U.S. control of Internet rankles developing nations

AP ^ | December 10, 2003 | Anick Jesdanun

[fqued]

I wrote: Seriously, the only real problem with the internet is that it is essentially un-policed. You can say, do, post what you want with very little government oversight.

You replied: Well, I think that's the best thing about it. Free expression, free speech. Just like we're doing now.

I was being tongue-in-cheek. Maybe I should have put "problem" in quotation marks. It isn't a problem--at least not for us non-totalitarian types

[general_re]

And hindering terrorism is now A) exclusive to the "right-wing", and; B) a bad thing?

Well, hell - I sure hope that the left tries to make that argument in the next year or so. I can't think of any tactic more likely to swing voters to the conservative side than that....

[VeniVidiVici]

Though China does employ censorship to a great degree, it is nothing compared to the fact that even access to the internet is tightly controlled.

Let China develop their own internet. Doesn't seem like much of a threat to me.

[general_re]

I understand what you're saying, and there's some logic to some of it - yes, it would be nice if the Chinese could have Chinese domain-names, for example. But as far as that's concerned, there's already a proposal on the table to do exactly that - RFC 3490, IIRC, but don't quote me on that. And this notion that too many IP addresses were snapped up by the US is also a non-starter - IPv6 fixes the problems with IPv4's limited address-space, and is already being implemented aroud the world. So the only two concrete examples of what's "wrong" with the Internet as it's currently being administered are essentially non-issues, insofar as transferring responsibility to some mythical international organization is not going to speed up adoption of the fixes - if anything, it'll just delay them further.

And I think we really ought to realize that the success, national and international, of the internet over the last decade in particular is due to the fact that the United States government has been pretty laissez-faire about the whole thing. But international organizations of the type being proposed here are rarely so hands-off - put "international" in the name of some multilateral organization, and the ride to micromanaging every single aspect of every single thing that's even remotely related to what they're supposed to be doing is well underway. You'll wind up with a bizarre combination of the UN human-rights commission sort of organization, where the direction of the organization is largely dependent on which countries can twist and/or bribe the most arms, and a UNESCO sort of organization, where the member-representatives consist of the retarded relatives of third-world dictators, who use the organization as yet another dumping ground to keep said retarded relatives in cushy positions where they presumably can't make too much trouble for their own home countries. It's a complex non-solution to a trivial non-problem, in effect.

[E Rocc]

You realise you just said that it's ok for right-wing America to censor the net but not left-wing anybody else.

The point is that UN control over the internet would allow the UN to pull domain names or block access based upon the whims of UN bureaucrats from authoritarian and totalitarian nations, potentially even affecting the flow of information in the US.

And I'm certainly not convinced that Brazil and India are lefties - although I accept they might well be.

Brazil recently elected a grossly leftist President and India is culturally very authoritarian and relative-heirarchy conscious.

-Eric

[FierceDraka]

Well, the Turd World can go invent their own wood-fired version of the Internet, and compete.

LOL LOL LOL! Wood-fired version of the Internet... Priceless!

I was thinking along those lines, myself.

And the whole bit about having us foot the bill to upgrade their systems. Personally, every time those Turd World slobs start crying for handouts, I want to give them nothing but the whip, the sword, and the boot.

Service,

[dvwjr]

The 'third' world and their UN proponents are not the least bit interested in the technical issues of the Internet, ie the IP4 (vs IP6) address issues, and the Chinese whine about domain names. Both of these technical issues are being dealt with by the Internet mechanisms called RFCs, which I am sure you are familiar with...

It is a matter of money and control, as always. Placed under the "guidance" of the UN, issues that concern "speach" offensive to the "sensibilities" of certain governments or religious orgainization will appear on the agenda of said UN body. Then the matter of the 'digitial divide', meaning that the 'rich' West needs to subsidise the poor 'third' world's analog/digital telecom infrastructure so that everyone is on an 'equal' footing. Finally, such a world-wide 'resource' needs to be taxed to be properly administered by said UN body...

Always follow the money and control. The third world has been working with the UN (and its constituent organizations) since its post WWII founding, and most of those nations still have a problem with providing their citizens with clean water, handling sewerage, providing some sort of access to very basic health care, much less being able to create, install and administer their own modern telecom infrastructure.

Crawl before you can walk...


dvwjr

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..how you coming on Applebaum, I'm reading that too...

Hello mate,

she's made me focus on the way Western comsymps can suppress or rewrite what happens in totalitarian dictatorships. So the first thing I did was, some Googled research, on how and where the same kind of oppression is happening now. And the most relevant example I'm reading about is Vietnam, where the Marxists are collectivising the Montagnards and imprisoning and torturing Christians and Buddhists. At the same time, naive Western tourists prop up the regime with hard currency while waxing lyrical about the beauty of the thousand islands, or whatever. While John Kerry prevented the Vietnam Human Rights Act from passing, the secret police were crucifying (literally) Christian pastors and pack raping their daughters. Australia gives A$72 million a year to this brutal regime. It's a damned disgrace and it's going to be one of my main activism projects for 2004, exposing it on talk radio and the rest. I'm on to a new (related) book now, In God's Underground by Richard Wurmbrand, which is a great companion read to Gulag. Hoping you and yours have a wonderful Christmas, all the best, Byron

[Byron_the_Aussie]

Hey Tet, I just had a thought, after posting the preceding: I wonder if Applebaum might be the much-missed poster 'Anochka', who always used to be so insightful on matters related to the USSR?

[truthandjustice1]

Wasn't DARPA the first internet?

[LadyDoc]

You realise you just said that it's ok for right-wing America to censor the net but not left-wing anybody else.

If we are at war, yes I think that we are justified at stopping the internet going to any country, in the same way we would block oil and arms shipments.

Right now we are at war with terrorism, and we are (pretending) that certain "friendly" governments like Syria and Saudi arabia don't support these terrorists that are attacking us. So it is similar to the cold war... but if (say) we get nuked by North Korea (a possibility) or Iran (I doubt the immans are that dumb) yes, I think we should be able to cut off their telephones/telegraphs/ and internet connections with other countries...