Bob Allisat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Dave "Pot, Kettle, black" Crocker says
(...)
>+ In particular, what are the 'serious operational impacts' that
>+ could develop? There is a long-standing claim that services of
>+ the type offered by NSI are fine left without special handling
>+ (oversight, assistance). To the extent that problems to such a
>+ company can have far-reaching impact on Internet operations, it
>+ would be extremely helpful to understand them before the fact.
>+ This might permit consideration of methods to avoid such fall-out.
> Gee Dave, without NSI under lock and key we'd be
> in deep trouble. However and even more importantly,
> unless ICANN is somehow stopped and dismantled we'll
> be facing an ever greater disaster than anything NSI
> could ever do. See NSI is just a company which can
> be replaced. What your blessed ICANN is attempting to
> do displace everyone else in control of the namespace,
> simultaneously attempting to control IP addressing,
> RFC generation, dispute resolution and Internet tax
> generation. Pretty heady stuff, Dave. And it gets
> ever scarier, Dave. Much more frightening, Dave.
> ICANN was founded in an unknown process and has
> decided to function in secret. The people on the
> ICANN board of directors is supposed to be an *INTERIM*
> body whose primary task is to set up the full-time,
> permanent body in consultation with the world. So
> far there are no concrete timetables for a membership,
> elections or guidlines for accountability, conflict
> of interest declarations or openess anywhere in sight.
> Further frigtheningly more this "Interim" Board is
> making some pretty darned important decisions that
> will end up costing "We the people" hundreds of
> millions of dollars. Like setting up the first
> competing Registrars to NSI. Like setting "competitive"
> standards for Net DNS Commerce. Like walzting around
> the world making deals and raising funds as if they
were the members of the Olympic's IOC! Verry scarrrry!
> These activities are being pursued by a temporary group
> with no membership, no elections, zero accountability,
> Nul conflict of Interest statutes, negative oversight
> and a history that spans, gee, maybe two months. Maybe
> the failure of NSI isn't the greatest worry we are
> facing, Dave. I'd say the success of ICANN with it's
> disturbing Pinky and the Brain schemes for world
> domination are vastly more worrying. By far. And, in
> the interests of Network stability I'd beg my humble
> audience to give that juicy ICANN pinata a few turns
> with the cyber bat. Not to mention Dave's behind for
> allowing his better judgement to be swayed by basely
> suggesting discussions of base politics to be appropriate
> from him but unacceptable and a punishable offense
> from insignificants like yours truely. But acceptable
> from ICANN shills attempting to smear NSI and anyone
> else standing in the way of their fiendish plot to
> take over the universe and all that stuff.
> NSI may have made the odd boo-boo. But it's ICANN we
> should be roasting alive in the sea of it's own crazy
> ambitions! NSI might fail and may cause some minor
> problems as a replacement is assembled. But what ICANN
> is attempting is on an entirely differant scale...
> they are trying to form an Internet world government
> by decree and a nudge and wink. In secret without the
> benifit of elections, members, rules or safeguards.
> Now THAT is something to be concerned about, Dave.
> Bob Allisat
Bob - it's important what you say in pointing out the
qualitative leap in problem for the Internet represented
by ICANN in comparison with the serious probelm that was
already represented by the fact that the NSF in its
privatizing moves put NSI into a position of making millions
off of a government contract.
And then instead of the U.S. government taking on to figure
out the problem of what it was doing with privatizing the DNS
distribution, it moved to privatize all other aspects of
the essential functioning of the Internet, compounding the
problem and making it many times worse.
However, when you say above that ICANN is functioning without
membership, it makes it seem as if a membership could
check what they are doing. That isn't true. The whole form
of the organization is a set up for and in fact is currently
creating a much worse scenario for corruption than anything
the Olympics folks or the EU could have drempt up.
So the U.S. government is setting up a body that *no* membership
or any other forms could check and oversee. To put such
fabulously rich public property as the domain names, the IP
numbers, the protocols etc into the hands of a private entity
under any condition is only an invitation for corruption,
conflict of interest and massive theft.
Thus while I agree that ICANN is a very significant problem
being created for the Internet and the world by the U.S. government,
I don't agree that any membership structure could change the
nature of that problem.
The whole conception of ICANN is fundamentally flawed. It
is embodying conflict of interest as a principle, and will
continue to do so with its membership structure if it adopts
one. The fundamental problem ICANN represents is that
it is a privatizing (though under the actual but hidden hands
of the government) of what there is no authority for the
U.S. government to privatize. And there has been *no*
discussion of examination of the issue of what is required
for these key internet functions to scale. The DNS was in
fact developed in a previous scaling of the Internet.
A new form is needed for future scalings, but ICANN is
freezing the development of the Internet by putting these
functions into private hands who are there to make profit
off of them rather than recognizing that they are essential
functions necessary for the communications functionality of the
Internet.
It is like a government taking the water supply and raffling
it off to those who will put different colors in it and then
add to the price and sell it at their whim to who they choose.
The water supply is vital to all in a society. Only a very
corrupt government (and these clearly are the state of society
these days sadly) would be considering the color of the water
as that which can be changed to have someone make money off
of it, rather than considering the health of the water and
the fact that it needs to be maintained in a public entity
that will be held accountable to any harm that comes to
the water supply of a country.
And to continue the analogy, once this government has
created sufficient dissention among the vendors vying
to get the water to sell in different colors, the government
then says that it will do the same with the roads, the
parks, the divisions that issue license plates and drivers
licenses, and any other function it can find that it
can put into the hands of vendors so they can offer these
former public services in a variety of colors and textures, etc.
The Internet is vital to all sorts of aspects of life
of the people today who have access, and many more people
want and need access.
This move to privatize these essential functions flies in the
face of any concern for the Internet and for the people
who have access or are hoping for access in the future.
It somehow shows how little understanding the press currently
provides to the public of the nature of the Internet and how little
the computer scientific community is able to speak up and support the
proper use and development of the wonders they have been able to
create.
There is a need for a proper proposal to figure out how
to deal with scaling and internationally shared protection
of these essential Internet functions. That was the purpose
and nature of the proposal I submitted at the request of
the U.S. government and which they then ignored rather than
examining with great seriousness. The proposal is still
online and it demonstrates that a process that built on
the kind of methods of creating the Internet was what was
needed to figure out how to create what was needed to
protect these essential functions. A membership organization
will help in no way (as Elaine Kamarck from the Kennedy
School of Government pointed out at the Jan. 23 meeting
of the membership committee issue at the Berkman Center).
A membership organization and ICANN are inappropriate
forms for what the tasks that need to be done and they
are only setting in motion more and more problems for
Internet users present and future.
Ronda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
