The U.N. wants to run the Internet...

WesleyWes

A World Wide Web of Oppression
by Steven J. DuBord
August 8, 2005

Any plan for an Internet effectively controlled by the United Nations will serve only to blanket the globe in a world wide web of oppression.

A United Nations-appointed panel has done it again. Or not done it again, depending on your perspective. What did they do? They convened purportedly on behalf of the best interests of every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth — this time regarding the fate of the Internet — though they were not elected to this task by any of the billions they supposedly represent. What didn't they do? Agree, thank goodness.

There are few things worse than unelected, unaccountable "representatives" actually agreeing on what they think is best for the world and leaving the world no say in the matter. Come to think of it, these people do represent someone; they were nominated by the UN secretary-general. The fact that he is knee-deep in the UN's oil-for-food scandal — one of the biggest humanitarian aid swindles in history — just might shake our confidence in his hand-picked team.

Reuters reported on July 14 that this panel, the Working Group on Internet Governance, was unable to reach an agreement on who should manage the Internet and how the job should be done. They did, though, come up with four models for overseeing the Internet that ranged from maintaining the status quo of U.S. management with private sector involvement to putting the assignment of all Internet domains under the auspices of the UN. Reuters stated: "At issue for the world body is who runs the Internet and how it can better serve the world."

To "better serve the world" … hmm, shades of the old Twilight Zone episode in which aliens visited Earth and brought with them a book reassuringly titled To Serve Man. It turned out that the aliens were taking humans back to their home planet on a one-way trip because … (spoiler alert) To Serve Man was a cookbook. As this publication has previously noted ("Make Way for the UNternet?" on January 26, 2004, and "UN to Make Internet a Global 'Common Heritage'?" on March 21, 2005), the United Nations has long desired to "serve" the world by running the Internet.

Yet the UN's real stake in the issue is not how the Internet can better serve the world, but how it can better serve world government. For an Internet effectively controlled by the UN is an Internet effectively controlled by government. That the UN-appointed panel was called the Working Group on Internet Governance gives this away. To see what an Internet effectively controlled by government looks like, one need look no further than to a permanent member in good standing of the UN Security Council, Communist China.

Through both technology and regulation, Communist China has severely limited access to the Internet from within its borders, creating what has been called the Great Fire Wall of China. Yet the building of this Great Fire Wall has not disqualified China from membership in the highest ranks of the United Nations. How will it serve the world to turn over the Internet to a body that tolerates such tyranny?

Communist China's totalitarian Internet policies are the most repressive in the world. The Open Net Initiative, a joint effort by the University of Toronto, Harvard University, and the University of Cambridge, recognized this in their 2004-2005 study on Internet filtering in China. Beijing "operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad-reaching system of Internet filtering in the world." Anyone who opens an Internet account in China must register it with the police. Chinese Internet Service Providers are required to track their customers' usage and websites visited. Cyber cafés offering public Internet access "must keep detailed logs linking users to the pages they visited." The Open Net Initiative study points out that "China's intricate technical filtering regime is buttressed by an equally complex series of laws and regulations that control the access to and publication of material online."

U.S. firms desiring to do business in Communist China must bow to these repressive regulations and to Beijing's lust for absolute control over its subjects. French news agency AFP reported on June 13 that Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google have all agreed to cooperate in censoring the Internet from their China-based sites by filtering out content that the Chinese government finds objectionable. The list of forbidden words includes "democracy," "freedom," "human rights," and "Taiwan independence." AFP also noted that any China-based websites not formally registered with the government by the end of June 2005 would be shut down by the government's Internet police.

Article 29 of the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that "in the exercise of their rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law.... These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." Since the UN views rights as being given by government, not granted by God, there is apparently no incompatibility between the Communist Chinese policies — which are, after all, "determined by law" — and the "principles of the United Nations."

Any plan for an Internet effectively controlled by the United Nations will serve only to blanket the globe in a world wide web of oppression.


Peace!

edanto

Do you think this article is objective?

bonkey

WesleyWes wrote:

There are few things worse than unelected, unaccountable "representatives" actually agreeing on what they think is best for the world and leaving the world no say in the matter.

That is how the internet has worked up to now, so I'm at a loss as to exactly what your point is.

Are you saying we should take it off those currently in control of it because they too represent something that there are few things worse then, but that it shouldn't be the UN to whom it is given?


jc

lazydaisy

bonkey wrote:

That is how the internet has worked up to now,

Can you elaborate? Thanks.

BuffyBot

Might be worth checking out http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=307763

Spacedog

who cares who runs DNS, you can't trust anything you send over the internet from being monitored as nearly every router is passes. the IP protocol needs to be re-designed to allow unrestricted, private communication.

ressem

Spacedog wrote:

who cares who runs DNS, you can't trust anything you send over the internet from being monitored as nearly every router is passes. the IP protocol needs to be re-designed to allow unrestricted, private communication.

IPv6's optional "Encapsulating Security Header", intended to use DES as lowest common denominator, which should be enough to discourage your flatmate/neighbour/admin who is running ethereal or duplicating all traffic on your switch port.

Or do you need an invisible source and destination also? Also has authentication so might be harder to deny.

bonkey

lazydaisy wrote:

Can you elaborate?

The people notionally in charge of the internet up to now have effectively been "unelected, unaccountable "representatives" actually agreeing on what they think is best for the world and leaving the world no say in the matter", as the OP put it.

If this would be the problem with the UN running things, then it is equally a problem with how things are currently run.

jc

Suff

well some control over child porn and thing of that nature are required surely, but will they carry on and beceom control freaks / web police?
some of us might need a permit to launch an new web site !!!??
now that would be just crazy! :eek: :eek:

bonkey

well some control over child porn and thing of that nature are required surely,

I guess it depends on what you see as "of that nature". More accurately, I guess you'll find a gross divergence of what people of differing cultures decide is "of that nature".

but will they carry on and beceom control freaks / web police?

Who is "they"? The people currently in control? The proposed UN body which would assume control? Some other group?

some of us might need a permit to launch an new web site !!!??
now that would be just crazy!

But what has this got to do with whether or not its the UN in charge?
Anyone in charge could make such requirements.
Indeed, I would suggest that with nations like the US and the UK becoming increasingly (at least in my mind) draconian in their implentation of pseudo-security measures (i.e. stuff that gives the illusion of improved security, rather than real improvements), it is more likely that leaving the internet in the hands of a national body is more likely to lead to such a scenario.