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The Internet Your Rights Online

Should the UN Replace ICANN? 591

Posted by timothy from the gold-medal-in-arrogance dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo news has a story on how some developing countries want control of the assignment of network names and numbers turned over to an international body, such as the UN's ITU (International Telecommunication Union)."
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Should the UN Replace ICANN? More

Should the UN Replace ICANN?

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  • According to the article: "All countries want to counter spam -- unsolicited commercial messages that can flood email accounts by the hundreds and burden the web with unwanted traffic" and I'm not sure if I completely agree with that and/or what they are going to do about it ... but they talked a good story back in July/2004 [cbsnews.com] - remains to be seen if they can walk that talk - UN's record isn't that great IMHO. BTW, here's the UN ITU Home Page. [itu.int]

    Support Celiac Disease Research [komar.org]

    • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:12PM (#11751278) Homepage
      Well, if the UN can manage CEB [unsystem.org], CTBTO [ctbto.org], ECA [uneca.org], ECE [unece.org], ECLAC [eclac.org], ESCAP [unescap.org], ESCWA [escwa.org.lb], FAO [fao.org], UNCTAD [unctad-undp.org], HLCM [unsystem.org], MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD [unsystem.org], IANWGE [unsystem.org], IAPSO [iapso.org], and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :)

      UN's record isn't that great IMHO

      Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?

      Honestly, I think that this is just going to turn into a big OFF-bashing thread.

      • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Um, Oil-for-Food, forced prostitution rings in the Balkans, rape in the Congo, Ruud Lubbers sexually harrasing his colleagues, thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued to diplomatic vehicles in NYC every year, inaction in Sudan, Syria on the human rights committee... Should I continue?

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:21PM (#11751780) Homepage
          Sure, continue on, but next time be more statistically valid. Picking out incidents from an entity is not valid; I could equally point to a hundred major scandals in the US from the past decade. A more fair method is to pick organizations in a deterministic fashion (i.e., no hunt-and-peck), and then look at their records.

          But, hey, for the heck of it, lets look at your list (feel free to add more!)

          > Oil-for-Food

          OFF "leaked" by 2-4 billion$ (the other money was from oil smuggling, which never was under the jurisdiction of OFF). US reconstruction money (largely Iraqi oil profits) leaked by 9B$, when dealing with a smaller total. Net result: UN handled money better.

          > forced prostitution rings in the Balkans

          Perhaps you're confusing NATO with UN? Italian NATO peacekeepers were accused by the Spanish Secret Service of running a prostitution ring. Also, DynCorp (A private US company) was involved in a prostition-ring there; members even filmed the rape of a young girl.

          > rape in the Congo

          Yes, of the 11,000 UN troops in the congo, there were 150 allegations of rape against about a dozen troops. This is, percentage-wise, about on par with accusations against US troops by Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. And like we have any right to talk after Abu Ghraib and the recently exposed Guantamo details.

          > Ruud Lubbers sexually harrasing his colleagues,

          Sexual harassment? That's the worst you can come up with? I think you need to have a talk with Janis Karpinski about that in the US. Or perhaps talk with the >60% of female US soldiers who experienced sexual harassment, and the >30% of female US soldiers who experienced rape or attempted rape by their fellow soldiers, over the course of their military careers. 19% of women at the Air Force Academy were raped during their stay; 81% were too afraid to report the rape, and 42% of those who did experienced retaliation for doing so. I could go on and on, on this front.

          > thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued to diplomatic vehicles in NYC every year,

          *Unpaid Parking Tickets*? Please tell me that I just hallucinated you writing that...

          > inaction in Sudan,

          Naturally, the US stepped right up to take their place, right? Oh yeah, that's right, we were the leading cause of UN inaction on this front.

          > Syria on the human rights committee...

          Yes, everyone gets a chance. Like the US is one to speak with Guantanamo, Baghram, Abu Ghraib, Shebargham, and its policy of extrordinary rendition, especially to the very country you just named.

          > Should I continue?

          Please do. What's next - jay walking?

      • Well, if the UN can manage CEB [unsystem.org], CTBTO [ctbto.org], ECA [uneca.org], ECE [unece.org], ECLAC [eclac.org], ESCAP [unescap.org], ESCWA [escwa.org.lb], FAO [fao.org], UNCTAD [unctad-undp.org], HLCM [unsystem.org], MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">H L CP, IACSD [unsystem.org], IANWGE [unsystem.org], IAPSO [iapso.org], and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :) UN's record isn't that great IMHO Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetic

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)

          by LuSiDe ( 755770 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:55PM (#11751620)
          What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.


          You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.
          • You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.

            Wow, you might have a point. That's the exact same thing I hear from soldiers that are returning from Iraq. There's actually a lot of positive news, but the netwroks don't care about reporting it.

          • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Interesting)

            by dajak ( 662256 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @09:57AM (#11755206)
            [..] none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in [..]

            You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.

            Nothing happens unless there is a UN member or a coalition of UN members that has the means and the willingness to interfere. Other countries than the US do take on missions if they feel they have the means to pull it off.

            What about France on the Ivory Coast [worldpress.org]? A quote:

            "Without France, we would find ourselves in a second Rwanda," claimed Ibrahim Coulibaly, one of the rebels who took control of the north in September 2002, in an interview with Courrier International (Nov 17).

            Or the UNMEE force in Ethiopia and Eritrea [unmeeonline.org], where the Netherlands and Canada initially volunteered, but only after explicit assurances by the US through the media that they could call in US air support from bases in Saudi Arabia if needed. The force now mostly consists of troops from India, Jordania, and Kenya.

            65,000 UN soldiers (excluding forces like the French one on the Ivory Coast) are currently serving in 16 UN operations worldwide [un.org], and most of those are succesful.

            Srebrenica [pipex.com] is a good example of what happens if you are willing but do not really have the means to pull it off yourself (and your 'ally' the US is secretly arming [srpska-mreza.com] the side you are supposed to disarm according to your UN mandate). The Netherlands' force mistakenly assumed it could rely on air support by allies if needed, and the small force didn't have the means to take out Serbian tanks. The Serbs blocked munitions and arms supplies over the road for months before they attacked the enclave.

            The US is the only country with a network of air force bases all over the world, and even the US would probably have had problems providing sufficient air lift and air support quickly in Rwanda. For smaller countries involvement in Rwanda could only have ended in embarassment.

            All of this has hardly any bearing on the functioning of the UN bureaucracy. It is about cynical international diplomacy.

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:02PM (#11751654) Homepage
          >How about you start by telling us what the heck any of these organizations actually do

          You see, there are these magical things called "links". How about you learn the spell for following them?

          > Rwanda

          Yeah, and when the UN didn't step in, the US stepped right in and took care of things, right? Oh yeah... we were completely ineffective there too.

          > money launderer for Saddam.

          As if we've done any better:
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fil e_on_4/42 16853.stm

          BTW, do you know what body of the UN had the authority to block contracts under OFF? It was the Security Council, and it only took one member to act.

          • Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)

            by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <srevart.sirhc>> on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:33PM (#11751874) Homepage Journal
            I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.

            The UN could not do anything because the member countries of the Security Council who were generally much closer geographically to Iraq were (rightly as it turned out) afraid of what would happen when Saddam was ousted.

            In other news, we can look at the nepotism that goes on wrt Iraq contracts under the Bush Administration (Haliburton anyone?) and see strong parallels to the OFF issues. Therefore the US government must be bad and we should get rid of it? I don't know anyone who reacts this way to the US Gov't except strangely those who are responsible for supporting this type of morally bankrupt government.

            The UN has been coming of age in recent years, and this is likely to be the source of a lot of the hard feelings. The WTO which used to be a sounding board for US corporate interests is now becoming more egalitarian with the third world countries standing up to their interests much better than in the past. Similarly, the US cannot just assume that other countries (particularly those in the EU) will simply bow to US economic, trade, and even foreign policy. The UN has become a strong force for Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and this is a direct threat to the global supremacy of the US. This is why there is so much bitterness against it from here.

            Sure there is some corruption, but there is corruption in every other burocracy in the world. What is news is that for the first time since WWII, the US is opposed by a community of nations in a variety of ways from trade policy to its international agenda. There is a lot of cooperation too but nobody mentions this.

            The UN would do well to take over the duties of the IANA and the ICANN. And again this is because it would give poorer nations more just representation in these policies.

            • Mod parent and grandparent up! (Score:5, Informative)

              by Dioscorea ( 821163 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @10:10PM (#11752074) Homepage
              I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.

              True. If by funny you mean the sort of joke that makes you want to throw up... and let's not forget that the CIA under Reagan was the primary organizing force behind the Afghan mujahedin, including certain terrorists of recent renown.

              The denigration of the UN, so mindlessly echoed by many on here, is a neocon tactic designed to set up the New American Century [newamericancentury.org]. Just look at the smearing of the IAEA (and subsequent total failure of the US to do any better). It's sad when people are so ignorant of history that they forget why the UN was created in the first place, or how Germany and Japan undermined the League of Nations as a critical part of their imperial manouevres in the 30's.

              People need to take a minute to think about the agenda behind this constant rubbishing of the UN. Is Empire really what Americans want? Possibly not, but there's no way of knowing: see e.g. Mike Scheuer [bbc.co.uk], former head of CIA's bin Laden unit, who points out that the underlying reasons for Arab terrorism or the implications of America's continued imperial expansion are simply not part of the political dialogue in America right now.

              As for bureaucracy, I've worked in many US govt labs and the idea that America is somehow less bureaucratic is another of those jokes that makes you want to hurl. People, turn off your TV, it's lying to you...

              • Re:Mod parent and grandparent up! (Score:4, Insightful)

                by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <srevart.sirhc>> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:37AM (#11753093) Homepage Journal
                The denigration of the UN, so mindlessly echoed by many on here, is a neocon tactic designed to set up the New American Century [newamericancentury.org]. Just look at the smearing of the IAEA (and subsequent total failure of the US to do any better). It's sad when people are so ignorant of history that they forget why the UN was created in the first place, or how Germany and Japan undermined the League of Nations as a critical part of their imperial manouevres in the 30's.

                I would add to this that the neocons are neither conservative by any classic sense nor are they new. I consider myself both a progressive in mission and a conservative in methodology. The more I study however, the more I fear that my country is sliding towards a fascist style of government based on authoritarianism in both the family and the government.

                People need to take a minute to think about the agenda behind this constant rubbishing of the UN. Is Empire really what Americans want? Possibly not, but there's no way of knowing: see e.g. Mike Scheuer, former head of CIA's bin Laden unit, who points out that the underlying reasons for Arab terrorism or the implications of America's continued imperial expansion are simply not part of the political dialogue in America right now.

                The UN is largely a confederation of world states, which come together to negotiate treaties and develop international legal traditions (such as the Geneva Convention) and approach common problems. Nobody here has suggested, for example, that we should do away with the WHO, so it seems that everyone here agrees that the UN has a purpose and a mission.

                Regarding the issue of the underlying reasons for Arab Terrorism.... Ok, I am relatively nonpartisan.... Anyway, this is a failure of the US government of which both our political parties are equally at fault. Additionally I think we need to look too at the question of the formation of an international terrorist network, how they derive their support, and what we can do about it now. People think of state sponsored terrorism because that was a standard tactic of both the US and USSR during the cold war. However a new problem has arisen which requires no sponsor. Indeed, the monster of terrorism requires only a lawless space. It thrives on injustice because this is the source of its support.

                So the only solution to the problem of international terrorism is social justice and the rule of law throughout the world. I am sorry to say that Iraq has made things worse on at least one of these fronts. I think that the objecting members of the UNSC (China, France, Germany, etc.) have been largely vindicated in their judgement.

                This is on-topic because people are afraid of being restrained by the UN so they want to undermine it even on this discussion board regarding something seemingly unrelated.

                The UN does an excellent job at many things including common infrastructure for vaccinations, radio spectrum, etc. The functions of the IANA and ICANN would be things that they would do well with regardless of their other failures. Even the neocons^W neofascists don't argue against these functions.

            • Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)

              by maetenloch ( 181291 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @10:14PM (#11752093)
              I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.

              The U.S. did sell arms to Iraq in the 80's, however when you look at the amounts [answers.com], you can see that these were miniscule compared to what they received from the USSR, France, and China. Even at its largest in 1988, U.S. sales only accounted for only 5% of Iraq's arms purchases. In fact based on these numbers, France has a lot to answer for.
              Also the 'bioweapons cultures' that you refer to were most likely plain anthrax spores which were quite easy for anyone to order from a catalog back in the 80's. These have legitimate use for agricultural research and are not particularly dangerous unless they are 'weaponized' i.e. finely ground up, mixed with other substances to keep the spores viable, and mixed into an aerosol - a non-trivial task.

              • Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)

                by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <srevart.sirhc>> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:06AM (#11752942) Homepage Journal
                The U.S. did sell arms to Iraq in the 80's, however when you look at the amounts, you can see that these were miniscule compared to what they received from the USSR, France, and China. Even at its largest in 1988, U.S. sales only accounted for only 5% of Iraq's arms purchases.

                Actually if you do research on Iraq-gate, you will find that similar to the OFF scandle today, the allegations were that Reagan/Bush were using humanitarian aid to help Saddam buy weapons. They basically helped Saddam launder money from humanitarian aid in order to build an army. Additionally, most of the raw materials that Iraq used in its NBC/WMD weaponry programs came from the US.

                I guess some things never change. It is just good when the President of the US does it and bad when the UN does it.

            • Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)

              by rs79 ( 71822 )
              "The UN would do well to take over the duties of the IANA and the ICANN. And again this is because it would give poorer nations more just representation in these policies."

              Pardon me but before you do that could we please frist try to give US citizenry (I'm Canadian) a voice in those policies before we do that?

              The documents that defined the creation of ICANN mandated that it be a mebership organization and despite one horrbly flawed attempt at voting, they still are not. The IP interests who have captures

          • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:4, Informative)

            by STrinity ( 723872 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:57PM (#11752005) Homepage
            Rwanda

            Yeah, and when the UN didn't step in, the US stepped right in and took care of things, right? Oh yeah... we were completely ineffective there too.

            Um, you know, the UN did step in in Rwanda. The complaint against them is that they didn't accomplish anything -- if anything, they made matters worse by attracting people to safe-zones that turned out not to be safe.

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)

          by hyfe ( 641811 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:22PM (#11751787)
          UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.

          The UN faithfully delivered all suggested contracts to a commitee manned by 5 standard members of the council, several was marked as financially suspicious but none of these were investigated. The US did however block hundreds of other contracts for what they said was security reasons, the other 4 countries blocked none. This was [b]not[/b] a fault of the UN administration

          Furthermore, the money involved in these contracts are dwarfed by both the amount of money mysteriously disappearing from Iraqui oilwells nowadays, and the amount of good old-fashioned smuggling out of Iraq pre-war.

          The "genocide" in Yugoslavia is a fairly good example actually, because before NATO/US moved in, people on all sides were killing eachother pretty equally. It was war. However western media somehow(for what reasons? by whose decision?) misrepresented statistics and the whole situation blew up when NATO went in. To add insult to this, they never went in with ground fources to break things up. Europe(Germany? my memory fails me) premature approval of Kosovo didn't help much either. The UN tactic of waiting it out, and not arbitrerarily choosing one side to side with was prudent; and it's only our acute sense of stupidity that keeps us from seeing it.

          Lastly, the world is a big place; listing the disasters of the world is not proof the UN is not working. They are not, and never were intended to be world police. They are not perfect, and they don't have a magic wand to remove problems. Problems often seem quite different depending on the perspective, and while I'm sure you're sure your perspective is right, I'm equally sure mine is right.

          Oh, and sorry for not providing links, but I don't have them handy; and you're probably just as good at searching as I am :)

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)

          by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @11:40PM (#11752566)
          What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.

          And they didn't stop the tsunami disaster - that should have been preemtively prevented like America preemted Iraq using WMDs. And of course they should have moved in right away when GWB got reelected.

          But tell me, wtf does that have to do with the bloody governmence of the internet?

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Insightful)

          by peachpuff ( 638856 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @11:44PM (#11752592)
          "What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam."

          Has ICANN?

        • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:5, Informative)

          by R.Caley ( 126968 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @11:57PM (#11752651)
          What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda

          Did ICANN?

          This hardly seems a relevent argument in the context of the proposal.

          Most of what the UN does is utilitarian stuff, like ITU creating standards or the WHO stomping on disease outbreaks. It all ticks along quietly because it's a long way from the politicians.

          On the other hand most of the things the UN gets criticism for are either clearly outside it's power (how could the UN, which has no armed forces, have prevented genocide in Rwanda? Sent in some clerks to threaten everyone with really bad paper cuts?), or political schemes which were never supposed to work (eg oil for food, which was a propoganda tool for the western nations who set up the sanctions on Iraq, and so was immune to any kind of oversight, audit or normal management until it's propoganda use was over, it's supprising it wasn't a lot more corrupt than it was).

          Like the EU, one of the main purposes of the UN is to be a front behind which governments can do things they can't be seen to do directly. The upside is that it's existance for that purpose means that some useful stuff gets done too.

      • What is the relevance of any of these organizations to the Internet and orginization and management of Domain Names? I think it is a field they should stay away from since they should be more concerned with world politics at this point. Besides, there is no problem with ICANN as of now, its perfectly functional! So why change ownership?
      • After reading their web pages:

        CEB: I still have no idea what they do. I am guessing this is where high level coordination occurs.

        CTBTO: Looks good. I want to see a comprehensive nuclear test ban too, but I am sure the Bush supporters won't like it.

        ECA, ECE, ESCAP, ECLAC, ESCWA: These are regional commissions for economic issues regarding regions.

        FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization

        UNCTAD, IACSD: Sustainability of human development.

        HLCM, HLCP: coordination organizations.

        IANWGE: Work on promoting gender equality

        IAPSO: Procurement for other UN offices.

        Note that many of these are support organizations for those who go out and do the real work. Others work on solving economic and social problems.
      • Let's look at the ITU (and it's predecessor the CCITT). Does anyone remember the OSI protocols? You know, the internationally designed protocols that were going to replace the TCP/IP suite. They tended to be a nightmare of complexity and over design with each representative nation trying to get it's 2 cents into the specs (whether they made sense or not). Just look at X.400. That was the e-mail protocol. MHS (Message Handling System) was their flagship application. The committee which produced MHS in 1988 d
    • I don't want the UN deciding what is and isn't spam...at least the first amendment is valid in the US, an international body may decide that "hate speech" is illegal and therefore decide to censor certain websites like countries do now. I would prefer as little world government interference with the internet as possible.
      • I don't want the UN deciding what is and isn't spam...at least the first amendment is valid in the US, an international body may decide that "hate speech" is illegal and therefore decide to censor certain websites like countries do now. I would prefer as little world government interference with the internet as possible.

        While I'd like some objective arguments about moving against ICANN you arguments hold up almost as well as a bag of moist sewage.

        1st ammendment: Well, its an ammendment, not a supern

      • Politics vs. Administration (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:14PM (#11751740)
        I agree that the UN is the wrong body for this, because the UN is an international political body, and control over any essential element of the Internet on a global scale should be as far removed from political control as possible.

      • Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gorbachev ( 512743 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:24PM (#11751808) Homepage
        So what you're saying, you'd rather have ONE country and its ideals control what is and what is not acceptable in the Internet?

        Okay.

        May I remind you that while spam is an entirely American invention, it still is a worldwide problem. As such it would probably make sense to fight it globally rather than individually in national levels, which is exactly what is happening and not working right now.
        • You have it backwards. So long as one country is "in control" they actually have essentially no power to globally impose "what is not acceptable in the Internet". There is no way in hell the rest of the world is going to actually submit to any system where the US can keep the EU from hosting "patented" GPL software, no way the US can keep the Netherlands from hosting 16 year old porn, no way the US can keep Ziare from hosting DeCSS.

          The very REASON there is support by powerful elements inside the US to turn
    • There's a fine line here. The ITU does some wonderful things by setting standards so that different phone systems can connect to each other. They DO NOT regulate or control the content of the conversations that go over the phone systems because the several sovereign states of the world have not given ITU regulatory or police authority over telephones.

      Similarly, under an ITU-like UN structure, the UN Internet task group may do fun things that disturb ARIN, Internic et al, but they will have no influence wha

  • The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:01PM (#11751193)
    You want control turned over to an international body. OK, that sounds reasonable. But the UN? I mean... how about somebody with a little more tech savvy and a little less politics?

    • Re:The UN????? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chirs ( 87576 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:15PM (#11751303)
      Have you even heard of the ITU?

      They manage the radio spectrum, satellite orbits, and distress/safety stuff. The reason why you can make a phone call to China is that telcos around the world generally abide by ITU standards (technically "recommendations"). They do a bunch of other stuff too (R&D, etc.).

      If anyone is to be given control over the Internet, the ITU is probably the most appropriate organization.

      • Re:The UN????? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rs79 ( 71822 ) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @11:59PM (#11752657) Homepage
        "If anyone is to be given control over the Internet, the ITU is probably the most appropriate organization."

        AIIEEEEEEEEE!!

        I wouldn't expect you to, but you obviously don't know anything about the ITU or it's recent history with the domain name system.

        For a background on how bad and anti-internet spirit the ITU is, read Carl Malamud's "Exploring the Internet". In a nutshell, the ITU came very close to making the Interent illegal. It was only the forsight of then general counsel Tony Rutkowski that this was averted and is now safe by international treaty.

        Despite ICANN's claims they're open and transparent, they are absolutely not and the wost of this is the "government advisory board" that meets in secret. The ITU was instrumental in this and sits on it. In fact the ITU, seeking relevance
        in an internat age that makes it largely irrelevant was part of the shadowy crew that secrtetly orchestrated the origin of ICANN (when Ira Magaziners public spin was "hey you folks are in charge" while all time workig behind the scenes with IBM to create the ICANN we have now), and worse, it's evil predecessor, IAHC, an organization so awful even the US govt recognized it and shut it down. IHAC was formed by Don Heath of the Internet Society, Bob Shaw (who STILL owes me money and my wife a carton of smokes he nicked one night in Geneva when he was drunk and bragging about all this) and Albert Tramposch of the World Intellectual Property Association based on an idea they had when they met in Ottawa.

        At the time Bob was a PC support droid there, and his only achievent was how to write X.400 addresses opn business cards. I am not making this up - it's as if a LAN administrator at the White House was involved in setting global policy.

        I have never met a less honorable, more two faced man, ever.

        ICANN or ITU is a trick question. The US congress will NEVER let administration of domain names and IP addresses leave US soil. I would stake my life and the lives of my children on this. It was crtated in the US and will stay there. (I'm in Canada and will stay here)

        So having to choose between these too evils is a bad joke. The ITU will never get is, and ICANN, a $50M a year bloted organization that is a great sucking magent attracting every intellectual property wonk in the US into it's guts replaced John Postel who did this as a part time task. Jon measured consensus and set policy. ICANN is supposed to do the same but is in reality a tool now for intellectual property interests.

        It's always bugged me that the/. crowd, who are rightly and naturally suspicious of the IP wonks never got this.

        The ITU wants this and is using the UN to get it. This waythey can establish global laws governing the Internet. But, you seem you own your network and I own my part and we can talk like this because we all agree to use the TCP/IP protocol suite (that the ITU fought hard against infavour of OSI which never actually worked) - in other words, the Internet is a "network of networks" all privately owned, and we need global laws to regulate this?

        As for ICANN's $50M budget to administer the list of top level domnains this is less work than administerng the list of all usenet newsgroups. And in fact the parellels between the list of newsgroups and list of tlds is strikingly similar.

        But ask yourself what the difference is between the administration of those two lists of names. And ask why anyorganizatin than can do one is not doing the other as well.

        Pardon me while I go and quetly cry in the corner; I'm glad I was able to be there that day in Berlin when the US government sold out the Internet.

        Primary the root zone for yourself. I don't care whose root zone you use, but stop the sucking dependance on USG run servers to control your namespace.

    • Re:The UN????? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cybercobra ( 856248 )
      Parent is not a troll. Seriously, all the ITU's computer-related X.### standards, except for a few, have been replaced by much better ones. Why would they do any better w/ domain name admininstration? Also, the body should be apolitical and have more tech experience, ruling out the UN. Additionally, isn't it kind of screwed up to have non-1st world countries having such a large say in what won't effect them much until years to come when they become 1st world countries? Granted, they should have some say so
      • > isn't it kind of screwed up to have non-1st world countries having such a
        > large say in what won't effect them much until years to come

        Wait... are you saying that countries that are just now establishing their infrastructure should have no say over what the standards for that infrastructure will be?

        • Re:The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Zeinfeld ( 263942 )
          Wait... are you saying that countries that are just now establishing their infrastructure should have no say over what the standards for that infrastructure will be?

          And how exactly would control over ICANN change anything?

          ICANN is a toothless tiger in any case, their control over the 'root' does not extend to ownership of the actual IP addresses embedded in BIND etc.

          A long time ago I was a member of a dinner club, there was a guy who nobody could stand who really really wanted to be the President of t

      • all the ITU's computer-related X.### standards, except for a few, have been replaced by much better ones.

        The X.### standards are more influential then you are stating here.

        Many of the newer standards are based on the X.### standards, they borrow concepts, strategies, sometimes even use the same text to describe a process, etc. They are the next version of the standard.

        The X.### standards aren't great, but that is to be expected in the initial version of most standards.

    • ITU is Tech Savvy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sasha328 ( 203458 )
      After all, they are made up of communications companies. See their website [itu.int].
      In all fairness, it would make sense to move control to the ITU. Even though there will be a lot of people who will complain about a "political body", ie the UN controlling such things. Sure the UN is a Polititcal Body. So is any government, if you haven't already noticed; but the UN does more than just political work. think UNICEF, UNESCO, FAO, WHO, and the list goes on.
      Is there going to be political influences in the ITU if it cont

    • Re:The UN????? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ortcutt ( 711694 )
      So you think international control sounds reasonable, but you don't want "politics" involved. How could control be turned over to an international body without politics being involved? I don't know if you understand what the word "international" means. The body wouldn't be international if politics weren't involved.

  • Oh, great.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TFGeditor ( 737839 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:02PM (#11751195) Homepage
    ...can you imagine trying to register as domain name with a bureauacracy like the UN in charge?

    Jeez....

  • Packets for food (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Rich spammers get the packets, developing nations get some food, and UN bureaucrats get a fat payoff.

    Yeah, that's the ticket. Time to bone up on my French.

  • Conference (Score:5, Interesting)

    by locarecords.com ( 601843 ) <david@@@locarecords...com> on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:09PM (#11751255) Homepage Journal
    I remember attending the Politics of Code [ox.ac.uk] conference in the UK in 2003 and hearing Richard Hill from International Telecommunication Union [itu.int] giving a very odd speech about the ITU and international regulation of the Internet etc. At the time I thought it was a coded land-grab for the transfer of control of ICANN to the ITU.

    ICANN was also still in a confusing semi-democratic phase at the time (this seems to be steadily decreasing) and also weirdly self-imploding. Ester Dyson also gave the most contentless speech I think I have ever heard - no doubt to ensure minimum offense to anyone in the audience.

    As with all these things wheels within wheels... but I do wish the call for some form of ICANN democracy would renew [technologyreview.com] rather than lose it to a not very democratic body (i.e. the ITU) or to the corporations (kinda where it is now).

    • Re:Conference (Score:4, Informative)

      by rs79 ( 71822 ) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @12:55AM (#11752900) Homepage
      "I remember attending the Politics of Code conference in the UK in 2003 and hearing Richard Hill from International Telecommunication Union giving a very odd speech about the ITU and international regulation of the Internet etc. At the time I thought it was a coded land-grab for the transfer of control of ICANN to the ITU.

      ICANN was also still in a confusing semi-democratic phase at the time (this seems to be steadily decreasing) and also weirdly self-imploding. Ester Dyson also gave the most contentless speech I think I have ever heard - no doubt to ensure minimum offense to anyone in the audience.

      As with all these things wheels within wheels... but I do wish the call for some form of ICANN democracy would renew rather than lose it to a not very democratic body (i.e. the ITU) or to the corporations (kinda where it is now)."

      Bing-go.

      Twice in one night I have seen the crystal clear truth ring out and resonate on slashdot. Somebody call Guiness.

      There was a cnference in DC in 1997 discussing the ill fated prededcessor to ICANN, namely IAHC. The purpose was to "introduce the concept of IAHC to people" The Architects of IACH (Bob Shaw, ITU; Albert Tramposch, WIPO; Don Heath, ISOC, the I* boys) were on stage and things were going great those those smug bastards as they continued to pull the wool over the sheep-like eyes of the poor unsuspecting members of corporate Dumbfuckistan until a luminary from the State department, Richard *cough*forgothislastname*cough* gave a passionate articulate tremendously driven speech about how the US had just spent years getting control of it's phone number back from the ITU as a Clinton policy initiative and how the ITU (as an instument of the small number of families than control the Euro phone systems) was about the worst thing you could ever have the within any distance of the Internet. Bob Shaw turned red with anger and looked like somebody had beamed a dead rat into his mouth. He was pissed somebody knew the truth. Tramposch lost his job over this as an embarrasment to WIPO (which is tough to imagine) while Shaw and Heath went on to work behind the scenes to found the ICANN we despise today. They are always in the shadows.

      Good call on Estie. Vapid is the term I was thinking of. But, she made her $$$ by investing in the first registrar.

      I was a contract whore for NSI at the time, I worked on the diagnostics for the shared registry system (then quit in disgust) and I can tell you that registrar went live before their system was even finished let alone working.

      All the time while the public ICANN mantra of "stability of the Internet" was being bleated probably todistract people from noticing they'd hands repeatedly stuffing large wads of cash into their pockets. And you wonder why port 43 whois is broken...

      Whenever a county is taken over by a dictator they always say they're doing it for "the stability". Check it out, that really is what they say.

  • No way... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by w42w42 ( 538630 )
    The UN can't respond to something as catastrophic as genocide w/ in a year or two of its happening, and normally then it's "ah, ... ". This is nothing but a power grab - their interest is not in humanities welfare. I vote NO on rewarding incompetence and nepotism.

    • Re:No way... (Score:5, Funny)

      by skaffen42 ( 579313 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:15PM (#11751300)
      I vote NO on rewarding incompetence and nepotism.

      Always good to meet another Kerry voter... :)

    • Well there just wasn't any graft to be made in stopping genocide. They liked the oil to food program because lots of cash ended up in everyone's pocket. Too bad none of it (or the promised food) went to the average Iraqi. Heck they even like helping refugees since get to throw a hump into the females. So now they see the possibility of siphoning off more money from the internet, why wouldn't they want to administer it.

    • Re:No way... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NerdConspiracy ( 858939 )
      Is it just me or is there a lot of misunderstanding here about what UN is. UN doesn't have an army that can stop genocides. UN is made up of sovereign nations that can choose to cooperate in order stop genocides (or whatever) or not. If the countries within it (especially the most powerful ones - guess where I'm going with this...) decide its in their interest not to stop genocides (or whatever), then by definition UN can't stop them. Seems unfair to cause UN to be powerless and then blame it for being powe

    • Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gorbachev ( 512743 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @09:28PM (#11751834) Homepage
      It's kinda hard to have UN solve anything when its biggest member:

      a) is not paying its dues
      b) does not want to respond to genocide w/in a year or two of its happening
      c) has veto on all votes of the security council

      Get a clue.

      • Re:No way... (Score:3, Informative)

        by w42w42 ( 538630 )

        I believe it's China and Russia [cnn.com], with the Veto's, that are not allowing anything in regards to Darfur get through the security council.

        As to the Dues, the money used for Peace Keeping comes out of a budget meant just for that purpose, and does not come from the general administrative budget.

      • Re:No way... (Score:4, Informative)

        by supagold ( 861915 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @11:19PM (#11752454)
        By the "biggest member", I assume you mean the most populous: India. Or maybe China. Or maybe you mean the largest: Russia. But I suspect that you mean the country that pays 22% of the UN's budget: the US. As far as I know, our dues are completely up-to-date. What genocide are you referring to? It can't be Rwanada, Kosovo, or the Sudan. After all, according to the UN those weren't genocides. Granted, the Clinton administration's handling of Rwanda was shameful, but no less shameful than the UN (and for that matter, the EU's) handling of all three; and at least they stood up in Kosovo. Yeah, the US has a veto. Let's look at the current genocide in the Sudan, who's blocking action on that? I'll give you a hint: it's not the one power that has actually come out and said that crimes in the Sudan ARE genocide. Try France, Russia, and China. Of course, I'm sure it has nothing to do with their oil intrests - only the US is interested in oil! "Get a clue." People in glass houses... By the way, your earlier "insighful" post makes the claim that spam was "entirely" invented in the US. Maybe. But if the US has that as a strike against it, do we get credit for other inventions? Like for instance, the Internet? Or the UN? Look, the UN has it's good points and it's bad points. Frankly, I don't think it would be a good organization to manage the registry. (The ITU makes more sense.) They do a lot of good in the world, but they have SERIOUS problems. Trying to pass the buck to the US, who is one of 188 member nations, and 1 of 5 veto-weilding security council members, doesn't do anyone any good. In fact, the main problem the UN has is that it's not accountable to anyone.

  • The ITU... ugh. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <kapimi>> on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:12PM (#11751281) Homepage Journal
    CCITT/ITU has some good points. The X.500 standard for labelling directory information has become a fairly established standard. Or, at least, some of it. X.25 for slow serial is actually pretty decent. And their older modem standards for Europe were very acceptable.


    The first problem is that they are hardly open. They charge a LOT for any of their documentation, which is split into many, many books. Unless you start off as rich as Bill Gates, you're unlikely to ever get enough of the texts to actually know what the standard even is.


    The second is that they operate in a manner that resembles a medieval court. I half expect to see things by them with a royal seal and a coat of arms.


    I have a much, much better idea and it's cheap. Let me run it. I would do a lot better job than either ICANN (ICAN'T) or the UN ever could. Given that most DNS servers cache, and therefore the actual throughput to replicate any top-level changes would be relatively low, I wouldn't need much more bandwidth than I already have.


    (How much bandwidth do you need, when changes can take days to get anywhere? And how fast does the top-level domain change, anyway? I didn't know they added TLD extensions on a daily basis. Most of the actual domain names registered are registered with registrars lower down the heirarchy.)


    If the DNS system switched from tree to grid, which it easily could and partially has, then a central administration system has nothing to do. Which is fine with me, if someone takes me seriously and gives me the job. Hey, I've no problem with world Governments paying me to do nothing, the way they do with Microsoft.

    • Re:The ITU... ugh. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rs79 ( 71822 )
      CCITT/ITU has some good points. The X.500 standard for labelling directory information has become a fairly established standard. Or, at least, some of it. X.25 for slow serial is actually pretty decent. And their older modem standards for Europe were very acceptable.

      X.500 is one. But. The ITU fought long and had against TCP/IP. Guess what was the first thing that went over the fist transatlantic X.25 link? TCP/IP packets. Where there's a geek there's a way.

      The difference? TCP/IP is actually usefull.

      I'd

  • Backwards? (Score:5, Funny)

    by demind ( 210068 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:16PM (#11751324)
    I think that ICANN should replace the UN!

  • UN Arrogant? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:17PM (#11751327) Homepage

    from the gold-medal-in-arrogance dept.

    Say what? I don't know what this tagline is supposed to mean. Does it refer to ICANN or the UN? If this was directed at the UN, they are many things, but arrogant is not one of them. I know the average US citizen has been turned against them by the media portrayal, but this is a bit too much.

    Anyways, the idea that an international body handle internation communication is not new, as pointed to by the the ITU already in place.

  • UN? No way. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PHAEDRU5 ( 213667 )
    OK, let's see. In the last year, we've heard about the UN Oil-for-Palaces program, UN peacekeepers in central Africa running underage prostitutes, UN bureaucrats sexually assaulting junior employees, etc., etc.

    Mind you, all is not lost. If the UN does get this role, then the Internet as we know it will become a shambolic mess, and the US will just have to invent something else.

  • That's the spirit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:18PM (#11751346)
    Let's take away control of the Internet from the corrupt, unaccountable, undemocratic, hopelessly bureaucratic organization that controls it today so we can make sure it's controlled by ...

    Oh, you said the UN?

    Nevermind.
  • First off, let's be realistic: the current US Congress wouldn't let the UN run the internet. After all, our own Al Gore invented it... But seriously, there's a lot of mistrust of the UN, much of it for good reasons.

    The lack of accountability [economist.com] and responsibility that led to the Oil-for-Food scandal [washingtontimes.com] is hardly encouraging. Can we really expect the UN to be more responsive to internet users' needs than ICANN, as bad as ICANN is?

    There are also some really twisted jokes to be made about how effective the UN woul

  • No, no, no, this is all wrong.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ajdavis ( 11891 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:25PM (#11751400) Homepage
    I'm reading The Checkbook and the Cruise Missle [amazon.com], in which Arundhati Roy says injustices increase as decision-makers are geographically separated from those affected by the decision. She cites the World Bank in Geneva, and the IMF, the WTO, as examples.

    So Third-World countries want power over names? And they think they can accomplish that by moving the naming committee to UN Headquarters in New York? The UN didn't work for poor people in Iraq, or Palestine. Why will it work in the case of Internet names?

    This is the first case I know of where software standards have reached the level of world politics. (It's different from software patents in Europe.) I don't think they ever belong there. Software standards have developed reasonably well under Darwinian conditions: it may take decades, but eventually everyone switches to open standards because there's an advantage to being able to communicate. E.g., everyone uses TCP/IP now, not IPX or any other proprietary network protocol. I know, I know, we're still fighting this battle daily, but you can see the positive trend, & it's happening without any legislation or government enforcement.

    What I'm getting at is Third World countries should just set up their own root DNS servers. Whatever it is they want -- get rid of the 3-letter root domains? So instead of .com, US sites will have to use .co.us like everyone else? That seems reasonable. If they just set up root DNS servers that don't answer requests for .com (or .org, .gov, etc.), those servers will be more convenient to client hosts in their region. Software will get patched to check both authorities, since it's an easy fix, & US sites will register both types of domains to maximize their availability. Then, over an excruciating number of years, while everyone has to support both naming styles, .com & the other 3-letter domains will die out, & the plaintiffs will have their way.

    I'm gonna sound like a Wired columnist, but here goes: The Internet is suggesting new kinds of economics, government, maybe religion.... We should stick with what works, instead of imposing traditional kinds of governance onto the Internet.

  • Rational thinking (Score:3, Insightful)

    by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:27PM (#11751416)
    I'm well aware of the recent UN bashing by the United State's administration, but to be honest, does anyone take it seriously apart from them? I don't get you people.

    Probably it's a better idea to trust a huge international body, which already manages a lot of aspects of various fields than the current quasi corporate owned system.
  • Personally, I couldn't care less who controls passing out domains, as long as two factors are in place:
    1. Any one can register any domain, trademarks not withstanding. Along with this, if I get there before you have a trademark, you lose.
    2. Nothing is censored, period. Once I have a domain, I can do whatever I damn well please with it. If I want to put up a page which repeats "Kill the President, heil Hitler!" a thousand times, with images of the Goatse guy interspersed, no one is allowed to force me to tak
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Oh goody! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by donutello ( 88309 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:36PM (#11751500) Homepage
    Another US v/s Rest of the World flamebait thread.
  • This may not fit in well with the general slashdot crowd's better-than-thou attitude with regard to anything besides the USA, but I think that would actually be a good idea, basically. The Internet is a crucial piece of infrastructure for the *entire* world, and it should be made sure that noone (neither person nor organization nor country) has too much control/influence over it. Transferring control of the steering groups to an international not-for-profit organization (whichever one in particular) is the

  • UN sucks. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MHobbit ( 830388 )
    The UN sucks. Period. They can't even keep track of their own scams (hint hint- Oil for Food, Kofi Annan not being able to keep track of his son, etc.), let alone internet. What would they know about internet and cyber crimes? Some of them must be n00bs to internet computing and the like.

  • The UN's lack of use (Score:3, Interesting)

    by [cx] ( 181186 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:39PM (#11751525)
    The UN is going the way of the League of Nations, nobody (particularly the USA) listens to them, their bureaucracy has bloated any potential for use they might have had.

    Handing anything over to the UN is just asking it to be poorly managed by more people than could ever be needed to manage a particular task, and then to be delegated over repeatedly, until all sides are happy. Which, obviously will never happen and 1 side will just start ignoring them and doing what they like, which is an alarming trend as of late.

    As is the case in Iraq and Sudan as of late, the nations that helped found the UN based on the League of Nations lack of authority, don't even listen to the UN, why put anything else under the jurisdiction of a useless entity?

    Their only goal seems to be expand its bloat and watch and comment on the atrocities it's supposed to prevent, I for one am sick of international organizations that don't even stand up for themselves when they are trampled over again, and again.

    The UN will go the way of the League of Nations, even though we all know it already has. Peacekeepers hiring prostitutes in Congo, people in Sudan starving to death, unchecked war in Iraq, and soon I'm sure war in another country with brown people in it, and hopefully some natural resources, yeehaw!

    [cx]
  • FTFA: A U.N.-sponsored panel aims to . . . propose solutions to problems such as cyber crime and email spam . .

    So, they're saying that ICANN somehow failed to stop SPAM and cybercrime?? And they're going to do what, exactly, differently?

  • Dear U.N. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Skye16 ( 685048 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:43PM (#11751550)
    Dear U.N.,

    No.

    Signed,

    - Everyone

    Seriously, though, the U.N.? I'm all for internationalization, and I believe working with the global community is a very good idea, especially in the long run, but the U.N.? No. Maybe someone who has their act together. But not the U.N. As much as I get angry with my own government, at least I can rest easy at night knowing we don't pay any attention to the U.N. at all.

    United Nations: 9/10 as an idea, 2/10 in implementation.

    • Re:Dear U.N. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Epistax ( 544591 )
      Err, to which particular part of the UN are you referring? The general assembly? Oil for food? Congrats, that has nothing to do with it. That's like saying that the US shouldn't aid rural schools because Amtrak is having financial trouble.

      It's different people, different department, different goals.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:49PM (#11751585)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Are domain names needed? (Score:4, Funny)

    by dumllama ( 715921 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @08:56PM (#11751626) Homepage
    Could we just get rid of the centralized domain name system? Could we get rid of domain names all-together? Perhaps a search function like Google could make these names obsolete, and we can avoid the politics.

    My technical knowledge is littile, so I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have.

  • UN Control is a Precursor to UN Taxation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doug Dante ( 22218 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @10:19PM (#11752125)
    Basically, the UN wants control so that it can levy taxes on the Internet, and the developing nations are for it because the UN says that it's willing to send the money to help them get online faster.

    There would likely be all sorts of messy consequences, starting with censorship in DNS:

    France - Nazi memorabilia banned.

    China - You can't use the word "Taiwan" in any domain name.

    U.S.A. - All web sites of "known terrorist sympathizers" banned.

    U.K. - IRA banned.

    Russia - Russian dissidents (those words go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly) and Chechen rebel groups banned.

  • Should the UN take over the Internet? 1 word: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Money for Nothin' ( 754763 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @11:41PM (#11752573)
    No.

    That's the short reply. Long version: the UN, as evidenced by the oil-for-food scandal [economist.com] and their attempts to impose a tax on the U.S. [rightmarch.com], is a corrupt organization of politicos bent on controlling everything - not unlike the American government, really.

    The trouble is, the UN wants to make everything a bureaucratic struggle [acepilots.com], such as in Darfur [badgerherald.com], and that bureaucracy would strangle the organization of the Internet.

    More often than not, decentralization works better than centralization -- smaller businesses tend not to abuse their customers as much as big businesses do, smaller governments tend not to abuse their people as much as bigger governments do, and so on. It's a matter of accountability - like with the problem of increasing numbers of managers over one's head back at the office, increasing the number of "official" overseers only bogs down efficiency. Let the customers of an organization or individual be the real overseers (as is the case currently w/ ICANN) - this is a decentralizing move.

    Hence, in the name of decentralization, in the name of not being tied up in corruption (at least as much of it as the UN clearly is), in the name of efficiency -- I would argue that leaving ICANN in its current position is better than putting it under the wing of the UN.

    (Note to knee-jerk UN defenders: the UN has its place as a means of mediating conflicts between nations and smoothing things over; as a forum for foreign relations. But we should all be worried when it starts interfering with the sovereignty of any nation, whether that nation is ours or not.)

  • the UN is not a regulatory body (Score:3, Informative)

    by briancnorton ( 586947 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @08:47AM (#11754659) Homepage
    The United Nations isn't quite what some people think it is. It's not the "world government" that evil geniuses demand $1,000,000 dollars from before they use their doomsday weapons. It is a forum of ambassadors that get together and talk about things. They don't make laws. The only power they have is the ability to pass resolutions that essentially have no legal standing in any country in the world. International treaties are sometimes facilitated by the UN, but they are still agreements between sovereign nations. The ITU is the same thing, a forum where industries get together to set standards.

    Putting ICANN under the UN is a VERY bad idea, as they would have no ability to resolve disputes with any legal validity. A unilaterally authority is better than none.

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