Russia and China Withdraw Bid For Internet Control 115
judgecorp writes "Russia, China and other nations have withdrawn proposals to take control over the Internet within their borders. The proposals, handed to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) on Friday, caused widespread dismay and protest. The WCIT event in Dubai, run by the UN agency ITU, is working on new International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) which are due for their first revision since the emergence of the mass Internet. The line-up of nations wanting to formalize their power to restrict the Internet included Russia, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt. Their proposal has been withdrawn without explanation, an ITU spokesperson confirmed."
Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like they learned from the WMD/Iraq War debacle...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
No, they just buckled to my criticism and taunting, as per usual.
I graciously await your praise and gratitude.....
Withdrawn without explanation (Score:4, Insightful)
Or am I being paranoid?
Re:Withdrawn without explanation (Score:4, Interesting)
Do they really have to ask, as long as it's within their borders?
If they wish to break the internet within their own borders, who will be able to stop them?
Re: (Score:1)
I don't think we have a complex. We just like fucking with people. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, we do ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Were you talking to me or to edibobb?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Withdrawn without explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice that America exports Democracy, but I'd say they should at least keep a little bit for themselves, I notice a shortage.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Withdrawn without explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they really have to ask, as long as it's within their borders?
Extradition treaties. You live in .us and uploaded a wedding picture of your wife showing bare ankles to facebook? Hopefully the religious authorities in Afghanistan will be lenient with your extradited there for punishment ... all in exchange for other countries extraditing I.P. violators to the USA.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Do they really have to ask, as long as it's within their borders?
Extradition treaties. You live in .us and uploaded a wedding picture of your wife showing bare ankles to facebook? Hopefully the religious authorities in Afghanistan will be lenient with your extradited there for punishment ... all in exchange for other countries extraditing I.P. violators to the USA.
Yea. And Obama's gonna take away yer guns, PPACA sets up death panels for granny, FEMA is building concentration camps in Louisiana, et. al.
Kriminy...
Re: (Score:3)
You write as if people haven't served jail time after being extradited across the country for running pr0n BBS or in custody today for doing things illegal in the US while in a foreign country?
Re: (Score:2)
You write as if people haven't served jail time after being extradited across the country for running pr0n BBS or in custody today for doing things illegal in the US while in a foreign country?
You write as if source citation is unnecessary, as though everyone else on the planet has had the exact same experience and exposure as yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the whole Megaupload thing should speak for itself. How long have you been reading slashdot? This is frequently discussed here, along with numerous other similar incidents.
I think you're so entrenched in this "us vs them" partisan mess to see past the mistakes of your chosen sports team. That's all that partisan politics is, it's about as much without reason as steelers fans hating cowboys fans.
Given that this is slashdot, which is typically left leaning, chances are that both of the guys you are ar
Re: (Score:2)
I think the whole Megaupload thing should speak for itself
If Dotcom were an American citizen, extradited to another country, then yea, that'd be a great example. But he's not, so it's not.
vlm specifically implied that Americans are being extradited to other countries for doing things that aren't illegal in America - I contend that point, and the lack of supporting citation.
I think you're so entrenched in this "us vs them" partisan mess to see past the mistakes of your chosen sports team.
And I think you're reading too much into the specific words I wrote, and not enough into the context. Hint: It has far less to do with partisan politics than you think, and far more to do wit
Re: (Score:2)
vlm specifically implied that Americans are being extradited to other countries for doing things that aren't illegal in America - I contend that point, and the lack of supporting citation.
No, read his post, he said doing things illegal in the US (as in, against the law in the US) while being in a foreign country. Although Dotcom hasn't been extradited yet, they are pushing for it, and they have successfully extradited other people who have never set foot in the US.
You probably shouldn't throw stones from a glass house, by the way (see your first sentece below.)
And I think you're reading too much into the specific words I wrote, and not enough into the context. Hint: It has far less to do with partisan politics than you think, and far more to do with shit tin-foil-hat-crazy people say.
Well, the "shit tin-foil-hat-crazy people say" about Obama and firearms is correct. Obama said he wants to "reintroduce the ban on as
Re: (Score:2)
vlm specifically implied that Americans are being extradited to other countries for doing things that aren't illegal in America - I contend that point, and the lack of supporting citation.
No, read his post, he said doing things illegal in the US (as in, against the law in the US) while being in a foreign country.
That's a negatory, Ghostrider. vlm's post, verbatim:
Phrases such as "you live in .us" and "authorities in Afghanistan... you['re] extradited there" makes it pretty obvious he's talking about US citizens bein
Re: (Score:2)
You said this:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3306563&cid=42244709 [slashdot.org]
Which was in reply to this:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3306563&cid=42243221 [slashdot.org]
And then I replied to you.
Seriously unless you've been under a rock, that's like asking somebody to cite the first amendment. As for the part you quoted, of course he wasn't saying that actually happened, so why on earth would he cite anything? He was speaking hypothetically of what could happen if they decided to do the same thing that the US curre
Re: (Score:1)
I've been curious about this as well, China's great firewall and the various outages of countries from the internet seem to indicate they already have what is being asked for (at least on the surface).
What I think they are trying to do is push that view out to the rest of the Internet, which I would like to hope the UN / ITU is smart enough to determine.
Re: (Score:2)
So in exchange for shutting up about it, they'll probably get it officiously, thanks to nations who also want full control but didn't formally ask for it (ie, all of them?). Or am I being paranoid?
Maybe, because I'm fairly paranoid myself. But I thought more or less the same thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Or am I being paranoid?
"Paranoid," when talking about governments and your freedoms, is short for "not an idiot."
Russia and China (Score:1, Insightful)
Allowing Russia and China to have any say over anyone or anything is tantamount to giving the fox access to the chicken coop.
They already have control, of themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't get all this "control of the internet" hoopla. The reality is that anyone can run a DNS server. These countries can run one of their own if they don't like ours. They can also put whatever firewall they choose on the lines going in and out of their countries. They already have as much control as they choose to have. What is the point of having some international governing body? I'm not getting it.
Re: (Score:3)
Think lower level than DNS. What happens when there is no central body over IP addresses? Will your traffic to x.x.x.x get routed to country Y or country Z?
Re: (Score:2)
I think you ought to read up on IP routing and border gateway protocol. Specifically, look at what happened when Pakistan blocked YouTube. If you have people fighting over IP assignments, which the US controls, then you have a real mess on your hands. We'd be totally screwed without centralized IP addressing.
Close shave (Score:5, Interesting)
Language, currency and cultures often divide us, but the internet is one of the things unified in this world. Long may it stay that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't the world pretty much at peace right now? What major wars are going on at the moment?
Re:Close shave (Score:5, Informative)
Peace means more than just "no major wars"
Wikipedia has a nice list of conflicts that are still ongoing (be it cold, warm or hot conflicts): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_military_conflicts [wikipedia.org]
And just stay tuned, more are sure to come!
Re:Close shave (Score:4, Informative)
There are definitely some nasty little meatgrinders going on(and, depending on how exactly you want to tot them up, a fair amount of violence-application by internal security forces whose targets are mostly too outmatched for it to even count as 'conflict'); but by historical standards that's pretty good.
The Syrian civil war, for instance, killed about as many people, per year, as motor vehicle accidents do in the US(the US population is higher, obviously, so the individual risk of death is lower).
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe so, but "no major wars" is certainly a nice step in the right direction. The world has been getting more peaceful for some time now, little as you would realize it from the TV news.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
lets see now shall we, Afghanistan is still an ongoing diaster, Israel and palastine are going at like there's no tomorrow with Iran standing none to calmly on the side, china and japan hate each others guts, North Korean is trying to blow the South Koreans to hell and back and lets not even go into everything that's happening in Africa
Re: (Score:2)
Just as it has been to every occupying force throughout all human history.
Business as usual. Middle East is the world's ulcer and will remain so for the forseeable future, but it's not going to result in any large-scale conflicts.
They can hate each other all they want but what are they actually going to do about it? Nothing
Re: (Score:2)
In absolute terms, no. There are still lots of first-world-funded conflicts going on. There are still genocidal dictators. Life in North Korea can hardly be described as "peaceful." People are being killed every day for petty disputes over land, religion, and politics.
We've got a lot of problems. We're just better than we've been. It's a start.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It'll be a very long time before world peace is achieved,
That depends highly on your definition of "world peace".
Re: (Score:2)
With liberty and justice for the One Corporation that will eventually own everything
Re: (Score:2)
It'll be a very long time before world peace is achieved,
That depends highly on your definition of "world peace".
That is the exact reason "world peace" will never be achieved. No one can agree on the definition and there is always someone who is willing to force their views on other by the point of a knife/gun/warhead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Language, currency and cultures often divide us, but the internet is one of the things unified in this world.
Unfortunately, the internet in many ways divides us. It used to be that people needed to be geographically proximate to form in-groups that were culturally distinct and had distinct ideologies. Now, people can easily form groups with people from very far away, and then only focus their information sources and ideologically affiliated sources. Thus, you can get conservatives who only read right-wing websites, and similarly for liberals, or anarchists, or monarchist, etc. It is likely that the internet can ea
Re: (Score:2)
And if there's one thing the last few hundred years of history have taught us, it is that people are willing to kill over abstract ideals even when they share culture, currency and language.
And they usually behave themselves when there's direct economic contact... True, a world of 4chan or xbox voice chat would be pretty messed up, but a world of deal extreme and ebay wouldn't be nearly as bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Language, currency and cultures often divide us, but the internet is one of the things unified in this world. Long may it stay that way.
Obviously you've stayed out of the iOS/Android fanboi fights...
Re: (Score:2)
M'eh, that's more like sports fanboism than a war.
Re: (Score:2)
More like never. Only God can do that. :(
Re: (Score:2)
The Pattern (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Withdraw these measures after the hue and cry.
3) Propose more "reasonable" measures that will, after the dust settles, actually end up giving more control.
This is how our gas prices keep going up. They jack the prices up by a dollar, then back down 80 cents. Repeat as necessary.
Re: (Score:1)
It all comes out in the rinse or the wash. I guess you don't deal much with Marketing types. They all think that way. And they are correct. They get results.
Re: (Score:2)
Ouch! I saw regular for $3.0799 the other day at a Wawa station here in the Richmond VA area.
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't take a conspiracy, just powerful and privileged players who each act to benefit themselves at the expense of the public.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
While I fully agree with what you just said, what do you imagine happens to the price of a commodity with finite (and thus diminishing) supply and increasing demand?
We won't have to worry about running out of oil for a bit; somewhere around 100 years depending on which source you believe. The price fluctuation is a game for profits, nothing more. This can be observed by the distribution stream,where people are paid NOT to produce at full potential, creating false demand. Also, the futures are suspect when a moth farts somewhere in the Middle East and the price immediately goes up -at the pump-, but there are no outcomes (aside from near miss global economic failure a
Re:The Pattern (Score:4, Informative)
"they?" A Conspiracy!! Yep, that's it, numerous oil companies, some nationalized and some privatized, shipping companies, refiners, governments, etc. all got together and decided that you needed to have higher prices, and kept the manipulation secret...those sneaky bastards. You know, the Sun keeps rising and falling in the sky....a Conspiracy!!
Right, because price fixing never happens and every bad act is eventually found out. No one ever gets away with anything, and the Authorities are always on the up and up. How could it be otherwise? After all, wealthy powerful people usually come to and maintain their power through honesty and transparency.
Really, there is no conspiracy necessary for those with like interests to work together to forward those interests. It's quite natural. However, contrary to your insinuation, conspiracies do happen and some are actually kept secret. It's really not that hard. The people involved just have to all benefit from the secret. If you were making billions of dollars through some conspiracy, why on earth would you ever tell anyone?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
The price movements you describe sounds like the long-term price of a successful stock.
Or the long-term price of a commodity that is valued based on a steadily inflating currency (US dollars). Like oil.
I'm honestly struggling to see the "insight" within your post.
Re: (Score:2)
This is how our gas prices keep going up. They jack the prices up by a dollar, then back down 80 cents. Repeat as necessary.
True story in Washington. (Someone correct me on the details if I'm wrong) I was told that our Senator, Maria Cantwell, threatened to investigate the oil companies for price gouging the Pacific Northwest; they dropped prices (by almost $0.60/gal for diesel) and she dropped the investigation. Gas prices have steadily gone back up to where they were before, and I hear she's threatening to investigate again.
translation (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The breakup is coming (Score:4, Funny)
Summary is biased (Score:5, Interesting)
This summary is slanted and biased: "proposals to take control over the Internet within their borders". The text "within their borders" has been added by the submitter - the word "border" isn't even in the document that text links to.
Countries already have control over the internet "within their borders", just like they have control over everything else within their borders. They were seeking control *outside* their borders, to force outside companies to have to pay them to deliver content. What these countries are wanting (among other things) is the ability to force content producers, like Google's YouTube, to have to pay their ISPs in order to be able to deliver content at a "quality" level to their citizens.
In other words, there are countries that want the US to have to pay them so their population can consume content created by the US. If Google deems it wise to invest in a country's infrastructure so that more people in that country can (for example) watch YouTube videos at a certain level of quality, then that's Google's prerogative. They shouldn't be forced.
The USA is not perfect but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And one US party wants to implement exactly that - just as Jesus would do.
Why the UN to begin with? (Score:1)
To be honest I don't see why the UN would have to be involved in this to begin with. If China, Russia plus various Islamist countries are so concerned about content on the Internet, exactly what is stopping them from deploying their own parallel DNS system within their borders? If they want to set up their own non-ICANN sanctioned .com, .net and .org root servers and then force their ISPs to use those I'm sure they can do it already without UN involvement. Sure, they will invoke the rage of their citizens a
The Net is a game changer even with censorship (Score:2)
When I visited a friend in Czechoslovakia in 1985, he had just installed a very expensive ( for him ) satellite dish so he could watch West German TV. Now the Internet makes it easy to watch and participate. Even with heavy censorship closed societies can no longer control the ongoing discourse. Closed society can mean anything from China to various "self contained" religious groups.
Thanks ICANN (Score:1)
Thank you ICANN for contributing towards this mess, with your self-serving policy of continually releasing new TLDs - most recently the generic TLD.
What purpose does this rubbish serve, apart from making ICANN more wealthy?
Other big countries see it as the US making an easy grab for money based on their control of the internet, even if barely any US citizens benefit from the countless TLDs that have now been released.
If the USA doesn't want their stewardship of the internet repeatedly challenged by foreign
Reading between the lines a bit... (Score:2)
Their proposal has been withdrawn without explanation, an ITU spokesperson confirmed.
I'd guess that they've decided to sub it out to the major U.S. telco's, who will perform any act or service for the right price, no questions asked.
Ultra Vires (Score:1)
A technical standard rfor censorship is good (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're gonna spam random internet forums, at least double check your google translate so you don't come off like a complete moron.