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VeriSign CEO on Commercializing the Internet
mdj writes "CNET has an interview with VeriSign CEO Stratton Scalvos, who says it's time to commercialize the internet's infrastructure and 'pull the root servers away from volunteers who run them out of a university or lab.' He admits that's going to be 'unpopular.'" Because, after all, taking the root servers away from bright, educated comp-sci longbeards who have nothing better to do than to make them run well, and putting them in the hands of MBA bean-counters who don't know what TCP/IP is, is a sure-fire way to improve reliability.
If we commercialize the entire infrastructure, prices will rise, and reliability will fall.. it has been proven many times; @Home, Privatized Power in California, and Alberta
If a completely commercial net were created, I can guarantee that underground sub-networks would pop up externally
OK, so I have a personal interest in the world of IT and technology... and I like to know how my technology is doing what it is (infact I like to know how all I interact with works - I like to learn and increase my knowledge). I also have a CFA and MBA, as well as an undergrad in economics (I like to know how economies work too).
/. is a little prejudice (most seek to justify their own existence) but please do not refer to all MBAs in a negative light... please specify BAD MBA as the fact they are incompetant to what they claim to be should be prioritised.
MBA is used as a negative reference when it shouldn't be, a good MBA graduate should be a good manager - a good manager should be interested and should want to learn about whatever they encounter, and should defer specialist knowledge to the specialist (well, this should be specialists as a range of views should be sought) to inform. A decision based like this should be clearly justified and acceptable to all that are without prejudice as they will see the rationalisation.
ALl I can see around here is BAD MBAs being commented about... now
BTW I work as a fund manager and love, really love, ripping up many managers of IT firms when they come to meet me as they often are really clueless and only ride as an intermediary between the techie and the financier.
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FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
I've suspected for a long time that MBA-types hold techies in contempt. Offshoring IT jobs is another symptom of this. Sclavos' comments demonstrates the utter contempt he holds for the people that built the internet -- the very same people that made him rich!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
He seems to imply that they've spent $150m in infrastructure to run the root servers. Color me stupid, but I have trouble imagining how I could spend that much on the root servers unless I was allowed to count the $750k Sclavos salary (plus his heft options), and those of his crooked cronies, plus a new building or two. (I call them crooked because they benefitted from CSFBs shady IPO allocations) Sclavos sees a way for a single company to monopolize a market (the market of mistyped domain names), and he's in a position to try to grab it. Now he's trying to frame it as a battle between intellectuals and realistic business people, when in fact it's a battle between people who don't want a single company forcing everyone into accepting an ethically questionable service and a single money hungry jackass who realized he found an unraped portion of the Internet. The Internet raises new questions constantly, and now the question is 'what if we just installed wal-marts on every single piece of empty property'. In the real world that's a laughable concept, but on the Internet, it's actually possible, and he wants to do it.
Technically, Verisign didn't say they wanted to be in charge of the root servers.
They just said that the root servers should be less centralized. Maybe that means commercialization. Who knows. His essential point, however, was that if the main 13 root servers fall down go boom, the internet craps out. He is suggesting spreading out the duties of the root servers (he admits he doesn't know any specifics - he's just talking here) throughout many points so that there can be no one point of failure.
I don't see that this article is a big deal, really. Now, if he'd said "Root servers should be owned and maintained by a commercial service" and especially "it shoudl be run by Verisign".. then I'd be up in arms.
Oh please. Just the possibility that cultures and societies have placed far less cultural/political importance on the amassing and growth of personal and corperate wealth than the society we live in today seems to scare the bejeezus out of people.
No, the world has not always been about growing wealth (both organizational and personal).
Certainly in the past 400-500 years it has been, having started from the shift from feutal times to the following centuries of british and european capitalist economies, but there have been (are still are) pockets of society in which people are simply uninterested in increasing their wealth.
Very few people like to believe this tho, because it tends to suggest that people should feel guilty for wanting to increase their wealth and power. It's a natural thing to want a quality that might be perceived as bad to be a human constant instead of a personal choice, as it absolves the person from being driven to commit acts they might otherwise consider unethical.
Then there are countless examples of families, living today, who simply wish to retain their current standard of living, and are not neccessarily out to increase their wealth. However, such people are viewed as being 'losers who just couldnt gain wealth if they wanted to anyhow' as a means of not having to admit that the goal of growing ones personal wealth is actually a personal decision that may, in fact, have moral consequences.
Not that I'm against it, but it pisses me off when somebody says, "Well, thats the way its always been."
Murders have happened since the dawn of time, but that doesn't mean we let people 'kill or be killed' nor do we assume that the level of violence on the planet has been constant since the dawn of time.
We are in an age of the glorification of greed. Whether thats a good thing or not depends on your political and ethical leanings, I would imagine.
"Old man yells at systemd"
The amazing thing is his argument is based on security; he asserts that commercialized root servers will be better for security. What is the evidence of that? Microsoft? He asserts that recent hacker attacks on the root servers (which took out 9 of them at once) were because they're at universities and (one of them) in the military, but offers no argument as to why commercial ownership would be better. The whole thing has the tone of, it's time to grow up and take the toys away from the little kids because they rightfully belong to us grownups, who will do better with them. His arrogance is beyond belief! And then he's got the nerve to point out that security is more important than philosophical debates about commercialization of the net. Well, duh, but the only thing he's got supporting his position is a philosophical assumption (without evidence) that commercial servers are more secure than publicly owned ones.
Almost all of recorded history clearly shows that man has always operated on greed and the amassing of wealth. The measurement of that wealth may or may not have changed over the millenia but the greed has not. Since the dawn of man, people have robbed their neighbors and nations have gone to war primarily due to greed. Long before "feutal" times. Since the dawn of man greed has been a driving factor for mankind. The fact that a few people do not share this view or wish to accumulate wealth does not change the fact that society in general has always been that way.
Murders have happened since the dawn of time, but that doesn't mean we let people 'kill or be killed' nor do we assume that the level of violence on the planet has been constant since the dawn of time.
At the same time a desire or laws to prevent murder doesn't change the fact that, since the dawn of time murders have happened and will continue to do so.
We'd prefer ICANN to become more of a trade association that promotes the growth of the network rather than a regulatory body - Of course you would, as those 'trade assosciates' would have commercial interests on the line. 'Hey, if someone mis-spells a domain, they get a search page. We could sell advertising space, search placement, etc. Anyone disagree with this idea?' Riiiight...
How do we build a commercial business with ground rules that seem to shift based on personal agenda and emotion versus any particular logical data set? - Of course, that 'particular logical data set' = 'profit!' When 'agendas' and 'emotions' express things such as 'This network should be free of censorship, free of centralized control,' then yes, they ARE anathema to corporate profit philosophies.
Are we going to be in a position to do innovation on this infrastructure, or are we going to be locked into obsolete thinking that the DNS was never intended to do anything other than what it was originally supposed to do? - Getting into evolutionary dead-ends is generally a Bad Thing, yes. However, most 'innovation' I hear discussed is for the benefit of corporate interests, rather than improvements of underlying functionality.
A few years ago, there was the talk of making 'Internet 2', making a completely new infrastructure to replace backbones, etc. It would be 'the way of the future,' where we could have 'content on demand,' 'accurate, real-time tele-conferencing,' etc, etc, ad infinitum. Well, after blowing smoke out of their collective a$$es for a time, they've realized the costs and effort involved (back then fiber was being laid down like mad, with no end in sight, so the infrastructure for it would 'just be there'). The talk of a 'second Internet' created/operated/controlled by corporations has dwindled to a trickle. Now, the corporate effort is focusing more and more on the existing Internet. The 'content providers' (MPAA, RIAA), the infrastructure owners (ie. Sprint), 500 lb. gorillas such as Verisign, are now all focusing on the existing Internet, and the 'evolution' and 'innovation' they want are to make the existing Internet into the corporate Utopia that the 'Internet 2' was supposed to be. And it's only going to continue getting worse...
That base level of DNS (domain name system) response is an obligation we took on when we inherited that contract. But it would be commercially unreasonable for anyone to suggest that we shouldn't be allowed to build incremental services on top of that if they deliver value. - 'Embrace and extend,' as it were... But how much over-head would all these 'features' entail? For example, the following gem: The funny thing about digital security is that we've lived in a world where we only knew someone was attacking us when they hit our firewalls. It's time to evolve that world so that we get the information that an attack is coming before it hits our front door. What the hell?!? So what do you have, 'notification' packets sent before the 'real' packets?? Do you delay the 'real' packets to give enough time between the 'notification' and 'real'? "But we don't know that data's coming until it actually gets here." No shit, really?!?
And this is the type of person who's a role model for how 'commercialization' of the Internet is going to work... Yeah, I see great things coming, let me tell ya.........
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
Yes, but modern multinational corporations have a power to exercise their greed that was impossible historically without being an expansionist dictator.
There's an old saying that fits here: "Dance with the one that brung ya." If Verisign thinks they can do a better job managing the Internet, let them go out and design Internet II and see who wants to play by their rules. That wouldn't work, because the original Internet would still be here, and its principal virtue of free exchange of information between consenting parties will always beat one-sided conversations like television, movies, music, and Mintel. The only way they can get people to join their new network is to destroy the existing Internet as we know it.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Seriously, what would happen if a company "enron-ed" What happens then? At least with the root servers in the public trust, aka a University, you can be sure that they will be around for a while. But if you start handing them out, then commercial entities can start to capitalize on them.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.