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Karl Auerbach Wins Right To Inspect ICANN Records
Siobhan Hansas writes: "Karl Auerbach was in court today fighting for the right to inspect and copy documents he first asked to see in 2000, shortly after he became a member of the Board of Directors. Salon have the AP story. Auerbach won the right to inspect documents, but not to copy them, and was required to give ICANN 10 days notice of release of any information marked "confidential" to give them the opportunity to seek a court order stopping him." M : A first-hand report from the hearing makes good reading.
As those who design DNS software know, the power over DNS resides not with ICANN, but collectively among all the people who configure the root server tables in the major sites and ISPs of the world, and in particular, in the sites that distribute the most common name servers (BIND and IIS) which come pre-configured with a root table that points at the official ICANN list.
If the net community got together and could express a unanimous will, that table could be changed. No court would be needed. Governments would be hard pressed to stop it.
But it requires near unanimity because a splintered net, where some people use some roots and the other half uses a different set, so names don't resolve the same, is bad for everybody.
Unanimity is impossible over a given policy but it seems near-unanimity might well be possible over replacing ICANN with another body that will represent the users in choosing a replacement for ICANN. We might universally agree to make the change according to some democratic user-based process even if we don't know how the final decision will go. We just all have to agree to do whatever 51% of the users approve.
How this works is documented on my web site at this essay along with my proposed possible replacement.
But the key isn't if I can get unanimous support for my particularl proposal -- I can't. The question is, can we find a way to a path away from ICANN without yet agreeing on what it is?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Please comment.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Of course, if an appeal allows them to delay revealing anything interesting until Auerbach is out of office, they will have won.
I've been pondering about maybe replacing the DNS system outright.
Something that is distributed, and based on a kind of certification that the users give. Something that would of course have to be attack-resistent (in the sense that a single entity or small group can't profoundly influence the certification of a name->ip mapping on it's own)
The major problem I see, aside from the obvious difficulties in implementing and deploying such a system, is in organising the namespace. Can a name be owned by more than one entity?
You could imagine a system where names would have a subjective meaning, depending on what you and your 'friends' have certified. Other people could get a different entity for the same name.
Needless to say this subjective view is more than just annoying if you think about email for instance. You don't know if a name will lead you to a specific entity. All you're sure of is that the people you trust have picked this one.
Enforcing the one name-one entity mapping could however lead to problems like we currently have:
- first come, first served is a good rule, but gives opportunities to cybersquatters. Conflicting trademarks need to be worked out. Big corp with a trademark practically always wins over an well-intentioned individual. Inevitably disputes follow, courts get involved, lawmakers get involved, everything gets messy and too expensive for individuals, so individuals drop out.
- we could have a global certification where the majority of votes wins. But that leaves little protection for unpopular entities (ie tyranny of the majority).
I've read many of them over the years too. Perhaps you missed some like RFC 3271, titled "The Internet is for Everyone", or ones like 1121, a collection of poetry about the net, or 3271, a memorial to Jon Postel.
The net was created by very intelligent people. Intelligent people tend to think about lots of things, including the importance of openness, sharing of knowledge, and keeping a very human perspective on the rigors of engineering a community.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
None-the-less ... check out opennic
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The internet was based off of the ideas of intellectuals and academics, and has turned into a world nearly exactly opposite of what it was initially intended to do. No I'm not against any porn sites or anything else that is "wrong" with the internet today, I'll leave that battle for the conservatives.
What we are seeing here is a group who likes the control they have and they will be damned if they are about to just give it up. And why should they, the only ones who are against them are the ones who have no real say in the matter, in terms of numbers. Have I purchased a few of the DNS entries that ICANN holds, of course, it's the only way that is widely accepted as a way to identify yourself on the internet.
So where do we go from here? Stop supporting ICANN and start supporting something worth supporting. I support OpenNIC, a free and democratic DNS root. And not some democracy that ICANN has created, a real democracy where everyone gets one vote and that's it. The most votes, wins. Simple majority rules type of governance. While they aren't widely advertised like some other Alternate TLD's I can say that they aren't interested in doing this for the money. They are interested in doing this to take away ICANN's power/influence on us all. If we stop financially supporting ICANN than there will really be no reason for them to exist, they will be a company without assests, which in the capitalistic society we Americans live in, sucks.
Basically I see it like this, if we can all band together and show that we as true computer intellectuals can become something great. A group that can out do the professionals. A group that is designed to have a fair DNS system. A group that is not ICANN. A group that is truly INTERNATIONAL. A group that knows that not everything has to be about money. Money is nice, but certainly some things are more important than money, and freedom happens to be one of them.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Hmm... Wonder what would happen if he were to hand scan some of the more damaging documents (assuming that they exist) onto his laptop which would later turn up ``missing''. (``Gosh, I don't know what happened to it. I know I had it when I went into the NYT offices for that interview. I'll have to ask around.'')
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
> Don't the officers get held legally responsible for the actions of the corporation?
Eh? No.
The act of "Incorporation" is, in fact, the payment of a bribe to the State. Always has been, always will be. It is an abuse of power rooted way back in history. Back then, you bribed the sheriff and you got away with robbing the citizenry. Today, the State bestows personal immunity on you for pretty much everything "The Company" does. Nothing more, nothing less.
The only boundry is political. If you think Enron is the only set of thieves out there, you're sadly mistaken. But, examples have been made, heads have been lobed, and popular revolt was quelled. All is well with the world now. No?
Look at Worldcom. Thieves. Outright thieves. Stole billions in investment money.... Look at what everyone's worried about...
Not the investors, thats for sure. So Who? Everyone who kept so busy stealing all that money in the first place! The Management, the Employees, the Investment bankers.
It's crap. The "Corporate" was rooted in history as an mechanism of outright fraud and and abuse of the public, and it will prove the downfall of humanity. Get over it.
Sounds to me like: Democracy is no fun, if someone does not fully agree and follow the flock.
So lets get back to dictatorship.
If is interesting to note, that the US home os the ICANN, tries to get rid of all of the dictators of this world.
TO ICANN LAWYERS - JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE
Why do ICANN stick with Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue? Is it because of certain old ICANN links with them? Are JDRP profiteering? They are very costly - have ICANN looked for other Law firms?
Have you checked out JDRP.com - and their people involvement with ICANN?
A quote from a Karl Auerbach:
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue is ICANN's law firm, and has been so since the day of ICANN's birth. Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices.
Jones, Day, in the person of its principle man-on-the-ICANN-scene, Joe Sims, was present for at least half a year before ICANN was born, working in the shadows, responding to unknown interests and possibly making unknown deals. About all we know about that period is that those who were not insiders to Joe Sims process were ignored and that those who objected were treated with condescension and abuse.
Over the life of ICANN, Jones, Day has been the the dominant creditor of ICANN.
Even now Jones, Day continues to receive a lion's share of every dollar that flows into ICANN.
And one of Jones, Day's partners, Louis Touton, left the firm to become ICANN's Vice-President, Secretary, and General Counsel.
There is in my mind a question about the appearance of propriety.
Karls platform.
***End quote.
In a good two month period, October and November 2000, they got $465,553.67 from ICANN.
ICANN minutes.
As it one of the largest intellectual property practice groups in a general-practice law firm - with more than 85 intellectual property lawyers, I would imagine Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue make a lot of money on trademarks problems on the Internet.
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.
Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu - even common words you learnt with your A B C's - apple, ball and cat - most many times over.
MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.
The solution to this problem has been ratified by experts - so that ALL registered trademarks can be identified on the Internet.
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue know this solution.
They would lose a lot of money, if there was less trademark problems on the Internet - wouldn't they?
Draw your own conclusions - but it is my opinion they do not want the solution to 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' problems on the Internet.
There is in my mind certainly no question about the appearance of corruption - it is beyond doubt.
Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see. No connection with the United Nations WIPO.org.