welp, apparently alot of countries are getting pissy about the fact the US won't give up control of the internet to the UN or whatever. Story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4327928.stm

Anyway, my personal opinon...the US created the internet. It was the brainchild of cold war military funding, was developed using US tax payer dollars, and was grown almost exclusively in the US. The US currently controls the internet through several groups and owns all the root DNS servers.

I say it's ours. It's nice the rest of the world likes it all and whatnot, but he internet was 100% a US creation. The TCP/IP stack is a US creation. Now that everyone in the world is using it, they want us to surrender our rights to it? Nope, sorry, I'd rather the US remain in control and keep it marginally functional rather than some half-assed UN committee that debates necessary changed for 3 years before doing anything.

After all, we're basically talking about surrending control to the UN. And the UN is, in my opinion, a fractured and powerless entity. It cries and yells alot, but in the end doesn't do much of anything. Except chew up money and time. So, if you don't want to be part of the US internet, make your own, but I guarantee that would be a mistake. So suck it up, UN! MUHAHAHAHA!

lol. Like anyone 'owns' the internet anymore anyway. Don't know wtf the UN is on about...let the US have the internet, as long as I can use it. I don't give a fuck either way.


Hey, could I claim Christianity if I was born somewhere near Bethlehem? That would rule. I'd proclaim myself as Ultra-Pope and have all Catholics bow for me. I'll make a Faith Tax. If you relieve believe in God, you don't mind giving up 40% of your income, right? It's in the Bible.

hey, I want 40% of the world's income. Even just 40% of half the world's income.

btw, the whole thing is that we (the US) control the root domain servers and are the sole input to internet policy. Like, structural policy. Domain names, new protocols, shit like that.

Anyway, everyone knows my stance.

lol i dont care who owns it. i just want someone to sue for getting spam emails, and if thats the US, fine by me! *sues Satis for not programming me a perfect spam-blocker*

The world wide web and the internet are internaitonal inventions. One part is invented by the pentagon, another by CERN, yet another by universities around the world.
Claiming the intrnet is a US invention is like claiming the current alphabet is Mesapotamian.

It's all such bullshit. The US invented the original concept that became the internet. We built the first infrastructure. We own and control the fundamental base of the internet, because we fucking built it! WTF is up with this international sense of entitlement. Just because the whole world uses it and depends on it, doesn't entitle them to shit! The protocols are all publicly available. If they don't like using our system, then go create their own! If they don't like that, then deal with the US having control! FFS!

But since the US "believes" (using the term loosely) in the freedom of speech and democracy what better way to introduce it then making a place where the internet is a free world? I sympathesise that the the US built it but... it means that the internet can be exploited so that the US gain more power over other countries. The ability to balance the US with another power is hard when the US owns everything. You lot are not superhuman and the best people. That is arrogant to say.

Ah yes, but the British invented the computer. Does that mean that all computers are ours to own? No. There are so many arguments here, plus the technological factor that i know very little about, but i have a few views.

If the internet is subject to development, then wouldnt it be better to globalise its ownership? After all, that proven business concept (Monopolies cripple development) may be in play here.

But as for the techologocal aspect, i dont know exactly HOW the internet is run, so i can only go so far with opinion. Heck, i didnt even know the US owned it, i just assumed it was kind of a modular system based on collective standardisation.

But perhaps it isnt entirely bad that the US owns it. After all, they have the strongest economy in the world.

the point is, we're not stopping you from building your own internet. The computer analogy is bogus. A better analogy would be...

The british built the first computer. It got bigger and bigger, but it's still the same computer. Every other country in the world likes it and has their turn on this big computer that is British. Since everyone in the world likes it, we should take this big computer (build by the british) and make it belong to the world instead of the british.

We didn't do that, we just built our own computers.



You make me want to cry. Comparing the internet to the alphabet is comparing apples and oranges. The US invented TCP/IP, the fundamental basis of the internet. We invented the infrastructure, entirely, from scratch. There was no international involvment. We also invented HTP, POP, SMTP, and all the major protocols that make the internet what it is today.

Foreign bodies got involved pretty late in the game, and only once the value of the internet had been established. The US did all the hard work of building, tweaking, adjusting and fixing the internet for decades. I find it typical that other people would try to lay claim to America's brainchild.

@ Satis: Considering your view on the retention of technology, computers would not have become what they are today if they would have been protect-owned by the British. It could very well be possible that the same concept goes with the Internet. If you retain the technology to the US, it will not flourish as computers did. You may indicate that the internet is a magnificent thing and theres not much more to devlop, you may be wrong, because computers at first were thought to be magnificent, yet if you show someone from 1945 what computers re capable of today, he may have a heart attack.

Secondly, assuming what Arathorn said is true, you cannot entirely reject what he said. If it is true, then the claim that the internet is an international invention is proportionally true, and you would be delusional to think otherwise.

Another point: I dont really know why ownership disputes are really takinging place. Its probbly in the article, but i cant be arsed to check it again.

other countries want a say on the future development of the internet. We (the US) want to retain our sole ownership.

We haven't retained the technology. The internet is a huge, living monster that we've created, and we have ultimate control of its brain. However, we have freely made available the DNA necessary for someone else to build their own monster.

It's not a fight over technology, it's a fight over control. Personally, I think the US has done a good job of running the internet so far. Additionally, the UN is an ineffectual governing body that's just an excuse for countries to have their little squabbles in a public forum. And lastly...the internet belongs to the US. We built it. We created it. We control it. If you don't like it, too bad, go make your own.

Fuck you all, hand it over to the UK, then, it won't suck any more.

There seems to be a lack of reasoning behind your points. You seem to be blindly adopting a posessive stance on the ownership of the internet, rather than putting forward what may be best for the people and the internet.

Ahh! There is the real point, isn't it! A perfect example of argumentum ad misercordiam.

My Latin's rusty, but isn't it argumentum ad misericordiam?


Nevermind me...I just felt like being a Latin spelling nazi.


Long live the internets.