Re: U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Peter [mailto:ian.peter () ianpeter com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 8:50 AM
To: dave () farber net; ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: RE: [IP] U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?

Dave, I'm here in Rio and, yes, the idea in the newspaper heading is some
peoples understanding of reality - somehow the myth goes that US Govt
controls ICANN, and ICANN controls the web. 

Of course neither is true, but as Bob Frankston points out "there's a
natural tendency to take a hierarchical view of the world and
assume someone must be in charge"

It's hard to educate about this myth - perhaps harder because of the benign,
historic powers of the USG as regards root zone authorization. (the old IANA
functions) Somehow the myth that this is an important power is shared
equally among the US bureaucracy (regarded as some sort of sovereign right
to secure the nation) and those leading the charge to change it (just about
everyone else). But then ever since its beginning, people have imagined
ICANN to have all sorts of powers that it doesn't have. 

ICANN will have arrived and assumed its right position when it is thoroughly
boring, IMHO. In fact, if the root zone authorization function disappeared,
nothing at all would change - except we could all begin to discuss something
else more pressing as regards internet governance evolution.



Ian Peter
Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd
PO Box 10670 Adelaide St  Brisbane 4000
Australia
Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773
www.ianpeter.com
www.internetmark2.org
www.nethistory.info
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] 
Sent: 13 November 2007 07:15
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?



-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Frankston [mailto:bob37-2 () bobf frankston com] 
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 10:30 AM
To: dave () farber net; ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: RE: [IP] U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?

What does it mean to "control the Web"? As I've argued many times the
existence of ICANN encourages people to see the Internet as another
television network. It may be necessary to keep a rickety prototype going a
little longer but it would help for ICANN be more explicit in discouraging
the view that it "runs the Internet". More to the point it can help remind
people that end-to-end means not depending on the DNS nor IPv6.
. Too bad ICANN seems to revel in the role
rather than working to minimize it. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] 
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 23:39
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?



-----Original Message-----
From: dewayne-net [mailto:dewayne-net () warpspeed com] On Behalf Of Dewayne
Hendricks
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 11:06 AM
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?

Posted on Sun, Nov. 11, 2007

U.N. forum: Should U.S. give up Web control?
Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: November 09, 2007 06:57:34 PM

<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/v-print/story/21179.html>

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When hundreds of technology experts from  
around the world gather here this week to hammer out the future of the  
Internet, the hottest issue won't be spam, phishing or any of the  
other phenomena that bedevil users everywhere.

Instead, ending U.S. control over what's become a global network will  
be at the top of the agenda for many of the more than 2,000  
participants expected at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum,  
which begins Monday.

With the Internet now dominating nearly aspect of modern life,  
continued U.S. control of the medium has become a sensitive topic  
worldwide. In nations that try to control what people can see and  
hear, the Internet often is the only source of uncensored news and  
opinion.

U.S. officials say that keeping Internet functions under their control  
has protected that free flow of information and kept the Internet  
growing reliably.

Yet to many foreign government officials and technology gurus, the  
United States has too much control over a tool that's used by more  
than 1.4 billion people worldwide. Brazil, China and other countries  
have proposed transferring oversight to an international body.

"The Internet has become an everyday instrument of particular  
importance for the entire world, yet it's still under the control of  
one country," said Rogerio Santanna, Brazil's secretary of logistics  
and information technology. "No one country should be able to make  
decisions that will affect Internet users everywhere."

Others worry, however, that transferring the administration of the  
Internet to the United Nations or another international body would  
make it vulnerable to censorship, especially by powerful countries  
such as China.

The most dramatic example of Internet censorship happened recently in  
Myanmar, when the ruling military junta cut Internet connections to  
stop dissident blogs and other sites that had distributed information  
about government repression in the wake of September's crushed pro- 
democracy protests.

China is routinely criticized for its Internet censorship policies and  
its use of information gleaned from Internet providers to crack down  
on dissidents.

Even Brazil has inspired Internet privacy debates by demanding that  
U.S. technology giant Google hand over information about users who're  
suspected of posting child pornography and other offensive material on  
its social-networking site Orkut.

"Our concern is that countries that have been the most vocal advocate  
of changing control of the Internet are not countries that support an  
open Internet," said Leslie Harris, the president of the Center for  
Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit U.S. open-Internet advocacy group.

"It's hard to believe that turning over the Internet to a body subject  
to negotiations between China's version of the Internet and North  
Korea's version of the Internet will result in an Internet that's more  
open and free."

[snip]

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