Showdown Set On Bid To Give UN Control of Internet 316
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the taking-the-wheel dept.
from the taking-the-wheel dept.
wiredmikey writes "When delegates gather in Dubai in December for an obscure UN agency meeting, the mother of all cyber diplomatic battles is expected, with an intense debate over proposals to rewrite global telecom rules to effectively give the United Nations control over the Internet. Russia, China and other countries back a move to place the Internet under the authority of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a UN agency that sets technical standards for global phone calls. While US officials have said placing the Internet under UN control would undermine the freewheeling nature of cyberspace, some have said there is a perception that the US owns and manages the Internet. The head of the ITU, Hamadoun Toure, claims his agency has 'the depth of experience that comes from being the world's longest established intergovernmental organization.' But Harold Feld of the US-based non-government group Public Knowledge said any new rules could have devastating consequences. Some are concerned over a proposal by European telecom operators seeking to shift the cost of communication from the receiving party to the sender. This could mean huge costs for US Internet giants like Facebook and Google."
Re:Pick your master (Score:3, Informative)
This is the same UN that said free speech is imperative, but religious tolerance trumps it.
Re:On the one hand... (Score:3, Informative)
According to the Press Freedom Index [wikipedia.org] there are 46 countries that do it better, at least when it comes to freedom of the press.
Re:Fuck the UN (Score:3, Informative)
The United States BUILT the Internet.
Not in most places, no it didn't.
Re:On the one hand... (Score:4, Informative)
You write in your own, but you don't acknowledge the hierarchical DNS system which has a root managed by the IANA, a department of ICANN, based in Los Angeles, CA. Without providing a secure, non-centralized (those two tend to contradict each other) alternative to DNS, which every country in the world can agree to use as a replacement, your proposal can't go anywhere.
Re:On the one hand... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ [theatlanticcities.com]
So 71 percent of Americans live in areas with a density of at least 800 people/sq. mi. Another 9.5 percent are in "urban clusters" which are much smaller and go down in density as low as 360 people/sq. mi. (though some are very dense). That doesn't sound at all like "only about half the population".
Though I don't know if there are any studies showing the cut-off effects of density on mesh networks.