The U.N. now controls the internet?

For my opinion on that, kindly refer to my avatar


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Don't get me started on what I think of the U.N!

 

The US didn't give up the Internet to the UN. It relinquished sole control (via contract) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Yes, I would have issue with the UN "controlling" that but they won't. What it is they "gave up" or "handed over" is the organization that manages Top Level Domains extensions (.com, .org, .cc, etc.), which include the decision to create new TLD (like the decision to recently create .porn and .xxx for example), and the allocation of IP addresses in the public space (which really is a finite resource and has been under pressure for over a decade). @Mindgrinder, weigh in on the IP space thing if you want to as I've been out of the ISP space for a few years. I had to justify every group of 16 IPs I wanted though, and paid $0.50 each when I was colocating. And that was to my ISP, not to ICANN.

While conceivably, ICANN could refuse to hand out more IPs or permit new DNS registrations, the S would HTF so hard, and so fast that they would consider creating a time machine to go back and never have made that decision in the first place.

Important FACTS to consider:
1) ICANN is already, and has been for decades, a multinational non-profit
2) The US never "owned" ICAAN, ICANN was simply under a Commerce Department contract that has been cancelled (was slated to expire soon anyway) and was not going to be renewed anyway
3) There is no law requiring people to "submit" to the ruling(s) of ICANN with regards to IP addresses, DNS zones, DNS naming, etc. It is all done by common consent.
4) ICANN won't be "owned" by the UN
5) Root TLD Domain Name Servers (of which there are 14-ish...if you don't understand "anycast" just go with 14) have been located around the world for again, almost 20 years.
6) 10 of the original 14 were in the US but now with anycast addressing (still not going to explain it), there are over 550 total root TLD servers around the world with the VAST majority already outside the US (Root Server Technical Operations Assn).

If things go south, a new entity will be created and everyone will ignore the old "governing body" of the Internet and relegate it to the dustbin of history. If all or even most of the "Bell's", Comcast, Spectrum (TWC/Charter), and the other big players in the US ISP arena as well as those in Canada, Mexico and Europe decide this was a bad idea, nobody, and I mean nobody is going to be able to force them to take a financial hit. Not going to happen.

All that happened was that a contract was ended early. This contract was not going to be renewed and that decision was made over 2 years ago.

Please, PLEASE quit throwing this shit out and pot stirring. There is far, FAR too much for us to actually be worried about to let nothing things, literally NOTHING things take up our time.

If you have questions, ask them, but ASK them as a question and don't state them as an assertion backed up by the likes of panic mongering, fear driven, pandering sources above.

Normally I would say "/rant off" at this point but I wasn't ranting and it's not off! Can we PLEASE knock this shit off?

 

So true, DL....and IIRC, wasn't ICAAN supposed to be country independent around year 2000?

 

Yessir. I could say that "we" held onto it for a lot longer than "we" should have, but it's all in contracts. ICANN could have not renewed the contract at any stage. I can't remember how long it is but I think it's come up at least once and maybe twice since 2000.

 

I did mean to post this with emphasis on the question which I made the title of the topic. I wasn't trying to make any assertions or panic mongering.

 

@GhostX - I see your point, but to truly make it a question I personally would have put a question in the post as well. Something like "Is this legit or are they out in left field?" Many times the thread title gets ignored the instant that the first post is read.

Tangentially, there is a list of sites that I discount 99.999% of what they post, and that one just got added to the list. You may not be fear/panic mongering, but they certainly are.

 

So your saying the guy in the court room didn't have all his information correct about what this could mean? Was he just throwing out wild assumptions about how this could be used to circumvent the constitution? Extremely bias because he has stocks invested in a competing company? I honestly feel like this is worthy of discission... but I have been posting negative topics and I apologize. I'll try to take it easy.

 

You have no idea how refreshing it is to hear these sentiments......I tend to find that conspiracy theory nut-baggery is rarely but several mouse clicks and a copy and paste or three away....and becoming more frequent in this place....unfortunately It tends to distract from the actual issues that should be concerning us to BS chimera.

 

Without the backing of law, which the ICANN does not have, it can't be used to circumvent the constitution. It is a corporation, not a government entity. If enough people don't agree with the "rules", they will go away and something else will take its place.

I will admit that I did not watch the video because the premise based on the title is simply inaccurate.

It's like starting a discussion with the statement "Given that all white people are guilty of racism...". It starts off with a false premise. Even if some of your arguments are valid, you are coming from a dishonest, false, incorrect starting point and the end result cannot be completely accurate.

Cases is point:
"Since the planes brought down the towers..."
"As crime has fallen where gun control had been instituted..."
"...religion of peace..."

I will take the time to watch the video later tonight and respond again when I'm in front of a computer instead of the phone.

 

THANK YOU !!!
you explained that better than anyone else has.... I've just been rolling my eyes at these crap posts aka 'the sky is falling' posting. Don't people use their brains?

 

Okay, I'm less than one minute into the original post video and it's nothing but fear mongering and factually incorrect statements.

1) The fox report was just flat wrong. I won't get into questioning the intelligence of whoever wrote what the newscaster was saying but, this change will have literally less than no impact on "how we use the Internet" and it isn't under UN control. It's just not.
2) The American Government has NOT maintained domain names and hasn't ensured diddly squat when it comes to equal access to everyone. We have had to fight tooth and nail to PREVENT the US Government from passing anti-net-neutrality laws that would restrict that access and allow companies to do with the bandwidth what they please. This is an emotional argument that is simply not true...not one word of it including "the" and "and"!
3) Obama doesn't want to give that "authority away to an International body called ICANN"...they ALREADY HAVE THAT "authority" and have for over a decade. And it's no authority at all.

I will give it another couple of minutes and if it doesn't straighten up and fly right I'm not going to waste any more time on it. Sorry, I can only stand so much stupid.

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ETA
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Okay, 41 seconds further and I'm done. There is nothing worth watching in this video. It's bits and pieces of half-truth and outright misinformation stitched together with cherry picked quotes and what look to be "official" hearings.

Don't let garbage like this sway you. Do your own research. This is tripe and I want my 5 minutes back (paused to type up these messages) as well as the cost of the electricity it took to play this crap!

 

@Mindgrinder - Can't watch 3 hours of posturing but the bits I've seen of that are Cruz being a putz and deliberately misunderstanding how Al Gore's Innertubes work, and focusing on procedural scare tactics.

For example, him asking the ICANN representative if "the big bad scary cable companies could change the ICANN bylaws in the future". Um...yeah...just like they could have tried to change them for the last 15 years...and haven't been able to. Just like if we don't like a law in the US we can vote to change them (or vote people in to change them).

There were a couple of sane moments, and frankly they were from the Dems, which immediately makes them suspect in some people's eyes, but they were factual rather than emotional and frankly much more truthful and less "scary, scary, OH MY GOD IS THAT A CLOWN BACK THERE! AHHHHHH! INTERWEBS GOING DOWN! AHHHH!"

Sorry, I think I need a drink.

 

Please point me to the specific section (timeframe) you are talking about because honestly, I couldn't sit through a full 2 minutes much less 24 minutes. I'll try to keep from eating a bullet long enough to watch another couple of minutes if I really need to.

 

I watched the entire thing....it WAS painful.

Frankly, this contract renewal has been on my radar for years - it's not a partisan thing.
While i'm not exactly trusting of having ICANN in USA with your NSA having lawful access to everything that passes through the California HQ, I'm more untrusting of having it eventually route from Brussels. I'm not convinced the "free market" of multi-national stakeholders is an uncorrupt model - granted it's functioned this way for the most part with only nominal US oversight and anti-trust laws to bind it.

We'll see - necro this thread in 2 years and we can lament on if more or less censorship occurs between now and then.

MG

 

ICANN is not being handed over to the UN...
The "stakeholders" are a UN unto themselves of multi-national corporations with a government advisory group. My concern is the "contracts" - I SEE where this is going as well....copyright to control/censor the internet by contract. When was the last time you visited The Pirate Bay or TorrentZ? They're dead or filtered in MANY countries now by "contract".