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EU Passes Resolution Against ITU Asserting Control Over Internet

An anonymous reader writes "Today, the European Parliament passed a resolution that condemns the upcoming attempt from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to assert control over the Internet, and instructed its 27 Member States to act accordingly. This follows an attempt from the ITU to assert itself as the governing body and control the Internet. From the article: 'The resolution, which was passed with a large majority, included Members of European Parliament (MEPs) from all major party groups, and the Pirate Party’s Amelia Andersdotter had been playing a central role in its drafting, together with MEPs Marietje Schaake and Judith Sargentini from the Netherlands, Sabine Verheyen and Petra Kammerevert from Germany, Ivailo Kalfin from Bulgaria, and Catherine Trautmann from France.'"

133 comments

  1. Proud to be European by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Despite all the failing and shortcomings, mother Europe still delivers.

    1. Re:Proud to be European by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 5, Informative

      Commissioner Nellie Kroes is particularly good and has stood up for the rights of users (against pressure from Big Business). Let's recognize and applaud the people that are on 'our' side (I'm from New Zealand, and the decisions she makes as EU Commissioner on digital rights influence countries around the World):
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neelie_Kroes

    2. Re:Proud to be European by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Kroes is a snake. But surprisingly, in spite of her history, she's something of a "people's snake". Or more accurately, competitiveness' snake.

    3. Re:Proud to be European by Hentes · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To be honest, while I don't like the ITU either I think we shouldn't give our support to the US for free. We should try to exploit our leverage in this situation and tell the Americans that if they want us to support them keeping their 'net they have to govern it more responsibly. Particularly the area of gTLDs is one where there's lots of room for improvement, and Europe shouldn't give up its bargaining positions for free.

    4. Re:Proud to be European by zakeria · · Score: 0

      Your not British them!

    5. Re:Proud to be European by M0j0_j0j0 · · Score: 1

      What!?

    6. Re:Proud to be European by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poster thinks all British are anti-europe based on ruling party's actions, and reading the daily mail probably.

    7. Re:Proud to be European by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      And probably the fact that after poll suggests a majority of Britons are at least moderate Eurosceptic.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:Proud to be European by aurispector · · Score: 1

      If you want to look a the future of an internationalized internet, just look to the UN where recently we had the human rights commission (or some such body) being controlled by a majority of dictatorships famous for suppressing human rights. The world was stood on it's head.

      Face it, the US has done a great job of "managing the internet". The biggest non-US player is CHINA. Do we really want the world's largest non-democracy to be given control of the world's telecommunications infrastructure? The recent Google blackout during their presidential transition (no elections required over there) is just a small taste of things to come.

      Why do people so easily forget that real, actual freedom isn't free and does not result from people whining on the internet?

      --
      I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
    9. Re:Proud to be European by Hentes · · Score: 1

      Just because I point a gun at your head doesn't mean I want to pull the trigger. I don't want to take control away from America, but I don't want them to get all comfortable and abuse that control to further their economic interests. I want to keep America on their heels, in constant fear that if they play too unfair the world will get fed up and take their power away. Because the only thing politicians respond to is the fear of losing power.

    10. Re:Proud to be European by fast+turtle · · Score: 1

      The entire reason they passed this was to retain complete control of their local nets. In other words, Business as usual. If France decides to block objectional content from the Beeb in the U.K. they can continue to do so. If the Irish want to beat up the French, then they can do so on their local network and what ever else they want.

      What thei ITU was proposing was a total takeover of the internet and I do agree that the idiots need to be shot, then drawn and quartered then those remains exposed to sunlight, salted, sprinkled with holy water then burned before being sent to the sun for final disposal.

      --
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    11. Re:Proud to be European by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know why they have nukes right? It's so dumbfucks like you don't resort to threats at the bargaining table. There's a reason why any and all testimony at trial gained from having a gun put to your head is rendered inadmissable whether the person who put it there intended to fire or not. Oh, but if you go to one of the countries that the ITU would hand over control to (hint: Not Europe), putting a gun to somebody's head is absolutely a-okay in getting a confession, and they do intend to fire.

    12. Re:Proud to be European by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

      The same day this was going on they appointed Tonio Borg as health commissioner.

      Epic FAIL.

    13. Re:Proud to be European by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Parliament usually behaves decently.
      Unfortunately it will be member states' ministers attending ITU meeting. And they will represent their sponsors^H^H^H^H^H views. Most probably different from what their voters want, what EP wants....

  2. I wish by MurukeshM · · Score: 1

    we had Andersdotters here in India. Young politicians here are 40+, most are 60+ who can't understand tech if their lives depended on it. hence the facebook-post-arrests seen recently.

    1. Re:I wish by tehcyder · · Score: 4, Funny

      we had Andersdotters here in India. Young politicians here are 40+, most are 60+ who can't understand tech if their lives depended on it. hence the facebook-post-arrests seen recently.

      I don't see anything wrong with arresting someone for using facebook. A few more cases pour encourager les autres and with any luck we could get the whole fucking thing shut down.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:I wish by chthon · · Score: 2

      Hm, this reminds me a little bit about non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance. These people seem too old to understand tech, and too young to understand how Ghandi obtained Indian independence.

    3. Re:I wish by Grumbleduke · · Score: 2

      I wish we had a few hundred more Ameila Andersdotters in the the European Parliament and in legislatures and governments across the world. While most politicians I have met want to do the right thing, she's one of the very few (if only one) who seems to know enough, be sharp enough and care enough to do it.

      On the other hand, she does make the rest of us look bad...

  3. Ouch... That has to sting. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure that having the EU tell you "STFU and leave it to the yanks" is one of the harsher put-downs that a multinational treaty organization can suffer...

    1. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty sure that having the EU tell you "STFU and leave it to the yanks" is one of the harsher put-downs that a multinational treaty organization can suffer...

      I don't think that anything in their resolution suggests that "the yanks" have or should have any special role in internet regulation.

    2. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by renoX · · Score: 4, Informative

      > I don't think that anything in their resolution suggests that "the yanks" have or should have any special role in internet regulation.

      Well, that's the current situation, so that's implicitly the result..

    3. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the Europeans recognize that a move to the ITU regulating the Net would result in a situation where all sorts of shennanigans could happen. Yes, the ITU has done a fine job up to now, but that is because they set technical specs and didn't have much power. If they got power then companies and countries would almost certainly corrupt this body to the detriment of ordinary citizens (who have no way of opposing or correcting the regulations that are produced - at least in the US you can take organizations to court, and the EFF often does).

      The EU has seen the dangers and has done well to prevent possible problems in the future - such as the ITU being subverted. Just think of the Microsoft orchestrated voted stuffing of ISO in the Open XML fiasco a few years back; we don't want similar things to break the freedom of the Internet. For example, think of the move to ban criticism of religion, which is exactly opposed to free speech principles of the important freedom to criticize and even offend.

    4. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by horza · · Score: 2

      ETSI have done a fine job until now. The IETF have done a fine job until now. When was the last time ITU did anything good? Apart from being a mouthpiece for Microsoft or trying to do a power-grab over the Internet?

      Phillip.

    5. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by jcdr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps the main problem is not the organisation itself, but how much political are the problems there deal with. "Control over Internet" is something that is now highly political. ITU is an organisation that historically faced some political problems and have show how complex there can be. Not certain that others international organisations will better face the same complexity. The political questions are complex, regardless the organisation where there take place. See for example the ISO, that have also faced some highly political problems, for questions that was simple in comparison..

    6. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, that's not the case. What the rest of the world wanted the ITU to do was create a framework for decentralised control of the infrastructure that the US nominally controls, and in particular stop ICANN from doing its current TLD-whoring. What ITU proposed instead was to create an international framework for censoring the Internet.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    7. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And here I thought the un 'was' the united states. You know due their permanent, unmuteable, unoveridable veto powered seat on the main council. The security council.

    8. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      It doesn't help that the ITU is basically the UN for the Ma Bells of the world... They did a technologically adequate job of ensuring that the hapless customer of incumbent telco A in country B can call the hapless customer of state monopoly telco C in country D; but it's a great deal harder to get excited about bringing them back into the picture when you are starting with a superior successor to antiquated phone systems.

      It'd be like putting the RIAA in charge of digital music distribution. Sure, they did some actually useful tech work on record grooves and equalization curves; but they have some serious personality defects and no obvious superiority over any number of other technically adept entities.

    9. Re:Ouch... That has to sting. by jcdr · · Score: 1

      ITU is involved in a lot more activities than the "antiquated phone systems" ! Please read some up to date information about it. It's true that there used a terribly slow process until about 20 years ago. It'a actually far more better.

      Organisation like ITU or ISO do not really create standards most of the time. There are mostly a place where the political process of countries accepting a standard can take place. There is a lot of entities that creates standards. The large majority of them are composed by peoples that represent the interest of the industries that will benefit from the standard and agree in the first place on the goal to be reached. The vast majority of the standards defines technical aspects that do not raise any attention from the politicians.

      The ongoing problem with the "control of Internet" is that politicians are taking this subject in the political arena, outside of the technical arena. There wants to regulate what kind of informations flow to ensure that there comply with some laws. There wants to be sure that there will not became the slave of others countries or companies. There wants to extract taxes... And all of those "requirements" are specific to each countries (at this level of resolution). It's a hug big mess, and it's not going to be quickly solved by an arbitrary technical committee. The problem is even more big as most of the politicians have no clue if there even exists an entity that can do what there dream on. So, a soon as there heard about an organisation that will "control the Internet" (!) there are going red hot to gain control on it, no matter whats the technical subject is in reality.

      There is no doubt that there is a need for an international organisation where the politician can emit concerns and get responses from committees that try to find a way to make all of them happy. The ITU, in this regards, is probably not a bad choice. It has already played a large role in the internationalization of the Internet by talking to governments and pushing standards that make international long distance high speed data packet communication easier.

      I agree with you, ITU is probably not the best choice to deal with technical aspect of the exploitation of the TLDs. But if politicians don't accept that this is only a technical problem, then there is no way to avoid a international mess like we see now. In this case the political side of the problem will need an international organisation, to let the technical organisation do there work without an insane pressure out of there scope.

  4. What's the catch? by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 2
    It actually makes a lot of sense, even when you're reading the legalese, the influence of having the Pirate Party on board (and actually drafting a lot of it) shows.

    calls on the Member States to prevent any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations which would be harmful to the openness of the internet, net neutrality, the end-to-end principle, universal service obligations, and the participatory governance entrusted to multiple actors such as governments, supranational institutions, non-governmental organisations, large and small businesses, the technological community and internet users and consumers at large

    But as with all things of this nature, I can't help but wonder where the catch is - sensible sounding legislation always comes back to bite us doesn't it?

    --
    Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
    1. Re:What's the catch? by jarkus4 · · Score: 5, Informative

      its not really legislation as it has no binding power whatsoever. Its pretty much "Hey, we dont like this idea" shout from them.

    2. Re:What's the catch? by Sir_Sri · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's both a giant stab at the ITU and the US. They don't want a single entity in control, and they want to make sure all stakeholders are considered collaboratively (which is what the ITU is anyway, but at a different level). In other words, we don't like the current setup, but we thing the ITU being in charge could be worse.

      It plants itself firmly in the camp of open internet, something the US has consistently stood against in one way or another (blocking foreign sports betting, arresting Kim Dotcom, Going after wikileaks payments etc.).

      Now what will plan B look like...

    3. Re:What's the catch? by jjbarrows · · Score: 1

      the catch is the copyright trolls still run the internet

    4. Re:What's the catch? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Anonymous Douche fails to understand GP's points. An open internet would prohibit and prevent the abominations of "justice" that have been perpetrated on Kim Dotcom and on Wikileaks. The United States has gone out of it's way repeatedly to prevent an open internet. ACTA and NPP are two fine examples of that. In effect, both are government blessings on corporate attempts to strangle the internet.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But as with all things of this nature, I can't help but wonder where the catch is - sensible sounding legislation always comes back to bite us doesn't it?

      Amen.

    6. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      An open internet would prohibit and prevent the abominations of "justice" that have been perpetrated on Kim Dotcom and on Wikileaks

      I don't think so. "Open" does not imply anarchic, nor does it reach beyond the virtual borders of the Internet. Visa and Mastercard would still have blocked payments to WikiLeaks, Amazon would still have kicked WL of their S3 network and New Zealand's police would still have raided Dotcom's home.

      None of those events have anything to do with the openness of the Internet. If anything, the likelihood of those events is larger with an open Internet because with a regulated Internet the MAFIAA c.s. would have had more opportunities to intervene.

    7. Re:What's the catch? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 5, Interesting

      These aren't things that would change if the US didn't hold the keys to the internet.

      The control of the internet lands on one organization: IANA. Right now, IANA delegates its powers to ICANN. IANA is merely responsible for deciding who gets what IP addresses and domain names. The ITU wants to usurp that power for themselves, for who knows what ends, or why they think the status quo is wrong.

      In any case, even if say the ITU, the EU, China, or even nobody at all had the keys to IANA, the US would still be able to go after Dotcom and Wikileaks due to pre-existing treaties and strong arming tactics that don't require the internet to even exist in the first place.

      Regardless though, there is no such thing as an "open internet" in your definition of the term. SOMEBODY has to decide who gets what names and numbers. There are theoretical ways of decentralizing DNS, (which in my opinion will be riddled with problems, although it will at least perform the intended function) but you CAN NOT decentralize IP address assignments without introducing a whole mess of other problems. It would be akin to not having a regulatory authority on who gets licenses to any given RF spectrum.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    8. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plan B?

      P2P DNS and blackholing any country that decides to block it.

      Or, you know, mesh networking and make your own damn internet to get away from their regulation entirely.

    9. Re:What's the catch? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      you CAN NOT decentralize IP address assignments without introducing a whole mess of other problems

      This is something that should probably be addressed in further detail. Geographical routing, I suppose? You already have to trust your gateway so nothing changes there.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:What's the catch? by ledow · · Score: 1

      With the caveat that those people saying that eventually get a veto vote on any law they don't like.

      So although it doesn't mean it it *mustn't* happen, the chances of any change not respecting that opinion are unlikely to make it into law in the end. It's a warning. "You can waste years of drafting law if you want, but we get the ultimate say when any of this is actually challenged and our opinion currently is..."

    11. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are theoretical ways of decentralizing DNS, (which in my opinion will be riddled with problems, although it will at least perform the intended function) but you CAN NOT decentralize IP address assignments without introducing a whole mess of other problems.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin

    12. Re:What's the catch? by Troed · · Score: 2

      It actually makes a lot of sense, even when you're reading the legalese, the influence of having the Pirate Party on board (and actually drafting a lot of it) shows.

      I do hope everyone applauding this initiative make sure to vote for their local Pirate Party (represented in over 40 countries). Sweden did in 2009 and our two representatives have been doing great work in parliament ever since.

    13. Re:What's the catch? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      No, boo fucking hoo for crybabies like yourself, who seem to believe that writing a few words or a few notes should give you a guaranteed income for the rest of your miserable life.

      If you're an entertainer, then entertain people. Stop signing stupid fucking contracts that guarantee that only douches can ever profit from your work. I don't even like the fat fuck, but he was breaking no law that made any sense.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    14. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, sir, only a tiny, practically insignificant, percentage of files hosted on Megaupload infringed someone's copyright. The overwhelming majority of files were legally there.

      Even NASA and the GREEN BERETS contracted with Megaupload for document and file storage.

    15. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do hope everyone applauding this initiative make sure to vote for their local Pirate Party

      This would be the Pirate Parties that haven't any manifesto beyond "movies should be free"?

      What is their policy on replacing Trident? Maintaining public green spaces? How will they fund these?

      No, I will not be voting for them.

    16. Re:What's the catch? by Troed · · Score: 2

      This would be the Pirate Parties that haven't any manifesto beyond "movies should be free"?

      Strange claim, since it's very far from the truth :) I suggest going through the manifestos and policies of both the German Piratenpartei as well as the Swedish Pirate Party - both having been elected by voters into local and international parliaments.

      German (in English): http://www.piratenpartei.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/parteiprogramm-englisch.pdf

      Swedish: http://annatroberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Piratpartiets_principprogram.pdf
      (to be updated with results from the autumn conference just held - see https://mote.piratpartiet.se/forumdisplay.php?f=825 for the results of individual motions and propositions)

    17. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the caveat that those people saying that eventually get a veto vote on any law they don't like.

      So although it doesn't mean it it *mustn't* happen, the chances of any change not respecting that opinion are unlikely to make it into law in the end. It's a warning. "You can waste years of drafting law if you want, but we get the ultimate say when any of this is actually challenged and our opinion currently is..."

      But no law is required for national governments to agree whatever they like with the ITU. And it isn't true to say the EP gets a veto on any law anyway, they only get a veto on EU wide laws. If national governments wanted to support the ITU in this and needed legislation to do so then their own parliaments could enact suitable laws. All the EU can do is prevent there being actual EU wide legislation on the subject. They can't even stop the member states adopting a common position between them let alone stop them acting independently.

    18. Re:What's the catch? by Pinhedd · · Score: 1

      Don't forget that ICANN gets its authority from a contract with the US Department of Commerce and the DoC can still exert veto power or sidestep IANA should it choose to do so and has done so in the past. Then there's also the root zones which the DoC still has complete control over

    19. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a DNS service, not an IP address service.

    20. Re:What's the catch? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

      IANA is the hand of the department of commerce, they answer directly to them.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    21. Re:What's the catch? by Sir_Sri · · Score: 1

      This is the problem with the pirate party writing half of it. They believe in an anarchic internet, when none such a thing can exist easily.

      What the ITU probably wants, like with phone service and radio communications, is to make sure that, for example, all DNS servers on 'the Internet' can talk to each other in some agreed upon fashion (if you want your countries DNS to talk to the others, if not that's on you, but if I type a russian URL into a canadian DNS it should have the same results as one in Russia or China). They want to make sure that if the UN recognizes Palestine, or Somaliland as countries they can get a TLD. They want to make sure it's not the US deciding that the Free Syrian Army is now the legitimate DNS holder for Syria and cutting off everyone else for the fun of it.

      And so on.

      Also, a couple of weeks ago Google was down for about 7 minutes when some Indonesian regional ISP accidentally broadcast that google servers where being their gateways rather than where they actually were. It caused no end of a mess, and from what I understand the resolution basically involved some non google engineer calling up some network admin he happened to know at the place and telling them they broke the internet. Stuff like that should not A: be possible and B: not rely on personal relationships to resolve.

    22. Re:What's the catch? by Sir_Sri · · Score: 1

      That is what this is going to have to come to.

      The US demonstrably cannot be trusted, people have bought into the propaganda that the ITU doing it must be bad, so time to move on.

    23. Re:What's the catch? by Sir_Sri · · Score: 1

      The foreign sports betting thing I think was actually the most agregious of the lot. They other two were accusations of criminal activity, how those were dealt with were part law enforcement issues and part internet bully. Blocking a spanish sports betting website, that was legally operating in Spain, for spanish customers (and not US customers) is a serious governance problem.

    24. Re:What's the catch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you must be new observer of EU.
      Parliament was against: ACTA, Monstanto's GMO, software patents and other similar stuff.
      And than European Council or national ministers proceeded with this anyway. They have no fear of voters.

    25. Re:What's the catch? by Pinhedd · · Score: 1

      It used to be, but not anymore.

      IANA handles administration and implementation of internet protocols, numbers, and symbols as specified by the various policy and engineering groups such as W3C, IETF, and ICANN.

      ICANN handles development, policy and coordination. In addition to this it also operates IANA from an arms length (this keeping policy and administration separate).

      ICANN (which is a non-profit corporation) was created by the US DoC specifically to take control of IANA (which is a division, not a corporation) and other tasks previously performed by the DoC. ICANN operates largely autonomously but is still subject to unilateral administrative oversight by the DoC and the DoC has final say in many manners. From time to time the DoC still takes the reigns with certain matters such as DNSSEC. ICANN operates IANA under contract which is renewed every 5 or so years.

      There are several functions previously administered by the DoC which were not transferred to ICANN, such as the root zone administration. These functions are still administered by the DoC

    26. Re:What's the catch? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

      The google incident also happened with youtube, and it didn't have anything to do with DNS or any kind of name services.

      Without going into details of how dynamic routing protocols work, what I can tell you is that in order for one router to determine which direction a packet should go, some body or some thing has to tell it where it should go. In the case of ISP routers, this routing protocol is BGP, or Border Gateway Protocol. What happened here is that a major Pakistani provider wanted to censor youtube in Pakistan by changing the BGP configuration to redirect packets intended for youtube IP addresses into a bit bucket (think /dev/null) ergo there is no youtube access.

      Problem is, BGP then advertised these black hole routes to the rest of the internet as it is designed to do. With that happening, many routers on the internet decided that pakistan was the optimal route to youtube so they sent their packets that way instead of the correct direction. Many people couldn't access youtube as a result.

      The incident with google.com was a similar problem, only that was caused by administrative error rather than deliberate censorship.

      Some say that the simple answer is to make BGP less trusting of lower tier or even some neighbor routers. However that would make anycast addressing a lot more difficult and manual process when things change. (Examples of anycast addresses include google public DNS, 8.8.8.8. There are many servers throughout the world that have that IP address, the purpose being that you have low latency access no matter where you are.)

      The whole point of dynamic routing protocols is to keep things working by automatically adjusting routes when e.g. hardware breaks, or we add new routes. If everything had to be done by hand every time a change was made, the internet would be a LOT less reliable.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    27. Re:What's the catch? by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      Cognitive radio and IPv6 beg to differ.

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
  5. Good by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The anti-innovation, anti-competition strategy of the telcos must be stopped. The only thing as dysfunctional was the old USSR planned-economy model.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Good by Bearhouse · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only thing as dysfunctional was the old USSR planned-economy model.

      How about the "unplanned" international banking crisis?

    2. Re:Good by mdragan · · Score: 1

      > How about the "unplanned" international banking crisis? It's actually quite "planned". Pulling the ropes of the monetary system is one of the few things that is still heavily "manipulated" to influence the economy by governments all over the world. That's why we have National Banks (or the FED, or whatever it's called in your country) that have a monopoly on the production of money and some serious strings to pull on the economy.

    3. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Goldman Sachs re-invested the "un" in "unplanned" into credit default swaps on hybrid futures on the USSR planned-economy model.... aaaand it's GONE!

  6. Laughable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Today, the European Parliament passed a resolution that condemns the upcoming attempt from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to assert control over the Internet, and instructed its 27 Member States to act accordingly

    The EU Parliament can instruct whatever it likes but it has no power over the member states. It might as well instruct all other world governments to agree as well, instruct the ITU to change track and instruct the weather to improve.

    The most an instruction from the EU parliament to nationals governments can achieve is to raise enough outrage from nationalists that they take the opposite stand. In practice though nobody's likely to do more than roll their eyes at them.

    1. Re:Laughable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Despite the ludicrous summary, the actual wording of that part was was:

      [The European Parliament] calls on the Member States to prevent any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations which would be harmful to the openness of the internet, net neutrality, the end-to-end principle, universal service obligations, and the participatory governance entrusted to multiple actors such as governments, supranational institutions, non-governmental organisations, large and small businesses, the technological community and internet users and consumers at large

      Obviously that's not an instruction.

    2. Re:Laughable by lordholm · · Score: 2

      No, the vote signals the stance of the EP, this is important as the council is more aware of the current mood in the parliament and they need to take this into account when negotiating new rules in the council and the commission since the rules must go through the EP in a final vote anyhow. It is not just related to the specific question on hand.

      --
      "Civis Europaeus sum!"
    3. Re:Laughable by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      It is. EP has no power over governments and their stance. They're sovereign. It can only take an "advisory" vote on such issues, which is non-binding.

    4. Re:Laughable by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      While it is true that vote will eventually have to go through EP, EP has no power to set the issue itself (which is what it is trying to do here). It can only vote on the issue presented before it.

      This issue was not presented before it, therefore vote is purely advisory and has no binding effect on member states.

    5. Re:Laughable by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Hub? Each of the EU members has passed enabling legislation giving laws by MEPs the force of domestic law.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    6. Re:Laughable by lordholm · · Score: 1

      MEPs cannot initiate law. The commission is the only body that can propose new directives, but they will do so under advice from the parliament and the council.

      --
      "Civis Europaeus sum!"
  7. Can the EP take over my country, please? by icebraining · · Score: 3

    Seriously, between the shittiness that is our national government and the shittiness that is the European Commission (fairly well demonstrated by having put my countryman Barroso in "charge"), the European Parliament seems like the only sane institution around here.

    1. Re:Can the EP take over my country, please? by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's because it's elected by proportional representation.

      That's what happens when you have politicians who actually have to represent the people who vote them in, and this is why all governments should move to a porportional system if they genuinely want to class themselves as democratic societies and legitimate representatives of the people.

      People think electoral reform in most countries is just a fringe side issue, but it's the single most important issue in improving accountability and hence decreasing corruption and increasing quality of representation IMO. Things still wont be perfect with true proportional representation, but as the EP shows, they're a damn sight better than many of the individual national european governments by themselves and than the likes of the EC.

    2. Re:Can the EP take over my country, please? by Grumbleduke · · Score: 1

      It's because it's elected by proportional representation.

      It also works through compromise and agreement (rather than divisiveness and opposition), is much harder to lobby (due to there being MEPs from all different areas) and much harder to pressure (mainly because most people don't know/care what goes on).

      There's also the fact that MEP elections tend to have much lower turnouts, so a much higher percentage of voters know what's going on, and don't just vote for the party they like the sound of.

    3. Re:Can the EP take over my country, please? by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Yes, but my country has proportional representation and yet has been government by shitty, corrupt parties since the 70s, when we transitioned from a fascist to a democratic state.

      I think it has much to do with the electorate and culture of the institutions.

    4. Re:Can the EP take over my country, please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It also works through compromise and agreement (rather than divisiveness and opposition), is much harder to lobby (due to there being MEPs from all different areas) and much harder to pressure (mainly because most people don't know/care what goes on).

      Lobbying is indeed more difficult. The CEO of Vivendi-Universal had to get his wife, Janelly Fourtou's, in as an MEP so she could push for draconian intellectual property protections. It was agreed all round though that Fourtou's behaviour was not a blatant conflict of interest. She reassured us that her husband (CEO of a major IP company) and herself had better things to talk about over breakfast than her repeated forays in to IP protections that would, if successful, give the music/movie industry what it's been crying out for in its lobbying in other quarters. I doubt he even knew what his wife was up to. He was probably the last guy to hear about her directive that file sharers should be locked-up for four years.

      Yeah, lobbying is difficult. Hopefully such blatant disregard for propriety, and the public perception of it, is rare.

    5. Re:Can the EP take over my country, please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I think the whole "only people who took millions of 'campaign donations' (aka bribery / buying politicians) get to ever get into any government" thing has something to do with it too.

      Really, how the fuck is that not treated as treason, resulting in 10 years of jail time? How did the US get from its founding fathers to that?

      And more importantly: How can I help to undo it?

  8. This is good thing, right? by EzInKy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Despite the US still being conservative compared to the progessive world, it is definetly far more liberal than nations such as Saudi Arabia where everyone citizen has to belong to the state sanctioned religion and women barely get by with showing their faces in public. Sure the current situation isn't ideal, but the ITU's solution is far worse.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    1. Re:This is good thing, right? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In my opinion, the US isn't conservative, more like individualistic. Yes, there are religious loudmouths, but they aren't common, you just hear about them more because they are loud where the others are not. Most people, republican or democrat, have religious views on the back of their mind but don't proselytize them. Except, of course, politicians like Jesse Jackson Jr. or Rick Santorum.

      Conservatives say ban sex from the internet. Progressives say ban anything that somebody might consider offensive, even going so far as to put harmless internet trolls in jail. Individualists say that if you don't like what you see, change the channel.

      The US, by and large, is the later of the three. We don't ban pornography, and we don't have hate speech laws. Freedom of speech is more absolute here than anywhere else, pretty much the only limit is speech that causes physical harm.

      Though the left likes to claim that deregulation and austerity is conservative, and so does the media at large, it isn't. It is very much libertarian.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    2. Re:This is good thing, right? by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 1

      Great post! I'm not from the US and from my point of view it is the individualism and protected free speech (including the right to offend - a critical freedom) that are one of the greatest features of that country, and set it ahead of many of its critics (including the pussies, ignoramuses and bleeding hearts in my own country, New Zealand).

    3. Re:This is good thing, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Though the left likes to claim that deregulation and austerity is conservative, and so does the media at large, it isn't. It is very much libertarian.

      And yet social conservatives are the ones who argue the hardest for deregulation, because the best way to solve any problem under the sun is to leave it to the 'never erring invisible hand of the free market'.

    4. Re:This is good thing, right? by tehcyder · · Score: 3, Informative
      Individualistic is just a nicey-nice way of saying selfish. The roots of conservatism lie in the proppping up of existing power structures, whether they're religious, economic or political.

      So-called libertarians who say they are "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" are, in plain English, conservative.

      By deifying freedom of the individual to do as they wish above everything else, you are simply ensuring that those in power continue to do what they want while living like parasites on the body of society as a whole.

      "Deregulation and austerity" are indeed libertarian, which is to say conservative, as they sit the agenda of those in power perfectly. It is sad that all you rugged American individualists are so blind to this obvious truth.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    5. Re:This is good thing, right? by Bongo · · Score: 1

      Related to that, one idea is, when people wonder, why is there poverty? or why is there this or that problem? the left blames the system, whereas the right blames the individual. So the left wants to fix the system, make it more fair, whereas the right wants to fix the individual, make him or her more capable.

      Add the older or newer strategies, like pre-modern and modern, or 'conservative' or 'progressive', and you can have a oldy style right winger who says religion is the moral guide to stamping out personal sins of lazyness and lust, or a new style right winger who is liberal with sex and money but is clear that the individual has to work hard to earn it in free competition. So typically, reduce taxes to increase incentives, and don't mind too much who ends up losing.

      Meanwhile the oldy style left might also be pseudo-religious in wanting people to come together to give and eradicate poverty, help the needy, etc., or a modern style lefty who is into deconstructing phallo-logo-sexist-racism in society, is a feminist campaigner, anti-big-business, or anti-corporations, or anti anything that oppresses someone unfairly, even if it means siding with very obese people suing restaurants.

      I'm not saying this covers every combination but it is one way of looking at it. So you can kinda see why an environmentalist might think that Chinese authoritarianism is a good thing, because it gives the government the draconian powers to force people to stop consuming, force a one child policy, etc., which is more of a pre-modern left stance, ie. religiously fix the system, even if it means abolishing modern democracy. Meanwhile the pre-modern right wing environmentalist might prefer to get rich enough to move to a quiet pretty privileged village and keep the riff raff out and keep their precious view, so they'd be against windfarms, but "pro rural conservation", so long as the feckless fester in the cities.

    6. Re:This is good thing, right? by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      ...but the ITU's solution is far worse.

      I'm still left wondering what the problem is.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    7. Re:This is good thing, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most US Liberals are more conservative than most EU conservatives.

    8. Re:This is good thing, right? by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Because its not truth. Your point is hardly accurate, and obviously full of agenda. Let me know when you decide to project a more objective truth.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    9. Re:This is good thing, right? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1
      No, individualistic is saying that I can better determine the best way to make use of my money to address the problems that I think are important than some bureaucrat.

      By deifying freedom of the individual to do as they wish above everything else, you are simply ensuring that those in power continue to do what they want while living like parasites on the body of society as a whole.

      Whereas you apparently think that you can somehow limit the ability of those in power to do what they want while living like parasites on the body of society as a whole by giving them more power. That seems counter-intuitive to me.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    10. Re:This is good thing, right? by peppepz · · Score: 1

      In fact, even in the USA, whenever "individualism" and "freedom" come to clash with the interests of those in power, then we see that governments re-discover themselves as interventist in a bizarre "reverse socialist" way, and here come all kinds of imaginary property, patents, bailouts for the banks, suspension of civil liberties - so much for the principles of free market and laissez faire.

    11. Re:This is good thing, right? by etash · · Score: 1

      that's true. A conservative european politician would be considered "socialist" in the states. A "socialist" european politician would be considred communist in the states.

    12. Re:This is good thing, right? by jcdr · · Score: 1

      The parent say exactly the opposite.

    13. Re:This is good thing, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, there are religious loudmouths, but they aren't common, you just hear about them more because they are loud where the others are not. Most people, republican or democrat, have religious views on the back of their mind but don't proselytize them.

      When looking from the far north of europe, where we generally tend to be atheists, all your politicians seem like fanatic believers. The ones you think of as fanatics seem to be ready for mental institution.

    14. Re:This is good thing, right? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      So-called libertarians who say they are "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" are, in plain English, conservative.

      That depends, do they mean conservative or neoconservative? A libertarian is basically a more anarchist person than a liberal or a conservative, as they want less government control over both business and your bedroom habits. A conservative's fiscal view is that business can look after itself, but their social view is that morality should be regulated. If they actually believe that both business and morality should be regulated, then they're more a fascist than a conservative.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    15. Re:This is good thing, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Individualists as a block have no bargaining power. Libertarians want lower social spending, but larger overall larger budgets through increased military spending, no rights for women, and restrictions on speech. They want these because they selfishly and without regard to electoral outcomes keep lumping their votes together with fundamentalist Christians.

    16. Re:This is good thing, right? by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately this is seen as the old-fashioned, obsolete way of doing things by most people.

    17. Re:This is good thing, right? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

      What's in a label? The left in England call themselves conservatives. That those in the US on the right identify as conservative also hold strong individualistic views, doesn't necessarily make them conservative.

      In my mind, western conservatives would be like Italy, where there are blaspheme laws:

      http://yro.slashdot.org/story/02/07/10/0450203/italian-police-censor-blasphemous-websites

      Compared to them, I think the US would fit the classic definition of being progressive.

      Notice though that I disclaimed my post with "in my opinion", as should you. You'll hear different declarations on who gets what label depending on who you ask. Go ask the mythtv developers why they don't have version 1.0 after so many years of stable public releases, and you'll see what I mean about labels.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    18. Re:This is good thing, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and you are not selfish and willing to open your country borders to all the poor people in the world?

      Frankly I think it's just nationalism and self righteousness, you don't care about being selfless unless it suits your agenda.

    19. Re:This is good thing, right? by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

      Progressives don't say that.  Some Liberals do.

    20. Re:This is good thing, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...By deifying freedom of the individual to do as they wish above everything else, you are simply ensuring that those in power continue to do what they want while living like parasites on the body of society as a whole...."

      Umm. This sounds awfully as if YOU want to live like a parasite on the body of society as a whole, and are annoyed that someone else is doing it already.

      Unless you have some completely new idea for living which involves no one making a living of anyone else at all...?

    21. Re:This is good thing, right? by evilviper · · Score: 1

      "Despite the US still being conservative compared to the progessive world, it is definetly far more liberal than nations such as Saudi Arabia"

      You're way the hell off base. Liberal vs conservative is completely irrelevant to proper stewardship of the internet. The defining question is how highly you regard freedom of speech, and the US is decidedly number one in the world, at least among large nations.

      European countries would censor the internet... Posting a negative review about a merchant EVEN IF COMPLETELY TRUE, could lead to jail time, so such things would be banned from the net. The same goes for things like "hate speech" from neo nazi groups, or even just any display of nazi logos, which makes historic WWII relics impossible to sell on the internet in those countries.

      But at the same time, countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Australia want to block content and filter everything from anti-government speech, to pornography, and will cripple the internet to do so, without a second thought.

      The US' big problem is being beholden to media companies, so blocking of copyright infringing materials has gone much too far. But this is a far less crippling issue than any of the other countries would wish to impose if they had control.

      What country would you nominate as the best steward of the internet, having both sufficient technical prowess, and even stronger support for the free-flow of information, with no interest in filtering?

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    22. Re:This is good thing, right? by Spiked_Three · · Score: 1

      Wow, a very cool topic. I enjoyed very much seeing the world's view of this country re this subject. Good points how the US can be in one direction about censorship, and totally another direction re copyrights.

      But anyhow, to your point; as I have heard it, there is concern that traffic is now paid for in a socialist fashion - everyone pays a part - somewhat evened out. If the ITU gets control that will change. What will happen if Africa, all of sudden has to pay what it actually costs to access data from europe and the US? bye bye africa internet, that's what.

      Domain names are hardly worthy of even mentioning.

      As a US resident I could be on either side of the fence so very easily on this one - should the internet be a socialist endeavor, or a capitalistic one?

      --
      slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
    23. Re:This is good thing, right? by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      My question was rhetorical. There's no point in putting a capitolist model in internet access as you're describing. Some things need to be run in a socialist fashion for purely technical reasons- the doman system is one of them.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    24. Re:This is good thing, right? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3

      The US, by and large, is the later of the three. We don't ban pornography

      You still have the Miller test. And there are still a bunch of states banning sale of sex toys. Some also had sodomy laws on the books until a few years ago (even if they were ineffective in practice after SCOTUS decision back in 80s).

      Then there's this whole business with creationism and Ten Commandments and prayers in schools. And the whole nation-wide controversy about gay marriage and abortion.

      So, yes, you definitely are conservative, very much so.

    25. Re:This is good thing, right? by Spiked_Three · · Score: 1

      "There's no point in putting a capitolist (sic) model in internet access as you're describing"

      Why? Did the hardware technology become free somewhere I did not read about?

      Your question was rhetorical because you think corporations should just do it for free. It is really not such a rhetorical question, as long as someone is spending their money on it. I for one, do not think I should have to pay to give Africa access to US content. Especially as long as Africa does not think they should pay to access to US IP.

      --
      slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
    26. Re:This is good thing, right? by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Your question was rhetorical because you think corporations should just do it for free.

      No, I think governments should do it for free using universities and other non-partisan orgs as proxies, as they do now. Stop assuming, etc...

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  9. There isn't any by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    regulation from America. It leaves the countries themselves to regulate it which is open and free. That's all they're saying

    good thing. But we have to keep knocking these douches out as they keep coming back like one of those psychopathic children in a fight that doesn't know he's beaten..

  10. Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "sensible sounding legislation always comes back to bite us doesn't it?"

    it just appears that way. The same people that want som d-bag international telco to control everything will be the same people that abuse the shit out of the internet spreading terrorism so that people eventually ask for the international telco company to take over. Unless we start killing/exiling these muppets if/when they want to raise the stakes

  11. Women in control? by Skinkie · · Score: 0

    When I saw the list of names, I was positively surprised about the high number of women protecting our civil freedoms.

    --
    Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
    1. Re:Women in control? by Skinkie · · Score: 1

      I guess compliments always get wrongly interpreted. Totally reminds me of Anglo - Dutch translation guide.

      --
      Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
    2. Re:Women in control? by Sesostris+III · · Score: 2

      It was probably more of a (positive) comment on the number of women who seem to be involved in the issue / in the EU Parliament.

      Found an interesting document from my parliament (warning - PDF): http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN01250.pdf. From this it seems that 35% of the EU Parliament are women. (The corresponding percentage for the UK is 22%. No idea what it is for the US after the recent elections, but according to the document in 2010 it was 17%).

      Still could be better, of course. Only two parliament has either more women than men or the same number - Rwanda and Andorra! Given the figures globally I can't think that a positive observation on the role women are playing in any parliament can be considered misogynistic.

      Alternatively, was the work you were looking for misandristic?

      --
      You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
    3. Re:Women in control? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would it matter at all what gender a member of parliament is?

    4. Re:Women in control? by hey! · · Score: 1

      Why would it matter at all what gender a member of parliament is?

      The gender of an *individual* member of parliament shouldn't matter, but the *aggregate* number of women who are influential in some political process that is *not* specifically a "woman's issue" matters if you are keeping score on political equality of the sexes.

      The point where women routinely take leadership roles on issues that aren't "just women's issues" is a significant milestone on the path to political equality. We weren't there twenty years ago, when it wouldn't raise any eyebrows to have an all male committee making decisions about things like women's health care. Democracy works better when there's political equality, especially (but not just) for the people who used to be grasping the short end of the stick.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:Women in control? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, actually YOU. ARE. A. SEXIST. PIECE. OF. SHIT.

      Yes, you. And using the world "misogynistic" means you're twice as much of it.

    6. Re:Women in control? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're busy, so I'll apologise to Skinkie on your behalf.

      Skinkie, I'd like to apologise for jumping to conclusions. I care a great deal about equality, which I'll admit can make me a little defensive. I read your post and initially thought it condescending. On reflection, I realise that you were expressing positive surprise that women aren't being pushed to the sidelines.

      My day started badly. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror (normally I drape a towel over it), bringing with it floods of revulsion and insecurity. I wasn't always this way. I was born in to a loving family. Somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn. As adulthood beckoned, I found myself increasingly unable to relate to people who'd once been my friends. I retreated to my safe world of Internet and masturbation. I tried to relate to mom (I'm all she has now), it failed. I told her about all the Internet friends I have and the debates I've won. I thought she'd be proud. Now I sit her looking for people to insult, while mom sits alone clutching a tear-stained childhood photo of me.

      I don't care much about myself. Maybe that's the problem. She cares so much about me and I hate what I'm doing to her.

      I'm going to step away from the keyboard, go downstairs and hug her. Since pop passed I'm all she's got. That's not a lot. Skinkie, I'm not a bad guy. If we met in a bar we'd probably have a good chat and enjoy a beer. I'd better change out of this semen-soaked t-shirt. Mom needs me.

  12. As usual, people don't understand the internet. by Mauvaisours · · Score: 2

    I have a naive and maybe stoopid question : If ITU wants to grab the authority that IANA has now, how the hell are they going to enforce it ?

    Root servers are not going to magically change overnight, and people in the US and Europe are certainly not going to switch to whatever the ITU decides, just because the ITU decides.

    It would be nice for the ITU to remember that the Internet works because everybody agrees with it. If people start to disagree, it will only lead to a split in the internet, and I'm pretty sure the ITU fork will not be the winner, given the history of the slug.

    1. Re:As usual, people don't understand the internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      exactly

    2. Re:As usual, people don't understand the internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They could start by restricting the DNS servers people from a certain geographic area can access.
      So for Europeans, you have this, this and this DNS server. Try any other ip address and it's blackholed.
      Same goes for the US, South America, Asia etc... The start of new balkanized internet, with the compliment of the ITU and cooperative governments.

    3. Re:As usual, people don't understand the internet. by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      They could start by restricting the DNS servers people from a certain geographic area can access.
      So for Europeans, you have this, this and this DNS server. Try any other ip address and it's blackholed.

      I think you completely missed what the GP was saying. Sure, the ITU can decide that DNS servers will be regional. So they pass their resolution and go to, for example, Telekom in Germany, and say, "You will blackhole all traffic on port 53 sent to hosts outside of Germany." At which point, Telekom will reply, "Who the hell are you to decide this? Fuck off."

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    4. Re:As usual, people don't understand the internet. by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      I was wondering this as well. Suppose the ITU gains control tomorrow and, with their first act, confirms everyone's worst suspicions and bans all religious criticism online. I doubt the US would go along with it and - given the EU's resolution - the EU might stand with them. How, then, would the ITU enforce the "don't criticize any religions" rule on the Internet as a whole? (Granted, I wouldn't want them to get in that position whether they could enforce that rule or not.)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    5. Re:As usual, people don't understand the internet. by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Good point. And if a country doesn't play nice (e.g. opposes a new rule the ITU decides on like "don't criticize religions"), they could route that county's DNS servers to a special "black hole" server that doesn't route at all - effectively knocking out Internet until that country complies. They might not have the clout to push around the US to start with, but they could bully smaller countries into submission and work their way up.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  13. Re:Yeah right by lordholm · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be frank, after having travelled with railways in many places. I must say that the Dutch railways are probably the best working ones on the entire continent (except for when it is snowing).

    --
    "Civis Europaeus sum!"
  14. Re:Yeah right by sosume · · Score: 1, Informative

    'a VVD whore who sells voters to big business everytime she gets the chance'
    [citation needed]

    Looks like someone didn't vote for one of the current government coalition parties and is now grumpy!

  15. Re:Yeah right by jareth-0205 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it was this whore

    Starting with a stupid sexist accusation like that makes me and many other people ignore the rest of your comment. Perhaps you have a valid point about her behaviour in office, but if you're unable to make it without a completely unjustified sexual slur, then you don't deserve to be heard.

    Grow the fuck up.

  16. Re:Yeah right by captainpanic · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Dutch railroads are among the best in the world, with huge double-decker passenger trains between major cities with the frequency that some large cities don't even get on their metro lines. The cost of a ticket on Dutch trains is significantly lower than on the French or UK trains, and they are easier to get (from the machines), without the need of a stupid reservation. Even if a train is delayed, this delay is mostly measured in mere minutes. Only real accidents or failures will result on longer delays. And snow. Snow f***s everything up, because the Dutch don't invest enough to avoid that. But this is a sensible choice, not a failure. It just happens that it snowed in the last 2 years.

    I never understand why the Dutch complain so much about their train system. I guess this is just because they never take the trains abroad.

    The VVD may be wrong on many things, but they haven't messed up the trains.

  17. Re:Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been to Netherland several times in the last two decades and lived there for some time and I do have to say that while the Dutch railways were the best and still do work well, the legendary punctuality of Dutch trains is just a fond memory now..

  18. DNS was setup all wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need to put a stop to this nonsense.

    The only TLDs we need are country codes. ICANN should have just given control of these to their respective countries and left their root server list uncluttered.

    Country governments can use the .gov.* and .mil.* for themselves, give state/province name and abbreviations to their respective local entities, and lease anything else --for a hefty multi-million per year fee-- to commercial registrars (ie: Verisign). The registrars of major high-level-domains (HLDs) would presumably lease their names from several different countries' TLDs.

    When it's time for Slashdot to pay the rent, it goes to directly to Verisign's dotORG department and register the "slashdot.org.us" domain. Since Verisign would likely own the org.?? domain for most, if not all, country TLDs they might offer a multi country discount (but really, this is Verisign we're talking about...)

    So if Amazon wants to be their own TLD... they'd have to buy an island and declare state sovereignty. But if they'll settle for being their own HLD, they could go to one or more country TLD operators, pay their steep lease rates, and then do whatever they want with the *.amazon.?? name. The .us .eu .uk and .au operators probably wouldn't have any issue with it; but .br might reject their application.

    There, problem solved.

  19. Re:Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are right, the dutch railway system is one of the best in the world (if not the best). People here just feel that it would have been even better if we hadn't privatized it. Whether that's justified I don't know.

  20. Re:Yeah right by mcvos · · Score: 1

    I like her about a million times better as Eurocommissioner than as a minister. She's seriously doing some really good stuff now, and is the only Eurocommissioner that I regularly hear something positive from.

  21. Re:Yeah right by mcvos · · Score: 1

    Too bad they're in the process of completely fucking up the ticket system. I used to be a fan of public transportation, but they're making it impossible for me now.

  22. America doesn't care how anyone votes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    America is keeping control over the Internet. We are never going to relinquish it. There is nothing anyone can do about it.

    You are perfectly free to build your own Internet anytime you want.

  23. cost of operating the internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a taxpaying American, I would gladly give over the control of the internet, if the acquiring country(ies) would reimburse us for past monies spent, and assune what it costs annually. We currently owe $17 trillion to other nations, and many of those countries we give financial aid to. Then we can bitch about it's operating problems. Takers?

  24. Re:Yeah right by d3vi1 · · Score: 1

    You haven't been to the Netherlands recently. NS should stand for "No Show"!
    In my experience, while traveling between FR, DE, BE, LX, CH, AT and the NL, once a train (including a high speed train) crosses the Dutch border it's instantly delayed. Should I count the part where they are changing the trains to between NL and BE to "high-speed" trains, even if they are traveling at normal speed, is just an excuse for making the prices 3-4 times higher and with mandatory reservations (unless you buy the tickets from Belgium). Should I count the times that I've wasted on their platforms mostly in bad weather.
    The Dutch are good at a lot of things. Punctuality hasn't been one of them in a long time, whether you're talking about KLM, KPN (especially Getronics), NS they have completely forgotten what punctual means. Furthermore, they have replaced their BS-free attitude to a disgusting "politically correct/tongue up your arse" attitude, where, in order not to loose your business they tell you what you want to hear instead of the ugly truth. Fortunately, the Germans and the French are still frank enough.

    --
    UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.