Greg Skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ronda Hauben <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> The Whole IFWP process was flawed as it didn't start from the
>> recognition of the Internet as a communications medium, instead it
>> was intent on turning the whole Internet over to those smaller set
>> of interests who were intent on changing the Internet to make it an
>> ecommercenet.
>> But with all the efforts to create so called ecommercenets in the
>> past, they couldn't accomplish what they tried, and instead the
>> Internet grew and developed as a public communications medium.
>> Anyone who wants to create some ecommerce network should do
>> it separate from trying to steal the Internet from those
>> who have contributed to its growth and development over
>> more than 30 years.
>I've been giving what you have written some thought and I came to the
>conclusion that the "ecommercenet" you claim people with commercial
>interests should create exists. It just so happens that as a result
>of the NSFnet agreements drafted and signed in 1992 that the
>"ecommercenet" was allowed to communicate with NSFnet (and other
>networks running TCP/IP) according to a set of agreed-upon policies.
>A lot of this is documented online; I have found much of it at
>www.merit.edu, and Gordon Cook has reported on much of it as well.
>(I'm sure GC will correct me if I have erred in anything I've
>written.)
Greg I don't understand what you are trying to say in your abouve
statement. What I understand happening in the period when
the NSFNET allowed commercial traffic onto the NSF backbone
wasn't that they were allowing an ecommercenet. It was that those
who didn't fit in with the restrictions imposed by the Acceptible
Use Policy, i.e. which forbid any form of commercial entity to
use the NSF backbone, that other networks could utilize the
backbone which had hitherto be restricted (or should have been
but in fact the MCI mail use in 1989 also violated that restriction).
It wasn't that the NSFNET was thereby given over to become a
commercial network dedicated to safe transactions and buying and
selling online.
Is that what you are proposing is what happened in 1992?
If you are, then I have to fundamentally disagree with you.
I got onto Usenet in 1992 and at that time happened onto the
com-priv mailing list. The com-priv mailing list was about
opening the NSF backbone to those networks involved in
commercial activity. It wasn't about taking over the Internet
for buying and selling and so called "safe transactions" and
getting rid of the communications function that is the
essence of the Internet.
We put out issues of the Amateur Computerist during that
period which challenged the change in the nature of the
NSFNET. And there was the NTIA online conference where
many other people also complained about what was happening.
But it is very far from reality that the privatization
which happened May of 1995 of the NSF backbone is the
same as what ICANN is trying to pull off now.
If that were true there wouldn't be the secrecy and phony
back room dealings and activities that ICANN has been
born and brought into the world with as what they were
trying to do would have already been accomplished.
Also the Internet is fundamentally a communications
medium, and that is its great attraction to the world and
the basis for the respect that it generates around the
world. However the commercialization and vision for the
future of the commercial entities are fundamentally in opposition
with that.
I have seen haow the search engines are significantly changing
because they are more and more adopting commercial criteria
to guide what they do.
I don't have time to go into this all more now.
But I did want to respond that the original privatization
you point to was a problem as there was a need to recognize
that the public nature of the Internet was the crucial
aspect and to support that public nature. My most
recent paper describes this need. It is at:
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/internet.txt
The paper is "The Internet: A New Communications Paradigm"
But it isn't that the White paper proposal for the
future of the Internet was carried out in 1992.
>The "ecommercenet" has the government granted authority to engage in
>commerce. Educational and other noncommercial networks have the
>authority to refuse to communicate with the "ecommercenet" if they
>feel it is violating the agreed-upon policies. (IMO, you ought to
>contact some sysadmins and net admins at educational, military,
>etc. sites and ask them what their policies are.) You could make the
>argument that these agreements should have required the "ecommercenet"
>and the rest of the Internet to use disjoint name and address spaces.
>However, this would have been very infeasible. Much of the
>"ecommercenet" had already been assigned name and address space
>(e.g. IBM, AT&T) and it would have been a pain to rename/renumber it.
>There was also quite a lot of communication between the "ecommercenet"
>and the rest of the Internet anyway, which would have been disrupted
>if name and address changes were required. As these networks were
>already running TCP/IP, and a major goal of the NII was to provide a
>means for all sectors (government, educational, military, commercial,
>etc) to share information, it made sense to use the existing protocols
>and retain the old addresses and names where feasible.
Then are you saying that the White paper and the Framework for
Electronic Commerce which present the Interent as solely for
ecommerce is a fundamental change in policy for the U.S.?
>Even if the "ecommercenet" had used a disjoint name and address space,
>this debate would have eventually ensued. Eventually there would have
>been disputes over trademarked names, differing name registration
>policies outside of the US, a desire to introduce competition into the
>registry and registrar business, IP routing table exhaustion, etc.
>--gregbo
I thought that the Internet principle of making changes that one
wants for ones own network on an end to end basis, and not to
impose them on the whole network sets the foundation for how
a commercenet could function. They could have their own
domain name systems situation, but that would only function
within the commercenet, not by taking over the whole
of the Internet.
I would have to think if I have seen examples of how this
might work -- but for example IBM has its own network.
It can do what it wants in that network, and can also
connect that network outside to the Internet. Somehow
if IBM wants to do something special in its own network, it
needs to figure out how to do that internally, not impose
that requirement on all the other networks of the Internet.
That is the same principle I am describing with regard
to a commercenet.
But ICANN is like IBM taking over the Internet and saying
the whole Internet has to do what I want to do in myu
own internal network.
That is fundamentally opposed to the concept of the Internet
as an internetwork of diverse packet switching networks.
That is fundamentally opposed to the architectural principles
that I thought tcp/ip established which made it possible
for there to be an Internet.
Ronda
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
