World Summit On The Internet And IT 323
eegad writes "The Seattle PI reports on the upcoming first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Geneva on December 10-12. 192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet (a little late, eh?) including ways to deal with spam, a possible "digital solidarity fund" to help developing nations, and discussion of UN regulation. The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action". Some countries plan on asking for a UN commission to study new ways of running the Internet aimed at the 2005 phase. The official website will provide coverage of the event. How come I wasn't invited?" The Washington Times also has a piece on it, as well. We had covered this a bit before.
cross your fingers.. (Score:5, Funny)
192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet
I hope Nigeria doesn't have any sort of veto power at this summit.
Re:cross your fingers.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:cross your fingers.. (Score:2)
The death penalty is carried out by firing squad in Nigeria. You do get to watch, though, if you're into that sort of thing.
Re:cross your fingers.. (Score:2)
Fighting spam cleverly. (Score:3)
Best thing they can do (Score:4, Interesting)
That said...
It might be nice to encourage people to use bittorrent to download porn. The bandwidth savings would be akin to quadrupling router capacity across the Net.
Or, maybe fix email by requiring everybody to send ciphered messages only. Require/encourage mail servers to permit a user to provide it a gateway public/private key through which all incoming email must satisfy (not the same as your personal public/private key.) Solve spam and nine-tenths of Echelon with one single kick in the balls.
Then, get over this self-inflicted trauma over raw sockets. Raw sockets are cool. Raw sockets + UDP can all but eliminate the nastier p2p problems, like how to work through firewalls, as well as how to send data anonymously. These are good things. Let good people do good things with good technology.
But we can do all of these things through education. We don't need the UN/Geneva/Britney Spears to tell us how this whole thing should work.
Re:Best thing they can do (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure PKI needs to be part of the SPAM solution. Three reasons:
1) The same clueless ficktwizzles that set up their mail servers as open relays (224K of them? according to ORDB.org [ordb.org]) will also be setting up their mail server certificates. No, this isn't fraught with peril.
2) There isn't a black market (that I'm aware of, doh) of private keys. Client certificates are useless, server certificates are useless unless you also own the domain name, code signing certificates, well, um, yeah I guess those are dangerous. But we've seen the lengths spammers will go, and I can easily foresee a huge market for stolen certificates, if now every domain has one to send mail.
3) The _last_ thing we need to do is get Verisign slobbering over using certificates for email. Over in the SPF discussion [listbox.com] mailing list there are Verisign people who want certificates in the DNS records published by SPF.
NYTimes has an article too... (Score:5, Informative)
Link [nytimes.com] (reigstration req'd, blah blah)
Re:NYTimes has an article too... (Score:2, Funny)
Of course, how many of you knew this [mediachannel.org].
Bad idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad idea? (Score:2, Funny)
Spam could be outlawed once and for all worldwide, with harsh penalties for violation.
An international agreement of standards for content could bring freedom of information to places where there is a lack of information.
Centralized taxation - an agreed upon method for providing revenue streams to the UN which would allow taxes to be paid
The Marxist Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we apply Marxist solutions: gulags (Stalin), death farms (Cambodia) or rape camps (Serbia)?
"An international agreement of standards for content could bring freedom of information to places where there is a lack of information"
Yes. We know that government control always makes things more free!
"Centralized taxation..."
Yes. The greedy ruling class must get a cut!
"Elimination of various objectively hateful websites from the internet, e.g., holocaust denial, neo-nazis, gun merchants"
And, of course, left-wing hate sites (MLM, neo-soviets) all remain uncensored.
Re:Bad idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
<snip>
This doesn't sound all bad to me
Or for a few more examples that appeal to various major world governments:
Sorry, but this has a LOT more potential for a bad outcome than for improvement on the few flaws the internet currently has. Keep the governments (any or all, doesn't matter to me) the hell away from the net!
Re:Bad idea? (Score:2)
Neither of these will happen. Under IPv4, there will always be regions that do not entirely comply with any given authority. Any protocol change would have to be universal for the latter case to occur. If a protocol provides for the
Re:Bad idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Define "spam". What is "free speech" to some people might be defined by some despots as "spam".
2. Define "hateful websites". See point #1, above.
While your goals are laudable, the devil is in the details of their implementation on a global scale when many of the world's people live under governments that are not truly democratic and transparent. Centralized authority leads to great power vested in that authority, which leads to great potential for abuse. See my top-level comment about how the W [slashdot.org]
"a little late, eh?" (Score:5, Funny)
Al Gore (Score:5, Funny)
After all, he did create the thing, right?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Gore: the big mistake (Score:2)
The fact is that Gore did take the initiative in creating the Internet as we know it today by sponsoring a bill that funded it's expansion in the US college system in 1986.
You go back and read interviews with Vint Cerf and other fathers of the Internet and they agree that Al Gore was the only legislator who was taking them seriously and was interested in helping them.
This attack on your part shows desperati
hunt down spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, failing that, to make sure that spam only gets sent to the country of origin somehow. That would eliminate 90% of my spam, which is from the US.
Probably it will only end up in another treaty the US will refuse to ratify, like Kyoto and the International Court of Justice.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
(If they don't like the internet, they can always build their own. I hear Minitel is a nice technology built by an ITU member.)
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
Take a step back and ask yourself why many UN summits, debates and conferences, are only able to produce bland communiques. Answer? Because the UN is a forum of nation s
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
If I understand correctly, "digital divide" is the buzzword used to refer to the fact that some people do not have internet access, right?
How, exactly, is this really a problem? I mean, in any county? See, for a long time there wasn't an internet at all, and somehow life went on. Then just a relatively few people used the internet and, again, life went on. Now that a (relatively) large number of peo
Nice non-sequitur. (Score:2)
Re:Look up non-sequitur (Score:2)
Oh, oooh! I know this one: the WHO is the World Health Organization. They're the ones who tell the US how many billions it is supposed to spend to solve the self-perpetuated AIDS "crisis" in Africa.
Because, er, well, because it's a crisis, and since the US has the most money, it should be the first to pony up the most! Right? Yay, I get a gold start.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. should rightfully continue to refuse to agree to any treaty that has not been shown to be in the best interests of the citizens of the U.S.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2, Funny)
Wait until NY comes below sea level. Then we'll see what is best for US citizens.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course if you are so uneducated as to not know that treaties like Kyoto and the ICC, whilst not obviously in America's short term interests, are in fact in America's long term interests, you might say something so daft in the context of Kyoto and the ICC.
Have a read about the prisoners' dilemma [stanford.edu] and you might see what I mean.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:4, Insightful)
Sigh.
Why does your disagreement start with an insult? You have no idea of my educational level or experiences, and your instant reversion to an ad hominem attack doesn't do much to endear me to listen to any argument you might present. Isn't part of a good education learning how to argue a point like an adult, or should I just insult you back?
The treaties that you are so enamored with may be viewed as of benefit to you or yours - but they have not been viewed as sufficiently beneficial to the citizens of the U.S. - or they would have been agreed to. Instead, they place the burden of cost on the U.S. with few perceived benefits.
Kyoto would exempt "developing" nations - so in effect dirty manufacturing would end up moving to those places even faster because it would be cheaper - it would basically make such places (which I have visited in my professional, albiet uneducated life) even more unpleasant to live in - is that what you want to do to those poor countries to make yourself feel like you've "done something"?
The ICC has already shown its true colors in attempting to charge various U.S. citizens for "warcrimes" in the U.S.-led action in Iraq - exactly to what advantage of the U.S. citizen is it if the U.S. would need to subjucate itself to such a body before taking actions it feels are necessary for its defense? Mother-May-I was a stupid children's game in the fist place - a sovereign nation certainly sholdn't play it.
If the world scientific and political body can convince the administration of the U.S. that Kyoto or something like it will benefit the people of the U.S. above what it will cost, then the people of the U.S. will call for its adoption.
Till then, piss off.
Let me respond (Score:2)
Kyoto would not exempt developing nations for the purpose of moving the polluting industries to these developing cou
Re:Let me respond (Score:3, Insightful)
And if this passes, what is to keep larger nations from setting up polluting factories in these developing nations? I think
Re:Let me respond (Score:3, Informative)
The exemption is made because of a) the costs of reducing pollution; developing nations simply can't afford it as long as they're in their developing stages; and b) fairness; the polluters should pay to get their mess cleaned up.
It doesn't matter why the exemptions were made, the fact remains that they were, and some people think that makes it stupid and decidedl
Re:Let me respond (Score:3, Insightful)
Without taking one side or another, may I suggest that if I wanted to harm a sovereign nation without me being held accountable in a "war-crime court", I'd just hire some mercenaries to do the damage over and over again, then deny any knowledge of it. However, I'm also curious when Saddam Hussein will be brought to trial for his decades of torture and warcrimes against Kuwait in 1991.
The problem
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely.
Now if only the invasion of Iraq had had something to do with America's defens
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
You say that with such confidence that, if I didn't know better, I might actually buy it. Care to back up your claim that Kyoto and ICC "are in America's long term interests"? Or are you just trying to convince via confidence and namecalling?
I, f
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
Kyoto wasn't drafted with attacking US interests in mind. It was drafted to try to provide some piecemeal beginning to efforts to tackle climate change, and to manage that it just so happened that the world's biggest polluter was going to be hit the hardest, and that the nations least able to act now would be exempt, for the sake of getting some treaty t
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
That's irrelevant. Attacking (primarily) US interests is what it does. The road to hell is paved with good intentions -- feel free to add a brick inscribed with the Kyoto treaty. It'll fit right in.
You think it is good. Not everyone agrees. Stop stating your (relatively uninformed) opinions as facts; it's tiresome, and it makes me not want to listen to anything you say.
Re:Right... (Score:2)
Just like our politicians refuse to do anything that isn't in the best interests of their constituency. Where there's a price, or the potential for substantive political gain, there's a way.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
Well it is in the interests of the rest of the world.
But the USA don't give a fuck about anyone but the USA, do they? And why should they? They're doing just fine. To hell with everyone else. And that's your answer to the "why do you hate America" quip right here.
Re:hunt down spammers (Score:2)
I thought I noticed the other day that Russia wasn't wanting to sign on to Kyoto either...so, not just US.
UN/ITU Power Grab? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an interesting article about this at El Reg [theregister.co.uk]. I'm pretty worried about what's going on there; for all the failing of ICANN, it's always been sort of emblematic of the prevailing idea in western countries to keep bureaucracy from throttling the Internet. Think what you will about various nations bad handling of Internet traffic and user rights, the over-corporatization of the net, and ICANN's distasteful tactics over domain handling; the Internet as we know it is a far cry from what it might have been had the ITU been allowed to be the driving force behind it.
I don't relish the idea of the type of bureaucrat who brought us WIPO deciding by fiat where the greatest communications revolution in human history is going to go.
Re:UN/ITU Power Grab? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:UN/ITU Power Grab? (Score:2)
A little late? (Score:3, Insightful)
But maybe I'm just pessimistic and jaded...=)
So long Internet, it was nice knowing you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Such a bad idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it hilarious that the same Slashdot crew that was screaming for UN control of the Iraq situation now wants nothing to do with the UN when it comes to the Internet. Seems to me the desire for the UN to intervene was mere anti-Bush propganda.
Changing your position when it suits you is intellectually dishonest and is known as hypocrisy. Have the balls to hold your position.
The UN has no business in anything. Intelligent people can look at their track record and come to the conclusion that they are more fucked up than a football bat.
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:2)
Iraq: a soveriegn body thrown into a state of anarchy by a sudden, violent overthrow of it's psychotic government. Individuals go from absolute, ironfisted rule to none. Result is potentially disastrous. U.N.'s role would be an enormous boon to keeping the peace and helping to manage this sudden situation since the idiots that overthrew the government didn't bother to plan past the end of the military operation.
Interent (post mil control): a technological marvel that began in a destabilized anarchist state
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:2)
Yeah
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:3, Informative)
President Reagan threatened to veto it, so it didn't pass in the House.
I find this hypocrisy rather disgusting.
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
The desire to have the UN involved in Iraq is to make the invasion have some resemblance of legitimacy. To make it clear that this occupation isn't about the United States' ego and that it really is about helping Iraqi citizens. The inclusion of the UN could go a long way towards repairing the damage already done to the US's image and towards stopping the attacks on US soldiers happening every day. What do we stand to lose?
Added
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Please explain to me how an unelected body composed of a majority of countries governed by dictators can grant anything legitimacy?
Good try though....
If the US made decisions based on how it "affected our image" the world would have long ago descended into brutal dictatorial chaos, while we sat on the sidelines wringing our hands worries about "our image"
Tut, tut
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:2, Informative)
Nah, what you talk about is not "changing position when it suits you", it's called having the intelligence to judge a situation, and not blindly say "I'm ok with UN, whatever they say, because that's my camp". That's what all those pesky politicians do all the time you know, they'd never agree that the other camp has a point. That's childish.
I was for UN control of the
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:2, Informative)
"The same Slashdot crew"? You mean that monolithic, lock-step hive mind that posts millions of messages under hundreds of thousands of different names -- including, for example, yours? You find it hilarious that you (The Slahdot Crew) screamed about one thing then later screamed about something contrary? OK, I guess we agree that is pretty funny. That is, if "we" can really be considered to "agree" on anything, since you and I aren't
Re:Such a bad idea. (Score:2)
Ok, I firmly believe that the UN should be engaged in both Iraq and the Internet.
"The UN has no business in anything. "
The UN provides the basis for International Law, the ability for countries to come together and formulate treaties explaining how they shall treat one another. I see no other UN involvement in the Internet other than that, but it is a necessary level cr
Heh, gotta love the U.N. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heh, gotta love the U.N. (Score:2, Insightful)
First Election (Score:2, Funny)
And it will probably be Darl McBribe.
Re:First Election (Score:5, Funny)
analysis (Score:5, Funny)
The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action".
Person 1: Sounds like it was created by an MBA.
Person 2: Actually, it was a committee.
Person 1: OK, a committee of MBA's.
Person 2: A committee of MBA's who work for the government!
Both: (run away and hide under cubicles)
just say NO to the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse, the UN routinely caves into member states that are notorious violators of human rights. What good can from an organization that has human rights committees comprised of brutal dictatorships? Of disarnament committees run by the same?
Sorry, a UN managed internet would simply give certain 3rd world countries (and some European) a new means to bash or otherwise attempt to restrict prospering Western countries. It would advance anti-Jewish attitudes, probably going as far as to restrict Israel! China would be given free reign to threaten Tiawan and run ramshackle over tibet. Can you imagine what these nations would want to classify as SPAM?
No thank you. ICANN might be annoying but at least we can lay hands on them
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, so you've nothing to say on UNESCO, UNHCR, IPCC and goodness knows how many other good things the UN does that are fantastic and absolutely necessary. You just don't mention them because many media outlets, out of ignorance and a desire to criticise, have got an obsession with claiming the UN is worthless.
Worse, the UN routinely caves into member states that are notorious violators of human rights. What good can from an organization that has human rights committees comprised of brutal dictatorships? Of disarnament committees run by the same?
Do you know why? Think for the moment of what the UN is: a forum for governments. Maybe the failure of the UN to really tackle human rights issues is because the governments in the UN, and in particular in the security council, deliberately skirt around human rights and try not to get too many legally binding documents through that would kill off their own industries. Hello UK, USA, France, Germany, Russia, etc. The problem with the UN in this regard is that its member states can be so damn hypocritical.
Sorry, a UN managed internet would simply give certain 3rd world countries (and some European) a new means to bash or otherwise attempt to restrict prospering Western countries. It would advance anti-Jewish attitudes, probably going as far as to restrict Israel! China would be given free reign to threaten Tiawan and run ramshackle over tibet. Can you imagine what these nations would want to classify as SPAM?
Wow. Evidence? Does the UN routinely "bash" Israel? It passes motions condemning its human rights abuses, just as it does for all human rights abusers, but it is hardly anti-semitic. The only people who claim that are those who simply cannot discern the difference between anti-Semitism and 'anti-Israeli-Governments'-policy-ism'. It's like all the 'anti-American' nonsense.
I'm worried about what the WSIS will come up with too, but let's at least be rational about this, rather than sensationalising ignorant nosense!
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:2)
I hardly think we can blame the downfall of the United Nations on a "lack of leadership from the United States". We might be able to blame it on the United States leadership that puts other priorities above the UN's... or the US leadership that has doesn't blieve the same things you do... but certainly not a "lack" of leadership. Hell, we effectively eliminated one of the biggest dictators in the
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:3, Interesting)
How serious would they take an organization that only allows the nice-and-dandy in? This is a planet-wide organization, they have to give everyone a say, and that especially includes the ones that everyone else would rather see silenced.
would simply give certain [countries] a new means to bash or otherwise attempt to restrict prospering Western countries.
So far, every time I read the actual protocols,
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:2)
You do realize that the only reason ICANN has any power is that people choose to listen to them, right? If you don't WANT to listen to ICANN, you don't actually HAVE to. They may be annoying, but if they ever got truly out of line and pissed off the majority of the Internet community, that majority would simply turn their backs to them and leave them to wither away like a memory of a bad dream.
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:2)
it more looked like these "certain countries" wanted something like a share of the prospering
Ok, for one, NO. That's not what the superparent was talking about. But more to the point, this kind of statement is precisely why conservatives say liberals are brain-dead. (No I am not a conservative.) It utterly ignores economic r
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:2)
All well and good, but "brutal dictatorships" does not explain every problem that leads to imporverished nations. Other common problems include famine caused by weather, poor agricultural processes, and overpopulation. Infighting is also a popular problem where rebels smash, burn, and pillage things and the government does the same.
Of course, there is also the problem of developed nations evilly usurping pieces of the magic pie. The whole game of cat and mouse with subsidies and tarriffs, etc. is used t
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:2)
Did you even read the post to which you just replied? If so, yo missed the point: There is no magic pie !
The whole game of cat and mouse with subsidies and tarriffs, etc. is used to keep rich industrial giants rich at the expense of people in other countries that can perform that same work cheaper
Yep big conspiracy to keep the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It's always been tha
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, but am I the only one who identifies this as flaimbait?
What gives occidental countries
Re:just say NO to the UN (Score:2)
Yes.
What gives occidental countries a greater right to speech over other cultures?
Right is right -- who said this? I don't see it in this thread, even in implied form.
The West may have the power to impose their views upon others, but does this power legitimize imposing their views?
What the fuck is "imposing a view?" -- if we think something is right (such as the UN keeping the hell away from the net), should we just shut up a
Moderators on crack? (Score:2)
This is insightful? I know a lot of people don't like the UN or Europe for that matter. But this i
Re:Moderators on crack? (Score:2)
Workshop on Free Software, Free Society (Score:3, Funny)
See the website of this group at http://www.wsis-pct.org/ [wsis-pct.org]
The Working Group is holding a workshop "Free Software, Free Society [fsfeurope.org]" with a group of top speakers, including Richard Stallman [stallman.org], founder of the GNU Project, and Lawrence Lessig [lessig.org].
Lesseg and RMS will be there, and so will I (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like a lot of local linux users (see G.U.L.L [linux-gull.ch]) are planning to attend at least the panel with Larry Lessig and RMS on Wednesday. RMS is also speaking on Thursday.
Digital solidarity fund? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that putting the cart before the horse...
By definition maybe what they really need is heavy infrastructure development?
Giving bushmen WWW access isn't going to help any nation develop.
Re:Digital solidarity fund? (Score:2)
There are really three classes here - the industrial nations, the developing nations, and the not developing nations. The "truly st
Dupe? (Score:2)
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/12/05/1447255.shtm
Re:Dupe? (Score:2)
Which was itself a dupe. [slashdot.org]
WSIS has nothing to do with society. (Score:5, Informative)
This summit is a betrayal of it's original ideals, and especially of the World's poor. Various groups are intending to strongly oppose this travesty; there is more information and here. [indymedia.org.uk]
Re:WSIS has nothing to do with society. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but Free Internet For The Poor(tm) != cure for world poverty. When will people realize that the #1 root cause of poverty on a worldwide scale is corrupt despotic governments? So long as WSIS panders to the likes if Infidel Castro (who attended the summit in person), there will be no solution to poverty that univeral Internet access will solve. If the U.N. was serious about enacting their "Millenium Declarat
Re:WSIS has nothing to do with society. (Score:2)
This is what I rant against. They want to use their agendas to promote the "Millenium Declaration", but yet leaders from despotic countries ar
Where is freedom of expression? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where oh where is freedom of expression in all this? Or is that too much of a threat to the organizations sponsering this summit?
Re:Where is freedom of expression? (Score:2)
mutual tolerance
and possibly:
respect for diversity
Fight for your freedom (Score:5, Informative)
Quoting the "WSIS? We Seize!" press release:
'While the official agenda of this UN/ITU Summit talks about "free access to information", "the digital divide" and "equality of opportunities", in reality its doors are closed, its discussions exclusive and the agendas of those who attend it concealed. What's more, the right to demonstrate and protest has been suspended in Geneva at this time, as the usual parade of despots and tyrants fly in to Switzerland to define policy for their own citizens, and the rest of the world, based on the agendas of corporate multinationals, media conglomerates and infrastructure owners.
Geneva03 [geneva03.org] is a temporary network of groups and individuals set up to carry out agitational, educational and communications work during both the G8 and the WSIS. Geneva03 considers it critical to show, during such a display of media power and control, that independent groups and people have the ability to create their own media, to share media, self publish, build networks and communicate freely and autonomously. That's why we've titled our events during this time WSIS? WE SEIZE! We do not consider that negotiation and supplication before the altar of the UN will produce information autonomy for all. Instead, we are taking our autonomy now, using the means and technologies at our disposal: the Internet, peer to peer networks, Free and Open Source Software, community wireless infrastructures, pirate television and radio and streamed media. Beyond questions of communications technology, We Seize! seeks to open a wide-ranging discussion on the new social conditions that constitute today's world about which the WSIS has little or nothing to say: media concentration, expansive intellectual property regimes, casualised and immaterial labour and migration.
We insist that this urge to speak, to hear and be heard, is irrepressible. The Geneva03 group returns to Geneva following major attempts at repression during the G8 this year, in which the group were targetted by police whilst running an independent media centre. No charges were brought against the group, because - whatever the establishment would like us to believe - it is still lawful to freely express ourselves. We must, however, continue to exercise this ability, to expand and test it in diverse situations, if we are not to lose the freedom and potential that defines us as people.
Communication, language and information are essential to understanding both control and liberation in this new millenium. They are simultaneously the site of the most repressive and totalitarian suppression and disciplining we have seen since the 1950s and, we believe, the basis of a powerful, growing autonomous movement. Ultimately this movement must cut to the very heart of communication: for what we are able to articulate, we are able to create. We must speak of a new world without fear, and with all the creativity, energy and commitment we can find.'
(end quote)
If you want to know more, here are some useful links:
Good background article on Indymedia Global [indymedia.org]
WSIS? We Seize! [geneva03.org]
The World Forum on Communication Rights [communicationrights.org]
Polimedia Lab [hubproject.org]
Civil Society news centre for the WSIS [prepcom.net]
Indymedia UK WSIS 2003 section [indymedia.org.uk]
This worries me (Score:3, Insightful)
Ground Rules. such as : (Score:5, Insightful)
1 - No individual anonymity
2 - No free speech for individuals
3 - No national information sovereignty.
4 - Taxation to pay for enforcement of the new rules
5 - Jails to house all the new criminals.
Re:Ground Rules. such as : (Score:4, Insightful)
"2 - No free speech for individuals"
I am no political theorist, but I think that individual rights found a free society, physical or virtual. The very fact that there are no distinct laws on the Internet as a whole, anonymity is possible to an extent, free speech is rampant, etc. are all positive things (ultimately). I feel we have all benefited from this kind of freedom that really is not possible (currently) in the physical world.
Maybe we cannot have everything we want in a government or the UN, but the Internet seems a lot more ideal to myself as it is. Sure there are spammers, crackers, con-artists, and all sorts of bad things. But is regular society free of these? No, but on the Internet we can band together, share information, and fight these elements as a community. In our physical society, every one of our freedom's requires overhead to protect and is constantly threatened by the system itself. On the Internet, the system may not promote our freedom (I guess you could argue either way there), but it has few controls. What seems remarkable to me is that the Internet can still be friendly and even great - all without conventional government control.
I think the majority of people (anywhere in the world) have already made a lot compromises about their physical society and freedoms. I hate to think we ever really have to make similar ones in our virtual society. Its far from ideal, but its there and I think it has a lot to do with our future.
After RTFA, Some insights (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats great, but I think the UN should be focused on oh I don't know
All the UN needs .... (Score:2)
Are you sure? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are you sure? (Score:3, Funny)
Someone call the WTO! I'm a 192.168 nation! And those bastards in the rest of the world have embargoed me from trading with anyone but 10.x and 169.254 nations! End the blockade now! To the firewalls, mes amis!
html (Score:5, Funny)
no credibility... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have family living in B.A. - I visited Arg. for a few weeks last November. After looking at miles of black and white marble columns and hand-worked wrought-iron that enclosed their WATER PROCESSING PLANT in B.A. - I felt no pity for the bureaucrats at this service arm who now cry poor. The unabashed "we are Euro, ergo better than the rest of [south] America, so let's have palacial water plants..." The whole place was shocking. (parts beautiful, yes) But the officials I met.... inept, corrupt, nepitistic, backwards - maybe they should get their house in order before looking to "suggest" some of their 'winning insight' to the rest of us.
(did you hear about the folks of B.A. suing a new (chilean owned) utility that, after months of written warnings removed the power-leacher-wires from the poles? Yep, they had the audacity to sue the company for cutting them off b/c they'd tapped in illegally. It's still in the courts, the folks there think "it is our right to have electricity" - just as it is this guys' "right" to have a say on riding coat-tails.)
build something, contribute, dont' back-street drive.
Internetacces at the conference (Score:4, Informative)
Nils
Who grants authority to world bodies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I know. Sovereign nations have engaged in international diplomacy, treaty signing and the like since time immemorial. I still question the authority of those who would make rules without being elected.
Re:NOOOOO!!!! (Score:2)
Re:"UN Control of Web Rejected" (Score:2)
Re:thanks for not getting it.. (Score:2)