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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.
It's not like I can exert influence over either governments or the ICANN in any way, shape or form.
I don't know if I want some government who may not like my religion or race being able to stamp my website out of existence just because it doesn't jive with their dogma.
I'll take the current means. There is enough religious persecution without having countries knock you offline on the net.
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?
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?
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.
Really? I wouldn't exactly say USA has a good track record of protecting peoples free speech. Is your phone encrypted when you pass a checkpoint? You go to jail. Is your laptop encrypted when you pass a checkpoint? You go to jail. Have you googled pipe bombs or vacuum cleaners? You go to jail. Have you blown the whistle on your governments criminal activities? You get to be chased halfway across the planet and go to jail if you're caught. If you do anything your government doesn't like you're labelled a terrorist and, you guessed it, you go to jail.
If anything I'd say that the USA is one of the least free countries in the world, ranking alongside places like Niger and Congo. Not to mention it's the only 21st century country where slavery is still permitted. Slavery you say, why Abe did away with that! No he didn't. Just look at your jails. They're full of slaves working for pennies, and if they refuse they go to isolation.