

The core Internet institutions abandon the US Government - Yakulu
http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/10/11/the-core-internet-institutions-abandon-the-us-government/

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generj
I guess hoping for a dramatic dismantling of Bluffdale and Clapper's arrest on
perjury charges was always unrealistic.

In reality, we've already started to win. Jewel v. NSA, rather than being
dismissed under executive privilege and placed into the realm of "paranoid
nutjobs" is proceeding strongly, as are a multitude of other lawsuits with
strong merit.

There's been a renewed interest in stronger systems, which will ultimately be
the only way to prevent against surveillance. After all, policy changes only
are secure and trustworthy of the government that makes them.

The transfer of Internet institutional power away from the US is just another
step, even if it's probably a bit less useful than you might suppose, given
that every major technological power has also participated in similar
surveillance schemes.

So while I still wish for political reform in the short-term, I am continually
re-assured by other efforts which will solve this issue in the long-run. So
long as we don't forget about this issue, it will be solved one way or
another.

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tptacek
Insofar as the Internet is an "entity" with any of the kind of agency that
would allow it to "abandon" anything, it is governed by telcos, 5-6 major US
Internet companies, and the content industry.

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mrleinad
Brazil's government (and UNASUR as well) is pushing for building connectivity
for all of South America, excluding the USA, so all information flows between
countries without going through US companies.

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a-priori
As a Canadian, I wish this were possible for us. Virtually all of our Internet
traffic, even to hosts in other parts of Canada, go through American
territory. I'm not sure if it would even be possible to route our traffic
around the US.

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atlanticus
Apparently you are not aware that Canada is part of the five eyes. If you are
then I don't know what to tell you.

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a-priori
I am aware, and that's something I've voiced my concerns about with my MP, but
I don't see anything changing under our current government.

But even if we weren't, it would be possible for American agencies to
intercept Canadian traffic without any sort of due procedure.

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atlanticus
You have no responsibility to take to the streets to protest the evils of the
Canadian government as long as you can blame the Americans.

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a-priori
I don't follow...

~~~
atlanticus
Indeed.

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mcguire
Many HN readers may support this action (heck, me, too), but this is a
_ridiculous_ article.

" _...turned their back on the US government..._ "

" _...he conspired with her to convene a global meeting..._ "

The "major Internet organizations" have about as much organization as a room
full of cats. Don't expect this important action to actually mean much.

Except possibly for a new herd of top-level domains, useful primarily to
extort money from trademark owners.

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iambateman
This is a graphic explaining "who runs the internet":
[http://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/assets/governance-2...](http://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/assets/governance-2500x1664-21mar13-en.png)

I don't think we fumbled our right to lead. Internet standards are bigger than
the US. This is good, imho.

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suprgeek
I guess everyone is getting tired of the Arrogance and heavy-handedness of the
NSA.

Arrogance - We (NSA) will sabotage, undermine and subvert legitimate efforts
at security because we need the ability to Snoop on everybody. Thus making the
Internet Unsafe for everybody else as well only to suit their paranoid needs.

Heavy-Handed: We will store all communications that we get get our hands on
either directly or thru foreign lap-dog governments(Five eyes). The rights of
Americans other nationals and everybody else be dammed.

About time some one held their feet to the fire for this nonsense. Snowden
should be given the Nobel Prize for Human rights (A new category that needs to
be set up)

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a3n
A good thing. The US has squandered its right to lead.

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chimeracoder
Who says that any single governing national body should ever have the right to
be an all-but-unchecked international leader, the way the US has?

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a3n
To the extent that the US provided technical leadership, resources, stability
and benevolent dictatorship, they could _hope_ for the community following
them as the best alternative. There is no longer any basis for such hope or
expectation.

It's probably been a long time coming, and too bad it had to happen the way it
did, but that seems to be the way these days in so many areas of US
"leadership." We can't be trusted.

~~~
justanother
This. We nurtured it, we funded it, and as recently as WCIT-12, I personally
had zero desire for international governance, as many other countries have
some very 'non-open' ideas about what to do with the Internet. But, as it
turns out, so do we.

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sologoub
Exactly the point though, towards the end of the article, they lament the fact
that instead of an open and somewhat self-regulating environment, we are
getting more "political oversight".

Political oversight is seldom effective, especially when you try to honor the
rhetoric that everyone must be on equal footing. With such a plurality of
stakeholders, any consensus is extremely difficult to achieve. Instead, you
often end-up with a bunch of half-measures and nuisance regulations.

In my own ideal world, governments and their regulations stay within their
borders and the "Internet" as a pseudo-entity is not regulated in any way.

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tokenizer
While this is necessary knowing what we now know. I really hope it isn't
continued by the UN as a tool for the countries with worse human rights
violations.

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Draiken
Saying Dilma Rousseff "has been intensely critical of the US government and
the NSA spying program" is a big overstatement.

Regardless, let's hope this segregation happens and the internet can get a
little bit of freedom from the greedy hands of the US Government.

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speeder
She cancelled US visits and contracts. Complained on the UN assembly.

And even raged on twitter (yes, raged on twitter, teenager style).

How that is not being intensely critical?

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Draiken
That's showing off as a critical. Nothing was DONE. A lot was said.

If she had actually taken action against it, I'd buy it. She didn't and she
won't, so I (and you should too) assume that's just propaganda. At least in
Brazil it's how every politician plays the game.

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saraid216
Yeah. Clearly Brazil should have launched nukes at the US.

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curiousdannii
What differences will this make now?

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gcb1
good point. the article is thin on this topic.

my guess is that latin countries will have a local exchange instead, which is
about damn time to be honest.

which happens regardless of that meeting...

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dlitz
Hopefully, this will just involve transferring the governing authority away
from the U.S. government without changing how the IETF/IANA are actually
operated.

It would be bad if the traditional, international standards-setting
organizations (e.g. ITU, ISO, ECMA, IEEE, etc.) ended up gaining control over
the IETF/IANA, and they've been eying for it for some time now.

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atlanticus
The more that people buy into the idea that the only problem is the US the
easier it is for the entire West to continue with business as usual,
regardless of election time posturing by EU nations.

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jafaku
Would you mind using a stronger font/color? This is unreadable for me.

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tux
Yeah that exactly what I thought. Could not even read first sentence of that
page. Even after zooming the page ^_^

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gcb1
at least you can zoom.

death to all lazy slobs who just cancel zoom on mobile instead of doing
his/her work.

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walshemj
ah more jollies/meetings in hard to get to 3 world dictatorships so that
"civilians" cant hold ICANT to account.

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snowwrestler
I find this article to be pretty overwrought.

NSA efforts have focused on exploiting applications, weakening encryption
standards, and subverting telcos and big hosted service providers. None of
those are managed by Internet governance bodies. Altering the internal
structure of ICANN would not inhibit NSA activities one bit.

The revelations of NSA spying have pissed off a lot of other countries, and no
doubt increased their desire to splinter the Internet into a federation of
national networks, which would be easier for them to each respectively
control. That would help them protect from NSA spying... but it would also
give them greater capability to control every other aspect of Internet access.

This is the approach that was rejected at the ITU, and recall that we all
cheered that result.

I think it's interesting that this article describes the values of freedom and
democracy as cherished by the U.S. Aren't they cherished by all people? Who
doesn't want to be free?

There is a group of people who don't cherish those values, and those are the
leaders of national governments that are known to be oppressive, censorious,
or both. Would China really be a better steward of "Internet values" than the
U.S.? I don't think so.

