US Keeps Control of the Internet 1057
Adam Schumacher writes "As a result of a a deal reached late Tuesday, the US and ICANN will maintain control over the Internet's core systems. A new body will be created to provide international oversight, which will, of course, have no binding authority."
THBBBPPPPPP!!!! </raspberry> (Score:4, Funny)
HA HA!!</nelson>
burn, baby, burn... karma inferno!
Re:THBBBPPPPPP!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:THBBBPPPPPP!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:THBBBPPPPPP!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Or more precisely, the Internet isn't going to break like the UN threatened to do. Of course, such a move would have carried little (if any) weight. US netizens would continue about thier business, mostly oblivious to the loss of the rest of the world (except for email, that would be a pain) while the rest of the world screams bloody murder at their stupid governments because they can't reach many of the sites they use daily. (Slashot being an example of this.)
That's assuming, of course, that the member countries actually had any way of shutting things down. They have control over their domains, but the machines are still handled by ICANN. Attempting to sieze those machines would have meant police or military escalation. And even then, they still couldn't break much. They would then need every DNS server to redirect to a new root server controlled by the UN. (Since it's doubtful that the UN could gain access to the primary root servers.) They could redirect the IP address, but then things would get even dicer for them, and increase the yelling and screaming from the populace.
In the end the UN did the right thing. They stopped throwing a hissy fit and let sleeping dogs lie in exchange for a token method of voicing their opinions on DNS allocation. Did it buy them much in actual authority? No. However, they now have a central method for disseminating any complaints to the public. (i.e. Rueters: "UNCANN, released a press release today [criticizing/congratulating] the latest moves by ICANN.")
Re:THBBBPPPPPP!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
while the rest of the world screams bloody murder at their stupid governments because they can't reach many of the sites they use daily. (Slashot being an example of this.)
You wrongly assume that the "rest of the world" eagerly read things on USA web sites.
First, as you undoubtly know, english is not spoken by everyone. Actually, Chinese and Hindi would be a better target language.
Second, there is many similar sites in many countries, which you probably do not know because you'd preferrably read american web sites first.
Third, what "sites" are used "daily" by, say the average people outside of USA? EBay, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, definitly not slashdot. All those big players have portals in other countries. So aside from technical documentation, research papers, american web sites are not so important to the "rest of the world". And you can bet the aformentionned sites or people would make sure the InternetS would both be reachable from where they are. That's how the internet started: exchanging research papers, results and such.
So, no, our american overlords are not so omnipotent that the rest of the world cannot live without them.
Chinese or Hindi (Score:4, Insightful)
Some actual facts (Score:5, Interesting)
The goverment, IBM and ICANN were exerting pressure on them to sign an agreement with ICANN which placed them under ICANN's aegis. Up to this point they had nothing to do with them.
It was feared NSI would "go rouge" and I guess it's ok to say now that there were root servers at NSI that did not carry just the legacy root. Only a handfull of people knew about these but they were a beautiful thing to run dig or dnsq against.
If there was no accord reached with ICANN and NSI was effectivly out of the business it built then one scanario was they'd just keep going and ignore the USG and ICANN and expand the root zone. They owned the IP's the root servers ran on in more than enough cases.
I asked what would happen if they did this before a fallout with ICANN occurred and was told the a.root would be declared a national security resource and the Army would simply come in and run it so don't even think that. Since this CTO used to be in Army intel. I figured he had a good understanding of this. IBM coerced NSI to sign with ICANN (at the famous secret meeting nobody can talk about because of an IBM NDA) and this stuff was all dropped very quickly.
But the lesson is there: the DNS is whatever the US wants it to be, period.
If you rely on somebody else to tell you where the
Primary the root instead http://cr.yp.to/dnsroot.html [cr.yp.to]
Re:THBBBPPPPPP!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
AKL1 Auckland, New Zealand IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
AMS1 Amsterdam, The Netherlands IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
BCN1 Barcelona, Spain IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
BNE1 Brisbane, Australia IPv4 Local Node
CDG1 Paris, France IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
CGK1 Jakarta, Indonesia IPv4 Local Node
DXB1 Dubai, UAE IPv4 Local Node
GRU1 São Paulo, Brazil IPv4 Local Node
HKG1 Hong Kong, China IPv4 Local Node
JNB1 Johannesburg, South Africa IPv4 Local Node
KIX1 Osaka, Japan IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LAX1 Los Angeles, CA, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LCY1 London, UK IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LIS1 Lisbon, Portugal IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
LGA1 New York, NY, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
MAA1 Chennai, India IPv4 Local Node
MAD1 Madrid, Spain IPv4 Local Node
MTY1 Monterrey, Mexico IPv4 Local Node
MUC1 Munich, Germany IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
NBO1 Nairobi, Kenya IPv4 Local Node
PAO1 Palo Alto, CA, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Global Node
PEK1 Beijing, China IPv4 Local Node
PRG1 Prague, Czech Republic IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
ROM1 Rome, Italy IPv4 Local Node
SEL1 Seoul, Korea IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
SFO2 San Francisco, CA, USA IPv4 and IPv6 Global Node
SIN1 Singapore IPv4 Local Node
SJC1 San Jose, CA, USA IPv4 Local Node
SVO1 Moscow, Russia IPv4 Local Node
TLV1 Tel Aviv, Israel IPv4 Local Node
TPE1 Taipei, Taiwan IPv4 Local Node
YOW1 Ottawa, ON, Canada IPv4 and IPv6 Local Node
YYZ1 Toronto, ON, Canada IPv4 Local Node
The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:5, Funny)
USA: No.
World: Come on!
USA: No.
World: Will you at least think about it?
USA: No.
World: If you don't we will be forced to make our own DNS systems.
USA: OK.
World: But that will break the internet.
USA: OK
World: But that would be bad.
USA: Then leave it alone.
World: OK. But we're making a committee.
USA: That's cute.
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Funny)
(Cutaway to detective in a bar with Sideshow Bob)
Detective: Come on, leave town.
Sideshow Bob: No.
Detective: I'll be your friend.
Bob: No.
Detective: Aw, you're mean!
And for those Sideshow Bob fans, I managed to get this shot at just the right frame..
CLICK ME!!111one1 [imageshack.us]
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Insightful)
Per Merriam-Webster [m-w.com] . . . To bind means to constipate...
If the UN took control (Score:5, Funny)
Hacker: "Ok."
UN: "You have broken in again, please cease and desist or we will be forced to write a resolution."
Hacker: "Ok"
UN: "This is the third time you have broken in; please see the updated resolution stating our resolve to enforce the previous resolution. We are going to send you a nasty letter, you know."
Hacker: "Why don't you secure the server?"
UN: "Resolution UN1231-123-122.1 to upgrade security has passed. We are ok."
Hacker: "No you're not, the server is still open."
UN: "But we have a resolution."
Hacker: "um...."
UN: "Don't push us or we'll send in the men in blue."
Hacker: "The Smurfs?"
UN: "Mind you, our security force is top-notch, they have cans of mace and can insult your mother."
Hacker: "right..."
Hacker: "Do you want some Pay-Pal dollars?"
Re:If the UN took control (Score:3, Insightful)
UN: Sorry, the rest of the world doesn't agree.
USA: You must do as we say.
UN: But really, the rest of the world doesn't agree.
USA: You are running out of time. You must do what we say, and do it now.
UN: You are irritating the rest of the world. They want something else. You should respect that.
USA: The fact that you don't take your responsibility to do as we say, proves you irrelevant because of your disrespect for freedom and democracy.
UN: Still, the vast majority is ag
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:5, Informative)
Of all the EU institutions you picked the only ELECTED one to call it unelected. It's the COMISSION that is unelected.
Not that it makes it much better but you still gotta be accurate.
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Informative)
Do the US vote who gets to be Secretary of State? Defence? DHS ? Didn't think so.
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the US vote who gets to be Secretary of State? Defence? DHS ? Didn't think so.
SecDef has absolutely no power over American citizens or American Armed Forces. He doesn't even have the authority to tell a private in the Army to drive him somewhere. He certainly can't launch nuclear weapons. What he can do is relay the President's orders to the Armed Forces, act as the second voice of approval in a nuclear launch (two-man system), and advise the President on matters relating to defense.
In the American system of Government that's what the cabinet does. It advises the President. The only cabinet member that you could make a case for needing to be an elected official would be the Attorney General. And there would be disadvantages of having him elected as well -- he could be open to political pressure -- which is the reason why we don't elect Federal judges and they have lifetime appointments. Of course having him appointed by the President is a conflict as well (if he needs to investigate the Executive Branch) -- but that's what Special Prosecutors and Grand Juries are for.
Nobody said it was a perfect system but it seems to have worked well enough for the last 200 years :)
SecDef does have power over the military (Score:4, Informative)
Re:SecDef does have power over the military (Score:5, Informative)
You're absolutely wrong. The first thing we learned in Army basic training was our chain of command. Guess who was right up there in it? A certain guy named "Rumsfeld"... wonder who he could be!
Yes, he is in the chain of command. He can relay orders from POTUS to the armed forces. But he can not legally issue those orders himself. I recall reading on 9/11 that both Rumsfeld and Cheney tried to give the military the authority to shoot down suspected hijacked flights before Bush was able to do so. Neither one of them had the authority to issue this order and the military was under no obligation to follow it. Of course one would hope that in a scenario like 9/11 that the Generals would take some initiative and issue such an order themselves -- but it doesn't change the fact that neither SecDec nor VPOTUS could legally issue such an order.
Sorry, the gp poster is correct... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a commander in the Naval Reserve, and hence, a lot lower on the totem pole than any of the bigwigs mentioned here. And yet, when I was assigned to a ship (not so many years ago), I had weapons release authority - meaning I could shoot at any targets I felt were a threat to the ship. Didn't even have to ask the captain.
The idea that no one but the President can order the military to do anything is ridiculous. He'd never sleep. The SecDef is part of the National Command Authority, and can (and does) direct the military to do things all the time.
Sean
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:5, Funny)
I bet the last Emperor of Rome said the same thing.
The EU parliament is directly elected... (Score:3, Informative)
Get our of your hole (Score:5, Informative)
If you really think that Europe is for some reason "less free" than the US, than I would suggest you take a look at the http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15333 [worldpress.org]"> Worldwide Press Freedom Index, which lists it in a solid 44th place on the index of freedom of the press, which is mainly what you are talking about when you discuss speech on the Internet, since it is a form of press.
The US has really dipped a lot in this lately (20 places in the past year).
Re:Get our of your hole (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Get our of your hole (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the US didn't really suffer all that much because of the nazis. Yes, they lost quite a few soldiers; but Europe was reduced to smoking ruins and half of it was occupied by Soviet empire. Germany still hasn't recovered completely; the eastern half still suffers the results of the communistic dictatorship era, a direct result of nazism.
But put on a T-shirt saying "Osama rules !", go stand next to where the World Trade Center used to be, and start giving Al-Qaida recruitment leaflets to everyone passing by. Let's see how long you'll walk free.
Once you've been arrested for being a potential terrorist, you can reflect on how Al-Qaida is to Americans pretty much what Nazi Party is to Europe, with about 10 000 -fold difference in deaths caused by them - in material destruction the difference is simply uncomparable; Al-Qaida destroyed two scyscrapers, World War II reduced most major cities of Europe to rubble.
The point here is that Americans, at least in this respect, are no more or less free than Europeans; the USA simply has a different boogeyman.
Actually, didn't you revolve so that you wouldn't need to pay taxes to England ? And now you pay them to Washington instead. The more things change ;)...
A nonexistent state can not curtail anyones freedoms, so this is hardly surprising.
Re:Get our of your hole (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you've been arrested for being a potential terrorist
Actually, merely wearing a t-shirt that says "Osama Rules" would not get you arrested for being a terrorist. It certainly wouldn't get you convicted for anything. And before you throw out the name Jose Padilla or anybody like that, I'd like to point out that there's a huge difference between wearing a t-shirt (arguably free speech) and planning a dirty bomb attack. Not that I wouldn't agree with you that he is being unfairly held without trial.
Wearing such a t-shirt at ground zero would likely paint a giant bull's-eye on your back and get the shit beaten out of you. In fact wearing such a t-shirt anywhere in New York City would probably ensure that you got an ass-whooping. But that's just fine -- free speech doesn't mean you get to escape the consequences of your speech. It only means that you get to say it in the first place. And I rather suspect if I wore a Nazi armband to certain places in Europe that I would get the shit beaten out of me too :)
Passing out the recruitment leaflets could be another matter. That would probably be considered supporting a terrorist organization. But you were passing out leaflets telling Al Qaida's side of the story (infidels in the Holy Land, Israel, etc, etc) you wouldn't be breaking any laws. Think I can pass out leaflets in some European countries telling Hitler's side of the story?
The point here is that Americans, at least in this respect, are no more or less free than Europeans; the USA simply has a different boogeyman.
I disagree. I think I've made my point in the paragraphs above :)
Actually, didn't you revolve so that you wouldn't need to pay taxes to England ? And now you pay them to Washington instead. The more things change ;)...
Actually it wasn't the fact that we were being taxed by the UK. It was the fact that we were being taxed by them and no representation in Parliment. Leading to the rallying cry of "No Taxation without Representation".
Re:Get our of your hole (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Get our of your hole (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Get our of your hole (Score:3, Insightful)
You didn't check very well, did you?
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Interesting)
It comes down to one thing:
Where would you like the corruption to be?
It is that simple. Someone wants to make some money somewhere. If you hand it over to the UN, then we'll have an "oil for bandwidth" scandal. If you keep it here, then... well... then all of the historic political battles will continue and those who are lining their pockets will continue to line their pockets.
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:4, Insightful)
Make no mistake, there were huge issues at stake here. Claiming that who has authority in the system is irrelevant is a case of cynical naivete. Cynical, because you're assuming that any system will be equally corrupt. Naive, because you underestimate how bad it can really get.
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore the parliament cannot propose laws, so it's really not in the position to "lord over mundane aspects of life". Maybe you're thinking of the Council of Ministers or (most probably) the Commission? The commissioners are appointed by the member states, so maybe that's what you were referrring to. Even then:
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Insightful)
HAHAHAHAHA!
I like how Germany passed the EU constitution so overw
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Interesting)
You do know that is what this is all about, right. A distributed database that is is *impossible* for anybody to "control". Not even all the root servers are in the US. And those that are are ran by volunteers, most of whom likely disllke Bush and his policies as much as you and I do. They only really listen to ICANN as a courtesy. ICANN certainly has no right to tell them what to do. And you are free to point at other root servers [unrated.net]. I
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Funny)
You clearly have studied the longstanding recipe for slashdot success:
1. Crazily and illogically connect anything to Iraq.
2. ?????
3. +5 Insightful
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:5, Interesting)
The verisign thing? ICANN did *nothing* - verisign backed down due to public pressure. ICANN's punishment for them? To reward them with the
You have the
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Interesting)
As for defending ICANN, I think most people are willing to live with the devil they know than the devil they don't. ICANN's level of ineptitude is a known quantity, whereas the introduction of a different group from a wider range of countries and political agendas may introduce all kinds of new horrors
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Interesting)
You have the .xxx backwards - it was actually a good idea
The only way .xxx is a good idea is if you require all pornography sites to move there. Otherwise it's alleged purpose (making it easy to filter porn) becomes moot. Without that as a reason to deploy it then it becomes a red light district that exists for no other reason then to make it easier to find porn. The US Government would have be overwhelmingly behind it if you could have sold it to them as a way to make filters easier and more effectiv
Re:The Minutes Of The Meeting (Score:3, Insightful)
If countries decided to have their own root and didn't actually change the heirarchy at all - merely added to it (a new.net scenario) nothing would break *at all*.
Re:I'll tell you why... (Score:3, Insightful)
Still good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still good (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither are we. If that were the way the world worked we'd be begging the middle east every time we wanted to make a calculator.
and who better than the US... (Score:3, Insightful)
What other nation of the world could guarantee the free speech implicit to the internet, as sites like slashdot are testament to?
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't even discuss Nazi history there.
Can't trade Nazi memorabilia.
Suggestion of Great Britian, possibly. They tend to have their heads screwed on straight. Canada, our 51st state? What would be the difference?
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:4, Informative)
Now in the US, how many torrent trackers were forced to shutdown? Free speech my ass.
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:3, Funny)
*ahem*, we prefer to think of ourselves as your Altered State. re: See our lax recreational drug laws.
Thanking you in advance for making all future references to Canada as the U.S.of A. Altered State.
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, hoser! We're shutting down your website, eh? Unless you, like, give us some beer and back bacon, eh?
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:3, Funny)
Why would we want any American wate^H^H^H^Hbeer?
-b
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do American Slashdotters always bring up China? You know there are other countries than the USA and China, don't you? You do realise that it's the UN that manages the international phone system, don't you? Does China censor your phone calls?
Um, how about a country that doesn't have the DMCA? How about a country that didn't force the 2600 website to stop linking to some code because Hollywood didn't like people watching DVDs on their own terms? How about a country that didn't pass a law letting the Church of Scientology pressure Google into removing links from their index? [slashdot.org] And, since you brought up the subject of Slashdot, did you know that Slashdot was censored by the Church of Scientology with a USA law? [slashdot.org]
In France and Germany they ban hate speech. In the USA they ban speech that might offend people with lots of money. Stop pretending you are any better than the rest of the world.
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, so far so good.
``What other nation of the world could guarantee the free speech implicit to the internet, as sites like slashdot are testament to?''
What? The country that has free speech zones [amconmag.com], has the media only telling half of the news (the other half censored by themselves - or maybe there is some entity imposing censorship on them after all?) or even blatant lies (I'm thinking of Fox here); the country where one of the political parties blocked Internet access to
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me but I believe Canada has far more freedom than the US has. Gay marriage, marijuana acceptance, your soldiers fleeing here, DMC and RIAA free, only recently did we get gun registration, no Intelligent Design forced in schools, available cheap prescription drugs and free medical care, a very diverse multi-cultural society...I'm sure there are lot's more examples!
Sure we have our faults but I think overall we have the most freedom of any nation. Part of that is Geography, look
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:3, Insightful)
That being THE WHOLE DANG POINT (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice troll, and good results so far in the modding anyway... The idea is that no one country should have "control over the internet" in ways that don't include oversight by others. "Transparency" is the usual jargon. Nobody, including us, has had it.
I've corresponded with some friends in Ireland and France over this one, and it's not like they haven't ever read the word "Carnivore" in a news item, you know? You'd like my friends to trust us because you wave a flag and think rosy thoughts about how we're founded on principles of liberty, or something? While all three branches of the federal government are in the hands of a party whose authoritarian leanings couldn't be more clear?
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the UN is in control, it could at least limit these types of unilateral actions. Not saying it'd be perfect or even better, but I'd think it might be a bit more fair.
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do they shut them down by getting ICANN and NetSol to remove their DNS records? No? Then it's not a relevant point.
Re:Free speech on slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
No it doesn't, you can always adjust your display preferences and read absolutely everything.
Re:and who better than the US... (Score:4, Insightful)
Waiting for american media (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this whole debate was decided by the pressure from big American IT firms and also the furore in the American press about this whole issue. Anyone less well informed than the average geek would think the rest of the world was planning to take the internet, rape it, tie some bricks to its legs and row it over the bridge with the way the press has dealt with this topic.
Another five years till this comes up again.. i'm hoping for a more democratic contest next time.
Doesn't this remind you of AT&T? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US owns the hardware, has all the control, and is expected not to abuse the power. And there's no one that's more powerful that can tell them what to do.
Re:Doesn't this remind you of AT&T? (Score:3, Funny)
I'll forgive you because you haven't met me...
Re:Doesn't this remind you of AT&T? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't this remind you of AT&T? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real answer is that no single country should be trusted with control of the Internet and that the UN didn't want to control but to manage the 'net.
this is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of that content will be wrong, inflamatory, misguided, illegal, and/or offensive, but having that open forum means that a lot of good will show up, too.
Re:this is good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, corporations maintain control (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
"Latin languages" (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose they mean Latin alphabet, yet Urdu and Arabic are both written in the Arabic alphabet (possibly with a few Persian-style letters more?). Anyway, I look forward to my first spam with a Chinese address. I can already see the scams: PCs without Chinese fonts that trick users into clicking on a blank link...
Re:"Latin languages" (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3491.txt [rfc-editor.org]
And the encoding is presented in http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3492.txt [rfc-editor.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode [wikipedia.org]
Always good when there's a no-yelling solution. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love a secondary DNS system (Score:5, Interesting)
While I think that the US has done a pretty good job so far of staying hands-off, and I don't think that many countries would do as good a job, it's not impossible that in the future they'll start to abuse their position and do things like
Second, it's great leverage against Verisign.
Remember the
Finally, IIRC, we use the ISO country codes for CCTLDs. That's probably the thing that most countries want to have input on, since it allows them to legitimize claims to country status in the public's eyes. As long as ISO codes are used, the DNS world isn't making any huge political statements -- it shoves the political burden off to ISO (who probably doesn't want that, but it produces separation of red tape and techies, which is a good thing).
Re:Always good when there's a no-yelling solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
This was more an exercise of some countries wanting to exercise content control rather than just technical control. Many people point to the .xxx domain as an example of US interference. I would like to point out that it was a good idea that the .xxx domain got nixed since the very idea promotes censorship. If governments can partition content that it finds objectionable into subdomains, that action aids censorship.
How much control? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that such a movement already exists in the DNS world (see, for example, OpenNIC [unrated.net]).
So, while I resent that one organization - worse, a corporation - has so much power over the Internet, I don't think it's as big a problem as it could be.
Common sense is still here? (Score:3, Insightful)
But somehow we finished good - until next time.
I think in this situation we have lession, brothers - we (and I don't care about the OS, about software, about what care you drive or what your beliefs on global warming are) should spread the world that INTERNET should not be controled by NO politics. Repeat after, me - NO poltics. It is media - as paper, TV, radio. It is necessary for people. It is no more just sex.com or check out lyrics for that Britney song. It is for job, for communication with other dear ones. It is essental for many to survive (yeah, I am not afraid to say that).
So let's send big message - each one of us - to our "dear" politics - please DON'T F#$% WITH IT. Seriously.
Thanks for your attention.
The headline should read.... (Score:5, Informative)
Private Sector will probably retain control of the Internet.
From the TFA:
And it hasn't even been ratified....this is just a preliminary decision.
Have a read of this the register article [theregister.co.uk] about the Pakistani Ambassador who made this possible.
A monopoly is a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's a difference in philosphy here then can someone please point it out to me? I can't be the only one befuddled by the difference of opinion between the two issues around here.
Re:A monopoly is a monopoly (Score:5, Informative)
Given this, a monopoly is a necessary evil. The question is who controls this monopoly. Currently ICANN, a private US company oversees this. ICANN has its faults; more public involvement would be nice, less kissing up to large multinationals wouldn't go amiss either. However, ICANN has not screwed up too badly, and the US doesn't interfere with ICANN too often.
The alternative to ICANN is a group created by a bureaocracy of counties that all want a piece of the pie. Many people are leery of such an idea, as there's a strong possibility that this will turn out to be worse than ICANN.
Better the devil you know, in other words.
Re:A monopoly is a monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
If a large proportion of the Slashdot crowd worked for Microsoft, I'm sure they'd cheer that monopoly on, too.
Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, I couldn't care one bit where ICANN is based, just so long as politicians bloody stay away from it! If you don't understand it, then it might not be a good idea screw about with it, especially when all of the experts are telling you not to. How hard is this concept to grasp?
To its credit, the US has been quite good about not fucking things up... so far. However, I rather fear that the political fuss over the xxx domain may be the tip of a rather ugly iceburg.
Why would the US give up control? That's dumb! (Score:4, Interesting)
This "forum" better be shunned (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone needs to put their foot down firmly. While people are free to form whatever little "international internet gossip" knitting circle that they want, the message should be put out that this group will have even less insight to internet governance than the public at large, and all communications from this body will be treated as less than spam.
Do not grant the slightest bit of recognition or credibility to this thing.
Europe is going to build it's own internet.. (Score:4, Funny)
Loved this line from TFA (Score:3, Insightful)
These people are obviously qualified to run the Internet. Pity they won't get the chance.
The thing that has bothered me most... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been interesting to see, how surprisingly many will state that the UN is same as the EU, which it isn't, and how ignorant the general population can sometimes be. (To these people I would recommend to take a quick look to the world history and how things have built up.) All this however is (at least in my opinion) a clear sing of some sort of anti-EU attitude that is growing in the USA and this can turn into something bigger and worse in the future. It looks like that the USA would really like to cut all connections to the outside world and start living in the isolation. This is especially sad, because there seems to be more and more issues nowadays that require international co-operation between countries. So, all this anti-EU and anti-UN crap I have seen lately is doing nothing good to anyone.
Personally, I don't care how is controlling the Internet as long as it is kept free and functional for everyone. Things have been working pretty decently so far, so why to change anything. But what I care is this ignorant mentality, which seems to color news stories related to EU or UN.
Finally, as far as I know, the UN is not a "nation". It doesn't have a nationality. This seems to be a thing that most people tend to forget. Also, I have understood that the UN does not have a single body or single agenda, which it is trying to pursue. The UN was designed to be a democratic organisation with different sub-organisations, which try to improve this world we are living in. Yes, sometimes some individuals might have some selfish motives, but in the general, the UN was meant to be something completely different what American people seems to think.
OK, now I stop this ranting. Sorry if my opinions hurt somebody. And sorry about my bad English. It just pisses me off to see this black and white thinking I've seen lately when reading news and forum postings.
Re:The thing that has bothered me most... (Score:3, Insightful)
Standard news will make the UN look bad all on it's own- which you'd know if you've been paying any attention to the oil-for-food scandal, or any other story that's popped up in the past decade or so.
It just pisses me off to see this black and white thinking
I'm sure you're into all sorts of sophisticated and multi-layered shades of grey, but when it comes down to it, there is still Good, Evil, Better, Worse, etc. People like you would use the
This is on the front page of The Independent too (Score:3, Informative)
For all the people on this post saying "The UN" or "The World" wants this, that is not true.
I'm an Australian, living in London. I find the idea of the UN running this very scary. An indepedent american body is far preferable.
The UN have a very chequered history. Seldom do they stand up for the Big Issues. Take as an example the decision to withdraw UN troops from Sinai in 1967 on the wishes of Assad. Take whatever view of the subsequent war you want, but the UN caved in to the demand to remove peacekeepers.
No Need for a Central Control (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH, the second one should not be centralized. There is no reason for having root servers. Replicating the DNS database is something quite easy so we should have root servers at least in each country (plus some additional ones). Additionaly every one should be allowed to use the root servers they want. Shutting down the us servers would have no effect on users. Massive changes would be detected and stopped. Limited changes would still be possible but at soon they're detected, people would be able to switch to a more 'reliable' root server.
Summary: no generic domain (.com ->
Re:We paid for it.... (Score:3, Informative)
Lets face it, most of the internet that exists was paid for by private companies with their own money, replenished by re-selling use of "it".
I've owned and run my own ISP which puts me a legup over you and I'm not so vain as to say that any of "it" belongs to me apart from the bit of "it" that is inside my house. It is an INTER-net.
Sam
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The newly formed oversight committee is to say.
Thus far, the US has had a pretty much hands-off approach to running the internet. That's been great, guys. However, the internet is getting larger and larger and more and more important to the economies and to the security of all nations. The potential power that comes from running the internet is getting greater. The day may come when the US government starts to abuse its position here - for instance, how about imposing export tariffs on domain names, or on IP space?
Hence the oversight committee. If, five years down the line, the US has been naughty, then it's time to seriously think about splitting the internet. But if they've continued to behave as they generally have in the past, then all is well. The committee won't have power as such over the running of the internet, but if it isn't kept happy then the next round of negotiations might not go so smoothly.
Re:I'm sure the US will listen to everyone else... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the other parts of the world want control of it they should have invented it first ;-)
Re:I'm sure the US will listen to everyone else... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm sure the US will listen to everyone else... (Score:3, Insightful)
And the obligatory "Yay free markets!".
Re:I'm sure the US will listen to everyone else... (Score:3, Informative)
Most Americans don't like the idea of a huge corrupt overpowered beauracracy that seems to do nothing but hold month long conferences at 5 star hotels to discuss the idea of having a conference to set the guidelines for a meeting.
The UN is a cesspool of ineptitude and it, at the very least, needs an enema of biblical proportions.
Or maybe we find it curious as to why countries like Libya should be appointed to head the UN Human Rights com
F--k Yeah! (Score:3, Funny)
Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won't let me enter certain areas.
Kim Jong Il: Hans, Hans, Hans! We've been frew this a dozen times. I don't have any weapons of mass destwuction, OK Hans?
Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.
Kim Jong Il: Or else what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will
Re:This makes sense...for now (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect IP space will be the problem.
There are some four billion possible IP numbers. Of these, some 2.4 billion have been allocated. Of those, some 1.3 billion are allocated to organisations in the United States.
The EU has a little less than twice the population of the United States. India and China each have over four times the population of the United States.
Can you see the upcoming problem, people?
Either we reform the system so that IP space is more evenly allocated, or we go to IPv6. Four billion is not going to be enough once China and India really start getting wired. Once IP space gets scarce it gets valuable, and that's when the US government will think of export tariffs on IP space, and other governments will think about splitting the internet.
Source of statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
IP allocation by country [whois.sc].
USA: 1.3 billion. UK: 254 million. Japan: 141 million. China: 72 million.
Something is going to have to change here.
Re:Source of statistics (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2119rank.html [cia.gov]
http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/country-ip -counts.html [whois.sc]
we get that USA uses 4.5, UK 4.2, Japan 1.1 and China uses 0.0555 ip-adresses per capita, so they are not really the problem
Swaziland has 18682461 ip-adresses and a population of 1138227 which is 16.4 per capita..
Uruguay has 42701418 ip-adresses and a population of 3415920 which is 12.5 per capita..
Re:America (Score:3, Insightful)
Those of us who live in countries that are heading the same way as the USA are trying to work out some way of avoiding it, and consider that more important than who controls the root DNS servers - if the USA really tries to screw around with that then there will be some incentive to fix it, but at the moment there isn't really.
Those people wh
Re:No binding authority.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This committee will now start its work and lay down a precedence on how the different countries can cooperate and make international agreements when it comes to how to run the internet effectively. Again, with the blessing of most UN nation as always is important when forming working international law. Of course, much precedence is already made by ICANN, but many countries were not particularly impressed with how ICANN has been run. This committee will make start making suggestions to ICANN how to change its course on certain issues. And in some years down the line, ICANN will again have to justify its existence, and the UN will by then have a working system to take over if this committee does its work properly (and ICANN doesn't).
I guess this can be seen as the first step to get rid of ICANN, or a chance for ICANN to reform. Whatever spin you like to put on it. It is at any rate a good thing that an agreement has been reached.
Re:The UN can take control when..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you pay your HTTP royalties to Europe on a per-request basis, or have you gone for an annual fee basis?
Re:The UN can take control when..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dear US,
Please find enclosed an invoice for the following developments:
payment terms: 28 days.
Warm regards,
Europe
Re:FUCK THAT! (Score:3, Funny)
Damned US imperialists!
Funny how that flamebaiting garbage get's an insightful mod. Think a similar post that had said "Take that you whining pieces of Eurotrash" would have gotten modded up? Fat chance in hell.
And yes, this post of mine is completely offtopic and will probably get modded down. Oh well! Hope the champ who modded up the parent pays for it in M2.