November 16, 2005--www.Col.Muammar.Quadafi.ly.com
I hadn’t heard from Muammar for quite some time so I thought I’d drop him a note via email.
You know, “How are things now that you no longer have nuclear weapons? Without The Bomb, is anyone returning your phone calls? Do you have any spare oil because we can’t seem to get that much any more from Iraq, and gas prices here are killing us? Is the family OK now that we’ve stopped bombing your tent?”
But I kept getting a message back—“File not found” or “No such person.” I was getting worried. He had promised to send me one of those cool hats he wears all the time, and where would I now get one if he somehow couldn’t be found?
But then once more the NY Times came to my rescue, reporting that Libya lost its Internet domain for five days recently and thus there was no way to reach anyone with an email address ending in “.ly”-- Libya’s domain (see story linked below).
But thankfully that got cleared up. Libya paid the fees it owed and service was restored. I’m pleased to be able to report that Muammar is OK and the hat is on its way to me and should get here before it gets cold in New York.
After relaxing about the situation in Libya, since I had the article in front of me, I read deeper into it, and learned for the first time that because the US invented the Internet (not Al Gore silly), we set up a company, a nonprofit no less, called Icann (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to allocate and control (ah, control) access to the Internet. Til now I had thought that everyone had open, uncontrolled access to the Web. Just the other day I had causally secured a new email address for myself in about five minutes and it didn’t cost anything. I didn’t even have to contact Icann or fill out any forms for the Office of Homeland Security.
But now I know that the US holds power over access to this essential tool for commerce and communication; and, no surprise, this is not making other nations very happy. In fact, some are saying it’s another form of American “unilateralism.” They are calling for a new intergovernmental body to set principles for running the Internet, to end America’s monopoly. We are of course resisting all such efforts, especially when some were foolish enough to suggest there might be a role here for the United Nations.
In the spirit of attempting to figure our how other peoples might feel about the US controlling and dominating the Web (and the nearly universal use of English as the language of the Internet), turn the situation around—
Say you were wanting to drop George Bush a note to see how he is doing now that his approval rating is in the 30s and Scooter has been indicted. You entered his email address (http://www.GeorgeW.no43.WH.US.Gov) and you got back a message saying “No such person.” Well, you sort of knew that already—no such person—but wouldn’t you be especially upset if you then needed to ask Britain or Libya or, worse, France to fix the situation because they controlled country domain names?
You know, “How are things now that you no longer have nuclear weapons? Without The Bomb, is anyone returning your phone calls? Do you have any spare oil because we can’t seem to get that much any more from Iraq, and gas prices here are killing us? Is the family OK now that we’ve stopped bombing your tent?”
But I kept getting a message back—“File not found” or “No such person.” I was getting worried. He had promised to send me one of those cool hats he wears all the time, and where would I now get one if he somehow couldn’t be found?
But then once more the NY Times came to my rescue, reporting that Libya lost its Internet domain for five days recently and thus there was no way to reach anyone with an email address ending in “.ly”-- Libya’s domain (see story linked below).
But thankfully that got cleared up. Libya paid the fees it owed and service was restored. I’m pleased to be able to report that Muammar is OK and the hat is on its way to me and should get here before it gets cold in New York.
After relaxing about the situation in Libya, since I had the article in front of me, I read deeper into it, and learned for the first time that because the US invented the Internet (not Al Gore silly), we set up a company, a nonprofit no less, called Icann (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to allocate and control (ah, control) access to the Internet. Til now I had thought that everyone had open, uncontrolled access to the Web. Just the other day I had causally secured a new email address for myself in about five minutes and it didn’t cost anything. I didn’t even have to contact Icann or fill out any forms for the Office of Homeland Security.
But now I know that the US holds power over access to this essential tool for commerce and communication; and, no surprise, this is not making other nations very happy. In fact, some are saying it’s another form of American “unilateralism.” They are calling for a new intergovernmental body to set principles for running the Internet, to end America’s monopoly. We are of course resisting all such efforts, especially when some were foolish enough to suggest there might be a role here for the United Nations.
In the spirit of attempting to figure our how other peoples might feel about the US controlling and dominating the Web (and the nearly universal use of English as the language of the Internet), turn the situation around—
Say you were wanting to drop George Bush a note to see how he is doing now that his approval rating is in the 30s and Scooter has been indicted. You entered his email address (http://www.GeorgeW.no43.WH.US.Gov) and you got back a message saying “No such person.” Well, you sort of knew that already—no such person—but wouldn’t you be especially upset if you then needed to ask Britain or Libya or, worse, France to fix the situation because they controlled country domain names?
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:56 AM
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