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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:ietf_censored-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On > Behalf Of Mike S > Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:18 AM > To: ietf@xxxxxxxx; 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. > >
