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NSI Roughed Up in Congressional Hearing
phred writes "It didn't turn out quite the way NSI had set it up. They wanted House Commerce Committee chair Rep. Thomas Bliley, representing their area of Virginia, to beat up on ICANN at Thursday's hearing into the unfolding competitive environment for the Domain Name System registry. Instead, panel members turned their attention to new NSI boss Jim Rutt, who didn't do so good. The New York Times is on the case, but C-Span is not, as they are not apparently planning to show the hearing. " (Usual NYT "free registration required" to read the article.)
I really hate those guys
I *really* wish I knew how to register domains before they started charging money for it....
well, I was only like 15, I know how to do it *now*
$70 is really a lot of money
down with n$i!!!!
second post? (that's why the grammer is bad, to get this in on time....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Now we just need to be able to register THOSE. Forget http://slashdot.org, it could be http://slash.dot or something... :)
I for one would like to register a couple TLDs.
I think IP registration is diffrent from domain registration, in that an IP address gets handed out from the internet assigned names and numbers asscosation (if it still exsists), but I could be wrong. I always thought a .nu would be cool, I'll check out cx though
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
or they could just be slash., if they registerd the 'slash' TLD. a dot at the end of a domain name still works (as in http://slashdot.org.)
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I really think it would be a terrible disaster if domain name registration was free of charge. I mean, you see the amount of squatting that's going on now, and now you actually have to pay $70. If it were free, what would stop me, you, anybody from going around and buying thousands and thousands of names every day? Wired had a story a couple of months ago about some geek club in Europe who registered 75,000 (using a cgi script or something) of the remaining 4 letter domain names with no intention of purchasing them. I think what should be done is a $15 charge should be levied upon domain registration. ICANN should get NONE of this money. It should all be donated to charity or something worthwhile. Not lining Esther Dyson's pockets. Also, if payment is not received within a week or something, it should automatically go back into the pool. I still think squatting will be a huge problem under "my" system, but not as bad as it would be under the free-registration system. I thought for a minute that the government was making a good move getting domain name registration out of the hands of NSI, but they put it into the inept hands of ICANN, or as they should be known, I CAN'T. I don't see why the government didn't just take over if they wanted there to be no charge. I mean, if they gave NSI the monopoly, why not just take it back? If they are so concerned about costing people money to register, why don't THEY just give out the names on a First-come-first-served basis? I just don't get it. I don't understand what the point of ICANN was, is, or ever will be.
rooooar
I keep hearing about her. What is her contribution to the Internet (before joining icann)?
The people criticizing ICANN seem to be either a) companies with money to gain, b) wackos who think the United States owns and/or should own the Internet, or c) completely uneducated.
Check out the ICANN web site for more information.
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This whole thing pisses me off... I saw it coming years ago but couldn't think of a way to do anything about it. We were led to believe that the Internic was a not for profit division of Netwinksolutions. When they started charging for domain names I didn't bitch I realized it takes some serious hardware to handle that database. I watched and helped network solutions create a monopoly.
:)
Now Nutwink Solutins is practically hosting websites! Where in the hell do they get off? Where was Uncle Sam when I was starting out? Why didn't I get setup with a buttload of money and talk about a captive audience!
I don't understand why we can run our own DNS but not register domain names and host a little piece of the whois database just like we do with dns. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems doable to me.
And why does www.internic.net have a link to netwadsolutins right at the top but no link to register.com or any of the others?
And this is the clincher..... how can the whois database be theirs? I typed in the info for 60 or 70 domain names and no one has mentioned anything to me about being a non-paycheck getting, data entry person who works for Nitwit Solutions.
Did I mention this pisses me off?
ICANN ran itself into the hole because it insisted on having meeting at the most expensive resorts it could find. ICANN has squandered OUR money on high living, caviar, fancy catered meals, and personal assistants.
Esther Dyson is a doofus. Her books are terrible, she's always wrong, and never has a clue what's going on. One of the PeeCee mags did an interview a while back - no house, job, life, family. Just hops from meeting to meeting, explaining to the world how I feel, she's the classic busymeeter, and her fellow members are compatible company.
The one good thing NSI did was dig in their heels and not give these moochers a penny. For that, we owe them thanks.
DNS is an essential service for everyone on the internet. I don't think it's a good idea in any sense to have a single commercial organization at the controls, as NSI has been for the last upteen years.
Instead, what needs to happen is this (and I realize that it's partway there, but not fully):
I realized that some people will think that this centralizes a lot of power in a gov't-sanctioned organization, but I think it's really the only sane way to keep everything in line. If it's done properly, and the controlling board of ICANN is both fiscally and politically insulated, then I think it would be far and away the best thing for us.
And I thought M$ was bad. Sheesh, I've been around for over 10 years now, and NSI has gone from a nice, little company to a royally assinine monopoly that just needs to be taken apart, brick by brick. I'd LOVE to see Congress strip NSI of its Registry status, sue them for trademark infringement, and fine the living hell out of them for illegal appropriation of gov't property (the whois database).
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
As both a Canadian and someone who is not an American, :-) I have to say, I don't like the idea of the US effectively running the internet. I realize this is pretty much already the case, but IF a government has to be at the heart of this (and let's face it, it does), it should ideally be up to the UN. Handing over control of the database to the juistiction of the United Nations would be a good start for the US at paying off their overdue membership bills... :-)
It's funny how the Rebumblicans and Democraps can't work together for anything, but when it comes to splitting the territory... From the article it sounded like the Republicans aplauded themselves on their understanding with ICANN and the Democrats applied heat to NSI. Perhaps the key to getting them to do something useful is making them compete on non-competing issues. :-)
Keep dreaming Canada-boy!
Thank you, I believe I shall.
The .DOT top level domain was the first "rogue"
to level domain and was created on the Usenet2
mailing list about 5 years ago. It exists today
and many root server confederations support it.
If you want your own tld in general, first pass
the clue test - set it up. Then petition the
various root server confederations to carry it.
Don't hold your breath for ICANN to do it.
--
Need Mercedes parts ?
I mean, geez, about all the UN does these days is 'agree to censure [insert the name of your favorite warlord]' or pass a resolution condemning child labor abuses... The UN has no army, and nothing but an agreement among countries to try to stick to some of the resolutions that are passed. If they suddenly had something valuable to hold over our heads, I fear that things would get out of hand. The US government has been rather good so far in not taxing the 'net... the UN has made no such promises -- just the opposite, in fact.
I post this not as an American, but as an individual opposed to bureaucracy. Less government regulation & taxation of the internet!!
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
ICANN is assuming authority that it doesn't have. So is NSI. In truth, there is no law or RFC of any kind giving anyone authority over DNS. The closest thing to that is an RFC that states the current convention for TLDs.
Any organiation or individual is perfectly free to alter their DNS configuration to use any available root server they like. There are a number of root servers out there that already recognize .nom .per .art .shop .biz .web (yes, there is a tangled.web). In addition, they have NS records pointing back to the .com .net and .org namespace.
DNS was established by convention only for the common good (by no authority at all, basically because Jon Postel said so). The thing needed to change the convention is enough 'buy in' from DNS admins on major networks. Once a few support it, the rest will give in to customer pressure. There is no real cost to an ISP, they just add a few lines to their bind configuration.
The US government can choose to place ICANN over NSI, or even cancel NSI's contract and demand that they turn over the whois and DNS records. That is legal because NSI was CONTRACTED to run the DNS for .net, .com, and .org. If the people of the net don't like it, they can (and should) decide on an alternate system and use it. There is no need for permission.
I strongly advocate a careful and considered decision on the issue. A smooth transition is in everybody's best interest.
DNS should be widely distributed, and show no national favoritism. It should not prefer corperate over personal and small business. It should not get involved in trademark disputes. If someone has a genuine claim, let them take it to court, and let the court order the name holder to de-register or transfer the name. Individual registrars can (and should) offer trademark lookup services, if possable, to help prevent disputes in the first place, but it's up to the registrant to make a final decision.
Registration should NOT be free and open at the same time. If someone wants to run a free registration TLD for non-profit organizations, they should require proof that the registrant is in fact a non-profit organization. Otherwise, it should be reasonably priced, and should require payment up front or in short order to prevent squatters from taking a free ride. Name availability should be determined based on a publicly accessable database. That database should provide a standardized and documented answer to a query (no breaking scripts with dubious legal notices etc). One possability would be to have the primary server do it through DNS. An on-hold domain could either point to mars (or localhost) or just return a TXT record with contact info.
Netizens SHOULD do everything they can to keep law and government out of DNS. The last time the US government stepped into allocation, all but the corperates were pushed out of radio and television. The equipment is cheap, but getting a frequency allocation is a process only Douglas Adams could adequatly describe.
The issue of too many TLDs can be solved by reasonable entry requirements based on technical ability to reliably serve DNS for a TLD. Things like requiring multiple servers on different networks in seperate geographical areas to ensure that the service stays up. It may be advisable to require that a completely seperate entity must provide some of the secondary servers to protect against a business going under (or unfairly using the power inherent in serving a TLD). There should be demonstrable demand for the TLD. A TLD that has (and always will have) only a handful of secondaries should NOT be added to the root system. If anyone wants that, they should run an unofficial server and have those that want to see it configure appropriatly (it's easy in *nix, Win-ders will need to work on it).
With the above, ICANN (or is it ICANT), NSI, and anything the US government does with them will all be a moot point.
Ira Magaziner? The guy who advised Wang Computer to ditch the computer biz, and then ran Wang into the ground? Ira, the guy who created the Lowell, MA National Historic Park and Generalized Fiasco? Ira Magaziner, of National Health Care Disaster fame? Ira, the creator of other failures too numerous and embarrasing to mention?
What better reason to veto a referral, other than Ira thinks it's a good idea.
Need Mercedes parts ?
It's been a while, but I remember going through that. I tried to register a domain, but couldn't specify any of my hosts because they weren't registered. I didn't have a domain to register them under, so got a couple ml.org names to them and tried to specify them as those. That didn't work, as I am not an administrative contact for ml.org. So then I sent in something that confused the automated system; I specified nameservers under the domain that I was registering, and it responded that it was submitted for manual processing and it would be done in five days. 7 days later, I still had nothing back from them, so I mailed them with all my invoice numbers and demanded some response. I also registered another name through register.com so I could at least get SOMETHING working. That domain went through just fine and so I set up a couple nameserver addresses through there and registered them with NSI. Still no response on the other domain. Finally, 10 days after I sent NSI a registration request that it didn't immediately reject, I got a humanoid response saying that my specified nameservers were invalid and that she changed them to the ones I had recently specified. The documentation on the entire process of getting a domain was crap. It didn't mention registering NS hosts or anything. I must say that it's a lot better now, but it still sucks.
Moral of the story: NSI is a chicken. (?)
The US currently runs the root servers (you know, the ones that resolve the TLDs). Whether or not this is a Good Thing is up for discussion, but it's irrelevant to my point.
The com, edu, gov, org, net, mil and the us TLDs are all US TLDs. All other countries have their domain heirarchy under their two-letter country abbrev. And ICANN doesn't deal with those (nor should it have the power to do such a thing). ICANN manages (or should manage) only the US-specific domains. It just happens that the most "desirable" ones are the US's TLDs. We get them 'cause we invented the thing. :-)
And besides, if things were setup correctly, ICANN would have a board of directors with representation from the rest of the world (they do now, but it needs work).
It would be a Very Bad Idea to give over ICANN to the auspices of the UN. While the UN is a very worth-while organization (and yes, we really need to pay our back dues), it is missing the crucial ingredient the ICANN needs right now: enforcable legal authority. The UN has no real method of enforcing (or for that matter, arbitrating) squabbles below the gov't-to-gov't level. It would all end up in the court system of the contesting countries, and who knows how well that would work. With ICANN "incorporated" in the US, and vested with authority by an act of Congress, it has the power to make binding decisions on parties.
Don't worry, even with ICANN, other countries are free to screw up their domains just like we have. :-)
-Erik (without my password)
[oops. Forgot. I'm the original poster]
NOT the UN. You think the US is bad, well the UN is evil. The day the UN gets any control over the internet is the day I start building cruise missiles. Don't get me wrong; the US shouldn't be at the middle of this. What I would like to know, is why anyone hasn't suggested expanding IANA. I don't know too much about this, but wasn't the IANA pretty much set up directly by Jon Postel? I think we could trust it.
It always makes me laugh when I hear Americans getting all paranoid about the UN. I don't know why they do, since the rest of the world sees the UN as a hopeless beaurocracy and talking shop. I guess it's just part of the American psyche, some deep-seated need for an evil global conspiracy to be frightened about. Gives us a little light relief from worrying about their foreign policy, anyway.
fish and pipes
Yeah, and most Sci-Fi writers in the 60s and 70s wanted the UN to become the global government and take over the world (so that it would be a better place)... Niven's UN (with Secretary Generals being hereditary like kings) is one of the most interesting in this department. Perhaps the UN and Interpol should get their acts together and set up a Government-Free center of the Internet. Or perhaps not. What I suggest is we, the people of the Internet, declare that the Internet is a seperate, virtual soveriegn with no ties to any other countries government, and with its own Government of sorts, with a Court System (IRC you in court mister! courts.internet.gov #Trademark! :), and with rights and laws.