Meet the Man Who Will Save the Internet 369
UltimaGuy writes to tell us The Register is running an interesting piece about Masood Khan, chairman of the sub-committee that is takling many of the difficult questions about internet governance. Mr. Khan has been able to draw enormous respect for many of the participatory nations and seems to have a very direct style of management. From the article: "I would encourage you all not to focus on general themes of internet governance but instead go to the heart of the matter," were Khan's opening words. And then he listed them. "The question of a future mechanism, the question of oversight, and the paradigm of co-operation amongst all stakeholders."
Save or enslave? (Score:5, Insightful)
That the governments of the world have the least knowledge in how to save anything, and the World Government is even worse.
the internet is five days away from total collapse as governments are finally forced into a corner and told to agree on a framework for future Internet governance.
Bull. Shit.
The Internet is not one procedure to distribute information. It is HTML, DNS, BitTorrent, even Real Audio. None of these standards are government regulated, they're free market regulated. The users, en masse, decide what format will succeed. The only change government entices is when a popular company gets sued out of sight (Grokster, etc).
Standards will rise and fall faster than any government can rule on changes. Old standards literally DIE. Old laws come back to be unearthed by future tyrants
there is a very real risk that an enormous political argument resulting in lifelong ill-will centred around the internet could developed unchecked at the WSIS Summit.
Good. Nothing makes me happier than multiple governments grabbing the rulers, dropping their pants, and realizing none have anything to measure.
how the world will deal with issues such as spam and cybercrime.
Let every ISP decide. The competition will allow the creation of new ways to excel.
Masood Khan has turned what could easily have become a bar-room brawl into a gradual formation of agreement.
One politician breathing hot air to others, putting all into a head nodding "we can all control our citizens equally" concert.
Having chaired dozens of meetings as a careful and unthreatening facilitator, Mr Khan saw his chance and went for it.
"We are from the government and we're here to help you."
"The question of a future mechanism, the question of oversight, and the paradigm of co-operation amongst all stakeholders."
"We will share in the control of deviants. The word 'deviant' can be redefined at any member's whim."
If there is a split, it will not make the final agreement. Where there is no agreement, the effort will have to be to convince each other."
Meaning that they will generalize everything in vague definitions easily adjusted to their situation.
Four hours later they came back to the official meetings with nothing. Khan suspended the meeting and told them to go back and do it again.
True of any governing body. They have no clue what to control next, but surely there must be more taxes, regulations and restrictions added to the lawbooks. None to help their crony friends either, I'm sure.
Twice, governments tried to stall the whole approach by asking what official standing the document they were creating would have - an age-old diplomatic trick. Mr Khan brushed it aside: "Just wait."
"Why do you have to probe my ass, officer?"
"Just wait."
It is far from over but when the agreed text on how the internet should be run and by whom appears in front of the World Summit and is approved on Friday, it most certainly won't be perfect
And this is what we need? Imperfection in an international law? I'd rather see imperfection in thousands of ISPs and be able to choose what is least perfect to me.
The U.N. is the worst government in the world, so large that no one is safe, so large that no one has a voice and so large that revolt and rebuilding is impossible.
Save the Internet? (Score:3, Insightful)
For crying out loud (Score:1, Insightful)
C'mon.. (Score:4, Insightful)
just what we need..... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The man who will save the internet"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole internet governance is just an excuse to provide a framework for censorship. Besides that it will also destroy innovation and research.
The current system is not perfect, but it sure is better than whatever they want to achieve.
Save the internet from what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe someone can explain this... (Score:3, Insightful)
How can a "governing body" exist for something that it's currently not in charge of? This is like someone moving into your house, and then starts explaining how you've got everything set up incorrectly.
Re:Save the Internet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because it's been said many times here, it doesn't automatically make this statement correct.
NO WAY (Score:5, Insightful)
Then it moves on to what countries get which websites because y'know China gets ticked off that their people can see that free speech type stuff and the US gets ticked that people can see boobies.
Then it becomes a controlling system...y'know to "protect" us from spam and worms and horrible criminal violations like sharing that intellectual property, but not missiles and weapons type intellectual property (because governments are free to do that...) just stuff like movies and tv shows.
Then you begin restricting what you can be POSTED onto the internet... because we certainly can't have hate speech in cyberspace!
Want a good model? Look at the game ratings sysstem.
The government demanded it (under threat of making one themselves and imposing it by law) while at the same time saying they didn't want to restrict purchases or violate free speech rights. They just wanted to give parents a *choice*.
10 years later and now if you sell an M rated game to a minor you can go to jail.
It's NOT a simple administrative matter.
We need an Internet Bill of Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
The heart of the matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay.
Fascist states are pissed that they don't get to regulate the content on the internet, because it hinders their ability to feed their population piles of political bullshit.
What do I get? Is the problem solved yet?
Seriously. The only correct theme here is the "general" one -- freedom is linked to prosperity.
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:5, Insightful)
He was chosen as chair of Sub-Committee A during the WSIS process, and his remit includes all the most difficult and contentious elements - not just internet governance but also how the world will deal with issues such as spam and cybercrime
How can an organization for whom a majority of their members are cruel tyranical criminals deal with 'crime' much less harmless things like spam.
The ultimate goal is an extra-planetary internet. Impervious to interference, completely free, and unregulatable. What Teledesic was suppose to be.
a better title for the article (Score:3, Insightful)
The UN is not a government. (Score:2, Insightful)
The UN is an international organisation. It was never intended to be a government, it doesn't function as one. It is a (mostly) consensus-based body, because the point is that it is intended to be completely neutral and express the combined will of the countries of the world.
Before you tell me how the UN is pointless, just remember how many millions of people depend every day on the vital work of WHO (eradicated smallpox, takes care of outbreaks of diseases, etc), UNHCR (cares for literally millions of refugees), UNDP (funds vital development projects), WFP (delivers food aid to famine stricken areas), FAO (source of co-operation on agricultural development), UNIDO (shares technical knowledge for industrial development), UNEP (monitors environmental damage and provides expertise for solving environmental problems), UNESCO (funding restoration of cultural sites, making research grants etc). Not to mention all the others like ILO, UNICEF, ICJ, ICC, etc.
All that is what the UN does, and they do it in a way that no one else can. Why? Because they represent neutrality, they represent the authority of the peoples of the world, and by and large they do a damned good job of carrying out their mandate.
And then there's the General Assembly, which of course is a talking shop, but it's better to have a talking shop than none at all--it's a place for opinions to get aired, and a place for the international community to express its opinions.
NONE of this is any kind of 'world government'. It is the governments of the world, getting together to co-operate on solving some of humanity's biggest problems, and trying to work out their differences without having to resort to conflict. And while the headline-grabbing events are when this doesn't work (like with Iraq), the vast majority of the time it is actually very effective--you just don't see it on FOX News.
Now, you can be extremely dogmatic and tell me that anything done by anyone that isn't in the name of private enterprise is doomed to fail. But I challenge you to show how private enterprise would have filled all of the vital functions that the aforementioned UN agencies have filled over the last 50 years. And no, this is not a question of 'If you had waited long enough, the market would have done it'. Any longer wait and more people would have died of smallpox; any longer wait for refugee camps to be built and people die of cholera. And of course, there's not really any profit to be made in these situations anyway. That's when the international community simply says 'Right, let's solve it'. Consensually.
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget taxes. The UN wants the power to tax things so it can pursue income redistribution. Why does the UN want to redistribute income? Because without money flowing through the UN there is nothing to steal.
Re:NO WAY (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words... (Score:2, Insightful)
I really think that of all the things that the UN should be worried about, the internet is close to the bottom of the pile.
Re:C'mon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sigh. As has been pointed out ad-nauseum, this is a non-sequiteur. Should the US control the world's telephone system because AGB invented the telephone? Should us Brits control the world's railways because we invented the railway?
There's no problems with the way everything is set up now
Two words: Network Solutions. I rest my case...
Re:The heart of the matter. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The heart of the matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just a matter of principle. The internet as a whole can't be governed, but the TLDs corresponding to countries can (and I would assert, should) be managed by those respective countries. And as long as the US (or a U.S. corporation) holds all the keys, I'm guessing Europe is worried, in principle, of unilateral action. Seriously, taking the point of view of most of the rest of the world, the US is not exactly the most trustworthy, dependable, ethical state you could be dealing with.
'heart of the matter' my ass (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody wants to have supervision, and nobody wants some comitee deciding who the 'stakeholders' are. What we need is to be certain that no government or corporation will be able to pull stupid shit like killing the xxx TLD or Verisign's hijacking of the root for their little search engine.
Re:The UN is not a government. (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.N. may not be a world government YET but many are pushing it that way. [worldnetdaily.com]
the relevant part : "without explicit authorization for U.N. taxes on currency exchange, fossil fuels and a host of other tax targets. "
And this [heritage.org]
or this [libertymatters.org]
or this [msn.com]
While I detest bush, I detest the "one world" mentality just as much. The U.N. was founded solely as a place where nations could talk about their disagreements, NOT as a world governing body, which they are trying to become.
I have enough problems with the bloated and bureaucratic U.S. government.
I do not want an even larger and more insulated layer deciding what I can and can't do.
Re:C'mon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
England did technically make you, so why can't they govern you?
Re:The previous post is highly deceptive (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely, sir, you jest. "principals of how they will communicate"? What is so hard about "I talk to you, and you talk to me"? There is no place for the UN in how people communicate. Either they do or they don't.
No this is about taxation and control. Right now they are working on the 'precedent' stage. The first move of all politicians and governments is to first set a 'precedent', usually through a policy that can't be 'morally' argued with.
"Children are dying! The Federal government must feed the children!"
Can't argue against that, even though it isn't the Federal government's job to feed the children (it's the parents, then city's, then county's, then state's job, if any). So the federal politicians set a precedent that they must feed the children. This gets extended to they must feed the old, too. Then everybody. Then everybody must eat what the government provides for them, which they do at twice the cost in the form of taxes. And if at any point, a man would say that the theiving politicians should keep their hands off the dinner table, they are labelled as a cruel and heartless bastard.
Well, OK. I'm a cruel and heartless bastard. And as such, I loudly proclaim that the UN should not be allowed to set a precedent. Connect to the Net, or create your own, I don't give a damn. But in no way should the UN have any control over how my computer communicates with another.
Re:The UN is not a government. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, you can be extremely dogmatic and tell me that anything done by anyone that isn't in the name of private enterprise is doomed to fail.
I'm not sure I understand your statement. Is "in the name of private enterprise" synonymous with free enterprise? Because if so, I will be dogmatic and claim that without economic freedom you will never have true liberty, the human being naturally yearns for liberty, and he will eventually fight for it. If you mean "private enterprise" in the sense of The Very Big Corporation of America increasing its earnings projection by eighteen cents, well yeah that's no help when it comes to feeding people with no money or natural resources living under uncaring governments.
But I challenge you to show how private enterprise would have filled all of the vital functions that the aforementioned UN agencies have filled over the last 50 years.
I would claim that private enterprise could have, and could have done a far better job. Not that the UN did a bad job, but the private sector is almost always more efficient and more effective. Almost always. The real problem is that the private sector has no real motivation to invest a ton of money in such an endeavor, and when you hire the work out, you get bloated government contracts that are viewed as "free" money by the private sector, and there's no incentive to be efficient.
And no, this is not a question of 'If you had waited long enough, the market would have done it'.
No, I agree. Markets do not go and liberate people. Democracies do.
Any longer wait and more people would have died of smallpox; any longer wait for refugee camps to be built and people die of cholera. And of course, there's not really any profit to be made in these situations anyway. That's when the international community simply says 'Right, let's solve it'. Consensually.
As it must. I am 100% in favor of free enterprise and capitalism abut there's a problem with free markets: if you don't have any money, the market really isn't concerned with you. That's where governments step in. I don't trust private enterprise to take care of national parks and poverty. I don't trust the government to do it either, but we can vote the government out of power. With the tangled web of corporate cannibalistic ownership, most people have no idea which corporate amalgams they're supporting when they buy any given product.
Re:The UN is not a government. (Score:3, Insightful)
The international community, including the International Court of Justice, works on the principle that most states see it as being in their long term interest to play by the rules (the US does not generally see it this way but they are an exception). It does not work on the basis that there is going to be some big organised force enforcing agreements--as is the case when there is a government. The two are completely different.
Re:The UN is not a government. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh I don't know, the Boy Scouts seem to be doing a pretty good job with the land they own. It may not be open to the public, but it is generally pretty well cared for.
Re:Cant.... Resist.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:3, Insightful)
Better the devil you know?
What People Don't Understand About America (Score:5, Insightful)
The American government is built on the principle[1] that the government are servants of the people. They are elected by the people and the people are protected from the government through the Constitution and checks and balances. The structure of the American government is one that is untrusting of itself. This is the way it's always been. There's no history of monarchy in American government.
Americans have trouble with organizations like the UN because it exists outside of this world. The UN presupposes trust in government--which Americans simply don't possess.
The idea of turning over control of something as important as the internet to an organization that assumes that government is a trust worthy thing is very contrary to the basis of the American form of government.
It's not because the US doesn't respect the rest of the world or wants to control everything. American's don't trust government. I'm not claiming this is the best system, I'm just attempting to explain the mentality.
[1] You can argue until the cows come home whether this is true in practice but it suffices to say that American's believe this to be mostly true.
Re:The UN is not a government. (Score:3, Insightful)
I view government as a necessary EVIL. The best government is the least government you can get away with.
Just a general distrust of organizations?
I have no problem with voluntary organizations, but I have a big problem with involuntary ones.
IMO once the U.N. has some sort of tax authority that authority will continue to grow. Take a look at the history of the US. We went from an excise tax to an income tax (only on the "rich") to an income tax on everyone. Along the way the politicians have become more and more irresponsible with the budget.
The best Government is one which keeps the majority of power at the local level. E.G. Bottom-up instead of top-down.
Re:Private or public, America still owns root (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, I don't arbitrarily despise France (as you may have guessed my name is French), but the point is (and I don't even think a Frenchman would disagree about this), in France the govt has more power than the US govt. and the corporations have less power than US corporations. I think we can at least agree on that right?
The implementation isn't important, the implications are. If those few sysadmins could make a mess of things, it makes other nations nervous.
Ok, I agree that these sys admins _could_ do a lot of damage. So, what do you think the UN will do if they're in charge? Hire magical sys admins that are incapable of doing a lot of damage? It would probably end up being the same sys admins, or people with similar qualifications. The same people will be capable of doing a lot of damage if the UN "runs the internet".
ICANN hasn't shit on anyone's lawn, but it certainly can in theory
This is your best point yet! So, given that ICANN hasn't done anything wrong, why would we want to turn this, as you called it: "helluva responsibility", over to an organization that _has_ done a number of things wrong?
Re:Cant.... Resist.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing worse than 161 governments trying to fight each other for "control of the internet" is 161 governments cooperating to "control the internet".
Re:Masood Khan - Yeah, the U.S. is going to like t (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The heart of the matter. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The UN is not a government. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? What examples do you have exactly?
I cite the pre-civil war South as the iconic example of local government abuse that would have continued unchecked without the feds putting their foot down.
I cite the fact that there were roughly 20 slave holding societies which made slavery illegal without resorting to violence, vs the ONE that did. I suggest you do a bit of checking into the causes for the civil war as well. It was not slavery but taxation which was the root cause of the civil war. I suggest this book [amazon.com]. It sheds alot of light on what was going on at the time.
Some choice facts: the south paid roughly 90% of the federal taxes at the time, while most federal spending was in the north. The Republicans came to power on a platform of protectionism, (including an increase in tariffs). Congress increased tariffs from 20% to 50% on imported goods shortly upon the start of the new session. Since Southern states exported their unfinished goods and took payment in finished goods they were the ones who had the most to lose.
Federal government at least has to answer to every state for abuses.
When was the last time the federal government had to "answer" for anything? Funny how the Fed makes pollution laws which we have to obey, but they are exempt from.
If a local government's victims stay local and powerless, they're fucked. There's no lower level of government to appeal to. Really? Who are we to appeal to when the national government is unjust? The local ones? When the power comes from above it is next to impossible to check.
ALL government has a price, and that price matters. Yes, which is why I'd rather have budwieser, etc have to buy off 10,000 local governments than send
"campaign" contributions to 100 senators.
Re:Cant.... Resist.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this guy actually got 161 governments to sit down and actually work together on something, I would be deeply, deeply concerned. Given that the average government official is probably in bed with so many different corporations and special interests (and it might not even be illegal or frowned upon in their countries, so it's not like we have much recourse) anything that they'd sit down and turn out is ultimately going to be terrible for users.
In my more morose moods I have this feeling that I'm going to some day be sitting around and telling my grandkids about how the Internet used to be, back in those wild, turn-of-the-century days, before everything was regulated and monitored to death; in the same way that I remember him telling me once about a time when you could buy a car and drive it around without a license to do so, or bolting a metal identification plate onto the bumper.
Governments are a sophisticated protection racket. You trade them some freedoms, in return they offer you some protection against our more cruel and brutish impulses and in theory allow us to live more pleasant lives. But with the Internet, there's currently nothing that we need protecting from and if we allow it to be regulated, we will have just given something away for nothing -- and it's not something we're ever likely to get back.
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The previous post is highly deceptive (Score:2, Insightful)
Shotgun [slashdot.org] never said in his/her comment [slashdot.org] that it wasn't his/her obligation to help feed the children. He/She rightfully pointed out that it wasn't the Federal United States government's obligation. He/She also rightfully pointed out that feeding children is primarily the responsibility of (those children's) parents. Of course, if those parents are unable to fulfill their responsibility, then help should come from the city, county, or perhaps the state.
Shotgun doesn't want the children to starve -- he/she just wants local problems to be solved on a local level. It is all about limiting the power to `fix` a problem to those closest to the situation.
Re:Apparantly, you REALLY don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
When my co-workers and I go out to lunch, we usually end up doing informal votes on where to go. If I want to get, say, Vietnamese, and the 5-6 other guys want to get BBQ, I usually state my case (we just went there) and see if anyone changes their vote. If not, I say, okay, and never mention it again.
If I spent the entire time in the car bitching about how we should have gotten Vietnamese, lunch wouldn't be that enjoyable. That's the way democracies work. You don't always get what you want but you respect your fellow citizens enough to not be a complete tool about not getting your way (as long as it doesn't impede on a fundamental right--hence the Constitution).
The problem today is that too many people are bitching about not getting what they wanted for lunch.
They Just Can't Live with Anarchy that Works (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cant.... Resist.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Governments are a sophisticated protection racket. You trade them some freedoms, in return they offer you some protection against our more cruel and brutish impulses and in theory allow us to live more pleasant lives. But with the Internet, there's currently nothing that we need protecting from and if we allow it to be regulated, we will have just given something away for nothing -- and it's not something we're ever likely to get back.
That's not entirely true. There is crime on the Internet. If you get scammed by someone over the Internet (and it doesn't necessarily have to be someone from an obscure ex-soviet country or from China, it can happen anywhere), won't you expect the police to do something about it? Sure, perhaps your bank will reimburse you, but should they go unknown and unpunished, and keep ripping people off? Tracking down and catching Internet criminals takes time and international cooperation.
There's good and there's bad in policing the Internet. I guess the only solution is to let "them" do it, but jump up in arms at their throat the second it looks like human rights are trampled. I know it's probably just fantasy, but if the White House lawn would fill up with thousands of angry citizens every time they don't like something, perhaps the
Re:Save or enslave? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the UN wants to kill your children and rape your parents. Why don't you actually try to learn something about the world you live in instead of spreading misinformation and hate.
Re:Cant.... Resist.... (Score:3, Insightful)
In many of these nations' cases, "crime" means political or religious dissent. There's a reason that Iran and China have lobbied so hard on this issue.
As it stands now, you can get an IP address and a domain name regardless of your political leanings. That doesn't have to be the case. America officially "controls" the system, but that control mostly consists of preventing anyone else from doing anything to restrict free use of the net. All it takes for this online freedom to go away is for us to compromise a little. And then next year, a little more...
So if you think that this guy is going to save the internet, then I have news for you-- how nice or friendly or telegenic a person is has nothing to do with whether you should be supporting them.
Haliburton (Score:3, Insightful)
(oh... the sarcasm, the irony, the pain!)