Comments on: Senator: Keep U.N. away from the Internet

The United Nations has no place controlling the Internet, says a Senate resolution introduced before a summit next month.

[Lolo Gecko]

where is Al Gore when we need him?

:)

[Earl Benser]

He's taking a poll....

... to see if anyone remembers him from the 2000 election.


;-)

[Lolo Gecko]

where is Al Gore when we need him?

:)

[Earl Benser]

He's taking a poll....

... to see if anyone remembers him from the 2000 election.


;-)

[Blito]

You're all a bunch of control freaks

Why don't we all take over the Internet instead
of relying upon dying bureaucratic institutions
who tax us to death. Just let non-profit orgs
like www.eff.org control it as then we would all
have a say.

The U.S. must relinquish control over the
Internet but putting anything into the hands of
the largesst criminal of all, the U.N., would
destroy it that much more quickly so either way
there is no reason to get too obsessed.

[Blito]

You're all a bunch of control freaks

Why don't we all take over the Internet instead
of relying upon dying bureaucratic institutions
who tax us to death. Just let non-profit orgs
like www.eff.org control it as then we would all
have a say.

The U.S. must relinquish control over the
Internet but putting anything into the hands of
the largesst criminal of all, the U.N., would
destroy it that much more quickly so either way
there is no reason to get too obsessed.

We have no reason to....

Lets face it, the internet was a huge achievement, of course to thanks to Al Gore, and yes we are the founders. I see no reason for us to give up the root servers to the UN. I can see why some of you from other countries might like that, but really what do we have to gain from doing that. First off I don't like the UN it is crooked and evil. Whenever there is some kind of military action to be taken it is the United States who as always carries the brunt of it. Right now, The fact that all of you people who say that the UN should have control of the internet and not the US is a testament to the how well we are doing with it.

Censorship of the internet would probably be pretty difficult if not impossible, but I venture domain name blocking would be possible.

Frankly I dont think many Americans care if what the UN wants. I think that most are satisfied with how its been run. And please by all means if u have a problem with it disconnect the jack in the back of ur computer (or turn off your wireless cord) cause we dont need you.

Or go start a new internet. Kill your economy. Cut off you nose despite your face. Eh, those pesky international customers don't matter. Fact is who would want to cut themselves off from the United State?

Wow

Anyone else think that this just might be one of those topics that would be best solved by war? No large body of people will ever agree either way, and a second internet isn't happening. Both the U.N. and the U.S. have their problems, I just think a good old fashioned large scale war would would fix some of the international political stress. Better yet, what if China decided to cash in on the insurmountable debt we now owe to half the world? Then we could let the chinese worry about it.

We have no reason to....

Lets face it, the internet was a huge achievement, of course to thanks to Al Gore, and yes we are the founders. I see no reason for us to give up the root servers to the UN. I can see why some of you from other countries might like that, but really what do we have to gain from doing that. First off I don't like the UN it is crooked and evil. Whenever there is some kind of military action to be taken it is the United States who as always carries the brunt of it. Right now, The fact that all of you people who say that the UN should have control of the internet and not the US is a testament to the how well we are doing with it.

Censorship of the internet would probably be pretty difficult if not impossible, but I venture domain name blocking would be possible.

Frankly I dont think many Americans care if what the UN wants. I think that most are satisfied with how its been run. And please by all means if u have a problem with it disconnect the jack in the back of ur computer (or turn off your wireless cord) cause we dont need you.

Or go start a new internet. Kill your economy. Cut off you nose despite your face. Eh, those pesky international customers don't matter. Fact is who would want to cut themselves off from the United State?

Wow

Anyone else think that this just might be one of those topics that would be best solved by war? No large body of people will ever agree either way, and a second internet isn't happening. Both the U.N. and the U.S. have their problems, I just think a good old fashioned large scale war would would fix some of the international political stress. Better yet, what if China decided to cash in on the insurmountable debt we now owe to half the world? Then we could let the chinese worry about it.

UN to Rule the World????

I'm sorry but I always understood the function of the UN was to avoid future World Wars through offering a body for mediated responses to crisis. It's predecessor, with the same aims, was the League of Nations. In essence to have a force big enough to stand up to the blly's in the world. The does not mean to control/rule or reign on the world. One reason the USA gets a bad rap is it was one of the leading figured in helping found the UN, not because we set it up to secretly control. Anyways this is my understanding, who knows maybe I am wrong.

[JCCox]

What is the US afraid of?

That big US corporations wont control the internet (lets face it, your government doesnt) or that the US gov will have to stop using .gov and start using gov.us?

UN to Rule the World????

I'm sorry but I always understood the function of the UN was to avoid future World Wars through offering a body for mediated responses to crisis. It's predecessor, with the same aims, was the League of Nations. In essence to have a force big enough to stand up to the blly's in the world. The does not mean to control/rule or reign on the world. One reason the USA gets a bad rap is it was one of the leading figured in helping found the UN, not because we set it up to secretly control. Anyways this is my understanding, who knows maybe I am wrong.

[JCCox]

What is the US afraid of?

That big US corporations wont control the internet (lets face it, your government doesnt) or that the US gov will have to stop using .gov and start using gov.us?

What uninformed drivel

Listen, the Internet within the US has been built by a combination of federal, state, and local governments, universities, public/private consortia, and private firms.

Our government, our universities, and our companies have not built the Internet in other countries. Their governments and their companies have done so. If any of those countries wanted to do so, they could cut themselves off from the rest of the world and run their own in-country Internet. There's nothing the US could do to prevent that.

Similarly, there's nothing any other country can do to prevent the US from totally controlling the Internet within US borders.

But no one wants (or claims to want) an Internet that stops at national borders.

So this meeting coming up in Tunisia is the second meeting of the WSIS (a group commissioned under one of the UN agencies) and is supposed to help figure out if we can all find a way to keep the Internet from 'breaking up' country by country.

It doesn't appear we'll all agree. And, since the US is one vote compated to hundreds of others, we're not likely to win the showdown.

What does this mean in practice? Most likely, the ITU (a very well-respected UN agency which has moderated international telecommunications decisions for many decades now in a non-partisan fashion) will be given some responsibility for the name and address assignments that currently rest with ICANN.

Now they can vote in this change, but until the servers that ICANN has authority over are physically moved outside of the US, the ITU will have a hard time actually enforcing any UN-mandated recommendations against ICANN. (It's true that 2 of these servers are currently outside of the US, but the vast majority [another 9] are within US borders.)

So what will we see in a couple of months? Who knows. Possibly a split in the DNS namespace (so that news.com in the US brings you to this site, but news.com in China takes you to a completely different one.) Or possibly something else equally useless.

One thing is for certain, the days of the US achieving de facto control over the Internet are long gone. This decision will merely mark it formally.

[Steven N]

Talking about uninformed...

There are 13 root servers (not 11), and even those are not 13 physical systems, but a group of different servers at different locations all over the world.

Take a look at this: http://www.root-servers.org/.

But luckily your conclusion is totally correct

What uninformed drivel

Listen, the Internet within the US has been built by a combination of federal, state, and local governments, universities, public/private consortia, and private firms.

Our government, our universities, and our companies have not built the Internet in other countries. Their governments and their companies have done so. If any of those countries wanted to do so, they could cut themselves off from the rest of the world and run their own in-country Internet. There's nothing the US could do to prevent that.

Similarly, there's nothing any other country can do to prevent the US from totally controlling the Internet within US borders.

But no one wants (or claims to want) an Internet that stops at national borders.

So this meeting coming up in Tunisia is the second meeting of the WSIS (a group commissioned under one of the UN agencies) and is supposed to help figure out if we can all find a way to keep the Internet from 'breaking up' country by country.

It doesn't appear we'll all agree. And, since the US is one vote compated to hundreds of others, we're not likely to win the showdown.

What does this mean in practice? Most likely, the ITU (a very well-respected UN agency which has moderated international telecommunications decisions for many decades now in a non-partisan fashion) will be given some responsibility for the name and address assignments that currently rest with ICANN.

Now they can vote in this change, but until the servers that ICANN has authority over are physically moved outside of the US, the ITU will have a hard time actually enforcing any UN-mandated recommendations against ICANN. (It's true that 2 of these servers are currently outside of the US, but the vast majority [another 9] are within US borders.)

So what will we see in a couple of months? Who knows. Possibly a split in the DNS namespace (so that news.com in the US brings you to this site, but news.com in China takes you to a completely different one.) Or possibly something else equally useless.

One thing is for certain, the days of the US achieving de facto control over the Internet are long gone. This decision will merely mark it formally.

[Steven N]

Talking about uninformed...

There are 13 root servers (not 11), and even those are not 13 physical systems, but a group of different servers at different locations all over the world.

Take a look at this: http://www.root-servers.org/.

But luckily your conclusion is totally correct

[richto]

Oil for Food better than Oil for weapons...

Oil for food? - you mean the very successful UN operation that saved many more children and Iraqi citizens from dying than the over 500,000 that actually did directly due to the USA led sanctions?

Perhaps you are referring to the fact that some people involved in this multi-billion dollar scheme took some kick backs. I note that the only person charged is an American - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4457262

Embezzlement is after all a field in which Americans are far more qualified than the UN. After all who else could manage the embezzlement of the entire year's Iraqi military budget. Quite an impressive achievement...

"?It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history,? Ali Allawi, Iraq?s finance minister, told the Independent last month. ?Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal.? "

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/TEMP/me_iraq_09_20.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1553777,00.html

"During the period covered by the report, 20 US officials worked alongside the Iraqi defence ministry, and all the sacked officials had been appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority - the administration headed by American Paul Bremer."

[Jonathan]

*coughs*DeLay*coughs*

Dang cold... ;-)

[Yukimi Konomi]

Could you BE any more biased???

quoting npr and the world tribune clearly shows your leanings.

and i'd be casting a wider net here, the french are deep in iraqi oil for food money, far more than the americans, far more...

[Far Star]

You are such a tool

To make this easy you provide me with so much ammo so lock and load!

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1553777,00.html

"Internal documents, said the report, "incorrectly indicated that the [Iraqi] ministry of defence signed contracts with Poland, Arab countries, the United States and Europe, but we discovered that all contracts were signed and executed with Iraqi suppliers"."

Most damming statement that clearly points to the culprits. Iraqis were stealing from Iraqis, its right there in black and white!

"All deals were done through third-party companies or agencies headed by Iraqi middlemen, who have disappeared, leaving the Iraqi government without recourse when it complained of unfulfilled contracts."

More damming statements on how Iraqis raped there own people out of millions.

"Among those missing is a man called Nair Mohamed al-Jumaili, sole beneficiary of 43 out of 89 contracts, into whose bank account several million dollars was paid."

Hmmm, are you feeling stupid yet for even bringing this up? Did you think no one would take you to task on your hugely crappy attempt at spinning this into being the fault of the US?

Now on to the NPR ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4457262

"Samir Vincent, an Iraqi-born American citizen, pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein"

So he learned his skills at stealing when? Ok, bad question but this points to yet again another Iraqi stealing from his fellow Iraqi. Yeah he's an American but are you saying that all Iraqi-Americans can't be trusted. Wow, that's pretty heavy, might want to go to a few of their houses and ask them that. Heh.

Ok, world tribune time ...

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/TEMP/me_iraq_09_20.html

"An official Iraqi audit said $1.27 billion allocated by the Defense Ministry for military procurement in 2005 was embezzled by officials and suppliers. In a report completed in May, the Board of Supreme Audit blamed the theft on U.S.-appointed senior Defense Ministry officials, including a former defense minister."

So where does it say these appointed officials were Americans? Nowhere because they weren?t, they were Iraqi. Again, Iraqis stealing from Iraqis. The only fault the US had is trusting them to do the right thing. Guilty of insufficient oversight is not the same as being guilty of embezzlement, though it makes the US look the fool.

"Citing the audit, Al Amiri told parliament on Sept. 18 that incompetent officials were given responsibility for supervising defense projects and procuring weapons and other equipment. He said that despite the audit little has changed in the procurement process."

Oh but this kills me ... they know it's broken yet they haven't fixed it! Guess what, US is not longer in charge of it so where does the blame for that rest? You guessed it: the Iraqi provincial government.

"The audit said most of the embezzlement took place during the tenure of then-Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan. Shaalan has since moved to Jordan and denied the charges. But officials said Shaalan would soon be served with an arrest warrant."

Is that an American ... no wait, no it isn't.

You know I could chop you up more but it's pointless. You read articles and get from them not only a skewed view of things but you can't even get the whole story right. Then you come here and want to look like you know what is going on. You don?t.

Time to push away from the PC, take a shower, and go do something useful. You?re wasting our time here.

[richto]

Oil for Food better than Oil for weapons...

Oil for food? - you mean the very successful UN operation that saved many more children and Iraqi citizens from dying than the over 500,000 that actually did directly due to the USA led sanctions?

Perhaps you are referring to the fact that some people involved in this multi-billion dollar scheme took some kick backs. I note that the only person charged is an American - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4457262

Embezzlement is after all a field in which Americans are far more qualified than the UN. After all who else could manage the embezzlement of the entire year's Iraqi military budget. Quite an impressive achievement...

"?It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history,? Ali Allawi, Iraq?s finance minister, told the Independent last month. ?Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal.? "

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/TEMP/me_iraq_09_20.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1553777,00.html

"During the period covered by the report, 20 US officials worked alongside the Iraqi defence ministry, and all the sacked officials had been appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority - the administration headed by American Paul Bremer."

[Jonathan]

*coughs*DeLay*coughs*

Dang cold... ;-)

[Yukimi Konomi]

Could you BE any more biased???

quoting npr and the world tribune clearly shows your leanings.

and i'd be casting a wider net here, the french are deep in iraqi oil for food money, far more than the americans, far more...

[Far Star]

You are such a tool

To make this easy you provide me with so much ammo so lock and load!

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1553777,00.html

"Internal documents, said the report, "incorrectly indicated that the [Iraqi] ministry of defence signed contracts with Poland, Arab countries, the United States and Europe, but we discovered that all contracts were signed and executed with Iraqi suppliers"."

Most damming statement that clearly points to the culprits. Iraqis were stealing from Iraqis, its right there in black and white!

"All deals were done through third-party companies or agencies headed by Iraqi middlemen, who have disappeared, leaving the Iraqi government without recourse when it complained of unfulfilled contracts."

More damming statements on how Iraqis raped there own people out of millions.

"Among those missing is a man called Nair Mohamed al-Jumaili, sole beneficiary of 43 out of 89 contracts, into whose bank account several million dollars was paid."

Hmmm, are you feeling stupid yet for even bringing this up? Did you think no one would take you to task on your hugely crappy attempt at spinning this into being the fault of the US?

Now on to the NPR ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4457262

"Samir Vincent, an Iraqi-born American citizen, pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein"

So he learned his skills at stealing when? Ok, bad question but this points to yet again another Iraqi stealing from his fellow Iraqi. Yeah he's an American but are you saying that all Iraqi-Americans can't be trusted. Wow, that's pretty heavy, might want to go to a few of their houses and ask them that. Heh.

Ok, world tribune time ...

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/TEMP/me_iraq_09_20.html

"An official Iraqi audit said $1.27 billion allocated by the Defense Ministry for military procurement in 2005 was embezzled by officials and suppliers. In a report completed in May, the Board of Supreme Audit blamed the theft on U.S.-appointed senior Defense Ministry officials, including a former defense minister."

So where does it say these appointed officials were Americans? Nowhere because they weren?t, they were Iraqi. Again, Iraqis stealing from Iraqis. The only fault the US had is trusting them to do the right thing. Guilty of insufficient oversight is not the same as being guilty of embezzlement, though it makes the US look the fool.

"Citing the audit, Al Amiri told parliament on Sept. 18 that incompetent officials were given responsibility for supervising defense projects and procuring weapons and other equipment. He said that despite the audit little has changed in the procurement process."

Oh but this kills me ... they know it's broken yet they haven't fixed it! Guess what, US is not longer in charge of it so where does the blame for that rest? You guessed it: the Iraqi provincial government.

"The audit said most of the embezzlement took place during the tenure of then-Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan. Shaalan has since moved to Jordan and denied the charges. But officials said Shaalan would soon be served with an arrest warrant."

Is that an American ... no wait, no it isn't.

You know I could chop you up more but it's pointless. You read articles and get from them not only a skewed view of things but you can't even get the whole story right. Then you come here and want to look like you know what is going on. You don?t.

Time to push away from the PC, take a shower, and go do something useful. You?re wasting our time here.

[Jonathan]

I must apologize for our idiot Senator

Coleman is a colossal dumb*** even for a Republican. Sorry everyone.

[Too Old For IT]

If you are done with him ...

... can we have him? Our matched pair of RINOs (republican in name only) have about wore out their welcome.

I'd enjoy th eopportunity to vote for a patriotic conservative, heck even a shrill jingo would be a nice change.

[Jonathan]

I must apologize for our idiot Senator

Coleman is a colossal dumb*** even for a Republican. Sorry everyone.

[Too Old For IT]

If you are done with him ...

... can we have him? Our matched pair of RINOs (republican in name only) have about wore out their welcome.

I'd enjoy th eopportunity to vote for a patriotic conservative, heck even a shrill jingo would be a nice change.

[Too Old For IT]

Oh yeah, Tunisia is the right place for this.

http://campaigns.ifex.org/tmg/

[Too Old For IT]

Oh yeah, Tunisia is the right place for this.

http://campaigns.ifex.org/tmg/

I could be wrong, however

ICANN is a diverse organization of people from around the globe. I'm not sure everyone would agree that what they do is right, although I think perhaps the U.S. government should not hold as much sway over this group as they appear to do. Personally I think their should be a mandatory .xxx domain, all current providers of x-rated services should be forced to that domain keeping their current domain name. It should be henceforth illegal to create a .com or any domain other than .xxx with sexually explicit material on it. Parents can then filter at will that entire domain. I don't think the U.N. which IMHO rarely does anything right should hold any sway whatsoever over ICANN. Let's face it, you've got countries that activley support, finance, or turn a blind eye to international terrorism on the security counsel at the U.N. how more messed up can any one organization be.

[Bob Brinkman]

you are

Who decides what is sexualy explicit?

I could be wrong, however

ICANN is a diverse organization of people from around the globe. I'm not sure everyone would agree that what they do is right, although I think perhaps the U.S. government should not hold as much sway over this group as they appear to do. Personally I think their should be a mandatory .xxx domain, all current providers of x-rated services should be forced to that domain keeping their current domain name. It should be henceforth illegal to create a .com or any domain other than .xxx with sexually explicit material on it. Parents can then filter at will that entire domain. I don't think the U.N. which IMHO rarely does anything right should hold any sway whatsoever over ICANN. Let's face it, you've got countries that activley support, finance, or turn a blind eye to international terrorism on the security counsel at the U.N. how more messed up can any one organization be.

[Bob Brinkman]

you are

Who decides what is sexualy explicit?

[VI Joker]

It could be a reach

While I agree the UN should not have control over the net. I do not see that harm in more countries being involved in maintaining, policing, and improving the net, however they should not be allowed to dicate what can or cannot be viewed on the net for other countries. If all the Arab nations want to ban sexual explicit sites then they should do it, for their respective countries. If the Chinese want to ban all sites that are against their government so be it, but that does nto mean it should for all. Instead of shifting ICANN's responsibilities to the UN, why can't other countries join ICANN?

[VI Joker]

It could be a reach

While I agree the UN should not have control over the net. I do not see that harm in more countries being involved in maintaining, policing, and improving the net, however they should not be allowed to dicate what can or cannot be viewed on the net for other countries. If all the Arab nations want to ban sexual explicit sites then they should do it, for their respective countries. If the Chinese want to ban all sites that are against their government so be it, but that does nto mean it should for all. Instead of shifting ICANN's responsibilities to the UN, why can't other countries join ICANN?