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Russia, China, and Others Seek Greater Control Over Internet
kodiaktau writes "A proposal put forth by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates seeks greater international control and government of internet addressing. 'A leaked draft (PDF) of the Russia-led proposals would give countries "equal rights to manage the Internet including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering." This could allow governments to render websites within their borders inaccessible, even via proxy servers or other countries. It also could allow for multinational pacts in which countries could terminate access to websites at each others' request.' The move would basically undermine ICANN and decentralize control of internet addressing: 'The revision would give nations the explicit right to "implement policy" on net governance and "regulate the national Internet segment," the draft says.'"
Well, I knew it was coming. No "free" source of information can remain free forever. Here's to hoping they fail.
Control of internet numbering.. so these countries don't want to move from IPv4 to IPv6 to aid in their controlling of device / service blocks?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
From the official speech delivered by the ITU's secretary-general at the first Plenary of World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai last week:
We have the power to create a brave new world, where social and economic justice prevails – together.
And no, that quote is not taken out of context.
Donate free food here
Instead of opposing it and then caving in, The western world could rip a page off the dictatorships' book: "the proposal has merit, but it has to be studied thoroughly: We could form a committee with ,oh, all the countries in the world, chaired by a non aligned country, Tuvalu [internet domain: *.tv], and wait until they come with a legal and technical proposal behind which a qualified majority, for example enough countries representing 95% of world population and internet domains, gathering at least 85% of the number of countries involved, could be found. Do you mind if we of the ole US of A get represented by all the 50 states individually? We know for a fast that Canada wants to do likewise, and to be fair, all the European countries have a vote each, so it would only be fair..... See you in 3.100 AD, ok? Of course, if some technical advance has taken hold in the meantime, the whole process has to be restarted."
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Now is their chanc to experience the awesomeness ofRussian and Chinese control.
This reminds me of the scene at the beginning of Serenity in which the children question why the Browncoat rebels would reject civilized living.
....ignoring the word "NO!"
It's a dictators charter, pure and simple.
Now's a really good time to tell the world where to jump off.
The current situation:
One country can implement rules to abuse the whole world. Each country can implement rules to screw over its own citizens and manipulate traffic routed though that country. Many countries already abuse their own citizens ( China, UK, Netherlands, etc. )
Without US control:
Each country can implement rules to screw over its own citizens and manipulate traffic routed though that country. Many countries already abuse their own citizens ( China, UK, Netherlands, etc. )
How can this not be a Good Thing(tm)?
Besides the part in the summary about blocking access via proxy servers is bull. Even with the deep packet inspection currently implemented in the UK they can't block VPN links which can be easily hidden in other traffic.
"Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates"... So these countries proclaiming that they are supporting the revolution in Syria under the title of "Freedom of people", are now looking into more way to harass and oppress their own people (Much more than it is already)?
mmmmm.....
The Internet is basically define by the IP addresses that are reachable from anywhere. What they are really saying is that they don't want an Internet, they want local networks with government-controlled gateways.
And I'd like a resolution that advocates regime change of these oppressive, abusive governments around the world such as in Saudi Arabia that have no legitimacy whatsoever. But hey, it's not a perfect world.
The problem being that 'regime change' just creates a bigger mess. Look at Egypt right now, it was a bit messed up, now it's it's seriously messed up. Same with the French revolution. Same with Iraq and Iran.
So instead of working towards an Internet that blends everything together in a rich, international and multicultural mosaic they wish to deny everything in areas where a select, privileged few rule, creating a blander Internet that caters to their dogma. Nice way to block other people's viewpoints and thus create greater cultural, religious, and political misunderstandings.
Kings of the hill, indeed.
'regime change' as practiced by the Arab Spring is simply trading one kind of dictator for another.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
With today's centralized structure of backbone connections, it shouldn't be too hard for governments to 'squeeze the pipes'. Which for most users, should do the job of blocking 'undesired' sites. I don't see why a government would even need the help of outside organizations (or other countries) for that.
Technically inclined users will be able to find ways around that. And it'll be very hard (if not impossible) to stop those users. That is, unless a government is prepared to f**k with such basics as encrypted connections. Which would make many legitimate uses (eg. online banking, webmail) impossible too. So from a government's POV it's basically a choice between "no internet at all", or "a mostly controlled internet, but with loopholes for those who know to find them".
With wireless routers becoming very common, it's not hard to imagine that some mesh networking protocol will pop up. Retrieve firmware from your neighbor (to get around what government allows to be sold commercially), upload to your router @ home, send messages around the net by passing them to a neighbor's router, that router passing it onto the next neighbor, and so forth a 100 times until it reaches its destination. All in P2P style with full use of encryption technology. Maybe not efficient (or a replacement for general web browsing), but good luck blocking that.
They can run their own networks. Few Americans could care less if the foreigners opted out of the Internet.
It leaves an absence of power, in which new leaders can emerge. Leaders chosen by their political skill and their ability to capture popular support. In most of the middle east, that means hardline Islamists. In much the same way as a Republican over in the US can be fairly sure of getting party support by talking about Christ a lot, promising a culture built on traditional Islamic values tested through the centuries works there. Different language, same concept.
The only solution I see is to invade, but do so openly as conquerors. Don't put on the pretense of going in there to eliminate a threat or oust an oppressor: Send in the troops and declare that the country is now the US Occupied Territory of New Utah, with intention of eventual promotion to full statehood. But you can't do that any more because international politics frowns very heavily upon open attempts at invasion.
"equal rights to manage the Internet including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering." This could allow governments to render websites within their borders inaccessible, even via proxy servers or other countries. It also could allow for multinational pacts in which countries could terminate access to websites at each others' request
The idea of internal websites within a country's boarders doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Not really sure how they would stop you from accessing it via proxy. But can't you block access via geolocation already?
The second part is what worries me - the ability to terminate access to websites at each other's requests.
What gets me here is that they are proposing rules for things that there are already solutions for - geolocation and blocking at an ISP level or government level DNS addresses which would prevent access to websites.
Basically, it sounds like governments want to setup internal sites that people in their nation have access to while limiting access to the outside internet. Aren't there already tools that alow this?
I assume your statement's laced with sarcasm.
The moral standpoint of the US and other liberal democratic countries to resist such proposals is compromised by these countries' eagerness to "censor" the Internet for something as trivial as copyright infringement. However "evil" you might think it is, copyright infringement doesn't lead to ANY civil disturbance. On the other hand, the Arabs can argue that the propagation of anti-religious media like Innocence of Muslims can trigger riots and hence pose a security threat. Similar arguments may be made by the Chinese and the Russians.
We might see such justifications as flawed. But so is the argument that sites that promote copyright infringement or the sale of fake designer goods should be taken off the Internet.
Right now internet is used as an attack vector. Both for incentivating/supporting revolutions or vehicle for stuxnet and other cyberweapons. Is bad that other countries control, but currently that is being very abused by the country that already controls it.
Step 1: Pass law making it illegal.
Step 2: Make trucks that drive around neighborhood detecting "Illegal Signals" that issues "Ticket" for amount that will ruin the average person financially.
Step 3: Those who don't pay their fines and show up to court, send the SWAT team to kill their dog, their children, and themselves.
Step 4: Make the whole operation outsourced and privatized (because gov't can't do anything right and private companies can do it cheaper)
Step 5: Profit!
Notice, there is no ??? step.
Russia, China and others seek power over others. Shocking surprise. More shocking, no one trusts them enough to give them a f**king drop of it outside their borders. Film at 11 with pie charts,timelines and product placement.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
how about China and Russia pull the plug on their WWW connection, and make something like a Local Area Network that functions like the internet but only inside their national borders so the rest of the free world can enjoy their internets without some draconian rules imposed by totalitarian state
in short i would like to say "FUCK YOU to the UN, China & Russia and any other totalitarian bigwigs that want to stifle free speech and the freedom to share ideas and free software, and free music and video
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Nostalgia aside, there are significant parallels to the wild west.
- The Internet has been a place of wide open spaces and unparalleled freedom.
- Everybody who wanted to could go stake a claim (domain name) somewhere, for next to nothing.
- If you don't protect your own turf (Web site, community, etc.), often nobody else will.
- Peddlers (Web ads) roam around selling goods you probably don't want or need, only to disappear when the goods don't turn out to be what was advertised.
- Outlaws lurk around the periphery, and sometimes roam around causing damage to established communities, or you own computer.
The wild west could not stay wild. As it became a more popular place to live, the old free-for-all could no longer be sustained. People demanded security and enforcement of laws to protect themselves and their communities. Whether we like it or not, the same thing will happen / is happening to the Internet. We must be vigilant to ensure that the new, "civilized" Internet is a place where people will want to live.
The real goal is to require all other nations and institutions to actively cooperate with their censorship.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Why shouldn't they indeed? But, what is a country?
If it is the leader, dictator, government, bureaucracy, then indeed they can and will set the rules, and they will need the valves on the intertubes available to them to control the flow of information - ideas, values, concepts, the like.
But if a country is to include the people, then perhaps the people will want to know things, things other than those approved of and delivered by their dictator, government, bureacracy.
The current Internet is already so ubiquitous that cutting off a country results in an immediate acknowlegement that the people of that country have been denied access to the most important and powerful forces we have - ideas, information, values, and the like. It seems, to me, that the ITU is being used by many countries' powers to regain control and be able to suppress the people even more efficiently. That alone is reason enough to oppose this, but the leaders of this movement are themselves potentially some of the least trustworthy and most likely to misuse these powers.
The US may not be blameless or without fault, but we should tell these other countries that if they find it necessary to exert this level of influence and control over the Internet, they should do so within their own borders, and leave us out of it please. Just have their ISPs rearchitect their systems, and give them the cutoff and isolate switch. No need to get us involved.
The second greatest attraction of freedom is its existence elsewhere.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
But but... I thought the arab spring was going to bring a pluralistic western democracy with full rights for women and gays and universal health-care for all! What's this you say? The majority of the people want to fundamentalist Islam? That this was predictable from day one? The majority of the people want to impose their religion on the minority? Why -- shouldn't that be forbidden by the constitution? What's this you say, the Salafists and their enablers are writing the constitution? Surely there will be a referendum on this? Oh? Well that's good. Surely the secular majority will vote for a less religious constitution where Sharia is not enshrined in law. Surely they will!
well I think it's time to take more unilateral measures.. in either direction. Of course, our politicians are panty waisted little girls who just seem to compromise this country out of solutions so that none of them have to take a risk. Long term risk adverse leadership is worse than a hitler or stalin.
We should declare war via congress on countries that passive aggressively support terror for instance..or pull out entirely, close all bases and walk away. That means no more aid, even civilian humanitarian aid, from the US. If we do declare war, have a submarine come into range every so often and lob a cruise missile at a random mosque during prayer hour. No need for crazy force commitments or military budgets. Just keep doing it until they knock it off.
I've really had it with the middle east cultureclub and I just don't care about them anymore. I'm tired of their politics taking center stage in MY country's politics. They've been hassling each other for the last 2000 years. Enough already. Grow up or get the fuck back to that 1st century hell hole they want to drag the rest of the world back to.
for a small forum site. IPs from china were taking up gigabytes of data transfer every day. they were just scraping the whole forum almost daily. soon as I block a few ips, within a day or two another one started doing it. Baidu spider was a problem, but the content scrapers were something else. So in effect, they FORCED me to block the site from their people. Either that or I pay massive bandwidth costs to their robots.
Slight problem: Those countries have lots and lots of oil. Oil that runs the global economy. So long as the world depends on oil, everyone must try to stay on good terms with the cheap oil supply in the middle east.
Hmm. Like the p2p mesh in your neighborhoods' smart utility meters?