ICANN's Time Is Up, According To John Gilmore 147
EyesWideOpen writes: "Salon has a lengthy interview with Cygnus Software co-founder John Gilmore about why he feels it's time for ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to go. Gilmore, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is currently helping to fund a lawsuit filed by ICANN director Karl Auerbach against ICANN. ICANN has denied Gilmore access to its financial information, providing the basis for the lawsuit. Gilmore states: 'I believe it's because there is information in there about how ICANN has misused its money, and/or has favored people who lent or gave it money.'"
The EFF (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:The EFF (Score:1)
Re:The EFF (Score:2)
Re:The EFF (Score:1, Insightful)
Then consider how much time and money was wasted coming up with that monstrosity, time and money that could have been devoted to lobbying Congress or raising the profile of the EFF. That's why it's a debacle, it has completely squandered good will and actual money and nothing has come of it.
Re:The EFF (Score:1)
Re:ICANN (Score:1)
Re:ICANN (Score:3, Interesting)
I wasn't aware there were a world government...
oh, you mean the US should yet again directly control the root servers.
Well, if that is what happens, I won't be surprised.
The DNS system is the worst thing that has ever happened to the web.
Re:ICANN (Score:1)
Re:ICANN (Score:1)
Oh, I dunno... maybe 'cause that would completely break dynamic DNS? Even worse, it would mean that you couldn't move your server from one ISP to another, since the blocks of IP numbers are typically owned by the ISPs.
John Gilmore is one of those net greats... (Score:4, Interesting)
He's right on the money with ICANN, too, although I'm sure I don't need to go into a spiel as to why. But if you aren't familiar with him, you might want to take a look at his other work if you want to see some cutting-edge concepts that are in need of an innovator.
discreditting (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a saying that's popular with defense laywers ... "When you don't have the law, you argue the facts. When you don't have the facts, you argue the law. And when you don't have either, you persecute the prosecutor"
Re:discreditting (Score:2)
And our problem with that is supposed to be?
Where the hell did anyone get the idea that ICANN has a constituency in the Internet community? It looked like a wonderful experiment in the beginning. It went straight to hell. Perhaps examination of its records by historians or more likely, attorneys will tell us what really happened.
Read it and weep (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition, Gilmore has some particularly spooky things to say about the history of Network Solutions, and what he estimates the *real cost* of maintaining a domain's registration to be (less than 1 cent/year).
Re:Read it and weep (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
So?
According to the linked article, part of the "fix" for the Internet is to allow dozens/hundreds/as-many-as-you-want top level domains. In that way, you can have ford.com and I'll take ford.car and my neighbour can have ford.truck and ford.parts if he wants them. And on and on. That way, domain-squatting becomes a bit of a waste of time; why will someone give me thousands of dollars for ford.car when he can just register ford.cars and put up whatever he wants.
It makes a great deal of sense to me.
Compare this to street addresses. If my street address is 123 Smith Avenue, that doesn't prevent someone else from also living at 123 Smith Avenue. I'm in Mycity and he's in Hiscity; 123 Smith Avenue is not unique to me, but if you come to 123 Smith Avenue, Mycity, you can find me. The fact that I'm using 123 Smith Avenue doesn't prevent anyone else from using 123 Smith Avenue too; we can still find where we are going.
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
Re:Read it and weep (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does it matter more then if people take the wrong street and end up at the porn store at 1700 Maple Street instead of the Ford dealership at 1700 Elm Street? Or call 1-900-5551234 to a phonesex service instead of 1-800-5551234 to Ford's customer service?
Domain names are not keywords. Domain names are not keywords. Domain names are not keywords. ARG.
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
One person/company - one domain.
Why should anyone have more ???
It very easy to create sub-domains if
you want more than one domain.
Why should anyone be able to register thousands of domains ???
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
Why company? Why can't an unofficial group
register? It becomes problematic with this rule.
Why can't my neighborhood philately club register, say? Why do we need to have a company set up for that? To boot, a company according
to which laws? US? Swiss? Madagascar's?
Re:Read it and weep (Score:2)
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
of a wish, kinda hard to implement as a policy.
Who will decide what is the same organization?
Can't a big organization ahve BigOrgUS.bla and
BigOrgFiji.foo?
Re:Read it and weep (Score:2)
ICANN seems to be clearly in violation of it's charter. It also seems to have been granted extra-legal powers by the government (in, as far as I have noticed, a largely unofficial way).
There have been presistent allegations of fraud, domain hi-jacking, domain squatting, etc. circulating around ICANN, and as far as I know, no legal investigations. (But would I know? probably not until they were made public.)
The main thing is that the ICANN board doesn't seem to have anyone who has the standing to sue them. Mr. Gilmore is an exception. The only other plausible alternative that I can think of is a class action suit by all of the people who were denied domain names that weren't in use, and that looks quite iffy to me, but IANAL.
I would maintain that having any centralized organization in charge this way will over time tend to lead to these same abuses. This is intended to be an argument for a more decentrallized design. Unchecked power tends to become corrupt, and the best way to emplace checks is in the form of competition with a low bar to entry. Design the system so that it continues to work properly so that you don't need to keep breaking in to fix it.
In the case of ICANN, this would seem to mean some way of resolving name clashes that allows for conflicting names to be assigned. Imagine a world in which only one person was allowed to be named John Smith. Name clashes shouldn't cause unresolvable problems. Perhaps it could be dealt with analogous to a name clash in a hash table. You can do chained hashing, of list extensions as two solutions. It's silly to think that Joe's Shoes and Joe's Hamburgers can't each have www.joes.com. Yes, there's a clash, but that just means that you need to use some resolution mechanism. Perhaps the GUI could be a drop-down list that contained a list of sites with each having a brief (40 char?) text description:
Joe's Hamburgers in Littleton,OH
Joe's Shoes in Oxnard, CA
Joe's Pizza in Cambridge, G.B.
You really don't what to miss this!
Some stupid site description
Another silly ad
Note that the text was freeform. If you want to waste your 40 chars on an ad, then probably nobody will feel any need to visit you. But it's allowed. Now somebody claiming to be "Joe's Hamburgers in Littleton, OH" who was stealing the site from the real one really would deserve to be sued. But all of these businesses deserve to be listed under www.joes.com. Maybe browsers could have a simple grep-oid filter that would allow you to avoid even seeing the list, when you wanted an Ohio business, or a hamburger. Just type(say):
www:[hamburger]//www.joes.com
and only the sites with hamburger in their description would show up in the list. In the example this would limit it to one, so you wouldn't even need to select from the list.
OK. That's one way to resolve it. I'm sure that there are others. But centralized control is a bad idea, and needs to be designed away from.
.io does this (Score:2, Informative)
You can see an example of this at work at http://www.lloyds.io [lloyds.io]
They claim to have over 350,000 registered users, but I've never encountered a redirecting IO address in the wild, and it's not a very sexy implementation (imho). The other two examples they cite on their homepage, spicegirls.io [spicegirls.io] and discman.io [htttp] seem to tell the real story -- it may be fine if you're just redirecting to the index page of a domain, but when your IO redirector points at some page deep in the twisted hierarchy of your corporate website, well, that's just one more annoying (and unusual) thing for your admin to have to maintain.
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
Okay, that sounds like a nice idea, but what about any other Internet technology besides the Web? How would this work with e-mail? How about Usenet? Most technologies don't (or may not) have a GUI interface to choose a server based on name.
Repeat after me: The Internet is not the Web.
Re:Read it and weep (Score:2)
E.g.:
e-mail: when you receive an e-mail the reply-to field contains as well as the name to be resolved, the tcp/ip address. If you hit reply, then you reply to that address. If you bookmark it, that's what you bookmark. etc. If you are typing it in, then you need to do a resolve (just as with the browser).
The design of the user interface isn't the hard part. By and large the modifications are trivial. The hard part is the changes to the internals, particularly resturcturing the DNS to be a lattice with rings rather than a tree. But this is what allows you to do locally based resolves (which remove load from the central name repeaters [remember, the names are assigned by the local groups without excessive worrying about clashes]). The local resolves then never need to refer to the more distant name repositories except when a more extended, or even global, resolve is needed. This is so that to the greatest extent possible, local resolves are handed locally. (A lot of this is quite like the current system, but the authority is located in a different place, and name clashes can be expected, so they must be allowed for.)
The result of this would be that if any particular segment of the net were severed from it's connection to the rest, it would continue to work locally to the greatest extent possible. Local cache refreshes wouldn't loose the locally available names. If a city is cut off, the local names within the city would continue to work.
Remember that a part of the design is that the bar to entry should be low. This means that the software to run the system must have some kind of public license. Open source isn't enough, it can't have any excessively restrictive license. (Open Source probably would be enough, though I'd need to check on exactly what they require for certification.) If I want to set up my own name registry, then I should be able to join the local ring. The rings should be small enough that each member holds all of the addresses in all the rest of the ring
OK, ring is a bit wrong, the concept is that within the local "ring" all the repositories have complete copies of every name that is locally registered. The uplinks are occasionally asked what names are locally registered, and they know all the names on every ring they are connected to. (Actually, it would probably be a request for changes to propagate... names could be relinquished, etc.)
Lots more details that I could think of, and I don't even know, really, how the current system works. The key point would be ensuring that nodes at whatever level could be added or removed without disabling the system. Tricky if you start thinking of just how a request for a global resolve could be processed. You don't want to do too much polling, but you also don't want to put too much load on any one machine. etc.
It isn't the user software that would be difficult (except for inspiring them to change it).
Re:Read it and weep (Score:1)
From the article:
It's a volume savings, according to him, so depending on the size of the registry you work for, YMMV. Unless you work for VeriSign, and I optimistically imagine that they are seeing less and less of an economy of scale as people flee to other registrars.
About Time (Score:1)
Actually, Karl can't see the books.... (Score:4, Informative)
Gilmore's letter to ICANN director Cerf (Score:5, Interesting)
Err, but yeah. The reason I'm posting is because anyone who hasn't read Gilmore's letter to Vint Cerf really should... it's intelligent, funny and scathing. It's at http://www.icannwatch.org/article.php?sid=763 [icannwatch.org] and it's brilliant.
Re:Gilmore's letter to ICANN director Cerf (Score:1)
Re:Gilmore's letter to ICANN director Cerf (Score:2)
/snip
"I have absolutely no idea what you are doing leading that megalomaniac, unaccountable, unresponsive, anti-expression, anti-public-interest organization."
/end snip
This is probably why they're introducing it (Score:1, Insightful)
"ICANN is going down, one way or another. Either it will go down like East Germany, with a peaceful transition to governance responsive to the public will, or it will go down like Japan, with big bombs dropped on it."
Somehow I don't think statements like that are going to go over to well.
That said, the rest of the letter is as the original poster said, intelligent, funny, and scathing. I used to have alot of respect for Vint Cerf too. I wonder what happened...
Re:This is probably why they're introducing it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gilmore's letter to ICANN director Cerf (Score:5, Informative)
sept 11th... (Score:2)
Brains (Score:1)
I wish we could get a president with brains...
BTW: Join the EFF [eff.org]!
P2P DNS, can it be done? (Score:1, Interesting)
We need a P2P version of DNS. Of course it would be much worse in terms of performance but it's harder to buy thousands of people than it is to buy a dozen.
Any ideas?
Re:P2P DNS, can it be done? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:P2P DNS, can it be done? (Score:2)
This doesn't imply that it's not do-able. Or that it isn't worthwhile. My favorite scheme has local dns servers that register their own names as they choose, and can also probe for a global resolve. Not a tree structure, but a lattice, with each level going up connected via a ring (or series of rings).
This scheme would result in name clashes, which would tend to be resolved in favor of the more local site, but which could also get a global list of matching sites. To resolve the clashes, each name should have an optional short descriptor field. Perhaps 40-50 chars. When a name clash resulted, then the desired site could be picked from a list.
This approach would still have large sites that mainly resolved names, and also small local sites that did the same. Breaks at one level would route around and up through an alternate link on an as-needed basis. Direct resolution would still be via TCP/IP id. If you asked for a site, you'ld tend to get the most local site that matched. If that didn't work, you could ask for a global resolve, and select from a list (which would be free form text, but short).
And there wouldn't be any central registry of names. There would instead be several central caches of names that were regenerated on a periodic refresh basis. Name assignment authority would be local.
I don't see why this would be any more compute intensive than the current system. Possibly slightly less. The local systems would only need to cache the sites that they served (as now) and, additionally, the sites that they registered.
What happened what that the original internet was designed at a time when there were many fewer computers, so the design was based around that. When hosts became too cumbersome, and improvement (DNS) was designed. And it was an improvement. But this sure doesn't make it perfect. One of the faults it that it depends on a centralized name registry. This limits the expansion, and leads directly to ICANN (choke points attract controling personalities). So any redesign needs to avoid this weakness. This means rethinking the means of name assignment. If you don't, then your professor is almost certainly right.
But if you redo the name assignment, then the browsers need adjustment or it will become difficult (the clash resolution list could be presented as a web page, created on the fly, but that would be less convenient than a drop-down list at the URL menu bar). And if you want to allow a request for a global name resolution (as opposed to a local resolution), then you need to provide some way to request it. Not hard, but requiring at least minimal adaptation.
These changes are a lot easier than some of the other changes that would be needed, but they would obsolete a lot more pieces of software. (All of the current web browsers.)
But this might be a very good time to start planning how to do this. IPv6 software is still being written, so now is when it would be easiest to implement. Or at least plan for implementation.
This ICANN business (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:1)
ICANN changes its name (Score:2, Funny)
ICANN will now be known as UCANT
(Universal Controller of All Network Traffic)
Corporate Governance Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it sounds very similar to the shenanigans at FIFA where the CFO went up against the CEO on the basis of some very dodgy payments and accounting practices that he had authorised. The CFO was forced to resign, alledgedly through the use of bought influence (In FIFA, Tonga has the same number of votes as Germany).
Lets just forget that it is the Internet and just look at other organisations involved in coordinating things internationally. I mentioned FIFA, we also know about the Olympics committee. Other organisations closer to home, such as CCITT tend to be bureaucratic and inefficient but not particularly corrupt.
Is it possible to have a minimalist organisation that is cheap, efficient and honest that can manage something like the Internet?
ICANN't, Can you?
Re:Corporate Governance Issue (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not know. However, if a board member begins to suspect that the organization is failing its charter due to, for example, over-spending on shady subcontracts, that board member has a responsibility and a right to check the books to see what's what.
This is the case here, and the management -- which is supposed to be subservient to the board -- is blocking a board member's request to check the books. That raises red flags for me and obviously the EFF, Gilmore, and others. I agree that this should be against the bylaws of an international organization responsible for managing a world-wide public resource.
Re:Corporate Governance Issue (Score:2)
Doesn't ITU already assign things like telephone country codes? It seems like doling out top-level domains would be well within their area of expertise and authority.
Re:Corporate Governance Issue (Score:2)
Re:Corporate Governance Issue (Score:2)
True. I feel .com, .org, .net, .int, and perhaps .edu should belong to
some long-established organization such as ITU, CCITT, or even
UN. Obviously the oddball US-specific top-level domains (.gov and .mil) should still belong to the US government--it's a weird legacy thing but there's not much point in changing them now.
I think most of the uproar against ICANN comes from the thought, "Who died and made them boss?" (Answer: Jon Postel died, the US Department of Commerce made them boss, but still...)
Re:Corporate Governance Issue (Score:2)
The US-centric view of the tlds is also leading to issues with uses of alternate character representations, which don't tend to get understood too well there.
Re:Corporate Governance Issue (Score:1)
Benevolent Dictatorship (Score:5, Informative)
"Whereas Robert Elz has devoted over 15 years of selfless and dedicated service to the global Internet community as the registry founder and operator of
Resolved that the ICANN Board on behalf of the global Internet community extends its deepest thanks to Robert Elz for his profound
countributions to the evolution and stable performance of the global Internet."
We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants
So we don't hate john gilmore today? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:So we don't hate john gilmore today? (Score:1)
You don't like his gateway, blackhole it. Problem solved.
Hm (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.icann.org/financials/ [icann.org].
Re:Hm (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like Enron's and Worldcom's financial statements were published for everyone to see?
Re: (Score:1)
Re:i've said it once and I will say it again (Score:2)
People keep talking about what the US Government should do about ICANN, but even the US Government is just a dubiously-implemented indirect representation of a small fraction of Internet users. The whole idea is ridiculous, because Internet users can directly vote for who should have that power, just by entering some addresses into their computers. Just pick a root who has the best policies and point to it. We don't need government involvement at all in this.
And yeah, when you're making that decision, OpenNIC stands out as the one who has the right idea.
Vint Cerf's statement prefixing Gilmore's email (Score:4, Informative)
It looked to me that Vint was doing everything he could legally do, to do the right thing.
-----------
I, Vinton Cerf, declare:
1. I am the Chairman of the Board of Defendant Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"). I have personal knowledge of the matters set forth herein and am competent to testify to those matters.
2. Mr. Auerbach has never, pursuant to Section 6 of the ICANN Inspection Procedures, requested full ICANN Board review of the Audit Committee's determination regarding the arrangements for his inspection of the corporate records.
3. On March 18, 1002, I received an e-mail from John Gilmore, in which he asserts that he "contributed significant funding for" this lawsuit. Mr. Gilmore is one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the organization providing representation for Mr. Auerbach in this lawsuit. A true and correct copy of the e-mail from Mr. Gilmore is attached hereto as Exhibit 1.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.
This declaration was signed on April 16, 2002 at Washington, D.C.
[ Signature ]
Vinton Cerf
[ Attached e-mail ]
-----------
I seems to me that Vint is pointing out that the decision was made by a subset of the Board of Directors, the "Audit Committee". It also points out that there is recourse available to Auerbach that he has not exercised, prior to filing the lawsuit.
It also seems (to me) that the statement numbered "3" was minimal, in not drawing any conclusions based on it. Thus the "terse statement" condemnation of Vint Cerf's statement in the article isn't really a very strong condemnation; it looks to me that, by leaving out the social context, Vint allows for interpretation favorable to the case.
This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that the statement numbered "2" seems to go out of its way to point out a way around the "Audit Committee", as if it were a tightly controlled minority clique of the full board, and in pointing out seems to imply success might be achievable via that route.
At the very least, Auerbach needs to try to avail himself of that route, so that if it fails, he can counter a motion for dismissal (i.e. it's arguable that this case is only a matter for the courts if all other reasonable recourse has been exhausted, which it has not been, according to this statement).
I have a very hard time believing that Vint would not have been as explicit or terse as this, were it not for the legal liability issue as the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Defendant.
-- Terry
Re:Vint Cerf's statement prefixing Gilmore's email (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vint Cerf's statement prefixing Gilmore's email (Score:2)
We don't have the history. It may be that he asked the Audit Committee instead of the full board, so he asked the wrong people. If I send a driver's license renewal into the Secretary of State for the state, I will be lucky to get a response at all, whereas if I send it into th DMV, I'm much more likely to get what I set out to get.
The real question is how was he asking, in such as way that the request was denied by this committee.
The name of the committee, the "Audit Committee", is somewhat of a giveaway as to what he was asking about the information: he appears to have wanted an audit.
In any event, it will be very hard to get a court to order the release of records that ICANN claims he can have by asking the right people.
The implication in the story is that the company -- not the Audit Comittee of the Board of Directors -- denied the request. But in Vint Cerf's statement #2, it's clearly implied that it was a subset of the Board of Directors that denied the request.
If I were in Vint Cerf's shoes, with a fiduciary responsibility to the company, and, I'll presume, a desire to See The Right Thing Happen, I could make it no clearer without legal risk. To me, he is saying:
"Mr. Auerbach, PLEASE request full ICANN Board
review of the Audit Committee's determination
regarding the arrangements for your inspection
of the corporate records, pursuant to Section
6 of the ICANN Inspection Procedures, so that
I can help you."
It's nearly impossible for me to read this any other way.
-- Terry
Re:Vint Cerf's statement prefixing Gilmore's email (Score:1)
Well, except in Illinois at least, where all driver's license renewals are mailed directly to the Secretary of State. Of course, half of the state buildings have his name on them too; apparently there's some sort of persistent megalomania that afflicts ICANN cronies as well as Illinois Secretaries of State.
Re:Vint Cerf's statement prefixing Gilmore's email (Score:3, Informative)
The point is that Auerbach by California law as a director does not have to ask the board, nor any committees of the board for access to the companies files. He needs to tell the staff of the company that he intends to inspect the companys offices and books.
By California law, the company is required to allow him to do that - he has an absolute right to do so.
In other words, the Audit Committe (which IS a subset of the board) or the full board itself, does not have the authority to deny him the request.
ICANN is trying to interpret "absolute rights" as "... as long as he accepts our restrictions". As soon as there are any restrictions, the rights can hardly be said to be absolute any more.
Since they are on shaky grounds, they have been trying to make Auberbach look as someone who would break the law and publish confidential material to hurt the company, and decided that they better preempt that - Ignoring that if Auerbach did something stupid like that, he might be facing criminal charges for violating his duties as a director, and so he already has a pretty clear reason not to.
Irrelevant (Score:2)
That may stop a judge saying "those crooks are hiding the records - throw them in jail", but I don't see how it would stop one saying "show him the damn records".
Vint Cerf's view: live on Thursday 2:30pm CET (Score:5, Informative)
Time is definitely up. (Score:4, Interesting)
that the administration of such an important trans-national medium as the
Internet is in effect in the uncontrolled hands of just so few people.
The 'Net is something of such international importance that no national
interest, commercial or otherwise, should have any control whatsoever other
than the delegated administration of the names registries of the
individual countries.
This, in effect, means that the only organisation which should be able to change
either the underlying protocols or the top level domains is the United Nations
My own feeling about top level domains other than the country ones is that they
should be simply removed. Absolutely every legal entity has a home in some
country somewhere or other. No more
which belong to organisations based in the United States should be using the
very few, genuinely international organisations which should have domain names
not tied to any particular country. The International Red Cross is the kind of
organisation which comes to mind as the type which has the moral right to the
irc.org domain name. Similarly there is a genuine need for a single
supra-national domain for the use of the Internet infrastructure as a whole. I
thought that
the interests of commercial gain.
The pollution of the
point. While these are certainly very useful and worthwhile projects, and the
groups of individuals are frequently located all around the globe, I really
don't think they have much in the way of absolute moral right to be in the
namespace. Perhaps they should have a fully international top level domain name
of their own. Is it
The administration of domains which have been given away or sold by their
countries should revert to the UN until the countries in question can do it for
themselves. The very idea that the whole address space for an entire country
can be traded away for the personal profit of an idividual is, in this author's
opinion anyway, just plain wrong, and should be corrected as soon as possible.
Similarly, while the enhancement of Internet security is sorely needed at the
moment, no particular commercial interest should ever be able to hijack the
whole exercise by introducing secret protocols protected by draconian
intellectual property laws. The overall effect of this will be to give the
particular patent holder the right to tax every Internet user, or indeed every
single message.
Is this really what we want?
--
Christopher Sawtell
Re:Time is definitely up. (Score:3, Insightful)
- non-profit organizations
- individuals for personal domains
- everything that doesn't fit into another TLD
Therefore, the only namespace pollution inRe:Time is definitely up. (Score:2)
Or some subgrouping of it. A bit like the way Canada used to do things before someone decided that yet another
Whilst there is a need for a
There is, I suppose, the argument that there are a few, very few, genuinely international organisations which should have domain names not tied to any particular country.
Quite a few could probably go along the lines of who.un, unesco.un, etc.
The International Red Cross is the kind of organisation which comes to mind as the type which has the moral right to the irc.org domain name.
Or even irc.int or redcross.int
DNS a chokehold to control the Internet with (Score:1)
I'm not usually given to conspiracy theories, but I think that this is exactly the point of the whole ICANN debacle. The DNS is one of, if not the only, chokepoint in the Internet, the rest of which is largely run in a decentralized, rational, and transparent manner. An open, uncontrolled and uncontrollable Internet is a threat to many established power groups.
The only theory I can come up with that fits all of the facts surrounding ICANN's behaviour is that some powerful group is behind ICANN and using the DNS to gain control over the Internet, for power and/or money. The way the management has given Auerbach the runaround makes it clear that the elected board members were intended to be powerless rubber stampers, which is why they're now dropping all pretenses of elections, since one of those elected directors is actually trying to do his job.
Kudos to Auerbach and Gilmore for standing up to these bullies. Meanwhile, I think that the technical Internet community should be building alternatives. Going up against the established powers on their own turf of the courts and political system is foolhardy. Even if we win this particular battle, the power nexus that the DNS roots imply will continue to attract the corrupt or corruptable. A technical solution that completely decentralizes the problem that DNS tries to solve is the best long term strategy, eliminating this particular threat forever.
This idea is completely in accord with one of Gilmore's maxims: "The net treats censorship as damage, and routes around it." The censorship and damage due to ICANN is clear, and we need to find a way around it.
Re:Time is definitely up. (Score:1)
My own feeling about top level domains other than the country ones is that they should be simply removed.
Here is where you have lost credibility with me. Pandora opened that box a long time ago and there is no undoing it. Your utopian ideal is simply unrealistic.
Just Say No -- use OpenNIC. (Score:2)
said again. If you don't like ICANN, just point
your DNS client to OpenNIC instead. Democratic
name service the way it should be.
It's easy to find and easy to use -- from ICANN-space, try http://www.opennic.net
Hang on a second (Score:2)
This is the same John Gilmore who we savaged for running an open mail relay [slashdot.org] and not backing down or compromising in any meaningful way.
Now, I fully support him in this endeavour, but let's not just slip into maudlin hero worship. Like an old fashioned preacher, Gilmore has gone from being representative, through conservative, until he's now an extreme fundamentalist, not because he's changed, but because the world has. Gilmore refuses to compromise his ideals one iota. Beyond a certain point that ceases to be admirable and just becomes stubborn and unrealistic.
Again: I agree with the issue, I think he's fighting the good fight, but I just have some reservations about his judgement. I've had the feeling for some time now that John Gilmore is living in the past, and he just won't let go.
Re:Hang on a second (Score:3, Interesting)
Attacks against people like John Gilmore (or Richard Stallman) for refusing to be "reasonable" and compromise their principles remind me of this quote from George Bernard Shaw:
This is not to say that Gilmore or Stallman are right about everything, they are not. But their effectiveness is associated with their refusal to abandon principle.
Do you know what will happen? (Score:2)
The only part I agree with (And it's already been talked about) is that the US Gov. should take back control of ICANN (Or a global governmental body). For the reasons listed in the article. But even as it is, there had better be a MUCH BETTER plan in place before even talking about getting rid of ICANN. The alternative will be the ususal situation of being far worse off after the wolves have had their fun.
Re:Do you know what will happen? (Score:1)
In the short-term, the only way things will break out of the control of the U.S.G. is if during a probable world-wide trade war between blocs, each of them carves out their 'sphere of influence' on the internet; and I suppose, 'negotiates' the 'interface' to each of the other 'root' domains. It wouldn't surprise me if China were to be the first to break out of a U.S.-controlled Internet, followed by the EU and/or the 'muslim'/african world...
But, clearly the BEST way to go? A socialist world without corporate behemoths -- and a democratically-controlled Internet (among other things) based on just such a 'bottom-up' approach.
I know libertarians don't like the prospect of communism -- being brought up in a knee-jerk ultra-capitalist environment -- but I point out that it is such as their laissez-faire attitude which has allowed the corporations to pull this very maneuver on us. It was bound to happen, given the amount of 'good faith' allowed the U.S.G. and its corporate backers -- a VERY ugly and criminal group of people, really!
Us commies could, and did, easily predict this state of afairs.
We also still have the only practical solution.
Quote: "firmly in the pocket of special interests" (Score:2)
"ICANN is secretive, slow, inefficient and, worst of all, firmly in the pocket of special interests."
From ICANN Forum [icann.org]: Vint has become crooked and does not answer emails any more.
ICANN wants more money to further increase their corrupt powers and for their Lawyers; JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE.
Karl should be allowed to see the books, with gagging preconditions. ICANN are supposed to be OPEN, for flips sake.
ICANN use spin to say critics are just trying to tear down ICANN.
Personally, I have always said ICANN (or similar) is necessary - as John Gilmore says, "No, we're trying to make ICANN accountable to its public for its actions."
Those responsible should pay with time in jail for any illegal acts. Not fines like corrupt fat cats pay - money that will come from us - the consumer.
We learn some new things, like it cost less than 25 cents per year per name to run domain name registry - are we all being screwed or what?
It should cost should cost the huge NSI less than 1 cent per year to do the work. Screwing everybody harder still - car dealers would love that percentage markup.
Mr Mueller, Mr Gilmore and myself all agree on about trademark abuse of power by the greedy corporations:
Milton Mueller's account of Internet governance, portrays ICANN primarily as a tool for trademark protection.
John Gilmore says "I do agree that ICANN and domain name policy has been perverted from the start by the machinations of trademark interests. Actual trademark law gives zero power to cancel or seize domain names, prevent their issuance, etc. Actual trademark law lets hundreds of people use the same name, both in different jurisdictions, and for different kinds of trades (e.g., computers vs. soap vs. ships). Trademark owners only have power over others when the others misrepresent themselves as the trademark owner."
The authorities IGNORE National and Classification boundaries - this is unlawful - ask any (honest) Lawyer. These authorities know the solution to these trademark/domain problems - it is easier than using the telephone.
My fellow posters - these corrupt people in the US DoC, UN WIPO and ICANN are aiding and abetting this abuse. They prevent all registered trademarks from using their mark - an illegal act.
The Truth will win in the end - and the corrupt will be named and shamed.
Please visit World Intellectual Piracy Organization [wipo.org.uk] - Not associated with United Nations WIPO.org !
Re:Polka! Vote for it!!! (Score:1)
Re:Polka! Vote for it!!! (Score:1)
Re:The EFF Sucks (Score:3, Troll)
I wouldn't say that the first sentance is true, but the second certainly is. EFF is a so-called polictical activism committee. Well, they whine for money for court cases that usually are doomed to the very start. Why dont they usually win? Well, they don't give enough money to overturn the laws as they're made. All other PAC's do heavy lobbying and giving of heavy amounts of money to opposing officals.
The EFF is a reactionary orginazation. These do NOT work. Instead, I'd rather put money (from anon sources) into a pool requesting program X to be written. So what if the program is deemed "Illegal". If it's out there (source and all), no company/government/grassroots campaign can take it away. For my example, look at the 200K being offered to hack the X-Box for Linux. That's exactly what I'm suggesting.
Re:The EFF Sucks (Score:1)
Funny you should mention that. The current leading candidate for the anonymous contributor is... John Gilmore.
EFF does usually win (Score:1)
Re:The EFF Sucks (Score:4, Informative)
> usually are doomed to the very start
> Why don't they usually win?
*cough* e-mail has as much protection as phone calls, requires a warrant to seize [eff.org]
*cough* Code declared free speech [eff.org]
*cough* CDA overturned [eff.org]
*cough* Dmitry freed [eff.org]
> I'd rather put money (from anon sources) into
> a pool requesting program X to be written.
*cough* the DES-cracker [eff.org]
*cough* any number of free software projects that Gilmore has personally funded.
Aim your bullets at the other side, kid. You're smoking up the mess hall.
Re:The EFF Sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Actually this isn't the first time money has been ante'd for free stuff. There was a guy (not anon, just forget name) that was offering 10K for soft-modem drivers. Still, nobody's made it.
And yeah, the Linux X-Box does seem hoax-ish.. But it's a great way to get on Slashdot. But still, if Linux on XBox is possible, the 200K might pay for a little of the legal fees. I bet, though that he does have the money (whoever it is), but bets that nobody will be able to.
The only way see that Linux can get onto the XBox without hardware mods, is by hijacking a legit program with unsecured binary code. Smash stack, gain control and run Linux. Then you have to deal with infringement of the hijacked game. All in all, a platform I'd rather not buy, or touch.
Re:The EFF Sucks (Score:1)
Re:ATTENTION ALL NEGROES (Score:1)
Re:Be wary of all international orgs. (Score:4, Informative)
you might clue me in a bit about what the hell Mr Bush is whining about.
Noone else seems to have a problem, but to the US this is the biggest deal in the world, apperantly.
On the other hand the Bush administration (IMHO) tries to weasel it's way out of any and all international agreements.
What is his problem with agreeing to common rules and sticking to them?
All the world isn't texas you know, George.
Re:Be wary of all international orgs. (Score:1)
That's what the rest of the U.S. has been saying for years now; it hasn't really made an impression yet, but we're hoping that sometime before the end of his term he'll figure out that the U.S. also includes areas called "New York", "Los Angeles", and "North Texas" (i.e. everything else).
Frankly, if it hadn't been for 9/11, I don't think he ever would have acknowledged that there's a whole world outside the borders of Texas^WAmerica.
Re:Be wary of all international orgs. (Score:1, Offtopic)
This could undermine the authority of the court if others follow the US example. The whole point of the tribunal is to enforce rules that apply uniformly to everyone.
What Bush is doing is actually different than what at least one other US president did. Bill Clinton supported The Hauge (as far as I know).
I think Bush is making a big mistake, it will come back to bite the world bigtime if he neuters this court.
Hope not though...