U.N. Control of the Internet? Impossible!
November 9, 2005
by David R. Usher
Those who follow my work will be surprised to see this article. It is not about social issues. I have thoughtful opinions on just about every issue debated today, but rarely write outside my field of focus.
The very idea that the United Nations thinks it could seize control of the Internet is worth clarifying. The articles I have seen fear it would be possible for the U.N. to seize of the Internet.
Fear is one thing, technical reality is another. It is not possible for anyone to take over anything more than a meaningless piece of the internet.
Here is why it will not happen:
We invented the Internet. It is the intellectual property of the United States Government. In fact, I witnessed one of the first IP-based transmissions as a college student in the early 1970’s. IP addresses and DNS names are an asset, the theft of which would violate digital rights of the United States Government.
When it is all said and done, few foreign countries will have the courage to participate in any U.N. activity that would immediately begin a bitter battle over international intellectual property reciprocity agreements. Their stock and financial markets would collapse on fear alone, with little effect on anyone else.
We have been kind enough to allow everyone in the world to use this technology free of any licensing or royalty fees. It costs a paltry sum to register a DNS name. This could change, if needed. We could levy fees against any country attempting to steal the technology, and easily cut off access if they do not pay.
Secondly, it is not technically possible for the United Nations to take control. It would be possible for individual countries to take control within their own borders -- allocating DNS entries and IP addresses -- but that would cause them to be automatically cut off from the rest of the internet very quickly.
Routing protocols are very capable of filtering and blocking conflicting information that comes in from other Internet Service Providers about routing and the locations of websites. If a wayward country started issuing IP addresses or DNS names that conflict with the rest of the internet, those addresses would not work anywhere except inside the renegade country. The rest of the world would never be able to communicate inside the renegade country, and that country would end up unable to access much if not all the rest the internet.
Businesses, users, and government in the renegade country would pay an extremely dear price. They would essentially find themselves living on an uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere.
Being able to make a telephone call to anyone you want in Sudan means very little if you cannot call outside the country. This is why nobody has ever tried to steal the telephone system. In the case of the Internet, the decision matrix also rests heavily in favor of cooperation with the IETF and ICANN.
History provides some insight: Compuserve was an early ISP who attempted to lock its users into being dependent on them for everything. Fees were changed every step of the way. It was inconvenient to access anything outside the Compuserve network. It did not take long for users to discover they were being held hostage. They changed ISP’s in record numbers, and Compuserve faded into history.
Countries who might want to control DNS and IP addresses have little actual need to do so. Allocating DNS names and IP address blocks is a mundane technical matter. It does not matter who does it so long as it is done promptly and accurately.
Some countries are extremely interested in controlling what their citizens can see or do. That is a matter of filtration. Countries such as Singapore and China are experts on this subject. In Singapore, you cannot see anything deemed immoral or anti-social. You see an intercept page instead, and your attempt is logged. China goes much further, trapping email and blocking political web sites. Controlling DNS or IP address allocations does not enhance the ability of countries to control internet use by their citizens. Moral: The risk of flaunting the world far outweighs what little political gain that might be realized.
My suggestion: Pass the Sense of Senate Resolution sponsored by Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota). Be prepared to vigorously enforce our intellectual property rights against any country who attempts to seize control of DNS or IP addresses. Remind the United Nations that we will defend our intellectual property rights if anyone attempts seizure. Internet Service Providers will naturally protect the internet and automatically shut down any wayward country before they even begin to cause a problem.
Now, we can all relax and have a good chuckle observing the latest international flea circus, brought to you courtesy of the bloviating blimps running the United Nations.
David R. Usher is President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition.
