UN wants control of Internet

news.com.com ^ | 3/29/2005 | Declan McCullagh

[minus_273]

The International Telecommunication Union is one of the most venerable of bureaucracies. Created in 1865 to facilitate telegraph transmissions, its mandate has expanded to include radio and telephone communications.

The ITU, a United Nations agency, would like to change that. "The whole world is looking for a better solution for Internet governance, unwilling to maintain the current situation," Houlin Zhao, director of the ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, said last year. Zhao, a former government official in China's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, has been in his current job since 1999.

Though Zhao is far too diplomatic to state it directly, the ITU's increasing interest in the Internet could presage a power struggle between ITU, ICANN, and perhaps even the U.S. government, which retains some oversight authority over ICANN and appears content with the current structure.

In a series of speeches over the last year, Zhao has suggested that the ITU could become involved in everything from security and spam to managing how Internet Protocol addresses are assigned. The ITU also is looking into some aspects of voice over Internet Protocol--VoIP--communications, another potential area for expansion.

"Countering spam is just one of many elements of protecting the Internet that include availability during emergencies and supporting public safety and law enforcement officials," Zhao wrote in December. Also, he wrote, the ITU "would take care of other work, such as work on Internet exchange points, Internet interconnection charging regimes, and methods to provide authenticated directories that meet national privacy regimes."

CNET News.com recently spoke with Zhao about the ITU's increased interest in the Internet and its involvement in a series of meetings that will conclude in November with a U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.

[Semper Paratus]

These guys couldn't pour p*ss out of a boot with directions on the back!

LOL. They couldn't find their own ass using 2 hands, a flashlight, and a map!

[GaltMeister]

The UN is an outdated organization. It should be replaced by an Internet forum.

Or maybe an AOL chat room.

[Arkie2]

Has anyone gotten in touch with AlGore to find out his opinion about what they're doing with his invention?

[Calpernia]

>>> So the ChiComs are trying to subvert the Internet and extend their censorship policies through the UN.

That is one of the reasons they tried to buy Global Crossings.

[af_vet_rr]

So the ChiComs are trying to subvert the Internet and extend their censorship policies through the UN.

Several Middle Eastern countries have been behind this as well. They don't care for "western" content.

Zhao does a very good job of spinning the conversation away from any hard questions, or anything that is going to set off obvious alarms. Even his comments on privacy being a politically sensitive issue, he basically said nothing. Typical politician, not revealing what their true intent is, but making you think they did.

I don't have a problem with the way the internet is now (other than speed, but that's a provider issue), you probably don't, as many others here don't.

The people who seem to have the most problems with how the internet is laid out, how various needs are met, etc., seem to all be from countries that don't have free citizens.

[Ex-Dem]

And one that isn't likely to work. Internet users aren't cell phone users who are used to paying a fee for every little thing. They expect everything, short of the ISP flat rate, to be free.

[Calpernia]

Then let those many and the UN go find an island and be happy together.

[Bald Eagle777]

The UN can go pound sand. They can go to Hell, literally and figuratively. Get the U.N. out of CONUS and tell them to get their filthy paws off of our internal processes, including but not limited to, our Internet.

They deserve to lose all their funding from US. Let the UN sink. Without us, they would have no global platform to launch their anti-US and ant-Israel diatribes.

In fact, a good legal team may very well be able to make a very strong water-tight case that the U.N. headquarters enemy military personnel and C3/C3i and "could" legitimately fall under justified Rules Of Engagement should the POTUS issue the order.....

Just a thought....

[rellimpank]

--Hillary would like that too--end that "unedited and uninterpreted" stuff--

[maine-iac7]

These guys couldn't pour p*ss out of a boot with directions on the back!

LOLLOFLHHO

_{(little old lady laying on the floor laughing her hiney off)}

But seriously, this is more than laughable - we find it laughable because it's so ludicrous it's beyond our imagination to think it could happen BUT they have been intent on this for years.

They know if they can control the Internet, that will give them the strongest step, the biggest stick, toward controlling the world, which is their goal.

Now when the UN goes to Judge Greer - we'll know the end is near...

[tang-soo]

The International Telecommunication Union is one of the most venerable of bureaucracies. Created in 1865 ...

How did the unUnited Nations gain control over an agency created some eighty years before it's spawn surfaced?

[concerned about politics]

It's a way to silence dissent.
If the socialists can control communications, they can rule the world. It's an old Roman and Nazi trick.
Democrats in the U.S. once had total control over what people were to know until right wing radio and other forms of freedoms started to pop up and allow us the right to speak.
That's why the left hates the real freedom of speech so much. Their side has always controlled what could be said and what could not, but now that's changing. People now have a choice instead of forced mind control.
Hate speech legislation was their attempt of regaining that elusive thought control their idols once had.

[maine-iac7]

They can have the internet as soon as Hans Blix can find it.

LOL

and then Kojo will be given a new management job

[SouthernBoyupNorth]

Hmmm looks like its time to brush off the hack ware and code breakers to really F*ck up the U.N. I for one don't think RED CHINA has any place at all to regulate the Internet.... nor the USELESS NATIONS. Try to regulate the Internet and see how many old hackers come out of the woodwork to make life miserable....

[maine-iac7]

So the ChiComs are trying to subvert the Internet and extend their censorship policies through the UN.

This is not "news" - They have working towards this for years....we ignore it to our peril

[pierrem15]

And bureaucrats looking for a new empire of funding and control.

[Calpernia]

Bumping that question.

Who's watch did that occur under?

[BJungNan]

If they want to control an Internet, they can build their own.

Good thing Jimmy Carter is not President or he would just hand it over to them.

[Billthedrill]

Yeah...the guy in charge of the most complete and categorical Internet censorship program in the world wants to "govern" it for everybody. Great idea.

Your true fascist simply cannot endure anything that cannot be controlled by central authority. It's a mental disease.

[antiRepublicrat]

Strange, this is one place where Slashdot and FR seem to be in agreement. FReepers hate the UN and Slashdotters hate anyone who wants to get their hands on the Internet