ICANN Board Members Squat 48
Professor Froomkin has written a strong criticism of the ICANN initial board, which has extended its unelected one-year term to an astonishing four years, with no end in sight. According to ICANN's current bylaws, those board members are serving a life term - their terms never expire. I strongly urge Slashdot readers in California to make time to attend ICANN's next meeting in November.
welcome to political reality (Score:1)
throughout human history, whenever laws have become oppressive or disagreeable, communities of persons have left their societies to claim new land and form new systems.
there is no more land to emigrate to.
virtually all pieces of land are bound by regulations of some kind.
we are at a new period in history.
even if so-called "cyberspace" is an abstraction, its human operators are corporeal, and they shall continue to be held to the laws governing whatever physical space their bodies occupy.
to truly accept and support the notion of Internetworked systems as autonomous entities will be no different than other revolutions.
violence.
rights sound wonderful in Declarations of Independence, but are meaningless without the support of guns and people willing to use them.
there will be no Digital Revolution as long as the above conditions hold true.
the momentum of ~8,000 years of history will crush your puny new technology.
for now.
but you're right -- although it's impossible to improve circumstances because humanity remains the same, it's nice to fantasize about.
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the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties
Re:One problem any radical movement faces: (Score:1)
"An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered we have heard only one side of the story. God has written all the books." -Samuel Butler
God didn't write all the books. She can't speak to humans -- She has to speak through the Metatron.
Besides, the Devil is the "Price of Lies," is he not? And he's not forbidden from frolicking among the mortals. So I'm sure he's had his hand in these books we read.
Just another thought to scare your ultra-religious relatives with. ;-)
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Re:Oh, let's just give up (Score:1)
A fully distributed, rootless name service would be something from the current DNS protocols and DNS implementations.
However, if one considers today's DNS to be a set of TLDs (Top Level Domains) that are found by consulting a "root" then it is indeed possible to create root systems other than the one most, but not all. of us use. Personally, I use one of these other root systems - and I have been doing for several years and have had zero problems. Take a look at http://www.superroot.org/ [superroot.org] and http://www.opennic.unrated.net/public_servers.html
[unrated.net]
A while back I wrote a note on competitive root systems: http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_2.htm #multiple_roots [cavebear.com] The IAB of the IETF takes a dim view of competive roots, but I don't accept the logic of their decison. (The IAB's note is in RFC2826.)
Re:Give them more time; they mean well (Score:2)
Yeah, I know, this is getting into the domain of consipiracy theory.
________
I think that a two-pronged approach to this issue is worthwhile.
One prong is the public demonstrations. Make sure that these people understand that we the people are not interested in lifetime appointments to the icann -- especially unelected appointments.
The other prong should be the development of realistic alternatives to the (currently) established system. It is doable, but it's going to take some work. With the pending implementation of IP6, there's actually some room to manouver in.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Better then NSI? (Score:1)
Anyway, who cares? NSI was bad and so are these people. Nither one had to much power (although NSI seems to really be trying to grab some nowadays), and they arn't really doing that much harm.
Re:Why...oh why.... (Score:2)
This is actually looking more and more doable as time goes on.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
And to add insult to injury... (Score:1)
Adding insult to injury ... The new board members (the ones, such as myself, who were actually elected) will not be seated until the conclusion of the November/annual board meeting.
This is a change from ICANN's prior practice of seeting new board members at the start of the annual meeting.
As a result of this change, we elected board members will end up sitting out this upcoming board meeting in LA unable to participate, unable to vote, unable to do anything.
back!to!the!good!old!days (Score:1)
But you would still need some "root nodes", where root nodes are a set of well connected nodes which all can refer to the same set of systems. This would be the equivalent of the
No matter what system you evolve, if you want to be able to allocate unique names that everybody agrees on, you need some form of centralised registry and "root"
Re:Give them more time; they mean well (Score:2)
Now some gentleman in bright cleaned suits and having some bad popularity around about their capacities, should stay for longer than the rules allow them?
Let me tell you one thing. Here some people are trying to move the President of Tatarstan, Mr. Mintimer Shaimyev into third term. The Constitution of the Russian Federation strictly forbids Governors or Presidents to be more than two terms. Now Mr. Shaimyev is a national symbol here. This man did more than any other regional leader to hold up the Federation together. In his Republic he did so much that, if elections would be today, 70% of people would still elect him as President. Now there is the Law of the Federation. Some local politicians tried to overcome it and even found a legal issue that effectively gives a chance for Mr. Shaimyev to be a legtimate Presidetn for four more years.
Now what we have? A national symbol, a Constitution stating two terms no more, and several Federative acts that give the chance to be elected more than two terms. These acts are mostly due to the "interim" situation that happened after the fall of Soviet Union. Nearly all of them will loose any sense after 2010. Anyway they still work. So what Mr. Shaimyev does?
He refuses to be elected for third time...
Not that he would not like to be elected. But suddenly someone reminded that these are not only elections and state jobs. It's the validity of the Constitution itself. There it is written black on white "no more than two terms". By overpassing it, even legally, it would weaken the meaning of the Fundamental Law in front of the whole Federation. What today seems correct, tomorrow may turn to tragedy. Suddenly people will start to pass over the Constitution. Laws may start to be issued on the corner of the constitution. Governors will start to stay "for life", because one act, a law, federative agreement or his intuition says that Constitution does not fully cover all cricumstances. Emergency may be called by the President (I don't mean Mr. Putin but the job) without consulting anyone because "there is an emergency and it is too hard to follow the Constitution".
We have here a similar situation. Yes there is some "interim situation". However the White Paper states, black on white, "no more than two years". So? Even if all these guys are good people. and suddenly they are real great people. And one of the elected members starts overpassing the White Paper and issuing rules above his powers. Why he would stop in front of these "great people". In front of the White Paper, they are ilegitimate...
Re:Why...oh why.... (Score:3)
You still missed the main point of my post. After you have done it, what do you have? You've now picked another ruler.
For those who have read Animal Farm, you've traded the humans for the pigs. Are you any better off? Would it not be easier to force the humans to act correctly in the first place. Someone must rule, and without checks and balances they will rule in their own interest. Creating another system without installing the checks and balances is a waste of time at best and most likely counter-productive.
Two comments on my sig in one day (Score:1)
Oh, and to the best of my knowledge none of my relatives are religious :)
ICANN members forum (Score:2)
I'd suggest you have a look at ICANNmembers.org [icannmembers.org]. There'll be a public meeting dealing with the question how public participation in and transparence of ICANN can be improved on Sunday, November 12.
A call for papers for that event will be published in a day or two.
Oh, let's just give up (Score:1)
Has anyone researched such an idea? Alternative root servers are not the answer as they always have to mesh with the existing servers and the control issue appears all over again. But perhaps there is no solution that is backwards-compatible with the current DNS.
TWW
Recall board members (Score:3)
our internet? (Score:1)
venice beach is blocks away .. (Score:3)
(I can see the hotel and ICANN's building from my apt, which is in venice, ca...)
venice cotel [hostels.com]
venice beach hostel [quickaid.com]
--ai
Viva La Revolution! (Score:2)
Re:Pick A Time (Score:1)
Bullhorns at boardmeetings are always good fun, but a letter to the Whitehouse or your Representitive would be a kick in the balls to these rogue ICANN mofos.
The problem is that writing letters to Congressmen gives no Karma, so no on here will write one.
Re:Recall board members (Score:2)
Nope. In fact, @Large members aren't even, legally speaking 'members'. ICANN wrote the rules (along with their incredibly expensive California law firm) to ensure that laws protecting members' rights did not apply.
Ultimately, the President's move to create ICANN was understandable but flawed. I thought it was a good idea at first myself. ICANN was originally intended to replace the Dept. of Commerce as the regulatory body for the Internet (not just the DNS system). Unfortunately, you can't run the Internet the way you do the public school system. (In fact, with athletes getting away with felonies and kids graduating not able to read, you probably can't run the public school system this way either...)
The problem is that the Internet is based on enlightened anarchism. The better implementation tends to win on the net-- not the media darlings. All the good press on Salon and Wired in the world can't make up for a weak idea.
The idea of ICANN is based on the premise that experts, when insulated from ignorant or selfish people, can run people's lives better than they could themselves. I doubt that that is true in even the Real World, but in Internet infrastructure, there isn't even a question that that is a stupid idea.
Ultimately, the pundits and players who appear on CNN when they talk about 'the crisis in cyberspace', whatever the crisis is that day, do not run the internet. The market does, ie every individual user's decision. I have always felt that we need unlimited TLDs. Now I wonder if we even need a centrally controlled DNS system. We do need some kind of governing body. But it has to be based on law and order-- not stupid and manipulative 'experts'. Since rules are by definition applications of force (or the threat of force) we need to be minimalists.
Re:Pick A Time (Score:1)
Re:And to add insult to injury... (Score:1)
Well, that's why we elected you Carl, because these boneheads are getting too damn big for their britches. Go get 'em, boy! Make a massive pain of yourself at the meeting even if they won't seat you, scream & shout - hell, stamp your feet too, it's good theatre - until they start acting like responsible netizens!
"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred..." -- Super Chicken
Re:Screw This (Score:3)
The best alternative i've seen OpenNIC [unrated.net]'s openly open OpenDNS.
Is there any technical reason why DNS servers (probably provided by your ISP) can't add OpenDNSs details too?
Re:our internet? (Score:2)
> severly hurt by bad publicity. it's also subject to government regulation.
Except that they've taken the first steps to isolate themselves from public opinion.
While probing the various links about the November meeting, I found the web page where the comments that get sent to comments@icann.org get posted. The page links to no letter more recent than May of 1999, & itself was last updated on 23 April 2000. (At least that's what it says.)
They're trying REAL hard to ignore their community now, aren't they?
Geoff
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Oh, let's just give up (Score:2)
Yes, I know that there are alternatives which work in this way, but the problem is that ICANN has no reason to care about alternative roots and so will have no compunction about selling domain names which overlap with ones registered in the alternative servers. Then chaos ensues.
Another, possibly bigger, issue is the commercialisation of any centralised domain system. Once it gets popular it starts being the object of business and control starts to leech away to those with the cash (eg anyone interested in the olympics can forget about setting up a web page with the word in the url). A centralised system means one (or a few) people can be leant on/bribed/sued by the big guys with their cries of "IP".
I sometimes think the whole idea of text-based urls will be the downfall of the net. Think about the number of court cases that would never have appeared over the last 4 years if the IP address was the only way to contact a web-server.
TWW
The flaws in ICANN's foundation are proving fatal (Score:3)
I was one of the optimists when ICANN was first founded. Yeah, sure there were some problems, but surely we could work past them in good faith to get a fair, equitable system which would straighten out the DNS mess.
I'm wrong. I admit it. Kick me.
ICANN is fundamentally flawed, and the flaws aren't fixable. Time to de-charter ICANN and do it right from the beginning.
The only way we can get an ICANN-like organization to really work is to make sure it has some reasonable fascimilie of these characteristics:
These are the biggest things that ICANN doesn't have, and that any successor organization must have. I'm sure I've missed a few, but it's a good start.
Time to De-Charter ICANN and Start Again.
-Erik
Think about it... (Score:2)
If a new organization was created and gained anything approaching wide usage, it would be deemed outlaw by the U.S. government and others. If there was so much as a hint of some corporation's name being used in a domain name handed out by such an organization, you'd have FBI kicking down the door and hauling everything and everyone away, probably with no charges filed and no right to know the evidence against them. The media would be told that a bunch of hackers were violating copyright law in a massive way and everyone would just accept that as fact. The government just saved the Internet. Hooray for the government.
Okay, that's a pretty cynical view of things, but who believes that such an organization wouldn't be destroyed either by litigation or by the government? I seriously doubt they'll let their corporate-owned Internet face any competition.
Re:Think about it... (Score:1)
TWW
Re:Screw This (Score:1)
Re:Think about it... (Score:1)
Re:And to add insult to injury... (Score:1)
Pick A Time (Score:1)
For some of us, attending a multi-day event can't be justified, but I'd be happy to drive down one day to get together with a few folks and make our voices heard loudly and clearly.
"Milosovec tried it, why can't we?" (Score:2)
This needs more exposure and heavy ridicule. The only way to lever them out will be to shame them. That and lawsuits, angry letters to Congress and the Executive branch. Publicity is a start, but this is in danger of being ignored as "normal" bureaucracy.
Who votes? (Score:1)
Dangerous precedent (Score:5)
There is a interesting point mentioned on the article:
"Back in the days of the White Paper, the document which still provides the foundation for whatever legitimacy ICANN may retain, the United States government assured all that the initial, secretly appointed members of the ICANN Board were only temporary."
Well if these guys get too nuts, then we should direct protests not to them but to the Government of the United States of America. He is the guarantor that the White Paper will not be violated. No matter how feelings, thinkings and relations with this organism, I think that they will not sponsor such clear violation of the principles that rule its establishment. With propper argumentation, they will surely act and tell these guys that is time to leave.
PS: For those who don't know History and/or French. "L'Etat c'est moi" - "The State is me". It was said by King Louis XIV of France during his rise to power. This King was the most famous monarch and despot of the times of Absolutism. During his reign, he managed to concentrate all state control on himself.
Re:Who votes? (Score:1)
Re:Screw This (Score:3)
Re:Pick A Time (Score:2)
Instead, I think the actual board meeting on Thursday would be better. I'm definitely going to be there, with protest signs. Possibly a bullhorn, too.
Fine Print (Score:3)
-Nev
One problem any radical movement faces: (Score:2)
Screw This (Score:2)
I say we split! Why the hell haven't we? Fork off a new Internet. (Internet2 doesn't count) Get back to basics. A place where source is open, ideas are free and remain free and it is all voluntary. A place that from the start declares If your looking for profit, fuck off.
I know, maybe offtopic. mod me down, maybe someone will read this. Maybe someone will find some inspiration. That's I can hope.
So how about it? Would it be possible for a second ICANN to be formed by people that care about the common good?
How about a new internet with a Declaration of Independence right from the start that says We the people say we are unbound by your countries laws, anything you put in is owned by all, this is a free-for-all baby!
I know, it will never even come close to becoming a reality, but it sounds good doesn't it?
Why...oh why.... (Score:4)
One click in Opera or Lynx or Netscape to allow it to check with DNS servers run by people who serve the public interest and not bend over for big business and electing themselves emporer for life? A click in WinAmp to enable you to connect to Shoutcast servers located by a NullSoft DNS server (imagine having TLDs based on music genres?)
Better yet, a list of servers that people could pick or choose from based on reputation. Don't like ICANN? Disable the root servers entirely and get your
Operating Systems to could easily make this a part of their DNS configuration menus.
All we need is someone to create the standards and provide some kind of reputation for DNS servers. Surely this is worthy cause? Won't someone just do the paperwork necessary to start the Domain Freedom Foundation so I can contribute large heaping amounts of cash to something that will kill Network Solutions and ICANN once and for all?
- JoeShmoe
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What the hell, maybe I'll go too. (Score:3)
Promise me no one will be there dressed as Obi Kenobe. Seriously.
W
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Uh, I meant.. (Score:2)
it's 4:42 fri night. cut me some slack.
W
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Re:Screw This (Score:3)
Those organizations can make problems at times, but with the ICANN, I see the major offenders as the little guru wanna-bees, who are constant malcontents. A few years back, I was a lurker on the main mailing list where domain changes were being discussed and decided. I can't recall the name of the list, but I do recall the political environment. You had some people who were just stellar leaders, like Paul Vixie, who were working their asses off and making sense as proven technical leaders. Then you had a few crack-pots who were always complaining and screaming about every little thing - apparently just to have something to post about.
In a smaller environment like that mailing list, where the participants were more informed, the crack-pots were mostly ignored. Unfortunately, as the process has opened up to a wider audience, that audience hasn't been able to keep abreast of the history and details of the issues. That's really opened up the door for the crack-pots, some of whom have worked their way into ICANN.
It's a shame, but it's a tradeoff that we in the technical community are constantly making. Time and again, we have some technology that seems cool, but lacks the real development that comes with popular acceptance. Unfortunately, with popular acceptance comes the ignorant influence of the masses.
Re:Why...oh why.... (Score:3)
So company XYZ wants a domain name so that the people can easily find their web site. What name service do they go with? The most popular of course. The people want an easy way to find company XYZ. Which service do they use? The most popular of course.
But company ABC, out of moral impetus, refuses to use the most popular. What's the result? Considering that most people won't even change to a resolution above 640x480x60Hz on a brand new 19' monitor, ABC's site will never see a hit except by a few geeks. To stay in business they must switch to the most popular. Eventually, the only service left will be the most popular. Who will controll it then? Don't say, "We will", unless you're willing to define 'we' and a method of how the 'we' will control. If you can define those two parameters, it makes more sense to replace the head of the current system with your definition than to replace the current extensive infrastructure.
The point is, you can't run and hide to a different technical solution every time someone tries to usurp power. The way of the world dictates that some people work to create, and some people work to dominate the creation of others. If you move to a new technical solution, the dominators will simply move in to take it over. Who else is willing to give up their technical pursuits in order to manage any new solution you come up with? Any one willing to wants the power, not to create new geek toys, so you immediately get yourself into the exact same position.
This is a social problem, not a technical one. This problem requires that geeks pull their heads out of their monitors, stand up and say, "Hell no. You're not going to simply walk in here and claim our work for yourself. Get the hell out." Then we have to install people who want to be in power, but put checks and balances in place. They must know that they can get kicked out just like the last group if they don't look after the proper interest.
I think a valid response would be to get a lot of the big names that actually were responsible for the internet and DNS together (Al Gore would probably like to head up the group), and let them go on for a while about how this group is quickly losing its legitimacy. Especially in America (I can't speak about other cultures since I don't know them), people get upset when they hear of someone usurping the work of another. So all the inventors get together, send a letter to Congress which says, "Heh, they're stealing our stuff", then give a few whiny interviews on Opra. Politician will start raving about the injustice, the Pres will hold some town hall meetings, Heraldo Rivera will do a special where he finds the draft of a DNS spec in a locked vault of a demolished building. In other words, watch how quickly things change to the way we like them.
Always remember, society is just a system. Learn to hack it.
ICANN's legitimacy (Score:3)
I could set up a root DNS service tomorrow. No one would use it, but technically it could be done. If ICANN start to depart from what most Internet users want, someone will set up something different that will gain wide acceptance.
Remember the Name.Space people? Their proposal would have worked technically even if there were other reasons why people were against it.
Re:Oh, let's just give up (Score:2)
Once you start to get some respect for the new system, though, it can start to be a problem when the icann servers start passing recursive lookups to you.. You need a way to recognize that a recursed domain isn't in either 'root' server set.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!