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

[Peter]

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005, Marcus Brubaker wrote:

> 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.

Oh, so there will be state-sponsored name squatting ? ;-). There is no 
need to cut connections, namespaces can be overloaded and NAT need not 
occur only at your home router. The internet is *extremely* flexible in 
routing as it is today. There will be no problems, just a little more 
work for admins.

Peter
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