

The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom  - ottot
http://on.wsj.com/wVYBr2
Top-down, international regulation is antithetical to the Net, which has flourished under its current governance model.
======
CWIZO
I'm starting to get the feeling that this shit is never going to stop coming.
Something HUGE will have to happen if we want the government (&
people/organizations that are pushing this bills forward) to realize that this
does not lead anywhere good. But what? A full blown anarchy, massive
revolutions? It seems to me that there is no reasoning with this people and
that riots (or something such) are the only was to go here (if it comes that
far). I'm not advocating riots/anarchy/... mind you, but I fear that is the
only way. But ... seeing how my fellow citizens are (completely apathetic),
that seems unlikely to happen even if they take the internet away completely.

~~~
iwwr
The word "anarchy" is thrown around when a politician does not understand how
something exists without their approval. Maybe we should embrace this idea
once more. Anarchy is not the same as disorder or lack of rules. Opposing
chaos is a no brainer, what the political system is opposing is precisely the
ordered anarchy that the internet has become.

~~~
slowpoke
_> Anarchy is not the same as disorder or lack of rules._

Well said. Anarchy is not a world without rules - it's a world without rulers.

I always like to refer to something that Alan Moore (the author of V for
Vendetta) said: he regards the current state of society as anarchy gone
horribly wrong. As he remarks, people often like to claim that in a state of
anarchy, the strongest would eventually rule, and use this to dismiss the
philosophy as a whole.

Now he asks (and so do I), how is this different from our current society? The
strong (corporations and governments backed by monetary and military power)
control the weak (the general populace), and will do everything to keep the
current state of affairs and to prevent the loss of their power, including
threats, lies and atrocities against life.

Anarchy is the most natural and best state of human society. It is actually
unavoidable, since entropy dictates that any society will eventually
disintegrate. Instead of counteracting this with increasingly strict control,
which _always_ leads to some sort of authoritarian dictatorship (which will
also eventually destroy itself), we should embrace chaos, and try to work with
it, instead of pretending it doesn't exist or - worse - that it is tamable.

~~~
tripzilch
_Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem!_

------
jbarham
It's telling that the conference is being held in Dubai, UAE, which blocks
Skype because it competes with the incumbent monopoly telecommunications
company, Etisalat, which is majority owned by the government of the UAE which
is an absolute hereditary monarchy.

Remind me again why people like this should have any say in how the internet
is run?

~~~
nyellin
Because it's the UN, theater of the absurd, where Gaddafi was invited to speak
about democracy, where every dictator has their day.

~~~
kiloaper
And where the Vatican unites with fundamentalist Muslim countries to attack
gay rights [1], womens rights, freedom of speech and secularism.

[1]
[http://www.albionmonitor.com/0305a/copyright/ungayrightsvote...](http://www.albionmonitor.com/0305a/copyright/ungayrightsvote.html)

------
caf
This shows no understanding of how the Internet operates.

There is no _technical_ reason why organisations like ICANN and IETF have the
say that they do - at the end of the day it is nothing but consensus that
empowers them. We _choose_ to listen to what the IETF says about protocols,
and _choose_ to use the DNS root servers blessed by ICANN. If those
organisations become corrupted, we can choose to use others.

~~~
wmf
Until it becomes illegal (in some countries) to use IETF/IANA/ICANN stuff
instead of the "official" ITU alternatives. Just to give one example, a
national firewall could block all the ICANN/IANA DNS root servers so that you
have to use new ITU root servers.

~~~
marshray
Good luck with that. DNS lookups are only a few bytes long and thus are
probably the easiest protocol in common use to smuggle. So technically it
won't work.

However, a country could abuse its own population in order to force it to work
most of the time. There's probably not a technical solution to that problem,
people need to use the freedoms they have to oppose techno-authoritarianism
before it can take over.

------
slavak
'Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet
traffic'

Your honour, I present exhibit #1 as evidence that the accused has no grasp of
the way _the intrawebs_ works.

~~~
fredley
Works currently. This could change that. There's little difference these days
between the phone and internet networks, and yet they have no trouble charging
more for international calls.

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k-mcgrady
Wow, I can't believe this is the first I've heard about this. Any discussions
over internet control that give China a say will not end well. I don't see how
any regulation can improve the internet. All the government influence we have
seen this far has only tried to hurt it.

~~~
mjwalshe
Its not the first time the ITU have been sniffing around this for decades.

------
TeMPOraL
I get the feeling that governments really, really want to see mass protests
and rebellions worldwide over the access to Youtube and Facebook. Why they
can't see that touching the Internet will _not_ end well for anyone?

EDIT

It was a bit of a hyperbole on my part, and I wasn't thinking about Arab
Spring - more about recent anti-ACTA protests in Europe. And while it is true
that revolutions in Egypt, etc. were not _about_ the Internet access, we (aka.
the so caled 'first world') noticed them only after those governments started
blocking the Internet in their countries.

Countries with oppresive regimes have lots of reasons for people to protest
about; I'm more worried about our 'democratic part' of US and Europe, where
tensions are building up on topics of freedom, and especially freedom of the
Internet. Just a small example - recent takedown of Megaupload has annoyed
lots of normal (non-IT) people in my country, as Megavideo was really, really
popular way to watch TV series here. General sentiments are not looking good.
I wouldn't be surprised to see more Internet-freedom-related protests in the
future; especially that anti-ACTA protests in Poland seem to have been quite
influential in the EU politics on the topic. And as people get more daring,
there's a short way from protests to riots.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that the Americans are
worried that the US is turning into a fascist state. I don't see how
governments poking around the Internet is going to help to alleviate those
worries.

~~~
nl
_I get the feeling that governments really, really want to see mass protests
and rebellions worldwide over the access to Youtube and Facebook._

Wait - are you saying that things like the "Arab Spring" were actually
protests over _access to Youtube and Facebook_.

That's... umm.... a bold, unconventional view.

(While many credit Facebook & Twitter with a role in helping to co-ordinate
protests I am unaware of any claims that the protests were over _access_ )

~~~
fredley
Governments want control over Youtube, Facebook etc. in order to prevent these
kinds of uprisings.

People weren't rioting over access to Youtube and Facebook, but access to them
did fuel the riots and help coordinate them (hence they were shut down).

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes, I understand. I was exaggerating a bit. I edited the post to clarify.

------
sbierwagen

      • Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for 
      "international" Internet traffic
    

Intuitively, this seems like a terrible idea, but I'm having trouble coming up
with actual reasons why. Why _don't_ ISPs charge more money for traffic with a
lower TTL number? If you're sending a packet to London, rather than next door;
it touches more routers, and takes up more fiber capacity, so it _costs_ more,
but the customer isn't _charged_ more. Which seems weird.

Also, this isn't terribly new. The ITU has been trying to take control of the
internet since 2003:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Internet_Gove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Internet_Governance)

~~~
sgift
> If you're sending a packet to London, rather than next door; it touches more
> routers, and takes up more fiber capacity, (...)

There's the bug in your logic: A packet to London may touch _less_ routers
than one next door due various reasons that disallow routers near you to
handle the traffic (maybe the "direct line" between you and your neighbor is
damaged. Then it has to go to London and back - and this is only the most
simple example). In general, you cannot say which routers are touched by a
packet before you've send it.

~~~
gioele
> There's the bug in your logic: A packet to London may touch less routers

Regardless of the number of routes, the ISP knows before relaying your packet
that certain destinations require the use of paid traffic while other can be
accessed with peered traffic. I agree with the grand-parent: it seems strange
that ISP are not charging more for access to IPs that are outside their
peering agreements. I am not suggesting it; I just find it strange that they
are not trying to push it on us like the mobile operators are trying to do
giving you free access to Facebook [1] and their own music stores while
charging for access to other sites.

[1] 0.facebook.com

------
alexro
Governments get sick when they hear 'freedom' in any form, especially if they
cannot shut it up at will. So be prepared to more fighting over the years, as
the stake - the amount of free Internet users - grows every year.

------
fredley
Is charging for each 'international' click even possible? What if I'm using
Tor?

~~~
CWIZO
Then you will preferably* be sitting in jail ...

* by your local friendly government and/or copyright enforcement authority

------
quangv
Would something like a United States Constitutional Amendment do anything to
stop all these talks about making the Internet less free?

~~~
corford
Hmm actually I think something along those lines would be a great idea. Some
sort of Geneva Convention style treaty (but with more binding teeth) that lays
out a list of fundamental principles and rights for the internet that all
countries agree to adhere i.e. go over the head of the ITU.

~~~
wmf
But most countries don't _want_ that and thus they just wouldn't sign it.

~~~
corford
Well I guess that's where people power comes in (or revolution!). If the US,
Canada, Europe, Australia, NZ and most of the good countries in South America
and Asia signed it, that would be enough for me. The Iran's of this world can
have their own walled garden if they want.

~~~
quangv
Good Points Corford...

>Some sort of Geneva Convention style treaty (but with more binding teeth)
that lays out a list of fundamental principles and rights for the internet
that all countries agree to adhere i.e. go over the head of the ITU.

That'll be awesome...

ISP's have to be located in countries... I wonder if it's feasible to launch a
"Free Internet" satellite or something...

~~~
corford
ISPs located in a country that has signed up to the treaty would have no issue
communicating with other treaty member ISPs and since the idea is that most of
the worlds decent countries are signed up to this new treaty, where's the
problem?

------
jakeonthemove
Paying more for international traffic... FFS, this stuff is never going to end
until the Internet is comprised of a giant decentralized mesh of millions of
wireless routers in people's homes. And that will definitely happen once
regulation gets past a certain point...

------
tomelders
Why is it that governments are all for deregulating the financial, health and
environmental sectors, but are chomping at the bit to impose more regulation
on the greatest success story in the history of human civilisation?

If I were a cynic, I'd say it's because they're corrupt.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_Why is it that governments are all for deregulating the financial, health and
environmental sectors_

Where do you see any deregulation (especially in the USA) of finance and
health? These must be the two most regulated industries in the nation, and
only becoming more so. Consider SarbOx and then Dodd-Frank, and ObamaCare;
while I don't see _anything_ that's loosening the reins in those areas.

EDIT: spelling

------
uberkraftwerk
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all
the others that have been tried.” I think this qoute has some relevance here.
What we have now might not be perfect, but it works.

------
hastur
The article conveniently omits the fact that the Internet is already partially
regulated by one side: the US. After all, ICANN et al. are American
organizations and many of the most popular top domains (e.g. .com), which for
all intents and purposes should be considered international, are within the
reach of US law enforcement.

And we know what that means: Among other things, reckless and predatory
practices protecting the interests of RIAA, MPAA and other dangerous entities
from before the Internet era.

The author of the article (an FCC commissioner) simply defends the interests
of one side, while ignorant readers think this is a benevolent editorial in
defense of Internet freedom.

~~~
tosseraccount
Perhaps the MPAA/RIAA/China/Iran should set up their own internet and regulate
however they want.

~~~
ohashi
China kind of already does. Close off a lot of foreign major competitors,
block objectionable sites, have domestic ones replace them which tie into the
government.

~~~
snowwrestler
Exactly. My impression is that the U.N. negotiations are largely noise, since
nations will regulate things as they please within their own borders anyway.

