Critics Balk at Efforts to Place Internet in Global Grip

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2003-12-01 04:44pm

WASHINGTON — A global summit scheduled in December may result in a proposal to put the Internet under United Nations control — an idea that has met solid resistance from the United States.

"There are some countries that have been very adamant to get their governments to play a bigger role in Internet management," said Ambassador David Gross, the State Department’s coordinator for international communications and information policy. He is leading the U.S. delegation to the World Summit on the Information Society (search), scheduled to meet Dec. 10-12 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Gross said that while the U.S. supports greater access for all nations to the Internet, it will resist any efforts to take the Net out of the private sector.

"We will continue to fight hard to ensure that the Internet remains a balanced enterprise among all stakeholders — one of these stakeholders is government, but it is one of many stakeholders," Gross told Foxnews.com, adding that "it must be private sector-led. That is very important to us."

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-12-01 05:02pm

Hell will freeze over before UN bureaucrats get control of the Internet.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2003-12-01 05:05pm

Reminds me of a crappular movie

Net Force, and the prez of usa or sumthing ad root access to all routers and could shut down the internet..

I stoped watching shortly after that.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-12-01 05:07pm

"it must be private sector-led. That is very important to us."

Uh oh. Gross just pissed in a lot of people's cornflakes.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2003-12-01 05:36pm

If/when the UN gets control of the internet, then the UN building will be burned down by a mob of enraged Americans shortly afterwards.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-12-01 05:40pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:If/when the UN gets control of the internet, then the UN building will be burned down by a mob of enraged Americans shortly afterwards.

But not before being hit first by a torrent of DOS and viruses.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-12-01 06:10pm

Durran Korr wrote:
"it must be private sector-led. That is very important to us."
Uh oh. Gross just pissed in a lot of people's cornflakes.

Some things are best left to the private sector. The Internet is one of them.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2003-12-01 07:06pm

The Day the Internet falls under UN control, is the day all hackers unit to take over the UN

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-12-01 08:39pm

The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-12-01 09:05pm

Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

Nothing that any rational mind would understand. There are people out there that would love to control the air we breathe, we clump them together in the same crackpot section of the business world.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-12-01 09:10pm

Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

The only way I can think of would be to nationalize (internationalize?) every corporation that provides internet access and web space.

Demiurge · Post by **Demiurge** » 2003-12-01 09:21pm

Faram wrote:Reminds me of a crappular movie

Net Force, and the prez of usa or sumthing ad root access to all routers and could shut down the internet..

I stoped watching shortly after that.

Net Force was made into a movie?

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-12-01 09:53pm

Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

Domain names, standards, probably that sort of thing.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-01 11:16pm

Demiurge wrote: Net Force was made into a movie?

Made for TV movie, I think.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-01 11:17pm

Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

They might want to take control of ICANN and whatever standards bodies for protocols exist.

Ryoga · Post by **Ryoga** » 2003-12-01 11:42pm

I dunno, I think this might be something that's being pushed in the UN mostly by the countries who would have a vested interest in controlling what people have access to. Anyone have information on what countries are trying to have this legislation passed?

CelesKnight · Post by **CelesKnight** » 2003-12-02 12:04am

phongn wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?
They might want to take control of ICANN and whatever standards bodies for protocols exist.

IIRC, they want to -remove- control from ICANN, and give it to the ITU.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-12-02 12:35am

Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

That's what I was wondering. The internet is something made up of contributions from a shitload of different nations, plenty of whom aren't members of the UN. What exactly would "controlling" the internet entail? Censorship? Or are they just talking about an international police force that could put a stop to things like international kiddie-porn rings more easily?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2003-12-02 09:14am

Ryoga wrote:I dunno, I think this might be something that's being pushed in the UN mostly by the countries who would have a vested interest in controlling what people have access to. Anyone have information on what countries are trying to have this legislation passed?

i believe it mentioned which nations started it and signed on in the article itself.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2003-12-02 10:27am

The effort for global control of the Internet is reportedly led by China, which allows its own citizens online access, but it is tightly controlled by a giant firewall and monitored by government surveillance.

China has so far been joined in its efforts by representatives of Syria, Egypt, Vietnam and South Africa, said Ronald Koven, European representative for the World Press Freedom Committee (search), an international media watchdog based in the United States.

Other reports indicate that Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and Brazil may be on board, too.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2003-12-03 10:30am

Darth Wong wrote:The Internet is not centrally controlled any more than the telephone system is controlled. What are these people talking about?

Most likely their talking about the ability to censor websites at will. For example if they decided that they didn't like certain information on your Starwars page then they could take it down... perhaps saying that it contained "hate speech".

In addition, the governments want to control the information thats available on the net. Its much easier to hide a corruption and scandels that way.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-12-03 11:57am

Gee, just one look at the list of nations supporting this horsecrap will explain everything: China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Vietnam, Egypt.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-12-03 05:27pm

The un's headquaters simultaneously recive about 3-4 billion virii and hack attacks against their servers if this goes through.