Petrified Truth

Keeping the root servers

Here's a good decision by the Bush administration that won't be popular in some circles (you know, more "unilateralism"): the U.S. will retain indefinite control of the 13 root servers that power the worldwide Internet.

The U.S. government will indefinitely retain oversight of the main computers that control traffic on the Internet, ignoring calls by some countries to turn the function over to an international body, a senior official said Thursday.

The announcement marked a departure from previously stated U.S. policy.

Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary for communications and information at the Commerce Department, shied away from terming the declaration a reversal, calling it instead “the foundation of U.S. policy going forward.”

He said the declaration, officially made in a four-paragraph statement posted online, was in response to growing security threats and increased reliance on the Internet globally for communications and commerce.

Personally, I don't want to see this critical infrastructure turned over the U.N. or any other international body that will quickly drop the ball, bringing the Internet to its knees, and/or try to turn it into a weapon against the U.S. Keep it, I say.