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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 358
Netizens-Digest Tuesday, June 6 2000 Volume 01 : Number 358
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Draft paper on the Birth of the Internet: An Architectural Conception
[netz] About ICANN and Procurement Contract Used to Privatize Public Resources
[netz] Re: [IFWP] Re: Letter about use of Procurement Control to Privatize
Public Resources
[netz] Microsoft and Viruses
[netz] An Activist Among the Robber Barons
[netz] About lack of support for basic research in US
[netz] another observer notes lack of support for basic research in US govt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 10:50:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] Draft paper on the Birth of the Internet: An Architectural
Conception
Draft for Comment
The Birth of the Internet:
An Architectural Conception
for Solving the Multiple Network Problem
by Ronda Hauben
rh120@columbia.edu
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 00:47:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] About ICANN and Procurement Contract Used to Privatize
Public Resources
To: Teresa.reefe@nist.gov
Subject: about the Federal Procurement Contract for ICANN
Letter sent to Teresa Reefe at NIST to protest Federal Procurement
Contract being used to Privatize Public Resources
Dear Teresa
I am curious about the use of a federal procurement contract to give
away government held public resources to a private sector corporation
like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
This seems an inappropriate use of a procurement contract and there
doesn't seem to be an appropriate authority to give public resources,
especially crucially important infrastructure resources like IP numbers,
the domain name system, and the protocols organization into the
ownership and/or control of a private sector corporation via the kind
of contract that the US government uses to purchase goods and services
for government entities.
Can you explain why this is the means of privatizating such crucial
public resources?
I offered one of the proposals for how to determine an appropriate
form for the care and administration of these crucial public resources
to the Department of Commerce before the ICANN proposal was submitted.
My proposal did not get any serious attention by any Dept of Commerce
official. Instead they awarded a design and test contract to ICANN.
The activity of ICANN has not been of a "design and test" nature
as they cut off discussion and limit public imput into their process.
Interim board members were selected by some secret process that has
yet to be made public. And they are taking over the control and potentially
ownership of a vital public resource without any public process or
legitimate procedures.
If the process were indeed a design and test process, my proposal would
have been accepted.
Thus can you please accept this as a protest of the award of public
resources to ICANN under a contract drawn up for totally different
purposes.
I also want to protest that ICANN is not carrying out any design and
test activities under their current memorandum of agreement with the
Department of Commerce.
And I want to ask that you inform me of what procedures I have
available to me to challenge how public property and resources are
being taken from the public and given to ICANN.
Sincerely
Ronda Hauben
244 West 72nd Street Apt 15D
New York, N.Y. 10023
(212)787-9361
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 10:32:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] Re: [IFWP] Re: Letter about use of Procurement Control to
Privatize Public Resources
Greg Skinner <gds@best.com> wrote:
>Perhaps
>ftp://ftp.merit.edu/nren/nii.1993/s4.txt
>is one reason why the US Executive Branch believes that the NTIA is the
>appropriate entity to oversee ICANN, etc. (Note the provisions of Sec. 702,
>where both the NTIA and NIST are mentioned.)
I'll take a look at what you point out when I have the chance.
But the giveaway of public resources to a private company isn't legal
no matter what excuse is made.
And a procurement contract is to procure goods and services for
the government and the public, not to give away invaluable infrastructure
of any public resource or any other government or public property.
So it doesn't change the fact that the procurement contract to ICANN
shows the illegality of ICANN and the creation of ICANN by the U.S.
government.
>Gordon Cook is much more informed on this NREN stuff than I am; perhaps he
>has uncovered more pertinent info.
>Anyway, I'm interested in knowing what the NIST's opinion is of ICANN, etc.,
>so please forward their reponse if possible.
>--gregbo
I'll let you know what I hear. Right now there is no response, not
even an acknowledgement of receipt. I also sent the letter protesting
use of the procurement contract to ICANN to the GAO committee but
just got the sense that the person I spoke to on the phone was annoyed
receiving it. If that is the case then they are not doing any investigation
of ICANN. In fact, the fact that they didn't contact me and others
who had proposals at the Dept of Commerce and interview such folks
seems to give an indication of the nature of the investigation.
I was told they already had heard from enough "critics".
So people aren't treated as citizens or recognized as citizens,
but only as critics of ICANN.
Also any government committee looking into a situation needs to
gather input to be able to figure out the public interest in
the situation they are considering. In this process it is
particularly important that they hear from those without a
commercial self interest.
The GAO person I spoke with like ICANN, didn't seem to feel any
such need.
Ronda
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 00:06:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: jrh@umcc.ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Microsoft and Viruses
Is there a connection between Microsoft and the recent ILOVEYOU and similar
viruses. The following viewpoint argues there is. That Microsoft has served
its business customers and its own interst by making it possible for out-
siders like commercial interests to gain control of any computer running
Microsoft applications to launch programs that they have sent to that computer.
Which is exactly how these viruses work.
> From rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu Fri May 5 21:08:13 2000
> Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 17:44:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
Some notes on Microsoft viruses, . . . .
I received about 60 copies of the latest Microsoft e-mail virus and
its variants. How many did you get? Fortunately I manage my e-mail
with Berkeley mailx and Emacs keyboard macros, so I wasn't at risk.
But if we're talking about billions of dollars in damage, which
equates roughly to millions of lost work days, then I think that we
and Microsoft need to have a little talk.
Reading the press reports, Microsoft's stance toward this situation
has been disgraceful. Most of their sound bites have been sophistry
designed to disassociate the company from any responsibility for
the problem. One version goes like this quote from Scott Culp of
Microsoft Public Relations, excuse me, I mean Microsoft Security
Response Center:
This is a general issue, not a Microsoft issue. You can write a
virus for any platform. (New York Times 5/5/00)
Notice the public relations technology at work here: defocusing the
issue so as to move attention away from the specific vulnerabilities
of Microsoft's applications architecture and toward the fuzzy concept
of "a virus". Technologists will understand the problem here, but
most normal people will not. Mr. Culp also says this (CNET 5/5/00):
This is by-design behavior, not a security vulnerability.
More odd language. It's like saying, "This is a rock, not something
that can fall to the ground". It's confusing to even think about it.
Even though Microsoft had been specifically informed of the security
vulnerability in its software, it had refused to fix it. Microsoft
even tried to blame its problem on Netscape, which *had* fixed it:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1820959.html
The next step is to blame the users. The same Mr. Culp read on the
radio the text of a warning that the users who spread the virus had
supposedly ignored. That warning concludes with a statement to the
effect that you shouldn't execute attachments from sources that you
do not trust. He read that part kind of fast, as you might expect,
given that the whole point of this virus is that people receive an
attachment from a person who has included them in their address book.
This particular blame-shifting tactic is particularly disingenuous
given that the virus spread rapidly through Microsoft itself, to the
point that the company had to block all incoming e-mail (Wall Street
Journal 5/5/00).
Similarly, CNET (5/4/00) quoted an unnamed "Microsoft representative"
as saying that companies must educate employees "not to run a program
from an origin you don't trust". Notice the nicely ambiguous word
"origin". The virus arrives in your mailbox clearly labeled as having
been sent by a particular individual with whom you probably have an
established relationship. It bears no other signs of its "origin"
that an ordinary user will be able to parse, short of executing the
attachment.
So what on earth is Microsoft doing allowing attachments to run code
in a full-blown scripting language that can, among many other things,
invisibly send e-mail? Says the "Microsoft representative",
We include scripting technologies because our customers ask us to
put them there, and they allow the development of business-critical
productivity applications that millions of our customers use.
There needs to be a moratorium on expressions such as "customers ask
us to". Does that mean all of the customers? Or just some of them?
Notice the some/all ambiguity that is another core technology of
public relations. Do these "customers" really specifically asked for
fully general scripts that attachments can execute, or do they only
ask for certain features that can be implemented in many ways, some
of which involve attachments that execute scripts? Do the customers
who supposedly ask for these crazy things understand the consequences
of them? Do they ask for them to be turned on by default, so that
every customer in the world gets the downside of them so that a few
customers can more conveniently get the upside? And notice how the
"Microsoft representative" defocuses the issue again, shifting from
the specific issue of scripts that can be executed by attachments
to the fuzzy concept of "scripting technologies", as if anybody were
suggesting that scripting technologies, as such, in general, were to
blame.
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. It should be shut down.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 20:23:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: jrh@umcc.ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] An Activist Among the Robber Barons
Hi,
I thought the readers of the Netizens list might be interested in reading
a report from a World Trade Organization meeting. This report shows that
the demonstrations in Seattle and Washington are having an effect on the
WTO.
Take care.
Jay Hauben
- --------------------
>From: Jay Fenello [mailto:jay@fenello.com]
>Subject: [awpd] AN ACTIVIST AMONGST THE ROBBER BARONS
>
>This is a report on a WTO strategy session on how to
>undermine NGO's and prevent future protests by holding
>them in locations with less freedom to protest.
>
>AN ACTIVIST AMONGST THE ROBBER BARONS
>
>[Bruce Silverglade of the Center for Science in the Public Interest managed
>to get himself invited to a day-long high-level seminar on "After Seattle:
>Restoring Momentum to the WTO." Speakers included Clayton Yeutter (former
>Secretary of Agriculture), Robert Litan (former Associate Director of the
>White House Office of Management and Budget), Lawrence Eagleburger (former
>Secretary of State), and Luiz Felipe Lamreia, the foreign Minster of
>Brazil. His fly-on-the-wall report is worth quoting at some length]:
>
>I was disappointed that only one representative like myself from a
>non-profit organization concerned about the impact of the WTO on food
>safety regulation was invited. But I was pleased that the door had been
>opened and I looked forward to [it].
>
>. . As it turned out, I got a lot more than I bargained for. The seminar
>turned out to be a strategy session on how to defeat those opposed to the
>current WTO system. Apparently, no one knew who I was (perhaps my graying
>temples and dark suit helped me blend in with the overwhelming older male
>group of attendees) and I did not speak up until the end of the meeting.
>
>The meeting was kicked off by a gentleman named Lord Patterson who was
>Margaret Thatcher's Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He began by
>stating that our number one job is to restore confidence in the WTO before
>embarking on any new rounds of trade negotiations. So far, so good, I
>thought.
>
>But he then proclaimed that non-profit groups have no right to criticize
>the WTO as undemocratic because the groups themselves do not represent the
>general public. (I wondered which groups he was talking about because
>organizations that are gravely concerned about the impact of the WTO on
>environmental and consumer protection, like the Sierra Club and Public
>Citizen, have hundreds of thousands of members). He then stated that we
>must never have another WTO meeting on US soil because it was too easy for
>advocacy groups to organize here and security could not be assured.
>
>. . He added that President Clinton's speech during the WTO meeting in
>Seattle, in which the president acknowledged the protesters' concerns, was
>"disgraceful" and stated that it was also disgraceful that delegates to the
>WTO meeting in Seattle had to survive on sandwiches and couldn't get a
>decent meal during three days of social protest. The Lord finished his
>speech by recalling better times having tea with Maggie, and stating that
>the staff of the WTO Secretariat should not be balanced with people from
>developing countries just because of the color of their skin. After a few
>words with the chairman of the meeting, Lord Patterson added "Oh, I hope I
>have not offended anyone."
>
>. . The largely American audience of trade officials and policy wonks took
>the Lord's pronouncements seriously. The first comment by an American,
>picked up on the criticisms and asked 'How can we de-legitimize the NGOs?'
>The questioner claimed that these groups are usually supported by just a
>few charitable foundations and if the foundations could be convinced to cut
>off funding, the groups would be forced to cease operations.
>
>Mr. Litan, the former White House budget official, had another approach. He
>[asked] can't we give the NGOs other sandboxes to play in and have them
>take their concerns to groups like the International Labor Organization (a
>toothless United Nations sponsored-group). The representative from the US
>Trade Representative's office said nothing.
>
>. . Under the banner of rebuilding public confidence in the WTO, [former
>Agriculture Secretary] Yeutter concurred with his British colleague's
>suggestion that the next WTO meeting be held in some place other than the
>US where security can be assured. He further suggested that the WTO give
>the public little advance notice of where the meeting would be held to keep
>the protesters off balance. He said that the protesters' demands for
>greater transparency in WTO proceedings was a misnomer because the
>protesters didn't really want to participate in WTO proceedings -- all they
>wanted was to get TV coverage and raise money for their organizations.
>
>. . The day ended with the usual Washington reception . . . During desert,
>the foreign minister of Brazil lamented that if the next WTO meeting had to
>be held in an out of the way place, he preferred that it be held on a
>cruise ship instead of in the middle of the desert. He then gave an
>impassioned speech in which he opposed writing core labor standards into
>the WTO agreement and defended child labor by describing how in one region
>of Brazil, more than 5,000 children "help their families earn a little
>extra money" by hauling bags of coal from a dump yard to a steel mill. He
>stressed, however, that the children do not work directly in the steel
>mill. He was greeted by a hearty round of applause.
>
>INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURE AND TRADE POLICY
>http://www.iatp.org
>
>From: Paul.Neufeld.Weaver.guest.98049@MennoLink.org
>(Paul Neufeld Weaver, Worthington MN)
>
>###
>
>Respectfully,
>
>Jay Fenello,
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 14:43:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] About lack of support for basic research in US
A comment to Dave Farber's IP List:
Dave
>I want to give a strong second to Chucks comments djf
good to see Chuck Brownstein's comments on your list.
>>Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 11:40:07 -0400
>>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>>From: Charles Brownstein <cbrownst@cnri.reston.va.us>
>>>
>>Dave,
>>I have glanced through the report and found it generally quite good.
>>
>>A truly astounding bit of blindness to the obvious however, is in the
>>sections on R&D and on "Why here and now".
>>>
>>Is the Dept of Commerce the LAST bastion of ignorance about the government
>>investments in fundamental and applied research - as opposed to
>>"development" (the bulk of industry's R&D spending), with its available
>>knowledge and human resource creation?
>>
>>Today the US has the benefit of 30 years of such investment as a
>>foundation for damn near everything critical in this sector, people and
>>technologies alike. I suppose it will take economists, the way they lag
>>reality, a long time to document this very fragile advantage.
The paper I have been working on documents how there was an understanding
in the US and in the US Congress as well about the importance of basic
research and what happened to that understanding.
Probably there is a need to review the history of ARPA and
the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA
to have the lesson sink in of where the important ICT developments of
our present time have come from.
I have begun doing that in the 5 parts thus far of the draft paper I am
working on.
It does seem this is needed research for the US government to
be able to understand the current ICT achievements.
Computer Science and the Role of Government in Creating the
Internet: ARPA/IPTO (1962-1986)
Creating the Needed Interface
by Ronda Hauben
rh120@columbia.edu
part I http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/arpa_ipto.txt
part II http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/basicresearch.txt
part III http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/centers-excellence.txt
part IV http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/computer-communications.txt
part V http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
I welcome comments on this research and a chance to discuss it
and its implications with all who are interested.
Cheers
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: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 14:46:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] another observer notes lack of support for basic research in US govt
Another comment on the lack of basic research in US now:
>Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 16:05:37 -0400
>To: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber)
>From: Jean Armour Polly <mom@netmom.com>
>
>complete article here
>http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/zd/20000601/tc/former_lotus_guru_mitch_
>kapor_speaks_out_1.html
>
>Thursday June 01 01:15 PM EDT
>
>Former Lotus guru Mitch Kapor speaks out
>
>By Charles Cooper, ZDNet News
>
>Mitch Kapor does the vision thing -- and he has a scary message.
>
>Mitch Kapor was a big deal back in the 1980s when he ran Lotus Development
>Corp., a software company that was the Microsoft of its day. He was good
>copy, too. A former teacher of transcendental meditation with a studied
>fondness for appearing in public in wild, Hawaiian pastel shirts, Kapor
>could sling quotes with the best of them -- and in fact, he was better at
>the game than his major cross-country rival, a still rather raw Bill Gates.
><snip>
>But Kapor frets about where the important research will get done. The
>great industrial development shops, such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, have
>shifted gears to pursue different charters. Speaking from experience,
>Kapor notes that the angel investors are put off by ventures that are too
>risky with so little prospect of immediate return. "The average VC is
>looking to get a company to market within six to 12 months and see it make
>money within a couple of
>years," he says.
>
Note - Bell Labs was part of a regulated utility -rh
>A call to arms?
>
>Coming from one of the charter members of the capitalist computer class,
>Kapor complains about what he described as a "serious under-investment" in
>serious technology. Instead, he frets about a concomitant over-investment
>in e-commerce. "If we don't fund institutions to do basic research on
>these issues, we won't make a lot of progress," he says.
><snip>
>complete article at URL above
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #358
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