7 ms·

You may note that ICANN only really got into these sorts of games after gaining independence from the US government...

echelon 7y ago
Why did we let the ICANN go? Could we take it back? Wasn't Verisign a problem before ICANN became a non-government entity?
- wavesquid 7y ago
  Because other governments found it unfair that one country (the US) could control the global namespace.
  - notyourwork 7y ago
    And now look at how many TLDs we have.
    - notechback 7y ago
      What's so bad about having maths TLDs?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - Causality1 7y ago
        People having a passing familiarity with all the TLDs increases security. You know to trust Microsoft.com but it would be easy trick someone into clicking a link to Microsoft.c0m or some such.
        quickthrower2 7y ago
        There is no c0m but it’d be more like Microsoft.ninja or Microsoft.fun
        SCHiM 7y ago
        Microsoft.trust?
        agustif 7y ago
        micro.soft
        quickthrower2 7y ago
        Then I know I’m being phished!
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - rapnie 7y ago
    It should probably belong better under the umbrella of the UN.
    - kitteh 7y ago
      Eh - the UN doesn't really have a good track record with things like this. See the ITU as an example.
      - lolusa 7y ago
        Or the WHO..
      - azernik 7y ago
        The ITU has done just fine, as far as I can tell.
    - bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
      I fear for the .tw domain space if ICANN were to fall under the purview of the UN in any way.
    - rasz 7y ago
      Ah yes, UN, excellent idea https://unwatch.org/un-sells-3-womens-rights-bodies-oil-rich-saudi-arabia/ https://unwatch.org/un-sells-3-womens-rights-bodies-oil-rich...
      - Ixio 7y ago
        Perhaps like democracy it is the least bad option.
  - Causality1 7y ago
    The sad part is, giving up control doesn't seem to have stopped other nations from slowly severing themselves from the global conversation like the Great Firewall and Russianet.
    - zentiggr 7y ago
      Until homo sapiens evolves past tribal effects, those sorts of things will continue happening. Lamentable but symptomatic.
tal8d 7y ago
Bingo. Consider this in the context of the "bake my cake bigot!" debate. It is really disturbing, the glee with which some have adopted the "private companies can do what they want" in defense of censorship. While the US government has certainly come close to wrecking the internet in the past (see 90s moral panic staring Tipper Gore), there is at least the possibility for transparent accountability. Most people have no idea how bad things could get under the present arrangement, with self restraint being the only thing standing in the way. Debanking, early crypto folks know what I'm talking about.
- fortanatude 7y ago
  >> "bake my cake bigot!" debate What do you mean by that?
  - jldugger 7y ago
    They are referring to the supreme court case revolving around a bakery in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake if it was going to be served at a gay wedding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission#Facts_of_the_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - tal8d 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora... So many angles to consider, even before addressing the issue of publisher vs platform... but in essence the same people decrying that ruling are applauding the deplatforming and debanking of wrongthinkers.
    - fortanatude 7y ago
      Sure, I've never heard it described that way. That makes it sound like the point of asking to be served is to punish and frustrate the bakery. I've never heard civil rights protests called the "serve my lunch racist!" debate. The sentiment behind the phrase "bake my cake bigot!" seems to trivialize the issue of being discriminated against by a public business and incorrectly attributes malice to the person being discriminated against. I'm not attributing any ill-intent to you but wanted to give feedback on that terminology which is why I asked the question. Thanks for your response.
rasengan 7y ago
Interestingly, this act itself proves that whilst the US DOC was, and claimed, to have moved ICANN to international ownership [1], it is in fact still under the control of the US government. As long as the Internet namespace, or DNS, is governed by US (California state specifically) law, the Internet itself will be operating under the same jurisdiction as DNS is generally considered critical to the function of the Internet. This is a very strong reason that, just like currency [2], the Internet namespace is also ripe to be decentralized to distributed ownership by the people [3]. The internet deserves to be owned by the people - not any single government. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN [2] https://weusecoins.com https://weusecoins.com [3] https://handshake.org https://handshake.org
- qeternity 7y ago
  And like currency, it turns out that it's almost impossible to have a fully decentralized, trustless system for all but the most basic functions. Maybe you prefer that to the current system, but it's not like handwavingly suggesting blockchain makes any of this better. There are all sorts of real-world issues that you can't handle on-chain.
  - rasengan 7y ago
    > There are all sorts of real-world issues that you can't handle on-chain. There are definitely a lot of issues that aren’t working in the ICANN system as we all know [1][2][3]. What are the issues that can’t be handled in the Handshake blockchain ecosystem? [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise-alarm-over-proposal-for-big-com-fee-hikes/%3Famp%3D1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/we-need-save-org-arbitrary-censorship-halting-private-equity-buy-out https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/we-need-save-org-arbit... [3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/symantec-issues-rogue-ev-certificate-googlecom https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/symantec-issues-rogue-...
    - acdha 7y ago
      It’s easy to say that a hypothetical system will do everything you want, similar to how Bitcoin salespeople spent most of a decade saying it’d be better than cash and credit cards before trying to claim they’d had different goals all along. You first need a system which works and scales to plausible levels before we can say anything about whether it’s a viable solution for anything. In particular, it’d be important to have real cost and control information to show that it wasn’t trading ICANN for a different group which has similar control — and the inherent inefficiency of a blockchain means that there’d be more of a likelihood that power would consolidate in a few major players. (As an aside, Symantec screwing up does not seem relevant to a discussion about ICANN. Perhaps you could explain why you believe it to be?)

Why did we let the ICANN go? Could we take it back? Wasn't Verisign a problem before ICANN became a non-government entity?

wavesquid 7y ago
Because other governments found it unfair that one country (the US) could control the global namespace.
- notyourwork 7y ago
  And now look at how many TLDs we have.
  - notechback 7y ago
    What's so bad about having maths TLDs?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Causality1 7y ago
      People having a passing familiarity with all the TLDs increases security. You know to trust Microsoft.com but it would be easy trick someone into clicking a link to Microsoft.c0m or some such.
      - quickthrower2 7y ago
        There is no c0m but it’d be more like Microsoft.ninja or Microsoft.fun
        SCHiM 7y ago
        Microsoft.trust?
        agustif 7y ago
        micro.soft
        quickthrower2 7y ago
        Then I know I’m being phished!
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- rapnie 7y ago
  It should probably belong better under the umbrella of the UN.
  - kitteh 7y ago
    Eh - the UN doesn't really have a good track record with things like this. See the ITU as an example.
    - lolusa 7y ago
      Or the WHO..
    - azernik 7y ago
      The ITU has done just fine, as far as I can tell.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
    I fear for the .tw domain space if ICANN were to fall under the purview of the UN in any way.
  - rasz 7y ago
    Ah yes, UN, excellent idea https://unwatch.org/un-sells-3-womens-rights-bodies-oil-rich-saudi-arabia/ https://unwatch.org/un-sells-3-womens-rights-bodies-oil-rich...
    - Ixio 7y ago
      Perhaps like democracy it is the least bad option.
- Causality1 7y ago
  The sad part is, giving up control doesn't seem to have stopped other nations from slowly severing themselves from the global conversation like the Great Firewall and Russianet.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    Until homo sapiens evolves past tribal effects, those sorts of things will continue happening. Lamentable but symptomatic.

tal8d 7y ago

Bingo. Consider this in the context of the "bake my cake bigot!" debate. It is really disturbing, the glee with which some have adopted the "private companies can do what they want" in defense of censorship. While the US government has certainly come close to wrecking the internet in the past (see 90s moral panic staring Tipper Gore), there is at least the possibility for transparent accountability. Most people have no idea how bad things could get under the present arrangement, with self restraint being the only thing standing in the way. Debanking, early crypto folks know what I'm talking about.

fortanatude 7y ago
>> "bake my cake bigot!" debate What do you mean by that?
- jldugger 7y ago
  They are referring to the supreme court case revolving around a bakery in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake if it was going to be served at a gay wedding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission#Facts_of_the_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- tal8d 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora... So many angles to consider, even before addressing the issue of publisher vs platform... but in essence the same people decrying that ruling are applauding the deplatforming and debanking of wrongthinkers.
  - fortanatude 7y ago
    Sure, I've never heard it described that way. That makes it sound like the point of asking to be served is to punish and frustrate the bakery. I've never heard civil rights protests called the "serve my lunch racist!" debate. The sentiment behind the phrase "bake my cake bigot!" seems to trivialize the issue of being discriminated against by a public business and incorrectly attributes malice to the person being discriminated against. I'm not attributing any ill-intent to you but wanted to give feedback on that terminology which is why I asked the question. Thanks for your response.

rasengan 7y ago

Interestingly, this act itself proves that whilst the US DOC was, and claimed, to have moved ICANN to international ownership [1], it is in fact still under the control of the US government. As long as the Internet namespace, or DNS, is governed by US (California state specifically) law, the Internet itself will be operating under the same jurisdiction as DNS is generally considered critical to the function of the Internet. This is a very strong reason that, just like currency [2], the Internet namespace is also ripe to be decentralized to distributed ownership by the people [3]. The internet deserves to be owned by the people - not any single government. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN [2] https://weusecoins.com https://weusecoins.com [3] https://handshake.org https://handshake.org

qeternity 7y ago
And like currency, it turns out that it's almost impossible to have a fully decentralized, trustless system for all but the most basic functions. Maybe you prefer that to the current system, but it's not like handwavingly suggesting blockchain makes any of this better. There are all sorts of real-world issues that you can't handle on-chain.
- rasengan 7y ago
  > There are all sorts of real-world issues that you can't handle on-chain. There are definitely a lot of issues that aren’t working in the ICANN system as we all know [1][2][3]. What are the issues that can’t be handled in the Handshake blockchain ecosystem? [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise-alarm-over-proposal-for-big-com-fee-hikes/%3Famp%3D1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/we-need-save-org-arbitrary-censorship-halting-private-equity-buy-out https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/we-need-save-org-arbit... [3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/symantec-issues-rogue-ev-certificate-googlecom https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/symantec-issues-rogue-...
  - acdha 7y ago
    It’s easy to say that a hypothetical system will do everything you want, similar to how Bitcoin salespeople spent most of a decade saying it’d be better than cash and credit cards before trying to claim they’d had different goals all along. You first need a system which works and scales to plausible levels before we can say anything about whether it’s a viable solution for anything. In particular, it’d be important to have real cost and control information to show that it wasn’t trading ICANN for a different group which has similar control — and the inherent inefficiency of a blockchain means that there’d be more of a likelihood that power would consolidate in a few major players. (As an aside, Symantec screwing up does not seem relevant to a discussion about ICANN. Perhaps you could explain why you believe it to be?)