[LINK] UN's Internet Hijack ...

[Frank O'Connor]

On 19/06/2012, at 2:36 PM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> 
> So, what other purely-technical, international standards organization can
> be trusted to voice their concern over this issue, without wanting to take
> control of the net itself?


Internally ... 

Perhaps the IETF ... hey, the ITU pretty much wants their job ... but those lads don't often rouse themselves from the RFC process or get terrifically political. Geeks .... what can you do.           :)

Maybe a push from CISCO or the big router, modem, cable, fibre and hardware producers not affiliated with the ITU and the big telcos. Problem is with that lot, it's hard to draw a line in the sand ... many belong to the ITU.

In the good old days ISOC would have been a good choice (a natural ... it was created primarily to represent Internet users), but now the ITU has infiltrated it and it's sold out for its ICANN domain name franchise it's unlikely to stir. IANA supposedly still exists but most of its functionality ... DNS etc ... has been taken over by ICANN. (Who is in charge of IP number distribution nowadays? I mean, I should know that with IPv6 coming into play ... but I haven't kept up.)

ICANN's Member at Large program died an unnatural death seven or eight years back after a couple of the members at large elected to the Board got too damn democratic and obstructionist, so it's now basically an arm of government rather than a body that represents Internet users. At any rate it's been more obsessed with its lucrative domain name franchise and how to make ever increasing amounts of moolah out of it, and implementing the latest TLD changes. I doubt it would stir ... and even if it did ... it would be seen as an arm of the US government.

The NICs ... I haven't kept up with who's administering/authorising them for a number of years, but they are still in existence and they are tied to geographically distinct points ... so I suppose they are international to an extent. Again, I think they are too tied in to the status quo to be moved to act.

Externally ...

As you say ... a whole heap of people and organisations I wouldn't want to have at the table because ethey'd come with their own non-networking agenda.

Bottom line: There's not too many bodies out there to speak up for the Net. Not any more.