ICANN to lose Internet dominance?

[Simon Bar Sinister]

read this. now.

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/12/12172042-is-flame-virus-fallout-a-chinese-russian-plot-to-control-the-internet?lite

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Its complicated, including many things most people, if they heard of them at all, probably don't know what they are. Not that that is a bad thing, it can be pretty technical even for computer nerds like me.

But this bit hear is fairly easy to grasp without homework:

The argument that the U.S. should not be in a position of power as far as overseeing the Internet will be bolstered by a world set aflame by news that the U.S. may have exploited its technological advantage to attack sovereign nations with Flame and Stuxnet. [very sophisticated "cyberweweapons" computer virii, probably requiring government sponsorship, perhaps the most sophisticated important constructs of their type. Of unknown, but suspected U.S. / Isreal origins ]

Some technology experts say the Dubai meeting [The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), that is, the most important meeting about the future of the internet and who controls it] could very well decide the direction of the world's most valuable resource - information - for the rest of the 21st century: The future of Internet anonymity, free speech and perhaps freedom itself could be at stake.

"I think there is a political story that is being missed here," said Chris Bronk, a former State Department official who worked in that agency’s Office of eDiplomacy and is now a professor at Rice University. "There's much more to this. … Stuxnet was better than bombs in the short run, but this could hurt the U.S. down the road.”

(stuff in brackets inserted by me)

Although from what I've been reading the U.S. is ENCOURAGING more governments to get involved, and I'm not really seeing any group that would propose an overthrow of ICANN (US dominated system governing the backbone "regulations" of the internet) that has a realistic possibility of doing so. Especially since the US powers that be seem to want it to become more pan-world than it is now.

I'm having a hard time picturing India or China REALLY wanting to damage its US relationships over something like this, despite the saber rattling. They have too much invested in other, far more lucritive things. The "naming mechanisms/regulations" and such don't rake in the cash.

There is a push by many counters to have ICANN replaced by a UN-Run body rather than a US one, how realistic is that? Hard to tell.

[SaGa]

this does sound rather complex.... if i where to point to conspiracy. id say they whould not have much a problem politically, giving power over the UN. wether our military had foresight this whould enter political debate. i dont know

is this still speculation as to where the virus REALLY originated from?. anything about this is top-secret if it did come from the US im assuming.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

this does sound rather complex.... if i where to point to conspiracy. id say they whould not have much a problem politically, giving power over the UN. wether our military had foresight this whould enter political debate. i dont know

is this still speculation as to where the virus REALLY originated from?. anything about this is top-secret if it did come from the US im assuming.

Yeah to "really" know we'd need some sort of straight up "leak" of the who/what/how/when info. But the cyber weapons program (started under bush, expanded under obama) is widely considered to be the most advanced in the world, and both the U.S. and Israel have had "weak leaks" (by lower level people, without clear details) that its them, that is, fairly shitty "evidence" in my mind. But, both Time Magazine and The New York Times have concluded that it seems most like that its a joint operation between the US and Israel (Originally against Iran, with other countries affected being accidental) code named "Project Olympic Games" (something like that, too lazy to google it right now, but I read that Time article and have heard references to the New York Times article on NPR) At first I did think it was "conspiracy theory" but it sounds fairly legitimate.

I think the new "flame" virus wasn't included in that (they were talking about Stuxnet) but now that they've found code in both that seems to indicate that they were made by at least collaborating teams of programmers, Flame aslo seems like to be US/Israelite.

I did some reading about both and its interesting how they are designed to not hurt hardly anything except very, very specific things and even will shut themselves down from replicating if they reach some level of confusion about what (unintended) trouble they might cause. Sounds closer to Artificial Intelligence / sniper rifle attack than a "virus" that just tries to replicate like mad.