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The White House on Thursday is expected to unveil its proposal to enhance the nation's cybersecurity, laying out plans to require industry to better protect systems that run critical infrastructure like the electrical grid, financial systems and nuclear power plants. The Obama administration also is insisting that companies tell consumers when their personal information has been compromised. According to cybersecurity experts familiar with the plan, the administration's proposed legislation also would instruct federal agencies to more closely monitor their computer networks. Several House and Senate committees have been working on cybersecurity legislation for the past two years, while waiting for...

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonize global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet. Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil. At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks. The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet. India,...

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...

U.N. WANTS CONTROL OF THE INTERNET Jon Christian Ryter The UN World Summit on the Information Society met for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland on Dec. 10-12, 2003 for what would begin a heated international debate over control of the Internet. The outcome of the meeting was actually scripted before the gavel calling the Summit to order ever tapped the podium. For the past decade the UN has been bombarded by complaints from every totalitarian regime in the world that wanted to place cyberborders along the information superhighway —roadblocks to communications with the free world. The voiceless anger of...

   http://www.news.com/Will the U.N. run the Internet? By Declan McCullagh Story last modified Mon Jul 11 04:00:00 PDT 2005 An international political spat is brewing over whether the United Nations will seize control of the heart of the Internet. U.N. bureaucrats and telecommunications ministers from many less-developed nations claim the U.S. government has undue influence over how things run online. Now they want to be the ones in charge. While the formal proposal from a U.N. working group will be released July 18, it's already clear what it will contain. A preliminary summary of governmental views claims there's a...

11/11/2004 Press ReleasePI/1620 UNITED NATIONS ESTABLISHES WORKING GROUP ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE NEW YORK, 11 November (Working Group on Internet Governance) -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today the establishment of the Working Group on Internet Governance.  The Working Group will prepare the ground for a decision on this issue by the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, to be held in Tunis in November 2005. The Secretary-General was requested to establish a working group on Internet governance by the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society held in Geneva in December 2003.  The task...