US Internet Control To Be Topic #1 In Rio

Crazy Taco writes "It looks as though the next meeting of the UN's Internet Governance Forum is about to descend into another heated debate about US control of key Internet systems. Although the initial purpose of this year's summit was to cover such issues as spam, free speech and cheaper access, it appears that nations such as China, Iran, and Russia, among others, would rather discuss US control of the Internet. In meetings leading to up to the second annual meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janiero on Monday, these nations won the right to hold an opening-day panel devoted to 'critical Internet resources.' While a number of countries wanting to internationalize Internet control simply want to have more say over policies such as creating domain names in languages other than English, we can only speculate what additional motives might be driving nations that heavily censor the Internet and lock down the flow of information across it."

Censorship?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

While a number of countries wanting to internationalize Internet control simply want to have more say over policies such as creating domain names in languages other than English, we can only speculate what additional motives might be driving nations that heavily censor the Internet and lock down the flow of information across it.

Not to be confused, presumably, with a nation whose government has a demonstrated history of violating the privacy rights of its own citizens and stating on the record that it doesn't accord any such rights at all to anyone who isn't one of its own citizens, including the vast numbers of Internet users from other nations whose traffic is all but certain to pass through systems under its jurisdiction, and within which it has repeatedly been shown that major communication providers are more than willing to provide the government with access to traffic they carry without proper authorisation anyway.

Nope, I can't imagine how any other nation in the world could see a problem with that. There is no danger whatsoever of industrial espionage, interception and decoding of confidential government transmissions, or investigations of private citizens of high influence, and none of them could be used to further the interests of a nation with such access at the expense of others anyway.

Well I'd hope

[Sycraft-fu]

They'd talk about really internationalizing it. You know, things like setting up a new system of non ICANN roots and such. Try and get infrastructure that is independent of the US systems but interoperable and then once it is established and working well, talk about redelegation of control. For example if the EU were to set up a central agency that controls a bunch of EU based roots, mirror the ICANN root zone, get all that going well. Then they go and talk to ICANN and say "Hey, how about we split the root zone, we take the EU nations, you keep the rest, we both mirror each other." Do that in a few places around the world we could have a DNS system with more regional control, that would also be outside the ability of a single government or governments to screw up. For example if the EU later decided to be jerks, ICANN and others could stop accepting their updates, and people in and out of the EU could use the other roots.

However I have a feeling that it is going to be like most of these meetings where people just whine that the US companies should have to give up control of their resources to some international oversight body. In addition to being rather greedy, this is also stupid. Having a bunch of systems in the US that control everything but are theoreticly under international control changes nothing. The US government could change their minds at any time, and if the companies and servers are in the US they'll do as the government says because they won't have a choice. You haven't really solved anything, just added more bureaucracy and more people who can control what's going on normally but the buck still ultimately stops with the US government.

The real answer is many systems, all around the world, that are controlled by many groups. In that way there really isn't a single group that "runs" the Internet. Of course that isn't what most nations are at all interested in. They are interested in just having the US keep control, so long as the US will do what they are told.

Re:Just wondering?

[GC]

From an infrastructure perspective it would be better to be able to traceroute a site in Australia/Asia from Europe and not have it go trans-atlantic / trans-america / trans-pacific to get to it's destination.

Russia, Iran and places like that could help a lot in that regard.

Re:why not set up a `seperate internet?'

[GC]

You mean like Alt roots [wikipedia.org]? or a complete seperate network without any interconnections between the two?

The whole point of the Internet was to interconnect systems.

On a more general note, are any other non-american slashdotters noticing a rather alarming number of questionable political posts on this site recently?

Us non-americans might need to go get ourselves our own slash site too. :-)

Re:Censorship?

[mOdQuArK!]

Since the parent was referring to the concept that OTHER countries don't want THEIR traffic monitored by the U.S., your response indicates that you must be an idiot.

Give it to the UN? FU!

[p51d007]

Give control of the TLD's to the Useless Nations, and watch what can be said, posted and read disappear. If these other countries don't like the fact that the USA (who invented the net) runs it, then develop your own and leave the rest of us alone.

Bad News...

[Penguinisto]

Unless its encrypted, you have no privacy online. Just ask any SMTP admin, or for that matter, anyone with a packet sniffer. This means that privacy means absolutely zilch when it comes to infrastructure. (Note that how individual sites handle your personal information is another story entirely...)

/P

Create their own network then?

[DarkTempes]

If it's such a big problem the nations that don't like how the US-run internet works can always just seperate from the network and create their own network (or at least threaten to).

Though I doubt anyone has the balls. Personally ICANN/IANA does a pretty good job at what it does, and the FCC seems to only step in extremely rarely (if at all). And I promise you that a large majority of nations, if not every nation, intercept/store/decode internet information. Changing who 'owns' the internet would not change that at all. It would just potentially change who gets what IP blocks (alot of businesses would be pretty upset if this changed), what TLDs are official and valid (and nothing stops a nation from having their own ISP's DNS servers adding TLDs), and I guess some protocol stuff.

The US may do some terrible things but with regards to the internet it's policy is typically 'do not regulate if possibly'. Unless that changes this is all just a bunch of moaning to stur up anti-american sentiments.

Uh, what?

[ChromeAeonium]

Those nations could encourage economic prosperity that would encourage their citizens to create web pages, thus increasing how much of the internet they 'control'.......or they could just bitch that the people who invented the internet used their native language.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever problems the USA may have, practically speaking there is no better guardian of the Internet. You think the UN would do any better? The organization where the Human Rights Council is run by countries like Syria, Sudan and Libya? The USA may not be perfect, but it's the best the world has to offer at the moment.

Re:why not set up a `seperate internet?'

[1u3hr]

are any other non-american slashdotters noticing a rather alarming number of questionable political posts on this site recently?

Especially the little rider to the summary "we can only speculate what additional motives might be driving nations that heavily censor the Internet and lock down the flow of information across it." There was nothing in the Yahoo article linked about censorship. So who is "we"? And how about the motives of countries that know that the US is spying on every byte that passes through its jurisdiction (and probably a lot that don't)? They have no reason to be concerned -- no, they must be only motivated by the desire to censor?

It's all about censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

It is sometimes difficult for Americans to comprehend that very few countries understand the concept of the free speech and a free press. For example, in our 21st Century, most European countries will prosecute individuals for thought crimes. In Russia, the state continues to repress the free press. The Russian web and broadcast outlets have become targets for Putin's heavy handed interference.

Muslim countries block access to web sites deemed too sexual or which differ in religious outlook from their repressive theology. China? Well, we know that story all too well. The quest of these regimes toward control of the the Internet is not rooted in a desire for "freedom" or "diversity". Quite the contrary. It is a desire to control and repress.

Re:Censorship?

[omeomi]

You do know that stuff you send over the Internet is not considered private, right??

Maybe not from a technical point of view, but from a legal point of view, you can certainly get into a lot of trouble intentionally intercepting private communications over the internet.

Re:It's all about censorship

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Thats the funny thing. Most of the posts here in favor of internationalizing the Internet are complaining about a loss of privacy due to NSA wiretapping. Well a lot of the countries that want it to be internationalized, want more control over the content that can be viewed. Much less passive, and much more oppressive. Even if it were to be reorganized such that the US held no special pull on the governance of the internet, you can bet that wouldn't stop the NSA. Its mainly an academic topic, the benefits of any potential internationalizing of the internet don't outweigh the potential problems.

Re:Censorship?

[jonwil]

Encrypt it and/or use Tor & friends.

I want a world where encrypting internet traffic is as routine as locking the house when you go out.
I want a world where encrypted internet traffic (especially email, IM, chat, voice chat, video chat and other private communications) is the rule and not the exception. And the encryption should be done in ways that prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and snooping. No computer outside of yours and the one at the other end should ever see the plain text or encryption keys. For real time communications such as IM and voice chat, the encryption should be performed using keys calculated at runtime (with diffe-helman or similar) and thrown away after the communication is finished to prevent anyone from being able to hack into your PC and steal the keys (or force you to hand them over).

Precisely!

[Chas]

From what I've seen thus far, all they've done is demand control of systems and services that don't belong to them (but they're given use of).

Unless they're willing to actually, y'know, INVEST in supporting the infrastructure (their own root servers, etc), they need to step off.

It's like some of these nations that get sent food demanding steak instead of the grain.

Why not make it international?

[Infonaut]

After all, the UN is a model of efficiency and transparency. It should be easy to share control of the Internet!

Re:Censorship?

[drmerope]

Apparently you live in some sort of reality distortion field. Well here's the deal: communications used to use microwave communications. These were easily intercepted and routinely. This sort of stuff is called 'Signals Intelligence'. A nice British chap,a former assistant directory of MI-5, was at the forefront of this this, and he wrote a book about his experiences called spycatcher [wikipedia.org].

The book also provides an examination of the techniques used by the intelligence services, along with a candid expose of their ethics which had until then been mere speculation (notably the "11th commandment" which states that "thou shalt not get caught"). Wright explains many of the technologies used by MI5, some of which he developed himself, and which allowed the agency to bug rooms using a variety of clever electronic techniques.

These technologies have been updated for fiber-optics. Yes, a lot of interception takes place directly in the United States, but in fact it is going on all over the world. Its done by all of the major powers, not just the United States--and guess what, they are all spying on eachother

You're mistaken in thinking that privacy is better part of liberty. No, liberty is only liberty when it doesn't matter who knows or doesn't know what you are doing. Its our liberty that makes the US different from the autocratic regimes which rule many countries in the world. Every government is listening; only some let you do what you choose regardless.

thought crimes

[QuantumG]

according to Nightline NBC, horny men who get chatted up by someone who claims to be a 14 year old girl and then show up at the allotted place for sex can be arrested in the US for attempted child abuse or similar charges.. sounds like thought crime to me.

Re:Create their own network then?

[cyphercell]

Personally, until china, russia, and many others clean up their goddamned spam issues, we ought to talk war, when they talk about "their" Internet. Seriously, expecting an effective Internet from these people is like expecting safe toys [google.com] from a nation well known for blatant human rights abuses [google.com].

Really,

[jd]

I'd hope that control of the Internet was taken out of the control of any non-representative body. I don't care who is not getting represented, the important thing is that the Internet is a federation of networks and you cannot have a federation that is run by a theocracy. If it's a federation, it cannot have anyone in overall charge, which is the way the Internet should be run. Particularly if it is supposed to be resilient to damage (cyber attacks, nuke attacks, etc).

Wrong issue lemming

[SuperKendall]

Not to be confused, presumably, with a nation whose government has a demonstrated history of violating the privacy rights

Stop right there, privacy is a different issue than censorship.

"Brave Guy" indeed, what a lemming. Just spouting off the same message about privacy issues even when it has nothing to do with the topic under discussion!

And as a last thought, are you seriously going to sit there and say a U.S. citizen has more to worry about from their government than a citizen of *Putin's Russia*? Than any Chinese citizen?

Come on.

Re:Just wondering?

[rootofevil]

france and germany actively prosecute people selling paraphanelia from the 3rd reich on auction sites, and france has attempted to enforce this policy on the site itself, regardless of where the auction is being held.

north korea, china and most of the middle east actively filters what its citizens are allowed to read. china has imprisoned journalists for publishing information it does not want posted, and have frequently deemed things 'state secrets' to cover up goings on inside their borders.

meanwhile the US is not perfect, however a group of senators recently had a very rough conversation with the yahoo execs regarding china and what happened with a journalist there. its better than nothing.

youll understand why im somewhat hesitant about allowing iran and china a say in how this whole thing is being run.

Re:I agree -- there should be an internet UN

[Shihar]

I agree -- there should be an internet UN that handles this. I'm just thinking of 9 years from now when the Republicans take control again... and this time there really will be the technology to control everyone if thats what people want. Why would a foreign business want to have to deal with the US if they didn't have to anyway? (sad but true)

Being something like 20% if the consumer market helps in getting business to want to 'deal' with the US.

As far as the UN 'handling' the internet, is this the same body that puts Cuba, Syria, and Libya on the human rights committee? The same guys that watched the Rwandan claim 10% of the population? Yeah. The UN is not exactly a model of speed and efficiency. By the time they realize they have a problem, it is a decade too late.

Of course, this is all an utterly moot point. The "control" the US has is just keeping a copy of the DNS list. You can actually go up into your browser settings and use someone else's list if you really want to. If the rest of the world wants to use a new system, absolutely nothing is stopping them other than that if they get out of sync with the US, they might have pissed off users. The US doesn't have to 'give up' anything. The rest of the world just needs to point their browsers in a different direction.

Re:It's all about censorship

[johannesg]

The internet, liike many things that were invented decades ago, is an American thing used by the entire world. That's not to the detrimant of the rest of the world, as its productivity seems to be eclipsing the US quite a bit, but we made this internet, and it's fair that we have more control over it. Until we do such a bad job that there is enough incentive to make a new network, we ought to keep what's ours. It's not like we're any more evil than the UN... quite less actually.

The americans have contributed the basic protocol. I don't believe they paid for any of the hardware that actually runs the internet, apart from the small amount residing within their own borders, of course. I also don't believe they pay for maintenance to any of that hardware either. And some of the most important protocols, HTTP and HTML, are assuredly not an american invention. So I'm not sure where this sense of ownership comes from, but you can stick it in the dark spot behind my German-designed, Chinese-built router.

As for the UN, when will you americans understand that it is not a government. It is nothing more than a structure in which individual nations meet to make decisions together. It has no power beyond what those nations grant it. Your own country, being such a powerful member, sometimes grants it great power (for example when it seeks to legitimize wars) and at other times it grants it no power at all. Blaming them for anything is pretty much the same as blaming yourself.

Re:It's all about censorship

[Roger W Moore]

People who commit murder are the criminals, not the people who tell em to do it. That goes for hit men too.

Really? Allow me to acquaint you with a tactic of the IRA. Kidnap some poor sod's family and tell him to drive a car filled with explosives into an army checkpoint or else his wife and kids will all get murdered. Technically you are correct, driving the car into the checkpoint to murder soldiers makes the guy a criminal....but I think we would all agree who the real criminals are in this, unfortunately real life, scenario.

Re:Just wondering?

[MillionthMonkey]

so how is that the USs fault? because russia and other states in the region havent laid sufficient fiber, the US is somehow responsible?

You miss the point. It isn't about who's "responsible" for anything. We recently passed something called the "Protect America Act" [wired.com]- in full view of everyone, ironically with limited public debate- that allows the American government to engage in warrantless surveillance of any Internet traffic routed through the United States [washingtonmonthly.com] if either or (commonly) both endpoints of that traffic lie in a foreign country.

And it turns out, surprise surprise, that most people in the world would rather not have their packets routed through a police state.

Better the "devil" you know?

[Epsillon]

First off, I'm having a really hard time understanding just how the US controls a network of mutual consent. That said, and I know I'm going to be modded to oblivion for not participating in the groupthink du jour (America hating), so far the US control of the gTLDs has been exemplary, impartial and efficient (Verisign's idiotic DNS pollution aside).

I'm British and yes, I can hate Bush and [Blair|Brown]'s little crusade with the best of them but I fail to see why we should fix something that isn't broken. If you really are worried about US control, use ORSN roots as I do. So far, the only reason I have had to use them is IPv6 accessible root servers, but they also go into independent mode if anyone screws with the roots with malevolence. So far, touch wood, nobody has.

Would it also be so terrible to say "thanks, USA and ICANN" for the stability they've given the gTLDs over the years? I shudder to think what would happen if the UN ever got control of the roots. Can you say "bureaucracy" and not think inefficiency and inaccessibility?

Meta-comment

[Anonymous Coward]

As a meta-observation, it's really interesting to see how every time a story such as this is posted, people who're otherwise mostly sensible immediately start raving about how "we" can't let "countries like Iran" "control the Internet".

That's the same people who usually bemoan the fact that a significant percentage of the USA's population doesn't really know what the world looks like outside of their own little nation, the same people who complain about rampant xenophobia and wars, and the same people who criticise (rightfully, one might add) their own administration for consistently and willfully violating just about every constitutionally-guaranteed right and every human right on the book.

In fact, it's even the same people who will loudly complain (as before, rightfully) about ICANN's latest bullshit when they (ICANN) pull another stunt. Yet somehow, for some reason, when the words "Internet control" are mentioned, they all turn into raving nationalistic wingnuts.

What gives?

What's more, they aren't even able to provide good reasons. "Giving Iran control over the Internet" is an obvious strawman, for example. Complaints about a perceived lack of freedom of speech in Europe (which part exactly? It's not as if Europe is one big homogenous mass) just betray a lack of understanding of the concept of free speech in the USA (if you think you've got absolute free speech - even absolute free political speech - you're sorely mistaken). UN bashings are on the same level as those of Bush and Cheney and the rest of the neocon mafia (apologies to the *real* mafia for that comparison, BTW) - childish and unfounded. And so on...

Generally speaking, it's not something that'd really amaze me, but I just don't - can't - understand why this happens on Slashdot. It's almost as if the usual readers, commenters and moderators are suddenly exchanged for an entirely different group of people when these stories crop up.

Re:Just wondering?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Yes, but in making the US enforcer of the internet and protector of freedom, you are denying countries their freedom to have their own moralities. I like the way it is now: no country regulates the internet alone, with official jurisdiction being geographically divided.

Re:This kind of discussion always comes up...

[adhocboy]

I'm not thinking the UN is a role model for the betterment of mankind. And, of course, maintaining the internet would then be 5 times more expensive (due to the bribes and kickbacks required).

Re:Just wondering?

[kriss]

..while the US happily tries to strongarm its policy / trade interests pretty much wherever it can (The Pirate Bay is one example), stir up a nationwide fuzz about a braindead woman and her rights to live, consider morality to be superior to choce in many states (gay marriage, right to abortion) and got "in god we trust" printed on every dollar bill.

Sorry guv, but if you - as a nation - were serious about nerfing China over human rights, stop trading. Won't happen, since the US economy would plummet faster than you could say Cheap Plastic Toy, but nonetheless.

Point of all this? The internet is global and as such, control over the (software & allocation) infrastructure should be as well. Yes, global means that other nations does have a say, that's the beauty of it. It doesn't mean that China, Iran or whoever gets any more or less encouraged when it comes to blocking access, despite what some people here might think.

Re:Create their own network then?

[adhocboy]

Exactly. They should create one, our copy the existing one. America has become too global. Constant association with despotic regimes, backward religions and heartless capitalism is polluting our on internal dialogue. Why is the Middle East even on the news when we have serious issues of education, civil rights and personal freedom to be concerned about. Only fools invest without return. Net neutrality is just a ploy to allow wealthy California java jockeys to exploit the hard earned physical assets of large corporations. Hundreds of thousands have worked to build this infrastructure, and net neutrality is just another way for California rich boys to swoop in an make money on that investment... and leave the telcom pension accounts bankrupt. Hard working corporate employees have invested decades in this infrastructure, and will now find their long term investments liquidated through short sighted profit taking of sockless 20 years with pierced faces. Ceding control of the internet is a liquidation strategy. International control of the net is a lot like net neutrality in that it separates the Return from the Investment. Once large corporations - the economic engine of the West - understand they will never be allowed a more than modest Return on long term Investments, they will cease to invest in truly innovative technologies. Russia, China and others do NOT want to take the internet to the next level. Instead, they want to control and confine what is there. These nations approach the internet with a LIQUIDATION STRATEGY; they want to consume its benefits, not expand its reach. Ideas grow, change or die. The liquidation strategy for the internet will kill it within 10 to 20 years. This is not a rail system, and other nations do not understand the difference. America will never share the internet. It is not economically possible. Even if that is what the politicians think they are doing, they are really just giving the world the current 20 year old system. American industry will need a replacement system that is not constrained by less innovative minds. And in 10 years, we will be discussing this again. What the world really wants is not to control the internet. Smart minds abroad understand that we will just create another. That is WHY they will not create their own. What the world wants is to control America's internet. They need to both tether our explosive information sharing and tap into the economic engine it has been become. Russia and China only win if they can leech off the American internet for economic and political power. At least until we come up with the next disruptive technology... and like after the free market, nuclear weapons, space travel and the internet... they will collectively scratch their heads and begin to adapt... and eventually want a say in how we use that, too.

.xxx TLD considered stupid.

[Kadin2048]

And the US vetos the .xxx TLD.

The .xxx TLD is a terrible idea, and the US (and anyone else who torpedo it) should be applauded for their actions. It's one of those too-stupid-to-die schemes that gets run up the flag pole every year or so, necessitating a lot of time and hot air to be expended in order to put it down again.

Except as part of some totally unfeasible net-censorship scheme, it would serve no purpose. No good can come of it.

Re:Just wondering?

[MillionthMonkey]

Of course, if you could confront these dweebs that write this garbage and ask them what country they would prefer over the US, I doubt they would have a clue how to answer. What they usually do is start calling the challenger names and making derogatory remarks about the challenger's intelligence or penis size.

If you want to know "what country I would prefer over the US" most of all, I would have to say it would be the United States that I grew up in as a kid. I'm sorry that people keep calling you stupid and making fun of your penis, but don't attribute those attacks to me. For all I know, you could be a big-dicked genius who just asked the first dumb question of his life.

Re:Just wondering?

[sumdumass]

Releasing control of the Internet to other countries wouldn't stop that from happening. Actually traffic can be routed around the United states right now.

It just depends on if those two other countries have built the infrastructure necessary to not use US lines. If there isn't a line between Iran and Europe, then it will have to go though some other country first. If there is a line and it is packed full of traffic, then the routers would rout around that line anyways.

What the US controls as far as the Internet is concerned is the lines (fiber or better) that we own and operate, the domain naming systems, root DNS servers and so on. It has nothing to do with traffic taking a specific route unless there is no other route for it to take. And that isn't the fault of the US in this stage of the game.

The immunity thing is also entirely separate from the Internet monitoring. Internet monitoring and computerized phone monitoring has been around since the Clinton years in one form or another. It is and has been legal since around 1996 or so. The only difference is the name on the data center says DHS instead of FBI or what ever.

Re:Just wondering?

[sumdumass]

You should open your ears a little more. When attempting to track down a website with an updated Canadian charter, I came across numerous lawsuits where someone was limited in their speech. About half the government wan too.

Anyways, in the US or anywhere, you have a right to say it. Not a right to the platform your going to say it on. There is nothing wrong with saying your piece somewhere that doesn't disrupt the rights of others. And quite frankly, if you think that denying others rights in order to take advantage of yours it something honorable, then what your saying probably isn't worth being heard. If it was worth being heard, it wouldn't matter where you said it, people would listen.

As for smoking pot in public, that is really something to be proud of. Look at us, we are free and we get stones in front of the cops. There are evens in the US where cops turn a blind eye to pot too. Ever been to a concert? I have personally sat at the lake fishing and passing a one hit between ourselves and not been bothered by the cops. It isn't some sign of great progress that you should be quantifying how great a country is.

The point is, your constitution says lots of things but your government routinely wipes it's ass with it, blatantly ignoring it.

Well, it sounds as if you have no clue. This quote here really set this off. The government doesn't routinely do anything of the sort. Your just hanging with the wrong people if you think that is remotely true. You also have no idea about what the constitution is, does, or is effected by actions of the government. Why don't you get back to me when you sober up, get a clue and be more specific with things that you haven't found someone other clueless asshole saying in a forum somewhere.