back to article The Firewall Awakens: ICANN's exiting CEO takes internet governance to the dark side

ICANN's exiting CEO has stunned internet governance experts by fronting a new Chinese government initiative to expand its view of how the internet should be run. On the last day of the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, the conference organizers unexpectedly announced they had set up a new "high-level advisory committee" …

  1. Gordon 10

    why are we surprised?

    We already knew he would whore himself for power. By his actions we shall know him.

    (10,000th upvote clickbait)

    Also true ;)

    1. Gordon 10
      Windows

      Re: why are we surprised?

      Yay clickbait successful. <Waits impatiently for the power up>

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Spot on

      There is absolutely zero surprise in this nomination.

      Chehade is a sleazeball who has played the information hiding game on Master level for years. He is an expert in the domain and a perfect pick for the Wuzhen conference goers.

      I'm sure they will be very happy with their choice.

      Meanwhile, it looks like the Internet is going to get its balkanization after all. On the one side, the authoritarians indiscriminately snooping on everyone for local political reasons, and on the other, the freedom-respecting countries snooping on everyone for "protection against terrorist" (and occasional industrial espionage) reasons.

      Ain't this world just peachy ?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: why are we surprised?

      The FBI went after the folks at the top of FIFA for bribery, it should not be hard for them to make a similar case against the folks at the top of ICANN.

  2. eswan

    Just the other day I was saying to a friend, 'You know what the internet needs? More governance input from Kyrgyzstan.'

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      Coat

      Isn't that near Texasistan?

  3. Grikath

    China hugs back...

    yes.. and a panda still has functioning claws...

  4. Mark 85

    Should we follow the money?

    Lately ICANN seems to be about money with everything they're doing. It will be interesting to see where Chehade ends up after March 2016.

    1. JohnMurray

      Re: Should we follow the money?

      Up someone elses ass...

  5. Stevie

    Bah!

    But if everyone is fenced-in and forbidden to say or read stuff, how will the government mega-scrape their communications into Preston?

  6. Ole Juul

    prepare

    It's time to start looking for another solution. Here's one choice.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "the Internet is dead, get over it"

    As some self important US CEO could well have said, if he had the ability to think beyond his bank balance.

  8. JohnMurray

    And:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-18/congress-just-passed-second-patriot-act-and-nobody-noticed-how-cisa-became-law

  9. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Who the hell are China to try and dictate global anything let alone their disgusting attitude towards their people's freedom being foisted on the Internet. It's just a shame big companies like Facebook and Google (despite making noises otherwise) pander to them and give in to the dollars they can make by turning a blind eye to censorship.

    1. martinusher Silver badge

      China?

      > disgusting attitude towards their people's freedom....

      That's a bit of a Cold War leftover, if you don't mind me saying so. China as a country has delivered for most of its population. Sure, its got problems, but these days the Chinese that you're likely to come across aren't furtive, downtrodden types doing anything to escape to the West, they're tourists flashing wads of cash. Their society isn't for everyone, culturally its a sort of "respect your elders" sort of a place (has been for thousands of years), and I for one would probably hate living there\ but then I'm not Chinese.

      In our world their engineering capability, their manufacturing expertise and their embrace of open standards tends to make them a bit of a threat to us. Our business leaders have always thought of them as a bunch of intelligent coolies, people who are willing to make stuff for us at slave labor rates, and they've been willing to play along while they built their economy. But we're now seeing change -- they're going from following to leading. This doesn't bode well for our future.

      1. DavCrav

        Re: China?

        "China as a country has delivered for most of its population."

        And delivered a bullet to the rest of its population.

  10. WatAWorld

    He's going for the "Sepp Blatter Award for 'Excellence' in NGO Governance"

    It seems to me that Fadi Chehade is going for the "Sepp Blatter Award for 'Excellence' in NGO Governance".

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Devil

      Q.

      So the timing couldn't be better then! FIFA's President and his annointed successor just copped an 8 year ban today. Charges to follow shortly no doubt.

      More than half the governing board are also under investigation or facing charges.

      They need a new boss, PDQ. And just in the nick of time, Chehade is free in March. It's perfect!

  11. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Headmaster

    "Oohhh! A paycheck. From China? I will take anything...."

    Seriously this is beyond belief disgusting.

    Also "importance of respect for nations' sovereignty in cyberspace"

    Code for "I want to make it internationally acceptable to control information by setting up firewalls and firing off extradition demands for leakers and other anticitizens whenever they damn well please".

    "Cyberspace" doesn't exist. Nations already have "sovereignity" on their claimed territory. This is about putting lipstick on the information "crackdowns" and "lawfare" pigs by speaking in tongues

    Now, given the current Russophobia/Sinophobia in US "thinkfluencing" circles and and the pivots to Ukraine and Asia, I doubt this attempt at bringing in the bacon will go anywhere.

  12. channel extended

    Trump net

    Trump and other's want to close the internet, so the Chinese can own it. Now we know who bought who.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's worrying for the ex-pat community in China are the reports that using VPNs and foreign messaging apps can lead to your internet and phone service being suspended until you go to the local police and have a 'little chat' in order to get them restored.

    For now this is just in the western province of Xinjiang - but they could roll it out nationwide if they wanted too.

    Anonymous for obvious reasons.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How desparate and greedy is this guy?

    May black cats cross his path eternally.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Beware Romulans baring gifts.

    Be careful me old China!

  16. This post has been deleted by its author

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so can someone please explain ...

    ... what, if any, practical action ordinary net users can do to make their opinions felt?

    I get regular e-mails from 'access now', for example, an org which agitates for, as I understand it, the net's future development to stay focused on basic information rights - from the right to know, (Russia's panic-driven anti-wikipedia push being a good example of how important this is), to the right to, broadly speaking - publish, that is, the right to free speech in the 21st century - from whistle-blowers to the the rights of various socially-marginalised communities to express themselves and pursue the enjoyment of their rights.

    Here's a page of theirs which looks at another Paris summit - on-topic for this discussion - which just finished:

    https://www.accessnow.org/human-rights-central-to-new-wsis-agreement-at-united-nations/

    and another, a speech by an 'access now' rep to the UN:

    https://www.accessnow.org/access-now-delivers-crowd-sourced-speech-at-united-nations/

    Some people may not take seriously the power that ordinary people can exert through the various petitions and para-political actions which we can all participate in, but the recent successes of the anti-fossil-fuel movement (that was the other Paris summit this month) seem to have been facilitated by just such public engagement.

    So, what can we do about /this/ ? I'm asking because few things I've read recently trouble me as much as this article and the older articles on this site which this one links to, e.g.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/05/iab_says_no_to_netmundial_initiative/

    Thanks for reading :)

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: so can someone please explain ...

      "few things I've read recently trouble me as much as this article"

      Really? The guy is so dreadful that even his own government, which *desparately* wants to hand over control to ICANN, felt unable to do so. He's now wandered off into the pocket of one of the internet's worst enemies (rather proving the point) and will disappear into oblivion as soon as they realise that he can't deliver.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: so can someone please explain ...

        @ken hagan ... I hope you're right about that ...

  18. ulibuda

    Isn't that just a headline typo: "...ICANN's ex(c)iting CEO..."?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Again... Why is it that anything this Chehade clown gets up to is crap?

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like