Should the UN Replace ICANN? 591
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo news has a story on how some developing countries want control of the assignment of network names and numbers turned over to an international body, such as the UN's ITU (International Telecommunication Union)."
Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and spa (Score:2, Insightful)
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Why (Score:1, Insightful)
The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, great.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Jeez....
What is that supposed to accomplish? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why (Score:1, Insightful)
No way... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The UN????? (Score:5, Insightful)
They manage the radio spectrum, satellite orbits, and distress/safety stuff. The reason why you can make a phone call to China is that telcos around the world generally abide by ITU standards (technically "recommendations"). They do a bunch of other stuff too (R&D, etc.).
If anyone is to be given control over the Internet, the ITU is probably the most appropriate organization.
Re:The UN????? (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree though, I want to CAN ICANN. The levy on
ITU is Tech Savvy (Score:3, Insightful)
In all fairness, it would make sense to move control to the ITU. Even though there will be a lot of people who will complain about a "political body", ie the UN controlling such things. Sure the UN is a Polititcal Body. So is any government, if you haven't already noticed; but the UN does more than just political work. think UNICEF, UNESCO, FAO, WHO, and the list goes on.
Is there going to be political influences in the ITU if it controls ICANN? Sure, just as there is now.
If I had a say in this, I'll vote yes. They are the body to control worldwide tele/data communications.
UN? No way. (Score:2, Insightful)
Mind you, all is not lost. If the UN does get this role, then the Internet as we know it will become a shambolic mess, and the US will just have to invent something else.
Re:The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is that supposed to accomplish? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, no, no, this is all wrong.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So Third-World countries want power over names? And they think they can accomplish that by moving the naming committee to UN Headquarters in New York? The UN didn't work for poor people in Iraq, or Palestine. Why will it work in the case of Internet names?
This is the first case I know of where software standards have reached the level of world politics. (It's different from software patents in Europe.) I don't think they ever belong there. Software standards have developed reasonably well under Darwinian conditions: it may take decades, but eventually everyone switches to open standards because there's an advantage to being able to communicate. E.g., everyone uses TCP/IP now, not IPX or any other proprietary network protocol. I know, I know, we're still fighting this battle daily, but you can see the positive trend, & it's happening without any legislation or government enforcement.
What I'm getting at is Third World countries should just set up their own root DNS servers. Whatever it is they want -- get rid of the 3-letter root domains? So instead of
I'm gonna sound like a Wired columnist, but here goes: The Internet is suggesting new kinds of economics, government, maybe religion.... We should stick with what works, instead of imposing traditional kinds of governance onto the Internet.
Rational thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably it's a better idea to trust a huge international body, which already manages a lot of aspects of various fields than the current quasi corporate owned system.
Re:The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)
And how exactly would control over ICANN change anything?
ICANN is a toothless tiger in any case, their control over the 'root' does not extend to ownership of the actual IP addresses embedded in BIND etc.
A long time ago I was a member of a dinner club, there was a guy who nobody could stand who really really wanted to be the President of the club. So he got his friends to join and elect him President even though none of them ever went to any of the dinners. So the rest of us quit and started a new club leaving him to eat on his own.
ICANN is not a control point for the Internet, nor is the IETF which is also being targetted by this campaign. The real influence lies in W3C and OASIS these days - both of which have done a MUCH better job of being inclusive than the old boy network that controls the IETF.
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if the UN can manage CEB [unsystem.org], CTBTO [ctbto.org], ECA [uneca.org], ECE [unece.org], ECLAC [eclac.org], ESCAP [unescap.org], ESCWA [escwa.org.lb], FAO [fao.org], UNCTAD [unctad-undp.org], HLCM [unsystem.org], MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD [unsystem.org], IANWGE [unsystem.org], IAPSO [iapso.org], and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :)
UN's record isn't that great IMHO
Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?
How about you start by telling us what the heck any of these organizations actually do and what real and meaningful good they actually have accomplished? It is up to the UN and its defenders to prove they are doing some good, not the other way around.
What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.
Brian EllenbergerOh goody! (Score:3, Insightful)
UN sucks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)
You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.
Politics vs. Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No way... (Score:3, Insightful)
careful, your knee is jerking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN faithfully delivered all suggested contracts to a commitee manned by 5 standard members of the council, several was marked as financially suspicious but none of these were investigated. The US did however block hundreds of other contracts for what they said was security reasons, the other 4 countries blocked none. This was [b]not[/b] a fault of the UN administration
Furthermore, the money involved in these contracts are dwarfed by both the amount of money mysteriously disappearing from Iraqui oilwells nowadays, and the amount of good old-fashioned smuggling out of Iraq pre-war.
The "genocide" in Yugoslavia is a fairly good example actually, because before NATO/US moved in, people on all sides were killing eachother pretty equally. It was war. However western media somehow(for what reasons? by whose decision?) misrepresented statistics and the whole situation blew up when NATO went in. To add insult to this, they never went in with ground fources to break things up. Europe(Germany? my memory fails me) premature approval of Kosovo didn't help much either. The UN tactic of waiting it out, and not arbitrerarily choosing one side to side with was prudent; and it's only our acute sense of stupidity that keeps us from seeing it.
Lastly, the world is a big place; listing the disasters of the world is not proof the UN is not working. They are not, and never were intended to be world police. They are not perfect, and they don't have a magic wand to remove problems. Problems often seem quite different depending on the perspective, and while I'm sure you're sure your perspective is right, I'm equally sure mine is right.
Oh, and sorry for not providing links, but I don't have them handy; and you're probably just as good at searching as I am :)
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay.
May I remind you that while spam is an entirely American invention, it still is a worldwide problem. As such it would probably make sense to fight it globally rather than individually in national levels, which is exactly what is happening and not working right now.
Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)
a) is not paying its dues
b) does not want to respond to genocide w/in a year or two of its happening
c) has veto on all votes of the security council
Get a clue.
Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN could not do anything because the member countries of the Security Council who were generally much closer geographically to Iraq were (rightly as it turned out) afraid of what would happen when Saddam was ousted.
In other news, we can look at the nepotism that goes on wrt Iraq contracts under the Bush Administration (Haliburton anyone?) and see strong parallels to the OFF issues. Therefore the US government must be bad and we should get rid of it? I don't know anyone who reacts this way to the US Gov't except strangely those who are responsible for supporting this type of morally bankrupt government.
The UN has been coming of age in recent years, and this is likely to be the source of a lot of the hard feelings. The WTO which used to be a sounding board for US corporate interests is now becoming more egalitarian with the third world countries standing up to their interests much better than in the past. Similarly, the US cannot just assume that other countries (particularly those in the EU) will simply bow to US economic, trade, and even foreign policy. The UN has become a strong force for Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and this is a direct threat to the global supremacy of the US. This is why there is so much bitterness against it from here.
Sure there is some corruption, but there is corruption in every other burocracy in the world. What is news is that for the first time since WWII, the US is opposed by a community of nations in a variety of ways from trade policy to its international agenda. There is a lot of cooperation too but nobody mentions this.
The UN would do well to take over the duties of the IANA and the ICANN. And again this is because it would give poorer nations more just representation in these policies.
Re:No, no, no, this is all wrong.... (Score:1, Insightful)
The UN can't respond to something as catastrophic as genocide w/ in a year or two of its happening, and normally then it's "ah,
Maybe someone who has their act together. But not the U.N. As much as I get angry with my own government, at least I can rest easy at night knowing we don't pay any attention to the U.N. at all.
You want control turned over to an international body. OK, that sounds reasonable. But the UN? I mean... how about somebody with a little more tech savvy and a little less politics?
The UN didn't work for poor people in Iraq, or Palestine. Why will it work in the case of Internet names?
I get really pissed when people start complaining loudly about the UN. People, repeat after me, WE ARE THE UN . WE, all of us. UN didnt respond to genocide in Sudan ? Well, how many countries are willing to send troops ? U.S. ? Naaah, too busy bringing "democracy" to Iraq. Britain ? Ditto. France ? Germany ? We dont need no body bags....
Before accusing UN for being a bickering group of diplomats who look after their own country's interests, repeat after me. Any international body will be the same . When U.S is not willing to ratify the Kyoto accords, because it is not in the interests of their citizens Do you expect other countries to be magnanimous and take decisions that potentially go against the interests of their citizens ? Forget accords that affect economics. How about the comprehensive test ban treaty ? On 13 October 1999 the United States Senate rejected ratification of the CTBT [wikipedia.org]. So much for our fixation with nuclear weapons. What kind of signal does that send to a country, like say Iran ? (U.S. doesnt give a damn s*** about international accords relating to nuclear weapons, why should we ?).
A pathetic U.N is just a testament of how pathetic WE are. Nothing else.
This is not UN vrs. US ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)
And, as an engineer myself I don't agree that a body composed entirely of engineers is necessarily the right one to administer a global communications infrastructure with ramifications that extend far beyond merely getting packets from here to there. Maybe it would be
Re:Dear U.N. (Score:1, Insightful)
You say that you "believe working with the global community is a very good idea"
That implies that you see thinking globally as some sort of seperate concept to the normal state of affairs. That sort of thinking is counterproductive and outdated.
The internet and the "global community" are now one and the same.
Re:The UN? The most corrupt buerocracy on the plan (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the term "genocide," until international law, is that it has an extremely strict definition under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (a treaty from 1951). While the UN committee found that they couldn't strictly, under the treaty, call it genocide under international law, they did point out that serious crimes against humanity were being perpetrated in Darfur. Crimes against humanity are just as prosecutable, and in many cases easier to prove in international courts and tribunals than genocide, with quite similar punishments. The problem is in assuming that the term "genocide" has the same meaning in both international politics and law. It doesn't. International law often makes much more strict determinations of terms, because of how treaties and customary law works. It's not like Sudan is getting off easy in this matter. The Security Council is soon likely to pass (based on the report) a resolution most likely creating a tribunal to prosecute these serious crimes occurring in Darfur. You'll also note that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established less than a year after the crimes there started taking place, and has since delivered convictions in cases.
With the tsunami aid effort, they were mostly concerned with holding meetings in 5 star hotels while other people did the real work.
Generally, I prefer to get my information from better sources than a blog that repeatedly uses such stellar examples of journalistic writing as the use of the terms "UNocrat," "lefties," "deranged pimply-faced trolls" (a term applied to people who disagree with them!) and "The Queen of the High Priest Vulture Elite" (referencing the UNICEF director). See for yourself! [blogspot.com] Their only source for their accusation that the UN is not providing sufficient support is an ill-defined "fact sheet" that they don't even corroborate with additional sources, nor tell where this "fact sheet" even came from. I would hope people would do much more research than just assuming that such a vitriolic blog posting is true.
UN Control is a Precursor to UN Taxation (Score:3, Insightful)
There would likely be all sorts of messy consequences, starting with censorship in DNS:
France - Nazi memorabilia banned.
China - You can't use the word "Taiwan" in any domain name.
U.S.A. - All web sites of "known terrorist sympathizers" banned.
U.K. - IRA banned.
Russia - Russian dissidents (those words go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly) and Chechen rebel groups banned.
Re:Politics vs. Administration (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The UN????? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmm, I resent that. As PEOPLE, we're entitled to have an opinion that differs from everyone else's. Democratic, representative government and the the concept of guaranteed freedoms of the sort embodied in the Bill of Rights are America's greatest and most inspired contribution to the world (unless you want to count the Internet, eh?), and it's no longer considered a strictly American aspiration. No need to sound chauvinistic about it.
Re:Dear U.N. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about recognizing a moral difference between legitimate, sovereign states and pseudo-states run by dictators and tyrants? The whole premise of the UN is that it puts the world's liberal democracies on exactly the same plane as oppressive police states, and that's just bogus.
Second, how about embracing the basic tenets of democracy? Right now, the UN is a completely unaccountable body. Its "legislative branch," for lack of a better term, is made up of unelected ministers and ambassadors. Its "executive branch" is comprised of career bureaucrats whose sole qualification for their position is that they were able to get themselves appointed to it. In the US, we elect our legislators directly, and all executive-branch appointments have to be approved by the Senate. There's a clear chain of accountability every step of the way. What happens if I get pissed off at the guy who's in charge of (for example) the ITU? How do I express my opinion? I can't write my Congressman. Well, I mean, I could, but there's no way he'd be able to do anything about it. Neither could my Senators. Technically the Secretary of State should be involved, but in practice, she's really not. So the UN comprises this vast, unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy. And now you're telling me that we want to give them more responsibility over things that affect our day-to-day lives? I don't think so.
The UN's purpose, above all others, is to be a sort of diplomatic sewing circle. It exists to give the diplomats of the world a place to sit around and talk things over. The minute we started giving the UN actual authority -- or, more accurately, the minute the UN started taking authority and we didn't object to it -- the body became little more than a benevolent, impotent tyranny.
Because the UN has proven its impartiality... (Score:1, Insightful)
Given the current level of scandal which plagues the UN, I think maybe-just maybe-it's time to stop trusting them.
Lest We Forget (Score:1, Insightful)
Basically, the US voted against Sudan to be nominated. Europe abstained and the 3rd world voted for Sudan.
Meanwhile, Syria can occupy Lebanon for years and nobody has a protest or complains about it. Yep, Lebanon was a christian country up-to the 1940s when it basically got immigration cleansed.
You know its all about control. And third world dictators need not be in control of DNS. They want it bad but sorry.
Then there is Rwanda and Congo but I wont get into to that...
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)
And they didn't stop the tsunami disaster - that should have been preemtively prevented like America preemted Iraq using WMDs. And of course they should have moved in right away when GWB got reelected.
But tell me, wtf does that have to do with the bloody governmence of the internet?
Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)
Has ICANN?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The UN????? (Score:4, Insightful)
AIIEEEEEEEEE!!
I wouldn't expect you to, but you obviously don't know anything about the ITU or it's recent history with the domain name system.
For a background on how bad and anti-internet spirit the ITU is, read Carl Malamud's "Exploring the Internet". In a nutshell, the ITU came very close to making the Interent illegal. It was only the forsight of then general counsel Tony Rutkowski that this was averted and is now safe by international treaty.
Despite ICANN's claims they're open and transparent, they are absolutely not and the wost of this is the "government advisory board" that meets in secret. The ITU was instrumental in this and sits on it. In fact the ITU, seeking relevance
in an internat age that makes it largely irrelevant was part of the shadowy crew that secrtetly orchestrated the origin of ICANN (when Ira Magaziners public spin was "hey you folks are in charge" while all time workig behind the scenes with IBM to create the ICANN we have now), and worse, it's evil predecessor, IAHC, an organization so awful even the US govt recognized it and shut it down. IHAC was formed by Don Heath of the Internet Society, Bob Shaw (who STILL owes me money and my wife a carton of smokes he nicked one night in Geneva when he was drunk and bragging about all this) and Albert Tramposch of the World Intellectual Property Association based on an idea they had when they met in Ottawa.
At the time Bob was a PC support droid there, and his only achievent was how to write X.400 addresses opn business cards. I am not making this up - it's as if a LAN administrator at the White House was involved in setting global policy.
I have never met a less honorable, more two faced man, ever.
ICANN or ITU is a trick question. The US congress will NEVER let administration of domain names and IP addresses leave US soil. I would stake my life and the lives of my children on this. It was crtated in the US and will stay there. (I'm in Canada and will stay here)
So having to choose between these too evils is a bad joke. The ITU will never get is, and ICANN, a $50M a year bloted organization that is a great sucking magent attracting every intellectual property wonk in the US into it's guts replaced John Postel who did this as a part time task. Jon measured consensus and set policy. ICANN is supposed to do the same but is in reality a tool now for intellectual property interests.
It's always bugged me that the/. crowd, who are rightly and naturally suspicious of the IP wonks never got this.
The ITU wants this and is using the UN to get it. This waythey can establish global laws governing the Internet. But, you seem you own your network and I own my part and we can talk like this because we all agree to use the TCP/IP protocol suite (that the ITU fought hard against infavour of OSI which never actually worked) - in other words, the Internet is a "network of networks" all privately owned, and we need global laws to regulate this?
As for ICANN's $50M budget to administer the list of top level domnains this is less work than administerng the list of all usenet newsgroups. And in fact the parellels between the list of newsgroups and list of tlds is strikingly similar.
But ask yourself what the difference is between the administration of those two lists of names. And ask why anyorganizatin than can do one is not doing the other as well.
Pardon me while I go and quetly cry in the corner; I'm glad I was able to be there that day in Berlin when the US government sold out the Internet.
Primary the root zone for yourself. I don't care whose root zone you use, but stop the sucking dependance on USG run servers to control your namespace.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
Pardon me but before you do that could we please frist try to give US citizenry (I'm Canadian) a voice in those policies before we do that?
The documents that defined the creation of ICANN mandated that it be a mebership organization and despite one horrbly flawed attempt at voting, they still are not. The IP interests who have captures the organization do not want this. It's their baby, not yours.
I'd be pissed if I were you.
Re:So we shouldn't care about the world? (Score:3, Insightful)
No seriously - I think you should have a little chat with inmates in cuba or those quarantined in 'free speech zones'. I think there's something to be said for wresting control as something as important as the internet from a government who has so callously trodden on such ideals. Certainly they can't police themselves.
Holy dogshit, batman! (Score:3, Insightful)
Jesus fuck, if that's how you lead off, I'd like a bit of assurance that you don't live within two hundred miles of me. Fuck, what's your attrocity---making cockpuppets from the neighbors' dogs?
--grendel drago
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually if you do research on Iraq-gate, you will find that similar to the OFF scandle today, the allegations were that Reagan/Bush were using humanitarian aid to help Saddam buy weapons. They basically helped Saddam launder money from humanitarian aid in order to build an army. Additionally, most of the raw materials that Iraq used in its NBC/WMD weaponry programs came from the US.
I guess some things never change. It is just good when the President of the US does it and bad when the UN does it.
Re:Mod parent and grandparent up! (Score:4, Insightful)
I would add to this that the neocons are neither conservative by any classic sense nor are they new. I consider myself both a progressive in mission and a conservative in methodology. The more I study however, the more I fear that my country is sliding towards a fascist style of government based on authoritarianism in both the family and the government.
People need to take a minute to think about the agenda behind this constant rubbishing of the UN. Is Empire really what Americans want? Possibly not, but there's no way of knowing: see e.g. Mike Scheuer, former head of CIA's bin Laden unit, who points out that the underlying reasons for Arab terrorism or the implications of America's continued imperial expansion are simply not part of the political dialogue in America right now.
The UN is largely a confederation of world states, which come together to negotiate treaties and develop international legal traditions (such as the Geneva Convention) and approach common problems. Nobody here has suggested, for example, that we should do away with the WHO, so it seems that everyone here agrees that the UN has a purpose and a mission.
Regarding the issue of the underlying reasons for Arab Terrorism.... Ok, I am relatively nonpartisan.... Anyway, this is a failure of the US government of which both our political parties are equally at fault. Additionally I think we need to look too at the question of the formation of an international terrorist network, how they derive their support, and what we can do about it now. People think of state sponsored terrorism because that was a standard tactic of both the US and USSR during the cold war. However a new problem has arisen which requires no sponsor. Indeed, the monster of terrorism requires only a lawless space. It thrives on injustice because this is the source of its support.
So the only solution to the problem of international terrorism is social justice and the rule of law throughout the world. I am sorry to say that Iraq has made things worse on at least one of these fronts. I think that the objecting members of the UNSC (China, France, Germany, etc.) have been largely vindicated in their judgement.
This is on-topic because people are afraid of being restrained by the UN so they want to undermine it even on this discussion board regarding something seemingly unrelated.
The UN does an excellent job at many things including common infrastructure for vaccinations, radio spectrum, etc. The functions of the IANA and ICANN would be things that they would do well with regardless of their other failures. Even the neocons^W neofascists don't argue against these functions.
Re:I've got karma to burn, and a bone to pick (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've got karma to burn, and a bone to pick (Score:3, Insightful)
Because you can't own ideas that you've shared with others.