From http://www.thelmagazine.com/3/22/Op%20Ed/feature1.cfm
Which brings us back to October 2004 and GW’s idea of the Internets. Because, were the EU and friends, unwilling to accept the status quo, to go off and build their own network, with their own administrator, and their own DNS, the Internets is pretty much what we’d get. Two separate networks, not speaking to each other — a crippling blow aimed right at the point of it all.
To be perfectly honest, it’s not a particularly likely scenario. There’s too much at stake; the medium has become too fundamental to simply be cleaved in half. As with Solomon, sooner or later someone will probably blink. Then again, this sort of thing has happened before — most recently with the U.S.-controlled Global Positioning Satellite. While GPS was used worldwide, the US always maintained the right to control the system for its own purposes during a global conflict. Unhappy with this arrangement, Europe launched its own GPS system — Galileo. And, it’s worth noting, already a group called the Open Root Server Network is installing root servers across Europe.
In any case, it’s likely to remain a hell of a thorny issue. Convinced of ICANN’s eternal American-ness, the rest of the world has suggested vesting authority for the DNS with a UN agency like the International Telecommunication Union. This sounds fine until you remember that this same agency once rejected the notion of the Internet, arguing instead for an easier-to-control system favoring state-run telecom monopolies. There’s also the concern that for some of the countries most loudly demanding control (China and Iran, for example), the issue is less about getting the Internet out from under the United States’ thumb than keeping their citizenry under theirs.
And then there’s this argument, which Esther Dyson, founding chair of ICANN, put forth in an email posted online this October, that one of ICANN’s most useful traits is its very illegitimacy. The organization’s authority comes basically from two sources: its contract with Commerce and the general agreement among domain-name registries to, in the absence of any other authority, follow ICANN’s rules. Such a tenuous grip on power, Dyson suggests, makes for an open, responsive, accountable organization. Formally ceding control of DNS to an official UN body would have essentially the opposite effect.
From:http://www.savageideas.com/articles.asp?id=4&show=detail
In behind-the-scenes conferences, some countries called for the establishment of alternative Internets if US officials did not agree to let a new international body take over the governance of the Internet. The start-up of secondary systems would be catastrophic to the core value of the Internet: Letting individuals connect to other individuals whenever and (almost) wherever they want.Now, I am a big believer in to the victor goes the spoils but--even granting the fact that the US has paid the bill for much of the growth of the Internet--I think we had better be careful how we approach this latest proposal.Governance of the Internet should be a multi-national responsibility. However, that responsibility should be taken care of with minimal bureaucracy. Should the UN take over ICANN? Absolutely not. Should a new, multi-national, best-practice-based organization be formed to govern the future of the Internet? You bet.For better or worse, the US must realize that the Internet belongs to the entire world; and the entire world should have a say in how it is managed. Only when all individuals have the freedom to access a free-flowing Internet will its true potential be unleashed. Please set ICANN free; I think she's ready to face the big, bad world.
Have you considered the possibility of "the Internets"? Not to be alarmist, but that is one outcome that critics are forecasting after the Bush administration changed its stance on one issue of Internet governance this week.
In a new enunciation of its policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce indicated that it wanted to retain control over changes to a simple text document called the root zone file. This file is the essence of the Internet addressing system, holding the master pointers for translating numbers into actual Web locations.
When the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is completely separated from the Commerce Department in September 2006, it is supposed to take the responsibility for administering this addressing system with it.
But the statement Thursday from President George W. Bush's administration says that the United States will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
Today, no single entity has control over the 13 name servers that resolve the addresses in the master root zone file. But only three of these servers are maintained outside the United States.
While the smooth working of the Internet may be in everyone's interest, the administration's language has put a scare in some parts of the international community.
Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet, which has become a vital link in commerce and communications around the world since it grew out of U.S. Defense Department research in the 1960s and 1970s.
And that's where the idea of multiple Internets comes in. If the United States uses its power over the root zone file arbitrarily, or denies requests for changes made by other countries, they theoretically could just start up their own domain name system, or DNS.
A single addressing system, developed over time and with consensus, is what makes the Internet so efficient, global and powerful. With multiple Internets, addresses would no longer be predictably reachable.
Patrik Faltstrom, a Swedish liaison for the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, said the U.S. announcement was "certainly negative for a lot of countries."
"It's not going to work in the long run to have the USA deciding everything by themselves," Faltstrom told The Associated Press. "It's clearly not good if one country can say no" to DNS changes made in Sweden, for example, he added. "No country should be able to say no to that."
While the United States has yet to deny such requests, "the mere possibility of being able to do so is pretty serious," Faltstrom said.
The Bush administration's statement comes two weeks before an international working group is to issue its final report on Internet governance, although U.S. government officials said the timing was not related.
The report, which is to be delivered on July 16, is part of a two-year-long global debate organized by the United Nations on policy issues of the digital age, like who should control the Internet. The conference, called the World Summit on the Information Society, concludes in Tunisia in November.
Before that meeting, countries like Brazil, India, Syria and China have proposed that a new global Internet governance body take over from Icann.
Last month, the European Union called for "a new cooperation model" and "international consensus" on Internet governance, without specifying the role of governments, the private sector or Icann.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, "will continue to support market-based approaches and private-sector leadership in Internet development broadly," according to the principles published Thursday.
Because of the breadth of topics that could be considered part of Internet governance - like spam e-mail, privacy issues and fraud - "there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety," the statement said.
"The single driving force behind these principles is the security and the stability of the Internet," said David Gross, the U.S. State Department official in charge of international communications policy.
"Part of that is saying to the world that we will continue to do certain things that we have already been doing."
PARIS Have you considered the possibility of "the Internets"? Not to be alarmist, but that is one outcome that critics are forecasting after the Bush administration changed its stance on one issue of Internet governance this week.
In a new enunciation of its policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce indicated that it wanted to retain control over changes to a simple text document called the root zone file. This file is the essence of the Internet addressing system, holding the master pointers for translating numbers into actual Web locations.
When the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is completely separated from the Commerce Department in September 2006, it is supposed to take the responsibility for administering this addressing system with it.
But the statement Thursday from President George W. Bush's administration says that the United States will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
Today, no single entity has control over the 13 name servers that resolve the addresses in the master root zone file. But only three of these servers are maintained outside the United States.
While the smooth working of the Internet may be in everyone's interest, the administration's language has put a scare in some parts of the international community.
Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet, which has become a vital link in commerce and communications around the world since it grew out of U.S. Defense Department research in the 1960s and 1970s.
And that's where the idea of multiple Internets comes in. If the United States uses its power over the root zone file arbitrarily, or denies requests for changes made by other countries, they theoretically could just start up their own domain name system, or DNS.
A single addressing system, developed over time and with consensus, is what makes the Internet so efficient, global and powerful. With multiple Internets, addresses would no longer be predictably reachable.
Patrik Faltstrom, a Swedish liaison for the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, said the U.S. announcement was "certainly negative for a lot of countries."
"It's not going to work in the long run to have the USA deciding everything by themselves," Faltstrom told The Associated Press. "It's clearly not good if one country can say no" to DNS changes made in Sweden, for example, he added. "No country should be able to say no to that."
While the United States has yet to deny such requests, "the mere possibility of being able to do so is pretty serious," Faltstrom said.
The Bush administration's statement comes two weeks before an international working group is to issue its final report on Internet governance, although U.S. government officials said the timing was not related.
The report, which is to be delivered on July 16, is part of a two-year-long global debate organized by the United Nations on policy issues of the digital age, like who should control the Internet. The conference, called the World Summit on the Information Society, concludes in Tunisia in November.
Before that meeting, countries like Brazil, India, Syria and China have proposed that a new global Internet governance body take over from Icann.
Last month, the European Union called for "a new cooperation model" and "international consensus" on Internet governance, without specifying the role of governments, the private sector or Icann.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, "will continue to support market-based approaches and private-sector leadership in Internet development broadly," according to the principles published Thursday.
Because of the breadth of topics that could be considered part of Internet governance - like spam e-mail, privacy issues and fraud - "there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety," the statement said.
"The single driving force behind these principles is the security and the stability of the Internet," said David Gross, the U.S. State Department official in charge of international communications policy.
"Part of that is saying to the world that we will continue to do certain things that we have already been doing."
From: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/01/business/ptend02.php
PARIS Have you considered the possibility of "the Internets"? Not to be alarmist, but that is one outcome that critics are forecasting after the Bush administration changed its stance on one issue of Internet governance this week.
In a new enunciation of its policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce indicated that it wanted to retain control over changes to a simple text document called the root zone file. This file is the essence of the Internet addressing system, holding the master pointers for translating numbers into actual Web locations.
When the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is completely separated from the Commerce Department in September 2006, it is supposed to take the responsibility for administering this addressing system with it.
But the statement Thursday from President George W. Bush's administration says that the United States will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
Today, no single entity has control over the 13 name servers that resolve the addresses in the master root zone file. But only three of these servers are maintained outside the United States.
While the smooth working of the Internet may be in everyone's interest, the administration's language has put a scare in some parts of the international community.
Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet, which has become a vital link in commerce and communications around the world since it grew out of U.S. Defense Department research in the 1960s and 1970s.
And that's where the idea of multiple Internets comes in. If the United States uses its power over the root zone file arbitrarily, or denies requests for changes made by other countries, they theoretically could just start up their own domain name system, or DNS.
A single addressing system, developed over time and with consensus, is what makes the Internet so efficient, global and powerful. With multiple Internets, addresses would no longer be predictably reachable.
Patrik Faltstrom, a Swedish liaison for the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, said the U.S. announcement was "certainly negative for a lot of countries."
"It's not going to work in the long run to have the USA deciding everything by themselves," Faltstrom told The Associated Press. "It's clearly not good if one country can say no" to DNS changes made in Sweden, for example, he added. "No country should be able to say no to that."
While the United States has yet to deny such requests, "the mere possibility of being able to do so is pretty serious," Faltstrom said.
The Bush administration's statement comes two weeks before an international working group is to issue its final report on Internet governance, although U.S. government officials said the timing was not related.
The report, which is to be delivered on July 16, is part of a two-year-long global debate organized by the United Nations on policy issues of the digital age, like who should control the Internet. The conference, called the World Summit on the Information Society, concludes in Tunisia in November.
Before that meeting, countries like Brazil, India, Syria and China have proposed that a new global Internet governance body take over from Icann.
Last month, the European Union called for "a new cooperation model" and "international consensus" on Internet governance, without specifying the role of governments, the private sector or Icann.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, "will continue to support market-based approaches and private-sector leadership in Internet development broadly," according to the principles published Thursday.
Because of the breadth of topics that could be considered part of Internet governance - like spam e-mail, privacy issues and fraud - "there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety," the statement said.
"The single driving force behind these principles is the security and the stability of the Internet," said David Gross, the U.S. State Department official in charge of international communications policy.
"Part of that is saying to the world that we will continue to do certain things that we have already been doing."
Which brings us back to October 2004 and GW’s idea of the Internets. Because, were the EU and friends, unwilling to accept the status quo, to go off and build their own network, with their own administrator, and their own DNS, the Internets is pretty much what we’d get. Two separate networks, not speaking to each other — a crippling blow aimed right at the point of it all.
To be perfectly honest, it’s not a particularly likely scenario. There’s too much at stake; the medium has become too fundamental to simply be cleaved in half. As with Solomon, sooner or later someone will probably blink. Then again, this sort of thing has happened before — most recently with the U.S.-controlled Global Positioning Satellite. While GPS was used worldwide, the US always maintained the right to control the system for its own purposes during a global conflict. Unhappy with this arrangement, Europe launched its own GPS system — Galileo. And, it’s worth noting, already a group called the Open Root Server Network is installing root servers across Europe.
In any case, it’s likely to remain a hell of a thorny issue. Convinced of ICANN’s eternal American-ness, the rest of the world has suggested vesting authority for the DNS with a UN agency like the International Telecommunication Union. This sounds fine until you remember that this same agency once rejected the notion of the Internet, arguing instead for an easier-to-control system favoring state-run telecom monopolies. There’s also the concern that for some of the countries most loudly demanding control (China and Iran, for example), the issue is less about getting the Internet out from under the United States’ thumb than keeping their citizenry under theirs.
And then there’s this argument, which Esther Dyson, founding chair of ICANN, put forth in an email posted online this October, that one of ICANN’s most useful traits is its very illegitimacy. The organization’s authority comes basically from two sources: its contract with Commerce and the general agreement among domain-name registries to, in the absence of any other authority, follow ICANN’s rules. Such a tenuous grip on power, Dyson suggests, makes for an open, responsive, accountable organization. Formally ceding control of DNS to an official UN body would have essentially the opposite effect.
From:http://www.savageideas.com/articles.asp?id=4&show=detail
In behind-the-scenes conferences, some countries called for the establishment of alternative Internets if US officials did not agree to let a new international body take over the governance of the Internet. The start-up of secondary systems would be catastrophic to the core value of the Internet: Letting individuals connect to other individuals whenever and (almost) wherever they want.Now, I am a big believer in to the victor goes the spoils but--even granting the fact that the US has paid the bill for much of the growth of the Internet--I think we had better be careful how we approach this latest proposal.Governance of the Internet should be a multi-national responsibility. However, that responsibility should be taken care of with minimal bureaucracy. Should the UN take over ICANN? Absolutely not. Should a new, multi-national, best-practice-based organization be formed to govern the future of the Internet? You bet.For better or worse, the US must realize that the Internet belongs to the entire world; and the entire world should have a say in how it is managed. Only when all individuals have the freedom to access a free-flowing Internet will its true potential be unleashed. Please set ICANN free; I think she's ready to face the big, bad world.
Have you considered the possibility of "the Internets"? Not to be alarmist, but that is one outcome that critics are forecasting after the Bush administration changed its stance on one issue of Internet governance this week.
In a new enunciation of its policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce indicated that it wanted to retain control over changes to a simple text document called the root zone file. This file is the essence of the Internet addressing system, holding the master pointers for translating numbers into actual Web locations.
When the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is completely separated from the Commerce Department in September 2006, it is supposed to take the responsibility for administering this addressing system with it.
But the statement Thursday from President George W. Bush's administration says that the United States will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
Today, no single entity has control over the 13 name servers that resolve the addresses in the master root zone file. But only three of these servers are maintained outside the United States.
While the smooth working of the Internet may be in everyone's interest, the administration's language has put a scare in some parts of the international community.
Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet, which has become a vital link in commerce and communications around the world since it grew out of U.S. Defense Department research in the 1960s and 1970s.
And that's where the idea of multiple Internets comes in. If the United States uses its power over the root zone file arbitrarily, or denies requests for changes made by other countries, they theoretically could just start up their own domain name system, or DNS.
A single addressing system, developed over time and with consensus, is what makes the Internet so efficient, global and powerful. With multiple Internets, addresses would no longer be predictably reachable.
Patrik Faltstrom, a Swedish liaison for the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, said the U.S. announcement was "certainly negative for a lot of countries."
"It's not going to work in the long run to have the USA deciding everything by themselves," Faltstrom told The Associated Press. "It's clearly not good if one country can say no" to DNS changes made in Sweden, for example, he added. "No country should be able to say no to that."
While the United States has yet to deny such requests, "the mere possibility of being able to do so is pretty serious," Faltstrom said.
The Bush administration's statement comes two weeks before an international working group is to issue its final report on Internet governance, although U.S. government officials said the timing was not related.
The report, which is to be delivered on July 16, is part of a two-year-long global debate organized by the United Nations on policy issues of the digital age, like who should control the Internet. The conference, called the World Summit on the Information Society, concludes in Tunisia in November.
Before that meeting, countries like Brazil, India, Syria and China have proposed that a new global Internet governance body take over from Icann.
Last month, the European Union called for "a new cooperation model" and "international consensus" on Internet governance, without specifying the role of governments, the private sector or Icann.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, "will continue to support market-based approaches and private-sector leadership in Internet development broadly," according to the principles published Thursday.
Because of the breadth of topics that could be considered part of Internet governance - like spam e-mail, privacy issues and fraud - "there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety," the statement said.
"The single driving force behind these principles is the security and the stability of the Internet," said David Gross, the U.S. State Department official in charge of international communications policy.
"Part of that is saying to the world that we will continue to do certain things that we have already been doing."
PARIS Have you considered the possibility of "the Internets"? Not to be alarmist, but that is one outcome that critics are forecasting after the Bush administration changed its stance on one issue of Internet governance this week.
In a new enunciation of its policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce indicated that it wanted to retain control over changes to a simple text document called the root zone file. This file is the essence of the Internet addressing system, holding the master pointers for translating numbers into actual Web locations.
When the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is completely separated from the Commerce Department in September 2006, it is supposed to take the responsibility for administering this addressing system with it.
But the statement Thursday from President George W. Bush's administration says that the United States will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
Today, no single entity has control over the 13 name servers that resolve the addresses in the master root zone file. But only three of these servers are maintained outside the United States.
While the smooth working of the Internet may be in everyone's interest, the administration's language has put a scare in some parts of the international community.
Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet, which has become a vital link in commerce and communications around the world since it grew out of U.S. Defense Department research in the 1960s and 1970s.
And that's where the idea of multiple Internets comes in. If the United States uses its power over the root zone file arbitrarily, or denies requests for changes made by other countries, they theoretically could just start up their own domain name system, or DNS.
A single addressing system, developed over time and with consensus, is what makes the Internet so efficient, global and powerful. With multiple Internets, addresses would no longer be predictably reachable.
Patrik Faltstrom, a Swedish liaison for the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, said the U.S. announcement was "certainly negative for a lot of countries."
"It's not going to work in the long run to have the USA deciding everything by themselves," Faltstrom told The Associated Press. "It's clearly not good if one country can say no" to DNS changes made in Sweden, for example, he added. "No country should be able to say no to that."
While the United States has yet to deny such requests, "the mere possibility of being able to do so is pretty serious," Faltstrom said.
The Bush administration's statement comes two weeks before an international working group is to issue its final report on Internet governance, although U.S. government officials said the timing was not related.
The report, which is to be delivered on July 16, is part of a two-year-long global debate organized by the United Nations on policy issues of the digital age, like who should control the Internet. The conference, called the World Summit on the Information Society, concludes in Tunisia in November.
Before that meeting, countries like Brazil, India, Syria and China have proposed that a new global Internet governance body take over from Icann.
Last month, the European Union called for "a new cooperation model" and "international consensus" on Internet governance, without specifying the role of governments, the private sector or Icann.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, "will continue to support market-based approaches and private-sector leadership in Internet development broadly," according to the principles published Thursday.
Because of the breadth of topics that could be considered part of Internet governance - like spam e-mail, privacy issues and fraud - "there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety," the statement said.
"The single driving force behind these principles is the security and the stability of the Internet," said David Gross, the U.S. State Department official in charge of international communications policy.
"Part of that is saying to the world that we will continue to do certain things that we have already been doing."
From: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/01/business/ptend02.php
PARIS Have you considered the possibility of "the Internets"? Not to be alarmist, but that is one outcome that critics are forecasting after the Bush administration changed its stance on one issue of Internet governance this week.
In a new enunciation of its policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce indicated that it wanted to retain control over changes to a simple text document called the root zone file. This file is the essence of the Internet addressing system, holding the master pointers for translating numbers into actual Web locations.
When the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is completely separated from the Commerce Department in September 2006, it is supposed to take the responsibility for administering this addressing system with it.
But the statement Thursday from President George W. Bush's administration says that the United States will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
Today, no single entity has control over the 13 name servers that resolve the addresses in the master root zone file. But only three of these servers are maintained outside the United States.
While the smooth working of the Internet may be in everyone's interest, the administration's language has put a scare in some parts of the international community.
Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet, which has become a vital link in commerce and communications around the world since it grew out of U.S. Defense Department research in the 1960s and 1970s.
And that's where the idea of multiple Internets comes in. If the United States uses its power over the root zone file arbitrarily, or denies requests for changes made by other countries, they theoretically could just start up their own domain name system, or DNS.
A single addressing system, developed over time and with consensus, is what makes the Internet so efficient, global and powerful. With multiple Internets, addresses would no longer be predictably reachable.
Patrik Faltstrom, a Swedish liaison for the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, said the U.S. announcement was "certainly negative for a lot of countries."
"It's not going to work in the long run to have the USA deciding everything by themselves," Faltstrom told The Associated Press. "It's clearly not good if one country can say no" to DNS changes made in Sweden, for example, he added. "No country should be able to say no to that."
While the United States has yet to deny such requests, "the mere possibility of being able to do so is pretty serious," Faltstrom said.
The Bush administration's statement comes two weeks before an international working group is to issue its final report on Internet governance, although U.S. government officials said the timing was not related.
The report, which is to be delivered on July 16, is part of a two-year-long global debate organized by the United Nations on policy issues of the digital age, like who should control the Internet. The conference, called the World Summit on the Information Society, concludes in Tunisia in November.
Before that meeting, countries like Brazil, India, Syria and China have proposed that a new global Internet governance body take over from Icann.
Last month, the European Union called for "a new cooperation model" and "international consensus" on Internet governance, without specifying the role of governments, the private sector or Icann.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, "will continue to support market-based approaches and private-sector leadership in Internet development broadly," according to the principles published Thursday.
Because of the breadth of topics that could be considered part of Internet governance - like spam e-mail, privacy issues and fraud - "there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety," the statement said.
"The single driving force behind these principles is the security and the stability of the Internet," said David Gross, the U.S. State Department official in charge of international communications policy.
"Part of that is saying to the world that we will continue to do certain things that we have already been doing."
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