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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 284
Netizens-Digest Wednesday, March 10 1999 Volume 01 : Number 284
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] FYI: Two *Alternate* Communicaton News Sources
[netz] FYI: Consumers Union...
[netz] Re: [IFWP] RE: Reflections on Singapore
[netz] Re: [IFWP] RE: Reflections on Singapore
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 08:21:27 -0500
From: "P.A. Gantt" <pgantt@icx.net>
Subject: [netz] FYI: Two *Alternate* Communicaton News Sources
To get even more communications news that is
far less biased and more global in nature
and perspective, please read the following
two digital experts newsletters. Read carefully,
decide based on other sources rather than just
one. Information is power. Free expression of
information is essential for democratic use
of the Net. The digital conversation of the
the existing Net is paramount. Access for all
non-income dependent is the key. *Reasonable,
affordable* access that is...
Please excuse the cross-postings in advance.
============================================
Dr. Gunnar Bender of Digital-Law.net
has an excellent communications newsletter from
a more unbiased, international perspective.
I highly recommend it!:
To subscribe to TKRNEWS-L, send mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GMD.DE
with the command SUBSCRIBE TKRNEWS-L
Also see this communications newsletter for a less
biased approach to media news from a "watchdog" perspective.
http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-03-01.html
...FCC half-rules that calls to ISPs are long-distance
No immediate effect on consumer pricing, but long-term impact is
uncertain
TBTF touched on the urban legend of the "modem tax" last year [1].
Last week the FCC ruled in a long-pending case that calls to ISPs
are essentially long-distance in nature, but left it up to the
states to decide the validity of existing agreements for payments
between telephone companies, which were largely negotiated on the
opposite assumption. (Regulatory agencies in 24 states have ruled
that ISP calls are local; the FCC's ruling overrides these find-
ings.) Here is the FCC press release [2]. News reports differed
widely as to what the ruling actually said, let alone what it may
eventually mean to charges for Internet usage. News.com headlined
their coverage "Bells win partial victory in ISP ruling" [3] while
the Industry Standard weaseled by with "FCC Ruling to Affect ISP
Calls" [4]. Sure, but how?
The commissioners were at pains to emphasize that the decision will
not affect consumers' Internet phone bills. Some observers inter-
preted the ruling as the beginning of a slippery slope toward per-
minute charges for Internet usage in the US. FCC Chairman William
Kennard characterized such fears as "scare tactics"; he said the FCC
is not regulating the Internet and will not do so as long as he is
chairman.
>>>
I believe he is being disingenuous. It may be true that
you will never be charged per-minute rates for call your local ISP.
But if your ISP ends up paying more to their phone supplier, because
the Baby Bells stop paying that supplier, then you will pay your ISP
more too. The crucial question for consumers is whether or not a me-
ter is running, not who owns that meter. And a running meter will
flat-out stop the Internet's growth in this country. <<<
[1] http://tbtf.com/archive/1998-04-13.html#s04
[2]
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Releases/1999/nrcc9014.html
[3] http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,32789,00.html?tbtf
[4]
http://thestandard.net/articles/article_print/0,1454,3632,00.html?1447
..."
Source:
TBTF for 1999-03-01: Light of other days
T a s t y B i t s f r o m t h e T e c h n o l o g y F r o n t
Timely news of the bellwethers in computer and communications
technology that will affect electronic commerce -- since 1994
Your Host: Keith Dawson
==================================================================
Also see what the Consumer's Union has to say about telcos.
*Quite* enlightening. This telco, monopoly-biased control
over digital must not be tolerated.
- --
P.A. Gantt, Computer Science Technology Instructor
Electronic Media Design and Support Homepage
http://user.icx.net/~pgantt/
mailto:pagantt@technologist.com?Subject=etech
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/vision/1998-11.asp
Common sense is not common, and conventional wisdom is not
wisdom. But at least you can have conventional sense. ~~ Daily Whale
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 08:46:12 -0500
From: "P.A. Gantt" <pgantt@icx.net>
Subject: [netz] FYI: Consumers Union...
http://www.consunion.org/other/022511spsdc399.htm
Consumer Reports a credible source?
You decide. Please excuse the important
cross-postings in advance.
========================================
Source: Press Release
February 25, 1999
Consumers Union: Nonprofit Publisher of Consumer Reports
Please read the full article from the URL above.
Here is the inherent danger:
"...Today's muddled decision [FCC Thursday] leaves fundamental questions
unanswered," said Mark Cooper, Research Director for Consumer
Federation of America. "We think that the public has every right to be
fearful when the Commission declares that a substantial
portion of Internet traffic is interstate and therefore subject to
federal jurisdiction, but FCC Chairman Kennard states that 'dialing up
the internet is just like a local call."
This decision starts the FCC down a path that could well lead to
per-minute charges on Internet uses, like long distance calling or
local measured service, according to Kimmelman, who called such an
outcome "a disaster for consumers". FCC Commissioner
Ness also came under fire for comments he made that "one could readily
imagine, for example, that states will not seek to assess
per-minute fees on Internet-bound calls."
"The public should be fearful that the states, goaded on by the
incumbent local phone exchange companies (ILECs), which have
always wanted to impose local measured service on consumers, could slap
per-minute fees on Internet-bound calls," said Cooper..."
- --
P.A. Gantt, Computer Science Technology Instructor
Electronic Media Design and Support Homepage
http://user.icx.net/~pgantt/
mailto:pagantt@technologist.com?Subject=etech
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/vision/1998-11.asp
Common sense is not common, and conventional wisdom is not
wisdom. But at least you can have conventional sense. ~~ Daily Whale
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 09:51:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: [IFWP] RE: Reflections on Singapore
Roberto Gaetano <Roberto.Gaetano@etsi.fr> responding to
>Jay Fenello who wrote:
>Let me point out the couple of points where I don't share your POV.
>You wrote:
> <snip>
>> Things really got interesting the next day at the open
>> ICANN Board meeting. What started out as a presentation
>> of the CENTR compromise proposal, quickly devolved into
>> an attempt to accept the BMW draft as the basis for the
>> DNSO.
>
>Jay, what is, unfortunately, commonly addressed as "the CENTR proposal" is
>in fact a common document, agreed by all participants in the previous day's
>DNSO meeting, and is in fact the "Singapore Draft".
Which most Internet users cannot afford to have participated in
and so the document is only the document of a very small and
privileged set of people.
>The importance of this document has not to be underestimated: for the first
>time (to the best of my memory), delegates coming from different DNS
>religions and with different business affiliations and/or interests agreed
>on a rather wide spectrum of points as a compromise solution.
This gives the sense that these are delegates of the Internet
community. They are *not*. The Internet community is being
disenfranchised by the whole process of the ICANN which is
in itself an unauthoritized activity of the U.S. government
acting outside of any legitimate channels.
The Internet, however, is a global entity and the activities of
the small set of people who can afford to globe trot around the
world to participate in trying to grab what belongs to
the public and claim they have the right to make decisions for
the Internet community is far from *important*.
Rather it is a continuation of illegitimate efforts to usurp
power.
>Like for every compromise solution, nobody was 100% satisfied, but I had the
>impression that the sense of achievement was great among all of us at the
>end of the DNSO day.
Guess whenever folks trying to seize what belongs to others can
agree they have a sense of achievement.
>Unfortunately, the food fight started again during the ICANN Open Meeting,
>when (few) supporters of the BMW and Paris Drafts returned to praise the
>virtues of their respective original documents vs. the common document, but
>that's life.
To the contrary it seems that the whole process is rotten from
beginning to end and at least some folks notice this.
>> This became clear upon comments made by ICANN Board
>> member Hans Kraaijenbrink, who upon further questions from
>> Fay Howard of CENTR, revealed his affiliation to BMW
>> supporters.
>People that were not there could get the wrong impression that Hans
>expressed support to the BMW Draft, which is not what he said.
>He said that ETNO, a company in which Board he is, expressed support to the
>BMW Draft, but he didn't made up his mind.
To the contrary, it is clear that Hans is making decisions on
something that he has a conflict of interest regarding and
that that is the crux of what is wrong with the model of
a "self-regulatory" industry body running the central points
of control of the Internet. The whole conception is building
in conflicts of interest and so the problem is shown in its
essence.
It is like having an auto dealer be the regulatory agent for
the automobile manufactures. He can only make decisions in
his own self interest.
As Elaine Kamarck from the Kennedy School of Government explained
at the Berkman Center meeting on January 23 in Cambridge, this
is why one has government making decisions on issues involving
situations where these kinds of self interested parties can cause
such problems.
Government is supposed to make sure that those involved don't have
a self interest.
That is why there are procedures in place when government appoints
people to deal with matters where peoples economic lives are at
stake.
But with ICANN all those lessons have been thrown to the wind.
The other problem is that the DNS and other Internet functions
that ICANN is grabbing are the functions needed to scale the
Internet. These functions must be under the oversight and
consideration of people who understand the technology and the
computer science that keeps them all functioning and can solve
the problems as they develop.
This has all been thrown to the wind in the ICANN model.
>As both elements were known (Hans is in the Board of ETNO, and ETNO
>supperted the BMW Draft), I fail to see the relevance of the fact.
To know that there is a conflict of interest doesn't remove it.
This is like saying once the world knew that where the Olympic
games would be held was being determined by "gifts" and bribes,
that that was ok.
No to the contrary. Once once knows that there is a problem then
one needs to deal with it, rather than say its acceptable.
>> By the end of the day, few knew where the board was
>> going, and we left the fate of the DNSO in their hands
>> to be decided in their closed board meeting scheduled for
>> the next day.
>
>> Much to my surprise, the board voted to adopt a DNSO
>> very much like the CENTR proposal, *with* a non-commercial
>> domain name constituency. IMHO, this was a major victory
>> that revealed that this board could make difficult decisions,
>> and that it could be influenced by public opinion and
>> scrutiny.
>
To the contrary. The fact that the Board holds closed board
meetings shows that this is a rotten and corrupt situation.
That there decisions will be welcomed by some very small faction
of people who even know what is happening and yet that their
decisions will affect the whole Internet community of millions
of people is a very serious travesty.
>I was not surprised at all.
>This comes to the fact I outlined before: the achievement of us all,
>participants to the DNSO process, in coming to a statement of principle
>shared by all, was a fact of an extraordinary relevance, that could not fail
>to catch the attention of the Board.
To the contrary - the great majority of people are excluded from
the whole process and the Board is happy to continue that situation.
>Roberto
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
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 13:49:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: [IFWP] RE: Reflections on Singapore
"Bret A. Fausett" <baf@fausett.com> responding:
>Ronda Hauben wrote:
>>This gives the sense that these are delegates of the Internet
>>community. They are *not*. The Internet community is being
>>disenfranchised by the whole process of the ICANN which is
>>in itself an unauthoritized activity of the U.S. government
>>acting outside of any legitimate channels.
>>
>>The Internet, however, is a global entity and the activities of
>>the small set of people who can afford to globe trot around the
>>world to participate in trying to grab what belongs to
>>the public and claim they have the right to make decisions for
>>the Internet community is far from *important*.
>Ronda -- It's my understanding that the Board made its decision based on
>all of the information before it, including the two formal proposals, the
>Singapore document, and the formal comments submitted online. It was also
>clear to me that, even if they're not posting, most of the Board members
>are reading this mailing list.
It is unclear *how* or *why* the Board makes its *decisions* as they
are done via a secret process just as the choice of these board
members was done by a secret process, and just as the bylaws
and other means of incorporation by the ICANN was done by a
secret process carried out by the U.S. government.
It seems that there is an opinion of the GAO that the U.S. government
was *not* allowed to set up a nonprofit corporation.
This would explain why the U.S. government has carried out all their
activity in secret with regard to the creation of ICANN as they
know they are acting in violation of the Government Corporation Control
Act.
But to do something that is illegal when it is done openly in secret,
does *not* make it legal. In fact, it makes it even more illegal.
But even more important, what is being done by ICANN is harmful to
the Internet and to its current and further development.
None of the Board members have expressed or demonstrated *any*
desire to work for the best interests of the Internet or its
millions of users. Instead they are all in place on the Board
through some secret process to carry out their narrow and self
interested agendas.
I was at the Berkman Center meeting in Cambridge in January and
someone who had formerly been an advisor to the U.S. Vice President
Gore was there, having been sent by the Kennedy School of Government
Dean. She expressed her understanding that a membership organization
was an inappropriate form for an entity that would have control
and power over the economic life of people. No one on the Board
who was there, and there were a few members, asked her any
questions or since then have raised any of the issues she expressed
concern about.
I have raised significant questions over a long period of time
on this list and also to the U.S. government. No one from the
Board has ever even bothered to respond, much less demonstrate
any concern about the responsiblity to the Internet and to
the Internet users that they are supposedly undertaking.
If they did they would ask for an investigation and disclosure
of how they were selected and why it was done secretly.
If they did, they would treat the concerns raised seriously.
They are only supposed to be functioning under a design and
test mandate, *not* under anything further. Thus they have
an obligation to seriously examine the problems that they
are sitting on.
Instead they act as if they have been annointed reigning
sovereigns of the Internet and that they will act accordingly.
This is totally out of their mandate and any mandate they
should want.
My proposal was a proposal to create a prototype and one key
aspect was to create online means of making it possible for
as broad a base of the Internet community to be involved
in the problems and discussion of the issues involved in
the administration of the controlling Internet functions.
If anyone from ICANN were interested in the Internet community
and in participation by that community they would have seriously
supported that my proposal be implemented. (It was common
in developing various aspects of the Internet to support
different prototype development as this was needed to figure
out what is most appropriate.)
Also according to the U.S. NTIA-ICANN Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) the U.S. Dept of Commerce is supposed to be overseeing
via a 50% involvement what is happening with ICANN but Becky
Burr doesn't answer email and there is no sign of anyone
else from the U.S. government either overseeing or being at
all concerned about what is happening with ICANN.
Thus both ICANN and the U.S. Dept of Commerce are violating
their MoU with regard to these activities that they are
participating in.
>But that's not meant to undercut the point you make here, which is that
>ICANN (and the DNSO, the other SOs and the General Membership, for that
>matter) *must* make on-line participation a priority. In advance of the
>Berlin meeting, I would like to see further discussion about how to make
>real-time, remote participation a reality. Perhaps the people at the
>Berkman Center, who have been doing wonderful, experimental things with
>on-line classes and webcasting, could assist us in that effort. (The
>Singapore meeting was webcast, but we need to have a better way of moving
>information and questions in both directions.)
I appreciate your agreeing that online participation is a priority.
And I welcome the discussion on this. However, I don't have the
capabilty for real-time participation via webcasting etc.
And if the Internet community is to be involved there need to
be more discussion about how and in a way that people who have
minimal Internet connectivity can participate.
That takes work and effort, *not* easy solutions that only allow
those with expensive technology to be involved.
And the Berkman people wouldn't even allow and support people
who came to their meeting on Jan 23 to participate, let alone
people who can't afford to come to their meeting.
They supported cutting me off from the microphone when I was
trying to say that the agreement among people online is that
they are online "to communicate". But that isn't the agreement
of the Berkman Center or the White Paper or the Green Paper.
These are narrowly cast in the objective to support e-commerce,
thus substituting the narrow particular objective of a small
set of users with the broader generic objective of all
Internet users.
>I was extraordinarily pleased to see ICANN adopt a DNSO with a General
>Assembly model, but if we can't make the General Assembly work
>effectively over the internet, it will be (IMHO) a hollow victory. I see
>the need for on-line participation as one of ICANN's highest priorities
>-- because that's the only way that it can give the internet community at
>large a vested role in its policy processes.
Again it is good to hear that you want to broaden participation in
the ICANN activity, but unfortunately the Board has demonstrated
that it doesn't share this objective and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce
is *not* doing any of what is needed to make such an objective
a reality, even though the MoU provided funding for there to be
such activity by the U.S. Dept of Commerce.
Again, however, the concern with the interests of only a small
segment of the Internet population is the larger problem that
ICANN represents. And that includes the notion of having substituted
the private sector (or some very small portion of it) as the
category to be involved rather than the government supported
computer scientist involvement that has made it possible to
build the Internet and is needed to continue to have it scale,
which is what the IANA functions are crucial for.
>In my opinion, the success of the March 2nd Singapore meeting was based,
>in part, on the fact that it was a face-to-face meeting, but you're
>right, only those who lived locally or who could afford the trip (or had
>the trip paid for by their company) were there. I don't suggest that we
>abandon in-person meetings, but we need to find a way to enhance those
>meetings with remote participation.
But there is a larger issue. I was at the Boston Meeting in Nov.
and in January with Board members and they demonstrated *no*
interest in the concerns of the broader Internet community nor
in hearing them and considering them. So it seems that if they
can schedule face to face meetings in a way that excludes the
broader set of Internet users' interests, they can claim that
face to face meeting are fruitful. However, the face to face meetings
where they were confronted with broader issues were *not* fruitful,
except for being able to register the fact that ICANN is not
a structure nor a set of people who have any interest in nor
concern for the well being of the Internet that is a unique
medium of worldwide communication.
>It seems to me we have plenty of time to ensure that this happens by the
>Berlin meeting (which, I understand, may also include the first meeting
>of the DNSO General Assembly). I think everyone would welcome any ideas
>on how to make effective, remote participation a reality.
My proposal to Ira Magaziner and to the NTIA proposed how to do
the prototype work to make an online means of participation by
Internet users possible. The proposal I submitted needs to be
implemented, despite what ICANN is doing.
> -- Bret
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
See proposal at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
Also see testimony to the Committee on Science, Subcommittee on
Basic Research and Subcommittee on Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives, 105 Congress, 2nd Session, Oct 7, 1998 (in "The
Domain Name System, Parts I-II, [No 78] pg. 401-409)
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/testimony_107.txt
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
published by IEEE Computer Society
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #284
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