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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 362
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Netizens-Digest Monday, July 31 2000 Volume 01 : Number 362
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Some duplications possible
[netz] Re: Formal complaint of abuse of users by ICANN
[netz] Formal complaint of abuse of users by ICANN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 14:36:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Some duplications possible
Hi All,
Due to a problem at the host computer, some posts to the netizens list
mailed yesterday may be arriving to you today. There may be some
duplications as well.
Hopefully the system is coming back to normal.
Jay
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 13:16:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] Re: Formal complaint of abuse of users by ICANN
Vint
>have you taken time to look into the numbers of people trying to
>register? do you know what the planning estimates were before
>registration campaigns were initiated by various organizations?
>The planning numbers for registration were on the order of 10,000
>people. As of a few days ago something like 145,000 people had
>sent in raw registrations. Keep in mind also that there is a
>PIN number that has to be sent by mail. There is a calendar
>schedule that ICANN is trying to keep for the election itself,
>so the PINs have to get to the voters in time for that.
I have sent my complaint to the U.S. government official charged
with overseeing ICANN and who is part of the problem of turning
unbridled power over to an inappropriate body with conflicts
of interest which prevent them from being able to either identify
or carry out the public interest.
I don't consider your question of whether I have taken time to
understand the problem to be any sign of an appropriate response
on anyone's part.
I have taken much time over the past several years identifying the
real problems and trying to bring them to the attention of the
US government, other governments around the world, users of the
Internet and people who don't yet have access, and to the ICANN
board as well.
And I have spent much time attempting to encourage open discussion
of the real problems.
This process has been fruitful in that many people realize that
what you have created as ICANN is an anti-model for Internet
governance.
It doesn't seem helpful for you to tell me that you don't understand
the problems of the size of the Internet or of its users or
of claiming you will have an election that basically disenfranchises
users as it gives then no means for interactive participation (which
is the basis for the Internet).
Instead of your finding a way to solve the problems, and appreciating
that I have indeed taken the time to register my complaint over
ICANN's failure to have any regard for users with the U.S. government,
you have asked me if I have taken "time".
I have indeed taken "time" much "time" and instead of abusing users
who do take "time" it would be more appropriate if you encouraged
the US government officials who should be responding and maintaining
oversight over ICANN to be actively involved in the process.
When I tried to speak with you at the 1998 Internet Society meeting,
you walked away rather than discuss the difference we had over
whether there is a need to protect or get rid of the public nature
of the Internet.
It is appropriate that the US government seriously discuss my
proposal with me, and I welcome the ICANN board and anyone else
who feels any interest, to discuss the proposal.
I am sending you both the URL for it and the proposal itself.
You are welcome to submit it to the ICANN board or the GAC or
whoever you feel appropriate. I am requesting that Becky
Burr contact me soon regarding how the US governmment will
act to give it the attention it deserves so it can be
implemented.
Ronda Hauben
The URL and proposal follow:
URL: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/proposals/hauben/hauben.html
The Internet an International Public Treasure
A Proposal
by Ronda Hauben
ronda@panix.com
Preface
In testimony before the Subcommittee on Basic Research of the
Committee on Science of the U.S. Congress on March 31, 1998, Robert
Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, indicated the great responsibility that
must be taken into account before the U.S. Government changes the
administrative oversight, ownership and control of essential aspects
of the Internet that are part of what is known as the Domain Name
System (DNS).
Kahn indicated that "the governance issue must take into account the
needs and desires of others outside the United States to participate."
His testimony also indicated a need to maintain "integrity in the
Internet architecture including the management of IP addresses and the
need for oversight of critical functions." He described how the
Internet grew and flourished under U.S. Government stewardship (before
the privatization - I wish to add) because of 2 important components.
1) The U.S. Government funded the necessary research and 2) It made
sure the networking community had the responsibility for its
operation, and insulated it to a very great extent from bureaucratic
obstacles and commercial matters so it could evolve dynamically.
He also said that "The relevant US government agencies should remain
involved until a workable solution is found and, thereafter retain
oversight of the process until and unless an appropriate international
oversight mechanism can supplant it."
And Kahn recommended insulating the DNS functions which are critical
to the continued operation of the Internet so they could be operated
"in such a way as to insulate them as much as possible from
bureaucratic, commercial and political wrangling."
When I attended the meeting of the International Forum on the White
Paper (IFWP) in Geneva in July, which was a meeting set up by the U.S.
Government to create the private organization to take over these
essential DNS functions September 30, 1998, none of the concerns that
Kahn raised at this Congressional hearing were indicated as concerns
by those rushing to privatize these critical functions of the global
Internet. I wrote a report which I circulated about the political and
commercial pressures that were operating in the meeting to create the
Names Council that I attended. (See "Report from the Front", Meeting
in Geneva Rushes to Privatize the Internet DNS and Root Server
Systems". The URL is http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/ )
But what is happening now with the privatization plan of the U.S.
Government involves privatization of the functions that coordinate the
International aspects of the Internet and thus the U.S. Government has
a very special obligation to the technical and scientific community
and to the the U.S. public and the people of the world to be
responsible in what it does.
A few years ago I met one of the important pioneers of the development
of time-sharing, which set the basis for the research creating the
Internet. This pioneer, Fernando Corbato, suggested I real a book
"Management and the Future of the Computer" which was edited by Martin
Greenberger, another time-sharing pioneer. The book was the
proceedings of a conference about the Future of the Computer held at
MIT in 1961 to celebrate the centennial anniversary of MIT. The
British author, Charles Percy Snow made the opening address at the
meeting and he described the importance of how government decisions
would be made about the future of the computer.
Snow cautioned that such decisions must involve people who understood
the problems and the technology. And he also expressed the concern
that if too small a number of people were involved in making important
government decisions, the more likely it would be that serious errors
of judgment would be made.
Too small a number of people are being involved in this important
decision regarding the future of these strategic aspects of the
Internet and too many of those who know what is happening and are
participating either have conflicts of interest or other reasons why
they are not able to consider the real problems and technological
issues involved. (About the 1961 conference, see chapter 6 of Netizens
at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120)
What is happening with the process of the U.S. Government
privatization of the Domain Name System is exactly the kind of danger
that C.P. Snow warned against.
I have been in contact with Ira Magaziner, Senior advisor to the U.S.
President on policy with these concerns and he asked me to write a
proposal or to put my concerns into some "operational form." The
following proposal is my response to his request.
-------------------------------------------
Proposal
Toward an International Public Administration of Essential Functions
of the Internet - The Domain Name System
Ronda Hauben
ronda@panix.com
Recently, there has been a rush to find a way to change significant
aspects of the Internet. The claim is that there is a controversy that
must be resolved about what should be the future of the Domain Name
System.
It is important to examine this claim and to try to figure out if
there is any real problem with regard to the Domain Name System (DNS)
that has to be solved.
The Internet is a scientific and technical achievement of great
magnitude. Fundamental to its development was the discovery of a new
way of looking at computer science.(1) The early developers of the
ARPANET, the progenitor of the Internet, viewed the computer as a
communication device rather than only as an arithmetic engine. This
new view, which came from research conducted by those in academic
computer science, made the building of the ARPANET and then the
Internet possible.(2) Any changes in the administration of essential
functions of the Internet need to be guided by such a scientific
perspective and principles, not by political or commercial pressures.
It is most important to keep in mind that scientific methods are open
and cooperative.
Examining the development of the Internet, an essential problem that
becomes evident is that the Internet has become international, but the
systems that allow there to be an Internet are under the
administration and control of one nation. These include control over
the allocation of domain names, over the allocation of IP addresses,
over the assignment of protocol numbers and services, as well as
control over the root server system and the protocols and standards
development process related to the Internet. These are currently under
the control and administration of the U.S. Government or contractors
to it.
Instead of the U.S. Government offering a proposal to solve the
problem of how to share the administration of the DNS, which includes
central points of control of the Internet, it is supporting and
encouraging the creation of a new private entity that will take over
and control these essential Internet functions. Such a private entity
will magnify many thousands fold the commercial and political
pressures and prevent solving the genuine problem of having an
internationally shared protection and administration of the DNS,
including the root server system, IP number allocations, Internet
protocols, etc.
Giving these functions over to a private entity will make it possible
for these functions to be changed and for the Internet to be broken up
into competing root servers, etc. These essential functions make the
network of networks one Internet rather than competing networks with
competing root server systems, etc.
What is needed is a way to protect the technology of the Internet from
commercial and political pressures, so as to create a means of sharing
administration of the key DNS functions and the root server system.
The private organization that the U.S. Government is asking to be
formed is the opposite of protecting the Internet. It is encouraging
the take over by a private, non accountable corporate entity of the
key Internet functions and of this International public resource.
In light of this situation, the following proposal is designed to
establish a set of principles and recommendations on how to create an
international cooperative collaboration to administer and protect
these key functions of the Internet from commercial and political
pressures. This proposal is to create a prototype for the kind of
international cooperation and collaboration needed to control and
support the administration of these key Internet functions.
I. The U.S. Government is to create a research project or institute
(which can be in conjunction with universities, appropriate research
institutes, etc.) The goal of this project or institute is to sponsor
and carry out the research to solve the problem of what should be the
future of the DNS and its component parts including the root server
system.
II. The U.S. is to invite the collaboration (including funding,
setting up similar research projects, etc.) of any country or region
interested in participating in this research. The researchers from the
different nations or regions will work collaboratively.
III. The researchers will as much as possible utilize the Internet to
carry out their work. Also they will develop and maintain a well
publicized and reachable online means to support reporting and getting
input into their work. They should explore the use of Usenet
newsgroup, mailing list and web site utilization, and where
appropriate RFC's etc.
IV. With clearly set dates for completion, the collaborative
international research group will undertake the following:
1) To identify and describe the essential functions of the DNS system
that need to be maintained. (The RFC's or other documents that will
help in this need to be gathered and references to them made available
to those interested.)
2) To examine how the Internet and then how the DNS system and root
server system are serving the communication needs of the diverse
communities and users of the Internet, which include among others the
scientific community, the education community, the librarians, the
technical community, Governments (National as well as local), the
university community, the art and cultural communities, nonprofit
organizations, the medical community, the business community, and most
importantly the users whoever they be, of the Internet.
3) To produce a proposal at the end of a specified finite period of
time. The proposal should include:
a) an accurate history of how the Internet developed and how the
Domain Name System developed and why.
b) a discussion of the vision for the future of the Internet that
their proposal is part of. This should be based on input gathered from
the users of the Internet, and from research about the history and
development of the Internet.
c) a description of the role the Domain Name System plays in the
administration and control of the Internet, how it is functioning,
what problems have developed with it.
d) a proposal for its further administration, describing how the
proposal will provide for the continuation of the functions and
control hitherto provided by U.S. Government agencies like NSF and
DARPA. Also, problems for the further administrations should be
clearly identified and proposals made for how to begin an open process
for examining the problems and solving them.
e) a description of the problems and pressures that they see that can
be a danger for the DNS administration. Also recommendations on how to
protect the DNS administration from succumbing to those pressures.
(For example from pressures that are political or commercial.) In the
early days of Internet development in the U.S. there was an acceptable
use policy (AUP) that protected the Internet and the scientific and
technical community from the pressures from political and commercial
entities. Also in the U.S., Government funding of a sizeable number of
people who were the computer science community also protected those
people from commercial and political pressures.
f) a way for the proposal to be distributed widely online, and the
public not online should also have a way to have access to it. It
should be made available to people around the world who are part of or
interested in the future development of the Internet. Perhaps help
with such distribution can come from international organizations like
the ITU, from the Internet Society, the IETF, etc.
g) comment on what has been learned from the process of doing
collaborative work to create the proposal. It should identify as much
as possible the problems that developed in their collaborative
efforts. Identifying the problems will help clarify what work has to
be done to solve them.
h) It will be necessary to agree to some way to keep this group of
researchers free from commercial and political pressures -- government
funding of the researchers is one possible way and maybe they can be
working under an agreed upon Acceptable Use Policy for their work and
funding. (in the past an Acceptable use policy has made such
collaborative work among researchers from different nations possible.)
This proposal is an effort to figure out what is a real way to solve
the problem that is the essential problem in the future administration
of the Internet. If the principles and prototype can be found to solve
this problem, they will help to solve other problems of Internet
administration and functioning as well.
------------------
Notes:
(1) See Michael Hauben, "Behind the Net: The Untold Story of the
ARPANET and Computer Science", in "Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet", IEEE CS Press, 1997, p. 109. See also
"Internet, nouvelle utopie humaniste?" by Bernard Lang, Pierre Weis
and Veronique Viguie Donzeau-Gouge, "Le Monde", September 26, 1997, as
it describes how computer science is a new kind of science and not
well understood by many. The authors write: "L'informatique est tout a
la fois une science, une technologie et un ensemble d'outils....Dans
sa pratique actuelle, l'introduction de l'informatique a l'ecole, et
malheureusement souvent a la'universite, est critiquable parce qu'elle
entretient la confusion entre ces trois composantes."
(2) Ibid.
Submitted by
Ronda Hauben
P.O. Box 250101
New York, N. Y. 10025-1531
(212)787-9361
Co-Author of: "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet" published by the IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:57:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] Formal complaint of abuse of users by ICANN
Becky Burr
NTIA
U.S. Dept of Commerce
Washington, D.C.
Dear Becky
Have you tried to register for ICANN's membership? First the membership
is an ill conceived notion to try to hide that ICANN has been formed
to deny the public interest with regard to the Internet's names,
numbers and protocols. It's an effort to make it seem that a non profit
corporation can be entrusted with the ownership and control of vital
functions of the infrastructure of the Internet. A nonprofit corporation
can't be entrusted with this. These are vital social and public
resources and they can't be put into a private sector entity.
However, rather than the US government making it possible to
examine the problem of how to protect the vital functions of the
Internet and to scale them in the public interest, ICANN was empowered
by the U.S. Department of Commerce with unbridled powers and a limited
provision was created for so called "membership" of users, i.e. some
limited right supposedly to vote for certain so called at large directors.
Well, people are now trying to sign up for that membership, for that
limited right to vote and it is clear that the ICANN folks are
not even making any access available to that. The version to sign
up at the ICANN web site requires frames. So people who don't have
a browser with frames are not able to even use that part of the
web site. And an alternative web site set up in another country
gives a message of "We are sorry. The database is currently overloaded.
Please try again when the system is less busy." when I tried to sign
up.
Clearly the whole ICANN model is not appropriate for the needs
of the Internet and its users.
I did propose a different model, and a prototype to build this
model to you before ICANN was given the U.S. Dept of Commerce
contract.
Clearly it was crucial that you explore other models and try
to determine what was the best proposal for the problem the
U.S. government was faced with, namely how to protect the vital
functions of the Internet from vested interests and to make
it possible for them to scale.
It seems that the U.S. government wasn't even interested
in trying to identify the problem that had to be solved,
let alone in trying to determine how to solve it.
I am formerly objecting to the whole process of the creation
and development of ICANN by the U.S. Department of Commerce,
and requesting that you find a way to have the proposal I
provided the Department of Commerce implemented.
My proposal provided a means to create meaningful online participation
by users and for computer scientists supported by their governments
to create an open process that would utilize the Internet and
its interactive processes to create the cooperative form needed
to safeguard the vital functions of the Internet's infrastructure.
That is what is needed not an institutional entity to encourage
the "vested interests" to fight over power and control over vital
functions of the Internet.
I am sending this to you as a formal complaint of not being
allowed to register with ICANN and asking that you take the necessary
means to stop the abuse of users and the Internet that ICANN
represents.
Sincerely
Ronda Hauben
244 West 72nd Street Apt 15D
New York, N.Y. 10023
U.S.A.
(212)787-9361
ronda@ais.org
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #362
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