Slashdot Mirror
The U.N.'s Push for Power Over the Internet
Omnifarious writes "China (along with other member nations) is trying to push a proposal through a little known UN agency called the International Telecommunications Union (aka ITU). This proposal contains a wide variety of problematic provisions that represent a huge power grab on the part of the UN, and a severe threat to a continued global and open Internet. From the article: 'Several proposals would give the U.N. power to regulate online content for the first time, under the guise of protecting against computer malware or spam. Russia and some Arab countries want to be able to inspect private communications such as email. Russia and Iran propose new rules to measure Internet traffic along national borders and bill the originator of the traffic, as with international phone calls. That would result in new fees to local governments and less access to traffic from U.S. "originating" companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple. A similar idea has the support of European telecommunications companies, even though the Internet's global packet switching makes national tolls an anachronistic idea.'"
I was hoping that "Power Over the Internet" was analogous to "Power Over Ethernet". That would've been cool, especially if the protocol was compatible with wireless.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Iran: Say, there Mr. Google, you owe us beellions and beelions of dollars.
Google: Who are you?
Iran: The Islamic Republic of Iran, that's who, now pay up.
Google: How about we pay you in Iranian rials.
Iran: Errr....no, no, we want dollars as our currency isn't worth very much right now.
Google: Okay, we'll get back to you on that.
Iran: Hey, you Mothers just removed Iran from Google Maps.
Google: Ooops, now who are you folks again?
China trying to *prevent* malware.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
When the U.N. and other countries have ruined the Internet, there will be a comeback of BBS's and other services like Delphi.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Don't forget replacing TCP/IP with ATM and X.25.
Given the state of my nation's roads, I'm not sure I'd trust them with fiber-optic lines when they can barely keep asphalt maintained.
Everyone wants to use infrastructure but nobody wants to pay for it.
Do tell! Did you use a blue police box or was it a modified delorean, or some other method? Any stock tips?
Obviously a modified DeLorean, as a police box would be way to pedestrian for a Romney supporter. However the police will be happy to see that none of the 99% ever get close enough to smudge your DeLorean.
Have gnu, will travel.
No, I checked it, it works. Must be a problem on your end.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org