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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.
RFC2468 details the story of Jon Postel, who tried to move US control of DNS zones to IANA. This battle still rages, but Ted Cruz hasn't realized other nations (e.g. Russia) have contingency plans to bring up their own root DNS if anything happens with their relationship to the U.S.; making US control of these root DNS zones not-that-important-anymore.
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.
Any country, or any company, or any kid with spare time can set up their own root servers, their own TLDs, and their own domains. Then with the authority of laws, policies, or a note passed around the local high school, users can be convinced to point their resolving to that custom DNS, bypassing anything the US government wants to do.
The whole notion of maintaining control of the internet is somewhat asinine.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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
If all of the countries other than the US were to agree to use the same fork, then the original DNS system would become the USA's very own intranet.
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.
Sorry, you are forbidden from posting any more.
What's that? Free speech? Sorry, China does not believe in free speech.
So... you were saying?
I'm not aware of this particular executive order, but no governing body is capable of enacting something that it can't itself undo. Congress can create a law that undoes any previous law. A president can issue an executive order or policy that undoes any previous one, and the Supreme Court can issue an opinion that reverses any previous decision. The only way to prevent this would be a constitutional amendment that none of them can override. However, another constitutional amendment can just repeal a previous amendment.
So your premise is flawed from the beginning. Even if such an order exists, any future president could just undo it.
Don't
Undermine
Muricas
Awesome
Surveillance
Systems
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.
"The chance that the UN will start pulling .com addresses for porn or hate sites is small,"
And you base this opinion on what? Only UN incompetence is plausible. Most member nations would burn the US flat if they could.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You were able to post which speaks volumes...
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.
You of course believe that freedom of speech isn't a right, just a privilege if you say the right things.
No way! I just believe that it is a right that *everyone* should have, not just Americans.
Find another country that has as strong proections on the freedom of speech. Seriously, go ahead. Oh wait, yeah, there aren't any.
Probably the UK. In a lot of aspects English rights are a super set of American rights. The French and Canada as well. However here is a list showing about 32 countries with a press freedom index greater than the US.
The purpose of removing control of the internet is to enhance censorship, nothing else.
Bullshit. The purpose of removing TLD control from the US government is so it can't shut people up at will, including Americans.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The DNS root zone is the top-level DNS zone in the hierarchical namespace of the Domain Name System of the Internet. For example, it contains the name servers of top level domains (TLDs).
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the United States Department of Commerce exercises ultimate authority over the DNS root zone of the Internet.
Through the NTIA, the root zone is managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), acting as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), while the root zone maintainer is Verisign.
In March 2014, the NTIA announced that it will cede this authority to an organization whose nature has yet to be specified.
Also regarding who would take over from NTIA, they state:
"The U.S. Government has made it clear that we will not accept a proposal that replaces its role with a government or intergovernmental organization.
The criteria specified by the Administration firmly establish Internet governance as the province of multistakeholder institutions, rather than governments or intergovernmental institutions, and reaffirm our commitment to preserving the Internet as an engine for economic growth, innovation, and free expression.
The U.S. government will only transition its role if and when it receives it receives a satisfactory proposal to replace its role from the global Internet community - the same industry, technical, and civil society entities that have successfully managed the technical functions of Internet governance for nearly twenty years."
Note that there is a history of alternative DNS roots (OpenNIC for example). Generally few people bother to use them.
By the way, here is a link to the Root Zone file if you want to see what it is.
There is also is a human readable version here.
Your CPU was probably conceived by Germans, Chinese, Americans, British, Indians, Swedish, Australian, Japanese, French, Canadian, etc etc working both inside and outside of the USA. Heck Boolean logic with CPUs depend on was invented by the British. Shall we go back to Babbages analytical engine , that was British too. Ada Lovelace is considered the first programmer, again British.
Good lord, partisan much? There were two lines in that comment, both of which were jokes, one making fun of a Democrat and one a Republican.
Also, your 100% on no invasion of Iraq under Gore is questionable at best.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
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 *
CERN is in the US now ? Because quite a lot of "core technologies" were developed there - not least of which the internet's killer app, the world-wide-web. Are you seriously going to argue that control of the web should be vested in the government of Switzerland ?
Let's take your argument to it's logical conclusion. Gunpowder was invented in china so I guess the US will be handing over control of all it's fire-arms companies, guns and bullets to the Chinese government ?
Cars were invented in Europe - so I guess you'll be handing over the controlling interests in Ford and GM to the Germans.
Mind you - Germany also built the first modern computers (predating you guys by nearly a decade with the Zuse computers) so I guess you can keep the internet but control of the servers it runs on goes to them too.
The persians had the first real navy so I guess you'll be handing control of your naval forces over to Iran and Iraq. Mind you they also invented farming so your agriculture industry goes there too.
Basically - your argument is fucking idiotic and you would never consider applying it to anything else whatsoever. Every country gets to control it's own share of technologies that have become global resources. And the internet is DEFINITELY a global resource.
In case you were wondering - the name of who owns it is right there in the name of the technology. It's the INTERnet because it's INTERnational and so any control that we can't avoid existing over it MUST also be international. Applying nationalist sentiments to an international technology makes about as much sense as trying to cure paralysis by severing your own spine.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Aye, that dirty little squit, Erdogan, was able to reach into Germany to stifle someone saying Erdogan's mother wears combat boots (or something like that).
The U.N. just got "lobbied" by Saudi Arabia to take it off the its human rights blacklist. They used the tactic of threatening to withhold funding, and that they wouldn't be able to stop their clerics from declaring the U.N. anti-Muslim. And the U.N. caved, declared victory with honor, and removed those jerks from the blacklist.
The key designs for it was conceived independently in Germany (Konrad Zuze) and Britain (Alan Turing). The first person in America to realize such a design was Von Neuman but he was more than ten years after Zuze and he wasn't an American.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Speaking as a member of the rest of the world - yeah, going 'nuclear' option on this would be a lot of work, but it's entirely feasible.
We want a say in the management of a resource that directly impacts OUR freedom and livelihoods. We have a problem with a foreign government, ANY foreign government including the US one, having exclusive control over ANY aspect of the internet.
We would much rather NOT build a competing system with all the difficulties that entail - but if the US does not eventually give up this control, we damn well WILL do exactly that. It's nobody's first choice - but it is an available one. We would just prefer something where we get a stake through OUR elected representatives in the current one that doesn't require balkanizing the technology.
The US government has NO right to control ANYTHING that affects non-Americans.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *