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ICANN CEO Proposes Radical Changes
Froomkin writes: "ICANN CEO Stuart Lynn today released a plan for a "strong" ICANN that would have 5 of 15 Board members selected directly by governments and the rest by registrars, registries, plus a few Board-squatter-like ringers chosen by the ICANN Board or staff. The main justifications offered for this shift are that in order to be "strong" ICANN needs more money, more support, and less "process". Of course, promises Lynn, ICANN's "core values of openness and broad participation" should be "preserved". (Don't laugh. It's not funny.) "Meaningful participation" will be achieved by cutting out any direct representation for end-users. Oh yes, ICANN wants a much bigger budget, and to be independent of the US Dept. of Commerce, and to get direct control of the root server operators too, all so as to ensure that ICANN has unimpeded ability to execute its (undefined, growing) "mission". ICANN was supposed to save the Internet from governments; since major interest groups such as the ccTLDs and RIRs won't do what ICANN wants, and won't pay it, ICANN now turns to governments to save it from the Internet. See the Press Release here, and then look at entire plan, then visit ICANNWatch.org for updates and commentary." Yep. The proposal would eliminate any pretense of At-Large involvement in running ICANN - it would be solely a governmental and corporate body.
You know it, I know it, and they know it. They are just another "dot-bomb", but without the for-profit aspect: No leadership, constant change of direction, people in positions waaaaay out of their league, no clearly defined objectives, etc.
It's time for peer-to-peer HOSTS swapping!!
Got friends?
I'll have a more detailed analysis up at ICANNWatch in a day or so.
I have a blog.
...we must create our own DNS. True: this may be rather difficult to implement (especially on closed-source architectures, like Windoze), but it is our [sarcasm=to_taste] only hope [/sarcasm] of finally escaping the capitalist clutches of ICANN "UCANT".
The first step will be selecting our own root server. This must obviously be a fixed IP, which would ideally be some hapless DSL user wishing to donate some bandwidth to the cause.
(To improve performance, clients could cache IP addresses they had already looked up. This would actually improve on the current system.)
In brief, we would create an alternate DNS, with more open rules on the creation of new domains. Think of it: Free domain names! Less government interference in the Internet? Who could refuse such a thing? Let us start today!!
(But don't ask *me* to help...)
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Questions:
What does ICANN do?
What do they control?
Why is this news bad?
Why should the average Internet user care?
I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I don't have clear answers for these questions and I'm sure others don't as well.
A speech...
What matters is the state of affairs NOW. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the United States Department of Commerce signed a contract with ICANN in '98 granting them authority over the root name servers and the IP address space. This would seem to indicate that the ultimate authority over the internet lies with the US Gov. So the US government has every right to add:
www.bbc.co.uk IN CNAME www.mcdonalds.com
to the A root server, and my understanding is that a whole lot of people would get mcdonalds when they went looking for the BBC.
Not to mention that Worldcom Sprint etc (the major backbones) are US corporations. If a law is passed instructing them to operate the Internet in a paticular manner guess what happens.
The Internet, as it currently exists, is clearly an American entity with international aspects. As with so many other issues the international community has let its envy of the US cloud its thinking.
I'm not opposed to having international representation in whatever board oversees the Internet, I just don't think they should have a vote.
Alternative NIC's have and do exist. Root name servers take very little resources compared to a major corporate web site, and there are many thousands of those.
.US is alive and well, but very few people use it. If the US government wants to set a good example, just retire the .GOV domain and start using .GOV.US like the rest of the world does.
.SPAM, go right ahead.
The AlterNIC.net ran fine for many years, and has recently morphed into another name which I am not going to bother to look up at the moment. Anyone who wanted to reach their sites merely pointed their name server to them. Gee, that was hard. But it was also not tollerated by the ICANN.
Governments already have full control over their own name space.
That's right, NO TOP LEVEL DOMAINS AT ALL. Just use the country codes for official real names.
Anything that doesn't use the official country code is not official nor controlled by government. If you want to point to
All bureaucracies will try to survive, regardless of their usefulness. The ICANN is no different, as can be seen by this proposal.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I wonder if this will mean ICANN will have enough balls to make Network Solutions (or I guess VeriSign now) stop sitting on domains. They refuse to release almost all domains that expire...they just sit on them and sit on them and sit on them (unless of course you use their SnapNames backorder service).
//m
But ICANN's decided that not only has it scammed its way into control (as opposed to the IETF committee that was working on the same problems), but that it should increasingly get rid of any grassroots control, ignoring as much as possible the processes for elections by the actual public for members of its board. Now that it's declared itself no longer bound by the processes that it always refused to follow anyway, it's time to dump it. Part of that process is replacing control of the root - Lynn's proposal itself says that the root servers aren't really under ICANN's control or funding now.
Dump ICANN, I say!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Rather, I would advocate simply having lots of privately run non-generic TLDs and hardly any ICANN at all
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
So don't use any root servers. Secondary the root zone of your choice and cut out that intermedate step in name resolution, and you'll be diminishing the load of those poor overworked legacy root servers, and you'll be resolving names as fast if not faster than what you're doing now.
Remember hosts.txt? Think of your own copy of the root zone as that on steroids. You can even do this with old Windoze with a really nifty program called "Simple DNS+".
Need Mercedes parts ?
Jon used to run the IANA as a part time task. Think about it. One guy... part time. If you're familiar with the organizational structre of the ICANN that replaces it, it's a little mind boggling.
The only mistake he ever made was accepting government funding. That gave the USG the crack it needed to claim owbership of it: "we paid for it".
Need Mercedes parts ?
Why is it so difficult to de-centralize the top level domain administration? There must be some research proposals? I have one idea:
Let's set up 26 new TLDs:
a.
b.
c.
.
.
.
x.
y.
z.
After that, if I want to have a name www.anssi for my server, I will go and talk to the administrator of domain "i." And register there a domain www.a.n.s.s.i.
Depending on if the domains "s.i.", "s.s.i.", etc. already are registered, I need to go to talk to the highest order domain administration that is already registered.
After that we need to standardize a convention, that a resolver breaks down the last part after the last dot in a name into letters (www.anssi -> www.a.n.s.s.i), before it forwards the query to a DNS server.
Additionally the old TLDs will also be served in new "synonymous domains"
c.o.m.
f.i.
u.k.
.
.
.
etc.
Of course the old TLDs com., fi. and uk. still exist and work, if older resolvers query them.
Now happens something nice:
a) www.anssi works with the updated resolvers
b) *.com and *.fi work with all resolvers, both with the updated and old ones
c) manually written www.a.n.s.s.i. and www.yahoo.c.o.m. work with all resolvers
Yours,
Anssi Porttikivi
app@iki.fi
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
I like your vision for the DNS Brad, but the problem with your vision of it... and ICANN's vision of it is that it's well, one persons vision of it. The DNS is big enough such that a subset of it can contain one mans vision of what it should be. That it, throw all the ideas of what it should d be together. I don't believe any one person - or organizatin should decide what the namespace should be (I don't see anything partitularly wrong with generic tlds, YMM indeed V), it should be allowed to grow organically like, say, usenet namespace did. Despite it's many flaws, usenet, and particularly it's namespace is still the worlds largest cooperative collaboratin.
The actual mechanics of how this is done is not terribly difficult (and yes, golly yo uhave some good ideas there, thanks) but is not as important as "you respect my ideas and suppoert them and I'll reciprocate" much in the same was as the UUCP paradigm of "I'll pass your packets if you pass mine".
RS
Need Mercedes parts ?
(Posting anonymously for plausable deniability - I don't want to get fired.)
:(
I've been in a meeting of the RSSAC (Root Server System Advisory Committee), and my company runs one of the root name servers (K) and helps another (J), plus I know a few of the guys working on the Verisign server (A).
I am shocked at how slipshod the root servers are run. For everybody that assumes that they are run with military precision, I can assure you that they are not. The root server operators treat themselves as some sort of secret cult, who need answer to nobody, period.
It's amazing.
This would be fine if there were never any problems, but there are, but they are never talked about.
I would be glad for some oversight, especially by industry or even governmental organizations.
Paul Mockapetris, creator of the Domain Name System was asked, what do you wish you had invented?
.REG, for trademarks would act as certificate of authentication and directory, when entered directly.
He replied, "A directory system for the Internet that wouldn't be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."
The Internet is going to the dogs.
Fact: UDRP is not only imperfect and inconsistent - it a fatally flawed system.
Fact: You are being deceived - the authorities know the answer to trademark problems on the Internet.
The United States Department of Commerce and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization are hiding it.
The US Patent and Trademark Office virtually admitted this, "The questions you raised with respect to trademark conflicts, as well as the proposed solutions, have their basis in good common-sense. As such, they have been debated and discussed quite exhaustively within the USPTO, the Administration, and internationally."
Honest attorneys, including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III (UN WIPO panellist judge), have ratified the solution.
Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.
This is most important - as Sunrise and UDRP abridges what words people can use in an open (repeat - OPEN) gTLD. They also give priority of one business over another.
Please keep re-reading last paragraph until you completely understand - they violate the First Amendment and go against Unfair Competition Law.
That is quite apart and separate from the fact that they know the solution.
Which is this:
User enters apple.com - is redirected to apple.computer.us.reg
User enters apple.newTLD - is redirected to apple.record.uk.reg
In the address bar - can you tell the difference between, apple.computer.us.reg and apple.record.uk.reg?
So, no 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' there then.
A new restricted TLD, of
Lawyers read feeble excuses link on my site before replying - I have heard them all.
Nobody wants the solution - because by not having it they gain. Primarily - Lawyers get loads of money from the conflicts and Big Business by muffling criticism and ensuring they monopolize their trademark words on the Internet.
My beliefs and findings, above and on my site, have proven corruption beyond all reasonable doubt - nobody can refute the logical conclusions made.
Please visit WIPO.org.uk - nothing to do with United Nations WIPO.org.