[OT] Internet may "fall apart" next month, says EU

[Marcus Brubaker]

Peter wrote:

>
> On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, psema4 wrote:
>
>> Haven't seen much information about this since last year, but
>> apparently it's become a little heated...
>
>
> Imho, to answer the question 'how will it affect you', ask yourself: 
> how did any government (your owns or another countries) action affect 
> your internet access and experience in the previous ten years give or 
> take a little. If your answer to that is 'not at all', then that's 
> probably the answer to how much the 'falling apart' that is about to 
> start (since when was the internet cohesive anyway ? - so what are 
> they going to do, set up border filters like in China ?). Come on.
>

I agree that the threat of this as portrayed by the media is seriously 
overblown but this could have some serious consequences.  In the short 
term nothing is likely to change, but long term the picture is a bit 
different.  What happens if the EU/UN decide to ignore ICANN and setup 
their own version?  Suddenly there are two "authoritative" bodies 
passing out IP address blocks and managing domain names.  If things 
aren't resolved, this will begin to play havoc with routing and DNS.  
There are enough government services around the world that require a 
healthy, functioning internet that they would be forced to choose sides 
and possibly cut connections to the other.  Suddenly the internet isn't 
so global anymore.

That said, I'm fairly certain that it won't get anywhere close to this.  
No matter how stupid the Bush administration is, too many multinational 
(read: wealthy) corporations depend on a globally functional internet 
for something like this to carry on for long.  Of course, if said 
corporations decide it's not worth the trouble to lobby and get together 
to start setting up their own "Corpnet" then I will start getting worried.

Regards,
Marcus
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