Discourse.net

Andy Oram Talks Sense About Nonsense (WSIS Coverage, Actually)

This is the most sensible thing I’ve seen on the subject. And it still leaves out half of what I think is the story: the non-US perspective. Folks out there are getting real grumpy with what they see, with some justice, as US domination of the infrastructure.

Andy Oram, Gee, when did we give away the Internet? (An analysis of news about WSIS)

What king or dictator or bureaucrat has signed the document giving power over the Internet to one organization or another? Did I miss the ceremony?

One laughable aspect of news reportage is that the founders and leaders of ICANN always avowed, with the utmost unction, that they were not trying to make policy decisions and were simply tinkering with technical functions on the Internet. Of course, there is rarely such a thing as a merely technical function, and that truth has been borne out by the effects of ICANN’s policies on “intellectual property” and on the allocation of domain names in general. Perhaps it’s good for people to be talking openly of ruling the Internet.

But, in whatever ways ICANN has managed to wield its three-pronged fork (domain names, addresses, and assigned numbers such as protocols), it has never come close to being master of the Internet.

Now that the mainstream media have announced that the Internet is up for grabs, they are presenting the debate falsely as a two-sided fight between ICANN and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

…

So what is up for grabs? Certainly the right to define new top-level domain names (anybody visited a .museum site lately?) and to hand out to various favored organizations the plum of domain name registration (which really should be a nearly pure technical function, and has been turned into a heavy-weight, politicized activity by the “intellectual property” interests). But that’s not really very much.

The fears that seem to be circulating around the domain name fight is that governments or other organizations will use control over domain names to censor the Internet. Ironically, the biggest threat to freedom in the use of domain names has been from the private sector, specifically the “intellectual property” interests. But the danger is present that governments will catch on (China seems to be doing so) and manipulating the system to restrict free speech. Still, with search engines becoming more popular and more powerful all the time, domain names are not the prime prizes they seemed in the late 1990s.

IP addresses are also a potential source of control that Internet users should be conscious about, if not worried about. Addressing can be abused mainly in a context of scarcity, and there has been debate for years over whether IP addresses are getting scarce. (They’re certainly scarce when you ask the average local ISP for more than one!) A vigorous campaign to adopt IPv6 would remove most of the worry over this potential choke-hold.

And who ultimately is in charge of the Domain Name System? You are. You determine what domains you view. Somewhere on your personal computer is a configuration option that determines where you go to resolve top-level domains, and you can go far beyond what ICANN would like you to see.

Rectitude, Where Art Thou?

Mark A. R. Kleiman nails part of the Schwarzenegger mendacity: A governor whose word is his junk bond. The other part, of course, is that (never plausible) the promise to balance the state budget and protect school funding is already inoperative.

Politicians used to have to pretend to be honest. I miss shame. How do we bring it back?

Victory Has a Hundred Press Officers

The Miami Herald | 12/10/2003 | Pentagon, press wage war over coverage is a nice but fairly conventional op-ed piece by Reuven Frank, the former President of NBC News, concerning just how tightly the Pentagon and the White House try to control news coverage coming out of Iraq. If you read papers and blogs regularly you won’t learn anything new; if you don’t this is a great catch-up. Its conclusion, however, is priceless:

President Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs fiasco that victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan. In Iraq today, victory has a hundred press officers; defeat is classified.

Case Against Capt. Yee Starts to Smell Like a Train Wreck

Prosecutors Say It’s Unclear Papers Chaplain Carried Were Classified. You can never be sure about a legal case you read about in the papers. There’s so much texture and detail that gets lost in even the best newspaper report. That said, the case against Capt. Yee is giving off a certain stench of shambolic military CYA.

Would a white Christian chaplain get smeared with accusations of being a spy, get threatened with the death penalty, get locked up in solitary for three months, all over documents that the government isn’t even sure are classified? As for the adultery charge, note that it’s an offense only if it interfered with discipline—and apparently the affair was neither in the chain of command nor at all public. And by getting that testimony in first, then recessing the trial, the government manages a second round of strafe-and-smear.

Based on the news coverage, it sure looks like some combination of three things is going on: (1) Major government vindictiveness against someone who was effectively ministering to the Gitmo detainees and/or major government anti-Muslim bigotry [plus shades of Wen Ho Lee?]; (2) All that, plus the government is now throwing up whatever charges it can to cover up the fact that it smeared an officer without reason; (3) the prosecutors really think he’s guilty but cannot prove it and/or are totally incompetent.

The information that is public makes the ‘really guilty’ story seem much the least likely alternative.

Note also that the key part of the original accusation wasn’t giving secrets to the “enemy” nor even to the detainees at Guantanamo. Nor was the charge unlawful possession. No, as far as I can tell, the charge was carrying them around without the right security cover sheets….

Officials placed Captain Yee in solitary confinement for nearly three months in a naval brig while they completed their investigation into possible espionage. Maj. Scott Sikes, one of Captain Yee’s defense lawyers, said on Tuesday that military prosecutors once told him that they might seek the death penalty in the case.

But when the investigation was completed last month and Captain Yee was released, the military did not bring any serious espionage case. Instead, he was charged with two counts of mishandling classified data, a reference to the materials found in his luggage, as well as four new charges with no apparent connection to security issues. Those included adultery and keeping pornography on his government computer, issues that prosecutors said came to their attention in the espionage investigation.

After repeated complaints from defense lawyers that they could not proceed on the issue of mishandling classified information if it remained unclear whether the documents were classified, the government acquiesced on Tuesday. Lt. Col. Mike Mulligan, one of the prosecutors, said the government had decided to conduct a thorough classification review of the documents.

Eugene R. Fidell, Captain Yee’s civilian defense lawyer, called it disgraceful that his client had been kept in the brig for 76 days for possessing materials that the government still had not determined were classified. Mr. Fidell also said the military should be embarrassed to have tried to proceed with a criminal hearing on the charges without the determination.

The postponement of the hearing may create another problem for the prosecution. Mr. Fidell said that under military law charges were supposed to be brought within 120 days of the Sept. 10 arrest. The government has suggested that various factors have extended the time frame.

Major Sikes said he hoped the military would decide to drop the case. He said he believed that the military was pressing ahead as part of an unwise effort to save face over its initial miscalculation.

The case, he noted, “started out with allegations of being a spy.”

“There has since been a steady decline in the seriousness of the allegations,” Major Sikes said.

Major Sikes, a former military prosecutor, said, “This is the most incredible military proceeding this military counsel has ever seen.”

Followup reading: Justice for New Americans web site.

Total Marginal Tax Rates In The US

Once in a while I intend to post either the answer to a question that comes up in conversation, or — if I can’t find it anywhere — a plea for someone to tell me where to find an authoritative source. So when I say ‘FAQ’ I don’t mean about this site. The first of this very occasional series has to do with tax rates. Total tax rates — federal plus state. Now, obviously this is very much an average since local taxes vary a lot. But it’s still much more informative, I think, than just looking at the (seemingly more progressive) federal income tax alone. Throw in all taxes, and the picture looks quite different, practically flat.

Click to see Average marginal total federal and state tax rates.

Source: NY Times, Jan 20, 2003

And note that this data pre-dates the latest round of Bush tax cuts for rich folk.

Cruise Missle Built in Garage from 'Parts Bought Off the Internet'

Apparently, if the BBC is to be believed, this DIY Cruise Missile is not a spoof, but a real project.

A New Zealand man who built a cruise missile in his garage claims the New Zealand government forced him to shut down his project after coming under pressure from the United States.

Bruce Simpson says he built the missile using parts bought off the internet to show how easily it could be done.

OK. This is not what I want as a present. But it’s impressive.