back to article While the web stares at cat pics, the glue of the internet is being shifted from US govt control

The US government's role at the top of the internet should be replaced by four different groups, according to an official proposal put out for public comment. The proposal [PDF] was developed by a small group of volunteers looking at the "names" aspect of the current internet arrangements and would effectively recreate the …

  1. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    Here comes the new boss...

    ... same as the old boss...

    1. Tom 35

      Re: Here comes the new boss...

      It should reduce the price of bribes by cutting out the government middle men, so should be popular with corporations.

  2. Spanners Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Little though I like the US Government doing it,

    the idea of "for profit" corporations running the internet is completely unacceptable.

    Giving such an oligarchy legal immunity for anything is, at very least, asking for corporate buy outs by Russian, Chinese or even Middle Eastern backed groups.

    How better to "enlighten" us about their ideas and force us to follow them?

  3. btrower

    No.

    Same as the old boss as Graham Marsden said above.

    Having anything headquartered in the United States that affects privacy is belligerently foolish. It has to be a non-starter.

    Fool me once.

    I am sure that there will be all manner of interesting critique here at the Reg.

    Anybody presenting a 'trust me' architecture vulnerable to abuse by an incumbent or collusion by a small number is either incompetent or dishonest. From what I have seen it appears to be both.

    I don't have a design but surely there is some way to build a more secure system on top of the existing infrastructure using a distributed trust architecture that cannot be hijacked again.

    1. Tom Samplonius

      Re: No.

      "...some way to build a more secure system on top of the existing infrastructure using a distributed trust architecture that cannot be hijacked again..."

      I don't think you know what IANA does. So pro-tip: nothing that affects privacy. They manage things like numbering, and names that must be public for them to work.

      But any article involving the Internet and the US must have some frothy responses from EU citizens, even though the EU is home to "right to forgotten" censorship schemes and mandated gov't mandated IP and domain blacklists. None of which exist in the US. Most of that is due to the fact that many telcos in the EU are still owned by the gov't . For-profit corporations tend to value privacy a lot more. The UK gov't is now claiming that the US isn't doing enough to shutdown "terror" sites, so they are advocating more censorship. Austrailia has also implemented mandatory internet filtering.

  4. Ken 16 Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Who is this public who may comment?

    Perhaps a link in the article to facilitate commentard feedback?

    1. kierenmccarthy

      Re: Who is this public who may comment?

      So the comment period info is here: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/cwg-naming-transition-2014-12-01-en

      And you can comment using the email address: comments-cwg-naming-transition-01dec14@icann.org

      Kieren

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about OFCOM?

    SlamDunk:)

    1. Martin-73 Silver badge

      Re: How about OFCOM?

      Those arseholes would allocate IP addresses in blocks of 10,000 to any customer who wanted them (IPv4 Natch)... then throw up their hands and point at BT when they ran out.

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    I suppose it is naïve to suggest that the entire management process be run as a part-time effort by professionals using the RFC methodologies that work so well in actually implementing the Internet of Wingnuts?

    And that they be elected by peers (peeriodically), be from engineering backgrounds and be paid a stipend to cover expenses rather than fat-cat salaries?

    Watching this play out is like watching a cellular automation run on a big system with field wraparound parameters. I wonder how many small, static blobs will be left after the humongous glider gun shoots itself, fragments and flies apart?

  7. zen1

    When in doubt...

    throw 4000% more bureaucracy at it and things will become so mired down that people will eventually die before their problems are addressed, then problem solved.

    Every department entity I've ever worked with or felt their handy work, has just confirmed one thing: Government is useless to about 90% of everything it attempts to manage. Then, when it fails, they form blue ribbon commissions to get to the "root" cause, which is almost ALWAYS because a lack of proper oversight, when in fact it's just unethical people trying to illegally profit from their appointed posts.

    The only thing that could possibly be worse is if it were managed directly by Congress (the opposite of "Progress").

  8. Yes Me Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Scope

    The article doesn't underline that this proposal only covers *one* of the three legs of IANA's work: "IANA Naming Functions." That means, basically, DNS Top Level Domains. And the naming community - the people who actually make the DNS work for the rest of us - is suggesting that they themselves are best qualified to oversee this work. Better qualified, for example, than the United States Department of Commerce. Duh!

    The other two legs (IP addressing, a.k.a. "Numbering", and protocol parameter registration, a.k.a. the IETF) are also busy working on their proposals.

    Tip for Kieren: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ianaplan/current/msg01400.html

    1. kierenmccarthy

      Re: Scope

      The fact that the proposal only covers the naming aspect is mentioned in the second paragraph.

      I've been meaning to write up the IETF and RIR proposals for a while. Will do soon.

      Kieren

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