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ACLU Takes on ICANN
c_honcho writes "Now the ACLU (and friends) is taking on the ICANN group for limiting our 'Net freedoms. I suppose it was only a matter of time." See the ACLU's letter for their concerns about ICANN's addition of new TLDs.
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It makes sense that they should take that side on spam. I just don't think they have a _case_ there. They can back the 'spam == speech' side all they like and still be wrong, and still lose. Just because they are sometimes right doesn't require them to _always_ be right. It's good to see them getting involved in situations where they _DO_ have a case, because they're a terrific opponent for ICANN. In that area, their concerns are exactly addressing the problem, and there's no gaping hole in their argument.
This was flamebait? Maybe (-1, Obvious Already). Hardly flamebait.
There is a technical reason, it's called "knowing which root server to go to for that domain name". DNS is hierarchical; you can't just add things at random spots in the hierarchy without considering what that will do for the performance of the whole system. If you add the .blah TLD without sufficient preparation, DNS lookups for blahblah.blah will go nowhere, and may clog up the system for those of us just looking for /. or porn :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Yeah, why not, that worked just great with .alt
.ca domain, the root server tells you which server to go to look up a .ca. That server will tell you where to get the blah.ca domain and that server will do the rest of the work pointing you to ftp.blah.ca.
.uk, the root server will send you off in another direction.
The answer is that the root servers don't hold all of the DNS entries, they point you at other servers that either have the information you need or will refer you to another server that does.
If you request the
If you request a
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Friends don't let friends use the wrong DNS roots.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Go home. Quit trying to use your employer's computer and your employer's net connection to do private surfing unrelated to your work. If you don't like it, find a new employer. O become an employer so you can kick out the net nanny and let your workers waste their time on slashdot.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Yeah, let's show those phonies by getting our own real free speech impediments!
CLISP
CMUCL
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Actually, when 1-888 started, owners of 1-800 numbers were given first refusal over the equivilant 1-888 number. Totally stupid, and the reason why 1-888 filled up so quickly.
The US Domain .us - you usually end up at your local city.
Here you go. There are links to each individual spot from this page. The registries are controlled in a strong hierarchy for the
At this page you can find most of the local contacts.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Since Amazon.com is still a representation and not a globally unique mark, it seems as ludicrous to litigate over Amazon.com as it seems to litigate over 208.216.182.15.
Actually, it's now more accurately Amazon-USBased-Online-Bookstore-cum-Electronics-T
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Actually, I'd say that Google is more analogous to a phone book.
A phone book allows you to search by some name you remember, and then if there are several that match, to use the the information attached to each entry to figure out which one you want. DNS does not allow for this.
As such, Amazon-the-Bookstore finds it necessary to be THE Amazon.com even though the user might have really been looking for Amazon-rainforest-trinkets or something else.
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The assignment of Top Level Domain names affects the whole world, not just America. They impact me, though I've never been to America. The United Nations is probably the only "Judicial" body that has the appropriate juridiction.
It is in the long term interests of America to make the process truly international, before China eclipses it on the world economic stage. The rest of the world is growing increasingly impatient with the arrogance of the USA in deciding global issues.
I'm not saying the United Nations is appropriate to decide on all global issues, but it would be better for the USA to cooperate in setting up a truly international body to adminster TLD's.
The world should not be held to ransom by changes in the government of the USA and associated commercial interests.
Remember, more internet activity takes place outside of the USA, and the USA component is decreasing in percentage terms.
Look after Today's children, for they are Tomorrow's Society!
Is it?
Your assumption is that it is the overall number of violations, or people whose rights ar eviolated that is whats important.... thus my statment is not logical, because we have made different base assumptions.
My assumption is simply that violating anothers rights is wrong. Wrong is a boolean. It is JUST as wrong whether I violate 100 peoples rights, or just one. (the magnitude of the needed correction may be different, but thats another issue).
If the state punishes an innocent man, then the state is just as guilty of violating peoples rights as ANY criminal that is in jail (with the exception, of course, of the innocent ones).
> determining anything with 100% certainty is
> impossible
What is the instruction given to a jury? They should say guilty ONLY if there is "NO REASONABLE DOUBT". If they have ANY REASONABLE DOUBT AT ALL, then the intruiction is that they are to find the person NOT GUILTY.
Punishment is a harsh thing, any way you cut it. As such the bar MUST be set high. It MUST be weighed more carefully than ANY other decision that our society makes.
There is always talk of making law enforcement "easier". The problem is that the risks are high, the dangers are high. It is suposed to be tough, it needs to be tough. It needs to be stricly controlled and monitored.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
What the ACLU really should be doing is investigating the problems of domain name arbitration, and looking at the rights of those people who are brought to the WPO, like the owner of Madonna.com. Now there is a relavent and important issue to investigate, not stupid choices by ICANN.
In this case, I would tell the ACLU to back down. The internet does not need defending. The internet needs to defend itself, and if it does not, it deserves to die. I would not care to see it any other way. We either fight for it or give it up to someone else who is fighting for it.
Fixing this problem is very simple, and it has been said by others so many times. But, the ACLU can not fix it. The users of this network must fix it. Use different DNS servers.
Go check out http://alternic.org/. Put 208.130.10.122 and 208.130.10.123 in your DNS list.
Damn, Alternic even has a howto, though it needs work;
http://alternic.org/howto/
What excuse do you have now lazy ass?
You are giving ICANN their power by using them. If you do not like them, knock it off!
So, what am I doing to help this situation? I would like to try and talk my superiors into adding some alternative DNS servers in our network for our customers. This may yet happen after some time, but someone has to speak up or it will never happen.
Trust in ICANN is not enough to permit debate within the confines of its own structures. North America and Europe elected strong critics to the ICANN board, and the board stalled on giving them seats; it has taken numerous other steps to perpetuate its nontransparent reign. So the next natural step is back to the U.S. government, which, like it or not, created ICANN and still has oversight. That is the significance of this ACLU initiative. (CPSR, which I support, also signed on.)
Controlling DNS' is like telling you what street you can stand on to give your speech.... If all the good streets (recognized and traveled by most people) are owned by major corporations then your right to speech is effectively denied.
It is critically important to be able to register your own domain name. Even if every web visitor finds your page from a search engine, if your speach offends someone with clout, all they have to do is threaten whomever is nice enough to host your pages under their domain name. You get censored very easily.
In the present example, you are unhappy with GM and create a GM-sucks page, and of course being a free-speech example, someone (probably with GM) doesn't like the page. You're not going to be an easy target, but whoever has been nice enough to host your page under their domain name probably is. Afterall, they're a business (in the theoritical world of corporate-only well-known TLDs), and your page isn't in their mission, and even one cease-and-desist letter with words like "confusingly similar to our regsitered trademark" is going to make the decision to stop helping you a no-brainer.
If you don't have your own domain name, you're screwed. All those links and bookmarks to your old URL now dead. Eventually the serach engines will index your page at the new site, but old links continue to propagate for a damn long time. My site was once hosted at a university web site, for about 3-4 years, and hundreds of links were made and all the search engines indexed it. Now, nearly 2 years after the move, still about 2000 hits/month (about 10-15% of my traffic) comes from a redirect that the old site was nice enough to leave in place, despite many all-night sessions resubmitting to all the major search engines and emailing to hundreds of web masters (often times taking considerable time to find out who's responsible for a page with the link). It is very important to have your own domain name.
It will take quite some time before your speech is as effective as before, and in a world where the only well-known domain names pander to corporate interests, you'll have to choose between registering a domain name that labels your page as having no valuable content, or hosting on someone else's site.
Jay, while your domain name is a .cx, it appears that you effectively control this domain name, which is a very different scenario that using "someisp.com/~you/gmsucks", where the ISP is an easy target for a trademark complain or other attempt at censorship, leaving the disgruntled consumer without the option to change the hosting to another ISP that will not be as easily pushed around.
Now, honestly, I'm not sure if this whole ICANN/ALCU thing really is a problem that will turn into corporate control of domain names.... the reason I posted this, and I hope it was clear, is that if you're going to publish anything significant on the web, you need to be able to register your own domain name. Suggesting that others will find your site from search engines and not by remembering your name is only significant until the hosting under someone else's name ends and many links, bookmarks and stored search engine result all stop working.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The internet is a HUGE project which has been payed for by public and private money from all over the world. Funnily enough, the rest of the world doesn't see why one of the contributors (albeit a large one) should have all the say.
To use your example of Micro$oft and AOL, it would be like them saying "Thank you for your investment in our operations, now get out of our shareholders' meeting because you're not American".
I don't know about everyone else, but I jump from machine to machine, browser to browser, OS to OS, all the time. I can never count on having bookmarks handy when I want to find information. I use two strategies to find what I want.
First, I remember a few key URLs: www.yahoo.com, www.deja.com, www.google.com, and a few others. (Of course, www.slashdot.org falls into this category. ;-)
Second, I guess! Some URLs I have guessed recently are www.dictionary.com, www.bridge.com (Bridge Information Systems), www.xml.com, and www.map.com.
Try remembering the IP address for your favorite Linux site! Then prepare to track it down when they move the site to another IP address.
Offtopic: What URLs should I add to my memorized list? (Hehe...bet no one has any opinions on that!)
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Remember that names and numbers are NOT a one to one relationship. idiotsRus.com and moronhouse.com
could point to the SAME IP address, but totally different web sites. This is one of the things HTTP 1.1 did for us. It helps conserve IP addresses that are in short supply. www.butthead.com can also map to many different IP addresses too.
Of course some of the REASONS that IP addresses are in short supply are stupid - large corps hogging class A's & B's that don't need them... But I digress.
But don't worry Simon, soon you will have lots of IPv6 numbers to remember!!!
I have to admit, I'm glad someone's going after ICANN, even if it's too little, too late. $50,000 for ".museum"?? Apparently, ICANN isn't too familiar with existing museum nomenclenture. Taken from the .us doman page (http://www.nic.us/overview/special.html):
e. MUS - Museums
This branch is used for museums. For example:
<museum-name>.MUS.<stat e-code>.US.
If this wasn't a scheme to bilk people and honest (if not very clued-in) groups out of a bunch of cash, I don't know what would be. I say let the ACLU sue 'em until the cows come home.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
"I may be the only person who feels this way...but I still think that URL's (and top-level domains) are basically a hack. They're nothing more than a label for a TCP/IP address & port number. People take this stuff WAY too seriously. " that idea is great for techs, but what "average person" would hear "152.5.123.7:8080" and remember it, let alone be inspired to visit it? imagine a store that could only put its phone number on its sign, have no advertising outside the store, no windows... would you be inclined to call them and see what they do? didnt think so.
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
"So shouldn't the same thing be happening?"
.com, etc., but the registrars allowed companies to register whatever they wanted just to make money.
But just because they added 888, whatever, Amazon (to keep the example going) didn't also get issued 1-888-4-AMAZON, nor would they sue someone who registered 1-888-426-2066. This is what ICANN was trying to provide from the start with
BTW, did I get the phone number right? I seem to have no Z on my phone at work.
I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Your country didn't invest in the development of the Internet. They are just paying the costs associated with using it. It's like buying a copy of Windows and then insisting that you have a right to attend the Microsoft shareholder's meeting.
To carry the analogies further, it's like asserting that your expenditures for gas, oil, maintenance, and repairs on your Ford car entitle you to a seat on the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company.
I can tell you why I don't: I do not want to tell every nut-case on the net where I live.
People need DNS, and they want their own TLD's. I don't think it's unfair to ask for them. All the dictionary and Latinesque TLD's are taken, and considering how much Business.com went for, a sufficiently descriptive TLD would cost even more than lobbying ICANN to get off their fat fucking asses, anyway.
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My employer does not allow the employees to see the ACLU link. The net nanny software displays a message that threatens with termination if I don't stop trying to violate the company policy.
Is this message off topic?
Marko
The problem isn't that the heirarchy exists, it's that it's too flat. People fight over blah.com. Removing .com doesn't help anything, except it would stop the inanity of getting .net and .org for all .coms. But that's not anywhere near the main problem in DNS. The main problem is that Michael Blah, Blah Computers, Blah Moter Company, and Blah's Ole Time Family store all want blah.com.
The obvious way to fix this is to make a lot more gTLDs. Something like michael.blah.name (actually, I think this idea is stupid. People shouldn't be able to get domain names off their name. Way too many people have the same name.), blah.computers, blah.cars, blah.general.store, would be best. Somewhere out there, the trademark office *has* a list of trademarks for all catagories. Let's, right now, make a .trade, and put the catagory in front of it, and whenever you get a trademark, you can pay 10 dollars more a year and get a domain name too.
That completely removes all confusion. I want to reach Apple Computers, I type 'apple.computer.us.trade'. I knew Apple Computers is trademarked in the computer catagory, and no other computer company can call itself 'Apple', or 'Apple Computers', or 'Apple Computing' or anything having to do with apples.
I think it would also be a good idea for licensed businesses to get a .license or something. You know, if they're at franksroofing.build.ga.us.license, then, hey, they have a building license in Georgia. And so on and so forth. There are plenty of legal identifiers businesses have, and we should let them use them in a regulated system on the net.
Then, make a prefix for purely personal use, and one for informal organizations that aren't actually registed, and maybe a seperate one for pages put up my individuals that are intented to be a general resource (as opposed to those 'homepages' that people have, which go in the first). And completely and totally remove .com, .org, and .net. They have been completely screwed up, and just need to be trashed.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
What I can never figure out is why no one uses a .us domain. Aren't they free? Maybe no one knows where to register them!
You're not supposed to register "yourname.us", but only "yourname.city.state.us". And "cybertron.podunk-city.co.us" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
More info on .us domains (including how to register them) can be found straight from the horse's mouth.
This is the least important thing they could possibly be putting their efforts into.
How about legal bullying to steal or silence websites? How about legislation supporting such legal bullying?
Domain names are really not important. I know plenty of great sites without their own domain. Easily-remembered domains are only really important for people who advertise on TV.
The ACLU is just another money-sucking "cause" which makes noise to attract cash, and carefully avoids actually affecting the real problems that justify its funding.
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NPR was interviewing some ICANN members the other morning. One of the callers reported that there is currently a measure being debated within ICANN to do away with publicly-elected seats. Karl Auerbach and Esther Dyson, who were guests on the show, confirmed this. (Side note: apparently Vint Cerf couldn't/wouldn't come unless his company was allowed to oversee the format and content of the interview!)
This dissolution of public representation is just plain wrong. The public votes in a member of the Chaos Computer Club and suddenly the corporate board of ICANN has the gall to discuss the removal of public representation?
Just brainstorming here, but what about newsgroup like names, such as comp.os.etc etc? Only reversed. Or whatever works.
.com. From there, everyone fights about what comes before that. Why not split that into several groups? For instance, resturaunts.com. Then the resturaunts can fight over just that level.
That seemed to work for a large number of groups because the individual control was not at such a high level in tree. What I mean is, all we have is
It's kinda like a b-tree. It's time for a split.
Jason
The ACLU should have provided a fictional example along those lines to illustrate the Sword of Damocles the UDRP is.
...and leave the internet to those of us who don't mind using dotted quads. :) I'm only half-kidding.
Here's an idea. How about we remove top-level domains entirely? Why not have a system where instead of browsing to "http://www.slashdot.org", I just go to "http://slashdot"? One obvious problem is what do you do about all the situations where there's x.com, x.org. x.net, etc. Well, the answer is, they all stay as they are, but we stop using TLDs for all new domains. So you could be just slashdot.
This means that your web browser would go to the A.root servers for the old TLDs, and instead of having a top-level server for each TLD, we'd have one for each letter of the alphabet (or whatever other characters in whatever other languages can start words, so that the language you're using is irrelevant and it isn't US-centric). Then we have a big ole distributed system of servers, each one of which serves a particular letter (or even group of letters, I dunno how fast those big-ass servers are).
So you've got a box that serves 'A' and 'B', one that serves 'C' and 'D', etc. That way, TLDs are a thing of the past.
The biggest problem of course is, who decides who gets which domains. And what about domain speculators (or people who are just rich jerks) who buy up hundreds or thousands of domain names?
How about a system where any given entity can only register one name per day? And it would cost something small, or maybe it would just be free.
Obviously this has a lot of work to go into it, but it certainly would be an improvement. Hierarchy is nice, but is it necessary? You could still of course register a name like "cia.usgovt" if the "usgovt" name wasn't already taken.
Maybe I'm just rambling. Oh well.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
"yourname.city.state.us". And "cybertron.podunk-city.co.us" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
If Colorado (.co.us), Nebraska (.ne.us), and Oregon (.or.us) would take the "city" field out of their domain patterns, they could get some business that would have otherwise gone to .com, .net, and .org, respectively. (Compare .co.uk and .org.uk.)
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The point is that it was funded at the expense of the taxpaying United States' citizens. Instead of thanking the U.S. for opening up access to the net, you (as a Canadian) want all countries to be equal partners with no compensation to the U.S.
The U.S. invested the money and took the initiative (and risk of failure) to build the Internet. Why don't you try telling Microsoft, Netscape, and AOL that you want to be an equal partner in their now successful net ventures and see how they react?
ACLU is wrong for thinking the ICANN can define the standards.
The internet community is also wrong. Throw your bag over your shoulder and get on board with an alternate root. Better yet, if you have the skills, propose a more open standard so that rooting doesn't need to be done in the homogenous way that it is.
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The letter from the ACLU and its allies, addressed to outgoing Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta, argued that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) placed artificial limitations on the number of generic top-level domains that threaten freedom of expression for individual Internet users and noncommercial organizations.
What are they talking about? Just because a TLD does not exist places NO RESTRICTIONS on what a person wants to say. Freedom of expression is NOT threatened by not having a TLD for a specific purpose. If no new TLD's were made, would they also sue?
I am sorry if this offends people, but I really think the ACLU should calm down and focus.
So what your saying is....
"You will love the ACLU, until something happens which effects you in a way that causes your emotional feelings to overrule your logical judgement"
The ACLU is pro-freedom. There is a very simple concept here. "It is better to let 100 guilty men go free, than to convict one innocent man".
I firmly believe that this is true. 100, nay even 1 million convicted criminals does not undo the harm of putting an innocent man in prison.
To go even farther, forget about conviction. If a practice of law enforcement or other arms of the government has the potential to infringe upon the rights of an innocent party...then that practice DESERVES to be attacked, even if it means a guilty person going free.
You can catch a criminal the next time they commit a crime, you can't undo their crime, nor can you undo the damage that can be done by unchecked government.
Thats why the ACLU exists. Because people are "Innocent until PROVEN guilty" and deserve to be treated and defended as if they are indeed innocent UNTIL they are PROVEN guilty.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The internet needs to be seperated from the American government. Every country in the world should be able to 'share' the ability to add TLDs. Every country (I mean all countries - not just the ones the American Government likes) should be given the right to add as many TLD as they like... the present system is ridiculous what the hell does the US Dept. of Commerce have to do with the Internet..
For those Americans who will remind me that the 'Internet' used to be a DARPA project (etc etc): Whats your point? Times change. Only hubris and selfishness would keep you from putting yourselves on equal footing as the rest of the planet...
You're an ...you're not thinking clearly. Controlling DNS' is like telling you what street you can stand on to give your speech. All that will be left if corporate America gets its way will be alleys and swamps. If all the good streets (recognized and traveled by most people) are owned by major corporations then your right to speech is effectively denied. Think of it this way, how much free speech is there in a mall? No, there is no free speech in a mall. Its not a public space. People may falsly beleive they are public but they are not. There are no homeless in a mall. Malls are great places to feel safe and to consume while ignoring the truth of our society. And that's what corporations would wish to do to the internet. They don't want those pesky people gathering to discuss why GM cars are unsafe at GM.sucks.
That said, I think there's a LOT more room for anarchy (a good thing, in this instance) with regard to top-level domains and URL's. The ICANN is imposing artificial limitations (which is their right) that don't need to exist.
If the ACLU wants to fight them...go for it. But it's sillyness in the extreme. What happens if someone where to take the 'standard TLD' from ICANN and add additional TLD's at the 2nd level? (In effect, adding additional TLD to the TLD that ICANN registers)
As electronic communications become more regulated and "more like" other aspects of life it was inevitable that the ACLU would become concerned with them. High time. We could use an experienced and effective advocate like them
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
I applaud the ACLU for getting involved.