US Insists on Keeping Internet Control

FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
edited October 2005 in Science & Tech
Business Week reports that the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy, David Gross rejected calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, reiterating U.S. intentions to keep its historical role as the medium's principal overseer.

Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role in creating the Internet as a Pentagon project and funding much of its early development.
"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet," said David Gross. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."
Source: Business Week
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Comments

  • JengoJengo Pasco, WA | USA
    edited September 2005
    I agree, each country can control what comes into their country anyway, i dont see why people are being stupid about this anyway...
  • edited September 2005
    That's a good point. The US proabably controls these servers because it is the most secure country in the world. I mean as in protection of the physical servers.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Why do we even put up with the UN anymore? I mean we run it, we control it, without us it's dead, we fund the majority of it. Why?
  • pseudonympseudonym Michigan Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Internet by committee!!! YAY!!! The UN can eat it, we built it, we paid for it, ours.
  • edited October 2005
    That's right it is ours if it wasn't for our contributions to the internet we would even have optimal OC-192 connections to connect the countries together with reliable servers.

    Dell, Intel, Gateway, Alienware, etc. :thumbsup:
  • CammanCamman NEW! England Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    haha yeah PC manufacturers had a lot to do with the proliferation of the internet, Alienware in particular
  • edited October 2005
    lol
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    ahahahahahahaha ;D

    Keep posting guys, I love threads like this ;D
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Xerox + Intel + DEC = American = Internet = The UN can FOAD.

    Besides, countries can control their own servers.
  • edited October 2005
    Last time I checked I don't see any foriegn internet gods anywhere
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited October 2005
    FormFactor wrote:
    Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role in creating the Internet as a Pentagon project and funding much of its early development.

    Actually, I'm not sure the US is in charge of it anyway. Isn't much of the damage on the Net anymore is started somewhere else? Wasn't a lot of credit card numbers that were stolen recently a non-US job? Aren't some of these nasty web attacks and spyware servers started somewhere else? If we are in charge of it, we must suck at it and should give it to space aliens. Just don't know enough about it.

    Maybe someone who does might be able to say if IPV6 makes this pointless anyway?

    Internet n00b Qel
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited October 2005
    Qeldroma: As I understand it the argument is about control of the top level DNS servers. DNS is the process by which you entering a website name (www.short-media.com for example) gets translated to the ip address of the server on which the website resides. DNS works in a heirarchical (tree) arrangement, ie: each server checks it's own records for the DNS entry, if it hasn't got it it passes the request upwards. at the top of the tree are the servers that control the DNS records for the top level domains (things like .com, .net etc...). It's these servers that are being argued about. The UNs stance is that the internet is a global information service, that control of such an important tool shouldn't be given to any one country. In theory there's nothing to stop the US government (AFAIK the company which deals with DNS registration is a subsidiary of the US department of er..something or other) removing any DNS entry they wanted, thus making any webiste they wanted invisible to the rest of the internet. Of course, there's nothing to stop anyon else setting up their own top level DNS servers, but computers connected to one set wouldn't be able to look up addresses of sites on another set, in effect this would fragment the internet and create multiple seperate internets. I think the real issue here isn't 'UN wants charge of internet' it's 'UN doesn't trust US to have control of something so important'.
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited October 2005
    deicist wrote:
    I think the real issue here isn't 'UN wants charge of internet' it's 'UN doesn't trust US to have control of something so important'.

    Thanks, deicist. Didn't know the US maintained that kind of control. And yep, I think you're correct here. And I'm sure the US has no confidence in the UN to run them either.

    It's like something needs to change on a more fundamental level than even economics before anyone proves "trustworthy".
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I think the un needs to shut the fuck up, we've ran it for many many years and its doing just fine. if it was up to the un, theyd place the servers in china, and the only website left would be chinarocks.china and then it would get blown up.
  • Private_SnoballPrivate_Snoball Dover AFB, DE, USA
    edited October 2005
    RE: Airbornflght

    That was hilarious.
    if it was up to the un, theyd place the servers in china, and the only website left would be chinarocks.china and then it would get blown up.

    Seriously, if the UN ran this, what good would it do. Hey sorry guys, the worldwide web will be down for the next 9 years while the UN moves the servers from the U.S. to random place and then the U.N. will need to set up 900 committees to make sure everyone is happy with the colors of the servers. Sorry we had to do this, the U.S. was doing too good of a job for us to handle.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I don't want to join in on the bash-the-UN party wagon, but any process that might give China or Russia veto power over the governance of internet infrastructure gives me great pause.
  • edited October 2005
    Why the US because that's where all the superior web hosting companies, reliable ISP except for a few which I won't mention because of their horrbible down time and blocked ports and web server hosting restrictions that really make me mad.

    Other than that US all the way we are the internet and without us everything would shut down, and nothing would work and then horrible mad websites would pop up no where with no meaning and the world would shut down.
  • RADARADA Apple Valley, CA Member
    edited October 2005
    UN take control of the Internet!!!! :shakehead :shakehead

    That would be like giving jewel thieves the key to the jewelry store.....


    UN =

    UNneeded,
    UNhelpful,
    UNwanted

    Let this bad experiment in Quasi-socialism die the horrible death it deserves.
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited October 2005
    This thread is very funny reading.

    America, land of the free, home of the xenophobic. ;D
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Jim, I'd much rather see the UK take "control" (or a UK-based private company) than the UN. I think the concern that many are expressing is that the UN would not be a good choice for top level administration of the Internet. Take any big bureaucracy - the US, UK, Germany, the old Soviet Union and multiply it several times and you have the UN. Not that the UN is evil or not well-intentioned; it's just the way things are. If the UN had a high influence on the Internet, we'd still be deciding which was to be the international standard for 56K dialup modems.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    Let's not veer off into politics here, guys.

    I'd be willing to bet that most Americans would have no problem with shifting (at least partial) control to another country, so long as that country was perceived as being responsible and reliable. The UK, Australia, Japan, etc, come to mind.

    I don't see it as a matter of wanting to piggishly maintain control ourselves, so much as it is a case of keeping control out of the hands of those who are irresponsible and unreliable. :cool:

    EDIT: Leo beat me to it. Well said, sir.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Truth.. I wouldn't have an issue shifting some of the control to any other primary country like Japan, Germany, Australia, the UK, etcetera. What I do take issue with is the United Nations.
  • edited October 2005
    I am American and I like the fact that I can register a domain name and webhosting account and in about 5 minutes be able to use the accournt and webhosting with the domain name. Now if it was another company they would be trying to log all your personal information and send it out to SPAM companies or advertisers like Gay(A)OL and they would send you stupid little CDs that you'll never use because the service sucks.

    The only thing with some domains is it takes 72 hours for them to work now for other countires it would probably take about umm lets say 2-5 weeks which you could be using to make websites.

    Us Owns ALL other countires. Pure Pwange:thumbsup:
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Us Owns ALL other countires. Pure Pwange:thumbsup:
    Just stop it now, all right? We can only handle so much in one thread. You're even offending me as an American.
    Jimborae wrote:
    America, land of the free, home of the xenophobic. ;D
    Ditto that. Sheesh, guys... :rolleyes:


    I think it's important to remember that the other nations at least need to ask for this... they'd be perceived as weak by their constituencies if they didn't. And, I'm sure they knew in advance the US had no interest in giving it up. There was no mystery here. It's just political intrigue playing itself out. I would be very surprised if this dialogue escalates unless the US somehow abuses its control.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    We'll settle this once and for all. Upon inspiration of Larry, Curly, and Moe, we'll cede top DNS control to the country of Moronika.


    (please - no one gets offended - it's a fictitious country, right next to Upper Revolta)
  • RADARADA Apple Valley, CA Member
    edited October 2005
    Jimborae wrote:
    This thread is very funny reading.

    America, land of the free, home of the xenophobic. ;D


    Being xenophobic has nothing to do with it, the UN is a corrupt, untrustworthy organization.

    I wouldn't have a problem with a country like Japan or Britain sharing the load with the US, but never the UN.
  • edited October 2005
    Alright to really settle it les give the right to Antartica.

    It's cool, it's secure, and not many people will try to mess with the main servers. The firewall(s) can be called Icebox so if you try to break in your connection freezes up and your computer turns to ice, and ice cream squirts out of your computer with hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    "Pure Pwange"? WTF is that? :confused:

    The USA should keep control of the internet because all other countries would be too incompetent. Not that the USA is perfect, but it's the best country to handle the job. Our free enterprise system makes ISP providers WANT to do a good job, whereas other countries would run their internet servers off government subsidies and not be in a hurry to do anything.

    I only partially have an idea of what I'm talking about here.
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited October 2005
    Just stop it now, all right? We can only handle so much in one thread. You're even offending me as an American.

    Ditto that. Sheesh, guys... :rolleyes:


    I think it's important to remember that the other nations at least need to ask for this... they'd be perceived as weak by their constituencies if they didn't. And, I'm sure they knew in advance the US had no interest in giving it up. There was no mystery here. It's just political intrigue playing itself out. I would be very surprised if this dialogue escalates unless the US somehow abuses its control.


    Thanks Keebs, at least somebody got the point i was trying to make & my tongue was planted firmly in cheek when making my post, hence the smiley.

    Sit back & relax guys, and remember that this is an internationally owned & read forum. Not everyone shares the same views or world opinions as you, that's what make this place so special. :thumbsup:
  • edited October 2005
    Sitting back in my chair folding and looking in the forums

    .......ahhhhhhhhh refreshing................................
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