Posted on 11/21/2005 1:51:33 PM PST by RWR8189
SOME 12,000 people convened last week in Tunisia for a United Nations conference about the Internet. Many delegates want an end to the U.S. Commerce Department's control over the assignment of Web site addresses (for example, http://www.washington-%20post.com/ ) and e-mail accounts (for example, johndoe@aol.com). The delegates' argument is that unilateral U.S. control over these domain names reflects no more than the historical accident of the Internet's origins. Why should the United States continue to control the registration of French and Chinese Internet addresses? It doesn't control the registration of French and Chinese cars, whatever Henry Ford's historic role in democratizing travel was.
The reformers' argument is attractive in theory and dangerous in practice. In an ideal world, unilateralism should be avoided. But in an imperfect world, unilateral solutions that run efficiently can be better than multilateral ones that don't. It may be theoretically undesirable that the United States provides most of the security in global shipping lanes, but in practice this allows commerce to get done. Scrapping the U.S. Navy in favor of a naval police led by the United Nations would be unlikely to help anyone.
The same is true of the Internet. The job of assigning domain names offers huge opportunities for abuse. Whoever controls this function can decide to keep certain types of individuals or organizations offline (dissidents or opposition political groups, for example). Or it can allow them on in exchange for large fees. The striking feature of U.S. oversight of the Internet is that such abuses have not occurred. Any organization that wants to register a domain name can do so, provided that the name hasn't already been claimed. Opportunistic cyber-squatting has been brought under control. The cost of registering a Web address has fallen.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yeah, it's just a "historical accident" that the internet wasn't invented in Albania.
Start your own networks if you don't like our, ya bUNch of weenies!
"historical accident"???
Catchy. Have they used it with drug patents yet?
United States of America country code = 1, the same as for dialing long distance. Why is America #1? Because we invented the telephone, and the concept of telephone country codes.
LOL!! Or Tunisia!
Other countries have their own phone systems, they can build their own computer network as well. In fact, this would be a simple solution. Telephone systems from other countries are designed to interface with each other, it would be easy to get other networks to interface with each other, especially since TCP/IP is the de facto communications protocol. A simple prefix and a quick change to the US DNS servers would allow you to add a country code in your web address. Using a different country code and the DNS servers would know which network to send you over to.
From ICANN to UcaNt? Ted Kennedy Chance!
90% of the internet is in North America. If other countries want to control their own internets, they are welcome to. It's nice to be able to access overseas addresses, but it's not nearly as important to us as it is to them.
We need to hang on to what we've got. If they want to join, fine. If not, let them start their own internets. It would be a modest loss for us, but not as great a loss as having a bunch of tin pot dictators with no accountability running everything.
We all know that the UN could run this better. They're good at this kind of stuff.
The American MSM would dance in the streets.
"We need to hang on to what we've got. If they want to join, fine. If not, let them start their own internets. It would be a modest loss for us, but not as great a loss as having a bunch of tin pot dictators with no accountability running everything."
Hey. If we cut the wires with many foreign entities THEN THE SPAM WILL GO DOWN OVERNIGHT.
This might be a good thing.
I have a spam filter (SpamPal) that has an attachment which, among other things, allows you to cut out all emails from selected foreign countries. I find it very useful. I have contacts in odd places like Korea and Taiwan, which I therefore have to leave open, but it still allows me to eliminate a fair amount of junkmail.
""historical accident"??? Catchy. Have they used it with drug patents yet?"
With China involved, they will.
China has no respect whatsoever for property rights...if it is there, it is there for the taking.
For example, you'd be hard-pressed to get the NY Times to admit that the U.S. Navy serves any useful purpose.
Screw that. If they want to run a global network so badly, let 'em make their own! After the oil-for-food scandal, they've clearly shown they aren't fit to scrub the world's sewers.
And I'll be damned if I'll stand by while they turn the World Wide Web into the Third World Wide Web!
Sarcasm tag missing because it is implied and noted.
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