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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.'"
This is a historical reference. Napolian asked 'How many armies does the pope have?
What are they going to do if we ignore their invoices? Hold their breath?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The UN can kiss both sides of my rear - what have they actually done in the past 10-20 years that has actually been beneficial? I can understand the need to coordinate nations in order to maintain as much peace as possible, but having something like this with non-elected representatives makes no sense, especially since they try to govern things in all UN nations unilaterally.
ICANN has made it pretty clear that they're in charge, and it's going to fucking stay that way. Iran and Russia are, of course, free to start their own internets if they don't like it.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
cash is not the issue, censorship is. They just want to control the Internet for their own purpose, you name it, you got it. Control - propaganda, political agenda, any reason is good. Organisation are starting to learn that if you got control over the communication, you control the people.
What rock have you been living under?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Because they want regress the internet into a locally governed and very much controlled and filtered service. Remember that it's politicians that push for this, old and wrinkeled people that do not use internet for much themselves other than perhaps a archaic email client at work, they will never wish your well, they just want to stroke their ego by gaining more power, because in their minds, their _opinion_ equals divine truth.
The same is true in the US, but for once, the giant corporate lobby is against such intervention.
"Senator, this will give Russia, China, Iran, and anyone at the UN access to your browsing history.
"They will know everything about you, your family, and your staff."
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I'm a bit confused. Can the ITU in some technical manner remotely change how the Internet works inside the USA and Europe without our cooperation?
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.
Ah, the truth wins out. They don't want to control the internet... they just want to tax the hell out of it.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This isn't about giving control to the UN. This is not a UN vs US issue. It is a few countries that want further control of their part of the internet, and they see the current US ownership of mechanisms and institutions as an obstacle. They cannot directly and publicly confront the US to try to wrest control for themselves without international backlash. By using the UN as a pivot, their action can potentially gain legitimacy and bring about a dilution of power (thereby giving local actors more control). So by dressing it up as an issue of wanting to transfer more power from the US to the UN, they seek to accomplish two things: 1. launder their intentions with the name of the UN, and 2. embark on the first step in altering the status quo so as to ultimately remove existing checks to their power (mainly the US) to act unilaterally on their local nodes.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
The UN has always done a better job of this sort of thing than the US alone, you only have to look at the history of WIPO and the WTO to see how bad the US is at playing fair.
WIPO was historically democratic, but America disliked this because in being democratic it let the poorer nations of the world vote for weaker intellectual property laws so that they too could benefit from medical and technological advancements much earlier than the US mandated IP laws allow. Because America didn't like this it decided to create the WTO which the US created strict rules for entry on, whilst trying to turn it into the defacto organisation for international trade using it's own economic clout to initially offer preferable trade deals to build up initial membership, then the threat of exclusion from an international trade body ever since. The problem is, that whenever the WTO rules against the US (Brazilian cotton, European steel, Canadian lumber/water, Antiguan gambling etc. etc.) the US ignores the ruling, whilst simultaneously insisting everyone else adheres to rulings against them.
Honestly, this article is just yet another US sourced scare mongering story. The fact is the world is getting pissed off at US internet censorship like the ICE domain seizures which have destroyed legitimate foreign businesses as well as the likes of SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and so forth. Self interested Americans are thus stirring up typical paranoid xenophobic sentiment with repeated stories like this, which you'll note have those words that always make Americans shit bricks in, yes those words, "China", "Iran", "Russia". They're just FUD peices plain and simple, and whilst America continues with these desperate attempts at propaganda the rest of the world will continue to say "Meh" and eventually the US will be left with little choice in the matter anyway. It's a declining superpower that can no longer unilaterally decide what should happen in the world, it just seems to be the only one at the party that doesn't know it yet.
Really it's tiresome, and rather than recognise that America could get out of this downward spiral by simply being a bit nicer again, by focussing on being a bit smarter again, and focussing on working hard, it just seems determined on pursuing this tea-party sponsored downward spiral into oblivion where anyone non-religious is a heretic to be ignored, strict IP enforcement is going to somehow save the economy whilst everyone continues to ignore it, and where adding universal healthcare to the list of public services people should be able to receive alongside things like police protection, fire protection, and military protection regardless of their wealth like just about every other country in the world is a danger that could bring the country to it's knees.
The UN is a club for tired Marxist dictators who still dream of world domination.
It's well past time Americans threw it out of New York and sent it to a more appropriate location, like Zimbabwe.
Ah, back when there was consumer choice... but apparently free markets where people have choice and thus can effect company behavior by taking their business elsewhere are now considered communism.
When I think of the ITU, I think of the regulations on another global communication system that can be used with equipment available to consumers: shortwave radio and amateur satellites. Consider the regulations ITU imposes on hams:
Now, can you give the reasons why similar regulations couldn't be imposed on the Internet? What reason does the ITU have in supporting the Internet as it is today? The ITU would almost certainly partition computers on the Internet into different classes (say, "clients" and "servers," where "servers" require special registration and must have some special identification), and would almost certainly create rules that force countries to respect the censorship systems of other countries. Hushmail-style backdoors are practically a given if the ITU has its way (which is not the say that the US would never impose such a thing within its borders; the difference is that the ITU would attempt to impose it globally).
Please, keep regulatory bodies out of the Internet. We should be working to return control of the Internet to its users, not to increase regulations on the Internet. I do not want the Chinese government deciding how the Internet is governed, or having any say in the rules of the Internet.
Palm trees and 8
I think its time for a new Internet, the bureaucrats have ruined this one.
At least by creating a new Internet it will take 10 - 20 years before the politicians clue up that it exists and start legislation against its usage.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Or just force them to divest the infrastructure into a separate company, and make said company a common carrier.
Comcast can split into Comcast that owns the pipes, and Xfinity for all their media bullshit. They can then make Comcast a common carrier, and bar them from favoring Xfinity in any way.
Yeah, brilliant move I say.
and then in 12 years (or two governmental adminsitrations from now), comcast renames themselves and then repurchases their xfinity division... either that, or AT&T (bellsouth much?) does.
Stop right there. Many, perhaps most, of the "poorer nations of the world" aren't democratic. Letting each nation vote is not being democratic if the nations aren't ruled by their own people.
I don't recall the internet ever being controlled by its users.
Then you must be new here.
Think back to how things were in the 70's and 80's (if you are actually not new here - otherwise, ask someone who has been around a while). It was effectively a healthy and vibrant anarchy. There were no politicians involved, no lawyers. Anyone could run any service they wanted on machines they controlled. It was much more a playing field of equal peers, not what we see today with "huge services like Facebook controlling a bigger and bigger chunk of all communication". It was based in OPEN protocols, not increasingly locked-down golden cages like we see today. It was far, far less centralized. The only control involved was that of admins over their own machines, coupled with the voluntary cooperation between hosts.
If you don't remember the arpanet days, ask someone who has been around longer than you what they have seen happen over the whole time span.
The typical US paranoia that anything not run by them is bad.
Sure, some countries want to do some things. As if there weren't tons of people, special interest groups and even political parties who want to spy, censor, become Big Brother, outlaw homosexuality and declare pi to be equal to 3.
Just because there are some crazies who want to do crazy things doesn't mean it'll happen. Writing your articles with such a focus is dishonest fearmongering. It would be trivial to write an identical article opposing US control of crucial Internet parts by pointing out some crazy demands by some dimwit backwater politician, of which there is no shortage.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yeah and for every positive comment you make about some random old person, you can make it about me, a young person who's as smart as they come. You think intelligence is restricted to your generation, old timer? We all build on the generations that come before. The baby boomer generation in particular, however, "do not use internet for much themselves other than perhaps a archaic email client at work." Therefore it's reasonable to say that this generation by and large is out of touch with this whole intertubes things, especially considering that older people in general tend to be fixed in their ways and inflexible.
Then just bar them from being allowed to do so. They're corporations, not human beings. Restricting them to divert a power grab is never a bad thing.
Only recently have things gotten to the point where traveling to a different country no longer requires renting a local mobile phone for the duration of your trip
Was there ever a point where connecting to the Internet required renting a computer during your trip? No, and we did not need the ITU for that.
Without the ITU, we'd still be in those old days
Yet as a result of the ITU, we have to pay cell phone companies for mobile Internet access, even if we have an amateur radio license. Why? Because the ITU's rules make it impossible to use packet radio to connect to the majority of websites and other online services in the world. So yeah, way to go ITU, keeping us in the those bad, "old" days where bureaucratic monopolies are the gatekeepers of our communications systems. Do you want to see the same sort of thing happen to the Internet -- you know, turning the Internet into a system where only commercial enterprises can run online services, because of ITU regulations?
That is not FUD; that is what the ITU does to communication systems. The ITU views non-commercial users as hobbyists, and sets up systems of regulation that (a) protect commercial interests and (b) prevent hobbyists from ever doing anything more than being hobbyists. Meanwhile, communications systems that the ITU did not touch allow (a) non-commcercial entities to run services and even become key players and (b) standards to be developed by the users, not just the bureaucracy and the commercial entities it supports.
No member state (i.e. country) will allow any wording to be agreed that requires it to do anything that it does not want to do, or otherwise jeopardizes its sovereignty.
Nice rule of thumb; now, here is an ITU rule that is law in the United States:
Section 97.111 of the Commission's Rules, 47 C.F.R. Â97.111, authorizes an amateur station licensed by the FCC to exchange messages with amateur stations located in other countries, except with those in any country whose administration has given notice that it objects to such radio communications.
Yeah, way to go on that one ITU. I see no reason why the ITU would not try to impose such a rule on the Internet, if they were given the opportunity to do so. Again, this is not FUD, this is what the ITU has already done elsewhere.
that the same people who always spread FUD saying the UN is out to steal American sovereignty (can't happen, for the reasons I just described above) at the same time want control of the Internet to stay in American hands
Hi, I'm betterunixthanunix, and I want to see control of the Internet placed in the hands of it's users, not just some country, because the Internet is just a way for people to communicate and communication between people has nothing to do with sovereignty. If there is going to be a country that controls the Internet, I would rather it be a country that (a) has not even been able to establish a national firewall (b) has a legislature that has not been able to pass any key disclosure law and (c) is stuck in the "chipping away at free speech rights" stage (i.e. a country that has free speech rights in the first place). Letting questions of "sovereignty" come into this discussion legitimizes the censorship systems of countries like China, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia -- so to hell with their national interests, I will say what I want on the Internet and I am not going to spend a full nanosecond worrying about whether or not the governments of those countries might be offended.
If anything, upcoming discussions at the ITU might lead to more countries exercising their national sovereignty when it comes to the Internet
That's nice, but while you are busy working on helping countries exercise their sovereignty online (i.e. human rights abuses), I'll be busy helping people criticize their governmen
Palm trees and 8
Sorry, Mr. Shill of the Chinese Regime, you can't have it both ways. You can't blather on about how the US is opposing democracy in the WTO, then suddenly decide that democracy isn't all that important when talking about th member countries. If it's "ethnocentric" to insist on democracy at a national level, it's just as "ethnocentric" to insist on "one country, one vote" at the international level.
There's nothing to break up. Those cable companies have local monopolies because the local governments gave it to them. The monopoly problems in the cable industry were caused by government interference with the free market. They granted monopolies in exchange for certain guarantees (like 99.8% of the population had to be covered, or payments made to the city). Take away the government-granted monopolies and the problem fixes itself, no need to break up companies.
The Boston suburb I lived in during grad school was one of those which granted a cable monopoly. The year before I moved, they reconsidered and allowed a second cable company to offer service. My cable bill immediately dropped $10/mo without me even having to switch.
Well, turning over privately-owned hardware to the State is Communism. But your intentions are in the right place, if poorly expressed. Basically, the companies which own the lines should be prohibited from selling what's carried over the lines. That's an obvious conflict of interest. I've felt the same is true of the mobile phone industry. The phone manufacturers should sell you a phone, the carriers should sell you a service plan, and the carriers should "build" a network by leasing towers from other companies which own the towers. Having one company own the towers, provide the plan, and sell you the phone is too stifling for the free market.