Slashdot Mirror
ICANN Releases Reform Plan
If you've followed the history of ICANN at all, you know that it was originally set up to have substantial representation from the general public (known as At-Large representatives) - 9 of 18 board members. The original unelected board immediately set about undermining that, only electing 5 members and keeping on four "board-squatters" from the original unelected bunch.
The elections of the five At-Large members had two flaws from the point of view of ICANN's unelected board:
- There were assorted technical issues with the voting process, due apparently to incompetence from the contractor who handled it.
- Two of the five new board members who were elected did not represent the same corporate interests as the rest of the board.
Of these two flaws, the second was by far the more severe. The board risked losing control of ICANN to people who might run it for the public good rather than for the good of the corporations represented on the board. They started backing away from having any sort of elected representation whatsoever. In February 2002 ICANN President Lynn floated a reform proposal which would eliminate the At-Large representation - or rather, it would keep something called "At-Large", that would no longer be elected by the general public but instead appointed by the Board itself. Instead of the general public picking new ICANN Board members, the ICANN Board would pick new ICANN Board members. This was followed by a vote which confirmed ICANN's commitment to eliminating elected representation.
Now the reform proposal is out. There would be two classes of board members:
- approximately eight ex-officio members (members holding the board seat due to some other title or position they hold)
- approximately five to eleven members picked by a Nominating Committee (the Committee to be chosen by the current Board) and perhaps confirmed by the Board
It is important to note how thoroughly captured this process is. Many of the ex-officio seats accrue from positions that are selected by the ICANN Board. So the ICANN Board picks someone to be chief dogwalker, and the chief dogwalker gets an automatic position on ICANN's Board.
The seats selected by the Nominating Committee are also extremely vulnerable to capture. Let me use a real-life example of how nominating committees work to show what I mean: my credit union.
My credit union has a board structure very similar to the one proposed for ICANN: several ex-officio members, and a number of seats elected by the general populace (everyone who has an account at the credit union). This structure is actually more flexible than that proposed for ICANN, since ICANN does not plan any direct elections at all. However, the credit union membership picks from among candidates selected by a Nominating Committee. Every year or two, I get a ballot in the mail. I can choose from among all the candidates selected by the Nominating Committee, and I can check boxes for the candidates that I prefer, up to the number of open seats available on the Board.
I never return these ballots. Why, you might ask? Because the number of candidates is usually identical to the number of open seats. Three empty seats, three candidates to choose from. Six empty seats, six candidates to choose from. I think one year they might have had more candidates than open seats, but it was an aberration.
This system apparently works well for credit unions: would you believe that they pay interest on my checking account? What it does guarantee is that all future Board members will represent the same biases that are present in the Board at the instant the system was instituted. In my credit union's case, this guarantees "fiscal responsibility" or "fiscal conservatism".
For ICANN, what it would do is institutionalize the biases currently present. Whatever biases are there right now, will be there forever, as the system becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop with no external controls.
The Board's current biases are toward:
- expanding ICANN's mission from a purely technical body to one that is willing to govern the Internet - taking on assorted social/political issues as it sees fit
- running ICANN for private profit rather than public benefit
Neither of these two traits needs reinforcing. Karl Auerbach, one of ICANN's At-Large directors, has his thoughts on a possible ICANN structure.
Domain Names are obsolete! Just type what you are looking for into google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucking"
saves letters too, slashdot is 4 letters less than slashdot.org
bling bling!
-- OMFG = Oh My Floatse Goatse
Ok, so why is this "non-election" issue a problem when it comes to ICANN, but when it comes to the non-elected people that decide what's part of the Linux kernel, then it's ok?
Both are deciding things for a community, and none are elected. Hypocritical to complain about one and not the other, don't you think?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
"Outsiders could file complaints with an ombudsman, or go to an independent arbitration forum if they believed the group was violating its bylaws."
What is an ombudsman? Is it something slashdot, as an organized body could file complains to?
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
:-)
It's kind of sad that, even on Slashdot, the first comment on a story about the dismantling of the free internet is a pun. Hopefully, the rest of you are too busy crying to reply quickly.
--
E_NOSIG
If you'd like a domain name without having anything to do with ICANN, look into OpenNIC.
.glue, .geek, .null, .indy, .parody, and .oss However these are not official ICANN domains, so you need to setup different DNS roots for your dns server, and obviously a dns server that supports these domains for users.
You can get free domains, on their tlds,
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
It is strange how the Internet was considered to be the place where the great idea and the little guy could beat the old, hulking, mega-corportation, but now the tide has certainly turned. Losing total control of the ICANN is certainly not the end of the world, but more a symptom of what is happening on the whole.
Someone needs to remind me about how ICANN was sanctioned and what its intended purpose is. I'm kinda lost about why the general population is being elimitated in favor of very specific business interests.
If ICANN is no longer supporting its original intent, then it's clearly a rogue organization and should no longer enjoy its position granted to it by the powers that gave it power.
In short, what would it take to revoke ICANN's powers entirely in favor of something more fair and impartial?
Yes, it needs something of a governace.
But this is a case where the sorta-governace is trying to:
a) make itself the one and ONLY authority as to how things on the internet will go and,
b) eliminate any say by the people who use it, aside from the compaines they represent.
Thus they eliminate the publicly elected Representative At-Large program, thus removing any public oversight of what they do.
You *ARE* crazy if you think corporate interests represent stability and strength. That has been, for so many decades, a mere illusion.
With the recent collapse of so many corporations and related scandals, I'd say it's time to have a closer look at what we consider to be stability and strength. With only a glance at the TV you would find that corporations are anything but stable right now... moreover, they're irresponsible and self-serving. Since Microsoft is the popular "bad corporation" example, look at the recent situation with their accounting practices. For some reason there was no fines or formal accusations and while they agreed to change their ways (yeah, right!) they admit to no wrong doing.
Okay maybe I'm just reacting to a troll and... oh well, my bad then... or maybe it was supposed to be funny, in which case, I'm trying to laugh but I just can't.
I know this has been discussed before, but it seems that now is an appropriate time to bring it up again. It seems high time for an overthrow of ICANN.
Yes, we have alternate registrars with alternate TLDs, but I don't mean that. I mean that there isn't anything stopping anyone from setting up an alternative to ICANN, with all its constituent committees and groups. Give the new organization several key features, such as a charter that can't be changed at the whim of the leadership of the day, a clear method of representation for Internet users and a straightforward method for choosing reps, and a progressive method for selecting new TLDs that doesn't take decades to work through. Make it everything ICANN isn't, and then make a play for control of the root nameservers. If the new organization can't get them directly, then it could set up its own. The best part of this strategy is that if the alternate organization starts to gather support, ICANN, the DoC, and Congress would be forced to acknowledge it or risk breaking the DNS system as the two organizations take divergent paths.
This may not work, and it'll probably be messy as hell, but it'll be fun, and it'll scare the hell out of some people and groups who desperately need the hell scared out of them.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
You know, all you folks can find 50,000 things to say about Microsoft's OS, but when it comes to the hard core, backend, technical issues, ALL of you dry up. You aren't informed! Well, now is the time for you to get over it. Microsoft is going to quietly sneak in the back door and take over the internet, if we don't get off our collective behinds and put a stop to it. ICANN was supposed to represent the users and it's been hijacked by corporate interests, Microsoft among them, who intend to use DNS as a means to "own" the interent.
Perhaps you aren't familiar with DNS, which I find hard to swallow on in a community this technical. DNS says that your site exists and this is how people find you. It also controls email via the MX records in DNS. If you like to surf and read email, then you have a stake in this. When you start tinkering with the very basic addressing of the internet, you start exercising a LOT of control over what is allowed and what isn't allowed. Who wants that in the hands of a bunch of corporate sell-outs?
This is going to shape the internet for generations to come. We are laying the ground work for all kinds of things. IPv6 is coming, which will replace the current internet addressing scheme. What about voice over IP? How's that going to work? Will it work for cell phones? New routing protocols are coming that will be purely optical. Do you really want the implementation of ALL of this in hands of the corporations who stand to profit out of finding extra ways to make you pay to use all this?
Let's take a trip down memory lane about previous ICANN policies. Rememeber with Internic (now Register.com) was the only name registrar and they screwed up EVERYTHING!! There were so bad, in fact, that Congress stepped in and made ICANN allow other registrars. If you have a domain name that's registered, look at your inbox and how much spam you get related to your domain name(s). That's another fine ICANN policy in action. Don't fool yourself, these people are not there to look out for the public good.
Well, unless you want a lot more of the same for the next few decades, I'd suggest that you all write your representatives (here the the good old usa - http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/) and start squealing now. You need to get your family to write. Get your friends and co-workers to write - even if you have to write the letter and get them to sign it.
You know, you have to fight the fight while it can still be won. We are still within our window of opportunity, people.
HDGary secures my bank
It's been said on here before: the only force that can really act against spam is the government. "There oughta be a law", in so many words. Every day our inboxes are packed to the eyeteeth with ads for diplomas, penis pumps, and vitamins from Korea. No technical solution has proven itself, so it's obvious that we need outside help. I think we're all agreed on that.
Um, governments can already do something about spam--pass a law against it, and choose to enforce it--and slowly that is happening, as people begin to understand that freedom of speech doesn't mean an unlimited license to advertise. Governments that don't regulate spam will simply find themselves blacklisted at routers.
So I'm thinking, is "Stop the Spammers" going to be the rallying cry for giving up the internet commons to corporate interests? Is this the latest slogan in the long line of "Stop the Commies!/Save the Children/Make the World Safe from Terrorism!" slogans to steamroller the public good?
To a corporation where control==profit, anything they don't control is "anarchic".
Remain calm! All is well!
"Reform!"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
ICANN was "blessed" by the US department of commerce to run the DNS.
If you want to get something else, then you'd either need to convince the DoC that ICANN isn't doing what the DoC wants, or convince the people who use DNS that they should use another body to make policy for the DNS.
Alternic is trying, but IMO they are shooting to low, trying to organize the end users.
The end users are ultimately the deciders, but they don't for the most part care about network issues.
Much better is to try and reach the ISPs and network administrators.
That's a difficult group to define exactly, but a reasonable approximation is anyone with an autonomous system number.
ISPs are in the business of running the internet.
If you convince enough of them to adopt a different root, you win.
For that, you only need to write some reasonable policies that would make the internet a better place for ISPs if they were followed.
Note though, most ISPs care a lot more about stability than about correctness.
Any policy that means making a change is going to be bad in their eyes.
You want change, so you're going to need to overcome that.
One solution would be straight cash bribes.
I.e. Force registries to pay them.
This could be justified by calling it a fee for the ISPs DNS service.
Another possibility is greater control.
Democracy is a great system for giving people the illusion of control - One AS, One vote.
-- there are no real email addresses here
ICANN is completely unnecessary. There's only one reform we need to make to the domain-name system, and then it never needs to be changed again.
.com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, and .mil.
.com, etc. to .com.us, etc. Second, allow any .com domain created before 1 January 2003 under the old system to redirect to the new .com.us domain. Third and finally, provide for the dissolution of ICANN as of 1 January 2003, though it can stay around in a limited form to handle redirects until 1 January 2005 (after which all .com, etc. domains will stop working).
.int. And there's really only two groups that would use .int; the UN, and the EU. Both of those groups can be given country codes of their own. The new domains, including .museum and (chicken).coop, are useless anyway should be scrapped along with the other 6.
Eliminate all TLDs except those for country codes.
There is no such thing as a global web site. Every website is headquartered somewhere. The BBC's website is www.bbc.co.uk. The Toronto Globe and Mail's website is www.globeandmail.ca Only the United States, by default really, has no strong country-code, so US websites are run at
ICANN's reform proposal only needs to accomplish three things. First, provide for the immediate migration of
The only three-letter TLD not owned by the US is
All of ICANN's old responsibilities can then be transferred to the owners of the country-code domains.
You can still see the same ICANN-approved .com, .net, .org., et cetera, but with (the original) different .biz and .info, and with an additional thousand or so TLD's that the Open Root Server Confederation supports.
It's important that we all remember that the internet is capitalist and cooperative -- we each pay our own way, and behave in a civilized manner to avoid gumming up the works. If enough of us opt to use the Open Root, then we can marginalize ICANN and take control for the public, the very same public that pays for the thing in the first place.
I like the Open Root Server Confederation because they don't want to rule the internet, but to simply place control of the DNS into the hands of someone who will have the public interest at heart.
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
Open/Closed and Stable/unstable are very different beasts with little or no correlation.
What threatens stability is the percentage of people who are unhappy.
If a lot of people are unhappy with the current situation, then you have things like revolutions.
Appeasing the masses is good policy.
Sadly, good policy is something that ICANN seems to be in short supply of.
-- there are no real email addresses here
Here are my thoughts on how the internet should be governed:
I think there should be an internet "congress" with two bodies...a "senate" and a "house of representatives". The congress would be selected by the governments of each country of the world that has a public internet presence. The senate would have equal representation for each country, and size of the house would be based upon each country's population of internet users.
The governing bodies would meet several times a year to discuss and resolve various issues and creating mandates about how the internet should be implemented. Each country would be individually responsible for enforcing these mandates at their local level.
Something like this is highly unlikely, but I do think that the internet is a global entity that should have global representation.
Damn, you beat me to it.
I really do think Jon Postel would be tremendously upset by this. Yeah, he ran the predecessor to ICANN as a one-man dictatorship, but he believed strongly that any successor to his leadership would have to be completely democratic and open in nature.
I am pissed that otherwise incredibly intelligent people like Esther Dyson and Vint Cerf are not standing up and crying foul as ICANN becomes a corporate plaything. Maybe they are getting paid off. Who knows? Certainly they know what's going on with the tech sector and probably consider this their best shot at maintaining themselves in the style they have been accustomed to. I don't know.
If this continues, the Internet will become nothing more than computerized television in the hands of a few companies.
Perhaps it's time to look closely at alternative namespaces and maybe even an alternative, 100% open governing body for names and IP addresses. It would be a schism, true, but it would be infinitely more interesting than the direction the Internet proper is being hijacked towards.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Yes, they can play games with the 3ltr TLDs. Big deal -- the only ones who should care are the owners of those TLDs, and they _do_ care bigtime. Some smaller .com owners like EToy might get shafted, but then they should migrate to
more friendly registrars.
IP numbers are a bigger deal, but they are mostly sewn-up by the networks of ISPs. They also much less contentious, but potentially more troublesome.
The Internet is a cooperative structure, and such centralized control doesn't fit. ISP admins will decide what DNS they use, and howthey route packets. Not ICANN.
Look at it this way. Microsoft isn't going to see a lot of sales from ads on Slashdot. But they're still giving Slashdot money. Whether its an act of generosity or incompetence, a little bit of Bill's money is still helping to keep Slashdot online. And that's a Good Thing.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
The one great flaw I consistently see from the Old Men of the Internet is that they are still thinking that DNS is something to be managed as a scarce resource. Domain names and TLDs are NOT scarce! Root servers can't handle another 100 TLDS? Puhleeze!
Instead of trying to invest in all of the political baggage to regulate something, they should be focused on an exit strategy of creating such abundance that regulation is unnecessary.
Reform? Ha. Only in the sense that "America's return to traditional family values (i.e., chastizing teenagers for exploring their developing sexuality)" is a reform.
This is not a reform. This is a throwback, a de-evolution.
How can anyone buy the idea that eliminating democratic elections for the representatives is somehow beneficial?
ALL members of a group deciding domain-name issues should be elected (like congressmen). There needs to be a constitution of sorts to resolve domain-name conflicts. Conflicts should be decided so as to respect indivual's rights and protect the public interest, NOT to benefit corporations. To ensure that the members of such an organization don't violate that constitution, there needs to be a panel which can over-turn any ruling the elected board makes as being unconstitutional.
Really, the problem is that ICANN is private. Private organizations DO NOT work well to benefit the public if they are monopolies and have no competition, as is the case with ICANN. If the government wanted to try a private solution, they should have set it up so that there is competition. Without competition, private solutions to "protect the public interest" invariably degenerate into protecting corporate and special interests, at the expense of the public good and invidual rights.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Yeah. Enron was real stable.
Just to make things more clear on what ICANN is, they are "Internet Canonical Names and Numbers" organization. What has been left out of the topic all together is the Numbers part.
ICANN controls every single IP address in the public domain. If you are given an IP address, it was given to your ISP from an upstream provider from a regional deligation company that is liable to ICANN for technical changes in how things are done.
To limit ICANN to just DNS would be shortsighted.
Bye!
Me Too!
I was going to say the same thing about Postel.
I am pissed that otherwise incredibly intelligent people like Esther Dyson and Vint Cerf are not standing up and crying foul as ICANN becomes a corporate plaything
What do you mean? Dyson and Cerf *ARE* corporate types.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Almost, not quite.
ICANN stands for "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers". It is a non-profit set up a few years back to take over the duties of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
One of these is the clerical duty of assigning /8 blocks of global IPv4 address space and /16 blocks of IPv6 address space to each Regional Internet Registry as needed. The users of the address space decide policy, and it's this policy that the RIRs implement.
Another duty ICANN took over is maintenance of the DNS root (which has been the controversial part), and a third duty is maintenance of the list of protocol numbers (imagine a link to your /etc/services just here - something's stopping me posting triple-slash).
After the many calls for this idiotic Board to step down, they continue to refuse to do this. What gives them the right to thwart democracy? Nothing. Out on their arses, I say! Out on their hairy arses!
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist