Slashdot Mirror
Ted Cruz Proposes Bill To Keep US From Giving Up Internet Governance Role (washingtontimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Times: Internet legislation proposed Wednesday in the Senate would prohibit the U.S. government from relinquishing its role with respect to overseeing the web's domain name system, or DNS, unless explicitly authorized by Congress. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a division of the Commerce Department, currently oversees control of the DNS, a virtual phonebook of sorts that allows internet users to easily browse the web by allocating domain names to websites the world over. The NITA has long been expected to give up its oversight role to a global multi-stakeholder community, however, prompting lawmakers to unleashed a proposal this week that would assure the U.S. government maintains control unless Congress votes otherwise. The bill, the Protecting Internet Freedom Act, "would prevent the Obama administration from giving the Internet away to a global organization that will allow over 160 foreign governments to have increased influence over the management and operation of the Internet," according to a statement issued Wednesday by the office of the bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Ted Cruz. Specifically, the bill aims to ensure that the NTIA's relationship with the DNS doesn't terminate, lapse, expire or otherwise end up cancelled unless authorized by Congress, while a separate provision would guarantee that the U.S. government's exclusive control over .gov and .mil domains remains intact. In the UK, the controversial Snooper's Charter -- or the Investigatory Powers Bill as it's officially known -- has been passed through the House of Commons by UK MPs.
It's a delicate balancing act. If we tick off enough nations, they'll fork and go their own way without us.
We'll probably have to settle for a degree of control if we want some control. We don't get the whole enchilada in the longer run.
Table-ized A.I.
No, very much not better than the US.
Obviously the AC who wrote this remark doesn't understand how the root DNS zone of the internet works, and that it's regardless of TLDs. The root servers provide start-of-authority (SOA) for all domains, and then your resolver obtains the information as to what authoritative resolvers are for any given TLD. So, establishment of a TLD does NOT bypass this control.
The internet and it's associated technologies were developed in the United States so DNS should be under the sole purview of the US Government. If I had my druthers, IP addresses would also be controlled by the US. As much as I hate that little bitch Ted Cruz, I support him on this one.
Obviously Ted Cruz has no idea how the internet works. Any country can set up a top level domain and authorise anyone that they want as registrars. This isn't something that is within the power of the United States to decide.
Pot, meet kettle. The DNS system asks the root servers what TLDs are valid, if your new TLD isn't accepted it doesn't exist. Sure a country could fork the root servers and force ISPs to redirect their citizens to their root but effectively it wouldn't exist for anyone else. Same as I can set up a domain on my local network and call it whatever, doesn't have any effect on the outside world. And then it's really just a country intranet, not the Internet as we know it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Say what you will about the US, but as it is, I can access any of a number of ridiculously pro-USA websites just the same as I can access any of a number of ridiculously anti-USA websites.
IANA would put the stuff in control of mostly engineers, but most countries don't want it there, they want it at ITU. At the same time, if you are worried about corporate control and abusive use of the DNS system you could look no further than ITU. ICANN is it's own hotbed of money being funneled into the pockets of connected people but they can't even shake a stick at all the slush funds and money changing hands at ITU, hell ICANN probably learned the game from ITU.
ITU would be a disaster for the internet DNS. Every tin pot dictator would be trying to get domains shut off for saying bad things about them. And at ITU, they would succeed. The DNS would rapidly devolve into a censored piece of crap.
If you break the Internet, you won't put it back together again. The US has been a pretty damned good steward. If you want the likes of China to be running the show, then you'll get the Internet you deserve.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nice strawman. You build that yourself?
Nice way of trying to dodge the substance of the matter, about which he's correct. And you know it, which is why you're attempting to sling the "you're fighting a straw man" defense even though of course that's not what's happening. No, we do NOT want places like China, or Iran having any influence international communication standards or things like root DNS.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No he's not fucking correct. The Internet has flourished under the US's protection. Deliver it over to some international agency, and the next thing you know it will be cut to ribbons, censorship will become internationalized, and it will fall apart. Simply put, as little as I trust the US government, I trust the UN, the EU, Russia, China, India, Australia, the UK, and well, just about everyone else much much much much much much much less.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm reading arguments that the USA should indeed have this as a natural possession, because they are the best, most moral and/or effective steward.
Irrelevant.
Americans would never accept somebody else's opinion that, say, Canada should regulate the US finance system because our banks never went under or needed bailouts; the argument that Canadians were more responsible stewards of a national financial system would cut no ice at all, despite being objectively true.
Governance - of anything - draws legitimacy from the consent of those governed, not some arbitrary opinion of how much merit it has.
The argument that "I must be in charge because I'm the best guy for the job and the need is great" has been used by every dictator.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...
Yes, his comment may be a fallacy - but that doesn't mean it's not also true.
I say "may" because I'm not convinced that it IS even an ad hominem fallacy. The definition of pretty much every fallacy includes "without any other substantiating evidence" (appeal to emotion and appeal to tradition are notable exceptions) but most things are *only* fallacious if they stand by themselves, NOT when used as a part of a larger argument with strong evidence.
The evidence in this case is Cruz's entire career - which has been massively anti-freedom (and particularly anti-civil-liberties while his time as an AG includes one of the worst breaches of due process in the history of the United States) and pretty much always being on the stupid side of every issue. It is perfectly reasonable then to start assuming that he is more likely than not to be on the stupid side of THIS issue.
Saying it must be the case - that would be fallacious, inductive logic does not lead to absolute truths, but saying it is "probably" the case (as the OP did) - that is absolutely logical and a perfectly reasonable argument. Nobody is saying Cruz can never be right about anything because he is Cruz. We are simply applying the laws of inductive logic - in a thousand "experiments" Cruz has been found to be wrong 999 times, it is reasonable to think he is probably wrong this time as well.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *