Internet Routes Around South African Gov't

Mister B writes: "In an end-run around the South African government's plans to seize control of the .za domain, administrator Mike Lawrie took pre-emptive action and moved the primary .za zone file offshore. Revealing their naivete, parliamentary committee chairman Nkenke Kekana accused him of destabilising the net! Then again, the opposition think he's a hero. :-) More details on MSNBC."

Comments

If not the government?

[autopr0n]

Um, shouldn't the government be in charge of the .za domain name? I mean who do you think should be? some random person who happens to have control at the moment?

Country codes are for countries, and decisions for the countries are made by their governments.

Re:If not the government?

[Disevidence]

Its not a random person at all, the admin was delegated control by the precursor to ICANN. He's been doing this for free for almost 10 years, from what I have been told.

The government is seeking control of the .za domain, and the admin want's to get rid of it. But he doesn't want to give it to the government with the laws and controls they want to put on the .za domain. The government are the total morons in this issue, mainly because they cannot understand the internets DNS and processes of that.

Re:If not the government?

[Enry]

What you said.

It was bad enough when state domains were not administered in the state. For a while, ma.us was being controlled by someone who not only wasn't in this time zone, but never answered e-mails.

Local domains should be controlled in the local area, and prefereably the (elected) govt instead of someone who got the great idea of taking control 5 years ago.

Re:If not the government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the UK for instance, Government has no involvement in administrating .uk, Nominet is run as a non-profit in the academic world, I believe part of the (modest) fees they collect go to fund the academic backbone, no business nor government gets in the way.

As for South Africa, their government is intent on controlling anything of value, after five years of pondering they've only just realised that Internet = $$$, hopefully in another few years they'll realise the bubble burst two years ago.

Re:If not the government?

[MindStalker]

Direct Quote from Mav[LAG] #31387 in responce to the same question the last time this was brought up on slashdot explains it best.
No one here in South Africa minds who controls .za as long as a) it works and b) it's managed according to the RFC and the informal rules that the late John Postel put in place circa. 1985. The local Internet community are totally opposed to the ridiculous provisions of Section X of the Government's Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill.(Some of the other sections are equally idiotic but let's stay focused here).
Specifically they want to replace the non-profit organisation Namespace [namespace.org.za] (whom Mike Lawrie consults to) with a huge unwieldy bureaucracy that will cost the taxpayers millions and is overseen by the Communications Minister. In other words, a simple administrative function that has been performed superbly by a single highly-competent individual over the last decade will now be replaced by an eighteen person board of directors whose salary bill alone is millions per year. Not only that but the Government's spin on the whole debacle is that they are imposing some form of democracy on the current evil monopoly that Mike Lawrie has subjected us all to.
This is complete bullshit. Mike Lawrie and Namespace have repeatedly tried to get the Government involved in ccTLD administration with no success for many years now. The Department of Communications, led by two politicians whose only qualities seem to be an equal balance of power hungriness, greed and incompetence (Ivy and Andile - yes, this means you two) say that Government control over .za will lead to some kind of new era of Internet prosperity where all people in our country will suddenly get Internet access.
A few facts are in order.

* The South African Government cannot even manage it's own name servers - let alone the whole country's. Five out of six of them are currently mis-configured or not working. If they do take over and .za suddenly goes dark for a few days because of some technical or beauracratic cock-up, our economy will suffer enormously.
* Internet access for all is dependent on our telecommunications infrastructure and policy - which The Department of Communications has - to put it politely - completely fscked up over the last eighteen months.
* The Department has not taken on board 1% of the industry advice it has pretended to listen to since it was taken over by the two current fools. Together they have crippled our local telecoms regulator so much that the incumbent phone monopoly can charge what it likes without fear of being slapped down.

And yes, as a South African journalist who's been following this saga for quite some time, I don't mind saying that I'm really pissed off.

Re:If not the government?

[skaffen42]

I think Mike Lawrie understands the role of a domain administrator very well. As he explains it: "The domain administrator operates with the trust of the community. He doesn't own the domain."

The problem is that the Sotuth African internet community (justifiably) does not trust the SA government to act responsibly and competently in this role.

For local coverage of the situation see http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?o=4704

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

As usual, a since person sprouting bullshit and claiming the support of everyone. A few facts? Try to get them straight:

The bill will set up a section 21 company to control the .za domain. The government won't be doing it, or handing it to the incompetent IT division. They will be dictating policy to a company board.

The quotes about prosperity and Internet access are a media fuckup because they are completely out of context. They refer to the bill in general, which provides for better access to the underprivlidged, and recognition of the legal status of Internet communications. The comments do not apply to section X.

The "local internet community" you refer to are Namespace ZA, who are: 1. backed by industry interests, who don't want to see their monopoly as registrars threatened or be made to do more work by having to replace their shitty dispute resolution policities with something which is actually fair and legally sound; 2. represent a community of mainly technically oriented individuals, who are known to have an anti-government stance when it comes to regulation, and don't really give a shit about apply ZA policy and law to domain ownership.

You didn't need to mention you were a journalist: your complete lack of factual information or the ability to tell media hype from actual evidence make it obvious that you are one.

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

You're absolutely right. Lawrie doesn't want to give it to the government because of the laws they want to put on the .za domain. Unfortunately there are 60%+ of the population who democratically elected the government to represent their interests, and Lawrie doesn't actually have a fucking say in WHAT laws government intend to make.

The SA government has to abide by ICANN rules, yes. ICANN rules require that the ccTLD administrator has the blessing of the national government, which Lawrie does not, and never did have. Apart from that, they do not require that SA not apply its national laws to domain ownership, dispute resolution, policy formation, etc, etc.

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

PLEASE try to get a clue. The bill provides for a non-profit company to be created to administer the .za namespace. The miniter gets to nominate some of the board. The government's concern is to ensure that namespace policy follows SA policy and law.

For those of us who have to deal with the SA registrars, this is a good thing, though not many realise it. Mike Lawrie's behaviour is quite typical of techies who think they run the place. There have been several "domain snatches" by administrative contacts of .za sub-domains (third-level), and the entity who really owns the domain cannot get it back because the dispute resolution policies of most registrars are "transfers only with the permission of the administrative contact".

So if you are a non-profit organisation which has registered a .org.za domain, and you're admin contact decides to "defect", you're fucked. Have a nice day, say goodbye to your domain. And unless you're a section 21 company and can take the matter to court, you're never going to see it back.

This is the sort of bullshit the current registrars cause, because there is not a sufficient policy framework backed by SA law ... and the sort of bullshit the bill will clear up.

Re:If not the government?

[Isofarro]

Isn't it embarassing that the old racist apartheid government looks competent in comparison to the current baboons in power?

To be completely fair, I doubt the apartheid government would have allowed any internet access, because that would break down the created socialogical barriers, and open white South Africa to criticism that could conceivably ignore like the proverbial mushroom in the dark.

There was a lot of censorship during the eighties, so there would have been a very strong argument to prevent the freedom the internet provides from being used by any SA resident.

Re:If not the government?

[foniksonik]

Yeah that seems to happen a lot in the wake of social and politcal revolution. i know it's been a decade roughly but there are still ripples of influence from the adhoc, 'let's get anyone non-racist into power' stupid or not. Look at the eastern block and russian states.

Re:If not the government?

[Domini]

I don't really agree with you...

It would all be fair and stuff if South Africa actually owned the .za domain. Then you would have a valid point. (I'm not sure why you wanted your post to look like flamebait though... I moderated it up anyway since you made valid points.) But they don't AFAIK. And if they did, most people would just move over to .za.net.
Besides, why take over an existing domain space? They could organise a new TLD! This is MORE in line with the democratic principles of the country... give people CHOICES.

Namespace.org had requested the participation of the government in the past, but to no avail. Now suddenly they want to administer. Why?

The problem is that the government is pretending to be a democracy.

Re:If not the government?

[gargle]

You don't seem to understand the concept of state sovereignty and representative government. The South African government is duly elected to represent its people. It derives, from the South African people, the right to regulate public assets, such as country domain names.

It is not for a vigilante admin to decide that he will take over a function of government because he doesn't like the government's plans. Who are the South African voters who elected him? He may have the support of the "geek" or even "internet community", but he does not represent the South Africa people and the potential internet users in South Africa.

His actions amount to a subversion of the will of the South African people.

Re:If not the government?

[Domini]

South Africa is not in charge of this, ICANN is.

Under ICANN rules, the administration of a national domain can only be reassigned with the consent of ICANN, that country's government and its Internet community.

The governement is ignoring ICANN and our local internet community.

And what will they REALLY acomplish? It would be like a self administered DOS attack!

Where would all the needy poor people ever then hope to get their internet connection to check their stock prices with?

It's like removing toll booths and putting a tax on fish to pay for roads.

But who am I but a discriminated minority who has not had the 'benefit' of apartheid but now with the bill to pay. Such is life. I like Socialism better anyway, or at least the theory.

-shrug-

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

why *should* the za gov have control over the za domain?

Because the ccTLDs are considered a national resource, and even ICANN and the US government (since they are the ones that hinted this to ICANN in the first place) recognise that.

if I set up a name of microsoft.fyonn.net then should m$ have control over where I point that name?

Invalid comparison. We're talking about ccTLDs. These a top level domains which are INTENDED - by virtue of using the ISO country code - to be associated with a country. Should (for example, and I'm not trying to piss Australians off ;) ) an Aussie have "got there first" and "registered" .uk, how do you think the UK government would react?

Nominet has done a good job of administering domains in the UK. That's great. Mike Lawrie has done a good job technically for the .za namespace, but he has (in line with ICANN recommendations for the ccTLD manager) largely kept away from policy issues.

That is a major issue. Beucase it means that .za domain holders (3rd level in particular) don't have a decent policy framework to regular their dealings with the registrar, and in particular for the dispute process.

The problem with IS and zanet.org.za is a case in point. The dispute resolution policy is "we'll only make changes if the administrative contact agrees". So far no-one has served IS with a court order, but it will probably take at least that in order to get them to make a move.

computer based queries. it's "run" by ICANN (for all their faults) and they get to decide what domains get adminstrated where, it is their system and their root servers after all (in essence) ... how can the za gov nationalise something which is determined overseas?

By ICANN's own rules (see my other /. postings) any change to the manager/management of a ccTLD has to be approved by the national government. Mike Lawrie's role was never approved in the first place, because the government back then (pre-democracy) was, quite frankly, not interested.

as far as I can see mike lawrie is doing his job. he has been given the task of admining the za domain to the best interests of the za internet community.

Lawrie took on that job voluntarily. Arguably he has the best technical interests of the za internet networks at heart, but he has never shown that he has the best interests of the community - policy wise - in mind.

he has decided that in his opinion, he does not want the za gov to control the domain as he thinks that it will not be in the best interests of the za internet community

Precisely ... and you're supporting the decision of one man to deny the instructions of a democratically elected government?

DNS is not a nice global agreement maintained by volunteers out of the goodness of their hearts. It is a global resource, and most countries and organisations - the US government and ICANN included - recognise that. WIPO recognises domain names as property.

Much as the SA postmaster doesn't have the right to tell all postmasters around the world that the address "SOUTH AFRICA" should be sent to his offices in Namibia for sorting before delivery to SA, Lawrie doesn't have the right to administer the .za namespace against the government's will.

Re:If not the government?

[hey!]

Governments, at least democratic ones, should be given the chance to f*ck up. When they do, the people can decide it's time to replace them.

The alternative is the idea that a non accountable person or organization is more to be trusted more than a democratically elected government. This is true sometimes, but in the long term its better to let publicly elected officials make policy; implementation can be by farmed out.

It won't be the end fo the world if the South African government screws up the ZA namespace. In the broad spectrum of ways that a government can hurt the economy, this is hardly the most significant. But if people don't start trusting their elected governments with responsibility for making decisions about public infrastructure, then holding them accountable for the results, then they will get a government as infantile as they deserve.

Re:If not the government?

[mav[LAG]]

The bill will set up a section 21 company to control the .za domain. The government won't be doing it, or handing it to the incompetent IT division. They will be dictating policy to a company board.

You have to ask yourself though: what for? Namespace is already a section 21 company (note to non-SA readers: this is your basic non-profit org) with a clear policy of accountability, trusteeship and inclusivity. Anyone with a .za domain can become a member for the measly fee of $2 a year. From section 2.1 of it's policy document:

2.4. The Company, through the board, acts as the 'trustee' of the ZA domain namespace. No 'right' in or 'ownership' of a subdomain of ZA vests in any person or organisation.

This is entirely in line with ICANN's RFC 1591 (now called something else - can't remember right now).

The quotes about prosperity and Internet access are a media fuckup because they are completely out of context. They refer to the bill in general, which provides for better access to the underprivlidged, and recognition of the legal status of Internet communications. The comments do not apply to section X.

They are 100% in context. The Department of Communications has repeatedly stated that section X - control of .za by a Government-appointed and overseen body - is a key part of getting Internet access to all in South Africa. As for whether the bill in general provides for better access to the underprivileged, it's pretty clear that DNS doesn't, I'll let Mike Lawrie's FAQ answer that one:

Q. The government has implied that control by the government of the ZA
domain name system will facilitate bringing the Internet to everyone in
South Africa.

A. That is highly unlikely.

There is nothing about the DNS that provides Internet connectivity.
What is needed to achieve the Minister's noble objectives are a
computer, appropriate software, a telephone or leased data circuit, a
subscription to an ISP service, and some assistance in getting started.
Only then might (might) the issue of a domain name become relevant in
the matter of universal rollout of Internet services.

The "local internet community" you refer to are Namespace ZA, who are: 1. backed by industry interests, who don't want to see their monopoly as registrars threatened or be made to do more work by having to replace their shitty dispute resolution policities with something which is actually fair and legally sound;

Namespace are a proposed section 21 company that has its board elected by its members in a democratic manner in line with the Companies Act, that is open to any citizen and any resident of the country. Details have been open to public (and government) scrutiny for over a year on www.namespace.org.za. Government has repeatedly been invited to participate (for a number of years now) in the administration of the domain name system and has not even bothered to attend meetings.

2. represent a community of mainly technically oriented individuals, who are known to have an anti-government stance when it comes to regulation,

Yeah they do and with good reason. Again, Mike Lawrie says it better than I:

Ask yourself whether the government has a good track record on such things as dealing with AIDS, where the very lives of the population it serves have been used as a political football, and what track record will they have on the domain name system.

and don't really give a shit about apply ZA policy and law to domain ownership.

Erm, ICANN has extraordinarily strict rules about policy and domain ownership. Should these rules have been broken at any time since Mike Lawrie organised us the .za domain (for twas he who first started it), we would have heard by now.
And you're wrong anyway. Namespace and Mike Lawrie are only too keen to construct an open and public method for domain and legal resolution. Read their charter if this is any way unclear.

You didn't need to mention you were a journalist: your complete lack of factual information or the ability to tell media hype from actual evidence make it obvious that you are one.

Heh - you'll have to do better than that. I could just as well ask what some little role-playing twerp from Durban who can't spell or get laid (as described in nauseating detail on your own Web site) is doing commenting on the domain name resolution. You don't even own your own domain :)

Re:If not the government?

[Domini]

Agreed.

To reply to the person that replied to me and to whom you just replied:

I used to administer networks at up.ac.za from about 1993-1997 (or was at least involved in part) and helped put the .schools.za domians on the map in my free time. (Did this with a cool little Sun box in an abandoned tower... hehe)

I'm sure there are people who did have problems, and I would gladly read up on it if you can just point out the site detailing the chronicles.

If there isn't such a site, then perhaps the problem was not that big?

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

I don't doubt that Namespace's policies are in line with RFC 1591. Unfortunately RFC 1591 is not in line with current practice ANYWHERE in the world, and that includes the US. Domains ARE property, and are treated as such. Domain registrars are afforded an enormous responsibility to ensure that that property is protected. Dispute resolution policies exist solely to ensure that disputes based on national law can be remedied in the DNS system.

In order to protect DNS name owners, it is essential that every TLD, especially ccTLDs, have a dispute resolution policy which is consistent with the law of the nation in which the ccTLD is intended to be based and/or operate. No SA national would be in his/her right mind to invest in a domain name which is backed by an SA trademark they own, when the dispute resolution process is not backed by SA law.

The current standing in SA is that, because the registrars fall under SA law, you do have recourse to the courts. Unfortunately the registrars tend to wash their hands of disputes at the moment, and leave resolution to the courts, which is a costly process.

ICANN has no requirement whatsoever that the domain manager act enact sub-domain policies which are consistent with national law. In fact ICANN makes it quite clear that TLD management is a technical issue and managers should steer clear of political issues. This unfortunately does NOT protect the "internet community", as ICANN still does not officially recognise domain names as property.

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

Having the government responsible of dealing with Policies of any sort is baaad.

An unubstantiated and politically biased statement. Policy creation and enforcement is a primary role of government. The fact that "geeks" don't want to see the Internet regulated, and the fact that I don't like a number of the regulations government makes, doesn't mean this shouldn't be the case.

Can you please explain how this bill will compromise free speech? The government is not put in charge of the .za namespace, nor are the given any control over the DNS records themselves. The bill enables the creation of a company to deal with registrars.

This gives the government no more power to delete/disable/redirect an individual third level domain than they have power to tell Telkom to disconnect your telephone, or SATRA to instruct all ISPs to revoke your accounts.

Even if you want to claim that there will be underhanded dealing in the licensing of registrars, you still have a difference from the arms deal in that the government is not directly involved (the minister has no direct say).

As for journalists ... those in South Africa have a track record of being overly critical of authority in general. I don't like a lot of what the SA government does, but there are times when they deserve credit, and times where they have failed, but had the right idea to begin with. SA journalism in English and Afrikaans media is highly negative towards the country, which is a pity, because for all our faults we still have a lot more freedom than places like the US and the UK.

And not somone that is fast to point a finger and flame. I'll take this to mean me. Fast? No. It takes at least a read through 80 articles deriding people based on far less facts than I have -- and my facts are by no means complete or accurate -- before I decide to start getting irritable.

Anyways, thanks for your opinions mr.troll its good to know, somone of your standing has too much to say

A standing which is, even now, not so low as that of an anonymous coward...

Re:If not the government?

[Royster]

Your 'baboon' reference is very offensive.

Democracies have the right to screw up. No sole, unelected individual has the authority to prevent a government from screwing up.

Sometimes its better if a government is allowed to screw up because it often lets the opposition in to have a chance to do better.

Re:If not the government?

[fyonn]

ahh fuck. sorry, this post was half written when I accidentally hit the "back a page" gesture in opera... now I've got to re-write it... bugger

right, lets try and reember what crap I was spewing last time:)

Should an Aussie have "got there first" and "registered" .uk, how do you think the UK government would react?

good point, bad specific example :) the UK gov would be using their *actual* iso country code of .gb instead, yup, thats right, the UK is, afaik, the only country in the world whose cctld is not their ISO 2 letter country code. .gb even exists (as a frozen cctld), go forth and zone transfer folks, check out the one domain within it and the 2 dozen machines at malvern.

anyways, lets ignore that technicality, I know the point you are trying to make. if some aussie had managed to register and get to control .uk then I can see how british businesses/gov might be annoyed. but that is an issue they can take up with icann. perhaps they shouldn't have given control away to some random aussie but you can't demand that the aussie give back control, why should he? esp if he's doing a good job. he can have control taken from him by icann but thats between the two of them.

By ICANN's own rules (see my other /. postings) any change to the manager/management of a ccTLD has to be approved by the national government. Mike Lawrie's role was never approved in the first place, because the government back then (pre-democracy) was, quite frankly, not interested.

yes, back when the .za control was handed to lawrie, the gov wasn't interested. does that mean that they should have held back until a gov *was* interested? za needed a cctld and it needed one to be adminned locally so they skirted some of the rules to allow it to happen. understandable and they don't seem to have made a bad decision.

now the gov has decided that it wants to play too, fair enough, if they, icann and lawrie can come to a nice amicable result then all's well and good. but thats not what they want to do. they have decided that they *will* have control. well, thats not how it works. and nor should it be. they came in late in the game and they should abide by the rules that exist. the rules state the for control to transfer then all three parties (icann, the old admin and the new admin) must all agree. they don't.

dns entries aren't like food, water, gold, electricity etc. they are not a national resource. they are entries in a database. they are convenient and they are pretty empheral.

it's like companies sueing MAPS to get their mailserver ip's off the rbl lists. I'm sorry but imho, tough. it's paul vixie's database (it is him isn't it) that he allows other people to access. he can do with it as he damn well pleases and who are you or I to say what goes in?

dns is the same (err, very as they use the same protocol). sure icann have their own rules and regs about it and want it to be ubiqitous, and it pretty much is, but I fail to see why the za gov should be able to take control of their bit by force. if the current admin doesn't think that they will do a good job of it, perhaps he has a point?

imho, if the za gov wanted in on making decisions for the za domain then they should have been there at the start, the fact that it is now a different gov is irrelevant. if they want in then they can go about things properly.

and you're supporting the decision of one man to deny the instructions of a democratically elected government?

you say that like I should be considered a pariah for thinking so. yes, I do think that any man has the right to deny the instructions of a democratically elected government. it is perhaps an extreme example but nazi soldiers were instructed to kill jews by their democratically elected government. it wasn't a very good excuse when the war trials started as they were told that they should have disobeyed.

(*sigh* okay, hitlers party was, iirc elected democratically, then there were some political shenanigans, but afaik he had the support of the majority of the german ppl when the war started)(yeah, I've ont read the history in depth, I think my point is still valid thought)(and yes, I kow I'm skating very close to godwins law, but note that I'm not comparing anyone *to* a nazi or indeed, to hitler, just drawing an analogy that just because one is told to do something by "the law" doesn't mean it's right and it doesn't mean that he should obey)(and yes twy, if you want to invoke godwins law then just say so and I'll shut up :)

so yes, I can honestly say that I can easily picture many situations where one man can, and should stand up to instructions given to him by a democratically elected government. perhaps he is right to do so, perhaps he is wrong, but I respect his right to make his own decisions and he will be accountable for them.

WIPO recognises domain names as property.

and this is considered a good thing? the idea in general has it's merits (and demerits) but their implementation sucks. in fact this is possibly similar to the discussoin we're having. the idea of the za gov controlling the za domain has it's merits but what will the implemenation be like? I would consider mike lawrie to be reasonably well qualified to make that judgement.

Lawrie doesn't have the right to administer the .za namespace against the government's will.

I would say that the za gov has no implicit *right* to administer the .za namespace against icann's will.

dave

Re:If not the government?

[Twylite]

DNS entries aren't food or water, but they are a country's name and address. The US may blacklist certain nations (comparison: MAPS), but it still refers to them by name so that we all know what they hell they are talking about. If all mail to Kenya actually ended up in Indonesia, people would be (understandably) pissed off.

I know that picking on the "denying government" thing wasn't a grand idea ;) but we're not talking a humanatarian stand here. We're talking about someone who doesn't like the politics of someone else. Nothing gives me the right to confiscate someone's rugby ball just because I don't like rugby.

As for ICANN, they haven't got involved yet. For all you know, they're reading this /. thread to get ideas on what they should do when they DO get involved ;) The bill provides for the new company to decide on the technical implementation. That doesn't happen now ... so all this argument is actually quite pointless, because ICANN's view (and the "governments" technical capability) is only likely to be known in the fairly distant future.

Responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

"It would amount to sabotage if he were to disrupt the Internet and he has to realize that he will be held responsible for any disruption," Kekana said.

Well then ! By the government's argument isn't he doing the right thing?

If it is his job to ensure the internet setup in ZA remains stable, and he believes it will make ZA unstable if the government reassigns his job to someone else without first ensuring that the government has the infrastructure to take on this job, then wouldn't it then be his responsibility to take steps to make sure the government could not carry out any destabilizing action?

Just carrying out his job, he is. No?

I wish the news articles on MSNBC weren't so skimpy. Where's the BBC when you need it? Are there any more clearly-written summaries of all this out there?

dangerous

[fferreres]

A lot (if not all) internet businesses will depend on DNS working fine. And just 1 guy can bring it down? Why? How?

I wouldn't like to live in SA right now. He myght be a hero now, but he may become a non-hero whenever he likes. Also, he may die with some passwords unknown (recall the s. hacker contest for the library), or ran out of resources, etc.

It should be run by an independant goverment agency with stable staff and that directly depends on ICANN. Something like an independant Central Bank, but for hosts/domains.

Re:dangerous

[Simon Garlick]

Let me get this straight. You want control placed in the hands of

1. A government agency
2. That is independent
3. And has stable staff
4. And that depends directly on ICANN

Anything else? Must have unlimited funding? Must be able to fly? Must have jars full of M&Ms in the office but no brown ones?

Re:dangerous

[fferreres]

Wow, do you know how a Central Bank usually operates? The idea is protecting the Internet FROM the goverment, but beign public.

There are other examples other than a central bank, for example Regulating agencies (electricity, etc) which are goverment institutions (ie: public) yet they are funded by the market they regulate and the goverment (banks, power companies, etc). The goverment just can have direct control of the staff just like the president can't fire congressmen...

It should relate to ICANN and be independant from the goverment and never a "1 guy" operation.

Re:dangerous

[Twylite]

It should be pointed out that only the ccTLD zone file is under discussion here. That file can be rebuilt without a huge amount of effort - every registrar is well known, and is unlikely to jump overboard if Lawrie is "taken down". The issue is getting ICANN to agree to changing the root server records to identify the new ccTLD zone servers.

Geeks created the internet

[LennyDotCom]

Geeks created the internet and Geeks should control it.
Computer Geeks tend not to be to concerned with politics they have a higher standard "Network Integratiy"

sorry for any typos Ive been drinking

Not the right answer.

[standards]

Sorry, but the .za domain -should- be in the hands of the South African government... and not under the fully control of an individual citizen who could go off the deep end at any moment. Or get hit by a bus.

So the keys are hidden. What if he DOES get hit by a bus in the next week? THEN what happens???? This is NOT a good situation.

With government ownership and control, the South African government can be responsible for the success or failure of the domain.

The people and institutions in South Africa may thank him for his efforts and may want him to continue to be involved in the domain. However, few of those same people support his tactics.

Re:Not the right answer.

[Yorrike]

Why is everyone convinced that Mike Lawrie could go stark raving mad at any moment? If he starts fucking around with the .za domain, ICANN will take measures to ensure network integrity. But I doubt he's going to turn evil all of a sudden and destroy the (I assume) respect he's bulit up with the South Afrian internet community.

It's time everyone gives up the "what if he goes crazy or dies" argument - The .za domain is controlled by a skilled, intelligent, level headed individual. Get over it. If governments can't even get tax returns correct, then there's no fucking way they'll be competent controlling a TLD.

Re:Not the right answer.

[jackb_guppy]

He has shown he is "mad".

He been trying to goverment "involved". Now they are. He does not like how they are getting "involved". So he hides the "keys".

He asked. They answered. He crying, "they are bad".

So?

[autopr0n]

Yes, but what gives him the right? The elected government of south africa should be able to control the .za domain as a matter of course.

If this person wants to change the way the government handles the way the domain is used, he should lobby them that way. Just taking the zone files out of the country isn't going to do anything.

Btw, all south africa needs to do to get around this guy would be to get the root name servers to point somewhere else for .za.

Re:So?

[Disevidence]

Yeah and the root name servers are controlled by ICANN, the people who endorse the administrator.

So to get the name servers to point elsewhere they would have to lobby ICANN, but since ICANN are supporting this guy, its unlikely.

Re:So?

[0x0d0a]

Determining who's in charge of and who should be in charge of South Africa can be quite interesting.

More importantly, ICANN has policy prohibiting involvement with national entities, or making TLD changes at national request. They know that goverments in coups or breakaway states can get an easy legitimization by getting their own TLD. They follow *only* the ISO country code charts. To some degree, this guy is simply following in the same spirit -- keeping the Internet out of national power squabbling, and maintained by the same set of volunteers and computer gurus who have kept the thing working well for ages.

Re:So?

[Hard_Code]

Yeah, I don't get this either. People are saying basically that the South African government shouldn't get control because they "don't understand the internet" or are doing "stupid things". So what? It's THEIR domain! If they want to fuck it up, so be it. Let their government and their citizens deal with it. Why does the rest of the world, let alone a bunch of irrelevant geeks, have to be involved in this issue? That the South African government "does a good job" with its domain in the eyes of us geeks is NOT a prerequisite for sovereignty.

Re:So?

[raju1kabir]

That the South African government "does a good job" with its domain in the eyes of us geeks is NOT a prerequisite for sovereignty.

The ".za" domain name is neither a person nor is it land. Therefore I don't see what sovereignty has to do with anything. If I write a book called "South Africa", does the South African government get to decide who around the world can read it?

Top-level domains are not national property; they are a logical construct brought into and maintained in existence by whoever runs the root servers, for the convenience of internet users. Those who run the root servers have pledged no allegiance or subordination to the South African government.

Re:So?

[Grit]

Why? Who gave the South African government control over the .za domain? If there was a ".southafrica" domain, would they have automatic right to control that, too? If I invent a new namespace tomorrow, does that mean governments automatically get portions of it that they control? There's no "matter of course" about it. Many ccTLDs are not controlled directly or indirectly by the corresponding governments, but by universities or telephone companies.

Now, since the organization or person controlling a country's ccTLD usually resides in that country, it's not as if the government has no say...

But, the point is precisely that "this guy" is who the people running the root name servers chose as the administrator of the .za domain. There _is_ a process that ICANN has for transferring domain ownership. The South African government just doesn't want to play along; it wants to tell ICANN what to do, and it doesn't have that right. Nor is government appropriation of a previously private role to be taken lightly.

Re:So?

[susano_otter]

Determining who's in charge of and who should be in charge of South Africa can be quite interesting.

Of course, as you imply, this has nothing to do with "who's in charge of South Africa", and everything to with "who's in charge of a set of config files that identify a logical region roughly congruent with South Africa within an independently administered opt-in internetwork".

Re:So?

[gargle]

they are a logical construct brought into and maintained in existence by whoever runs the root servers, for the convenience of internet users. Those who run the root servers have pledged no allegiance or subordination to the South African government.

I have no idea how the domain name system works. However, the internet has become a public resource, and national governments are in the best position to regulate public resources.

Which is the more reasonable outcome: to have the country domains regulated by the corresponding governments (presumably democratically elected by their people), or by a group of arbitrary, unelected system administrators?

The fact that domain names are not bricks or mortar is irrelevant; we're in the 21st century, assets don't have to be physical.

Re:So?

[Tri0de]

"Why does the rest of the world, let alone a bunch of irrelevant geeks, have to be involved in this issue?"

Because this bunch of "irrelevent geeks" INVENTED and MAINTIAN the friggin internet and all of the infrastructure that make it possible!! Why should some dimwit who just happened to bribe or steal enough votes to sleaze his or her way into an elective office have DIDDLY SQUAT to say about how the international information structure is run? Sorry, IMHO the 'net is BY GEEKS and FOR GEEKS; if somebody else (politician, marketroid) gets to use it and/or make a few dollars, fine- but that is like this fat white boy being allowed to shoot hoops on an inner city basket ball court- just until the homies show up and then slink off or get my ass kicked.

Large scale alternative DNS

[jesterzog]

Today's Friday where I live, so my slashdot persona is going to be in a more observational and theoretical mode.

I don't like the way ICANN presently works, but it seems a bit wrong for any government to decide it wants to usurp something independent that lots of others have devoted so much hard work and effort towards, just because it's successful. (On the other hand, I know this happens all the time.) I also don't have a whole lot of respect for the current South African government.

The ideal way for a government to deal with something like this in theory would be to set up its own DNS system in competition that's administered by the government under its own terms. Then it would try to convince people and ISP's, both in SA and everywhere else, to use it instead of the ICANN-authorised one. The biggest problem with doing this is that it could turn out to be risky if not completely impractical. There will probably always be people who will never allow anything other than ICANN to reach their users.

There have been lots of attempts at alternative DNS's set up against ICANN, but most haven't been incredibly successful scale-wise. Most of them haven't had a major organisation or government behind them, though. With the extra resources available though, is it technically feasible that a country could do something like set up an alternative DNS that people would trust if it chose to?

Re:Lesotho?

[0x0d0a]

...how are we going to route packets to Lesotho? This country is completely surrounded by South Africa!

Satellite

not hard for the Govt to take control...

[Lumpy]

all they need to do is set up their own SA dns servers and flip ICANN the bird. most any country can set up their own DNS easily.

this is nothing but a power struggle. there is nothing noble being done by either side.

Re:not hard for the Govt to take control...

[alizard]

What info do you have? The story appears to be that a single individual who's been running the .ZA domain with his own equipment wants some competent person or organization to replace him. Perhaps he'd like for his e-mail to keep working after he quits.

If the .ZA poster who says that the government has proven that it can't even run its own name server correctly is telling the truth, the government is NOT up to running .ZA domain.

Perhaps you have an issue with the idea that a person might consider his reponsibility to his fellow Internet users more important than his government's orders.

From my point of view, this makes the guy a hero. This also makes you a zero.

If you don't get the fact that ICANN need not connect to any national DNS set up by .ZA... what are you doing in a discussion of national TLD administration?

Re:not hard for the Govt to take control...

[Lumpy]

hold on here....

First off, most users of a commerce site are based in the country that the company is based in, exception is the companies that are set up only to avoid a specific countries laws,policies or taxes/fees. Dont go trying to tell me different, I ran a E-commerce site for enough years to have 3 years worth of data to prove my point. and I bet lots of donuts that I can find the same trends if the weblogs of most any E-commerce site.

Secondly most websites,ftp servers,etc... are used mostly in the country of it's origin.

I can tweak the DNS server in my basement and create a .crap domain and if I do, I will have everyone on my citywide wireless system will resolve .crap domains.

the nation of SA can do the same. EVERY nation can do the same and create their own internal DNS with tld's for whatever they want. Yes the rest of the world wont resolve to them but it will work very well for 99% of all their internet traffic, as most of it will reside inside that country if it is looking for the .crap domain.

He is not a hero, Granted the SA government has proven over and over thant they are a bunch of twats (same as any other 3rd world country) but he is playing a power game, plain and simple.. he COULD have transferred control to someone outside the country, he could have set up many different ways to do it instead of playing the "it's my ball and I'm going home" game. A hero is someone that does something selflessly for the good of another this smells selfish to me... Next thing he is going to demand he interview the prospects that will be running it, you wait.

leading the world in civil rights

[JeanBaptiste]

its south africa

Re:Lesotho?

[Hard_Code]

How about Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

See, here is the problem...

[Qwerpafw]

OK. Right now .za is effectively controlled, along with everything else, by ICANN. And the problem in this case is that ICANN see fit to delegate this responsibility to a particular individual.

That may be good, that may be bad. Actually in this case it is good, because this guy has done a great job for quite a while (and for free), while south africa has royally fscked things up in their own country quite a bit. Furthermore, this guy is a good guy. He has been asking for someone to take the job off his hands for a while. And south africa are being jerks. The fogeys in the gov't decided to make this man's actions illegal, by means of passing a law causing anyone who controlls state "stuff" to be a criminal.

But the above is irrelevant. ICANN shouldn't decide who controlls top level domain names! thats the job for governements. Or maybe the united nations!

Actually, it is ICANN's jobs. The United States of America created something called "ARPAnet", the departement of defense created a computer netowork in order to survive a nuclear attack. And then it blossomed into the internet, a very american and commercial enterprise. And so the gov't, and some other people, made ICANN.

now, ICANN has some 'issues', but they most certainly do their job. And it is most certainly their job. South africa, if they really care, can make their own internet. They can call it "ZANet," which is somewhat catchy. That would be the governemet's job.

However, until the gov't demonstrates that they can successfully administer .za, they should not be allowed to try. Why break something if it works?

And finally, I get to what I am really ranting about. Geopolitical issues and the internet. I think that it is really stupid that any country should be able to control someone in another country because they can access their data. China and censorship. France and that nazi stuff they were trying to censor. Frankly, I think that if the stuff is hosted here, our laws apply. If someone starts a new country, lets call it "bastardlawsuitland," and then makes a law that slashdot is illegal, can they sue slashot because slashdot didn't make itself inaccessible to them in their country?

By the current laws, which admittedly are very very vague, the answer is yes. And that pisses me off to no end.

Oh, I have karma to burn, by the way. But I am pissed off and this is relevant.

Re:See, here is the problem...

[Sycraft-fu]

You're absolutley right.

What people have to remember is that there is NOTHING STOPING national government, companies, or even you from creating your own, competitive set of root server. Make them with whatever somains you liek, hell you can even use the same ones that ICANN does. However ICANN is under no obligation to accept updates from you nor are and ISPs or systems admins under any obligation to add your servers to the list they check.

Re:See, here is the problem...

[Twylite]

Ok ... YOU, and every other fuckwit who suggests that a government can create its own root servers, or that taking over a ccTLD involves creating its own root servers, or that government has no right to be involved in ccTLD administration ... LISTEN UP.

4.1 The delegee of a ccTLD is a trustee for the delegated domain, and has a duty to serve the residents of the relevant country or territory in the context of ISO 3166-1, as well as the global Internet community (as that term is interpreted in the Preamble to this document). Its policy role should be distinguished from the management, administration and marketing of the ccTLD. These functions may be performed by the same or different entities. However the delegation itself cannot be sub-contracted, sub-licensed or otherwise traded without the agreement of the relevant government or public authority and ICANN.

You can read "Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs" on ICANN's site.

RFC-1591 and IANA don't apply - the RFC washes its hands of ccTLD determination and administration, placing the determination in ISO's hands, and ignoring policy issues.

Because the (old) government was not interested in DNS at the time, and ICANN wasn't even around, Mike Lawrie was given the job of managing the .za namespace. He has never received government sanction for this. He never even received industry sanction, because there was only an academic network at the time he started managing the namespace.

Re:See, here is the problem...

[andyr]

You can read "Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs" on ICANN's site.

A little further down we read :-

• 4.4 The delegee should recognise that ultimate public policy authority over the relevant ccTLD rests with the relevant government or public authority.
• 4.5 The delegee should work cooperatively with the relevant government or public authority of the country or territory for which the ccTLD has been established, within the framework and public policy objectives of such relevant government or public authority.

It is questionable that Mike Lawrie is following those directives.

Cheers, Andy!

Why Map To Countries Anyway?

[reallocate]

Why map to country names in the first place? The packets will find their way.

I Think We May Be Missing the Point

[giverson]

The discussion above seems to be centered on who should have control of the .za TLD when that isn't really the issue.

I certainly don't have a problem with the South African government controlling the domain, but there is a procedure for them to get control. If they would go to ICANN and follow the procedure all would be happy.

Instead, they seem to be attempting to hijack the .za with no regard to the system that is already in place. Is that really appropriate? ICANN is in charge at this point whether we like it or not. Can we really support nations ignoring the system and doing their own thing?

The bottom line is that the South Africa government thinks that it is above the system. I suggest that they try the proper procedure for acquiring control of the domain. They should at the very least wait to get hostile until they have good reason to be (such as having their request for control rejected inappropriately).

Yeah, I'm probably wrong though.

Re:I Think We May Be Missing the Point

[jackb_guppy]

Before a goverment can go to ICANN - they need to have the authority to go to ICANN.

South Afirca is in the process of defining that authority, setting how they are going do the job (who runs it, what are the rules).

Mike is unhappy that goverment is doing it without talking to him. He asked for their help in the past. They are taking action. He does not like the action.

Re:Lesotho?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

How about Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

That'd never work - with rampant poverty in SA, your datagrams will be eaten by starving africans.

.mv is owned by the gov...

[Maldivian]

And they only let their 'friends' get domains, everyone is has to pay by the nose. And also these domains are things that they like, and ofcourse they have all the right to cease and void any domain (not to mention arrest anyone) that violates their silly little rules. Dhiraagu is their crone, run by the facist/imperlistic Microsoftian C&W.

There, now you see what a gov owned TLD can do. I feel ZA would go the same was as MV. And no, I dont think a single person running it is a good idea either. Maybe it could go back to the universities (where ZA zones started) and be run by acadamics again instead of single man corporations spoon fed by ICANN?

Okay, here's what we do.

[Anonymous Coward]

We take a page from B5, being geeks and all, and create an extra-governmental organization dedicated solely to the sanctity and security of the 'net.

Considering the US fathered the net, it'll be comprised of mostly US geeks to start, but we'll include a large number of Japanese geeks just so we can get katanas and manage to horribly mangle ourselves while our comrades emit Homer-esque cries of, 'Doh!'. However, geeks of any nationality are welcome to join the organization.

If a country needs help with their 'net infrastructure, we will help them. If, however, they try to do something stupid, we'll know about it - and so will everyone else. We will offer aid and assistance only as long as the country requests it.

Our creed?

"I am an administrator. We write the dark scripts that no one else dares call. We hog system resources, and no user may compile. We live for the net, we die for the net!"

Okay, okay, I admit, I just really, really, really want a workstation in a self-healing bio-organic case. :)

*Who* was planning to hit Mike with a bus?

[billstewart]

Yes, Mike could go off the deep end, or get hit by a bus. But if he *does* get hit by a bus in the near future, we'll have a good idea who did it. :-)

Internet namespace, like many other activities, is an activity for civilized society to make intelligent decisions about. Governments sometimes get into power by being the most intelligent people in civil society, like Plato's hypothetical philosopher-kings, but they often get to power by being a bunch of violent corrupt thugs, or by being a more popular alternative group of people who led a popular revolution to overthrow a bunch of violent insane corrupt thugs, but that doesn't mean that either they have any skills for operating an internet or that they have any moral authority for doing so. And apparently they South African government has demonstrated that they don't have Clue 1 about how to run an Internet. It's simply not their skill set, and there's no reason for it to be their job.

Unlike non-country-code domains, where there's no obvious reason why there should be One Root To Rule Them All or why the US government should get to appoint the people to run it, country-code domains do have some obvious connection to the countries they're named after - but does that mean they should be run by the Post Office, or the One Phone Company, or by some internet standards committee (my preference), or by the Chamber of Commerce, or by the [Insert-Country-Name] National Geographic Society, or simply by the First-Come-First-Served rule? It's a hierarchical name space, and that inherently means somebody's in charge. Failing to define that up front, as the internet failed to do, leads to all this Root Wars nonsense, and it's not inherently fixable.

Re:South Africa

[rossz]

The problem is compounded by the governments refusal to accept the scientificaly proven details of the disease. Because of this, treatment and education has been severely hampered. In addition, the price of the drugs for treatment (I know it's not a cure) cost several times the average annual income for a single month's supply.

Even if it's impossible to cure those who are infected (which will be the case as long as some genetic cure, a'la Star Trek, is not found), it's vital to reduce the rate of infection. This isn't happening (because of ignorance and government stupidity). So the future of Africa, not just South Africa, is massive depopulation of the continent. This is beyond sad.

I know I'm off topic. I don't care.

The real riddle...

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

Who is more accountable?

- the power grabbing government

- the file-hiding incumbent

Hard choice. I do not like either.

Military created the net

[aepervius]

And they tend to be as ungeeky as you can be. The academia used it. Some may be geeky but I can guarantee you that the Profs & researcher I know are far from being geeky or the "mad forgettful" scientific you see on TV or Cinema.

Geek took it then over later, when both where looking eslewhere. Academia was then unhappy at seeing how geek transformed it in an available-for-all net. Militar may have been unhappy seeing it used by civilian, but were extremly happy to see the physical connection multiply, thus enhancing the original net.

Then come marketing type which take over everything, put their dirty hand in every corner adding ads, tooking the net from the hand of geek and then putting it back in the hand of firms for the exploitation of the resource and in the hand of Mr Joe Average for the Feeding of finished product.

And thus Everybody had at one time the net in their hand. And lost it, to ultimatly be handled not as a Strategic resource, not as a Research help, not as a Wild Wide Internet wioth the joy and thrill of discovery, but as a normal, run of the mill, media interractive product.

PS : I don't pretend that is 100% truth, only a way to present it ;).

Re:Military created the net

[foniksonik]

just read the sig

Re:Military created the net

[FurryFeet]

I take issue with the title of your post.
Geeks created the net. The military just paid for it. You wouldn't say you "created your car" because you bought it, would you?
I agrree with your other points :)

Current nslookup info for .za

[rootlocus]

I'm trying to understand what exactly this guy did... It looks like there are several nameservers for the .za domain.. So one of them must be a primary, and they do domain transfers for all the other ones listed here, right?.. Anyone know where all of these are located?

> root
Default Server: A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET
Address: 198.41.0.4

> southafrica.co.za
Server: A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET
Address: 198.41.0.4

Name: southafrica.co.za
Served by:
APIES.FRD.AC.za
137.214.80.1
za
AUTH00.NS.UU.NET
198.6.1.65
za
HIPPO.RU.AC.za
146.231.128.1
za
MUNNARI.OZ.AU
128.250.1.21
za
NS.RIPE.NET
193.0.0.193
za
RAIN.PSG.COM
147.28.0.34
za
UCTHPX.UCT.AC.za
137.158.128.1
za
NS-EXT.VIX.COM
204.152.184.64
za
FLAG.EP.NET
198.32.4.13
za

Re:Current nslookup info for .za

[ziegast]

% dig za soa
za. IN SOA rain.psg.com. hostmaster.psg.com.

Go Randy!

BTW: In cases where a national government and an interested party are at odds over the control of a TLD, the government usually wins in the end. There's a saying, though, about ownership that goes, "Posession is 9/10 of the law." That's what keeps ".za" running right now. At some point, the SA government can/will exert its influence to either 1) get ICANN to change the TLD NS records or 2) outlaw the use of unofficial ".za" servers for any SA ISP. Perhaps the best scenario will have Mike and the SA government reach a transition compromise. If not, it'll be interesting to watch in a Death-Star-finds-rebel-base kind of way.

-ez

(Former TLD zone admin for several countries)

NANP

[Detritus]

The North American Numbering Plan (NANP), which defines the structure of telephone numbers, and assigns area codes to regions, is not "owned" by any government. It is something like the DNS of the public telephone system. The NANP has been run by AT&T, Bellcore, and now Neustar.

Re:NANP

[jackb_guppy]

Close, FCC controls / owns for US. NAMPA reports to them. Can you use the word "contract".

Just look and see:
Look here
The following was pulled from a notice

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gives the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) exclusive jurisdiction over the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in the United States, but permits the Commission to delegate any portion of that jurisdiction to state regulatory commissions or other entities. The Commission, recognizing that state commissions are uniquely positioned to understand local conditions and what effect new area codes will have on those conditions, has authorized the states to resolve many matters involving the implementation of new area codes, subject to the Commission's guidelines and rules governing administration of telephone numbers.

Parallels with Elz and auDA?

[xixax]

So how does this situation differ from how auDA took over .au because the government wanted all .au domains to be market driven?

More to the point, why should this work out any different?

Xix.

Re:Parallels with Elz and auDA?

[Mithrandir]

In this case the internet community was getting very pissed off with Robert Elz, the guy running it. He was slow, made very arbitrary decisions and there were huge backlogs. The internet user community had been complaining about him for a good 4-5 years before auDA finally took over - and they dramatically increased the quality of the service. This is very different to the south african situation.

More Sources

[Arker]

Mike Lawrey's own story
Icannwatch
More from SA sources

It belongs to SA

[shandu]

I am always amazed at naivity of fellow geeks when it comes to politics. This whole saga about the .za is about global political manouvering.
Not so long ago there was an post on here about the US government moving to control ICANN. My understanding of the situation is the SA gorvenment is preempting what they see as an attempt by the US to control the Internet. Their primary objective is to have the .za domain control within SA. Obvoiusly, being politicians they will try to laverage power where ever they can. This is a point that Mike Lawrie missed. South Africa has regulatory and NGO bodies that have the power/resources to chalange unreasonable ministers and the bills they propose. Mr Lawrie did not use any of these bodies, he instead went off to the opposition party and asked them to fight off the gov. Now I read he's taken the .za offshore. Meanwhile, institutions that can bring sanity to this situation are left bemused by this action.

I know Mr Lawrie is following this on slashdot. I wish to say to him why hasn't he used the aparatuses provided by ICASA and there is sangonet, I know they do understand and sympathise with your cause (they are part of a powerful lobby within the ruling party).

To everyone who finds the SA gov actions deplorable; This is not the last such case we will see. Most governments are already questioning the legitimacy of ICANN to control a soveiregn country's domain space.
Next up Fance, who knows?

What does a past HIV/AIDS discussion have anything to do with this issue?

Re:It belongs to SA

[vrassoc]

A better question that yours:

Why hasnt the SA govt participated in the namespace meetings seeing as they had been invited to do so from day one?

No you listen up

[Sycraft-fu]

And lay off the name calling. It may score you mod points but it really is juvinile.

I never claimed that ICANN couldn't or wouldn't accept the South African government's control of the .za file. My poit is that wether they do or no is entirely up to them. The government can't "seize control" if ICANN tells them they can't. Now I haven't seen a statement form ICANN one way or another, so I don't know what they intend.

I am attempting to respond to those that think that the South African government can somehow just take control of the domain against ICANN's wishes (and many who seem to think that is a great thing). No, they can't. If they take over the domain and ICANN choses NOT to accept their authority, their only recourse would be:

1) To attempt to use physical force to make ICANN and the roots obey their wishes. Since most of the roots and ICANN itself are located in the US, this is not possable.

2) To attempt to use legal force to make ICANN obey their wishes. This could potentially work, the courts would hear the case at least.

3) To ignore ICANN and operate their own root level service.

Now again, this is all assuming that ICANN does indeed decide to deny the government's authority. If they say ok to the change over, that's the end of it.

However, the point of my post is to attempt to explain the nature of the whole DNS heirechary to the people that are under the mistaken impression that a government can simply "seize control" of a domain. They can't, ICANN can simply instruct the roots not to listen to them. As with all DNS information, it's based on trust. The roots trust ICANN, most DNS servers in the world trust the roots, the roots trust those that are approved to administer changes to a given domain. Thus, for most people, what ICANN says, goes.

About the only way this will get changed is if the US courts decide ICANN is doing something wrong and force a legal rememdy on them, or a large alternate root network comes to life and gets widely accepted.

Now I'm not trying to endorse ICANN or disparage them, i'm just telling you how it is. For now, they make the rules regarding DNS. They can, at their discression, decide wether to accept the South African government as the new administrator of the .za domain and there is little the government can do about it other than challenge it in US court.

Again, this is all dependant on what ICANN decides. They may well decide to allow the government to administer the .za domain and then that is that. However there seems to be a misconception that the government can somehow usurp authority without ICANN's permission and that is simply not true.

Next time, read a little more carefully and try not to resort to namecalling. It makes you sound like a little kid.

Who can you trust?

[oldstrat]

So the question is really begging, but nobody really wants to answer it.

Who can we trust to administer the domain system?

A government, a group of governments, a group of individuals, or a corperation?
My gut response is none, all, some,and sometimes in no particular order
The internet was created on a trusted network achitecture.
That was great in the day when it was military and academic, but as the original architects feared, the net is not scaling well to a commercial and corperate environment.
Solutions?
Several I can see;

1.- Put it back in the hands of academia.
2.- Create a distributed user based system that is 'meta-moderated' something like the slash message system.
3.- Allow, or force a splinter into a sometimes compatible, sometimes not group of trans-internets that would sortof sometimes talk to each other in a fashion related to the way usenet works, and sometimes doesn't.

There's going to have to be medicine taken to fix these problems that have grown and grown, I'm just hopeful that whatever the medicine is, it doesn't kill the patient.

Maybe they *shouldn't*?

[OmniGeek]

I think the SA governments ONLY misconception is that ICANN will necessarily listen to them. I believe it should, but there is no real requirement that it must.

All I know here is what I'm reading, so I may be way off, but I get the impression the SA gov is doing a rather lousy job of qualifying itself to administer the ccTLD (which decision, if I understand things aright, is basically ICANN's to make). Perhaps ICANN, when they get around to thinking 'bout this one, actually shouldn't redelegate to the SA gov, if this is the case...

Re:Maybe they *shouldn't*?

[Twylite]

The SA government isn't TRYING to qualify to administer the ccTLD. Its passing a bill which will create a section 21 (non-profit) company, in which the government will have a stake (and thereby, policy control), which will decide on the administration. It may do the admin itself, or it may outsource it.

There is no ICANN redelegating to the SA government ... when the furore about the bill has settled and the company is created, they will have to (under ICANN's rules) ensure they meet the technical requirements, and then apply for redelegation. There is also nothing that forces the company to alienate Namespace.org (the current intended delegee of Mike Lawrie) from the process.

Uninformed, I'd say...

[OmniGeek]

Having just read the ccTLD admin's FAQ, it is clear that you need to read it too. It's quite informative. This guy ain't some power-mad geek, he's a responsible admin trying to do the job properly. He doesn't want to run the domain by himself. There is a process and model that have been defined by the local Internet community and the admin for an independent nonprofit corporation to administer the ccTLD with government *participation*, in line with the principles ICANN claims to follow and support. The sole issue there appears to be that the government wants *control* not *participation*, and they're willing to go to the wall for control. My reading of the matter is that the gov are being a buncha *** here.

Good point.

[OmniGeek]

I get your point 'bout the gov not trying to qualify as admin...

If I understand right, isn't the primary issue here one of control? from Mike's FAQ, it sounds like a) he is reasonably sane, competent, and responsible, b) he doesn't want to control the ccTLD himself anyway, and c) the primary issue is whether an independent section 21 company operates the domain with government and community participation, or the government controls the whole show and listens to whomever they please (or not), with the government presently trying to establish the latter situation by legal fiat. Am I missing something here?

Re:Good point.

[Twylite]

No, I think what you've said is essentially accurate. I would think the issue from the government's side is (apart from the power hungry bit) that regulatory organisations such as this tend to ignore government policy unless they have some sort of overriding government influence.

Whether Namespace would do this or consider government policy is anyone's guess ... the government doesn't want it to be a guess.

Re:Which monkeys?

[alienmole]

I don't usually reply to ACs, but since I wrote a provocative message without explaining myself, I'll explain here.

Even ignoring the fact that they deprived blacks of any kind of civil rights, South Africa's white government knowingly deprived the black people of SA of a decent education. That was one of the root causes of the Soweto riots in '76. (The Afrikaans-teaching requirement was simply the final straw). I was attending high school in Johannesburg at the time - I remember it quite well.

Given that via oppression and withholding of education, the government created an enormous almost completely uneducated populace, it's no surprise that when turning the country over to that populace for democratic rule, there have been problems.

That's why I said "talk about reaping what you sow". The only problem with that is of course that the ones mostly doing the reaping are the children or grandchildren of those who helped create or support the apartheid nightmare. Judging from some of the responses in this thread, many of those people have become apologists for their parents' sins, which is not too surprising. Still, it's rather sad that humans never seem able to take responsibility for either their own or often even their ancestor's actions - the fault always has to lie elsewhere, preferably with people of a different skin color.

As for the comparison of South Africa to other countries with racist policies or practices - no question, America for example can be as racist as anywhere, because as I've just alluded to, humans in general have a tendency towards racism. The problem with South Africa was how long it continued a governmentally-imposed apartheid policy and attempted to control its people with military force.

Basically, South Africa began entering the twentieth century as a democratic country, only in 1994. It has a century of catching up to do, at least, and the only people who were in a position to change that, were the people who supported and ran the apartheid government up until 1994. De Klerk finally did something, but it was hardly out of choice - it was more like the employee who, on learning he's been fired, says "you can't fire me, I quit".

The standard SA racist talk, that we've seen in these threads, is simply a comforting way for ignorant whites to blame a problem of their own creation on the very people that they oppressed for so long.