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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 205
Netizens-Digest Friday, November 13 1998 Volume 01 : Number 205
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Re: ICANN presenting us the "users" ...
[netz] Is the Y2K scare a form of Millenialism?
[netz] Re: [ifwp] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
[netz] Re: [ifwp] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
Re: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
[netz] Re: Is the Y2K scare a form of Millenialism?
[netz] Re: ICANN representing us "users" and your role as advisor to U.S. govt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 22:09:19 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Hauben <jay@dorsai.org>
Subject: [netz] Re: ICANN presenting us the "users" ...
[The following is another reply to Ronda Hauben from Dave Farber]
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 17:13:52 -0500
To: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>, list@ifwp.org
From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: ICANN representing us "users" and your role as advisor to
U.S. govt
Cc: netizens@columbia.edu
Ronda, your note shows a very different view of net history than I have and
maybe a view that is not based on fact. You are slipping into the consipracy
theory and that is just wrong. While errors may have been made, they have
been made in an honest fashion. I know no one in the current ICANN who stands
to gain anything out of it (san Mike Roberts who is a paid employee). The
advisors were far from secret and certainly criticism was heavy and often,
when stated in a non nuclear bomb fashion, were paid attention to.
Not everything was word by word open. It is hard to arrive at a consensus
with millions looking on at each word and yelling before someone has a
chance to change their mind.
users showed up at some of the IFWP meetings but no one has a good idea
how to either reach them (the millions) or distill what they have to say.
One thing that does seem instructive is the ease with which network
discussion groups can be hijacked by vocal often biased and some times
self interested parties (NO NOT YOU). I don't know how to stop that. It
is the same as people more and more who shout down public talks of people
they disagree with. That is destructive of open discussions and it has
forced me to disengage with such lists due to the deep personal viciousness
shown.
I will try when I get a chance to go over your mailing carefully and
point out the problems.
Dave
At 02:14 PM 11/12/98 -0500, Ronda Hauben wrote:
>Dave, what you have written (which is at the bottom of this
>response) is disturbing. It is good that Gordon
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 22:38:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Hauben <jay@dorsai.org>
Subject: [netz] Is the Y2K scare a form of Millenialism?
I thought readers of the Netizens list might be interested in this message
which appeared on the Community Memory mailing list about the so called
"Year 2000 Problem":
From: Austin Meredith <ameredith@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
Subject: [CM>] Y2K Survivalism and Deja-Vu All Over Again
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace
______________________________________________________________________
David Russell <davidr@execulink-invtry.co.za> wrote yesterday from South
Africa to inquire whether we're eventually going to be forced to go
through this present Y2K survivalist angst all over again:
> After all this hype around Y2k, once all the dust has settled and
> civilisation regains normality. Will we have a similar debate about the
> next doomsday 2035?? All unix systems (to my best knowledge) store dates
> as a 32 bit integer counting seconds since midnight, 1 Jan 1970 (or
> somewhere sround then) Most unix systems (still based on 32 bit
> processors and 32 bit kernels) will have a numeric binary overflow in
> 2035, resetting the dates to their original midnight 1970. Will we have
> the same speculation, fear, and doomsday predictions as we are having
> for Y2k, or will people be able to see that we have had problems before,
> and will have them again, and live with the problems. Making sure that
> they will be able to survive this "major catastrophe" If we have
> doomsday prophets worldwide again, I am not sure I want to be part of
> this planet :):) any comments??
In fact, David, this Y2K situation is _already_ for me the replay which
you imagine. I've already lived through one such fiasco, back when the
decade of the 1960s rolled into the decade of the 1970s. Back then we were
using one-digit date compares in our COBOL programs. As of the 1st working
day of January 1970, everything went to pieces all at once without any
warning or anticipation. There was a certain amount of irritation. A few
jokes were passed around. --But we wrote up a few standard date-comparison
routines and stuck these new modules into our call library and began to
replace the existing date comparisons in our COBOL programs, with calls to
these standardized and improved new date-comparison routines, as time
allowed. Meanwhile the people who used our computer systems simply used
"workarounds" and applied "windage." And told jokes and expressed
irritation. There was no paid overtime authorized and there was no panic
whatever and there was no real impact of any sort.
The very best I can offer is that perhaps these millennialists now sense
that if they play their cards right they can get paid through the nose to
fix problems they themselves caused, that perhaps behind all their words
of alarm they are responding to this quite cold-bloodedly as a cash-flow
opportunity. The very worst I can imagine is that they are scare-me
scare-you gameplayers, that they are engaging in this silly talk just for
the fun of it.
I have yet to have anyone explain to me why, if we run into some problem
bearing a real impact, we can't just set the console clock back 50 years
and tell the computer users "Here's your workaround folks, everybody just
pretend it's 1950 again."
\s\ Austin Meredith <kouroo@uci.edu>, "Stack of the Artist of Kouroo" Project
______________________________________________________________________
Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
Moderator: Community Memory
http://memex.org/community-memory.html
A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
Get this list in digest form: SET CYHIST DIGEST
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______________________________________________________________________
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 23:15:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
Reply-To: list@ifwp.org
X-Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.93.981112175513.32412A-100000@marietta>
Sender: bounce-ifwp-23774@lists.interactivehq.org
Precedence: bulk
Status: R
Bob Allisat wrote:
>> Peter Deutsch wrote:
>> Ronda, I've responded to several messages from you on
>> this, pointing out that in fact the Internet was not built
>> by users, but by the many owners of the servers and
>> networks involved. You have never answered any of these
>> postings, or addressed my suggestion that your unlying
>> thesis is not supported by the facts quoted or the
>> memories of the people who were really there during the
>> early days of the net.
Usenet is named as it is, as it is a users network. The
Internet in a similar way has been built by users. If
you want particularly you can read any of the chapters
of "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet" which is online in draft form
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook Also the reviews
which are at the same URL are describe in a helpful way the
essence of the Net as a users network where Netizens contribute
both the content and software and discussion to make the
Net possible, and have done so from its earliest days.
I haven't read any responses to my posts by you or anyone else
who has demonstrated that the Internet is *not* built by
users.
Also you should read my testimony submitted to the U.S.
Congress at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other
as it further documents this development.
> Without the hundred million
> people who inhabit it the
> Internet would be a useless
> pile of junk connecting a
> basically uniteresting hand-
> full of technologists. In
> other words the Internet
> circa pre-1995. Touche...
Bob the pre-1995 Usenet and Internet were in fact the product of
users, *not* of *technologists*. I got on the Internet in 1988
and Usenet in 1992 and they were both quite fascinating and valuable.
Also I have read and studied archives from early Usenet circa 1981-2
and MsgGroup mailing list 1975-82 and both are a real treasure.
And our book Netizens contains pre-1995 posts on both Usenet
and on the NTIA online forum in 1994 debating the privatization
plan by the U.S. govt of the NSFNET. I am sure you will find
all of the material in the book very fascinating and very far
from what you believe were "a useless pile of junk".
Also it is from this work that Michael realized that there were
many online functioning as *netizens* i.e. net.citizens, which
is that they contributed in a multitude of ways to making the
Net a vibrant and valuable place.
It is only after 1995 with the onslaught of the "privatizers"
that the junk began to multiply on Usenet and the Internet.
>Bob Allisat
Ronda
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
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 23:22:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
Greg Skinner <gds@best.com> wrote:
Greg, is it you feel Human-Nets was junk?
Or pre-1995 Usenet?
>Bob Allisat wrote:
>>Without the hundred million people who inhabit it the Internet would
>>be a useless pile of junk connecting a basically uniteresting
>>handfull of technologists. In other words the Internet circa
>>pre-1995. Touche...
>Ironically, Ronda's proposals are (ostensibly) based on a (very)
>pre-1995 model of governance.
But that was the model that spread it around the world and helped
to establish the priniciples that have governed the Internet
and need to continue to govern the Internet.
Without understanding the founding principles and the principles
that laid the foundation, there is *no* way to have any
governance.
And the troubles now that this supposed *Internet governance*
plan is to solve are troubles that have resulted from the
privatization, not from the Internet.
Also to be dealing with *Internet* *governance* one must
understand both what the *Internet* is and what *governance*
would mean with regard to the Internet, and neither if currently
part of the parivatization of the key functions of the Internet
plan.
Ronda
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
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:48:41 +0100 (CET)
From: Ingo Luetkebohle <ingo@devconsult.de>
Subject: Re: [netz] Re: [ifwp] Re: Do Internet Users exist?
On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Ronda Hauben wrote:
> >Ironically, Ronda's proposals are (ostensibly) based on a (very)
> >pre-1995 model of governance.
>
> But that was the model that spread it around the world and helped
> to establish the priniciples that have governed the Internet
> and need to continue to govern the Internet.
Uh-Huh... I beg to differ.
The Internet was spread through the world because
1. it was cheap
2. it worked
3. everyone could connect
4. it had no acceptable use policy after NSF
stepped back as the backbone provider.
And the point where it became mainstream was when AOL and CompuServe (and
in germany T-Online) brought Internet gateways into operation.
Thats all there is to it, nothing more and especially nothing idealistic
about it.
Now you might argue, with a good deal of justification, that the above four
points only happened because of the spirit of the early Internet and I
wholeheartedly agree. However, I have to remind you that history tends to
ignore the way and remember only the results.
> Without understanding the founding principles and the principles
> that laid the foundation, there is *no* way to have any
> governance.
The Internet was never homogenous. That would be a contradiction to its
name. Large parts of it had completely different "founding principles".
To make my point, in the german educational research network, part of the
global Internet for longer than I can remember, it is technically *illegal*
to send a private e-mail. Of course, everyone does it, but de-jure its
illegal still.
- --
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: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 10:04:11 -0400
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Re: Is the Y2K scare a form of Millenialism?
Austin Meredith wrote,
> I have yet to have anyone explain to me why, if we run into some problem
> bearing a real impact, we can't just set the console clock back 50 years
> and tell the computer users "Here's your workaround folks, everybody just
> pretend it's 1950 again."
>
The simple reason is, it isnt people who are the users now, its other
computers. The whole point of the information revolution, after all, is that *we*
dont look at miserable data any more, we leave it to machines who obey our
every instruction. Now we see we've given em a signal that cant be called
back or rewritten in time, and *we* dont know what they'll do. (Since most of
the glitches will be in accounting systems, we run the real risk of having to
give
food and power away for a few days until all the date-comparisons get
revalidated - now thats scary!)
What I would like to have explained, therefore, is why there isnt one big
brandnew overwhelming computer being assembled which will *know* what
to do about all the Homo saps running around loose on 1/1/wheneveritis.
kerry
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 08:43:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: ICANN representing us "users" and your role as advisor to U.S. govt
Dave, My original note to you on the IFWP list and com-priv list and
netizens list is about the fact that you and several other pioneers
of the Internet have a basis to know more what is happening that
this privatization of the essential functions of the Internet is
being carried out, and that you 5 folks have been in a position
to both understand what the U.S. government is doing and to
advise the U.S. government about what they are doing.
I also mentioned that I have made the effort (as a user) to be involved
in the process, and have *no* understanding of what the U.S. govt
is doing and why, despite repeated efforts to participate in a way
that would make it possible to understand what is happening.
More significantly I have spent a number of years both participating
in Usenet and the Internet and in studying the history and importance
of the Internet and the current signficiant change in U.S. policy
with so little open discussion of the fundamental issues of that
change, is very disturbing.
I have just returned from a trip to Europe where I was invited to
speak on MsgGroup Mailing List and the principles to be learned
from that for Internet Governance. I know you were one of the earliest
participants on MsgGroup mailing list in 1975. And I also know that
there was a real concern among those involved in creating the
MsgGroup conferencing and email prototype that the users be considered
and that those involved in the work on the mailing list use the
mailing list so they could understand how it would be useful toward
supporting facilitating informal communication in the U.S. Dept
of Defense. In reading the archives of MsgGroup I found the discussion
quite fascinating and valuable and the observations about the
new kind of communication that a mailing list made possible very
insightful.
However, with the creation of the privatization of the essential
functions of the Internet all the lessons of how to create online
prototypes that function and to improve them that have helped to
build the ARPANET, Usenet or the Internet, as with MsgGroup Mailing
list, have been abandoned.
If there were a real problem that the U.S. government were trying
to solve with respect to the Internet, the obvious challenge
would be to find a way to create a functioning online form to
solve that problem, and to explore the problems of creating that
online form through research processes as with MsgGroup mailing
list or other such efforts.
Also such an online form would be able to be accessible to anyone
online who was interested in the issues involved and there would
be a way, as well of involving those users who wanted to participate
in figuring out what the problems were and in solving them.
That isn't happening in the creation of ICANN. Instead a very
small group of people, some of whom probably have no or very little
experience with the Internet, are being involved in both creating
and in running some powerful new entity that will be given what
hitherto have been treated as cooperative and public Internet
resources.
My email to you said that I can understand your having your own
personal views as to whether this is good or bad, but that if
you are involved in acting as an advisor to the U.S. government
as a computer scientist (which I feel you are), then it would
seem especially important that what is happening be open and
that as broad a set of people be involved in what is happening
as possible.
The online forms would make this possible.
However, what is being created is *not* an online form, but a
private corporate entity and it has been created by a process
within the U.S. government where no one knows who has made the
decisions to create this form and who has made the decisions
of who will people the new private entity.
This is the exact opposite of the open processes that the online
forms make possible, and which are necessary for good decisions
to be made with regard to something as important as the Internet
and the ownership and control of its essential, controlling
functions.
Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Ronda, your note shows a very different view of net history than I have
>and maybe a view that is not based on fact. You are slipping into the
>consipracy theory and that is just wrong. While errors may have been made,
>they have been made in an honest fashion. I know no one in the current
>ICANN who stands to gain anything out of it (san Mike Roberts who is a
>paid employee). The advisors were far from secret and certainly criticism
>was heavy and often, when stated in a non nuclear bomb fashion, were
>paid attention to.
But any of those who have been appointed to the Board (by who knows
whom and for what purpose) are being put in a position of tremendous
control over the Internet.
Also Mike Roberts, as one of the advisors, is in a very compromised
position to have advised the appointment of himself to such a
position of responsibility.
To own and control 4.3 billion IP numbers and the domain name system
and root server system, as well as related protocols, port numbers,
etc of the Internet is a position of tremendous responsibility
and tremendous power.
In a recent article the Economist called this a "self-appointed
oligarchy".
To be transferring such resources to a private entity, with
no public discussion of why government is to be kept out,
and what will be the effect of privileging private sector
corporate entities and people with being able to be part of
this, this is a very serious affair.
>Not everything was word by word open. It is hard to arrive at a
>consensus with millions looking on at each word and yelling before
>someone has a chance to change their mind.
A consensus of how many people?
If millions of people will be seriously affected (as we will be
by such a severe change of policy) by the results of the
"consensus" arrived at behind closed doors, then there is
a very grave problem.
And this is a problem that C.P. Snow spoke to at the 1961 mmeting
about the future of the computer at MIT. He spoke to the need
for scientists, and especially computer scientists to recognize
the harm that could come from such government decisions and that
the way to guard against such harm was to involve the broadest
number of people in such decisions.
At this 1961 meeting John McCarthy first described time-sharing
which led to the developed of the time-sharing systems which
set the basis for the vision of the ARPANET. And this online
processes that time-sharing made possible also helped to
create the online forms that make an open process involving
large numbers of people possible.
>users showed up at some of the IFWP meetings but no one has a good
>idea how to either reach them (the millions) or distill what they
>have to say.
But isn't this then the challenge that has to be taken up before
transferring control and ownership over the essential functions of
the Internet to a small clique of people who will then have control
over the Internet and its users?
I was at the Geneva IFWP meeting and *no one* was interested in
hearing from users there. I have written an account of what
happening which is at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/ifwp_july25.txt
There was only an interest in rushing through a declared consensus
that would allow certain people to begin getting profits on their
financial investments.
This was the very opposite of a process to establish the kind of
responsible and accountable management strucuture that can serve
the Internet community and the further scaling of the Internet.
>One thing that does seem instructive is the ease with which
>network discussion groups can be hijacked by vocal often biased
>and some times self interested parties (NO NOT YOU). I don't know
This does need to be taken on as a problem. But I have found
that there are certain types of newsgroups or mailing lists where
this is more likely to happen than other such groups and I feel
it is an important problem that can be solved. And my proposal
to Ira Magaziner and to the U.S. Govt on this issue provided a
process to create such an online form. However, it wasn't even
considered by them. And I also sent you a copy, and didn't feel
you felt there was any reason to take my proposal seriously or
to consider or discuss it with me.
And it is one thing to hijack a mailing list or newsgroup,
but another and much more serious situation to hijack the
ownership and control over the essential functions of the
Internet by putting them into a secretive private corporation
where no one knows who is exerting the controlling power.
The U.S. Office of Inspector General in a report they issued
in Feb. 1997 said that even putting the IP numbers into
the control of such an organization would be a violation of
U.S. anti trust law as it would be creating a very great
concentration of power and wealth. To put all the essential
functions into such a private organization is an ever greater
concentration of wealth and power.
>how to stop that. It is the same as people more and more who shout
>down public talks of people they disagree with. That is destructive of
>open discussions and it has forced me to disengage with such lists
>due to the deep personal viciousness shown.
This is a serious problem as it is important to have your
participation in such open processes. And I know you have a
long experience of such participation. But isn't this an
important problem to be taken on.
When I was on the com-priv mailing list in 1992-3 I experienced
similar problems and it also led me to leave the list.
But the problem there I felt was that instead of the U.S.
government protecting the ability of people to participate
in the list, they created a list which would be aimed at
promoting such a hostile and unuseful environment. And then
they claimed that that list was the indication that the U.S.
govt was getting input into its policy decisions.
And U.S. govt officials were on the com-priv list during this
period and participated in this unhealthy environment.
But previous to that, and in many other situation even during
this period, the Acceptible Use Policy employed by the U.S.
govt with regard to the Internet kept other lists and
newsgroups functioning in a good way.
With the privatization of the Internet, however, this kind of
hostile atmosphere, or the sending of junk posts to newsgroups
or mailing lists, has become much more commonplace.
Thus the privatization is a problem and the long development of
the Net previous to the privatization has very important lessons
that need to be learned from.
>I will try when I get a chance to go over your mailing carefully and
>point out the problems.
I hope you will.
>Dave
But it seems from your response that perhaps there is some tentative
agreement that:
1) Open processes are desirable.
2) That it would be good to involve users in the decisions over
what will be happening with the Internet. And that a way needs
to be found to do so.
3) That online forms are valuable but also need to be maintained
in a constructive way.
Is it fair to say that these are tentative points of agreement?
If so is there anything that can be done to take these into account
rather than rushing ahead with the creation of ICANN and ignoring these?
An online form is very different from a membership organization.
I don't know any membership organizations that function to provide
the ability of members to really be part of the decisions making
process.
But the Internet does make it possible for users to be part of the
decision making process in decisions regarding what is happening
with the Internet.
Is there any way you would help me to explain this to the U.S.
govt officials who are rushing ahead to create this private
organization?
Also there are other issues with regard to the creation of
ICANN that it would be important to discuss publicly.
Dave, if you want to see an example of a constructive and
valuable online public discussion, look at the archives
of the Nov. 1994 NTIA online discussion about the future
of the NSFNET. We have two chapters about it in our
book, chapters 11 "The NTIA Conference on the Future of the
Net: Creating a Prototype for a Democratic Decison-Making
Process" and chpter 14 "The Net and the Future of Politics:
The Ascendancy of the Commons".
And also take a look at the NTIA archives which should also
be online. This was an example of a constructive and valuable
online discussion on important issues of public policy.
(The problem was the NTIA never utilized any of the lessons
from the discussion or learned anything from the discussion.)
But the discussion showed that it is indeed possible to
involved a number of online users in important issues
by utilizing online processes.
The NTIA ignored what folks said at the online conference and
the result is that the concern that everyone in the U.S. have
access to the Internet, something that required keeping
government in the backbone operation, has not happened,
and is unlikely to happen for a very long time in the U.S.
given market dysfunction and the high cost of access for
many people.
Privatizing these public resources ends up in costing the public
far more, and the social obligation of making public resources
available to all, is lost sight of.
This is an important set of issues so it is good we are making
the effort to have open discussion on them.
Ronda
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 #205
******************************
