European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run • Hacker News Board

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#81

Post by davidnu3 » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:21 PM UTC

polymatter wrote: post #71

davidnu2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First it's not "above all else" seeing that it's "Article 10". Second, the second clause basically negates the first one in its entirety: 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial…

* They aren't like Asmiov laws. The order doesn't matter. In either the Articles or the order of the Constitution. They are numbered more for convenience than anything else. * There are similar restrictions on the US 1st Amendment. Crying "fire" in a theater is the common example. I note that the 1st Amendment didn't protect Manning for very similar reasons. The EU law is just being more explicit.

The crying "fire" thing a is silliness that too many people unknowingly reference (it's not really a thing):

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121102/13355920920/stop-s...

All supreme courts interpretations of the constitution in the last 30 years have been in support to and helped expand the scope and authority of the first amendment.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#82

Post by mcv » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:22 PM UTC

davidnu2 wrote: post #58

mcv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And partly because US companies often get secret assistance from their government. The EU is better at creating a level playing field for open competition than the US.

It's European companies that get interfered with by their governments and that is a big part of the problem. There is no such thing as "secret assistance" in the US, and "level playing field" is another bullshit buzzword which means governments get to device about the companies they like best. Your economic woes are all your fault, own up to them and start changing things, ignorantly blaming others won't get you anyw…

> There is no such thing as "secret assistance" in the US

US spy agencies assisting Boeing with their bid against Airbus may not be secret anymore, but it was certainly intended as such.

The US government negotiating in Russia on behalf of Visa and MasterCard may not be secret, but it's certainly not the kind of assistance smaller companies can count on.

Face it, the US government and US corporations are in bed together. They represent each other's interests. This happens on a scale you don't see in the EU, or probably anywhere else.

I don't know what economic woes you are referring to, but I don't thing selling your government to the corporations is healthy for your economy.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#83

Post by esteth » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:23 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #27

I'd like to see a system based on the bitcoin protocol handling the TLD (namecoin?): You can't block it, you have public access to the registration data and with US, China, Russia and the EU involved, it's hard to achieve a 51%-attack.

I think a 51% attack would be really scary in this case, and quite realistic. If the US and the rest of the EU all decided they wanted some domain off the internet, combined they'd probably have enough power to fork the blockchain.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#84

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:43 PM UTC

davidnu3 wrote: post #78

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the UN in this instance. But if the current system of governance is so great, how did the net come to be so massively infiltrated by NSA/GCHQ? The problem is that the internet has come to be seen as a political problem by an increasing number of governments, and the current institutions that provide governance (ICANN, ISOC, IANA, IETF, etc) have no political power with which to push back.

NSA/GCHQ 'infiltrations' had little to do with TLDs and IP block allocations. Spy agencies did what they did with the help of over-broad court orders and legal justifications, non of the institutions you've listed had anything to do with it, either technically nor administratively (prove me wrong!). These are just red-herring arguments by parties who want to take advantage of this moral panic and claim the they shoul…

You are right on the specifics, SOAP and similar actions (lots of what really go on, under the US supervision) are what is related to TLDs.

Nobody managed to create a problem with IP block allocations yet, mainly because IPv4 is about dead, and IPv6 is plenty enough. There is no way that can change in the UN hands.

Anyway, the US has almost total control of the UN, what are you really complaining about?

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#85

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:47 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #75

psykovsky wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize you kind of described Namecoin? The future is now?

Yeah, I think namecoin is likely to be closer to the future, however, I still think the whole system would be more robust if it acknowledged that, for example, China and the US could run conflicting DNS systems and that this is perfectly OK, largely because this way we'd be forced to accept the reality of the situation instead of living in the silly illusion we have today. The whole PKI setup needs to be rebooted as…

> The whole PKI setup needs to be rebooted as well, and I really can't believe anyone that understands how that works considers it to be a good idea.

I still never met a PKI alternative that was a good idea. Of course, I didn't look at all candidates, but one'd expect that if something was ready to replace it, everybody would be talking about it.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#86

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:53 PM UTC

davidnu2 wrote: post #58

mcv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And partly because US companies often get secret assistance from their government. The EU is better at creating a level playing field for open competition than the US.

It's European companies that get interfered with by their governments and that is a big part of the problem. There is no such thing as "secret assistance" in the US, and "level playing field" is another bullshit buzzword which means governments get to device about the companies they like best. Your economic woes are all your fault, own up to them and start changing things, ignorantly blaming others won't get you anyw…

Both are clearly happening.

It's not a secret that the US spys help US corporations, and it would be incredibly naive to think that the european equivalent didn't happen. But the US spying apparatus is much bigger than what any european country has, givin it an upper hand.

Also, european countries mess more with its market. From highter taxes to strict rulebooks categorizing products and amounts to be produced, the EU goes over all possibilities for creating a big government. The US interferes much less, and has an upper hand because of it.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#87

Post by LBarret » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:55 PM UTC

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

> Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government

Source needed. I live in France and you can say whatever you want about the french, but being silent (online or not) about their government is not one of their sins.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#88

Post by andyjohnson0 » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 3:57 PM UTC

davidnu3 wrote: post #78

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the UN in this instance. But if the current system of governance is so great, how did the net come to be so massively infiltrated by NSA/GCHQ? The problem is that the internet has come to be seen as a political problem by an increasing number of governments, and the current institutions that provide governance (ICANN, ISOC, IANA, IETF, etc) have no political power with which to push back.

NSA/GCHQ 'infiltrations' had little to do with TLDs and IP block allocations. Spy agencies did what they did with the help of over-broad court orders and legal justifications, non of the institutions you've listed had anything to do with it, either technically nor administratively (prove me wrong!). These are just red-herring arguments by parties who want to take advantage of this moral panic and claim the they shoul…

"non of the institutions you've listed had anything to do with it". I agree, and I didn't say they did. What I did say is that they failed to stop it.

Look, the net has become a platform for large-scale trade, creation of news and social movements, dissent (e.g. occupy, arab spring), jihad (war on terror). These are all things that are of great interest to politicians, because they are either opportunities or threats to their power. Thats why so many of them (US/UK/FR/RU/TC/CN) have been attacking the net with censorship and surveillance. The Snowden revelations have brought this into the open and forced the issue of what to do. It seems to me that thats the context for this EU announcement.

Yes, the EU proposal is almost certainly an attempt at a power-grab, partly because thats what politicians do, but also because they fear some other group grabbing it first.

And the net has little power to resist any of this - because its governing institutions were not designed/evolved with that in mind. SOPA etc was only defeated because corporations with financial power [1] opposed it, not because the net somehow "defended itself". I worry that we might have reached a tipping-point where there net can't stay the same because the political pressure is too great, and all the feasible alternatives (such as UN control or full-on commercial control) are terrible.

In case its not totally clear, I'm not in favour of governments/EU/UN running the internet. I'd like to see a highly decentralised net, but I can't see how we get there from here.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Companie...

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#89

Post by crazy1van » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 4:01 PM UTC

acheron wrote: post #49

rikkus wrote: post #12

Governments have some control over the 'managing' and 'running' of the Internet, via TLD control, blocking, filtering, surveillance and legislation (e.g. the cookie law in EU), but even with all these in place, they're not really 'running' the Internet. If they did, there'd be no newsgroups, no torrents and no porn. They're seizing more control as time goes on, however: See the death of Net Neutrality in the US. I'd…

"Net neutrality" is the government "seizing more control". And not in some abstract way either, that is literally the goal. If it had actually "died" then that would have been a good thing, for those opposed to government control.

> "Net neutrality" is the government "seizing more control"

Good point. Telling infrastructure providers they must treat all traffic the same and telling them they must prioritize certain traffic is the same thing from a government power perspective.

Being for "net neutrality" is one thing. However, being for net neutrality and being for less government control of the internet makes no sense.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#90

Post by rikkus » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 4:04 PM UTC

acheron wrote: post #49

rikkus wrote: post #12

Governments have some control over the 'managing' and 'running' of the Internet, via TLD control, blocking, filtering, surveillance and legislation (e.g. the cookie law in EU), but even with all these in place, they're not really 'running' the Internet. If they did, there'd be no newsgroups, no torrents and no porn. They're seizing more control as time goes on, however: See the death of Net Neutrality in the US. I'd…

"Net neutrality" is the government "seizing more control". And not in some abstract way either, that is literally the goal. If it had actually "died" then that would have been a good thing, for those opposed to government control.

Ah yes I have this wrong! I was thinking of neutrality as being a natural state of the 'net, but of course that's not necessarily so.