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The Internet

ICANN Voting Begins 54

Posted by CmdrTaco from the I-don't-get-to-vote dept.
gorsh writes: "Voting has begun for the at-large positions on ICANN's board of directors. If you are one of the lucky ones who was able to register as an at-large member, you should go to the site to vote now. These are the people who will help decide lots of important issues like the creation of new TLDs and who gets ownership of disputed domain names, so make your voice heard..." I'm not allowed to vote. Course, if I could, all I would do is try to get control of the .dot TLD.
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ICANN Voting Begins More

ICANN Voting Begins

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  • Same problem here.

    Perhaps a write-in is needed.

    I vote to remove ICANN
  • There really is an ICANNt [egroups.com]. It's by the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility's for people who tried and failed to become ICANN Members-at-large due to the ICANN's failure to provide adequate servers. But if you're interested, the ICANN CANNOT - WE CAN [comlink.org] site has signed more people up and is probably a better bet.
  • Me three. I dropped them a note. Apparently, it's a bug in the VB stuff they're doing. Why is it that they do everything wrong? (OK, it's not ICANN itself that did this, apparently, they have paid elections.com to do it.)

  • That's why I dropped my ICANN @Large membership (Score:3)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @05:55AM (#740631) Homepage

    I don't know why Taco feels that you had to be a "lucky one" to get registered. I waited until the /. slowed down, and then when I did register, I made sure I wasn't clicking on an ICANN link that was on a /. page (that is, they wouldn't see a referring page of "slashdot.org" and know to ignore me.

    I registered, got on the little announcement list, and then my password and The Rules showed up in the snailmail. And then I took my time reading over those Rules...

    Fsck that. It's just like flatpack wrote here: customer-driven capitalism has fallen by the wayside to be replaced for producer-driven capitalism in which we are to be treated as "customers" rather than as citizens. No matter who is voted in in these elections, the corporations will still control ICANN, and they're not out to help anyone but themselves.

    Face it, guys. As soon as they were given authority, it was all over. They've won; the Internet has lost.

  • Perhaps you are correct in your thinking. Perhaps all is not as bad as you think. As little as the door is open to change at ICANN, I think it is worth the time and effort to attempt to change ICANN. All that is nessary "for producer-driven capitalism" to win is that "Libertarians" and other freedom loving people not to oppose them. Assuming you want to change 'them'. If you don't even attempt to vote and change the system from within your only recourse is, by default, to try to change the system from the outside. Trying to change ICANN from outside is clearly impossiable. So rather than try the impossiable I choose to try the possiable, howerever unlikley, and vote to change ICANN.
  • it boggles my mind that they won't even consider .cum as a TLD but they're looking at .xxx - come on, let us adult programmers, hosts, designers and users have our fun too. Dot Cum for Everyone!


    1. INTERACTIVE [mikegallay.com]
      1. ENTERTAINMENT

  • Re:Grrr (Score:1)

    by QuMa ( 19440 )
    Me 4.

    Btw, has what happened to the 'unpartial observer' that was promised? I hardly think elections.com qualifies, them being paid by icann and all...
  • Ok, now I get...

    Number = 60000
    Description = GetEncryptValue failed to encrypt the pin code.
    Source =
    ballot.asp

    when I try to log into the voting page.
  • I think there should be an impeachment hearing accusing Steve Case of corrupting the Internet. So far, he has bought out Nullsoft and Netscape,and has brought their webpages to a crawl by moving them to that antiquated UNIX machine in the overheated refrigeration closet in Virginia, the very same one with the AOL server.

    Seriously, how many legitimate ICANN members can honestly say that they condone (or even support) Case's actions? He has corrupted the Internet by his very existence (just look at the daily hacks into AOL's central server [observers.net], causing the dissemination of member account data).

  • call em up and have em send it to you again.
  • (who users perl not asp! :)

    With your grammatical blunder, it's hard to believe that your claim is any more credible than your fake ID.

  • Why not just adopt the same marketing ploys as DeBeers? Steve Case probably already brought this up, in his Jay Leno-esque way.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I registered for ICANN membership many months prior to the deadline, and received an email reply stating that PIN numbers would be mailed by snail mail (third class bulk, no less). Upon receipt of the PIN, we were to activate the membership and gain voting privileges. Not surprisingly, the PIN never arrived, despite the numerous cheery messages stating that it was on the way. Life got busy, I forgot about it... Kathryn Aegis
  • That would explain the double-password, two-format authentication process which doesn't even "remember" you for subsequent logins. I'm surely not the only one who's long since mislain the stupid letter with one of the passwords. An intentional result? Perhaps. There have been enough banks (and my credit union) that have tried the password-in-the-mail thing. I'm pretty good about keeping track of all my (*&#@!) accounts, but the seldom-used ones with passwords that come in snalmail tend to get lost.
  • The only one with any real mention of the issues that matter to slashdotters, and he mentions a BUNCH: a report to the court for Napster, a brief he filed defending the right to post cpHack, lead counsel in Eldred v. Reno, opposing retrospectively increasing the copyright term, testified in front of congree opposing censorware, Board Member, RedHat Center for Open Source, Board Member, EFF. I mean c'mon, the EFF? Everyone who hasn't voted, VOTE FOR THIS GUY!

    "RELEVANT WORKS "Open Access": Testimony before FCC and work in ongoing litigation to defend the Internet's end-to-end architecture, by opposing efforts by cable companies to architect broadband to be inconsistent with end-to-end. Napster: Experts report for Napster opposing judicial regulation of network search technologies. CyberPatrol: Amicus Brief defending the right to post and link to copies of cpHack, which revealed sites blocked by CyberPatrol Copyright Term Extension: Lead counsel in Eldred v. Reno, opposing the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act," which retrospectively increased the copyright term. Censorware: testimony in opposition to efforts by Congress to require identification in cyberspace, and in opposition to "censorware" technologies. . Board Member, RedHat Center for Open Source Board Member, EFF " "A LIMITED ROLE FOR ICANN In my view, the challenge for ICANN is to keep its footprint small. Its role is to be a tiny, coordinating body for technical standards made elsewhere; its function is to assure those standards sustain and support the stability and diversity of the Internet. Its job is not to become the trademark police; it is not to be the tool of intellectual property; its job is not to set policy for the Internet generally (beyond defending the decentralized architecture of the original net); nor to create artificial scarcity, or choke points of power. ICANN cannot be permitted to claim a mandate beyond the narrow tasks described in its charter. ICANN must be accountable to that charter and to the values it embodies. Its burden is to do this without becoming captured by powerful interests that would seek to manipulate ICANN's position in service of their own limited ends. If elected, I will work to ensure that ICANN maintains a vigilant focus on a limited, technical coordination role. I will staunchly defend free expression, privacy, open architecture, and security, by ensuring that ICANN stays out of making policy in these areas. And I will work to ensure that the original spirit of openness, diversity, and the free flow of Information -- the original tenets of the constitution of cyberspace -- are preserved. "
  • Boy, that was sure worth a score of 2

    Thanks. I thought so, too.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:36AM (#740645)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Now most of the .org people make more money than the .com people!

  • of course (Score:4)

    by London Weatherman ( 236317 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:36AM (#740647)
    Although it is painfully obvious to anyone who has used the internet for more that a few years, the only way that ICANN will truly achieve democratisation of TLD's is to create as many as possible.

    In the same way that the DeBeers family maintain the artificially high price of diamonds by restricting flow onto the worlds markets, the desirability of TLD's remains contrived; flood the market.

  • ICANN Voting Problems and Election.com (Score:3)

    by Ron Bennett ( 14590 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @04:24AM (#740648) Homepage
    Many people tried voting yesterday and received error messsages saying their username/password/pin were incorrect when trying to cast their vote even though they were able to login.

    Number = 50101
    Description = Invalid credentials. Your member number, PIN code and password combination is incorrect.
    Source = Component.ApplyVote failed

    The sad part is that Election.com [election.com] had no one monitoring the ICANN election [election.com] 24/7 since attempts by many ICANN Members to contact Election.com regarding the voting problems were unsuccessful. Surely, one would expect better oversight over an election of such importance.
  • Heh. Rob is obviously aiming for a new URL for this site. Read it out loud for maximum effect:
    http://slashdot.dot/
    Heh. It sure makes me laugh. ;^)
  • It took me SIX attempts to vote, and no doubt in the mess some of the lower down candidates (like those lawyers) got their priorities mixed up because of it.

    My voting and logging in should NOT have to happen again because their server failed to handle a request. Was this site programmed by the 14 year old son of one of the ICANN officials? The level of incompetence is staggering.

    Now I wonder whether my vote has been registered at all?

    Is anyone doing an audit of this voting process? Please tell me it isn't as half-assed as it seems.

    StrutterX

  • The Asia/Pacific election is a real mess (Score:4)

    by Peter Eckersley ( 66542 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @04:32AM (#740651) Homepage
    I'm an Asia/Pacific at-large member, and the situation over here looks pretty bad. None of the progressive looking candidates even got onto the ballot paper.

    The candidates that are on the paper have all refused to say anything about organisational politics, trademarks and intellectual property, or corporate influence.

    Just to top it of, looking at this page of statistics [icann.org], it was hard to escape the conclusion that the vote was being stacked.

  • Ya, this is bullshit. My login works just fine to get to the voting, but their processing software sucks ass. Here's the error I see...

    Number = 50101
    Description = Invalid credentials. Your member number, PIN code and password combination is incorrect.
    Source =
    Component.ApplyVote failed

    The 'Description' area is in error. If I change my member number, PIN, or password I can't even log into the voting area. I'm quickly getting the feeling that these people are knuckleheads. Quite sad that an org that makes decisions regarding the net can't get their shit straight when it comes to the very tech they suppose to rule over.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Maybe you should try voting for other candidates?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Barbara Simons is the past ACM President. ACM is the premier academic computer professional organization and has active outreach to practictioners. Full disclosurer: I am a member of ACM, but voted against Simons as ACM President. ACM Commuications has a very active publication of Intellectual Property concerns and has been deeply involved in ICANN at a institutional level in try to address these concerns. These concerns tend to match yours in many ways. I think Simons would be a good first choice because her institutional connections to ACM, its people, and its publications, will make her single voice more powerful. Voting in tis election involves ordering seven people by preference. Your first four preferences should be those who were nominated by the at-large membership, not by the nominating committee. While this is not directly knowable, you can tell from their bios who the establishment candidates are, or you can just go to the ICANN question the candidates forum and see who bothers to answer the questions on Intellectual Property. My casual observation is that only the at-large nominees are there and the nomination committe nominees are not.

  • Just to top it of, looking at this page of statistics, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the vote was being stacked


    I found the number of registered users from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (more than 150) especially confusing given the fact that there is virtually no Internet in North Korea.

  • Vote for Lessig (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The man is right - he opposes the copyright laws as written by Mickey Mouse, and he supports keeping Napster alive. He believes information should be free. http://www.lessig.org
  • It's not exactly like that.

    There is nothing ICANN can do to get this .com crap out of everyone's head. It's not like DeBeers is letting all the most valuble diamons go by.... but just is too lazy to get its surplus of blue colored diamonds (which, although not as recognizable right now, will probably grow into something very valuble), out to the public.
  • why would you be trying to wrestle a domain name away from a band? sounds like you're the knuckledragger. back off.
  • It is a repeat already... look 5 stories down for "Public Debate between Valenti and Lessig" -- Lessig is one of the 7 North American candidates.

    I had no trouble voting Sunday night.
  • I meant like a forged state driver's license that you use to get into over-21 parties.
  • They outsourced the voting to elections.com. Bad choice maybe, but it is a little different situation than if they controlled the server. I was unable to vote Sunday, but was able to vote just now. So try it again.
  • Propaganda is actually a very good group...way about "garage band" status as you so eloquently put it...
    rhino
  • A careful analysis of the ICANN board might be in order. And if I have anything to do with it, ICANN will not be run by 'big business'.
    And I'm not the only ICANN candidate who reads /.
    (At least I hope I'm not).

    --Calvin
  • They haven't won yet. Check out OpenNIC [unrated.net].

    Claim your namespace.

  • Strangest Thing (Score:3)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:19AM (#740667) Homepage
    You know, I used to have ICANN membership before I started rallying for the .sucksbutslashdotrules TLD. Then for some reason I was no longer able to login to the site.


  • The world needs more satire. I'm gunning for .sux :)

    Bowie J. Poag

  • haha (Score:1)

    by clinko ( 232501 )
    I know i'm gonna Call 1.877.868.3638 And claim *.god because god instructed me to own linux.god or sex.god or i.am.god
  • That, folks, was JonKatz posting as AC :o)

  • . TLD (Score:1)

    by RonVNX ( 55322 )
    Yeah, well you're not the only one trying to get a hold of it Rob, WIPO would love to get their mitts on it too.

    Which leads to the question of new TLDs. What is the point in having new TLDs if they're going to allow the "trademark & IP" crowd to decide who gets what? The end result is that there won't be any new domains, just more checks written to registries.

  • How about http://slashdot.slash/ ? (Score:3)

    by Scorchio ( 177053 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:30AM (#740672)
    Just to make it even more difficult to explain the address to someone who's never been to this site before.

    Not to be confused with http://dashdot.dash/ - the homepage for the Morse code enthusiasts club, of course.

    Erm, sorry.

  • Shit.. URL is bad.. (See what I mean?)... Doug Engelbart's OHS site can be found here [bootstrap.org].

    Sorry bout that,

    Bowie J. Poag

  • As if your votes will change anything (Score:4)

    by flatpack ( 212454 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:31AM (#740674)

    I remember the frenzy here on /. when it was originally announced that ICANN would be holding elections for the position of at-large directors, and how everyone thought it was a great step foward for online democracy and the rights of netizens. But this seems to me to a naive attitude in that it assumes that everybody is going to play fair and that large organisations can be trusted to play within the rules. This is why the Libertarians aren't in power, and this is why your vote won't matter.

    The sad truth is that ICANN, like many other American organisations, is little more than a corporate whore pandering to the $$$ passed its way. I mean, they've already got things like the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy designed to give their masters the advantage over mere people, and God forbid if anything should change this state of affairs! But rather than coming out and simply admitting this, they've chosen to allow a token gesture in the form of the at-large elections, although even then most of the candidates are in the pockets of big business.

    Yes, this is another example of how customer-driven capitalism has fallen by the wayside to be replaced for producer-driven capitalism in which we are to be treated as "customers" rather than as citizens. No matter who is voted in in these elections, the corporations will still control ICANN, and they're not out to help anyone but themselves. It's just another example of how America, once the land of the free, has become a fascist superstate run by big business.

  • You have no control. (Score:4)

    by The Dev ( 19322 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:49AM (#740675)
    The so called "at large membership" is merely
    window dressing.

    This article [cookreport.com] explains in painful detail who really controls ICANN.

    ICANN is a scam.
  • ...all I would do is try to get control of the .dot TLD.

    Why would you want control of a TLD for the Department of Transportation? Oh, *I* get it... You're trying to get out of parking tickets!

    (Oh for the days when TLDs actually *meant* something - when a .com site was really a company, and a .org site was really non-profit!)

  • I CANN'T vote either (Score:3)

    by dattaway ( 3088 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @05:19AM (#740677) Homepage Journal
    ICANN's website has always been slow or non-functional. Is ICANN really the future of the net if it ca'nt stay up? Is it a poorly managed site, or just a plot to rig the votes by making the site unavailable to the public?

    Well, I've got my PIN code ready, but they aren't. Anyhow, if I ever do get into that blasted site, any recommendations who to vote for?

  • Forgive me (Score:4)

    by Elvis Maximus ( 193433 ) on Monday October 02, 2000 @03:53AM (#740678) Homepage

    I'm not allowed to vote.

    Does that make you an ICANN'T?

    I'm really sorry, I had to. You can go ahead and mod me down, I deserve it.

    When the new TLDs come out, do you think we'll see a slew of slogans like "Fred's Diner: The .fredsdiner People?"

    -

  • I've been trying to wrestle propaganda.com away from some knuckledragger with a garage band for a few years now...And the longer I wait, the more i'm beginning to think that no amount of TLD distinction will ultimately correct the problem.

    Here's an example. Your company is called Triangle. How many companies in the world are also called Triangle, and what gives one the right to claim a singular "triangle.foo" domain above another? Fiddling with the nomenclature isnt going to fix anything, but rather it will prolong the problem.

    All this foo reminds me of the old days of telephones..First you were given say a 5-digit number.. Then, as more people got telephones in their homes and businesses, the number needed to be increased to a 7 digit number...Then a 10 digit number, and now, im some places, its even more than that.... Ultimately, you'll have a fixed number of people who can be reached via a 1-2-3 prefix as you would with a ".com" suffix. Pointless.

    The real solution can be found in non-partial search engines or some other central authority which kept a fairly sorted list of possibilities one could choose from. "Propaganda Desktop Enhancement Graphics" would simply be "Propaganda Desktop Enhancement Graphics", not propaganda.com, or propaganda.tilez.org, or propaganda.themes.org, or any other bizzare permutation of the address. A central directory is needed that doesnt have a vested interest in promoting one business over the other in any given category. Large scale problems demand large-scale cooperation, not a kindergarten "I got there first" pee-on heirarchy.

    Check out Nerd God Doug Engelbart's OHS Project [bootstrap.com].. Thats the closest thing i've seen that could tackle the problem entirely instead of postponing the inevitable.

    Until then, we'll just be bickering and bickering and bickering about who owns names until we're blue in the face. The land squabbles will get so bizzare 20-30 years down the road that you'll probably start seeing people claiming that they own the rights to the letter "S", and demand a licensing fee from anyone who happens to use an S in the name of their business. We're not that far off now. Anyone remember chunkymunky.com?

    Hugs and kisses,


    Bowie J. Poag
  • Anyone want to lay bets on how long it takes for this story to be posted again with slightly different wording? It's the Slashdot spirit! ;)
  • How is that more confusing than:

    aich tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot dot?


    Hrmm... the .dot TLD would add some very pleasing symetry to the URL here...

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