ARTICLE: Net set for 'language shake-up', By Jonathan Fildes, BBC, 26 October 2009
From my man Rod, now running ICANN:
"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Rod Beckstrom at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea."So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread."
I was so happy to see Rod trade in his DHS credentials for ICANN. A guy with his vision and optimism can do so much more good there.
A good and inevitable sign of globalization's continued expansion.
(Thanks: Constantina Meis)
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Comments (1)
Tom,
I disagree with you here. Language, specifically Latin, brought the world together online. This just breaks people down into their tribes.
This opens the door for non standard protocols based in proprietary language standards, which leads directly to disconnected networks. You were the one who made the point: Disconnectedness defines danger.
When it comes to technology, common standards - not the absence of standards, is the way ahead. Language has always been a standard in technology, but we took it for granted. This was a political decision made despite technical recommendations against, completely political and not in the best interest of internet commerce.
I won't even begin to point out how this will be exploited to create security problems...
Posted by Galrahn | November 3, 2009 8:12 AM