Let's just drop the FCC, it's OT and leads nowhere.

I would have no objections at all and would even be delighted if an all-american guy as talented as Jon Postel was to run the show. After all, back then things went very well indeed and the question "why change ?" would have had my undivided support.

As far as democracy vs. republic goes, it would probably not do the discussion any good if we were to examine how much of the constitutional rights are left over in todays America. Fortunately, that doesn't matter much for the question at stake.

It is interesting to read what Jon Postel said, only a few days before he died, about how ICANN should be operated:

http://www.house.gov/science/postel_10-07.htm

Key quote: "it should be non-profit, to ensure the impartial central coordination of the Internet;
...
it should be guided by a broad international and industry consensus, and the board should represent the full range of international and functional interests;"

and

"...the Internet should not be managed by any government..."

I continue to be shocked by the DoC statement quoted earlier and can find no reason whatsoever why one country should have exclusive control over a clearly international infrastructure of constantly growing importance.

That is what needs fixing and the DoC concurred, at least until the beginning of July.

You ought to know better than that by now. :p

Well, lets look at another aspect of the original post then:

Concerning the implementation of censorship on the net, Chinas CN2 project involving Cisco, Juniper and Alcatel is, as revolting as it is, pretty much state of the art, including IPv6:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY.../0605cnet.html

They make huge profits by selling lots of standard defs at slightly lower profit margins, because the standard defs look cheap compared to the over-priced HD sets. Then, they make obscene profits when anyone buys an HD set. That's why they've been constantly and successfully lobbying to push back the date when HD transmission is 'set' to replace standard def. I believe it was originally 1995, now it's 2006, but that still isn't certain!

AFIAK, the original time table for broadcasting in DTV was set in 1997 and had the Dec 31st, 2006 as the cut off date. Now it's been pushed back to 2009. I also thought the original slowness to the converstion had to do with clearing the 700mhz range that certain channels (51-69? something like that) were currently using.

The FCC has openly and publicly stated that the reason they keep old standards around because people shouldn't be forced to buy new receivers. This has been the case with every new radio-based technology including GSM, digital cellular, HDTV... They're trying to protect the users from those mean horrible corporations that want them to buy a new phone. They've behaved this way from day 1. And they have a point to some extent, but I disagree with the amount of time.

IPv6...people make it sound like it could just happen overnight. And if they did do it, requiring everyone to buy new hardware/software, we'd hear how the horrible big corporations are forcing everyone to spend money.

We probably would, but the fact is that it is almost always cheaper in the long run to just make a clean switch. By delaying any transition the consumer buys time by paying for obsolete equipment, and then they still need to buy the new technology anyway. The transition from standard def to HD is technically less complex than the one from PowerPC to Intel, but Apple will probably be done with theirs first, even though they've started more than a decade later.

Since corporations wouldn't allow the transition to take so long if it were costing them profits, the only reasonable conclusion is that they've found ways to make profits from it. I don't see how letting them do the same with the internet would benefit the average user.

Most of the equipment shipping now can do IPv6 or is firmware upgradeable to do so. Cisco and Linksys already have position papers on their plans to provide free upgrades to current equipment.

I don't even know how to address such "logic." Why would it be costing them profits? Why must this either cost or produce profits. What if it just doesn't matter? Cisco IOS has IPv6 support, and if I were handed an IPv6 connection I could simply make it happen.

If suddenly everyone were told to get with the program and become IPv6 compatible, can you imagine the mayhem? You think turning on WEP is too complicated for most people...imagine them being told they must upgrade firmware...

My point is that if you don't want the UN or some other 'corrupt' organization in control, who do you want? Corporations, by definition are looking out for their own best interests and have no obligations to anyone but their shareholders. That's why cost or profits matter, and that means that compared to the UN for example, corporations are more 'corrupt.' The UN is at least trying to look out for the interests of the world as a whole. What corporate program for example, begins to compare with UNICEF?

I don't want to defend the UN, but once again, what is the alternative?

I believe the UN is a power-mad organization looking after its own interests only, not those of the world. They've already stated that the Internet "needs" to be censored in order to stop "hate speech." Which sounds noble enough, but who gets to decide what speech is acceptable then? Since they've already shown their anti-US bias over and over again, why would we hand them the keys to the Internet?

What is the alternative...

1. Do nothing. It's working. Stop trying to fix it.

2. Give it to a consortium of academic institutions. The danger here is that anti-American/anti-corporate organizations try to put the wrong people in power.

3. Create a new organization. Same pitfalls as #2, but even more likely to happen.

I'm still voting with #1 until I see evidence of a problem that could be fixed in some reasonable way without creating new ones.

Since the UN is essentially a democracy in which the US and its allies each have more than one vote, I wouldn't worry as much as you about who woud decide.
1. It's not right to say it's working just because the system isn't grinding to a halt. Like the old wild west, things are getting out of hand and some semblance of law and order is needed.
2. I agree with you a bit here, but I don't see anti-corporate as being anti-American. Most (all?) large corporations are multi-national and really aren't looking out for our interests at all. The reality is that 'Corporate America' doesn't exist anymore. Academic institutions are probably the best bet at this point, provided we can keep corporations from interfering with those institutions.
3. Where would that come from? Most likely the same corporate interests that cause many of our problems.

Wow! What's with all this anti-corporation rhetoric on this thread? You'd swear there were no ethics whatsoever in the corporate world and that they could put just anything out there and consumers would buy them.

Sure, they have an obligation to shareholders, but none of them make money unless someone purchases their products. And they won't sell their products unless consumers place some kind of value in them. Which means . . . holy smoke! . . . they actually have to attend to that concern. And that introduces the dynamic of a relationship between corporations and consumers, which supercedes that of corporations and shareholders (who get nothing if the corporation can't sell its products). And when you start talking about a relationship wherein people express their values in some manner, ethical considerations enter in -- all that without university professors, the U.N., or a government agency controling anything. ;)

Oh sure, there is the danger of anti-trust developments, and we need government to help watch out for that. But I'm not seeing where that comes into play re. the Internet. Where there are problems that need to be ironed out, then it would seem that could happen between the corporations and agencies involved.

Having spent a great deal of time with each of corporate, government, and academic institutions, I'll claim they're all capable of being equally inept at performing just about any task.

Wow indeed.

So far we've had:

• a long, completely off-topic rant on the FCC, industry and how they conspire in lots of interesting ways.
• bold statements how various entities were anti-american and as such not qualified to take part in ICANN-like workgroups.
• how corporations are ethical; discussion on that topic here:
  http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=40945
  starting about Microsofts move to flag words such as "democracy" with error messages in their chinese blogging service.
• how corporate, government, and academic institutions can all be idiots.

Part of the confusion may be related to the fact that there are two distinct problems:

• Exclusive amercan control over ICANN
• The larger WSIS-approach initiated by the ITU

I am completely with those who feel that there should be no more regulation than strictly necessary. Keeping IPs unique, DNS running for all domains and the WIPO out of domain-disputes should hopefully be handled by an independant institution in pretty much the way Jon Postel outlined it (see post #21 in this thread).

The WSIS-process should indeed be followed very closely, because it will, like it or not, probably have considerable impact on the initial topic of this thread, the future of the internet.

Absolutely Right On. Having spent a 40-year career in all three myself (in two countries) Craig has got it right. The reason is simple: all of those institutions employ people and those people are all human beings with ambitions, foibles, political beliefs, variable ethics, external influences, etc.

The IEEE has a number of standards committees that are typically populated by representatives of all three constituencies. That might be the way to go - make sure that none has the balance of power, though.

Have you not heard of Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, or Worldcomm? Does anyone here think that either Love Canal or Three Mile Island was the result of too much government interference?

I'm not saying government and the UN are perfect, but we're living in an era that encourages people to believe corporate greed is good and will solve all your problems, be they in the real world or cyberspace. It won't. It will generate its own set of problems. Like it or not - and often I don't - some government intervention is necessary because every organization needs a counterbalance.

Edited:

There are tens of thousands of corporations operating without problems nor the need for the government to be "overseeing" them in the way that's being suggested here. Look in the white pages of your phone book and behold all the businesses--corporations! Also, consider the role the government played in destroying Arthur Anderson Corp, which was a legitimate business employing hundreds of people. It's a two-edged sword, this government supervision business.

I'm not saying there should be no relationship between government and business, only "oversight" shouldn't come in unless there are problems, and I just don't see that re. the Internet.

. . .we're living in an era that encourages people to believe corporate greed is good and will solve all your problems . . .

Well, fwiw, we don't believe that in Kansas. ;)

Yes.

As for the other question, Phil already answered it well. You point out a few problems, and there are thousands of others behaving well. Do you assume all black people are criminals because in the inner ghettos they commit most of the crimes?

Now where's the logic?
No he hasn't. Arthur Anderson was committing fraud on a massive scale! That fraud cost thousands of people their jobs, their homes, their retirement security and in some cases their lives.

Yes, I've only pointed out a few of the worst and best known offenders, but there are many more and the scale of their offenses is usually far greater than those of individual criminals. Making matters worse, it is rare that these criminals are prosecuted, so we don't hear about most of them at all.

What I assume about black people is that they should be offended that so many blacks are in prison today for committing crimes far less damaging to our society than those committed by companies like Arthur Anderson and Enron. Equality of justice doesn't seem to apply to white collar crime.

Could we please try to get this on-topic again ?
 

On-topic, argumented thoughts on the future of the internet anyone ?

I would be very glad if this thread could get back on track and become as interesting as some others of this kind we've had recently with remarkably more articulate and relevant contributions.

It is tempting to go after all the flame-bait that there is in the thread now, please be brave and resist ;) .