Comments on: It’s Our Internet, And You Can’t Have It, Says U.S.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 00:46:29 +0000

“The Internet began as a Cold War project to create a communications network that was immune to a nuclear attack.” is a myth created many years after the Internet itself.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 02:43:17 +0000

Tony: Nice Wikipedia quote there, but you forget that all that information isn’t necessarily correct. ARPANET wasn’t the ‘true’ founder of the internet as we see it. Our friends across the Atlantic drink in those crazy liberal finger countries are the people we have to thank for today’s true Internet.

By: a.ruiter

a.ruiter — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 10:45:16 +0000

Dear Aunty,

It’s a perfect subject to be discussed in Political Geeks.
The problem however is, that giving your opinion - not
chiming in with Sip(owitz)’ interpretation of reality - the mail in question
is manipulated (deleted) and the sender banned out, as one of our employees
experienced recently.

I do fear that the noble promises of the US with regards to the freedom of
use of Internet are of the same level.

Best regards,
A.Ruiter

By: Gavin

Gavin — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 17:29:52 +0000

Well, that solves it. The USA created the internet, therefore the USA owns it lock, stock and barrel, and the USA can do as it wishes with it, including control it or sell it. And why not? The USA is, after all, the biggest boy at school and should control everything, not just the internet. Look at all the other wonderful things the USA has given us in the rest of the world. And look at all the wonderful things the USA does for us in the rest of the world every day. Stand aside everyone! The big kid is here and he’s in charge. Just ask him. He’ll tell ya!

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 14:41:35 +0000

Just remember who created the internet. From Wikipedia: The story of the Internet begins in 1969 with the implementation of ARPANET by academic researchers under the sponsorship of the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Some early research which contributed to the ARPANET included work on decentralized networks, queueing theory, and packet switching. However, ARPANET itself did not interact easily with other computer networks that did not share its own native protocol. This problem inspired further research towards the development of a protocol that could be “layered” over many different types of networks.

The Internet began as a Cold War project to create a communications network that was immune to a nuclear attack. In the 1969, the U.S. government created ARPANET, connecting four western universities and allowing researchers to use the mainframes of any of the networked institutions. New connections were soon added to the network, bringing the number of “nodes” up to 23 in 1971, 111 in 1977, and up to almost 4 million in 1994. As the size of the network grew so did its capabilities: In its first 25 years, the Internet added features such as file transfer, email, Usenet news, and eventually HTML. Now, new developments come to the Net one right after the other. It is this explosive growth in recent years that has captured the imagination of computer users the world over.

By: Gary and the Samoyeds

Gary and the Samoyeds — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 19:39:12 +0000

While I don’t blindly trust the US government, I don’t believe for a second that the governments of China, the EU, the tin-pot African countries, et al, have any interest but their own (and NOT of their people) in this. Imagine UN control of DNS.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 17:23:23 +0000

Thanks for helping perpetuate the fallacious myth that Gore claimed to have invented the internet.

By: John Anderson

John Anderson — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 13:13:48 +0000

In a way, this has already been addressed: countries can add a high level domain ID, eg “fr” for France or “tv” for Tuvalu, and even establish their own root servers.

But it is cheaper to just grab what exists. And then establish impossible rules in the manner of the EU constitution, of which its main designer says he cannot understand it.

By: ZacOz

ZacOz — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 10:38:16 +0000

QUOTE: “As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet’s DNS.”
READ AS: So you can give us your suggestions and we’ll do what we think is best.

QUOTE: “The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.”
READ AS: As the only country qualified, we need to tell ICANN what to do and keep them in line or all hell will break loose.

QUOTE: “In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly.”
READ AS: We remain open to an offer by microsoft to buy control of the internet from us (if the price is right)

“being seen by some as the U.S. thumbing its nose at the global Internet community”
Nah…..We all love the US attitude, and what do you mean “global” - there is no internet or users outside the US, is there ?