Who should control the net?

[Brother John]

Guess I just don't understand....

what does it mean to "Control" it
and
why should it NEED to be "controlled"????


thanks



Your Brother
John

 

[Jonathan Randall]

I'd suggest Kaith, but he's already spending 25 hours/day online as it is.

The thing is, someone has to manage the domain names. Would should do it--the U.N.? This system isn't broke. It sounds fair to internationalize it, but I don't see how yet.

Of course, if we give it to the Saudis, maybe they'll chop the hands off of spammers...

That's where I'm at. Who replaces the U.S.? A consortium led by various nations with a rotating chairmanship? So Libya and Uzbekistan get their turn after France, Japan and the UK? I would not wish to see a system like that!

The other point is, while it has grown to be international in scope, it is an American innovation, paid for largely by U.S. taxpayers (Arpanet) and I wouldn't like to see us so quickly give away all control over a system upon which our national security depends.

There has to be some sort of equitable system here. I personally wouldn't mind inviting nations such as the UK, Canada, Japan, etc. onto the team. I WOULD have problems putting nations with huge internal human right's violations in charge. The US is far from perfect, but we don't round up dissenters and shoot them.

 

[arnisador]

what does it mean to "Control" it

It's all about the names and numbers! As far as I can tell, the whole issue is about how to decide that www.martialtalk.com equates to 214.239.36.72, and deciding that the U.S. is .us but South Africa is .za. Is there more to it than that, anyone?

 

[arnisador]

That's where I'm at. Who replaces the U.S.? A consortium led by various nations with a rotating chairmanship? So Libya and Uzbekistan get their turn after France, Japan and the UK? I would not wish to see a system like that!

Yes, that's the question--how would such a body be organized? Would it be elected? Nominated? Rotating? No system sounds good to me.

The U.S. developed the basic Internet. (I think the web originated via CERN, in France and Switzerland.) It's no surprise that the infrastructure for it comes from here. I'd be willing to share...but not if the U.N. is the model.

 

[Cthulhu]

Leave ICANN alone. I think there are too many potential ways for things to get royally screwed up if ICANN's 'control' is passed to another country or to the U.N. It may not be perfect for some, but their system isn't 'broke', so why **** with it?

Cthulhu
self-censored

 

[arnisador]

Meanwhile...here's something from the Dutch:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051125/wr_nm/internet_domains_nodotcom_dc

A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words.

Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a Web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent.
"The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I've seen similar before. Alternic does something like that as well.

 

[Makalakumu]

I get little chills whenever anyone starts talking about controlling the net. It's the only frontier on the planet where a human can do what they wish. Would controlling the net entail controlling "who" gets IP addresses?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

of course. But that already happens. I use 3 nocs, at 2 I get all I want, at the 3rd, I'm given BS about them not being available, etc etc.

 

[arnisador]

Control of the Net, as they describe this matter, brings with it surprisingly many decisions to be made:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051128/ap_on_hi_te/single_letter_domains

Although Internet domain names may be getting longer or more complex as Web sites creatively squeeze into the crowded ".com" address space, most single-letter names like "a.com" and "b.com" remain unused. That may soon change as the Internet's key oversight agency considers lifting restrictions on the simplest of names.

[...]

(There are no immediate plans to release two-letter combos that have been reserved under some suffixes — they were set aside not for technical reasons but to avoid confusion with two-letter country-code suffixes such as ".fr" for France.)

Who wouldn't want to be a.com--the web's first site?

 

[JAMJTX]

"Seems most of the world says it should be international, but the US says it's not sharing."

We invented it and all the technology that supports it, paid for it and built it. It is ours.