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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This is a historical reference.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'
Palm trees and 8
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."
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I believe it's time to apply the Sherman Antitrust act. Time to break-up Comcast, Cox, and other monopolies, turn-over control of the fiber optic bundles to the Member State government's roads authority, and then LEASE the lines to whatever company each customer chooses (Comcast, Apple, Honda, GM, Microsoft, Walmart, etc). We need to return to the days of Dialup where ISPs merely *used* the lines but did not own them.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
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
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
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
--Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
(from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, 1999).
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.
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.