Who Should Own the Internet? |
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| 1746
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01-Jan-1970 01:00:00 |
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zZine (original author: 1746)
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| The Internet began as a way to share information between academic and research organizations that were widely separated geographically. The users were primarily technicians and academics, and they tended to share information in a free and open way.
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These original users were soon joined by others who were eager to explore the capabilities of this new medium and either had, or were willing to learn, the technological expertise necessary to understand how it worked, how to break it, and how to fix it. They, too, tended to share this knowledge.
With the advent of affordable personal computers, the information superhighway was opened to millions.
Since then, massive increases in technology and users have taken place, and the Internet has grown to become the most effective means of communication for almost everyone. However, the idea of an open environment now struggles to survive.
What exactly is the Internet? It can be seen as a web of interconnections including copper wires, fiber optic lines, and various wireless technologies that can be accessed by anyone who has their government's permission and the resources to acquire the accessing equipment.
Another way to look at the Internet is from a social standpoint. Once connected to the Net, a person can communicate with anyone else that is connected, as well as access an enormous amount of available information. It is the framework of an emerging global society, and it is fast becoming the communications infrastructure of the world, supporting a global economy, political system and culture.
The Internet can be a force for political good. It can promote human values by making economic management more effective, by facilitating the provision of technology and public services where they are needed and by improving the efficiency of allocating resources and services. It has the potential to make governments more accountable by giving the people an opportunity to interact with legislators while making representatives better informed and enhancing their efficiency. It can bring people together and promote peace and understanding. It can allow the world to become aware of itself.
The development of the social and commercial sectors of the Internet depends on a number of factors. At present, there is what I shall call a "frontier" environment - developers, users, governments, criminals, and corporate interests are all fighting for control. Theft, fraud, deception and privacy invasion are rampant. Users are calling for more government control, governments are calling for more industry innovation, and meanwhile, the criminal attacks have grown so numerous and sophisticated that most users are unable to protect themselves. A massive security industry has developed with a vested interest in keeping this battle raging. Until a technological and regulatory reassessment occurs, the Net will be unable to reach its full potential.
Commerce and national interests are scrambling to assert control.
The nation-state has long been the primary means of regulation, and the politics of the globe are largely determined by interactions between nation-states. A national government controls the electrical and communications utilities within its geographical borders, and may also pass laws governing the activities and conduct of its citizens. It may also enter into agreements with other governments.
Due to commercial interests who want a secure Net and free access for consumers, and users who are becoming used to the global nature of the Net but are concerned about their safety and privacy, pressure is being increasingly felt by governments, who themselves want to control the Internet more effectively. The question to be answered is: Given the universal desire for security, who should have control of the Internet and its resources?
Politics and market forces can endanger the Net by controlling the communications utilities and influencing regulations both within and outside their borders.
In some countries, voter issues such as anti-malware and data-breach disclosure laws are increasingly being enacted. The fact that anti-malware legislation by an individual nation-state hasn't and probably won't stop its own domestic malware, and cannot stop foreign malware and phishing scams, doesn't seem to matter. The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has told a Senate subcommittee that new laws are not necessary. "The majority of spy ware distributed today is from foreign countries," FTC Chairman Deborah Majoris said. "Technology is what got us here and technology is what will eventually get us out of here." Sen. George Allen (R-VA) contends that spyware is already against the law, but many legislators are rushing to prepare new laws in the face of voter discontent.
A recently defeated attempt by the European Union to allow the patenting of software threatened to stifle creative solutions to some of the problems the Internet is facing, and allow more corporate control. Corporate innovation can be seen to be stifled by legal challenges to every hint of competition.
Even if the laws governing behavior on the Net were effectively written, the sheer number of malicious acts and fraudulent activities makes enforcement and prosecution a near impossibility. There is simply not enough manpower to keep up. Coupled with various national security interests, this makes it more likely that control of the Internet will be attempted from the top down' as seen in the case of China, Iran and various other countries.
The core of the Internet
The number of people accessing the Net has grown tremendously while the number of servers for these clients hasn't grown at the same rate, thereby becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. To ensure the safety of the Net, it seems that server technology needs the same availability and popularity as client technology. Control of addresses is another means of controlling the Net, since every client and server needs an address to become a part of the Net. Control the IPs, the servers, and the addresses, and you control the Internet!
The US has been the dominant nation managing the Net's core addressing systems and traffic routing, because it played such a huge role in funding and driving the early days of the Internet. The US Commerce Department currently approves any changes to the Net's core addressing systems and the root zone files, which are in turn managed by the private company, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Thus, at present, the Internet is controlled jointly by the US government and a private corporation.
The issue of who will control this backbone of the Net (i.e. domains and traffic routing) in the future will be debated at a United Nations summit in Tunisia, November 16th through the 18th, 2005.
The UN's Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) published its suggestions to reform the way the Net is run, which will form the basis of the debate at the UN summit.
WGIG has suggested four models:
* Option One - create a UN body known as the Global Internet Council that draws its members from governments and "other stakeholders" and takes over the US oversight role of ICANN.
* Option Two - no changes apart from strengthening ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee to become a forum for official debate on Net issues.
* Option Three - relegate ICANN to a narrow technical role and set up an International Internet Council that sits outside the UN; US loses oversight of Icann.
* Option Four - create three new bodies. One to take over from ICANN and look after the Net's addressing system, one to be a debating chamber for governments, businesses and the public, and one to coordinate work on "Internet-related public policy issues".
The US says that these UN proposals would shift the regulatory approach from private sector leadership to governmental, top down control.
US Senator Norm Coleman introduced a Senate resolution calling for the Bush administration to oppose any suggested changes to the way the Net is run at the upcoming UN summit. He said there was no "rational justification" for moving Net governance into any kind of UN framework. He said it would politicize and stifle the Net. "Many aspects of running the Internet have profound implications for competition and trade, democratization, and free expression." "We cannot stand idly by as some governments seek to make the Internet an instrument of censorship and political suppression. We must stand fast against all attempts to alter the Internet's nature as a free and open global system," he added.
The European Union (EU) wants control shifted away from the US to a more representative global body or forum, but because the US wants to continue its historical supervisory role over the Net, it rejected the EU's proposals last month. Viviane Reding, The European Commissioner responsible for the Net, told journalists that the EU had "no intention" of regulating the Net. She talked of a "model of cooperation", which could include an international forum to discuss the Internet.
The firm that runs the .uk net domain name, Nominet, says there should be no radical change to the way that the Internet is managed globally and that it would prefer a system which did not over-regulate the Net. Nominet's director of legal and policy matters, Emily Taylor, warned that any major overhaul could lead to too much regulation. "From Nominet's perspective, nothing radical needs to change in Internet governance," she said.
Ms Taylor said that out of the several proposals by countries involved in the discussions for a change in Net management, it would prefer a model suggested by Argentina. It would mean Net management would remain more or less the same, but a global forum could be created made up of national governments, private sector representatives and civil groups.
"We prefer the 'multi-stakeholder' proposal, suggested by Argentina, which provides a balance between the US free market position, and the non-democratic nations' (such as Cuba, China and Iran) call for greater state control," said Ms Taylor.
Countries such as China and Iran want more say in controlling the Net.
While Iran is taking part in the UN discussions about who governs the Net, it is still committed to clamping down on what Iranians can do and say on the Net. The press freedom campaign group, Reporters Without Borders, reported that the Iranian government was looking to tighten its control of the Net further. It said the authorities were attempting to centralize web filtering technology across the country's different net service providers with a new filtering system from an Iranian company called Delta Global. Reporters Without Borders said it was concerned by statements coming from the company itself about its role. The head of Delta Global, Rahim Moazemi, told the local news agency ISNA in late September that its technology was able to block access to all the tools used to get round censorship. "If what this company's chief executive says turns out to be correct, online surveillance and censorship is to be stepped up," said Reporters Without Borders. "This is very bad news for Iranian bloggers and Internet users."
China, as befits its history as a closed society, maintains strict control over what may be transmitted and posted on its share of the Net as well as what may be accessed by it's citizens. It requires state licensing of its servers.
Political disagreement by governments worldwide, each with their own political agenda and cultural beliefs to uphold, will always create a certain amount of division of the Net in much the same way as they have always created political division among nation-states. Allowing this disagreement to affect global regulation of the Internet is a return to the past instead of a step toward the future.
In order to keep the Internet truly global, neither a government nor a corporate controlled Internet is acceptable. We must ensure that the Net is non-political and serves the whole world, and that its development is dominated not by the corporations or by governments, but by the people who use it.
A look at the historical direction human societies have taken shows the continuing emergence of individual rights and liberties. When this has been impeded, there are bloody revolutions. We need no bloody cyber revolution against repressive governments to impede the growth of the Net.
The Internet as a global society is still in a very early stage. The regulatory options open to us must include an open and free Internet. It is time for us, the users and builders of the Net, to determine how best to regulate it.
We must resist attempts at regulating innovation, ensure privacy and freedom, and support a global forum for a fair and just Internet that takes a reasonable and intelligent approach to regulation.
If we, those who care for and work with the Internet, don't speak up, then we will lose our ability to determine its future, and history will judge us harshly.
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.
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