Who controls the internet

[Chopstik]

An interesting article... Thoughts?

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051...eil-cukier/who-will-control-the-internet.html

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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
- Winston Churchill

 

[Sympology]

It should be run by the UN, but lets face it, when has the Bush goverment given a damm what the rest of the world thinks.

Stu..

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[Mike2287]

The UN couldn't manage there way out of a wet paper bag. What makes you think they could manage the internet?

 

[Sympology]

They've done it rather well with Telecoms and the ITU.

The problem is that the system is completly biased to the US, policy and control is still maintained by the Goverment.
If this isn't sorted, we may see a segregated Web. Is it unreasonable to think that the likes of the EU and China (who are already doing it) will set up their own versions of the web?

Stu..

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[tfg13]

Depending upon who or what business you are attempting to drum up with a web site, will depend on whether you will go with the idea of your own version of the web. I know that there are many businesses in China that "need" outside access. If China were to have their own version of the web, they would "need" to have it compatible with what is already existing.

As Mike2287 states, the UN, with all of it's political rambling, would have a difficult time managing something as complex as the internet. Would you suggest that an organization that is already stretched thin from all of it's "duties" take on another losing battle?

I'm not for the US government handling the internet, however, until a viable solution is stood up, and it's theory and direction finalized, I wouldn't recommend that the internet management go anywhere.

 

[Mike2287]

I don't think theres any real good solution but having each contry manage there own would turn into a nightmare.

Stu
Comparing Telcom's and the ITU to the Internet is like comparing apples to oranges.

 

[MasterRacker]

The UN is the most corrupt organization in the history or history.

I don't know that governments are the right answer but maybe commercial entities aren't the answer either. Something needs to be worked out to keep it free and open so the most people can make the most money off of it.

_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]

 

[kHz]

The UN is not only incompetent but its CEO is corrupt. Face the facts, the United State of America is the only country that keeps the UN afloat. If not for our money the UN would have ceased to exist long ago. The only venture the UN has ever engaged in, significantly, is the Korean war. But then again, the USA provided the largest number of personnel and carried the load. About the only help the US ever gets is from the UK and Austaralia.

And while it seems that some forever complain about the USA, if it wasn't for the USA, those same people wouldn't be enjoying their own freedom to complain.

 

[chiph]

IANA and ICANN both have multinational representation, and are already doing a good job. I see no need for a change just because of some countries wanting a power grab.

Heck, it's managed through the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an organization about as non-political as you can get.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Corporation_for_Assigned_Names_and_Numbers

In addition, the 13 root name servers are already geographically dispersed, with most of the distributed name servers existing outside the USA (so much for US dominance of the internet!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nameserver

Chip H.


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If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[dkediger]

Well, since Al Gore invented it....
[small]I keed, I keed...[/small]

You have to discount using China as being "disgruntled" because the US "is in charge." They're disgrunteled because they're NOT in charge. They would be that way whether it was the EU, the UN, the Martians, whoever...

 

[LadySlinger]

Actually I did a report on this last fall. If I can find the two articles (they both have opposite points of views) I'll post them.

Basically ICANN is non-biased. It is funded through Washington (Dept of Commerce), but the US doesn't hold a politcal leeway on ICANN's decisions. ICANN is fully representative of non-Americans, English, Egyptian, Brazilian, Chinese, etc. So there is some non-American voices speaking up in their meetings.

Long story short, my opinion was formed to keep ICANN as it is. One article stated that its feared that the leaders in ICANN would be replaced by some other countries Prince's Nephew who just decided they wanted to learn computers or something more policatical than what it is now.

 

[MasterRacker]

I'd love to see the Martians get involved. Thre are already plenty of websites that are in Klingon.

If you really want to minimize censorship lets get some backbone class routers and a root nameserver in orbit. Hard to block those. Martians would be a perfect choice to administer those...

More seriously, there are enough very large corporations that have enough of their economic well-being dependent on the Internet that it's in their best interest to keep it working themselves if necessary. It think that facotr provide a solid counterbalance to political concerns and I'm not too worried about it all crashing down any time soon.

_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]

 

[ecobb]

Just give it all to Microsoft...


Hope This Helps!

ECAR
ECAR Technologies

http://www.ecartech.com

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher

 

[flapeyre]

Well, since Al Gore invented it....

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented spellcheck.

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[gbaughma]

Well, call me biased, but here's a few thoughts.

First of all, The "Internet" is a U.S. invention.

Second of all, the 'Net is the ultimate "peer to peer". I run my own web server. I'll be dipped if I'm going to let someone tell me what I can do with my own computer, in my own home. (No, I'm not running a porn site... lol... just e-mail, recipes, and network monitoring softare for some hotels who's wifi I manage).

However, since the de-regulation of the domain naming, I think things have gotten a little more confusing. The doling out of domain names and top-level IP addresses should be centralized (as it once was) by a non-profit organization.

My thought? Perhaps putting it back in the hands of the universities... they could house the root servers, get part of the $$ for domain name registration to be used for system maintenance, and the RFC's and research for expanding the net could become a coalition of universities.

Think about it... the Universities would need to be non-biased... but it would give them incredible opportunity for management, growth, and learning, as well as a little kick in the budget for managing the root servers....



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

 

[Sympology]

First of all, The "Internet" is a U.S. invention."

And without Joseph Jaquard (French),Charles Babbage (uk)& Tim Berners-Lee's (uk) the internet wouldn't even have a hope of existing, so let not even go there.

I do like the idea of returning it to the Uni's, as they are the ones who really develop it and push it foward (apart from the porn industry) and they are slightly less biased than others.
Let face it, there is no such thing as an independant oufit, if it receives the bulk of it's funding from a single source. It's like the tabacco industry funding an "unbiased" report into the effects of smoking, they arte hardly likely to say, yep your killing everyone, now please give us some more money.
However if funding is spread across multiple revenue sources and across multiple locations the it should be a lot more balanced.



Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> And without Joseph Jaquard (French),Charles Babbage (uk)& Tim Berners-Lee's (uk) the internet wouldn't even have a hope of existing, so let not even go there.

I agree that the Internet is not strickly a USA invention, but Jaquard, Babbage, and Berners-Lee? Really?

Joseph Jaquard was indeed French, but he lived in the late 1750's and early 1800's and worked in textile manufacturing. He developed the Jaquard Loom was became the inpiration of the punch card, which initially developed by Herman Hollerith for census purposes in 1890.

Charles Babbage was indeed a pioneer of the computer industry, and we still honor his Difference Engine, originally built around 1820.

Tim Berners-Lee is the father of the World Wide Web, but not the Internet. The Internet had been in operation for at least 20 years before the development of the World Wide Web.

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[thatrenowned]

"First of all, The "Internet" is a U.S. invention."

And without Joseph Jaquard (French),Charles Babbage (uk)& Tim Berners-Lee's (uk) the internet wouldn't even have a hope of existing, so let not even go there.

I agree that the Internet is not strickly a USA invention, but Jaquard, Babbage, and Berners-Lee? Really?

Lets not forget the Indians who gave us '0'...hehe this could go on for a while!

 

[kHz]

ARPANET is born (1960) : an Internet is conceived

In 1969 the Pentagon commissioned ARPANET for research into networking. The following year, Vinton Cerf and others published their first proposals for protocols that would allow computers to 'talk' to each other. ARPANET began operating Network Control Protocol (NCP), the first host-to-host protocol.

In 1974 Vint Cerf joined Bob Kahn to present their 'Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection' specifying the detailed design of the 'Transmission Control Program' (TCP) - the basis of the modern Internet. In 1978 TCP was split into TCP (now short for Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol).

TCP/IP defined : the foundation of the Internet

In 1982 TCP/IP was established as the protocol for ARPANET. This provided one of the first definitions of an internet as a connected set of networks using TCP/IP, but defining 'the Internet' as all connected TCP/IP internets.The launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik in 1957 threw the American military and scientific establishment into near panic with visions of Soviet weapons in space striking a helpless America. As part of the response, in 1959 the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was formed within the Pentagon to establish an American lead in military science and technology.

By the early 1960s the first theories of computer networking were starting to be shaped and in 1965 ARPA sponsored a study on 'co-operative network of time-sharing computers'.

The first such plan was shaped by Lawrence G. Roberts, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in October 1966. Designs for such a network were put forward the following year and in 1968 the Pentagon sent out requests for proposals for ARPANET - a computer network to unite America's military and scientific establishments.

This Internet Timeline begins in 1962, before the word ‘Internet’ is invented. The world’s 10,000 computers are primitive, although they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have only a few thousand words of magnetic core memory, and programming them is far from easy.

Domestically, data communication over the phone lines is an AT&T monopoly. The ‘Picturephone’ of 1939, shown again at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, is still AT&T’s answer to the future of worldwide communications.

But the four-year old Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense, a future-oriented funder of ‘high-risk, high-gain’ research, lays the groundwork for what becomes the ARPANET and, much later, the Internet.

Yes, the USA DID invent the Internet beginning in the early '60s which evolved into ARPANET in 1969. As part of ARPANET, TCP was developed in the early '70s.

Berners-Lee developed the

http://WWW in

the late '80s - early '90s; almost a decade after the Internet.

 

[Sensibilium]

I'm not sure what all these arguments about who invented what and when is actually achieving.

Ahdkaw

http://www.sensibilium.com/