Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet 1149
Martin Boleman writes "ZDNet reports that Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month. "The Internet is likely to face a grave threat, If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on." he said in a statement."
freedom? (Score:1, Insightful)
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Tom
Pot, Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
So his plan is to abolish the RIAA?
Seriously, the US government has been trying to erode protections for online privacy and information access for years, why does he think the UN would be any more dangerous?
Yeesh, how many times must it be said: (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone explain this to me? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can someone explain this to me? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Internet were developed in, say, Sweden, the US would be the ones complaining that the UN needs to take it over.
Re:freedom? (Score:1, Insightful)
What organization to choose? (Score:1, Insightful)
China -- to protect the freedom of speech
Poland -- to ensure reliability of connections
Sierra Leone -- to ensure cheap and widely available services
USA -- to curb bottom dwelling scum-suckers like RIAA
But really... if an organisation is to take over the root servers, UN is not far from Al Quaeda and RIAA. Just add corruption and take away any traces of balls.
I'm all for internationalizing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider next that Germany outlawed Wolfenstein 3D because it contained various symbols of the WWII Nazi regime, despite the game hardly being sympathetic to the Nazis.
If there's a country that stands for defending freedom of speech, it sure isn't either of them. Perish the day when we can't even register domain names like "naziscansuckmyballs.com" because Europe is too afraid to deal with the realities of its own history.
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, the US government has been trying to erode protections for online privacy and information access for years, why does he think the UN would be any more dangerous?
You have got to be bloody kidding. Well, I guess you're right. Other countries haven't had this "erosion of protections" because they NEVER HAD THOSE RIGHTS IN THE FIRST PLACE. But let's not forget that Bush=Hiter, US=evil blah blah.
Do you really want Iran, North Korea and China having a say in how DNS is administered? Yeah, let's give countries that filter words like "democracy" and "tiananmen square" and jail anti-government bloggers a say. What a joke.
The UN is a forum for international diplomacy. It is NOT a world government. If countries want to control the flow of information, they can setup their own DNS servers. They won't ofcourse, because noone will use something that's controlled -- that is why they're trying to subvert the system everyone is already using.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:5, Insightful)
Bittorrent is an itty-bitty part of the services available on the Internet. And if you let search engines serve as your source for finding the location of resources you need, how is that better than DNS? It seems to me that you're just swapping one directory service for another, the second being corporately owned and changeable at their whim. Besides, without DNS, how are you going to even get to Google? http://64.233.161.99 [64.233.161.99]? Or maybe you prefer http://64.233.161.104/ [64.233.161.104] or http://64.233.161.147 [64.233.161.147]?
Maybe you don't use DNS a lot, but the rest of the world sure as heck does. It's a basic network service that the Internet is almost useless without. Personally, I think it's pretty scary that one country that, frankly, the world doesn't find very trustworthy right now, controls it.
But I guess that's just me. Oh, and the rest of the world. (And for what it's worth I am American...)
Re:Can someone explain this to me? (Score:3, Insightful)
Americans (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
After all they won't control it. They can suggest ideas, yes, but they would then be voted on and all the other countries would have to agree too.
Unilateral Actions... (Score:2, Insightful)
For once I agree with the US taking a unilateral action against the world community, or at least the UN. I think laws and policies need to be informed by global actions. I also think most need to pass the global test [cnn.com]". but just as Mr. Kerry preceded his global test statement with "I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country", I believe that the UN should be kept away from things like root DNS servers, and any internet policy decisions. Arguments between members of the UN are much worse than any usenet flame war.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
American censorship is no better.
As for the nazi stuff, maybe it's not good to celebrate a regime that murdered millions. And keep in mind that stuff is LOCAL. As in, you can sell the game, just not there. So really your point has no bearing on the general theme of running the the internet.
Tom
Non-binding resolution? So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the UN doesn't want to take over the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
What is happening is that several countries (not the UN) don't want to live with a situation anymore in which only one nation, the US, controls critical parts of their infrastructure. I don't know why such a sentiment should come as a surprise to anybody, I think it's pretty normal and inevitable.
And in case this comes up again:
It's not the EU pushing this, as
Finally, I'm sure we will be treated to about 100 posts whining about how the US invented the internet and the world was so unfair. This is of course utterly laughable, as it simply does not matter who invented what, or how would you react to the Chinese demanding you stop using paper, or, omg, firearms, because they invented the stuff?
But if you want to play this little game anyway, please keep in mind that the world wide web, or rather the technologies necessary for it, were invented in Europe.
Re:freedom? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
They included AO material in a game that wasn't AO. And got busted.
MPs, Senators, and shooting fish in a barrel (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't give two shits for Galloway, but let's be fair: the man made Norm look like a complete and utter fool.
Someday our Congresscritters are going to understand that:
So pardon me for thinking Norm isn't all that bright.
Re:Can someone explain this to me? (Score:5, Insightful)
If one of these countries were to piss us off, and especially if we went to war with them, it's certainly technically feasible for us to disallow them access to our root servers, and even to block all of their IPs from accessing US content.
In addition, organizations like ICANN have already shown that they are prone to cronyism and making decisions based purely on politics and/or profit, and that sort of thing makes other countries nervous.
Countries don't like to be told what to do by other countries. Therefore, it makes sense for a global network to be controlled by a global organization. It doesn't matter that the US built the first part of the Internet. The infrastructure supporting the Internet in these countries was built by them, and they are just as much a part of the global Internet as we are.
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
.us domain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:2, Insightful)
Then let the rest of the world make their own DNS servers. There's nothing stopping them. I'm sure if Austria invented the internet and built the major initial infrastructure, they'd have developed the main root servers themselves and hosted them, too. Basically
Besides, most of the root servers aren't even in America, if I recall.
This is just a bunch of whiney bitches wanting to edge in on something they didn't do the work for but reap the benefits of. Let's not forget where the net (darpa) originated, eh?
Reason 4 (Score:5, Insightful)
As taken straight from the article.
Of course a US Senator would say that (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA seems to be becoming more and more totalitarian in the way it handles things in general. I realise this is less evident for those actually in the USA (the same way most Chinese are oblivious to the same type of government) but for all of us outsiders, your government is increasingly hostile and arrogant, even towards those it deems friends.
What we don't need is the DNS root servers being almost all controlled by this one country. Things could go seriously bad in a shockingly small space of time, and before you know it a key part of the Internet we all rely on is subject to the every whim of a crazy man (not necessarily G W Bush). And considering the Internet is now critical to many industries and governments, any kind of manipulation will be a very bad thing.
Now I'm not saying the UN should take control of this, but why can't we have a collection of countries known for their relatively free nature be in charge of this? USA could take a few servers (with it being so big), Canada could have one, UK have a few (because I'm British and biased), scatter some around France, Germany, maybe even Russia (*gasp*).
Why does this need to be a UN issue? Surely these countries could have come to an agreement with the US.
Although the best course of action would be for the major world players to set up their own root servers, provide incentives for ISPs to use those primarily. I don't know if the root servers have the main configuration files available publicly, but surely there wouldn't be an issue of syncing them to non-US root servers? After all it only benefits everyone, and if the US does turn into a total bastard (pardon my French) at least everything won't crumble and we'd still have unbiased root servers scattered about.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet the future of the Internet will only seek out more competition, fewer regulations and restrictions, and less dependence on older standards. I do believe the Internet could operate just fine without a central DNS authority. Yes, it would be an enormous problem if DNS broke today or even attempted separation, but it won't happen. Those who depend on the voluntary choice of their customers would immediately find a fix in the event of an outage or separation.
The US is wrong in wants to continue to control DNS root services. The UN is even more wrong in thinking taking control would make things better.
In the long run, newer protocols and information sharing services will give people the information they want without the need for DNS. Most people communicating over IM don't even see domain names. Most people communicating over BT don't either. As bandwidth goes up and newer forms of hive-communications are created, we'll see less and less central control.
I remember running my first BBS. 1 node. Local users only. No sharing of data with other BBSes and only 1 user at a time. Then multinode, then FidoNet, then UseNet, then Gopher, then E-mail, then WWW, then ICQ, then Napster, then BT, then ???
Information is getting less centralized or tied to a location in ever faste steps. DNS is ready for replacement.
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
The despicable way[1] they currently administer it.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_
In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
He wants the US to be 'the boss' of the internet, just like, for some reason, the US needs to be the boss of everything in order for it to be 'free', 'democratic', 'safe' etc.
Re:freedom? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't get to it without modifying a save game. If you don't do that, you'll never run across it during the course of killing, robbing, and associated violence.
Someone else found a discarded bit, and the media threw a shitfest over it because it was SEX.
It's all stupid.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have a moral duty to stop him? If you choose not to prevent his actions despite your ability to do so, does it mean you are partially responsible for the continued abuse?
Re:freedom? (Score:1, Insightful)
The internet that you are trying to "steal" control over wouldn't exist today without the US, but it would exist today without your nation. It's was our money, businesses, and our citizens that made it what it is today. Others helped, but the overwhelming load was carried by Americans. Starting with our scientists, our pentagon, our MONEY, all the way down to our businesses (e.g. Cisco) and then working its way down to all our citizens building countless sites in the 80's and 90's.
Talk about gratitude; we pay for it (NO TAXES FROM THE US EITHER), we invent it, we build it, we share it with the world, it works great, and we keep it FREE, and jerks like you try and steal it to hand it over to the organization that made Lybia head of human rights.
Go to hell asshole.
Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this very interesting.
Re:Consider the FBI Obscentity Taskforce (Score:2, Insightful)
If you have a hard time finding boobs on the 'net, you seriously need to learn how to use a search engine. No one is preventing the show of boobs on the 'net.
Television, somewhat; Internet, no.
Re:.us domain? (Score:3, Insightful)
explain me just one thing: why http://www.whitehouse.gov/ [whitehouse.gov] points to something that should be http://www.whitehouse.gov.us/ [whitehouse.gov.us] ? If aliens would like to see webpage of WHOLE earth's goverment, where would they go?
In fairness (to the US) the whole thing's a mess: the EU uses eu.int, the UN uses un.org, the UK uses .gov.uk. Outside politics, it's much the same: the US and Australia, say, use "edu" for schools and universities; the UK and New Zealand use "ac".
I'm happy to let the US keep using the ".gov" and ".edu" domains, though - so long as "France gets control of teh intarweb bwahahaha" ;-)
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Countries control the domains in their national TLD. When you try to get a domain in national TLD, the query first goes to the root DNS servers, which redirect it to the national TLD DNS servers. These national servers are run and controlled by the government of the country in question.
This controversy is about who controls the root servers. However, i think it's absurd. Nothing stops UN, national governments, or Joe Average from setting up new root servers, but you'd need to convince others to use those servers, and that is unlikely to be possible in anywhere but the worst of dictatorships. US has no control over DNS, beyond that everyone voluntarily agree that the US-run root servers are authoritative. This is authority by respect, and it is impossible to give away, even if US wanted to.
Given all this, could we please stop posting stories about this idiocy, it reminds me too much about that incident of a political entity trying to forbid the dangerous substance dihydromonoxide, AKA water.
DNS is definitely a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
DNS isn't just an option; it's a necessity.
so partial, it's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The aforementioned senator is doing a classic political deceit maneuvre: "if it's not us, it's the non-human enemy monsters!"
It's not that simple. The proposal they really want to combat is meant to give control over the Internet to a commitee of pretty much all countries in the world. It's not like all of a sudden dictatorships such as China will get ultimate power on-line: they will simply be members like anyone else in the commitee.
What the senator really despises is that the control over the Internet will cease to be a 100% american affair and become worldwide instead.
Yes, it would suck if China will get control over the Internet. Fortunately, it's not gonna happen either way.
shh - don't spoil it (Score:2, Insightful)
Great idea Taco - keep posting it every few days!
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:1, Insightful)
Sweet merciful Jesus almighty. You are the biggest idiot ever. Do you not understand that "democratic" means of, for and by the people? Countries like Iran and North Korea and China are tyrannies where the people are totally dominated by groups of thugs or, in the case of the DPRK, a single thug dictator. There's nothing "democratic" about those countries at all, so giving them a say does nothing more than endorse their particular brand of tyranny.
How dare you invoke the holy name of democracy to defend tyranny and oppression? How dare you?
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, for the same reason I want criminals to be able to vote. Every nation should be represented in a fair and democratic Internet administration, not just the people we like.
That's a nice sentiment, but the analogy doesn't hold. If you want criminals to be able to vote, you count their votes. If you want North Korea to have a say in how the internet is administered, it's impossible. You can give Dear Leader a say in Internet administration, but you can't make him share that authority with the rest of the country. Letting totalitarian governments "represent" the populations they control would make international representation less democratic, not more.
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:4, Insightful)
If GTA:SA wasn't censored, you wouldn't have to hack it to get to the sex scenes. The fact that it was self censorship is irrelevant, the result for the citizen is the same.
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:3, Insightful)
So not giving repressive dictatorships a vote would be undemocratic? Wouldn't that be like putting those same dictatorships on the UN's Human Rights Committee? Oh, wait...
It would be sheer idiocy to give goverments unaccountable to their people ANY control when we can avoid it. Unless you think it'd be okay for China's dictators to vote
The current system works. Leave it alone.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:3, Insightful)
I certainly can't dispute your assertion that the US government is untrustworthy. The problem is, so is every other government on earth, and the UN is worse by at least an order of magnitude.
The current, largely unregulated structure isn't perfect, but it's vastly better than anything we're likely to see coming out of governmental control, EU control or, heaven forbid, UN control.
Re:so partial, it's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
DNS works and should stay the same.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like how the USA passed a law that forced Google to remove links to anti-Scientology websites? [microcontentnews.com] How like how USA courts forced 2600 to stop linking to a website that had code that allowed people to watch their own DVDs? [wired.com]
What's the matter with letting China et al have a say, anyway? You seem to be equating "can voice an opinion and has a vote in how things are run" with "can take control whenever they want". That's ludicrous.
Why on earth should what you care about be a factor in this?
And it's couldn't care less. You sound like a fucking idiot when you get it wrong.
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically what this boils down to is who gets to say what new TLDs (like
useless grandstanding (Score:5, Insightful)
Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.
Yeah, because passing laws in the U.S. is a great way to control what other countries do, in their own countries, with their own hardware and networks that they built and paid for. Brilliant! This is just another politician trying to capitalize on the "us versus them" sentiments trying to be pushed by a number of factions in the U.S.
There is no reason why any one country should run a single point of failure for a resource vital to communications and commerce throughout the world, especially when most of the gear it is running on, paid for by, and resides in those other countries. The world has spoken, they want a democratic solution with representation for everyone. They don't want to keep paying large fees to U.S. corporations for a naming service that was free before the big corporations got involved and can be free, or nearly free again. Most of all, they don't like an increasingly aggressive and deceptive country to be able to severely damage the economy of another country at their whim. No one trusts the U.S. to be a benevolent dictator and they would be foolish if they did. It is time to remember some of those American ideals, like democracy and representation for all are far more important than the new American ideals of making money and bullying the rest of the world.
To put it simply, the internet is a global enterprise made up of hardware and software running in and paid for countries all around the world. Those countries deserve a say in how the naming scheme works and this sort of "America is superior to the rest of the world" nationalist bullshit is not only useless chest thumping, but it makes the U.S. look like even more of a vicious bully in the eyes of the world. You should be ashamed of yourself Mr. Coleman.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Beyond that- what is obscene to me is porn to the next guy. The government has no right to make that decision, at *ANY* level of government.
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as the fuss over sex... please. There has been a lot of fuss over GTA since it was launched. The sex was just more ammo to continue firing the volleys. You make it sound like everyone was ok with the game until sex was put in, which is blatently untrue. And even then, more people were upset with the fact that it seemed that Rockstar hid this content, and misled the ESRB. Not entirely accurate, but that was the perception.
To say that modders added the content (instead of unlocking it) and everyone got upset about it only because it was sex is a strawman, and blatantly incorrect.
Re:freedom? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:U.S. Military Invented the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese invented guns, therefore the Chinese should have control over them.
You can say it about anything. The fact of the matter is that the internet has evolved because its global. The internet as it is isn't the same as it was when it was a US thing. Many countries depend on it heavily for their economy as the US does, and don't want the root DNS servers hosted by one government. Imagine the next president, lets call him Joe, decides that country X is in some way evil (terror threat? It'd work with the american public) the US could cut off DNS record access to that country, so no domain names would resolve. or they could intentionally fudge them up and send them redirecting to wrong places. Imagine waking up, going to your computer, opening Firefox, and your homepage is now a site telling you that your countries dns access has been halted for war measures. Every domain you try now resolves to this page.
Would this ever happen? Unlikely, but it's still a bad thing for any country other than the US (and Canada... unless the softwood lumber dispute gets out of hand
It's not a matter of the UN having control, its the world, not just the US. Personally I don't want China, North Korea or any other country with a crazy government having root DNS servers, but hell if every country got one (or one per certain amount of capita) then thats decentralized enough for everyones sake.
The downside? China or some country using that power to block their citizens access to certain domains (well, at least stopping them from resolving correctly) As long as their are enough other root dns servers that can just ban getting their stuff sync'd from china then its not bad for the rest of the world, but it's another tool that China/etc can use against it's people which isn't cool.
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:4, Insightful)
This doesn't stop the US negotiating and signing treaties with such governments, or if it does, then they won't be part of the UN. If the rest of the world has normal diplomatic relations with that government, we accept it as representative of that country, and should count their vote on world affairs as much as that of any other country. If there's an illegitimate government somewhere, they don't get a place in the UN.
Re:Norm Coleman (Score:5, Insightful)
That you omit certain key facts about Coleman's victory over Mondale--namely, that Mondale came out of retirement to enter the race mere days before the election after Paul Wellstone died in an airplane crash--speaks volumes in and of itself. Coleman's victory was seated in complex, confused circumstances; to ignore this fact is to lie by glaring omission. (Consider, too, his vocal pique at the fact that speakers at Wellstone's funeral--a man who defined modern hardcore liberalism--had the temerity to express their political views in the course of their eulogies. Classy.)
The one thing you can count on Norm Coleman to do is to ally himself with whomever he thinks will be holding the strongest hand. It's a great political strategy, and you're right--it'll probably help his political ascendency...but make no mistake about it; Coleman is the textbook definition of a facile politician. He'll slip right off the RNC's radar the minute it becomes apparent that the Democrats have the upper hand again--whether that's in one year or twenty.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
bring back Jon Postel and IANA... he did it all practically for free instead of the huge financial wasteland that is ICANN and Verisign.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:5, Insightful)
And the ironic bit is that Tunisia, where this free-the-DNS-from-US-shackles gabfest was held, has an extremely lousy record [nettime.org] on Net freedom.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
And Wolfenstein 3D, In which the character escapes from a Nazi prison, was illegal - not because shooting make-believe Nazis is "glorifying the Third Reich", but because you saw some swastikas while doing so.
As an American I don't really agree with these policies, either, but perhaps the Germans themselves are in a better position to judge the necessity of such laws.
Perhaps it's exactly the opposite. The Germans may be in a better position to appreciate the obvious necessity of avoiding totalitarian governments, but when it comes to the less obvious questions of *how* to avoid them, I'd trust the answers from a culture that has so far succeeded more than from one that has failed. There is very little risk of a new resurgence of Nazi power, and that risk is *increased* by giving neo-Nazis a sense of persecution to rally around. There is a greater risk of a resurgence of totalitarianism, and that risk is also increased by training the public to accept and even defend government restrictions on political speech.
Pathetic threads (Score:5, Insightful)
Half of the people posting here don't even have a basic grasp of how the internet works.
And, no, the internet is not the US. Sever the international links, and then you'll have a US-owned internet. Oh boy, you've lost access to the pirate bay. Hey, you can't get some crypto packages anymore! Please. That's the whole point of the internet.
If the world starts using different root-servers, that's it. They'll talk to the US-only roots to maintain connectivity, and the Us-only roots will talk to the new roots for the very same reason. And if they don't, why, just add them to your own setup.
There. No one was harmed.
Sharing the IP-space will be a bit harder; but that would be a good excuse to move to ipv6 faster.
But short of invading the world, there's little the US can do about it.
I can't see what the fuss is about. Really. Get on with your lack of life.
Burning karma like ther's no tomorrow
Re:freedom? (Score:2, Insightful)
Worst case situation is that the rest of the world breaks off from the USA. I would guess that would last about 18 hours. then they would all come back.
Big industry needs us right now, so we still have the leverage.
Onepoint
Re:freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
"You think all that routing, networking and software you use was invented in the US? Oh, ok."
Routing and networking... goes back to the packet switched networks in ARPANET, ALOHANET in the 70's. Or perhaps you are refering to the TCP/IP stack we use today. Oops, you lose there again - Windows makes use (at least when it was first becoming network aware) largely of the Berkeley IP stack from over there in California. *BSD obviously uses this stack. Other operatin g systems do as well, directly, or in translation. What has come around since then has been similar to the advances in automobile engines in the past 50 years... bolt-ons that may offer some improvement, are nice to have, but not necessary in the least. Who needs anything more than telnet ftp, usenet and gopher? The intarweb addition by CERN was nice, but "has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move".
"Other nations that carry it to where it is today."
I agree that the useful stuff comes from places other than the US. Who can deny the catchiness of the Yatta craze? SSH is awesome. Countless other things as well.
The UN did not make the internet, it was a project of US military, handed over to private industry. The US has not abused its ability to manage the internet namespace to date. Given its track record, I cannot say the same would have happened had it been in the hands of the UN. I am not saying the UN would not be reliable - that is the topic of a whole different discussion. I am saying that up until now, there has been no reason to change. If it is not broken, do not go give it to someone else to frell.
Re:freedom? (Score:1, Insightful)
Argh!!! Communism/Socialism has nothing to do with freedom. It's an economic system. Your issue is with "totalitairism" and asshole despot leaders.
Until the American public realises that, your fears will continue to be abused by the politicians. If that's your definition of "freedom", then I don't want it.
Who should we fear more? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can someone explain this to me? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would add "unless it's convenient" to the end of that last sentence.
Whether you like to like it or not, the US will go in front of the UN and claim to be working with the UN to solve some problems, and then for other issues (or when they get no support) claim very loudly that the UN is now irrelevant.
I certainly get the impression the US stance on the UN is that as long as they toe the US policy-line, they're good -- or at least useful. As soon as they don't instantly agree with what America says, they're bad, outmoded, unfair, etc.
Cheers
The people of MN should be ashamed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Norm Coleman never fails to entirely embarrass both the state of Minnesota and the entire United States of America (not that he needs much help with the latter). And his antics never fail to appear on Slashdot, either, further demonstrating Minnesotans' complete incompetence when it comes to electing political leaders. First we thought Jesse Ventura was as bad as it could get, but we were so wrong. I am surely ashamed to be a Minnesotan today, and cannot wait for the day when I can get an EU residency permit, but until then, I hope people will remember that Minnesota USED to be a decent place, a leader in fact of the shamefully small progressive movement in this country. We're not all bad, and if we work together, we can kick the scum that have invaded MN back to the south where they belong.
Re:Funny Argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets say you have a neighbor who just moved into a newly built home next to yours. The first weekend out, they're in the yard trying to start a garden and want to water in some plants. Sadly, the outside faucets weren't hooked up, so they poke their head over the fence and ask you if they could run your hose over to their yard just so they could get their garden watered a little bit. You, being the nice guy you are, let them use your hose and water... you're on a well so it's not costing you much of anything.... There is nothing saying other countries can't go and start their own DNS servers. They can provide their own service, there's no obligation on the part of the US to hand over its root servers to anyone else.
Your analogy is fatally flawed. First, there is not one well, but a dozen well systems we (the U.S.) control. Second, nearly half of those well systems and more than half of the actual, physical wells are not in our yard, but those of our neighbors. Third, this is not about two neighbors, but one guy who runs the "well access system" for all the wells both on his land and other peoples land, for everyone in town. Fourth, the neighbors paid to drill those wells on their properties and paid for all the plumbing. Fifth, we (the U.S.) have our little cousins charging money every year for entries in this control system. Sixth, The guy running this control system is a violent psycho who breaks the town ordinances, beats people up, and has been caught outright lying in town meetings over and over again. This guy also has running feuds with about half of town (it's a pretty rough town).
What the U.N. nations are likely to do is just what you suggest, start their own naming service and switch over all the wells and well systems on their own property. And here is where your analogy completely collapses, because while the value of wells is supplying a resource, the value of the internet is in the connections themselves. It is a transport mechanism, not a commodity. What our dear congress critter is proposing is legislation that says all those neighbors can't do what they want with their wells, which they will promptly ignore. It might go so far as to threaten sanctions or poisoning of the existing system if other countries try to switch, which is also useless.
I see no "control" being exerted over the Internet here. What do they fear?
They fear that they will have to keep paying money to use their own networks and they fear that the U.S. will shut off or redirect DNS service to foreign countries. They fear being economically and socially dependent upon a resource that they have paid to develop and pay to maintain, while that resource can be shut off by the U.S., whom they do not trust. For that matter, I thought the U.S. was supposed to be about representation for all and democracy. What is democratic about one country making decisions for the world without giving them any sort of representation? The U.S. should be championing this move to distributed DNS in many countries with redundancy against a single (political) attack. Instead they are claiming to know better than the world, and that they should be able to make decisions for everyone. It is sad how broken, nationalist, and adversarial American ideals have become.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
What Rockstar did is not.
It's not "grey," Rockstar discarded something stupid, it was found and Hillary rode it like a horse.
To say that modders added the content (instead of unlocking it) and everyone got upset about it only because it was sex is a strawman, and blatantly incorrect.
Not once did I say that. But then your argument is built on a farce so I guess I could ignore that. They -only- got fussy cause it was SEX. There's never been THIS much of a shitfest over GTA before.
Re:so partial, it's wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure you're right...we can trust the UN to only put members of the internet committee that have proven track records for open thinking and free speech.
I mean, hey, lets look at the great track record for say....countries on the committees for things like "Human Rights" [unhchr.ch] . Nothing but top notch choices there...
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Regulation/licensing of certain speech (campaign, medical, educational?)
3. Profit!!! (for the cronies who sell domain names)
There are other, far more important, reasons for government control:
4: Guaranteed reliability
5: Accesibility during conflicts
4: Whoever has interest in a stable internet (i'm assuming governments have) will want some assurance of the reliability. Although ICANN's track-record is fine, I (not being a US citizen) have absolutely no guarantee that it will continue in the future.
5: If some conflict should arise between a nation and US, that nation will still want to be able to use the internet. As the internet becomes a more critical part of infrastructure, this point becomes more important.
Given the current political situation, a country such as Iran may value this much higher than cencorship or regulation.
To make a dumb analogy: /. post?
How would you feel, if i - someone you have no reason to trust (or distrust) - owned the road outside your house? If i could, for any reason, close it, regulate traffic, charge draconian road tax, remove it?
If there was a possibility - however far out - that one day, you could come home from work only to find that you can't get to your home, because i disagreed with your latest
My point is just that some things are too important to be left in the hands of other people/nations.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep hearing this, and I still have no idea what it means. Some of the protocols used on the Internet originated in the USA, some did not. Does that matter? Many of the implementations didn't. If you're using Linux then you may well be using a TCP/IP stack that originated a few hundred yards from me. I guess this means that people from outside Sketty, Swansea, don't deserve to connect to any servers running Linux.
The USA did not lay the cable that comes to my house. They did not lay any of the cable in the UK.
We did create our own version of the 'net. So did the French. And the Germans, and the Chinese and many, many other nations. And we joined them all together to create an internetwork.
The USA did not create the Internet. The USA created the first segments of the Internet. Since then, everyone has been creating the Internet. Everyone will continue to create the Internet whatever the USA does, but I hope the USA will choose to remain a part of it.
Corporate & government censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, the content industry learned long ago if they don't self-police then the government will step in and police them. This is why you have stuff like the Comics Code Authority, TV ratings, warning stickers on music, etc.
Now these ratings systems are used and abused by retailers. Many stores simply wont sell games rated violent to people under 18 for the very same fear. Other companies abuse this leverage. For instance Walmart sells so many magazines, it can dictate content such as what goes on the cover. Many publishers submit their covers to Walmart first to make sure the Walmart moralists are happy with it. Not to mention editing of tracks on music.
So, its really disingenious to say that the US lacks censorship because its not done by the government per se. Also, I would like to remind some of the posters here that the FCC does censor content over public airwaves, usually to the wishes of religious moralists. Also state and municipal governments pull books from libraries all the time due to trivial complaints and lately some states have been working hard to erase other "threatening" ideas like biological evolution.
The European criticism is a strong one, but like someone said all censorship is local. These are the countries that are still healing from the horrors of WWII, which to me is a much more compelling reason to limit access to something than the American "Jesus told me he doesn't like it" culture-war bullshit reasons. Also, I'd like to mention that finding a copy of Mein Kampf isn't hard to do in Europe, but libraries in my own town have pulled books for "homosexual" or "anti-family" content.
Also, the US is no more pro-speech on the internet than any other country and all the bills that barely failed to pass as laws to censor the crap out of the internet should give Americans pause about censorship. I don't care if the Germans are "worse," it shouldnt be happening period. Now toss in Utah's big porn control law which is still in effect and you've obviously got real unresolved censorship issues.
Videogames are still new media and the "We'll censor ourselves" approach has worked pretty well, but its still a hot-button issue and people like Jack Thompson and his millions of followers (or at least people who agree with him) are a strong influence in American culture and possibly law. Expect further tightening of "self-censoring" and retailers refusing to sell to minors for more trivial reasons.
Re:Of course a US Senator would say that (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I'm not saying the UN should take control of this, but why can't we have a collection of countries known for their relatively free nature be in charge of this? USA could take a few servers (with it being so big), Canada could have one, UK have a few (because I'm British and biased), scatter some around France, Germany, maybe even Russia (*gasp*).
Not all the root servers are in US. And while a US agency is "determining" which ones are official, they do not even own them, private businesses do.
The funny part about this is the worst things that can happen if US manages to shut off DNS, is a DNS root split, which is exactly what all the countries are threatening to do if US does not cooperate.
So the worst thing US can do is exactly what they are about to do to themselves.
As that does not make sense, I am going to make a comment that this has nothing to do with infrastructure or security of the net. All that this issue is about is either input into decisions....aka some countries may not appreciate having a
There is no technical merit to any of these bickerings.
Re:Build a competing product (Score:3, Insightful)
Saddam's Iraq was a U.N. member, while Taiwan wasn't (and isn't)
Say that part again, about how U.N. membership is available to all peace loving states?
How would UN/EU control of DNS improve things? (Score:2, Insightful)
Another thing, the folks saying "OMG teh internet will splinter!!1!one" should realize that 99% of Americans wouldn't even notice if the rest of the world dropped off the Internet. I was wondering to myself, what sites would I miss if this theoretical splintering of the internet took place, and I could only think of the BBC and some European rally (car racing) sites that I visit. This makes the parties that want this have a really weak bargaining position. And before you dismiss me as an ignorant American, I should tell you I was born and raised in another country.
Re:so partial, it's wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
It's too dangerous to allow "world" to control it. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hell, China already locks people up in their country for "misuse" of the web. What would the religiously oriented governments do to those that use/misuse information from the web in their countries?
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it horrifying that you think that EVERY nation should have a democractic say in the administration of the internet -- including countries that already, today, censor the internet for the 'good of their citizens'. I wonder, what other mechanisms of control would you like to see bestowed upon these other nations?
I find it horrifying that you think that EVERY person should have a democractic say including people that are black, jewish, or women, or too poor to own land. Those kinds of people voting might result in blacks owning local businesses and women being able to wickedly seduce men without a husband or father to stop them. Poor people could pass laws that provide a minimum wage, thus hurting the economy for their own selfish interests. I wonder, what other mechanisms of control would you like to see bestowed upon these other types of people; education, the right to ride in the front of buses, the right to marry white women?
There is great danger and injustice in assuming that your beliefs are 100% correct and better than everyone else's. Democracy is all about taking everyone's opinion into account. Any country that relies upon the U.S. to always remain a benevolent dictator of the internet and protect their freedoms for them is a country of fools. Right now a power grab in the U.S. could result in the internet resolving to religious messages instead of proper resolution in muslim countries around the world. Even if the U.S. is a good defender of free speech now, that is not a reason to trust it implicitly in the future, instead the system should be made robust and redundant with control shared by many nations. Democracy is not a cure-all, but it is better than trusting a dictatorship of one nation.
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you really think that would occur, you truly are paranoid.
First, they would only be once voice, we're not talking about "giving the internet to the Chinese." Geez, talk about overblowing things.
Second, really, will this international body actually be able to enforce things in sovereign states? With the current status quo, has the USA been able to mandate "you shall not censor" to other countries with it's current control over the internet? Nope. Why on earth would that power change?
What this comes down to is Americans not wanting to give up their dominante world position, the idea of actually sharing control with any other country scares the shit out of them. Democracy on a world scale, what a concept.
And the President. (Score:3, Insightful)
1 school district would be funny.
2 would be funny.
20 school districts and it stops being funny and is really a reflection of our national ignorance of science.
Re:well that would suck. (Score:3, Insightful)
Norm Coleman (Score:3, Insightful)
Norm Coleman lost a gubernatorial race to a pro wrestler, and this reflected a clear and considered rational choice by the electorate.
I am not surprised to see him spouting random propaganda that he thinks will get him votes.
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple question (Score:3, Insightful)
Want China, Iran, and every little dictatorship to have an equal say as to how it is run as the members of the EU, the US, Canada, and Australia? Anybody want to bet that the majority of countries want an Internet free of censorship?
A political power grab by the EU to look active while really wanting nothing to change.
The US will say no. The EU will say look how mean they are. Everything goes back to normal.
The truth (Score:5, Insightful)
So what to stop the U.N. from using the internet as a way to control other countries?
Lets swap the N with an S there, and maybe you might see the problem that other countries have.
The role the US plays isn't anything a court cannot fix if the powers are ever abused.
Whose courts? And why should US courts have any say over what happens in other nations?
What would the main benefit of letting the UN or EU control it over the US?
Here's whats really going on. The US probably, as a part of trade talks or talks over military matters, mentioned to various groups, including the EU (forget the UN, thats an arena, not an entity, its like blaming the whitehouse lawn for the actions of Bush), that their internet is looking mighty fragile, and whoops, wouldn't it be a shame if someone accidentally knocked it over, as a leverage tool. So, after going away and pondering their options, aforementioned governments tell the US to go hump a pineapple, and set up their own redundant system. That they are doing it publicly (no need to) should tell any observer all they need to know about what's really going on.
Don't think you get to see every power struggle displayed on the evening news. 99% of what counts is never seen, but may be readily deduced.
Incorrect (Score:2, Insightful)
I've seen this rubbish mirrored so often around here I have almost given up, but what the hell, I will make one concerted effort to put it away. I'll just point out the parts where you are wrong, and you can look up the relevant posts on earlier discussions on this subject yourself.
It was created with US tax money.
Incorrect.
It was created for Americans and Europe to protect themselves from attack.
Incorrect, as it is today.
we paid for it.
Incorrect.
So at the end of the day, we own it.
Incorrect.
I'm writing to my senator and demanding that we don't loose it.
Okay wow, this is wrong on several levels, technically not realistic, and unless you happen to own a major corporation, futile. And spelt wrong.
I would guess that would last about 18 hours. then they would all come back.
Given your ability to get the present wrong, my faith in your fortune telling abilities is less than solid. How does this stuff get modded up? Even true patriots (tm) must realise this is factually incorrect rhetoric from some boob that actually believes the freedom of speech crap for defence of the internet on the american news. Well probably not but I don't give a rats about moderation either way, despite which I have karma to burn and burn and burn...
Anyway, typically enough you have missed the point of these whole shenanigans. I posted this earlier, but I'll probably end up reposting it a few times. Sigh.
Here's whats really going on. The US probably, as a part of trade talks or talks over military matters, mentioned to various groups, including the EU (forget the UN, thats an arena, not an entity, its like blaming the whitehouse lawn for the actions of Bush), that their internet is looking mighty fragile, and whoops, wouldn't it be a shame if someone accidentally knocked it over, as a leverage tool. So, after going away and pondering their options, aforementioned governments tell the US to go hump a pineapple, and set up their own redundant system. That they are doing it publicly (no need to) should tell any observer all they need to know about what's really going on.
Don't think you get to see every power struggle displayed on the evening news. 99% of what counts is never seen, but may be readily deduced.
Re:Who "owns" the internet? (Score:2, Insightful)
1. america invents internet
2. america shares its new toy
3. eurotrash want the toy
4.
5. profit?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the fundamental problem of dilemas, and free will. Are we morally obligated to protect his family? It's certainly not our job to do so. There's certainly no responsibilities that we have that might carry innately to protect them, beyond that we're human, and they're human, and we're aware of their plight. I see you're not arguing that it might be the responsibility of some person half way across the world to stop him. I'm sure you could certainly find someone in the world, who would be much better suited to the task of stopping this guy than yourself. Why would they not be responsible?
For that matter, what does being the largest person on the block have to do with being morally bound to stop him? Because you can? So, you're only responsible if you're aware of it and you are physically able to stop it? Couldn't one argue that no matter what your capability to stop him, it's your moral responsibility to try your best to stop him?
Bringing God into this just for a sec (as a piece of argument, you don't have to believe in him, you just have to accept that some people believe him to exist, and this question matter is important for them), since God is surely able to stop this (omnipotent) and he's surely aware of it (omniscencient) wouldn't that make it his moral duty to stop it?
You've already said: "The police are contacted, but the man is in business with the police chief and mayor and corruption has made them unwilling to prevent any of this." So, it's obvious to say that there are a number of people who have a moral duty to stop this, but already are not. So at issue here is not just the man beating his wife and kids, but also that the whole system is permitting this behavior and you consider it wrong, and you want to take action.
Now, say you're the Simpsons living next door to the Flanders. Your kid Bart is a horrible brat. Not only that, but you're a lazy bum, and just about everyone in your family has their problems. If you were the Flanders, is it your moral duty to rescue the kids from this situation, and give them a better life? You certainly could. Now, if you were the Simpsons, do you want them butting in on your business?
One may draw the line of moral responsibility to react only when they're breaking the law, but you have to understand that everyone will respond the same way, "this is my business not yours" no matter if it's a legal issue or not. That family-beater is going to tell you to mind your own damn busieness, you can be sure of that.
Fundamentally, it is not the responsibility of the individual to enforce the laws of their nation, state, county, and city, or other such divisions as they may exist. If the police department and the city government is not doing its job, then you let the next level up know, until someone does something to clean up that corruption, and save that family. You have no right to walk over and beat the shit out of that man, even if he is beating his family. But hey, free will, you can choose to ignore that you don't have a right to do it, and just go and beat his ass anyway, and teach him a lesson. Just expect consequences as a result of it. Is saving that family worth you going to jail for assault? Especially when it's not guarenteed that you'll save them permanently?
Rosa Parks knew she was going to get in trouble, and get arrested when she did what she did. She wasn't some clueless idiot who was just tired and didn't want to move back. Just because you believe that you are morally justified does not mean that you'll escape consequences for doing something. Most people into civil disobedience seem to forget this.
Anyways, I'm obviously ranting on a range of topics here. My answer: You're morally responsible for that family only if you feel or believe that you're morally responsible. You're also only at fault for allowing it to continue, if you feel or believe that you are responsible to stop it. No one else can dictate this moral duty upon you.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
we paid for it
No you did not. "You" paid for the US portion only. The network infrastructure in, say, Sweden was paid for by the Swedish people. The network infrastructure in Australia was paid for by Aussies. The network infrastructure in Japan was paid for by the Japanese. Likewise for every single country. In fact, not only did the US not pay anything towards the network infrastructure of other countries, the US is paid by all other countries to interconnect with the US portion. It's a for-profit thing: Other countries have been paying the US large amounts of money for a long time for interconnectivity in mostly skewed arrangments.
You are right about one thing: The country that paid for a network gets to control that network. But guess what, that means other countries should be controlling their own networks. You are extremely wrong if you think that the US paid for anything but their own segment of the Internet, the Internet was not "made by the US and then given away", honestly, what a childish view.
Re:well that would suck. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. has *no* right to keep control. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Your response is FUD. Thanks for playing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Recall that the internet flourished under the adminstration of a moderate Democrat -- the very Clinton you deride for getting a blowjob (which is something you've never had the pleasure of getting).
As for your rants about "morality," well, let's see -- tell me again about those weapons of mass destruction?
I'm lookin' forward to seeing Rove and Cheney frogmarched to jail. DeLay is guilty. Your boys are all goin' down. It'll be fun watchin' them be somebody's bitch.
Re:Statist Musical Chairs (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you stop him and not the others? Why, pray tell?
your all miising the point..... (Score:2, Insightful)
the U.N wants to impose a "user" tax, and God knows what else...
this is a money grab...
if it ain't broke, don't fix it...why would we want to cede control of a major economic force in our country to outside control..this isn't about "arrrogance" or "totalitarian" control of the internet by the U.S., this is plain old self-interest. Anyone who argues pursuing "self-interest" is somehow bad is just plain crazy....
the U.N crowd is pursuing it's own self-interest...a taxable "international" endeavor that will generate funds for a bloated organization, whose administrators appear answerable to no one.
for those who loathe the U.S., at least we have a system where the politicians can get voted out of office....many of the members of the U.N. have despots, dictators, or "elected-for-life" leaders...you may believe the U.S. has a rotten political system, but rest assured, just about every other political system out there is worse....
MOD'S MOD DOWN - Ignorant Argument by Analogy (Score:1, Insightful)
My argument is that you were modded up because you are appealing to /. groupthink and emotivism. Which seems to be the norm these days.
Democracy is all about taking everyone's opinion into account.
What have individuals got to do with the international system of anarchic states where the Internet is a tool of potential power by state actors? Individuals don't have a democratic say in how the Internet runs. Countries do. And as much you like to think you have a democractic say in how the Internet runs - you don't, and you never will.
Right now a power grab in the U.S. could result in the internet resolving to religious messages instead of proper resolution in muslim countries around the world.
Say's who? Essentially the Internet is still free. You are free to post what you want and read what you want. No one is forcing you to read anything and the ability to spread a message top-down to people on the internet is ludicrous. The major messages and memes of the net spread via bottom-up social networks and even then you don't have to read them.
instead the system should be made robust and redundant with control shared by many nations. Democracy is not a cure-all, but it is better than trusting a dictatorship of one nation.
Here's a suggestion: Domestic based political ideas like democracy don't work at an international level. That is why there is a complete study of international relations. Democratizing the Internet will not work at an international level. You know why? Because of balance of power politics. You are giving control to many other countries evenly, but it doesn't work like that. These countries will form coalitions for control of the Internet against other state actors. It's always been that way at the international level and it'll never change for a resource like the Internet.
I find it quite disturbing that you /.'ers put a whole heap of mistrust in solely the US but cannot put that mistrust against all the other state actors. It seems an enemy of enemy is your friend. How's that for ethical behavior? Here's a clue: All countries are out for themselves.
Re:Pot, Kettle (Score:1, Insightful)
Thanks for Totally Missing The Point.
The concern is that there are these Nations, that are Dictatorships. Some pretend to be democracies, but there is 'coincidentally' only one choice for leader on the ballot during any given vote.
Democracy is all about taking everyone's opinion into account.
These Dictators would be the ones voting - not their citizens. The voice of these People has already been stifled.
Do you want to have one nation that does listen to its people most of the time running a 'free information' repository, or a 'majority vote' from 12 dictators that 'democratically' censors you if you criticize Kim Jung-Il on your webpage?