UN wants the internet.March 25 was a busy day for Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (born April 8, 1938) is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1 1997 to January 1 2007, serving two five-year terms. He was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. . In addition to his speech at the Rwanda memorial conference, the secretary-general made another address to a UN summit addressing the so-called "digital divide." Criticizing the current, largely informal and blessedly unregulated Adj. 1. unregulated - not regulated; not subject to rule or discipline; "unregulated off-shore fishing" regulated - controlled or governed according to rule or principle or law; "well regulated industries"; "houses with regulated temperature" 2. nature of the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the , Annan insisted that the UN must be given power to police cyberspace Coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," it is a futuristic computer network that people use by plugging their minds into it! The term now refers to the Internet or to the online or digital world in general. See Internet and virtual reality. Contrast with meatspace. in order to make the web "accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people." The UN Internet conference heard reports from five working groups "on topics including everything from domain names to root server operation to free speech and intellectual property to privacy," reported CNET (body) CNET - Centre national d'Etudes des Telecommunications. The French national telecommunications research centre at Lannion. News.com. "Although the UN process is still in its early stages, the result could dramatically reshape the way the Internet is run and put an end to some of the informal, collaborative processes that exist today." Five years ago, the UN suggested a tax on all e-mail messages in order to pay for "development aid"--that is, financial support to corrupt Third World governments. That proposal got slapped down hard by Congress after it received wide publicity--much of it via the Internet. |
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