I read this Guardian story linked to by Charles Johnson, and wondered how close to the truth it was.
You would expect an announcement that would forever change the face of the internet to be a grand affair – a big stage, spotlights, media scrums and a charismatic frontman working the crowd.
But unless you knew where he was sitting, all you got was David Hendon’s slightly apprehensive voice through a beige plastic earbox. The words were calm, measured and unexciting, but their implications will be felt for generations to come.
Hendon is the Department for Trade and Industry’s director of business relations and was in Geneva representing the UK government and European Union at the third and final preparatory meeting for next month’s World Summit on the Information Society. He had just announced a political coup over the running of the internet.
Old allies in world politics, representatives from the UK and US sat just feet away from each other, but all looked straight ahead as Hendon explained the EU had decided to end the US government’s unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body that would now run this revolutionary communications medium.
So I dug around a bit, and found a blather-filled article in some online tech magazine that helped not at all. (Stick with me here, and you can get a glimpse into how I write these posts). Then I thought, first, what are the root servers? Where are they? Who runs them? So I did a quick Google search and scanned some information about them, then I found this nifty list at the Wikipedia, which can be counted on to be pretty reliable when it comes to Internet tech entries:
Letter Old name Operator Location A ns.internic.net VeriSign Dulles, Virginia, USA B ns1.isi.edu ISI Marina Del Rey, California, USA C c.psi.net Cogent distributed using anycast D terp.umd.edu University of Maryland College Park, Maryland, USA E ns.nasa.gov NASA Mountain View, California, USA F ns.isc.org ISC distributed using anycast G ns.nic.ddn.mil U.S. DoD NIC Vienna, Virginia, USA H aos.arl.army.mil U.S. Army Research Lab Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA I nic.nordu.net Autonomica distributed using anycast J VeriSign distributed using anycast K RIPE NCC distributed using anycast L ICANN Los Angeles, California, USA M WIDE Project Tokyo, Japan
So I’m wondering: Exactly how did the EU stage this coup? Exactly how does the EU expect to take control of the root servers from the companies that own them, and most important, how does the EU committee expect to get control of the DoD root server?
Methinks this Guardian writer is unable to research facts before spouting nonsense. And this was in the Guardian tech section.
A number of countries represented in Geneva, including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control, but it refused. The meeting “was going nowhere”, Hendon says, and so the EU took a bold step and proposed two stark changes: a new forum that would decide public policy, and a “cooperation model” comprising governments that would be in overall charge.
Much to the distress of the US, the idea proved popular. Its representative hit back, stating that it “can’t in any way allow any changes” that went against the “historic role” of the US in controlling the top level of the internet.
But the refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world’s governments are expected to agree a deal to award themselves ultimate control. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.
It’s amusing how this writer thinks that if the UN says the U.S. must give up control of the Internet, America will just say, “Sure! No problem.” Does he not realize that even if the U.N. Security Council brought forth a resolution saying as much, the U.S. has veto power?
When I first saw that article on LGF, I wondered if it had any basis in fact. Now I know: I’m not going to lose any sleep worrying that the EU is going to get control of the Internet.
The article is just another in a long list of articles written by journalists who don’t understand their subject matter, making dubious or false claims that can be easily disproved with a few minutes of online research.