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ICANN Board Election Results
Soko writes "One American on the ICANN board so far, folks. Newsbytes has this report. " We could do worse than Vint Cerf, but there's still some concern among U.S. polticians that "we" don't have enough representation. From the story: "House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-Va., last week said that it would be 'unfortunate' if the United States
were underrepresented on the ICANN board. Because the United States still has the majority of Internet users and businesses
and because of the nation's leadership role in inventing and promoting the Internet, the US should be well represented on the
ICANN board, he said."
Hum, to most Americans there are two countries : the USA, and the rest of the world. Except for the ones in Kansas who don't even know there is somethins outside of America, "the world just end there" (why would anyone teach this silly theory that the world is round, heck any good Christian knows its flat as God made it ;)
The ICANN board should represent the people who have a legitimate interest in its doings. While the heavier Internet presence in the US does tend to weight this criterion in favor of Americans, there is no reason why Americans per se need to be particularly "well represented" -- the relevant community is defined in terms of Net involvement, not nationality.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
A democracy isn't a majority dictatorship. Any responsible government will have protections for the minority, as history shows us the majority is almost always wrong.
Nor do I know of any working country where ciizens get to vote on each law or committee. All democracies give citizens the right to vote for representation. The 'will of the people' is as a real force as the 'divine right of kings.' Its just progaganda to make us feel like the winning team. Personally, I woudn't want the lowest common denominator getting control of legislation - elections are corrupt enough.
Your complaint has more to do with toucy-feely PC liberalism than anything else.
Either the writer was too lazy to get his facts straight or thats how the official press release came out. Or ICANN is posting flamebait.
The board members chosen today were:
From the PSO: Philip Davidson (Europe); Vinton Cerf (United States); Jean-Francois Abramatic (Europe).
From the ASO: Ken Fockler (Canada); Pindar Wong (Asia); Rob Blokzijl (Europe).
"There's a big reason why the United States should BE represented. Quite frankly its because so much of the activity and traffic on the 'net is located in North America. (I may be Canadian, but basically what's good for ol' U.S of A is good for us as well). If other nations are allowed a much more powerful say in certain topics which go against Corporate America®, then a lot of things can happen which may bring down ICANN itself as the regulator of addresses. Corporate America could start pressuring people (if you know what I mean)®, Some all-too-ambitious Senator may start tossing around a bill which starts to degrade access to servers located in the US, etc etc etc .. in other words it *could* get ugly. Or The ICANN could go the way of the 'League of Nations' with no American Support both political and coporate-wise." Q: So what happens when America shuts down the Internet? A: The rest of the world routes around the blockage and carries on much as before, marginalising the US. The US may be the worlds last Superpower (discounting china for the moment), and it may have the worlds largest economy, but the rest of the world put together is still several times larger than the US (The EU for instance, has comparable economic muscle on it's own)(and a comparable number of companies on the Internet/Web).
-- At rest in the information super layby.
It's not correct that Americans are the majority of internet users - they used to but that changed a few weeks ago (if i'm not mistaken). However, Americans use the net more because american users in average spend more time online than other users.
Comparing three representatives for Europe against one for the US isn't fair - Europe consists of more than 40 nations and most of them don't have any representative at all. Europe is a continent - not a country!
The board members are to be heading ICANN for some time and in that time the rest of the world - and Europe in particaular - will catch up on the US and Scandinavia who currently lead in internet usage.
Democracy isn't only about representative sharing of power - it's also about making sure as many different views as possible are represented. This is good if you want to be able to find as many solutions to problems as possible. It is especially important with global issues such as the internet.
Besides, Americans have already claimed almost all of the international domain .com as a US-one. .com is for international commercial sites. Most US .coms are not internationally targeted at all. Adding to the confusion companies in other countries continue in the american footsteps and use the .com-domain with national sites in their own national languages and with no international intent.
Ulf
I have no problem believing a US senator would be stupid or amoral enough to make an issue of the nationality of the board members, but it saddens me to see /.'ers fall for it. What next? Should we ensure that different races, genders, religions, income groups, hair colors, and intelligence levels all have a fair and propertional "representation" on the board?
Sigh, as I write this, I realize that there will be people who will claim all these groups should be "represented". One particular clueless ./'er even advocated that the board should be elected democrately. That, at least, will ensure that competence will no longer be overrepresented on the board. Sarcasm is hard in the modern world.
It doesn't really matter much what the rest of the world uses. The USA and Canada set the standard. Not it may not be totally fair and maybe ISO is better, but that's just the way things are.
I think this is stupid. I think this boards members should go from most to least in this order:
Americans
Canadians
Australians
Brits
Everyone Else
Because I believe that'd be the best representations. Should Muwak Bintuko from Zimbabwe have as much say as Pierre Cardin from Canada? I really doubt it. I think Americans, Canadians, Aussies, and Brits' votes should carry more weight if you're going to only allow one of them on the board.
Yet another example of American apologetics though... "Gee, we're sorry we're the most powerful, richest, most influential nation in the world... we'll only have one person on the committee." BLAH!
----- if ($anyone_cares) {print "Just Another Perl Newbie"}
warn "Just Another Perl User" if $anyone_cares;
The US has no authority, moral or otherwise, to dictate terms exclusively for its own interests. They may have created the ARPANET, the father of the Internet (sorry Mr. Gore!), but they do not own it. The most popular portion, the WWW was created at CERN. Hell, the telephone was not even invented in the US exclusively. If the US wants to exert its influence in international affairs to its wishes, it should pony up money and conviction instead of Jesse Helms and hot air. Participation in International organizations means paying the membership dues.
I could care less about how may Americans sit on the board. Bring the flamers unto me!
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
I hate to soil my integrity by participating in such a nationalistic debate such as this(heh), but assume for a moment that the states were broken down into indiviual countries since they are comparable to European countries in that way. Would it now be fair that 50 countries have one representitive while (humor me) the EU has four? Or assume the EU became a reality and thus comparable to the US in terms of population and GDP. It would then have 4 members to the US's 1 despite the fact that the US would have more citizens and buisnesses on the internet than the EU would? This doesn't strike me as being fair or representive of the people on the internet.
So, if this commitee actually makes an impact (someone else made the statement that it could go the way of the League of Nations, which I think is a strong possibility) maybe a nice way to settle this debate is by using a 200 year old Great Compromise: two houses, one represetitive based on country, one based on population). Probably too bureaucratic/large but if it's going to be done right, that's the way to go.
This isn't directed at who I'm replying to but someone in another thread spreading disinformation: the internet != www. www is merely a facet of the internet. The internet can chug along mightily without www, but www is dead without the internet.
Yeesh, must be close to halloween, the moderators have started troll hunting again...
When ICANN was formed, its charter contemplated having a big chunk of the Board directly elected by individual "members" of the Corporation. The date for that election continues to recede, and the terms by which ordinary domain name registrants or other regular folks might get to choose representatives get more and more crabbed and limited.
The following exchange I had with Joe Sims, ICANN's Chief Counsel, regarding ICANN's proposed By-laws changes illuminates the issues. I should note that there is a fourth message from Sims that is not in the ICANN Bylaws comment archive. In that fourth message he says, among other things, the he is speaking in his personal capacity, not as an ICANN spokesperson. (As Sims authored most of the legal documents that shape ICANN, the distinction is a subtle one, but real.) When I get permission to host an HTML copy, I'll post a link to it on my WIPO/ICANN page.
Perhaps the most interesting issues to come out of this debate are, first, to what extent is it correct, as Sims argues, that allowing individuals a direct role in ICANN governance threatens to "destabilize" either ICANN or the Internet. Second, if one has strong individual representation in ICANN (or even if one doesn't) how to structure the body to avoid "capture" by a small faction. And, last but not least, how much individual representation, of what nature, does ICANN require to be legitimate?
Visit ICANNWatch.org !
A. Michael Froomkin,
U. Miami School of Law,POB 248087
Coral Gables, FL 33124,USA
I have a blog.
While this may be true, the World Wide Web was born in Europe (at CERN), not in the US. And as we all know, to the uninitiated, Internet == WWW.
While this may be true, the fact remains that Internet != WWW.
The WWW is merely a hypertext system, and not a particularly good one at that. It happened to catch on because it took advantage of the Internet, something (AFAIK) no other hypertext system had yet been designed to do.
The Internet is the real invention. Hypertext is just an application (one of many) on top of the internet, and something not particularly unique or difficult to implement.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Sorry, but the term "American" refers specifically to a US citizen. I've had plenty of debates with people who claim that Americans have no right to that term exclusively, saying that anyone from North, South or Central can call themselves American. What it comes down to is this: we are the *only* country in the world to use "America" in our name (U.S.A). What do you propose we use instead? People from Cuba are Cubans, people from Mexico are Mexicans, so people from the USA should be "United Statesians?" Give me a break. I need a name to call myself, and American is what is.
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
The rest of the world routes around the blockage and carries on much as before, marginalising the US.
Just like they did with the League of Nations eh?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I thought all you people on that continent were trying to move to a "European Union". I mean, what's up with the cute flag and the Euro?
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Well, the US did "pony up money." You don't think the Europeans payed for ARPANET development, do you?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Using current internet demographics may not be the best way to pick the representatives.
Exactly. So what if today's us citizens can afford to use the 'net much more that the current non-us majority. Think fast: in nine or ten years, more chinese will be online than us citizens are alive. Computer power might be 64 times more affordable in 2010, but *bandwidth* will be 20,000 times more affordable (gilder's law). Take metcalf's law, add a billion users, a twist of currency instability, churn vigorously, and you may well have interdependent extranational communities that self-regulate in partnership with (or even independently of) the nation/state.
Maybe DNS shouldn't represent militant national borders at all: maybe it would be more useful if aligned along linguistic borders with iDNS. What helps us communicate more, fracturing legal jurisdictions, or plain old human language?
What does it matter...you know the US gov't will do what it wants anyways...It always has, even in the face of national and international protest..the more protest the more the CIA gets involved
In FACT it is a cumbersome and foolish utility that could only have been invented by the french :)
GET a grip can u imagine the international manufacturing chaos..If the US chooses to go its' own way you can be sure that the rest of the world will suffer just as much as US....
The money is there...it is called e-commerce..ur bank uses it, the job u work at probably uses it and believe me if the US opted for a different system many people in the US and out would suffer greatly...swallow those flames KAMIKAZE.. Whether we shoot u or u shoot ur self the end result is the same...UR DEAD
Basically, the representatives should be chosen on merit, not because they happen to be born in one country or another. Interesting is that arguments along the line of "our country is not represented as strongly as it should etc." are mostly fielded by politicians, not the techies. Who cares where the happened to be born, it's the expertise that counts! Having a influential organisation like ICANN without people at the helm with a sound understanding of the complex nature of the internet would be a far greater problem than national "under-representations". Also, as a "european", I think the writer of the article could have done better than calling all candidates of this particular continent(!) Europeans, he could have checked on their nationalities.
quote from /. One American on the ICANN board so far, folks. quote from newsbytes three Europeans, one Canadian, one Asian and one US candidate Basic math: One US citizen plus one Canadian equals two americans. BTW Yes US is the leading nation on the web, but perhaps mostly because all "international" domains are us-controlled and located. As I see it, a business or organisation that uses a .com or .org domain is not US-based It is web-based.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Speaking as a US citizen who has lived in Europe and worked in the Internt business for years now, I'd say it's about time the US was taken down a few notches. Rep. Bliley's reaction is rather typical of US politicians and their assumptions about governing the Internet. Maybe this development at ICANN will teach people like him a long overdue lesson about better international co-operation.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Americans aren't the majority. Largest single sector, possibly, but fewer than 50% of all 'net users are American...
I certainly hope the US can increase its level of representation. I don't care who invented the Internet but, presumably, the Domain Name System needs to be run for the benefit of those who actually *use* it. At present, about half of the Internet's users are US and half non-US. Assuming one vote per board member, that means half of all Internet users share one vote and the other half get eight votes. That's even more screwed up than Japan's "a farmer's vote is worth four city votes" electoral system. In Japan, farmers can get away with the most outrageous twisting of the economy and the far more numerous city folks are powerless to stop them because their votes count for so little. The people who actually use the Internet should be the ones represented -- one user, one vote. On the other hand, I'm also looking forward to the spread of the Internet as a consumer medium worldwide, so I look forward with great anticipation to the US proportion of users asymptotically approaching the US percentage of the world's population. As it does so, I still stick with the one user, one vote idea. In the meantime, I wouldn't oppose a system set up along the lines of the US Congress, where one group of representatives represents everyone proportionally (the House of Representatives) and another group is there to make sure the smallest states don't always get outvoted. Having some overrepresentation of those nations currently using the Internet less than Americans to prepare the way for their citizens' joining the net would be a good way to promote the spread of the net to the rest of the world. Overrepresenting non-Americans this way naturally means some underrepresentation of Americans, just as someone from California has somewhat less representation in the US Congress than someone from Rhode Island. I can live with a small underrepresentation of Americans (USAtions) in this fashion, but the current "8 American Net users get the same representation as 1 non-American" system is absurd.
It can't really be considered fair that the USA is under/not represented in ICANN. The comment from Thomas Bliley states the case best: "...the United States still has the majority of Internet users and businesses..." That's not as a percentage of the internet, but per country... So one American is enough
The Nazi's had views like you
No other country has more than one representative. Why should the US have? Europe is not a nation. USA is The truly underrepresentated are countries without representation.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
The Internet is not about borders. It doesn't matter where you come from. What you achieve matters. That you live in a certain country seems totally irrelevant to me.
All this 'this country is underrepresented' or 'that country is overrepresented' are totally useless in a borderless environment like the internet. There should be good people in that board. If those people happen to live in another county than yours, doesn't mean that's bad for a board like this.
I'd rather choose someone for a board based on his experience and quality, than on his nationality. I thought this 'thinking in borders' was getting oldfashioned, but the idea is still everywhere.
Greetings,
Ivo
While this may be true, the World Wide Web was born in Europe (at CERN), not in the US. And as we all know, to the uninitiated, Internet == WWW.
Wtf are you talking about? Are you talking about Tim Berners-Lee creating the system of hyper text linking? That has nothing to do with WWW. Most people when speaking about the web are referring to the visual content that is rendered by browsers. Of course the internet is much more than this. The web is a subset of the internet.
Get your history right.
'Nuff said about what? It would behoove you to attempt to make a point.
The rest of the world routes around the blockage and carries on much as before, marginalising the US.
hahahaha. Thanks for the laugh buckeroo.
please don't equate the actions of US politicians with those of its citizens. The people on Capitol Hill are a different breed of animal.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
And from what country did the browser technology originate? Without that the internet would still be a plaything in academia.
Ok, so you want to play that game. Try this on for size. What country invented the internet? Without that Tim Berners-Lee would still be shuffling paper up in CERN.
When you use specious arguments to make a point you wind up looking stupid.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
if you really mean the Internet, ok, but I'm pretty sure it's the WWW they are talking about.
I wonder what Tim Berners-Lee would have applied his hyper text technology to if there hadn't been an underlying internet. Toasters perhaps?
Let's not have a pissing contest here my little defensive Euros. Everyone is doing there part to make the internet work. Staking national claim to something that clearly had international support at all levels is ludicrous.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
You're glad to be Canadian? I guess living in a welfare state must not be so bad after all.
Small world, but I was just at a presentation by Mike Roberts today (Educause). He was pretty firm in his conviction that the board had to be international and was grumpy when he mentioned the few right wing conservative republicans in Congress who didn't see things this way. In fact, Roberts seemed pretty grumpy about a lot of things. I wouldn't want to be him.
The difference is that now these corporations care, because influence over the way things are handled can give them a competitive edge, and in other ways increase the amount of money to be made. In other words, the conflict of interest is much stronger now.
I know, that's why I kept it separate from the rest of Latin America, but I didn't know if they used the same paper as the states in the US.
The Economist has a predictably European slant on the US that is in fact often badly mistaken. The topic for this issue is a clear illustration of that fact.
For example, in the articles associated with the cover it complains that the US may be heading towards much more protectionist trade policies. This completely neglects the FACT that the US has by far the most open trade policies of any nation in the world today. If you do not believe me, compare the cost of non-domestic goods in the US vs. any European nation. If Europe or Asia as a whole, or any one nation were running anything like the per capita trade deficit the US runs, THERE WOULD BE RIOTS IN THE STREETS IN TOKYO, SOEUL, PARIS, ROME, BERLIN, STOKHOLM and LONDON BY THEIR UNIONS. The Economist is so far off base in this assesment of US trade policy that it has in fact no credibility. It is whining about a perceived possible shift in US attitude towards trade that is in fact far more open than the attitude in Europe.
The second article complains vigourously about the US rejection of the test ban treaty. There is some justification of these complaints, however there is a strong case to be made that this treaty does not in fact address the matter of nuclear proliferation whatsoever. The only signatories to the treaty were countries in fact that had no need to conduct nuclear tests - either they have entrenched capability, or they have no programs for the development of nuclear arms. No nations with aspirations of developing or in the process of developing weapons were in fact signatories to this treaty. If in fact this treaty did actually amount to anything substantial I am sure that there would have been enough votes to at least delay consideration of the issue, and probably approve it. The concept that the US is in fact withdrawing in some fashion from international affairs is nonsense. In fact it is the US that is spending far too many of it's tax dollars in military readiness IN ORDER TO ASSUME DEFENSE BURDENS THAT THE EUROPEANS SHOULD BE MANAGING THEMSELVES. Why in fact should the US have to assume such a large part of the burden in Bosnia and Kosovo? Is this not internal to Europe? Why do we need large military bases in Europe in this post USSR era? IT'S BECAUSE THE EUROPEANS HAVE BEEN NEGLECTING TO MANAGE THEIR OWN FORIEGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENSE, not because the US is behaving in a isolationist manner.
Dammit, without the US founding NATO and institution of the Marshall Plan after the end of WWII, I'd bet that most of WESTERN Europe would be in the sad state that Eastern Europe is still in today.
These complaints about the US being insular quickly shrivel up once you hold up the complaints to the light of the facts. They are Myth, as any real student of history and world politics soon realizes.
I remember when WP5.1 shipped to Canada with "Canadian English" as the default (and I believe the only English it came with or at least the only English that was installed on university computers). That was a minor annoyance, especially if the spell checker didn't include an American English dictionary as I spell "color" without the "u", but the "Canadian English" dictionary, if I recall correctly, didn't like that. It always amazed me in school how we had to spell it "colour" but almost everything I read outside of the class spelled it "color".
I don't know about Word, but WP8 gives a choice during installation (I believe three or four English and two or three French - at least the version here in Canada). I believe you can install as many as you like and change even from document to document, though I could be wrong on this. Besides, it's got to default to something, as long as the English version is coming with the different wordlists, etc., how much trouble is it to change the default? I can't speak for Word, though. Be thankful software nowadays gives a choice otherwise the spell checker would be useless. In WP5.1, I used it sometimes but I still had to check a printed dictionary to see if some of my words were spelled wrong or American. There's plenty of software (on the net, at least) that defaults to A4 or gives a choice during installation. I just switch it to letter.
If all of life's problems were this minor... but yeah, there would probably be a howl.
Ask Australian farmers about lamb imports into the US. How, after the Aus. Government made some concessions for US farmers to make inroads here, the US Gov turned around and said "Well, thanks for that, oh and we'll increase tariffs on your lamb by x%" (x being about 50, iirc).
Don't tell me the US is the most open trade economy. It's not. It, like *every* other trade economy has, as a primary motivator, self-interest.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
To the uninitiated (i.e. the vast majority, The Internet == the WWW. Hypertext linking has nothing to do with WWW? I'll let your stupidity speak for itself.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Not that you'd want to sound racist or anything like that :P
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
A while back, Telstra took stats and at least 25-30% of traffic was US outbound - i.e. originated. Reasonable suggestion: ask US companies to pay 30% of link costs - remember AU's geographic isolation. Those links are friggin' expensive. They were point blank refused.
Hearsay: I think I heard rumblings about it going to court.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Don't tell me the US is the most open trade economy. It's not. It, like *every* other trade economy has, as a primary motivator, self-interest.
I am certainly going to tell you this, because it is the fact. Anecdotal evidence regarding lamb or any other single commodity does not provide proof otherwise. As a counter example, look at the awful shellacking the US is taking in it's steel industry due to dumping at below cost prices by Far Eastern nations. The US was the inventor of the TV and the VCR. Are VCRs made in the US? Not any more. Ditto TV tubes. What other nation would allow something like steel to be eviscerated in this manner?
Perhaps it is motivated by self-interest. That doesn't change the fact that it is the most open in the world. A lot of economicists in the US believe that an open trade policy despite the economic dislocations that result is in fact good overall because it results in an economic system that must be competitive on a global basis. The economic growth that the US has enjoyed for the past 9 years is a strong argument in favor of that viewpoint.
What really frosts my butt is reading a viewpoint from, say, the Economicist, based in England where the costs of goods paid by citizens are much higher due to outmoded economic models, that the US is insular. Utter and complete rubbish.
Well, how many TVs are in China today? Asia? ROW? How much do TVs cost users today?
My nifty $1000 sony vaio today will cost you $15 bucks in 2010. Spread easy payments over 3 years! DSL today connects me to you for $50 bucks a month. 2010 it'll cost three cents a year. $5 or 10 bucks a year seems like affordable access, even if you make only $350 bucks a year. Either refute Gilder's law, or do the math. Moore's law is way over-rated.
Wireless bandwith doubles every 9 months. The Chinese cel phone market (wireless) is alreadly exploding today in 1999. Extrapolate. How smart a device will $100 buy in 2010? $10? How many Chinese will connect? 400 million by 2010? 2015? 2020? (And what if rural access spreads with agents like Grameen?) What year do *you* predict that more chinese will be online than us citizens are alive?
and again, btw: top level domains should be linguistic, non militaristic.
Another US ego trip. So they started the net. Who cares? The US used to be a European colony, so
by the same logic we could say, hey, there should
be no US members of the ICANN board anyway, afterall WE started America.
Message to the Republicans: Stop living in the past and admit that today's society is global.
Oh, and, pay your debts to the UN already.
Signal 11 here, slashdot is on the blink again.. the above comment is mine...
--
My first thought was, "gee, that's odd." Then I realized that it doesn't matter. It's not like any of those people are going to be able to change the internet for the betterment of their own country. Gimme a break.
A big advantage of Vinton Cerf is that he's relatively unbiased. I mean, as much as we'd all like Alan Cox on there, he's just too tied to any particular internet "faction." And since these guys (as far as I can tell) are all not part of any "faction" its better. Countries don't play that big of a deal on the 'net... get over it.
-Chris
I know that the Internet began as a primarily American phenomenon. Likely, that hasn't changed much, despite the globalization of the Internet.
However, I think that if we are to make the Internet a truly global phenomenon, the US should be prepared to let other nations have a significant say in what happens to the 'Net. This means swallowing some pride and allowing themselves to be "underrepresented", despite the fact that the Internet was originally exclusively American.
Just my 0.02 zlotniks.
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
Stop trying to please everybody! Instead do it right the first time and do a net election - let's VOTE these people into office, and simultaniously move the state of the art forward by making online democracy play a pivotal role in the future of the internet. It was created for democracy, now let it be governed by democracy!
--
So I take it that the Americans would prefer to be over represented instead? I am sure that there are many other countries are even more under represented than america in ICANN.
It would be nice if some Americans would think globally for a change. Not all standards and defaults that suit america suit the rest of the world (you wouldn't believe how much trouble is caused by applications setting the default paper size to Letter (a format that is pretty much only used in the US), in other countries).
Isn't that there is only one American on the board, but that there are no representatives of the actual users of the Internet on the board. Every one of the elected members represent large Telcos. Vinton Cerf is an MCI WorldCom vice president. His point of view is that of a large corporation. This also applies to the remaining members.
On the other hand, according to ICANN's web page, the Board of ICANN will be composed of nineteen Directors, nine At-Large Directors, nine to be nominated by Supporting Organizations, and the President/CEO (ex officio). This election was for the nine members nominated by Supporting Organizations. So there is still time to get some representation for actual techies onto the ICANN board.
I'm here in the US, but I keep getting the feeling that perhaps we should keep the US low on number of representatives.
Perhaps then the US government will see that they can't control the whole of the net, and they will stop passing laws like they're the owners of the whole thing. Plus, more foreign reps would perhaps help keep the net growing internationally....
~Chris Carlin
It is very unfortunate that ICANN and the *SOs do not have a more representative system of governance. the *SOs appoint half of ICANN, ICANN appoints the *SOs. The other half of ICANN is elected by an arbitrary pool of 5000 "members"...
the IETF is not this bad!
Instead of this Catholic-church-esque system (Cardinals appoint the Pope, the Pope appoints teh Cardinals) it would have been nice if there had been seperate councils for nations (one rep per nation) for the companies (Internet companies pay $x to be members of the Internet Chamber of Commerce, and then those members elect a council of thirteen or something) and for the users (roughly equal representation for each of the major "districts" defined as the major subdivisions of ICANN (ARIN etc.) as they are geographically based, individuals pay $20/year to have a vote (ISPs urged to pay this for them) and then flat election)
Each of these "estates" (yes allusions to 18th cen France) would have some machinery to keep it going, the Third estate in particular would need some election machinery...
each estate council would appoint 3 members to the governing council of ICANN, and the IETF would be able to appoint 2 of its own representative to be voting members (total size 11)
This seems more fair than the current system, IMHO
-RS
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
Grrr. my nick is "Forward the Light Brigade"...
Vinton Cerf is the coolest guy I have ever heard speak. I think he is the best choice to be in there... Hell.. He invented TCP/IP. On a side note when he came to speak at purdue, he said his dog wears a shirt that says "IP on Everything". But... I don't see him having a lot of power now adays on the internet.. He made a big push to roll out IPv6 a while back and no one listened.. But.... Vinton is definately the best choice for the US. ChiefArcher
anyone else find it interesting that they don't refer at all to the European's country of origin?
I can't believe these people can maintain any credibility when Cerf gets elected over Al Gore. Now I realize that he has made his contributions an all, but lets face it - he's hardly the father of the Internet. Anyone who knows what they are talking about will tell you that Big Al is the real father of the Internet. C'mon people, at least research the subject before reporting on it.
I say we make our voices heard. If we're to have only one representative on the board, it has to be Al. Lose the Cerf guy.
Roses are red, violets are blue. I'm a schitzophrenic, and so am I.
Hmmm ... Being one of the "rest of the world" (as most americans think of us non-americans), this is good. After all, isn't this supposed to be a "world" wide web?
** Sig-a-licious **
Why on Earth are Cerf and Fockler identified by country, while the others are identified by continent?
"Pindar Wong (Asia)"?! ROTFL!Actually, even Norway alone, with 4 million people, have more than a million with access to the internet (how many that uses it regularly is another issue, though).
If you want to complain about something I suggest this will be more important.
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"Microsoft Cracked" |
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Impressive (Score:1)
by MtnMan1021
(jbr [at] nassau [dot] cv [dot] net) on 08:19 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
(#16)
(User
Info) http://www.petitioneer.com/
Looks like "flipz" is more than just a script kiddie: attrition lists her as having cracked jpl, duracell, people's bank, a bunch of
she doesn't seem to be very creative in her replacements/alterations, though.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
Re:Impressive (Score:1)
by whocares
(grey@enigma.mips4.com) on 09:42 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
(#118)
(User
Info)
Well shit, I've written my name in marker on federal buildings, phone booths, mailboxes... I'm certainly more than your average defacer of random crap.
Seriously. When someone releases information that's of use to someone as result of their cracking, or actually *accomplishes* something aside from defacement... maybe *then* I'll be impressed. Until then - whatever.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
Not Really (Score:2)
by Gleef
(gleef@capital.net) on 08:38 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
(#42)
(User
Info) about:mozilla
The sites weren't all that high security. Oooh, the "US Army Dental Care System" computer was compromized, while it is in the
I'd say flipz is probably a very busy script kiddie. The cracked sites certainly don't show much imagination.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
Re:Not Really (Score:1)
by TeddyR
(syousif@iname.com) on 09:07 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
(#87)
(User
Info) https://www.mav.net/teddyr/syousif/
The problem is that if a single
BTW: The above scenario is exactly why many "high security" sites do not allow employees to have "important" material even on their normal day-to-day office machines..
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
uncertainty.microsoft.com (Score:0, Redundant)
by Mooset
(jwsmith@delta.is.tcu.edu) on 08:19 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
(#15)
(User
Info) http://delta.is.tcu.edu/~jwsmith/
From the article:
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com." The purpose of that site was not known.
Whatever it was, that name doesn't seem to resolve anymore. I guess they must be covering their tracks for now, because fear.microsoft.com and doubt.microsoft.com also don't resolve. :-)
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
Re:uncertainty.microsoft.com (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 04:02 AM October 27th, 1999 GMT
(#247)
Score: 0?
Redundant?
Don't listen to that silly moderator, I
thought your post was hilarious.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
cracked? (Score:4, Interesting)
by Trepidity
(delirium4u@theoffspring.net) on 08:18 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
(#13)
(User
Info) telnet://127.0.0.1/
Hmm. The never-ending hack/crack debate. One the one hand, using "cracked" is obviously inappropriate, since the term already had a meaning in computer security prior to its application in 1984 to people who break into computers. It has, for as long as anybody remembers, described people who break the copy protection of software. This usage far predates the usage cited in the Jargon File (which itself admits to the 1984 date).
On the other hand, the term "hacked" is obviously inappropriate in this case. This system intrusion was merely the work of a script kiddie, it appears, and hence is not any sort of hacking.
We need a verb that means "broken into by a script kiddie," so as to differentiate from "broken into by an intelligent security expert" (which I'll continue to call "hacked") and from "breaking the copy protection of" (which I'll continue to call "cracked."
I personally prefer to use the term "hax0red," which, helpfully, is what they often call it themselves, so it should not be hard to have this term adopted. This differentiates from mature, intelligent people, who use "hacked," to describe their work (whatever that work may be, be it kernel hacking or NT hacking) and the script kiddies who use 3l33t sp33k to describe their work. It also allows "hax0r d00d" to be used as a convenient synonym for "script kiddie."
[ Reply to This
| Parent
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Re:cracked? (Score:1)
by kijiki on 05:13 AM October 27th, 1999 GMT
(#250)
(User
Info)
Personally, I don't see much difference between the "new" (web page) crackers and the "old" (copy protection) crackers. Both require basic assembly knowledge, and the ability to use a debugger. And lots and lots and lots and lots of time on your hands. Obviously I am ignoring those amazing buffer overruns exploits where people manage to get code in through a function that strips out all characters but '9' 'a' and 'q', but your average exploit is not that impressive an achievement. Nor is your average software crack. I fully expect to be flamed by the script kiddies and the h4x0r groupies. Please at least attempt to keep it coherent.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
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Re:cracked? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 10:51 PM October 26th, 1999 GMT
A board membership made up of diverse members
will makea more robust Internet. If any
national interest is over represented, then
the board will be vulnerable to manipulation
by politicians. The current IETF debate over
allowing surveilance to be built into IP is
a good example of this problem.
I don't think that US interests will be
pushing for a representative democracy
online when China gets fully wired.
I suspect the reason members from the EU
are referred to as European Members is
because many tarrifs, laws and infrastructures
are being consolidated as Europe unifies.
I'm sure that there will be additions to
the board as the net develops, and more
autonomous regions appear.
One thought which may be slightly off-topic: if that is the case, why don't some of you guys pay for international bandwidth?
My understanding is that any bandwidth from Europe to the US is paid for by the Europeans. The American view is apparently that no-one there needs the bandwidth, and that the internet is an American thing.
It seems that George Bush was not the only man with a problem with "the vision thing."
I would suggest as a topic for discussion that it could easily be best for the internet that no americans be on ICANN. After all, look at the mess NSI are making.
Unfortunately, I don't believe my own suggestion! :)
Well said, however on the last point:
m l
"despite the fact that the Internet was originally exclusively American"
Another post on this thread has already made the point internet== www, and that comes from CERN.
However, even the grand-daddy of them all, ARPANET, has had European links from at least 1980, or roughly one third of its life so far.
For a historical perspective (and some other very cool net maps) check out:
http://www.cybergeography.com/atlas/historical.ht
Anyone who thinks the three appointees from the DNSO are not representatives of a very narrow faction hasn't been paying very much attention. It has nothing to do with regional representation; they are all vocal advocates of corporate interests, and very much against any sort of rights or protections for the individual domain name owner. So far the DNSO has no provision whatsoever for representation of individual domain name owners. This to me is the most disappointing and frightening development in the SOs thus far.
Check out http://www.idno.org/ for more information on this issue, and make your voice heard.
- Paul
Mosaic, the predecessor to Netscape, came from UIUC in Illinois, U.S.A.
FUD-you, too!
People should be less concerned with the national origins of those on the board, which is largely irrelevant to the issues under discussion, and be much more concerned with what other interests these individuals represent, and where they stand on the important issues they will be deciding.
- Paul
I think that it is good that more countries are getting involved in the Web. After all it is a global network. However, I feel that ICANN representation should be based on the number of Internet users in that country.
If the United States is under-represented, then other countries will be making the decisions for us. For example if the US has 56 Million Internet Users and 60% of them shop online. Would it be fair for a country like Uganda which may have 60,000 Internet Users (None who shop online) to make laws governing E-commerce or gTLD's ??
I think not!
This system is about fairness and representation. It is good that the US is finally giving some control back to the other countries of the world. But, the United States has more Intenet Users and therefore deserves a louder voice in representation.
If the numbers change 10 years from now. Then, so should the representation percentage. For example if the European Union in 10 years has 56 Million Users and the United States has 20 Million, then the EU should have greater representation.
This should not be an ego-driven, or jealousy-driven process. It's not one country saying "We're better than you".. it's simply a matter of Mathematics:
More users = more representation (regardless of national origin) Plain and simple.
---
The statement below is true.
Lets look at this for a moment.
1. UN Hedquaters - New York City
2. The might behind NATO (France accounted for 7 percent of sorties in Kosovo)
3. The military leader, where do the latest and greatest warships/aircraft/land systems for the Gulf States, Israel, Canada, Japan, Egypt, come from? US shipyards and factories. Even the Royal Navy's SSBNs carry American designed Trident missiles. Who deisgned the latest and greatest attack helicopter in Europe? Boeing.
4. CPUs, what companies make the world leading CPUs? AMD/Motorola/Intel. US companies.
5. Largest single economy - the US economy.
I will be as Ameri-centrict as the Europeans are Euro-centric. Sure the EU is big, but will it be bigger than the Americas Free Trade Zone that is being talked about? Chile has already applied for entrance into NAFTA.
Of course we also let lose the greatest computer virus known to man.
Windows 95
Last I heard it was Al Gore who invented the Internet. Bob Dole whines about not getting enough nookie from his wife because he's all hopped-up on Viagra.
---
The statement below is true.
Way before Tim Berners Lee came up with HTML, I was using the internet, sending email, reading usenet, playing MUDs, netrek, and hacking Unix.
The internet has been around far longer than the WWW, and even the more significant technologies related to the WWW were invented in the US.
TCP/IP? Yes.
Ethernet? Check
Routers? Check
the ISP? Check
Unix? Check
C? Check
PERL? Check
UUCP? Check
Fidonet? Check
SGML (basis of HTML)? Check (IBM's GML)
Graphical Web browser? Check
SMTP? Check
I remember pirating warez in the early 80s and trading with Europeans in the UK, Holland, and Germany, and the fact of the matter was, there was no as thriving a online community in Europe in those days. They owned inferior hardware (more expensive in Europe), and generally, someone in the US had a 9600 baud modem, whilst a European had 1200 or 2400 baud. Any European who was a major online surfer had to use stolen phone/calling cards.
I could go on and on. Face it, the telecomm market in Europe sucks ass. The socialist economy sucks ass. Many Europeans even pay per minute phone rates for local calls! How the hell can you have a vibrant surfing/ecommerce community when you are feeling the pressure to log off because of your phone bill?
Europeans even know they are better off in the US economy. Want freedom? Want to work for big bucks? Want to start your own company? Want to get investment? want to work at exciting places? Europe has no real equivalent of Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, Austin, or Northern Virginia.
If you live in California, there is a party everynight where you can meet hundreds of young people working on hot technology. The geek social scene is way better. The only European equivalent is the demo-scene parties which wreak of young pimply faced teens, not 20-something entrpreneur geeks.
The real innovation and action is happening here, and if Europeans know better, like Linus, they come here.
Fix the European economy first by tossing out the socialists and maybe things will be better. Otherwise, keep dreaming and revering Tim Berners Lee, you're only memorable star.
Doesn't imply open. Implies flawed. Read Michael Crichton's Rising Sun for an interesting insight into this. Americans frequently complain about the Japanese behaviour business-wise. If you're behind the eight ball, it's your job to adapt to the other party, not vice versa.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
I don't understand how the U.S. Commerce department can allow an organization it manages to be headed by non-U.S. citizens. After all, the ICANN is in a policy-making position. It seems that this would contradict U.S. law.
Nice try, but no go. There are something like 100 million American internet users, which is orders of magnitude higher than any other country on the planet in terms of wired citizens. As such, Americans should certainly have much more of a say than a country like China or India who, while they may indeed have a few billion people living within their borders, have only a few thousand actually able to get onto the internet.
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I like the idea of letting the U.S. be a little under-represented. Often, the largest and most powerful member of a comittee will find it easy to 'ignore' others concerns (see business practices of any powerful corporation (Microsoft)) A large, diverse group is generally a plus for promoting the most open and free standards. Also, I think that this sort of international representation might be part of the key for taking the internet to the global level that it lacks now. For example, naming practices right now are pretty odd, with most sites outside the U.S. using country codes while many in the U.S don't use them at all. This sort of implicit arrogance is exactly what a global network like the Internet doesn't need.
.com e-commerce evereything-you-need--and-more-in-a-superstore model of internet use. There is a difficulty here because most people qualified to be on this board are working for companies or have started their own, government service being about as glam as my footwear (old sneakers (although both are very rewarding (most of the time (hmmm..nested parens maybe too much Scheme?? :))))
My reservation is that too much representation is given to large companies whose interests are focused in an even poorer direction, economic gain. If anything, the 'net needs advocates that look beyond the
Ah well, this beast is damn impossible to control anyway, good luck to the board!
joey
+-------+ between the wish and the thing lies the world - All the Pretty Horses
Excuse me? Last time I checked, CERN hasn't been moved to the US and this "Internet" they talk about is nothing but the freaking world wide web. Promote all that you want, but the US did not "invent" it... if you really mean the Internet, ok, but I'm pretty sure it's the WWW they are talking about.
'Nuff said.
Sure, he's in the corporate world now, but he he's been doing pretty damn well for us for _decades_. He has amply earned this opportunity to represent our interests, and I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt until his actions prove otherwise.
Why should be USA more represented? Why should any representative there be "backed" by a country? What do you want, something like the UN Security Council, that takes a lot of time to do nothing, where powerful countries manipulate things to harm enemies and reward allies? I thougth this whole Internet thing was meant to be apolitical... what kind of "demands" should a USA "representative" make? What kind of unique USA interest have a legitimate place in that kind of forum? I say elect them by technical/management competence and to hell with national (read political) intervention
I never really understood the nature of this xenophobism that Americans are the greatest masters of. We damn foreigners are here on Slashdot talking to you everyday, are we so weird? Are we always out to get you? Are we so much worse people?
Personally, I worry about whether the people on ICANN are good people for their imporant job. Not about where they come from. I'm willing to bet their is nobody on the committee from Sweden. Does that mean I (and my nationals) are not represented? Of course not, as long as there are people on the commitee who are willing to work hard for a functioning Names & Numbers system, then we are all represented.
And if there does happen to be someone from my country in ICANN, he/she may very well be much worse at representing my opinions then someone from America, Germany, Uganda, or Japan. Its a global society: I share my opinions with a cross-section of the world, not with the people who happen to inhabit the same plot of land as I do.
Outside of America most people are not always out to advance there own countries at the cost of others. You are not underrepresanted: you are human beings, and the entire commitee is made of you.
-
ICANN if UCANN!
Great. Yet another story about the US gov't thinking they're getting the short end of the stick.
Is it me, or is the only thing US politicians do is whine? First we get Bob Dole complaining about not getting any respect for inventing the internet, then we get the US gov't complaining about people telling others who they're voting for on the internet without declaring themselves to the gov't, now this. Sheesh..
Makes me kinda glad I'm Canadian.. ^^;
It's certainly true that the internet was created in the USA, but other significant tecnologies are from the rest of the world, i.e HTTP/HTML without whose there would not have been the internet boom.
More people, more ideas, a better internet.
Bye,
Rob!
AniToolBox! An Open Source animation program!
What happened to "majority rule, minority rights". I can't push our governmental system upon the rest of the world.. but that method doesn't seem entirely unfair to me.
Since I'm an American, it's hard to reflect on my own thoughts, such as, "If Americans represent the majority of the people on the Internet, why do we only have one representative in ICANN?" and not dismiss my thoughts as being biased toward my own interests. However, when I think of an analogy like this, I believe it sheds light on the subject:
The Internet started in Russia. Russians were the largest contributors to the development of the Internet. Decades later, proportionally huge sections of the Russian population are on the Net. There are also a lot of people from other countries, but the Internet is primarily Russian based and since Russian is spoken in most parts of the world, the vast majority of web pages are in Russian. Eventually, ICANN comes to be and representatives are elected. ICANN is made up entirely of Americans, except for one Russian. Wouldn't those of you who aren't Americans (and Americans, too) be bitching about how horribly stuck-up and power-hungry and unfair that Americans were? Of course. We'd be bastards. It would make no sense whatsoever for us to run ICANN, unless we just despised Russians and didn't recognize their right to have any significant say in that which was significantly theirs.
Well, my analogy has some inherent flaws (ICANN isn't run entirely by any country), but I think it expresses the clarity of thought that's necessary to attempt to evaluate an issue fairly, even though it strikes so close to home for many.
...concern among U.S.polticians that "we" don't have...
/. American. Helpful hint: There is a world outside the borders of the U.S. I`m sure you`ve seen us on the Internet...
We who? Just because the author of the comment is American, doesn`t make everyone who reads
I suspect that Slashdot knows when you start to post something, as it serves you the form. I'd guess that what happened is that you started your post after #6, but submitted it before they finished.
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
Stupid statement.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
I'll correct myself...
If saying "f0bic, your seksi voice helped me through the night heh" was just a reference to him? like all the "free kevin" we saw...
I'm not sure that spl0it member f0bic and flipz have known directly each others since flipz first possession is dated of 99.03.25 (tuxedo.jpl) and f0bic was arrested in june; the next exploit of flipz is dated of 99.06.24, after f0bic's arrestation, and he does not tell anything about him...
to my mind it was just a "political" reference to 18 year old f0bic, now in jail maybe...
[perville@anoat perville]$ nslookup
Default Server: nirvana.nic.fr
Address: 192.134.4.10
> uncertainty.microsoft.com
Server: nirvana.nic.fr
Address: 192.134.4.10
*** nirvana.nic.fr can't find uncertainty.microsoft.com: Non-existent host/domain
>
I wonder where the MSNBC guys have heard about this machine...
Brak seems to be pretty popular with the kiddies.
*snicker*
-Vel
flipz crack at: http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/10/ 26/www.ncsc.navy.mil/
seems like an answer to the question.
//ville
It is hard for me to believe that an NT based web server has been cracked for the first time. Literally millions of times such servers have been brought down with boink and other exploits ("Winnuke" like programs), and now this is supposed to be the first time that someone actually changed a file on some NT server?
It's the first time it has been *reported*, as the article says, but that makes NT sound like a Fort Knox of operating systems...
Right. HTML gurus are even below crackers...
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
You should use "Female-American" instead.
No other software crashes more, has as many bugs and faults, and is as hard to integrate with
:-)
You haven't seen the crap I write
I support using "un" for an unspecified gender, because it sounds great if you say it in a rural accent, eg. "that young'un over there". But anyway, this is a very silly conversation.
--
That's ActiveBackdoor to you!
Jacob Rothstein
----- --- - - -
"It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as
jacob rothstein reed college
Web site containing sensitive information defaced
(most sites do contain sensitive information,
cc numbers, product orders, payroll blah blah..).
Are you just going to accep the crackers word
that nothing was altered???
What kind of bloody fucking moron keeps CC#s, etc.. on the same machine as their website?!?!?!
I work for a major US Check Printing company, we have more CC#s and account information than any non-bank entity in the country. NONE of it has any remote link to anything connected to the net. It's ALL kept on seperate internal databases. You could hack EVERY machine that is connected to the net here and you'd come away with the financial status of the company and the stats on the latest in house programming project. All of which are backed up at least weekly.
In conclusion, you have to be a fucking MORON to keep sensitive info on a webserver....
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I think you miss the point here. Microsoft is BAD! so cracking microsoft is therefore GOOD. Do you know how much money an hour people like me charge? And do you know how much money people who are paying me are loosing each time my window crash because compagnies like microsoft spend more money on publicity than debugging? And by the way, if your SysAdmin wheren't incompetant, then people couldn't crack your system.
"Failure is not an option, it come bundled with the software"
Not just grumpy, damn crotchety too.
Umm.. you are telling me that if you had a root compromise that you wouldn't reinstall the OS, I feel pretty damn sorry for the company you work for. Suits are the ones normally against reinstalling, it takes them down i.e. no money flowing, but it's your ass if someone backdoored a binary. Actually I've got 73 pages of procedures to do in case of a compromise, which includes finding entry, verifying duration of entry, contact lists, I could go on and on. I guessed anybody with half a brain could figure out that I plugged the hole first without actually having to vomit up 73 pages.
Sifting... we've got over 200 (actually 212) different people entering data in by hand daily, I guess when we restore the data you would want to throw out all of their work and forget about it. 12 is pretty low understatement, really low if one speculates about a workstation compromised that acts like it's been doing normal work but is sending bad data, and when the user logs out mucks with the website.
Corporate lawyers are there to asses liability, be the liason between any law enforcement, and determine how much of our own ass we need to cover. How big of a lawsuit do you think would ensue, if your medical records got changed, or your credit card information got exchanged; they may not have done a damn thing but WE CAN'T TAKE THAT CHANCE.
I don't believe I ever mentioned how long it takes to reload a backup or how much we have, but I'd like you to guess how long it takes to restore 9 TERABYTES of data. I guess you can't really think any larger, than your 10gig drive worth of porn.
I personally feel very sorry for your company, you seem to think that a website cracker would never do anything bad to a computer. Changing the web page is the same as any other compromise, maybe that's all they did, or maybe they did something more destructive only to rear it's head a week, a month, a year from now; I'm not willing to take that chance, but I'm glad to know your employer is.
You seem to think I'm throwing numbers way out of proportion. Hmm.. well the only numbers I mention are 12 and thousands. Anybody want to actually argue these numbers??? Anybody have actually something intelligent to say on these numbers??? All you can seem to say is those numbers are wrong and that's it, no facts, no figures, no nothing. I'm giving you all the facts and figures and you are spitting out FUD. 12 people verifying 200 peoples work is more than reasonable, in fact if we take them completely out of the picture and we are still at thousands, it only takes 1 hour of lost time to cover this: 200 people at $10/hour (actually more like $14) and you are at thousands (time of reinstalling the OS on a box more than covers this). Got any braincells left after looking in your thesaurus for the big words, to argue these numbers. Do you actually have any facts left up in that head... hello?
Point me to the paragraph where I, or the poster I replied to, said anything about stealing source code, or was that a figment of your imagination. They are differenet and I never disputed that, but YOU CAN'T SAY A WEBSITE COMPROMISE IS HARMLESS.
It takes more than big words to actually have something intelligent to say. I probably am the worst speller and have awful gramar, but if I were to try to hide behind some big words because I didn't have anything else to say... *giggle* well all I can say is, nonsequiturs is two words not one (non sequiturs). How about this for some big words... ever masticated with thesbians?
You must be cynical to believe this. I'm cynical!
Hey, the guys are the champions of FUD. So, it
wouldn't surpise me. You know, it also makes sense. (From
a PR view)
The hacker, who also altered a handful of government Web sites in recent days, says he expects to be arrested soon.
Yet it seems obvious to me from flipz's first crack on attrition.org that flipz is a woman.
Just another example of gender bias in the media. out
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
hate them script kiddies, I do I do
Off topic, and minus me a point for this post?
Slashdot has to be more careful who the allow to moderate forums.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
0wned would work as well... :)
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
I think you miss the point of the thread that we are on, a different thread and yes Microsoft makes crappy products. But we are on a thread about cracking being harmless, which it obviously isn't, whoever's software it is running on is immaterial.
A good SA probably is going to help more than any firewall ever will.. but being a good SA isn't the whole world. As an example, I wouldn't blame the Hotmail fiasco on the SA's, I'd blame it on the developers who put in the hole in the first place.
There wasn't an internet in 1992? Shit, now you tell me! All those years wasted using a resource that didn't exist! :-)
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Anything mostly unintelligible will do... (translation for skript kiddies: n3th1ng m0stl33 un1nt3l1g1bl3 w1ll d0.) of course there are too many syllables in two of the words, so they may have a difficult time understanding the translation..... :-)
some karma... and kinda lukewarm about it.
I've been consistantly impressed with MSNBC's objectivity when it comes to Microsoft. They were among the first mainstream News outlets to tout the joys of Linux, they've had objective articles about the Anti-Trust case, and now this.
This is very important in journalism, and I'm quite impressed that MS has not subverted the objectivity of the site. OTOH, who knows what's gone on behind the scenes to maintain that....
Agreed that you have to be pretty damn dumb to keep that information on the same machine... but many sites have to have connectivity back to that information in some fashion (normally through some SQL call to another box) which can be compromised; bad data is a lot worse than no data. A compromise on the webserver doesn't mean that other boxes aren't compromised, all the boxes have to be checked.
It would be nice to be able to keep everything on a completely separate network (as in your situation) but it's not very feasible for every ecommerce solution, heck Amazon is trying to patent being able to remember your information and keep it available to the webservers so all you have to do is click (very paraphrased). Keeping it on different machines behind multiple firewalls, etc. is about the best many sites can hope for; since they have to have that information available for the customer.
I tried it and got a message from my proxy saying that host doesn't even exist... Same thing with fear.microsoft.com and doubt.microsoft.com...
numb
?syntax error
--
"I was either onto something, or on something!"
While not being the main topic of the article, this one really bothers me:
it describes the course of the cracker as he proceeds to serially trash sites. what does that say about system security and professionality of system administrators?
i dare to say this person does not look like an especially talented programmer/coder/hacker to me.
i don't know what kept microsoft safe so far. fear of FBI? if so, we're going to see a lot more attempts.
really secured machines? probably, and probably not, they use mostly the same software other people do. better sysadmins? maybe that's it... and then again, maybe not.
did anyone ever stop and ask himself why is breaking systems so damn easy?
What you say is right. The thing is that there is two reason i know of for breaking into and sabotaging a system, pure criminal behavior and the pure pleasure doing what no one have done before. For the criminal mind, there is no future or solution, we have to live with it and keep spending money. By the way, i dont think that the fact that companies spending money is very relevant, the big problem is that people (like SA with wife, kids and rent to pay) might loose their jobs. Too all you cracker, hacker or whatever they call themself (a rose wathever you call it ...) who like the challenge of breaking in, there is something called passive hacking, which mean that companie are going to pay you to try to breach their systems. So get a job and a life instead of causing trouble. Remember, when you get caught, some will do nothing, some will call the police but there are other that will call something else then the police.
"Failure is not an option, it come bundled with the software"
Actually, it looks to me as if this page was cracked or what you would call "hacked". The cracker that did this has been attributed to 11 security intrusions according to attrition.org. I don't know if these people all go by the same name, but if this is one person, he (or she, of course) certainly knows what he is doing.
Anyway, who really cares what word we use? I tell other computer people that I do a bit of hacking when I hack my kernel or write some perl. I don't say this to non-computer people that might take it the wrong way, though. Usually I just don't talk to these people about computers.
In an earlier article someone cited the use of piracy to refer to copying software. Considering its original use as meaning the attack of pirates on large ships, carrying off their wares and killing lots of crew members (and each other).
This type of term usage may evolve "naturally" but doesn't always "fit the crime" as well noted by Trepidity. I would like to see appropriate media coverage of these issues. After all, the kid in my hometown (Sudbury, Ontario) who broke into NASA's computers by a backdoor modem deserves to be called a malicious (or at least highly curious) hacker. He probably deserves what the FBI are going to do to him (extradition and all).
Part of the problem is that large companies don't want to say "oh look, we have a common security problem that was exploited by an easily downloaded script -- let's fix it". They'd much rather state that "a malicious and very talented hacker got through our almost impenetrable firewalls and routers and managed somehow to get access to our webservers!" Let's make the media realise that these exploits are common and simple to implement so there is some public recognition of the delinquent but not horrific nature of script kiddies (in general).
PS, some people consider spray-painting bridges to be a serious offense. Personally, it's not. However, websites are more easily restored (in general) than bridges are repainted, and at much lower costs.
My encryption and security ...
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
You neglect to mention the complementary Terror of all the Worried Linux Bashers.
And by your own reasoning, the popularity of Windows means that the pro-Windows crowd should outnumber the pro-Linux crowd by by 2-3 orders of magnitude.
Thus if a similar proportion of adherents feel inclined to "attack the enemy" -- and you've given us no reason to suppose that the proportion would be higher in one camp than in the other -- then we must suppose that the number of attacks against Linux sites is 2-3 orders of magnitude greater than the number of attacks against Windows sites.
Further, due to the discrepancy in the number of sites available for attack, we must conclude that the average Linux system undergoes a number of attacks 4-6 orders of magnitude greater than the number against the average Windows system.
You are, of course, welcome to argue that the percentage of MS-hating Linuxers is greater than the percentage of Linux-fearing Windowsers, or that there is some relevant differential in their base cracking skills, or -- for that matter -- a differential in the base difficulty of cracking their respective targets. But if you do argue thus, please support your claims with evidence.
It isn't sufficient to point out the existence of rabid anti-MS types in the pro-Linux camps. It's easy enough to find their complements in the pro-MS camp. And, for that matter, it is not obvious that a rabidly anti-x individual will with high probability try to crack someone's x system. (For example, I'm pretty strongly anti-MS, but I've never tried to crack anyone's Windows system, nor tried to incite anyone else to do so.)
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> You mean the bun is the lowest form or humor?
The bottom of the heap, perhaps? The very fundament ?
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
that flipz must be gay.... hmm
Looks like this guy(?) flipz has been pretty busy lately. He(?) got into the Department of Veterans Affairs (hack) site, the US Army Reserve Command (hack) and even the White Sands Missle Range (hack) site. They're all NT boxen. I'm no expert or nuthin, but I betcha there might be some common NT security flaw he(?)'s exploiting. All the sites mention his(?) love f0bic. I wonder how she(?) feels about this.
Attrition.org's mirrors
You're wrong. NT is the most insecure platform known to man. I'm a punk teenager who can't even program and I could crack it. MacOS and Linux are secure. NT is totally useless for anything except crashing. It shall be destroyed and the Penguin shall rule all!!!
So there I was, between a rock and a hard place, when suddenly I think "Wait a minute. . . what am I doing on this side
The sites weren't all that high security. Oooh, the "US Army Dental Care System" computer was compromized, while it is in the .mil hierarchy, I doubt that much effort went into securing it.
I'd say flipz is probably a very busy script kiddie. The cracked sites certainly don't show much imagination.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Put it in your own sig block!!!!
So there I was, between a rock and a hard place, when suddenly I think "Wait a minute. . . what am I doing on this side
You're insane. /. gets better every day. So they mention Microsoft. I know MS is evil, but that doesn't mean that anyone who mentions it is evil. MS is the great evil of this country.
So there I was, between a rock and a hard place, when suddenly I think "Wait a minute. . . what am I doing on this side
Back in 96 (+- one year) a guy at one of our brance offices was arrested. Turned out he had been using work computers, and the work internet connection for his child pron ring.
The offical comment was of course "We are and will work with athorities in anyway we can." I'm pretty sure all his backups were exampled and the non-work related ones turned over to police.
The unoffical word was in 6 months all anyone would know is if they here our name that they had heard of us before. So this wasn't bad long term, just undeseriable short term.
Hmmm, that would explain a lot... Microsoft's site always has had broken links and errors.
I mean, Slashdot was cracked before. So that hardly proves anything.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
How about the massive contamination of large areas (hundreds of square miles) of upstate NY and western MA? (PCBs, polymer manufacturing byproducts, etc., indiscriminately dumped by the tonne....)
I have no problem considering "cracked" to mean "obtained inapropriate access to". So, it would work for both unprotecting software and modifying someone's web site.
... is we don't have a good word for third person indefinite singualr pronoun. We don't have a second person plural pronoun either, but in the south they say y'all which seems to work for spoken speech.
"They" is unfortunately ungrammatical as a singular substitute, but is in common usage in speech. I predict that it will eventually be incorporated into written English, and cited as one of those inconsistent quirks of the language that make it so difficult for foreigners to learn.
Good heavens, even split infinitives are considered permissible where they would otherwise be awkward (to go boldly where no one has gone before).
My stars, the pressure I feel to make this post entirely grammatical. Whew!
I don't have too much a problem with "he", either; what I really object to is the implication that anyone who does object is a militant feminist.
no sig please, I'm agnostic
I suggest 'fucked'. For two reasons.
1. It's probably the only chance for most of these kiddies to fuck anything.
2. There's something about the headline "Microsoft Well and Truly Fucked" that appeals.
3. Three. Three reasons. When was the last time you got to rant at someone saying "they're fuckers, not crackers!"?
Well, you're misunderstanding the two groups. Web page hax0rs in general do not know any assembly, and are unlikely to have more than a passing knowledge of C. Usually they use already written exploits to break into servers.
Crackers, on the other hand, do know assembly, and circumvent copy protection. They are quite a bit more skilled than your average script kiddie. In fact, I'd consider them a subset of hackers, as many of them are true reverse engineers, often doing more than mere copy protection removal to add nifty features for programs or cheats for games.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
More likely, if they are the first to publicize the story, then they can "spin doctor" it - report all the negative "facts" but with a subtle shift to make them sound "not so bad".
Microsoft's certainly not the first company to do this. They've just perfected the art... ;-)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
You're making an artificial distinction here. Many people who circumvent computer security enjoy spending a lot of time programming. I'd consider the Cult of the Dead Cow a hacker group, and they certainly do their share of programming. I find no problem with categorizing Alan Cox, the Cult of the Dead Cow, Richard Stallman, and L0pht Heavy Industries as hackers. They all are.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
So, has MS set up a bot to respond to any MS-related article with "Slashdot sure sucks nowadays" or some variation thereof? I've seen it a lot lately, but this one seems totally egregious.
- The 2600 Web site, the online home of a hackers' magazine, has the Redmond, Wash., company prominently listed on a page of "Hacked Sites of the Future."
Isn't this the same portion of 2600 that featured not only Microsoft and The White House as future targets, but the 2600 web site itself?-Denor
Short for cyber-hijacking or cyberjacking. On another note, why else would these people get a hard-on for these things. :P I think it is cute, common and more appropriate than crack:
1. "I jacked into the system"
2. "I hijacked the system"
3. "The system was hijacked by attrition.org"
Hasdi
Funny, I got the image of a lovesick wheat-thin.
Yeah, 11 sites, none of them prominent, which all show up as NT. He (or they) probably ran the same script on all of them and exploited the same hole. How does this imply that he knows what he's doing?
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
'first time m$ has been 'hacked'' really? i thought office.microsoft.com had been hacked, but then i learned it was supposed to look like that. (and have javascript unsuppored by IE on it too) cracking is err, bad. must stave off relative morality... must adhere to objective standards, argh! can't do it, go lil cracker go!
It could be that, or it could be that Microsoft hopes that MSNBC will at least put a good spin on the news, and not blame Microsoft or NT as much as the other news sources will.
Or it could be coincidence....... Naah!
Fairly lame...if I went to all the trouble to hack Microsoft, I sure would leave a better looking page than that....
arrr matey!
At least get them to school. They're spelling absolutely sucks. What Moron's, I would be embarrassed to post anything with like flipz did: "Attack every fucking gov mil you can fucking do. Just ATTACK. Fuck this people that says this is lame." Man learn how to spell. Did your Mom drop you as a child? She must have, for you to be have such a Destructive behavior.
They might like to start with unplugging it.
Seriously, the only way to keep your pages secure is making sure you/your writings/employer/lawyer don't offend or treat anybody. And since it's quite impossible if you want something more than just another boring website you better get used to the thought that there's someone insane enough to lose lots of time just to temporarily alter your website contents. I guess the same rules go for keeping the billboards safe from being spray-painted, but cleaning a website is a bit faster.
By the way, after all those years of yelling at M$'s products (they're insecure! faulty! icky!) it's strange to read that their first site was cracked in '99. Isn't it a kind of proof that their software DOES sometimes work? Or was it 'A cracking contest easy enough nobody tried to win it'?
attrition.org, not someone else who normally got called by the media in the past.
If their "back door" is "active", that would explain a lot. Wouldn't it? ;-)
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Perhaps they should give PCWeek a call, to beef up their Windows security. :)
Seriously, though, too bad he didn't go after the PCWeek hack-contest box. The damn thing's still up!
Did you mean 'hacker' or 'cracker'?
Do you know the diffrence? I don't think you do.
This is more like defusing a bomb. Classic in politics is to release certain details about a story that don't seem too horrible.
What happens later is an actual press release full of details that are more implicating than the first, but nobody prints it because at this point the media (and hence the public) has moved on to different topics.
Its a nice way of de-screwing yourself.
Amusing how those question marks pop up in the most interesting places ;-)
--
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader
And what makes you say that? Was it a W2K server that has hacked this time? If this script kiddie wanted recognition taking down the new OS would have been more impressive.
I wonder how did MSNBC figure out that the threat was against bill gates. According to the defaced page (see somebody elses post above) It said "...Kill Bill" nothing about Bill not being some other Bill not nesessary Gates.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com." The purpose of that site was not known.
Heh heh, I can't decide if this was written on purpose or not. =]
-Dave
Can you remember how powerfully the feelings moved in you, and the screaming intensity of your motivation to do something? The fires of youth were the heart of the engine which drove wars, conquests, and the building of empires throughout history. Today, where can these driving powers find their release? Where else is a young man or woman gripped by the claws of ambition going to express their power?
Today's laws put a lid on the primal driving force of the species, and the government enforces those laws with overwhelming violence. Like any people faced by a too-powerful foe, the children move into other lands -- or, speaking less metaphorically, into arenas where the the law cannot be effectively enforced, and work their passions there. The computer networks of the world are such an arena. Those who do not understand why these kids do the things they do call the kids "stupid", but the lack of comprehension is truly due to a lack of common ground between the observer and the observed; to those who have not lost touch with the primordial fire of creation, the act is perfectly understandable, even if the form of the act seems strange.
Also, by allowing MSNBC to scoop the other networks, MS can control the spin that goes onto an original story -- while diminishing the appeal of the story to other networks as "old news". In addition to helping MSNBC, it also can help MS itself. ;)
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Granted this has very little to do with hacking...
but I guess IIS isn't upto handling user homepages....
http://homepages.msn.com/asdf.html
Now is it runnin' on NT or Linux.... hmmm
-Ecc
Microsoft may actually be afraid of pissing off GE. Jack Welch didn't get the nickname "Neutron Jack" because he was a pushover. I've been waiting for the day MSFT tries to stab GE in the back just as they've stabbed every other company they've partnered with. But these things make me wonder. Maybe they will play nice at least as long as Jack is around because they know they cannot outwait GE, they cannot out-PR GE, they cannot buy GE silence and they cannot buy better lawyers. GE would have nothing to lose if there were a grudge match because MSFT doesn't have anything GE needs.
whatever..
I'm sure if MSNBC *wasn't* the first then they'd be accused of dragging their feet on MS-related news.
boring.
i hate to say it but you sound like flamebait :/
the debate over "hackers then" and "hackers now" and this whole cracking scene isnt going anywhere.
i have my ideas why that debate will go no where, but that will sound like flamebait too.
sites will get cracked. the media makes it sound a lot cooler than it is. and usually the cracker group or single person gets away with it.
and of course you have people pumping out a new exploit or scanning tool every week or so.
then there is the people with the "0-day" heh. the exploits that no one knows about. so they arent patched. thats sort of dangerous.
usually when you see a exploit on bugtraq it has been in the hands of tons of crackers for at least 2 weeks. a lot of the time the exploit is known about for a very long time before it is published. for example i know all the wu-ftpd exploits were availiable if you were friends with the right people long before i saw it surface on bugtraq for the first time.
well im going off now, sorry i posted anonymously i dont want to make anyone upset.
anon
and busted June 11 of this year. Info care of google search engine. seems to make you think perhaps flipz is female, still not postive though. ps i want to marry the linux girl
"There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics and religion, by convincing others we convince ourselves" -Junius
Damn, take a look at your own grade-school scribblings.
Kind of Ironic, don't you think?
MSNBC posting a Microsoft failure?
This seems like an unfair advantage in the press world if you ask me...
Maybe there's more going on behind our backs in all these mergers than we realize...
arcane for life
You'd think they would have fixed it already.
Maybe they are out for publicity...or they're just really slow.
hmm
Zilfondel
that is not really that tough...even at M$ :)
I am really getting sick and tired of the "doodspeak"(im sorry: D00dZp3aK!) names and wordings on all these defaced web pages. Gettin' real old.
Maybe (s)he ment President Bill Clinton?
I've heard stories of people going to jail for writing threats against the President in Library books. And when they return the books, they get reported and arrested.
Of course I believe it was ment for Mr. Gates, but Hey, you never know!
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
This is from attrition.org's defacement mirror. I only listed the top 3 exploited OS's to save space:
-----
Note: Mass hacks involve defacing several domains, even though they are hosted by the same machine. This tends to obscure the actual counts of hacked systems. Take these numbers in stride..
08/1999
Win-NT - 106 - 35.93%
Solaris - 77 - 26.10%
Linux - 68 - 23.05%
09/1999
Win-NT - 82 - 32.54%
Linux - 72 - 28.57%
Solaris - 62 - 24.60%
-----
Interesting stuff for those looking for a secure webserver OS I guess. *shrug*
Check out this altered page (used to be tuxedo.jpl.nasa.gov) - nice picture of Tux. Either it's a pun on the hostname (which would be much more creative than the 10 [cr|h]acks before it) or s/he's a Linux fan. Or both. :)
There must have been more than one service pack and the administrator got confused.