US Resists UN Push For Control Over Internet

sl4shd0rk writes "At present, several non-profit U.S. bodies oversee the Internet's specifications as well as DNS. The Unitied Nations, however, has expressed an interest in transferring control of the Internet from the United States. The UN's Dr. Toure says any change to the governance of the internet must be supported by all countries. The U.S. has refused, arguing that 'existing multi-stakeholder institutions, incorporating industry and civil society' will continue to oversee the 'health and growth of the interenet and all its benefits.' According to earlier reports, the push is backed not only by Russia, but China, Brazil and India as well."

Comments

Re:Maybe...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

No way could they get agreement on blackjack and hookers from the general assembly...

Re:Another conspiracy

[Black Parrot]

by UN one world government. Google Obama Agenda 21 for details.

It's hilarious to see the right wing nutters getting their panties in a bunch over the Obama / Agenda 21 conspiracy, since Agenda 21 was established in 1992.

UN control would be worse

[betterunixthanunix]

UN control of the Internet would kill the Internet as we know it. Long distance fees, requirements that you respect censorship laws in other countries, unique identification requirements, different regulatory classes for "service providers" and "consumers" are all on the table for the UN. Sure, they would do a great job of ensuring that everyone is happy -- everyone being defined as the governments that are represented in the UN, which include several powerful governments with strong and pervasive censorship campaigns.

Re:UN control would be worse

[drinkypoo]

Also, there is no reason whatoever to hand control of the internet to the UN. Literally none. The internet is intended to be a network of networks. There's no reason why that wouldn't include a network of national networks of networks, and lots of reasons why not. Unless, of course, you've got one world government.

Re:UN control would be worse

[cpu6502]

Yes.
The UN is not democratic or even representative of the People it is bossing around. I don't have a gentleman representing me & making my voice heard in the world government. None of us do. The UN running the internet is an illegitimate use of power. (Similarly: This is why I refuse to pay any income or sales tax to a state or country where I do not live/have not set foot inside. No taxation without representation.)

Re:UN control would be worse

[davidwr]

NOT removing control from a single country will end the Internet as we know it, only in a different way.

Balkanization, inability to reach sites in other countries even if they don't mind you reaching them, requirements that you use only breakable encryption or no encryption at all, etc.

In other words, it's heads the world loses, tails the governments that want to make the world lose win.

Re:UN control would be worse

[MightyMartian]

Except that, good or bad, the US's governance of the Internet is a known quantity. It may not be perfect and may have its own inherent risks, but thus far, the US has been a reasonably good steward. Handing it off to the UN, where some major players are unabashed censors of the Internet and would have considerable motivation to undermine certain aspects of how it works, carries significant risks, and risks we may not even be aware of.

This is a situation where I say better than devil we know than the devil we don't.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Sir_Sri]

No taxation without representation

Every country in the world has a representative to the UN general assembly. That's actually better than if you're in Syria, China, or a plethora of other places where you have no representation, and are obliged to pay taxes.

Technically by the way, that narrowly foolish talking point that 'no taxation without representation' doesn't even apply to the US, where if you live in D.C. for example you are subject to federal taxes but can't vote for federal representatives. Nor does it include people who are intentionally disenfranchised from being able to vote. The UN *does* have a mechanism to disenfranchise people by suspending their representation to the security council.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Sir_Sri]

unlawful to hinder free speech is the best

What if the US isn't doing the best job of defending free speech?

The UN charter states explicitly that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" From 1948, in it's non legally binding charter, and essentially the same thing in its legally binding agreements that only about 150 countries have signed on to.

Press Freedom from 2005 puts the US at 44th, and significantly lower than say, denmark, finland etc. So why shouldn't one of those countries get control of the internet then, since they are demonstrably more free than the US.

. The UN is over-stepping its bounds; it's supposed to be

The UN is supposed to be whatever the member states want it to be. That's how democracy works. If all of the member states agree that every tuesday everyone in the world has to wear a pink hat, then that can be made binding law. The UN has a collection of agencies of varying efficiency and effectiveness that are tasked with making sure people are fed, that there are international telecommunications standards, that Aircraft all conform to certain guidelines, that there are labour, education and human rights standards everywhere and so on. Now obviously if people don't want to do anything to uphold those rules then the UN doesn't have any capacity to act on its own. Just the same as if the south in the US tried to bring back Jim Crow laws the federal government would have to decide what, if anything, it was prepared to do about it.

Re:UN control would be worse

[lsatenstein]

QUOTE

UN control of the Internet would kill the Internet as we know it. Long distance fees, requirements that you respect censorship laws in other countries, unique identification requirements, different regulatory classes for "service providers" and "consumers" are all on the table for the UN. Sure, they would do a great job of ensuring that everyone is happy -- everyone being defined as the governments that are represented in the UN, which include several powerful governments with strong and pervasive censorship campaigns.

ENDQUOTE

The idea that some single country controls a global resource is not acceptable to countries that are not congruent with USA political policy. Suppose the Internet was controlled by a non -USA country, that does not agree with USA policies? How would the US feel? How would the the USA control its utilities, since many use the web for managing their infrastructure. The USA has already wrongly turned off the switch on at least one service company, putting the company at a major financial disadvantage in its trying to regain operations.

The extreme set of rules that you listed are rules that the USA already has in place via the US's largest private ISPs, only they are imposed on you and you shrug them off as the cost or rules on how you may use the net.

What eventually will happen is that a parallel internet will be created, which will contain a majority of the worlds countries and populations. The USA will have to decide to go it alone or merge with it. Most countries will switch over because of the desire to be part of a global marketplace.
I am not in the know, but do the rules governing the internet respect International Law?

Yes, change is coming, albeit slowly.

A switch over will be a few wiring changes, and the data will now be available in the new globally owned internet. Most end-users will not notice any difference.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Algae_94]

So the Chinese and Syrian people have a representative in the UN. That's great, but how does it represent those people in any way? They are not choosing who represents them, the government they have no say in is choosing these people. I believe that was the GP's point.

Re:UN control would be worse

[heypete]

All the arguments against the UN could equially be made of the US. Additionally it's not at all clear to me why I have to pay an American company to maintain my .com registration. Certainly there's no indication it was chosen as being the best value for money.

The .com registry (VeriSign) charges $7.85/year for registration at the wholesale level (plus an $0.18 ICANN fee), regardless of if you're Joe Schmoe Blogger or Google. That seems like a pretty reasonable expense for maintaining a registry of 100+ million domain names with 100% uptime since it was founded.

Would it be nice if it cost a bit less? Sure. I'm still not that worried about it -- the fee is less than I paid for lunch yesterday and the savings of a dollar or two in terms of an annual registration are basically not even worth discussing in terms of practical savings.

VeriSign certainly seems to know how to handle the registry side of things pretty well, and I don't really see any technical or financial reasons why I should be concerned. /I never thought I'd be in a position to defend VeriSign, but in this case they seem to be doing a darn good job.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pure and utter FUD.

The comment from the ITU guy himself shows exactly why it SHOULD be the ITU that controls the internet:

""We never vote because voting means winners and losers and you can't afford that," Dr Hamadoun Toure, the ITU's secretary-general told the BBC.

"Whatever one single country does not accept will not pass.""

This demonstrates that ITU control would actually be, without question, much better, because it would mean even things like ICE domain seizures of international domains by the US authorities wouldn't be possible. You're right that the US is a known quantity and that's ultimately the problem, we know that the US censors the global internet via domain seizures, under the ITU this simply wouldn't be possible, and the above demonstrates why. It demonstrates that the ITU requires international consensus over these sorts of things so both Chinese government censorship and US corporate censorship would equally get blocked, and the only things that would pass would be the common sense things - solutions to technical issues and challenges and such. This is exactly what whoever controls the internet should be limited to - the technical aspects of it's growth and nothing more. The US has shown it can't keep to doing just this, whilst the ITU has shown with it's many years of the international telecommunications networks that it can.

Yes, yes, I know I'll get modded down by angry patriotic Americans who feel slighted that anyone dare suggest they shouldn't control something international, and yes, I know I'll get all the arguments about how some random commission at the fringe of the UN has Iran in it which obviously means the whole of the UN is broken, and yes I know I'll even get the new world order kooks telling me how the UN is actually out to take over the world run by a super-secret organisation of elf-magicians who eat pixies for lunch or whatever the conspiracy theorists have cooked up now.

But ultimately it doesn't matter, because the ITU is still the only organisation in the world that has shown it is capable of handling this sort of thing in an objective manner.

Organisations like the ITU really just aren't political, they're technical organisations staffed by some of the most succesful academics in their relevant fields. A lot of people don't get that, they see UN security council failure to act on Syria and assume the whole UN is bad, but that's really just like saying because you met a grouchy Red Cross guy once, they shouldn't be responsible for delivering any kind of aid, ever. Really, the comments thus far in this thread are nothing but 100% fear mongering, they have absolutely no basis in fact, they demonstrate actually no understanding of how the likes of the ITU are governed and act, and who by. They're simple kneejerk reactions to a perceived slight against American internet mismanagement.

Despite this, as is always the case with discussions regarding the UN on Slashdot, bring on the ignorant uninformed nutjobs in 3...2...1...

Re:UN control would be worse

[MightyMartian]

I simply don't believe it. I'm not saying the US is a completely reliable steward, but it's known quantity. You live in a fantasy land if you think wresting the Internet from the US is going to make nonsense impossible.

Until we have full-blown mesh networks and other ways of networking equipment together and central control of any kind becomes irrelevant, I'm sticking with the current management.

Re:UN control would be worse

[tnk1]

The world has always been able to create a parallel Internet. The reason they haven't done that is the same reason no one has created a completely parallel Linux kernel, there's no need.

Given the US's policies on free speech, it makes a good standard for the operation of the internet, which is one reason it actually exists now and is popular.

You're right, parallel networks can certainly pop up any time. However, unless they pop up because US policy directly affected the usability or freedom of the Internet, you can actually expect those networks that are being set up will leak users back to the "old" internet faster than East Germans scooted through the broken Berlin Wall.

You're looking at this as some sort of national pride issue, but in reality, most people could give a shit about that. Who needs a "global marketplace" when there already is one? And what makes you think the purportedly "extreme" rules of the US will not similarly crop up in networks managed by groups of countries who don't even give lip service to free speech or free trade?

Re:UN control would be worse

[Jane Q. Public]

"The fear of a one-world government is unfounded. The UN is not set up to function as such a body..."

Not only is that cart-before-the-horse, it is also false. The fact that the UN is incapable of doing it has not bearing on the fear of a one-world government. The fear is very real, and the UN has very little to do with it. Most people recognize that the UN is just a big pile of BS.

"And, while this may sound a little patronizing to other nations, the UN is at it's most effective when it is aligned with the U.S."

And maybe it WAS, but that has happened pretty rarely lately.

"It promotes what used to be first and foremost "American values" (real values, like democracy, human rights, an autonomy)"

It's SUPPOSED to do that. Doesn't mean that it actually does. The UN has lost its purpose (weak as it was to begin with) and now has its OWN agenda, which is not in line with the U.S. Constitution.

Take off your blinders, forget what it was originally DESIGNED to do, and look at what it is actually doing.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Jane Q. Public]

"Everyone knows the US will be a puppet to US corporate shenanigans as the seek to capitalise and profit off of control of the internet."

So... a NON-PROFIT corporation, which is advised by A PANEL CONSISTING OF GOVERNMENTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, is a US-corporate shill? You're dreaming.

Now, it is true, ICANN has made a number of recent blunders. Not only its TLD auction, which some saw as blatant money-grubbing (although, again, it is a non-profit), to its method of deciding name disputes, which it assigned to a "target-shoot", requiring the disputants to send an http request at precisely a specific time... the closer to the target time wins. (This was a particularly stupid move, as it is amendable to automation, and favors those with low latency. A lottery would have been far preferable.)

Nevertheless, one cannot say these things have anything at all to do with the U.S. government.

And your proposed DNS fragmentation will never work, in the long run.

What the Internet needs, is a new DNS-free protocol. That would solve ALL of these problems.

"IP addressing will remain pretty clean but Domain Names are going to be exploited for profit a trend started by the US."

It was NOT. ICANN made that move but it was NOT "the US". Repeat: ICANN is advised by governments all over the world (I think it would be fair to say "most governments", today). NONE of its decisions in recent years -- as dumb as some of them have been -- have been unilateral on the part of the United States. To claim that they were is an admission of ignorance.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Jane Q. Public]

Well said. As I have stated before many times, we need a decentralized addressing system. It would be a disaster if this were handed to the UN before then.

Re:UN control would be worse

[epyT-R]

Seriously, the last thing the internet needs is another fucking government entity sitting on top of it, enforcing all sorts of totalitarian political favoritism (mostly towards the left) under the guise of 'freedom.' The US used to stand up to this rubbish.. I wish it still did.

1. The Human rights council is largely made up of islamic states. it's been effectively bored out from the back end and is demonstrated by the ban on criticism of sharia and other islamic tenets. the UN is has a long history of 'hate speech' censorship for certain groups. the left wing bias on what constitutes human rights is blatantly obvious.

2. I don't know if an axiom exists for this or not, but organizations tend to collect power to themselves while redistributing the responsibility for use of them as far as possible. I don't claim a 'conspiracy', but I can almost guarantee that the 'globalization' push has not gone untalked about and/or actively pushed by various subcommittees for the sake of some cause or other. Really, the only way to prevent this is to actively resist it. It's the only way to protect individual rights. I want my government to do this, but alas it is not to be it seems.

3. As an american, the fact that an empowered UN could pull end runs around the US constitution in terms of rights and taxation certainly bothers me. hell my own government has been attempting and partially succeeding at this for the last 50 years. It's bad enough with what we have already, thanks. I don't want another government on top of the feds that's even less accessible to the average citizen than they are.

4. The UN's obsession with the israel/arab conflict is a serious issue, to me anyway. It's a case of worrying over the past instead of looking towards the future. those states need to fucking grow up, or have their shitty war without the rest of us getting involved. maybe we should let them have at it, sans support from the civilized world.

Anyway, having them run the internet will reduce freedom of expression and activity on the network. It will NOT increase or protect it. the US government is just as guilty as china of censorship, just in economic areas, so balkanization is already here. The UN would simply give countries like china, india, and the islamic states even more power to dictate user behavior on a global scale. Personally, I do'nt care what china/india/islam does with their networks as their citizens have the responsibility to stand up to their own overlords if they're unhappy, but I certainly do not want their interests enforced here in the states. The borders protect peace.

Re:UN control would be worse

[elashish14]

The UN is not democratic or even representative of the People it is bossing around. I don't have a gentleman representing me & making my voice heard in the world government.

And how would this be any different from the current situation? America itself is hardly democratic and even if it were, what kind representation do non-Americans have on the council?

Not that I really have an opinion on the issue. It doesn't seem right that the US should have the only say on the direction of the Net. But I doubt the UN would do a better job.

Re:UN control would be worse

[Dr Damage I]

What is proposed is not removing control for the US government and handing it to the US, but removing control from non profit organizations that happen to exist in the US and handing it to the UN. Given the UNs structure, the US government would have more control over the internet if the internet were under the control of the UN.

The US government does not have the only say on the direction of the net as is. By contrast, the UN would have the only say on the direction of the net if control was transferred to it. A body in which few people place a great deal of faith.

Why should the US remain in charge?

[davidwr]

If I were other countries, I'd ask myself why any one country should be "in charge" of things like DNS.

Having any one country "in charge" greatly increases the temptation to further "balkanize" the DNS system, where ".com" means something in "most of the world" but something else in countries that force their ISPs to use an in-country, government-controlled DNS provider. By having an international body handle things like this, countries that don't get their way but who at least respect the process will be less likely to run their own DNS.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[betterunixthanunix]

If I were other countries, I'd ask myself why any one country should be "in charge" of things like DNS.

No one country is in charge of DNS; some important domain names fall under the jurisdiction of the US government, but country-specific TLDs belong to specific countries. IP allocations are a different story, but ICANN is not controlled by the US government, it is just under the US government's jurisdiction.

I know full well that there are countries that do not like the job ICANN is doing. Countries that have national firewalls -- not the weak attempt by ICE (DNS hijacking), but real firewalls that actually inspect packets and kill connections -- want to change the rules to make censorship easier. China would prefer if other countries would just require servers to refuse to give "objectionable" information to Chinese citizens. The reason those sorts of countries are turning to the UN is that unlike the US, the UN actually respects those censorship campaigns (after all, national sovereignty must be respected, even if it violates the UN's definition of human rights) and will try to force everyone else to respect those campaigns.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[PickyH3D]

If I were any other country, I would probably ask myself that too. Then, I would look at one of the most corruptible global organizations and reconsider, unless I was one of the countries hoping to corrupt the process to begin with: e.g., Russia, China, India, or any of the Middle Eastern nations.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[Kenja]

America is where most of the hardware is, its where the project originated, its based of work from DARPA, etc. If anyone should be "in charge" it should be us. Not that there's anything stopping other countries from managing their own segments.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[BMOC]

IPv6 adoption should also eliminate most of ICANNs inflated power.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[jellomizer]

Because we own it.

Why should we give up one of our national assets?

Bla Bla Bla Greater good.... Each country it looking out for itself. Besides Moral reasons, they only reason why the US doesn't just Nuke the rest of the world, is because they offer things that could benefit us more then the benefit of nuking the rest of the world. When ever you have a county give up their hard fought/well deserved assets. They will not like it and reject and fight against it.

Why did the US allow the current tyrants to get into power during the cold war? Because it was better then allowing the USSR back leaders. Which would extend our enemies interests. Sure we will probably will need to take them out in the future. But Afghanistan War+Iraq War (1 and 2)+Vietnam War+Korean War is still better than World War III.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[betterunixthanunix]

Well, take a look at some of the ITU-T Y series recommendations if you want to know where these ideas come from. A lot of it is technical e.g. protocols and ways to interoperate, but some of it is related to policy -- like requirements for non-repudiation in "next generation networks."

In general, the UN respects national sovereignty i.e. the UN will not authorize intervention in a country's laws or government unless the violations of human rights are extreme (and even then, they show their bias -- like sending peacekeepers to central Africa and ordering them to not discharge any firearms). This is mainly because countries like China and Russia would never have bothered with the UN if they would have been required to change their laws. The UN was originally created to prevent another world war, not to spread freedom or democracy.

Unfortunately, this means that the UN is not going to do anything that threatens the Great Firewall or similar national firewalls if they gain control of ICANN or otherwise have a say in Internet policy and governance. More likely, the UN would listen to the complaints of China -- those horrible Americans with their NY Times and Google -- and work to create a system that forces countries to respect each other's Internet laws (including censorship). That is how we keep the peace.

Re:Why should the US remain in charge?

[tlambert]

If I were other countries, I'd ask myself why any one country should be "in charge" of things like DNS.

If I were a computer scientist, I'd ask myself what kind of computer scientist doesn't know that the DNS system is a hierarchical database.

Next, I'd ask myself what kind of computer scientist doesn't understand that "hierarchical databases" are by their nature "hierarchical".

Then I'd ask myself what kind of computer scientist, who doesn't know the top level DNS server is actually named ".", not ".com", and has records for other servers named ".com", ".org", ".us", ".uk", and so on, is qualified to discuss necessary locking arbitration on creating new entries in the flat namespace of particular server for a node embedded in that hierarchy.

Then I'd ask myself how that computer scientist graduated university, since without at least a gross understanding of hierarchy, they would likely be unable to find the locations of books in the university library, which is also organized as a hierarchical database.

Oh wait, I am a computer scientist.

At first, I thought UN control might be ok

[BMOC]

Then I got slapped, and I realized all the crappy things the UN does to try to expand it's own power.

You may make any and all complaints about U.S. control/dominance of the internet, and I accept them. I do not accept that UN control would be better, in fact I'm convinced it would be much worse.

Re:At first, I thought UN control might be ok

[BMOC]

The purpose of posting anonymously is to say things coherently that might not otherwise be said if you put a name on it. You wrote something incoherent that should have been left in the bin of broken troll posts.

Re:At first, I thought UN control might be ok

[Anonymous Coward]

At first impulse I had the same feeling. UN? Eh, why not. Internet's an international thing nowadays. .. Then I was reminded that Russia and China were there. Ha! Fuck no. Sorry.

For all of the fucked up, twisted things we do in the US we're doing an OK job on this one. I don't care how many "issues" we have. We don't need the keys handed to a corrupt human rights abusing dictatorship, and an ex secret police murdering madman with delusions of grandeur.

As much as I dislike...

[Mashiki]

the way the US has done things, they're the lesser of evils compared to the UN. Especially when you toss Russia, and China, and other dictatorships, neo-dictatorships into the mix. The best solution in the end will end up being decentralizing the entire thing and keeping it away from any national body.

Re:As much as I dislike...

[bhagwad]

Don't underestimate India's capacity for Internet censorship even though it's not run by a dictator. You need countries that fight against censorship, and don't care about "protecting people's sentiments". Only those countries deserve the stewardship of what is arguably on the greatest inventions of mankind.

Re:As much as I dislike...

[BMOC]

Well, at least the men of the west would allow you to use Encryption as you see fit. I would imagine the great power in the east might try to outlaw it.

Re:Maybe...

[Black Parrot]

...they should start their own Internet.

That's what will eventually happen. The internet will be balkanized along national boundaries, every country will control their slice however they see fit, and everyone will be happy.

Except the users.

I'd rather have the US than the UN anyway...

[Anonymous Coward]

In general, the US can be browbeaten into keeping things neutral. SOPA/PIPA got shot down when China notified the US that blocking access to one of their sites would be similar to a naval blockade -- an act of war.

However, with the UN, this wouldn't happen. They can block sites at will, with zero recourse. Say someone in the US makes jokes about the Thai rulers. Their website can be dropped off the net. Similar if there is a site pointing out brutality in China or India. Poof, it is history, and there is no way to deal with it. The UN is subject to no law or no checks and balances.

it should be an anarchy

[Anonymous Coward]

No one, the USA nor the UN should "control" the internet. Anyone should be free to set up DNS servers and anyone else free to use any they want.

Anyone having "control" only means that control will be used for evil purposes in time. It's inevitable. The internet is too important for that. Technical standards should be set by an apolitical body of engineers. There should be no other influence of governments or political bodies. No nation's laws should apply outside their borders.

So far the USA has caused some problems, but the UN will cause worse ones as it will grant more control to authoritarian governments which want religious based censorship.

Other countries are free to roll their own...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

If control is what they want, they should invent, and pay for the development of their own internet equivalent themselves. Right now, all they own is their own servers and communications infrastructure.

Re:Maybe...

[Antipater]

Except the users.

That's fine. We'll just put them on the gaming grid.

Re:Another conspiracy

[Kenja]

1992, the VERY YEAR that Obama stopped directing Illinois Project Vote. Coincidence?! Yea, probably.

Typo in summary

[DanTheStone]

"Unitied Nations", seriously?

Being a Brazilian I say ...

[superflit]

Do NOT handle ANY control to the brazilian government .
The first thing they will do is take down everything that will speak against their major corrupt politicianS (with big Plural) .
And the Brazilian LAW FORBIDS anonymity.

Brazil govt: PLEASE GO AWAY

There is several reasons why we buy: iphone (designed in US), use Facebook (made in US) and use Google (made in us).

And one of the reasons is that the US law and business way is more 'clear'.
(if you think I am wrong..do business in Brazil and you are going to see the red-tape/bribe Hell)

Russia and China?? Serious?? the same homies that are supporting the crazy lunatics?

The US president can be 'bad' but they are not MEAN like others.

Keep US control is the LESSER evil.

Re:Being a Brazilian I say ...

[Lisias]

You, my friend, forgot one of the nastier laws in this God forsaken land: YOU CAN BE ARRESTED FOR TELLING THE TRUE.

If I publicly state a fact, but someone gets offended by that fact, he can sue me for damages. Every corrupt politician uses this law when convenient. Defamation, in Brazil, is a felony against the "honor" - and we consider defamation *anything* that detriments the public image of someone, no mater being true or not.

Re:Being a Brazilian I say ...

[Frederico Camara]

What a troll! Interesting? I hope not.

Being myself a brazilian I say this troll's views on brazilian government are somewhat wrong. I don't deny the existence of corruption in Brazil, but it's not as bad as in the other part of the world (Brazil is ranked #73 in the 192 countries participating in Corruption Perceptions Index).

In reality, there are some very successful brazilian business. The "bribe hell" he talks about is probably the fate of businesses that would not want to pay due taxes (counts as corruption). Problems in law are constantly being reviewed, public opinion has usually been taken in consideration.

Also, corrupt politicians in Brazil do not have the power to take down anything, and the brazilian law that forbids anonimity, in the same paragraph ensures the freedom of expression of thought.

The "reasons we buy" argument is completely fallacious.

Re:Being a Brazilian I say ...

[superflit]

Today in the news, Brazil made Canadian Headlines by an announcement of major criminal charges against politicians, and friends. Bribes in the millions of dollars and scandals. Almost 50% of the opposition politicians were part of the corruption charges. More news at 11pm.

This is NOT news.... NEWS will be when they:

1) will be in jail
2) Recover the money

People really do not know how things are in 'developing' countries...
One of our 'leaders' is wanted by interpol [1] and is only wanted because the US caught him laundering BIG money. IF was in Brazil he will be innocent and will earn money for defamation.

and It is very friend of our last 'great' 'populist' Lula [2]

1 - http://www.interpol.int/Wanted-Persons/(wanted_id)/2009-13608
2 - http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/2012/06/maluf-oficializa-apoio-ao-pt-em-sp-em-encontro-com-lula-e-haddad.html

Again I know it is 'fancy' and 'intellectual' bash US but they are still the less evil

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes .... which is happening already. Try to watch netflix outside the US, the BBC olympic coverage outside the UK, buying certain products from overseas, and so on. Sure, yeah, proxies, but if those are ever used by more than a trivial % of users, they'll be shut down. For normal users, the internet is already balkanized.

Re:Another conspiracy

[Sarten-X]

You don't get it. The next presidential term will start in 2013, which is 21 years after 1992. This is obviously meant to commemorate the fact that the National Minimum Drinking Age act was passed two years after Obama turned 21, after it safely wouldn't affect him.

Don't you see? This is the Illuminati once again ensuring that its elite members can go out and party while us common folk get screwed, and then they have the balls to remind us all of how we're just complacent sheep!

Don't you see? Conspiracy theories make perfect sense if sanity isn't an issue for you!

Conspicuous by their absence

[mooingyak]

the push is backed not only by Russia, but China, Brazil and India as well

Names I *don't* see up there are ones like UK, France, Germany, or just about anyone in Europe.

Re:Another conspiracy

[Mashiki]

Meh. Agenda 21 is by far less a conspiracy theory than some things people think, plenty of cities(including my own) have already included some of their platform into their urban planning, so does it exist? Yep, is it real? Yep. Is it evil and insidious? Well I suppose that depends on how tight your tinfoil cap is. Is it "one world government" material? Meh..that's crackpot stuff. Personally, I'm leery of any supernational body where someone isn't elected giving "strong suggestions" on how to do something to a local government. It's kinda like the EU, don't like it.

Personally, I'd figure more Americans would be worried about their own DOJ and Holder, blackballing the committee hearings on illegal gunrunning to Mexico and killing 300 people, while letting the guns walk. That entire thing is a pretext for "see, look at all those guns--they're in the hands of criminals and they're getting back into the US and all the rest." That's not conspiracy work, that's already happened. The guns flowed both ways. And before, someone get's their panties in a twist and go "Bush did it too" indeed, though their guns were tracked. Holder, just let their guns go free, no tracking, notta. The DoJ has already backwalked on that one.

Re:Maybe...

[Baloroth]

All of those "balkanizations" are performed by the provider themselves. There is no separation between two parties that want to communicate, except for places like China and Iran. In other words, nothing is stopping Netflix from providing their services to everyone in the world aside from Netflix themselves (and of course their agreements with other people). The Internet itself is not fragmented: certain websites are, but that is their problem and their doing.

The Steve Jobs '95 Interview

[ciderbrew]

I think Jobs summed it up all very well in 1995. The Internet needs to be run as a public trust.

Here is the text (See The Internet section)
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html

And for those that have not seen it before, here is the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=121ofj_l6vM

I've never had the money to be a fan of apple stuff, but I like old tech interviews, especially when they talk about the future of the industry.

Re:Maybe...

[sneakyimp]

Yeah I'm not really worried about balkanized Internet and I'm a total pinko. Metcalfe's Law provides a pretty strong incentive for the connections to work.

Re:Give it some time.

[betterunixthanunix]

Don't accept the lesser of two evils, promote a better solution

Here is something that would go a long way: reduce the barriers to entry for peering with ISPs. The requirements many ISPs have for peering make it impossible for a small, community-run network to become part of the Internet; such networks generally wind up paying for service from a telecom monopoly.

A global network can be governed by its users (or at least those who have the equipment and expertise needed to participate); Fidonet comes to mind here.

And right now it is

[Sycraft-fu]

The US has "control" only in so far as everyone uses infrastructure (at least with regards to DNS) that is ultimately accountable to US companies. This is just de facto control, not de jure control. Anyone is free to set up their own alternate root system, from an individual up to a bloc of nations. Indeed there are other ones out there, just small ones. Larger ones can be set up. Nothing is stopping the EU from running their own root authority.

I can handle that kind of US control because it means that if push comes to shove, other people can do their own thing. The US has control only because others don't choose to exert the control they can have, it is a real anarchy. I do not want a system where the UN has statutory control, where people can't do their own thing because it is illegal per international treaty.

Re:Another conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

the tinfoil is strong with this one =]

Re:Give it some time.

[Chris Mattern]

And the answer would be: the US isn't very good at it, but the UN would be much, much worse.

For all it's failures...

[physicsphairy]

The one thing the US does much better is protecting free speech. We can post pornography, hate speech (who defines that, by the way?), how to make bombs, things that our society and often our government both view as repugnant, but somehow, it's still legal. Not that we don't have occasional attacks on that, but our free speech tends to hold up in the end.

There are few places that would be as good as the United States to to host a network of free discourse. It may well be because of that that the most successful such network is based there.

The UN is a constituency of pro-censorship entities. The only reason they want to control the internet is so that they can control the internet.

Churchill

[ThatsNotPudding]

Except that, good or bad, the US's governance of the Internet is a known quantity.

Kinda like what Churchill said of Democracy: the worst system, except for all the others.

IS there a lesser of two evils here?

[Chas]

Speaking honestly, as an American here.

The US government could fuck up a wet dream to the point one would long for the sensation of having one's genitals removed with belt sander.
And the UN is no different. Just multinational.
While both were founded with the right idea, they've both gone GREIVIOUSLY astray, to the point that they're generally more harmful than helpful.

HOWEVER, the US government DOES, occasionally do things "correctly".
I really, REALLY wish I could say the same thing about the UN.

At this point, the US stewardship of the Internet isn't the most desirable outcome. But it's a damn sight better than handing it over to an (at best) wildly ineffectual and horrifically subverted organization like the UN.

Handing over control of free speech and open access to information to people who have every intention of demolishing both? Are you fucking nuts?

I hate the bloated panopticon monster my government has become, and I seriously think that it needs to be pared back, by armed conflict if necessary. But I'd have the politicians here where we can get at them and remove them, than some asshat in a bunker in China where we'd have to start a war to remove them.

Re:Another conspiracy

[Rakarra]

Oh no the guns were tracked with Bush but thanks for playing....and where the heck are all the supposed gun control laws that are supposed to come out of this conspiracy theory that the obama administration let the guns walk so they could enact gun control laws....nice one zippy.

Four years ago, the story was that Obama was going to enact all the gun laws to take everyone's guns away.

Now the story is that he needed to get re-elected so he had to bide his time. Now, in his second term, he'll REALLY take everyone's guns away.

What the US owes the UN depends...

[tlambert]

How much does the US owe the UN?

It depends... how much did the US borrow from the UN in the first place?

Re:What the US owes the UN depends...

[Jane Q. Public]

The UN doesn't loan money... it is subsidized by the member nations. (I make that statement with full realization that you were probably being sarcastic.)

The US has "membership fees" which it has recently been reluctant to pay... and with good reason. But many people seem to forget that the UN is *IN* the United States; its building is supported with US government money; UN representatives are give care and perks courtesy of the US government (i.e., American taxpayers).

If it ISN'T going to support the U.S. Constitution (and in many ways today the UN is actively inimical to it), then I say let it move elsewhere. I don't want my tax money supporting it.

Why such anti-UN sentiment

[jeremypbennett]

I am always surprised at now negative Americans (specifically those from the United Stated) are about the UN. Remember the UN has been in charge of international telephony standards for years (the ITU is a UN agency), and on the whole international telephony has worked OK.

If you aren't American, and even if you are a friend of America, American control over key parts of the Internet is a concern. An important utility is controlled by a foreign power. How would US citizens feel if their water or electricity supply was under the control of the British government? We are a democracy and have been good friends of the US for a long time, but I bet US cititizens would be agitating for those utilities to be under US control.

Re:Why such anti-UN sentiment

[Dr Damage I]

Your comment is based on a false premise: that the US government controls the internet. The US government does not control the internet. Control of the internet, such as it is, comes from organizations that are located within the borders of the United States but are not government departments or under the direct control of the US government except inasmuch as they are subject to US law. That, in my opinion, is a vastly superior situation to that which would obtain if the UN controlled the internet. And I say this as a non citizen of the US.

Re:Another conspiracy

[Mashiki]

Oh no the guns were tracked with Bush but thanks for playing....

That's what I said.

and where the heck are all the supposed gun control laws that are supposed to come out of this conspiracy theory that the obama administration let the guns walk so they could enact gun control laws....nice one zippy.

That's part of the question, especially since the contempt charge was blocked by the democrats. Which means that other avenues are now needed to find out exactly what was going on and where, and exactly what watergatish type BS was going on. And exactly how far the rot goes. Either Holder did this all on his own, or Obama signed off on it as well. In which case there's a lot of stink. There's no conspiracy theory here, only facts, and pretexts. You might have missed the news back about 3 weeks or 4 weeks ago, back before the Aurora shooting of the Dem's wanting to push back in the Assault weapons ban, and several other things all at once "just in time" for the election.

Funny how a lone Canadian occasionally paying attention to your news catches this and you don't.

Re:Another conspiracy

[FatdogHaiku]

Don't you see? This is the Illuminati once again ensuring that its elite members can go out and party while us common folk get screwed, and then they have the balls to remind us all of how we're just complacent sheep!

So, we are being screwed and we are sheep... So the Illuminati are screwing sheep?
You would think with all that money and power they could do better...
Or is there something about sheep that's being kept from the common people?
OMG, I see it now!
It does all make sense!
I am upgrading from tinfoil to Stainless Steel foil at once!