Slashdot Mirror

Ok, so this is technically from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, but it's rather interesting, it's called 'Falling Through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion' and examines the statistics of internet and computer use among various groups (income, geography, education, and so on) which includes those with some sort of disability.

Anyways, this link (it's a large page, be patient) is the start of the section on people with disabilities. Scroll down a bit and you'll come to the section labeled 'Definitions' which states that an estimated 45 million (21.8% of the estimated population 16 and over) had some sort of disability.

Ok... so big numbers... You truly don't know that many blind people or people in wheel chairs? Right? Well, scroll down a bit more to Box III-2 (or use this link as it's a GIF) and you'll see that disabilities isn't all that you think.

Ok, so some are going a bit far (I'd personally say the second last item about stress should apply to me :) but as you can see, they aren't necessarily readilly apparent.

Interestingly enough, NeuStar is headed by a bunch of folk that include an IETF dignitary or two (eg. Bill Manning).

The following document details how they're going to implement everything. Section B-3 goes into what you can and can't register under ".us" as well as gives info about the trademark "sunrise" period. At least it looks like they did their homework. There won't be any "com.us" or "xxx.us", but "screw.us" and "slashdot.us" seem quite feasible.

While I don't agree with them in principle, it looks like it could have been worse.

- ez

V.

So, it appears that the public not allowed to see the rules for the .US domain unless it helps spread Adobe software to other computers while Adobe actively attempts to ruin lives. Adobe still has not even bailed Dimitry Sklyarov out after screwing him over. Meanwhile, at least as of October 31, the U.S. Department of Commerce only converted the press release to a normal format, but doesn't have the real information for free in a normal format.

Has anyone converted these nonstandard documents into an standard Internet format (like plain text or HTML) so that free society can see them? If so, please post a URL. Thanks!

P.S. for anyone who cares: At the bottom of that page is contact information for "further assistance".

Regarding the states in the US - if you want that granularity, then try naming a few "län" in Sweden?

Sweden GDP for 2000 $197 billion. Contains 24 län. That's $8.2 billion per län.

Maryland GDP for 1999 $175 billion. Contains 23 counties. That's $7.6 billion per county. Figure about $7.9 billion for 2000.
(Most US states have alot more than 24 counties, so Maryland was the closest fit)

$7.9 Billion per county is 96% of 8.2 billion per län. Pretty good match.

I'd bet it's probably easier to find an american who could name a Swedish län than to find a Swede who could name a county in Maryland.

US national news is more comparable in scope to Europe news. National news in a European country is closer in scale to state news in the US.

I assume that the reason that they want the industry to take a crack at it first is because RIAA et al has a better idea of just how restrictive they want this crap to be, and can do a much better job than gov't can at taking away your freedom to own media.

just out of curiosity, if I am at a terminal in the US, but remotely logged into a machine outside the US, does that count as exporting my code?

Further, the code is `deemed exported' even if you let a foriegn national LIVING INSIDE THE US look at the code: See the BXA Regs for more information.

Where is the respect for human life? America is as much to blame for murdering innocents as Bin Laden or the Taliban. Yet few people see it this way: economic sanctions, although often more crippling than all-out war, are socially acceptable. Bin Laden struck at the heart of America's economic power; an 'appropriate' response to abuse of that power.

I see my brother breaking the rules of some card game. I tell others that I won't play with him and why. I tell him that while I won't let him starve, I won't co-sign any loans with him.

You see, I can hold him to certain behavior in order to gain my support. I'm under no more obligation to help him than he is to comply with my wishes.

... or you could do a minimal amount of research. Basic human needs are specifically excepted from any sanctions. I'm not saying the U.S. is a shining example in all international matters, but I'm not buying this 'It's your own fault' pabulum either.

DeanT

"In the past ten years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion worth of U.S. weaponry."

Wait, that's $4.2B/year on average. "Weapons making is EXTREMELY profitable" ??? That's peanuts!

Put the numbers in context: American consumers spent $6.7T last year. We're a nation that spends $4.5B/year on movie tickets! Or $3.9B/year on taxi fares. We spend $47B/year on shoes, for god's sake! And $34B/year on personal computers. [Source: Dept of Commerce. Very interesting reading!]

Anyone who wants to make an obscene profit wouldn't sell weapons; he'd sell, I dunno, software. ;-)

Digital communication is inherently immune to noise caused by several types of interference. Many channel encoding schemes exist precisely to deal with interference that is typical of the frequency range of the band, doppler effects, echoes, etc. Yes, there is a statistically small amount of bit error you will receive given a statistically small amount of noise energy present in the band, but there is no recent trend of rising noise energy in any given frequency band.

So don't worry, your phone, tv, AM/FM radio, talkabout, bluetooth device, etc will not eventually stop working due to the noise level passing some magic threshold.

For more info, look at the frequency allocation on the FCC web pages:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf

Those bands definitely are used for other services, and have been for a long time. See this page for listings of US and International frequency allocations.

The US modified their export regulations back in 1996 transferring cryptographic export to the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), and not relating it under ITAR (Department of State I believe) which was what classified it as Dual-Use Technologies, which also includes nuclear material, weapons, supercomputers, etc.

The NTIA publication
"SPECIAL AWARD CONDITIONS, NCR 92-1874, Amendment Number Twenty-One (21)" is as follows:

1. Section I. B. 11. Other Top Level Domains of Amendment 19, as amended, is amended as follows:

.us Top Level Domain
Until such time as the Department of Commerce ("Department") designates a successor registry for the .us top level domain, or November 10, 2001, whichever comes first, NSI shall continue to provide administrative services, including Registry and, as appropriate, Registrar services, for this domain. Such services shall be at no cost to the U.S. Government, except that the Department shall reimburse NSI for the 1999-2000 contribution to ICANN attributed to the .us top-level domain.
As administrator, NSI shall use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain the status quo with respect to the operational policies, practices, procedures, administration, and daily operations of the .us domain (except as may be reasonably necessary to comply with customary business practices and to minimize or mitigate risks), and, unless directed by the Department, shall not alter the registration policies of the .us domain. NSI shall have no obligation to develop or prepare any new documentation with respect to its administration of the .us domain. If NSI, however, develops such new documentation, NSI shall provide such documentation (other than internal drafts, memoranda, and working papers) to the Department upon the Department's request. Moreover, NSI shall provide, upon the Department's request, any information or documentation regarding administration of the .us domain that the Department reasonably deems necessary to secure a successor registry.

As custodian of the .us registration data, NSI shall have no obligation to verify or validate the completeness and/or accuracy of the data provided to NSI by the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California. NSI will use the existing constellation of secondary .us DNS servers to propagate the .us top level domain zone files, to the extent that the volunteer top-level domain server administrators agree to continue such operation, and reliability and stability of the .us domain are not jeopardized. NSI will use commercially reasonable efforts to replace any volunteer top-level domain server administrator that elects to discontinue service. NSI will not be held either responsible or liable for any consequences related to the actions or failure to perform by any of the volunteer .us top-level domain server administrators.

Upon designation by the Department of a successor registry, or November 10, 2001, whichever comes first, NSI shall use commercially reasonable efforts to cooperate with the Department to facilitate the smooth transition of operation of the .us domain. Such cooperation shall include timely transfer to the successor registry of an electronic copy of the then-current top-level domain registration date and, to the extent such information is available, specification of the format of the data. Upon receipt of written acknowledgment by the successor registry that it has accepted full and complete responsibility for all tasks associated with administering the .us domain, the Department will concurrently relieve, release, and discharge NSI from any responsibility for administering the .us domain.

Nothing in this Amendment is intended to preclude NSI from seeking or obtaining the rights to function as the successor registry for the .us domain consistent with Federal acquisition law or regulations.



- - - - -

This is another example in case anyone is wondering what that term means. There are several ways to contact The Department of Commerce to tell them what you think, (check the bottom of the page).

(Also, another source is here.)

I'm curious, though, about the phrase "with the authority of the copyright owner" in this context. Reading ROT-13 certainly "requires the application of information," but what about it "requires the application of information, ... with the authority of the copyright owner." In other words, the copyright owner can't claim any sort "right" to ROT-13 technology, so the copyright holder's authority doesn't seem to be required to apply the ROT-13 process. In other words, does this phrase render the rest of the definition meaningless? Would somebody fluent in Legalese care to comment?

Finally, 17 USC, 1201(g) is all about the exemption for "Encryption Research," which should apply here (under a reasonable law), except that in the DMCA this exemption is exceedingly narrow.

If you eliminate all the 'information wants to be free' arguments, then all you're left with is justifications that 'information is worth paying for.'

Don't gripe to me when we end up with a social structure which is tied to an individuals relative ability to pay for information (take a look at the falling through the net studies from the US NTIA)

Choosing to eliminate arguments based on the free-flow of information is a *very* dangerous idea! I would have thought (hoped) that you guys would be a bit more careful...

In general, though, scientists don't care about integer results-- floating point is more important. I have heard that some Crays were notoriously slow at integer arithmatic.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is part of the Commerce Department. There are a lot of smart people at NIST. They have been involved in computer and network technology for many years.

When I was in HS (early 90s), I worked at a small KFC. Whenever we had greese to dispose of, we put it in a bucket (we had another bucket for fat and other chicken parts). At the end of the day, the fry cook had the job of taking the buckets and dumping them in 55 galon drums out back. About once a month or so, someone would come out and haul this stuff off and sell it for use in making makeup and soap and other stuff.

Personally, my bigest question as far as biodiesel is concerned is emmissions. Diesel engines do not have catylitic converters. Even if they were required to have them, the technology is not in place. I know people where I am a grad student (Northwestern University), who are curently actively working on new technologies to go into such a device. The American auto manufacturers are interested in this sort of thing. They all used diesel engines in their PNGV concept cars.

The EPA actually has ratings of various cars as far as emissions go and give the cars a score of 1-10. The Bentley Continental rates a 3 (where 10 is the best) and the Volkswagon TDI Golf, Jetta, and Bug are the only cars sold in the US to get a rating of 1, the worst.
--

(...) but what would you say was the defining moment that facilitated public consumption of the technology? Was it a particular IPO, a particular announcement by a specific company?

Perhaps the first feminist campaign against digital pr0n? There actually has been one in Germany, back when the Internet still had been used mainly by academics.

Seriously, I believe it started when major newspapers began writing about it. You cannot tie it to a specific date. Since newspapers tend to copy from each other, only a small number of original articles was needed to spread the information that there is a thing called Internet. The technology had been available for years before, as well as access to online services, e.g. through Compuserve or local BBSs. Personally, I found the Internet attached to the back side of my first Unix account at the university back in '92.

Oh, and there was all that Information Superhighway babble from politicians. They still don't understand the Net, but they are doing a pretty good job telling everyone how to become a Super Couch Potato online.

So, you can subscribe to XMR for $9.95 per month, not including the one-off expense of replacing all your old audio equipment with XM-Ready equipment. Or, assuming you already have a computer, you can put the money into a decent Internet connection, and listen to a gazillion radio stations worldwide for free.

I know it's easy to predict the death of one technology when another comes along, and (for example) it's clear that TV hasn't killed radio yet. But considering that a fair number of Americans have Internet access already, if they put the cost of XMR access into improving the bandwidth into their house, they'd be getting radio freedom XMR users could only dream of.

M

Even then, correct me if im wrong, but I can go and code a program that utilizies 1024 bit encryption and that is still legal too. As long as i do not export it. Isn't it?

Restrictions on retail software and Free software (yes, there is much overlap) have been greatly relaxed. If you write a Free crypto library, you can release the source code without too much red tape (mostly it's just a fax to BXA).

First, as has been mentioned by another poster, the government of Taiwan is under unbelievable pressure from the United States to enforce intellectual property rights laws. Somewhere around 30% of Taiwan's economy is based on the export of goods to the United States. Threatening trade relations is a remarkably effective stick to beat the government with.

In 1993, Taiwan passed a law protecting intellectual property rights. Here is a link to the English translation of the law if you are curious. The general understanding is that the text of this law was delivered from the American Institute in Taipei (the official unofficial embassy since the United States does not maintain formal relations with Taiwan), with instructions to pass it, as written, without ammendments or modifications, or suffer punitive tarrifs under Section 301 of the United States Trade Act of 1974.

Eight years ago, the issue was bootleg microchips. Now it's bootlegged MP3s. Little else in the basic dynamic has changed.

To condense a very deep topic into a paragraph, Chinese law enforcement is based the principle of "Sha Yi Jing Bai" -- kill one to warn a hundred. Rather than trying to consistiently enforce laws, the police excercise a crackdown mentality where a number of people are run in on the crime of the week, extremely harsh sentences are metted out to the few unlucky folks who have been caught, and then the usual state of barely controlled anarchy which makes up Chinese society resumes.

This promotes a lot more flaunting of the law than respect for it in my mind, but how can a gawailo like me comment on a legal system which has been using this technique for the last thousand years?

A final aspect of the legal system in Taiwan (and China to a great degree) is that you can apologize your way out of a lot of things. I suspect that very few of the students arrested will actually see any jail time for their sins. Most of them will act very contrite, and will be set free to go forth and sin no more.

Cheers!

j.

Bullshhh.

People probably have forgotten but there was a time when Lotus, then PC application leader (to the extent that business buyers didn't want an IBM-compatible as much as a Lotus 123 compatible computer) and Equifax decided to market a CD-ROM, called "Marketplace: Households", that contained everyone's address and phone number and personal demographically-significant data. There was outrage. Eventually, public opinion forced Lotus/Equifax to abandon the project (for more info on this, see NTIA Privacy Report, 10/23/1995, esp. footnote 26).

Now, eventually such products did make it to market, and scaled-down versions (less data, that is) are freely available on-line. But not by Lotus. And Lotus had a relatively good reputation compared to Microsoft.

Will such a clearinghouse/repository exist in 5 to 10 years? Sure. Just not in Redmond.

Bullshhh.

People probably have forgotten but there was a time when Lotus, then PC application leader (to the extent that business buyers didn't want an IBM-compatible as much as a Lotus 123 compatible computer) and Equifax decided to market a CD-ROM, called "Marketplace: Households", that contained everyone's address and phone number and personal demographically-significant data. There was outrage. Eventually, public opinion forced Lotus/Equifax to abandon the project (for more info on this, see NTIA Privacy Report, 10/23/1995, esp. footnote 26).

Now, eventually such products did make it to market, and scaled-down versions (less data, that is) are freely available on-line. But not by Lotus. And Lotus had a relatively good reputation compared to Microsoft.

Will such a clearinghouse/repository exist in 5 to 10 years? Sure. Just not in Redmond.

I disagree with the general statement that the 'airwaves are crowded.' The airwaves are horribly mismanaged and misallocated. Let's see, here in Richmond, VA, there are 7 major stations. They're 6 MHz each. That's 42 MHz of used spectrum. There are currently 62 or so allocated TV channels, representing 372MHz for a grand total of 11.2% utilization. Note that those unused channels are just sitting there idle, although in some markets (Philadelphia rings a bell, har!) they've begun using channels for public service. (before flaming me, I understand the engineering constraints of harmonic channels and IMD).

The TV channels aren't the only wasted spectrum. Have you ever noticed how much spectrum is allocated to the US Gov't? Geez Louise! Here's a link to allocations from 137MHz to 10GHz. These allocations were made back when there wasn't a use for these mysterious 'ultra high frequency' waves. Technology changes, and so should outdated allocations. Remember that at one time Amateur radio operators 'owned' everything from '200m and down.' (That's 1.5MHz -> gamma rays - the top of the AM band, all of the shortwave and CB bands, all of the VHF TV and business bands, all the gov't allocations, all the UHF TV and business bands, Cell phones, radars, visible light, ...) There's a book called '200 Meters and Down' that chronicles the early years of radio. I think it's available at the ARRL Website.

My point is that once uses were found for these previously useless waves, allocations were changed to accomodate the new technology.

DO NOT waste space toadying to your chief bureaucrat at the expense of useful content.

For example, the top of the menu bar at NASA is a paean to NASA administrator Daniel Goldin: links to his bio, his welcome letter, his speeches. Click hot topics and the menu bar full of juicy Dan Goldin information is still there. In contrast, try to find out what's up with the NEAR mission to Eros. Go ahead-- I gave up.

This problem isn't isolated. Pick another site, say Department of Commerce. The "tribute link" to the chief bureaucrat is top-right, and you get a biography, speeches, op-eds, even "official photographs".

Here's the USDA site, where prime position is taken by a big picture of Secretary Glickman at the ribbon cutting for a new wing of the Dept. of Agriculture.

Gag.

US Frequency Allocation Chart

That has a much clearer picture of what's up in the 5ghz range - Aircraft Navigation being the primary use, with bits of Maratime Nav and a little slice of "Amateur" in there near 5.8ghz.

I'd be most worried about the line of sight issue. The higher your frequency, you can send more data, but more things are going to block your signal. Something operating at this frequency is going to have problems going through a wall or a pane of glass. It might work ok through a wood frame/drywall construction house's interior walls, but I suspect that if you've got steel frame or even lath & plaster with hardware cloth backing, you're not going to get very far, or get very good performance if you do.

You're just talking about transferring money from customers to employees.

Here's an interesting bit of math. Take the Gross Domestic Product, representing the total value of goods and services produced in the US: about $US 9,559,700,000,000 for 1999. Divide by the size of the American workforce: 137,673,000. You discover that the average American worker creates $US 69,438 of value per year.

All that value has to end up somewhere. Eventually it all ends up in the hands of a worker who made something - or, in the pocket of an investor, who didn't do a lick of work on making something but manages to get paid anyway.

The average American worker's gross pay, including benefits, is $US 18.50 / hour, or $US 38,480 / year. Leaving $US 30,958 of value going somewhere else.

In other words, the average U.S. worker gets about 45% of his or her productive worth diverted to the owning class. Welcome to capitalism.

In any case, remember that multinationals typically pay twice the going wage rate. Stop them from doing that, and you mire the Third World in poverty.

Just because you leave a group of people better off than before does not mean that you are not exploiting them.

Rather than assisting multinationals to come in and pay six cents a day rather than the locally prevailing three cents, how about assisting these nations in building their own domestically-owned industries?

Government White Paper

/...

Principles for a New System. In making a decision to enter into an agreement to establish a process to transfer current U.S. government management of DNS to such a new entity, the U.S. will be guided by, and consider the proposed entity's commitment to, the following principles:

1. Stability

The U.S. Government should end its role in the Internet number and name address system in a manner that ensures the stability of the Internet. The introduction of a new management system should not disrupt current operations or create competing root systems. During the transition and thereafter, the stability of the Internet should be the first priority of any DNS management system. Security and reliability of the DNS are important aspects of stability, and as a new DNS management system is introduced, a comprehensive security strategy should be developed.

2. Competition.

The Internet succeeds in great measure because it is a decentralized system that encourages innovation and maximizes individual freedom. Where possible, market mechanisms that support competition and consumer choice should drive the management of the Internet because they will lower costs, promote innovation, encourage diversity, and enhance user choice and satisfaction.

3. Private, Bottom-Up Coordination.

Certain management functions require coordination. In these cases, responsible, private-sector action is preferable to government control. A private coordinating process is likely to be more flexible than government and to move rapidly enough to meet the changing needs of the Internet and of Internet users. The private process should, as far as possible, reflect the bottom-up governance that has characterized development of the Internet to date.

4. Representation.

The new corporation should operate as a private entity for the benefit of the Internet community as a whole. The development of sound, fair, and widely accepted policies for the management of DNS will depend on input from the broad and growing community of Internet users. Management structures should reflect the functional and geographic diversity of the Internet and its users. Mechanisms should be established to ensure international participation in decision making.

/...

There's a detailed one at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmh ome/alloctbl/alloctbl.html, and another at http://www.strongsignals.net/htm/band plan.htm.

Here's a good one: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf

This is a more detailed chart which lists the users/uses of the spectrum between 137MHz and 10GHz in the US. Here's one from the UK. And here is a more general chart posted as reply in this thread.

Of course, I'm not sure this answers the question posed -- it just shows how frequencies are used, but doesn't show how much "bandwidth" is available.

I'm not sure of the easiset way to answer that question, anyway -- think about telephone lines, for example. Used to be, everyone figured that they had an "audio bandwidth" of about 3000 Hz (or am I way off here?) So you might figure that means about 3kbps total maximum throughput. However, we're getting 56k (or so) over those same lines, through clever use of multiple channels, multiple bits per baud, etc, etc.

Put another way, 1 MHz of radio bandwith does not equal 1 million bits per second, at least not as far as my limited knowlege implies.

So, maybe, the question is really this: If we scrapped all existing modulation systems (FM, AM, whatever), turned all communications into digital bits, and selected the best (most efficient, best range, etc.) scheme for modulating and encoding those bits, what's the maximum bandwidth available? Interesting question, but basically academic, 'cause I don't see everyone throwing out all their TVs, radios, and cell phones for a maximum-efficiency digital system.

And, besides, isn't sub-space communicaiton right around the corner? :-) david.

The functional and interface specifications of the Shared Registration System shall describe a protocol and associated software able to: (1) provide security and authentication protocols and procedures for requests from registrars; and (2) permit second level domain name holders to change registrars within the same registry without changing domain names.

It's called the Anti-CyberSquatting act (or some such nonsense).

The bill was S.1948 (read Title III) and passed as an amendment to other legislation.

NSI revoking the domain simply because you decided to go elsewhere (and had plenty of time left on your existing legitimate registration) would violate several areas of law

Indeed, which is why they're required by ICANN policy to transfer it to your chosen registrar on your request. If they were to violate this, they could be booted as a registrar, apart from any other legal considerations. Domain transfer is a built-in feature of the SRS (shared registration system), which many of the knee-jerkers on Slashdot don't seem to know or care.

Think about this -- what would happen if NSI claimed ownership of Microsoft's or Yahoo's or Altavista's domain name? The intellectual-property lawyers would be all over them in seconds! The name itself has got to be the intellectual property of the company.

NSI was not claiming the intellectual property rights; these two rulings were not addressing the question of whether the company or NSI owned the rights to the domain. They were about whether a domain name is subject to certain property laws such as garnishment (Virginia) or registrar liability (California). They haven't really addressed the issue of whether John Smith or Mary Jones or Widgets, Inc. "owns" a domain name; if anything, the judges and ICANN have all tiptoed around this question. The judge in California practically begged Congress to pass a law settling the question for once and for all.

Guess who Congress would side with on that one?

Anyone up to putting a RFC together? (And subsequently stuffing it down ICANN's throat?)

An RFC for what? Are you sure the things you want aren't already in place? In any case, this has already moved far beyond the capability of the net to "legislate" and well into the realm of intellectual property law. That RFC wouldn't be worth the paper it is (not) printed on; one lawsuit could blow it away like so much lint.
----

First, http://www.newdom.com/archive has almost-complete archives of the original IIIA list (also at http://www.iiia.org/lists/newdom) and the most important successors (ar.com and vrx.net/newdom.com).

You may also want to read http://www.newdom.com/archive/iana- meeting.html, about the incident that started the whole thing.

If you want to hear more from the "first group," the lists at http://www.open-rsc.org are still open, and people there continue to boldly beat the dead horse.

The gtld-mou ("second group") site is http://www.gtld-mou.org. You can find the archive to their discussion list at http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-disc uss/mail-archive.

The best example of the "third group" can be found at http://www.kenfreed.org. Ken also has a huge collection of useful links (including all of the comments collected by Esther Dyson except mine, for some reason).

The comments to the NTIA are scattered around their website, but start at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ ntiahome/domainname/domainhome.htm.

The name.space people can be found at http://name.space, but in case you happen to be among the 99.999% of the net that can't resolve that name, they're also http://name.space.xs2.net.

And somewhere, I believe there is an archive of all of the crazy ideas of Jeff Williams.

First, http://www.newdom.com/archive has almost-complete archives of the original IIIA list (also at http://www.iiia.org/lists/newdom) and the most important successors (ar.com and vrx.net/newdom.com).

You may also want to read http://www.newdom.com/archive/iana- meeting.html, about the incident that started the whole thing.

If you want to hear more from the "first group," the lists at http://www.open-rsc.org are still open, and people there continue to boldly beat the dead horse.

The gtld-mou ("second group") site is http://www.gtld-mou.org. You can find the archive to their discussion list at http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-disc uss/mail-archive.

The best example of the "third group" can be found at http://www.kenfreed.org. Ken also has a huge collection of useful links (including all of the comments collected by Esther Dyson except mine, for some reason).

The comments to the NTIA are scattered around their website, but start at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ ntiahome/domainname/domainhome.htm.

The name.space people can be found at http://name.space, but in case you happen to be among the 99.999% of the net that can't resolve that name, they're also http://name.space.xs2.net.

And somewhere, I believe there is an archive of all of the crazy ideas of Jeff Williams.

Why they didn't contest this is beyond me, why they even bothered to show up in that PA courtroom is also beyond me. The US has no jurisdiction over Canadian businesses, period.

Maybe there is some kind of loophole provision in the NAFTA agreement that allows them jurisdiction in cases where they formerly had none. I don't really have the time to peruse the whole thing, but it was just a thought. My own opinion on content is very simple. No restrictions, no boundaries, and no government interference.

The Internet is changing the world so fast that most governments (even if they won't admit it) are starting to get scared that one day we might not need them to constantly regulate and restrict our lives or tell us what to think. Oh the horror. =)

------

Well, may be the Bureau of Export should add a footnote that does not permit citizens of Tier 3 countries to walk to the nearest PC store and buy 200 PC's. Nothing to worry about Tier 4 countries, they can't afford it.

Ah... the web has a long memory, even though I do not. He's been consistent, at least (or at most).

[4/2/98] http://www.calinst.org/bulletins/bull 512i.htm
he suggested that the U.S. should expand copyrights to match the extended copyrights of European nations; continue its fight against worldwide piracy; and, expand intellectual property right protection by enacting the WIPO copyright treaties agreed to in Geneva in 1996 (see article below). He also stressed the necessity of other countries enacting and enforcing similar penalties for copyright infringements

[04/03/1997]http://www.star.so.swt.edu/97/04/ 03/040397n3.html
As a war pilot, scholar, White House special assistant, movie industry leader and author, Valenti has worn many hats throughout his career
...
He received his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Houston in 1946 and his M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1948. In 1952 Valenti co-founded Weekley and Valenti, the advertising/political consulting agency, which was in charge of coordinating the media during President John Kennedy's and Vice President Lyndon Johnson's visit to Texas in 1963
...
Valenti was in the motorcade in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated, and within one hour of the shooting was hired as the special assistant to newly inaugurated President Johnson
...

[Mar. 14, 1997]http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/MediaDa ily/OldArchives/199703/1997031405.html
"Sen. Lieberman believes if you say 'V, S and L,' nirvana has arrived," Valenti said, adding that such a content rating "winds up lumping The Three Stooges in the same category as "Natural Born Killers." However, Valenti on Feb. 27 told a Senate committee hearing that he was not opposed to some changes in the system. "I've changed my mind," he said at the hearing. "I'm not inflexible."

[1992-1997(?)]http://iitf.doc.gov/members/valenti. html
Apparently, he was on "The President's Information Infrastructure Task Force." This site has not been updated in a while: "Use Netscape 1.1, IE 2.0, or CyberDog in 8 bit color" Cyberdog? Heh.

[1-28-98]http://www.twsu.edu/~news/insi de/1-28-98/forum1.html
Valenti will explore the relationships among free speech, censorship and personal responsibility in "Lights, Camera, Rhetoric! Who has control of television and movie violence?" on Monday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Metropolitan Complex
No stranger to controversy, Valenti's first movie content battle came just weeks after becoming president of the MPAA in 1966 with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and its frank language. Other controversies followed, along with a Supreme Court decision that stated cities had the power to prevent the exposure of children to books and films which could not be denied to adults.
Those events led Valenti to announce in 1968 a new voluntary movie rating system, which has been revised occasionally to reflect changes in the movie audience.
In 1996, Valenti helped create a similar, and controversial, rating system for television.

[July 16, 1998]http://www.internetnews.com/i wlive/summer98/key4.html
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association Of America, took on the persona of a fire-breathing, circuit-riding preacher as he talked about digital copyright protection to the afternoon keynote audience today at Summer Internet World.
...
"The only way to protect works [of intellectual property] and to guarantee their future is to employ technology to protect them whenever they go on the Internet," he pronounced. "If Congress confers legal status on any machine whose mission is to commit copyright burglary, we're in trouble."
Valenti's jeremiad was inspired by proposed U.S. legislation being revised later the same afternoon in Washington. The bill would implement an international treaty--the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty, signed by more than 80 countries in October 1996--extending copyright protections to digital works, such as digitized movies, software, and the contents of Web sites. Each country must pass enabling legislation for the treaty if its existing laws don't already cover the treaty's provisions.
In its original version the U.S. bill would have criminalized the manufacture of any device that could be used to circumvent copyright--for example, software to decrypt an encrypted movie--but this provision has been opposed by hardware and software makers who don't want to be responsible for every possible use to which their products could be put. They have proposed criminalizing the act of copyright violation rather than the manufacture of the equipment, but the motion picture industry and recording industries oppose this strategy as being too difficult to enforce.
"We don't want to ban VCRs," Valenti said. "The only folks who have cause for concern are the makers of black boxes, which are nothing more than stealing machines." The film industry fears unleashing the ability to copy movies on DVD, since such technology could produce unlimited copies with no degradation in quality, removing any intrinsic incentive to purchase a commercial DVD rather than a pirated one.
Valenti cut his remarks short so that he could fly to Washington to attend congressional meeting involving the WIPO legislation, saying that when he accepted the invitation to speak several months ago, he didn't know the bill would be revised the same day.
Valenti wasn't exactly preaching to the converted, however. In a panel discussion put together to fill the rest of his speaking time, speakers pointed out that the Motion Picture Association of America's approach to the WIPO legislation could make it a criminal offense to commit such everyday acts as setting a Web browser to refuse cookies, if they were being used as part of a copyright protection scheme. Moreover, even manufacturing a browser that is able to refuse cookies would become a crime.
"Jack doesn't want these laws to be so sweeping, but Washington doesn't always get it right," said Jason Catlett, founder of Junkbusters, a company dedicated to stopping the spread of Internet junk mail.
"I run a Web site, and I think that people who violate copyrights should all go to hell, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions," said David Fiedler, editor of the Mecklermedia site Webdeveloper.com. "This legislation might make your computer illegal because if programmed correctly it could be used to circumvent copyright." He also pointed out that the Motion Picture Association of America had in fact sought to ban VCRs and video rental when they were first introduced.

[December 12, 1996]http://www.cme.org/press2.html
"The age-based system that Valenti's group is proposing is inadequate and will not be helpful to parents," explained Kathryn Montgomery, CME President. "The ratings group has chosen to ignore the recommendations of academic experts, parents, child advocacy groups, and professional organizations to develop a usable ratings system that can work with the V-chip," Montgomery added. "Instead, they have purposely devised a system that will not tell parents whether a program contains violence, sex, or offensive language."

[April 25, 1966]http://www. resignation.com/historicaldocs/letters/04251966_va lenti.html
The economic commitments to my growing family cause me to regretfully submit my resignation as Special Assistant to the President, effective May 15.
(reply:) Dear Jack:
It has been a very long day.

[Tuesday, 19 May, 1998]http://www.chl.ca/Cannes98/may19_pirac y.html
CANNES, France -- The film industry is making progress in its war against piracy, but digital copying is posing a new and "cancerous problem," the head of the U.S. film association said Tuesday.
Recent raids, including the seizure of 8 million videos in Hong Kong, show progress is being made against pirates who cost the U.S. industry up to $5 billion a year, said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
...
"In digital, the 1,000th copy is pure and pristine as the first copy. So digital presents a cancerous problem," Valenti said.
His trade group is spending about $50 million annually to fight piracy, including employing ex-FBI agents to bolster other countries' efforts.
"What we're trying to do in China is get market access," he said. Hollywood is limited to 10 films a year in the world's most populous nation.
Valenti said he'll try again with a trip in the fall.
The carrot for the Chinese?
"We'd like to invest with Chinese partners in state-of-the-art cinema," he said. "We are looking forward to a partnership relationship with China."

[September 28, 1995]http://ww w.economicclub.org/Pages/archive-old/abstracts/arc h-valenti0.htm
Currently, a good many public officials have certified that the so-called "popular culture"-defined as movies, television, and musical recordings-is the prime villain in what they perceive to be the clanging of the last ding-dong of doom for this society, the source bed of much of our ills. TV is a powerful medium, but there are deadly combustibles in the community, more noxious than any movie or TV program, and violence has been on the decline in movies and television for the past decade. A restoration of the homely" standards by which ordinary Americans have so long and through so much turmoil sustained their values, maintained their families, and guarded their country--not rating systems and censorship--is the only means for solving American social ills.

[02/07/96]http://www.house.gov/judiciary/461.htm
But what we do know is this binary numbers future is coming. It will have large impact, as well as both sublime and dislocating effect, on millions of Americans. It is the mandate of the Congress to peer beyond the veil, to make sensible and required judgments about how to make absolutely sure that America's grandest trade asset, its intellectual property, is protected in an era of technology so magical it verges on fantasy.
...
This committee knows full well the broad global sweep of American intellectual property which in 1994 produced over $45 billion in international sales, and is that rarity, a producer of surplus balance of trade, a phrase seldom heard in the corridors of the Congress. These creative works are the jewels in America's trade crown. To protect these delicate products in cyberspace is of transcendent importance. For if you cannot protect what you own, you own nothing.

[03/26/99]http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/14 _1/199903/t4151392.htm
President Kim Dae-jung yesterday told visiting U.S. commerce secretary that Korea will maintain the controversial screen quota system which limits imports of foreign movies into Korea, in defiance of U.S. demands for film market liberalization.
...
He made the remark as Jack Valenti, head of the American Film Producers Association, suggested that Seoul scrap the system, saying Korea is the only Asian country which maintains a quota.

Actually, the US is not yet in a recession. Technically, the definition of a recession is a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters. I can only find US GDP stats up to the 3rd quarter of 2000, but there has been no such decline yet. It is predicted, however, that the next quarter will dip, which is why all the recession talk started. This is my source for US GDP stats.

Why not email Secretary Daley, Deputy Secretary Mallett or the Office of Public Affairs and make your opinion known in a polite and respectful manner. I did!

Why not email Secretary Daley, Deputy Secretary Mallett or the Office of Public Affairs and make your opinion known in a polite and respectful manner. I did!

Why not email Secretary Daley, Deputy Secretary Mallett or the Office of Public Affairs and make your opinion known in a polite and respectful manner. I did!

http://www.bxa.doc.gov/Encryption/q&a99 .htm ... last question at the bottom.
This has been up since the policy change was announced.
My opinions on this are here
-hbo (my password is packed in storage)

From where do the USA take the right to rule over the Internet?

Look out for appearances of "Department of Commerce" in the text. Example:

"ICANN's authority to set policy for the registry may be terminated if [...] (b) the Department of Commerce withdraws its recognition of ICANN" (From Agreem ent Summary Fact Sheet)

That's an entirely legitimate concern and I dare say (from my uninformed viewpoint) that it was one of the main bones of contention that made this compromise so hard to reach.

In the short term, the summar y fact sheet says that:

NSI will be contractually obligated to provide equivalent access to the Shared Registration System to all registrars accredited by ICANN (including NSI acting as a registrar) and to ensure that the revenues and assets of the registry are not utilized to advantage NSI's registrar activities to the detriment of other registrars.

Hopefully this will be enough. It's not easy. NSI has the database and has been claiming for some time now that it owns it, period. It looks like ICANN has successfully coaxed them down from this position and is moving in the right direction.

Slowly, yes. But the right direction is unbelievably important. A head on clash between ICANN and NSI would drag in the root server operators, major ISPs, minor ISPs, every administrators' root.hints files, and - eventually - governments. One would not be able to ensure that legitimate domains would resolve. It would be ugly and disruptive, and would do the internet zero good. And worst of all, the eventual outcome is almost certain not to be the best one. Thank whatever powers you believe in that we've got compromise here, folks.

In the long term:

The term of the Registry Agreement is four years from its signing. If ownership of NSI's registry and registrar operations is fully separated within 18 months, and the registry functions are performed by an entity that is not affiliated with a registrar and promises never to affiliate with a registrar, the term would be extended for four additional years.

This gives NSI the carrot of an extended period as registrar if the separation of registry and registrar proceeds speedily. Again, a good one. It's been mentioned elsewhere on this forum that NSI at least has experience in running the root zone. I don't mind them leaving longer between reviews if that major bone of contention - separation of registry and registrar - is removed.

Dave

[As usual, my opinions, not necessarily those of my employer. And worse, they're based on a cursory reading of the agreement, and some pretty shaky opinions on the nature of the root...]

--

The registrar license agreement is laid out at:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agreem ents/nsi-rla-28sept99.htm
Section 5 has all the fees.

Now I realize that this does open up the possibility for price competition, which was one of the main points of all of this. But it also seems that one of the points was to kill NSI as a monopoly. If every single time a domain is registered, regardless of the registrar, NSI still gets a minumum of $9, I don't see that that has been effectively done. Heck -- NSI could sell domains for $8, a fee that no other registrar would be able to match, and still make money all the way around.

I really don't see how any of this can mean a thing until a 3rd party (ICANN would seem the obvious choice, execept for how much they appear to be bungling everything) maintains the central registry. I would even go so far as to say that there should be a not-for-profit entity created who exists solely to maintain the registry and does nothing else.

If you take a look at h ttp://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agreeme nts/nsi-registry-agreement.htm. And scroll down to "Agreements" point 20, you will see this paragraph:

20. Price for Registry Services. The price(s) to accredited registrars for entering initial and renewal SLD registrations into the registry database and for transferring a SLD registration from one accredited registrar to another will be as set forth in Section 5 of Appendix B, Registrar License and Agreement. These prices shall be increased through an amendment to this Agreement as approved by ICANN and NSI, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld, to reflect demonstrated increases in the net costs of operating the registry arising from (1) ICANN policies adopted after the date of this Agreement, or (2) legislation specifically applicable to the provision of Registry Services adopted after the date of this Agreement, to ensure that NSI recovers such costs and a reasonable profit thereon; provided that such increases exceed any reductions in costs arising from (1) or (2) above.

It basically states that if NSI and ICANN feel they aren't makeing enough money, they can raise the prices accordingly.... Does anyone else see a problem with this?
Chris