[IFWP] What was your piece of the action, Vince?
Worldcom fraud rises to $9 billion. http://www.msnbc.com/news/809991.asp
Re: [IFWP] CYBER-FEDERALIST NO.13: Staying the Course on InternetPrivatization
You wrote: > > Good to see you alive and kicking, Michael! ;-) What good is being alive without kicking? > The original 1998 agreement mandated that nearly half of the ICANN board > would represent users (9 of 19). True enough. Sims admitted as much to the Congressional committee. But what the DoC mandated, and what ICANN says, don't amount to a hill of beans. Neither has any intention of implementing what they say. What the DoC and ICANN say is spin, pure PR scam. We're dealing with liars and cheats here. That's what needs to be understood. > Had that commitment been honored and had > it been implemented fairly (i.e. through elections), then ICANN would have > had much to recommend it. But that's precisely the point. It wasn't implemented, and neither the DoC nor its ICANN stooges ever had any intention of doing so. They don't now, and never will. Appealing to them to play fair is like asking your tormentors to have a heart. They don't, and if you expect them to, you are caught in their game, a victim of their con. The US Congressmen on the committees that held hearings on ICANN understood. They saw exactly what was going on: a fix, packaged with a transparent shuck for those who needed it, the bleeding heart lefties and liberals who are willing to let any travesty get by so long as they have an excuse for doing nothing to stop it. And that's what happened. When the Congressional committees heard, from Sims own lips, that they and we had been lied to, why didn't they do something about it? Simple: they're used to the way the gov operates. It's not just the DoC, it's all the executive agencies. A small group of people, maybe only one or two, decide on policy, usually anti-popular policy. Then they package it for mass consumption. The packaging for the Internet governance coup was the Green Paper. The DoC, knowing there was not yet any organized Internet community to create a democratic base for a democratic Internet government, got some operatives to claim they represented the Internet. Who could say they didn't? It was well played. You ask the DoC to get ICANN to reform? You're wasting your time, except for maybe giving the DoC a good laugh. ICANN is the DoC's baby. It's the DoC who pulls the strings. If the DoC wanted users in ICANN, there'd be users in it. They don't, and there aren't. It's as simple as that. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] CYBER-FEDERALIST NO.13: Staying the Course on InternetPrivatization
Hans Klein wrote: > CivSoc has offered the following comments to ICANN on reform. > DoC should stay the course. It should work closely with ICANN to fully > implement the original 1998 Internet privatization policy. What a crock! CPSR are a bunch of toadies sucking up to the DoC. Hans "Chamberlain" Klein is just looking after his plitical future, appeasing both ICANN and the US GOV. There's only one solution to ICANN: elimination! > That policy > addressed the inescapable need for legitimacy in ICANN with a mechanism > that proved workable in 2000: elections. Is that the exercise here: to legitimate a bad organization by giving it a cover of ineffectual user representation? Thanks, CPSR, for usurping the place of any real user representation in Internet governance. With friends like you and CDT, the users don't need enemies. > By avoiding a major > restructuring, DoC also avoids the destabilizing combination of > organizational change and staff turnover. Destabilizing? That's ICANN's own excuse for doing nothing positive. Klein shows his true colors here by adopting ICANN's own dishonest pretext. > Finally, by staying with the > original privatization policy, DoC would uphold the Internet traditions of > private, voluntary, and decentralized management. The original DoC policy was a lie, a PR contrivance to trick Internet users into complaceny and allow the ICANN imposters to take over. ICANN knew that there was no organized "Internet community", and that it could stick in its own people by pretending to turn over governance to a non-existing community. That was its "original privatization policy". CPSR are its dupes. > DoC should use all available means to gain ICANN's commitment to > implement the founding agreements of 1998. DoC and ICANN are one and the same. ICANN has always implemented the DoC's wishes. Only fools and toadies can't see that, or don't want to admit it. > ICANN should cooperate with DoC in this process. Ha-ha! Can you see it: Hans "Chamberlain" Klein at the next ICANN meeting with a sign saying "ICANN should cooperate with the Doc". Could anything be more ludicrous? What are we, stupid children that can be spun this garbage? M.S.
[IFWP] Re: [Hague-jur-commercial-law] CNNews, ICANN role over jurisdiction and enforcement of court orders over domain names
(http://www.eff.org/Cases/Heathmount_v_Technodome.com/20011205_eff_pr.html ). > Eff recently decided to file a brief in the CNNews.com case, where part of > the case involves a dispute over who has "personal jurisdiction." > Apparently ICANN has become involved in the case to tell an ICANN regulated > registrar that they should hand the domain over to Time Warner. This > surprised quite a few persons, including at least one ICANN board member, > because (a) ICANN was supposed to stay neutral in legal disputes between > domain holders, and (b) ICANN's main outside counsel Joe Sims of Jones, Day, > Reavis & Pogue (also the former employer of ICANN general counsel Louis > Touton), represents Time Warner, on antitrust issues. Is the perjurer Sims and his gang-buddy Touton going to be allowed to get away with this? M.S.
[IFWP] The Australian paper on ADR and the U.S. FTC (from the Hague list)
(original message) From: Michael Sondow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Hague Convention list > Dear co-Hague listers- > > I downloaded the Ausralian government's paper on Dispute Resolution in > Electronic Commerce that Dan Svantesson kindly pointed us to > (http://www.ecommerce.treasury.gov.au/) and have been studying it. The > first thing that caught my attention was the prefatory quote from a > statement by an FTC official: > > "A consumer is not going to purchase a product (online) if he or she > believes that there's no way to get redress if that product is defective > or, indeed, if the product never arrives. The problem is obviously > compounded because of the cross-border nature of transactions and the > fact that buyer and seller often (are) very far away. And everyone > agrees on the goal, which is consumers have to feel safe. The question > is how to do it. > Traditionally, of course, the recourse has been to judicial remedies, > administrative and judicial agencies But as with all things, the > internet forces us to confront the challenge of whether this > traditional way of resolving these issues works in this new environment, > and I think one of the things that we have to do is recognise that the > technology that enables these transactions may also provide for > a new means for resolving them in a quick, efficient and effective > manner that makes the traditional ways of resolving them maybe > second-best alternatives in this new environment. > The OECD (in 1999) produced guidelines for consumer protection in > electronic commerce that set a good substantive level of protection. > (The OECD calls) for the development of alternative dispute > resolution, and so really the next step is to say, okay we have got > these protections, how are they going to be translated in a way that > consumers really can make use of them? And that's your task today." > (Andy Pincus, General Counsel, Federal Trade Commission, United States > of America. From an opening address to a forum on Alternative Dispute > Resolution for Consumer Transactions in the Borderless Online > Marketplace, Washington DC, June 2000) > > While I do not disagree with the apparent intention of this statement, > however badly put, it strikes me as disingenuous for a number of > reasons. > > First, Andrew Pincus was the general counsel for the US Department of > Commerce when it was setting up ICANN, the US-approved regulator of the > Internet domain name system (and much else besides). ICANN is a > consorcium - a nice way of saying "monopoly" or "combine" - of > representatives of big-business telcos, network operators, WIPO, and IP > lawfirms that has steadfastly refused to give Internet users such as > consumers any say in its operations. Yet, in spite of ICANN's rejection > of the participation of consumers and other Internet users in its > policy-making, the DoC and its general counsel Andrew Pincus approved > ICANN and gave it sole control of the Internet's root database, which is > to say, the Doc/ICANN can now remove any domain name they want from the > Internet, including those of whole countries (they have done this) as > well as of individuals and entities. This enormous power is presently > wielded without any input whatsoever from Internet users and consumers, > as the direct result of Andrew Pincus and the US DoC denying users and > consumers access to the decision-making process. (There are documents, > including written official statements by Andrew Pincus, to substantiate > this.) > > Secondly, although it is not clear whom Mr. Pincus was addressing, the > statement is apparently made on behalf of the US Federal Trade > Commission. Now, just what has the FTC done until today to ensure that > there is consumer protection in cross-border B2C Internet transactions, > besides provide a room where consumer protection representatives can > meet in Washington? I don't recall a single member of the FTC speaking > out, at any of the Hague Convention meetings I attended, on the dire > need for the protection of consumers' legal rights to be incorporated in > the Hague treaty. On the contrary, the FTC has been, so far as I can > tell, sitting by and allowing international business to lobby the Hague > delegations to keep consumer protection out of the Convention, as it > looks likely will now happen. > > What, in the end, is Mr. Pincus' and the FTC's interest in promoting, or > pretending to promote, alternative dispute resolution on the Internet? > Is it to help consumers in their struggle for some power to offset that > of online entrepreneurs, with their unfair adhesion contracts, or is it > to give business a me
Re: [IFWP] RFC1591 bis
Jon, baby- Hey, how's tricks? What's cookin in never-never land? How does the Big Cheese there feel about Joe Baptista running .god? Gonna slap him with a UDRP (har de har har)? Say, did you really run into Elvis up there? I mean, how did they spring him from...you know...down under? Yeah, I saw what they did to your RFC 1591. Incredible! I mean, what the heck is this: "In cases when there are persistent problems with the proper operation of a domain, a committee will be formed to investigate and they'll never be heard from again." Sounds like our complaints to the DoC. You think they're sending this stuff to Congress? Maybe that's why nothing's gettin done, huh? And what about this scumbag Roberts? Can you believe this dude, selling IP addresses like they was donuts? I hear he's gonna take out copyrights on 'em, too. Yeah, they're gonna copyright all the numbers from one to a hundred. The ISO/ITU's fixin it. And he's sure got .edu tied up, doesn't he? The grapevine says he's negotiating with Osama's schools. Yeah, they're gonna stake out alqaeda.edu for a cool billion. Put the servers in Kosovo, where the DoC can keep an eye on 'em and make sure the checks are sent to Marina del Ray. Some scam, hey, ol buddy? Yeah, yeah, Froomkin and all his shyster lawyer pals are still shooting their mouths off about the law. Makes you wanna puke, don't it? I mean, when did the law make any difference to these ICANN gouls? With all the federal judgeships given to made guys working for the Bush mob, who gives a s**t about the law? Gimme a break! Well, it sure was nice to hear from you, anyway, Jon baby. Bet you're glad to be gone from this vail of tears, hah? Do ya get enough to eat up there? How's the weather? Don't be so scarce, guy. Drop a line. And don't fret over RFC 1591. Nobody pays any attention to that stuff any more. Sims and the cunts at ICANN write their own rules, 'cause they're gods-on-earth. Got the backing of the USG. If ya don't play ball with 'em, they'll bomb ya, like they did to Slobodan. Be cool, Jon. See ya round. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] All .us users to come under surveillance andcensorship control of US Gov
Einar Stefferud wrote: > > Hello Stephen -- No, that was a forward from me, Steff, of a post on the usdom list. Unless you put in Steve's address, your message didn't go to him (as it should not have done, since he did not post to the IFWP list). M.S.
[IFWP] All .us users to come under surveillance and censorship control of US Gov
--- Begin Message --- There seems to be some misunderstanding about the nature of "delegation" in the procedures Neustar envisions, and even in the DOC contact. There is too much data on the Internet to centralize it. This is why we use the DNS instead of hosts.txt. When ISI delegated Fitchburg.WI.US to me, I take over the responsility for data in that zone, by maintaining it myself, and by delegating futher subzones. Neustar indicates that we must, according to the DOC contract (which I have not read), provide to Neustar registration data for all the zones under the delegated zone. This is preposterous. It's unlikely their systems can scale to serve all that data. There could be thousands of domain names for individuals just in my city of 20,000 residents. If they have all that data, why do they need a delegated manager? Indeed, if we are not "sufficiently responsive" to requests for service in our delegated zones, they threaten that they will revoke the delegation unilaterally. I see no technical need for Neustar to have access to any registration data in any delegated zone. There is no reason to develop a way to transfer that data to Neustart. There is no reason to open our zones to Neustar for zone transfers. And finally, there is certainly no reason for registrants in delegated zone or delegated managers to pay Neustar a fee for anything. By analogy, I don't pay Network Solutions/Versign for delegations under Arnold.com! (Neustar can register names at the second level to earn money.) I do recognized the need for a process to allow a local government or other RFC 1480 organization (library, school, etc.) to recover control of their domain from a delegated manager who is profiteering from it or providing inadequate service. However, this process must not be initiated by Neustar. It must be initiated only by a zone's proper constituents. Having Neustar be able to revoke a zone leaves us open to abuse of power by Neustar. I also see a legitimate role for Neustar to maintain the delegation data, so other name servers can find our name servers, and so prospective registrants can find our administrative contact addresses. The text file now on line, corrected with up-to-date data from time to time, serves this need. (People can also find me through http://Fitchburg.WI.US and through [EMAIL PROTECTED] I hope other delegated managers do the same. I appreciate the idea, from this list, of pointing a wildcard Address record for *.Fitchburg.WI.US at Fitchburg.WI.US's IP address, so prospective registrants can easily determine if a domain is available.) I would be interested in hearing if other delegated managers agree that this is a flaw in the DOC/Neustar design. Regards, "Steve" Stephen L. Arnold, Ph.D., President, Arnold Consulting, Inc. Address 2530 Targhee Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53711-5491 U.S.A. Telephone +1 608 278 7700 Facsimile +1 608 278 7701 Internet [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://WWW.Arnold.com Arnold® is a registered trademark and service mark of Arnold Consulting, Inc. -- To leave this list, send "unsubscribe usdom" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- End Message ---
Re: [IFWP] The ISOC Takeover (Was: Farber suggests the IAB)
Einar Stefferud wrote: > It is my observation that every time any such user requests a root > server name resolution, that they are in fact "voting," in the real > sense of the word, for their choice of root service. > > So, I conclude that the Internet is inherently democratic without any > central controls, or any need for central controls of where the users > look for DNS root service. Every user has a free choice, and the freedom > to exercise that choice. Unfortunately, freedom of choice in the Internet, like freedom in other realms, is restricted by the availability of information. No one can make a free choice who is unaware of all possible choices. The government has succeeded in gaining enough control over the means of informing the public to control its awareness of its choices in national politics, and it has done the same with the Internet root servers, through its tacit support of the legacy root servers, and then of ICANN. Unless all the users with the root server power you describe are made aware of the alternatives they have, there is no freedom of choice. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] The ISOC Takeover (Was: Farber suggests the IAB)
Ken Freed wrote: > > Is that Bennet Cerf or Vint Cerf? "Cerfs", as in "The cerfs in Russia were freed by the Revolution of 1905". M.S.
Re: [IFWP] The ISOC Takeover (Was: Farber suggests the IAB)
John Berryhill wrote: > The jury is still out on whether notions of "democracy" have more staying > power than feudalism did. "Democracy" may actually be no more than the expansion of feudalism (First World=the Kings, Second-World=the Barrons, Third-World=the Cerfs). M.S.
[IFWP] The ISOC Takeover (Was: Farber suggests the IAB)
Jay Fenello wrote: > > Farber suggests the IAB: > > PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - > >An Open Letter to the Global Internet Community > >First, as an immediate temporary measure, all Internet policy, operational, > >and other Internet-related functions currently performed by ICANN should be > >transferred, as soon as practicable while maintaining continuity, to a > >different, already existing non-profit organization (or organizations) on a > >non-permanent, strictly stewardship basis. One potential candidate we would > >suggest considering for this role would be the Internet Architecture Board > >(IAB) In other words, the final complete takeover by ISOC of the Internet domain name system. > >Next, we recommend that an intensive, international study be started at > >once, with a mandate to propose detailed and meaningful paths for the > >Internet's development, operations, and management. The goal of this study > >would be to help guide the formation of purpose-built representative > >organizations These would, naturally, end up being identical with the local chapters of ISOC around the world. > >Our third recommended step would be for the results of this study to be > >carefully considered and, as deemed appropriate, to be implemented. > >Internet-related functions would be transferred from the temporary > >stewardship organization(s) to the entities developed from the study > results. That is, from ISOC (the IAB) to ISOC (international local chapters). M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Moving Up the Ladder
"Richard J. Sexton" wrote: > > Moving Up the Ladder > > http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-14mar02.htm > > "It is further resolved [02.31] that the Chairman of the Board of ICANN will > undertake to liaise with the appropriate activities and persons engaged in UN > ICT work, keeping alert, always, for opportunities for mutually beneficial work > between ICANN and the UN and its various subsidiary organizations;" > > Can an office in Geneve be far behind? Not necessary. The UN is now just another bureau of the U.S. Gov't, as witness its activities in ex-Yugoslavia (e.g. sending "UN observers" picked by the US State Dept. to Kosovo). ICANN will probably end up in D.C., where the UN is run from. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] ICANN at Large: Real or Ruse?
Jay Fenello wrote: > It reminds me of all of the time we > wasted trying to build a fair DNSO: Re-reading the Paris Draft has given me indigestion, but I'm glad you posted it, Jay. We all need to remember how naive we've been. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Re: Four more years?
Jay Fenello wrote: > What we have is a systemic problem, one that > can be described by field theory. To fix it, > we'll need a comprehensive approach. I agree with Jay, and I think we must view the USG's approach to ICANN in the light of the USG's approach in general to international politics, which the Internet is a part of. The DoC is not primarily concerned with how the domain name system, or the Internet, is run. What they are concerned with is retaining control. If they allow the Internet to become democratized, that control goes out of their hands because the Internet user public is international. The USG is currently in activist mode regarding international institutions. That goes for the UN, the WTO, the Hague, and all other multi- and international organisms. The USG is taking control of them. And the USG sees the Internet as an international institution, or at least as an international mechanism. So it won't do anything that diminishes its control over it. The rest is just spin. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Re: ICANN President proposes end to At-Large publicelections
Joanna Lane wrote:
> It looks like it was ammended
Neustar is acting as if UDRP and Sunrise were in effect. Their contract
offered to locality managers who want to sign up to register the new
2LDs in .us includes both.
Furthermore, the modification document at the URL you gave says:
"The Contractor must proceed with a first-come-first-served ("FCFS")
registration approach following Sunrise...The adoption of the FCFS
approach must not affect the overall timeline for the usTLD startup
phases described on page I-2 of the Contractor's quotation. The Sunrise
process will remain unchanged."
Note that FCFS is in effect "after Sunrise", and that "The Sunrise
process will remain unchanged."
The document says nothing about UDRP.
M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Re: ICANN President proposes end to At-Large publicelections
Joanna Lane wrote: > > They had to drop URDP and Sunrise from the dotUS proposal > (or in the alternative, could have applied to Congress for a variance) > because access to a public resource cannot discriminate against any of the > groups that own that resource, in this case the US people. UDRP and Sunrise are part and parcel of the Neustar agreement to run .us that has been approved by the DoC and is now being implemented. And the "US people" have neither ownership nor control of .us. M.S. So if the ccTLDs > are treated as public resources under the control of national governments, > that part certainly cannot be said to be an interconnected private network. > Who owns the 13 root servers? > > Regards, > Joanna > > > -Original Message- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ken > > Freed > > Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 4:06 PM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: [IFWP] Re: ICANN President proposes end to At-Large public > > elections > > > > > > Did not the funds originally come from the government > > Doesn't that make the Internet, defacto, public property? > > I have great respect for Tony, but construing the net as > > private has caused more harm than good, i.e., ICANN. > > -- ken > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >At 01:02 PM 3/1/02 -0700, you wrote: > > >>Note: There was never a public vote to privatise the Internet, > > >>which is (was) public property. > > > > > >No, it's not. It's a set of interconnected *private* networks. > > > > > >Tony Rutkowski went to a lot of effort to make sure the Internet > > >was, in a formal telecommunications legal sense a "private" network. > > > > > >If it's a "public" network" (as the MoU people kept asserting) then > > >the ITU has dominion over it. That's why Tony did what he did. > > > > > > > > >-- > > > Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't > > > change the world. It's the only thing that ever has. > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > > >
Re: [IFWP] Re: ICANN President proposes end to At-Large public elections
Am I mistaken, or did the DoC's White Paper call for management of the domain name system by the private sector? And what was that ICANN Article of Incorporation about "lessening the burdens of government"? Jay Fenello wrote: > At 2/25/02 12:08 PM, Chris Chiu wrote: > >During a private "retreat," the President of the Internet Corporation for > >Assigned Names and Numbers, M. Stuart Lynn, proposed vast changes to ICANN's > >governing structure. These plans call for... national governments to select a third >of ICANN's > >reconstituted Board.
Re: [IFWP] The ITU, to the rescue ...
World Summit...Geneva...ITU...Information Society... Wow! This IS big! Unfortunately, I have a dentist appointment. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Corrupt Domain Name Arbitration
Steff wrote: > > Well, if you were AMAZON and wanted to improve your odds The defendant didn't even bother to make an appearance. :-( M.S.
[IFWP] Corrupt Domain Name Arbitration
How can the law firm that represents ICANN represent a complainant in a domain name arbitration? = WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION Amazon.com, Inc v. Sung Hee Cho Case No. D2001-1276 1. The Parties The Complainant is Amazon.com Inc, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business at Seattle, Washington, USA. The Complainant is represented by Mr. John C. Rawls of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. The Respondent is Sung Hee Cho of Seoul, Korea. The Respondent has not filed a Response and is not represented.
[IFWP] URL (ICANN<>Kosovo? Not so far-fetched...)
Faking Democracy and Progress in Kosovo: http://emperors-clothes.com/news/demockery.htm
[IFWP] ICANN<>Kosovo? Not so far-fetched...
Report on the Kosovo elections by Dr. David Chandler, British Helsinki Human Rights Group, 28 November 2001. Faking Democracy and Progress in Kosovo 1. Background This was an extraordinary election.[i] The pronouncement of US Ambassador Daan Everts, OSCE Mission chief, running the elections was very apt. These elections were truly extraordinary in many respects. One extraordinary aspect is that they were held in a legal vacuum. Kosovo is neither an independent state nor any longer under the government of Serbia or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The question of statehood is to be postponed to the indefinite future while the United Nations assumes the responsibility for governing the province, through the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) headed by the Secretary-Generals Special Representative (SGSR) the former Danish foreign minister, Hans Haekkerup. The provincial government elected on 17 November reflects this lack of international legal framework. The new post-election arrangements are outlined in a document titled A Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo.[ii] This is not a constitution but a framework for a constitution and not self-government but provisional self-government. The ill-defined legal and political status of the former Yugoslav province, reflects Western powers diminished respect for state sovereignty and the crumbling formal framework of international legal and political equality. (1) Kosovo is an extraordinary political experiment because the system of dual power of an international governing administration alongside a subordinate, domestically-elected administration, which developed in an ad hoc manner in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is here for the first time officially institutionalised. The new framework for a constitution of Kosovo, is the first modern political constitution to explicitly rule out democracy. The preamble states that the will of the people is to be relegated to just one of many relevant factors to be taken into account by the international policy-makers.[iii] The executive and legislative powers of the UN Special Representative remain unaffected by the new constitutional framework. Chapter 8 of the framework lists the powers and responsibilities reserved for the international appointee, which include the final authority over finance, the budget and monetary policy, customs, the judiciary, law enforcement, policing, external relations, public property, communications and transport, housing, municipal administration, and the appointment of regulatory boards and commissions. And, of course, the power to dissolve the elected assembly if Kosovos representatives do not show sufficient maturity to agree with his edicts.[iv] 2. Sham Elections Many international plenipotentiaries, including US President George Bush, Nato Secretary-General Lord George Robertson and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, urged the Kosovo public to turn out to vote, particularly the Kosovo Serbs. When it emerged that around 60% of the Albanian and 50% of the Serb voters had taken part, the elections were loudly hailed by the international organisers and observers to be a glorious day in the history of Kosovo and as a huge success.[v] The question of why the international community chose to spend millions of dollars holding elections for a provincial administration with token office-holders with highly circumscribed powers was, unfortunately, rarely asked. These elections were extraordinary in the importance attached to them, not just because of the lack of power awarded to the victors, but also the fact that the results were largely irrelevant once the electoral engineering of the OSCE and UNMIK was taken into account. (cont'd)
Re: [IFWP] A question of coincidence
Joanna Lane wrote: > Somebody may keep reminding you that they have you > in mind." That's just what worries me. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] ICANN's records
Hi, Jim! You wrote: > Karl's obligations are those of any director of a California > corporation. He is obliged to make sure that ICANN is acting in > accordance with the law. If it isn't, he is obliged to take steps > to bring the company's actions in accordance with the law. Since ICANN obviously isn't acting in accordance with the law, what it boils down to is the same old story that no one seems willing to take ICANN to court. I've never really understood why this is so, but perhaps Karl, Michael Froomkin, and the other oppositionists simply don't have the money and time. In any case, not taking ICANN to court amounts to shirking one's obligations, at least in the case of a director, since ICANN never will, of its own volition, act correctly. No patching-up of ICANN's policy-making will be sufficient, though. ICANN's original sin - being organized by the fiat of unknown persons - is too great. Having the least disinterested person in the world - Vint Cerf - as Chairman of the Board is proof. But expecting democracy in ICANN, or any other organization created by the USG, is a pipedream. The US government no longer has any commitment to democracy, as the recent sidestepping of Congress and the Constitution in revoking habeas corpus and other fundamental democratic rights demonstrates. Why should we expect that the Internet, a relatively unimportant matter so far as the government is concerned, be treated any differently from anything else going on here? When a government regulator like the US Securities and Exchange Commission allows a company like Enron, responsible for one fourth of all energy trading, to have as its accountant the former employee of its "independent accountants" charged with the Enron dossier, how can we expect fair play or democratic procedure from anything under the USG's aegis? ICANN will continue to exist and to infringe the law so long as the government agencies protecting it continue to be used for illicit purposes, and neither Karl Auerbach nor anyone else can change that. M.S.
[IFWP] Neustar (aka friends of the ICANN Board) botching .us
Original Message Subject: Neustar experience, broken domains Date: 7 Dec 2001 10:37:16 -0700 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's a quick summary of my experience with Neustar to date, in case anyone's interested. I'm the delegatee for a number of parts of .az.us, including cc.az.us. I got a call yesterday from one of our community colleges indicating that they were having problems with reachability of their domain, so after doing some checking it turns out that *.gltd.biz, now the holder of .us, has changed the delegation of cc.az.us to another nameserver. I have no idea what initiated this change, since it certainly wasn't me. The community college who first noticed the problem has people there with a clue, and they figured out that they should be talking to Neustar, but Neustar's first responses were just along the lines of "well check your configuration." I forwarded my analysis of where the problem was, and between the two of us we seem to have convinced them what's wrong. So, a bit later I get email from Neustar (from Doug Novinger) asking me to confirm what the delegation should be. I send him corrected delegation information... ... and it's still broken today. Email to Doug (to [EMAIL PROTECTED], actually, since that's the only address I have) asking for a status update hasn't been answered yet, though I only send it recently so we'll see. He lists a phone number of 1-888-415-0365, which gets you t a voice mail menu system, select 1 for general questions and customer support, and you get a message suggesting that you check their web page for a FAQ, email them, or leave a voice mail message - but you can't leave voice mail because "the user's mailbox is full." And my community colleges are still broken. And I don't know what caused the mistake to be entered in the first place. Just a data point, FYI... --- Chris De Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To leave this list, send "unsubscribe usdom" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [IFWP] ICANN's records
Jay Fenello wrote: > > From: Karl Auerbach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > My recourse is to either abandon my obligations as a Director or to > > initiate such steps outside of the corporate boundaries as are > > consistent > > with my obligation of loyalty to the corporation. What steps, I wonder, does Karl have in mind? If he's thinking of legal measures, I'm afraid he isn't going to get very far. It should be perfectly clear to everyone by now, through the unilateral and illegal machinations of the US Commerce Dept. vis-a-vis the Internet over the past four years, that the US Government has become so corrupt that no agency, nor even any federal court, is going to do anything to expose the criminals who have taken control of the domain name system. Just as the government has protected Enron and a thousand other criminal activities in the US and the rest of the world, it is and will continue to protect ICANN. There is no longer anyone in the government, or in the courts, protecting us. M.S.
[IFWP] The End of the Public Namespace: DOC Gives .us to Neustar
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usca/index.html
Re: [IFWP] Apache hack to black-hole offending Nimba infected IIS servers
"Richard J. Sexton" wrote: > > http://chrono.faq/.404/ > > -- > Thanks but no thanks. My organization will have nothing > to do with such an unrepresentaive, undemocratic, > uninclusive gathering. - Mike Roberts Aug 28/98 This is rather amusing at first read-through but takes on a more sinister aspect later, as one comes to realize that such manipulation of democratic principles - invoking them when it is convenient and denying them when it is not - is just the sort of hypocrital con that is being practiced continually by our national government: the defense of democracy as a pretext for military expansion, and at the same time the denial of democracy to the peoples brought under the dominion of the United States. We should not forget that Mike Roberts is and remains one of the key engineers of the coup that suppressed an incipient democratic movement - the International Forum on the White Paper - and supplanted it with a self-appointed oligarchy of "superior beings" who have been dictating policy to the users of the Internet for three years now, with the inevitable consequence of loss of control over Internet addresses by their users, both individual and national. This is the same strategy and tactics used by our national government to impose unpopular, U.S.-serving governments in every part of the world they can get their hands on. There should be no surprise in this, since it is the same people doing both, the secretive engineers of international terrorism, the CIA the NSA. It is they who created the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden, they who created the paramilitary death squads in Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Honduras and everywhere else in Latin America, they who have selected, trained, and deployed terrorists in every country in the world where the population has attempted to organize a democratic government. Mike Roberts, like our national leaders, claims, when it suits his purposes, to be a staunch and principled upholder of democratic principles, but in practice it is just the opposite. "Pay attention to what people do, not what they say." Sound advice that we ignore at our own peril. M.S.
[IFWP] [Fwd: [icann-europe] Mike Roberts, authoritarian]
Roberto Gaetano wrote: > > Oh, good, it has been a while since we heard the last insults on this list, > welcome back, Michael. Thank you for your cordial welcome. I extend the same to you. As to insults, the only one is from Mr. Roberts, directed at the users of the Internet, who, according to Mr. Roberts, don't possess the intelligence or trustworthiness to be participants in ICANN. "Elitist", "authoritarian", and "proto-fascist" are not insults, they are descriptive terms, found in any lexicon or history book. They describe the type of personality that, like Mr. Roberts', believes that a debate on what constitutes consensus is a luxury that should not be "granted" to the public by their rulers (i.e. Mr. Roberts, George Bush, etc.) at a time of decision-making, but instead should be made by those who have guns. "Elitist", "authoritarian", and "proto-fascist" are the appropriate terms for describing such a person. It is sad to see that you, who have always professed an egalitarian spirit, appear to be in agreement with Mr. Roberts' elitist, authoritarian, proto-fascist ideas. Perhaps you are not, but merely trying to blend in with what you think is the politically correct position at the moment. Cowardice is not quite so despicable as outright collusion with the enemies of democracy, like Mr. Roberts. M.S. > >From: Michael Sondow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >To: Vittorio Bertola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >CC: Mike Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Subject: [icann-europe] Mike Roberts, authoritarian > >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:22:59 -0400 > > > >Vittorio- > > > >By his actions in the formative stages of ICANN, Mike Roberts has > >proved himself to be an elitist authoritarian, which is a nice way > >of saying that he is a proto-fascist, someone who thinks only his > >ideas, opinions, and judgments are worthwhile, and that the rest of > >the human species are inferior to him. ICANN was not formed upon > >democratic principles, thanks to Mr. Roberts and his henchmen. This > >most recent demonstration of his elitist authoritarian tendencies is > >only to be expected. If Mr. Roberts had his way, the Internet would > >be controlled entirely by him and his friends, and the world > >likewise. > > > >Fortunately, there are still a few sane people around, both in the > >U.S. and on the Internet, and Mr. Roberts will probably not get his > >way in the end. But he and his kind are dangerous. > > > >M.S. > > > > > Vittorio Bertola wrote: > > > > > What history has told us is that the worst error you can make in this > > > situation is to stop believing in your own principles, > > > > > Mike Roberts wrote: > > > > > > >At the time, going on three weeks ago, I had in mind something like > > > >US $100 from several thousand individuals who actually were willing > > > >to put their money where their mouth was about having a functioning > > > >At Large organization. > > > > > > > >Today, that idea is out the window, along with a lot of other > > > >populist notions about any old terrorist around the globe getting to > > > >vote on how to run the DNS. > > > > > > > >When civilization takes a step backward, as it did last week, it > > > >usually means a period in which the people with the guns make the > > > >decisions. Anyone watching the American President on tv in recent > > > >days knows that's where we're at. It may be a while before the > > > >luxury of debating what constitutes consensus in a terrorist-less > > > >society returns. > > > >-- > >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > _ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
[IFWP] Mike Roberts, true to form, chooses authoritarianism over democracy
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:23:56 -0700, Mike Roberts > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >At the time, going on three weeks ago, I had in mind something like > >US $100 from several thousand individuals who actually were willing > >to put their money where their mouth was about having a functioning > >At Large organization. > > > >Today, that idea is out the window, along with a lot of other > >populist notions about any old terrorist around the globe getting to > >vote on how to run the DNS. > > > >When civilization takes a step backward, as it did last week, it > >usually means a period in which the people with the guns make the > >decisions. Anyone watching the American President on tv in recent > >days knows that's where we're at. It may be a while before the > >luxury of debating what constitutes consensus in a terrorist-less > >society returns.
Re: [IFWP] Yahoogroups and Carnivore
"Richard J. Sexton" wrote: > Michael you've probably always been under surveilence :-(
Re: [IFWP] Yahoogroups and Carnivore
Ken Freed wrote: > > Did hear the first part of a short national network news > report Day One that > AOL and EarthLink were served a court order If Earthlink is forced to deploy Carnivore, and I am using Earthlink as my dialup connection (even though my email is run through the mail servers at another ISP, Catskill.net), will I be under surveillance? M.S. , but half a sentence into > the report, the > local affiliate cut in with their unrelated two cents. I've not heard > another on-air mention. > > Support Free Speech Online. > > >Yahoogroups is apparently offline, and it's been > >rumored that it's due to the FBI's installation > >of Carnivore in ISPs throughout the country. > > > >Can anyone verify this? > > > >Jay. > > > > > >+++ > > > >Jay Fenello, Internet Coaching > >http://www.Fenello.com ... 678-585-9765 > >http://www.YourWebPartner.com ... Web Support > >http://www.AligningWithPurpose.com ... for a Better World > >--- > >"A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men > >every-where are trying to suppress it." -- Alvin Toffler
[IFWP] 11:30 P.M., 9-13-2001: From the front
I just got back from Manhattan, where I went for the first time since the incidents on Tuesday. The air is still full of smoke and dust. Lots of people in the streets, which is the opposite of here in Queens, where the streets are deserted. Down at 14th Street, the current barrier beyond which one is not allowed to pass, there were many people standing about talking to each other and the police about what's happening down below. There were also endless police cars, sirens, ambulances, and work trucks running by. I went into a bar on 7th Avenue and 18th Street where a lot of people were gathered watching the news. I had a beer and talked to a nice-looking guy on the stool next to me. He said that unwittingly harboring terrorists was the price we pay for being an open country that welcomes foreigners. I guess he was right about that. He also told me that his brother, who lives in Dallas, called him and said that some people there were hunting down Arabs and killing them. I found that hard to believe, but he assured me it was true. Everyone's very on edge here. There are upwards of four thousand people dead beneath that massive destruction in the financial district, and it's hard to deal with. This is a shattering experience for most Americans, who have never known what it's like to be attacked. Hopefully it will be a growing and learning experience for them, but I fear that the majority will just thirst for revenge and a continuation of the vicious circle of violence. Frankly, I'm just as disturbed by it, psychologically and emotionally, as everyone else, especially after my foray to lower Manhattan this evening. It's hard to assimilate. This city, my city, where I was born and whose streets I wandered as a child, has, in effect, been attacked and partially destroyed. As a journalist in South America, I witnessed destruction, but seeing it happen on someone else's turf is very different from having it occur on one's own. It's supposed to rain tonight, which must have the rescue workers in a fit. I just heard thunder...at least I hope that's what it was. It must be scaring the wits out of people. This affair isn't over. Aside from the chance that other terrorists will be encouraged to repeat it, there is a very good chance that there's going to be a debacle when the markets open or shortly thereafter. I got hold of my broker TD Waterhouse this afternoon, and the prognosis was not favorable. They, as well as many other brokerages, have lost part of their installations. On top of this, many of the telephone lines are knocked out, including my own long distance and 800 service, as well as the stock exchange's phone lines, which are run by Verizon, as are my own. I called verizon, and they have no idea, none whasoever, when service will be restored. Their main switch building is under three feet of water, and the rain now is going to make it even worse. No, this isn't over yet, I'm afraid. And now it's pouring cats and dogs. It must be hell downtown. Michael
Re: [IFWP] "working within ICANN"
Kent Crispin wrote: > ... Well, it really doesn't matter what he wrote. The point is, he's back, and that means no possibility of any useful discussion on this list. So, good-bye and good luck to you all. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Introduction
Joanna Lane wrote: > > Hello Einar, > The funny thing about this medium is that while I have no idea who you are, > you feel entitled to ask me all kinds of questions without introducing > yourself. If this were the phone, I doubt I'd take your call. One feels sympathy for these do-gooder latecomers like Ms. Lane. Listening to the rest of us must be like having your parents tell you what's right and what's wrong. Not much use, is it? People have to find out the truth by themselves. It is a shame, though, that so many well-intentioned persons like Ms. Lane have to waste so much time before they do find out. But, hey, that's life! M.S.
Re: [IFWP] "working within ICANN"
Marc Schneiders wrote: > ICANN is way more clear than > any alternative I know of. IFWP=Institute For Wankers and Poltroons? 'Bye-'bye, Tootsie, 'bye-'bye. 'Bye-'bye, Tootsie, don't cry. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] "working within ICANN"
Patrick Greenwell wrote: > Ignore ICANN to your own detriment. Looks like you don't have much choice in the matter, Patrick. You've been thrown out: Joe Sims: "The existing bylaws of ICANN make no provision for further At Large elections...the ICANN bylaws are a blank sheet on this subject, and any further At Large elections will require a 2/3 vote of the ICANN Board..." M.S.
Re: [IFWP] "working within ICANN"
Einar Stefferud wrote: > > In my view, ICANN is no longer worthy of further attention, > as their deliberate intention is to disenfranchise all of us. I agree with you totally. The title of my posting was intended as sarcasm, as the content of Sims' email indicates. They have eliminated the membership, the principal matter which allowed people to think there was some chance of working with ICANN. That illusion has, by Sim's admission, now been shattered forever. M.S.
[IFWP] "working within ICANN"
- Original Message - From: "Joe Sims" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Sandy Harris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 6:04 AM Subject: Re: [ALSC-Forum] Evaluation of NAIS and ALSC Reports > The existing bylaws of > ICANN make no provision for further At Large elections; this was the > result of the Cairo Compromise, in which the Board agreed to direct > elections of five directors for two years, during which time the ALSC > would conduct a "clean sheet" study. Thus, any new elections require > the amendment of the bylaws to insert in Article II the criteria and > procedures for any such elections. So the fact is that "clean sheet" > means just that -- the ICANN bylaws are a blank sheet on this subject, > and any further At Large elections will require a 2/3 vote of the ICANN > Board to write on that "clean sheet."
Re: [IFWP] Re: [ga] History (IFWP.ORG)
Marc Schneiders wrote: > > On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, at 17:48 [=GMT-0700], William X Walsh wrote: > > may it fade into oblivion. If Mr. Walsh doesn't like the ifwp list, why doesn't he just butt out? M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Reviving this list
Marc Schneiders wrote: > > There are plans, now the domain IFWP.ORG is working again, to revive > the ifwp.org mailing list. Fine with me, but how about keeping Crocker and Crispin off it this time? M.S.
Re: [IFWP] The emperor is still naked
Hiya, Stef. How's tricks? You wrote: Einar Stefferud wrote: > > And then we can undertake to create a global constitution for the > Global Economy They've beaten us to it. It's called the WTO. > and then take on any other edge controlled > environments which also surely need to have a constitution, to apply > Centralized Democratic Government. You mean like: "Say America's a democracy or I'll bust your head!"? M.S.
Re: [IFWP] BOUNCE list@ifwp.org: Non-member submission from ["ooblick"]
> >From: "ooblick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The fix was in from the get go and all we were was pawns to lend > legitimacy to >their fabricated claims of consensus. What else is new? That's what this "process" has been all along, ever since the White Paper. As a matter of fact, that's all that American "democracy" is: tricking the public to consent to the fix. And the public is tricked. In order to change the NewCo, you have to get rid of ICANN and start over. But the U.S. Department of Commerce won't let you. So what's the answer? Unfortunately, if you want to change the NewCo you have to start by getting rid of the Department of Commerce. When the public comes to realize that, in all its consequences, then maybe something will start to change. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] from the archives.....
Dan Steinberg : > > "The goal of anyone reasonable is not to watch us in our board meetings > but to see how do we think," > > for 10 points and a souvenir t-shirt.who said that? and when? Minnie Mouse, in 1945? (I want a red, white, and blue T-shirt, please.) M.S.
Re: [IFWP] IFWP Rides again
> Use [EMAIL PROTECTED] OK.
Re: [IFWP] IFWP Rides again
Hi, Richard. How's tricks? You wrote: > I don't know how usefull this is, but I just rigged the IFWP > list Well, I for one have a nostalgic attachment to the IFWP list, which always had a better feel than dom-pol because it was run by neutrals. What's the situation with the dom-pol archives? Is there an independent copy somewhere? Is NSI going to make them available? Since it was a public list, it seems to me that they have an obligation to make them available to the public. And they've gotten a lot of bad press about their unilateral decision to remove them without warning. I am longer directly involved in any ICANN activities or related mailing lists. The whole subject makes me so furious that I can't stand to receive news about it. It makes me see red, and I spend the whole day with my fists clenched. Just seeing the name of Sims or Touton or Dyson on a message makes me feel like puking. So I'm staying away. But I'm still interested, of course. Especially about the fate of .net and .org, which affect me directly. Does anyone know who the ICANN board is prepping to take over .org and .net? It's sure to be someone who will use them to eliminate small businesses and real non-profits. Now that the big businesses have control of .com, they can start to use control of .org and .net to eliminate all the independent users and small businesses. It's a repeat of the cable TV history, only without direct government regulation. Anyway, it would be nice if the IFWP list took off again. It was always the place for independent opinion. Yours, Michael Sondow P.S. Can't send to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[IFWP] Australian Antitrust Suit Against ICANN
http://www.telecommunications.com/frmMainCurrentNews--Internet%20Daily.htm > Current News from > Washington Internet Daily > > Friday, November 24, 2000 > > Australian Barrister Accuses ICANN of Antitrust Violations > > An Australian lawyer asked regulators Monday to probe allegations that > ICANN and the .au Domain Administration (auDA), an industry self-regulatory > body for the .au country-code top-level domain name (TLD) space, violated > the country's antitrust laws. In his notification to the Australian > Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), Len Lindon, who identifies himself > as "barrister and human rights defender," said the current Domain Name > System "is capable of millions of domain names and there are many > 'alternative/open root server' operators and users. There could and should > be many more operators and users." Lindon said "ICANN has deliberately and > knowingly undermined, sabotaged and sought to destroy" competitors by > breaching 8 provisions of the Trade Practices Act of 1974. > > By giving the nod to only 7 new TLDs, Lindon charged, ICANN violated > laws barring: (1) Contracts that affect competition. (2) Secondary boycotts > for the purpose of causing damages and substantially cutting competition. > (3) Contracts that affect the supply or acquisition of goods and services. > (4) Misuse of market power. (5) Unconscionable conduct in business dealings. > (6) Contravention of industry codes. AuDA has close ties with ICANN, Lindon > said, and appears to be engaging in similar anticompetitive activities. > "Having read much of the available evidence, and having personally witnessed > some of these anticompetitive activities," he said, "I am satisfied that > each corporation is in breach of each section and I now submit this request > for immediate action..."
[IFWP] VeriSign to Take Over .US?
Are the Benton Foundation and the Media Access Project aware of this? Is it true? If so, has this been done behind the back of the RFC process on .us being conducted by the NTIA? Will you comment on this, please? ... > COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: NOVEMBER 21 2000 > + VeriSign to Take Over .US? > > VeriSign Inc, operator of the .com, .org and .net domain name > registries, is to take over the operation of .us, the > country-code domain for the United States, according to an > email evidently from the company's Global Registry Services > division posted to a network operators mailing list. > > According to the posting, VeriSign-GRS will take over the > administration of the .us registry from the Information > Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California, > which has operated the TLD since 1993. USC had operated under a > contract with Network Solutions Inc, which VeriSign bought this > summer, but has chosen not to renew its contract, the email > said. > > VeriSign spokespeople were not available for comment at press > time to confirm the details of the switch. Despite being > introduced before the mass popularization of .com, .us failed > to achieve widespread acceptance due to its complicated > geography- based syntax, for example "name.los-angeles.ca.us". Michael Sondow INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927
Re: [IFWP] Re: re ICANN Should Approve More Top Level Domains
Joe Baptista wrote: > > point, click, reboot - and astalavista ICANN. Lo siento, Joe, pero "hasta la vista" no basta. Hace falta que ICANN desaparece. M.S.
[IFWP] Restraint of Trade Deepens As Reactionary Big Business Fights Back Against the New Economy
Patrick Corliss wrote: > > Sydney Morning Herald dated 16 Nov 2000 > Most significantly, the report proposes anyone applying for a domain name > should first hold an associated trademark. This is the most unfair and reactionary proposal to have come from a DNS provider. And yet, outrageous as it may at first appear, it is a natural evolution of the present process being conducted by ICANN, WIPO, and the DOC. It is the foreseeable product of giving power in the DNS to entrenched big business, whose primary interest is the elimination of competition while expanding its own market share. Exclusion is the name of their game. That's spelled RESTRAINT OF TRADE. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Deluded Organizations Supporting State-corporatism
Richard J. Sexton wrote: > > >From: Hans Klein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > CYBER-FEDERALIST No. 7November 16, 2000 > > > > ICANN AT LARGE MEMBERS LAUNCH COORDINATING COMMITTEE > >The ICC will promote and facilitate user participation in ICANN by Internet > >users from around the globe. The participation of users in ICANN, an organization committed to blocking their interests in the Internet, is no different from employees joining a company union. > >The ICC is intended to help the membership > >develop a collective voice with which to speak out on issues. This may be its intention, but its effect is to legitimize the anti-user policies of ICANN by the adhesion of users whose interests are being undermined. > >A high priority issue for the At Large membership is the "Clean Sheet" > >study proposed by the Board at their July meeting in Yokohama. At that > >time, the At Large Membership had not yet even been constituted. Yet the > >study's mandate is to reconsider the very existence of the At Large > >membership -- a prospect that seems at odds with the remarkable success of > >the At Large elections in which some 158,000 users participated. The ICC > >will be working with members to help articulate the member perspective on > >this study. Yes, the "clean slate" bylaw is invidious to the existence of an @large membership. But even without the clean slate study, no @large member of ICANN enjoys the legal status of a member in the corporation. This is clearly spelled out now in ICANN's bylaws. And these are not the sole anti-user bylaws, not by a long shot. The bylaws referring to a DNSO having one out of seven constituencies for non-commercial users, when the White Paper creating ICANN as well as congressional testimony by the DOC contractor, Becky Burr, clearly give users a 50% stake in the DNSO, are equally insidious, as are all other bylaws disenfranchising Internet users from Internet governance. > >Another issue for the ICC is the legal status of the ICANN membership. At > >Large Members need to fully understand the rights and responsibilities > >should accompany membership. There are no rights to @large membership. The @large members are not legally members of ICANN, according to ICANN's bylaws. They have no rights. They cannot remove directors, they cannot vote on policy decisions, they cannot even demand to see an accounting of the corporation's finances. @large membership is a fraud, cleverly created by Touton and company to keep Internet users from having any authority in governance. > >"The ICC is committed to constructive engagement with the existing Board," > >said Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, professor at the University of Aarhus. "ICANN > >processes have sometimes been contentious, but with this important step > >forward in the implementation of the At Large membership, there is a > >renewed willingness to work together for effective problem-solving." This man is either deluded, or he is another in the army of ICANN apologists attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the users. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Re: [IFWP] Re: Vint Cerf New ICANN Chair
Richard J. Sexton wrote: > > I've had more productive, friendly and constructive exchanges with Vint in the > last two days than I had in two years of trying to talk to Esther. Perhaps I'm > being co-opted but I sense a new era of a willingness to cooperate here. I am > encouraged. Mr. Cerf can afford to be friendly. He has everything he wanted. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] ICANN, Mike Roberts, and Richard Foreman
> COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: NOVEMBER 20 2000 > + New Domain Backlash Begins > > By Kevin Murphy > > Naturally, successful candidates from the 44 applications > received declared the whole controversial process a success. > Register.com Inc, which was part of the consortia awarded .info > and .pro, said: "This has been a challenging process, but we > appreciate ICANN making it transparent and fair." ICANN's President, Mike Roberts, has been colluding with Richard Foreman, head of Register.com, for a long time, as their 1999 interview for PC-radio.com demonstrates. This is another antitrust law violation which will come out some day in legal proceedings, if someone has the courage some day to see to it that the laws of the United States are enforced. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Vint Cerf New ICANN Chair
Jay Fenello wrote: > > At 08:22 PM 11/16/00, Judith Oppenheimer wrote: > >A brief "special" board meeting followed at which Vint Cerf was > >named new ICANN Chair. I foretold that this would happen, over a year ago. The idea was scoffed at. Now it has come to pass exactly as I predicted, and as any astute and honest observer should have foreseen. Vint Cerf was always slated to run the Internet Government. He wasn't made chairman from the beginning because it would have been too obvious that ICANN was fixed, but ISOC and its dictator Cerf have been behind the ICANN fix even before the White Paper was published. ISOC, its corporate backers, its creatures like CORE, and its co-opted government officials like Burr are the conspiracy that, in its blind and selfish elitism, has stifled every attempt to achieve a balance of powers in Internet governance. The appointment of Vint Cerf as ICANN chairman is the final proof, if such were needed, that ICANN was never intended to be a democratic organization, and that it was conceived and carried out by a select group of Internet insiders who have always run the Internet and who have now consolidated their control so that no new people, and no users, can influence its policies. This is the very definition of a dictatorship, and reflects the arrogance of a national government that has reached such a pinnacle of authoritarianism that it no longer feels the need to give even lip service to the law, since it dominates the agencies supposed to enforce the law, and which despises those of us who live and work under its regime. This dictatorship has been achieved by control of the press and of education, and by corrupting not only the people's representatives but the people themselves. Every one of you who acquiesces to the dictatorship of the Internet through the undemocratic and illegal ICANN and its committees is complicit in the betrayal and overthrow of Internet democracy, indeed of democracy itself, since without free communication there can be no democracy. === "The law of nature, as a set of uncodified commands implicitly accepted by the mind and conscience of every reasonable person, is merely the concept of Divine Law under another name. Time and time again it has operated to overthrow entire systems of positive law." --Felix Morley, "The Power in the People" International Congress of Independent Internet Users (ICIIU) http://www.iciiu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[IFWP] ICANN Insider TLD Proposals To Be Accepted
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article.asp?aid=34781 PCWorld: ICANN Staff Narrows New Domain Name Options Monday, November 13, 2000 The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has zeroed in on ten new top-level domains, pending a vote of its board of directors that is scheduled for Thursday. ICANN's staff released on Friday its analysis of the 191 top-level domains interested parties have proposed in recent weeks. The report identifies ten top-level domains that are the strongest contenders, including .biz, .web, and .nom. Two others--.museum and .health--remain in the running, but the report outlines concerns with these proposals. The two strongest proposals appear to be from Afilias, a consortium of 19 domain name registrars, including VeriSign's Network Solutions subsidiary and KDD Internet Solutions, a Japanese telecommunications company that has teamed with Network Solutions. Network Solutions long held a monopoly for domain name registrations (see "NSI Faces Domain Name 'Hoarding' Suit") and currently is the sole registry for names in the .com, .net, and .org domains and the top registrar for names in these domains.
Re: [IFWP] Groups Urge ICANN to Keep Promises
Responsibility (CPSR), cited > the letter extensively in a panel discussion at the on-going ICANN > meetings in Marina del Rey Oh, I'll do you And you do me We're all here together Now one, two, three Do the circle jerk Yay, yay, yay Do the circle jerk In Marina del Rey. We'll call on ICANN We'll plead and we'll beg We'll urge them and scourge them To keep their word. They're good little guys Just like us. So what's the trouble? Why all the fuss? Just be happy Don't worry Get with it Join with us and do The circle jerk, Yeah, yeah, yeah The ICANN circle jerk. Hooray! > "The prospect of a clean-sheet study is > a significant departure from ICANN's prior commitments," said Klein. ICANN's prior commitments? What the *&%$* is this hypocrite Klein talking about? > "We fear that the so-called "clean slate" study may attempt to make > a "clean sweep" of the At Large membership, ending democratic > accountability in ICANN." Hans Klein "fears" it? Oh, golly. Gee whiz. Ending democratic accountability in ICANN. NO! Whatever are we to do without ICANN's democratic accountability, so precious to all? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! > CPSR is a signatory to the DNRC letter. Wonderful! A signatory to the letter calling on, and urging, and begging, and threatening loss of legitimacy in their eyes, for fear of losing all the democratic accountability... Fantastic! Congratulations, CPSR! Halleluyah!!! Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Re: [IFWP] Report on ICANN Members Forum
Hans Klein wrote: > > Report on ICANN Members Forum > Marina del Rey, California > November 12, 2000 > > by Andrew Shen, EPIC and Internet Democracy Project > > http://www.ICANNmembers.org > Karl Auerbach spoke briefly about his own background in technology and law. > In particular, he noted his own experience as a businessman, causing him to > be sympathetic to some of their concerns. ? > He encouraged people not to worry > about short-term issues such as domain names but focus on long-term issues > such as address space. ?? ? For the attendees, he suggested not looking too much > at policy issues but concentrating on creating an institution. ??? This is not the Karl Auerbach that I knew. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: Update on ICANN Meetings in Marina del Rey (13-16 November)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Hi! This email is an update on the ICANN meetings next week in Marina > del Rey, California. The meetings are free to attend, and open to any > interested person. We encourage broad participation in our bottom-up > consensus-development process -- you can participate either in person, > or (for the large meetings) via the Internet. > > Full details are posted at <http://www.icann.org/mdr2000>. On the contrary, there are no details whatsoever at that address. The link to "Webcast & Remote Participation", for example, leads to a blank page. If this reflects the seriousness with which ICANN takes its communications, we know what to expect from the meetings themselves. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] A fool's paradise (aka "The at-large membership")
(From Patrick Corliss) . F - ELECTED ICANN DIRECTORS LOCKED OUT OF ANNUAL MEETING PARTICIPATION A subtle procedural change means ICANN's newly elected At Large board representatives will be mere observers at this year's Annual General Meeting in Los Angeles next week. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=4724 .. There is nothing unexpected about this, at least for anyone who sees ICANN for what it really is and who has beenwatching its activities without rose-colored glasses. As I said months ago, before the At-large elections, ICANN will most likely never allow the at-large directors to sit on the board. ICANN passed a new bylaw, before the election process, which gives the entrenched board the power to completely annul both the at-large directors and the at-large membership. There is no longer any reason at all for ICANN to permit a disruption of its agenda by at-large directors. Karl Auerbach and the other at-large directors have, in my opinion, been living in a fool's paradise no different from that of all the other persons who have allowed themselves - as much from a desire to become part of a bureaucracy and for media exposure as for a desire to effect change - to be co-opted by ICANN. Joining ICANN, by opposers of its policies, means their neutralization and nothing more. Michael Sondow Michael Sondow = "Lawyers come to think of administrative law and the administrative process as significant and worthy of study only in those areas where private interests think it worth their while to demand protection. As a consequence lawyers seeking for their clients elaborate procedural protection modeled on the judicial process may, in an excess of generalizing zeal, induce legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts to extend such procedures into areas where they are alien and inappropriate." -- Jaffe & Nathanson, "Administrative Law" = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Why you can't sue ICANN in federal court (and win)
http://www.parascope.com/mx/articles/garywebb/garyWebbSpeaks.htm Gary Webb: The Christic Institute had this thing figured out. They filed suit in May of 1986, alleging that the Reagan administration, the CIA, this sort of parallel government was going on. Oliver North was involved in it, you had the Bay of Pigs Cubans that were involved in it down in Costa Rica, they had names, they had dates, and they got murdered. And the Reagan administration's line was, they're a bunch of left-wing liberal crazies, this was conspiracy theory. If you want to see what they really thought, go to Oliver North's diaries, which are public -- the National Security Archive has got them -- all he was writing about, after the Christic Institute's suit was filed, was how we've got to shut this thing down, how we have to discredit these witnesses, how we've got to get this guy set up, how we've got to get this guy out of the country... They knew that the Christic Institute was right, and they were deathly afraid that the American public was going to find out about it. I am convinced that the judge who was hearing the case was part and parcel to the problem. He threw the case out of court and fined the Christic Institute, I think it was $1.3 million, for even bringing the lawsuit. It was deemed "frivolous litigation." And it finally bankrupted them. And they went away. But that's the problem when you try to take on the government in its own arena, and the federal courts are definitely part of its own arena. They make the rules. And in cases like that, you don't stand a chance in hell. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Sueing ICANN in California (was Re: [IFWP] Re: Ken Stubbs @ core deletes vote-auction.com)
Roeland Meyer wrote: > > Those who are having problems with ICANN UDRP and other ICANN interventions > may look towards California State intervention mechanisms. ICANN is > violating quite a number of those regulations. The problem is that one must > be a California resident citizen in order to complain. Not so, Roeland. Anyone who is affected by them may complain. All they need do is write to the California Attorney General's Office: State of California Office of the Attorney General Department of Justice P.O. Box 944255 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550 (916) 445-9555 Quicker and more efficacious would be a civil suit filed by a damaged person or entity, based on the California law. This need not necessarily be filed in California, as most states in the U.S. have long-arm statutes that permit people outside the state who have been damaged by a California entity to sue in their own jurisdiction. The URL for information on complaints to the Att'y General against non-profit organizations is: http://caag.state.ca.us/piu/npmb.htm That unit's email address is: [EMAIL PROTECTED] An online complaint form can be found at: http://caag.state.ca.us/piu/mailform.htm -or- http://caag.state.ca.us/piu/npmb.htm Good California law links are: http://www.usc.edu/dept/law-lib/legal/ca.html http://www.callaw.com/ http://california.findlaw.com/CA02_caselaw/index.html http://www.AllLaw.com/California.html To search statutes: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/statute.html http://www.state.ca.us/s/search/servers.html#www The text of the California Incorporation Law is at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=corp&codebody=&hits=All Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Vint Cerf, ISOC Dictator and the CIA/NSC Man on the ICANN Board, Says Security Crucial to Internet's Future
COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: NOVEMBER 03 2000 + Vint Cerf Says Security Crucial to Internet's Future Vinton Cerf, one of the few men who can claim to be credited with being the "father of the internet", yesterday warned that security needs to tighten up in most areas if the internet is to fully achieve its potential. Cerf, WorldCom Inc's senior vice president of internet architecture and technology, made his plea for tighter security at the Compsec2000 International conference in London, UK yesterday. Cerf, who is perhaps best known as the co-designer of the web's TCP/IP protocols, outlined numerous areas where security could be improved. He named cryptographic technology, network security, host security and internet-enabled appliances among the main candidates where improvements are needed. First on Cerf's hit list is the problem of cryptography. Cerf pointed to the need for a universally adopted non-proprietary standard. While the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has now accepted the Rijndael algorithm of Belgian researchers Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen as its sole candidate for standardization, the search for alternative standards in both Japan and Europe threatens the possibility of a unified approach, he said. Cerf also criticized the slow rate of adoption of public key infrastructure (PKI) in the public and cross enterprise arenas, and argued strongly for the separation of identification and authentication. Identity, he said, should just be a means of declaring oneself for validation. Registering should not itself confer authority. That should be left to individual entities based on their own database rather than centralizing all knowledge of individuals. Cerf said there is a also a need for multiple public and private keys to avoid people using others' public keys as identifiers. He also argued that global verification standards may need to relinquished in favor of using different methods for individuals, enterprises and governments. In terms of network security, Cerf said the internet protocol security (IPSec) standard is well specified, giving hosts the chance to defend themselves, but there is still a need to adopt a common key distribution process and firewalls that defend against internal threats. He also said there is a need for end-to-end encryption in VPNs in order to prevent any danger from packet leaks into other networks. Host security is also critical, especially in a world of increasingly distributed systems. Cerf said internal firewalls within operating systems may be needed to overcome their inherent security weaknesses. He also advocated mutual and continuous authentication between devices to prevent hijacking of IP addresses and active monitoring, for instance for virus detection and trojan horse signatures. Within the distributed world, internet-enabled appliances, such as the much-hyped internet refrigerator, are likely to form the next target for hackers, he said. As such, he said that authentication is needed for secure device control from the net to stop, say, the kid next door reprogramming your house while you are away. The profusion of such devices, enabled by putting IP into hardware, will also quickly put a strain on IP address space, he said. .......... Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Don't be shy
Dear Berkman Center- It's payoff time at the ICANN grab. ICANN Director Greg Crew's Melbourne IT is getting a new gTLD to run, and so will Stubbs/Abril/Sola's CORE. NSI will get a few, too. Twomey and Magaziner have gotten together and formed a company to sell "Internet consulting". That should be pretty lucrative, huh? Burr and Dyson will go on to high-paying executive jobs, probably at large networks or some such, where they can peddle their influence with ICANN and the USG. How about the Berkman Center? What do you guys want? A TLD to run? A percentage of the take on the new registries' contract award fees? Lifetime jobs at $100,000/year with ICANN? I mean, you've been swell, a real support when the going got rough. So, name your price. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] TLDs: ICANN Conflicts of Interest (aka fraud)
(from the ICANN website) http://www.icann.org/tlds/tld-review-update-01nov00.htm > ICANN UPDATE - TOP LEVEL DOMAIN (TLD) APPLICATION REVIEW > It is important that persons having financial interests in the applicants > not be involved in making selections among the applications. Accordingly, > the members of ICANN's Board of Directors (who will vote on the selections) > and its officers and employees (who will be advising the Board on the > selections) have reviewed whether they have any relationship to applicants > or applications that would make their participating in the selection > inappropriate. Based on this review, the following persons recused > themselves prior to their consideration of any application: > > Person's Name Reason for Recusal > Amadeu Abril i AbrilRelationships with CORE and Nominalia, which are > participating in various applications. > Rob BlokzijlOn Advisory Board of CentralNic, a company which was > involved in preparing one of the proposals as a technical advisor. > Greg Crew CEO of partly owned telecom subsidiary of Melbourne IT, > which is participating in several applications. > Phil Davidson Employment by British > Telecom, which supports the .one application What about Ken Stubbs, the President of CORE and the head of the Names Council, as well as the Registrar Constituency's rep to the NC? (Or has Mr. Stubbs stepped down temporarily from the NC so that he can help push the Afilias application along?) What about Roger Cochetti, the gTLD Constituency rep on the Names Council, who is also involved in Afilias, if not all the applications for new gTLDs, as Network Solution, Inc.'s man in ICANN? How many more of ICANN's directors, committee members, and staff will profit from the new gTLDs? How much more fraud and corruption is ICANN going to engage in before the government and the courts put a stop to this, so that the Internet can survive? Michael Sondow = Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. --- 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(1) = International Congress of Independent Internet Users http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Cochetti (NSI) to Make .us a gTLD?
What does this mean, Mr. Cochetti? Since when is .us a gTLD? Or is that what you and NSI plan to make it, so you can sell it for a profit? (http://www.icann.org/dnso/nc-members.htm) DNSO Names Council Current NC members are: gTLD Registries: NorthA (.us) - Roger Cochetti Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Illegal ICANN Board
http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/boardsquat.htm
[IFWP] Magaziner & Twomey Form E-Commerce Consultancy; Burr & Dyson On Board?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0010/26/text/bizcom1.html .. Clinton and Howard advisers team up Date: 26/10/2000 By KIRSTY NEEDHAM The architect of the Clinton Administration's approach to the digital economy has teamed with the Australian Government's former top Internet adviser, Dr Paul Twomey, to form an international advisory and investment service targeting the Internet sector. ... Michael Sondow International Congress of Independent Internet Users (ICIIU) http://www.iciiu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[IFWP] Froomkin Wrong On No GCCA Violation
In his most recent article (Duke Law Journal 50:17, and available at http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin), Mr. Froomkin writes that the creation of ICANN did not violate federal laws and specifically was not in violation of the Government Corporation Control Act (GCCA). Mr. Froomkin writes: "Any participation by the federal government in ICANNs formation beyond general cheerleading would probably have violated the Government Corporation Control Act (GCCA). However, most of the board members appear to have been recruited either by European Union officials or by Joe Sims, Postels lawyer and later ICANNs." and "...because the formation was kept at arms length, ICANNs creation did not violate the Government Corporation Control Act, the statute designed to prevent agencies from creating private corporations to do their will." and "By calling for NewCo to form spontaneously, government officials avoided directly "creating" the corporation." However, Mr. Froomkin is wrong. He is either unaware of the facts and the evidence which proves those facts, or has chosen to ignore them. Esther Dyson herself was called to the chairmanship of the ICANN board by none other than Ira Magaziner, in collusion with Roger Cochetti of IBM, as Esther Dyson's own statements prove (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/scripts/rammaker.asp?s=REAL&dir=icann&file=icann1&start=1-22-00&end=2-14-50). Ms. Dyson furthermore stated that ICANN was about to be recognized by the Department of Commerce at the time of the recorded meeting, which was ICANN's first and which was held when there had not yet been any acceptance of ICANN by stakeholders and there were still competing proposals for the NewCo, thus proving the DOC's de facto creation of ICANN. The ICIIU hereby warns the Berkman Center and ICANN that any attempt at destruction of the evidence is a violation of U.S. Code Sec.18 § 1001(a)(1) (see below) and that they will be prosecuted for doing so. Michael Sondow = Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. --- 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(1) = International Congress of Independent Internet Users http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Criteria for the Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries
To the ASO, ICANN, and Whomever Else It May Concern: This is a formal protest against the adoption of any criteria whatsoever for the establishment of new regional Internet registries by ICANN, and the proposal of such criteria by the Address Supporting Organization (ASO), as there has been no bottom-up discussion of such criteria by the Internet stakeholders and the Internet community at large, who will be affected by them. Michael Sondow International Congress of Independent Internet Users (ICIIU) http://www.iciiu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hans Petter Holen ICANN Address Council chair wrote on 27 Oct 2000: > The Address Council has now received the final version of the > "Criteria for the Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries" > http://www.aso.icann.org/docs/other/emerging-rir-v1.html > > from the RIRs: APNIC, ARIN and RIPE NCC. > > The address council is planning to make its final recommendation at > our December phone conference on this document and pass it on to ICANN.
[IFWP] ICANN Clashes with Domain Firms Over New TLDs
COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: OCTOBER 24 2000 + ICANN Clashes with Domain Firms Over New TLDs By Kevin Murphy Some of the dozens of businesses that have recently formed with revenue models based on the scarcity of good internet addresses are feeling threatened by the imminent introduction of new top-level domains into the domain name system. DNS regulator ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has found itself caught in the middle of a number of potential trademark infringement battles with registries over some of the applications for new generic top-level domains. The Los Angeles-based non-profit will introduce new TLDs early next year, selecting from 44 proposals currently on the table. Lawyers representing three registration companies over the last month filed complaints with the organization over some of the applications, claiming their rights would be infringed if certain gTLDs (specifically, .biz, .site and .web) were introduced into the DNS. All three were subsequently shot down in responses from Louis Touton, ICANN's general counsel. Two companies reckon the introduction of .biz as a rival to .com would hurt their sales. At least four of the applications ICANN staffers are currently poring over propose to operate a registry for .biz, including Affinity Internet Inc, iDomains Inc, KDD Internet Solutions Co Ltd and JVTeam LLC. Shepher Corporation (Biz.com Inc) is complaining that its business of registering third-level domains (eg computerwire.biz.com, microsoft.biz.com) will be rendered useless by a new .biz TLD, which seems fair comment. According to Dallas, Texas-based Shepher's lawyers, the confusion created by the introduction of .biz (which, one imagines, would be minimal given that biz.com has been operating less than a year) would make ICANN liable for contributory trademark infringement. Likewise, Missouri-based Economic Solutions Inc reckons a .biz would mess with its plans to market the country-code TLD .bz as a phonetic variant of 'biz'. "A .biz or .bus TLD, if granted, would substantially infringe the rights of ESI," the company's attorneys claim in a letter to ICANN, "...we insist that any application submitted which proposes .biz... be rejected." ESI has operated under contract with the government of Belize, which owns .bz, since mid-1999. Touton, in his responses to both companies, cites a recent decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office that TLDs are not trademarkable, coupled with a court decision to the same effect in a suit between Image Online Design Inc and the Council of Registrars (currently, we're told, under appeal). Besides, Touton argues, biz.com is a second level domain, and .bz is meant "to serve the needs of the internet community in the country of Belize", not US firms that want something that sounds like "biz". A company with a similar issue to Shepher is Carlsbad, California-based Global Domains International Inc (WebSite.ws), the firm that operates as the registry for .ws under contract with the government of Samoa (formerly Western Samoa). Like .bz, WebSite.ws bases its entire business on the fact that a good .com is damn hard to come by, and alternatives are needed. New gTLDs would seriously reduce that urgency. In particular, the company takes issue with the proposals of .site and .web by Afilias LLC, the consortium of 19 leading registrars that wants to operate a new open .com-style gTLD. "[Our lawyers] would not like to see the market get confused with a .web/.site and .ws since they both bring meaning to 'web''site'," company president Alan Ezeir said in an email to Touton. "It seems ironic," Touton replies, "that your company, which is providing registrar services in the .ws domain under a one-year contract with the .ws domain's sponsoring organization would raise legal concerns about the establishment of .web and .site TLDs on the basis that some customers have been encouraged to think its stands for 'website' rather than Western Samoa." He again cites the USPTO and IOD/CORE decisions as legal precedent for the unenforceability of TLDs as trademarks. No new TLDs have been introduced since before the internet became the massively popular medium it is today, and the vast swaths of red tape surrounding bringing in new domains means .com is virtually exhausted and alternative naming systems have arisen. The trend for US firms to buy contracts with the governments of developing nations to get access to cool-sounding ccTLDs to market as gTLDs has proved quite popular. The two-character ccTLDs are assigned to countries by the ISO 3166-1 list, administered by a body within the International Standards Organization. ICANN accepts these ccTLDs into the root based on their presence on the list. But many countries are too small or poor to need their ccTLDs, and this is where the US firms step in. California-based dotTV Inc has found itself a potentially l
Re: [IFWP] NSI's "best practices" white paper
Milton Mueller wrote: > > http://www.nsol.com/policy/gTLD-Registry-Best-Practices.pdf > > I have looked over the Network solutions White Paper. I hope its motivation is as >transparent to others as it is to me. Basically this is an attempt to persuade ICANN >to force all new TLDs to adopt standards and practices that increase costs and reduce >innovation so that competition with com net and org registry is minimized. They are >trying to raise the bar to entry so high that only a small number of large businesses >will be eligible. > > The same game was played by the telephone companies during liberalization. Imagine >how many new telephone companies we would have had in 1984 if all of them had been >expected to offer the exact same level of service and use the same operation >standards as AT&T. Eventually, of course, MCI and Sprint and other companies grew up >to the point where they could beat AT&T at its own game. But if AT&T-style >requirements had been imposed on them as a condition of entry into the market, none >of them would have been able to enter at all. > > The NSI White paper attempts to make the relationship between new registries and new >registrars *exactly like* the relationship between NSI and accredited registrars in >com net and org. But most of these conditions were imposed on NSI because of its >overwhelming dominance of the marketplace. It is not appropriate to apply the same >conditions to new entrants, who do not have the same market share. ... Exactly so. And this new attempt to commandeer all new TLDs for a few large businesses goes hand in hand with NSI's first paper, at http://www.nsol.com/news/2000/pr_2419.html, in which NSI tries to make a convincing argument for giving even TLDs that might be reserved for non-profit organizations to big business interests like the banks. NSI evidently wants no part of a TLD world in which users have a choice of what sort of registries they have to deal with, since it will mean lost business for NSI. And since NSI is funding ICANN, it is almost certain that ICANN will adopt these policies. This is the result of allowing the ICANN, as the NewCo, to dispense with user representation, in contravention of the DOC's White Paper. ICANN should never have been recognized as the NewCo by DOC, and it should now be done away with. Michael Sondow "We need to be able to judge which is more important - the images on the screen, the mechanisms that produce them, or the world that they are striving to represent." --Oscar Kenshur, in 'The Allure of the Hybrid' INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927
Re: [IFWP] FW: ANNOUNCE: ICANN Pressing Issues II - Upcoming One-Day Mini-Conference
> -Original Message- > From: Ben Edelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 12:09 AM > To: Participants in Berkman Center ICANN-Related Events > The Berkman Center for Internet and Society invites you to "Pressing Issues > II: Understanding and Critiquing ICANN's Policy Agenda," a series of > moderated panel discussions on issues facing ICANN at its annual meeting in > LA. The Harvard Berkman Center here continues its policy of providing forums for defusing protest against ICANN's unilateral, undemocratic, and illegal policy-making. All those who wish to suck up to ICANN's influential and wealthy special interests, and those who haven't the guts to oppose ICANN directly, are invited to attend. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Tasmanian Natives To File Medicare Claims At Jungle Internet Stations
- http://www.dcita.gov.au/cgi-bin/trap.pl?path=5340 TIGERS Delivers Medicare Easyclaim to Regional Tasmania Rural communities in Tasmania will now be able to lodge Medicare claims at Medicare Easyclaim booths in 11 locations as a result of the Trials in Innovative Government Electronic Regional Services (TIGERS) Program, Senator Ian Campbell, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, said today. - "Hello? Medicare? This is Vrebom Nakafroo in the rain forest. I have malaria, dysentery, swamp fever, Ebola virus, rickets, and jaundice, and I've just been bitten by a coral snake. Could you send me some aspirin by helicopter ASAP? Just bill my VISA card. Thanks. Oh, by the way, any news on my domain name application?" Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: Auctioning .US ? (and The UDRP and .US)
Thanks to Jim Fleming for posting the URL and text. > > http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usrfc2/comments.html > > "The proposed plan would auction new generic second-level domain names under > .us (.e.g. business.us, loans.us), the proceeds from which would fund a > "Digital Opportunity Trust" that connects, educates, and empowers people to > participate in the networked society. Until now the .us space has been > unattractive for commercial users and individuals because of its cumbersome > registration system under geographic localities, e.g. ibm.armonk.ny.us. The > new .us system we propose will auction generic names as an efficient way to > allocate scarce resources and would be restructured to facilitate > non-commercial uses in the public interest." This proposal has been made by The Benton Foundation and the Media Access Project, in response to the NTIA's call for comments on its Statement of Work (SOW), pursuant (supposedly) to another RFC on .US management (there have been previous ones). The proposal is interesting and worth a read. However, the above quote from it raises an obvious question: How does auctioning 2LDs facilitate non-commercial uses in the public interest? Commercial interests with more money will get them in an auction. Another question of interest, which perhaps the NTIA persons copied could respond to: On the ISI's new .US website (http://www.nic.us/), a "Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy" is listed under "General Information" and linked to ICANN's website (no mention of the UDRP anywhere else on the .US website). Does this mean that .US has been placed under ICANN's UDRP by NTIA or ISI fiat? If so, does this mean that there are elements of the management of .US which have already been decided by the NTIA? If that is the case, could the NTIA tell us what these elements are, so that we won't waste time discussing them and submitting proposals regarding them? Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Who Owns .Web? - More Controversy at ICANN
COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: OCTOBER 16 2000 * Who Owns .Web? - More Controversy at ICANN By Kevin Murphy Afilias LLC, the consortium of 19 of the top domain name registrars currently fighting for the chance to operate a new top-level domain registry, has come under fire for attempting to hijack the ".web" TLD from a company that has been using it for four years. The publication Friday of the 47 applications for new top-level internet domains by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, sparked renewed debate over the legitimacy of Image Online Design Inc's claim to .web, which it has been running as an alternative to .com since 1996. Afilias, which counts former monopoly registrar Network Solutions Inc, Register.com Inc and the Council of Registrars (CORE) among its members, applied to run a registry of either .web, .site or .info. While some consortium members have expressed to ComputerWire that the string it wishes to use is relatively unimportant, market research conducted by Afilias suggests .web is the preferred alternative to .com among potential registrants. This is where IOD has the problem. The San Luis Obispo, California-based firm has been operating a .web TLD outside of the authoritative root system operated by NSI for four years, and reckons its popularity is mostly due to its efforts at webtld.com. Now that it has been given a chance by ICANN to apply to have .web accepted into the root, it too has paid its $50,000 non-refundable fee and submitted its proposal to the organization. Seeing two other proposals for .web submitted, the company was concerned that others were trying to steal its thunder. "[Afilias's identity] came as quite a surprise," said IOD president and CTO Christopher Ambler. "We thought it would be a newcomer that didn't know our history." Afilias's members, particularly NSI and CORE, know precisely what IOD has been doing with .web to date. "This is a blatant attempt to take over four years of our work," he complains. The history of IOD's claim to .web is as controversial as the evolution of ICANN and the domain name system itself. Ambler claims the late Jon Postel, director of IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and one of the people largely credited with forming ICANN itself, promised to allow .web into the authoritative DNS in 1996. IOD ended up suing IANA in 1997, over the proposed signed of a memorandum of understanding that would have assigned .web to another registry, but dropped the suit after the US government's green and white papers that scrapped the MoU and ultimately led to the formation of ICANN. The company also sued CORE and PGMedia Inc (now Name.Space Inc) last year over their use of .web in alternative registries. IOD lost, and the case is currently on appeal. The judgment appears to preclude any registry having property or trademark rights on a TLD, which makes IOD's current complaints legally shaky at best. But this isn't about legality, says Ambler, it's about "fairness, openness and honesty" - virtues ICANN is supposed to be founded upon. From what we gather, ICANN's position is that the authoritative DNS also has no time for proprietary claims on TLDs. It is unlikely, for example, that NSI/VeriSign could claim any rights to .com. And there is no guarantee that Afilias is even in with a shout of running a new TLD. ICANN is expected to pick a handful of new TLDs, and Afilias is but one of 47 applications for TLDs ranging from .shop to .dubai. As well as IOD and Afilias, Washington DC- based NeuStar Inc wants to run .web. It seems NSI's involvement in Afilias is also causing controversy among some of the domain name community's more 'active' participants. A "parody" web site at Afilias.tv has already appeared, which publicizes IOD's situation, as well as accusing the consortium of acting as a smokescreen for NSI, which is accused of trying to extend its monopoly on generic TLD registries. In its defense, it is the NSI registrar business that is involved in Afilias. The registry, which is now named VeriSign Global Registry Services in light of the purchase of NSI by VeriSign Inc earlier this year, has no official part to play. The consortium also said it will outsource the technical management of the registry to Canadian registrar Tucows Inc, rather than use the VeriSign GRS .com registry. But, as Ambler points out, the NSI registrar and registry are owned by the same company, so it is reasonable to see the mutual benefit a new TLD registry would bring. Representatives of New York-based Afilias, which is 5.25% owned by each of its participants, were not available for comment by press time. Michael Sondow ==
Re: [IFWP] Canada torches all .ca domain names - owners must rea
Thanks, Mark. M.S.
Re: [IFWP] Canada torches all .ca domain names - owners must reapply
Andy Oram wrote: > > http://www.themestream.com/articles/206129 > > Canada torches all .ca domain names - owners must reapply - What will be the criteria for re-allocation? - Has the Canadian Internet Registration Authority been directed to do this by ICANN? - If so, where is the directive that ccTLD registries re-allocate domain names, and under what criteria? Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Re: [IFWP] I-D ACTION:draft-hollenbeck-grrp-reqs-05.txt (fwd)
Joe Baptista wrote: > > --- begin forwarded text > > Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2000 06:39:00 -0500 (EST) > To: ietf-announce: ; > Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-hollenbeck-grrp-reqs-05.txt > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories. > > Title : Generic Registry-Registrar Protocol Requirements > A URL for this Internet-Draft is: > http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hollenbeck-grrp-reqs-05.txt Reading this Internet-Draft carefully, it can be seen that this document contains not merely technical protocol, but many policy decisions (i.e. politics) as well. Is the IETF noiw empowered to make political decisions regarding TLD registries? Is ICANN or its DNSO empowered to do so without discussion? Perhaps the candidates for the Board would like to comment on these pertinent questions, and on this new Internet-Draft and its repurcussions. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] First Domain "Sunrise" Period Launched at .ws
COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: OCTOBER 09 2000 + First Domain "Sunrise" Period Launched at .ws As a taster of what we can expect when ICANN introduces new top- level domains into the domain name system early next year, country-code TLD registry WebSite.ws (Global Domains International Inc) is offering companies 90 days to beat the cybersquatters. WebSite.ws has been accepting registrations in the .ws namespace since March, under a deal with the Samoan government, which owns the rights to the .ws ccTLD. But this week, possibly in a move to capitalize on the renewed interest in domain name issues and to ramp up its visibility ahead of new competitive gTLDs, the company announced it will give companies 90 days to register their .ws names before opening them up to the public. The company has reserved the names of the Fortune 500 public companies, Fortune 500 private companies, top 200 internet companies and all major sports teams, and is aggressively telemarketing these firms. Whichever domains have not been registered, at the cost of $35 a year, by the end of the year will be released into the public, to be potentially snapped up by cybersquatters. "If you want to register your name, great. If you don't we would like to make it available to someone else," explained director of corporate communications Robert Blodgett. CEO Alan Ezeir added in a statement: "In September we contacted [retail chain] Nordstrom Inc to offer 'nordstrom.ws', but they declined. I fully expect there is a Mr and Mrs Nordstrom out there who would love to attain this web site for personal use, without any intent to threaten or blackmail Nordstrom's corporation." Although the move is billed as a "war against cybersquatting", it isn't entirely altruistic. WebSite.ws is charging for the registrations - and the reserved names could bring in about $50,000 a year. When New York-based alternative DNS operator Name.Space Inc tried a similar trick earlier this year, registering certain trademarks in the .news and .sports spaces "on behalf of" the holders, it was promptly delivered cease and desist letters. But Blodgett points out that .ws has been accepted by ICANN into the root of the authoritative DNS, so the situation is somewhat different. This first "sunrise period" sets the stage for the introduction of new gTLDs next year. Many of the applicants to operate the new registries specify such periods in their plans, to avoid a mad dash by cybersquatters to lay claim to trademarked domains. Companies are going to increasingly find the cost of web "land" going up. It is estimated that it currently costs about $10,000 per year to register one name in every gTLD and ccTLD and sub- domain. The more TLDs that are introduced, the higher the total cost. Some registries, like .tv, have staggered registration prices based on how valuable dotTV Inc thinks they are, with china.tv going for $100,000 for example.
Re: [IFWP] Re: [Nc-tlds] RE: ICANN received 44 applications for new TLDs
Kent Crispin wrote: > > On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 11:13:25AM -0700, Anupam Chander wrote: > [...] > > Mr. Sondow's future postings will go unanswered by me. That is because he has no answer to them. > Generally, that is the best policy. Same for Crispin, whose credibility (never very great, since he is a government employee) reached zero when he went behind the back of the membership of the DNSO-in-formation, re-writing the proposal agreed to in Monterrey in order to incorporate the demands of the trademark lobby without anyone's approval. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] ICANN's Address Council: an important new power group
(Re-posted from the ASO-policy list) > The address council has recently published a graphical view of the procedures of the >Address Council at our web site: http://www.aso.icann.org/ac/ > > http://www.aso.icann.org/ac/procedures.pdf Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: [Nc-tlds] RE: ICANN received 44 applications for new TLDs
Anupam Chander writes: > > First, Mr. > Sondow's uneducated claim that I have "only recently become aware of ICANN's > activities" is utterly false. I used the word "uneducated" in reference to the ICANN Board, not Mr. Chander. As to Mr. Chander being only recently involved in this affair, I don't recall seeing any posts from him on the related mailing lists (IFWP, Domain-policy, ICANN M.A.C., etc.) during the period 1998-99 (I have been an active subscriber to them), nor do I remember ever having heard him speak at an ICANN meeting during its formation. Where was Mr. Chander when the White Paper was issued? Where was he during the IFWP? Where was he during the debates surrounding the proposals for the NewCo? Where was he during the struggle between the Paris group and the CORE/Trademark group for acceptance by the ICANN Board of bylaws for the DNSO, or the war for control of the NCDNHC? Was he present, but silent? Did he use another name? > If he had forwarded my original email in its > entirety, others would have understood that the primary thrust of that email > was criticism of ICANN's $50k entrance fee. Your so-called "criticism" is typical of the loyal opposition. You, like so many others who have found an unwarranted place in ICANN, operate so as to preserve your new-found and undeserved position by criticizing ICANN "from within", careful always to suggest, in every thing you say, that ICANN is not actually a bad organization, that it has simply made some minor errors, and that it is reformable. These are lies. ICANN was illegitimately created, has proceeded illegitimately in everything it has undertaken including its manipulation of its own bylaws to obviate the most fundamental rules which allowed it to be recognized by the DOC (membership, transparency, and accountability), and is in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal laws regarding the administration of government agencies and antitrust. Yet you pretend that ICANN need only modify its greed, by changing its TLD application process, to become acceptable. Like a host of other appeasers and collaborators, your criticisms are a cover-up for the irreconcilable breaches of justice, fairness, and legality committed by ICANN and which make it an unreformable and illicit organization. > By forwarding my email to > multiple lists, he denies me the opportunity to respond to his ridicule > because I am not a subscriber to those lists, and my response is thereby > automatically rejected by those lists that prohibit non-member > postings. The fact that you are not a subscriber to the IFWP and Domain-Policy lists proves my original contention that you are a jonny-come-lately who has only recently become aware of ICANN's activities. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: [Nc-tlds] RE: ICANN received 44 applications for new TLDs
Anupam Chander writes: > > While I appreciate Mr. Sondow's concern, this seems to me a premature > assessment. It seems to premature to Mr. Chander because you he has only recently become aware of ICANN's activities. If he had been following its development for the past two years, as I have, he would admit that the assessment is accurate. At least, he would admit it if he were truthful. > I am grateful that Mr. Sondow and others will work to make sure > that this view of a greedy ICANN will not come to pass. This is absurd. It has come to pass, despite the efforts of myself and others (not including, however, Mr. Chander). Where has Mr. Chander been all this time, and how does he pretend to come into the fray now, out of nowhere, to give his pedantic and mistaken opinions on ICANN? > As an aside, Mr. Sondow quoted one sentence from a long email and > cross-posted that sentence to numerous other lists, out of context from both > my original email and the long discussion that preceded it on the list to > which it was posted (namely, ncdnhc). I am not a subscriber to the ncdnhc list; I received that post because Mr. Chander himself cross-posted it to other lists to which I do subscribe. It was therefore very far from being a personal or restricted message, and I have certainly not broken any rules of netiquet in replying to it and posting my response to other lists concerned with these matters. As to its being out of context, that is simply untrue. There was no context, other than what was contained in the sentence quoted. > I think this practice should be > discouraged. The practice that needs to be discouraged is that of outsiders like Chander injecting themselves into an ongoing history and attempting to convince list members that their opinion - that ICANN is a legitimate organization - is valid. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: [Nc-tlds] Steve Metalitz/IPC letter to new TLD applications
(Forwarded by James Love) > From: Copyright Coalition for Domain Names > > Dear New TLD Applicant: > > On behalf of the Intellectual > Property Constituency (IPC) of the ICANN Domain Name Supporting > Organization, I write to request a copy of your application, and to > initiate a dialogue with you on those aspects of new TLD applications > that the IPC has identified as critical. The trademark gestapo moves in. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: [Nc-tlds] RE: ICANN received 44 applications for new TLDs
Anupam Chander wrote: > > ICANN can still serve the interests of humankind by not privileging the > entities that proposed the TLDs when it decides who will administer the TLDs > it awards. If this is a joke, it isn't very funny. ICANN is selling TLDs. The $50K application fee makes that crystal clear. ICANN will now sell registry rights, no doubt for far more than $50K, and will approve those TLDs that are backed by corporations able to pay it huge registry fees. ICANN is a business, albeit one that expects not to pay taxes by pretending to be a "public benefit non-profit corporation" (and it may succeed in avoiding taxes thanks to the dupes who have registered to be "at-large members"). ICANN's board are business people; its DNSO are all business people; and its attorneys are corporate lawyers. ICANN is motivated by one thing and one thing only: greed, the lowest common denominator of the low class of people who created it. Uneducated, selfish, and craven, ICANN will use new TLDs to make as much money as it can. Michael Sondow "We need to be able to judge which is more important - the images on the screen, the mechanisms that produce them, or the world that they are striving to represent." --Oscar Kenshur, in 'The Allure of the Hybrid' INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927
[IFWP] Show debates, like the presidential elections, go on and on...
... Berkman Center October 1, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. EDT "The Future of Intellectual Property on the Internet: A Debate" Jack Valenti and renowned cyberlaw expert Lawrence Lessig. Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, Cambridge and online at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/futureofip> Then on Monday, the Berkman Center and Internet Democracy Project will host the seven North-American candidates for At-Large election to the ICANN board for an informal dialogue followed by a formal candidate debate. .. The only matters that need to be debated by these people are: 1) Why, when ICANN's bylaws call for 50% of its Board to be At-large directors, only 5 out 18 directors are being elected; 2) How persons nominated by the ICANN Nominating Committee, appointed by the existing Board, can represent At-large users; 3) Why the Berkman Center is providing a forum for an illegal organization like ICANN. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Re: [IFWP] The race is on, elections have started
Joop Teernstra wrote: > > the race is between Karl Auerbach (ahead) , Larry Lessig > (closing in) and Emerson Tiller. If Lessig wins, the ICANN board will then have even the so-called At-large directors. What a joke! Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Re: [IFWP] Re: Where Does Lessig Stand?
l aegis of the Berkman Center. > rather than continue > here this (in my view) counter productive dialog, I make this challenge to > you, Michael: This challenge is absurd, and such absurdity isn't worthy of you, Mr. Lessig. > (1) You and I will agree to the selection of a professional arbitrator (you > pick 5, I will select one from that 5). To play along for a moment with your absurdity, where would I find five people who both had the facts and were sufficiently experienced and intelligent politically to construe them properly? I doubt there are five in all of cyberspace, and those five are probably the people who have responded to you here. And then, why would I allow you to choose from among the five? Do you normally play these sorts of tricks? Is that what your lawyer training has taught you? > (2) That arbitrator will be charged with the task of determining whether the > claims you have made about my involvement in the final IFWP meeting are > true. The only arbitrators whose opinion I can accept have already decided that issue, here on this list. > (3) I will give that arbitrator complete access to all my email and > correspondence; I will ask the same of my colleagues. All your email and correspondence? So what? What can that possibly prove? The necessary conclusions aren't derivable from the email and correspondence of Larry Lessig and the Berkman Center, but from the facts and events as they transpired. > (4) If the arbitrator concludes that your assertions about my involvement in > this process are true, then I will: (a) pay the cost of the arbitration, (b) > donate $10,000 to the charity of your choice, (c) resign any ICANN related > positions I may at the time have. > > (5) If the arbitrator concludes that your assertions about my involvement in > the process are not true, then you will pay the costs of the arbitration. > > (6) If the arbitrator cannot resolve the matter one way or the other, then > we will split the costs of the arbitration. "Costs of the arbitration" means > the costs of the arbitrator and her or his incidental costs. Ridiculous. The decisions of an arbitrator would solve nothing and don't interest me, even if a responsible one could be found, which I seriously doubt. You are caught up in pseudo-legal processes which serve only to confuse and obscure the real issues, just as the UDRP has done. This call of yours for arbitration between you and me serves as a further proof of your incapacity to responsibly serve as a representative of the interests of an At-large membership. The struggle between corporate America and its victims will eventually be decided, not by arbitration, but by naked power and confrontation, as such struggles always have been. > I am not a wealthy man, Michael, believing as I do that academics who do > policy should not be compensated for their policy advocacy. I suspect that, in comparison to the people I know, you are quite wealthy. > But where I grew > up, one's word was sacred Such as the word of the Berkman Center that it would provide a physical forum for the IFWP? > and one was not so careless with other peoples' > word. No idea what you are referring to here. Are you trying to imply that I have been careless with your word? Isn't it you who have been careless with your, when you gave it to the IFWP? > I will no longer debate what happened in 1998 in the context of the > ICANN election. You have not yet debated it. You have done nothing but try to change the subject since I posted my first email to you last week. > Again, there are other, more important issues that my time > will be devoted to. Like joining and giving further legitimacy to the pack of gangsters who call themselves ICANN. > But if you want to persist in the false claims you spew onto the net, then > put your money where your mouth is. An ugly and stupid thing for yopu to write. I don't equate money with what I think, write, and say. I suggest that this amounts to a freudian slip on your part. > You at least have the no doubt many > members of the ICIIU to back up any costs you might incur. Surely you know that the ICIIU is not a membership orgtanization and that it has virtually no money. Is this sarcasm, then? Are you aping the slander attacks on me and the ICIIU initiated by Cerf & Co.? If so, how low can you sink? Michael Sondow = "In Germany, they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the homosexuals, an
Re: [IFWP] Re: Where Does Lessig Stand?
Lawrence Lessig wrote: > > As I said in my initial statement, (1) I don't think the birth of ICANN was > "legitimate" in the moral sense, whether or not it was legitimate legally, > but (2) I don't think that is an issue to be resolved. This says it all. Evil and wrong have been accomplished, but nothing is to be done about it. > It is here Like the governments of Pinochet, Videla, Hitler. All were here. > it is > functioning Evil is not stupid. It knows how to function. > it has the support of the strongest governments in the world There is only one government which is strong, that of the people's consent. Dictators have found this out to their cost. The question is whether or not the people who use the Internet support ICANN. > any effort to stop it based on its illegitimacy would take years to > resolve Where have we heard this argument before? > and meanwhile -- while this point about paternity was adjudicated Oh, no. It isn't a point about paternity. As one of the members of the Congressional Committee that interrogated Sims and the ICANN board said, it is the crucial matter in the creation and continued existence of ICANN. Who made it, and for what purpose? > -- bad > things would happen while our attention was focused elsewhere. Bad things are happening while your attention is focused elsewhere. > Our attention > should be focused where it can do some good -- on what the organization is > doing now, and should be doing now. If your attention was focused that way, you would see that ICANN cannot be reformed and will never do anything but evil. > As for individuals within the organization, my mistrust is not transitive. > There are of course things that the organization has done that I disagree > with, but I don't attribute all disagreement to moral causes. I have stated > my grounds for skepticism about Sims. No minor matter, as you pretend. Sims appointed the board and wrote the bylaws and all the agreements and contracts. What ICANN has done is what Sims has done. > And I have stated in one of the posts > I made to a question that I don't believe any single organization ought to > become a permanent, captured, supplier to ICANN. For example? (What does "supplier" mean here?) But in my dealings (few > though they may be) with the others in this zoo, I have not been given the > same reason to mistrust or question their integrity. Mr. Lessig trusts in the integrity of Michael Roberts. Mr. Lessig does not mistrust Esther Dyson. Mr. Lessig believes the representatives of IBM, AT&T, MCI, the telcos, and the banks, on the board of ICANN, to be good people. > The past is not the future, though it is the reason to be concerned about > the future. If Mr. Lessig thinks that the past does not become the future, he is living in a diferent dimension from the rest of humanity. Probably, when the Earth becomes uninhabitable due to the indifference of people like Mr. Lessig, he will go off to the dimension from which he came, accompanied no doubt by Vinton Cerf. > I am eager to engage about how ICANN goes forward, for again, as > I have said, that is the only important test of its legitimacy. Horse-pucky. That is like saying that nothing is wrong or bad or evil because it can, in some distant future, theoretically be changed from its nature. That was the argument of the appeasers in the 'thirties, and the argument of everyone who has stood by and let evil prevail. > My "basis" > for going forward is not as the "loyal opposition" -- that is a waste of > time. My basis for going forward is to do whatever I can to get this > organization to live up to the values that you and I share There is, unfortunately nothing you can do, if those are the values of honesty, hard work, respect for your fellow man, and democracy in government. ICANN has been conceived to destroy those values, by people who hate them. > and to keep > itself restricted to the small domain that is its proper concern. This requires no comment. If Mr. Lessig is going to start that hackneyed nonsense about ICANN just being there to run the servers, then there's no point in listening to anything he has to say. It's just Crocker/Crispin all over again. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Re: Where Does Lessig Stand?
rom defending end-to-end against the efforts by AT&T > to architect broadband to give it power, to defending the right of hackers > to publish code to crack Cyberpatrol, or CSS, to defending the right of > Napster to challenge the business model of Hollywood, to litigating a > challenge to the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, to fighting the explosion of > patents. These battles, and scores of talks given around the world to get > people motivated to join these battles (150,000 miles last year alone), have > constituted my life for the last two years. For one just married, and trying > to build a life with someone else, this may well be irresponsible. But I > don't think that constitutes "lax." If that's what you have been doing, then I retract the use of the word. However, ICANN is the great threat, because ICANN is the major component of the New World Order. Through ICANN, the international banks and their operatives the world organizations controlled by them (WTO, IMF, etc.) will permeate the planet and control the way life is organized on earth. This is being done for the advantage of a few, at the expense of the many. The Internet, run by ICANN, is their great tool. > You are a decent and serious person, Michael. I know from your friends that > you have suffered extraordinary hardships in advancing your view of what is > right. And again, your values here are right. But you are wrong and unfair > to promote these views by writing as if you are the only one who has > principle at heart. Or writing as if other people are not as sensitive to > their reputation as you. I have no doubt that there are people in this > process who are not operating from good faith; I have no doubt that there > are people who don't want an internet of the sort you and I do; I have no > doubt that there are many who would like to capture the ICANN process as > they have captured much else in the government. What do you mean "like to capture"? Throughout your post, you speak of ICANN as if it were something in the future. The evil has already been done. And ICANN cannot be captured; capture means a sequestering, a taking. ICANN was created by conspirators. There is no capturing involved here. You say "capture" and "like to" because you want to pretend that it hasn't happened yet, so that you aren't faced with the choices you fear. But it has happened. If you try to convince yourself it hasn't, by saying "might create" and "like to capture" and "threat", you will never be anything but ICANN's pawn. > But the idea that those people are the people you are attacking is just > silly. We can disagree about tactics, and we should argue about > strategy. Impossible, so long as you allow yourself to be used by ICANN, or convince yourself that you cannot fight them. > But I do not believe you have done the work to earn the right to question > the good faith of the people you are attacking. I believe I have. > And I continue to object to > the manner in which you conduct this debate: because it is ineffective, > because it unfair, and because it is just plain wrong. What is unfair and wrong is for you and the other lawyers involved to continue telling its victims that there is no way to fight ICANN. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] John Quincy Adams on the U.S. Constitution: Lessons for Internet Governance, Part II
>From John Quincy Adams, "Orations" (http://www.selfknowledge.net/b/objqa10.htm) The Revolution itself was a work of thirteen years--and had never been completed until that day [The writing of the Constitution]. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government, then new in practice, though not as a theory, for it had been working itself into the mind of man for many ages, and had been especially expounded in the writings of Locke, though it had never before been adopted by a great nation in practice. There are yet, even at this day, many speculative objections to this theory. Even in our own country there are still philosophers who deny the principles asserted in the Declaration, as self-evident truths--who deny the natural equality and inalienable rights of man--who deny that the people are the only legitimate source of power--who deny that all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. Neither your time, nor perhaps the cheerful nature of this occasion, permit me here to enter upon the examination of this anti-revolutionary theory, which arrays State sovereignty against the constituent sovereignty of the people, and distorts the Constitution of the United States into a league of friendship between confederate corporations. I speak to matters of fact. There is the Declaration of Independence, and there is the Constitution of the United States--let them speak for themselves. The grossly immoral and dishonest doctrine of despotic State sovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own obligations, and responsible to no power on earth or in heaven, for the violation of them, is not there. The Declaration says, it is not in me. The Constitution says, it is not in me. John Quincy Adams, April 30, 1839 Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
Re: [IFWP] Re: [bwg+] Re: Where Does Lessig Stand?
Karl Auerbach wrote: > > I know someone who has an old house - they wanted to remodel it - and what > is "reform" but a kind of remodelling? > > Well, they knocked down all the walls but one, they ripped up all the > foundation except that needed to support that one wall. Then they build a > new house that incorporated that one wall. > > Then they remodelled a second time and replaced that old wall. I've remodelled two houses and a house boat. My experience has been that it's easier to just get rid of everything and start from scratch. Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] John Quincy Adams on the U.S. Constitution: Lessons for Internet Governance
clusively to the people--the ends of government were declared to be to secure the natural rights of man; and that when the government degenerates from the promotion to the destruction of that end, the right and the duty accrues to the people to dissolve this degenerate government and to institute another. The signers of the Declaration further averred, that the one people of the United Colonies were then precisely in that situation--with a government degenerated into tyranny, and called upon by the laws of nature and of nature's God to dissolve that government and to institute another. Then, in the name and by the authority of the good people of the colonies, they pronounced the dissolution of their allegiance to the king, and their eternal separation from the nation of Great Britain--and declared the United Colonies independent States. And here as the representatives of the one people they had stopped. They did not require the confirmation of this act, for the power to make the declaration had already been conferred upon them by the people, delegating the power, indeed, separately in the separate colonies, not by colonial authority, but by the spontaneous revolutionary movement of the people in them all. From the day of that Declaration, the constituent power of the people had never been called into action. A confederacy had been substituted in the place of a government, and State sovereignty had usurped the constituent sovereignty of the people. The Convention assembled at Philadelphia had themselves no direct authority from the people. Their authority was all derived from the State Legislatures. But they had the Articles of Confederation before them, and they saw and felt the wretched condition into which they had brought the whole people, and that the Union itself was in the agonies of death. They soon perceived that the indispensably needed powers were such as no State government, no combination of them, was by the principles of the Declaration of Independence competent to bestow. They could emanate only from the people. A highly respectable portion of the assembly, still clinging to the confederacy of States, proposed, as a substitute for the Constitution, a mere revival of the Articles of Confederation, with a grant of additional powers to the Congress. Their plan was respectfully and thoroughly discussed, but the want of a government and of the sanction of the people to the delegation of powers happily prevailed. A constitution for the people, and the distribution of legislative, executive, and judicial powers was prepared. It announced itself as the work of the people themselves; and as this was unquestionably a power assumed by the Convention, not delegated to them by the people, they religiously confined it to a simple power to propose, and carefully provided that it should be no more than a proposal until sanctioned by the Confederation Congress, by the State Legislatures, and by the people of the several States, in conventions specially assembled, by authority of their Legislatures, for the single purpose of examining and passing upon it. And thus was consummated the work commenced by the Declaration of Independence--a work in which the people of the North American Union, acting under the deepest sense of responsibility to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, had achieved the most transcendent act of power that social man in his mortal condition can perform--even that of dissolving the ties of allegiance by which he is bound to his country; of renouncing that country itself; of demolishing its government; of instituting another government; and of making for himself another country in its stead. John Quincy Adams, April 30, 1839 Michael Sondow = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482
[IFWP] Re: unsubscribe josephf@touro.edu
Joe- So long, fella. It's been a pleasure knowing you. I mean that sincerely. I think yours was the first message I received on the IFWP list almost three years ago: a plan for organizing the NewCo. I've still got it in my files. It was pretty good, I remember. Too bad things didn't turn out that way. We did our best. See ya 'round, Joe. Yours, Michael Sondow
[IFWP] Re: Where Does Lessig Stand?
Dear Mr. Lessig, I appreciate your having made a response to my post. I'm sure the others who are reading these lists do as well. Nevertheless, there are some things you say which are innacurate, and I feel obliged to correct them. You are a serious person interested in clarifying rather than obscuring the present situation, so I'm sure you won't object. In your reply, you say: > Michael Sondow has been a strong and persistent critic of the ICANN process, > and I have been an admirer of the good he has done. I have not been an > admirer of his carelessness with other people's reputations. I believe, in all honesty, that I have never been careless with the reputation of anyone. I do accept, however, that I may have said things which damaged the reputations of persons I accused of wrongdoing. But is it I who have been remiss for making those accusations, or is it the persons who committed the wrongdoing? To put it another way, which is more important, the preservation of right and justice or the preservation of face? There seems to be a societal sickness in this country (and not only here) that appearances are more important than actions. So long as events can be "spun" so as to appear innocuous, the effects of those events on the lives of human beings are deemed to be inconsequential. Public figures commit the most heinous crimes, not falling short of murder and even genocide, as in the unprovoked slaughter of defenseless peasants in Latin America and elsewhere, yet it is considered bad form and reprehensible to say or print the truth: that those crimes were committed by so-and-so, and that so-and-so is guilty of evil. I am not concerned with the reputations of individuals, but with the future of digital communications. I don't care a whit for the sensibilities of persons involved in this Internet privatization process, but only for the sensibilities of the people, spread across the planet, who need the Internet in order to learn the truth about the world they live in. If the former were concerned more for the sensibilities of these latter, they would need worry less about their reputations. > I do not > consider Johnson/Post/Froomkin to be apologists for ICANN. Indeed, Post and > Froomkin both have been strong and powerful critics of ICANN. Both have > devoted countless (unpaid) hours to developing detailed and useful > criticisms of the decisions of the board. Froomkin's work on the UDRP in > particular is extraordinarily careful and right. To carelessly slander their > work with the suggestion of conspiracy is, imho, wrong. Your repeated use of expletives like "slander" and "conspiracy" here is an unjust and wrongful exaggeration of what I said about these people. In what way have I slandered them? By pointing out that they are lawyers, that they have taken an oath to uphold the law, and that by looking the other way when they witness violation of the law they are breaking their promise to the society that has appointed them its guardians? Is that slander? I don't think so. As to conspiracy, I fail to see where I have ever suggested anything resembling it. You say that Post/Johnson/Froomkin are not apologists for ICANN, yet they countenance and allow it to exist and do its evil every day by not taking any measure within their power - and as lawyers they possess the power of the law - to stop it. Mere criticism is not enough to stop arrogant adventurers from getting their way, as we have seen time and again in politics. Only their actual removal by force, done by an authority with power to punish, can deter such people from what amounts to their crimes. You tell us that Post and Froomkin have devoted much time to criticizing ICANN's policy decisions, and add that that time has been unpaid. But there is other than monetary recompense. A lawyer who is ambitious for professional or political advancement must publish, and the lawyers in this process do so every time they disseminate a criticism of ICANN. They become known as cyberspace experts and ICANN commentators, which is useful to their careers. Perhaps this is a natural and not blameworthy accessory to their critical activity, but when it is allied with the avoidance of central issues like the legality of institutions, constitutional right, and individual justice, it is at the very least an ambiguous pursuit. In any case, I believe you would have in all honesty to admit that the advancement of a lawyer's career by public exposure through publishing commentary on his or her chosen subject is in itself a payment, although the monetary compensation were deferred. In regard to Froomkin's work on the UDRP, I freely admit that it has been useful. But is the UDRP a legal institution? If not, does criticism of its faults, even if the result of that criticism were corrections to it, rectify its existence and justify it? Aren't thes
[IFWP] Where Does Lessig Stand?
On the website of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, of which Larry Lessig is a faculty member together with Charles Nesson and Jonathan Zittrain, and of which Mr. Lessig is also head of the Advisory Board, Lessig has published the following: "I am honored by the nomination by the ICANN board to the at-large membership position for North America, especially because I have been a critic of the ICANN process. I do not believe it is appropriate, however, to "campaign" for the board election until after the self-nominees have been selected. I will therefore not answer questions or give interviews about ICANN until that part of the nominating process is complete. I am sorry for any difficulty this might create." This appears on the face of it a laudable restraint, in deference to the true At-large candidates coming from the At-large membership itself, rather than from nominations by ICANN's Nominating Committee, created undemocratically from without the At-large membership by the ICANN Board. However, more than mere restraint on the part of Mr. Lessig may be involved in his reticence to declare his positions on ICANN issues. He is a self-professed critic of the ICANN process, yet he is a prominent member of the Berkman Center, which has been instrumental in the accession of ICANN to power in the Internet, some of whose members, such as Jonathan Zittrain and Diane Cabell, have been outright apologists for ICANN, when not propagandists for it. This apparently careful walking on the fence between support and opposition to ICANN by prominent cyberspace lawyers has been a feature of this process from its start. David Johnson, who co-created and co-edited the Cyber Law Institute (CLI), an online service and forum for the politico-legal aspects of Internet democracy, is now outside counsel for Network Solutions, Inc., ICANN's primary commercial partner; David Post, Johnson's partner in CLI and the founder of ICANNWatch, a web forum for ICANN critiques, regularly appears at laissez-faire capitalism think-tanks in Washington; Michael Froomkin, a professor of law whose specialty is government corporations and who has been an outspoken critic of ICANN's UDRP, has steadfastly refused to consider any use of the law to counter ICANN's many undemocratic procedures, not to mention its many violations of U.S. antitrust law. In light of this non-commitment on the part of cyber lawyers, we the Internet community may justifiably ask Mr. Lessig what his principles are regarding ICANN. Does he accept its creation, which was by fiat, without the participation of anyone among the many stakeholders outside big business? Does he accept the conduction of ICANN through its initial policy-making phase - which included the signing of binding agreements with Network Solutions, domain name registrars, the IP address allocating agencies, and the U.S. Government - by an unelected nine-member Board appointed by employees of IBM, MCI, AT&T, and the lawfirm JonesDay? Does he permit and justify the machiavellian takeover of ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organization by trademark lawyers and CORE, an Internet industry trade association? Does Mr. Lessig countenance, in the present instance, an At-large director election process which has been controlled and rigged from its inception by the unelected ICANN interim Board, as the Internet Democracy Project and others have documented? And, if Mr. Lessig cannot countenance the At-large process, will he nevertheless participate in it, and, if elected, accept his position as ICANN's faithful opposition and token critic? Finally, will Mr. lessig ever speak his true feelings about ICANN, while he remains a prominent component of the Berkman Center, which, more than any other legal institution, has aided and abetted the U.S. Department of Commerce and its creature ICANN to take power over the Internet, to the exclusion of its legitimate users and stakeholders? Michael Sondow = "Lawyers come to think of administrative law and the administrative process as significant and worthy of study only in those areas where private interests think it worth their while to demand protection. As a consequence lawyers seeking for their clients elaborate procedural protection modeled on the judicial process may, in an excess of generalizing zeal, induce legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts to extend such procedures into areas where they are alien and inappropriate." -- Jaffe & Nathanson, "Administrative Law" = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
[IFWP] Excellent Paper on Internet Democracy and Unions
http://www.labourstart.org/icann/ericleebook.shtml
Re: [IFWP] Candidates mom strikes back
You've been very naughty, Richard. You must apologize immediately to Emerson's mum for hurting her boy's feelings. M.S.
[IFWP] Vint Cerf, ICANN Board Member, Defends Spying Via the Internet
Bloomberg News. Washington, Sept. 7 -- Vinton Cerf, widely regarded as the "father of the Internet", indicated that he believes the FBI uses its Carnivore surveillance system without violating Internet users' privacy, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site. Cerf, a senior vice president at WorldCom Inc., also told a Senate subcommittee that he opposes efforts to force the FBI to disclose the blueprints for Carnivore, the Journal said. Cerf co-invented parts of the Internet's underlying technology in 1973. The FBI can use the Carnivore software system to monitor Internet traffic and capture e-mail from a criminal suspect. Critics say Carnivore makes it easy to capture electronic communications from innocent people as well, the Journal said. .. ICIIU Comment: Vint Cerf is fatally compromised with the US Intelligence establishment, including the CIA and the National Security Concil as well as the FBI. As to spying on innocent people as well as criminals, who's to say who are the innocent and who the criminally guilty? The FBI? The CIA? Vint Cerf? ICANN? Perhaps it is the guilty who are spying on the innocent to keep them from seeking justice. Michael Sondow = "In Germany, they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the homosexuals, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a homosexual. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, but by that time there was no one left to speak up." --- Martin Niemoller, Dachau, 1945 = INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927 =
