UN Plan for Internet Control Tiptoes Forward

Intellectual Conservative ^ | 21 April 2004 | Cheryl Chumley

[kcar]

Arapanet rocks. Especially in the 21st century. Who knew?

I give. Eyes too seriously glazed - think I'll be craving for donuts tomorrow a.m. when I wake for work.

[JRandomFreeper]

Just disconeect from their pathways and create new ones.

That's what the internet is/does every second. And it uses any available pathway. There is no 'their pathway' or 'our pathway' there is only 'the pathway'. I know that sounds sorta zen, but it's basic engineering. Someone will want, and implement, comms that meet his/her/it's needs. It becomes a gateway.

I did a quick check, and my path to FR uses a node in San Fran. If San Fran slides off into the Pacific in the next 5 minutes, the data will automatically reroute to some other pathway that is available. It may be slower, but it will reroute according to the agreement on how to communicate that is the internet.

/john

[Bogey78O]

Yea but it uses the same general network structure. If someone started setting up their own DNS and their own server then connected it to another server and so on and so own from my point of view you'd have a new internet. It seems to me like the backbone is simply servers and nodes strung out nationwide.

Perhaps my idea of the architecture is vastly different from what it actually is.

[TheLion]

I'm wondering how long it is going to take us to get rid of this useless organization. They can't control much of anything, much less the internet.

[Gideon7]

Relax, the UN is not going to "govern" the Internet.

As a practical matter nobody "governs" the Internet. Well ok, there was a window of opportunity back in the late 1980s when it was possible that AOL, MSN or some other gigantic service provider might have bought out everyone else and become the de-facto monopolist on internetworking. But thankfully it never happened.

The UN lost its chance to run the Internet in the late 1980s, when the Europe and the UN via the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) tried to replace the Internet TCP/IP communicaton protocol standards with something called OSI. Basically it was an attempt by the world PTT (Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone) monopolies to wrest control of the Internet out of the hands of the US government. The PTT monopolies are especially strong in the 3rd world countries and they dominate the ITU, which sets world telephone standards.

The ITU is a big reason why phone calls to 3rd world countries are so ridiculously expensive. The bureaucracy of the ITU is Kafka-esque: The OSI documents for TP4/X25 are written in uncomprehensible legalese and you must pay through the nose just to peek at them. (This was one reason why OSI failed - TCP/IP was evangelized through the wide distribution of the source code of BSD Unix; OSI/TP4/X25 had no equivalent.)

If the EU/ITU/UN had taken over the Internet 15-20 years ago with OSI/TP4/X25, today instead of paying $24.95/month for your megabit DSL you would be paying ten times that amount for your X25/ISDN connection at 64 kbps.

But this is all on the dustbin of history. The war is over and decentralization has won. The modern Internet is a concatenation of millions of independent networks that all agree to talk to each other voluntarily (the word "Internet" comes from the term "inter-network"). World connectivity happens through an untold number of independent bi-lateral contractual agreements between peering ISPs.

The only centralization on the Internet is at the root DNS nameservers. These suffer ICANN only by the grace of their respective independent owners. (The largest owner of root nameservers being the US Department of Commerce.) There is nothing to prevent them from bolting and setting up their a new root DNS, or from anyone else using an alternate root DNS.

The transnational progressives and lefty social engineers can chit-chat all they want at their UN workshops about how they want to govern the Internet. But as a practical matter it is a waste of hot air.

[Jeff Chandler]

UN members want access to medical records. They want to know what’s being taught in the schools, from elementary grades through college. They want to keep abreast of all scientific advancements. They want to know what’s being mailed, what’s being exhibited in museums and what’s being discussed in town hall meetings.

Who do they think they are, the NSA?

[Dr. Marten]

There they go again. Trying to control yet another innovation in technology that would not even exist for their conveniences if it were not for the United States.

Pack sand Commies!

[Nip]

You may be on to something here.

Last summer there was a tech meeting in California where a whole new system was proposed.

We are currently running under Internet Protocol V4 (IPv4). At this meeting it was proposed to jump to IPv6. The biggest difference is IPv6 is, if I remember correctly, a 128-bit system. It will be able to read the legacy IPv4 but I doubt IPv4 (a 56-bit system) will be able to read IPv6.

If there are any tech types out there please correct my faulty reporting as I am a computer user not a computer wizard..

[JRandomFreeper]

. If someone started setting up their own DNS and their own server then connected it to another server and so on and so own from my point of view you'd have a new internet. It seems to me like the backbone is simply servers and nodes strung out nationwide.

Correct.... That is an intranet. A private network. Most companies have them, some are quite large.

The problem arises when there is a connection from the intranet to the internet (or extranet, as they say in swenglish). Suddenly, the private network, generally isn't. Certainly, you can keep some data inside the intranet, but it's very difficult to keep data out of the intranet.

For a while, I thought VPNs would change the structure of the internet, but they merely proved to be intranet extensions, except where they have been hacked and are being used illegally as gateways....

/john

[softengine]

Agreed. But I cannot help but feel that eventually some form of control will evolve from their persistance.

[excalibur1701]

If any of this will help the Spam issues, then I'm all for it.

[Maria S]

"Control over content would be the coup d'etat, and certain death to sites like FreeRepublic."


Bingo! This is precisely what "Hillary's Private War" by Richard Poe is ALL about...

Drudge, FreeRepublic (and Mr. Jim)...it's all in there, along with some fascinating info I'd never read about Andrew Sullivan and others. Hillary Clinton recognized, several years ago, how important the internet is...and she did NOT like it!!

P.S. Miz Clinton does not seem to be a very nice person! LOL!

[Tailgunner Joe]

bttt

[bigdcaldavis]

When the UN gains control of the internet, you can look forward to these unholy policies :

- hate speech and politically incorrect speech will be illegal, and those using such speech will be brought before the ICC and have their internet licenses PERMANENTLY REVOKED (banned from the internet for life)

- internet access will be taxed; an annual internet license fee (similar to the BBC's annual TV license fee) will be required for MERE OWNERSHIP of any internet-capable machine (including internet-capable cellphones, WebTV, and any internet-capable video game console); any citizen who fails to pay the fee will have their equipment confiscated and they will be brought before the ICC and permanently disqualified from having an internet license

- talking about religion will be strictly forbidden; violators will be brought before the ICC and have their internet licenses PERMANENTLY REVOKED (banned from the internet for life)

- anybody who uses the internet to criticize then UN will have their internet licenses PERMANENTLY REVOKED (banned from the internet for life)

Likewise, all citizens with internet licenses will be subject to random inspections (without notice) of their internet-capable equipment to make sure that they have no pirated music, pirated software, infringing software (so say goodbye to Linux and MacOS as the UN declares Windows the only legal computer operating system), and anything deemed hate speech. Possession of such items on the computer will result in confiscation of equipment and...you guessed it, PERMANENT REVOCATION of the internet license.