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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 207
Netizens-Digest Monday, November 16 1998 Volume 01 : Number 207
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Do Internet Users exist?
Re: [netz] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
Re: [netz] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
[netz] Is Netscape filtering sites?
Re: [netz] Is Netscape filtering sites?
[netz] Re: [ifwp] Do Internet Users exist?
[netz] ICANN draws criticism from two groups
[netz] NYT online report of Saturday's New Internet Board Meeting
[netz] Re: [ifwp] Governance of the Net - not Was Re: ICANN Boston
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 17:22:27 +0100 (CET)
From: Ingo Luetkebohle <ingo@devconsult.de>
Subject: Re: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Do Internet Users exist?
Hi Kerry,
I'm afraid we (I) got a bit off track here. Anyone care to tell me what the
original discussion was? *blush*
On Sat, 14 Nov 1998, Kerry Miller wrote:
> b) Things worked increasingly better as more nodes/operators got the hang
> of TCP/IP, no doubt about it. Nonetheless, noone has yet issued any
> guarantee that you wont have to dial up 200+ times in a row to get on, like
> we have done in times not so long past.
I wasn't saying that the net was perfect, its not and it never was.
However, I meant to say that the net was working better than most other
networks at that time. So: "it worked" and that was one of the primary
reasons of its widespread adoption. People didn't care so much *why* it
worked.
Additionally, there are operators who give guarantees like the one you
quoted. For example, the company I work for does guarantee that to its
dial-up customers.
> d) " Humanity got scared and experimentalism was lost in the upheaval that
> followed....People have the tendency to be single-minded...." Excuse me,
> but dont generalizations like these do more harm than good in *any*
> conversation? Experimentalism is not lost, and plenty of people are not
> singleminded (nor even tend to be), even if we knew how to measure such
> factors exactly.
Serves me right. Yeah, I was in a bit of a cynical mood yesterday and made
generalizations. Please don't take it too seriously.
What I *do* believe in earnest is that the general statements I made
reflect an overall *trend*. I also believe that its worse in germany than
in the US.
- --
Ingo Luetkebohle / 21st Century Digital Boy
dev/consulting Gesellschaft fuer Netzwerkentwicklung und -beratung mbH
url: http://www.devconsult.de/ - fon: 0521-1365800 - fax: 0521-1365803
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 10:48:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller) wrote:
>So, did you execute your proposal? What's the next step?
I proposed that someone from ICANN do it in an official capacity.
I would do it myself, but I am not an ICANN member. I think it should
be done in an official capacity, so that when people read it they are
more likely to take it seriously. No one seemed interested.
- --gregbo
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 12:09:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller) wrote:
>Why consider it as going back? I'm suggesting that we organize *as
>if* our interest in open communication for the advancement of human
>understanding has corporate standing - the height of irony of course,
>since 'incorporation' was conceived as giving business the standing
>of an individual! The worm has turned 180; we're only insisting it
>should continue on around.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
The feeling I get from people who have access to people who are major
stakeholders in Internet business is that they want to compete for
consumers.
- --gregbo
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 16:45:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Netizens mailing list <netizens@menno.com>
Subject: [netz] Is Netscape filtering sites?
I'm working from memory here, so some of my facts might be
wrong. However, adult site www.whitehouse.com was ticked
off at Netscape because they were using some "intelligent
process" so that when you type in just "whitehouse" it
sends you to www.whitehouse.org rather than the usual
method of putting www in front and .com on the end to
build the URL out of the one word title typed in.
The concern to this group was the comment that when
Netscape does this, they are, in effect, filtering
out sites and restricting ability to get to all of the
sites available, and "bypassing DNS." I thought it
was humorous that they talked about bypassing (Netscapse
response was that if you type in the full URL you
still get there).
For discussion: what about DNS servers that would list
some sites and not others. Would this indeed restrict
people since you would have to go back to knowing the IP
address rather than a DNS name? What if there are several
corporate nets with root servers. Then it really would
depend upon whose DNS tree you use as to whether something
like www.cbs.com points to the Columbia Broadcasting Company
website or Creative Business Services web site. I can see
the confusion already, since instead of advertising site
names, they would have to start using IP addresses in order
to assure contact with the right location. Yikes!
- -tom
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 22:53:33 -0400
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: Re: [netz] Is Netscape filtering sites?
Tom,
> What if there are several
> corporate nets with root servers. Then it really would
> depend upon whose DNS tree you use as to whether something
> like www.cbs.com points to the Columbia Broadcasting Company
> website or Creative Business Services web site.
Is the solution simply to let the firstest have the mostest (or vice versa!),
or to delegate sub-domain responsibilities on down the line? That is, why not
let everybody who wants to have the *top pointer of www.cbs.com get
together to maintain a 'menu' where the various different sites can be
discriminated according to some small quantum of further information? (Is it
really so important that *all* responsibility for choice is handed over to some
damned machine?)
kerry
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 22:53:34 -0400
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Do Internet Users exist?
Ingo wrote,
> What I *do* believe in earnest is that the general statements I made
> reflect an overall *trend*. I also believe that its worse in germany than
> in the US.
Here we are, in the midst of the most extensive and appealing linkup of
humans ever achieved, where every person can speak for him or herself,
and all we can do is talk about 'everybody else'! I think if ICANN were to
institute one single rule - the absolutely prohibition of all traffic mentioning
statistical measures of *people* -- the entire argument about other
distinctions (specifically, commerce versus citizen ) would be moot.
I endeavor to write what I think, and I try to read what others write in the
same vein. But all too often, *someone* insists on construing such
statements as having to do with what 'most people' do or should do, as if all
communication equates with journalistic reportage or 'policy making.' It's
depressing, frankly, so I apologize if my response derailed the significance of
what you were trying to say (or caused you to lose the thread ;-))
I admit, it would be really nice if more people ventured into this venue -
Certainly, the silence confirms the already well substantiated *statistic* that
a remarkable majority of net 'consumers' simply do not know how to express
themselves -- but one statistic is a very poor basis on which to postulate
'policy' of any sort, let alone for the governance of the net. On the contrary,
shouldn't it inspire us to set a good example, and wouldn't it then be much
easier to 'demonstrate' that policy can flow *from* consensus instead of the
other way around?
But that's just my idiosyncratic opinion!
kerry
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 14:06:49
From: John Walker <jwalker@networx.on.ca>
Subject: [netz] ICANN draws criticism from two groups
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ICANN draws criticism from two groups
By Elinor Mills and Kristi Essick
http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9811124icann
Two groups interested in how Internet governance is evolving have
asked the U.S. government not to accept a set of revised bylaws
submitted by the newly created board of directors for Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Last week, the ICANN board presented to the U.S. Department of
Commerce a set of modified bylaws, or guidelines, which detail the
structure and activities of the nonprofit corporation (see story).
Now a group of administrators of country-code Top Level Domains
(ccTLD), which hands out domains that end with codes such as .mx for
Mexico, and a group of Internet experts, known as the Boston Working
Group (BWG), are asking the U.S. government to prevent the ICANN
board from adopting the bylaws. The BWG had submitted an alternative
to ICANN.
The BWG wants the government to wait for a public meeting scheduled
for Nov. 14 in Cambridge, Mass., before approving the bylaws and
transferring to ICANN the authority to oversee top-level domains and
IP addresses. Currently, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) has a contract with the U.S. government to maintain the
Internet infrastructure.
If ICANN has a contract with the U.S. government before the public
meeting, it won't have the incentive to reach a consensus on
controversial issues in the bylaws, the BWG said in its letter.
The BWG is primarily concerned with the role of so-called Supporting
Organizations (SO) in the bylaws. "We see in the current structure a
danger that the SOs will evolve into producer cartels in domain name
and number markets," the letter said.
Meanwhile, administrators for ccTLDs want to preserve existing
policies governing the management of their country-specific domain
names. The group, which is calling itself the International
Association of Top Level Domains (IATLD), has 12 members including
.LA from the Lao People's Democratic Republic, .MX of Mexico and .DO
from the Dominican Republic. A total of 69 ccTLD administrators
support the IATLD, and 66 of them have signed a petition asking ICANN
not to change the existing ccTLD policy, said IATLD member Bill
Semich, president of .NU Domain Ltd.
The revised bylaws would recognize "each nation's sovereign control
over its individual Top Level Domain." However, the existing policy
has allowed any entity to serve as a registry on a first-come,
first-served basis if it meets certain criteria. Few of the more
than 220 ccTLDs are governmental entities, according to Semich. The
current ccTLDs fear that under the revised bylaws, governmental
bodies could apply to become registries and knock most of the current
ccTLDs out of business.
In addition, if the newest ICANN bylaw proposal goes through as is,
individual countries will be left to deal completely with their own
TLD administration process, instead of being part of the global
domain name process that many hoped would come from the formation of
ICANN, IATLD said in its statement.
That could "nationalize and segment the Internet, breaking it up
into parcels of cyber-territories," the statement said.
Esther Dyson, interim chairman of the ICANN board, said, "Obviously
we think we have gone about as far as we can go. She added that "a
fair part of the Internet community is happy with what we've done.
"We've made a lot of progress," she said. "Clearly we haven't won
everybody over, and at some point we're just not going to. The world
is too diverse."
Calls to the Commerce Department and senior policy advisor Ira
Magaziner, who said earlier this week that he planned to resign,
were not returned. However, a statement on the National
Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) Web site
indicates there will be no action taken before the meeting on
Saturday.
"We are currently reviewing the ICANN submission," Becky Burr,
associate administrator of the NTIA for international affairs, said
in the statement. "We look forward to the results of the ongoing
online discussions and the results of the ICANN open meeting in
Boston scheduled for Nov. 14."
http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9811091icann
- ---------------
Also in this issue:
- - Justice Expert Debunks Browser Integration
Not all organizations need or want Internet browsers built into
their operating systems -- which they do need, said the next witness
in the U.S. Department of Justice versus Microsoft antitrust case in
written testimony released late Friday.
- - NSI snafu stalls some Net access
Web surfers trying to gain access to some Web sites hit a roadblock
earlier this week.
- - ICANN draws criticism from two groups
Two groups interested in how Internet governance is evolving have
asked the U.S. government not to accept a set of revised bylaws
submitted by the newly created board of directors for Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
- - Microsoft showcases new text technology
Microsoft researchers hope to make reading text on computer screens
much easier -- a move that could jump-start the electronic book
business -- with new software, to be first shown at Comdex, that
greatly enhances screen resolution.
- - Y2K closes the window on software upgrades
Software providers looking to deliver major upgrades of their
applications may be out of luck as IT organizations stretched too
thin by the year-2000 problem move to postpone all major software
upgrades.
- - Group forms to end software chaos
An impressive IT industry force is assembling to launch an ambitious
quest for the holy grail of true interoperability and open systems.
- - Lucent To Equip New Homes With Futuristic Network
[November 13, 1998] Lucent Technologies has signed contracts worth
more than $22 million to equip several residential communities now
under construction with an advanced communications network that will
offer a variety of high-tech services.
- - National Semiconductor to unveil wireless Internet device design
For those who can't sit still while surfing the Internet, National
Semiconductor Corp. has a device to free Web users from their desks.
- - Students Dropping Out, Tuning Into Computer Industry
DAYTON, Ohio -- Last year, University of Dayton sophomores
David Marshall and Kevin Guyton decided it was time to commit to
their dreams of success in the computer business.
It was time to drop out of school.
- - New Lists and Journals
* NEW: Teacher Talk - Free Weekly Newsletter
* CHANGE: Simple-Times - Frugal Living
* NEW: This Week In US History
- - Sunday Supplement
SURVEYS THIS WEEK:
INTERNATIONAL : Germany Goes on Internet Strike
: Vietnam To Cut Net Access Rates
ISP INDUSTRY : UK ISP Subscriptions Rising
: India Finally Issues ISP Licenses
: Saudi Arabia Issues First ISP Licenses
ECOMMERCE : Holiday Gift Market Remains Untapped
: German Businesses Appraise Ecommerce
: Ecommerce in Europe Set to Rocket
: Majority of SMEs to Build Ecommerce Sites
: Emarketers Respond to Analysts
: Online Trading Settles Down
ADS/MARKETING : Ad Revenue to Hit USD2 Billion in 1998
: Banner Ads Drop in Price
COMPUTER INDUSTRY : PC Sales in the US Will Slump in 2000
MISCELLANEOUS : Online Porn Industry Facing Crisis
: A Flexible Work Place Means Higher Profits
: 44 Percent of College Courses Use Email
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 23:35:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] NYT online report of Saturday's New Internet Board Meeting
See the important article written about the meeting Saturday 11/14/98
by a reporter from the online New York Times of the New ICANN Board.
I will try to write something about the meeting for the Netizens list
in the next few days, but the New York Times Reporter did a good
job, and she is getting a hard time from Esther Dyson and the Internet
Society folks for the good story she wrote.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/11/cyber/articles/14domain.html
New Internet Board Hears Plenty of Skepticism
By JERI CLAUSING
AMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Nearly 200 people from all over the world on Saturday delivered a strong message to the board charged with establishing a private system of Internet governance: We don't trust you.
That theme, along with repeated calls for a system that protects the Internet from special interests, were about the only things everyone seemed to agree on in the first public meeting of the initial board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Although many criticized the hearing as a dog and pony show, a number of the different groups that have been battling for years over how to privatize the administration of the Internet still expressed a reluctant willingness to work with the board. The meeting, held at a hotel just outside Boston, was intended to try and reach consensus on the complicated organizational issues that still need to be decided for private leadership.
Asked by the interim board chairwoman, Esther Dyson, how many in the room were optimistic that consensus could be reached, about one-third raised their hands. ...
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 10:19:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Governance of the Net - not Was Re: ICANN Boston
Esther Dyson wrote:
>FWIW to me governance of the Internet means a lot of things that I am
>intensely interested in personally, but that ICANN does not directly deal with:
>privacy (except disclosure of domain name & address holders)
>taxation (except certain fees)
>e-commerce & prosecution of fraud
>provision of service/access to the poor
>censorship/freedom of speech
>telecom pricing/access fees/etc.
>copyright/IP issues other than trademarks - where there is a body of law(s)
>to look to
>etc.
If this were true then the U.S. govt would not be talking of turning
over the cooperative public assets of 4.3 billion IP numbers,
root server system, domain name system, to this private corporation.
These assets carry with them the ability to establish control
over the above and many other aspects of the Internet such
as if the corporation decides to not allow some country or
people to get IP numbers, if they decide to charge or authorize
a charge for IP numbers etc.
Though I dispute that the U.S. govt has the authority to hand
ove these public assets, George Sadowsky's letter to Dave Farber's
IP list yesterday gave the impression that assets had already
been turned over.
But it is clear that the U.S. govt is claiming it does have authority
to give away these public assets, and Esther, neither you nor
anyone else on the Board present at Saturday's meeting of the
ICANN board in Boston expressed any concern of being in control
of such great power and weath.
Instead when a New York Times online reporter wrote an article
expressing some of the concerns of people at the meeting, you were
quick to attack the article, demonstrating why the U.S. press is
so timid about letting the U.S. public know what is going on.
Reporters have to fear for complaints from those they are assigned
to cover. I have in the past heard from reporters that the kinds
of complaints they get for stories they do leads their editors
to keep them from covering important stories.
If you or any of the Board members had any interest in the
public or the Internet you would have welcomed the criticisms and
concerns and tried to understand them, and you would have
welcomed the online New York Times article. ("New Intenet Board
Hears Plenty of Criticism", NYTimes online 11/14/98)
Instead you want to put the candles out so you can take control
of what are cooperative public resources and utilize them
for private purposes.
The Office of Inspector General of the National Science Foundation
in their Feb., 1997 report described how even ownership and
control of the Internet IP numbers would be a serious anti
trust violation under U.S. Law, and you and your board are
claiming you can own and operate IP numbers, the Domain Name
System, the Root Server System, set policy for the protocols, etc.
of the Internet.
Until now these functions have been under public authority and though
there is a genuine need to share such authority in a wise way,
to take it out of the public sector and put it in private hands
doesn't in any way solve any problem.
It only opens a Pandora's box for many many new problems.
And there are people who gave up their Saturday and took
the time and expense to go and try to say what they could
in the 2 minute or 1 minute (or 20 second) allocated time
you were so generous to provide to them, and the result
is that you are upset to have heard anything but praise for
your activities and claim you shouldn't be held responsible
for all the power you are in the process of helping to transfer
from the public into private hands.
>We have enough on our plate managing the IANA functions without having to
>deal with all of the above.
But you folks have none of the technical or Internet necessary
knowledge to be able to manage IANA functions, and none of the
public concerns or obligations to be able to provide the
public oversight that is needed.
And since IANA functions involve the central points of control
over the Internet, you are essentially grabbing control of
the Internet.
<...>
>Esther
If you want some limitation of obligation, then there needs to
be limitation on powers and ownership.
NONE of the ESSENTIAL functions of the Internet should be transferred
to this private corporation.
It is clear that the U.S. govt. wasn't interested in exploring whether
some advisory group could help solve the domain name problems
that had arisen from its mismanagement of NSI's contract. Otherwise
they could have made an effort to set up any number of prototypes
(such as the one I proposed in my proposal to them at
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt ) Or they
could have set up an advisory committee on the issue.
But instead they are claiming they will transfer public cooperative
resources to some private entity with no social or public obligation.
Do you know where or how this proposal has arisen? If so will you make it
public?
If not, don't you think that the first obligation as so called
Chairman of the Board is to find out where the idea came from
to create this private entity and what the rationale behind it is?
I recently wrote to Dave Farber that the more I look into this
situation, the less I know about who is behind it and why it
is happening.
He claimed in a brief answer to me that he didn't know why the
U.S. govt was doing this either.
Do you Esther? Does anyone on your Board or does Mike Roberts?
Is so, explain or have them explain, and take a good hard look
at the public power and public wealth that this board is
claiming it will own and control and begin to demonstrate some
recognition of the great responsiblity this entails.
Also if you continue to try to silence the press, as you did
by encouraging criticisms of the one brave reporter who was
willing to tell the truth about the problems folks see with
this corporate power being put in such unaccountable hands,
you only show how you need the dark to operate.
>At 03.34 am 11/16/98 -0500, vinton g. cerf wrote:
>>Jock,
>
>>Perhaps you've misunderstood the scope of the ICANN portfolio. As Dave
>>Farber points out, it is simply to replicate some of the functions
>>previously performed under US Gov't contract by a team at ISI.
But the U.S. govt is a government with public accountablity.
And it is governed by a constitution that supposedly is the
limited powers that it is allowed to exercise due to the
fact that soverignty resides in the people of the U.S. not the
govt.
ICANN has *none* of that accountability, and thus shouldn't be
making policy on public issues.
And there are no ways to limit its powers if it is in control
of such great assets as the IP numbers, domain name system,
root server system, protocols, etc. These represent the power
over the Internet.
All the coooperative processes of exercising any power over these
are being changed by the change of ownership and control from
public to private hands over these assets.
>
>>It is not overall governance of the Internet nor should it be nor
>>need it be. I am not sure what "governance of the Internet" even
But the power over the IP numbers and over the Domain Name
System and the root server system, over the protocols does
indeed give this private corporation such power over the Internet
that all are at its mercy.
>>means since there are so many factors impinging on our use of the
>>system. A collection of laws relating to electronic commerce, for
>>example, will govern much of what is done on the Internet but ICANN
>>won't be at the core of that - the legislatures of the world will be,
>>for example.
Legislatures can pass all the laws they want, that doesn't change
the fact that this private corporate body will control the root
server system and IP numbers and be the entity to make the policy
in practice - and thus they are usurping all powers from anyone
else with regard to the Internet.
>
>>It is not my impression that Jon Postel "appointed the board of ICANN,"
>>Jock. It struck me as a more organic process than that, though I have only
>>scant personal knowledge of it.
It is clear that the board was appointed under some secret process
created by and executed by the U.S. govt as they were in charge
of IANA.
Postel worked for the govt and IANA is a govt contractor.
(Has that been changed? Mike Roberts seemed to indicate that
ICANN was already taking over the IANA contract even though supposedly
they have not yet been approved by the U.S. govt.)
>
>>In any event, the ICANN board has committed itself to developing an
>>elective process - as you can plainly see in the bylaws even as they
>>exist today. The candidates and the processes by which they are chosen
>>may vary among the support organizations and I think that's OK.
>
>>It won't help this board if we overly dramatize the tasks ahead of them,
>>Jock - let's help them achieve the stability the Internet needs to become
>>the global tool we all hope it can be.
To the contrary, doesn't the most serious attention have to be
paid to what monster is being created?
Those who say don't worry and are themselves gaining unprecedented
power over millions of computers around the world, aren't they
showing themselves to be very irresponsible to say the least?
>
>>Vint
One wonders what role MCI/Worldcom and the GIP plays in all this,
and it would seem more appropriate for Vint Cerf to disclose this,
then to try to claim that no one should express any concerns
about what is happening.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
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
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #207
******************************
