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RE: Ietf ITU DNS stuff

2003-12-04 10:23:36
The Internet is _in part_ an intellectual construction but so is
the telephone network. It doesn't do much without a physical
implementation.
Whatever rights you, I, or anyone else may think are
inalienable, in many parts of the world, the only rights anyone has
are what the
government allows. I'm not saying I like with this but as a practical
matter,
if the government controls the switches and can throw people in jail
(or simply shoot them), it can
also restrict what is implemented on the network equipment.

Steve Silverman

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf_censored-admin(_at_)vesuvio(_dot_)ipv6(_dot_)tilab(_dot_)com
[mailto:ietf_censored-admin(_at_)vesuvio(_dot_)ipv6(_dot_)tilab(_dot_)com]On
Behalf Of Mike S
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:18 AM
To: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org; Dean Anderson
Subject: Re: Ietf ITU DNS stuff


At 07:30 PM 12/3/2003, Dean Anderson wrote...
There are, though, good reasons to have some government controls on
telecom.  Whether these controls are too excessive or too
lax is not up to
ICANN or the ITU.  I can think of cases were some good has
come of it.
E911, for example. Radio, TV, cellphone allocations. Ham
Radio licences.
If license-free wireless operation weren't restricted in
power, few people
would be able to use 802.11 because one company would be
broadcasting at
hundreds of watts, etc.

None of what you mention is even remotely comparable to the
Internet. RF spectrum is a naturally shared, limited
medium. Because physical law cannot be changed, manmade
laws must be used to regulate it for efficient use.

No such case can be made for the Internet, which is not
bounded in either bandwidth or number of connections in any
practical sense. It is also not something which can be
subjected to any sort of control, as it is not a "thing."
The Internet is strictly an intellectual construct, nothing
more. There is nothing physical or real to control. It's a
bunch of network operators who have agreed to interconnect
using agreed-upon protocols.

Sure, some governments can try to control some of the
physical media which the Internet makes use of, but getting
around that is simply a matter of reconfiguration.









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