The issue is not really whether the rest of the world outside of the US can take control of their own nameservers or split off into their own subnets. They can, and there is nothing the US can do about it. What's at stake here is whether the US should cede control of its nameservers to some international body, thereby giving them control of that portion of the internet which exists within the US. As many of the posters here have stated, it is certainly understandable that when a country depends upon the internet to keep a substantial part of its economy or government functioning the idea that a foreign government controls it makes them nervous. You don't trust the US? Okay. So why do you find it so hard to understand that the US doesn't trust China, France, the UN, or anyone else to control OUR access to OUR own portion of the internet?
But of course if various parts of the world wished to spin off their own subnets they would be disconnecting themselves from the world's largest economy, and they really don't want this. And there are a lot of other countries that really would rather be connected to the US version as opposed to the greater UN network or whatever it would be called. If you want to split off--don't talk, just do it.
Slashdot Mirror
The issue is not really whether the rest of the world outside of the US can take control of their own nameservers or split off into their own subnets. They can, and there is nothing the US can do about it. What's at stake here is whether the US should cede control of its nameservers to some international body, thereby giving them control of that portion of the internet which exists within the US. As many of the posters here have stated, it is certainly understandable that when a country depends upon the internet to keep a substantial part of its economy or government functioning the idea that a foreign government controls it makes them nervous. You don't trust the US? Okay. So why do you find it so hard to understand that the US doesn't trust China, France, the UN, or anyone else to control OUR access to OUR own portion of the internet?
But of course if various parts of the world wished to spin off their own subnets they would be disconnecting themselves from the world's largest economy, and they really don't want this. And there are a lot of other countries that really would rather be connected to the US version as opposed to the greater UN network or whatever it would be called. If you want to split off--don't talk, just do it.