[paudio]

OK. I need to be educated here. What kind of control does ICANN have? And why don't those countries make their own internet system?

[varyouga]

ICANN assigns addresses to every server and ISP online. Like when you type freerepublic.com, ICANN's server finds the actual IP address of the FR server and connects you there.

There are several ICANN servers that hold every address and route all internet traffic. These are the brain of the internet and they could theoretically block access to any site or block entire countries/ISPs from using the internet. Being ultimately under US control frightens some countries.

If they don't like it, they should make their own internets and lay their own cables.

[varyouga]

P.S.- If counties make their own internets, the system won't be as global as it is now. Most users will still use the old internet since a good deal of content is US based. Perhaps there should be some internet treaties to stop future "militarization" of the net. But I'll be damned before the bureaucratic a**hats at the UN get control.

[Surtur]

paudio wrote: OK. I need to be educated here. What kind of control does ICANN have? And why don't those countries make their own internet system?

Basically, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the private sector, non-profit corporation created in 1998 to assume responsibility for assigning domains on the internet. In other words, they control the access to websites. When you see an URL (uniform resource locator), like http://www.freerepublic.com, ICANN's server computers converts that to a number, freerepublic's numerical designation is 209.157.64.200, which is then looked up in the servers database and then connects your computer the the domain with that numerical address. This is done through assigning a 32 bit numerical code in the sequence 255.255.255.255 where each 4 digit part of that numerical sequence represents a part of that address. the 255 number actually gives 256 possible bits because in computer counting, you start at 0 instead of 1. So, a that 32 bit code can give a total of 256^4 (that's 256 raised to the 4th power) addresses for a total of 4,294,967,296 possible domains. That sounds like a lot, but the U.S. government has reserved about half of those domains for U.S. Gov and mil usage. So, the rest of the world only has about 2.1 billion possible domains available. ICANN and Internet2 is looking to address the problem by creating an addressing scheme that uses 64 bit addressing which will give 256^8 domains or a total 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 possible domains (I think thats called 18 quintillion) which should do for a few years. That is probably clear as mud, but I hope it helps.