[Justin Time]

I just saw this on FOX news a little while ago and looked it up on the net..

Kofi Annan says U.N. won't "take over" the Internet
November 7, 2005 10:46 AM PST

As a United Nations summit on the Internet next week in Tunisia nears, last-minute politicking is on the rise. On Thursday, for instance, tech companies held an event in Washington to back the Internet status quo.

Then, in an opinion article published in the Washington Post on Saturday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan tried to play down worries about greater control of the Internet by an international bureaucratic body.

"The United Nations wants only to ensure the Internet's global reach, and that effort is at the heart of this summit," Annan said.

He added: "Governance of matters related to the Internet, such as spam and cybercrime, is being dealt with in a dispersed and fragmented manner, while the Internet's infrastructure has been managed in an informal but effective collaboration among private businesses, civil society and the academic and technical communities. But developing countries find it difficult to follow all these processes and feel left out of Internet governance structures.

And: "Everyone acknowledges the need for more international participation in discussions of Internet governance. The disagreement is over how to achieve it. So let's set aside fears of U.N. 'designs' on the Internet. Much as some would like to open up another front of attack on the United Nations, this dog of an argument won't bark."

Not all the nations participating in the event -- called the World Summit on the Information Society have been as diplomatic as the U.N. chief.

Here are some excerpts from a transcript from an earlier meeting in Geneva.

Syria: "There's more and more spam every day. Who are the victims? Developing and least-developed countries, too. There is no serious intention to stop this spam by those who are the transporters of the spam, because they benefit...The only solution is for us to buy equipment from the countries which send this spam in order to deal with spam. However, this, we believe, is not acceptable."

China: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework...For instance, spam, network security and cyberspace--we should look for an appropriate specialized agency of the United Nations as a competent body."

Ghana: "There was unanimity for the need for an additional body...This body would therefore address all issues relating to the Internet within the confines of the available expertise which would be anchored at the U.N."

Russia, Brazil and Iran also have published statements saying that no "single government" should have a "pre-eminent role" in terms of Internet governance.
Posted by Declan McCullagh

http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5937659.html


More articles on it:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3448031
http://wwwny.itworld.com/Tech/4535/051107wsis/
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/10/17/dont_give_un_control_over_internet/?page=1

[bakert]

Kofi Annan, Syria, Ghana, China, Brazil, Russia and Iran?? The UN as a competent body with expertise in anything ?? The Internet is running pretty good right now!! All we need is for this bunch to really screw it up. There's no way in hell the UN and this group of backward thinking countries and their politically motivated regimes, many of them with little or no technology compared to the USA can run the Internet and make it better than the people working on it now. I hope the US fights this until the bitter end. Don't give 'em the chance to mess something up that works very well.

[Standing Wolf]

They didn't invent it. They haven't contributed anything of value to it. They should sit down, shut up, and mind their own wretched business.

[boofus]

They want an Internet? Then make one themselves. It was a DARPA and NSF project, if it belongs to anyone it belongs to US taxpayers. They are just lucky we are letting them plug in and share it.

[HighVelocity]

greater control of the Internet by an international bureaucratic body.


That is the biggest pie in the sky statement I've heard this week. The internet cannot be controlled. It's way too late for that.

[TheEgg]

Tell me again why I would trust the U.N. and Koffi about ANYTHING AT ALL?

[jefnvk]

while the Internet's infrastructure has been managed in an informal but effective collaboration among private businesses, civil society and the academic and technical communities.

Couldn't happen to be those that put the 30+ years in developing it now, could it?

BTW, why is spam such a big deal? Do with it what you do with all those coupons that get sent to your real mailbox, and just get rid of it.

[mtnbkr]

BTW, why is spam such a big deal?
It uses finite resources (bandwidth, server storage space, CPU cycles, etc). Junk mail is tolerated because at least the sender has to pay to get their "message" to you. Imagine what would happen if junk mail companies could send their mail for free.

The hassle to the end user is the least of the problems caused by spam.

Chris

[Fletchette]

Bolton should tell Kofi to... well, I am sure he can think of something to say.

[R.H. Lee]

He added: "Governance of matters related to the Internet, such as spam and cybercrime, is being dealt with in a dispersed and fragmented manner, while the Internet's infrastructure has been managed in an informal but effective collaboration among private businesses, civil society and the academic and technical communities. But developing countries find it difficult to follow all these processes and feel left out of Internet governance structures.
Yeah, but can Kofi "Il Duce" Konnan make the trains run on time?

[rick_reno]

What's the pot of gold in this for the U.N.? Kofi wants it because there are big bucks to made in managing it. This could make the "oil for food" scam look like petty theft.

[fourays2]

I actually agree with kofi for once. UN is definately not going to take over the internet because we the American people that paid for it won't let him.:neener:

[LawDog]

"So let's set aside fears of U.N. 'designs' on the Internet. Much as some would like to open up another front of attack on the United Nations, this dog of an argument won't bark."

And in other news, English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returns from visiting the Fuhrer and Chamberlain of Germany to announce: "Peace in our Time!"; the US Government has promised that the Indians shall keep the land west of the Mississippi for: "As long as the grass shall grow"; and my last girlfriend has promised that "We can be friends."

Codswallop.

LawDog

[Cosmoline]

Lordy. The reason the internet has expanded and thrives is because it's been unencumbered by the hand of government. The existing system isn't really part of any US government either. If the UN takes over expect to see major content controls to please the tyrants and kleptocrats who run the show there. We won't be able to say bad things about China anymore, that's for sure. Doing so would be deemed cultural imperialism.

[pcf]

We are told that without seatbelt laws no one would wear seatbelts, infact they are so unpopular that they would not be in cars. Without government safety standards, airbags and anitlock brakes would have never been invented.

Seatbelt have been around much longer than seatbelt laws, 3 point harness have been around longer than seatbelt laws. Consumers demanded those safety features and they spoke with their money.

AOL's ability to sell a "pacified, politically correct" internet is not suprising. In the void, of big brother's wisdom and guidance, consumers have done a rather suprising thing, they've bought the product that meets their desires. Consumers who are concerned about their safety (misguided or not) have aptly demonstrated that they are willing to spend lots of money to secure it. Other recklees and unsafe individuals have to find a different ISP.

IEEE and GSM lead the world in setting standards for wireless products. In the interest of economic viability, most of the worlds cellular networks are based off of the GSM standard. All of the wireless internet works off of IEEE standards. Neither group is a government or UN entity, but most everyone follows their standards or accepts the fact that they'll be all alone and out of business. It must truly fly in the face of logic to expect private industry to self regulate.

The UN, of course, needs to be involved "internet governance" will allow all countries to take a productive part in not governing the internet. China will take the initiative to not shut down sights like thehighroad and DU that harbor anti-government extremist. Heaven forbid that this wealth of knowledge, available to almost anyone, goes unchecked and uncensored.

The UN is quite qualified to take on this task, in the spirits of Rwanda and the Balkans, freedom and security will be within reach of every man, woman, and child.

[Waitone]

The UN is on a multi-decade hunt for a stream of revenue separate from dues in general and the US in particular. Garunteeed if the UN gets its hooks into the "governance" of the internet, a use or piecework tax is on the way. Lead pipe cinch, fact, gonna happen, without doubt, ad nauseum.

[longeyes]

Don't worry, the hackers will deal with Mr. Annan.

[Fu-man Shoe]

I am not a network engineer.

But, as is my understanding, the internet is purposefully built to be
quite robust, such that centralized control is extremely difficult, if
not impossible.

However, there ARE major chokepoints, concentrations, and large
networks that make up a significant portion of internet traffic.

See http://www.opte.org/maps/
for a neat graphical illustration of a reasonably current (Jan 2005) "map"
of the internet. (I think the most interesting thing there is the relatively
isolated networks represented by the color white for "unknown"...I mean,
who are those guys? :uhoh: ...)

These "backbones" of the internet, if you will, could very well be subjected
to regulation and control. As could access to the wider internet through
them. How many of us here connect through a major retailer of internet
connectivity? Cox, AOL, MSN, Verizon, SBC, etc... Most of us I would
imagine. Along with a HUGE chunk of the rest of the net-going population.
Few people are sitting on top of thier own private little uplink.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it for a while...

A good analogy I think would be your right to freely travel about.
No one denies you have it. But if you want to use the roads or drive a car
to do it, you had better go through the proper channels and be duly
liscensed and what have you, "or else". Heck, even if you're on foot and
just walking around, you can get stopped and harassed by a cop to produce
some ID, and potentially taken in for failing to produce any.

The potential for regulation and control exists, and the mechanisms for
attempting to do it could be put into place. It might not work very well,
and it will make criminals out of otherwise law abiding people, but if it
is deemed nescessary, they will endlessly push on in favor of thier goals.
Because it's all about CONTROL. (sound familiar? :evil: )

Anyway, the UN is garbage, although they certainly would love to sink
thier grubby little meathooks into the internet, I dont think it would happen
the way they would like. The internet being what it is, it would route around
the damage, and the older, more survivable 'outlaw nets' would continue on
at the fringes as they have done since the early days of BBS's and FIDONET.

Yours in connectivity,

Fu-Man Shoe

[antarti]

pcf +1

Heaven forbid that this wealth of knowledge,

... and, I might add, far-and-wide opinion and attendant debate

available to almost anyone, goes unchecked and uncensored.

Thats the crux of it IMHO. Even our own Hillary has admitted as much.

[CZ-100]

The UN want control of the Internet, so that it can levee taxes on it. Plain and simple.

[CAnnoneer]

Why do we have the UN in the first place? Why do we subsidize these clowns? Let them play "world government" on their own dime! :cuss:

[Cybercop]

To (sort of) use the phrase of Fu-man Shoe
I am a network engineer.


I wouldn't worry about it a great deal, theres nothing for the US government to hand over to the UN. ICANN is a private corpration and those 13 root servers are owned by private companies. These 13 servers have a cooperative agreement involving their use. I can't see the UN marching into a major telco NOC and demanding that they hand over the admin password to the root server, it's not going to happen!

If these countries want to set up their own root servers there's nothing stopping them from doing it. In fact it would even be a good thing (redundency always is.) What they don't seem to realize is that I can use any nameserver I want, as a matter of fact I list the DNS server from three different networks in my current configuration. And if you really want to see the dark side of the net you can search the ALTER.NET DNS for those websites not listed in the normal web space.

The easist way to go about local control of internet naming is to simply append the county code ie "thehighroad.org.us/uk/au" etc. This would work with the current system and not break anything. It may however put a few aspiring politicos out of a job. And give the euros less to whine about. I wish these control and political types would learn to leave the technical end to those who do it for a living.

The only bad part is when it fails (which it will) that they have to audicity to look at you and say that they didn't know THAT would happen, or worse yet when your told to "fix it!" At this point 5 gallons of disel and a match are in order (Not for the hardware mind you, I'm thinking of using it on the problem.)
:D
Jim

[KriegHund]

Got spam?

Get anti-spyware!

I want the UN out of my interent like i want it out of my country, my sandwhiches, and my life in general!

The internet websites and the poeple browsing it are but an extension of the nation from which they stem. Such is as it should be.

[Sam]

The only way the UN can "take over" teh internet is if we let them.
Keep our government in line and the UN will take care of itself(disappear).

Sam

[jefnvk]

I can't see the UN marching into a major telco NOC and demanding that they hand over the admin password to the root server, it's not going to happen!

Heh, internet has been flaky here lately. My friend jokingly said we should march down to the office with a few arms and take control. I say, they're a buncha geeks, you think they are gonna fight back? He goes, yeah, but you want root access to a geek's server. You're gonna need an army to get that info :D

Anyhow, I don't think the UN is competent enough to march in and take control. They can't control villagers in third world countries.