind when they drafted this resolution, free access to knowledge and all.
This all seems more like a bit of patriotic posturing. Blah blah land of the free blah blah cannot trust anybody else to be as free as we are blah blah. Seriously, it does not matter one bit what will be proposed at this conference; how exactly are you going to *force* the US to relinquish control? Not going to happen.
As any expert will tell you, none of these pie-in-the-sky proposals about the ITU taxing the Internet or the like have any chance of being pushed through. Even the US government itself doesn't take the risk seriously, except for political purposes like this. This is all just the latest step in a huge beat-up about something that could never happen. The motivation is just to distract from the real Internet governance changes that do need to happen, and that are being discussed much more sensibly in other fora (such as at the WSIS Forum last month in Geneva). That doesn't mean that we need to keep an eye the ITU, because it is true that it's a very secretive and closed organisation, but at least let's be honest about the risks.
You seem to miss the point in which nations like Russia, China, and Iran want the ability to block, etc. This is not a UN takeover, but a takeover by other nations of their sections. And those nations want the right to push their goods and hype on others, but do not want it pushed on them.
Why is it that Americans always use kindergarten proverbs when debating? Just shows how dumb and ignorant you are. .com, .net and .org are supposed to be international, but the USA have given themselves the right to seize domains using these extensions, in effect killing the political neutrality of the web.
The US government has overtaken the Internet when they started seizing domain names without due process.
This is a serious mistakes and the USA deserve to lose their current control of the web over this!
Also, ICANN is corrupt and broken. They're creating new TLDs like it's something amazing, when in fact there's simply no reason not to let anyone name their website whatever they want. And they're charging crazy sums of money for these new TLDs too. .com, .en, .us, .fr, etc. are just part of the name. ICANN just decides each website name has to end in dot-something, and from a technical point of view whether it's .com or .octopus makes absolutely no difference, it doesn't require extra work or extra infrastructure/configuration/whatever. But ICANN just wanted control, they felt it was their job to organize TLDs, and now they want to charge money for giving us the freedom to name our websites.
And I wouldn't worry about China or Russia taking control. If the UN takes control, it means every country will get their say.
And if somehow China manages to pass rules about the web that we don't like, it will be the excuse we've been waiting all these years to nuke these assfucks.
My captcha was "fuck off".
Who cares if anyone can surveil was is sent across the internet. That is rather the point of a public network, and if you don't want others to snoop then you encrypt.
ANY of the other stuff inherently breaks the internet or at least seals it off to a huge portion of the planet.
It's not even close which is why even in the middle of an election season two diametrically opposed parties are dead set against it, in unison.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think he was saying that that the US made the internet. He's more implying that a lot of the internet is based upon the US's network.
You mentioned the U.S. seized a few domains. I also think that was wrong.
But the U.N. would block whole CATEGORIES of domains from even existing.
You are worried about a theoretical Kill Switch on the internet. The U.N. wants a Kill Switch on every website...
to be pressed by the Chinese or Russians as they see fit.
And you are seriously arguing against the U.S. on this one? Yes they could improve but you don't seem to be grasping how much worse things could get, very quickly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Better the devil you know than the angel you don't.
Ok so DARPA through in some funding, but the Internet was invented at a bunch of Universities, by, you know engineers and boffins.
I humbly suggest that we let a collegial group of senior engineers and boffins (from around the world) govern the Internet, nominated by a vote of an association of qualified computer professionals.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Crap. That should be "threw in some funding". Never post after 15 hours of work.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
And they're just letting everyone else use it....
That's funny.
The US might have created a ubiquitous communications network but they don't "make" the internet today. What "makes" the 'net is numbers. The net, community, social website, etc. that survives has the numbers. If everybody else but the US quit the internet and created a new one, the US would be on the outside looking in. Kinda weird, but the true I believe.
The US did not make the Internet. Quoting from this history [nethistory.info],
Exactly - glad to see some actual data.
The original research that led to the internet was almost all done in Europe. Saying the "US made the internet" is like saying "the us invented the automobile". It's only seen as true to Americans raised to think the US did everything.
Captcha; elephant
Your quotes don't support your claim. Some Europeans invented a few of the underlying technologies. So what? The first car was made by Karl Benz (yes, as in Mercedes-Benz) in Germany. Would you claim that Germany didn't invent the car because the internal combustion engine was invented elsewhere?
How about US censorship of porn and gambling? Or do you think the .xxx domain will not be used by republicans to make a push in the future to force all porn on to that new domain and then block it everywhere?
How about the DMCA which has been used to censor material considered undesirable by both parties funders?
Censorship comes in many forms. Frankly it is no issue to me if Iranians can't see some stuff, but the DMCA hits everyone in the whole world. The US dictating its laws world wide is far worse then a country dictating its laws to its own people. Let the Iranians get rid of their government if they want an uncensored net. It can be done. But the Iranians can never be rid of the US government and its corporate masters.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Those proposals seem like terrible ideas, but it is no surprise given the countries that proposed them. It is just sad to see what it finally takes for the republicans and democrats to agree on something. Maybe if we tell them that the UN is going to forbid countries from implementing a single-payer health system, then congress will decide to implement it out of spite.
I can't even read this paragraph. Now I feel like Billy Madison--thanks buddy
It means you have autism.
Why can't they just leave us alone?
I mean, why do the governments want to interfere with the Net, a medium whereby people from all corners of the world can share information, and discuss, and plan, and scheme?
Oh, wai ...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Research is great.
Actually BUILDING something is even greater - and a different topic.
It's also the difference between SCIENCE and ENGINEERING.
It's worse than that. It like claiming that Germany invented GPS because they created the V2 rocket.
The UN is always looking for a handout or an independent tax base. Of course when the UN is an independent power, US citizens will want consider declaring war on an incipent enemy of the US rights.
Needs to be modded down - the US did not "make it", and Europe contributed far than the US more include the freakin World Wide Web which is the same as "the internet" to most ppl.
Most people are morons.
The Internet existed long before WWW did. WWW is just a service that runs on the underlying infrastructure.
I read the law, there's no kill switch provision in there at all. Nobody has ever been able to point it out to me.
What I miss in both the summary and the linked articles are two things:
Frankly, all I see right now is the usual anti-UN hit piece written by a lazy American journalist, and a Slashdot audience of complete chumps who fall for it.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
yeah well, TCP/IP is kinda useless without Maths. so i guess the greeks invented the internet.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
UN Takeover of Internet Must Be Stopped, US Warns, because we don't want the competition!
...the Internet will sense UN control as damage and route around it. Besides, try as they may, it's not as if China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia can completely control access to the Internet now. Seriously, even "The World" can't seem to keep people from getting to The Pirate Bay.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Why does one have to be greater than the other for you? They are both great, period.
But note that science has to figure things out come before engineering can implement them.
The government can certainly try to control the internet. They can block a few websites, or even firewall off must parts of it, but people will always find a way to get around it, just like they have gotten around other forms of government control. The internet is more than the hardware, it's also an idea. And that's not so easy to take down.
I really love club dresses ,
I mean, why do the governments want to interfere with the Net, a medium whereby people from all corners of the world can share information, and discuss, and plan, and scheme?
I really love club dresses ,
Which is better/worse: The known evil of the US abusing their control power to steal domains and disrupt business for those they do not like (as the result of bribes, misguided politics or plain stupidity), or the possible evil of groups in the UN imposing national politics on the greater Internet?
I personally prefer to deal with the known, and the known is that the US has been grossly abusing their current power on the Internet - and that needs to be stopped.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Things, which concern all states and all people on earth, and cannot be handled locally, like marine law, environmental agreements, world court etc. have to be handled on an international level. The institution to do so is the UN. Yes that means less control for the US. But honestly why should the US control it for everyone? US control means less influence for all humans (beside the 300 Mio US-citizens). And if the UN needs modernization, and surely it does, why is the US blocking it?
The US often act like a control freak and we, who live in other countries (the other 6.5 billion), have to follow. As a US citizen you might understand that any other citizen find that not so much appealing.
Luckily, no matter whether they act on behalf of the US or the UN, many if not all politicians are technically inept and primarily think about the domain name system when they think about "controlling" the Internet. They already have the ability to wiretap, seize equipment, etc. and now they are simply exploring more convenient ways to implement cencorship. As others have pointed out, this is primarily a debate about who should have the power to censor the Net by "seizing" domain names.
Hopefully someone comes up with a distributed domain name system that has acceptable performance and can be integrated into browsers easily, e.g. via a plugin that could become a default later. It's a technical solution to a social/political problem, but since corrupt politicians and IP instituitions who use methods similar to those of organized crime will not go away overnight, it might still be the best way to solve the problem.
We've been saying for years the feds need to be very careful about increasing power over the internet because it gives legitimacy to all these international groups that want to do the same thing.
The only way to keep the internet free is for the US to focus it's efforts to keep other powers from taking control.
By listening to the copyright trolls they've jeopardized the whole stability of the internet.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If the UN gets control of the Internet, there is a real risk that you won't get to see what Muslim clerics and conservative Christians deem offensive, because together, they control a large number of powerful governments.
Porn and gambling are highly restricted in most places around the world, including parts of Europe. When you compare free speech rights around the world, the US is still better than almost all other places.
Bad as the DMCA is, it is still better than the legal situation that exists in many European countries. Look at France's HADOPI or the ability of Germany's GEMA to restrict music distribution in Germany.
I am all for the US keeping "control". Yeah I live there, but that list of other countries who want to either control or influence it really doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy...
Honestly, while there are many issues with my country some of the other choices are truly worse. The UN has clearly shown it is beyond redemption by the make up of the Human Rights Council, it is almost as if the UN is in permanent parody mode.
As for Congress, they are way too big to flush and while I trust them as much as I would trust the UN at least we have a chance of affecting the make up of Congress more than the UN
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
...to "Businessnet"? Beyond the fact that it is now almost impossible to escape one or another commercial entity's advertisements and/or personal data leeching, there isn't much you dare post on the 'net now that you would be reluctant to say in a business environment. Even if your employer doesn't persecute you for your political views, depending upon the political ideology of the moment your views may garner you a fat data file on a server somewhere in the bowels of government...or worse.
I think I liked the 'net way better right when we were transitioning away from the BBS systems and onto the 'net...that was fear-free exchange of information.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Not really. Brewing (which is a primitive from of Biochemical Engineering) was around before people even knew what microbes were. Blacksmithing long predates metallurgy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't know who to hate now....oh wait I remember....I hate all of you.
Let's throw the UN a bone: here's the .int gTLD. Take it, and control it as much as you like, but please leave the Net infrastructure alone (and this applies to US' and other governments as well).
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Guess what - it came from CERN.... in case you don't know, that's in the EU.
Switzerland's in the EU?
Imagine a world run by librarians...all information is free and uncensored but we all have to speak in whisper voices and women have to wear their hair in buns and sensible shoes and tearing pages out of library books would punishable by a year in jail.
Because they would lose.
The US vs the UN - No matter who wins.... We lose!
The US did not make the Internet. Quoting from this history [nethistory.info], "The earliest pioneers included a Frenchman, Louis Pouzin, who introduced the idea of data grams and an Englishman, Donald W. Davies, who was one of the inventors of packet-switching.
I realise you're quoting, but just in case there's any confusion, Donald W Davies was a Welshman, not an Englishman
Like it or not, the internet is an American invention that we have shared with the world. We have managed it according to our views of freedom and (regrettably) corporate greed. I cannot see our government and cooporations allowing control of the internet to pass on to governments that would not manage it according to our needs, or try to strong arm tribute from us to line their pockets for the "purpose" of running it. It would literally be viewed here as an act of war and we would have to take appropriate action. I am not trying to be a pig headed yankee here, I'm just pointing out the reality on how it will be seen by our government and cooporations. A UN take over of the internet will NOT be allowed to happen, the US will NOT stand for it. The rest of the world might well have to pull the plug and leave to create their own network, but the part WE are connected to will remain "the wild wild west". Reactionaries in the GOP and TEA parties wouldn't have it any other way (I'm a Democrate BTW).
CERN.... in case you don't know, that's in the EU.
Eh, not exactly. You would have been right if you had said "it's in Europe", but CERN is an international organization located on the French-Swiss border, and it is officially not under the jurisdiction of either France or Switzerland. And Switzerland is not part of the EU, so no, CERN is not in the EU for a meaningful definition of "in the EU".
What about for very large values of "in the EU." ?
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 29
"Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."
Now re-read the bits about the UN wanting the internet with that last sentence in mind.
Why is it that Americans always use kindergarten proverbs when debating?
Targeting the audience...
Amusingly enough, you are correct in a lot of your points, but your presentation sucks...
Apparently you can accidentally mod while trying to move to the next post. Sorry about that.
So someone else figured out how to wire two computers together, someone else figure out how to send datagrams over the wire but the US patented it... on the Internet!
Try the veal!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This isn't about "the UN taking control". This is not a UN vs US issue. It is a few countries that want to further control and limit their part of the internet, and they see the current US control of it as an obstacle. They need to erode this obstacle. By using the UN as a pivot, they can potentially gain legitimacy and a dilution of power. So by going through the UN they seek to accomplish two things: 1. launder their intentions with the name of the UN, and 2. alter the status quo so that current checks to their power to act on their nodes are removed.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
What have you got against unions?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
...I just got an irony headache. Oww...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
It's sort of a British thing.
You really should look around you some time.