US, EU set for showdown over control of the Internet

[Archbio]

The U.S. isn't really doing much in the way of internet censorship yet, and I doubt they really will.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGRSER4141.DTL

It's a growing effort. If they fail at censoring more, it would be because of a lack of means and ability, not for a lack of desire to do so. As for 'the people who get censored deserve it', well, of course the 'diabolical' is the epicenter, but it seems to me that the category of targetted content is being broadened.

[Funka Genocide]

The issue seems to be a controlling body for the disposition of internet resources, namely addresses as most of the physical resources seem soundly located within the confines of the US. With the advent of IPv6 it seems that the bottleneck of suffixes suffered by slower developing nations would be eradicated. So it seems to me that the only reason for an international body to govern the internet in any capacity would be to give everyone a warm fuzzy feeling in their tummies.

Much like the UN! yay!

The whole ordeal would seem to be a pointless political exercise with very little to no actual affect on the internet as we know it today. I find the tone of the first article cited, the UK one, to be almost comical in its grandiose claims.

As for censorship, that is always a sticky issue. After reading the article posted by Arch I have to say that the censorship efforts of the us currently appear as nothing more than a dog and pony show to appeal to overly conservative voters. Its more for the appearance than the actual effect. Americans love porn, and there is very little to be done about that. :P

[Gorefiend]

Originally Posted by shiney

There are already more IP addresses Gorefiend. IPv6 has seen to that, and it is integrated with www as well.

I am aware of that. Yet the articles continue to mention that as one of the possible reasons, along with the suffix list, that the UN wants control. I still think the biggest issue is the idea of real censorship. If I ever log on to the internet with a password, and try to access a website only to see the words "You need a Level 5 clearence to view this webpage" or anything like that (such as, more realistically, find that all curse words are censored, or that those cases on firing people over blogs get going on the full again) I would feel like the entire purpose of the internet has been defeated.

[DarthZeth]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

EDIT: What the hell is the ARPA?

"Advanced Research Projects Agency". It was the US DoD agency that made ARPANET, the first iteration of the internet. When ARPANET hooked up with... erm.. NSFNET(?), that could more accurately be considered the first internet.

We paid for that stuff.

You're welcome.

ETA:

Originally Posted by Gorefiend

...I still think the biggest issue is the idea of real censorship. If I ever log on to the internet with a password, and try to access a website only to see the words "You need a Level 5 clearence to view this webpage" or anything like that (such as, more realistically, find that all curse words are censored, or that those cases on firing people over blogs get going on the full again) I would feel like the entire purpose of the internet has been defeated.

uhm, do you know what the root servers ARE? They are possible the most removed from actual content as you can possible get on the internet.

When a DNS server doesn't know the IP of a hostname, it asks a root server for a TLD machine's address. That is to say, if I ask for www.nuklearpower.com and the DNS server doesn’t have any records, it asks a root server. The root server refers my DNS server to a .com TLD DNS server, which will tell my DNS server that fuitadnet.com holds the authoritative record. fuitadnet.com will then tell me DNS server that ns12.zoneedit.com is where nuklearpower.com's DNS records are held. ns12.zoneedit.com will tell my DNS server that nuklearpower.com resolves to the IP address of 67.15.146.131. Then my DNS server passes this information on to me.

This is what the root servers do. They ONLY way they could censor shit is if they refuse to resolve certain TLDs, such as the .xxx domain as Brazil wanted to limit. But the content could be put on ANY TLD.

In terms of TLDs (that’s “Top Level Domain” by the way), I believe most TLD servers for common TLDs (.com, .net, .org, etc) are us run by ICANN. However, most countries have their own TLDs which are managed by them and recognized by the root servers.

And hell, if a root server decided to ignore a particular TLD, you could still run your TLD DNS server. It’s just that anyone who wanted to see your sites would have to tell their DNS server to query your TLD computer rather then the root servers when looking for hostnames within yoru domain. While this SOUNDS onerous, it would not be hard for an ISP to change their DNS settings to do this. After all, root server IPs are manually input in to the system anyhow.


Where censorship or authorization would happen is on your local ISP’s DNS machine, or on the host machine that is actually serving up the website. Or, outside of the DNS structure, a proxy or firewall such as the one my high school had could attempt to censor websites. These local machines would be subject to local law anyway you slice it. So if the US decides that all ISPs MUST have a block list, control of root servers would not affect that. Root server control CANT affect that. And TLD control can’t even affect that unless TLD servers stop recognizing certain registrars as valid authoritative sources (ie: remove their status as a registrar for that domain). That way they could limit domain registration to registrars only with in the country, and therefore under its control.

However, that fear is 100% unfounded, seeing as over the past decade, control of registrars has RELAXED, not tightened. It used to be that you could only register domain names at one place. Now you can register domains anywhere! Like fuitadnet.com.

Censorship is necessarily a local thing, and what the EU asked for won’t stop it.

[Lockeownzj00]

It's not that--it's more bushes division of members to eliminate--yes, eliminate--porn on the internet. That's not censorship "oh we're covering this up." That's, "we're taking sites down."

[DarthZeth]

And that has nothing to do with the EU's request. That has to do with local jurisdiction over servers that are physically in the US. UN or EU control over root servers and DNS structures won’t change that.

Unless, of course, the EU wants control over the root servers to help protect porn! I don't recall seeing that as one of their reasons, though, as noble a cause as that is.

[Gorefiend]

Woah. Thanks DarthZeth. I'd rep you if I could.

Well, when you put it like that, wht could be the possible benefit of owning these servers? It really seems like a game of Calvinball or "I own the Sun," except you can't add anything to it. (since I doubt the root servers themselves are actually added to much) The EU just wants the title of "Owner of the Internet" to not rest in the hands of the US. Even though it's a rather empty title, since there isn't any power with it, and no prestige I can think of either. (How many people even cared who owned the root servers before this thread?) It seems all the EU wants to accomplish by this is take away one of the titles the US has. And when you look at it like that, it is nothing more or less than childish.

And looking at it this way, that Guardian article is ever more childish.

[Dragonsbane]

Originally Posted by DarthZeth

Hold on a second now. People all over the world have contributed plenty to the internet, both in terms of content and technology. The internet wouldn't be what it is today with out the whole damn world.

However, it is at its core, a US developed, US paid for, US run system. And quite frankly, we did it VERY WELL. After all, everyone else started using it!

When it stops working, ok, maybe the UN can step in and attempt to correct it, if you believe an organization puts an ignoramus in charge of keeping its own building standing is capable of managing the system that runs the information economy.

In the end, its not about fairness or ownership. In the end, it is about who will keep the system running, and running well. We've done it well. If it ain't broke, don't fuck with it. The UN wants to fuck with it.

For the sake of a power play, no less. Whenever these situations come up, I am forcibly reminded of Gulliver during his stay in Lilliput. For those of you unfamiliar with Gulliver's Travels, I will try and explain. Lilliput was a land in which everybody was exceptionally small...a few inches or so in height. Then, Gulliver, a normal-sized man comes along and swiftly becomes a hero for the deeds he can do with his great size. However, the government of Lilliput begins to feel uncomfortable with having such a huge, powerful man around, and plot to kill him. Gulliver leaves when he finds out.

Though the E.U. doesn't want to kill the United States, they are trying to prove a point, by taking the so far effective administering of the internet away from the United States and giving it to the U.N., which wants to do various things that could be better solved through other means (IPs) or things that are unacceptable, such as Censorship. Other than that, it's entirely childishness.

[Gorefiend]

Yeah. Especially when one has already been done (IPs) and one cannot be done through the root servers, (censorship) which is all they'de be able to control.

[DarthZeth]

Theoretically, I guess, we could change how DNS works. But if we did that, it would result in something like this:



There is really no technically feasible way to change how DNS works, though. DNS was implemented because a single computer or group of computers was unable to maintain a static list of all domain names and IPs on the internet. With all the traffic Domain Name resolution requires, you NEED an adaptive, decentralized system. The Centralized system of yesteryear was overloaded decades ago.

The only other real power would be the power to intentionally break the internet. IE: we could say "AHA! .uk doesn’t work anymore! neener neener!" and use that for some sort of ransom or some crap. But that would be retarded, and we'd gain nothing. It also wouldn't WORK because ISPs would just tell their DNS servers to remember the .uk server, like I said earlier.