March 30, 2004 4:00 AM PST
Perspective: Should the United Nations run the Internet?
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That question follows the conclusion of a
Their demands varied, but the bottom line was the same: They want a piece of the action in just about every way. The event's agenda was breathtakingly broad, taking in everything from spam and privacy to intellectual property, network security and the operation of root domain name servers.
Juan Fernandez, the delegate from Cuba's Ministry of Informatics and Communications, no doubt was sincere in the speeches he delivered at the summit.
The United Nations makes ICANN look like a paragon of political perfection.
Iran was also among the delegates hoping to inject the United Nations into the process of overseeing Internet protocols, domain names and network stability. Before taking these folks too seriously, though, let's recall that Iran
All this raises the question whether these are nations that should decide the rules for a worldwide Internet.
It is true that the
Developing nations have other legitimate gripes, too. China has been allocated about 45 million global Internet addresses, less than the combined total of Stanford University and IBM. That's hardly reasonable nowadays. But groups like the
It is hardly clear that the United Nations would do a better job, and there are plenty of reasons to believe that it wouldn't.
The United Nations is home to the world's most bloated bureaucracy, employing more than 56,000 people at salaries roughly twice what they would be paid in the private sector. It refuses to subject itself to independent audits of its finances and does not even publish an annual financial report.
Demands for greater U.N. involvement in the Internet are not new.
Yet, the United Nations makes ICANN look like a paragon of political perfection. ICANN posts
Demands for greater U.N. involvement in the Internet are not new. As far back as 1999, a U.N. agency
While the politics of last week's summit was difficult to decipher and was cloaked in the argot of U.N. bureaucratese, the delegates fortunately
In a statement, the United Nations seemed to acknowledge this temporary setback, saying it hopes to "better coordinate the work of specialized bodies" like ICANN, the IETF, the
The next step is for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to create a "working group on Internet governance" that will make specific recommendations in time for a summit in November 2005.
It is highly symbolic that the United Nations' climactic summit next year will meet in Tunisia, a state that blocks access to many Web sites, spies on its citizens' e-mail and closely controls Internet service providers. The group
At next year's event, I'm sure that Tunisian politicians will be happy to share their experiences in how a free and open Internet should be run.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
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...just my take,
...Steve
backwards, not forwards. But ex-Wired reporters
opinionating on an Internet news site in English to
cyberlibertarian readers is preaching to the choir -- save
your bits.
The threat isn't going to go away. What would not be a
waste of breath would be to come up with tactics to block a
UN hostile takeover (just say "no") or some way to address
the real concerns of some fraction of those backing the
UN's power grab so that the movement dissipates.
IFC, International Finance Corporation
IMO, International Maritime Organization
ITU, Internationan Telecommunications Union
UPU, Universal Postal Union
WIPO, World Intellectual Property Organization
WMO, World Meteorological Organization
Have you ever heard about these organisations?
They are all very successful in their fields,
and much of international commerce and
cooperation would be difficult without them.
Do you know what they all have in common? They
are all autonomous bodies of the United Nations.
Nearly all international commerce is regulated
through UN-setup organizations, and they do it
really well too. Note the word "autonomous".
What that means is that the UN general assembly
don't have a word in their operation. No, Syria
just doesn't have much of a say in anything
here.
I am _so_ tired of right wing americans' talk of
the black helicopters of the UN. You have
totally misunderstood what the UN even _is_.
There are certain areas of international trade
and communications that every country in the
world needs to agree on. The internet is of
cource one of them, just like the postal
service, the phone companies, shipping, banking,
etc., etc.
To me it seems you just can't handle giving over
control to a foreigner (Imaging the internet
being led by a Frenchman? Disaster!).
should decide the rules for a worldwide Internet."
This makes me laugh... in light of the U.S.'s illegal war, and
breaking of the Geneva conventions through torture and
detentions... maybe the rest of the world should raise the same
question.
js
But fortunately, the U.S. has antibodies that are at work to protect its citizens, and the reason the Bush administration's misdeeds are so notable is that such abuses here have been not as bad as in other countries.
And no matter how you look at it, we're still a heck of a lot more free than in Cuba, Iran, etc.
addresses, less than the combined total of Stanford University
and IBM. That's hardly reasonable nowadays."
Not reasonable, maybe, but also completely misleading and
irrelevant. If IPv4 address space were in short supply, things
might be otherwise -- but they aren't! If a time comes when they
become scarce, say in 10-20 years, *everything* will be
different.
In the mean time, the important measure is not what has been
"allocated" through administrative processes, but rather what is
"routed" or "in production" -- and therefore represents actual
user access or online content. On this measure, China was
already the fourth largest network economy by the end of 2003,
behind only the US, Japan, and Germany, and ahead of Australia,
the UK, Canada, South Korea, etc., etc.
When one of China's few (but huge) ISPs need more IP addresses,
they are always available in quantities limited only by common
sense through a transparent application processs from APNIC,
the Australia-based Regional Internet Registry for all of Asia.
However, global demand for public, routed IP addresses is
largely driven by provider diversity -- i.e., by the establishment
of new ISPs and network-operating online content providers.
Unless/until Chinese authorities actually permit the emergence
of an independent ISP sector (all but forbidden today), China will
probably continue to lag behind less populous but more ISP-
friendly countries in the area of "Internet production" (i.e., the
accumulation of Internet users and online content that are
marked by publicly visible IP addresses).
PS: When these addresses were allocated, Stanford *had*
more Internet users than China. Today, Stanford routes less than
one-half million IP addresses, compared to China's 37+ million.
The vast majority of IBM's IP address allocation supported the
very large IBM Global Netserk Services division, which also
supported more global users and content than China until fairly
recently. These IP addresses then became part of AT&T's even
larger global ISP service, and now apparently will go to SBC's
rapidly expanding service platform. The press often notes that
Wal-Mart's annual revenues exceed that of many national
economies, so the idea that some global ISPs support more
Internet users than some other national telecom carriers should
not come as a surprise...
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