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ICANN CEO Proposes Radical Changes 283

Posted by michael from the switch-to-alternate-roots-now dept.
Froomkin writes: "ICANN CEO Stuart Lynn today released a plan for a "strong" ICANN that would have 5 of 15 Board members selected directly by governments and the rest by registrars, registries, plus a few Board-squatter-like ringers chosen by the ICANN Board or staff. The main justifications offered for this shift are that in order to be "strong" ICANN needs more money, more support, and less "process". Of course, promises Lynn, ICANN's "core values of openness and broad participation" should be "preserved". (Don't laugh. It's not funny.) "Meaningful participation" will be achieved by cutting out any direct representation for end-users. Oh yes, ICANN wants a much bigger budget, and to be independent of the US Dept. of Commerce, and to get direct control of the root server operators too, all so as to ensure that ICANN has unimpeded ability to execute its (undefined, growing) "mission". ICANN was supposed to save the Internet from governments; since major interest groups such as the ccTLDs and RIRs won't do what ICANN wants, and won't pay it, ICANN now turns to governments to save it from the Internet. See the Press Release here, and then look at entire plan, then visit ICANNWatch.org for updates and commentary." Yep. The proposal would eliminate any pretense of At-Large involvement in running ICANN - it would be solely a governmental and corporate body.
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ICANN CEO Proposes Radical Changes More

ICANN CEO Proposes Radical Changes

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  • not a big deal! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:17PM (#3063311)
    This sort of thing would only cause me concern if I felt that governments and corporations didn't have my best interest and whole-heartedly good intentions in mind.

  • Government Control (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hkhanna ( 559514 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:18PM (#3063316) Journal
    I think that the Government should have at least a little bit of control (although not as much as the US has right now) and each government should be represented fairly (not this whole US gets .gov while the UK gov gets .gov.uk.) ICANN should really be an international body rather than the Dept. of Commerce one that is is now.

    The problem with giving the End-User control in ICANN is that there are too many End-Users around the world to do this, and aren't the governments supposed to be representative of the people? As for corporations having control...I think they should have little, if at all. But who am I? ...just an End-User.

    Just my US$0.02
    Hargun
    • The US Congress is the ultimate governing body of the Internet, and it's time it took some serious action. They need to take decisive action on the IP and domain issues. They've grilled the NetSol people in the past, but not much came of it.

      • Re:Wrong. The US Congress needs to take control. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Doomdark ( 136619 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:40PM (#3063403) Homepage Journal
        And exactly why should US congress be the ultimate governing body of the Internet? (or US government...). Internet is well past its earlier "US only" phase... Being international, and there not being many international organizations with any formal powers (UN being one of the few... and its powers are severely limited), it's hard to see any (existing) organizational body having "ultimate" control over Internet.
      • What does NetSol have to be "grilled" over? Where they have a monopoly (running the DNS system), they perform flawlessly. And where they don't perform flawlessly (customer support), they don't have a monopoly.

        And if you're upset because you want more TLDs, that's ICANN's decision, not NSI's.
  • Except for totally cutting the end user (us, the people) out!

  • ICANN is no longer relevant (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BurritoWarrior ( 90481 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:18PM (#3063320)
    You know it, I know it, and they know it. They are just another "dot-bomb", but without the for-profit aspect: No leadership, constant change of direction, people in positions waaaaay out of their league, no clearly defined objectives, etc.

  • Hmm.....I guess the bit might with the raisethefist.com might be repeated more often.........

    If Big Brother was watching you!

    (Ominous music)

  • Dear ICANN: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by M-2 ( 41459 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:20PM (#3063328) Homepage
    At this time, we would like to remind you of the following facts:
    1. you are in place to serve, not to rule.
    2. Esther Dyson is not God.
    3. You have not shown yourself to be at all trustworthy in the matters that you have been given.
    4. quite honestly, we do not NEED you. All we need is the IETF and ad-hoc groups. This was all here before you; it can all be here after you. We suffer your interference. Consider these things carefully before getting to much into your own power.

    • Re:Dear ICANN: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by km790816 ( 78280 )
      Questions:

      What does ICANN do?
      What do they control?
      Why is this news bad?
      Why should the average Internet user care?

      I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I don't have clear answers for these questions and I'm sure others don't as well.
      • ICANN is in the pocket of the moneyed interests, and has shown no interest at all in a "better" Internet, only one with them having more control. Sort of like Microsoft but worse, because it is arguable that Microsoft actually produces something :-)

        For instance, ICANN very much wants to restrict top level domains (.edu .com etc) because the fat cats who "own" them would see their net worth go dot bust if there were real competition, such as letting anybody who wants to run a root server with their own idea of top level domains.

        I believe ICANN is also behind the atrocious domain name resolution panels, which you may have heard about. I could be wrong here, I think it was ICANN who set them up, but it might have been someone just as slimy. In case you haven't been following this, people who registered a domain name years before some corp with $$pull$$ still lose the domain name because the complainer gets to choose the judge of their choice, and of course the judge$ with fore$ight $aw the light early on and alway$ rule for the corp$, thu$ en$uring more bu$ine$$ coming their way, a good illustration of positive feedback.

        ICANN has stalled at every possible point in every possible way when any smell of true Internet representation comes up. They truly want to be dictators, because they are running an unnecessary bureaucracy, and the only way to perpetuate it and line their pockets is to keep the riff raff out of it.

        Their problem is that they are not necessary, a true bureaucratic solution in search of a mission. The Internet could get along better without them. People would choose their own root servers and never know the difference. ICANN only survives because businesses don't want to be bothered, and because teh US gov is also afraid of the riff raff -- some of these riffraff no doubt use crypto to communicate dirty deeds with each other, so best to keep a bureaucracy in charge.

        You should care because they are in search of power to perpetuate their useless bureaucracy. The only way to do so is to MAKE themselves necessary, much as prison guard unions HAVE to be against parole and rehabilitation if they want to increase their power, same as lawyers writing laws and DEA thugs setting national drug policy. They need to be nipped in the bud.

        </rant>
        • IBM spent at least 2 years (maybe more, my data is 2 years old) of it's $60M/yr Washington lobbying budget to prevent the creation of new TLDs to protect its trademarks.

          That's just one thing we've found out. You'd be a fool to believe they were the only ones.
        • For instance, ICANN very much wants to restrict top level domains (.edu .com etc) because the fat cats who "own" them would see their net worth go dot bust if there were real competition, such as letting anybody who wants to run a root server with their own idea of top level domains.

          Don't be silly. Firstly, root servers are natural monopolies, it wouldn't make sense to have namespace competition because email would come crashing down and people would want to crucify the person who thought of the idea, and secondly, alternative root servers are perfectly legal and do exist, but hardly anyone uses them, and this has nothing to do with ICANN and everything to do with the fact that they are a stupid idea for things like email.

          Don't want people to be able to reply to your emails? Go ahead, buy a scammy "domain name" from an "alternative registrar". But don't come crying to me when you realise it's all a big fraud.

    • This kind of message is exactly what they need to hear, and also exactly the kind of message that will never make it through the bureaucracy.

      Seriously, bureaucracy never tollerates the message that they are not needed. Bureaucracies always expand and extend their power, not restrict it.

      As needed as this message is as a "reality enema", the ICANN and the governments whos force the ICANN thrives on will never officially "hear" it.

      Bob-

    • Yes, ICANN failed. Esther may have been one of the main founders of ICANN, but she hasn't been in charge for a long time, if she ever was. She may be a net.goddess, but never claimed to be omnipotent or omniscient. It was an important job, somebody had to do it, and she tried really hard.

      Meanwhile, I'd say to ICANN's current leaders, that you're not Al Haig, and you're not in charge here.

  • Sometimes amazing what certain groups/companies will try to get away with, sometimes even being fairly sure that they will fail. If you try to get away with 100 absurd ideas, like certain patents for example, if even one or two of them fall through the cracks it ends up being worth it.
    "I Think ICANN, I think ICANN."
    (yes, I know, that was horrible)
  • As is said, ccTLDs are a major component of the DNS and most are not getting involved with the current ICANN. Given most ccTLDs are controlled or have government oversight in their respective countries I don't see a problem with governments (plural) being involved.
    • Tell your government to use, and enforce the contracts utilizing, the two-letter country code of their own country.

      That's it. No need for ICANN at all. The US has control over .us, South Africa over .za, France can enact all the francophobia it wants to over .fr, etc. etc etc.

      Anything more is abuse of power.

      Bob-

  • Um... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by rhizome ( 115711 )
    How else does everyone propose to convince these private companies to act in the public interest? Certainly nobody wants Verisign and AOL and Cisco to be the defacto policymakers...do they?

  • p2p is the answer!!! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Cardhore ( 216574 )
    It's time for peer-to-peer HOSTS swapping!!

  • In related news, ICANN changes its name... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:27PM (#3063354) Homepage Journal
    ...to UCANT.

    (Universal Controller of All Network Traffic)
  • Sell ICANN to Microsoft : you'll really get rid of bureaucracy, you'll get plenty cash, a lot of favors from many democrat and republican politicians, and you'll reach yet another grandiose achievement : the creation of the .ms TLD.

    I mean, how simple can this be ?

  • Well I'm sure they're all much smarter than me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by brennanw ( 5761 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:31PM (#3063370) Homepage Journal

    but really, don't they have better things to do than to help large corporations buy the rest of the internet?

    I'm sure Esther Dyson (genuflects) is a very smart person and all that, but I shudder to think what will happen if governments and corporations are the only people left with any say on how the internet, and the web in particular, is run. I fully expect the world wide web to become just another string of TV stations with really lousy reception. Sort of like the cable access channel, only with product placements.

    Perhaps Esther Dyson (genuflects) should think twice before auctioning off the rest of the public commons... again.

  • Is anyone really surprised? (Score:5, Informative)

    by pgrote ( 68235 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:32PM (#3063380) Homepage
    If you look at the history of new communication methods they always become the domain, pun intended, of governments and businesses.

    Telegraph and Radio: http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/part1.htm

    Television:
    http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/brd038/cla sm at/class1/tvhist.htm

    I am surprised that the internet has lasted this long in the public after the government ceded control to a panel.

    It all comes down to funding in the end. In 1999 they started making noises: http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/brd038/clasm at/class1/tvhist.htm

    If we think that the domain situation concerning freedom of speech is murky now, wait until countries such as China, Iran, etc. get onto the board.

  • Eyes Glaze Over -- and Bad Writing has its Purpose (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:37PM (#3063394) Homepage

    Well this article's been posted about twenty minutes and the responses are pouring in. Has everyone read the 16,000 word announcement that was the main link to the Slashdot post? I didn't think so.

    One of the key problems here is that everything that ICANN is saying, in both their press release, and their 16,000 word announcement, is written in the most unimaginably dry style possible.

    The wretched quality of the writing is, I think, deliberate. Because what people can't understand, they can't criticize.

    How much money does ICANN leadership rake in each year? How about giving some competent writer $1500 of that, so that this mega-announcement and its press release can be written up in terms any interested person can get through? As it stands now, very few of us (and certainly not myself) are capable of debating this vitally important announcement. It can't be understood, and perhaps that's the way ICANN wants it.

  • The [ D- ] evolution of ICANN (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Taco Cowboy ( 5327 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:39PM (#3063398) Journal


    The more ICANN has [d]evolved, the more ICANN has gone away from its grassroot.

    I am an ICANN member, - just a ordinary member thank you very much, - and I can tell you that I am really disappointed with ICANN's [d]evolution process so far.

    Granted, there _are_ things that ordinary members like me don't know. Mebbe there are some valid reason for ICANN to do what it has been doing. I won't utter a blanket condemnation towards ICANN, not just yet.

    But I have to say this - as I am a member of ICANN, I am also a member of the cyberspace, aka Netizen.

    As a Netizen, and as one who don't really trust government - any government, mind you - that much, the ICANN's latest maneuver, in inviting the government to take such a large part of ICANN's operation really worries me.

    If ICANN is let to do its own thing, there is a huge possibility that ICANN will be yet-another-irrelevant-organization.

    I don't care who that ICANN CEO is, but this is what I will say - if ICANN forgets its grassroot, ICANN might as well fold its operation. Because without the grassroot, ICANN will no longer be representing ANYTHING relevant.

    Governments and corporations already have their own way to express their views. ICANN was set up primarily to address the views of the grassroots.

    No matter it's DCMA or ICANN's latest move, the future for grassroots in the cyberspace doesn't look good.

    We keep losing in the power struggle. The corporate power and the bureaucrats from the governments keep on winning.

    What will it be like 10 years of 20 years in the future, if the Net can not tolerate FREE VIEWS anymore ?

  • oh many happy returns (Score:3, Funny)

    by twitter ( 104583 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:41PM (#3063410) Homepage Journal
    Though many in the traditional Internet community react strongly against the very mention of governments, it is simply unrealistic to believe that global coordination of the DNS can succeed without more active involvement of governments. Indeed, it has been for decades a bedrock principle of the Internet that technical managers should stick to what they know and do best, and leave to other organizations what they in turn do best.

    The great benevolence of govenments such as China should serve as a shining model and example of plans like this. Who knows, the Chinese government may be able to bring down it's great wall, even Saudi Arabia as ICANT makes the internet safe for all good corporate citezens. What a glorious day this is for public networks and the independence of the North American Directorate. Can you feel the goodwill coming in from WIPPO, and DCMA? Every state will have it's say as the national borders go up in the name of unity. Intelectual property will be safe as will the big pubishers will no longer fear competition. Telcos can loose their fears of loosing their franchises as new more centralized and stronger means of information interchange are devised by ICANTs board members like Microsoft and Sun. The freedom this will bring is unbelievable. Like an advert flier says, there's no limit to the internet is there? Only strong government control will be able to squash the emergent wireless internet, they had better hurry!

    Oh well, I did not expect more. As the people of the United States accept violations of the first and fourth amendments, the experiment that was the Bill of Rights dies. It started with regulation of the airwaves. It will end with electronic publishing. As all the dead tree acid paper rots and people are taught that obsolete communications methods are not to be trusted and the ideas contained in those rotting pages are no longer valid, and all electronic publishing comes under the control of the government and two or three large companies.

    Bill Gates really can see the future. He's buying it.

  • Truth in advertising. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DMouse ( 7320 )

    ICANN finally admitting that they are run by, and for, the large groups with big pockets is just truth in advertising.

    Something everyone should read and understand is Reed's Law [reed.com] as in the end ICANN et al don't matter a lot...

  • Let me get this straight: ICANN wants to transform itself into something that looks very much like it does today except with a few more members and a sticker that says "New and improved STRONG formula" on it.


    By the time ICANN "gathers consensus and buy-in from various ancillary parties on the direction it wants for how it will make later decisions," users will have grown frustrated enough to not resist a takeover by a Microsoft-like entity- running roughshod over the idea of "openness."

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:48PM (#3063433) Homepage Journal
    Scientists report a massive change in the Earth's orbit. This change has been traced to the gyroscopic effect of Jon Postel spinning in his grave.

  • OpenNIC bears mentioning again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jdavidb ( 449077 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:50PM (#3063446) Homepage Journal

    For the supreme protest against ICANN, try an alternative root server, such as OpenNIC [unrated.net].

    • It's getting to be time for alternate roots (Score:4, Interesting)

      by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @02:29AM (#3063803) Journal
      I've never been that impressed with the alternate roots - while there are inherent problems with having a single root, especially if you define its existence before defining ownership or policies, most of the alternate roots I've seen were either run by net.kooks or people who wanted to make money by selling .sex and .xxx before the official root got around to it.

      But ICANN's decided that not only has it scammed its way into control (as opposed to the IETF committee that was working on the same problems), but that it should increasingly get rid of any grassroots control, ignoring as much as possible the processes for elections by the actual public for members of its board. Now that it's declared itself no longer bound by the processes that it always refused to follow anyway, it's time to dump it. Part of that process is replacing control of the root - Lynn's proposal itself says that the root servers aren't really under ICANN's control or funding now.


      Dump ICANN, I say!

      • It's difficult to imagine why you think we're a scam Bill, when it's the ICANN franchiees that were dragged into court for running an illegal lottery after ICANN staff ("lawyers") had spent the losing applicants money to review the winners proposals and bless them.

        Perhaps you have a bad taste in your mouth from some of the 1996/7 bad craziness that went on. That didn't do anybody any good, no argument there, but those people have, uh, "retired" mercifully. And hey, if it's good enough for an ICANN baord member to use the ORSC root, it's good enough for you :-)

        If you don't want to be scammed, don't spend any money. You can still have an non-ICANN domain name , honest.
        • Richard - I didn't say that the alternate root proponents are scammers, I said that ICANN is. My comment about "kooks" is, of course, strongly influenced by the bad craziness of a few years ago :-) But I didn't say all of you were kooks, just that I've never been that impressed with most of the alternate root projects, though apparently some people have been quite successful in getting some of the cable modem companies and one or two big ISPs to use their namespaces.

          Besides, if there's an ICANN board member using ORSC, it's probably just that non-conformist Karl, who thinks that being actually elected by the user public should somehow allow him onto a board of elite appointees...

  • This just in (Score:5, Funny)

    by Max the Merciless ( 459901 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @12:02AM (#3063478) Homepage
    Stuart Lynn, CEO of ICANN, announced today that the board has appointed a new member - Mr William Gates. Lynn said: "Mr Gates will help ICANN function as a strong organisation, dedicated to core values and open participation".

    Mr Lynn also announced that the Internet will now be officially renamed .NET and all domain names which do not include ".msn" will be banned.

    Jon Katz, infamous /. reporter, asked whether "all our domains are belong to Microsoft?" which Mr Lynn dismissed by stating: "You are either with us or against us".

  • The obvious answer is to have multiple root servers, and have a version of bind that can query multiple DNS hierarchies, with administrator specified weightings, or some sort of voting scheme. This seems so straightforward to me that I must be missing something. Can anyone explain?
  • ...we must create our own DNS. True: this may be rather difficult to implement (especially on closed-source architectures, like Windoze), but it is our [sarcasm=to_taste] only hope [/sarcasm] of finally escaping the capitalist clutches of ICANN "UCANT".

    The first step will be selecting our own root server. This must obviously be a fixed IP, which would ideally be some hapless DSL user wishing to donate some bandwidth to the cause.

    (To improve performance, clients could cache IP addresses they had already looked up. This would actually improve on the current system.)

    In brief, we would create an alternate DNS, with more open rules on the creation of new domains. Think of it: Free domain names! Less government interference in the Internet? Who could refuse such a thing? Let us start today!!

    (But don't ask *me* to help...)
    • Are you completely fucking insane? starting your own DNS based on a DSL line? do you have ANY idea how busy the root servers are?

      They AVERAGE 3000 queries per SECOND.

      Read RFC 2870 about root nameservers - it'll cost you a lot of money to do something like that. You are talking about a fully loaded clustered pair of 4 processor boxes, HA networking engineering, HA firewalls, etc, etc, and a team of top admins. None of this comes cheap, and don't even think of using linux, you'll want something you can get top tier integrated OS/Hardware support for.

      Have a look at the levels of redundancy nominum use [nominum.com] for GNS - their DNS service.

      Alex

      • Close but no cigar (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rs79 ( 71822 )
        So don't use any root servers. Secondary the root zone of your choice and cut out that intermedate step in name resolution, and you'll be diminishing the load of those poor overworked legacy root servers, and you'll be resolving names as fast if not faster than what you're doing now.

        Remember hosts.txt? Think of your own copy of the root zone as that on steroids. You can even do this with old Windoze with a really nifty program called "Simple DNS+".
      • They AVERAGE 3000 queries per SECOND.

        That's more than an order of magnitude higher than the last time I checked.
        Where are you pulling that statistic from?

        -- It must be true, I saw it on the internet.

  • You say you want a revolution? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @12:33AM (#3063558)
    If you want to defeat ICANN, then where's the alternative? It's no use if people run like headless chickens into different directions. We need a single democratic body that is better than ICANN and that we agree on. And damnit, if you want to make this happen, put a large banner or button supporting it on Slashdot, too. Make it a campaign banner that also encourages people to spread the word.

    OpenNic [unrated.net] sounds like a reasonably democratic choice. They allow voting on new TLDs. If there is any criticism of them, I'd like to hear it right here. Remember, if we can't vote, we can still vote with our feet.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Stuart Lynn, ICANN CEO (Primus: super mack-daddy of all ICANN biznezz?), whoever the hell he thinks he is, is obviously crying out for help because he says ICANN can't make DNS work in the future. I read his stupid whining polemic, and it isn't really worth more than a brief scan. He wants some real money and guns so he can pay lawyers and boss the root DNS server operators around. De facto, he says they can do whatever they want without accountability to the ICANN or anyone else. He wants to make policy decisions to govern the technical operation (and design) of current and future DNS services.

    ICANN is going down, because it doesn't DO anything for anyone involved. He is like the country bumpkin character from Kafka's short story: Before the Law. BIND comes with a list of compiled-in root server IP addresses. You can query all of those for a complete and curent list of root servers. This is how your DNS server knows who to ask when it doesn't know the IP address you're trying to get. Your DNS server (at the whim of your ISP) could possibly start using root servers that are not on that list. The websites you thought you knew (or maybe just their typos) would not come up; maybe you would see some nasty pr0nz (from people who paid marketing $$ to your ISP) instead. The nasty pr0n fake root operators (NPFROs) can't guarantee the pr0n marketdroids that their sites will get hits because you might configure your computer to use an independent (or your own) DNS server that the ISP doesn't control. Therefore the ISP can't get marketing kickbacks for screwing with your DNS. Likewise, none of your ISP's upstream DNS providers can do it, nor any of the root DNS operators. People could always just stop hitting their DNS.

    What Mr. Stuart Lynn wants is a legal binding document that says "one ring to bind them all" so his ICANN can force the root DNS operators to become like his own personal NPFROs, but now bona fide by the contract (called a Memorandum Of Understanding or MOU) that opens the root server operator up to civil lawsuits and criminal liability. He wants to say "You must agree on penalty of law to publish the list of root DNS servers I tell you to" to make the root DNS operators kow tow to the corporate and lobbying interests that pay.

    Right now, nobody has any reason to pay him for anything. People who don't understand how the political consensus exists and flows in DNS de facto tried to make ICANN do it artificially. Everyone who can, right now should go learn how to run a DNS server (not trivial) and imagine you and all your buddies and everyone who used to be on Napster are all going to run your own root servers. Think yourself through all the possibilities, and act on the best one(s) you can come up with. Stuart Lynn is not going to get his money, because we can all change our DNS settings and no amount of money or lawyers can change that. Be prepared if some root servers start humming a different tune, you might decide you want to hear something else.

    • you might configure your computer to use an independent (or your own) DNS server that the ISP doesn't control. Therefore the ISP can't get marketing kickbacks for screwing with your DNS.

      What make you think your ISP can't catch all your requests to the root servers and feed you what they want? ICANN might start by encypting their communications streams, but I doubt that's on the corporate agenda. Then again, your ISP can substitute any kind of IP for IP you request.

      I don't really know the ins and outs of the protocal but running DNS is trivial with Debian. It's a binary install that sets itself up and works, no fuss. I'd prefered to use the at home DNS, but it never worked and they only offered me one machine to chose from in a different state. Needless to say, mine worked much better.

      • Please investigate DNSSEC. True the ISP can tranparently proxy your DNS requests, but he would have to log each of his successfully spoofed DNS answers and bill based on that. The marketdroids will want proof they are getting something for their money.

  • foolish (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mccabem ( 44513 )
    It's beyond foolish to think that governments represent their people in any significant way.

    Certainly here in the 'States at least.

  • Open Root Server Confederation! (Score:5, Informative)

    by asackett ( 161377 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @01:17AM (#3063651) Homepage
    I've said it before, I'll say it again every chance I get: Open Root Server Confederation [open-rsc.org].

    All it takes for the typical end-user to begin using the open root is a few minutes' engaged in some independent action. I can see a couple hundred TLD's -- ICANNot!

  • This monstosity was an ambush - take two (Score:5, Insightful)

    by karl.auerbach ( 157250 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @01:22AM (#3063664) Homepage
    ICANN's management created this monstrosity on its own initiatiative - it is esssentially an act of gross insubordination by ICANN's management and an act of disdain for the Board of Directors and for the internet community.

    This "restructructuring" is a complete recreation of ICANN, but with even the hint of public participation stripped away.

    I just go off the airplane home from this ambush. I'm really ticked off.

  • What ICANN *really* means... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jay Carlson ( 28733 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @02:07AM (#3063750) Homepage
    A while ago somebody at work asked me, "What does ICANN stand for?"

    I had one of those annoying on-the-tip-of-my-tongue experiences, but I felt like I had to say something. So I stammered and blurted out:

    "the...International Conspiracy to Assign Network Names!"
    Unfortunately, that expansion is now stuck in my head.

  • network solutions (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mlong ( 160620 )
    I wonder if this will mean ICANN will have enough balls to make Network Solutions (or I guess VeriSign now) stop sitting on domains. They refuse to release almost all domains that expire...they just sit on them and sit on them and sit on them (unless of course you use their SnapNames backorder service).
  • All the proof we really need that ICANN is irrelevant, defunct, incompetent, and dangerous lies in the fact that example.com, example.net, and example.org now resolve, thanks to ICANN and Kent Crispin, directly contradicting their definition in RFC2606.

    These are the people who want MORE control? They should be kept as far away from name and IP-space as possible.

    Personally, I'm just waiting for them to blunder big enough that someone in the USG will be forced to consider the incident a terrorist act (and I think a brief conversation with the Office of Homeland Security about the importance of DNS and the danger to the US infrastructure if it's destabilized by non-technical demagogues should take care of that.)
  • As I have said previously why not set ICANN up like the UN that way there would be no one dominating party and all voices would be heard.
  • I think it would be easier to resurrect the IANA.

    --Blair
    "No, really."

    • Keep in mind (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rs79 ( 71822 )
      Jon used to run the IANA as a part time task. Think about it. One guy... part time. If you're familiar with the organizational structre of the ICANN that replaces it, it's a little mind boggling.

      The only mistake he ever made was accepting government funding. That gave the USG the crack it needed to claim owbership of it: "we paid for it".
      • And he did it using what must have been very nearly the last running copy of NLS, Doug Englebart's On-Line System. It was to support Jon and IANA that ISI kept a PDP-10 or a DEC-20 (I forget which) running for years past its reasonable end-of-life. I once researched early user-interface tools, and visited Jon. He was kind enough to demonstrate for me the chord keyboard that he used with his left hand while running the mouse with his right - remember, the mouse was invented for NLS.

        That's what kept the numbers flowing.

  • Instead of a new ICANN, how about almost none? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @02:52AM (#3063870) Homepage
    The problem is not giving the government a role in ICANN. ICANN should barely exist. We have an infinite space, and dividing it up isn't nearly so hard as people imagine.

    Rather, I would advocate simply having lots of privately run non-generic TLDs [templetons.com] and hardly any ICANN at all [templetons.com]

    • I like your vision for the DNS Brad, but the problem with your vision of it... and ICANN's vision of it is that it's well, one persons vision of it. The DNS is big enough such that a subset of it can contain one mans vision of what it should be. That it, throw all the ideas of what it should d be together. I don't believe any one person - or organizatin should decide what the namespace should be (I don't see anything partitularly wrong with generic tlds, YMM indeed V), it should be allowed to grow organically like, say, usenet namespace did. Despite it's many flaws, usenet, and particularly it's namespace is still the worlds largest cooperative collaboratin.

      The actual mechanics of how this is done is not terribly difficult (and yes, golly yo uhave some good ideas there, thanks) but is not as important as "you respect my ideas and suppoert them and I'll reciprocate" much in the same was as the UUCP paradigm of "I'll pass your packets if you pass mine".

      RS
      • Actually, my point was to design a system that would allow everybody's vision. Give nobody a monopoly on a generic term, because that means only one vision at least in the space described by the generic term. Instead let a thousand visions flourish.

        That's what's wrong with generic TLDs. Non-generic TLDS can be handled almost entirely over to their owners, to allow innovation and competition.
    • The problems of legacy can be fixed somewhat by pushing the existing three letter TLDs under a .us label. When resolving a domain, if the last part is not a two letter country code, then the country code of the DNS server is appended. That would have the nice side effect of every domain subject to a known countries laws. If Ford wants to sue over fordsucks.it, they have to do it in an Italian court.
      If a company really wanted to be global, then they could register .com.it, .com.us, .com.uk, etc. And of course, any country that wanted to could assign Network solutions to manage their .com (but I'd bet against any of them doing so without a lot of bribes.)

      -- this is not a .sig
      • Sure they would do it, it's the easy way out. The net is global, so does this solution really meet the needs of users?

        Will the countries manage their own domains well, is that the best thing for the users in those countries?

        And who owns the country's domain? In the USA, the national symbols and names belong not to the government, but to the people. The US government does not have the power to control who uses the name "U.S." or "USA" -- in some ways the constitution makes that clear.

        People want simple names they can tell people and then have them used to reach them reliably. We don't want to go back to the geography based system -- we built a logical net to get away from geography, in some respects.

  • Decentralize DNS! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by porttikivi ( 93246 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @05:35AM (#3064112)
    Why is it so difficult to de-centralize the top level domain administration? There must be some research proposals? I have one idea:

    Let's set up 26 new TLDs:

    a.
    b.
    c.
    .
    .
    .
    x.
    y.
    z.

    After that, if I want to have a name www.anssi for my server, I will go and talk to the administrator of domain "i." And register there a domain www.a.n.s.s.i.

    Depending on if the domains "s.i.", "s.s.i.", etc. already are registered, I need to go to talk to the highest order domain administration that is already registered.

    After that we need to standardize a convention, that a resolver breaks down the last part after the last dot in a name into letters (www.anssi -> www.a.n.s.s.i), before it forwards the query to a DNS server.

    Additionally the old TLDs will also be served in new "synonymous domains"

    c.o.m.
    f.i.
    u.k.
    .
    .
    .
    etc.

    Of course the old TLDs com., fi. and uk. still exist and work, if older resolvers query them.

    Now happens something nice:

    a) www.anssi works with the updated resolvers

    b) *.com and *.fi work with all resolvers, both with the updated and old ones

    c) manually written www.a.n.s.s.i. and www.yahoo.c.o.m. work with all resolvers

    Yours,
    Anssi Porttikivi
    app@iki.fi

    • Re:Decentralize DNS! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by porttikivi ( 93246 )
      Note, that in my scheme above everybody should allow sub-domain delegated with others, so that if I run s.s.i. but no machine *.n.s.s.i., then anybody could register the n.s.s.i. sub-domain with me.

      If there would be a conflict of two organisations wanting to register x.any. with the a.n.y. server, the owner of a.n.y. would decide. The would be so much freedom in DNS, that conflicts would not arise.
  • This old Slashdot article [slashdot.org] on the debate between myself and At Large Study Committee chairman Carl Bildt may be of interest in the light of the recent events.

    Regards

    Mikael

  • Quote from DNS creator (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Garry Anderson ( 194949 ) on Monday February 25, 2002 @09:49AM (#3064546) Homepage
    Paul Mockapetris [thestandard.com], creator of the Domain Name System was asked, what do you wish you had invented?

    He replied, "A directory system for the Internet that wouldn't be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."

    The Internet is going to the dogs.

    Fact: UDRP is not only imperfect and inconsistent - it a fatally flawed system.

    Fact: You are being deceived - the authorities know the answer to trademark problems on the Internet.

    The United States Department of Commerce and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization are hiding it.

    The US Patent and Trademark Office virtually admitted this, "The questions you raised with respect to trademark conflicts, as well as the proposed solutions, have their basis in good common-sense. As such, they have been debated and discussed quite exhaustively within the USPTO, the Administration, and internationally."

    Honest attorneys, including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III (UN WIPO panellist judge), have ratified the solution.

    Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone (please check [uspto.gov]). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.

    This is most important - as Sunrise and UDRP abridges what words people can use in an open (repeat - OPEN) gTLD. They also give priority of one business over another.

    Please keep re-reading last paragraph until you completely understand - they violate the First Amendment and go against Unfair Competition Law.

    That is quite apart and separate from the fact that they know the solution.

    Which is this:

    User enters apple.com - is redirected to apple.computer.us.reg

    User enters apple.newTLD - is redirected to apple.record.uk.reg

    In the address bar - can you tell the difference between, apple.computer.us.reg and apple.record.uk.reg?

    So, no 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' there then.

    A new restricted TLD, of .REG, for trademarks would act as certificate of authentication and directory, when entered directly.

    Lawyers read feeble excuses link on my site before replying - I have heard them all.

    Nobody wants the solution - because by not having it they gain. Primarily - Lawyers get loads of money from the conflicts and Big Business by muffling criticism and ensuring they monopolize their trademark words on the Internet.

    My beliefs and findings, above and on my site, have proven corruption beyond all reasonable doubt - nobody can refute the logical conclusions made.

    Please visit WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk] - nothing to do with United Nations WIPO.org.

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