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Spenta
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Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 1829
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Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:34 pm Post subject: The Internet: Brought to You By Iran, Syria and China |
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The horror, the horror ... Just when you thought Yahoo revealing the contents of a Chinese dissident's Yahoo email account to Chinese intelligence was bad, here comes worst:
http://free2innovate.net/
The Internet: Brought to You By Iran, Syria and China
September 29, 2005
free2innovate.net
Steven Forrest
Perhaps only the French could come up with a plan for Internet governance that is absurd that we look to ICANN as the voice of reason. At this week’s WSIS meetings in Geneva, France pushed the European Union to propose a new Internet Governance plan. If adopted, the EU's proposal - which calls for a government-run body to control the Internet - would mean the end of ICANN and business-led Internet policies, and hand over the future of the Internet to countries such as Iran, Syria and China.
Why? Because the Internet has been too successful operating on its own for the last decade. A billion users, over a trillion dollars in commerce and communications. It’s time for the United Nations to take control because they can run it better.
And they have already telegraphed at the Geneva meetings how they would operate:
# Business groups were expelled at the insistence of the Chinese delegation from cyber security meetings.
# Business groups were expelled at the insistence of the Egyptian delegation from a drafting group on the "enabling environment."
# Business groups were expelled at the insistence of the Iranian delegation from a drafting group on privacy and consumer protection.
Keep in mind that just last week that China tightened its restrictions on Internet news.
Make no mistake, this bid is about control of the Internet, its operations and its content - and it's horrible news for anyone who wants to see the Internet flourish as an engine of technological innovation, economic growth and the free exchange of ideas and information.
The U.S. Government has signaled it will stand by the current system of a business-government partnership to determine the best policies for the Internet.
ICANN may have its faults - indeed, I have documented some of its flaws on this site - but right now it looks pretty good compared to what the EU and "Axis of Bureaucracy" are dreaming up for the future of the Internet.
The Associated Press story focuses only on the U.S. government's position, and doesn't provide details of the alternative. The International Herald Tribune's story is significantly better - and notes that the EU's proposal includes handing control of the Internet's addressing system, the Domain Name System, to the UN-run body.
The United States lost its only ally late Wednesday when the EU made a surprise proposal to create an intergovernmental body that would set principles for running the Internet. Currently, the U.S. Commerce Department approves changes to the Internet's "root zone files," which are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a nonprofit organization based in Marina del Rey, California.
In its new proposal, the EU said the new body could set guidelines on who gets control of what Internet address - the main mechanism for finding information across the global network - and could play a role in helping to set up a system for resolving disputes
The IHT says the European decision to support the creation of a new international body to govern the Internet "clearly caught the Americans off balance and left them largely isolated at talks designed to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century."
"It's a very shocking and profound change of the EU's position," said David Gross, the State Department official in charge of America's international communications policy. "The EU's proposal seems to represent an historic shift in the regulatory approach to the Internet from one that is based on private sector leadership to a government, top-down control of the Internet."
Delegates meeting in Geneva for the past two weeks had been hoping to reach consensus for a draft document by Friday after two years of debate. The talks on international digital issues, called the World Summit on the Information Society and organized by the United Nations, were scheduled to conclude in November at a meeting in Tunisia. Instead, the talks have deadlocked, with the United States fighting a solitary battle against countries that want to see a global body take over supervision of the Internet.
It's a battle that the United States must win - or else, a decade from now, we'll be asking "Who lost the Internet?" |
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sudi
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Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 235 Location: Plano, TX
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:44 am Post subject: |
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This issue of UN wanting to take over the governance of internet has been ongoing since 2003 (that I remember).
What's even more interesting is that UN’s summit on Internet access in the developing world is being held in Tunisia, a north African nation that has been repeatedly accused of blocking Web sites! Heh!
But here's some heartening news on this subject.
Quote: | U.S. insists on keeping control of Web
SEP. 29 10:35 A.M. ET A senior U.S. official rejected calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, reiterating U.S. intentions to keep its historical role as the medium's principal overseer.
"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet," said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."
Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role in creating the Internet as a Pentagon project and funding much of its early development.
Gross was in Geneva for the last preparatory meeting ahead of November's U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.
Some negotiators from other countries said there was a growing sense that a compromise had to be reached and that no single country ought to be the ultimate authority over such a vital part of the global economy.
But Gross said that while progress was being made on a number of issues necessary for producing a finalized text for Tunis, the question of Internet governance remained contentious.
A stalemate over who should serve as the principal traffic cops for Internet routing and addressing could derail the summit, which aims to ensure a fair sharing of the Internet for the benefit of the whole world.
Some countries have been frustrated that the United States and European countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving developing nations with a limited supply to share.
They also want greater assurance that as they come to rely on the Internet more for governmental and other services, their plans won't get derailed by some future U.S. policy.
One proposal that countries have been discussing would wrest control of domain names from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.
Gross dismissed it as unacceptable.
"We've been very, very clear throughout the process that there are certain things we can agree to and certain things we can't agree to," Gross told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "It's not a negotiating issue. This is a matter of national policy."
He said the United States was "deeply disappointed" with the European Union's proposal Wednesday advocating a "new cooperation model," which would involve governments in questions of naming, numbering and addressing on the Internet.
In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN to oversees the Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world interact with them everyday, likely without knowing it.
Although ICANN is a private organization with international board members, Commerce ultimately retains veto power. Policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable. Other decisions could affect the availability of domain names in non-English characters or ones dedicated to special interests such as pornography. |
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Spenta
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Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 1829
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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Tunisia, thats almost as bad as the UN putting Cuba and Libya in charge of Human Rights ... |
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sudi
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Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 235 Location: Plano, TX
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:03 pm Post subject: |
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Spenta wrote: | Tunisia, thats almost as bad as the UN putting Cuba and Libya in charge of Human Rights ... |
Indeed!
Now this latest news/event has got to be embarrassing for the UN:
Quote: | As Tunisia prepares to host the controversial World Summit on the Information Society in November, tunisia freespeechTunisian opposition activist Neila Charchour Hachicha informs Global Voices that the online freedom of speech protest site launched by Tunisians on Monday, www.yezzi.org has already been blocked by the Tunisian authorities. |
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Spenta
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Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 1829
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject: |
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there you go ... Insane, just insane ... |
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sudi
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Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 235 Location: Plano, TX
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Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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Yikes! Some bad news. But given the source (Guardian), perhaps things aren't as bleak as they seem.
Quote: | Breaking America's grip on the net
After troubled negotiations in Geneva, the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governments
Kieren McCarthy
Thursday October 6, 2005
The Guardian
You would expect an announcement that would forever change the face of the internet to be a grand affair - a big stage, spotlights, media scrums and a charismatic frontman working the crowd.
But unless you knew where he was sitting, all you got was David Hendon's slightly apprehensive voice through a beige plastic earbox. The words were calm, measured and unexciting, but their implications will be felt for generations to come.
Hendon is the Department for Trade and Industry's director of business relations and was in Geneva representing the UK government and European Union at the third and final preparatory meeting for next month's World Summit on the Information Society. He had just announced a political coup over the running of the internet.
Old allies in world politics, representatives from the UK and US sat just feet away from each other, but all looked straight ahead as Hendon explained the EU had decided to end the US government's unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body that would now run this revolutionary communications medium.
The issue of who should control the net had proved an extremely divisive issue, and for 11 days the world's governments traded blows. For the vast majority of people who use the internet, the only real concern is getting on it. But with the internet now essential to countries' basic infrastructure - Brazil relies on it for 90% of its tax collection - the question of who has control has become critical.
And the unwelcome answer for many is that it is the US government. In the early days, an enlightened Department of Commerce (DoC) pushed and funded expansion of the internet. And when it became global, it created a private company, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to run it.
But the DoC retained overall control, and in June stated what many had always feared: that it would retain indefinite control of the internet's foundation - its "root servers", which act as the basic directory for the whole internet.
A number of countries represented in Geneva, including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control, but it refused. The meeting "was going nowhere", Hendon says, and so the EU took a bold step and proposed two stark changes: a new forum that would decide public policy, and a "cooperation model" comprising governments that would be in overall charge.
Much to the distress of the US, the idea proved popular. Its representative hit back, stating that it "can't in any way allow any changes" that went against the "historic role" of the US in controlling the top level of the internet.
But the refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world's governments are expected to agree a deal to award themselves ultimate control. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.
But will this move mean, as the US ambassador David Gross argued, that "even on technical details, the industry will have to follow government-set policies, UN-set policies"?
No, according to Nitin Desai, the UN's special adviser on internet governance. "There is clearly an acceptance here that governments are not concerned with the technical and operational management of the internet. Standards are set by the users."
Hendon is also adamant: "The really important point is that the EU doesn't want to see this change as bringing new government control over the internet. Governments will only be involved where they need to be and only on issues setting the top-level framework."
Human rights
But expert and author of Ruling the Root, Milton Mueller, is not so sure. An overseeing council "could interfere with standards. What would stop it saying 'when you're making this standard for data transfer you have to include some kind of surveillance for law enforcement'?"
Then there is human rights. China has attracted criticism for filtering content from the net within its borders. Tunisia - host of the World Summit - has also come under attack for silencing online voices. Mueller doesn't see a governmental overseeing council having any impact: "What human rights groups want is for someone to be able to bring some kind of enforceable claim to stop them violating people's rights. But how's that going to happen? I can't see that a council is going to be able to improve the human rights situation."
And what about business? Will a governmental body running the internet add unnecessary bureaucracy or will it bring clarity and a coherent system? Mueller is unsure: "The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."
There are still dozens of unanswered questions but all the answers are pointing the same way: international governments deciding the internet's future. The internet will never be the same again. |
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