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.au's Reclusive Administrator Elz Deposed
Disco Stu writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has the following story: 'The reclusive programmer Mr Robert Elz has lost control of Australia's domain name system to a private-sector body after the Federal Government rejected his request for the Government to take over the custodianship instead.' I've had to wait months for this guy to get around to approving domains in the past ... but I still can't decide if this is good or not." Sounds bad to me -- or at least Elz sounds good, principled and unconventional.
does this incluse all the .au domains?
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
Asking THIS federal govt to take responsibility for something which could be flogged off to some mates... you've got to be pulling my chain!
Deposed by reason of insanity perhaps.
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
Aussie seems to have some wierd internet policies. First the pass big brotherish computer laws that basically allow computer spying, and now the refusal to maintain the .au domain system. I think this improper management of the internet gives greater calling for some global standards.. ones better than ICANN
so as the article puts it, they're going from an *inefficent* means of domain name admin. to a much more efficent and government-regulated....
so maybe i missed the point, but there doesn't seem to be any signifigance to this post...almost too obscure for even slashdot....or does this mean that there'll be an easier time dealing with domain-name disputes, or is that handled by another party altogether (melborne judicail system?)?
moox. for a new generation.
But, then, does it really matter much anyway? .com.au doesn't seem like prime internet real-estate anyway and there are more TLDs on the way, as well as numerous "slightly used" .com domains.
The words: obstructionist, rude, arrogant, overbearing (and others that are unprintable) have all been used to describe Elz.
Whatever people may like to think about Elz and his policies (some of which were good), the fact of the matter is that the Internet is not (and hasn't been for several years) a private little network which can be run by an academic with no connection to the real world.
Whether we like it or not, the Internet is an essential tool for many businesses, organisations and people - it is completely unacceptable that it could take months for register a
As far as I am concerned, and I'm pretty sure anyone who has had to liase with Elz would agree - it's a case of good riddance.
...social justice, taxation, welfare, indigenous relations, Liberal party corruption....
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
Don't be too quick to crucify the governments actions. Just because Elz may have had some good policies, doesn't mean this change will be bad. Especially if it speeds up the assigning of domains. Face it, we can't really regulate who gets a domain anymore... besides, do we really want to? That would seem rather elitist of us...
.au domain, so lets not judge until we see some results... then we can raise hell... I promise ;)
Also, it is quite possible that this company will do good for the
comeon it's insane to leave a domain to the whims of a man. yeah he's served them well til now, but that was when the thing was small .. now you need to get things organized and leaving it to the whims of a man isn't the way to do it.
This is a step in the right direction.
someone have an email address for this fucker so I can email and wish him good riddence.
After reading Timothy's comment, I realised that he has no idea why Elz is detested by people who need to register or transfer .org.au domains.
.org.au transfer to occur ... if Elz felt like it ... sometimes it could take months. And if you got into an argument with Elz, you could forget about anything happening to your domain request for months and months.
.org.au, it is his responsibility to provide a certain level of service - he didn't do this and is therefore a hinderance to the further development of the Internet industry in Australia - good riddance Elz.
Let's face reality, the Internet is no longer a simple little network which is a curiosity. For many business/organisations/people, it is an essential part of their operations.
The problem with Elz is not so much his policies, but his attitude and response times. It often took a couple of weeks for a
And if it was a once off case, people could turn a blind eye to the problem - but it wasn't a once off case. Ask anyone who actively has to deal with Elz on a regular basis and you will most likely hear a story of frustration and irritation.
So, ignore the high moral ground that Elz has staked out by refusing to profit from the IPO of MelbourneIT - frankly I couldn't care if he did or not - the real reason Elz is detested is because as the domain administrator for
At least its a little more appropriate...
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Ke...
This guy did the whole .au domain authority without making any money? He should of started a business off the get go. The best way to make the rules is to be the one in power, and now he is force to hand the keys to the kingdom over to IANA.
The SMH link was down, check out the Australian IT news site out.
Am I the only one that's unable to view comments with the archived stories?? Ever since /. switched to banjo archived stories appear with no comments whatsoever.
On the web, everything is speed-of-light compared to old business ways. Why should anyone be stuck waiting for some guy getting around to accepting their registration? Now it'll sure be faster to get a domain!
I'd be mad too if it took months just to get a tripod or geocities account.
The key point seems to be this quote -
>> ICANN said that as Internet names increasingly had commercial value, decisions could not be made on an ad hoc basis by individuals that were not formally accountable.
As a starting position, that seems fair enough. Whether the new regime conforms to the "formally accountable" requirement is not clear to me.
ICANN said that as Internet names increasingly had commercial value, decisions could not be made on an ad hoc basis by individuals that were not formally accountable.
Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. What was ICANN's reason for now allowing the TLD iii? "It looks too difficult to pronouce." And who exactly is ICANN accountable to? Well...oh yeah, that's right no one.
Give me a break. When was the last time there was a problem with the way this guy was running things? When was the last time you read a story about some lame cybersquatting issue from AU? I don't think I've ever seen one. And, to close with another adage...if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
He might have been all that ... but as to YAY ! i'd wait and see if you end up with the aussie equivalent of Network Solutions.
...), i think that was the reason they were invented in the first place :)
Companies can be MUCH worse than a single human could possible be (well, maybe not in M$'s case
Domain registration / administration in australia sucks. I'm happy about any change in who's in charge, it'd have to be really shitful to be any worse than Elz. Apart from the attitude, and delays that have been posted about here by others, the .au policy is downright terrible. You can't have any domain that's in the dictionary, or any suburb name as listed as having a postcode in the white pages. This basically means that no businesses can get their own name, making domain names redundant since you can't as easily guess them, and it's harder for clients to remember something that's not very similar to your business name, or just too damned long which is the approach many australian businesses have taken.
Now if we could only do something about the BAS.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Disco Stu does not advertise...
Given the fights between ICANN and the ccTLDs about funding, isn't there a conflict of interest in ICANN being able to review the appointment of ccTLD managers?
Even austrians have come to despise the .au domain. No self-respecting web host is willing to deal with sites in that domain, and this has been reflected in the unwillingness of users visit .au sites. I, for instance, have never visited that domain.
Everybody knows that austrian culture is decadent and decaying, like all european countries.
Austrians are just wannabe germans who can't get it together to build a decent car, and buckled under when Hitler sneezed in their direction. I don't care what happens to their pathetic domain, and neither should you.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
I work for a mediocre telecommunications company in Australia. I have had many a drawn out phone conversation with Mr. Elz regarding the abnormally long process of registering anything inb the .au domain that hasn't been given to a company to look after. (INWW, Connect, etc). I will give him this, he is extremely good at making his lack of performance seem completely damn reasonable and in fact, every body elses fault. Ten points for the pretencious so and so.
*rolls eyes*
is it really to hard to read the posts?
is it really to hard to read the posts?
maybe it is, it's far too hard to type...
The above poster has abused his +2 bonus to post an off-topic comment. Mod him down NOW!
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
The reason you don't hear about problems is because it takes months and months to get a domain so it ends up that no-one has an .org.au domain to cybersqaut!
I think if you link to old slashdot articles you should link to the part with all the comments.
h tm l
9 24 8
;P
so instead of linking to:
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/19/0729248.s
you should link to:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/12/19/072
This makes it easier for those of us without karma to copy and paste one of the +5 insightful comments to the current discussion and thereby gleaning a little karma for ourselves. Or instead the insightful comments, someone could link to this comment and get modded +1 funny.
I'd suggest you read IANA's report which is a lot more comprehensive than the media reports.
.au at heart and I think this is a very positive move.
.au are already available on the Internet and were formed through open public processes earlier in the year. The primary result will be competition in the domain registration area. Currently the domains under .au (com.au, net.au) etc are run by parallel monopolies, but this will be opened up to a competitive environment under the plan. The competition report is here.
The news article says it is a private-sector body, but it is an open body formed of stakeholders including domain registrars, users, and Internet organisations (e.g. the Internet Society and Electronic Frontiers are on the board).
I am on the board of auDA, elected as a user representative. I am not from a registrar or any commercial interest. I can say that everyone has the best interests of
auDA's plans for
I'd like to speak in support of Mr Elz.
.com instead of .com.au because the au was just too hard to get. My wife owns the company but we wanted a different name because the company has changed in nature (from dtp to web animation). The registered name didn't suit.
.com. It is bloody hard to get a .com.au. You have to show company papers and everything. To have a .au is a sign of respect in Australia and I think that it should stay that way. It is only because of Robert Elz that this exists. Now that he is gone we are going to see names like sexsexsex.com.au and godownonyourgoodtimebuddy.com.au. Terrific...not!
I am Australian and I share a company with my wife. We use
Anyone can have a
You don't live in Australia (mostly) but it is important to us to be proud and do things right. We make mistakes and our government (all parties fellers) does everything to make us seem like mental midgets. We still want to rise above our politicians and rise above our organistations who are a bunch of sycophants. Want to contribute as an equal partner to the world knowledge despite our IT organisations and despite our politicians.
We think that we belong in the larger world but the people that we would have respected forty years are the ones who make us a laughing stock. Australians stand proud by the acts of individuals and are ashamed by the people who represent those individuals.
Thank you Robert Elz. We respect what you have done and are grateful for your legacy.
covering up incompetence with anger, hostility and diversion towards someone else (whether passing the buck or just simply saying "thats not my department"). But then again, what do 1000's of years of history know? I'm sure the laws of the universe will simply change over night so that I can better justify my position on life. So lets get enough of us together to make it 'legal' to force our wills on others, then we can all pat each other on the back and say it was 'for the children' while we are beating people for "...their own good"
Try telling the person in charge of the company for whom you are doing the site that a com.au site is going to cost four times the price of a com site when what he really wants is a com.au and wants to pay a com price.
If Mr. Elz no longer has the .au domain, I say he should get .Elz to rule as he pleases! All those for, say ".Aye!"
Fully a third of posters here can't even tell you the proper plural of the word "virus," and now you're expecting them to tell the difference between two countries with the first 5 letters in common? You might as well ask them if they know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Asking for .org.au domains has seemed like a bit of a lucky dip with Elz, and my experience agrees with earlier comments that sometimes he's prompt (2 weeks), and sometimes your request goes into a black hole.
But anyone in a real hurry could get .org or .asn.au or something if they had the cash.
Robert Elz handled .org.au for free for all these years, and many non-profits were able to get their own domain name without the cost and hassle of startup and annual fees.
Thanks Mr. Elz!
Canada had a similar arrangement as Australia it would appear, with registrations happening through a guy at Simon Fraser University. Things could be very frustrating registering .ca domains; many people just gave up and went .com. Anyway, eventually they shifted control to a .com arrangement (more deregulation, really) and things are now very easy to register .ca. So I think the Aussies will find that this is a good thing.
I guess the politicians were sick and tired of seeing their Melbourne IT shares sink to absolute lows while Elz sat around with his thumb up his ass.
Just goes to show you... when it comes down to "principle" vs. money, money wins.
It really is the only best and worst eventuality.
Check check network check subnet of ip banning
As an Australian and a domain name owner, I can say that I've been pleased with the way domain name registrations have been run so far. We're one of the few (the only?) country to have any sort of business name validation on our business domains (.com.au and .net.au).
And we're the only one who's had a community domain that has been protected from big business (.org.au).
If any of this changes, I'll be severely disappointed!
Simon Wright
Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
I've met very few people for whom money *really* doesn't matter at all to them. kre was one of them.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Thank you for putting principles before profit.
I salute you.
(on a side note, I wonder if this means I'm gonna have to start paying for my domain goth.org.au?)
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
I fail to see how being a petty control freak is any better than being money-hungry. Good riddance to him.
Not one post has bothered to note Elz served the Aussie internet for FREE for many years without credit.
.org.au nazi like policies and repsonse times upset a lot of ppl, it did get the job done.
.org.au domain, then hiring Melbourne IT students to sit outside Elz's door day after day demanding it be done NOW, till he delegates the domain. What would you do? Where does it stop? These are the ppl/orgs he has had to deal with over the years on a regular basis.
.org.au namespace in responsible hands. auDA will never be able to provide the same service Elz has. Sure they claim to be non-profit, but that's also how the .com.au space started, which has now degraded into a $ driven "if you have enough money, you can get any domain regardless of the policies" domain.
.org.au was managed in the way it was.
While his
You too would have the same attitude to idiots who go full-house into an advertising campaign only to forget about securing a
Anyone who took the time to realize this was a free service, showed a little courtesy and got their nameservers setup correctly the first time got there domain delegated on time.
It's a real pitty Senator Alston and his Liberal government cronies have failed to keep the
So before anyone else decides get on the "BAG Elz wagon", take a minute to think why the
Rob.
www.area51.org.au
Area51 - We are watching...
Kids these days... grumble, grumble. Read the original post again and use your brain.
Doesn't anybody read for comprehension round here?
This is not true. You can't just walk out of an insular environment like academia and into enterprise, Elz has shown for many years that he has no idea of what a deadline is. He could walk over the the faculty of English and ask for the definition but I doubt he knows where it is. Your assertion that money doesn't matter to him just proves the point.
You are confusing separate issues here. The .org.au domain is the only one affected by this change. I too have been on the receiving end of a long wait for a simple domain redelegation. As other posters have said, the critical factor here is that for whatever reason the service being provided was inadequately slow.
Trying not to troll, but let him have 4 kids and a mortgage, and money *will* matter!
Did anyone catch that the story was posted in the from the rug-out-from-under dept? Heh, from "down under"--no pun intended.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
You get what you pay for.
Lord forbid somebody disagrees with you fags.
maybe you should read the moderator guidelines.
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
Elz was a bad public face for the Internet in Australia. He was also, from speaking to several web hosting types, slow, obstructionist and unprofessional.
.com. ( or, even worse from my purists perspective, .au.com ).
One oft heard complaint was that if you wrote Elz a mail asking how a registration was proceding ( as you waited months and months... ) he'd immediately shuffle it down to the bottom of the pile. Paranoia? Possibly. But it seems plausible given his general demeanor.
And you wonder why so many Australian companies and organisations have their domains just in
So long, Elz.
QES.
Truth: auDA is not a private body. It is a government institued body, funded by (well, this bit needs to be worked out, as per Southpark's "1. Underpants 2. ? 3. Profit!")
kre, despite the incredibly long times it takes him to register .org.au, is actually a good bloke if you've met him. He's active in NetBSD development, and has a fair enough reason to dislike the media, as blatent unresearched and unprofessional misrepresentations like this prove.
However, it is time to move on. munnari served Australia well, but now its time to have technical standards, high availability, consumer and privacy protection. auDA, through the names and competition panel have made these changes. kre had the opportunity to do so through his agreements with the various registries, but didn't. auDA will be forcing the issue.
auDA has gone through two (and a bit) very open, accountable and public processes to determine what's right for the future. I think if you read our reports, the membership of each of the panels, how auDA's board is constructed, and contrast them to the kre way, there's a lot of change, but not a lot of philosophical change. But where there is change, it is for the better.
For example, we recommended:
Read our reports to find out what we've changed. The executive summary is fairly accurate in each, so it shouldn't tax you terribly.
Unlike most of you, I've had the chance to have lunch with kre, and he is no ogre. I publically thank kre for his stewardship of .au and the fostering of the Internet in Australia. But I also think it's time for .au to move into modern times.
Andrew van der Stock
Elz worked (works?) for a university in Melbourne and was involved in creating the first internet connection into Australia and hence all of the .au extentions. Because he works for the uni they are owned by the uni. But for a while Elz was in control of all of the .au extentions and getting a domain registered was Really slow.
Then the uni decided to create a seperate company to handle the domain registering. They are called Melbourne IT and hold a monopoly over all .com.au .net.au etc. Elz remained in control of only .org.au
This is why .com.au etc is so expensive, and .org.au is so slow to be registered.
This is my understanding of what has happened. I suppose I should now read the article and see what they say.
Everything I am today I owe to people, whom it is now to late to punish."
I agree there's often a tradeoff between money and performance.
.org.au is for non-profit organisations. There are hundreds of non-profits in Sydney who are completely volunteer, and run on budgets of $1000 a year or less.
.org.au is free, and because http://www.cat.org.au is grungy and volunteer itself, we've been able to host many .org.au websites.
However,
$200 a year for a domain is a lot of money for them.
Yet because
http://www.green.net.au is in a similar situation.
So, if some large non-profits want to pay $200 for an instant response, good for them. But please let there be a cheaper option (with slower response times?) for smaller non-profits, or they will not be able to afford domains at all.
The departure of Elz is just another inevitable step in the progress of the Internet. The days are gone when the Net was an academic toy or the instrument of a few dweebs using 286s. If you want to be able to buy things over the web, and have a professional standard web you can't rely on one person. Last week's furore about Joe Gutnick and defamation on the web also reveals the tension betwen old time net users and the general public. For some the net is supposed to be free of any restrictions, a wild frontier where you can do anything you want, flame, hack and stuff around for your jollies- a place in other words distinct from the rest of the world. Well the net isn't that anymore, too many people need it, too many people use for too many things. We all have to face up to the fact that the net will have rules, commerce, and restrictions. If a private company can deliver the goods, more power to them.
One of the major problems with Mr Elz was the extreme variation in service levels. I can appreciate that he was carrying out this work as a volunteer but as many other posters have pointed out the Internet has moved on from a situation where "it will happen sometime" is good enough.
In Australia you have to be a business to get a .com.au domain. This means jumping through about a million hoops.
If you can't afford $200 as an organization for something as simple as a domain, you need to fire (even if you're not compensating) the fundraisers for your group - a group of kids in my neighborhood can raise that in a couple hours doing yardwork.
Of course, it is California, where a glass of water seems to run you about a buck...
No, you're wrong.
I went there skiing (in Innsbruk) last winter, and I didn't see a single kangaroo.
And I drove there through southern Germany, so at least I should have seen some along the way if
they existed....
... oh, of course the Alps could be a bit too high for them to jump over, which is why they don't
make it into Germany.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
It will be interesting to see if any australians challenge this action by filing an ICANN reconsideration request during the next
I have a blog.
if it could drive from Australia to southern Germany... or any part of Germany