Did I just write "Prevention"? Cripes. Mod me down. It's "Technology Protection Mechanism". Meh. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to proofreading.
And I smell someone who is REALLY confused. Check my comment page. That says, "AKAImBatman's Latest 24 of 5957 Comments", not "24 comments".
And this guy (AKAImBatman) who's come out of nowhere
To quote tweety bird, "He don't know me wery well, do he?";-)
claiming to be confused and making bizarre convoluted claims which come down with the non-obvious conclusion that the article is correct in declaring that Fair Use is bad and will stifle innovation.
No, that would be your interpretation of what I said. Free yourself from the groupthink man! Fight the... err... anti-man... um... after you fought "The Man"... eh... and all that jazz. Or you could just think for yourself.:-)
Seriously, these things are always more complicated than Slashdot often makes them out to be. Creating a law that redefines Fair Use to an extreme *may* be as bad as the DMCA itself. It's important to understand what it's all about before getting behind it. Personally, I think that this at least shows that some of our representatives are thinking about their actual constituants. Unfortunately, I can't say if I support this bill until I've read it. (And yes, I've read the DMCA. And no, it's not entirely bad.):-)
Which is really just a new meta-term for DRM (Digital Rights Management). Don't you just love TLAs? Just be glad you're not in the USN (US Navy) or other GMB (Government Military Branch). They love their acronyms.
Wait. Based on the summary, I don't understand which way the GroupThink(TM) is supposed to go here. Is it good? Is it bad? Help me! I'm so confused!
Honestly, I think this is the first time I've seen a summary that doesn't try to put a spin on the article one way or another. (Not that such things are always the fault of the posters. So called "objective journalists" are just as bad, if not worse.) The summary, and the article, come across clearly that this is a double-edged sword. By taking the opposite extreme in an attempt to balance out the DMCA, this bill may cause extrodinary harm to the businesses who produce the content that consumers want to have fair use rights over. Causing harm to them would cause a reduction in quality and quantity of content production, just as the DMCA has caused a change in consumer purchasing habits.
The golden middle is to not muck with laws that work in the first place. Sadly, we're far beyond that. None the less, the DMCA has not had as chilling of an effect as was once expected. As the Lexmark vs. SCC case has shown, courts are beginning to find in favor of fair use, slowly erroding the power of the DMCA by way of precident.
Will this new bill help or hurt? I think that remains to be seen.
As an aside, I have to say that I'm getting pretty tired of the "defend the innovation!" cry. Microsoft used the same line of B.S. in their court cases, and it didn't sway public opinion then any more than shouting it from the rooftops will sway public opinion now. Let's see these companies who are using this line actually do something innovative for a change, then we'll think about accepting it. In the meantime, it's a tainted as the buzzword "Synergy".
I'm quite aware of China's free speech problems, which is why I'm certain that China would never be the good stuart required. If they were provably a good stuart (i.e. They had invented the internet and were currently running the root servers to a satisfactory end), then it would be pointless to remove control from them, despite their political problems.
As for the imports, I'm still not certain what to do about that. As I said in my article, understanding the abuses of their constitution is a rather new thing for me. My feeling on the issue, however, is that one needs to sort out the UN sanctions as well as the action the Chinese people are taking. Once those things are sorted out, then the correct course of action can be determined. It certainly wouldn't do if China had a revolution and then found itself unable to commence foreign trade due to all the factories being closed down.:-)
The problem is of course complicated by the fact that a large portion of US manufacturing happens in China, making it difficult to avoid Chinese products. So really, I'm not certain yet.
I don't think you understand. I mean that if China had the military to forcefully take control from the US, then there is NO place in the world that control would be safe. Especially not in the impotent hands of the UN.
It already works that way. What ICANN manages is the servers that tell how to get to the.fr domain. In addition, ICANN also manages the.com,.net, and.org domains.
I can't tell if you think the current situation is the *best* situation. So far you've just been reacting to the news article. That's not a criticism, but I'd like to hear what you think the America *should* do with regards to root server control.
A reasonable question, sir. My answer is, nothing should be done. I cannot say with certainty if ICANN is the "best" solution for DNS Root control, but I do know that it works today. And in the absense of a better solution, it is best to not fix something that isn't broken.
It seems to me (and this may be what we end up with) there should be a fully independant organization that isn't even *located* physically in any one country permanently, that would control the root servers scattered throughout the world, and would operate under a very strict charter.
Many other posters have addressed these issues, so I will only summarize:
1. Having control of the DNS Root servers is not a requirement. For a short period of time, nothing would happen to the internet if such servers were to disappear. On a larger scale, a foreign power could run their own root servers with no negative impact to the internet. All that is required is that the DNS servers used by users in the foreign country change from looking at the ICANN root to the new root. The foreign power can even choose to keep their root servers in sync with the US, or reject updates as they feel appropriate.
2. 19 of the 39 DNS root servers are not located in the US. Should a war break out, there is nothing stopping these countries from seizing control of the servers inside their borders.
With this in mind, why would we want to shake up vital infrastructure by giving control to the UN when the UN members have done nothing to secure themselves against any possible attacks on the infrastructure?
What this is about is not the concern for of economic disaster imposed by the US. It's about control. Control to force whatever domains the UN members want, control to reject things they want to censor, and control to subjugate users of the internet. Let me say that there is nothing more scary than having a country like China in the lineup of those who have control over the internet's most vital point. After reviewing their non-stop abuse of their own constitution, I have little to no question that they would use any power given to not only persecute their own people, but to extend their influence beyond their borders.
Net's integrity under current US/commercial control: just yesterday we read about a major breakdown in Tier 1 peering.
Talk to IANA, it's not ICANN's problem. ICANN only holds administrative control over IANA, it's not a direct subdivision.
The Net need more decentralization to protect against all kinds of downtime threats.
No problem. The EU and China can run their own root servers. No one is forcing them to accept ICANN's servers.
If we're really the proper stewards of thet Net, we'll set it up so that no country can control it to the exclusion of others. 20 years from now, when China's military and economy are at least a match for ours, we'll have to rely on that architecture to keep us safe. If we instead establish that force alone determines Internet control, we'll find that words and ideas like "democracy" just don't route across the People's Internet.
No offense, but if China ever becomes a serious threat to the world as a whole, no international entity is going to protect the Internet root servers. China *will* get control.
I believe you're referring to this event. It was an internal company matter concerning their by laws. It was handled internally, and has had no negative effect on the performance of the company.
If the situation were reversed and ICANN was a Chinese company, would you, an American, feel safe in the internet "being there" should a skirmish arise with the Chinese?
1. Yes I would feel comfortable if the ICANN resided in China the entire time, and no serious issues had arisen. This is very similar to how we Amercians are generally comfortable with relying on Chinese manufacturing and imports.
2. Has there been a "skirmish" between the EU and the US? How about other UN counties?
3. If I could trust China to hold to its commitment to ICANN even in time of war, then yes, I would trust them. (The US, BTW, has to my knowledge ever modified the root servers or any other part of the internet because of war.)
Also, I find it funny that you keep referring to the UN as a bureaucracy. Surely, in the USian utopian you live in such thing does not exist.
I'm not quite certain what you mean by this, but if you're referring to the US government as a "bureaucracy", then you are correct. It is one. That's why ICANN is a private company, not a government entity. It was felt that a private company would do a better job than the US government.
Merely saying this doesn't make it true. It currently serves international interests on abstractly and retains prerogative to ignore the input of various countries as it sees fit.
Please name how the ICANN has failed to perform its duties. I can name how it *has* performed its duties:
1. It has successfully kept the root servers highly available to all countries. 2. It has spent significant time with foreign interests looking to meet the needs of these people. 3. It has shown forethought in decisions, not jumping on new concepts that could be harmful in the long term. 4. Yet it has managed to approve a variety of top level domains (including the new.EU) and shown good judgement in handing over domain control such as the recent hand over of the.Iq domain.
Doing an excellent job to date is debatable and, regardless, offers no guarantee that it will continue to do so as political situations change.
Show me a guarantee that the UN will do as good or better job. If you cannot, then why place more trust in an entity that has no track record on management of these servers over an entity that DOES have a track record?
[Forcing private companies] is not really relevant. This is an international issue as the Internet is an international resources with countless billions invested by numerous nations all of which rely upon the system to function properly.
No, it is relevant. US laws protect against illegal seizure, and seizure without compensation. Show a REAL ARGUMENT as to why ICANN's holdings should be seized, THEN the US government can consider seizure and compensation.
You've mischaracterized even that basic argument entirely: the UN, or rather, the international community, wants to move control from ICANN to a truly international organization that can operate transparently and that is required to acknowledge and assimilate the input from those governments represented in the UN. Again, the alternative is just to trust ICANN to play fair.
Considering the lack of evidence that ICANN is not "playing fair", I fail to see how this argument is any stronger. I'll say it again, find a reasonable argument and I'll switch positions. Simply, "we don't trust an entity that has shown overall good judgement and has worked well for the past decade" is not a reasonable argument.
[UN has a far poorer track record] is true, but is not sufficient to override the objections to your prior points.
It is however, sufficient to point out the problem with simply turning over control to the UN. No one has yet shown what is wrong with ICANN control. No strong arguments exist. In absense of such arguments, the relative histories of the two entities must be compared. ICANN has done a satisfactory job at its task and has shown no signs that it has been doing any poorer in recent history. If anything, the ICANN has been slowly improving. You have agreed, OTOH, that the UN has had a poor track record in other joint ventures. Why change something that obviously works the way it is?
Where's the "we're the most trustworthy, the most reliable party to keep this essential system running"?
That's the argument that's been used until now. Apparently, the UN no longer feels that the argument holds water, so instead argues to "force" control away from the US, despite having no sound argument of their own. So now the arguments come down to, "Just try and make us."
And this isn't just national pride. I cannot fathom a world in which an international governing entity steps in with no plan whatsoever to control the most important private and commercial infrastructure in the world. The very idea of UN control scares the living daylights out of me. ICANN had enough difficulties getting going, and that was before the internet was crucial infrastructure. Now that ICANN is finally stable, the UN wants to plunge the internet infrastructure into another major change of ownership? WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO THEM?!
No sir, you have not poked a single hole. You have failed to detail what the holes are, so therefore your argument is no argument at all. All you have stated is, "you are wrong, you use UN/EU, then use only UN." (Without detailing why this is inappropriate, I might add.) I will repeat again, that the UN is acting as a complete body. While it may be the EU who is pushing this heavily (which isn't entirely true either, according to TFA), the entire UN is the one that stands to gain or lose from this exchange.
Now either make an argument, sir, or remove yourself from the discussion.
Take my criticism and learn, young grasshopper. Enroll in a logic class or something.
Considering that your own claim to fame is fictional "rag sheet" stories, sir, I'm not certain you're in a position to be claiming expertise in logic battles. Rather I submit, that you are merely disagreeing with me for your own personal amusement. i.e. You are "trolling", as according to the popular term. Again, please find a logical, non-fictional argument, or remove yourself from the discussion.
So the argument there is that because a private company controls the Internet the many foreign governments and populations that rely upon it should be content?
Incorrect. My argument is:
1. That the private company is already an international entity that serves international interests. 2. That said company has done an excellent job to date, and has shown no need for a government run entity. 3. That it is not the US policy to force private companies to give up ownership. 4. That the UN has no compelling argument for wanting control other than the fact that it wants it. 5. That the UN has a far poorer track record on joint ventures than ICANN has.
That is the argument, and I daresay that it's pretty ironclad. The moment someone can poke a reasonable hole in that logic, I will change my position. So far, no one has done more than insult me for my "american elitist position". Boo hoo. Find an argument that works, then we'll talk.
Your argument, sir, is none at all. You have censured me for having incomplete information, yet you have failed to complete it yourself.
As for the UN and EU split, that was a distinction made by the fine article, and one I only carried as far as the article did. Beyond that, we are speaking purely of the UN. The UN *has* made resolutions, then failed to act on them. The UN *has* censured the United States for acting on those resolutions. The perfect example of this has been the Iraq war, which was a UN resolution that the UN got upset about when the US took action. Do you deny these things? If so, please be more detailed.
It's easy to say, "ha ha, you're wrong", but it's much more difficult to carry on a reasonable ccnversation.
It was formed so that countries could act together in times of need.
Agreed. Now find me a "time of need" in this situation. All I see is a bunch of member countries who want control of the toys, and have no clear direction on why or how they need them.
I surely cannot see the US resigning from the UN and flexing their military might at other membercountries of the UN simply because they dispute who should control the internet.
If they're going to try to "force" the US, I can certainly see the US resigning. The UN has been nothing but a pain for the longest time, passing resolutions that no one but the US is supposed to carry out. Then when we do carry out UN resolutions, we're censured as being an "empire builders" or "warmongerers". Isn't it nice that so many countries can tell us what to do while they sit on their high horses?
The next natural step after resigning would be to setup defensive positions in case someone wants to take it farther than that. I'm hoping that the member countries would be smart enough to leave things alone and recognize that a US resignation would be their own fault.
And on another note, the US should not necessarily control the internet.
Again, the US doesn't "control" the internet. ICANN does. Check the first letter there: International
Its not even like the US invented it, either...
I hope that was sarcasm? Because you may be surprised at what you find in the history of the internet's invention.
I'm not one to regularly use strong profanities, but fuck 'em. Negotiations are one thing, and the EU/UN can feel free to negotiate until they're blue in the face. But if they want to force the issue, I'm thinking that we should "remind" our foreign allies that a country with our military might cannot and will not be forced. If need be, I highly recommend that the US resign from the UN and see how long it holds together without our monetary support.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The internet root servers are working fine. The UN has presented no compelling arguments as to why it should be turned over to an overly beaurocratic entity that has a poor track record for making joint ventures work. In absence of a compelling argument, the only thing that the UN should hear is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
Keep in mind that the root servers are currently under the control of a private organization. While the servers themselves may reside in the US, the organization that controls them is a true international entity. The US government does not exert direct control over ICANN, and will not agree to do so in order to satisfy a UN hissy fit.
I can only speak for myself, but I would be ashamed of my government's actions if I lived in one of the UN countries that is pushing this resolution. I think this quote from the article sums it up:
"The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."
I suspect what we really want are free movies and that the 'downloadable' mantra was just a nice excuse.
I disagree. While I'm sure that for many people, they just like collecting "free" stuff like baseball cards, for the majority of the population, they've always wanted the instant gratification of downloading. Especially since many music albums are impossible to find in the store, but are easy to find on the internet. (I'd never even heard of Etype before I found them on the internet, and I was never able to find an album of theirs IRL.)
I said it back when MP3s first appeared, the music industry needs to sell the music online or the piracy will get worse. What happened? Napster, of course.
Now I sit here as a customer of Movielink (a legal movie downloading service) and I'm frustrated by the lack of selection.
Not so much damage can get done by software that isn't allowed to access the harddrive, and can't access ports other than 80.
Generally, you want a web browser to be able to do these things. Thankfully, Java has more than just an Applet sandbox. It actually has a complete security framework that can allow you to only allow access to these features to secured areas in the code. For example, Java Webstart has APIs for presenting users with a Save/Open dialog, even though unsigned apps can't access the hard drive. This is done by treating the Webstart APIs are secured code areas, something that's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to do in other languages.
1) It won't run on my 500Mhz Dell without making the internet feel like I'm slogging through stiff pudding. (No, Firefox doesn't; I'm running a highly tweaked Linux
If you have Sun Java installed and properly configured, click here to launch ICEBrowser. You might be surprised at its speed.
3) Can you imagine a JVM interpreting javascript?? We're talking slow.
You might want to pass that on to the Mozilla guys. I think they're still under the impression that they wrote a fast engine to do JavaScript in Java.
Discover the beauty of gcc+(wxWindows|GTK+) and build accordingly.
Slashdot Mirror
Did I just write "Prevention"? Cripes. Mod me down. It's "Technology Protection Mechanism". Meh. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to proofreading.
And I smell someone who is REALLY confused. Check my comment page. That says, "AKAImBatman's Latest 24 of 5957 Comments", not "24 comments".
;-)
:-)
:-)
And this guy (AKAImBatman) who's come out of nowhere
To quote tweety bird, "He don't know me wery well, do he?"
claiming to be confused and making bizarre convoluted claims which come down with the non-obvious conclusion that the article is correct in declaring that Fair Use is bad and will stifle innovation.
No, that would be your interpretation of what I said. Free yourself from the groupthink man! Fight the... err... anti-man... um... after you fought "The Man"... eh... and all that jazz. Or you could just think for yourself.
Seriously, these things are always more complicated than Slashdot often makes them out to be. Creating a law that redefines Fair Use to an extreme *may* be as bad as the DMCA itself. It's important to understand what it's all about before getting behind it. Personally, I think that this at least shows that some of our representatives are thinking about their actual constituants. Unfortunately, I can't say if I support this bill until I've read it. (And yes, I've read the DMCA. And no, it's not entirely bad.)
TPM ~= Technology Prevention Mechanism
Which is really just a new meta-term for DRM (Digital Rights Management). Don't you just love TLAs? Just be glad you're not in the USN (US Navy) or other GMB (Government Military Branch). They love their acronyms.
Wait. Based on the summary, I don't understand which way the GroupThink(TM) is supposed to go here. Is it good? Is it bad? Help me! I'm so confused!
Honestly, I think this is the first time I've seen a summary that doesn't try to put a spin on the article one way or another. (Not that such things are always the fault of the posters. So called "objective journalists" are just as bad, if not worse.) The summary, and the article, come across clearly that this is a double-edged sword. By taking the opposite extreme in an attempt to balance out the DMCA, this bill may cause extrodinary harm to the businesses who produce the content that consumers want to have fair use rights over. Causing harm to them would cause a reduction in quality and quantity of content production, just as the DMCA has caused a change in consumer purchasing habits.
The golden middle is to not muck with laws that work in the first place. Sadly, we're far beyond that. None the less, the DMCA has not had as chilling of an effect as was once expected. As the Lexmark vs. SCC case has shown, courts are beginning to find in favor of fair use, slowly erroding the power of the DMCA by way of precident.
Will this new bill help or hurt? I think that remains to be seen.
As an aside, I have to say that I'm getting pretty tired of the "defend the innovation!" cry. Microsoft used the same line of B.S. in their court cases, and it didn't sway public opinion then any more than shouting it from the rooftops will sway public opinion now. Let's see these companies who are using this line actually do something innovative for a change, then we'll think about accepting it. In the meantime, it's a tainted as the buzzword "Synergy".
Something along the lines of a European 2Unlimited. The song that attracted me to them was called "Russian Lullaby". The lyrics can be found here.
Then there's nothing that needs to be changed.
Precisely my point from the beginning. There's absolutely no reason for the UN to press this nonsense.
I'm quite aware of China's free speech problems, which is why I'm certain that China would never be the good stuart required. If they were provably a good stuart (i.e. They had invented the internet and were currently running the root servers to a satisfactory end), then it would be pointless to remove control from them, despite their political problems.
:-)
As for the imports, I'm still not certain what to do about that. As I said in my article, understanding the abuses of their constitution is a rather new thing for me. My feeling on the issue, however, is that one needs to sort out the UN sanctions as well as the action the Chinese people are taking. Once those things are sorted out, then the correct course of action can be determined. It certainly wouldn't do if China had a revolution and then found itself unable to commence foreign trade due to all the factories being closed down.
The problem is of course complicated by the fact that a large portion of US manufacturing happens in China, making it difficult to avoid Chinese products. So really, I'm not certain yet.
I don't think you understand. I mean that if China had the military to forcefully take control from the US, then there is NO place in the world that control would be safe. Especially not in the impotent hands of the UN.
It already works that way. What ICANN manages is the servers that tell how to get to the .fr domain. In addition, ICANN also manages the .com, .net, and .org domains.
Read my sig.
I can't tell if you think the current situation is the *best* situation. So far you've just been reacting to the news article. That's not a criticism, but I'd like to hear what you think the America *should* do with regards to root server control.
A reasonable question, sir. My answer is, nothing should be done. I cannot say with certainty if ICANN is the "best" solution for DNS Root control, but I do know that it works today. And in the absense of a better solution, it is best to not fix something that isn't broken.
It seems to me (and this may be what we end up with) there should be a fully independant organization that isn't even *located* physically in any one country permanently, that would control the root servers scattered throughout the world, and would operate under a very strict charter.
Many other posters have addressed these issues, so I will only summarize:
1. Having control of the DNS Root servers is not a requirement. For a short period of time, nothing would happen to the internet if such servers were to disappear. On a larger scale, a foreign power could run their own root servers with no negative impact to the internet. All that is required is that the DNS servers used by users in the foreign country change from looking at the ICANN root to the new root. The foreign power can even choose to keep their root servers in sync with the US, or reject updates as they feel appropriate.
2. 19 of the 39 DNS root servers are not located in the US. Should a war break out, there is nothing stopping these countries from seizing control of the servers inside their borders.
With this in mind, why would we want to shake up vital infrastructure by giving control to the UN when the UN members have done nothing to secure themselves against any possible attacks on the infrastructure?
What this is about is not the concern for of economic disaster imposed by the US. It's about control. Control to force whatever domains the UN members want, control to reject things they want to censor, and control to subjugate users of the internet. Let me say that there is nothing more scary than having a country like China in the lineup of those who have control over the internet's most vital point. After reviewing their non-stop abuse of their own constitution, I have little to no question that they would use any power given to not only persecute their own people, but to extend their influence beyond their borders.
Net's integrity under current US/commercial control: just yesterday we read about a major breakdown in Tier 1 peering.
Talk to IANA, it's not ICANN's problem. ICANN only holds administrative control over IANA, it's not a direct subdivision.
The Net need more decentralization to protect against all kinds of downtime threats.
No problem. The EU and China can run their own root servers. No one is forcing them to accept ICANN's servers.
If we're really the proper stewards of thet Net, we'll set it up so that no country can control it to the exclusion of others. 20 years from now, when China's military and economy are at least a match for ours, we'll have to rely on that architecture to keep us safe. If we instead establish that force alone determines Internet control, we'll find that words and ideas like "democracy" just don't route across the People's Internet.
No offense, but if China ever becomes a serious threat to the world as a whole, no international entity is going to protect the Internet root servers. China *will* get control.
Illegal according to who?
Unconstitional according to who?
I believe you're referring to this event. It was an internal company matter concerning their by laws. It was handled internally, and has had no negative effect on the performance of the company.
If the situation were reversed and ICANN was a Chinese company, would you, an American, feel safe in the internet "being there" should a skirmish arise with the Chinese?
1. Yes I would feel comfortable if the ICANN resided in China the entire time, and no serious issues had arisen. This is very similar to how we Amercians are generally comfortable with relying on Chinese manufacturing and imports.
2. Has there been a "skirmish" between the EU and the US? How about other UN counties?
3. If I could trust China to hold to its commitment to ICANN even in time of war, then yes, I would trust them. (The US, BTW, has to my knowledge ever modified the root servers or any other part of the internet because of war.)
Also, I find it funny that you keep referring to the UN as a bureaucracy. Surely, in the USian utopian you live in such thing does not exist.
I'm not quite certain what you mean by this, but if you're referring to the US government as a "bureaucracy", then you are correct. It is one. That's why ICANN is a private company, not a government entity. It was felt that a private company would do a better job than the US government.
Merely saying this doesn't make it true. It currently serves international interests on abstractly and retains prerogative to ignore the input of various countries as it sees fit.
.EU) and shown good judgement in handing over domain control such as the recent hand over of the .Iq domain.
Please name how the ICANN has failed to perform its duties. I can name how it *has* performed its duties:
1. It has successfully kept the root servers highly available to all countries.
2. It has spent significant time with foreign interests looking to meet the needs of these people.
3. It has shown forethought in decisions, not jumping on new concepts that could be harmful in the long term.
4. Yet it has managed to approve a variety of top level domains (including the new
Doing an excellent job to date is debatable and, regardless, offers no guarantee that it will continue to do so as political situations change.
Show me a guarantee that the UN will do as good or better job. If you cannot, then why place more trust in an entity that has no track record on management of these servers over an entity that DOES have a track record?
[Forcing private companies] is not really relevant. This is an international issue as the Internet is an international resources with countless billions invested by numerous nations all of which rely upon the system to function properly.
No, it is relevant. US laws protect against illegal seizure, and seizure without compensation. Show a REAL ARGUMENT as to why ICANN's holdings should be seized, THEN the US government can consider seizure and compensation.
You've mischaracterized even that basic argument entirely: the UN, or rather, the international community, wants to move control from ICANN to a truly international organization that can operate transparently and that is required to acknowledge and assimilate the input from those governments represented in the UN. Again, the alternative is just to trust ICANN to play fair.
Considering the lack of evidence that ICANN is not "playing fair", I fail to see how this argument is any stronger. I'll say it again, find a reasonable argument and I'll switch positions. Simply, "we don't trust an entity that has shown overall good judgement and has worked well for the past decade" is not a reasonable argument.
[UN has a far poorer track record] is true, but is not sufficient to override the objections to your prior points.
It is however, sufficient to point out the problem with simply turning over control to the UN. No one has yet shown what is wrong with ICANN control. No strong arguments exist. In absense of such arguments, the relative histories of the two entities must be compared. ICANN has done a satisfactory job at its task and has shown no signs that it has been doing any poorer in recent history. If anything, the ICANN has been slowly improving. You have agreed, OTOH, that the UN has had a poor track record in other joint ventures. Why change something that obviously works the way it is?
Where's the "we're the most trustworthy, the most reliable party to keep this essential system running"?
That's the argument that's been used until now. Apparently, the UN no longer feels that the argument holds water, so instead argues to "force" control away from the US, despite having no sound argument of their own. So now the arguments come down to, "Just try and make us."
And this isn't just national pride. I cannot fathom a world in which an international governing entity steps in with no plan whatsoever to control the most important private and commercial infrastructure in the world. The very idea of UN control scares the living daylights out of me. ICANN had enough difficulties getting going, and that was before the internet was crucial infrastructure. Now that ICANN is finally stable, the UN wants to plunge the internet infrastructure into another major change of ownership? WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO THEM?!
No sir, you have not poked a single hole. You have failed to detail what the holes are, so therefore your argument is no argument at all. All you have stated is, "you are wrong, you use UN/EU, then use only UN." (Without detailing why this is inappropriate, I might add.) I will repeat again, that the UN is acting as a complete body. While it may be the EU who is pushing this heavily (which isn't entirely true either, according to TFA), the entire UN is the one that stands to gain or lose from this exchange.
Now either make an argument, sir, or remove yourself from the discussion.
Take my criticism and learn, young grasshopper. Enroll in a logic class or something.
Considering that your own claim to fame is fictional "rag sheet" stories, sir, I'm not certain you're in a position to be claiming expertise in logic battles. Rather I submit, that you are merely disagreeing with me for your own personal amusement. i.e. You are "trolling", as according to the popular term. Again, please find a logical, non-fictional argument, or remove yourself from the discussion.
So the argument there is that because a private company controls the Internet the many foreign governments and populations that rely upon it should be content?
Incorrect. My argument is:
1. That the private company is already an international entity that serves international interests.
2. That said company has done an excellent job to date, and has shown no need for a government run entity.
3. That it is not the US policy to force private companies to give up ownership.
4. That the UN has no compelling argument for wanting control other than the fact that it wants it.
5. That the UN has a far poorer track record on joint ventures than ICANN has.
That is the argument, and I daresay that it's pretty ironclad. The moment someone can poke a reasonable hole in that logic, I will change my position. So far, no one has done more than insult me for my "american elitist position". Boo hoo. Find an argument that works, then we'll talk.
Your argument, sir, is none at all. You have censured me for having incomplete information, yet you have failed to complete it yourself.
As for the UN and EU split, that was a distinction made by the fine article, and one I only carried as far as the article did. Beyond that, we are speaking purely of the UN. The UN *has* made resolutions, then failed to act on them. The UN *has* censured the United States for acting on those resolutions. The perfect example of this has been the Iraq war, which was a UN resolution that the UN got upset about when the US took action. Do you deny these things? If so, please be more detailed.
It's easy to say, "ha ha, you're wrong", but it's much more difficult to carry on a reasonable ccnversation.
It was formed so that countries could act together in times of need.
Agreed. Now find me a "time of need" in this situation. All I see is a bunch of member countries who want control of the toys, and have no clear direction on why or how they need them.
I surely cannot see the US resigning from the UN and flexing their military might at other membercountries of the UN simply because they dispute who should control the internet.
If they're going to try to "force" the US, I can certainly see the US resigning. The UN has been nothing but a pain for the longest time, passing resolutions that no one but the US is supposed to carry out. Then when we do carry out UN resolutions, we're censured as being an "empire builders" or "warmongerers". Isn't it nice that so many countries can tell us what to do while they sit on their high horses?
The next natural step after resigning would be to setup defensive positions in case someone wants to take it farther than that. I'm hoping that the member countries would be smart enough to leave things alone and recognize that a US resignation would be their own fault.
And on another note, the US should not necessarily control the internet.
Again, the US doesn't "control" the internet. ICANN does. Check the first letter there: International
Its not even like the US invented it, either...
I hope that was sarcasm? Because you may be surprised at what you find in the history of the internet's invention.
I'm not one to regularly use strong profanities, but fuck 'em. Negotiations are one thing, and the EU/UN can feel free to negotiate until they're blue in the face. But if they want to force the issue, I'm thinking that we should "remind" our foreign allies that a country with our military might cannot and will not be forced. If need be, I highly recommend that the US resign from the UN and see how long it holds together without our monetary support.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The internet root servers are working fine. The UN has presented no compelling arguments as to why it should be turned over to an overly beaurocratic entity that has a poor track record for making joint ventures work. In absence of a compelling argument, the only thing that the UN should hear is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
Keep in mind that the root servers are currently under the control of a private organization. While the servers themselves may reside in the US, the organization that controls them is a true international entity. The US government does not exert direct control over ICANN, and will not agree to do so in order to satisfy a UN hissy fit.
I can only speak for myself, but I would be ashamed of my government's actions if I lived in one of the UN countries that is pushing this resolution. I think this quote from the article sums it up:
"The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."
Amen.
I suspect what we really want are free movies and that the 'downloadable' mantra was just a nice excuse.
I disagree. While I'm sure that for many people, they just like collecting "free" stuff like baseball cards, for the majority of the population, they've always wanted the instant gratification of downloading. Especially since many music albums are impossible to find in the store, but are easy to find on the internet. (I'd never even heard of Etype before I found them on the internet, and I was never able to find an album of theirs IRL.)
I said it back when MP3s first appeared, the music industry needs to sell the music online or the piracy will get worse. What happened? Napster, of course.
Now I sit here as a customer of Movielink (a legal movie downloading service) and I'm frustrated by the lack of selection.
Not so much damage can get done by software that isn't allowed to access the harddrive, and can't access ports other than 80.
Generally, you want a web browser to be able to do these things. Thankfully, Java has more than just an Applet sandbox. It actually has a complete security framework that can allow you to only allow access to these features to secured areas in the code. For example, Java Webstart has APIs for presenting users with a Save/Open dialog, even though unsigned apps can't access the hard drive. This is done by treating the Webstart APIs are secured code areas, something that's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to do in other languages.
Incredibly sarcastic. I thought it was obvious? I'll try to use more tags in the future.
1) It won't run on my 500Mhz Dell without making the internet feel like I'm slogging through stiff pudding. (No, Firefox doesn't; I'm running a highly tweaked Linux
If you have Sun Java installed and properly configured, click here to launch ICEBrowser. You might be surprised at its speed.
3) Can you imagine a JVM interpreting javascript?? We're talking slow.
You might want to pass that on to the Mozilla guys. I think they're still under the impression that they wrote a fast engine to do JavaScript in Java.
Discover the beauty of gcc+(wxWindows|GTK+) and build accordingly.
Oh, My Eyes! MY EYES! (I kid, I kid!)