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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."
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.
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$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The rest of the world routes around the blockage and carries on much as before, marginalising the US.
Just like they did with the League of Nations eh?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, the US did "pony up money." You don't think the Europeans payed for ARPANET development, do you?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Comparing three representatives for Europe against one for the US isn't fair - Europe consists of more than 40 nations and most of them don't have any representative at all. Europe is a continent - not a country!
The point is that the board should be representative of the Internet users. Since the United States has more internet users than Europe, the United States should have at least an equal number of representatives as Europe. A smaller number of people having three times as much representation is certainly not a good way to run a representative body.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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
Think fast: in nine or ten years, more chinese will be online than us citizens are alive.
I think that the makeup of ICANN needs to be strongly international despite the current demographics of internet use.
Having said that, China's problems with literacy rates and lack of infrastructure are not going to be solved in 9-10 years. The percentage of Chinese that finish 1st grade is lower than the percentage of US citizens that get advanced degrees. Less than 5% of the Chinese polulation has ever made a telephone call. The rate of electrification is low. Even lower is the rate of PC ownership. We are talking about a society where the purchase of a personal computer represents two years income for a large fraction of the population. It is going to take China a lot longer than 9-10 years to wire and educate their masses to the point where they surpass the US in internet usage.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
-
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!
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...
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
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?
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..."
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....
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
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.
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.
I mean, Slashdot was cracked before. So that hardly proves anything.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
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
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.
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.
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!
Amusing how those question marks pop up in the most interesting places ;-)
--
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader
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
Yes, but does anyone know what that flaw is? Probably not, eh? Ah, the power of Closed Source.
PC Week is wrong. Closed Source doesn't hide holes from the bad, but from the good. Now there is a hacker who isn't going to tell what the hole is, because they don't have to. And yet NT is secure right?
Open Source is the only security. It's that simple.
-Brent--
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. :)