Seems that the UN wants a piece of the Internet pie.
Check out Kofi Annan's utterly newbie statement: "[Internet standards] must be made accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people."
Um, Kofi? They are. The standards, as you put them, are not geography-specific. Operating systems are written in dozens of different languages. All you have to do is put a hardware infrastructure in place, study LAN/WAN networking with classes and textbooks written in your language, deploy your clients/servers/routers/firewalls ad nauseum, and golly-gee-whiz(!) you have an internet. (Don't quibble, dear readers -- oversimplification, I know.)
For me, it just further underscores how little the UN knows about anything.
Why are we still allotting them space on our soil?
posted by Linda on March 26, 2004 05:06 PMBurn the bastards down and sent to Brussles!
Posted by: Madfish Willie at March 26, 2004 06:22 PMAnd you can get all the software for free. And most of the hardware too. Anyone want a PII-300?
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 26, 2004 06:52 PMYes, but the UN doesn't have exclusive control over it so it isn't "accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people."
Or at least I think that's why Kofi was saying that. It's possible he already knows what you've pointed out but is loudly proclaiming what he said as an excuse for more stricter controls on the Internet. Can't have people in dictatorships getting the Wrong Information about their Benevolent Government, after all. :-P
Posted by: Patrick Chester at March 26, 2004 09:56 PMNo doubt, Patrick! :)
I think you hit the nail on the head with that one.
Posted by: Linda at March 26, 2004 11:00 PMThe UN doesn't give a rat's patootie about censorship or even the concept, they want to get their hands on what they think is a cash cow.
They will soon learn the term: burn rate.
Posted by: feste at March 27, 2004 12:34 AMI think the day the U.N. Takes over the internet will also witness one of largest DOS attacks in history.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at March 27, 2004 12:44 AMI think you're right too, Stephen. At that point, I think I'd just log off the phones and head home for a week or so. :)
BTW, Mr. Batender, just where have you been lately? I need scotch!!!
Posted by: Linda at March 30, 2004 12:13 AMWhy are we still allotting them space on our soil?