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Citing Snowden Leaks, Russia Again Demands UN Takeover of Internet
Lauren Weinstein writes "In a clear demonstration that actions do have consequences, often unintended ones, 'The New York Times' reports that Russia is again demanding a UN Internet takeover of exactly the sort repressive governments around the world have long been lusting after, and using Edward Snowden's continued presence in Russia as a foundation for this new thrust. Acting as a catalyst for a crackdown against freedom of speech on the Net was certainly not Snowden's intention — quite the opposite, it's reasonable to assume." Not to worry.
I can't see how the UN could fuck the domain system up much more than the USA already has. But still, how about fuck the statists? Let's get a proper decentralised DNS system in place, and use that instead. Meanwhile, we can use alt-roots.
Seriously, the USA has proven that they can't be trusted with control of the Internet. Demonstrated it totally. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be insane, or suffering from selective blindness.
Oh, yeah, we're going to take your domain of you because you link to sites that host torrent files (which themselves aren't copyrighted material, but merely link to copyrighted material). For example.
So yeah, fuck the USA, fuck ICANN, and maybe let's see if the UN (who manage the international postal telephone systems) can't do a better job. Or even better, let's say "fuck authority", and go it alone.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
Bruce Schneier saw this coming. And he's got a point...on one hand, we argue against the policies of countries like Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, China when it comes to free, uncensored and unmonitored use of the Internet (or lack thereof in the aforementioned countries). And then, oh...look what we're doing with all those network links that pass through our own country. You can argue that the motives are different, the means are more surgical (but only to a point since 1, they are classified programs and 2, intelligence agencies lie their assess off, by necessity, to foreign powers) but the argument still won't carry much weight.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Why do americans get so paranoid that letting the world itself control the worlds telecommunications network, instead of the spooky us government is a somehow a threat to freedom.
I'm sorry but as a non american, reading about PRISM doesn't fill me with confidence that letting a foreign power control my communications is "freedom".
It SHOULD be controlled by a democracy of the world, not Obama and the NSA.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
So a "repressive" government (like Russia) is asking for a U.N. takeover of the Internet, to the great consternation of "freedom-loving" governments (like the U.S.).
Given recent revelations, it doesn't seem like the U.S. government is very freedom-loving any more.
So it's really between governments that don't pretend to love freedom, and governments that pretend to. No real difference except for the pretense.
What a sad state of affairs.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Because if he didn't make the front page he'd beat up the editors and take their lunch money.
It is exactly that sort of attitude that makes the USA the wrong ''controller'' of the Internet.
NSA praises Redmond for 'collaborative teamwork'
There are red faces in Redmond after Edward Snowden released a new batch of documents from the NSA's Special Source Operations (SSO) division covering Microsoft's involvement in allowing backdoor access to its software to the NSA and others.
Documents seen by The Guardian detail how the NSA became concerned when Microsoft started testing Outlook.com, and asked for access. In five months Microsoft and the FBI created a workaround that gives the NSA access to encrypted chats on Outlook.com. The system went live in December last year – two months before Outlook.com's commercial launch.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/snowden_leak_shows_microsoft_added_outlookencryption_backdoor_for_feds/ [theregister.co.uk]
Any nation on the planet can implement PRISM and just like the US they can only really adequately collect data that is within their borders. Any data not within the borders requires the complicity of other nations. Who has "control" of the Internet (by virtue of top level DNS servers) really has no impact on whether the programs can occur. In fact, maintaining freedom of speech is actually in the interest of a program like PRISM as people would feel freer to speak more and with others more permitting a bet data collection.
That aside, the US still does have one of the best freedom of speech while the UN doesn't seem to have any desire to enforce or even go after member nations that are hostile to freedom of speech.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I think not only DNS but they should oversee the major internet carriers as they participate on the public internet as well.
Compromise by government is still compromise.
Fuck the UN, and why not have ICANN and suchlike be it's own independent NGO? Each country pays into it to keep it going.
It would only take a few nations to support it, and it can stay independent. I can see a few housekeeping items that would have to be addressed, but at least this way the UN can keep their grubby paws off it, yet no one can bitch about the US owning it anymore (in spite of the whole shebang originating as a US gov't project, etc...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
As I've pointed out every time this idea gets floated, why on earth would the US agree to this? Diplomatic efforts are only effective if there is a carrot or stick behind them. Neither is in evidence.
The only people who could fuck up the internet more than ICANN is the UN.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
It's a non-binding statement and given that a majority of nations have not agreed to it indicates that the UN is certainly not the proper place in which to vest control of the biggest tool that enables free speech. That's the problem. Most of the 48 signing nations have either demonstrated that they have a much lesser respect for freedom of expression than the US or they have questionable clout.
Further you seem to be comparing a violation of X and Y humans rights as a sign that Z will be violated. It is a strange position for you to take as the rights and violations you are noted have typically been against non-citizens and certainly haven't been done in ways that are visibile to the American public at large. There are plenty of groups in the US which are very vocal regarding protection the free expression rights of Americans and given the nature of the Internet most things that would restrict that free expression would likely be very vocally protested and fought in ways that simply cannot occur when you're dealing with a group that represents nations rather than people. In essence, the free expression of all people on the Internet is also protected and defended by the groups which protect and defend it for Americans.
You're also confusing my dislike of having the UN run it with ethnocentricity. The US has certainly taken actions which I consider a risk to free expression. However the only solution that I've seen that I feel is a better step rather than a worse one is the suggestion for decentralizing control but that will never happen.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
uhm.. USA's filtering stance is just different. their filtering tactic is to remove the offending site from the servers end. that's much more worse.
instead of banning megaupload for example, they went ahead and arranged the servers to be shut down. instead of censoring the dns results for some omar this and thats magazine they drop a bomb on the guy running it.
filtering that happens just inside the country that decides to do it is much less severe than that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.