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If ICANN Can't, Who Can?
alanjstr asks: "After reading this article at The Register, I no longer understand how domain registration really works. Quite a few posts have come across Slashdot about ICANN elections and rights to domain names. It sounds to me like it started off as a good thing but is struggling to move to be autonomous. ICANN was created in an attempt at
who should run it and How should it be paid for. Clearly the Who has become a problem with many complaining about not being represented. The How is a problem that is still unresolved. The more I think about it, the more it seems like we're setting up a new government to rule the land of Domains. How should be go about fixing this dilemma? The first thing that comes to mind is to write a Constitution to lay the groundwork. How would you complete the following: We the People of the Digital Planet Earth...." It all boils down to ICANN asking most of the ccTLDs to pay a third of it's operating costs without allowing them representation in ICANN itself. Now that doesn't sound very fair, does it?
I mean, ICAAN is'nt even that important, anyway.
I propose that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And certainly don't create another 'big government' style overbearing beurocracie.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
who put these bozos and WIPO for that matter in charge? I honestly don't know how they got there or who they answer to, if anyone, and I am mighty curious about the situation, especially in regards to WIPO.
BilldaCat
That'd be great as long as it doesn't turn out like usenet. Not that usenet's a bad thing, I just don't want to be limited to the websites my ISP or their's decides to carry.
Are YOU listed?
Between charging 1500 dollars plus raised registration fees for
humor for the clinically insane
great comedy company.
Fromm Nominet's 2000 AGM notes.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Now, I am a relative newbie to Unix in general. Don't even think of asking me to say anything intelligent about how DNS works or about how BIND works or about exactly what happens when I type a domain name into my web browser past the fact that it goes out to a DNS server and fetches an IP address.
/home/inquis. All the user directories are subordinate to the /home directory. The /home directory and my home directory within that /home directory are logically linked.
/home directory, looking at the contents of that directory, and finding it filled with /sbin crap.
y /lowerLevelCategory
My feeling for a while now is that while Uniform Resource Locators make sense, domain names don't. Think about it from this perspective, and see if it makes any sense.
In the context of your computer, there is a string that you can specify that can point to any particular file, or resource, on your entire machine. For example, my directory would be
Jump over to a win9x box. The contents of the Windows directory are logically linked to the identity of the Windows directory itself. Everything in the windows directory belongs in that directory, because everything in there is a part of windows.
Now look at our idiotic system of using domain names to access resources over the web. First of all, nothing requires that the domain name itself have anything to do with the content that can be accessed by using that domain name. This would be akin to sitting down at your linux box, moving to your
Another problem I have with DNS is that related content is not grouped together by default. This harks back to the previous problem (you can't tell the content from the domain name). And I'm not simply talking about going to a portal that indexes web content and drilling down through the links, I'm talking about a fundamental archetecture change.
Look at it this way. Say you want to look up newbie Linux sites, but you don't know where to begin looking. As it stands now, you can go to Google and hope that their spider has picked all of them up; you can go to Yahoo and hope that they have manually indexed them all; either way, you miss out on content.
now, check this out... wouldn't it be easier on you and everyone else if you could just do this?
http://xml/linux/newbie
transferProtocol://contentType/highLevelCategor
As the web stands now, it is analogous to a linux box with every single file on the entire machine crammed in the root directory. You have to know what exactly you are looking for and how to find it before you can actually find it. A more efficient system would allow even the most braindead user to shoot in the dark and still manage to find somehting useful quite quickly.
(Response to one obvious counterpoint: you can grep a directory to find what you are looking for quickly even if you don't know its name. However, grepping the web is not trivial. The closest tool we have for doing that is Google, and we all know that while it is pretty good, it is not perfect.)
Allright, this now ends my directionless rant. Mods, respond to this if you disagree instead of modding it down.
Thanks, and everyone have a good day. I just pulled an allnighter writing polysci paper, so I needed a good rant.
-inq
Until then, I think the best way is to open it up to everyone and get the registries to allow mass voting on what new TLDs are added. WIPO can handle the problems with trademarks.
Another point I feel worth mentioning, is that the problem also lies with the fact that WE are not taking advantage of the alternative DNS systems out there. If we make a mass migration over to alternative DNS systems, ICANN will lose its clout. This should send a message to any future organization or government that would like to manage DNS. Check out and support:
Open DNS Technologies
AlterNIC
ADNS
Open Root Server Confederation
Name.Space
There's more too.
Chris
Open DNS Technologies, Inc.
Everyone's b*tchin' about ICANN but not many people are really doing anything about it - but in the Register article there's a link to The SuperRoot Consortium that has a proposal and is actually doing something about the TLD problems.
I know that I'm switching over, if everybody starts using their rootservers ICANN will loose it's power and all of us will be happier. Think about it, ICANN depends on their rootservers to stay in power, use other rootservers and ICANN can't touch you.
Like I said, I'm switching...
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All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Okay...I run BIND for where I work. Given that I'm not Earthlink and connecting massive amounts of the american populous to the net, but we've got about 5500 people.
As I read through the comments on here, I find things like Superroot.net, alternic, etc...
So, for people to get access to these rogue sites, I need to add all these other entries to my root.db and other files. And merge the entries from the various splinter groups, as I can't just dowload one groups root.db and run with it. And what is going to happen when two groups both have the same TLD listed in there?
I'm all for ICANN going away, but like it or not, there needs to be that tiny bit of control in there to keep utter anarchy (ie alt.*) from happening.
Anyone have a better way of handling this nightmare?
At the moment it works something like this:
.uk server.
.com, .org, etc.
you type in a URL and your web browser queries your ISP DNS for www.theregister.co.uk.
It doesn't know the IP addr, and so asks the DNS root for the address of the
This server does know about everything *.uk, and can answer the query for the IP address of www.theregister.co.uk.
If theregister.co.uk ran it's own DNS, your browser would ultimately have to query that DNS for the IP address of www.theregister.co.uk (as happens in large organizations)
As the article says, if the ccTLD data for enough popular countries moved, ISP's in those countries would have to change DNS root settings, to correctly resolve these domains.
These registrars could then do cool things like create new TLD's which the alternative DNS root knew about.
ICANN probably wouldn't like that and would keep their root server as-is, so users accessing ICANN's servers wouldn't see the new TLD's
the 'new DNS root' could reference ICANN's existing gTLD's, so non US users could access
What would ultimately happen is that because the 'new DNS root' is effectively a superset of ICANN, US ISPs would ditch ICANN's root server.
no more ICANN.
However, the problem is two-fold here: those 5 people are to replace the original, gov't selected ICANN officials, but these officals have yet to step down. In addition, the ICANN board just happened to change it's bylaws after the internet election but before the new domains were selected as to basically prevent the new members from having a say on the new domains.
In other words, until the new members are in place and replacing the other 5, it's still mostly a gov't organized system, which is definitely not democratic in this case (at least, no representation methods). I'm sure that the change over will happen *now* but now is too late as the new TLDs are rather poor choices.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Excuse my bluntness, but that doesn't make any sense. How do you expect the average nontechnical person to remember IP addresses. Be honest - if you were walking on the street and saw a sign for Macy's and wanted to shop online, what would be easier for you to remember at the spur of the moment? www.macys.com, macys.com, macys.shopping, or 63.73.131.68 ? How about an email address? Would you want to send email to me at cmilkosky@opendnstech.com or my IP address? Sorry, but as a human, I find the names easier to remember and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
You can't just abandon DNS anymore. There has to be an orderly transition away from it that makes sense. Something new may form in the next few years, but we aren't going to be abandoning DNS any time soon because of the apps that depend on it. Everything using the Internet is built around the use of DNS.
Chris
Open DNS Technologies,Inc.
I expected as much from such a motley gathering of megalomaniacal CEOs. That's basically what ICANN is; a gathering of the top IT/telecom/Internet business owners with the fattest wallets on the planet. Sure, without one solidly defined organizational system, the Internet would just be a barrel with fish in it, but just look at the morons in ICANN!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Buy the DNS & Bind book (if you haven't already)
Setup a nice little name server with a catchy TLD like ".slash"
Add your friends' boxes to your new TLD
Change your .sig to tell people how to modify their resolv.conf
Rinse & Repeat
Once roughly a third of the Internet is using "pirate" DNS systems some propeller-head at Yahoo or some such will have the great idea of mirroring all this at their site and ICANN will soil their trousers. You can expect ICANN to pressure ISP's into only using the "official" name servers, and a few lawsuits to settle who can run what services (named) on their own machines. Those things will likely split the Internet (again) between the haves (those who have the knowledge and will to modify their resolve.conf) and the have nots (those who must use their ISP's config.) However, that might be a Good Thing.
"Hmm... this link to l337.h4X0r seems to be broken..."
"Dammit! That darn sensorware must've blocked newdgeeks.slash"
Here's a link to youcann.org, a site devoted to promoting alternative TLDs. Looks like they duplicate the 'standard' DNS information and augment it with their own stuff that ICANN doesn't accept.
It's a very interesting idea, but as this Wired article details, bad things happen when people disagree about who on the Internet is in charge of a certain TLD (.biz in this case).
If you're actually interested in doing something, rather that just complaining all the time, here's an opportunity, staring you in the face.
I think this is a great idea... But what happens when all the good TLDs are taken? Hrmmmm...
...shall not be abridged."
- From the first article of the constitution of Beta in Lois McMasters Bujold's universe.
IIRC, the book this quote was taken from was written in the 80s, and is pretty forward thinking. I think something like this should be written into ANY internet constitution. Individuals may choose to limit their own access, or may choose to let someone else do it, but the infrastructure shouldn't be doing it. In short, unless you have written consent from all individuals affected, you may not deny access to information.
I hate to say it, but ICANN comes off looking like the good guys, and the nation-states seem a lot less trustworthy.
Why doesn't each country just take control of their own ccTLD, and leave gTLDs to ICANN?
--
Find free books.
There is some coordination needed to help people avoid creating conflicting TLDs. If both the UK and the US create a ".biz" within their servers, it would be bad for both. Serious registrars will cooperate, and if they won't, users just won't point at them. In either case, the function an organization like ICANN would perform would be a minor, administrative one, not justifying their current size, power, or charge structure: maintaining a list of those TLDs.
Even with the current DNS infrastructure, ICANN is technically and administratively superfluous. I hope the ccTLD administrators will leave the current system: sooner or later, it is destined for demise anyway, and it might as well be sooner.
The problem with a written constitution is that loopholes are eaasier to exploit. For instance, as I understand it, the American constitution does not protect anyone's right to be an Atheist. You can be Muslim, Shinto, Seventh Day Advent Hoppist, or Discordian - those are religions, and you are free to follow them. CMIIW.
No taxation without representation!
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
If there are any problems assigning names.
Simple!
The solution is the elimination of TLDs altogether. Major businesses will engage in legal or extralegal shenaningans to insure that they have absolute control over their present second level name in any namespace.
.COM et al, but now they're just an opportunity for registrars to make money and bring instability to the DNS system.
Adding more TLDs doesn't do anything without restrictions on what can go onto those TLDs, and as ICANN has so amply demonstrated, the categories and restrictions get chosen through a particularly bizzarre process that leaves no one happy.
Why do we even need a TLD namespace anyway? It served a purpose once upon a time when SRI or whoever did registrations limited them with in
http://slashdot should be enough.
Although a global namespace served the Internet well throughout its early days (before the perceived need for ICANN), the demand for names has now far exceeded the supply. I don't see any fair way to resolve conflicts without resorting to multiple namespaces. Why not completely switch to local namespaces?
How much do we rely on DNS? I use it to type web addresses fairly often, but 99% of the time it would be nearly as easy to use search engines, follow links from a familiar site, or use a bookmark. I also use DNS for a variety of other services which are configured through files (in which I could just as easily us IP addresses). The trickiest transition (as far as my own usage of DNS) would be email.
We already have a global numeric namespace (IP addresses) which has only a small number of conflicts. Those addresses can even be memorized (at least until we start seeing more of IPv6). They can continue to be used as universal locators while the mapping of names to addresses can become a local task, just like creating and renaming bookmarks in your favorite browser.
In order for this to actually work, entities will need to be able to share namespaces with each other. We already do this in many ways, e.g. Yahoo shares its hierarchical namespace through a simple web interface.
Has anyone done any research into the feasibility of large scale global namespaces with unique identifiers? I think there is a limit to how large they can be and what boundaries they can cross, but I haven't read anything significant on the subject.
ICANN had a contract to run the top-level servers that everyone was using.
This is a common misconception. The root servers of the Internet aren't run by ICANN. They are run by supporting organizations around the world. This link shows where they are and who runs them. I believe the information is still accurate.
Some quick history about root servers and ICANN. The main root server - the "A root" or a.root-servers.net, is under the control of Network Solutions (now a part of Verisign). This server is where new TLDs are added. If you check your root.db or named.ca - the A root server is listed first. Other root servers get their info from that one.
So, ICANN, formed in October of 1998, was given the responsibility of managing DNS TLDs after the government decided that it should be in the hands of a private organization. Here is the scope of ICANN's control (in my words):
They manage the creation of new TLDs
They can say who is the registry to handle a TLD
They settle disputes over domain names
That's it. They can't touch alternate root structures.
All that needs to be done is for people to make a mass migration over to an alternate DNS structure. If you get enough people to be interested, ICANN will lose its clout, and pretty much fizzle away.
As I mentioned earlier, alternate DNS structures are a start, but you need more than an alternate root structure - you need compatibility with the legacy DNS structure as well - email is a perfect example. How will email servers talk to each other if one person is using an alternate DNS structure and another isn't? This place has something different that just might pull that transition off though.
Chris
Open DNS Technologies
As one of the folks quoted in the Reg article, I'm kinda surprised that the DNS project I'm working with hasn't be referenced here yet. Well, I'll take care of that ... ;-)
The OpenNIC is working on and promoting a system much like what's being discussed here. We want a global DNS root in which any person or group which can technicaly build and support a root is a welcome and equal participant and in which new TLDs are created simply by vote of the users.
Within OpenNIC, we operate several TLDs (.oss and .null, presumably, would be of the most interest to this crowd).
Cheers,
-robin
No one has yet shown me why we even need a central "government" to control domains. The domain naming system is nothing more than a commonly implemented, highly distributed, and rather arcane, search engine. And it's not even a very slick search engine.
If we are going to form a representative body to manage it for us, then we have to decide who the "us/we" part is. Are "we" the ones who register names or are "we" the ones who are going to be looking up names. I think it should be the latter, if anything. We are, of course, the ones who decide what goes into our own DNS data files, or DNS lookup list. We decide how we shall see the world.
As I have mentioned before, it is possible for the whole domain naming system to be run with every server having its own root zone. Will that result in confusion? Probably, but mostly only for corporate suits who were (and probably still are) all confused by all this internet stuff, anyway.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
> It all boils down to ICANN asking most of the ccTLDs to pay a third of it's operating costs without allowing them representation in ICANN itself. Now that doesn't sound very fair, does it?
Yeah, taxation without equal representation. You'd think people would have learned their lesson about trying to pull that, what with the British getting their asses handed to them on a plate in the late 1700s over the exact same issue... ;-)
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News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Not to seem loutish, but of course it's an American-centric viewpoint. We did, after all, sort of invent and propagate this ``Internet'' thing and still have the highest number of 'net users globally. I'd equally expect to here Brit-centric viewpoints in a debate about scones, tea, or cricket.
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News for Geeks in Austin, TX
We need to process domain name registrations and to apply an eventual priority to this. .museum TLD instead of .sex (like it or not, this would be the best way to limit e-pornography), then we definitely shouldn't discuss.
This should be managed by a program, not by an office : an office means staff and also costs.
Hence the title of this reply.
You have to ask them to allow you to use a given name, why ?
What if by hashing your domain name string a program would just be quick enough to tell you "Ye're the first, buddy, this name's yours.".
If instead of this you need some useless, redundant organisation that will prefer spending time and money to define a
Icann wrote they are here to govern the Internet (their word, not mine).
So, I'll advise decent Internet people to just choose freenet as their Mayflower before it is too late.
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Trolling using another account since 2005.