Vint Cerf on Internet Governance and Beyond 88
scebo writes "With the first phase of United Nations World Summit (WSIS) held in Dec of 2003 and the next phase to be held in 2005, there have been extensive debates regarding Internet Governance. Can it be governed? Who should govern it? What is Internet governance? Vint Cerf has offered his own opinion on the subject over at CircleID which attempts to answer some of the key questions raised: 'It has been suggested by some participants in the WSIS discussions that the role of ICANN might be undertaken by the traditional International Telecommunications Union (ITU). While the ITU has served the world as the international forum for the handling of many international issues associated with traditional tele-communications, the Internet has disrupted the neat categorization of various telecommunications media. It is the potential bearer of every form of communication. ICANN has evolved international processes and structures over the last six years to cope with a limited set of issues associated with this rich, complex and rapidly evolving infrastructure. The world needs an effective and well-supported ICANN but the participants in the World Summit on the Information Society and the Working Group on Internet Governance now need to turn their attention to the full panoply of public policy issues that, as discussed above, lie outside the mandate of ICANN. These need a thorough and open airing in this next phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.'"
Re:BUSH CHENEY TILL JAN. 2009 (Score:1)
Whether or not your civil liberties are being stepped on has NOTHING to do with Kerry's voting record. The quality of the alternative has no bearing on the reality of the current situation.
Look outside the box.
Lenin on taking over the government (Score:3, Insightful)
In the 21st century, he would've added "root-zone Name Servers".
Lennon on taking over the government. (Score:4, Funny)
Imagine there's no telco.
It's easy if you try.
No voice mail, no phone lines.
Above us only sky.
Re:Lennon on taking over the government. (Score:1, Funny)
It isn't hard to do
Nothing troll to or flame for
And no BSD is dying too
Re:Lennon on taking over the government. (Score:1, Offtopic)
It isn't hard to do
No more spam in my in-box
And no MS Windows too
I couldn't help but notice... (Score:2, Insightful)
What about the USPS. For a bunch of grouchy people who seem to get a lot of rest in while most of the traffic finds its destination, and abhores change like nature does a vacuume, it's hard to do better.
Re:I couldn't help but notice... (Score:1, Funny)
Geranium (Score:1, Insightful)
Somehow I think I could live without one.
That was long. (Score:5, Funny)
And since I'm not a reader. Let's pick a Texas company at random and make them wholly responsible, and we'll give them a blank check. And when we learn about the inevitable graft and pending implosion, we can say, "It's hard work. I'm working hard! I'm going to take half of July off with my normal August vacation. Which is hard."
Re:That was long. (Score:1)
Lawbreakings (Score:2, Interesting)
And thats just the corporations! Seriously though, it would be great if someone could just set up a few basic rules that everyone could agree to and enforce those and only those. And have a mandate limiting them to that. maybe like a Wyat Erp of the old
Re:Lawbreakings (Score:2)
Re:Lawbreakings (Score:3, Funny)
I am root. Thou shalt create no other root before me.
Thou shalt not steal,
Thou shalt not kill (other people's servers),
Thou shalt not copy thy neighbor's files, and
Honor thy name server and thy router.
Beyond that, all bets are off.
Re:Lawbreakings (Score:3, Funny)
Well, it's been good while it lasted [slashdot.org]
Re:Lawbreakings (Score:1, Insightful)
The real motivator is, of course, copyright infringement.
Being the freedom-loving capitalist I am, I say let the free market evolve a better business model, and don't pass arbitrarily restrictive laws.
But nobody cares what I have to say...I'm not rich.
Governed? (Score:2, Funny)
No need (Score:5, Interesting)
On the internet, these rules are already agreed to. TCP/IP, FTP, HTTP, and other wonderful acronyms.
The things that are illegal online are also illegal irl. If you enforce the general societal rules already on the books, then there is no need for a Internet government.
At least, in my opinion.
Re:No need (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No need (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No need (Score:2)
But seriously a DOS can be a mob of one not really a concensous of people saying something is wrong, just one jackass
Re:No need (Score:2)
No, I think his point was that there are laws that govern these sorts of activities offline, and that the same laws would apply online.
Re:No need (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that most of the IT infractions are already on the books IRL. Nonetheless, they are mostly local books, not international books. After working with comp. forensics, I can tell that even if it is technically doable (read my lips, I didn't say easy...), IT law enforcement is a heck of a mess when several physical locations are involved (hosting, ISP, attacking computer, attacked computer...)
On the specific IT crimes, computer intrusion has been on the books since the late 80s, at least in France,
Re:No need (Score:2)
And how do you plan to enforce "rules already on the books" without an Internet govt? Are you going to let the CIA enforce US law around the world? And that China's secret service can enforce Chinese law around the world? It's not that easy.
It seems that goverments are more and more frequently trying to overstep the boundaries of their own jurisdiction in an effort to enforce their laws on t
Re:No need (Score:2)
despite everyones objection to governing the internet there should be guidlines describing the jurisdiction other countries have pertaining to laws. situations like a website run by an american but hosted in australia serving a copywritin article from poland should have a clear point of authority on who regulats that. I mean can poland enforce us law to protect its copy right be
Re:No need (Score:3, Interesting)
What he is saying is that any 'government' on an internet-wide standpoint needs to stick to technical communication interconnection specifications - leave the policing to the police in the respective nations.
There are already organizations - such as INTERPOL - for coordinating police forces internationally. Use what we already have more effective
Re:No need (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise for eBay et. al. - if it's hosted in America, and legal in America, but the French try to buy it from America, then that's their problem. If they want to make it illegal to buy nazi memorabilia from abroad, let them, but don't try to enforce your laws on somebody else's content.
Yes, that creates free-for-all zones on the web in countries that don't really enforce any of their own laws when it comes to online content. If you don't want to accidentally stumble on that stuff, it's not too hard to block content from China, for example, just like they do from us.
The real remaining problems then are things like spam. Yes, you can change the rules as you describe them by amending SMTP, POP, etc. to prevent these problems, and that's going on, but ultimately spam is a social problem, not a purely technical one. Expecting a perfect technical solution seems unreasonable to me, since the solutions all seem to introduce substantial costs into the usage equation, for every degree of protection you get, you seem to lose some of the usefulness and beauty of it too.
Additionally, transnational fraud is at an all-time high. It's easy for 419 scammers from Africa to defraud dumb Americans and Europeans (no, it's not just Americans that get taken in these scams) - and there's no legal recourse when the government in question doesn't enforce its own laws, or the government is in bed with the perpetrators of the fraud. You can't deny that the Internet made this kind of fraud accessible, while before it would have been effectively impossible to pull this off from five thousand miles away.
If what you're saying is "the government of Nigeria needs to enforce its laws", then yes, I agree with you. That would probably solve this problem, at least if every country complied. But without anybody forcing them to, there's no way to effectively do this. Hell, you can blackhole all IP traffic from the non-compliant country, and it won't help, because they'll use freemail servers in other countries that don't block them.
Likewise with cracking/site defacement/electronic breaking and entering. Also illegal in many places, unenforceable in many of those, and unregulated in some countries still, and it's impossible to prevent entirely through technological means. Again, what's the mechanism for forcing rogue countries to enforce their laws or pass laws against this?
I think it can probably be done without an international oversight body per se - if the US and EU got together and told Russia, Nigeria, etc. they better start enforcing laws against this stuff or face sanctions, there would probably be some action. For some reason, the US government seems far more interested in getting other countries to buy into its MPAA/RIAA/Disney copyright protection regime and patent insanity than protecting its citizens from fraud or giving its business and net community at large legal recourse for electronic vandalism. God forbid our government do something for anybody other than a special interest group. And something that it would be hard for people to whine about too, since it really would help everybody out, not just us. Hard to argue that spam, fraud and electronic vandalism are somehow culturally relative values we'd be imposing on the world.
As for the rest of the problems Vint cites - misinformation, harrassment, illegal transactions, I think those are overstated. The information on the Internet is fundamentally only as trustworthy as the person who put it there, harrassment across country borders isn't a huge problem as far as I know, and illegal transactions are
Re:No need (Score:3, Insightful)
"oh no, they can't do that the Internet is a global entity"
If you beleive this, you are dreaming
The Internet is not tied to the US, however, that wouldn't stop the government entities from imposing taxes on it. How bad do you think politicians are salavating at the chance to get a piece of that action?
The Internet has grown due to the fa
Hey Everyone! We Need Government! (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh wait, they're serious?!
The net is a virtual reality.. it certainly has real world effects, but let's not get over-zealous here.. I vote for an unruly cyber-mob over state-controlled media outlet.
JUST SAY NO.
I don't think it can be done at all (Score:3, Insightful)
He lists pornography as an "abuse." What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam, fraud, and theft are all wrongs done by one person to another.
Pornography per se, assuming that the producers and consumers are all consenting adults, should not be grouped in with them as an "abuse" of the Internet.
Re:He lists pornography as an "abuse." What? (Score:2, Informative)
If the model(s), photographer, and viewer are all consenting people of legal age, then, there's no abuse whatsoever.
Re:He lists pornography as an "abuse." What? (Score:2)
That's a big if. It's a big internet, and I'm confident that the circumstances you describe are not always true.
In addition, there's more to it than that. Are the model(s) being paid a living wage? Are they doing this because desperate circumstances make it their only option? Despite being of legal age, are they all capable of making an informed decision? Did one party get bamboozled in
Re:He lists pornography as an "abuse." What? (Score:1)
Re:He lists pornography as an "abuse." What? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, it fact it is part of the reason the internet is popular. If it weren't for the infringing of pop music and hollywood, all traffic would be pr0n. (OK couple of percent email and http software downloads, plus some small percentage of "informational" web sites (pr0n reviews and such)). Doesn't everyone remember the first pr0n search you did. "HOLY F**K, that's a lot of naked pictures. And all I got to do is pretend the in
I have a great idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
Sheesh. The UN couldn't manage a two car parade, let alone Internet governance.
Re:I have a great idea! (Score:1)
Re:I have a great idea! (Score:2)
what IS internet governance? (Score:4, Interesting)
The job of such a governing agency, if one existed, would be limited to policing and correcting traffic flow issues and mandating the use of egress filters at an ISP level in order to block spoofed packets from the ISP's lusers.
Not much funding would be needed for such a minimalistic organization, making the "who the heck would pay for this" issue much smaller.
In a perfect world... (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, this whole scenario is about as likely as Kerry actually winning Ohio and becoming president. The US will never cede control of DARPA's "baby" in the interest of "national security" and "national pride." Look at all the problems with trying to divest control from the US government- Verisign/Net Sol and ICANN come to mind. A UN body might work, but I don't see that happening.
Rediculous moderation (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should the internet have a international government? Does the international phone system?
If the nation of chad wants to block web access to foo, let them implement the filters to do so, on computers that reside under their national boundries.
Do YOU look forward to the day when you get a cease and decist order from the UN, or uniTelcomgov, or whatever, because something you put on your webpage is offensive to som
Ridiculous silence on / (Score:1)
the potential bearer of every form of commucation (Score:4, Insightful)
I get the feeling this refers to access and content, not protocol. There is something inherently evil in the concept that communication must be governed.
The internet represents global free press and a global means for people to assemble. The calls for 'protection from bits' is a smokescreen. We should all be thinking, 'who behind that screen will benefit from governance?' I doubt it's a friendly fat wizard.
Re:the potential bearer of every form of commucati (Score:1)
Sealand (Score:1)
follow the leader (Score:3, Funny)
Unless of course you're a young woman who's been raped and wants an abortion. Need more government there. Oh, and hot man-on-man monogamy needs more government too. Did I forget steam cell research? Yes, I did. Need more government there as well.
Depends who you ask (Score:2)
In an ideal world anywayz, governments exist primarily to co-ordinate resources, (and historically, utilities) and to smack anyone caught abusing s
Porn == Abuse? (Score:4, Insightful)
I stopped reading halfway down where Mr. Cerf made reference to:
That's ridiculous. If we treat porn as, by definition, an abuse of the net then the floodgates open for all sorts of draconian content control. As legal experience in the U.S. has shown, the word "pornography" can be stretched far too broadly far too easily.
Leave the porn alone, Vinnie. You don't know what you're messin' with. Set up an effective way to police porn on the net and about a zillion geeks are gonna be gunnin' for ya.
Not to mention that pesky ol' "freedom of speech" thing.
Re:Porn == Abuse? (Score:1)
Hold on a tick.... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I could be wrong, I seem to recal pronography existing prior to the Internet.
Re:Hold on a tick.... (Score:3, Interesting)
So the world government starts via the internet. I feel kinda stupid for not seeing that coming.
I guess our fifteen minutes of freedom went out the window once CEOs took over the internet anyway. No surprise really.
It's governed by US government. (Score:2)
information superhighway needs a highway dept. (Score:3, Insightful)
Arggggg..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Arggggg..... (Score:1)
One little thing (Score:1)
Don't listen to this guy (Score:1)
Internet Government (Score:2)
"The Internet should be for the People, by the People, and of the People. There has to be a better solution than having the U.N. get involved."
"The Internet should be for the People, by the People, and of the People. There has to be a better solution than having the U.N. get involved."
Keep the Internet Free! (Score:2)
A more important question is "Should it be governed?".
The Internet has flourished precisely because it was not under governmental control.
It should remain so.
Now, some would argue that lack of governmental control has led to things like spam, online kiddie porn, libel, etc., that governments need to control.
I would argue that some of these things (e.g., spam) have a technological solution, and others (e.g., kiddie porn) are already illegal in the "real" world.
Ques