Karl Auerbach Speaks Out on ICANN

richard koman writes "Here's an interview I did with Karl Auerbach about ICANN in the aftermath of their eliminating public board members. 'October's distributed, denial-of-service attack against the domain name system--the most serious yet, in which seven of the thirteen DNS roots were cut off from the Internet--put a spotlight on ICANN, the nongovernmental corporation responsible for Internet addressing and DNS. The security of DNS is on ICANN's watch. Why is it so susceptible to attack, when the Internet as a whole is touted as being able to withstand nuclear Armageddon? It's religious dogma, says Karl Auerbach, a public representative to ICANN's board. There's no reason DNS shouldn't be decentralized, except that ICANN wants to maintain central control over this critical function. Worse, Auerbach said in a telephone interview with O'Reilly Network, ICANN uses its domain name dispute resolution process to expand the rights of trademark holders, routinely taking away domains from people with legitimate rights to them, only to reward them to multinational corporations with similar names.'" A Wired article suggests the five elected board members won't be stepping down on December 15 after all.

Comments

that's great

[tps12]

It's good to see someone finally speaking out against ICANN. It seems like sometimes only the geek elite care about these issues, so every little bit of added publicity helps. Still, it is sort of questionable as to whether he's qualified to pass any sort of judgement in this situation. He is pretty convincing on Law and Order, but I'm not sure he really does have a legal background. And that's one of my favorite shows; a non-fan would probably be even less likely to value his opinion.

Re:Those Insensitive Clods!!!!

[edbarrett]

Natalie Portman. Hot grits.