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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 372
Netizens-Digest Sunday, April 1 2001 Volume 01 : Number 372
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee
Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee
[netz] Introduction
Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 16:20:35 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee
"Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net> wrote:
>I'm also a little unclear about the concerns here. While I don't
>know all of the individuals on the committee, I do know some, and can
>see relevant background with others. My general sense is that this
>committee contains far more relevant experience than did the original
>ICANN board.
I agree that there are a few people who do have some technical
experience in terms of Internet development on the committee,
but what about the rest of the people?
Why are they there? Some of the other people seem
to be people with a research interest in how to make the Internet
into a commercenet.
That doesn't seem to be a helpful expertise with regard to
how to scale the Internet's infrastructure.
>Also Paul Vixie certainly is one of the DNS authorities in the Internet,
>with experience both in developing the most commonly used DNS
>software, and in continued operations.
He may be one of the people that does have relavant experience, but
even if he is an appropriate person, that doesn't mean that all the
inappropriate people who have been selected for the committee should
be on it.
Also it seems one of the issue that a study would been to explore
is whether the Domain Name System has been used for a different
functionality than it was intended, i.e. for the functionality
of a directory system.
It would seem to also then have on the committee those who have
considered the need for a directory system, along with someone
like Paul Vixie who is involved with the DNS system.
>In this I actively participate in the IETF and operational forums such as
>NANOG and RIPE. While I am a routing, not a DNS specialist, there
>are recognizable Internet technology experts on the list. There
>certainly are others who could be added, such as Bill Manning.
Again I am commenting on the others on the committee who don't seem
appropriate, not on the few who may be appropriate to the task.
Can you say a bit about who you feel is appropriate and why?
Also you mention Bill Manning. I have been impressed by the contributions
I have seen him make on an IETF mailing list, but don't know
a lot about his expertise at this point.
Can you say more about who you feel it would have been good
to have on the commmittee like Bill Manning?
There are some folks I thought would have been appropriate as
well who are Internet experts who it would have been good to
see on the committee.
Some of my concern has to do with the questions of a complex
system and what is needed for the further development of
the Internet as a complex system. I thought there needed
to be people on the committee who understood this aspect
of Internet development.
This is a research issue, as well as a technical issue.
>I would hope, however, there isn't a desire to include people who
>actively oppose the current structure that, with all its flaws,
>works. Eugene Kashpureff (sp?), I believe, is not available since
>he's in jail for hijacking the DNS root. The marketeers at new.net
>also have taken unilateral actions that jeopardize a working system,
>in the interest of pure profit.
This is a helpful criteria. I feel that in fact those who have
as a main aim to make the Internet into a commercenet are hostile
to the general purpose nature of the Internet as it was conceived
and has been developed.
And I agree awhat was crucial was people who have some understanding
of the current structure and are *not* opposed to it.
The committee, instead seems to be made up of several who have
"no" understanding of the current structure and its development, but
have a desire to create a different structure.
I mentioned in an earlier response to the Netizens list that
there is someone on the committee with an expertise in
"corporate governance". But the Internet grew up and set a foundation
in a different kind of "governance", a governance that welcomed
feedback and diverse opinions and encouraged communication
among those with differences.
Steve Crocker's statement in RFC-3 that those with differing views
are encouraged to speak is some of what I feel is at the foundations
of Internet governance.
Quoting RFC-3 "Notes are encouraged to be
timely rather than polished. Philosophical positions without
examples or other specifics, specific suggestions or implementation
techniques without introductory or background explication, and explicit
questions without any attempted answers are all acceptable. The
minimum length for a NWG note is one sentences. These standards (or
lack of them) are stated explicitly for two reasons. First, there is
a tendency to view a written statement as ipso facto authoritative,
and we hope to promote the exchange and discussion of considerably
less than authorative ideas. Second, there is a natural hesitancy
to publish something unpolished, and we hope to ease this inhibition."
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the spirit with which the
either ICANN nor the National Academy of Science DNS study committee
have been created. Not only are there a number of people on the
committee without any of the needed expertise for the study that
needs to be done. Also these members seem to have been chosen
on account of the narrow set of views they have of the present
and future development of the Internet.
>Howard Berkowitz
>hcb@clark.net
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 18:06:21 -0500
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net>
Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee
>
>I agree that there are a few people who do have some technical
>experience in terms of Internet development on the committee,
>but what about the rest of the people?
>
>Why are they there? Some of the other people seem
>to be people with a research interest in how to make the Internet
>into a commercenet.
No disagreement. As I mentioned in my last response, the reality is
that the Internet, in the broadest sense of the word, includes but is
not limited to a commercenet.
>
>It would seem to also then have on the committee those who have
>considered the need for a directory system, along with someone
>like Paul Vixie who is involved with the DNS system.
Very reasonable -- I just don't know who the leaders are in directory research.
>
>Also you mention Bill Manning. I have been impressed by the contributions
>I have seen him make on an IETF mailing list, but don't know
>a lot about his expertise at this point.
Bill has been an IETF and NANOG colleague for many years. We were
probably most directly involved when he cochaired the IETF Procedures
for Internet & Enterprise Renumbering (PIER) working group, for which
I authored or coauthored several RFCs. Bill's quarterly walkthrough
is perhaps our best scalability information on the correspondence of
the DNS and addressing systems. Both Bill and Paul have always
struck me as people fundamentally motivated to Do The Right Thing.
>
>Can you say more about who you feel it would have been good
>to have on the commmittee like Bill Manning?
I'm embarrassed to say I've lost the URL for the proposed membership
list, and can't seem to find it on the NAS search page.
>
>
>This is a helpful criteria. I feel that in fact those who have
>as a main aim to make the Internet into a commercenet are hostile
>to the general purpose nature of the Internet as it was conceived
>and has been developed.
The new.net fiasco is probably worth its own study. The NANOG list
administrator eventually shut down the thread there, suggesting it
was more in scope for domain-policy and other lists to which I don't
subscribe. You might want to initiate a thread with new.net as a
case study.
Again, there's an issue just what we mean by the Internet. A fair
argument can be made that the original Internet was not meant as a
public utility, but as a basis for both networking research and for
academic/nonprofit research. Look, for example, at the original
acceptable use policies, and the factors that led to the
establishment of the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX).
Correct me if I misinterpret you, Ronda, but it's my impression --
with which I'm not disagreeing -- that you consider that one of the
great goodnesses of the Internet is the free information exchange it
offers, potentially individual to individual, and supragovernmental
(nongovernmental? agovernmental? Something like that. :-) ). But that
kind of use would have been out of scope in the early ARPANET and
NSFNET.
>
>And I agree awhat was crucial was people who have some understanding
>of the current structure and are *not* opposed to it.
>
>The committee, instead seems to be made up of several who have
>"no" understanding of the current structure and its development, but
>have a desire to create a different structure.
The nature of the Internet has been to get parallel bodies rather
than one replacing the other. The IAB and IETF aren't going to go
away regardless of what this group does. The IETF, however, hasn't
been strong as an operational forum, and NANOG/RIPE/etc. have evolved
to fill that niche. I am pleased to be seeing a recent resurgence of
scaling issues in the IETF -- it's been a long time since the CIDR
working group.
>
>I mentioned in an earlier response to the Netizens list that
>there is someone on the committee with an expertise in
>"corporate governance". But the Internet grew up and set a foundation
>in a different kind of "governance", a governance that welcomed
>feedback and diverse opinions and encouraged communication
>among those with differences.
>
>Steve Crocker's statement in RFC-3 that those with differing views
>are encouraged to speak is some of what I feel is at the foundations
>of Internet governance.
But was the RFC process truly governance? At the time he wrote
RFC-3, the Internet (well, it wasn't called that yet) did not have to
deal with funding issues.
>
The whole issue of Internet written exchange and documentation is a
discussion of its own. At the Minneapolis IETF last week, it was
observed that the time needed to go from a first Internet-Draft to
standards track RFC can take two years, where it once took six
months. I recognize that's still better than ISO/ITU.
It's been my practice, at the IETF, largely to give up on some of the
working groups where the meetings become too huge to recognize
individuals. I think the final cosmic message was the acronym
collision between the Multiprotocol Label Switching and City of
Minneapolis. I'll thankfully stay in the smaller routing, operations
and performance groups!
>
>Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the spirit with which the
>either ICANN nor the National Academy of Science DNS study committee
>have been created. Not only are there a number of people on the
>committee without any of the needed expertise for the study that
>needs to be done. Also these members seem to have been chosen
>on account of the narrow set of views they have of the present
and future development of the Internet.
Many years back, just as I started to work in computer science, a
large part of my academic concentration was in international
relations (subsequent to my deciding I really didn't want to be a
biochemist). One of my professors described diplomacy as the art of
saying "nice doggie, nice doggie" while you look for a big rock.
During the McCarthy madness of the early fifties, legitimate
Sovietologists were branded "Commie sympathizers" because their
personal libraries included the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. As
Bart Simpson might observe, well, DUHH. Not to have them visible
would be akin to trying to understand Soviet behavior without
reference to the holy books of Marxism.
In this context, I'd rather have some of the Politburo members having
to scheme where I have a chance of keeping an eye on them.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 18:05:57 -0500
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net>
Subject: [netz] Introduction
I realize I've leaped into the discussion without introducing
myself...apologies to the list. Professional affiliations for
identification, and all that.
I'm an IP protocols & algorithms architect in what has newly been
named Advanced Technology Investments at Nortel Networks. It's really
the corporate research and advanced development group, reporting to
the CTO/Chief Engineer/CEO. My areas of interest include IP
addressing, router design, unicast routing protocol scalability, and
ISP operational issues. I do try to maintain a sense of humor of it
all, and believe the best engineering education is delivered as
stand-up comedy.
One of my personal goals, to use the term common among the Internet
engineering community, is the conveying of "clue" about network
operations. I've contributed tutorials to the North American Network
Operations Group (NANOG) for many years, as well as at other forums
such as the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and trade
shows. There is a great deal of operational experience that simply
isn't written down, and one of the great problems of Internet
scalability is scaling the availability of skilled people. Word of
mouth, on-the-job apprenticeships just aren't enough.
Under other hats, I've done both networking education and design
consulting. I've participated in developing both seminars and
product training for Cisco, and delivered them in enterprise and
carrier environments. I remain Technical Director for
certificationzone.com, an independent study site for people seeking
Cisco certifications (the site is not affiliated in any way with
Cisco Systems, Inc.)
My publications include three books, _Designing Addressing
Architectures for Routing and Switching_, _Designing Routing and
Switching Architectures for Enterprise Networks_, and _The WAN
Survival Guide_. I'm under contract with Wiley for a book to be
finished around the end of the year, tentatively titled _Building
Service Provider Networks_. Lots of trade press articles, and an
assortment of IETF RFC's and Internet Drafts.
Prior experience includes being the first technical staff member at
the Corporation for Open Systems, back when OSI and ISDN were the
answer. Unfortunately, we never figured out what the question was.
Based in the Washington DC area, I've worked both in industry and
government. In the late 1970s, I was the network architect for the
Library of Congress.
Originally, I planned a career in medical research, built the first
clinical computer center for Georgetown University Medical Center,
and still try to stay current with a fair bit of medical literature.
When possible, I consult in medical informatics.
Also in the DC area, I've been involved in politics, although not all
that recently. Been known to describe myself as a recovering
Republican, who realized that being a moderate to liberal Republican
wasn't all that dissimilar to being slightly pregnant. Still, I have
been research director for the DC Republican Committee, and am a
graduate of the RNC senior campaign management school, with
experience in assorted campaigns of the seventies. Did policy
research for the Ripon Society, with special interests in information
security classification.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 01:38:22 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee
"Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net> writes:
>No disagreement. As I mentioned in my last response, the reality is
>that the Internet, in the broadest sense of the word, includes but is
>not limited to a commercenet.
I agree that an Internet is a metasystem that includes
dissimilar networks. Networks devoted to commerce can be part
of that system. But that doesn't seem to be the current US government
policy with regard to Internet development. Instead it seems that
there is a desire of some to change the Internet into
a network that is basically a commercenet.
>>It would seem to also then have on the committee those who have
>>considered the need for a directory system, along with someone
>>like Paul Vixie who is involved with the DNS system.
>Very reasonable -- I just don't know who the leaders are in
directory research.
I am not sure of the leaders but I do know that the Corporation for
National Research Initiatives (CNRI) has been developing a
directory system called the handle system and that they
have a RFC with the IETF on it.
I don't know its strengths or weaknesses, but it is the effort
to provide a directory system that can help the Internet to
scale by providing that functionality.
Bob Kahn who is co-inventor of TCP/IP is the head of CNRI.
He does have a significant grasp of the nature and development
of the Internet. As well as the fundamental concept of open
architecture as critical to the continuing development of the
Internet.
Also Barry Leiner has an understanding of open architecture,
and this seems to be an important concept for continuing
Internet development, and for the creation of a directory system.
>Bill has been an IETF and NANOG colleague for many years. We were
>probably most directly involved when he cochaired the IETF Procedures
>for Internet & Enterprise Renumbering (PIER) working group, for which
>I authored or coauthored several RFCs. Bill's quarterly walkthrough
>is perhaps our best scalability information on the correspondence of
>the DNS and addressing systems. Both Bill and Paul have always
>struck me as people fundamentally motivated to Do The Right Thing.
What is Bill's quarterly walkthrough? Is it online?
Thanks for the backgrond on this. It does seem that there is
a relevant expertise here.
And that an eye to the scaling is a crucial focus of what
would be needed on this NAS committee.
>I'm embarrassed to say I've lost the URL for the proposed membership
>list, and can't seem to find it on the NAS search page.
http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/Projects+_by+_PIN/CSTB-L-99-07-A?OpenDocument
>The new.net fiasco is probably worth its own study. The NANOG list
>administrator eventually shut down the thread there, suggesting it
>was more in scope for domain-policy and other lists to which I don't
>subscribe. You might want to initiate a thread with new.net as a
>case study.
What is new.net? And the new.net fiasco?
>Again, there's an issue just what we mean by the Internet. A fair
>argument can be made that the original Internet was not meant as a
>public utility, but as a basis for both networking research and for
>academic/nonprofit research. Look, for example, at the original
>acceptable use policies, and the factors that led to the
>establishment of the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX).
I have seen in several places in my research that the original
Internet was in fact conceived of as a public utility.
The Acceptable Use Practices were actually helpful in that regard.
The Acceptable Use Practices supported use for educational purposes
and scientific purposes and research purposes. They just forbid
use for commercial/for profit activity.
So they encouraged a public contribution and participation with
regard to the development of the Internet. And this was interpreted
by many to mean that they were being encouraged to spread the
Internet to others as an important new means of communication.
The problem with the CIX was that it seemed to require that
the educational and scientific purposes become subordinate
to the commercial purposes. (I was on the com-priv mailing
list in 1992 where I got that sense from those supporting
the creation of CIX.)
>Correct me if I misinterpret you, Ronda, but it's my impression --
>with which I'm not disagreeing -- that you consider that one of the
>great goodnesses of the Internet is the free information exchange it
>offers, potentially individual to individual, and supragovernmental
>(nongovernmental? agovernmental? Something like that. :-) ).
Yes :-)
I do indeed consider as one of the great achievements of the Internet,
the interactive, particatory process that the Internet encourages
and rewards.
This is something very special.
And further that this process is the nature of the Internet.
Efforts to make the Internet into a network where
the user is passive and someone's "customer" will represent a
fundamental change in the nature of the network.
> But that kind of use would have been out of scope in the
>early ARPANET and NSFNET.
Why do you say this?
The only activity out of scope was basically "for profit" activity
in the NSF's acceptable use policy. We have a copy of the
policy in you want to look back at it in chapter 12 of Netizens.
See http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/
Or I can post it.
When I was online in 1992, during a time when the acceptable use
policy (AUP) of the NSF was in effect, I found that the AUP
encouraged a very remarkable cooperative environment and signficant
contributions to the online community by those online.
This was something very important, and something I found that
JCR Licklider, writing in 1960 and 1962 felt was crucial to
foster if one were going to be able to develop computer technology.
And the ARPA policy also supported such educational and coooperative
processes. The kind of mailing lists on the old ARPANET,
like MsgGroup, SF-Lovers and Human-Nets were some examples of
the broad range of discussion that the early constraints
like the AUP made possible.
I have actually read through the archives of old Usenet and
ARPANET mailing list posts from 1981-1983. There was a very
broad range of discussion that was made possible by the
fact that commercial entities couldn't dominate the conversation.
Later in 1995, I found that certain people who were promoting
the commercialization of the US portion of the Internet
would do all they could to prevent online discussion of what
was happening.
The privatization of the Internet in 1995 didn't seem to recognize
how hard the work had been to foster this collaborative environment,
and how important it was to maintain this collaborative online
environment for the continued development of the Internet and of
computer and communications technology.
Instead there seemed an effort to promote personal profit making
and turning everything connected to online into a money making
business for someone.
>The nature of the Internet has been to get parallel bodies rather
>than one replacing the other. The IAB and IETF aren't going to go
>away regardless of what this group does. The IETF, however, hasn't
>been strong as an operational forum, and NANOG/RIPE/etc. have evolved
>to fill that niche. I am pleased to be seeing a recent resurgence of
>scaling issues in the IETF -- it's been a long time since the CIDR
>working group.
I have wondered why it seemed that the IETF wasn't being allowed to
discuss the creation of ICANN or the role that it would delegate the
IETF to. Several people tried at times to post something on the
IETF mailing list about the activity of ICANN and were told
by certain people in IETF that they shouldn't be posting anything
about ICANN to the IETF mailing list. Yet the IETF was brought
into ICANN and there seemed no visible discussion of what
the effect of subordinating the IETF to ICANN would be.
And any effort to have such discussion was stopped.
>But was the RFC process truly governance? At the time he wrote
>RFC-3, the Internet (well, it wasn't called that yet) did not have to
>deal with funding issues.
Yes actually the RFC process was an early governance process.
I don't know what has happened more recently.
I'll write a bit more about this tomorrow as it is now late
and I want to be a bit more awake when I try to expalin
what I have come to understand about Internet governance
from the study I have done of Internet development and mechanisms
of feedback and the experience I have
had over the years online.
Basically there are systems that are built where the feedback
is crucial to their development and there are systems that
don't use feedback. The Internet is a system that is built
as a system dependent on feedback.
The term governance is in this case similar to a feedback
process that regulates the behavior of such a system.
But let me say more about this tomorrow.
Thanks for these comments as this discussion is helping me
to try to clarify what I feel are the important issues
in the scaling that is needed.
till tomorrow
Cheers
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/birth_internet.txt
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #372
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