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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 304
Netizens-Digest Saturday, June 5 1999 Volume 01 : Number 304
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Alston succeeds
[netz] Re: [IFWP] As ICANN unravels ISOC launches Smear campaign
[netz] Reposted: Book Review ~ Digital Democracy
[netz] RE: [IFWP] Re: Esther Dyson Sells Out Internet Community vrs Netizens
[netz] Open Letter to Elliot Maxwell of U.S. DOC about ICANN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 15:45:56 +0000
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Alston succeeds
Australian Senate passes Internet Censorship bill
May 26th, 08:17:54
James McPherson reports...
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/6260.html
It is a very sad day for Australia - the Australian Senate has just
passed a bill which attempts to totally regulate the internet in
Australia. It was passed with the assistance of the two
"independent" senators, Harradine and Colston. The Australian
Labor Party and the Australian Democrats attempted to get a
2year sunset clause inserted but without any success.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:38:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: [IFWP] As ICANN unravels ISOC launches Smear campaign
Dear Dave
Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu> wrote:
>I do have an strong opinion of what is going on that I will be soon
>sending out to my IP list as a Editors Opinion clearly labeled as such.
It will be good to see what you send out.
To add to ISOC's activities with regard to ICANN I want to
bring to your attention ISOC's refusal to grant editors
of the Amateur Computerist a press pass for this coming
INET '99.
We wrote a criticism of what happened at the IFWP meeting
last year and also an article about INET '98 pointing
out that there was a narrow agenda for the topics for
the confernece.
Apparently, those in the press who are critical of ISOC's
narrow agenda lose the right to press passese to their
functions.
We were encouraged to apply for the press pass and to send
an issue of the Amateur Computerist. After the issue was received,
our application was rejected.
I have attended two previous ISOC conferences on a press
pass INET '96 and INET '98 and reported on both conferences
in the Amateur Computerist and in accounts that went out
over the Internet and are in various other online or periodical
journals.
Thus I fulfilled the obligations of a press pass, but am
being denied one along with another editor of the Amateur
Computerist.
ISOC's narrow agenda of support for who knows who is a sad
situation and the mess of ICANN is a sign of the problem
that ISOC is.
One of the reasons that I have been told that a press pass
was denied is for participating in the IFWP meetings
(chaired by David Mahler) after the INET '98 meeting.
At the INET '98 press conference all the press were invited
to participate in and cover the IFWP meeting which followed
INET '98.
Also I had talked with Jon Postel after the press conference
about some problems I had with the fact that users were
being disenfranchised by the plan for the new IANA.
Jon told me to go to the IFWP meeting and to make my
concerns known.
I tried to do so.
The response by an official of ISOC was that I was
told that I wasn't allowed to participate in the IFWP
meeting or that I would have to give up my press pass.
That was a criteria distinctly different from what had
been announced at the press conference and also from
a criteria applied to anyone else from the press.
ISOC it seems has enpowered people to make up the rules
as they go along and to try to deprive the press of
any right to a critical reporting of what happens
or else one will lose ones press pass.
Dave I wonder if you feel it is appropriate that those
who write with their honest criticisms of what is going
on be deprived of press passes by ISOC.
Also we have asked for a way to appeal this denial and
have not been given any procedure to do so.
Ronda
For the issue of the Amateur Computerist reporting on
INET '98 see
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 17:54:36 -0400
From: "P.A. Gantt" <pgantt@icx.net>
Subject: [netz] Reposted: Book Review ~ Digital Democracy
Sender: Peter Marshall <techdiff@ix.netcom.com>
RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Sunday 23 May 1999 Volume 20 : Issue 41
FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS
(comp.risks)
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann,
moderator
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 08:40:11 -0800
From: Rob Slade <rslade@sprint.ca>
Subject: REVIEW: "Digital Democracy", Cynthia J. Alexander/Leslie A. Pal
BKDGTLDM.RVW 990326
"Digital Democracy", Cynthia J. Alexander/Leslie A. Pal, 1998,
0-19-541359-8, U$26.50
%E Cynthia J. Alexander
%E Leslie A. Pal
%C 70 Wynford Drive, Don Mills, Ontario M3C 1J9
%D 1998
%G 0-19-541359-8
%I Oxford University Press
%O U$26.50 212-679-7300
%P 237 p.
%T "Digital Democracy: Policy and Politics in the Wired World"
As a techie, I more comfortable with the "hard" sciences with provable
outcomes, such as the "running code" (1) of the Internet. However, as
one interested in the social aspects of the net, I have to respect the
softer sciences, since without "rough consensus" (2) there would be
neither protocol standards, nor the real heart of the communications
that goes on. As Dimwiddy and Bunkum state (3), though, PoliSci is so
soft as to be positively mushy.
Right from the beginning (4) the text is heavily larded with
footnotes, which sometimes threaten to overpower the essays they are
supposed to support (5). Oddly, though, these footnotes do not give
any impression of the strength of the material in the book, quite the
contrary. Instead, they tend to lend credence to the statement that
94.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot (6). The content of
the book tends to be strangely unformed, with statements ranging
between unsupported bombast that we are simply assumed to accept, to
citations of studies without much discussion of relevance or validity.
After an introduction, there is a piece on "social forces in the
hypermedia environment" that seems to want to talk about economics, a
discussion of national security, and something looking at the national
or global information infrastructure. None of these pieces, and,
indeed, nothing in the book, seems to have any real idea of the
technology involved, or the implications of the technology. A look at
women on the net states that "Few will argue the impact of written
language or--many centuries later--the printing press in shaping new
societies" (7) while blithely ignoring the fact that we have very
little idea of what those impacts might have been. Leslie Pal's own
contribution, examining the outcry over the Communications Decency
Act, seems to have the greatest understanding of modern communications
systems, but even there (8) does not comprehend that the technical
aspects of "flooding" algorithms and dynamic rerouting were what
forced commercial services to lobby against the bill.
The paper on teledemocracy bemoans the fact that lack of a touch tone
phone disenfranchises a massive 5% of the population (9), while
ignoring as insignificant a 12% disparity in polling results (10).
His lauding of Ted White's telephone polling (11) was of particular
interest to me, since I live in White's riding and a) didn't get a
pin, b) could have reproduced White's polling system using local
technology at far lower cost to both constituents and the government
(12).
There is a pedestrian piece on intellectual property. Then there is
the mandatory article on pornography. (Can we have a Rimm shot?
Thank you.) The Rimm "study" (13), and another equally suspect,
categorize a bunch of feelthy peechers, and we are then told that
there is a clear benefit for regulation of pornography (14).
The essay on privacy takes for granted that you cannot have freedom
without privacy (15), ignoring items like David Brin's "The
Transparent Society" which proposes a remarkably free environment
almost completely devoid of privacy (16). The article also decries
identification numbers of all types, and then goes on (17) to laud
public key encryption, seemingly unaware that a public key is a
number.
Neither the discussion of health care nor that of indigenous people
really looks at social aspects of the technology.
This seems to be my week for dumping on compatriots (18). However, my
rabid nationalism does not extend so far as to defend those resident
in my country when they don't know what they are talking about, and
this book seems to be almost completely devoid of experience of the
technology under examination.
(1) Dave Clark (of MIT), IETF Conference, 1992
(2) ibid
(3) I made them up, of course.
(4) Well, I suppose not; there are no footnotes in the
acknowledgement; but the first one comes in the second paragraph of
the preface on page xii.
(5) They never actually do.
(6) This figure is embedded in one of my brother's sigblocks: I think
he made it up.
(7) p. 88
(8) p. 111
(9) p. 140
(10) p. 135
(11) p. 136
(12) White used Maritime T&T, had to spend $11,000 setting up a single
poll, and it cost people $1.95 per time to vote. A PC based system
could have, at the time, been established for about $5,000 altogether,
and could have been reused at any time for further polling.
(13) lucky, eh?
(14) p. 176. I'm not exactly on the side of pornography, but there
are a few steps missing in the proof, here.
(15) p. 181
(16) cf. BKTRASOC.RVW
(17) p. 187
(18) See also "Roadkill on the Information Highway" (BKRKOTIH.RVW)
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKDGTLDM.RVW 990326
rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade
- ------------------------------
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
Posted by Andrew Oram - cyber-rights-owner@cpsr.org
A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/
Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use.
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
- --
P.A. Gantt, pgantt@icx.net
http://user.icx.net/~pgantt/
"Cone of Silence: ICANN or Internet democracy is failing"
~~John Horvath~~
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 18:56:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] RE: [IFWP] Re: Esther Dyson Sells Out Internet Community vrs Netizens
"A.M. Rutkowski" <amr@netmagic.com> wrote:
At 01:55 AM 6/5/99 , John B. Reynolds wrote:
>>P.S. Tony: the fact that I am an ordinary Internet user and not a hired
>>gun does not disqualify me from commenting on matters of Internet policy.
>You missed my point. I'm speaking favorably
>about your participation in discussions -
>just wondering why you (and for that matter
>other people who passionately argue a particular
>point or attempt to speak authoritatively) care.
Strange Tony. You asked me a similar question in 1992 when I got
on the com-priv list and tried to explain that there was a public
interest involved in what was to happen with the Internet *not*
merely the interest of those trying to get their cut of the
pie that was being put up for grabs.
I wonder why you don't recognize that there might be people
who have some public interests, that there are indeed
citizens and netizens.
There have been human beings who recognize that the French Revolution
and the U.S. revolution marked a significant change in society
from where the King ruled all and had sovereignty to where the
people became the sovereigns. And the Internet has followed
in this tradition as it is not a set of wires and cables, but
a relationship between users and computers and networks which
is fundamentally dependent on users having sovereignty.
The Interent has been built by the open interface and interactive
computing concepts where the users were recognized as having
to be active in designing their own end of the interface.
That is why the Internet makes possible the cooperation of
people and networks and computers around the world.
It is fundamenally based on that cooperation and your private
power grabbing is the challenge to the Internet and the netizens
and they recognize the challenge.
>In my own case, I've been analyzing and writing
>about similar public policy, legal developments
It doesn't seem that you are in fact writing about
"public policy" as I haven't seen anything you write
recognize that anything "public" exists.
And I don't understand how you can claim that you have
been analyzing so called "similar" "legal" developments
for 25 years, as what you are proposing is fundamentally
unconstitutional and thus illegal.
To try to disenfranchise the citizen or the Netizen
has no legal foundation, despite your claims to the
contrary.
You do indeed write about effort to "privatize" what is public
policy, but that doesn't qualify what you write to be
regarded as public policy, only the effort to sidetrack
the discussion so the real issue, the public issues are never
discussed.
>for the past 25 years. None of what is now
>occurring domestically and internationally is
>particularly new. What you find typically with
>these developments, is that there are multiple
>different potential outcomes that evolve with
>time, and no intrinsically right or authoritative
>answer - just directions.
How strange for you to say this.
I sat in Congress and heard people say that the effort to
create ICANN is setting a fundamentally new model for
which will serve as a precedent to be copied.
And even in some of your writing you propose things like
creating something like the ITU without governments involved
(or openly involved that is).
Also the history and development of the Internet shows that
all this is fundamentally unsound and "new". As the Internet
is the result of an interface between the computer science
community and government which led to the decisions being
made on a criteria that were sound and also made possible
the needed scaling so the Internet could grow and flourish.
All that is happening now with ICANN trying to replace both
the computer science community and the government role of
support for that community with a set of people operating
behind the scenes in a very vicious power grab is a serious
departure from what is appropriate to happen.
It flies in the face of open government processes as the
U.S. government is manipulating behind the scenes what
is happening here in a way that makes impossible the kind
of accountable or legitimate activity that is needed to
provide for the present future direction of the Internet.
And this corrupt activity of ICANN flies in the face of
any regard for the need for the computer science community
to be involved in the administration and scaling of the
Internet.
Thus it is flies in the face of the history and development
of the Internet and of the history and development of
science and government as they have evolved since the
earliest days in the U.S.
However, there is something that seems a much more serious
falsification in what you write. In another post you
claimed that it is impossible to have multiple countries
involved in the administration of the Internet and that
is why one has to put up with the deceit and conflict
of interest crooked activity of ICANN.
According to your view of history the Internet never developed.
You fail to understand or at least pretend you don't understand
that it is through the cooperative efforts of computer scientists
in a number of different countries, often supported directly
or working for their governments, that the Internet evolved so
successfully.
You want to throw out all that actual experience of what serves
Internet development and substitute a fantasy theory you are
proposing of how the Internet can be run by behind the scenes
governments and private interests -- as a so called "private"
ICANN.
Your theories don't substitute for reality however. A few days
ago, during the Berlin meetings you did a post that seemed
to acknowledge the problem that ICANN has demonstrated is its
essence. At that time I wondered if even you were admitting
the corruption of the ICANN model.
But I see by your posts today that you continue to promote this
corrupt model by trying to question anyone who recognizes there
is a public interest and a public purpose for society or
for the Internet.
But despite your misrepresentations there are indeed citizens
and netizens and none of your words or deeds or protestations
that such don't exist, can change that.
>--tony
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
- ---------
See " Cone of Silence: ICANN or Internet democracy is failing"
by John Horvath
URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html
And see Amateur Computerist vol 9-1
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 20:11:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Open Letter to Elliot Maxwell of U.S. DOC about ICANN
An Open Letter to Elliot Maxwell, U.S. Dept of Commerce
My proposal to the NTIA in Fall '98 provided for an open process
and for computer scientists from the U.S. and other interested
countries to contribute to making that open online process into a
reality. This was the first necessary step in determining what
cooperative means were needed to porotect the essential name,
number and protocol functions of the Internet.
That proposal should have been funded by the U.S. government and
any other country that cared to help create a cooperative process
for protecting these vital Internet functions. That is still
the challenge to all, but primarily to the U.S. government,
and to Elliot Maxwell, who supposedly replaced Ira Magaziner
as the person determining Internet policy in the U.S. but
who has been carefully hidden from view.
I am requesting that Elliot Maxwell join the IFWP list and the
Netizens Mailing List and begin to participate in the discussion
of what is happening and what should be happening with
regard to creating appropriate institutional forms for these
crucial functions of the Internet.
Ronda
Below is an important discussion with comments that occurred
on the IFWP list on May 25 while many were involved in the
conference in Berlin and thus may have missed these comments
on the IFWP mailing list.
"A.M. Rutkowski" <amr@netmagic.com> wrote on May 25, 1999:
>Karl,
>It's obvious that you and a few others on this list
>have alternative ideological constructs of the universe
>surrounding Network Solutions. Those of use who were
>actually part of this activity and dealing with these
>issues since 1992 have a different set of experiences
>and knowledge base.
>I think most of us can agree, however, that Network
>Solutions is only one of many players, and the real
>problems here surround those claiming to be king of
>the mountain, and the activities in which they are
>engaging. The institutions, regulations, taxes,
>licensing, and claims being advanced by ICANN and
>its GAC are broad and far reaching. They are what
>threaten the Internet, not NSI.
>--tony
>From the above comments I thought that perhaps Tony
Rutkowski had acknowledged and recognized that ICANN
is a serious problem that must be taken up to be
challenge by anyone who is concerned about the present
and the future of the Internet, but the more recent posts
by Tony seem to say that this was a mistaken conclusion
from his posts as he is once again claiming that ICANN is
the only possible way forward for the Internet.
Also on May 25, 1999 "A.M. Rutkowski" <amr@netmagic.com> wrote:
At 10:16 AM 5/25/99 , Karl Auerbach wrote:
>>I certainly find it hard to justify allowing NSI to retain its unfair
>>advantage on the basis that after a great deal of investment and work, a
>>big competitor may possibly, maybe arise.
>Unfair? It was NSI's risk, investment, and entrepreneurship
>over the past six years that built their segment of the
>business. They've agreed and are proceeding rapidly to
>open most of that segment up to 5, then 29, then other
>companies to harvest the market segment that they built.
>Frankly, I regard that as unfair - but they're actually
>doing it anyhow in the belief that a rising tide raises all
>ships.
>When the various NSFNet cooperative agreements were terminated,
>I didn't see MCI-IBM, Sprint, and the regionals (now largely
>Verio), give up their networks, addresses, intellectual property
>and customer bases in a spirit of largesse emanating from the
>"unfairness" of their market segments. They walked with billions
>in assets and revenue streams.
>Maybe we want to list all the several thousand companies and
>institutions that received NSF awards and agreements, figure
>out what that's worth, and ex post facto divvy up their assets
>in a grand spirit of fairness.
>--tony
And Dave Crocker responded:
>At 10:54 AM 5/25/99 -0400, A.M. Rutkowski wrote:
>>Unfair? It was NSI's risk, investment, and entrepreneurship
>>over the past six years that built their segment of the
>>business. They've agreed and are proceeding rapidly to
>NSI had no risk and made no entrepreneurial investment.
>By the time they finally decided to treat this as a real business, they had
>a massive, government-protected revenue stream, with fees set to be 3-7
>times too high.
>This extra money provided all the investment funds.
>NSI did not go out and create a business plan, acquire investment money and
>then try to create a new business. THAT is entrepreneurialism, Tony. (You
>should try it sometime; it's quite exciting and rewarding.)
>What NSI has done is to feed at the government trough. And they did it
>based on an existing service built by others. They can't even take the
>credit for creating the service they now profit from.
(...)
>Dave Crocker
But all of this is a fight it seems over who will get which piece
of the carcass of the Internet. In Tony's first post that I cite
here, he acknowledged that there is a problem with ICANN.
However, it didn't seem that he acknowledged that ICANN taking
over ownership and control over controlling functions of the Internet
such as the root server system, the domain name system, the
IP numbers and the protocols is a very big power play.
And as Elaine Kamarck, a former advisor to Gore, and a political
scientists at Harvard, acknowlegded at the Berkman meeting in January
over the membership question for ICANN, there is no machinery to
oversee or punish any abuse of power in a "non-profit" corporation
that is intended for other kinds of purposes, *not* for the
purposes that ICANN is being created for. Elaine pointed out
that government was created and has mechanisms to deal with
the kind of conflict of interest economic power that is being
vested in ICANN, and a membership or non membership non-profit
organization where all one can do is throw out board member,
doesn't have such machinery.
Tony and Dave, do either of you have any idea of the importance
of the Internet to people around the world, both those who
are online and those who hope to one day get online?
And I have the same question to the others on the IFWP list
where this discussion is going on.
If so, I wonder how you can be quibbling over who gets which
piece of a an Internet carcass that it seems those grabbing
are trying to create, rather than considering what harm is
being done by the current creation and development of ICANN.
Is there any way either of you can recognize that ICANN is
a fundamentally flawed model and should be dumped.
That it is supposed a "design and test" situation and the
test has failed and thus the U.S. government should be
acknowledging the failure and stopping the damage before
it gets any greater.
The U.S. government has *no* authority to give away the cooperative
and public assets and functions and policy making processes that
are being offered to ICANN.
There do need to be ways found to protect these essential functions
of the Internet from abuse and to administer them in a way
that provides for the well being of the Internet and its users
and the scaling of the Internet.
There is plenty of good experience to build on in the cooperative
processes of a number of nations and of computer scientists from
around the world in building the Internet.
Therefore isn't it time to get on with dumping this cherade that
is ICANN and beginning to explore what is needed by the
Internet community and the public around the world in terms
of supporting the current and future development of the Internet?.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
Proposal is at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
- ---------
See Cone of Silence: ICANN or Internet democracy is failing
by John Horvath
URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html
and Amateur Computerist issue 9-1
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #304
******************************
