U.S. Insists on Keeping Control of Web

[chaostic 9]

U.S. Insists on Keeping Control of Web

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press WriterThu Sep 29,10:35 AM 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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_...nternet_control

[Dr^ZigMan 1]

U.S. Insists on Keeping Control of Web

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.

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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_...nternet_control

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Gobbled up most of the available addresses? How about ipv6? Just a thought...

The thing that really pisses me off about all this is that the US has done so much for the UN how dare they try to take something away from us. Everytime they send in "UN Peach Keeping Troops" all they are, are American's with stupid blue arm bands (of course there are other countries represnted but you get the idea). Plus since the US created the infrastructure to begin with why shouldn't they keep the primary DNS servers? And how about these "developing countries" worry a little more abut feeding their population, then who has their domain name?

</rant>

-Dr^ZigMan

p.s. Moved to linkz

[st0rm 1]

This is the type of shit that pisses me off.....People owning a world thats meant to be free...

[Perf-149 0]

This is the type of shit that pisses me off.....People owning a world thats meant to be free...

And you are the type of person who pisses me off. All the time and money spent researching the internet, and you just want to take it away from the creators and make it goverened. It's like telling an author that his book is now regulated by the UN, and everyone gets to have a say in the content of the book. The UN, while it was a good idea, isn't doing much of anything. this world was made to have many countries, not one large body of government regulating everyone, and it seems that's what the UN wants to do to us.

The internet is mostly based in the United States. They should be grateful that we allow them to use it. greedy bastards just beeing a leech off of our resources.

If you think about it, the internet is a priveladge to be able to use, and it's great that we have such a free reign on it. England can create their own interweb and have sole rights to it, I don't care.

Edited September 30, 2005 by Perf-149

[st0rm 1]

I honestly dont give a shit as the what you think. All I am saying is I hate that fact that theres too much censorship in information. I want the truth and not some censored opinion of some media outlet.

Have you heard of something called echleon ? (not sure of spelling) thats just one of the communications censors/(forgot the right word to use) used. I dont think information should be censored and most people think the WWW is a Global Free Space instead its owned by the Us Gov (Ip address allocations etc..)

By the way:

It's like telling an author that his book is now regulated by the UN, and everyone gets to have a say in the content of the book

.... Are you making ANY sense mate?......think 2wice before yelling Edited September 30, 2005 by st0rm

[Perf-149 0]

We are talking about peopel trying to regulate the internet and how it is run, not censorship. I am a Libertarian, so i am 100% against censorship, but that wasn't what this thread was about...

most people think the WWW is a Global Free Space instead its owned by the Us Gov (Ip address allocations etc..)

Most people are dead wrong. Do you know how much money it costs to keep the web running. Not free. Just because the US government and other companies allow almost 100% free reign on the internet, people start to get ideas that they really don't need the government. How about they just shut down the major supercomputers and see how people react? Until I start seeing sites being taken off the web for stupid reasons, I think the web is being run fine as it is.

[phizone 0]

Perhaps I'm being a bit thick here, but how does the U.S, have that option. What keeps the E.U. from setting up their own set of 13 root servers and decreeing that all OS software sold in their respective countries ship with a list of those root servers? Pretty nasty to think about... BTW, Europe may not have had a large influence on the internet as a whole, but they've certainly had a huge influence on the network since the beginnings of the www... See: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Computer_Science_and_CERN)

[notyourtim 1]

Personally, I think it might be better if people did go off and make a bunch of semi-autonomous nets, even if it meant some loss of connectivity and compatibility. If there were many nets, then if one country decided to, say, criminalize all non-boring forms of pornography, or all crypto better than ROT-13, or all kinds of disassemblers and debuggers, then people who were into those sorts of things could just move to a friendlier net.

Why do so many famous Greek and Chinese philosophers come from a time when those countries were collections of small autonomous states, rather than single unified nations? I think it's because if state A decided one philosophy was the One True Way, people with other ideas could find a home in state B. If you live in The One Big Empire, there's no place to go when the government decides to COPA/UCITA/CDA/whatever you into submission.

Centralization of power is bad for creative thought. Bring on the alternative nets!

Just my $0.02 worth of BS on a pleasant Friday evening... not particularly serious.

[chaostic 9]

Personally, I think it might be better if people did go off and make a bunch of semi-autonomous nets, even if it meant some loss of connectivity and compatibility.  If there were many nets, then if one country decided to, say, criminalize all non-boring forms of pornography, or all crypto better than ROT-13, or all kinds of disassemblers and debuggers, then people who were into those sorts of things could just move to a friendlier net.

Why do so many famous Greek and Chinese philosophers come from a time when those countries were collections of small autonomous states, rather than single unified nations?  I think it's because if state A decided one philosophy was the One True Way, people with other ideas could find a home in state B.  If you live in The One Big Empire, there's no place to go when the government decides to COPA/UCITA/CDA/whatever you into submission.

Centralization of power is bad for creative thought.  Bring on the alternative nets!

Just my $0.02 worth of BS on a pleasant Friday evening... not particularly serious.

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Yea, because if that happened, the government wouldn't also make it illegal to use the other nets. Think China.

[Fubster 0]

I don't see any problem with turning over control of the internet to the UN. I think it would be a step foreward for the internet as a whole.

What do we have to gain my maintaining control of all the root servers and routers? What if our contry ends up in the hands of a governing body that has no qualms with domestic spying (or international spying, for that matter)? What if we end up at war, and the root servers and routers fall into enemy hands? It just seems pointless to try to keep control of the internet backbone.

Perhaps an independant international orginization should take control of it? Similar to the UN, exept that their only function is to maintain the internet backbone.