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Subject: [IP] Re: Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
________________________________________
From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:51 PM
To: David Farber; 'ip'
Cc: 'Dan Steinberg'
Subject: RE: [IP] Re: Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
The company name thing is a side issue and not the fundamental problem. The real problem is that we have a centralized directory – imagine if you had to register your children’s and pet’s names in a central register in order to be able to use the names. It means the devices in your boat can’t have stable identifiers unless they are jacked into Internet Central.
Even assuming that you are willing to accept the dependency why do you have to own someone's name? What darn fool would do such a silly thing as to wire names into the plumbing. There's a reason we dial +1-123-456-1213 instead of dialing "GM". And there's a reason we use Google (et al) to do lookups instead of assuming that we can guess any name and not make any typos. Well-known names are the exception.
What we have is a classic problem like using the disk address as a SKU number or as user name (as did the PDP-10 OS). You quickly learn to decouple the meaningful name or identifier from the binding handle.
We have trademark law to deal with social issues and we have handles as a mechanism. If we didn't confuse the two we'd be able to accommodate the human need for meaningful names and the computer need for stable handles and the ability to define persistent relationships as with URLs.
Again, remember that well-known companies are the trivial exception - just because you can type in www.GE.Com<http://www.GE.Com> and find GE doesn’t mean it works -- and it doesn't. GE is a local name in the US and there is a different GE in the UK! Who wins? Or which JoesBarAndGrill.Pub is the real one? Why is only one real anyway?
Subtotal line – A DNS can’t be a directory and stable – it has to be one or the other.
Bottom Line – the idea of names being defined by a centralized hierarchy is IDIDiocy (Intelligent Designed IDentifiers).
As I keep pointing out – there is no cellular phone book and even assumption that the phone book is definitive is an illusion. And if we can’t do it for what may be the ultimate hierarchical system then why would it work in the fullness of decentralized and ambiguous reality?
-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 16:14
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Re: Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
________________________________________
From: Synthesis:Law and Technology Law and Technology [synthesis.law.and.technology@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:51 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip; bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
Dave,
"But the names are leased not owned."
For the names to be leased, they have to be owned by 'someone'. It is certainly in the interest of registries and ICANN to assert ownership. Who can blame them? But how did they get to owning anything? To assert ownership someone must find a way to define ownership of the internet.
I know this is a debate that has been played out before. But there is a difference this time that I think is significant and bears mentioning.
If a very well known international company puts up a TLD in their name and there is a conflict down the line, rest assured that they will not hesitate to challenge the concept of ownership of 'their' name. As usual people tend to confuse domains with Trademarks. Trademark rights are devolved from legislation in a specific country. What country can claim the right to hand out, lease or otherwise register TLDs?
So the bottom line is that IFit is decided that we need to keep the original mission of DNS as replacing hosts.txt file AND IF it is decided that the DNS is the best place for stable identifiers then there is no inherent bar to it.
Dan Steinberg
SYNTHESIS:Law & Technology
35, du Ravin phone: (613) 794-5356
Chelsea, Quebec
J9B 1N1
On 6/26/08, David Farber <dave@farber.net<mailto:dave@farber.net>> wrote:
________________________________________
From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com<mailto:bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com>]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:17 PM
To: David Farber; 'ip'
Cc: 'Lauren Weinstein'
Subject: RE: [IP] Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
How could it have been otherwise? Any such organization will have stakeholders and it's even more the case when the process is self-reinforcing. If there were redeeming value we could deal with it but if the system exists mainly to perpetuate itself then we have a problem.
· If we could use DNS names as stable identifiers then it would be in keeping with the original mission of replacing the /etc/hosts file with something more stable. But the names are leased not owned.
· If it provided authoritative information it might serve a purpose but getting approved by a registrar means little. We have alternative vouching services we can choose to use for certificates instead.
· If it was dealing with real scarcity it would be important but instead it creates scarcity by hording a supply of human-meaningful strings and can't even let us hold onto them.
· If it didn't act as a gatekeeper for having a presence we might tolerate it.
· If it were a directory service or acted as an effective registry like the trademark system we'd find value.
· If it weren't a central dependency like any other telecom service we could embrace it being in the spirit of the Internet rather than as an interim hack.
· If it didn't create real damage by being the basis for URI's and other identifiers we could tolerate it.
· If it didn't assure that all links will go bad by default and get repurposed we could tolerate it.
But not only does it do none of the above – the extent to which we believe that it does any of them it preempts efforts to provide effective and sustainable solutions while lulling us into a false sense of security.
So of course it's about stakeholders.
I don't blame the original architects of the DNS – the failures only came to light over time. And I do appreciate that those who formed ICANN did so with the best of intentions. But over time the problems came to the fore and we found ourselves with a new commodity that could be monetized for the good of those who benefit from scarcity. Even then those who do may very well believe the DNS is necessary and the best we can do. It is not and it is not.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net<mailto:dave@farber.net>]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 13:31
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
________________________________________
From: Lauren Weinstein [lauren@vortex.com<mailto:lauren@vortex.com>]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:15 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: lauren@vortex.com<mailto:lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
Direct From ICANN Paris Meeting: Surprise! The Money is What Matters!
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000394.html
Greetings. Since my posting yesterday
( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000393.html ) expressing strong
distaste for ICANN's plans to vastly expand the global top-level
domain (gTLD) naming system, I've received some interesting analysis
and reports from the current Paris ICANN meeting itself. They boil
down to one inescapable and extremely unfortunate fact.
ICANN has seemingly become dangerously beholden to moneyed
interests, and pretty much everyone else now gets short shrift -- to
the detriment of the Internet and its users at large. I don't even
really blame ICANN's people and participants for this per se --
structural problems with ICANN, some reaching back to its
essentially ad hoc creation in the first place (and arguably to the
death of Internet pioneer Jon Postel) have essentially guaranteed
this state of affairs.
While there do appear to be attendees at the Paris meeting who are
concerned broadly about DNS stability under the new ICANN plan, the
vast bulk of attendees see the upcoming gTLD gold rush as yet
another way to line their pockets with greenbacks and euros -- the
vast majority of attendees are apparently registrars and registries
(and their minions) -- they know which side their bread is buttered
on.
Priorities at the meeting were reportedly set in the ICANN version
of the Twilight Zone. While long-winded (and palpably boring)
monologues restating existing positions on squeezing money out of
new gTLDs took most of an afternoon, truly important issues like
IPv6 reportedly got barely five minutes.
One correspondent expressed to me his belief that the complicated
(and still incomplete in key respects) ICANN procedures would likely
keep us from being flooded with millions of new gTLDs overnight --
but implied (and I agree with this part completely) that voluminous
and expensive litigation by particularly aggressive and militant
applicants could result in literally any outcomes, however bizarre
and disruptive to the Internet and its users -- and the world at
large -- those outcomes may be. I would add that this particular
correspondent took a much more upbeat stance in a public posting on
a major mailing list today -- leaving out most of the strong
misgivings and concerns that they expressed to me in private
e-mail. I don't care to speculate on the reasons for this
discrepancy.
I was also blamed indirectly for the problems. Participants in Paris
who bemoaned the current state of affairs regarding ICANN apparently
expressed some exasperation that interested parties (such as
myself) -- who are concerned about genuinely important Internet issues --
haven't actively participated in the ICANN process, attended the
meetings, and otherwise tried to alter the existing ICANN trajectory
into a sensible course.
Outside of the fact that many persons -- including me -- don't have
the resources to fly around the world to frequently exotic ICANN
meeting locales (at this stage, paying for gas just to get around
L.A. is a concern), there is another key factor at work.
With truly the greatest of respect for ICANN's hard-working people,
I still would suggest that many observers of ICANN feel that its
structural processes are broken in ways that cannot be significantly
influenced by persons with contrarian views vs. ICANN's existing
modus operandi.
Many of us believe that a dramatic change in "Internet governance"
is long overdue, and that this cannot be accomplished within the
existing structure of ICANN, despite ICANN's best efforts. Such a
belief does not engender an obvious enthusiasm for spinning wheels
and fighting battles whose outcomes are usually predetermined.
However, I do have a few ideas for useful new gTLDs. How about:
dot-shameful
dot-ripoff
dot-greed
dot -- oh, you get the idea.
When the most accurate way to predict the outcome of
controversial Internet technical issues is to employ the maxim
"Follow the Money!" -- well, to call it a sad state of affairs
is a supreme understatement.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com<mailto:lauren@vortex.com> or lauren@pfir.org<mailto:lauren@pfir.org>
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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