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US ready to 'hand over' the internet's naming system
- gear54rus 10y agoI don't see how this changes anything since it will still be in US jurisdiction. Rules will be bent when it matters.
- Artoemius 10y agoAt least it's better than to let a KGB-run dictatorship have any say in the matter, especially considering their aggressive foreign policy.
- gear54rus 10y agoAlways a matter of perspective. I get the dictatorship part, but it's certainly not US who can berate others for 'aggressive foreign policy'.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pdabbadabba 10y agoYeah. "Aggressive foreign policy" is probably not the right issue to be raising here for a variety of reasons. I would think that the real pressing issue is Internet censorship. And on this issue the U.S. really does have a very good track record compared to a lot of the other countries who might want to control ICANN. http://map.opennet.net/ http://map.opennet.net/
- johansch 10y agoThat good track record is because the US is so far ahead in pervasive large-scale Internet eavesdropping and intelligence gathering. It's counter-productive to block stuff when you want more data.
- stephenhuey 10y agoAs much as I dislike excessive surveillance, it's worth pointing out that defenders of free speech far outweigh proponents of gathering data for eavesdropping. Of course, the USA enjoyed free speech before the internet existed. It's one of our strongest values. I partly grew up abroad and have friends in numerous countries where people do not have the right to speak their mind, and this should not be taken lightly. Again, I am not a fan of the extensive surveillance, but the "good track record" does not have its foundation in eavesdropping.
- r_smart 10y agoYou're conflating two things here. The United States, despite it's many flaws (one of them being surveillance) has a pretty sterling record on freedom of speech. This predated the internet, and has survived, possibly even strengthened, in the face of a massive proliferation in the average person's ability to spread ideas and (mis)information. You can rightfully criticize the surveillance state that has arisen, but it's just wrong to try and paint freedom of speech as an offshoot of that. Or even, frankly, to criticize the US stance on freedom of speech (unless you think it's too broad).
- sam4ritan 10y agoBut the USA will bend the rules anyway, wether it lies within their jurisdiction or not. Thing is, if it does not lie within theiir jurisdiction, the international fallout might be of more significance. Yet with ICANN staying state-side, i doubt it will make any difference anyways.
- TenOhms 10y agoBeyond country specific TLD's which every country already has, what exactly do other countries want in terms of controlling the internet that they don't already have? (edit: spelling)
- digi_owl 10y agoFrankly ever since the issue first showed up on a news site, i have held that legacy gTLDs should be moved under .us, and that new gTLDs should not be issued. Then it would be up to each nation to enact rules for their part of the net, and nothing more. Right now, if i happen to access a .com that is operated by a non-US entity, am i subject to the rules of USA, the nation of origin of said entity, or where they happen to have their servers housed?
- dublinben 10y agoYou might not be subject to US jurisdiction, but the US asserts that entities using a TLD administered in the US, are subject to US jurisdiction.
- dagw 10y agoA big one is a say in how new TLD's are created and who gets to control them.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davidu 10y agoThey want ICANN to revoke domains they don't like.
- messe 10y ago> "The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet,” warned a letter signed by several Republican senators, including former Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz. For those of us in foreign (to the US) countries, I don't quite see the issue here.
- analogmemory 10y agoI don't know why they wasted space quoting the obnoxious gasbag known as Ted Cruz.
- gumby 10y agoThey presumably had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find someone to make a negative comment at this point.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoHistory I guess. After inventing it, inventing and deploying many of the devices and technologies it depends upon (including satellite communications and undersea cables), all that engenders a proprietary interest in its future. America may look dimly on letting Lichtenstein etc. have a say in its future.
- Symbiote 10y agoThis is only about DNS, which has little to do with satellites and undersea cables.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoAnd a 'proprietary interest' is about ownership. Yeah its my car, but everybody wants to drive it.
- brockers 10y agoBut DNS is the keys to the kingdom. After beginning most of what we now call "the internet" hanging on to one last key doesn't seem like to much to ask. Can someone imagine France giving up the right determine if certain wines are Bordeaux? Or the Swedish Academy of Sciences getting final say on who wins the Nobel Peace prize?
- throwaway1974 10y agoWill domains still be taken offline for various "copyright" reasons?
- muninn_ 10y agoI'm probably the minority here, but I'd rather it just stay in the hands of the U.S. . Unless there is some sort of malice and ongoing misuse I don't really see how this improves the system. Open to any explanation about how this will improve the system aside from "more involvement from other countries". Not that I'm discounting that as a good or bad reason, but I'd just like to see more information about why this would be good.
- phicoh 10y agoNote that in the past the USG abused its power to seize domains belonging to foreign companies. See for example https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110201/10252412910/homeland-security-seizes-spanish-domain-name-that-had-already-been-declared-legal.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110201/10252412910/homel... So they cannot be trusted. Of course, in practice, what goes into the root zone is controlled by ICANN. The whole oversight has been mostly theoretical for many years now.
- tptacek 10y agoThey will retain the ability to do this, at least on the most important TLDs, even after this change.
- phicoh 10y agoYes, just pointing out that the USG cannot be trusted, free speech laws or not. In the 90s I considered the gTLDs (.com, .net, .org) most attractive, because I wasn't quite sure how local governments would react and USG seemed reliable. Now the situation is reversed, I value domains in local ccTLDs more than the gTLDs. Of course, ICANN creating an insane number of gTLDs doesn't help either.
- tptacek 10y agoYou have the same problem in the ccTLDs.
- smitherfield 10y ago>Other countries, particularly China and Russia, had put pressure on the UN to call for the DNS to be controlled by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union. I'm no diplomat, but I suspect any move that's primarily advocated by Russia and China can't be good for [internet] freedom.
- gedy 10y agoAgreed, even handing this over to NATO countries would be preferred to the noble but false idea that "every country is equal!"
- gnode 10y agoMight just be that China and Russia don't trust the US not to use this control to harm them, e.g. seizing domains as part of sanctions.
- twblalock 10y agoDon't be naive. That may be part of their motivation, but they would want control for censorship purposes even if they didn't fear harm from the US.
- zokier 10y agoThat's just such ridiculous bullshit. Pray tell me, what any country could have possibly imagined as the result that would have enabled them to have any sort of power for censorship?
- twblalock 10y agoGovernment controls which would enable censorship have been proposed at meetings of the International Telecommunication Union, and have gained significant support. Notably, the proposals are supported by countries known for internet censorship, and opposed by the United States. It is a pretty obvious fact that internationalized control of internet governance will make censorship more likely, and acceptable, than US control does. Here is just one example: https://rsf.org/en/news/new-treaty-signed-not-all https://rsf.org/en/news/new-treaty-signed-not-all > Reporters Without Borders reiterates its appeal to ITU member countries to preserve the Internet as a place of freedom, as a place for the free exchange of views and information. Concern also focused on article 5B of the treaty concerning spam, which says: “Member States should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication services. Member States are encouraged to cooperate in that sense.” The problem stems from the fact that, to block this kind of content, governments will first have to identify it and will therefore have to use Internet control tools. Some governments do this already, but such action has never been recognized in a UN treaty. So this article sets a precedent which governments that have little interest in freedom of information would be able to use to justify the deployment of filtering and blocking mechanisms. Here is another: https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/itu-wcit-and-internet-freedom https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/itu-wcit-and... > A recently released ITU document summarizing various proposals to modify the existing ITU regulations (“ITRs”) confirms what folks have been saying and leaking for some time now. The Russian Federation, various Arab states, and others have submitted proposals that would expressly ratify the right of member states to disrupt communication in the name of national security, and to limit the ability of parties to route around censorship or communicate anonymously by providing members states the authority to determine routing paths and to prevent “misuse and misappropriation of numbering resources.” (See, for example, proposed MOD 30 & 31A – but there are numerous other proposals that could achieve the same end).
- coroutines 10y agoThe US is the best government to oversee DNS in a way that isn't corrupt and awful. That said, the US has seized domains in the past without proper due process - so it's really that "for the most part" we expect our freedoms to be respected. I think the situation would be far worse if left to several countries who don't share our progressive values. The Internet is only as great as it is because it became a "thing" here first. It would be fucking awful having Iran or China manage DNS - even as partners.
- JohnStrange 10y agoPardon me to be so polemic, but what kind of progressive values do you have in mind? Political assassinations by drone strikes that kill hundreds of children and women as bystanders?
- freeone3000 10y agoThere's no relation between the two. The progressive values are things like freedom of expression and free journalism. These stand in contrast to nations like Turkey and China, and their internet policy.
- tombone12 10y agoWhat, which rights we foreigners have that the USA actually respect in practice is not important for judging how relevant American values are to the rest of the world?
- awqrre 10y agoMaybe no relation but there might be one... Do you know the reasons why they killed all those people with drones? It could be because of their speech... (but the reason why they did it is probably top-secret)
- muninn_ 10y agoWhich is a situation much more complicated than a holier-than-thou one liner. You're also forgetting that innocent men are killed in the strikes too, which is just as tragic (or maybe more tragic since apparently nobody cares about them).
- SnacksOnAPlane 10y agoIf they screw it up, we can always just move to an alternate system of DNS servers. We're all only on a single system by convention anyway.
- mxuribe 10y agoIt feels like this is a battle (maybe "battle" is too strong of a word) over "who will control the single, traffic-coordinating bean". Where as we can instead create - by convention not law/authority - a whole new set of decentralized "beans", no? For example, can a competing, decentralized equivalent to DNS be leveraged which right out of the gate leverages ipv6, allows for easier-tom-implem,ent decentralized nodes, etc.? I'm not saying this is easy...but surely it could assuage any concerns over control of conventional DNS, no?
- chendies 10y agoYou can already create that. The problem is getting everyone else to configure their systems to use it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davidu 10y agoICANN, despite its imperfection, is infinitely better than having control of the DNS by the UN or the ITU who are exceptionally self-serving and controlled by corporate interests. Thought of course I'd have preferred it stay with DoC under its benevolent and almost entirely hands-off stewardship.
- zokier 10y agoThen you must be glad that they are not handing ICANN to UN, ITU or any other pre-existing organization.
- astazangasta 10y agoAgain, I worry that the battle between nations is a mask for the real battle that is happening, and which we are losing, the ceding of power to large corporations. I'm not worried about ICANN, here, I'm worried about Google. Specifically, now that ICANN is expanding top-level domains to include thousands of generics, the big players are going to make lots of grabs and become first-class citizens on the Internet. It is not better for the Internet if Google controls the .dev TLD and if Amazon controls the .shop TLD. At the end of the day a democratic system of any kind is vulnerable to corruption from the influence of power and must actively defend against this influence. If ICANN is supposed to be a more democratic means of controlling the Internet than the US government, it has to be made invulnerable to the influence of large players like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.
- gsmethells 10y agoI wish the article would stop using "Icann" for ICANN. Who proof-read this article?
- forgottenpass 10y agoWho proof-read this article? Someone who knows how to follow the BBC style guide. ICANN is pronounced "I can" not "I. C. A. N. N." so they write Icann. edit: See "Acronyms" section in http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20130702112133530 http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021...
- TTPrograms 10y agoThey include among their exceptions to that rule "looks like a typo".
- taejo 10y agoPresumably if you're used to the BBC's style (and this style is much more common generally in the UK than in the US - many of the major newspapers spell acronyms similarly) it doesn't look like a typo.
- awqrre 10y agoThe wall street journal had a similar article yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12306470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12306470
- tn13 10y agoUS might be becoming less and less free every passing year but is likely to remain far more freer than rest of world for years to come. I think this is bad idea. The rest of the world consists of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, UK, Russia. I don't want them to have any say in the naming system.
- daenney 10y agoRight, lets just forget about Canada, or South America, Africa, Europe, Oceania, the rest of the Middle and Far East, the other countries on the Arabian peninsula and pretty much most of Asia. Lets just pretend the other 252 countries don't exist, are all equally terrible and for whatever reason obviously don't deserve to have a say in any of this.
- tn13 10y ago"Deserve" is a pretty big word to use here. No country deserves anything. And also I am not sure why USA should give up anything because some other country feel entitled. Congo or Myanmar will not have much of a say in how internet is managed compared to China or Saudi Arabia. But it would affect all internet users. Once USA gives up this control it can not take it back and hence I think USA should not give it up.
- dicho 10y ago> "The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet,” warned a letter signed by several Republican senators, including former Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz. This article raises a rather serious political (but also philosophical) question mark over diffuse concepts like "government" and "foreign", in the context of Internet. I honestly don't know what is the current status of citizenship and territoriality nowadays in a "place" (is the Internet really a place? ) as fluid, fuzzy and multi-layered as this one we are discussing.