Most of the Rest of the World
Dr. Professor Peng Hwa Ang rebuts Claudia Rosett's accusations that the UN is trying to take over the Internet at Pajamas Media. Or rather he doesn't deny it but says 'why not'? Excerpts:
Choose now this day whom to trust. ...
It is important to note that the United Nations is not Kofi Annan. Neither is it 10, 20 or 30 countries. It is an institution made up of almost all the countries on the planet that has done good work on healthcare, education, development etc. I speak not from the experience of someone in Singapore because the UN is invisible to many in Singapore, but from talking to others in the region. The oil-for-food programme, as Mr Annan admits, should not have come under the UN. But I can understand why it did. Only the UN has the credibility as a third-party to be acceptable by Most of the Rest of the World (MRW). ...
Given the choice—trust the US or trust the UN—unlike Ms Rosett from the USA, MRW (Most of the Rest of the World) chose the latter.
Excellent. Professor Peng and the UN should forthwith set up their own DNS system. Why ask for the turnover the untrusted American one? It's damaged goods. Since MRW trusts the UN then DNS servers should begin pointing to the UN system, since the greater trust will -- must -- be reflected as value.
Comment
I wouldn't hold my breath.
posted by wretchardthecat at 12/04/2005 10:34:00 PM
31 Comments:
Bio on Ang:
Dr. Ang researches and teaches media law and policy with a special emphasis on the Internet. A former journalist with a Singapore daily and a qualified lawyer, his research covers legal and policy issues in the media on such areas as copyright, media self-regulation, and free speech and censorship.
He is on the main board and advisory council of the Internet Content Rating Association. He has also consulted for organisations in Europe and Asia, including local ones.
Ang Bio
Singpore is a authoritarian government that has no conception of free speech. Mr. Peng wants to know whom we should trust. MRW in his terminology consists of people who have no trustworthyness at all. Would I trust Singapore. Not for a second. France? Never! the UN? No farther than I could throw the d@mned building.
Here is an idea for Mr. Peng. Trust US. You have to. If you can't, the Malay will invade and slaughter you in your beds. If you can't trust US the Indonesians will shut the Straights of Malacca to your shipping and you will all starve.
As for US, we will continue to trust in God.
Nah, we understand free speech just fine. What's just as important to remember is that loose lips sink ships too. In a small nation with no natural resources and no fallback, there's no room to try anything funny.
And note: he does not speak for the rest of Singapore, and even though my first guess is that most people would prefer the UN, it's because they don't quite understand the underlying concerns involved.
Wretchard is completely correct to say that if people don't like it, they can set up their own system. If it's really better, people will go to it. But the state has become so pervasive in our lives that people cannot understand the importance of competing systems.
Don't worry about it, there's a sucker born every minute.
If the UN did take over ICANN somehow, is there anything that could stop MIT from setting up their own DNS server? (And I'm not sure who would do it first, MIT or Wall St).
That's not a rhetorical question, by the way. I'm really not familiar with the technology. Wretchard's post seems to suggest that MIT could set one up though.
Steve,
You didn't vote for the Supreme Court or 98+ of the Senators and none but one of the Reps in Congress either, but they're still your government. They were appointed / elected by Constitutional means. The Treaty that binds the USA to the UN was also passed in a Constitutional manner. In that sense you are a 'citizen' of the United Nations, however much you may dislike that (I detest it, personally).
As for the UN serving it's own purposes, well yeah, that's "public choice theory" in a nutshell. Applies to the US bueacracy too. The UN's problem is that it's ALL beuaracracy, so there isn't even a couple elected guys at the top like the US and other democracies do.
It's a lot like J.K. Rowling's Ministry of Magic in that way :-)
Sure does bring out the primal urge to tell Dr. Peng Hwa Ang where to shove "MRW."
---
Does anyone have any links on the Iraq Domain the Doctor whines about?
"UN" and "credibility" in the same sentence.
Gotta hand it to the guy.
"Would I trust Singapore. Not for a second."
Apparently the US does. Your nuclear prepped CVBG's are routinely docked at Changi Naval Base in Singapore.
"If you can't trust US the Indonesians will shut the Straights of Malacca to your shipping and you will all starve."
Don't be an idiot. The Indonesian Navy has neither the will nor the capability. The RSN owns the Straits.
As for Professor 'Peng', he probably should properly be called Professor Ang. He changed the ordering format of his name in order to preclude confusion, thereby causing more confusion.
The DNS is essentially a directory service. There is no physical or economic reason why some other organization, like the UN can't publish their own rival directory. The real question is why they don't. And it's because the current directory is trustworthy hence no clear incentive to change. There's no inherent reason anyone should trust the US; that lack of a natural adantage or monopoly means 'trust' is based on track record. The instant the ICANN undermines reliability trust will be lost and the directory will be debased and simultaneously create a need for a competitor or replacement.
If, as Professor Peng claims, Most of the Rest of the World wants to shop at Kofi's and not at ICANN's because MRW trusts Kofi, then the UN need only publish their directory -- create their own DNS -- for the MRW to switch their root server calls to the UN system. But since the UN system will be a 'governed' system it will be a more constrained directory than the current DNS. A thinner phonebook, so to speak and the market unattractiveness of that thinner phonebook relative to the thicker one is why the UN won't dare set up the rival system. Instead, having declared their store is better than ICANN's they proceed to do nothing but march up to the 'inferior' store and demand the keys and title. It's grotesque. To understand how grotesque the UN demand is, read this technical note.
This shouldn't be a blame-Singapore thing, as others have mentioned they probably don't have a real appreciation for free speech. Those who do have the opportunity to leave and do otherwise. That doesn't mean we can't be friends especially with the current situation in that neck of the woods.
No, but I do think a brave politician or spokesman could profit by exposing the hypocrisy of these claims. Exposing the 'victim industry' that people like this rely on to justify themselves at home, blaming those abroad. This internet thing is cheap agitprop- if it works for them the payoffs would be great, if not then it just makes us do backflips trying to embarrassingly explain why not. Money well spent, even if there is no expected actual return to claims of Internet control. The UN and other institutions can't operate without this 'guilt dividend', if you will, funded my our 'multilateralist' brethren. Screw 'em.
It is possible for ICANN to cut off the top level domain of Iran isn't it? Is it possible for Iran to simply set up their own servers and get back on the net? Could they be cut off?
I'm not so sure that the suggestion that the UN set up its own DSNs is a great solution. The Internet and its functionality have become mission critical for advanced civilization and to split it into separate Information Universes could severely mitigate its usefulness over time.
My understanding is that the issue is that were the UN (and/or other countries) to follow this advice, then we would have two (or more) Internets, and a situation where typing in a URL in one country could bring you to a different site than another the same URL typed in another country. This fragmentation of the Internet could not result in a better system, or a better world.
One of the chief (political) benefits of the Internet to the world community is the successful transmission of ALL Ideas to anyone with a computer, ISP and browser. This benefits people in countries where there Tyrants control the media and only allow their citizens to see "the official" view of world events. North Korea and other countries of that ilk come to mind.
What the UN seems to be advocating is different Internet, perhaps? One where the UN decides what is allowed or not allowed on the Internet?
I suggest that it is the UN's plan (or lack thereof?) that should be analyzed, discussed on its merits (or lack thereof) and disgarded on the grounds that the UN "Plan" is stupid if that is what is concluded by a rational inspection of their proposal. It must be shown what the effects of the UN "Plan" would be, were it to be executed. Some questions I would want to have answered would be: How would the UN-Internet be governed? What would be better or worse about it? What do they feel the problem is with the current system exactly? Would they implement political control of content? How would that control work, and what organization would review and determine what is acceptable on the Internet, and how would these determinations be applied? What would be the process by which they could change the rules for Internet Governence? Who would preside over that process? Who would benefit, who would lose? Etc. In other words I would want to see a breakdown of the techncial implementation details along with political considerations described in a methodology that allows for comparison to the current system. Then I would want to compare these answers (to be obtained from the UN representatives promoting this project) to the current system and derive conclusions.
In this way we could actually have a definitive discussion of the merits of the plan (if there are any). If it turns out that the UN "Plan" has no merit, or they can not answer these questions because they didn't think about them (have they?), that would be revealed, the people responsible for promoting it shamed, and the topic can be put to rest, while we glean potentially useful information as to how to improve the current system based on feedback from the process of analysis. Or consider a migration to the UN Plan if it actually does make sense and would improve the system, which is also conceivable.
The current discussion, without this analysis, only serves to buy the UN time to continue to politically undermine the credibility of the current system, which they do just as Peng has done - with inuendo and propaganda suggesting that the US, in "controlling the Internet", is somehow "up to no good", and advocate their own (senseless?) "solution" to the (non-existant?) "problem" of US ownership of the Domain Servers, and pitting the US against the MRW which is itself absurd.
A serious Technical discussion of the actual issues in detail, with a summary overview, would go a long way toward creating a rational debate and useful conclusion. Since it may not be possible for the UN to actually conduct such a rational discussion (being a political, not techncial entity), perhaps it is something that we should take upon ourselves. I assume, somehow, that our Technologists are doing so as I write. I hope.
My estimation is that once the Internet has been split it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to undo the change, politically speaking.
And all the kings horses, and all the kings men could never put humpty dumpty back together again.
I suspect that if you examined all of those good works by the U.N. the professor so offhandedly cites you would find it was not the truly the U.N. at all.
How many improverished/Totalitarian/Socialist members of the U.N. (80% plus of the membership) truly have answered the call for help? Or even would have thought it up had they had the chance?
Only the UN has the credibility as a third-party to be acceptable by Most of the Rest of the World (MRW). ... Given the choice—trust the US or trust the UN—unlike Ms Rosett from the USA, MRW (Most of the Rest of the World) chose the latter.
That is the argument.
The premises are 1)only the UN has credibility as third party, and 2)MRW trust the UN more than the US. Which leads to the conclusion 3)the UN should control the internet.
One suspects that credibility here means malleable ethics (or undiscerning moral valuation), for if the good Dr. was using "credibility" in the normative sense the first premise is absolutely, objectively false.
The second premise is just meaningless. If drug-users trust their dealers more than the police, does that mean we should transfer enforcement of the justice system to drug dealers? Of course not.
MRW trust the UN because the UN's ethics are malleable enough to be everything to everybody. MRW trust the UN because they recognize it; when they look at the UN they see themselves.
From Dr. Ang's own mouth, the issue is not a practical one like performance or efficiency. The issue is that the UN has some valuable characteristic that the US does not, a valuable characteristic that leads MRW to trust the UN. If you think the distinction lies in the UN being a third party, you need to look a little deeper.
In Batman Begins, most of the rest of the police (MRP) were suspicious of Lieutenant Gordan not because he was dirty--they were all dirty. Gordan wasn't trusted because he was clean.
This is what Dr. Ang's argument boils down to: For us to accept that the UN is more trustworthy we would have to actively forget everything we know about the word "trustworthy".
Only in bizarro world does honesty make you untrustworthy, and theft make you credible. Dr. Ang's argument says, "Welcome to bizarro world."
I am not surprised that Ash is concerned that the US may cut off the Iranian people when everybody but the moon bat left knows that it is the Mullahs who are cutting off content to the Iranian people. Jeesh.
annoy mouse,
If it is indeed true that the US could unilaterally cut off a country of its choice from the internet it is perfectly understandable why the rest of the world would like to see that power changed, especially in light of the US's current propensity to abandon its priniciples when confronted with perceived threats.
Re: "Given the choice—trust the US or trust the UN—unlike Ms Rosett from the USA, MRW (Most of the Rest of the World) chose the latter.
There is my joke of the day. MRW is mainly comprised of third world dictatorships, usually corrupt and all with a disregard for the concept of human rights.
The professor does have a sense of irony however: "Tunis was chosen because it is regarded as one of the best run Arab countries."
CBC Radio last week ran a story on this topic and covered the meeting in Tunisia. They also covered the censorship and imprisonment of journalists - including Europeans who were arrested and released only after they surrendered their videotapes of anti-govermnent demonstrations. Since Tunisia "was chosen because it is regarded as one of the best run Arab countries" - well that statement says a lot.
Everyone misses the point here.
The UN wants the store because it wants the money.
Money that would come from Taxing the Internet.
If they set up their own DNS, but there were competing ones, then how can they charge for something that is free?
If you don't pay your DNS tax, then they auction it off. Or they want to "review" your business plans.
Furthermore, I don't know that the UN control of the Internet would lead to repression - it might lead to chaos. I could see shadow DNS systems springing up.
The UN has no accountability, thus cannot and must not be trusted.
Sirius Sir,
Isn't US opposition to the ICC based on similar reasoning? Opposition to the ICC because it would entail a loss of sovereignty for the US is similar to *pick a nation*'s exposure to their loss at the discretion of the US.
As one with a lifetime of experience in journalism, I'd like to remind readers of the attempts of United Nations agencies to install a new information order that, underneath all the sweet sounding platitudes would have given authorities the power to put a free press under the boot heel.
Now, why should I be suspicious about this? I wonder.
IPV6 is being pushed as a replacement IPV4. It has a much larger address space for IP numbers (such as 209.219.43.32), which are soon expected to be in short supply. Japan appears to be in the forefront. It is backwards compatible in that he recognizes the existing numbers.
But I wonder how this figures in the push for the UN to control DNS.
More info available here
Perhaps everyone can factor in a stated but little acknowledged component of the internet. The military was the creating force in the setup of the net (DARPA), how would they deal with having their data paths regulated by the enemy. Not too well I imagine.
If it is indeed true that the US could unilaterally cut off a country of its choice from the internet it is perfectly understandable why the rest of the world would like to see that power changed...
Would you also make the case that the US armed forces should be under the auspices of the UN, since your core argument obtains (it is true that we could unilaterally destroy a country, and it is perfectly understandable why the rest of the world would want to deny us this power)? If not, why not?
Do you begin to see what is going on?
Aristides,
and the Russians can destroy the world, and the Chinese can destroy the world, and....
I'm all for freedom and a minimum of regulation of the flow of information on the internet. Are we sure that the US will continue to provide this? I stumbled across this article:
Internet Governance Squabble Expected To Hijack U.N. Meeting
"“Security would suffer if we had multiple governments seeking to operate functions of the Internet and the domain name system. That would be a terrible mistake,” he says.
That’s not necessarily true, however, according to one academic. “One risk with having [ICANN] so closely linked to the U.S. is it becomes a target,” says Milton Mueller, an associate professor at Syracuse University and a lead contributor to the Internet Governance Project, a consortium of academics with expertise in international governance, Internet policy, and information technology.
“There’s no reason why similar [existing security] procedures couldn’t be set into place” with a new oversight system, consisting of many governments or even none at all, the scenario he prefers. World governments are challenging ICANN, whose memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Commerce Department expires next September, but public interest groups like the Internet Governance Project have been opposing the organization for years, Mueller says. “We don’t want the Internet to be carved up into national territories,” Mueller says. “We want to keep the Internet global and free and open. The United States is as much of a threat to that as other countries.”
snip
"“That information is controlled by the United States for the whole world,” Mueller says. “The United States could eliminate an entire country code if it wanted to. Nobody’s accusing them of wanting to do that, but it’s a strange feeling for the rest of the world that their existence as a top level domain depends on a unilateral U.S. decision.”
And while few people dispute that oversight from multiple governments would add an unhealthy dose of geopolitics into the mix, it’s naïve to believe that those disputes do not already exist within ICANN, he says.
As evidence, he points to the decision last month to postpone for the second time in as many months a decision on creating a .xxx domain for adult content. The U.S. government stepped in after opposition from conservative lobbying groups."
Oh for the love of Pete, give them their goddamn XXX, the rest of us will happy not to have Gay Videos pushed to the top of the stack with our searches for MPEG encoding hardware…
That said, Wretchard nailed it. Let the bastards design and build their own. China and Iran already filter content (thanks to Microsoft and Google). I suppose they have to worry about the US filtering some of their content, perhaps the way they have shut down Al Queda websites that are active information portals for AQ operatives using codes… and Al Jazerra that is overtly anti-US. So you can make an argument that information is filtered from US internet users (so we don’t buy Iranian WMD technology?)… the NSA would still make a case to monitor them anyhow. Can’t monitor them if they don’t publish it. ‘SPose we ought to give them dictators in control of the UN some new-clear tecknowlegy to go wi’t.
annoy mouse, the worry is that political considerations in the US could affect another countries ability to use the internet. Surely you could see the problem for US if the shoe were on the other foot? It is a valid concern.
The US should just say NO!
no further discussion is needed.
If he thinks that the US is doing a bad job, he's free to go back to the technology of 1990, or set up a Net of his own. But it's not something that the UN can just yoink from the US - the fact that people think it's even close to possible is a sign of how little of the world they understand. The US runs it, has no interest in giving it up, and the UN has no ability to take those powers away. It doesn't matter what's "fair", that's what it is.
sirius_sir said...
ash,
The shoe WILL be on the other foot if the UN ends up controlling the internet.
---
Possible ash responses:
1.duh
2.duh, how silly of me not to see that.
3.but WE would deserve the shoe, nobody else (MRW) does, it is we who must repent.
ummmm, doug, the goal is to keep the internet as free and unfettered as possible. A rational approach would be to limit US interference as well.
lupin3,
I too have been puzzled by the feasibility of taking out a countries top-level domain. Certainly blocking the top-level domain and any ips assigned to that country would create havoc but given the ability to route many networks through a handful of public ips technical savvy people could get access to the web pretty quick.
Ultimately a technical oversight committee that can remain independent from political concerns would be ideal. Something like the ITU or other similar body could give us the best chance at independence.
On a side note, I am intrigued by the ‘ethno-centric’ potential of top-level domain assigns. For example, doesn’t .gov route to US government sites? There are a lot of governments in the world.
Wanna add to Keith Lowery's post: You can control the pipes by controlling the routers, both at the backbone and downstream to and immediately out of the ISP's who provide last mile connectivity to the end users.
Anyone talking about controlling the internet through controlling DNS is not thinking the notion through thoroughly. Yes, you can influence it heavily if you can determine what the root DNS system recognizes namewise -- very heavily, there's no denying that -- but you cannot actually control it. You can make the internet unfriendly, you can even go out of your way to make things work strangely, but only at the router level can you truly make "block" or "allow" decisions that stick.
Remember: For a while there, name resolution was done with local hosts files, not with DNS servers. It would make life hell, but it *is* possible, albeit extremely difficult and unfriendly, to have an internet without DNS. I wouldn't want to experience it, but it is possible. So I don't think people should think of "controlling" the internet through controlling the root DNS system. The real control is at the level where the packets get routed.
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