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.'"
Never mind DNS; I'm worried about routing (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to 1983, Europe. (Score:5, Interesting)
Film at 11. USENET cliche [google.com] by 1989. EU resolution in 2006... 2017? 2038?
Why not just... (Score:2, Interesting)
P.S. I hope Iraq has enough iq to manage
Wanna read something scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
The EU plan was applauded by states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, leading the former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt to express misgivings on his weblog: "It seems as if the European position has been hijacked by officials that have been driven by interests that should not be ours.
"We really can't have a Europe that is applauded by China and Iran and Saudi Arabia on the future governance of the internet. Even those critical of the United States must see where such a position risks taking us."
As I've said before, I'll be happy if the issue of IP address allocation is handled by the ITU. DNS should not be under the control of a central organization.
Notice that in the U.S. you are permitted to use any DNS you may like? Sure the root DNS server is Icann moderated, but you can select anything?
Anyone believe Iran (I'm 1/2 Persian) will allow that? Or China?
Or that China will permit a Taiwanese TLD in the New, UN-moderated, EU-sponsored DNS governing association?
Places like S. Arabia, China, and Iran can't wait for DNS to be controlled by the UN, because all kinds of silly nonsense happens in UN politics. Although China may have its sights set on the RoC, as of know, its insane to posit that Taiwan isn't an independant nation.
Yet the UN does not recognize it as such.....
Just my 2 cents.
Re:Fall Apart? (Score:5, Interesting)
They will enact laws requiring it. Then the customers will start pointing their workstations and access points at open DNS servers in the Free portions of the Internet, the Great Firewall of Europe will be erected to block access to the Free DNS servers and finally people will be fined for pointing at the 'wrong' DNS servers. THEN the heads will start going up on pointy sticks. The big question is whether there remains enough of a spark of Freedom to make it the government officials heads the ones on the sticks or whether it will be the 'traitors' among the users who refuse to use the state sponsored servers.
Re:Fall Apart? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Various govs. set up their own root servers. People in that country use their root servers.
2) The operators of the various root servers keep them synchronized with each other.
3) The internet continues to operate just fine.
Re:Never mind DNS; I'm worried about routing (Score:3, Interesting)
In the end, this will be a disaster, but more so for people outside the US and companies that want to sell in multiple countries. The US internet will continue to function and I will have access ot 90% of the stuff I want/need as it lives on servers here in the US. I'd wager a couple of countries see the light either before the split or right after and rejoin us. For all its bitching, I bet Canada doesn't want Iran and China to have ANY control over anything it needs. That is what they are asking for though.
One of the other big loosers will be scientific collaberations (like those CERN runs to analyze collider data) because ALOT of their computing power is in the US.
ICANN does not control IPs or routing in any way (Score:5, Interesting)
Routing is different still. No registry guarantees the IP blocks they allocate will be globally routable. Most network providers have their own criteria for determining which networks they will accept routes for.
So, as you can see, ICANN has no part in the allocation or routing of IP addresses.
Re:Rubbish (Score:3, Interesting)
You do assume they won't do something insidious like have all DNS queries to the root servers redirected to their own name system, by rerouting their ip blocks, or pass laws to mandate a transition away from the "Legacy" domain name system.
It could be like you say, but it is no means certain -- if the EU bureaucrats know enough to be dangerous, they could really make a mess of the internet.
But it wouldn't be that the internet fell apart on its own -- it would mean they broke it, through incompetent actions.
A brief word of sense to the EU bashers out there. (Score:5, Interesting)
They are trying to act as brokers between this position, which is not in the interest of the EU, and the maverick US position, which flatly disclaims any notion of international coordination on these issues. Repeat after me: the EU is not trying to split the internet, they are trying to maintain the current cohesion.
They are a broker between two arguments, and should be applauded as such, rather than vilified and slandered as 'splitters' or malcontents.
'The EU does not intend to scrap Icann. It would continue in its current technical role.
Instead Europe is suggesting a way of allowing countries to express their position on internet issues, though the details on how this would happen are vague.
"We have no intention to regulate the internet," said Commissioner Reding, reassuring the US that the EU was not proposing setting up a new global body.
Rather she talked of a "model of cooperation", of an international forum to discuss the internet.'
[Taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4327928.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Universal Service Charge (Score:3, Interesting)
Lucky for us, this whole thing is retarded, and we'll just keep our resolvers pointed where we want while anybody else does fuck all for what we care.
Country TLDs Anyone??? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Almighty Buck (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, customers in those countries may be upset over not being able to access their favourite US-based websites, but how upset do you think the large US multinational corporations are going to be when the lose their entire overseas web customer base overnight?
I think the EU is playing it smart, betting on the fact that the buck has such powerful sway in the US that if the government doesn't agree, they will be made to in very short order when the large US corporations start pressing to get their customers back.
Re:The Financial Motivation Behind This (Score:5, Interesting)
Cuo Bono? Who knows, for now. But as cyberwar becomes a reality, and access to the internet becomes evermore an economic necessity, the EU is not happy with one nation having too much control over teh internets.
Would any nation willing cede control of its highways to another nation? I think not.
So, to answer your question of who benefits:
Potentially, any nation that is not the US. Any company doing internet business within any country not in the US. The politicians, who gain a better public image by standing up to the unpopular US.
If you're looking for corporate profits, I'm sure there are some companies that stand to make some cash. Enough to create a diplomatic crisis? Doubt it.
Re:Color me stupid.. (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't be afraid - most of the internet content is not in mine anyway - so I adapted and learned to read and write in other languages.
Which obviously helped me a lot in getting a bigger view of the world.
Have you ever been to wikipedia? Look at the main page at http://www.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org] and note that there are some languages there. And some content. The German has half of the content of the English. If I sum up the other languagees that I can read I almost come to the number of English pages.
Just an example.
Mark
Re:Sure, nothing like fearmongering. (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course it's not going to happen, but it'd be pretty cool. I imagine they would run on the same layer 1 hardware, but be separated in some way. Any idea on how this would be deployed?
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:2, Interesting)
Pretty weak strawman (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like you are a "True Patriot" who can't stand some constructive criticism of his nation. I love the USA and that is why I still live here. I feel it can be saved from what I see as an attack by irrational religionists.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:1, Interesting)
And prior to these events "most of the world" DID trust the US? Um, no...
In fact, I'd say the attitude is one of fear and suspicion.
Well, except among our numerous allies...sadly several former allies chose to go their own way.
You were warned this would happen, and you have no one to blame but yourselves.
Fine, I have no one to blame but us for all this whining. Happily, I can just ignore it! =)
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to see a more recent compilation like this, but if true, then the US is increasing their share of websites, while those in EU states are decreasing. If still trending this way, the EU will effectively lock themselves out of the majority of the Internet if this does occur and subsequently fails.
Re:Damn! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion this is a mistake, but please look up the difference between porn and obsenity. You can start here here [wikipedia.org]
Obsenity by definition is neither porn nor protected speech.
Then It's a Good Thing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What of pornography? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's only DNS. It has nothing to do with the content. And countries have been filtering and censoring just fine without global control of DNS so far.
Re:Wanna read something scary? (Score:3, Interesting)
I might be happy too, if the ITU hasn't already shown their inability to manage their [theregister.co.uk]
own IP addresses.
I can't imagine why everyone is suddenly so defensive of the ITU. This entire move to "take back" the Internet seems to be their delayed mechanism for dealing with the failed ISO/ITU Open Systems Interconnect, which was essentially killed by the IETF and TCP/IP. Unable to accept these new organizations (IETF, ICANN, etc.), they have decided to hijack the Internet through political maneuvering. Unbelievable.
Re:Wanna read something scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a quote I'm going to paraphrase (don't remember the speaker - Churchill?):
I'd rather argue against a hundred idiots than have one agree with me.
Re:Isn't it obvious... (Score:4, Interesting)
The EU/China wants to mess it all up... "or we'll take our websites and go home."
I don't CARE if someone hates the US... I hate China.... There is nothing "US-centric" about DNS other than possibly geographic location. Taking DNS admin from the US is not a "victory for the good guy" by any stretch of the word.
It's sour grapes... nothing more.
Re:What of pornography? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I can tell, the whole point of the ICANN servers is that everyone can access them, and I am not aware of any information on them which wouldn't already be known to the US government. And I would be extremely suprised if there was a law allowing the government to modify the DNS entries. The only possibility I can think of is some sort of wiretap where you route any traffic to a specific domain to another server first, but that would be both obvious to anyone who looked, and less effective than other means.
And what happens when a country outside of the us doesn't allow you to use any DNS server but their own?
Re:Fall Apart? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is quite possible for the resultant scenario to be peachy, however, I'd like to throw a wrench into your "likely" conclusion.
Perhaps the EU and others are pushing for more control of the DNS root server administration simply out of spite for the US. Or they could have intentions which are contradictory to current DNS administration policies.
If it is the later and they do setup their own DNS servers then the synchronization will eventually become borked as they add their own flavor to the DNS results. If that happens then I predict an exodus from the borked EU system, or whoever's system, back to what already works being administered by ICANN.
If on the other hand they do intend to run the DNS as before but with shared control then I see no reason to argue over it and they SHOULD setup their own DNS system. There is nothing forcing anyone to use the system which is controlled by ICANN.
What would be nice is to hear some specifics from both sides as to the WHYS of their demands. So far it sounds like the EU and other nations are saying "give us more control of it because" and so far the only arguement out of the US is "we wont because you guys will use the control to censor". Both arguements are weak, but the just because arguement is definitely the weaker.
burnin
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fall Apart? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because it is what governments DO. If they don't mandate something this stupid by law everyone will simply snicker at the foolish old men with their quaint nationalistic notions and continue using the perfectly functioning DNS system as it exists. But once they make it a matter of patriotic pride and national security that Europe have a DNS system it controls, the logic of government will require mandating it's usage. When people have the good sense to still ignore them by the millions the same logic will require enforcement action, i.e. the Great Firewall of Europe and fines for violators. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it consume your destiny.
Re:Fall Apart? (Score:4, Interesting)
If that happens, some people will inevitably patch their DNS resolvers so that everything under ICANN's root will go under ".us" (e.g. google.com.us or google.de.us), and everything under the EU's root will go under ".eu").
Then somebody will come along and start selling "super-top-level" domains under this system...
A Tale of Three Brothers (Score:2, Interesting)
A Tale of Three Brothers
Bob was a happy-go-lucky guy. He was built rather large, but had a boyish charm that all the girls loved. Bob had his own farm which was on the opposite side of a lake from the farms of his brothers, Pierre and Wolfgang.
Pierre and Wolfgang were older than Bob and a bit less work-oriented. While Bob was out plowing his fields, Pierre would nap. While Bob was harvesting his crop, Wolfgang was either drinking beer or racing his Mercedes down the highway trying to pick up girls. Because of their bad habits, their crops often withered in the fields, but if they came up short of cash or food, Bob would row across the lake and bring his brothers whatever they needed.
Sometimes Pierre and Wolfgang would get into terrible fights and Bob would row across the lake, split them apart, force them to make up, and then dutifully clean up the mess the fight had made. Then he’d make sure they were comfortable and fed, and row back to his farm on his side of the lake.
One day after plowing, Bob invented the internet. It helped him run his farm better and was mighty entertaining in the evenings. Bob organized his internet so things were nice and manageable, and all of his addresses and servers worked properly.
Bob wanted to share his new invention with his brothers, so he strung cables across the lake to his brothers’ houses, and told them what to do to get on his system. He added more servers to his basement just to handle the expected load and paid the electricity bills all by himself.
Pierre and Wolfgang started happily using Bob’s internet and even added their own websites after Bob showed them how to do it.
During this time, Wolfgang and Pierre started getting along a little better and would even visit each other in the evenings and have a glass of wine together. However, the animosity they had harbored all their lives was just below the surface and sometimes after drinking together they would start to direct that animosity towards Bob, since he wasn’t there and fighting among themselves wasn’t fun anymore.
They had come to resent the fact that Bob did so much for them. It made them feel stupid and lazy and less like men. They began to criticize the way Bob dressed, walked, talked, etc., and after all “mama always did love him more than us”.
Because of all the ill feelings they were building up inside them themselves, they began to fear that Bob would get wind of it. At most times, their drunken tirades against him were drowned out by the wind, but sometimes on a clear cold night their voices would carry across the lake and they were sure Bob had heard some of the bitter things they had said.
In the meantime, Pierre and Wolfgang had become very fond of their time on the internet. They became afraid that Bob would grow angry with them and cut them off or restrict their access.
Neither older brother had the time or money to invent their own internet, so they sat one night by the fire and came up with a plan to steal Bob’s internet. “How do we get his servers out of the basement?” asked Pierre. “We don’t” replied Wolfgang. “Those servers are too heavy and they use too much electricity”. “We have to figure out a way to leave them there so that we control them and he still pays for the upkeep”.
“I have an idea” said Pierre. “Father always liked us the best and he lives next door to Bob. If he tells Bob to give him the servers, Bob will have to do it because he will not be able to disobey Father”.
“Yes” replied Wolfgang “and Father can order him to sign over his basement to us, so that we may come and go as we please”. “ I bet Bob won’t be so happy-go-lucky now. And if he refuses to dress like us, and think like us, and talk like us.......well...... we can cut off his internet access until he does!”. “That’ll bring the big oa
Re:What of pornography? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's exactly the point. As obscenity is defined in the US, it depends on the local community where it is provided, how this works on the Internet isn't entirely clear. But I would say that on average, the threshold in Europe is a bit higher than in the US, especially since the TheoCons have gained more influence.
There is one example listed in the Wikipedia article, another one is of the guy who runs nowthatsfuckedup.com. He has just been arrested [theregister.co.uk] for obscenity. Interestingly, his site also shows images provided by soldiers in Iraq in exchange for free access, some of which put a somewhat unfavourable light on war.
The current US administration has a history of acting unilaterally, and that of course raises some doubts if it is sensible to let them be in control of what the world has become dependent on. I realise the US has a high standard for free-speech, but it isn't unlimited, either. There's also the issue with the US' weird obsession with patents and strange understanding of copyright, which could have unpredictable consequences.
So, instead of leaving one country in control, it would be good to give control to one international body that guarantees the Internet can not be affected by individual countries' decisions. That body doesn't have to be the UN, but could be something completely new. Maybe it would even be an opportunity to get a "no-censorship rule" into its charta, since the US is still in the position to make demands that have to be met in order for them to let go of control without making much fuzz about it. That would also act as a safeguard against future changes of the US' stand on this.
Re:A few questions (Score:3, Interesting)
The system is working fine right now. Why should the US or US representitives spend any time coming up with a way to change a system that is working and has worked for decades simply because some politicians in other countries suddenly decide they want control? If anything it should be up to those politicians in the EU/UN who want to change the system to come up with a workable alternative that please everyone, not the US.
So far the only reasons for change has been "we want control/don't want the US to have control" and "we don't trust you". The "we" being a rather loose and undefined group of people. If someone doesn't like the way things are going it's up to them to find a better alternative. Would you expect the phone company to bend over backwards to solve a non existant problem simply because a group of politicians decided they didn't like dialing 011 for international calls?
Re:Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:2, Interesting)
That reminds me of a documentary on american dogs: some have their cemetary, their family doctors (with weekly visits), their own manicurists, special trainers to keep them in good shape, and birth/death certificate with special social numbers... want me to tell about majordomes and houses (bigger than my dad's) as well as their own catholic church?
Bye-bye, Google, Yahoo! and Lycos. Bye-bye, Ebay. Bye-bye Slashdot.
Last time I tried, google.ch, yahoo.be, Lycos.fr, ebay.it worked very well. And they probably can live without slashdot. And kernel.org wouldn't be missed either, because they have their own vanilla kernel mirrors.
Plus, let's not forget that if the EU built their own Internet, that would mean that they wouldn't be able to access the rest of the world's Internet - unless they connected to our Internet.
I don't see your point, a cable being naught but a cable. They could certainly well connect to asia and africa without being connected to US (filtering if that's what's taken).
Otherwise I could register netraven5000.com on the US Internet, and someone in Europe could register it on the EU Internet.
RTFA.
Thanks for trying. Please come again.
Re:Icann's motto... (Score:2, Interesting)
I belive hovever, that susch a split is WERY unlikely to be betveen europe and the us, but there are other contries more likely to set up thei own system.....
Why there divisions will only get worse. (Score:2, Interesting)
THIS is occurring for exactly the same reasons as Americans like to argue "makes sense".
NATIONAL SECURITY.
You can't discuss what is going on with ICANN without considering the larger global politics first.
The US generally does a good job of maintaining free speech on the Internet. However, leaving primary control of ICAAN to the US obviously puts other nations national security at risk. Apparently it seems America has no problem dismissing international input so the world now (rightly) lives in fear of who the US might pro-actively invade next (Syria, Iran? Why not try North Korea? Oh wait they can defend themselves). It 80 plus years of Soviet power taught the world anything-- it is that freedom cannot be imposed. It must be a volutary decision to work. American did not invent freedom nor did American impose freedom on Russians by "winning" the cold war. (The Russians would have nuked them if they had tried.)
They simply chose freedom because they saw their system sucked.
However America seems to think everything it does is "right" which is clearly not the case. Had the US stopped at Afghanistan then this may have been a non-issue but America chose to alienate the rest of the world by unilaterally invading you-know-who.
Our governments (including the US) appear set on creating a new cold war. However this time it seems like it may be the US versus the rest of the world as they represent the invaders. Ironically this from a nation that used to have high moral ideals and helped found the United Nations. Incidentally FDR coined the word "United Nations" because he believed it was a great idea to resolve disputes with international legitimacy even though the world was filled with Nazi's and Stalinists at the time.
It isn't the first time America has tried to go it alone. Check out what happened the last time some of your citizens suggested isolationism was a good idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First [wikipedia.org]
America is a pretty nice country but not as nice as it used to be. Don't blame all the citizens for their distorted image of reality though. There is serious manipulation going on with the mass media that is distorting truth similar to what the Chinese do-- but with different people at the controls. For instance all 170+ Fox news outlets came out in favor of war in Iraq-- this despite the fact a healthy percentage of your population disagreed. In other words-- the main media is currently heavily controlled by powerful business factions that let Americans see what they want them to see while playing violins and waving flags to manipulate emotions.
There is no question that America is the single most powerful nation on the Earth. However there already exist nations on earth where the citizens are freer, safer, and live longer. Furthermore China is set to surpass everyone economically within the next couple of decades with the option (at their discretion) to dominate militarily as well. Chinese citizens may not be free but it seems likely they will be rich.
The cold war is over but Americans still compare the rest of the world to that of failed third world nations. I can assure you that citizens of the first world nations have all the amenities you have and many of their average folk are starting to have even more. I've been through Western Europe and a number of US states to validate that most other nations don't have nearly as many trailer parks or slums like America. And despite all the gibberish about superior freedoms---they seem to be freer as their governments don't nearly spy on or arrest their citizens with nearly the frequency of the America state.
Putting aside th
That doesn't work. (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't work. The joker gets played when you try to "go on from there".
The first time the ICANN and the UN separately assign "new-domain.com" to different customers, both new customers are broken.
When they assign the same block of IP numbers to two different customers they break, not just the namespace, but the routing tables. At that point the ISPs MUST cut the net apart (in at least that IP range) to insure packets get through.
And heaven help innovation if they both assign, say, the same new port number to different services or the same new protocol number to different protocols. B-(
The point of the ICANN is NOT to run the root servers.
The point is that certain identifiers on the internet ("Assigned Names and Numbers") must be unique. (The root servers just publish their decisions on the domain namespace.)
Assigning unique identifiers pretty much requires a singular authority to make the indivisible transactions. A hierarchy has been established so some of the large, busy namespaces can be divvied up into chunks that can be administered separately. But somebody has to administer the bottom-layer chunk and right now that's whatever contractor is deligated by ICANN (Network Solutions Inc.). And while multiple registrars are allowed to hand out names in some chunks of the namespace (such as
Even if you tried to solve this distributed update problem with something like a byzantine generals algorithm, somebody has to decide who are the members of the authoritative set of byzantine generals. Oops! Back to square one.
Re:A few questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that so?
When it comes to speech on the internet: yes. I only know the situation in Germany:
But you're right, in the real world Europe typically has more freedoms than the US.
Battling American Arrogance: At what cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
This part is absolutely correct. Whether we're talking about forking the root servers, negotiating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, or removing Saddam Hussein, the primary European concern is battling American arrogance.
I understand why Europeans feel this way. When you encounter somebody who is wildly successful and totally full of himself, it is only natural to want to knock him down a peg.
The question is, what price is Europe willing to pay for this?
Do Europeans think it is a good idea to fork the root servers?
Do Europeans think it was a good idea for Chirac to encourage Arafat to walk away from the Paris accords in 2000?
Do Europeans think that Iraq deserves Saddam Hussein?
Do Europeans think that a strong PRC without human rights reforms is a good thing?
For a great many Europeans the answer to all of these questions is a firm NON.
The European response in each case is that those Arrogant Selfish Americans are acting as if they own the World, the Internet, or the Middle East. "We don't disagree with their goal, just the way they go about it."
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.
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.
Europeans Beware!!!
If Europe keeps on fighting America, Europe will eventually start winning some battles.
You may fork the Internet.
You may destroy American efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
You may prevent the United States from attacking the next Saddam Hussein (can you say Kim Jong Il?).
You may create a dominant PRC that doesn't have any reason to care about human rights.
Europe has to decide which European values can be sacrificed on the altar of sticking it to the Americans, and which European values must be upheld, even if it means tolerating American Hubris.
I know this much:
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.
Re:Free(er) Speech (Score:2, Interesting)