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news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5886556.html
Power grab could split the Net
For the first time in its history, the Internet is running a real risk of fracturing into multiple and perhaps even incompatible networks.
At a meeting in Geneva last week, the Bush administration objected to the idea of the United Nations running the top-level servers that direct traffic to the master databases of all domain names.
That's not new, of course--the administration has been humming this tune since June. What's changed in the last few months is the response from the rest of the world.
Instead of acquiescing to the Bush administration's position, the European Union cried foul last week and embraced greater U.N. control. A spokesman said that the EU is "very firm on this position."
Other nations were equally irked. Russia, Brazil and Iran each chimed in with statements saying that no "single government" should have a "pre-eminent role" in terms of Internet governance.
Meanwhile, the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. body, offered to take over from the United States.
Crucial root servers
This may seem like a complicated political muddle that only Talleyrand could love, but this process is important. If it spirals out of control, we could end up with a Balkanized Internet in which the U.S. attempts to retain control of its root servers and a large portion of the world veers in an incompatible direction.This would amount to a nuclear option in which a new top-level domain would not be visible in the U.S. and its client states--but would be used in many other nations. The downside, of course, comes when two computers find different Web sites at the same address.
We could end up with a Balkanized Internet in which the U.S. attempts to retain control of its root servers and a large portion of the world veers in an incompatible direction.Some background: The Internet's 13 root servers guide traffic to the massive databases that contain addresses for all the individual top-level domains, such as .com, .net, .edu, and the country code domains like .uk and .jp.
Whoever controls what goes into the root servers has the final authority about what new top-level domains are added or deleted. The Bush administration doesn't particularly care for .xxx, for instance, and could conceivably move to block its addition even if the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approves it.
Other governments lack that power, and don't exactly like George W. Bush and his administration enjoying a monopoly over it.
Not all the root servers, named A through M, are in the United States. The M server is operated by the WIDE Project in Tokyo, and the K server is managed by Amsterdam-based RIPE. The F, I and J servers point to many addresses around the world through the anycast protocol, yielding a total of 80 locations in 34 countries.
In the nuclear option, some national governments would continue to follow the U.S. lead while others would switch their root servers to point to the U.N. list of top-level domains. Eventually, different top-level domains would be added, and the Internet would bifurcate.
Next steps
While this possibility remains remote, what's worrisome is that neither side seems willing to budge.A working group report prepared before last week's meeting called root server reform an issue of the "highest priority." That report also proposed a Global Internet Council that would be "anchored in the United Nations."
Turning over control of key Internet functions to the U.N. would invite a debacle. This is the bureaucracy that gave rise to the Oil for Food scandal and counts as its major accomplishment in the last decade a failed attempt at nation-building in Somalia. U.N. control would usher in higher fees for domain names--to pay for development aid to third-world nations with dysfunctional governments.
The autocratic, bellicose Bush administration is no paragon of civil liberties virtue, but letting delegates from Cuba, Iran and Tunisia decide on the principles for an open and democratic Internet would be an even worse alternative.
That's why the next few weeks before the final meeting in Tunisia will be crucial.
The Bush administration's negotiating skills will be severely tested. State Department officials will have to find a way to allay fears of a U.S.-dominated Internet while avoiding any path leading to a bifurcated root. It won't be a trivial task, but the alternatives are even less savory.
Another story on it can be found here:
Well... that is ONE idea of how to police the internet. A very stupid one, but since when were we expecting all the countries of the world to unite for anything?
We'll require 300 tech geeks to construct the largest firewall the world has ever seen! Don't worry, the people will rebel, they wont make it 3 weeks without access to Korean sites 
Seriously, though, the sheer idea sends shivers down my spine. I hope it's all just fear of a worst case scenario and not prophecy of the destruction of something which was slowly helping the world come together and become close.
The Great Net Split everyone's worrying about is so unlikely that there's really no point even mentioning it.
This is the bureaucracy that gave rise to the Oil for Food scandal and counts as its major accomplishment in the last decade a failed attempt at nation-building in Somalia. U.N. control would usher in higher fees for domain names--to pay for development aid to third-world nations with dysfunctional governments.
The International Telecommunications Union, a creation of the UN, has worked flawlessly since its inception. It's the reason you can pick up a phone just about anywhere in the world and be connected in seconds with just about any other phone in the world. And apart from the astronomical prices the Telus monopoly has forced upon Canadian customers, I don't notice any taxes being paid to the ITU. If the Internet were to go to international governance, it would either become a task of the ITU or a new organization of a similar nature to do so.
The International Telecommunications Union, a creation of the UN, has worked flawlessly since its inception. It's the reason you can pick up a phone just about anywhere in the world and be connected in seconds with just about any other phone in the world.
Maybe so, but that's just phone use. Voice. As opposed to the internet, which is full of content, which any one person can access at any given time. Content where anyone can say anything and (a huge portion of the time) get away with it. That's why this:
Turning over control of key Internet functions to the U.N. would invite a debacle. This is the bureaucracy that gave rise to the Oil for Food scandal and counts as its major accomplishment in the last decade a failed attempt at nation-building in Somalia. U.N. control would usher in higher fees for domain names--to pay for development aid to third-world nations with dysfunctional governments.
The autocratic, bellicose Bush administration is no paragon of civil liberties virtue, but letting delegates from Cuba, Iran and Tunisia decide on the principles for an open and democratic Internet would be an even worse alternative.
-- would be BAD. For once I side with Bush. This is, of course, provided I read this right. Kinda jumped left and right here and there.
The United States created the technology for the Internet to begin with (remember DARPA? ARPANET?). If the UN doesn't like U.S. control over the Internet, let them make their own world-wide-network. Maybe UN-Net.
Besides, the story is so full of inconsistencies and ignorance that one hardly knows where to begin.
In one place they tell us Brazil relies on the Internet for its taxes and therefore U.S. must give up control. In another they point out that China filters what their Internet users can access. Wouldn't that imply China already has control?
The U.S. "controls" the net by hosting the root level domain servers, but these servers are not essential for local use of the Internet. Every ISP and their up-stream provider hosts copies of these domain server. The root level servers could go down for a week and not many people would notice. Joe user never uses these servers.
All these servers do is convert www.nfl.com to 216.19.170.247. Thats it. Nothing more.
And your local ISP does this for you unless their server has never heard of nfl.com because they don't keep it up to date. In which case it asks its upstream provider, and so on up the chain to the root servers. Joe user never gets to use the root servers directly.
Once your machine is told the IP of nfl.com, it contacts it directly to get a web page without going through any US government facilities.
Some countries host their own top level servers for in-country use. China, for example. Brazil could do the same and thereby assure its tax system would never fail.
Other than that, there is no infrastructure that is in the hands of the U.S. government that is not also replicated elsewhere.
There is no filtering that can be carried out by the U.S. government to prevent a tax payer in Buenos Aries from contacting the tax headquarters in Brasilia, because that transaction never leaves Brazil.
And China can prevent their citizens from ever seeing www.whitehouse.com if that is what they fear, by simply null-routing that domain in their top level domain servers or blocking that particular IP.
What are these fools going on about?
Bleh.
A History of the Internet The United States pretty much invented the Internet. To give regulatory powers to the U.N. would practically doom the World Wide Web to censorship incarnate.
The only bit i got was that the other countries were angry that the US wont let people create a website ending with .xxx
...
*shrugs*
It's all silliness if you ask me. Given that I read this right (I kind of jumped around, too) this just means that we might not be able to visit our favorite foreign-hosted site for a few weeks. That is, it'll only take a few weeks for someone to cook up some sort of network compatability doodad, possibly something that would even be available through Microsoft LiveUpdate or something like that.
Not to say I think it'll even happen in the first place. It's like two kids fighting over an action figure, and then mom suggests cutting the toy in half. Nobody wants that, right? So we share.
It's just larger-scale, I think. It's like the guy who sits next to me in my programming class who thought he broke the internet... Okay, so not exactly, but I thought it was funny and wanted to post it.
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It's like two kids fighting over an action figure, and then mom suggests cutting the toy in half. Nobody wants that, right? So we share.
That was like a less-articulate way of saying "King Solomon", so why didn't you just use that? Even if you're not Christian, it's still a pretty common saying.
I think this is nonsense too, though.
King Solomon? Yeah, okay... that probably would have been a better example. Less words, definitely. But then I wouldn't get to hear myself type as much, would I?
Seriously, though, my reasoning for the toy anaology was more to establish the insignificance of the situation. I mean, nobody really cares (save the kids) if an action figure is split, right? But you hack a baby in two (excuse the bluntness) and you've got a half a million organizations breathing down your neck. And the police, I guess.
Not that the analogy was worth defending. Boredom makes a chatterbox of me.
A History of the Internet The United States pretty much invented the Internet.
This is debatable. Other factors need to be considered as well, such as the fact that the Internet would be utterly irrelevant were it not for the European innovation that we call the World Wide Web. And that there would be no Internet if Alexander Bell hadn't invented the telophone. I also don't see how this makes giving the US government veto power over Internet governance a good idea. The idea to create a .xxx top-level domain, for example, was struck down by the Bush administration for moral reasons and nothing more.
To give regulatory powers to the U.N. would practically doom the World Wide Web to censorship incarnate.
Explain.
I really don't see how nobody would care if the Internet was split into countries. It would be devastating to some, at least for a little while.
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Explain.
The UN Wants to Control the Internet'
Particularly the following part.
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Nations like Brazil, India, China, and Saudi Arabia are among those pushing to have the UN take over control of the Internet. They argue that the Internet is a public resource that should be managed by national governments and, at an international level, by an intergovernmental body such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency responsible for organizing the information summit.
Their excuses for United Nations control of the Internet are typically designed to appeal to a wide variety of users. Government control, they argue, would prevent unwanted advertising called "spam;" stop the spread of computer viruses; protect privacy and beef up security of computer data banks; stop hate speech found in various web sites and (to appeal to Christians) to stop child pornography. It all sounds so perfect, so benevolent, so well organized.
The fact is, private servers like America Online (AOL) and Microsoft are already developing programs to stop spam and, while spam may be annoying, is hardly a threat to anyone. The same is true concerning computer viruses. Government bureaucrats haven't been able to prevent attacks on government computers. It is doubtful that a toothless UN proclamation will do much to scare off the vermin who infect the Internet with deadly program killers. The only way to fight back is through private entities that have their livelihoods at stake.
Personal privacy over the Internet is certainly a problem, but government can do very little to protect us. Users must learn not to trust others with their personal information so easily. Private companies that depend on Internet commerce are already finding solutions because their very existence depends on it. Government can issue rules and regulations and fines until the cows come home, but thieves will find a way around them if people insist on ignoring the dangers.
It should come as no surprise that the greatest threat to personal privacy over the Internet today is posed by governments that gather information to profile users, snoop into bank accounts, and track our movements. Should we now put an unaccountable, faceless international bureaucracy in control to compound the situation?
Child pornography has become the universal excuse to regulate the Internet.
" Protect the children," is the battle cry, but this is comparable to anti-smoking agitators who use the bogus threat of second hand smoke. There are already government regulations designed to stop child pornography.Overzealous law enforcement can make a trip around the Internet superhighway a dangerous one indeed. If you inadvertently visit a child pornography site, your home may be invaded by cops, your personal records impounded and your good name destroyed. Do you doubt that can happen? Just click onto www.whitehouse.com for a quick update on President Bush's latest activities and you will find yourself in a pornography web site! There are private companies and even religious organizations that provide filters to block pornography.
That leaves us with "hate talk." What is it? Many would immediately think of some racist diatribe from the Ku Klux Klan or perhaps some neo-Nazi skinheads engaged in gay bashing. The latest examples of hate talk, we're told, have been aimed at those of Arab descent. However, you may be surprised to learn that such "hate talk" isn't the most hateful according to most UN members. Hate crimes, according to Communist China, Cuba, Vietnam, and their ilk, are words spoken against the international "proletariat." In other words, talking against communist oppression is "hate talk."
In addition, attacks on unions; radical environmentalism; gun control; sustainable development, and abortion are considered divisive and hateful. Support of the Christian religion and the Ten Commandments is deemed radical and divisive. Advocating limited government control over our lives is called divisive. Anything uttered pro-Israel is said to be hateful. Any criticism of Islamic fundamentalism is deemed hateful.
Imagine a United Nations committee assigned to oversee the Internet that is made up of representatives of Communist China or an Islamic nation like Saudi Arabia. These oppressive nations are doing everything possible to ban uncontrolled Internet access in their countries. In fact, the only access permitted to the public in China is through Internet cafes where the computers are registered and inspected by the government.
Besides, the UN hasn't really proven to be ideal for handling large, bureaucratic endeavors.
Further opposition erupted from Brazils representative at a UN summit, who urged that ICANN was not considerate enough of developing countries:
"For those that are still wondering what triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."
From www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_...s%20to.htm
Bush hasn't "Blocked" anything, the current administration has raised the same concerns that other governments are voicing.
Which surprises me, it would be very easy for an administrator to block EVERYTHING with .xxx from their users network or computer. The only loophole I can see is mirror sights, similar to the redirected news sights used to filter in "censored" information to mainland China. But the consequence of easier filtering is easier access, so we see the concerns of the morally guided.
Anyways, it ain't broke, so don't let the UN try to fix it. Right now the US govt. has as much say as any other govt. since ICANN is an NGO.
Jimro
I always saw the internet as kinda its a kind of phantom anarchic nation in a way. o_O
I somehow doubt the changes will be as dramatic as feared, but the thought of an internet with less freedom and divides is not a nice thought...
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Anyways, it ain't broke, so don't let the UN try to fix it. Right now the US govt. has as much say as any other govt. since ICANN is an NGO.
Sometimes NGOs have more knowledge than a government; they also tend to look at issues (including this one) with a view that is more "universal", rather than a nationalistic view. They have a say because, ultimately, it will affect the world regardless of nationality.
[url= http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=occa m's%20razor]Occam's Razor: the principle that entities should not be multiplied needlessly; the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred.[/url]
Giving control to UN = more complicated Internet scheme
Having ICANN maintain control = less complicated
Thus, ICANN > UN
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Giving control to UN = more complicated Internet scheme
Having ICANN maintain control = less complicated
Thus, ICANN > UN
But is it only less complicated in the short term? What about the long?
"If it isn't broke, don't let the UN attempt to fix it."
As time advances, only then can we see if UN control would be neccessary or not.
I'm going for 'not'.
A UN-controlled Internet would suck. I believe in a free internet where despite the many different problems with spam and viruses, continues to exist by the will of the people; diverse, and managed by 'region.' I.E. Page owners, webmasters, and etc.
A UN-controlled Internet would suck. I believe in a free internet where despite the many different problems with spam and viruses, continues to exist by the will of the people; diverse, and managed by 'region.' I.E. Page owners, webmasters, and etc.
I'm waiting for your explanation -- your explanation -- as to how transferring the administration of top-level domain names and IP address assignment to a democratic international body (one that, I might add, is pretty much controlled by the US and a couple other democracies anyways) would somehow cause this to change. This is a fight over the Top Level Domain root servers like .com, .net, .info, .us, .ca, nothing more. If the EU splinters, we will just have to reach www.hollandrules.net by doing something like www.hollandrules.net.eugate.com. It sucks, but there is nothing else to control.
I don't mind the way it is now. ICANN control hasn't caused any major problems. The system is not broken and does not need fixing, and frankly, the time is not exactly ideal; they could at least wait until IPv6 is fully deployed. However, if they were to change to international governance la ITU, I wouldn't exactly be protesting. Something this big and international, ideally, should be handled multilaterally, not by an organization over which a single government has veto power.
All I really care about is figuring out where the hell people got this moronic notion that international governance = fascist censorship.
Blind panic, maybe? The change of something a lot of people hold dear is gonna create upset and lead to hasty conclusions. >_> And yeah I realise how dumb I sounded earlier... it's not like certain nations don't censor web access already.
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All I really care about is figuring out where the hell people got this moronic notion that international governance = fascist censorship.
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... it's not like certain nations don't censor web access already.
And almost (if not all) of those web-censoring nations are in the UN.
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All I really care about is figuring out where the hell people got this moronic notion that international governance = fascist censorship.
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... it's not like certain nations don't censor web access already.
And almost (if not all) of those web-censoring nations are in the UN.
And the US doesn't censor websites? Please!
And where did I say that the US doesn't censor web material (though nowhere near the degree of China, I might add)?
Censoring is censoring no matter to what degree.
** will stop now as he's about to get this discussion off-track **
😀
And where did I say that the US doesn't censor web material (though nowhere near the degree of China, I might add)?
Argument from adverse consequences, or preying on an audience's fears, is not a valid argument.
Something this big and international, ideally, should be handled multilaterally, not by an organization over which a single government has veto power.
And we give the veto power to an organization composed mainly of dictatorsips or one party systems?
Who has veto power over ICANN? No one, they can move their headquarters any time they wish, disperse their activities globally if they wish, and blatantly defy any concerns raised by the US government, whether or not they are shared with Brazil.
There is no demonstrated need for transfering control to the UN. Why would anyone want to mess with a working system?
Jimro
Once again, I regret the lack of resemblance betwen the UN and the EU.
The latter's a bit fussier abouit letting in dictatorships, for one.
The EU is an economic coalition and trade alliance -- basically NAFTA on steroids. The UN, on the other hand, is a democratic, multilateral council designed to work on issues that affect the whole world. The UN Charter begins with the phrase "We the peoples of the United Nations". The fact that some country has a non-democratic system doesn't, and shouldn't, invalidate its people's entitlement to have a say in a democratic process that affects them. That would be like not letting neo-Nazis vote in the United States. Nazis aren't exactly nice people, but it's pretty hypocritical to only let those we deem to be desireable participate in the democratic process. Even death-row prisoners are allowed to vote.
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I'm waiting for your explanation -- your explanation -- as to how transferring the administration of top-level domain names and IP address assignment to a democratic international body (one that, I might add, is pretty much controlled by the US and a couple other democracies anyways) would somehow cause this to change.
Just because the US may seem in control of the UN now doesn't mean that that won't change at any certain point in the future.
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Who has veto power over ICANN? No one, they can move their headquarters any time they wish, disperse their activities globally if they wish, and blatantly defy any concerns raised by the US government, whether or not they are shared with Brazil.
So do other NGOs. That's the way most of them work. They have no stable home. The point brought here is that ICANN should handle the the situation over domains, preferably as a neutral party (in my humble opinion). Unfortunately, this ideal will probably fail in the real world since nations (including the United States) have the last word on all issues.
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There is no demonstrated need for transfering control to the UN. Why would anyone want to mess with a working system?
If you give too much power to a nation, they will complain. What works for some will not necessarily work with others.
By the way, here are some links that I found in regards to the history of the Internet. True, the United States created ARPANET close to four decades ago but because the Internet is no longer centralized, no nation (even the United States) has control on the web except for businesses.
And here's a link to ICANN's website, for reference.
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The EU is an economic coalition and trade alliance -- basically NAFTA on steroids. The UN, on the other hand, is a democratic, multilateral council designed to work on issues that affect the whole world.
Actually, the EU governs a while lot of other stuff... in fact, most areas of law bar the Criminal have been affected by it here in the UK.
