Why ICANN Needs Fresh Blood 96
scubacuda writes "Akash Kapur of CircleID has written an editorial, Why ICANN Needs Fresh Blood: A Deeper View . Kapur writes, "ICANN was born amid the heady days of Internet euphoria. Its early promise to be the world's first global democracy (not to mention an entirely new form of governance) was a product of that euphoria. But like so many dot-coms, ICANN quickly succumbed to the hubris of its own vision. If ICANN has been a troubled organization from the start, then that is in no small measure because it over-promised at the start....What's needed is fresh blood -- new personalities, and new ideas to break the ideological impasse." Kapur lists cancelled at-large elections, the authoritarianism and secrecy of ICANN discussion, and the narrowing possibility that ICANN could represent a new model of governance as indicators that global democracy has failed."
(in)action (Score:5, Insightful)
It took me a long time to realize this, but the Internet qua Internet will NOT change the world for the better.
If you were part of the upper echelon in the Soviet Union, would YOU want democracy? Would you give up the security--your nice apartment, caviar dinners, and KGB contacts--to live in a country where you didn't know what your lot/role in life would be?
Once you look at it this way, everything from the way that closed regimes limit netizens' access to information makes to the way cable and software companies (namely, Microsoft) "act strategically" makes sense.
People/governments/regimes have worked hard to make their way to the top. They're not about to put in place policies or architectures in place that threaten that hegemony.
My question to the
Re:Actually what we need is... (Score:4, Insightful)
because extra beaurocracy _always_ solves organizational problems. Please, no...
ICANN was always a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
The design of the DNS system makes ICANN unnecessary. The whole idea of ICANN was founded by people who did not understand how this was so for the purpose of establishing privilege ( as in from Latin privilegium, a law affecting one person : privus, single, alone + lex, leg-, law ) for certain minorities to exert control over the DNS namespace.
Large corporations and cadres of lawyers are just as happy as the rest of us about domain squatting. They are even less happy about the whole somethingSUCKS.com court decisions which (by interpereting the US Constitution 1st Amendment) allow people to set up very spiffy parody sites to lampoon their hard-fought corporate images. How are they going to get control of this nasty thorn in their side?
The correct way for those people to solve their problem is to "fork" the DNS root and create their own set of root servers supervised by their lawyers. They could then begin boycotting the original root servers' registrars, and require end users to use DNS servers that submit to their authority. The first problem with that is how so many corporations will fail to agree on enough details to let that happen. The second problem is that anyone could selectively forward queries to their servers for some lookups, and forward queries to other peoples' servers for other lookups. Each DNS server decides who to delegate what authority to. Each end-user could theoretically run their own DNS server without ever needing to query a root server.
The bottom line is that DNS is anarchy, but there is a de facto consensus to trust several root server operators to be cool. The first step to accomplishing what the IANA wants to do is to convince people to revoke trust in the existing root servers. Instead, they keep trying to bully the root server operators, who roll their eyes and sigh..
The real risk that the IANA faces is that the DNS root server authority gets institutionalized in a widely publicised and debated way. If they can't weasel their way into control quietly, they risk the door being be slammed in their face by a new consensus formed out of "informed consent". It's like the UN where everybody has a veto, and it is terribly uncertain how the vote will go.
The real reason the ICANN is such a joke is that the tootpaste is out of the tube. People are widely aware of the attempted power grab, and the important people know how futile that is once it is widely known. ICANN would only be allowed to operate if it behaved identically to the current system, which begs the question: why are we fixing it if it isn't broke?
Pay attention to Verisgn.com (who bought NSI). They will attempt to leverage DNS authority with their x509 business. Look at how BIND9 signed-zones are supposed to work. It isn't just ICANN we should be worried about.
Learn PGP keyring management. It is complicated. It is very worthwhile though. The PGP trust management system is our defense. We should seek to protect the right to that system in the Supreme Court of the US under the Bill of Rights.
Re:ICANN's effort at Empire Building (Score:5, Insightful)
The real shame of ICANN is not ICANN - although there is more than enough in that swamp alone - but, rather, in the way that the US government, in the form of the US Dept of Commerce, has abandoned principles of Constitutional and administrative law. Congress is only slightly less to blame for letting the executive branch (which is where one finds the Dep't of Commerce) get away with it.
I have suggested reforming ICANN - not the pseudo reform that ICANN has gone through. See my notes at http://www.cavebear.com/rw/apfi.htm [cavebear.com]
Globalization is a keyword (Score:3, Insightful)
At the same time Internet existence is not protected by proper international laws. And now we begin digging much deeper problems. The modern international law system is obsolete.
Recent events in Iraq demonstrate it. One arrogant leader of the most power country ignores all international laws in order to get rid from the other arrogant leader. It's like I am telling to police officer: "don't interfer, I will be dealing with my theaft by myself".
Internet in the same danger. If US govt will begin disconnecting countries from US, while other countries will not support it - there will be lots of problem with traffic, Internet will be bad, but it will survive. But if Mr President will decide that embargo is not a proper mean any more will start a cyber-war or something like that - that will be a beginning of the end of the Internet.
What I am telling, that all attempts to rebuild ICANN will be useless wasting of time and efforts (if not dangerous) until it will be protected by proper system of internation laws, which is broken today with a great help from US President.