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The Internet

ICANN Warns UN May Sideline Tech Community From Future Internet Governance (theregister.com) 79

The United Nations' proposed Global Digital Compact will exclude technical experts as a distinct voice in internet governance, ignoring their enormous contributions to growing and sustaining the internet, according to ICANN and two of the world's regional internet registries. From a report: The Global Digital Compact is an effort to "outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all." The UN hopes the compact will address issues such as digital inclusion, internet fragmentation, giving individuals control over how their data is used, and making the internet trustworthy "by introducing accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content." But ICANN, the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), and the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) worry that recent articulations of the Compact suggest it should use a tripartite model for digital cooperation with three stakeholder groups: the private sector, governments, and civil society. That's dangerous, ICANN and co argue, because technical stakeholders would lose their distinct voice.

They've therefore co-signed and published a document criticizing the Compact as it stands today. "The technical community is not part of civil society and it has never been," the document states, citing outcomes of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) -- a UN event staged in 2003 and 2005 that defined a multi-stakeholder internet governance framework. 2015's WSIS+10 event affirmed that strategy. "This model excludes the technical community as a distinct component, and overlooks the unique and essential roles played by that community's members separately and collectively," DNS overlord ICANN and the registries added.

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ICANN Warns UN May Sideline Tech Community From Future Internet Governance

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  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:32PM (#63788230)

    At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible.

    I run into that even in my tiny corner of the world - and I'm dealing with STEM faculty.

    • by rkhalloran ( 136467 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:39PM (#63788254) Homepage

      I was at AT&T for some years while they tried to push the ITU-developed ISO protocol stack for networking, X.400 messaging, X.500 directory services. The assumption was since they came out of ITU they'd be adopted in short order and this TCP/IP stuff was a temporary thing. We see how that went.; Rough consensus & running code FTW...

      • by gavron ( 1300111 )

        I was at AT&T for some years while they tried to push the ITU-developed ISO protocol stack for networking, X.400 messaging, X.500 directory services. The assumption was since they came out of ITU they'd be adopted in short order and this TCP/IP stuff was a temporary thing. We see how that went.; Rough consensus & running code FTW...

        Old quote: (I forget who said it)

        "If the OSI developers are messaging each other, it's probably over TCP/IP."

    • by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:41PM (#63788262)

      "At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible."

      You've just put your finger on it. The politicians don't *want* somebody telling them, "No, you can't do that." They don't care about technical feasibility.

      • by Bongo ( 13261 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:04PM (#63788316)

        The UN is, in principle, about united humanity, but in practice, it's a power grab. Expect much borking.

        • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

          "United humanity" has always been exclusively about consolidating power - and thus control - at the top.

          How could it be anything else? It's just the west's version of the Global Communism propaganda.

        • Exactly.

          This blurb in the synopsis sent chills down my spine:

          and making the internet trustworthy "by introducing accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content."

          Ok....exactly who all is this compact between...and how much power of enforcement does this actually have on the individual?

          Who the fsck is the US to decide what is "misleading"?

          We've already found that many people purged during covid, were later found to be of sound mine and in many cases were right in their ascertations tha

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Opportunist ( 166417 )

            We've already found that many people purged during covid, were later found to be of sound mine and in many cases were right in their ascertations that went against the grain of the accepted narrative of the day....that often resulted in policies that were govt. enforced

            I'm sure you can offer some examples.

            • lol- moderated troll for asking for an example of a claim that seems to be on its face, complete bullshit.

              Fucking pathetic.
              • by Anubis350 ( 772791 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @04:47PM (#63788768)
                Sadly hard right and libertarian conspiracy theorists, as well as just general trolls, have, every year, become a larger and larger percentage of /.â(TM)s shrinking userbase. I wish /. would find a way to draw more of the old style techy crowd that likes, you know, facts but there hasnt been any evidence they even know how.
            • I'm sure you can offer some examples.

              Well, sure...

              There is NO way that the virus came from the china lab....(turns out there's decent evidence that it may have done just that).

              You MUST wear a mask any mask to prevent disease spread and catching the virus(if it wasn't a well fitter N95 type mask, it did you and other NO good at preventing disease).

              There is NO danger at all from the vaccine...(turns out there were, potential heart problem, especially in younger men).

              This is a "true" vaccine (even though

              • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                by Opportunist ( 166417 )

                When I asked for examples, I was hoping that I'd get some relevant links (preferably to non-loony pages), not just a list of things you think people said.

              • I can't recall anyone saying any of these statements. It also would be quite stupid to say this, based on the wast experience we have with vaccines.

                What MIGHT have been said was, and consider what was known at the time, so you can add a "with what we know so far" condition to all of these:

                - It is unlikely it originated in a lab / it does not look man made.
                - Wearing a mask will limit the spread of the virus (as in, you wearing a surgical mask, will stop most droplets from you hitting other people. That's why

              • There is NO way that the virus came from the china lab....(turns out there's decent evidence that it may have done just that).

                Liar. It remains true that a preponderance of the evidence suggests it was natural. A preponderance is not all though, and that has always been acknowledged.

                You MUST wear a mask any mask to prevent disease spread and catching the virus(if it wasn't a well fitter N95 type mask, it did you and other NO good at preventing disease).

                Liar. Any physical obstruction of droplets presents as a data point in the transmissability spectrum.
                No mask is completely ineffective. That's a simple matter of physics. Usefully effective is another metric.
                That was always known, even as the transmissibility error bars were tightened.

                There is NO danger at all from the vaccine...(turns out there were, potential heart problem, especially in younger men).

                Liar. Nobody every claimed that the vaccine had zero risk. But the

      • by sxpert ( 139117 )

        then we technical people will do like we did for the ITU crap, ignore them

      • "At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible."

        You've just put your finger on it. The politicians don't *want* somebody telling them, "No, you can't do that." They don't care about technical feasibility.

        In a previous life I worked for a company that was being forced by the Government to immediately disconnect and separate a handful of operating sites from the singular global network due to security mandates. After a few days of contracts being suspended and the business starting to feel the pinch, a consultant chimed in and said "just unplug the damn thing so we can get back to work."

        I then calmly proceeded to inform those who don't care about technical feasibility exactly what would happen, hour by hour

      • "At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible."

        You've just put your finger on it. The politicians don't *want* somebody telling them, "No, you can't do that." They don't care about technical feasibility.

        Typical politician thinks this way:

        "All things are possible if you have enough time; pass enough laws; hire enough consultants & sycophants; and spend plenty of other people's money."

    • At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible.

      If we haven't voted the technically incompetent out at this point, then I'd say we've identified the group of voters responsible for maintaining the time-honored tradition of learning the hard way.

      At a minimum, a Democracy needs competent voters. Everything else becomes rather irrelevant otherwise, as we're experiencing.

      • At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible.

        If we haven't voted the technically incompetent out at this point, then I'd say we've identified the group of voters responsible for maintaining the time-honored tradition of learning the hard way.

        At a minimum, a Democracy needs competent voters. Everything else becomes rather irrelevant otherwise, as we're experiencing.

        I know people fight the idea as elitist and wrong-think, but I would be interested in at least entertaining the idea of a simple ten question quizz before a vote. If a person can't answer a few simple questions about the issues on the ballot? Maybe we don't throw their vote out, but at least give it a lesser priority somehow.

        And no, I'm not talking about a god damned physics and calculus exam. Politics is stupid simple once you break down the issues and get past the money involved. Issues should matter. The

        • At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible.

          If we haven't voted the technically incompetent out at this point, then I'd say we've identified the group of voters responsible for maintaining the time-honored tradition of learning the hard way.

          At a minimum, a Democracy needs competent voters. Everything else becomes rather irrelevant otherwise, as we're experiencing.

          I know people fight the idea as elitist and wrong-think, but I would be interested in at least entertaining the idea of a simple ten question quizz before a vote. If a person can't answer a few simple questions about the issues on the ballot? Maybe we don't throw their vote out, but at least give it a lesser priority somehow.

          When it comes to life experience, the average 18-year old voter is an untrained monkey by comparison to the average tax-paying voter who's been running in that rat race for a decade or more.

          Would be a hell of a lot easier to raise the voting age to 21. Or even 25. Politics demands a bit of common sense derived from real life experience, and not that delusional shit they're selling on college campuses.

          • At a minimum they need technical people at the table just to tell them when some stupid idea isn't even technically feasible.

            If we haven't voted the technically incompetent out at this point, then I'd say we've identified the group of voters responsible for maintaining the time-honored tradition of learning the hard way.

            At a minimum, a Democracy needs competent voters. Everything else becomes rather irrelevant otherwise, as we're experiencing.

            I know people fight the idea as elitist and wrong-think, but I would be interested in at least entertaining the idea of a simple ten question quizz before a vote. If a person can't answer a few simple questions about the issues on the ballot? Maybe we don't throw their vote out, but at least give it a lesser priority somehow.

            When it comes to life experience, the average 18-year old voter is an untrained monkey by comparison to the average tax-paying voter who's been running in that rat race for a decade or more.

            Would be a hell of a lot easier to raise the voting age to 21. Or even 25. Politics demands a bit of common sense derived from real life experience, and not that delusional shit they're selling on college campuses.

            No. This "raise the voting age" bullshit is a Republican wet dream in this country, and I'd imagine a "conservative" wet dream elsewhere because it would stop progress dead. What do you do when the 18 year olds reach 21? Raise the age again?

            Which is why I think the idea of a test is less egregious than raising the voting age. Just because people disagree with your conclusions it doesn't mean they need excluded from the conversation.

            I'm between the boomers and the zoomers. I've felt the age divide pretty sev

            • When it comes to life experience, the average 18-year old voter is an untrained monkey by comparison to the average tax-paying voter who's been running in that rat race for a decade or more.

              Would be a hell of a lot easier to raise the voting age to 21. Or even 25. Politics demands a bit of common sense derived from real life experience, and not that delusional shit they're selling on college campuses.

              No. This "raise the voting age" bullshit is a Republican wet dream in this country, and I'd imagine a "conservative" wet dream elsewhere because it would stop progress dead. What do you do when the 18 year olds reach 21? Raise the age again?

              No. I would hope they would grow a fucking brain and an ability to think for themselves by age 21, instead of listening to people who automatically assume that raising the voting age is some kind of "conservative wet dream". It's certainly a conservative thing alright, I'll give you that. But you should be asking yourself why is it that a LOT of liberals eventually mature into conservatives once they start earning real money they don't want to give away in the next social experiment? Why is it that lib

              • When it comes to life experience, the average 18-year old voter is an untrained monkey by comparison to the average tax-paying voter who's been running in that rat race for a decade or more.

                Would be a hell of a lot easier to raise the voting age to 21. Or even 25. Politics demands a bit of common sense derived from real life experience, and not that delusional shit they're selling on college campuses.

                No. This "raise the voting age" bullshit is a Republican wet dream in this country, and I'd imagine a "conservative" wet dream elsewhere because it would stop progress dead. What do you do when the 18 year olds reach 21? Raise the age again?

                No. I would hope they would grow a fucking brain and an ability to think for themselves by age 21, instead of listening to people who automatically assume that raising the voting age is some kind of "conservative wet dream". It's certainly a conservative thing alright, I'll give you that. But you should be asking yourself why is it that a LOT of liberals eventually mature into conservatives once they start earning real money they don't want to give away in the next social experiment? Why is it that liberals are so hell-bent against raising the voting age? Maybe because liberal votes would be lost to maturity and common sense? Yup. Childishly obvious when you think about it.

                This is the second time in a week some borderline thinking has lead to someone believing I'm arguing from the position of being a youth myself just because I don't love conservatism. I'm almost fifty. Wrong assumption.

                "Kids" as you call them are smarter than you think. Again, disagreeing with conservative "values" like rolling back human rights and shitting on liberals isn't a sign of a lack of maturity so much as a sign that they haven't mentally declined to the point where they cling to the past and hope

          • I don't necessarily disagree with your points... But certainly, from the devil's advocate position, you can see that it's problematic to not give legal adults a say in governance that directly affects, and indeed, could directly target them?
            • I don't necessarily disagree with your points... But certainly, from the devil's advocate position, you can see that it's problematic to not give legal adults a say in governance that directly affects, and indeed, could directly target them?

              Sorry, but even the devil's advocate position here is bullshit. Legal adults are prohibited from buying alcohol until age 21, and we generally don't rent cars to them either. I really don't think we need to go over the singular obvious reason for that (immaturity validated with statistical fact), but I can assure you it applies to politics as well.

              The 18-year old hasn't even escaped the spoiled comfort of a campus cry closet. As a taxpayer, I fucking DEMAND that ignorance gain a few years of experience a

              • Sorry, but even the devil's advocate position here is bullshit.

                Uh, no, it's not.

                Legal adults are prohibited from buying alcohol until age 21, and we generally don't rent cars to them either.

                Perfect example of why they must have a right to vote.
                That is a law targeting them.

                I really don't think we need to go over the singular obvious reason for that (immaturity validated with statistical fact), but I can assure you it applies to politics as well.

                And I'm sure we don't need to go over historical examples of people coming up with stupid fucking reasons to disenfranchise people who may not politically agree with them.

                The 18-year old hasn't even escaped the spoiled comfort of a campus cry closet. As a taxpayer, I fucking DEMAND that ignorance gain a few years of experience and maturity before blindly voting to affect MY reality and future. Every other taxpayer should too.

                I'm not terribly sure you have either. As a larger taxpayer than you, I think we should deprive you of your vote.

                • The 18-year old hasn't even escaped the spoiled comfort of a campus cry closet. As a taxpayer, I fucking DEMAND that ignorance gain a few years of experience and maturity before blindly voting to affect MY reality and future. Every other taxpayer should too.

                  I'm not terribly sure you have either. As a larger taxpayer than you, I think we should deprive you of your vote.

                  Assuming? I see the delusion is strong with this one. How about you prove to me you're actually a parent first. Then you can comment on the maturity and common sense that only comes from being far more than a spoiled-ass customer of a capitalist system, which defines the overwhelming majority of 18-20 year olds.

                  Common Sense will deprive you of your delusions rather quickly. It's called millions of parents agreeing with me. Rest assured the idea to raise the voting age, is a proven valid one for a reaso

  • Let’s ignore the (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 )
    Scientists and engineer’s. That always works out well.
    • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:44PM (#63788270)

      Politics affects how we deal with reality as populations. It continues to astound that so many people think this means politics affects reality itself.

      Humanity has an unending supply of greed, stupidity, arrogance, and short-sightedness.

      • It continues to astound that so many people think this means politics affects reality itself.

        The reality is, politics does affect reality. Politics affects things like wars, environmental policy, and more. People live and die because of political decisions. Animals live and die. It's almost certain entire species have gone extinct due to political decisions. Land, water, and air have been changed because of politics. Even the Moon and some other extra-terrestrial objects have been change or destroyed because of political decisions.

        To deny that politics changes reality itself is, well, to deny

        • I had hoped it was obvious I was referring to things like calling COVID a hoax, and other political positions clearly contradicted by solid evidence.

  • ICANN went off the rails a few years after it was created. After accomplishing its primary mission of opening up domain registrations, it lost its way. Despite the use of the word "Internet" in their name, they meet globally three times a year. recent places include Hamburg, DC, Cancun, Kuala Lumpur, The Hague, San Juan, Seattle, Montreal, Kobe, Barcelona, and Panama City. It has a "funded traveler" policy, paying hotel and $85 per diem for meals and travel, which cost it millions annually. It's a good deal
    • by MikeKD ( 549924 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:49PM (#63788284) Homepage

      ICANN went off the rails a few years after it was created. After accomplishing its primary mission of opening up domain registrations, it lost its way. Despite the use of the word "Internet" in their name, they meet globally three times a year. recent places include Hamburg, DC, Cancun, Kuala Lumpur, The Hague, San Juan, Seattle, Montreal, Kobe, Barcelona, and Panama City. It has a "funded traveler" policy, paying hotel and $85 per diem for meals and travel, which cost it millions annually. It's a good deal if you're part of the community. ICANN uses its ability to create TLDs for any word in the dictionary, giving it a new revenue source. I don't know what this current dispute is about, but seriously doubt it upset the Internet or ICANN's operations to generate new sources of revenue to fund its travel.

      Huh? You do realize that ICANN is on the same side as APNIC and ARIN -- that technical people need to be at the table.

      Or did the Reading Comprehension Devil attack you?

      • Is there anything that is actually wrong in the GP's post?

        ICANN doesn't have clean hands. The introduction of a policy of unlimited TLDs broke lots of assumptions -- for example, the use of private domain names on LANs, but it did increase ICANN's revenue.

  • by Micah NC ( 5616634 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:52PM (#63788296)
    The UN wants top down control over everything and should never have any say in any distributed, free system like the internet.
    • The good thing about the UN is it gives a voice to a lot of smaller, less powerful countries.

      The bad thing about the UN is it gives a voice to a lot of smaller, less powerful countries.

      • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        That isn't actually how it works.

        Those smaller voices are controlled voices by special interests. Their countries are so small that it's fairly trivial for the Dutch or the US, or the English or the Chinese, to effectively "buy" the country through special interest groups.

        We're seeing a lot of that right now come to the surface with the re-alignment to a bipolar BRICS-centric world. The "bought" countries are tired of being under the thumbs of the US, specifically.

        • BRICS countries are trading US control for China-Russia-Saudi control. Saudi Arabia is a new player in BRICS, so I am told.
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Given that BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, I'm not surprised that China and Russia are trading US control for controlling themselves.

  • haz governance?

  • "by introducing accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content" we will create an open secure safe free Internet....lol
  • by djp2204 ( 713741 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:42PM (#63788436)

    Maybe thatâ(TM)s a huge part of the problem, that needs to be solved? Techies, like politicians and bureaucrats, are not somehow made out of finer clay than the rest us. They need to get used to it.

    • by suutar ( 1860506 )

      They do, however, sometimes have a _leeeetle_ bit more knowledge about whether something is actually physically possible to do. Which is kinda useful when making plans, no?

    • If you're creating a body to oversee things like the construction codes for large dams, what's the absolutely most critical group you want to have represented? The CIVIL ENGINEERS who can tell you what the codes need to be for the dam to, you know, not collapse at random. The Internet is no different.

  • Is it just because everyone else involved is even worse?
  • Beyond that (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @03:04PM (#63788500) Homepage Journal

    I would take it further. The Internet is a success today because it was designed and created by technical people who did not consult with politicians, ambassadors or their many do-nothing committees.

  • We can't have actual experts influencing decisions!

  • tech people will ignore the UN and do whatever they feel they should be doing.
    politicians power grab will NOT work

  • Choosing between the ICANN and the UN to run the internet... it feels like an election in the US.

    Quite frankly, if anyone put a gun to my head and said "ICANN or UN, choose!" all I could say is "fuck it, just pull that damn trigger".

  • Principles shared by the various religious communities? Like the sharia-law loving Islamic community? Or the Christian Dominionist's that also want to control what you can say and do? Come to think of it, there is a lot of shared attitude: the desire, shared by almost all religions, to control what the population says does and thinks. That type of control is what will evolve when the religious leaders, representing way more than half of the world's population, gain control of the internet.

  • The UN is probably just trying to grab some power, but ICANN is not being a good example why someone else should have that power. That is a corrupt private company if there ever was one.

  • People in charge deciding that they know more than field experts, because they wouldn't be in charge if they weren't so superior? Yeah, that's pretty par for the course.
  • The UN or Icann running the internet.

    The Authors Guild or the RIAA controlling copyright.

    Biden or Trump ruling the country.

    Why can't we get third options ?
  • As I recall..."Give it over to the international community. Fuck the US! They aren't some bulwark against tyranical governmenrs of the world partially controlling it!"

  • UN nowadays is almost always bad. US should pull out. What useful thing has the UN done in the past 40 years?

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