EU Domain Registries & ICANN 302
rob_levine writes "Following on from the announcement a few weeks ago that the U.S. Department Of Commerce intends to retain control of the Internet's root domain servers (originally to be relinquished in 2006), several EU domain registries are preparing to build, test and install a system to prevent U.S. government meddling, according to this article in The Register.
Could this be the beginning of the end of the centralised autocracy that is ICANN?"
Decentralization... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Decentralization... (Score:3, Informative)
So basically. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So basically. (Score:5, Insightful)
ICANN is the 'offical' governing body of the internet framework, but it is a not-for-profit company, and has no real teeth. The depatement of comerce, a US governmental department says that they control domain names, and that ICANN has no real power over what ICANN manages.
The EU sees this as a threat since they are basically depending on the US government to maintain economic and social stability for all. I don't see a problem with this. If they can divide the IP blocks into multiple regions, I don't see the harm in doing it for DNS names. As long as everyone gets along and the systems blend together, no harm to me.
Re:So basically. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, you sure think this stuff is easy.
The big problem is that legally, nothing stops a US company from getting a court order restraint against ICANN in the future if a
Got an answer to that? anyone?
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
Well, the European agencies feel setting up their own stuff which won't be subservient to ICANN/US wishes might work.
Re:So basically. (Score:2, Informative)
DNS is delegated - and that delegation is absolute - the parent can only remove the child and not individual entries in it.
Re:So basically. (Score:2, Informative)
A DNS resolver asks the . servers who owns "www.barelylegalscots.com.eu." and the . servers tell the resolver to go ask the NS set which represents eu., but it could just easily respond with 127.0.0.1.
Re:So basically. (Score:3, Insightful)
US courts only have jurisdiction in the USA and US territories.
Tough luck.
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
If they DON'T play nice, god what a headache.
There is no "Official" (Score:3, Insightful)
Any one can honor any DNS system they chose to select - that's part of the end-to-end principle of the net. Most of us English speakers vote with our feet for those name services that provide our familiar DNS name space. But tho
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
Now lets see..
First of all, the one and only country to have used nuclear weapons in war is the USA, this despite the fact they had a superior conventional army at that time.
Looking at the two cities targetted back then, we can see the aftermatch of nuclear warfare tho on a small scale. Its bad, but by far not as bad as you describe. 60 years later, people are living there, and withou
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
People rejected a bad constitution, what is the problem with that?
That constitution also included some good things, but overall it was not good and the way it was conceived was extremely undemocratic and uninspired.
A constitution should be made with a vision on what is desired, not as a consequence of repeated com
EU Constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
People rejected a bad constitution, what is the problem with that?
A constitution should be made with a vision on what is desired, not as a consequence of repeated compromise.
A constitution should never even approach the 600+ pages the EU Constitution had. Two, three pages at most, like the Constitution of the USA!!! Once it's only a couple of pages then you can add a few more pages of amendments. I'm glad France shotr it down!!!
FalconRe:So basically. (Score:2)
Ah yes, now tell me, where exactly did it bring demmocracy?
Maybe it will over time in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is too early to say for now. Don't forget however that the USA is not the only one being active there.
Last I heard, the oldstyle European empires mainly used their colonies as income sources, leaving most of them (es
Re:How was this drivel moderated informative ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Blair is a European, too, you know.
Americans and France (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying this is the end of Franco-American relations, but only that Americans will remember France's actions for longer than the French think.
I'm one of the Americans who were against the Iraqi invasion without UN support and supported France's stance. I am still waiting to see those WMDs, where are they? The sanctions against Iraq were working. Mind you I'm not saying I supported Saddam, I was against him when Reagan and Bush Sr supported him while he was using those WMDs against Iran as well
No man, it's (Score:2)
"ICANN, EUCANT"
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
Where are the democratic elections of board members that their charter promissed?
The best possible thing that could happen is for ICANN to lose all it's monopoly powers. ALL of them. How names could be sorted out without a monopoly at the center is a difficult problem, but it needs a solution, n
Re:So basically. (Score:2)
More countries than the U.S. call it aluminum. And by the way, "Molybdenum" is the correct spelling, at least according to the International Molybdenum Association [imoa.info] headquartered in the U.K.
If you take a look at the three remaining elements you mentioned and the words they were derived from you'll see there is no reason to expect that any of the element names should use the common -ium suffix used to name elements.
Aluminum/Aluminium <-- from Latin alumina
Titanium <-- from Greek Titan
Vanadium
WWW (Score:4, Interesting)
I think someone lost sight of what they were doing...
Re:WWW (Score:2, Interesting)
He (and other of course) took what was a government research network, more or less, and got laws/regulations passed that made it the commercial information superhighway it is today. In his vision, it was a global network, but you have to understand, it was never MEANT to be under global control.
Re:WWW (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know where you get your information, but the WWW, both the term and the concept, was developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989. The Internet, of course, is far older than that. Gore came up with the term "information superhighway."
You could make the argument that it was never intended to be under global control, but the Internet was a global network well before the World Wide Web came along.
Re:WWW (Score:2)
Re:WWW (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but the question is; who lost sight? .. and the answer will most likely depend on where you live.
Either way, given the US's history on using government resources to spy on regular industry (Echelon Airbus etc) and general political climate, having any sort of essential infrastructure under sovereing US control scares the shit out of me. This is one place where the the world needs to take a proactive stance, utilize our common synergies and come up with a global market-leading solution. Nothign short of it will do!
In medieval America... (Score:2)
I think someone lost sight of what they were doing...
Yeah but In Medieval America, the world is flat.
Re:WWW (Score:2)
In times of war (comming or current) where information plays a greater and greater part news-sites pointing to misinformation sites because people that could be under political or echonomical pressure, have access to change the root DNS
Maybe root DNS control should be handled by
Re:WWW (Score:4, Interesting)
The road owner (RO)is telling the bus service owner's (BSO's) that it is going to continue owning the road and the BSO's are getting pissed because they're afraid the RO is going to put in some traffic signals and road signs they don't like. So now the BSO's are threatening to create their own side roads with their own signs and signals.
This kind of stuff happens whenever you create something that becomes a standard upon which people build other standards. People freak out when they think the infrastructure upon which their livlihoods are based is being messed with, especially by someone can't pronounce the word nuclear.
And you thought Bush misspoke... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And you thought Bush misspoke... (Score:2)
My own opinion of people who are in the habit of mis-speaking is that while they're vaguely aware of the meanings of the words of they're using, they have trouble stringing them together to form a coherent thought. Hence the earnest but dazed squint of our current President, not unlike the look on the face of a g
Re:And you thought Bush misspoke... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And you thought Bush misspoke... (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Internet2 isn't a separate network. It's just a high-speed subset of the Internet. There is only one Internet, and IP is its protocol.
2. Do you really think that Bush is even aware of Internet2, much less that he was making a reference to it?
3. I don't recall any media reference to the "internets" statement. Every joke I've heard about it has been online.
Re:GWB is making a mockery of America (Score:3, Informative)
He who controls information, and so on... (Score:2, Funny)
"NO, we will NEVER relinquish control! The Internet is ours, only ours! moahahaha"
Although this would certainly sound more sinister spoken with a german or french accent.
Monopoly(TM) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2, Insightful)
Even IF I feel that argument to be ridiculous, it is going to be pretty sad that the rest of the world is pushed into that situation. However, considering the alternatives (like the UN running it, or China), I prefer how it is now. If you can setup a non-corrupt
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:3, Informative)
I think you'll find there's no one *thing* that is an internet. Okay the US came up with milnet. Packet switch networking came out of the labs of the British Post Office. The various protocols came out of elsewhere. Who invented TCP/IP say? For example is the WWW (HTTP), which is what most people see as the internet, an American invention?
It's like saying the Russians invented space flight.
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2, Informative)
Paul Mockapetris came up with DNS and did the first SMTP mail server, also USian.
As for the web, Ted Nelson (who coined the word hypertext) and Doug Engelbart (developed a working pre-internet hypertext system) are both USians.
Berniers-Lee, who developed the first internet-enabled hypertext server, is(I think) British.
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:5, Insightful)
So if the web was invented by a Brit, but it was obscure until the US polished it up, it's a US thing. However, if the Internet started out as a small network linking a few US military and academic sites together, and was obscure until the rest of the worldwide academic community picked up on it too, that's a US thing as well?
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:3, Interesting)
The Greek and the people from Cartago, and others who had access to steam engine technology (actually, it was a steam turbine, not a traditional steam engine as we know it) did something significant with it. They decided that while potentially powerfull, the effects it would have on their social structure and population would be devastating. T
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2)
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, without even trying to hurt anybody's feelings this is the direct result of the USA's behaviour. People from the USA said there is no reason why should the USA give up control on the root dns servers and basically said i was trolling when i said it's another opposition of international contributions from the USA, but now it seems that some europeans agree with my assessment.
As a matter of
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2)
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2)
Although the gp posters metaphor is still flawed, What would actually happen is that we would simply have more than one Internet. Probably called the internet, le internet, los internet, etc - and The Cisco(tm)Internet (Powered by General Electric(R) - We've got the power(tm)). And a whole new industry in transnational network integration.
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary, the Internet consists of a huge number of networks that are connected to each other.
In reality, these other countries could easily drop "the internet" and form their own large scale network capable of international communication. Nobody is stopping them.
I'm in Stockholm, Sweden. The United States did not finance and build the TV cable network that connects me to Stockholm's city-wide network of networks. The US did not build the city-wide network of networks either. These networks were financed by, and belong to, the cable company, various other companies, the city of Stockholm, the University of Stockholm, our Technical High School, and so on.
Go build your own if you want one too.
As you see, we already did. The fact that our networks are connected to your networks doesn't mean that you built our networks or that they belong to you.
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Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:3, Informative)
They don't.
What they do currently own is the assignment of addresses and the means to translate somewhat more human orriented names to such addresses.
Most of the interconnects are not US owned however, neither is the majority of the physical infrastructure.
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2)
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2)
Re:Monopoly(TM) (Score:2)
>Russia, they're huge). And the combine landmass of Europe by itself is
>roughly the same as the entire United States. So size isn't the problem
Well, if that is the criteria, lets have Russia or Canada run the DNS.
Sounds Like Good News (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not really sure why everyone's so worked up about this. If the US Gov. doesn't run things right, we can all just point our resolvers at an alternate root, like this one. And considering the the US was just maintaining the status quo, it really seems like even less of a big deal.
It looks like these guys are just gonna set up an alternate root for everyone and try to automate the system as much as possible. Hopefully it works.
BTW, anybody else annoyed that all these news articles on this keep confusing DNS with "The Internet?"
Re:Sounds Like Good News (Score:2, Troll)
You mean like the one we've got already? Honestly, is it worth reinventing the wheel on purely idealogical principle ("America shouldn't control the root DNS servers")? Is there something detrimental the US government is doing with it's control?
Re:Sounds Like Good News (Score:2)
[...]is it worth reinventing the wheel on purely idealogical principle ("America shouldn't control the root DNS servers")?
Purely ideological? Allow me to laugh: ha ha ha ha haha haha ahhahahaha and then HA!
If so... (Score:2)
The only issue is how it gets worked into the existing framework so that we aren't stuck with any particular set depending on our geographic locale.
Suprize! (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact still remains that your shared trusted ultra 31337 root zone file won't actually be used.
The operators of the root servers have stated time and time again that their job is to only serve the root zone, the contents of which is the responsibility of ICANN (and in turn the US government).
This is just more "alternate root" quackery.
Re:Suprize! (Score:2)
The fact still remains that your shared trusted ultra 31337 root zone file won't actually be used.
And thats going to last right up to the day when Gee Dubyaw and his cronies decide to knock a site off the web for "national security" reasons. Then the entire world (besides the neocons and fundies) will switch to the uncompromised servers so quickly you won't see them for dust.
Re:Suprize! (Score:2)
The closest they could come is taking an entire TLD offline, which by the way they have already done via more effective methods: The person resonsible for management of
Decolonization... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Decolonization... (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams Reference (Score:2)
Centralized Can Be GOOD (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, ICANN is all about red tape, but then again all government-esque agencies are. Even the international ones... especially the international ones. It gets worse the more people are involved.
Many claim that it's not fair that the US maintains control of the root servers and the TLDs and so on... well, who invested a majority of the money that developed The Internet we know now? Who bought and installed and maintained those root servers? Yes, there were many simultaneous endeavours to invent brothers and sisters to the Internet, but well, the US kinda won out. Controlling the root servers and who can sell which TLD, to me, isn't really all that bad of a thing. It's one group, under one government ensuring smooth operation of arguably the most important computers in the world.
Fragmentation of DNS would be an absolutely horrible thing. You'd have sites available to some parts of the world, not available to the others, mismatches on records etc because you know if everyone wants to own their own root server, they probably won't sync up all that much (if at all)
Despite some shady dealings with TLD registrars, they've done their job reasonably well. Everything works, we've had relatively few problems overall.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Re:Centralized Can Be GOOD (Score:2)
Also the roots aren't all US anymore (Score:2)
K is run by RIPE NCC and has servers all over Europe.
F is run by the ISC which is located in the US, but is a non-profit and F anycast servers are all over the globe.
Now most of the roots are still in the US, and many of the groups that run them are directly US government (for example E is NASA and H is US Army) but still, the roots are no longer US only.
Re:Centralized Can Be GOOD (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if such things were THAT important, I guess the U.S. shouldn't have outsourced all of its heavy industry, production, call centers, and other essential infrastructure...
Re:Centralized Can Be GOOD (Score:2)
In any even the real question is not fragmented vs unfragmented but rather whether we will have a regulatory body (ICANN and the US Dept of Commerce) impose one catholic naming system or whether we will allow people to pick and chose.
I agree that it is very inconvenient for the internet to have DNS name spaces that are i
Re:Centralized Can Be GOOD (Score:4, Informative)
It's only centralised if you think the US is the centre of the world.
And you should find out the real answer to your own question about who has put in most of the money to fund the Internet as it's developed today. When you've worked that out, you'll start to understand why so many people think the US government and its ICANN subsidiary don't deserve their de facto overlord status.
Imagine if it was done with IP addresses (Score:2)
Re:Centralized Can Be GOOD (Score:2)
If some seamless, properly synchronized set of decentralized servers were setup, and the transition was seamless, then it might work. The change has to happen with 0 interruption to Ma Kettle trying to access Amazon or eBay, regardless of what country she lives in
Here's a great website for ya... (Score:2, Funny)
I wish they could come up with something for those windows updates, because it's really hard trying to remember 207.46.18.94...
A connection tax to follow? (Score:2, Interesting)
What Meddling? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for decentralization, if the synchronization can be worked out, but these guys sound like Eurocooks.
Can they cite any examples of 'U.S. Government Meddling' or are these just they guys who make a living complaining about Bush's belt buckles?
I rather suspect the current Commerce position is one of no-confidence in ICANN to prevent a cyber-attack on the DNS infrastructure. We don't have any data about this, but a sudden glimmer of competence from ICANN would be anomalous.
Re:What Meddling? (Score:2)
I read this and immediately imagined everyone talking like the Swedish Chef.
Re:What Meddling? (Score:2)
You should have been around long enough not to take a
Here is the original CENTR response [centr.net]
Re:What Meddling? (Score:2)
Fragmentation, here we come (Score:5, Insightful)
--Mike--
Re:Fragmentation, here we come (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Fragmentation, here we come (Score:5, Funny)
un.org.anized.
Re:Fragmentation, here we come (Score:2)
un.org.mars.sol
etc. Though I guess the '.sol' would be an implicit default, until all those people at other-star colonies need to change their setup
Re:Fragmentation, here we come (Score:2, Informative)
Really, it should have been us.org.slashdot, but some wacky Americans decided arbitrarily that we should start specific (host, 'slashdot') go to the general (tld, 'org') and then back to the specific (file, 'comments.pl')
Lest we forget... (Score:4, Informative)
Therefore, to say the internet is 'owned' by anyone is a fallacy. Before people start getting jingoistic, no one country has a monopoly on the internet, just portions thereof. And since the protocols are open, it's not unreasonable to expect that if the US did start monkeying around with the DNS servers, then they would find their routes disappearing, leaving them with their very own intranet.
Corporate interests being what they are, I doubt it would happen.
Kieren McCarthy is clue-less (Score:2, Informative)
he say that CENTR is "an organisation representing the majority of the world's top-level domains".
this is crock - they represent their members, around 50 TLD's (http://www.centr.org/members/ [centr.org]) - that's not even a simple majority of TLD (around 260 - see http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm [iana.org] for some of them).
Read what this guy writes with a pinch of salt - he can't even get basic facts right.
In Theory (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In Theory (Score:2, Insightful)
Doesn't the US want root servers of their own? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just imagine that the roles were reversed. Just imagine that Europe owned all the root servers. You can bet the US would immediately decide to get their own root servers. You want to be independent.
How can this not be obvious? It's important infrastructure, and you don't want to be entirely at the mercy of foreign powers. What's wrong with that?
Why do so many Americans assume that everybody else is far less cocky than Americans are? This weird assumption has astonished me for years.
This assumption was especially perplexing before the Iraq war, when Americans assumed that Iraqi and other Muslims would be far more docile than Americans could ever be, that they would accept occupation and peace would be possible. Why assume that?
Americans would never accept foreign occupation, why assume that others would? Where do you get these strange ideas?
Fortunately, Europe and the US are friendly and have common goals. Even so, Europe wanting its own root servers is just as natural as the United States wanting their own if the roles were reversed.
Sheesh.
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Re:Not a single hand went up. (Score:2)
I am not offering my internet penis to hackers, thank you very much.
Doesn't RIPE handle this now (Score:3, Informative)
RIPE is the same thing isn't it, a collection of European ISPs that got together to handle distribution of IP addresses.
Re:Doesn't RIPE handle this now (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Doesn't RIPE handle this now (Score:2)
I notice we keep talking about the history of the Internet rather than the future. Its pretty sensible to protect the net from any single authority.
Re:Doesn't RIPE handle this now (Score:2)
Re:This is just DNS. (Score:2)
IANA is actually who allocates IP addresses by allocating blocks to various other agencies like ARIN and RIPE.
kashani
Re:This is just DNS. (Score:2)
kashani
Re:Shit for shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't decide whether you're a troll, a bigot, or if it's a feeble attempt at sarcasm.
Sure, when it comes to this matter, the U.S. government may be called controll freaks (although I find it completely justified and, besides, I haven't noticed any negative impact of the current policy so far), but replacing that control with the European bureaucracy and laziness, that is even worse!
If you haven't noticed, the Europeans are also putting up their separate Euro-GPS system. It seems quite clear that the rest of the world wants alternatives to US technologies, even if they work, they're efficient and/or well managed. That should tell you something of the level of trust other countries have in future US foreign policies.
Re:Shit for shit (Score:5, Insightful)
But what is most disturbing about Gallagher's presentation, is how it endlessly refers to the president. The first slide has a picture of George Bush. The second begins "Thanks to the president's policies, America's economy is strong". The next slide is "The president's broadband vision". The next slide leads with a quote from Bush and two pictures of him. And on and on it goes. There is barely a single slide that doesn't quote from the president.,
it's no wonder there's concern. Isn't this exactly the kind of posturing that U.S. citizens are so quick to criticize when it comes from other nations.
This may not speak to the DNS issue, but it certainly speaks to our tiny view of the world.
Re:Shit for shit (Score:2, Offtopic)
s/future/current/
Speaking as an outsider, George W Bush is the worst PR guy you guys have had for a very long time. The collective ego represented by Bush and the current Republican government is staggering: obviously there was the whole Iraq thing; we've
Re:I don't see a problem with the US controlling D (Score:5, Insightful)
1 - Anti-War Site
2 - Site advocating equal right for gay people or any other group
The US may have freedom of speech issues, but not the extent of allowing the DNS System to be run by the UN. Just remember the UN Human Rights committee is chaired by who? Or what is state of free speech in China (I love all the chinese blogs we freedom in the title)?
Re:I don't see a problem with the US controlling D (Score:2, Informative)
1 - An Anti-War protestor
2 - Innocent Foreigners to a prison without trial
The USA just kidnapped a person off the streets of Italy using CIA agents. So give us a break if we believe the USA is going a little loopy right now and its better to protect the Internet from US loopyness!
Re:I don't see a problem with the US controlling D (Score:2, Informative)
Keep on telling me that the US don't try to squash free speech
Re:Opening up a new world of TLDs (Score:4, Insightful)
.gouv.fr (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wah (Score:2)
It's exactly this attitude - that hey, maybe we can improve on something - that drives progress. Horse and carriage was kinda cool, but I think I can make it better - bam! The motorcar. Vacuum tubes work alright, but I think I can make it better - bam! Transistors!