ICANN Writes US Government Requesting Independence 131
Combat Wombat writes with word that IP address and domain name overseer ICANN has put in a request to the US government, asking to be freed from ties to the United States. A 'lengthy' report was sent to the US Dept. of Commerce, and covers the numerous steps the organization has already completed along the road to independence. The BBC reports that a meeting will be held soon in response to the report, a reaction to the expected end of US control. "The meeting marks the half-way point for the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) under which ICANN was tasked to comply with a series of 'responsibilities' deemed necessary for its release from official oversight. The JPA grew out of the original Memorandum of Understanding that established Icann and signalled the beginning of the end for US control."
From the Office of His Imperial Majesty (Score:3, Funny)
No.
Sincerely,
George W. Bush
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Lol : "some international" or "country neutral" (Score:3, Insightful)
Largest body of countries, International.
Now, if you grew wary of the american policies concerning ICAAN, get ready for bitchslapping at a worldwide level.
Re:Lol : "some international" or "country neutral" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry. I find some Irony in this. America Started it, and now England is heading up the revolution??
Anyone else find Irony in this??
Personally I'm neutral, but I'll sit in grand stand with my popcorn, hotdog and Beer and just watch..
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Re:Lol : "some international" or "country neutral" (Score:2)
Largest body of countries, International.
Now, if you grew wary of the american policies concerning ICAAN, get ready for bitchslapping at a worldwide level.
A better approach might be to have a board of trustees elected by representatives of the ccTLD authorities.
Re:From the Office of His Imperial Majesty (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, I'll bite. I've been hearing this argument for a while, but nobody mentions what form this oversight really takes. It also begs another question: How useful is this oversight? Can it do anything about the US government and the telcos working hand in hand to wiretap the shit out of the internet? Can it do anything about the telco lobbies who want to bend network neutrality to their own profitable ends?
If losing ICANN oversight is such a big deal, make your case. It seems like the internet's pretty much fucked either way, so how useful are they anyway?
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Exactly.
" Are you going to blame the ITU for wiretapping of the POTS network?
Yeah, actually I'd expect Bob Shaw to be right there with a pair of side cutters.
" Let's assume the US did try and assert authority over the internet. How would it do that exactly? "
They'd do things like veto
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Difficult to know until the oversight gets removed. If oversight were removed who knows what ICANN would try? And if you say the leadership wouldn't try anything too bad, who knows what people would try to replace that leadership because of the things they could try?
US oversight seems good so far. 300 million Americans don't have much interest in doing weird things with ICANN, they just want their internet to work. That makes some issues easy to solve in a practical wa
Re:From the Office of His Imperial Majesty (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya know, as easy as it is to take potshots at Dubya...
I don't think this is limited to him and I don't think it means the rest of the world hates the US. I do think it says the rest of the world no longer trusts the US. And in some ways that's worse than hatred. It's definitely sad testimony to what we've become in the eyes of the rest of the world. Instead of being trusted to work cooperatively with other sovereign nations we've pretty much declared, by our actions if not by words, that our pursuit of terrorism trumps every other concern, legitimate or not.
And it's not just government actions. AT&T threatening to charge at both ends of the pipe and cooperating in warrant-less monitoring of internet and phone traffic on a massive scale. Several of the core ISP's threatening to block certain kinds of traffic. It could easily be a combination of corporate dickishness and the privacy insults we've foisted on the rest of the world and they're just tired of it.
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And I stand by my statements -- ICANN turned loose on the World with no accountability or oversight? Not a good idea....
Also, the United States funded the development of the Internet in the first place. We should have the privilege of assigning ourselves more IP addresses per capita than we hand out to the rest of the world. Let them experience the joy of subnetting! ;-)
To the rest of your comment, 'Megadittoez.' I have nothing to add to that; you've already said it.
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The "eyes of the world" doesn't (and shouldn't) mean bupkis. In any social circle, when you try to please everyone else as your main priority, you usually end up getting screwed by the group. Most of the heads that "the eyes of the world" are attached to are merely seeking ways of maximizing their own power and success - often at the cost of some
s/pursuit of terrorism/corruption (Score:2)
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I think the idea is that sooner or later, the ITU or some other group of powermongers is going to claim "jurisdiction" over the Internet on the basis that they are a true "international" organization, and Internet governance will fragment---or worse, people will follow them and Internet protocols will shift from their current (relative) simplicity to something more like OSI or telephony "standards", which are governed more by politics and patent-license-revenue-grabbing than by ease of implementation.
Givi
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They had a constitution that required that the board be publicly elected. They kept postponing the election until they got the US to step in and anoint them official without the need for election. They stonewalled FOI requests. They refused to accept public comment. The performed secretly when their charter required that they be open.
I'm all in favor of an independent ICANN...but only with a totally new board of directors. And open election held the
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For everyone else, on the other hand - more than 95% of the world's population! -, the choice is between "independent" and "controlled by an entity (the US government) which is uncaring at best and openly hostile to our interests at worst".
We're letting you use part of our Internet. We built it, and your option is to be grateful for what IP addresses we allow you to use, and to subnet them wisely, or use your own infrastructure.
For us, it's an easy choice, too: an independent ICANN is better than one controlled by just one nation, representing less than 5 percent of the world's population who somehow think they're the Chosen Ones, the Master Race who shall reign over everyone else.
Wow.
If you really were genuinely worried about an independent, unaccountable ICANN, you'd argue for it become a UN organisation, like UNESCO, UNICEF, the UNHCR and so on. But you're not going to do that, of course - noone on Slashdot is -, and the reason is that it's really just about keeping control for yourself.
I want ICANN to be more accountable to the United States than to any other country, because the United States built the Internet. In other words, "the reason is that it's really just about keeping control for my country [yourself]." That's exactly right. Nobody wanted to "share control" wh
ICANN LOL ISP (Score:2)
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Won't happen. (Score:4, Insightful)
They only have control (Score:2)
OTOH I'm not sure freing ICANN from any nationality is as good an idea as scrapping it and creating a true multinational organisation from the ground up.
Re:They only have control (Score:4, Insightful)
On top of that, the US government has little or not actual control over ICANN's daily oerations. The cat is out of the bag, sort of speak, and there is no way the US government can effectively control the internet as a whole even if it wanted to, since the rest of the world is sufficiently set up to operate without it - with the exception of content services based in the US, which are privately controlled anyway.
So other than the generic "USA sux" metality, what's the motivation for total globalization of ICANN's functions? What will this accomplish other than create another incompetent, ineffectual and political circle-jerk like the United Nations?
=Smidge=
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another incompetent, ineffectual and political circle-jerk like the United Nations?
Or, maybe like... your government?
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Read that a few times until it sinks in, then try answering my question.
=Smidge=
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Oh yeah right, fucking nowhere.
I don't give a crap about boards of directors. What I care about is good policy agreed upon by the full international community, not some guys ina californian non profit.
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Is a committee of government representatives from all over the world good enough? They have that too.
Is a committee of private sector and industry representatives from all over the world good enough? They have that too.
At what point does it become a multinational organization? Also, answer my original question instead of throwing around profanitie
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And you still haven't answered my question. If anything, you reinforced my point because ICANN is just as multinational as the ITU.
=Smidge=
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Furthermore, the ITU---and telecomms in general---aren't exactly known for good, simple (cheap to implement from scratch) protocol design. They tend to produce overcomplicated beasts like OSI [wikipedia.org], GSM [3gpp.org], and ASN.1 [imc.org].
Why anyone in-the-know would want to leave Internet protocols in the hands of the telecomms is a mystery to me.
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Yeah, here in Europe we all know how unsuccessful GSM is. Oh, the horror...
Get a clue.
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Yeah, here in Europe we all know how unsuccessful GSM is. Oh, the horror...
"Yeah, here in Europe we all know how unsuccessful Windows is. Oh, the horror..."
Have you actually worked with any of the GSM protocols? No?
GSM is insanely complex to implement and test, and the equipment and software to do so costs a fortune. This slows innovation, because small start-up companies can't afford to
Merely having a cell phone doesn't qualify you to talk about the technical quality---and by extension, the monetary and social cost---of GSM as specified and implemented.
ASN.1 is popul
missing text from my previous comment (Score:2)
... build a novel GSM stack, for example.
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"Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers" - all they do is manage the DNS system and IP spaces. Morality/privacy/trademark issues only come up regarding domain names, and then it falls on the domain registrars anyway. ICANN just handles the technical stuff behind the scenes.
=Smidge=
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For example, should they prevent the proposal of a hypothetical ".f*ck" TLD?
Why? What does FUCK mean in Danish, Norwegian, French, Italian, Thai, Loatian, Greek, Peruvian or whatever? Oh, I see! Its protecting your language against abuse. So the internet isn't really 'inter' in your view. Its yours and it must be in your language. Ah, that makes your position clear.
The reason that ICANN does not want to be under US supervision is that the US is no longer upholding common beliefs or other nation's views. As has been noted in other posts, the US is no longer respected by man
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Some generals were getting a tour of the Internet (Score:3, Funny)
Before the guide could answer, another general replied:
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The control of one is used to keep control of the other. ICANN equivalents wouldn't have eit
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Who controls the ICANN is really of very minor importance today. But if US government thinks it controls it, it is a huge mistake. It would be easy for ISPs to roll their own DNS registries decorrelated from ICANN's. They simply don't do it for the benefit of interoperability. But as soon as the ICANN will to control becomes more inconvenient than marginal interoperability problems, ICANN will become instantly irrelevant.
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ICANN is not much of an asset because the USA have to cooperate with everyone anyway, lest they want the internet to fragment.
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The strategic value of ICANN is right up there with the strategic value of a melting snowflake. If ever the US tried to leverage this value it would instantly disappear.
However, as long as there is a perceived strategic value, we shall all dance this merry dance.
The solution is to deal with the perception not the reality.
I don't see this happening... (Score:1)
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You mean.. like the United Nations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, like that's going to happen. The United Nations is supposedly meant to be independent from the US, but in reality is just a puppet organization held up by the US. Even organizations that aren't based in the US are inevitably tied to the goings-ons of the US from economic, trade, or cultural points of view, such as, say, the Bank of England. Given the US owns the largest swathes of IP address space, I can't see any official or semi-official ties (whether legal or cultural) with the US being cut any time soon.
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the US should demand its money back.
Maybe they should do that if they were actually paying their bills in the first place. The USA owes well over a billion dollars to the UN.
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Re:You mean.. like the United Nations? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if you won't, then please allow ME to personally apologize to the world for Britney Spears.
--K
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* It's arguable, but I won't bother; I've considered the handful of arguments that I've heard dozens of times each, and that's my opinion
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I think it's a bit of a feedback loop: Some celebrities have a hard time staying relevant (for example, Spears hasn't released anything in quite a while), thus they try to stay up by keeping themselves in the news. Paparazzi who gladly make stories out of every single misdemeanor reinforce this - if you screw up you appear in the news and thus are relevant. Every story is a good story. Unfortunately, forcing yourself into the s
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To quote a certain YouTube celebrity: Leave Britney alone. I can't stand to hear things about her provate life I never wanted to hear.
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Even worse, the only free TV station in Germany that actually caters to the SciFi crowd (RTL2)
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Not that many in the US even like the UN. Most of us would be glad to wash our hands of it and use the extra tax money on something worth while like as hookers and blow, instead of pouring money into the pockets of leaches from every butt-crack country on the planet who in turn piss it all away on hookers and blow.
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Yeah, like that's going to happen. The United Nations is supposedly meant to be independent from the US, but in reality is just a puppet organization held up by the US.
The United States wields power and influence in the UN through sheer economic power. Without US support, the UN usually has no teeth. The same could apply to ICANN. Just look at the department currently in charge of overseeing ICANN. The US is clearly not the only country that has this kind of power though, so their total control of ICANN in its current incarnation is suspect. Given the diplomatic pressure of late, I don't believe the US has a choice in the matter. If the US wants their internet presence t
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ICANN is already an aloof organization, I don't see spinning it off to be independent is going to help.
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Wrong question (Score:2)
If it wasn't a puppet, the US would pay its dues, fearing some sanction.
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It's not going to (Score:3, Insightful)
ICANN becoming their own international organization with no country has to be one of those things.
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The internet is too goddamn important to allow each country to assert such stringent control to create an isolated DNS/IP/access control within its own borders. This is a worldwide phenomenon, isolationi leads to disagreement without conciliatory resolution leads to war.
Note: I also think ICANN is a raging pile of crap, its corporate control instead of government, at least with a government agency
So who gets oversite? (Score:1, Insightful)
The U.N? The U.N. is a joke that has proven itself to be just as corrupt as any government on th
Dear USG (Score:1)
To what end? (Score:4, Insightful)
The UN probably isn't the best shepherd for ICANN. The ISO seems to be a decent possibility.
I hope you're all happy (Score:5, Funny)
Shame on you all!
All your ICANN are belong to US (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe they can set up shop in (Score:1)
MLK Jr. (Score:1)
ICANN: Everybody has an agenda (Score:1)
Bottom line is I don't trust any of these people to put the interests of the actual users of the Internet first. Of course, I don't really trust ICANN either. Maybe it's me...
Verisign (Score:2)
Independence??? (Score:1)
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You've got it all wrong (Score:3, Funny)
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Believe it or not, we do know what UTC and GMT are. We learn that in, oh, 3rd or 4th grade. Now, whether or not we remember it, well, remember that our knowledge of our own presidents gets real hazy after Washington.
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