At a meeting in Geneva last week, the Bush administration objected to the idea of the United Nations running the top-level servers that direct traffic to the master databases of all domain names.
That's not new, of course--the administration has been humming this tune since June. What's changed in the last few months is the response from the rest of the world.
Instead of acquiescing to the Bush administration's position, the European Union cried foul last week and embraced greater U.N. control. A spokesman said that the EU is "very firm on this position."
Other nations were equally irked. Russia, Brazil and Iran each chimed in with statements saying that no "single government" should have a "pre-eminent role" in terms of Internet governance.
Meanwhile, the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. body, offered to take over from the United States.
Crucial root servers
This may seem like a complicated political muddle that only Talleyrand could love, but this process is important. If it spirals out of control, we could end up with a Balkanized Internet in which the U.S. attempts to retain control of its root servers and a large portion of the world veers in an incompatible direction.
This would amount to a nuclear option in which a new top-level domain would not be visible in the U.S. and its client states--but would be used in many other nations. The downside, of course, comes when two computers find different Web sites at the same address.
Some background: The Internet's 13 root servers guide traffic to the massive databases that contain addresses for all the individual top-level domains, such as .com, .net, .edu, and the country code domains like .uk and .jp.
Whoever controls what goes into the root servers has the final authority about what new top-level domains are added or deleted. The Bush administration doesn't particularly care for .xxx, for instance, and could conceivably move to block its addition even if the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approves it.
Other governments lack that power, and don't exactly like George W. Bush and his administration enjoying a monopoly over it.
Not all the root servers, named A through M, are in the United States. The M server is operated by the WIDE Project in Tokyo, and the K server is managed by Amsterdam-based RIPE. The F, I and J servers point to many addresses around the world through the anycast protocol, yielding a total of 80 locations in 34 countries.
In the nuclear option, some national governments would continue to follow the U.S. lead while others would switch their root servers to point to the U.N. list of top-level domains. Eventually, different top-level domains would be added, and the Internet would bifurcate.
Next steps
While this possibility remains remote, what's worrisome is that neither side seems willing to budge.
A working group report prepared before last week's meeting called root server reform an issue of the "highest priority." That report also proposed a Global Internet Council that would be "anchored in the United Nations."
Turning over control of key Internet functions to the U.N. would invite a debacle. This is the bureaucracy that gave rise to the Oil for Food scandal and counts as its major accomplishment in the last decade a failed attempt at nation-building in Somalia. U.N. control would usher in higher fees for domain names--to pay for development aid to third-world nations with dysfunctional governments.
The autocratic, bellicose Bush administration is no paragon of civil liberties virtue, but letting delegates from Cuba, Iran and Tunisia decide on the principles for an open and democratic Internet would be an even worse alternative.
That's why the next few weeks before the final meeting in Tunisia will be crucial.
The Bush administration's negotiating skills will be severely tested. State Department officials will have to find a way to allay fears of a U.S.-dominated Internet while avoiding any path leading to a bifurcated root. It won't be a trivial task, but the alternatives are even less savory.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
See more CNET content tagged:
U.N., domain, Bush Administration, server, U.S.
to control it. On the other hand, the internet isn't just a local
scientific experiment anymore either; it is a global system with
global ramifications. And yet despite that fact I am disturbed
about countries like China who are already essentially creating
their own 'internet' having any say whatsoever in the global
network. As I much as I like the "ideal" of the U.N., it simply has
been totally unable to work effectively by any means in almost
any area for at least the last decade and I would feel just as
uneasy about a massive bureaucracy such as the U.N. taking
over the internet as well. In the end, I believe the US is still the
best choice and option until a better, more streamlined and
non-political group can be found to take the job.
I'm not sure who is best qualified to manage the DNS system - as ICANN is doing some really sneaky stuff. But it sounds like this is all politics and the people who use the Internet are the ones who are going to lose.
to control it. On the other hand, the internet isn't just a local
scientific experiment anymore either; it is a global system with
global ramifications. And yet despite that fact I am disturbed
about countries like China who are already essentially creating
their own 'internet' having any say whatsoever in the global
network. As I much as I like the "ideal" of the U.N., it simply has
been totally unable to work effectively by any means in almost
any area for at least the last decade and I would feel just as
uneasy about a massive bureaucracy such as the U.N. taking
over the internet as well. In the end, I believe the US is still the
best choice and option until a better, more streamlined and
non-political group can be found to take the job.
I'm not sure who is best qualified to manage the DNS system - as ICANN is doing some really sneaky stuff. But it sounds like this is all politics and the people who use the Internet are the ones who are going to lose.
I'm also tired of hearing about IP address allocation being unfair. If you want to complain about this, you first need to cite an actual case where a "third world" country was unable to get the IP space it needed. There hasn't been one. I've been through the ARIN process, and let me tell you, US ISP's have to jump through hoops to get IP allocations too. There's no grand conspiracy to short change the rest of the world.
I'm also tired of hearing about IP address allocation being unfair. If you want to complain about this, you first need to cite an actual case where a "third world" country was unable to get the IP space it needed. There hasn't been one. I've been through the ARIN process, and let me tell you, US ISP's have to jump through hoops to get IP allocations too. There's no grand conspiracy to short change the rest of the world.
The UN hasn't exactly been a bastion of innovation or even integrity.
The more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more red tape is served in place of your meals. Want to see internet innovation come to a screeching halt? Give it to the UN.
While having a single country control the internet does present some opportunities for mis-use, is it any easier to regulate the actions of people from many countries? According to the recent oil for food scandal, it is not.
The UN hasn't exactly been a bastion of innovation or even integrity.
The more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more red tape is served in place of your meals. Want to see internet innovation come to a screeching halt? Give it to the UN.
While having a single country control the internet does present some opportunities for mis-use, is it any easier to regulate the actions of people from many countries? According to the recent oil for food scandal, it is not.
Declan! For a brief moment I thought you were about throw off your coat of yellow journalism! Alas, no... Still, there's hope. You do recognize that there are worse things in the world than this horrid administration you seem to hate so much. The light may not shine, but at least the bulb glows dimly. There may be hope for you yet!
As for the rest of the world wanting a piece of the Internet, "No, that's final. Now shut up and go away." The last thing we need is a domain name for food scandal. (And, as you seem to grudgingly imply, there's really no one who would do it better.)
Declan! For a brief moment I thought you were about throw off your coat of yellow journalism! Alas, no... Still, there's hope. You do recognize that there are worse things in the world than this horrid administration you seem to hate so much. The light may not shine, but at least the bulb glows dimly. There may be hope for you yet!
As for the rest of the world wanting a piece of the Internet, "No, that's final. Now shut up and go away." The last thing we need is a domain name for food scandal. (And, as you seem to grudgingly imply, there's really no one who would do it better.)
It isn't right, but unfortunately for the rest of the world, they just don't count because they're not on the security council.
The oil for food debacle was something that would have happened whether or not there was a UN.
The greedy corporates (mostly US, but some Russian, British and French) that abused this program would have just found another vehicle with which to circumvent whatever sanctions the world police had put in place - profiting nicely from their take of the Iraqi oil revenues.
As for the internet it's fairly simple.
Yes it is a US invention, but that's hardly important. What's important is whether we want to remain globally connected, and if so, whether just one country should have the kind of power that the Bush Administration wants.
What's important here is whether the US wants to belong to the same internet that the rest of the world does.
It probably goes against the grain, but for once the blinkered, self righteous, no one but me counts attitude of the US is not going to count for much if everyone else decides to go their own way.
Most people here probably won't notice much as they're not really aware of anything that happens outside their own village, let alone country.
But for those of us that like to converse, trade and compete with other countries, those of us that enjoy other cultures and are curious as to other points of view - the loss of a truly global internet would be a disaster.
Often the internet is the only way people in the US can get unbiased news, based not on US interests but on fairly balanced points of view.
If I can no longer be certain that I can get to the same urls that friends from around the world are getting to, it would be a great loss to me - and I think not too few other Americans.
I have a hunch that a clear view of what's really involved may not
play a very important role in personal diatribe,
It isn't right, but unfortunately for the rest of the world, they just don't count because they're not on the security council.
The oil for food debacle was something that would have happened whether or not there was a UN.
The greedy corporates (mostly US, but some Russian, British and French) that abused this program would have just found another vehicle with which to circumvent whatever sanctions the world police had put in place - profiting nicely from their take of the Iraqi oil revenues.
As for the internet it's fairly simple.
Yes it is a US invention, but that's hardly important. What's important is whether we want to remain globally connected, and if so, whether just one country should have the kind of power that the Bush Administration wants.
What's important here is whether the US wants to belong to the same internet that the rest of the world does.
It probably goes against the grain, but for once the blinkered, self righteous, no one but me counts attitude of the US is not going to count for much if everyone else decides to go their own way.
Most people here probably won't notice much as they're not really aware of anything that happens outside their own village, let alone country.
But for those of us that like to converse, trade and compete with other countries, those of us that enjoy other cultures and are curious as to other points of view - the loss of a truly global internet would be a disaster.
Often the internet is the only way people in the US can get unbiased news, based not on US interests but on fairly balanced points of view.
If I can no longer be certain that I can get to the same urls that friends from around the world are getting to, it would be a great loss to me - and I think not too few other Americans.
I have a hunch that a clear view of what's really involved may not
play a very important role in personal diatribe,
The US opened the door for this stupid debate (read 'UN and ITU power play') by deciding it wanted 'oversight control' of ICANN (which replaced a perfectly good and working IANA and IETF in my humble opinion) ... and ICANN's raison d'etre viz-a-viz its IANA predecessor was to allow centralised control (presumably by government) of what had previously been a labour of love by the late and highly esteemed Jon Postel.
The ITU (which made its moolah from huge fees charged to member organisations and big telcos and big metal hardware) had been left out in the cold by the packet switched internet (its previous expertise related to hard switching, big telcos and big mainframes product) and was hunting for a way to maintain its diminished relavancy in the new environment.
The US government handed them that on a plate when it said it wanted oversight and control of ICANN. ICANN exacerbated the situation by effectively abolishing its 'member at large' program and thus ANY pretence that it had been established as a democratic Net user based body ... and lost a huge body of support that may have assisted big-time in the current situation to support ICANN as a body representative of Net users.
The ITU then presented itself as one of the forces for democracy (when nothing could be further from the truth) and the UN (presumably looking for another source of funds from DNS registration and IP allocations) fell in behind them. Factor in all the disaffected govbernments around the planet who want to 'control the Internet' for one reason or another ... and you have the makings of this debacle.
The BEST way out now would be for the US government to decide that ICANN isn't subject to its control, and for ICANN to open up its decisionmaking and workings to users generally. A serious 'ICANN at large' initiative, a taking on board of people who are there for TECHNICAL rather than bloody POLITICAL merit and a return to the making of decisions on purely scientific and network efficiency and effectiveness issues, rather than what is good for government or bloody ICANN would be a good start.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Regards,
The US opened the door for this stupid debate (read 'UN and ITU power play') by deciding it wanted 'oversight control' of ICANN (which replaced a perfectly good and working IANA and IETF in my humble opinion) ... and ICANN's raison d'etre viz-a-viz its IANA predecessor was to allow centralised control (presumably by government) of what had previously been a labour of love by the late and highly esteemed Jon Postel.
The ITU (which made its moolah from huge fees charged to member organisations and big telcos and big metal hardware) had been left out in the cold by the packet switched internet (its previous expertise related to hard switching, big telcos and big mainframes product) and was hunting for a way to maintain its diminished relavancy in the new environment.
The US government handed them that on a plate when it said it wanted oversight and control of ICANN. ICANN exacerbated the situation by effectively abolishing its 'member at large' program and thus ANY pretence that it had been established as a democratic Net user based body ... and lost a huge body of support that may have assisted big-time in the current situation to support ICANN as a body representative of Net users.
The ITU then presented itself as one of the forces for democracy (when nothing could be further from the truth) and the UN (presumably looking for another source of funds from DNS registration and IP allocations) fell in behind them. Factor in all the disaffected govbernments around the planet who want to 'control the Internet' for one reason or another ... and you have the makings of this debacle.
The BEST way out now would be for the US government to decide that ICANN isn't subject to its control, and for ICANN to open up its decisionmaking and workings to users generally. A serious 'ICANN at large' initiative, a taking on board of people who are there for TECHNICAL rather than bloody POLITICAL merit and a return to the making of decisions on purely scientific and network efficiency and effectiveness issues, rather than what is good for government or bloody ICANN would be a good start.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Regards,
Anyway. Technically, the ccTLDs could create a "super-root" and just pass all gTLD requests to the existing root servers. There is no requirement for DNS servers to point to the DoC root. And while TLD collisions are possible, ICANN has already shown a willingness to collide and kill an opposing registry (the old .biz).
There's no reason aside from money that a super-root couldn't happen, and if it was supported by the major ISPs, it would almost certainly fly.
Bottom line: The ITU's previous record with regard to standards administration and standards setting really sucked.
Take the X400 e-mail standard for example. What standard, I ask.
I mean they espoused a group of incompatible e-mail standards that were housed under the same X400 banner ... and the main criteria for accepting all these incompatible standards seemed to be how much in licensing fees their various members (IBM, Honeywell, etc etc) were prepared to pay for X400 ISO accreditation ... to have their 'standard' included under the banner.
And the subsequent interconnecting all these x400 'standard' systems involved expensive Gateways, hubs and hardware oriented solutions (naturally also sold by the ITU members who operated under the x400 banner) simply to make one x400 systems 'talk to' another.
Imagine is the same fiasco had operated with SMTP, and POP, or IMAP or whatever.
And X400 was not an isolated ITU occurrence. The same standards confusion also occured with X500 directory services, and all manner of what were supposedly interconnection and network level protocols. In short the whole ITU/ISO process became a joke ... and was one reason that the Internet succeeded and ISO based networking became redundant.
And the UN wants to give thse bozos a seat at the TCP/IP table?
You gotta love their gall. :)
I suppose my point is that ICANN is the best of a whole heap of bad alternatives (unless we revert to IANA/IETF network administration) ... and the real problem is making ICANN work as well as its predecessors did.
Regards,
Anyway. Technically, the ccTLDs could create a "super-root" and just pass all gTLD requests to the existing root servers. There is no requirement for DNS servers to point to the DoC root. And while TLD collisions are possible, ICANN has already shown a willingness to collide and kill an opposing registry (the old .biz).
There's no reason aside from money that a super-root couldn't happen, and if it was supported by the major ISPs, it would almost certainly fly.
Bottom line: The ITU's previous record with regard to standards administration and standards setting really sucked.
Take the X400 e-mail standard for example. What standard, I ask.
I mean they espoused a group of incompatible e-mail standards that were housed under the same X400 banner ... and the main criteria for accepting all these incompatible standards seemed to be how much in licensing fees their various members (IBM, Honeywell, etc etc) were prepared to pay for X400 ISO accreditation ... to have their 'standard' included under the banner.
And the subsequent interconnecting all these x400 'standard' systems involved expensive Gateways, hubs and hardware oriented solutions (naturally also sold by the ITU members who operated under the x400 banner) simply to make one x400 systems 'talk to' another.
Imagine is the same fiasco had operated with SMTP, and POP, or IMAP or whatever.
And X400 was not an isolated ITU occurrence. The same standards confusion also occured with X500 directory services, and all manner of what were supposedly interconnection and network level protocols. In short the whole ITU/ISO process became a joke ... and was one reason that the Internet succeeded and ISO based networking became redundant.
And the UN wants to give thse bozos a seat at the TCP/IP table?
You gotta love their gall. :)
I suppose my point is that ICANN is the best of a whole heap of bad alternatives (unless we revert to IANA/IETF network administration) ... and the real problem is making ICANN work as well as its predecessors did.
Regards,
For more info, read here: http://disini.i.ph/blogs/disini/?item=how-the-u-s-can-address-internet-governance-concerns
For more info, read here: http://disini.i.ph/blogs/disini/?item=how-the-u-s-can-address-internet-governance-concerns
The good news is that after any big breakup it will not be too difficult to restore communications between the domains, largely because linguistic differences will prevent excessive redundancy from developing. I doubt the anti-science, anti-technology Bush admnistration has any remaining competent science advisors who can point out to them the competing internets are possible.
Eventually other nations will 'rally' around the unsavory aspects of the internationals if Bush, et al, put American 'sensitivities' ahead of commonsense.
- History meets technology
- by Razzl October 4, 2005 9:21 AM PDT
- I've said it over and over again in response to these articles about ICANN, but it doesn't sink in because the CNET audience seems to have little academic training in history: the nation-state is the fundamental building block of the world political order. Nation-states control bordered areas because they represent various kinds of fundamental racial/ethnic/religious/linguistic boundaries, and will not tolerate outsiders controlling fundamental assets. The internet has become a fundamental utility for communication and, as such, nation-states cannot tolerate it being in the hands of an outside player. Because, as Declan points out, it is technically possible to form competing internets with only minor investments in technology, it seems only a matter of time before nation-states which value control over communication (such as Cuba or North Korea)will form their own top-level domains.
- Reply to this comment
-
-
- .xxx was the last straw for me; U.S. needs oversight
- by October 4, 2005 10:04 AM PDT
- If Bush wants to use the internet as a soapbox then the U.S. is going to lose control over the internet.
-
-
Showing 1 of 3 pages (122 Comments)The good news is that after any big breakup it will not be too difficult to restore communications between the domains, largely because linguistic differences will prevent excessive redundancy from developing. I doubt the anti-science, anti-technology Bush admnistration has any remaining competent science advisors who can point out to them the competing internets are possible.
Eventually other nations will 'rally' around the unsavory aspects of the internationals if Bush, et al, put American 'sensitivities' ahead of commonsense.