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The Internet Government United States Politics Your Rights Online

How The U.S. Government Undermined the Internet 394

Posted by Zonk from the we're-a-long-way-from-darpanet dept.
sakshale writes "The Register has an article about U.S. Government backed policy changes that have led ICANN to redelegate top level domains in such a way as to provide 'greater state-controlled censorship on the internet, reduce people's ability to use the internet to communicate freely, and leave expansion of the internet in the hands of the people least capable of doing the job'" More from the article: "At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. The previous owners, KazNIC, had been created from the country's Internet community. ICANN then immediately used that 'precedent' to hand ownership of Iraq's internet over to another government-run body, without accounting for any objections that the existing owners might have."
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How The U.S. Government Undermined the Internet More

How The U.S. Government Undermined the Internet

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  • Idea Report (Score:5, Funny)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:38AM (#14364406)
    Slashdot needs a "saw that coming from a mile away" category

    • Interesting Idea (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Weezul ( 52464 )
      Here is an interesting idea: Start a new system of DNS & add support to all the open source browsers. But, unlike DNS, don't restrict yourself to blah.blah.com, just allow any string at all, but enclose them in quotes. i.e.

      http://imap./ [imap.]"joes butt"."Fuck you mama"/

      would be a valid name. You would still respect ICANN's opinion on TLDs without whitespace or funny characters, but you start lessening your own TLDs with whitespace & funny characters.

      Jeff

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skratchpad ( 824430 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:39AM (#14364411)
    2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet...

    Yea, never mind things like the Tsunami or Katrina or in the U.S. all of the controversies in government... I'm sure when I'm 85 years old this is exactly what I'll remember about 2005.

    • facts you might also remember about 2005 (Score:4, Funny)

      by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @11:07AM (#14364598) Homepage
      I'm sure when I'm 85 years old this is exactly what I'll remember about 2005.

      As of 2005, in Kazakhstan [borat.tv], women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.

      Very niiice! High five!


    • Yes, 2005 was a bad year. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @12:10PM (#14365010) Homepage Journal
      Yea, never mind things like the Tsunami or Katrina or in the U.S. all of the controversies in government... I'm sure when I'm 85 years old this is exactly what I'll remember about 2005.

      Freedom of speech is important. I'm from New Orleans and still live in Louisiana. That ICANN is handing portions of the Internet over to government censors bothers me, and I consider it a large problem. Is my perspective warped? No. Without free speech, everyday can be like Katrina because your government can do whatever it wants to you. Just ask people from the former Soviet states what government housing and shopping are like.

      Other disturbing US trends include re-centralization of telco into less than friendly hands. The destruction of smaller ISP continues. Blatant anti-competitive behavior by the remainder is tollerated and even encouraged. 2005 was another bad year for the world of ends.

  • Those bastards (Score:3, Interesting)

    by briancnorton ( 586947 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:42AM (#14364424) Homepage
    How dare they obey the laws of other countries!

    WTF, if the internet is in another country, the government of that country can do whatever they hell they want with it. That's how international law works. It's called respect for sovereignty.

    • Re:Those bastards (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Viper Daimao ( 911947 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:56AM (#14364532) Journal
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but didnt we have like 10 articles a few months ago about the UN and EU mad at the US for controlling the internet, and wanted more international involvment? Now we have an article thats mad at the US for giving up control of the internet to other nations?! WTF?

      Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.
      • Al Qaeda.

        What is it with people who think that ANY kind of government control of ANYTHING, ANYWHERE is unacceptable? Newflash people, "ownership" is a concept that _only_ exists within the context of a governmental legal system. Remove that and ownership becomes little more than possession.

        That someone would complain about giving the Afghani or Iraqi government control of something that is by definition associated with the national state--immediately after the previous government has been removed from power

      • Re:Those bastards (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Morinaga ( 857587 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @11:54AM (#14364893)
        Don't take the author's conclusion as fact here. It wasn't the US that gave up top level domain control to those countries, it was ICANN. The causation between the US support of such policies and ICANN granting such actions has no evidence. It's probably also important to note that if the UN had such control over the Internet that they wouldn't hesitate to give those domains to said governments. All of which makes the US controlling the Internet instead of the UN made ICANN give away the TLD threory a bit hard to swallow.

        • Re:Those bastards (Score:3, Insightful)

          by da ( 93780 )
          probably also important to note that if the UN had such control over the Internet that they wouldn't hesitate to give those domains to said governments

          On what information do you come to that conclusion? Surely the point of UN control is that it wouldn't hand over control of anything to any individual country/government. Isn't that the whole point?

          • Re:Those bastards (Score:4, Informative)

            by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @03:59PM (#14366524) Homepage
            I draw to your attention the UN Human Rights Commmission, which condones all sorts of evil by the simple expedient of letting the evildoers chair the Commission.

            Or, if your political tastes run the other way, consider the presence of the U.S. on the Security Council...

            The problem with U.N. control over the internet is that it would give the worst offenders equal authority with those who do play well with others. Contrast this with the problem of "U.S." (i.e., ICANN) control: the U.S. may be an offender, but it's certainly not the worst, and it doesn't give the worst offenders much authority at all.

      • Re:Those bastards (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cold fjord ( 826450 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @01:46PM (#14365654)

        Apparently the main outrage comes from ICAAN reassigning control [opinionjournal.com] of the little used .iq Iraq domain from two Palestinian immiagrants living in the US, currently in jail after being convicted [foxnews.com] on a variety of charges resulting from their supporting terrorists organizations [adl.org], and giving control to the Iraqi government (which just had an election [scotsman.com]with unexpected support [telegraph.co.uk]). This seemed to have fairly strong support on Slashdot [slashdot.org] just a few months ago. It was viewed as a positive thing in Iraq [boston.com].

        I'm finding it difficult to get worked up about this.

        • Re:Those bastards (Score:3, Interesting)

          by h4rm0ny ( 722443 )

          The point that the article makes is that the USA's government is turning the assignment of domain name ownership to the perogative of national governments. The author isn't getting worked up about the two Iraqi domain owners, but about the government assuming the power to withdraw a domain from people it doesn't like. Currently, domain ownership (including top level domains) is a commercial affair run by business. The US government has no right to interfere with this save that of being big and pushy.

          Giv

          • Re:Those bastards (Score:3, Interesting)

            by cold fjord ( 826450 )
            The relationship between ICANN and the US Government is more [ecommercetimes.com] complicated [icann.org] than you suggest.

            Given that as time goes on, control of domain names will come to be a vital resource that can make or break people and companies, the author is probably right that national governments should not be able to mess them around with impunity.

            But businesses can operate them... with impunity? Without oversight? So, would you say that reassigning control of the Iraq domain from two jailed Palestinian immigrants in the United

    • Re:Those bastards (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lbrandy ( 923907 )
      WTF, if the internet is in another country, the government of that country can do whatever they hell they want with it. That's how international law works. It's called respect for sovereignty.

      Don't be silly. Slashdotters aren't very "consistent" in their desire for the US to respect other countries. It's only acceptable when it suits their own personal politics.. It doesn't matter which side the US came down on, the karma-whores and left-wingers on this site would have blamed the US.

      The US was either

      • Re:Those bastards (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MemoryAid ( 675811 )
        On that note, does anybody know where I can find the official hierarchy of causes? I mean, if I have to choose between ICANN and the US government, which should I choose? Are patents above or below copyrights? Is Microsoft better or worse than SCO? (currently, I understand that is a fluid condition.)

        It's not that I want the information for karma-whoring, I just want somebody to tell me how to think. (You know, 'cause thinking's hard.)

        • Re:Those bastards (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Bobzibub ( 20561 )
          It's not that one organization is better or worse than the other, it is that the US administration appears to be manipulating a supposedly independent organization into a vehicle for US policy. This after using the "Internet must remain free from coercive governments" argument a few months ago to reassert it's own control of the DNS system.

          This whole story oozes UK politics. El Reg is a UK paper and the UK 'net is up in arms about one of their Sr. ministers claiming that they have no knowledge of use of t
        • On that note, does anybody know where I can find the official hierarchy of causes?

          From Chapter 7 of the Karma Whorer's Manual:
          In order of precedence, and to maximize your karma-whoring potential, you should always speak out against the first thing you find on the list:
          1. Microsoft
          2. The US Government
          3. The military
          4. The patent system
          5. The republicans
          6. Any government agency collecting information via the internet
          7. emacs
          8. karma-whores
          9. Jack Thompson
          10. CowboyNeal
    • How dare they obey the laws of other countries!

      WTF, if the internet is in another country, the government of that country can do whatever they hell they want with it. That's how international law works. It's called respect for sovereignty.

      Don't be fooled. The internet is going in the direction of uniting the world to one standard. China might not want information about topic X, Y, or Z in their nation, but it is there. Maybe the people of China can't go to www.cnn.com for their news, but I am sure there

    • RTFA.

      In case you have been living in a cave the United Nations, the EU, and pretty much the rest of the world have stated for the record that TLDs should be under international control instead of under control of one particular government agency.

      Since the Internet _is_ an international entity, why should one particular government agency have control of the root DNS? Don't you see the implications of this? If you don't, see line #1 of this reply.

      A more open, international approach to this issue would have pr

  • Lessons of history - Finland's access to internet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by UR30 ( 603039 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:43AM (#14364430) Homepage
    I remember how in the beginning of 1990 Finland had some issues in having faster connections to internet. Some people in the US thought that the Finns were only goint to download software, not contribute to the net. Then came Linux, which was first distributed from the Finnish server at nic.funet.fi, and there was more traffic to the US than to Finland. Afterwards we did have quite fast net connections overseas.

  • Read The Guidelines (Score:5, Informative)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:44AM (#14364435)
    From CP-1: Internet Domain Name System Structure and Delegation (ccTLD Administration and Delegation) [icann.org]
    (a) Delegation of a New Top Level Domain. Delegation of a new top level domain requires the completion of a number of procedures, including the identification of a TLD manager with the requisite skills and authority to operate the TLD appropriately. The desires of the government of a country with regard to delegation of a ccTLD are taken very seriously. The IANA will make them a major consideration in any TLD delegation/transfer discussions. Significantly interested parties in the domain should agree that the proposed TLD manager is the appropriate party. The key requirement is that for each domain there be a designated manager for supervising that domain's name space. In the case of ccTLDs, this means that there is a manager that supervises the domain names and operates the domain name system in that country. There must be Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity to the nameservers and electronic mail connectivity to the entire management, staff, and contacts of the manager. There must be an administrative contact and a technical contact for each domain. The administrative contact must reside in the country involved for ccTLDs. The IANA may choose to make partial delegations of a TLD when circumstances, such as those in a developing country, so dictate. It may also authorize a "proxy" DNS service outside of a developing country as a temporary form of assistance to the creation of Internet connectivity in new areas. [N.B. The IANA continues to receive inquiries about delegation of new gTLDs. This is a significant policy issue on which ICANN will conduct a careful study and review based on the established decision making procedures. Information about this study will be disseminated on the website at icann.org.]
    • Parent quoth:
      > (a) Delegation of a New Top Level Domain. Delegation of a new top level domain requires the completion of a number of
      > procedures, including the identification of a TLD manager with the requisite skills and authority to operate the TLD
      > appropriately. The desires of the government of a country with regard to delegation of a ccTLD are taken very seriously.
      > The IANA will make them a major consideration in any TLD delegation/transfer discussions. Significantly interested
      > partie

  • Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by portwojc ( 201398 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:45AM (#14364445) Homepage
    So the ICANN handed over control of a couple NICs to the government of those countries. Did I miss something else in the article?

    Shouldn't the own governments handle the NICs in their own countries? I have to be missing something - otherwise all I can think is this is what the UN would probably have done anyway.

  • Evidence? (Score:5, Informative)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:45AM (#14364446)
    When the US government took over Afghanistan in 2001, it was fortunate in that the current ccTLD owner was killed during bombing of Kabul. It simple forged the man's signature on a piece of paper handing over control to the US-created authority and the job was done.

    Really? They have plenty of other links to information in that article but nothing about this particular tidbit. I did a quick search and found nothing in the first 100 results. Granted, I didn't do as much homework as I should have but I would have expected that the author of this article would have provided something more than a simple paragraph making such a claim.

    Anyone else have some more evidence or is this another piece of sensationalist journalism that's meant to fire everyone up over nothing?

  • "turn over" has two sides (Score:4, Insightful)

    by VernonNemitz ( 581327 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:46AM (#14364453) Journal
    If ICANN can "turn over" ownership TO a government body, then what is to keep it from being able to turn over ownership AWAY from that government later? Assuming enough outrage arises over the first turnover, of course!

  • Who wants to eat crow? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:47AM (#14364460) Homepage Journal
    I've said from the beginning that DNS is a government mechanism for censorship -- it was, it is and it will continue to be. The typical authoritarian response (from slashdotters no less) is that other countries can run their own DNS TLD's, but this will just lead to multiple censors, not real freedom.

    Regulation does not help the needy or the poor. It does not help those who can not do something for themselves. Regulation does not make a safer or better product, and it does not create a cheaper marketplace.

    Regulation gives those in power the ability to put friends, family and cronies into high paying monopolistic jobs, determine which companies can enter a market and prevent everyone else from competing or making a better product.

    Those who know me (even if you don't like me) know I am anti-DNS. I don't have a free market solution YET, but I think about it every day. DNS will be the fall of the Internet, until there is a decentralized version, and I believe that Google or another major search company will find a way to replace the central authority version.

    I know we need DNS today -- links, bookmarks, advertising, all that. I also know we needed coal burning stoves just 40 years ago in some parts of the U.S. Without government, society tries to find ways to become more free by competing with others. Everyone wants a profit, but we believe we'll earn more by underpricing our competition and offering a better product. With government, society tries to find ways around the bureaucracy, red tape and restrictions. We have markets that have an excessively high cost of entry, but it is not always because of the equipment needed -- many markets are expensive because of government regulations and restrictions.

    In the end, our freedoms are destroyed, our hard work is overtaxed and our children are left with the burden of paying off our mistakes.
    • I don't think we're anywhere close to an alternative to DNS. It is system that works well and it is understood by every app out there. Even if you invented a viable alternative (and I challenge anyone to come up with a good one), there would still be the need to port *all the world* to it. Or at least all of the world that cares to use it.
    • DNS is just a technology, and it works pretty well.

      The IETF's motto is "rough consensus and running code." When you've got a running-code alternative which does not use DNS, but still provides the hostname IP address mapping as effectively as DNS does, then I'll be interested. Until then, being "anti-DNS" is roughly like being "Anti-IP": not going to get you very far.

    • Re:Who wants to eat crow? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hiro Antagonist ( 310179 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @11:43AM (#14364811) Journal
      I think you need to better qualify your statements; the 'regulation' of the FDA did indeed help the needy and the poor, as did the 'regulation' of labor (minimum wage, limits on working hours, safety regulations). Sure, both have their problems, but the pre-FDA and pre-labor law US was not a fun place to live unless you were one of the wealthy, and if you weren't, even a lifetime of hard work and frugality wouldn't prepare you for retirement.

      Not to say that all regulation is good, mind you, but there are many instances where our government did its job and represented The People, all those tired and poor masses, and helped America acheive a better standard of living; lassiez-faire capitalists seem to forget that, and also seem to forget that a 'free market' only exists on a level economic playing field -- get some ill-behaved 800lb gorillas-of-industry out there, and the little guy needs some help on his team, and fast.
      • I disagree with both those statements. The FDA causes many drugs to go unsold in the US that could save hundreds of thousands of lives annually. Some of these drugs are in heavy use in other countries in the world. We have the Underwriters Laboratories (which is international) and performs millions of tests on consumer goods -- why do we need an FDA?

        Minimum wage laws provably hurt the poor by giving them no entry level positions they are worthy of. You get paid less while learning, and as you prove your

        • Re:Who wants to eat crow? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Hiro Antagonist ( 310179 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @12:36PM (#14365192) Journal
          The FDA regulates more than just drugs, for starters; I'm sure you've read 'The Jungle', that famous book about conditions in meat-packing plants -- I think that it led, in part, to the creation of the FDA. I am very happy that there is a watchdog making sure that the meat I get at the supermarket isn't diseased, rotting, filled with heavy metals, and so on; sure, they do screw up from time to time, but overall, you've got a pretty good guarantee that the steak you buy at $GROCER is both edible and nourishing.

          The FDA also does a great deal of good; sure, getting drugs to market takes forever, but the drugs that do get to market usually work. Look at a 1920s pharmacy, and you see 'guaranteed' cures for the common cold, measles, influenza, and every other ailment under the sun, and of course, none of them could back their claims scientifically; the idea of a 'prescription' didn't even exist, which didn't matter, because there was no market incentive to produce functional drugs. Repeat business for drug companies was encouraged, of course, but why go through the trouble of making drugs that work, when you can just add some cocaine or heroin to those Wonder Pills?

          I never said the FDA was perfect; I'd love to see an 'opt-out' for patients that want to try the latest and greatest that modern medicine has to offer, but the pre-FDA America was not a happy place to live.

          UL is also a regulatory body, but one missing a lot of authority -- I could easily sell non-UL tested goods, and consumers wouldn't care. I doubt most of the public even knows what UL *is*.

          The minimum wage laws destroy the poor neighborhoods. If minimum wage was so great, why not make it $50 per hour?

          If '$50/hour' was the definition of a minimum survivable salary, than it would be minimum wage. The point of minimum wage isn't to guarantee luxury; it exists to keep people from starving to death, which is what often happened before minimum-wage laws became, well, laws. People were forced into living in tenements, with little money for the basic necessities of life, because it didn't matter to the companies whether or not their employees survived to work another day or not -- after all, there's a lot more workers than employers, so if one dies, you can just replace them.

          Furthermore, not everybody is cut out to be a rocket scientist, or a skilled laborer; some people are going to be stuck at the bottom for their entire lives, and I think it's utterly inhuman to ask the bottom rung of society to starve to death -- after all, they clean our hotels, serve our coffee, and, most importantly, they are also human beings.

          Pre-FDA and pre-labor law US was a mercantilist society based on elite controlled by the party that didn't support these laws. The laws just switched the elite from one authoritarian channel to another.

          Um, this isn't much of an argument -- laws exist to exercise authority; we call 'non-authoritative' laws 'suggestions'.

          Furthermore, the US would still *be* a mercantilist society based on elite control if it wasn't for laws that pushed for the little guy; it didn't just happen that, one day, the elite decided to start treating all those assembly-line workers like human beings.

          Business exist to make money; which is good, they should do that. Unfortunately, there's no inherent moral code as to how a business should go about that, and without government regulation, businesses do some pretty disgusting things.

          I think our differences come from different viewpoints -- I hold the view that, in a just society, I should be willing to live an any socioeconomic strata. That is to say, while I might be unhappy doing so, I would be willing to be a member of the bottom rung of society. Which is why I believe in things like state-run homeless shelters, soup kitchens, libraries, public education, minimum wage, and a mixed public/private healthcare system -- cheap on the taxes, great for the masses, and even with room for the capitalists to play.

          Basically, I try and think about walking in other peoples' shoes.
          • I am very happy that there is a watchdog making sure that the meat I get at the supermarket isn't diseased, rotting, filled with heavy metals, and so on; sure, they do screw up from time to time, but overall, you've got a pretty good guarantee that the steak you buy at $GROCER is both edible and nourishing.

            Proper tort laws are what would regulate grocery stores in a free-er market. If a grocery store sells bad meat, you can expect them to go out of business. I don't fear the days of The Jungle because muc
            • I have a real hard time deciding which group I dislike most: Leftist-Communist-Socialist Utopians who don't understand micro-economic supply and demand theory, Libertarian-Anarchist Utopians who don't understand public choice theory, public goods, and transaction cost aspects of modern economics, or Rightist-Christian-Fascist Utopians who don't understand much of, well, anything. A pox on all Utopians! I live in the USofA and I'm pretty happy with the system as it stands. Could it be better? Of course i
    • "I've said from the beginning that DNS is a government mechanism for censorship -- it was, it is and it will continue to be. The typical authoritarian response (from slashdotters no less) is that other countries can run their own DNS TLD's, but this will just lead to multiple censors, not real freedom."

      There are probably a half a dozen ways in which DNS isn't anywhere near the weak point you suggest. For one thing, DNS only gives an authoritarian thug marginal censorship abilities beyond what you'd otherwis
    • I know we need DNS today -- links, bookmarks, advertising, all that.

      Bookmarks and links are a technology which actually eliminate the need for DNS[1]. If you could pass bookmarks and links around in a user-friendly manner, why would you need a global namespace like DNS? The links could simply be IP addresses, or preferably, a cryptographic identifier [2],[6]. Finding an entity with an introduction occurs via a e-mail, links on the web, etc. Search engines are used for finding an entity without an introducti
  • Should actually be "How ICANN Undermined the Internet"
  • before people get so annoyed with a country exerting excess control that they set up an alternate DNS root. Maybe one that mirrors the original by and large - but has some differences of opinion. You get to choose which one to use in case of a dispute, or just take one or other as it comes. Could it happen? Will it happen?
  • Sleezy principal #2:
    "Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS."

    If that doesn't say 'we'll co

  • I am the first one to admit... (Score:4)

    by giorgiofr ( 887762 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:48AM (#14364467)
    ... that TFA is a bit biased and its tone more than a bit sensationalist, but still the point is valid: the ICANN is behaving like some god-sent authority, without any respect for, uh, the people who actually matter: those who MAKE and USE the internet. Come to think of it, it's a US-sent rather than god-sent authority. And then, you wonder why we don't like its being the absolute ruler of the DNS?

  • So... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TrappedByMyself ( 861094 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:48AM (#14364468)
    ICANN is making sure that TLDs for countries are controlled by the governments of those countries?
    And what is wrong with this? Isn't this how it's supposed to be?

    Nice use of the word nuclear, by the way. Its good to see that propaganda is alive and well.
    • So just out of curiosity...

      Who should get final control of .tw, for example?

      The beauty of the 'give it to whoever set it up' system is that it's pretty hard to question that kind of thing. What I mean to say is, it's pretty hard to argue that you were the first person to set up a TLD if you weren't. It's a fact of the past.

      Borders change, and things can get hairy (like in the Taiwanese example).

      While Iraq was without any real form of government, who should have had control?
    • "ICANN is making sure that TLDs for countries are controlled by the governments of those countries?
      And what is wrong with this?"

      The Internet is, at heart, a phenomenon created by the free interaction of hundreds of millions of human beings. People and private companies improve the Internet every year by forming and contributing to standards groups, trade associations, open source software projects, and so on. Had the Internet been kept firmly under government control, it would never have become what it is n

  • When asked why... (Score:5, Funny)

    by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:48AM (#14364471)
    They replied, "because ICANN"

  • The sky isn't falling... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by afeinberg ( 9848 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:50AM (#14364481) Homepage Journal
    This is simply how it's supposed to be. I know we all love to think we live in "cyberspace" etc etc but behind the bits are physical networks and governments. ccTLD's are supposed to be soverign to the country that they stand for. What is so horrible about that? If governments use their ccTLD to be more repressive, take it up with the government not with ICANN.

    Amazing how some people scream censorship at the drop of a hat but can't see where they censor each other.

  • Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:50AM (#14364483) Journal
    Isn't calling it censorship a bit of a stretch. What we are talking about is who controls the domain rights within a country. Now in the example they give for Kazakhstan, they point to their removal of Sacha Baron Cohen's website borat.kz. Their excuse is actually laughable, but who is to deny anyone, government controlled, influenced or not the right to protect their perceived "integrity".

    Now, is this right? This is debatable and surely will be debated over and over here. Is this censorship? Hardly. We are not talking about some Great Firewall preventing the people from visiting any site of Cohen's. This is the WWW afterall and he can easily have the site with a different domain avoiding the .kz all together and people will still be able to see it.

    To say this is the beginning of state sponsored censorship is ridiculous, of course we are trusting on an article from The Register, so inflammatory language is a requirement, as is misinformation. Trust me, if a country was really wanting to censor anything they would do it one way or the other even if it meant "cutting the line". So let us all calm down and put the little tin foil hats away.

    • Re:Censorship (Score:4, Insightful)

      by arkanes ( 521690 ) <<arkanes> <at> <gmail.com>> on Friday December 30, 2005 @11:19AM (#14364663) Homepage
      What the hell is wrong with people and the continual redefinition and apologetics for censorship? It's not censorship unless they shoot you for publishing it? Whats wrong with you?

      This is a case of a government using it's authority to supress speech which they find objectionable. It is a textbook example of censorship and the fact that he can work around it by publishing in an area they don't control doesn't change that, any more than the fact that you could publish a book in the US that you couldn't in soviet Russia means that they didn't have censorship.

      but who is to deny anyone, government controlled, influenced or not the right to protect their perceived "integrity".

      There's this thing called free speech. A few people think it's important. Lots of other people wouldn't know it if it kicked them in the ass, and do stupid shit like nodding to each other about how sure, free speech is important, but you don't want anything bad out there, right?

      Is this censorship? Hardly. We are not talking about some Great Firewall preventing the people from visiting any site of Cohen's.

      Are you an idiot? Certainly. Any time *anyone* uses authority to suppress or alter someones speech, that is censorship. They don't have to kill you or prevent other people from listening or even be successfull. It's still censorship.

      To say this is the beginning of state sponsored censorship is ridiculous

      Yes, because it's not "the beginning" of anything. It *is* state sponsored censorship. It's what the word *means*.


  • Whoop-de-do.

    If this is news to you in 2005, you need to read the front-page of a newspaper once in a while.

  • What policy changed? (Score:5, Informative)

    by MightyYar ( 622222 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @10:51AM (#14364494)
    Unless I'm missing something, it has been ICANN policy to give the country's government ultimate control over the TLD for that country. This policy is from 2000:

    Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs Presented by Governmental Advisory Committee [icann.org]

    The relevant section (I think) says:

    7.1 Where a communication between the relevant government or public authority and the delegee is in place, when ICANN is notified by the relevant government or public authority that the delegee has contravened the terms of the communication, or the term of the designation has expired, ICANN should act with the utmost promptness to reassign the delegation in coordination with the relevant government or public authority.
    And there is a lot more language like that. The way it reads to me, ICANN does what the local government says regarding the TLD, as soon as possible - and this has been policy since at least February 2000.
    • You really have to wonder what else it could have been.

      E.g. ICANN will ignore the wishes of all governments but the USA? How would that make sense.

      I cna't imagine any other policy they would encode, except to ignore governments completely (except for the USA, of course).

  • What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @11:11AM (#14364618)
    If we were talking about .com and .net TLD's, then I would be pretty pissed.

    However, it's hard to justify not giving control of a COUNTRY'S TLD to said country's government.

    Another poster posted ICANN's guidelines for the country code TLD's and they clearly state that the government's wishes with regards to it's TLD management are of paramount importance.

    That's just how it should be.
    • Whats the big deal? Perhaps you missed the part where this article is saying how bad America is (even though a few months ago people were saying how bad America is for not giving up control of the internet).

      Add to this the fact that there is a republican in the Whitehouse, and that republican's name is Bush, and you get stories like this, or the one on the NSA hiding those supersecret spy tracking files...errr, cookies, on people computers.

      Its been a slow news week. A slow deranged news week.
  • Ok, who are the proper owners? I'll update my DNS server, and fix it. Anyone can do it. There's no rule that says you HAVE to use ICANN's root servers.
  • So Al Gore created the internet, and now George W Bush will destroy it?

    If you shouted the former, do you believe the latter?

    If not, explain...

  • Rut-roh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) * <wgrotherNO@SPAMoptonline.net> on Friday December 30, 2005 @11:27AM (#14364727) Journal

    Grotesquely-attired monster struggles in ingenious, home-made trap.

    Fred: "Now let's see who's really trying to control the Internet!"

    Fred pulls off mask.

    Velma: Jinkies!

    Shaggy: Zoinks!

    Daphne: Why it's...

    All (in unison): Jack Thompson!

    Thompson: I have to save the world from itself! Too much garbage on the Internet, perverting the minds of our children! And I'd have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!

    • If Batty Jack hasn't threatened to sue you, you ain't shit. He's Dudley-Do-Right, arriving just in time to save Nell from the evil clutches of Luther Campbell.

      "We want some pus.."
      "I'll save the day!"
      "Curses!"
  • Between GW Bush saying "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" [msn.com] and Kazakhstan banning Borat's website [contactmusic.com], is this really surprising?
  • ccTLD should be under the control of the government of the corresponding country. OTOH, gTLD should be managed by governement-free, international organisations. IMHO, there are better fights to do like:
    1) Remove the (possible) control of the gTLD by the US governement
    2) Stop the abusive contract signed with Verisign
    3) Provide cheaper gTLD domains (real price) -- today it is too expensive for the inhabitants of a poor country)
    4) Set at least one gTLD registar in each country

  • First, it doesn't seem like a big deal that government agencies should have control over that country's TLD, even if that means taking the ownership from an individual. Or did I misunderstand the article?

    Second, who needs all those TLDs anyway? I know it's been tried in the past but I see a day where a successful "alternet" will be created, with TLDs and DNSs and everything else completely run by individuals and non-governmental organizations.

    People are pretty satisfied by how things run now, though.
  • Am I missing something or is this an article that's drawing a conclusion based on no evidence? The first thing that tips off a reader is the sensationalized introduction of...

    2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet, despite widespread opposition by the rest of the world.

    Well now I'm interested, pray tell why?

    At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's

  • For all the little kiddies out there who were still in diapers when the US Gov't did the research, defined the protocols, and funded the construction that BUILT the original internet, here's a clue. The US magnanimously shared its incredible invention witht the rest of the world for the good of mankind.
    When the internet grew, and the /etc/hosts files got too big to manage, the domain system was created. At that point, every country recognized by the UN was generously given a two-letter country code TLD. Som
  • Who oversees the overseers?

  • Remember Alternic? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cyberscan ( 676092 ) * on Friday December 30, 2005 @12:05PM (#14364978) Homepage
    When Internic was the monopoly over the registration of internet names, a group decided that they would want to set up their own Domain naming system. They urged people to change their computer's internet connection setting to use their nameservers. They also urged small ISP's to use their name service as well. Threats of people setting up their own domain naming systems is partly responsible for opening up domain registration to competition. May be this is what is needed again today. I also try to encourage people to experiment with off the shelf wireless equipment in order to create local networks such as FreeWans, Muninets, and so on. If the networks such as the Internet are to remain free, then we the people must take physical ownership of its infrastructure.

  • Bigger picture (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PaulModz ( 942002 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @12:40PM (#14365217)
    If the United States government had taken similar steps five years ago, it would likely have been perceived quite differently. Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the world's perception of the United States and it's government hasn't changed this drastically since World War II. Even our strongest allies no longer trust our good intentions.

    How do you think World War II and the post-war period would have played out if Curtis LeMay and Douglas MacArthur had been in charge instead of FDR, Marshall and Eisenhower? Most historians agree that the Cuban Missile Crisis would have resulted in the Global Thermonuclear War if Kennedy has listened to LeMay and invaded Cuba. Damn Massachusetts liberals.

    Of course, if Truman had listened to MacArthur during the Korean War, we wouldn't have made it to 1962.

    I'm looking around, and I don't see a new FDR, JFK, or Eisenhower waiting in the wings. Or maybe they are there, and the polarization of American politics is silencing the moderate voices of reason.

    We've now been fighting the War on Terrorism longer than we fought WWII, how do you think the results stack up? If George Bush had been president during the Cuban Missile Crisis, do you think he would have listened to LeMay and invaded Cuba?

    • Re:Bigger picture (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cold fjord ( 826450 )
      Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the world's perception of the United States and it's government hasn't changed this drastically since World War II.

      Opinion of the United States has waxed and waned since WW2. Viet Nam and the deployment of Pershing & cruise missiles in Europe weren't any more popular. If you judge by protests, they were less popular. More Europeans will come to see the light as the Islamists continue attacking Europeans in Europe. It is amazing how quickly that clears t

  • Attempt at understanding (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @03:10PM (#14366214) Journal
    Let me see if I can get the play book right here. There are 4 things that seem to be at issue:

    1. Ownership of general domain names (x.com, x.net, x.biz)

    2. Ownership of country-specific domain names (x.eng, x.usa, x.fr, etc.)

    3. The mapping of general domain names to to IP addressess

    4. The mapping of country-specific domain names to IP addresses

    3 and 4 are kind of related since they may conflict if not coordinated and thus perhaps should be considered as one. Or else we can add another one:

    5. Assign suffixes and IP ranges to countries.

    #2 obviously seems to best be left to specific countries. If the IP addresses are blocked off such that groups/ranges are assigned to countries, then #4 could be left to individual countries also. However, #1 and #3 and #5 seem to require a central or cordinated body to manage.

    I believe the US wants to keep control over #1 and #3 and some of #5 because they don't trust a UN-like governing body, partly for allegedly being slow and wasteful.

    If other countries don't like the US control over #1 and #3, then they can simply use or demand country-specific domains and IP's be used by their consituents, skipping domains such as x.com. Maybe groups of countries can be given "group" blocks, such as x.euro or x.asia or x.groupfoo or x.alqueda (just kidding) domains and related IP ranges.
       

  • Would the UN have handled it differently? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Friday December 30, 2005 @03:27PM (#14366308)
    The Internet still seems to be running, so I guess that shutting down the Internet didn't pan out for the EU.

    Anyway, I understand that people want to take a whack at the US for their role in that debacle, but, would the UN have done differently? I don't know that they would have.

    I don't necessarily think that the US should have done what they did, but bouncing out to say that somehow international control would have resulted in a different outcome seems a bit incorrect. Am I wrong?

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