NEWS: US Retains Control Of The Internet

Despite opposition from many nations the US has retained its control over the internet. In an eleventh hour agreement the UN has agreed to leave the US in control despite countries such as Iran and China pushing for an international comitee to oversee the internet. Instead an international forum will be set up to discuss net issues, although it will not have any binding authority.



Its amazing that the internet has became so widespread that it is even being disscussed by the UN, i wonder if its creator ever thought it would be so massive?

I believe it was the correct choice to leave the US in charge, they seem to have done an excellent job so far so why change what isnt broken?



[edit on 16/11/2005 by MickeyDee]

Until all this came up, I didn't know that anyone controlled the internet. In a way I'd like for Iran or China to take control. Then we'd hear some complaining, or perhaps we wouldn't since they'd just pull the plug on dissenters.

China and Iran are the last two countries that should be opening their mouths about the net. They fear the internet because of the free exchange of ideas is so hard to monitor and their populations are exposed to ideas that threaten their backwards and oppresive dogmas.

I honestly believe no one should control the internet. I honestly believe that the internet is the key to inciting peaceful revolution in many nations with oppresive governments. People can learn many things while never leaving their homes, and can voice dissent annonomously.

In the US, I believe the interney has been key in the decline of the Bush Admins popularity. Since they cannot really monitir or supress information on the net fast enough, they no longer have a total control over the truth, and thus, people are able to visit other countries websites and news agencies, and see everything that the TV media has not reported.

The internet is a beautiful thing, and honestly, I highly doubt anyone will ever be able to pull the plug on it. Its gone too far and has affected too many people. Its a realm of pure thought. A wonderful forum for the world, where no matter your nationality or social standing, everyone on here can have an equal voice.

The U.S. only controls the distribution of IP addresses and has ultimate control of the root name servers that are responsible for resolving domain names (such as www.abovetopsecret.com) into an IP address that is used internally for Internet traffic. It doesn't actually control Intenet traffic itself, nor has ever used the powers it does have to censor sites using that power.

It was a good decision, turning this over to another agency, especially to the UN, would have been a disaster to all Internet users worldwide.

[edit on 11/16/2005 by djohnsto77]

It was a good decision, turning this over to another agency, especially to the UN, would have been a disaster to all Internet users worldwide.

AGREED. I would not oppose an international, politically and nationally neutral body of "geeks" and Gurus to oversee the net. I think such an arrangement would make all reasonable countries and nationas happy, since no country will have a say. The running of the organization would be comepletely unpolitical and unbogged down by nonsense burocracy.

The last people on earth who should be trying to control or run the net is the UN.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
The last people on earth who should be trying to control or run the net is the UN.

Yep. They put countries like Libya in charge of the human rights committee, so I imagine they'd probably put North Korea in charge of keeping the Internet "free." Soon, we'd just be able to see Kim Jong-Il's propaganda!

I actually found this whole process really interesting, even the earlier threads about it.

To bad the UN didn't get control though, I would have been fascinated to see how they screwed it up.

I mean seriously a Porn for Food scandel was bound to happen.

Oh well, business as usual.

Spiderj

I believe the agreement reached (i.e., the establishment of a sort of steering committee--without any power other than advisory) was the best the U.S. could come up with under the circumstances. The opinion of most people seems to have been "it ain't broke, so lets not try to fix it."

My concern has been that other countries might try to come up with their own Internet(s). They could certainly do that, but all actions along that line would do would be to make the ability to access information anywhere in the world (the way it currently is) doubtful.

[edit on 16-11-2005 by Astronomer68]

Nearest I can tell, each nation retains it's own control of the local internet, but the US just distributes domains and such.

So I'm quite certain Iran and China have control of their internet, it sounds like they'd like to have some control over others. As many of you can figure out, those are about the last two nations you'd want in control of the internet.

Personally I am extremely satisfied with the way the internet has been going. I've never seen the US goverment ever censor anything (except top secret information supposedly), and if you look at all the anti-Bush stuff going around thats a sign that censorship isn't happening. I agree with the common attitude, it's not broken so no point fixing it. Especially considering the alternative would be the UN of all organizations.

It's not like we can trust the UN. Considering their past history of corruption, I would not put it past the UN to use this as part of the NWO's plan to take over. Just desensitize the public, feed them disinformation, and viola! Or just imagine the Big Brother possiblities considering spyware these days.

I can just imagine AOL becoming New World Online. Instead of "You've got mail" it would be "Big Brother is watching".

This would be just what we needed. A bunch of tin-pot dictators and thugs running the web. What an absolute joke! They would screw the web up like they screwed up the Oil for Food program.