
U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet - selamattidur
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-to-relinquish-remaining-control-over-the-internet/2014/03/14/0c7472d0-abb5-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_story.html
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lukifer
More likely: U.S. agencies are confident enough in their other means to
control the internet that they're willing to gain back a little good will by
_appearing_ to give up some control over ICANN.

Let's not forget that the FBI/etc reserve the right to shut down any website
for any reason, whether via a letter to a service provider, or simply showing
up and confiscating hardware in the name of "national security". And you can
bet they're not going to stop pushing SOPA clones either.

~~~
kiallmacinnes
I'm not sure this works so well for websites hosted outside of the US... LOTS
of websites really are hosted outside the US. They resort to confiscating the
domain names in these cases, and releasing ICANN is a small step towards
revoking this ability.

Personally, I don't really care if the US can shutdown a US hosted (both
server and domain) website - that's for Americans to get their laws fixed.

I do however have a problem with the US having global control over the
internet. This release of ICANN is a step in that direction.

------
MWil
In December 2012, I did something utterly stupid. I found a leaked email list
of all attendees of the World Conference on International Telecommunications
and gave them my uncensored thoughts on the dangers of a closed and censored
internet.

Received back like 30 non-deliveries, same amount of vacation replies
confirming to me that they would be at the attendance (good social engineer
hack, I suppose), and zero substantive replies.

I assume I'm definitely on a list for several govts since it went out to
US/European, Middle East, and Asian govt officials as well as the heads of
several private companies.

But now I see I won them all over...I did this.

~~~
sentenza
Certainly. This explains it all.

But more seriously, don't worry. If you are on any list, it's one for
activists and the like. At least, whenever you have problems crossing a border
or experience "curious behavior" of your computer in the future, you have an
explanation.

It might console you that there are a lot of people out there that are on
lists and don't have the slightest clue. I'm thinking of IT-employees in
European/Asian infrastructure companies whose personal access will be attacked
should an interested player want to hijack/scrape something running on that
infrastructure (as happened in the Belgacom hack).

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schoen
The Post's headline seems a big optimistic, since the news report is about
whether the U.S. government will claim to be the core authority administering
the DNS root (and other IANA functions). The article says the government will
now relinquish this claim. But it seems like there are certain _other_ ways in
which the U.S. government exercises "control over the Internet".

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larrys
This is actually a pretty big deal. I was around at the formation of ICANN. At
the time I remember saying "the fix is in" as a result of the interactions
between Network Solutions (the sole contractor prior to ICANN) and government
connections with SAIC corp a big contractor with ties to the government
security community.

[http://www.saic.com/markets/national-
security/](http://www.saic.com/markets/national-security/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions)

It's a big deal because given the security connections I never thought this
type of thing would happen.

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colmmacc
The argument about US "control" of ICANN has always seemed a little surreal to
me. I took this photo on the roof-top deck at ICANN (they know how to throw a
good party!) :
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/90065267@N00/10056736345/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/90065267@N00/10056736345/)
. That's the Whitehouse, and the US Capitol in the distance, that proximity of
influence isn't going away.

~~~
incision
I can see my window in that pic, yet had no idea ICANN is over there on 17th.

You're right about proximity. Within that radius chances are you're a
government employee, lobbyist or lawyer.

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notfoss
As long as most of the internet's infrastructure is controlled/maintained by
US based companies (Verisign comes to mind), such relinquishing of control is
a meaningless gesture, since the government _can_ force any US based company
to bend to its will.

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bikamonki
Doesn't NameCoin (a blockchain to store name/values, i.e. decentralized DNS)
solve this problem without the need for DNS servers (browsers hold a copy of
blockchain), registrars, governments, etc?

~~~
contingencies
Distributed consensus algorithms in general, including all blockchain systems,
could solve the registrar issue. Then you just need to solve the squatting
problem.

Governments have never been _required_ , they are just what grows out of a
geographically delimited, naturally re-occuring monopoly on violence in human
societies.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Governments have never been required, they are just what grows out of a
> geographically delimited, naturally re-occuring monopoly on violence in
> human societies.

Governments aren't what "grows out of that", governments _are_ that. You are
presenting the definition of government as if it was an explanation of the
source of government.

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mariuolo
Title is misleading. Seems to me opening control of the ICANN will mostly
address concerns regarding trade marks.

I wonder if it's not a way to prevent a fragmentation of the internet.

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marincounty
I still don't understand how ICANN can justify what they charge per domain
name? They need to lower their prices. It really adds up if you own a few
domains.

~~~
svenkatesh
Maybe you should stop being a domain squatter.

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coldcode
It's both great news and horrible news, like some kind of quantum event.

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icantthinkofone
This was going to happen years ago and the real announcement about this was
made back then, too. This is not new news based on the NSA or anything else.

------
squintychino
Ommited from the headline: ... contingent on having a backdoor hardcoded into
everything it is giving up control of

