Path: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu!sawasdee!rh120 From: rh120@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains,comp.protocols.tcp-ip,alt.folklore.computers,alt.culture.internet,comp.misc Subject: The Stakes in the DNS controvery? Date: 17 Mar 1999 14:39:43 GMT Organization: Columbia University Lines: 197 Message-ID: <7coerf$12c$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu> Reply-To: rh120@columbia.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu X-Trace: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu 921681583 1100 128.59.59.136 (17 Mar 1999 14:39:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: postmaster@columbia.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Mar 1999 14:39:43 GMT X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains:23473 comp.protocols.tcp-ip:67659 alt.folklore.computers:212549 alt.culture.internet:47033 comp.misc:60371 Greg Skinner wrote: >>Someone attempts to cut to the heart of the matter ... >----- Forwarded message from Ed Gerck ----- >>Reflecting on the presentations and discussions at the .us meeting, it >>appeared to me that the most profound problem in all DNS administrative >>models and structuring proposals is still wholly ignored. >>This basic problem can be phrased into some questions, in varying >>depths, as: >>o "What is a name?", >>o "What is a name in a communication system (hereafter, NCS)?", >o "What is a NCS in any DNS naming system such as .us?", The bigger problem, however, that is ignored whenever one starts to talk about the commercial interests coming together to figure out their interest in an issue, is that there is a public interest that is a more long term interest and that is being totally ignored and worse still when there is an effort to propose it, it is said by the commercial interests to be irrelevant and not appropriate. The domain names of the Internet were created for certain reasons. The main one was to make communication possible. Other functions have now been attached to the naming functions, other functions that would better be served by a public directory system. However this whole effort to privatize the domain naming system and other names and numbers and protocols functions of the Internet is intended to serve certain commercial entities, and to deny there is any public interest, and in the process to freeze the development of the Internet, rather than being able to look at a long term perspective and move in the direction of that long term perspective. Thus this process is only inviting those with a conflict of interest in the future development of the Internet to be involved in freezing Internet development and interferring with the scaling. A totally different process than the ICANN process would be needed if the U.S. government or other bodies charged with serving the broader public interest of the society were functioning in any healthy way. However in the U.S. today, the U.S. government entities are given demands by commercial entities and the U.S. government entities cave into those demands. The longer term and broader interests of the society get no attention. And where is the computer science community in all this? Early on they recognized that there would be the effort to seize the fruits of their work by commercial entities who could only have short term self interests. And the computer science community worked to establish broader goals and objectives. Today, however, it is hard to see any representation for such a broader and more public interest perspective on the part of the computer science community as well. What is happening with the seizure of the names and numbers and protocol and other scaling functions by private interests reflects a very serious commentary on the fact that certain commercial entities see no public responsibility to a broader society and to the future and thus are demonstrating that they are not concerned with the public interest of the present or the future. What started out as an issue of domain names and trademarks has blossomed into the wholesale seizure of the scaling mechanisms of the Internet by a very small set of people who have appeared by some secret process and are funded by a few large corporate entities. And the U.S. NTIA is administering this seizure of public assets and property by private entities and the U.S. Congress hasn't followed up on the letters to investigate what is happening issued by House Commerce Chairman Bliley last Fall. The U.S. press is basically silent on the seriousness of the problem that this all represents, after writing several helpful articles in Nov. 1998 documenting for the first time the serious problems this U.S. government activity represents for the Internet and the millions of people and computers that are part of the Internet. The Internet is made of up many networks around the world. Those networks are diverse and are willing to cooperate with each other via the glue that tcp/ip makes possible. This internetworking is based on a cooperative process that had developed and expanded via first the Network Working Group and then the IETF in the process of developing the protocols that would be utilized for the Internet. The creation of ICANN as a dictatorial body of a few people appointed by some secret process of U.S. government and private corporate entities, and excluding the participation of people around the world, is a sharp change in nature and function of how the Internet has been administered. A few people, in secret processes are now making decisions that will affect all the users to the Internet, present and future. And yet most users in general have no knowledge that this is happening, nor do they have any way to participate in what is going on even if they did have knowledge. This is a high stakes power grab by those on the inside who know what is happening and have the means to shoot for their piece of the high stakes pie. And what is actually at stake is totally lost in the process. What is actually at stake is the fact that there is a vision of an Internet that will make it possible for all around the world who want to, to be able to communicate with others around the world in a way that continues to grow and spread. This is what is being bartered away by the barrons of today in the name of their "stakeholder" interest. They will have their noose around the neck of those who have worked to contribute to the building of the Internet so that it would represent a continually scaling means of people to people communication. That is what is at stake. And the public relations firm of ICANN is doing its dardest to make sure no one really knows what ICANN is up to or who has created it or why it is moving so quickly to seize all it can get away with and distribute it to who knows who. The ICANN is supposed to be functioning under a design and test 50% ICANN/ 50% NTIA Memorandum of Agreement. However, there is NO sign of the U.S. government oversight of anything ICANN does. There is no design and test going on, only grabbing and determining and announcing their acquisitions. And though there are decisions within the U.S. government forbiding the U.S. government from creating such a creature, the U.S. government has created ICANN and is functioning behind the scenes to send it out into the world. Last November the Chairman of the Commerce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the Chairman of the U.S. Commerce Dept and to the Senior Advisor to the U.S. President who was in charge of Internet activity asking for documents about how the ICANN interim board of directors was chosen, what role the U.S. government had had in setting up ICANN, and several other important questions. No word has been heard about whether these questions were ever answered or what information the Chairman of the Commerce Committee received. This is a grave matter. The whole process is functioning outside of any means of asserting the public interest of all those people and businesses and libraries and schools and universities, and governments that depend on the ability of the Internet to function and to be able to scale. There needs to be an appropriate investigation into how this has all come to pass, and into what is the real social and public need that this activity of ICANN is preventing from being addressed in an appropriate way that will make it possible to have the long term interests of all those dependent on the Internet considered. Ronda ronda@panix.com http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/testimony_107.txt http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/letter_to_congress.txt Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6