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Karl Auerbach — ICANN the USSR of the Internet
gnaremooz writes to tell us that The Register recently sat down with Karl Auerbach, the last publicly elected member of the ICANN board, and discussed some of the more recent developments. "Perhaps my main point of view regarding what I want to do for the net is expressed in my presentation [PPT] "From Barnstorming to Boeing - Transforming the Internet Into a Lifeline Utility" (speakers notes avilable [PDF]). I've long been interested in making the net a solid utility, and I have a great deal of sympathy for the folks who have to go out and fix things at 3am. I'm very interested in building tools for those folks."
When his grass-roots election to ICANN happened, he ended up against the madness that ICANN was and is. Goto http://www.cavebear.com/ and get his story. He's a protocols expert, worked for Cisco at high levels, and knows his chops. You could also see him hanging from the rafters at InterOp. Yeah, he's a lawyer, too. Add a moral geek with an atty, and that's what you get.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
This is a silly complaint. He didn't compare ICANN to the USSR. He compared the governance structure of ICANN to that of the USSR, a very different thing. He never even hints that ICANN's activities are comparable in nature to those of the USSR.
It may be offensive to compare every little thing you don't like to the USSR or Nazi Germany, but I find it just as offensive when people get all snitty about any comparison involving the USSR or Nazi Germany. People of any intelligence understand that saying that two things are comparable in certain respects does not mean that they are comparable in other respects. Comparing ICANN's governance structure to that of the USSR does not imply that ICANN kills and imprisons people, nor does it imply that killing and imprisoning people is no worse than playing footsie with Verisign etc.