Is Uncle Sam watching you?   US control of the net may be
locking out poorer parts of the world and hindering the fight
against cybercrime  WHENEVER you surf the web, send emails or
download music, an unseen force is at work in the background,
making sure you connect to the sites, inboxes and databases you
want. The name of this brooding presence? The US government.
Some 35 years after the US military invented the internet, the
US Department of Commerce retains overall control of the master
computers that direct traffic to and from every web and email
address on the planet.  But a group convened by the UN last week
to thrash out the future of the net is calling for an end to US
domination of the net, proposing that instead a multinational
forum of governments, companies and civilian organisations is
created to run it.  The UN's Working Group on Internet
Governance (WGIG) says US control hinders many developments that
might improve it. These range from efforts to give the
developing world more affordable net a