South Africa Wants Control of .za

fdiaz5583 writes "Recently, the South African government wants to seize control of the .za domain. However, ICANN owns the domains and under the ICANN rules, they will not relinquish control. Mike Lawrie who is global administrator of domain names states: 'If it becomes illegal for me to do the job under South African law and if I am not authorized by ICANN to hand over the administration, the .za domain will have to shut down until the issue is cleared up'." We mentioned this tussle earlier. The .za administrator doesn't like the way the government is going about this; the government, of course, has men with guns, so it's not like he's going to win in the end, it's only a question of how ugly it will get.

Similar to .au recently?

[saihung]

Who should, rightfully, get control of a country's top-level names? I have no doubt that Mr. Lawrie has done a good job, and for years with no pay at that, but he also isn't the one who built the infrastructure. I am not convinced that the government is always the best administrator, but why is looking to an undemocratic, unrepresentative corporation like ICANN any better?

Yeah and...???

[Anonymous Coward]

ICANN better get used to situations like this. Putting up an electronic embargo around a domain name should never be an option for ICANN. What are they going to do next, pull China's TLD because of human rights abuse?

First of, this is a democratically elected government with a formal bill making process, all of which has been followed. It's not ICANN or the readers of /. job to tell another country what formal process to use in administering their TLD. I don't care what RFC exists that dictates this, it means nothing. Honestly, to the people involved in this who are so upset they were not consulted...blah..blah..blah: Get over yourselves.
This sort of political manuvering happens everyday in large corporations. Threatening to cause a blackout if the bill is passed only proves their point. I also have to say, I find it insane currently this has been done by one unpaid party with no formal/legal binding to the country. What if this Mike Lawerence guy was smacked by a bus? Who's his backup? Who knows what he knows?
And so they started their own redelgation process, but the DoC Sun Tzu'd them and came at them with the sun behind their back. Who cares, give it to the Gov't. It's theirs anyhow. They'll figure it out. If they spend 12million (whatever currency) on it, you have something to campaign with when you go for the Chairmens job. That's the way it works.

Stop acting like the dorky network administer who's pissed off his little department LAN has been absorbed by Corp IT, and he's no longer _GOD_.

Alternativly

[barberio]

Okay, lets look at this in another light.

A country passes legislation that it's elected goverment should have control of its internet policy, and not a quasi-goverment 'board' of unelected officials.

Is it right for ICANN to mandate things upon an elected goverment? Is it right for an elected goverment to mandate things on ICANN?

These are issues that need to be adressed, this is just an issue of a goverment wanting to 'control the internet'. South africa do have a bad history of being controled by foreign commities after all.

I also find it mildly offensive that the Slashdot edditors automaticaly assosiate South Africa with Gun Toating Totalitarianism.

The government doesn't quite get it

[alizard]

The remark from their Minister of Communications saying that they believe taking the .ZA domain will increase Internet availability and other remarks in the cnet article demonstrates that the government simply has no clue as to what they're taking, just as the domain admin has said.

I think the admin should leave the country, a government this irrational is likely to blame him when they take over and find either that they've been unplugged from the root or that their attempts to do well meaning but wrong things will have the same effect.

It's up to worldwide DNS users

[isdnip]

DNS is merely a directory that applications consult. There is nothing cast in stone about ICANN's choices, or a government's. Only the users' settings matter. The user selects a server, and the server selects its root server(s). It's a hierarchy of trust up to "."

So if the South African government and ICANN don't agree, then each DNS administrator (at least for the main root nodes that others consider authoritative) around the world, or for that matter each non-root DNS server operator who knows how, can select whichever ".za" TLD server they prefer. The government can run one, and the incumbent can run one. Frankly, it is more important what John Sidgemore thinks, because he runs the largest backbone ISP. ICANN exists because Bernie Ebbers before, and John now, let it. My guess is that ICANN would not advise the server operators to obey a government over itself. Operators within South Africa might have to, but the rest of the world is not subject to that jurisdiction.

Likewise, if users don't like ICANN, they can move to a different DNS for .com, .org, and other TLDs too. The problem is that most end users don't know how to choose anything but what their ISP tells them. And there has been no reason to "fork the root" yet. A few non-ICANN domains exist, but they're not widely accepted yet.

Why not just issue the gov a new top level domain?

[wytcld]

It's not like all the possible extensions are used up. If an island with a few hundred people can have its own TLD, why not let South Africa be associated with two, the current .za for people who don't want to go through a corrupt government monopoly, and something appropriate for those who want to show pride in their government by using a domain it controls?

That said, if this dispute can be used to help destroy ICANN, that should be encouraged.
___

Staying On topic

[Char Lander]

Just to inform all those misinformed people. South Africa is predominatly encompassed by people of the white pigment not black. But if you insist on calling someone black a "nigger" you can take your comments to www.kkk.com or some place that deals with derogitory, spiteful comments. I have always believed slashdot to be openminded and I still believe it to be. So before you go off ranting about "nigger control" and other racists remarks dealing with a government and country that is mostly white, do a little research so you don't look uneducated. I do not accept racists and I would like to believe that most of the slashdot community does not accept them either.

Now for the topic at hand. I would like to believe that if a country has a direct relation to a domain name that they would be in control of it. Similar to .uk. However, I believe some legislation needs to be done in the ICANN in order to keep things under control so one government does not get bent-out-of-shape because they lack control of what is thought to be, in essence but not in actuality, theirs.

The internet is supposed to be a free community and strong arm tactics from anyside should not be tolerated.

What do other people think?

Re:Similar to postal codes, world wide?

[Steve Franklin]

This all smacks of the way shortwave frequencies are allocated. Lots of rules that most countries think they can ignore whenever it suits them. The internet is certainly as international a phenomenon as shortwave radio and should be administered internationally, not by local governments who think their concerns trump those of everybody else.

Re:Common Sense...

[ftobin]

It has nothing to do with "grasping how the domain system works", it makes no sense that the US can dictate and control the DNS for another country if that other country does not wish to have to US control that.

Actually it does, as I'll point out below

Like another poster said "This would be like the US administering the allocation of radio frequencies of another country" Retarded.

Your analogy is entirely flawed. Radio frequencies are a common, natural resource, shared by all. The frequencies were not created by anyone, and therefore we would all have to share.

On the other hand, the ICANN namespace is something it created out of thin air. A better analogy would be if Amazon.com came up with a section on its website for books authored by South Africans. Should the South African government be given control of that portion of the website? I think not.

Re:NO, not common sense, but History, laws and own

[ftobin]

The internet is owned by humanity. The namespace for a country should belong to that country for without that country why have the namespace?

First of all, control of the 'internet' has zero to do with control of namespaces. Let's say, for example, that all of a sudden, my domain, 'neverending.org' became suddenly popular, and everyone wanted a third-level domain under it. So, to help the situation, I divy up the namespace into country-codes, so there is us.neverending.org, ca.neverending.org, za.neverending.org, and so on. Now why in the world should I be forced to let the South African government control za.neverending.org?

ICANN owns/runs very top level namespace. It created it. Why should it be told what to do by a foreign government? Artificial namespaces, such as the domain namespaces, aren't owned by humanity, they are owned by whoever created them.

Lets get a few things straight

[bushboy]

Firstly, The .za debate is still ongoing, there's a lot that will happen still and hopefully common sense will prevail.

Secondly, I'm frankly not amazed at the kind of total troll bait that's filled up this topic, but what I am shocked about is some white South Africans attitude toward thier country.

The whole attitude of 'everything has gone to shit in the last 10 years'

Well, leave the country then - we don't need your negativity or short-sightedness.

Fact: everything was shit for 80% of the population for 100 years !

Fact: our new government now has to build an infrastructure to support 40 million people as opposed to 3 million 'privileged' whites and you expect it to happen overnight ?

Fact: There was no 'bloody revolution' and as a white South African, you have your patient fellow black South Africans to thank for that - give that some thought.

Yes, we have wide-scale corruption, crime, rape and numerous other problems - we have to fix that somehow. Name me a country without similar problems !

Yes, government is messing up badly on many issues, but heck, at least most people have a fighting chance to succeed these days.

Get over the fact that your a white South African and become just 'a South African' and for gods sake, help make the country work instead of publically degrading it at every opportunity !

We, as South Africa, are, like it not, a roll model for the rest of Africa - if we mess up badly, Africa stays in the dark ages for another 50 years.

As a white South African remember one thing, your living in AFRICA - wake up, this is not 'the colonies' anymore.

HIV - AIDS

[Sanity]

1. What do you expect of a country where the Prez does not believe HIV causes AIDS?

I think that, even if he is wrong, that he is brave to stand-up to the powerful corporate interests that are trying to milk AIDS victims for every penny then can muster before they fall to this disease, whatever its cause. There is a well-researched body of opinion that questions the causal link between HIV and AIDS. I don't know whether they are right or not, but I do know that we should value those who question established wisdom, whether they be right or wrong. If the theory that HIV causes AIDS is true, then it should easily withstand any scrutiny or dissent.

There are those who say that because AIDS is so dangerous it is irresponsible for people to raise doubts around it, but I would argue that it is essential for people to question such things precisely because it is so dangerous.

A good source of information on the opinion that HIV does not necessarily cause AIDS can be found here [aliveandwell.org].

control is not the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps I am too cynical, but since when to governments (politicians) give a hoot about this sort of stuff.

My experience tells me this is what Governments (South Africa in this case) do when they want us (voters) to look the other way while they do some real work (take another snoot-full from the trough).

Just have a small think about you own respective governments "big issues" of the day the last time there was an election (assuming you still get one)