EU Claims Internet Could Fall Apart Next Month 1401
freaktheclown writes "The battle for the control of the Internet could hit a climax next month, with the EU saying that it could 'fall apart.' From the article: 'The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the Internet will split apart. At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the Internet's address structure, called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between the world's computers. It is managed by the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under contract to the US Department of Commerce.'"
Isn't it obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, their citizens will realize that this effectively isolates them from anyone smart enough to stick with the current, very functional, system. Then, the break away group will begin bickering back and forth as some members want to use their control of DNS to influence both local and international political views. It will further splinter into smaller useless segments.
At some point the citizenry in some of the smarter countries that broke away will realize how stupid this is when they can't use credit cards controlled by US banks, or interact with US companies easily. They will usher the bureaucrats out to the gallows and the hole problem will be solved.
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This whole thing is about controlling the flow of information. The currect (US led) system has 0 political control of domains. The US government doesn't tell ICANN to remove a root DNS entry if they have a problem. The find the server and seize it according to the law. If it is overseas, they work with the local government.
We bitch about the government restricting freedom of speech here in the US in general, but Europeans and especially China and the middle east are the the people with no real freedom in that respect (they can't even legally complain about not having freedom of speech in may cases). Allowing governments like that any control over the Internet on the international scale would be a disaster for free speech and a victory for dictators and autocrats that want complete control.
Fall Apart? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doy... (Score:2, Insightful)
"EU Claws Internet Apart Next Month"?
This is a deliberate act by our European govfriends, not something that "happens" on its own.
Just to be clear (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to restate - the internet's not going to "fall apart" on it's own. They're planning on breaking it. The terminology they use makes it sound like the network's fragile and about to break. That's not the case.
Newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
Not on its own it isn't (Score:3, Insightful)
I would expect to see a huge demand for access to the primary Internet, and the new one would just sortof shrivel up and die.
They're Dreaming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:0, Insightful)
The Financial Motivation Behind This (Score:3, Insightful)
Help me out here: I understand the politics here. That part makes sense.
But who are the corporate winners? Call me a cynic, but I'm far too jaded to believe this is all one big "f*ck you" to the US. And I refuse to believe its about "control" when our control isn't the least bit restrictive.
Someone's going to make bank off this. Politicians are puppets not puppetmasters.
Who profits?
Follow the money.
Any insights?
The problem is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:0, Insightful)
Americans like yourself only care about america (though not all americans are so blind to rest of the worlds needs, like climate change).
So why is the rest of the world wrong in looking for a way to make this DNS thing completely international? Very sane of their part if you ask me.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is working, and is not being abused. Why change something that continues to operate effectively ? If the EU cuts off US DNS servers, the only people who will suffer are the EU citazens and buisnesses. I just can't see this happening.
I'm reminded of the birds in Finding Nemo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EU Threatens to destroy Internet (Score:1, Insightful)
And the UN or the EU can? Mod parent up as Funny.
Fortunately nobody had to trust the US to *invent* the Internet.
What of pornography? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think you can say that the USA has the "most free speech".
blackholes.us (Score:4, Insightful)
If China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states start their own Internet like networks I can get rid of the RBL lookup code on my mail system. Excellent!
UNcooperative (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you were to be cutoff the rest of the internet, you'd most likely have more spam than ever.
Re:Year 2000 crisis all over again. (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, this is strictly a case of the EU posturing, and is a political rather than a technical problem. Other than being completely and utterly different in cause and potential threat than Y2K, your comments are right on.
The smartass in me wants to say "Well, Gore invented it, Bush destroyed it; seems fair" but I'm not going to.
The Main Problem EU has with current situation (Score:5, Insightful)
Pointy haired bosses (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Financial Motivation Behind This (Score:5, Insightful)
In some countries, the problem IS that the US "isn't the least bit restrictive". Remember, there are some countries out there that don't have Freedom of Speech, Religion, Protest, Anonymity or many other things. Think of the Great Fire Wall of China for starters. Then there are those that also want to eliminate all the porn on the internet. So yes, I'd say it is about "control", or lack there of.
Someone's going to make bank off this. Politicians are puppets not puppetmasters. Who profits? Follow the money.
Only is some places are Politicians puppets, not all. Tell me Castro is a puppet, or that Stalin was one as well. Money isn't the end all of everything, "power" is. It's just that in some places, money can give power. At best, the only company I can think of to make some money off of this is Cisco, selling more hardware, but probably not as some countries are looking at implementing their own standards that are incompatible with what everyone else uses. Those who provide filtering technologies and fire walls stand to lose a great deal. No nead to filter if the nets are physically seperate. Those are just the major players I can think of.
A few questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Is every solution that guarantees free speech dependent on ICANN remaining under US control?
Which principle should be safe-guarded, and which one is negotiable?
If this is really what the debate is about, I can kind of understand the EU's concerns in specific hypothetical circumstances, though I don't understand the intransigence of the US representatives.
I suspect though that this is just a dick-size war, and we'll find out later on that it's really all posturing to show a position of strength for GATT negotiations.
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, most people are reasonably happy with ICANN. I wish they were going after Verisign and the root certs instead, those are the real bastards.
Re:Icann's motto... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you honestly think that the EU is full of dictatorships? You dare compare EU and China and think they're equal? In that case you are a perfect example of a self-centric, stupid and arrogant yankee bastard who thinks America is a paradise and every other country basically sucks because there is no "Freedom". Yes, there are and have been totalitarian countries in Europe, but Europe is a bigger entity than the EU. The biggest issue in bringing for example Turkey to the union has been and will be human rights. They've made progress and now many people think they are ready to join. I don't think so but that's another issue. The issue is, that your beloved USA would never be allowed to join if it tried. Turkey has developed, USA is basically degenerating.. you can't protect your own citizens from natural disasters like Katrina because your soldiers are somewhere in Iraq securing an oil flow and making way for McDonalds in Baghdad with a lame excuse like "Weapons of mass destruction". Photography in public places is restricted and basically anyone walking the streets can be held by the police for questioning on ambiguous "anti-terror" laws. I don't know about you but to me that sounds familiar somehow.. now I remember! That's basically the same what a certain A. Hitler did in Germany.. and you dare accuse the EU of limiting freedom. Sheesh.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that it is a bad idea to have a country without a strong right to free speech to have control over root DNS servers.
But the arguement isn't to transfer control from the US to another country; rather, it's to transfer control from one country to all countries (or, strictly, an agency representing all/most countries).
I don't trust any country to act in anything other than their own self-interest. Hell, I'd personally lynch a politician if I thought they'd rather represent foreign interests above their own constituents. It's for that reason that I believe control should pass to a pan-national body - so the Internet is governed by consensus rather than hope (that the US won't pull the plug on, say, Venezeula).
Re:What of pornography? (Score:2, Insightful)
If "China" were substituted for "USA" and you were a Chinese citizen on a Chinese discussion site, the logs of the net cafe you used to post that might well aready by confiscated by the local police. As well as those of the moderators who (ironically?) marked it "Insightful".
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem is, things are broke. Due to certain global events, most of the world doesn't trust the USA anymore. In fact, I'd say the attitude is one of fear and suspicion. You were warned this would happen, and you have no one to blame but yourselves.
Re:A few questions (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll second the dick-size war when we are talking about US-EU. When talking about US-China or some other, I'd say control (dam anonymity on the internet kind of thing).
Is every solution that guarantees free speech dependent on ICANN remaining under US control?
When the solution is under the US or under the UN and free speech is the topic, I'd go for under the US. After all, China, Libya, Iran and other countries all just have great freedom of speech protection don't they. Even the EU is more restrictive than the US.
Re:A brief word of sense to the EU bashers out the (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sorry, but what exactly prevents countries from expressing their positions on internet issues?
If Iran or China or whoever wants to set up its own root DNS servers it can do it right now, without asking anyone. That's rather suicidal, of course, and I am all for letting them find it out the hard way...
Re:EU Threatens to destroy Internet (Score:1, Insightful)
To most people the synonym of the internet is the web - not the infrastructure itself.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
So what did you think when the SCOTUS cited "foreign laws" when stiking down death sentences for juvenile offenders?
I believe control should pass to a pan-national body
Like the UN and how famously well that group agrees and gets things done efficiently? To whom, exactly, is a theoretical "pan-national" body accountable?
Re:Rubbish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Insightful)
Brazil, responding to ICANN's approval of .xxx domains: "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."
This is an officially prepared statement from Brazil's UN rep during a summit about Internet control. This isn't an off the cuff remark by a public official looking for some political points on a TV show somewhere. With that said, take a look at some of these justifcations for wresting control of the internet from ICANN. The key words are "values", "my country" and an over all naive approach to pornography in that a domain name would encourage porn rather than provide a mechanism to limit it to audiences that want it. Right now, you can find anything on the Internet. Anything from forums on Quilting, twins in latex to political freedom for Taiwan sites. This isn't about fear of the US controlling the Internet for some diabolical purpose, it's about other countries implementing some sort of content control.
Also, don't believe for a second that these countries see this as some public service. There's money to be had. UN administration taxes for the win!
Oh, B.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no grievance except that:
1) Iran, China et. al *do* want to censor the net. They don't like the current situation.
2) The EU is trying to be relevant here. And they'd like a way to control the internet for taxation purposes. They've stated that many times in the past.
3) The EU is teaming together with a bunch of 3rd world, tin-pot countries to "demand" something from the U.S. that we built and administer perfectly. Oh, except for giving EU taxation powers, and third-world countries censorship powers.
4) Lets fact it the EU has a fundamentally different view of free speech than the U.S. we can't reconcile it here or anywhere, so that disagreement will always be there.
5) The EU is only fooling idiots in that its trying to be an independant broker.
6) The U.S. is running the DNS servers the way they ought to be run: free from governmental control.
If China, Iran, and Brazil break away, I don't care. It doesn't affect me even a little bit. If the EU breaks away. Fantastic. CU later. Buh Bye. Sorry to see you go.
Re:Pretty weak strawman (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What of pornography? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, while you're at it, google for 'free speech zones', as pertaining to protesters in the US.
No matter what the supremes have done in the past (and there is none, with the new appointee(s)), you're losing it in the US. Just ask the guy who was against the Iraq war in a red state; just because it's not written into the law but enforced by your neighbours (who'll beat you up for wearing anti-bush t-shirts), it's still censorship.
"It's intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer that the reason behind this EU and UN grab for internet power is in order to suppress speech they disagree with."
No, it's not obvious. What is obvious is that it's a power grab. 'Why' is open to speculation, but I'd say 'because they don't want a bullying, uni-lateraly acting, militaristic, way-too-opertunistic and aggressive nation headed by an illiterate imbecile to make decisions and exert undue influence on a system which by now is quite important to nation's economies' is much more likely than your, quite mistaken, belief that Europe is living in censorship.
Which is kind of odd, when you live in a nation which fines people up to half a million for saying 'fuck' on radio, and a nation cries out in uproar when a breast is kinda-sorta-not-really shown on tv during of all things a football match.
However, if by cencorship, you mean 'looking at intelligent design and deciding we don't want 'magic' taught in science classes'...well, then you're right.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Poli-ticks == multiple bloodsuckers (Score:5, Insightful)
There's just no way that ICANN should be involved at all in the delegation of the country-code domains. That's a task for a globally-accepted multi-lateral bureaucracy, like the ITU or ISO. Most of those organizations get their legitimacy from the UN, and ICANN doesn't want to go there.
Now
Free(er) Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not citing all this to toot the US horn, but right now the internet is based in a country with stong freedom of speech standards and an excellent economic foundation. And there are plenty of other elements that make the one of the few countries that you would actually want preciding over the net as opposed to a loose coalition of countries. Come on, do you really want the UN on the internet?
More to the point, do you really think the internet would have grown and propered the same if it had started out as a UN-like activity? Honestly, I think you're kidding yourself if you think it would have.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:2, Insightful)
In 2002 pretty much the whole world was on your side. I'm still amazed that your leaders managed to piss away that much goodwill.
Fine, I have no one to blame but us for all this whining. Happily, I can just ignore it! =)
Yes. Let's build walls between us. Personally, I'd rather we got along, but it's kinda hard given the situation. None of us have anything against you or your fellow citizens. Your leaders on the other hand... ;-)
Re:Future news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fall Apart? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, someone could deliberately take the root servers in the EU out of sync with those in the US and screw things up, but why would they? What's the benefit in cutting off their own noses in an act of spite against the US? I honestly doubt any bureacrat in the EU is really -that- stupid and malicious.
And unless I missed something, it doesn't affect IP addresses, just domain names. I don't see anything being said that would indicate that any IP address would be referenced differently on either side. IP addresses would still be issued by the same providers as they are now.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
The currect (US led) system has 0 political control of domains.
Do you really believe this?
We bitch about the government restricting freedom of speech here in the US in general, but Europeans and especially China and the middle east are the the people with no real freedom in that respect (they can't even legally complain about not having freedom of speech in may cases).
First it sounds like you think China is in Europe. OOoops - scary somehow
Then, what do you know about freedom of speech in Europe? Are you aware that european countries have an instance in the European Community to which they have to report and can be sued in case of human rights violations and such other violations of "freedom" and that countries like France regularly get in trouble with it*? I suppose not.
*:Nothing compared to torturing prisonners though.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is building the walls in this dispute? The US is changing nothing with the internet. It is the "allies" who are talking about breaking a working system, just to spite the US.
Nice rhetoric, though. Propose hostile changes, then blame the other side for degraded relations.
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, this is all academic. It's easy enough to set up your own root servers and just peer into the ICANN ones, append all .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .etc entries found there with .us, and go from there. Anyone outside the US then just uses slashdot.org.us instead of slashdot.org, and life goes on as normal. Just like with telephone country codes.
Re:Well, I'm glad that's settled. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hold up? (Score:2, Insightful)
The current system works, its not perfect, but its highly functional. In a best case scenario the European Union's solution, and others will take years to actually implement correctly. Years in which the internet does not function as smoothly as it has been. Years of headaches and frustrations to get their model working up to snuff.
But thats the best case, more then likely if they were to do this, as others have said, they will isolate their own countries from the wider network, something their citizens will not tolerate (except for perhaps Iran and others who this would be a blessing). Sadly this isn't going to cause any public outcry until it actually happened.
I think the US realizes that they're negotiating from a position of strength. I think the EU needs to come to this realization. I'm not saying they shouldn't drop their push for some reforms in ICANN and the internet as a whole, but they really shouldn't be spouting of nonsense about splitting away from the net, when its going to do them more harm then us.
Re:What of pornography? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, all that stuff is immoral. However, it is perfectly acceptable to show "Saving Private Ryan" on ABC primetime on Veteran's Day. They said the F-word 27-ish (I forget exactly, the morning DJ counted) times and got away with it, but every time my favorite DJ (Elliot in the Morning for you DC guys out there) drops the bomb, he gets slammed.
And of course, we complain about the Janet Jackson "breast", and that Go-Daddy ad last year, but it's perfectly acceptable for girls to go and be cheerleaders and wear ridiculously skimpy clothes and dance around in the ways that if they did it on the dance floor, they'd have gotten suspended from school.
Re:Pretty weak strawman (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that you're giving EU too much credit. More likely, it is throwing a tantrum about this just to make it seem like it was doing something and therefore justify its own existence.
You see, EU serves two functions for the member countries governments:
In other words, EU is not meant to do anything sensible; it is meant to do stupid things so it can take the fall when shit hits the fan. Of course for this to work it needs to have an extremely large, inefficient and vague organization so no one gets singled out, and do stupid things all the time, but nothing that could cause any real harm. This is just such an occasion.
FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
You Still Can't Even Read the Troll Definition (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
First, they will legislate that ISPs operating in their countries will no be allowed to use root DNS servers other than their own...
Why would they do that? and if they did, and kept non-conflicting entries synched why would it be a problem?
Then, their citizens will realize that this effectively isolates them from anyone smart enough to stick with the current, very functional, system.
Yeah, they will be isolated from the U.S. and not the rest of the world and the U.S. will be isolated from them. Sorry the U.S. is not as big of an economy as the rest of the world and most people are interested in sites and services primarily located in their own countries and offered in languages they speak. I don't think most people will miss the U.S. as much as the U.S. will miss doing business with Europe, Chine, Russia, the middle east, etc.
Then, the break away group will begin bickering back and forth as some members want to use their control of DNS to influence both local and international political views.
This is possible, but all the big players already have control over the local internet and it is unlikely they will be able to gain control over non-local given that the main purpose of this is to insure that no one can do so.
It will further splinter into smaller useless segments.
Yeah, because they are all stupid and will each decide to make a move that will make their access useless. Non-americans are all so dumb.
At some point the citizenry in some of the smarter countries that broke away will realize how stupid this is when they can't use credit cards controlled by US banks, or interact with US companies easily.
You know most businesses, banks, governments, etc. that people in foreign countries need to do business with are not in the U.S. I'd be much more interested to see how multinational corporations in the U.S. handle not having accurate access to the global markets, most of the labor pool, the international banks and commodities and currency markets, etc.
This whole thing is about controlling the flow of information. The currect (US led) system has 0 political control of domains. The US government doesn't tell ICANN to remove a root DNS entry if they have a problem.
Actually no one can no know that for certain. Do you really think it is reasonable for Iran to trust the U.S. to not disrupt their access? Because pretty much no one else trusts the U.S. not to.
We bitch about the government restricting freedom of speech here in the US in general, but Europeans and especially China and the middle east are the the people with no real freedom in that respect...
Perhaps you haven't been watching the news this decade. The days of the U.S. having the high ground there are long gone. We have surveillance and gag orders left and right. We have "national security," being used to avoid paying patent fees and prevent courts from hearing evidence. We have tax payer funded propaganda campaigns. We have no real laws to protect the privacy of citizens or prevent the collection of random data on them by the government or corporations. We have people arrested for wearing t-shirts that say, "protect our civil liberties" and people ushered to fenced in "free speech zones" during political campaigns.
Some countries have more restrictive laws and some less restrictive. Your solution of going with one single point of failure because you happen to trust it is naive and foolish. The system needs to be distributed, redundant, and not in the control of any single interest. I wish I shared your optimism and trust of the U.S. government, but they are lacking in trustworthiness these days. After breaking so many treaties, repeatedly lying to the U.N., and going on an all out campaign to alienate every foreign power possible, the world does not trust the U.S. and would be foolish if they did.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike many, I do actually understand how exactly the US government has no influence over ICANN, especially those in the whitehouse. However, things change. Expect to be bombarded with the phrase "cyber-terrorism" over the next five years. Here's one scenario I made up for shits & giggles:
"Bring the internet under direct government control is essential for the freedoms it brings. Cyber-terrorist threaten to attack it and America must defend it in order to ensure the prosperity of our country. People who 'hate our freedom'(tm) seek to put up hate sites to aid terrorists, and because of this we must be able to control them. Today we present a bill giving federal agencies easier access to the internet. All internet sites from now on must be registered against the owners social security number to aid investigators hunt down evil doers. This bill will be called the 'Internet Freedom Act' and those who seek to oppose it are unAmerican and threaten the very freedoms on which our country was founded."
Now, in all seriousness, is any of the above all that unrealistic? I based it largely on how the Patriot Act was passed, perhaps the most unpatriotic law to ever come out of the US legislators.
Re:They're Dreaming (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Death of the Internet, News at 11 (Score:3, Insightful)
It can withstand a nuclear attack, but not a bunch of beaurocreeps and adminimonsters? OK, fine, we can go back to Fidonet. At least it had no spam problem.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
to transfer control from one country to all countries (or, strictly, an agency representing all/most countries).
The internet is the greatest vehicle for free thoughts and free ideas. This is incompatible with many governments who you would want to give representation over how the internet is run. To me, that is simply not acceptable. No country (especially corrupt totalitarian states) has a right to have a say in the internet is run. I don't care if they're in the UN club or not.
Why on earth would you want to give countries like Iran, China and South Korea a say? They're already limiting internet access for their own citizens, let's not allow the UN to elect them to the "international internet governence and taxation council" shall we?
that the US won't pull the plug on, say, Venezeula.
If Venuzuela is worried about their government web sites going down they can easily force all their ISPs to reroute all DNS requests to government websites to the appropriate servers.
Re:You forget the problems that exist in the UN (Score:2, Insightful)
If you took out the security council, then you would find that the UN is based on a majority but a majority of what? My understanding is that there are more non democratic countries than there are democratic countries. Currently the EU seems to overlook state sponsored terrorism to help avoid any issues with internal migrant populations, this is most obvious with France.
I'm all for international oversight, but I am very wary of what will happen. Just look take a look at recent events at IWC (International Whaling Commision), Japan and other pro whaling countries paid for votes. They even got countries to join up, while providing the fee for joining as well as prommising aid to the countries, implication is that they will vote with Japan. It's a wonder that commercial whaling has begun again!
International control of the internet will end up being the same. At the best we could hope for the addition of protocols so that places like China can control what is accessable easier, and the removal of anonymity.
I for one will not welcome our new international internet overlords.
I should note that when i mention non democratic countries, i include countries that are considered to be democratic but by their size and average wealth, are easily brought by promises of foriegn investment and aid. When those plus non-democratic countries are put against those who are democratic with the freedom to do what they beleive... well the future doesn't look bright... just veery dark.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
For those too lazy to click the link, here is a quick excerpt: However it is true that in terms of purely political or religious speech, and freedom of the (printed) press, the U.S. experiences significantly less censorship than most other countries.
Naked bodies on television don't meet 'community standards.' That is very different from freedom of speech. Nudity in media exists here, just not over the airwaves (generally). The airwaves are regulated in a different manner.
Find out the regulations on foreign film in France. Or, what about signs in Quebec?
How many countries in the world have an 'official language?'
Is the U.S. one of them?
Freedom of speech isn't just titties on television.
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:2, Insightful)
NOTHING will happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we apply that old Watergate adage, "Follow the money", and examine the financial implications of this, we quickly see that multinational corporations are the ones whose oxe gets gored.
What will happen to Wal-Mart (or any of a bazillion other companies) if they cannot easily communicate over the internet between Arkansas and China? How will Apple ship iPods in a timely manner, given the very close connections between the Apple Web Store and the manufacturing plants in China?
There's an incredible amount of money riding on the continued smooth operation and openness of the internet. Globalization depends upon it.
Maybe Kim Jung Il will be able to live without the commerce managed over the internet, but the list of countries that are so isolated as to be able to get by is a very short one.
The internet will continue unchanged, due to its dual nature, the other side being globalization. As soon as anything upsets the rivers of money flowing around the world via the internet, the true rulers of this small blue orb, the multinationals, will stomp it to death and return things to their previously smooth operation. Not even China dares disrupt the flow of commerce. One might say that China has the most to lose by tinkering with the internet. If the Euros would shut their collective pie-hole and think for just a second, they would see the reality of the situation as well.
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because no matter how much we pay lip service to the idea that our values are for us and their values are for them, we don't really believe it. Deep down inside, we believe that everyone should agree with us, unless they're stupid or evil.
This is the general case. In some specific cases, we're willing to overlook the wrong values of others, but in other specific cases we're not.
(The "we" is applicable to anybody.)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Too good to last, maybe, without the politicians getting some sort of local control.
IPV6??? (Score:2, Insightful)
I say let em "split off" and I can guarantee that within a weeks time, the companies that do business with the US will be asking (demanding) to be put back on the US network. Not only that, but imagine all of the services that would be unavailable to those countries outside of the US...Wikipedia, Google, Microsoft, Slashdot, Electronic Arts...I understand that some of these have geographically located server farms to make access easier from different parts of the world, but without access to the "home" US servers, these systems will not be updated and bug fixes like those from Microsoft would be unable to make it to countries outside of the US...
No I wouldn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think it would be ideal to have multiple root authorities. Have one per country, or maybe one per region. They can then administer regional domains, and they can all vote on new generics (like
Then, once this credible mirror system is running, talk to the US about peering. Say "Look, we think that our roots are as capable as yours, and we'd like to have control of the domains that relate to that such as our contries' domains. You keep your stuff and we mirror that, however we'll take the European stuff and you mirror it." My bet? The US would be totally fine with that. Then we have two peer root authorities. Hopefully more people would then start doing the same thing.
That would also allow each nation or area to have a root that conforms to their values. They can block domains if they don't like them. Of course people can always go use the roots from other countries, unless they do some Great Firewall of China thing, but it would solve the majority of the bitching.
But that's not what these nations want. They want UN control over DNS, and more than DNS, so they can force other nations to implement their restrictions for them. They don't like a free and open Internet.
"No, Brussels... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, I'm detecting a note of desperation, here. The EU/UN know very well that the majority don't want them to get their grubby paws on the Internet, and I suspect that in the quiet of their own minds, they also know that there are valid reasons for that. It's basically the EU software patent case all over again.
You've got a canary in a cage, suspended from a ceiling, with a cat sitting on the floor watching the canary. Every so often the cat will continue to try and leap for the cage in an effort to eat the canary, but if the cat gets whacked upside the head with a broom often enough, although it will need to be done numerous times, the cat will eventually get the message...that it's not getting the canary, and it's only going to cause itself continued pain and suffering by continuing to try.
Same deal here. The EU needs to be told repeatedly that in terms of them getting governance of the Internet, we hear them knocking, but they ain't coming in. We might have to do it ten, fifteen, or twenty times, but eventually they'll get the message.
Re:Free(er) Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in NZ, we didn't require the Black Eyed Peas to rename their song "Don't Phunk With my Heart", we don't have a corronary when a breast is exposed on TV (I mean, for fuck's sake!). We have adverts using sware words and lewd humour that wouldn't be played in the US. Actually, the Black Eyed Peas were complaining how conservative the US is in comparison to places like NZ when they were here recently.
You Americans are so blinded by your own hype you think the entire rest of the world is some 3rd world dictatorship. Grow up, actually LOOK at the rest of the world and realise it doesn't match your cardboard cutout preconceptions. The average US slashbot view of the rest of the world is laughably naive.
Re:Icann's motto... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Icann's motto... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Icann's motto... (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you serious? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you explain how that would happen?
On a social level, nobody in the U.S. buys cell phones directly from Nokia. Perhaps "nobody" is too strong. Almost nobody.
On a practical level, if I go to www.nokia.com, where precisely do you think you're sent? What servers are authoritative for
But lets look at this on a more practical level. If I go to www.amazon.com, I don't really care where some root server in France points. Its irrelevant to me. And sure, the EU could really fracture things by taking existing TLD's pointing them to some other which disagrees with the U.S. servers, but so what? If some ISP in Ireland wants to point "slashdot.org" to some other place, I suspect its the people in Ireland that lose out.
With the Internet being founded in U.S., the founding institutions would still be here and would be largely unaffected by the EU move. The infrastructure is here. Its one thing we didn't outsource.
Finally, the EU is a "talking" organization. They have no authority beyond a a little in few countries in europe and absolutely none outside it. So my reaction is that (a) the EU would never do anything like what they're threatening (b) They will likely debate in brussels for about 5 years (c) on the offchance they actually do something, it will have zero impact on the U.S. and will simply hurt people with ISPs too dumb to point to the actual root servers controlled by ICANN.
I think you'll find both conservatives and liberals speaking with one voice on this issue in the U.S. And that, my friend, is probably the most impressive thing the EU has done this year.
Re:A few questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that so? I keep hearing this parroted, but I haven't really seen a decent breakdown of what constitutes our incredible free speech lead. We have obscenity laws on the books, right now, that are being used to prosecute citizens of the U.S. for exercising their dear 1st amendment rights. We have "free speech zones" outside of which protest is illegal.
By comparison, some of the EU member states have laws against hate speech.
According to Reporters Without Borders [rsf.org], much of Europe kicks our ass at press freedom as well.
We are talking about the US right? (Score:1, Insightful)
We can't let the ICANN fall into the hands of terrorists, this is a national security issue.
We don't want any of this
google.com -> alqueda.com
yahoo.com -> jihad.com
Can't you see why the US needs to control this?
Re:Free(er) Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it has to do with 'the almighty dollar'; simple economics.
Americans fully recognize that a company's freedom of speech includes how they choose to advertise. Americans also fully recognize that there's nothing wrong with excersizing our freedom of speech by modifying our buying habits in protest should we disagree with how a company decides to advertise. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from disagreement.
The companies make more money if they don't go about pissing off potential customers.
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:2, Insightful)
However, it seems very stupid to destroy .com just to prove a point.
What point exactly? That <sarcasm>american are selfish arrogants who think they are the only ones to have commerce and government and therefore merits a .com and .gov?</sarcasm>. Or that those .com, .net and .org tld are not used for their original purposes anymore? Shouldn't americans uses its own medicine and start using the .us tld? I personnally see things like atari.com going to the global internationalized version of their site (choosing country, etc), and then redirecting to www.atari.us. More meaningful if you ask me.
Main problem is, because everyone can buy any Domain name, business cannot own them even if it's in their own rights. So now www.atari.us, even though there's no other atari than the one known, isn't owned by atari itself because some little advertisement byproduct seller got their hands on it first. IANAL, but isn't it a part of what trademarks were made for?
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
No it's not.
It's about transfer of control to the UN.
The UN is an organization that is dominated by a handful of large countries.
Many (probably most of the major players in the UN) don't have very good guarantees as to freedom of speech, seizure, etc. They would like to be able to implement these policies on the internet.
If control of domain registrations is handed over to what is (basically) a GOVERNMENT organization, you can bet there will be abuses for politcal gain. It seems pretty likely to me that the whole reason they're doing all this bitching in the first place, it's that right now it's too hard to get sites like Chinasucks.org taken down.
the Internet is governed by consensus rather than hope (that the US won't pull the plug on, say, Venezeula).
THE US DOESN'T CONTROL DOMAIN REGISTRATIONS. It's a US company that does. There's a BIG difference.
Re:Free(er) Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't confuse having swear words or lewdness on the airwaves with actual freedom. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are the core of what America is all about. Don't be so blinded by your anti-US bias. Your view of the United States is laughably naive.
Economics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Battling American Arrogance: At what cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the root servers are outside US. What other coutries want is just a system where one stupid president cannot shut off the whole (or part of) internet in his fight agains "terrorism".
Do Europeans think that Iraq deserves Saddam Hussein?
Maybe we should let the Iraq-people decide ?
You cannot believe that US attacked Iraq because of Iraqians' human rights ?
It was NOT because of terrorism or WMD, it was NOT because of human rights, it was because of controlling oil reserves.
Do Europeans think that a strong PRC without human rights reforms is a good thing?
You say that the US was/is preventing it somehow ?
For a great many Europeans the answer to all of these questions is a firm NON.
You and Your fellow Americans always think You know everything. Youre wrong.
We have acted arrogantly, as if we own the world. Its an arrogance that comes in part from a history of looking back on the consequences of our past arrogance and being satisfied with the results.
Your history is actually very short.
Not least of these results is the Strong, Free and Democratic Europe which hates our guts and which would not exist (twice over) were it not for the American desire to remake the world to conform to American values.
Now don't forget that the american civilization would not exist without european immigrants.
If Europe keeps on fighting America, Europe will eventually start winning some battles.
I heard there were some other parties around this table too...
You may destroy American efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
You must be joking. It is the US which has kept the war between Israeli and palestinians going. Without US support Israeli would have agreed to a Palestinian nation long ago, and that would have soothed the area.
You may prevent the United States from attacking the next Saddam Hussein (can you say Kim Jong Il?).
You think that US is entitled to attack Korea ?
You may create a dominant PRC that doesn't have any reason to care about human rights.
Again, do You really think the US is somehow helping the chinese human rights ?
How ?
If European leaders think that setting up their own root servers or sabotaging a diplomatic accord here or there will cure the Americans of their Arrogance and end American Unilateralism, they fundamentally misunderstand America and the American Spirit.
We have seen that it is "the American Spirit" which allows a coutry to start a war without a reason. Before Bush it was latest done by Hitler and Stalin.
Few Americans know that attacking Iraq was not accepted in ANY other country. Even UK officially supported, the majority of people were against.
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:4, Insightful)
The US and its private companies built and paid for the Internet. Billions were spent on research and development. We've been at it for over 40 years.
The European countries and its private companies built and paid for the US. Billions were spent on development, people, ships, technology, etc. We've been at it for over 500 years.
Essentially, we stole half the world's resources and shipped them to the US. Can we now have them back?
Re:Battling American Arrogance: At what cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Impressive. I don't think I've ever seen such a one-sided view put so eloquently.
Do Americans think it is a good idea that their government can exercise control over the DNS (even if they haven't done so so far)?
Do Americans think it is a good idea for their government to fund an army that keeps a system of apartheid alive using unlawful violence in illegally occupied territories?
Seriously, I call bullshit on this one the most. It's American money more than anything that's preventing peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Do Americans think that Iraq deserves al-Zarqawi? No? Then why did they allow him in, by removing Saddam in such a braindead way?
Do Americans think the same? Wherever did you get the idea that the US does more about human rights in China than the EU?
Erm, for your information, a great many Europeans don't speak French.
Really, you write pretty well, your thinking is a lot less up to scratch though. Learn to look beyond your local propaganda.
Re:Battling American Arrogance: At what cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right. We have acted arrogantly, as if we own the world. Its an arrogance that comes in part from a history of looking back on the consequences of our past arrogance and being satisfied with the results.
Thats just scary. Satisfied with Vietnam and Korea? Satisfied with Iran? (if America and Britain hadn't installed the Shah over the more democratic government there would have been no Islamic revolution). How about backing brutal regimes like Pinochet or these days Uzbekistan? Hey they may be brutal dictatorships that kill there own people but at least that stops them being socialist/Islamic.
Deciding to join WWII (even if it was late and only after being attacked) only buys so much gratitude. Everyone is very grateful but it was 60 years and you can't expect people to just keep on being grateful and ignoring what happened afterward. America has proved it is happy to screw over other countries when it suits is purpose, and its refusal to join international efforts like Kyoto treaty or the International Criminal Court make people wary.
Not that the the Europeans countries were any better back when they were the main powers, worse probably because they had empires, but I don't think many modern Europeans would be 'satisfied' with, say, the way Africa was carved up.
Nor do I think America arrogance would be "cured" by anything other than when another country (or block) overtakes them economically and maybe militarily. It would be stupid of European politicians to do something to disadvantage Europe just to stick it to the Americans, but its equally stupid for American politicians to unnecessarily antagonise Europeans.
In the case of the Internet, is it possible for other countries to control copies of the roots such that the US could not turn them off, but that wouldn't impact people in the US, or the US control of their own copies. Seems there is room for reasonable compromise here but both sides are being arrogant.
Re:Battling American Arrogance: At what cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if George Bush desperately wanted to immediately shut off the Internet, he couldn't do it. The reason why America created the Internet in the first place was (according to the funders) to create a network that would be robust in the face of nuclear attack. I doubt very much that the present incarnation of the internet achieves this, but I am confident that the Internet as it exists today is robust even if attacked by a whole swarm of pointy eared Texans.
solman: Do Europeans think that Iraq deserves Saddam Hussein?
Maybe we should let the Iraq-people decide?
I think that's what we are doing. The people they elected are virtually unanimous in their sentiment that Saddam Hussein should be executed. I am unaware of any representatives who are in favor of letting him out of prison and approving a constitution that restores his dictatorial powers. Do you believe that there is popular Iraqi support for returning him to power?
You cannot believe that US attacked Iraq because of Iraqians' human rights?
Saddam Hussein's human rights record was derterminative in our decision to invade him. By this I mean that were 2003 Iraq a functioning Democracy that respected human rights, it is an absolute certainty that we would not have invaded Iraq.
Instead, Iraq had one of the most oppressive governments in history. Political opponents were universally tortured and killed. Professional women whose only crime was not being traditional enough were rounded up and beheaded in public by black robed fanatics. People were killed in the middle of the street, and the population was so fearful of the regime that they could be depended on not to openly react to it according to PBS (not exactly a pro-Bush organization). All this from a guy who gassed his own people, came within a year of developing nuclear weapons, and who had absolutely no qualms about invading his neighbors whenever it suited him. It is hard to think of a dictator against whom the use of force was more justified.
It was NOT because of terrorism or WMD, it was NOT because of human rights, it was because of controlling oil reserves.
This is ridiculous. Show me _one_ barrel of oil that the US misappropriated from the Iraqi people since the invasion. Leading up to the war, I suppose that it was reasonable for apprehensive Europeans to believe that the US was doing this for a profit. Now that well over two years have passed and we've taken none of the Iraqi oil for ourselves and we've poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq, this is slander. If you believe that there was ever an angle that would have allowed the US to make a profit off of Iraq, you are divorced from reality. At the very least, if there is any basis at all to this accusation, you should be able to show me the money.
The only profit from Operation Iraqi Freedom is the increased Freedom experienced by millions of Iraqis.
I'm going to ignore most of your comments since they are low content, but let me address this last one:
Few Americans know that attacking Iraq was not accepted in ANY other country.
You haven't met many Americans, have you? Many, if not most Americans know this. We just don't care. In Planet Earth 2005, the US is the only country with the effective ability to discipline a rouge nation. With this power comes responsibility.
We did not use this power in Rwanda when Koffi Annan told the UN troops to sit idly by while 1M were killed. We did not use this power on Iraq in 1998 (when Clinton contemplated an attack after they kicked out the inspectors) and an additonal 700,000 were killed. Finally, in 2003 we did something. Every year between 2003 and who-knows-when, betwen 100,000 and 200,000 innocent people will NOT be killed because we chose to act.
Even if the whole wo
Re:Free(er) Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
How so? There are more than eighty dictatorships world-wide, and they all get a vote in the UN. How the fuck does this represent "democracy", unless your view of democracy is so narrow it only applies to the voting structure of the General Assembly?
the US is one country who has repeatedly ignored international opinion and law to do what it wants and has gotten away with it because of it's military and economic might.
Which makes us no different than a great many other countries in history - including a fair number of European countries. The only difference that I can see is that some Europeans are pissed off that we're doing what they used to do, and wish they could do again - futilely, since it's abundantly clear that no nation in Europe will ever be a superpower again.
When the rest of the world has a piece of critical infrastructure in the hands of a nation that has repeatedly ignored their opinion, it's hardly suprising that they are unhappy with the situation.
Like a three-year-old that sees another three-year-old with a shiny toy, and wants to take it away from him. There's absolutely no reason to believe that either the UN or the EU would do a better job than the U.S.; in fact, plenty of reason to think that they wouldn't since we've proven ourselves in this particular arena, and they haven't. And as an American I don't trust either the EU or the UN to do anything even remotely in line with American ideals, so tell me again why I'd give a flying fuck about what either organization thinks about the situation? What are they going to do, throw a tantrum and piss their shorts?
Like it or not, the UN DOES represent global democracy
Get over the fucking propaganda. The UN isn't a democracy, nor does it represent democracy. Never has, never will. Just look at a) it's members, and b) it's structure. Only the General Assembly is even remotely "democratic", assuming you buy into the bullshit that letting a dictatorship vote on the same ground as a republic is in any way, shape or form democratic, which smells like horseshit to me. And then there's this matter of the Security Council, which can piss on your "democratic" General Assembly any time it feels like, so even the GA isn't anything more than a mostly-tolerated dog and pony show, anyway.
if the US values democracy
If anyone, including the U.S., valued democracy they wouldn't treat with brutal dictatorships. They sure as hell wouldn't give them world-wide voting power in the U.N.
and allow the internet to be democratically controlled by the opinion of the whole world
Riiight! Those eighty-plus dictatorships are *so* into listening to the opinions of their serfs, er, citizens. Yessirree!
Max
Re:Icann's motto... (Score:3, Insightful)
Economically, there is not a single country that the US would be more dependent on than that country is dependent on the US. China might an exception, but the EU certainly in not. However, the US much, much more dependent on the rest of world than the rest of the world is dependent on the US.
In a limited economic war, which the splitting of the Internet essentially would be, the US will lose to the rest of the world. *IF* the rest of the world, or at least most of it, can hold their line and use "the UNInternet" root server, there's not much the US can do but to comply.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because if the US did something like that the resulting backlash would hurt it very severely as the rest of the world would immediately form their own internet, not interoperate with ours, sanction in in the UN, WTO, etc, other countries wouldn't want to trade with it, etc.
I'm in the US, and I think almost no one here would ever want or tolerate such a thing.
It would be political suicide for whoever did it.
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:3, Insightful)