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Plan Would Give Government Virtual Veto Over Internet Governance
An anonymous reader writes The debate over Internet governance for much of the past decade has
often come down to a battle between ICANN and the United Nations.
The reality has always been far more complicated. The U.S. still
maintains contractual
control over ICANN, while all governments exert considerable
power within the ICANN model through the Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC). Now governments are looking for even
more power, seeking a near-complete
veto power of ICANN decisions.
That government of yours, which is really you guys over there since you elect or at least choose to not remove it forcefully, has proven to be an ugly piece of shit. It will not get to decide anything about the Internet. Sorry.
It's not like I can exert influence over either governments or the ICANN in any way, shape or form.
The internet isn't some entity you can control. It's a network of individual entities. There are hubs, but there is no internet "core".
root DNS, nothing else? There alternative DNS systems, and even when IANA blocks a TLD, the TLD operators can purchase a second-level domain from a unfrequented TLD like nauru, and run their service as a "second-level TLD".
Oh, I tremble from the might of ICANN, it can assign PORT NUMBERS!!!
It sounds like the governments bent on censorship have managed to pack the ICANN board enough to get this proposal seriously considered but not enough that the ICANN board can't still usually override them:
ICANN is now proposing that the threshold be increased so that 2/3 of eligible ICANN board members would be required to vote against GAC advice in order to reject it
Why else would ICANN's own board even be considering giving this power away?
You think that the people in power don't have what they want already?
And don't blame it on the government, they are in somebody's pocket too.
Whatever the faults of the USA, it really does have about the strongest protections for free speech anywhere. It sure as hell would be better to have governance solely by the USA than by an amalgam of other nations. Just look at the UN where countries like Iran and the Sudan get reps on the UN commission on human rights. UN governance of any aspect of the Internet would surely result in countries like North Korea and China ending up on committees which are empowered to restrict information flow.
Is this functionally the same as a meatspace veto? What about a holistic immersion filibuster via TRON-esqye deconstructing LASERs?
I'm afraid I certainly do not recognize Obama --to name one-- as my governor.
Your average politician doesn't understand how the Internet even works to start with. Now add political agendas, especially from oppressive governments and rulers, and this is what will completely destroy the Internet for everyone, not corporations, not spammers, not scammers, not even cyber-terrorists. It'll end up a fragmented disaster as country after country disconnects and walls themselves off so they're not subjected to the whims of fucktarded politicians, dictators, and even monarchs, who will insist on things that make no sense for a world-wide network. Needless to say, this must be prevented at all costs.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The governments of the world could screw up the internet pretty badly, but nothing short of engineering an artificial intelligence and giving it control over every computer on the planet is going to be able to "govern" anything.
If they want veto power, just kick them off of the rest of the network and watch how fast they come crawling back --- their population of people will literally whip the crap out of them for the lack of facebook/reddit/slashdot/amazon/younameit.com access.
So tired of idiots who think the USA has "control of the global internet." As if the USA had to/did ever approve the great firewall of China, or the new Russian policy of dropping any domain that stores information on Russian citizens off Russian soil, or the censorship in North Korea, etc etc... but hey lets not stop reality from giving away our control of OUR internet.
I hate to be partisan but I don't see many conservatives arguing for UN control of US infrastructure. If we did give the UN control of our internet, EU RU and Asian internet wouldn't change a single bit, they are all-ready 100% in control of their infrastructure, it just gives them control of ours as well.