ICANN Troubles At UN Summit On Internet

Internet Ninja writes "The UN/ITU-organized World Summit on the Information Society currently happening in Geneva, and in attendance is Paul Twomey from ICANN, who has been ejected from a preparatory meeting, along with all other non-governmental observers. Obviously Twomey wasn't happy about that, saying: 'At ICANN, anybody can attend meetings, appeal decisions or go to ombudsmen. And here I am outside a UN meeting room where diplomats, most of whom know little about the technical aspects, are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet. I am not amused.'" We've previously reported on this meeting, which may help decide governance of the Internet, albeit in the longer-term.

Here's how to deal with the United Nations

[Anonymous Coward]

If they make a decision you don't like, you ignore it.

department...

[herrvinny]

from the kofi-and-elmo-presiding dept.

Personally, I'd prefer it if Elmo was presiding. Elmo makes more sense than all the diplomats put together.

Re:Stupid White Men

[McAddress]

better test. if they use windows, they fail.

The devil in the details

[Entrope]

Each of the world's five continents would have one elected representative on the committee, elected by the countries from the continent they represent.

Okay, I can understand leaving out Antarctica, but who gets to break the news to Australia that their continent has been demoted and made subservient to Asia?

Hello ICANN!

[illumin8]

Pot... Kettle.... "Black!"

We've said screw you before...

[jdhutchins]

We need to pull another Iraq on the UN.
UN: "Hand over control of the internet to us (the un), and take it away from icann."
Bush (or whoever's president at the time) needs to say "Screw you. No."

We've done it before, no reason why we can't do it again. I'll bet that almost every ./er know more about how the internet is run and works than all the dipomats combined.

Re:Can't blame them...

[pegr]

I don't remember where I read it, but MIT actually has more IP's than the whole of China...

That's nothing... I own my own class A! Anything in the 10's is mine...

Re:Hello ICANN!

[McAddress]

ahem. we use OOP.

Pot.insult.Kettle("Black")

Re:The devil in the details

[Cosmik]

Oh well. Us Australians will just form our own governing body with Antartica. Then the Australians will light 20 million BBQs in an effort to melt the Antartic ice-caps and flood your silly little internet club away. Or maybe we'll be classified as subservient to the USA (as part of North America), as our Prime Minister seems to want.

Re:Typical...

[maleficus]

someone that at least represents the people that they are going to 'govern'?? So send some middle school nerd with acne.

Re:Can't blame them...

[Chunky Kibbles]

OK... You can have 10.0.0.0/8

I claim 127.0.0.0/8. If I ever feel the urge to talk to myself, I'm always listening right there.

Gary (-;

Re:Who is there?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're expecting some dictator in Gabon to die, and all his friends and family are there to make sure they'll be able get their CONFIDENTIAL emails out.

This Just in

[eadint]

Darl Mcbride Sayes that He owns the UN and now plans to charge for the internet.

Re:Who is there?

[switcha]

8. Iran 79
9. Nigeria 69
10. Gabon 66

You know those Nigerians are only there to find some people to help them move a substantial amount of money out of the country...

Re:The devil in the details

[kelv]

Not to worry. Based on how things are going at the moment we (Australia) will just tack ourselves onto America and New Zealand will declare itself part of Europe.

This seems to be how politics is running down here at the moment.

20 Years from now...

[prozac79]

we'll all be talking about this old network called "The Internet". We'll talk about how cool it was before the UN and an bunch of delegates came in and screwed it up. Historians will look back and trace why exactly the Internet fell. It will look something like this:
2005: Having survived the bad press, the RIAA and the MPAA split off into their own countries, gained admission to the UN, and outlawed the use of any digital music or video across a network.
2007: The world, angry at the U.S.A. for their 3rd war with Iraq, put sanctions on the U.S.'s use of the world wide web.
2008: After a year of web sanctions, the U.S. launches a military campaign on Malaysia since they had the most votes for the U.S. sanctions. This brings the number of current U.S. military campaigns to 10.
2010: The countries of RIA and MPA (remember, they dropped that last "A" back in 2005) successfully defeat the U.S. whose military was spread really thin due to their most recent war with England.
2012: The RIA, now the most powerful member of the U.N., indefinitely bans all world-wide Internet use since they are still complaining that artists are not getting paid for their work.
2014: The Open Source community, fresh off a victory against SCO, start building their own network called "Linet". It goes live with 30 million users connecting to it within the first 24 hours.
2015: "Linet" achieves self-awareness and launches an attack against the humans... the end.

Mod parent Funny!

[JonMartin]

Good one.

Re:Here's how to deal with the United Nations

[Anonymous Coward]

If they make a decision you don't like, you ignore it.

Why not? It worked for Bush....

Umm.. yeah. That's what the parents point was. Thanks for adding nothing to the conversation.

Re:The devil in the details

[alien_blueprint]

We've actually put the entire continent into stealth mode, hoping that terrorists, US-style IP law lobbyists, RIAA, MPAA, SCO, etc will simply forget about us and just leave us alone!

Please *stop* talking about us, you're breaking our cover!!

Re:Hello ICANN!

[kgutwin]

ahem. we use OOP.

Pot.insult.Kettle("Black")

Clearly a limited understanding of OOP.

Pot.insults.callBlack(Kettle)

Where callBlack() looks like this:

def callBlack(self, target):
return callName(self, target, "Black")

Much better.

Re:The devil in the details

[zem_11]

Pff! As if Australia could ever be part of Asia. We're gunning to be the 52nd state of the US - that means domestic flights to Hawaii!! Woohoo Continents? Why not countries? Ok, so do you think an Israeli representative will ever get elected to the committee? Its all about power and censorship. Bye-bye free speech...

Re:screw foreigners

[Arcturax]

Well, it's already been shown that one can do TCP/IP over bongo drums. [slashdot.org]

Re:Typical...

[dark404]

The thought of the UN trying to 'govern' the internet gives me the shivers. The delegates obviously do not understand the internet is not a single 'thing', it isn't something they can control. Can you imagine the UN trying to enforce its 'powers' over U.S. based ISPs? And you know they would try just to justify the UN's slipping significance. Can you imagine a conglomerate of government departments/staff from a multitude of countries, with DMV-style attitudes, sub-par technical skills, and differing political agendas establishing policies over the internet? We'd probably end up having to submit hard copy HTTP requests in triplicate, plus a $15 processing fee, 2-4 weeks in advance, to visit /. *gets out the tinfoil hat*

My solution!

[TheDarkener]

Just give Microsoft control. They'll know what to do!

...And Al Gore.

Re:UN Lacks Authority to Regulate UN

[pair-a-noyd]

Actually, I thought my Tin Foil Hat would cloak me from the Black Helicopter dissident scanners..

Ahhh the UN....

[Anonymous Coward]

The same UN that has Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Togo, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam on its Commission on Human Rights.

Re:Typical...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, so we all have to vote Bush again, just so we can tell the UN to get bent when they try to screw over the Internet?

Re:Stupid White Men

[NiceGeek]

In his case that would be brain damage.

But NRA is religious and race neutral...

[Pac]

In principle they support the killing of anyone, anywhere, by anyone else.

Re:We've said screw you before...

[superman53142]

The internet was created by the US, in the US.

Yeah! I always knew Al Gore was good for something!