Bush administration annexes internet

[apothecary]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/01/bu...ush_net_policy/

An extraordinary statement by the US government has sent shockwaves around the internet world and thrown the future of the network into doubt.

In a worrying U-turn, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has made it clear it intends to retain control of the internet's root servers indefinitely. It was due to relinquish that control in September 2006, when its contract with overseeing body ICANN ended.

The decision - something that people have long feared may happen - will not only make large parts of the world furious but also puts ICANN in a very difficult position. The organisation has slowly been expanding out of its California base in an effort to become an international body with overall responsibility for the internet.

The US government is professing its full backing for ICANN (which it created) at the same time that it awards itself control of the net's foundations, which will have the inevitable effect of pulling the organisation back into the US.

This is particularly relevant at the moment as a UN review of internet governance will report later this year and indications are that the team is considering handing over elements of internet control to a UN body, possibly the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

In fact, it is the UN report that has most likely focussed the US government's attention and prompted the statement, made yesterday at a communications conference in Washington DC.

The decision is transparently a result of the culture permeating through Washington as a result of the Bush Administration's world philosophy. In an extraordinary presentation, assistant secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Michael D. Gallagher, outlined new "US principles" regarding the internet.

"The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet’s Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world’s economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorising changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file," is the first of a four-point statement which can be found here.

The second point is that world governments can run their own country-code domains (like .uk for the UK or .de for Germany). The third says ICANN should be the organisation running the internet. And the fourth that "there is no one venue to appropriately address [internet governance] in its entirety" - which is basically a warning shot across the UN's bows.

But what is most disturbing about Gallagher's presentation, is how it endlessly refers to the president. The first slide has a picture of George Bush. The second begins "Thanks to the president's policies, America's economy is strong". The next slide is "The president's broadband vision". The next slide leads with a quote from Bush and two pictures of him. And on and on it goes. There is barely a single slide that doesn't quote from the president.

Clearly the internet has entered the Bush administration's vision and the resulting DoC statement - which boldly tells the rest of the world that the US will continue to run the Internet and everyone will just have to lump it - is very in keeping with how the US government is currently run.

The big question now is whether the rest of the world will be cowed. ICANN has yet to release a statement on the DoC’s surprise declaration but it knows which side its bread is buttered on and so will probably make a careful and broadly supportive statement.

The vision of a US-controlled internet infrastructure will be anathema to large parts of the world however and it is a demonstration of the US administration’s failure to think globally that it doesn't recognise that there is surprisingly little preventing other parts of the world from creating a second Internet outside of US control.

An already fractious situation has just got more difficult.

CENTR response

CENTR - an organisation representing a large number of country-code domains - has responded to the US government's declaration. In a cautious welcome, it agreed that the root files needed to be run in a neutral manner and welcomed its support for ICANN, but pushed that ICANN should focus only on its "core function and limited remit".

Disingenuously, CENTR also says that the stated approach to be taken by the US government "de-politicises the role of the Root Servers and empowers the relevant local Internet Registries". And this, says CENTR will "minimise the need for any procedural intervention by other unrelated parties." CENTR doesn't care who runs the root, so long as they do so neutrally and in a purely technical fashion. As representative for country-code domains, CENTR will be delighted by the US government's statement that it considers different countries as having complete rights over their own country domain.

That statement was a necessity to prevent the rest of the world's governments turning against the US, but it serves CENTR's ends.

[ 05. July 2005, 08:35: Message edited by: apothecary ]

[Torsten]

I don't think anyone *really* expected them to relinquish control....

[apothecary]

The problem this clearly shows isn't that the DoC wouldn't relinquish control, rather that the Bush regime has their fingers in yet another pie they probably shouldn't.

[nabraxas]

The big question now is whether the rest of the world will be cowed --i'd say "yes".

[alucinare]

Yeh, i agree with apothecary. It's just another aspect of the world the US government is unwilling let go of so as to subtly show they are the world power.

Question: if the DNS did move into the hands of another more global authority would it really cause the internet to become unstable?

[apothecary]

http://news.com.com/Will+the+U.N.+run+the+...html?tag=st.pop

An international political spat is brewing over whether the United Nations will seize control of the heart of the Internet.

U.N. bureaucrats and telecommunications ministers from many less-developed nations claim the U.S. government has undue influence over how things run online. Now they want to be the ones in charge.

While the formal proposal from a U.N. working group will be released July 18, it's already clear what it will contain. A preliminary summary of governmental views claims there's a "convergence of views" supporting a new organization to oversee crucial Internet functions, most likely under the aegis of the United Nations or the International Telecommunications Union.

At issue is who decides key questions like adding new top-level domains, assigning chunks of numeric Internet addresses, and operating the root servers that keep the Net humming. Other suggested responsibilities for this new organization include Internet surveillance, "consumer protection," and perhaps even the power to tax domain names to pay for "universal access."

This development represents a grave political challenge to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which was birthed by the U.S. government to handle some of those topics.

A recent closed-door meeting in Geneva convened by the U.N.'s Working Group on Internet Governance offers clues about the plot to dethrone ICANN. As these excerpts from a transcript show, dissatisfaction and general-purpose griping is rampant:

• Syria: "There's more and more spam every day. Who are the victims? Developing and least-developed countries, too. There is no serious intention to stop this spam by those who are the transporters of the spam, because they benefit...The only solution is for us to buy equipment from the countries which send this spam in order to deal with spam. However, this, we believe, is not acceptable."

• Brazil, responding to ICANN's approval of .xxx domains: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."

• China: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework...For instance, spam, network security and cyberspace--we should look for an appropriate specialized agency of the United Nations as a competent body."

• Ghana: "There was unanimity for the need for an additional body...This body would therefore address all issues relating to the Internet within the confines of the available expertise which would be anchored at the U.N."

The "nuclear option"

Those proclamations served to flush out the Bush administration, which recently announced that it will not hand over control of Internet domain names and addresses to anyone else.

That high-profile snub of the United Nations could presage an international showdown. The possibility of a political flap over what has long been an abstruse Net-governance issue casts a shadow over ICANN's meeting this week in Luxembourg, and will be the topic of a July 28 symposium in Washington, D.C., called "Regime Change on the Internet."

Beyond the usual levers of diplomatic pressure and public kvetching, Brazil and China could choose what amounts to the nuclear option: a fragmented root. That means a new top-level domain would not be approved by ICANN--but would be recognized and used by large portions of the rest of the world. The downside, of course, is that the nuclear option could create a Balkanized Internet where two computers find different Web sites at the same address.

"It wasn't until now" that a fragmented root was being talked about, says Milton Mueller, a professor at Syracuse University and participant in the Internet Governance Project. "China and other countries might be pursuing responses that lead to fragmentation."

Such an outcome remains remote, but it could happen. That possibility means an obscure debate about Internet governance has suddenly become surprisingly important.

[2b]

Brazil , home of the Brazilian , worried about porn :D Besides China which will basically do what it wants anyway , they're not exactlly major online players. Don't know how many people in Ghana or Syria have connections ? But would love to see an internet that is not influenced by America.

[apothecary]

60% of TLDs are in third world countries.

You underestimate China. They have the populus, the push from above, and the technical ability to literally start their own internet, which I'm sure the PRC government will endorse fully (after all, isn't that the purpose of the "Great Firewall of China" anyway?).

Heck, you should've seen how scared Intel was when China announced they'd be making their own processors, how scared MS was when China announced their own operating system, etc.

I think the only thing stopping them is how much money US companies are pouring into their economy. But like my hippy said, wait until the current China gets a middle class going, then see what happens.

[2b]

I don't under estimate China , i do hope they take it up to the Americans on all levels. I was in China a few years ago and their acces to ADSL , was better than i imagined it would be. They do need there own operating system , but it was handy as when i got access to a computer over there , even with the whole screen full of Chinese characters you could still find your way around windows from memory. If they had there own thing the tourists would be the only ones with a problem.

[apothecary]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/15/un...un_wgig_report/

The United Nations has released its report into how it expects administration of the internet to work in future.

The report by the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) follows the outline given by those in charge of the process earlier this week at ICANN's tri-annual conference in Luxembourg. It provides four different models for future governance of the internet.

The merits of each model will be discussed at the Prep-Com3 conference in Geneva in September and finally end up at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November, where the world's governments will make a final decision. None of the models allow the US government to retain overall control of the internet's foundation.

Model 1

A Global Internet Council (GIC), consisting of governments, closely tied to the UN, but with "involvement" of other stakeholders. This model is a complete overhaul of the existing system with both existing overseers ICANN and the US government relegated to supporting roles.

Model 2

An "enhanced role" for ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). ICANN would stay in its current role and even be significantly strengthened thanks to the general world consensus.

Model 3

An International Internet Council (IIC) to be set up that would take over the US government's role but not be an explicit part of the UN. Likely to make the GAC element of ICANN redundant and leave ICANN as a purely technical body.

Model 4

Three new bodies will be set up to deal with three arms of internet governance. The Global Internet Policy Council (GIPC) will be responsible for "internet-related public policy issues"; the World Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (WICANN) will look after technical issues and basically be the same as ICANN is now but with closer ties to the UN and taking over the US government's role; and the Global Internet Governance Forum (GIGF) will be a global talking shop to thrash out ideas.

The working group also provided a definition of internet governance as: “Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet.”

In effect, it split the role of running the internet down to four areas:

1. Infrastructure - meaning the domain name system and IP addresses

2. Internet issues such as spam, security and cybercrime

3. Intellectual property and international trade

4. Expansion, particularly in developing countries

The main problems to be dealt with at the moment, it said, were:

* The cost of accessing the internet for developing countries

* There was no agreed international way of dealing with spam

* Not enough international ways of dealing with crime on the Internet

* The Internet was being run by too few, elitist people without enough transparency

The organisation that will be most affected by the report's findings, ICANN, was upbeat about the report. Chairman Vint Cerf said ICANN had yet to come up with an official response but that there was "all kinds of mixed reaction" to the four models. The devil, as ever, would be in the details, he said.

ICANN's CEO Paul Twomey said he was pleased with how the report had ended up, referring to its constant references to "multi-stakeholder" decision-making. He quoted the UN special advisor on the whole issue, Nitin Desai as saying that 90 per cent of the benefit of such UN processs were in educating people about the situation.

"One gets a feeling from a first reading of this report that the effort that the internet community has made in trying to educate the working group on how the present technical co-ordination [of the internet] works has been quite fruitful," Twomey said. "It is certainly a very different tone to what we saw at the end of the first round of the world summit."

The big sticking point at the UN however will be the US government recent assertion of four new "principles" over the internet in which it said it would "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file". This is widely seen as an early shot across the UN's boughs, since the WGIG report made it clear that in none of its models does the US get to keep its "historic role". A big bargaining chip that the US government is likely to use to sway the overall process in a direction it wants it to go.

Perhaps rather conveniently, all the staff at the US government body in charge of this controversial role, the NTIA, has gone on a two-day "off-site retreat" and won't be unavailable until Monday. Fancy that. ®