Bracing for an Internet meltdown

[converge]

a quote of a quote of a quote ... you fucking rule. /me bows

lets test our skills ..

female dog -> nagging girlfriend

_________ -> IGF

[bascule]

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?ID=1751

So the logjam on Internet governance has broken. The question is, who blinked - the U.S. or everyone else?

The issue of "who should rule the Internet" attracted increasing coverage after the EU reversed polarity and abandoned support for the U.S. position on this issue. That occurred not long ago, at the last formal meeting (called PrepCon3) preceding the vast summit meeting that came to order on Wednesday, bringing more than 16,000 participants together in Tunis, Tunisia, to plan a global "information society". The question at hand has been whether Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names, would retain its control of the root directory of the Internet, and whether it would remain subservient to the U.S. government, via the supervision of the American Department of Commerce. Once the EU dropped its support of ongoing U.S. hegemony, it left the battle lines starkly drawn, and for all intents and purposes, the lines that were drawn were the U.S. vs. the World. The last-minute desertion by the EU left the US with only two options: agree to a compromise of its control in advance of the Summit, or engage in a very public confrontation with multiple opponents in front of those 16,000 attendees, not to mention under the scrutiny of an intentlly watching world, served by legions of media looking for juicy stories where there would be few to be found. There were some reports heading into the final weekend before the Tunis Summit attempts were in process to break the impasse. And, sure enough, on the first day of the Summit it was announced that a concordat had indeed been signed the night before that would take the Internet governance issue off the table before the Summit began its debate. But if one side blinked, which one was it? One of the first articles released spun the compromise as a a defeat for the U.S., headlining the story WSIS: US caves over internet monopoly . That article opened as follows:

The US has agreed to consult with other governments over top-level domain names in a major shift in the US policy on control of the internet, EU officials confirmed on Wednesday....Under the deal, struck late on Tuesday night, all parties agreed that "no government should have the last word on another country's top level domain", said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, who attended the meeting.

But contrary to that headline, the "caving" by the US and the victory of the rest of the World appears to be more token than defeat: the same article indicates that the primary compromise made by the U.S. was simply that the American Department of Commerce would consult with a country before taking any action affecting its domain identifier. Hardly revolutionary stuff, that. But if the U.S. didn't cave, does that mean that the opposition did? That's the way it looked to the Business Standard, in India, in an article posted yesterday called Internet Control. As the Business Standard saw it:

The rhetoric centred on control of the Internet turned out to be just hot air, after a compromise was hammered out at the World Information Summit in Tunis. The US remains in unilateral control. Status quo has been maintained with respect to technical functionality as well as regulatory power. While a multinational body, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) consisting of national governments, corporations and NGOs, has been created, this has “no oversight function and would not replace existing arrangements, mechanisms, institutions or organisations, but involve them and take advantage of their expertise”. The forum “would have no involvement in day-to-day or technical operations”.

Translated, the IGF will act like a scaled-up version of the typical Internet forum. It will allow frustrated users to rant and rave, or to offer useful suggestions. But these suggestions will not be binding.

So it is that as details of the horse trading and next steps on Internet governance are finding their way into the media, each article manifests its own spin on what happened behind closed doors, and what will happen next. Here in its entirety, for example, is the official (and self-congratulatory) EU press release on the compromise, which claims credit for putting back together what it had helped to put asunder only a few weeks before at PrepCon3:

EU brokers deal on progressive internationalisation of Internet governance at Tunis World Summit

EU brokers deal on progressive internationalisation of Internet governance at Tunis World Summit A worldwide political agreement providing for further internationalisation of Internet governance, and enhanced intergovernmental cooperation to this end, was brokered at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last night. The compromise text agreed was based largely on EU proposals presented in the discussions since June. As a first important element of the agreement, a new international Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be created to deliberate among governments, the private sector and civil society at large in a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue related to Internet Governance. A first meeting of this Forum will be convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations by the second quarter of 2006 and take place in Greece. The texts agreed in Tunis also include language that will allow for enhanced cooperation among governments, on an equal footing, on public policy issues. Such cooperation should include the development of globally applicable principles on public policy issues associated with the coordination and management of critical Internet resources. This cooperation will make use of relevant international organisations. There was also a consensus in Tunis yesterday that countries should not be involved in decisions regarding another country’s Top Level Domain, thus meeting requests made, in particular, by the EU in the negotiations. “I welcome the texts now agreed in Tunis. They pave the way for a progressive internationalisation of Internet governance”, commented Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, who is leading the Commission delegation in Tunis. “This agreement was possible because of the strong belief of all democratic nations that enhanced international cooperation is the best way to make progress towards guaranteeing the freedom of the Internet around the globe and also to enhance transparency and accountability in decisions affecting the architecture of the Web. The fact that the EU spoke with one voice in Tunis, and had stood by its case for more cooperation on Internet governance in the run-up to the summit, certainly strongly influenced this positive agreement”. The text finalised last night reflects a consensus of all participants of the Tunis summit. It will now be officially adopted by the Heads of State or Government, or their representatives, in the course of the World Summit on Information Society that officially starts today and will last until Friday. For the Commission, the days to come will focus on gaining the support of other nations for the EU’s policy of investing in Information and Communication Technology, as a means to overcome the “digital divide”. In addition, the Commission will reiterate its position on the need to safeguard human rights, and in particular freedom of speech, in order to build a truly global Information Society.

[skroo]

The Register quite wryly parodied the situation the best:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11...ting_dog_blog/

I can think of far worse things for freedom of speech than the status quo of Internet governance being maintained. Anyone for China dictating what can and can't be viewed? Or Saudi Arabia? Hell, I'll even pick Ireland, where we still have an institutionalised censorship bureau that oversees what music, films, and news reports can and can't make it to the public.

The US may not be perfect, but the longer I live here the more short-tempered I grow with the people who have no fucking concept of or appreciation for how much freedom they actually have, especially when compared with the rest of the world.

[bascule]

Please, Bascule, don't make this personal. I've never accused you of spreading FUD, despite many statements you've made which would be very questionable from my point of view. Let's just call it a matter of opinion and leave it at that.

Hey man, no hard feelings. But I take the opposite approach, when someone says something questionable, I question it, and maybe they'll give me a well-reasoned response I find satisfactory rather than statements I find questionable.

As far as the ITU goes, I'm not terribly familiar with them, but my impression has always been that they provide coordination and set standards, but that they have no regulatory powers. The member countries are free to take or ignore the advice and coordination as they see fit, but any compliance is voluntary. If I'm correct in that, I would say that there is a very large difference between control and voluntary compliance.

That's an excellent defense of your position.

[TheCotMan]

This thread has avoided /dev/null (Politics and Religion) because posts contained within have sustained a relatively neutral tone and discussion has remained civil.

I realized a while back that the forums are moderated by a rule of least tolerance:
Only one mod need think something is a violation/problematic for that mod to decide to act.

It is really amazing how multiple people's independent decisions lead to what appears to be a single super-intelligence. (Very cool to me, anyway.)

On topic:
If the UN had control of "the internet" and also had control of allocation of IP addresses, China would probably be expecting their share of IPv4 and IPv6 space addresses, and the UN might try to "tax" each IP Address in use, leading to per-IP address fee increases-- maybe even direct taxation to businesses, but not government owned IP, so they can avoid veto by one of the "superpowers" in the UN with veto control.

The technology for decentralized controls does exist, but at the cost of interoperability for each disagreement.

[converge]

This thread has avoided /dev/null (Politics and Religion) because posts contained within have sustained a relatively neutral tone and discussion has remained civil. Lets keep it that way please.

We all know that either George Bush sucks or he is the coolest thing since sliced Reagan. Blah blah.. back to the actual discussion without this stuffs.

[Thorn]

If all this FUD you're spreading about international control is true then the ITU would be subject to all of the same problems. It isn't, and the ITU seems like the perfect organization to take care of name/number assignments...

Please, Bascule, don't make this personal. I've never accused you of spreading FUD, despite many statements you've made which would be very questionable from my point of view. Let's just call it a matter of opinion and leave it at that.

As far as the ITU goes, I'm not terribly familiar with them, but my impression has always been that they provide coordination and set standards, but that they have no regulatory powers. The member countries are free to take or ignore the advice and coordination as they see fit, but any compliance is voluntary. If I'm correct in that, I would say that there is a very large difference between control and voluntary compliance.

[bascule]

If all this FUD you're spreading about international control is true then the ITU would be subject to all of the same problems. It isn't, and the ITU seems like the perfect organization to take care of name/number assignments...

[Thorn]

Except for the commerce department randomly swooping in and smacking down otherwise ready-to-go initiatives?

Seems like it is still a case of the Internet being more restricted than if it was really controlled by a body not under the influence of any state.

I favor whatever arrangement makes the internet as neutral and open as possible. The commerce department swatting things down that might upset christian ideals is bad, but so is states like China getting veto rights on free speech. If the UN controlled the internet, I'm sure there'd be some openness going away.

Agreed. If anyone thinks it's restricted under the current setup, what do they think would happen if Cuba, Iran and China got a controlling bloc?

If there were some completely neutral and open body with olympian ideals as to the free flow of information, then I'd be all for it. But no such body exists, and never will. In the meantime, we are more open than most others, and changing the current system would make it much worse.

[xwred1]

Why should it be changed? It's not broken, and in fact works very well.

Except for the commerce department randomly swooping in and smacking down otherwise ready-to-go initiatives?

Seems like it is still a case of the Internet being more restricted than if it was really controlled by a body not under the influence of any state.

I favor whatever arrangement makes the internet as neutral and open as possible. The commerce department swatting things down that might upset christian ideals is bad, but so is states like China getting veto rights on free speech. If the UN controlled the internet, I'm sure there'd be some openness going away.

[allentrace]

Except for a .xxx TLD

At least no one will have an excuse for going to Whitehouse.xxx anymore.

[bascule]

Crisis averted...American way of life guaranteed...no limits on pr0n

Except for a .xxx TLD

[converge]

U.S. officials said early Wednesday that instead of transferring management of the system to an international body such as the United Nations, an international forum would be created to address concerns. The forum, however, would have no binding authority.

Sweet! Another 'UN' that we can pacify, fund, and completely ignore..

[AlxRogan]

Crisis averted...American way of life guaranteed...no limits on pr0n

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/interne....ap/index.html

[Thorn]

Imagine how closed off America would be if the rest of the world severed all Internet links to America. It's really silly to continue to think of the Internet as somehow being ours.

Gee, now who's talking gross simplications? I see it as you're looking at it backwards. Image how much the rest of the world would be cut off, if the US severed all Internet linkes to them.

Why should it be changed? It's not broken, and in fact works very well. A change at this point would be purely political, and beside making a bunch of Third World polititians popular in their home countries ("We have wrested control of the People's Internet from the Devil America!"), it would serve no purpose.

When you get right down to it, this is a non-issue. One of the people quoted in the article said it best.:

It would be better, Professor Zittrain says, for governments to focus on the serious internet issues that do need an international solution, especially things like spam, phishing, and cyber security.