begin quoting Lan Barnes as of Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 12:45:59PM -0800: [snip] > I've been thinking about this and reading the various proposals, and I > haven't come up with an opinion about what I think would be best. I have > some conclusions that I think make good first principles for my > ruminations:
*I* think you're on the right track. Don't look at implemenations first; look at the goals, ideals, and principles. What is the *shape* of the answer we're looking for? If we stumble on the right solution, how will we know? > - The internet has become an internationally important resource, and > having a nationalistic country control it is probably not a good plan > for the long run Not good for everyone else (because then network management becomes a tool for warf^H^H^H^Hdiplomacy). Not good for the country controlling it, as that's power just ready and waiting, just begging for some level of corruption to set in to be used. Everyone loses. > - Ideally, the controlling body should not be subject to political > pressure and political passions. I can't think of a way to insure that > now and for the future. Curiously, ICAAN may be the closest thing to > that right now. I fear the megacorporations more than I fear the governments. They have all the same pressures for corruption and desires for control, and very little of the accountability. How often have people rebelled against a megacorp, stormed the headquarters, and chopped off the heads of the board of directors? > - Politicians the world over hate and fear (with good reason) the > uncontrolled flow of information. I'm surprised they've let it happen > this long. Expect demands from every corner to build technical controls > into internet traffic to "protect" us all from pornography, terrorism, > space aliens, evil daemons, and movie/music pirates. But mostly to > protect us from learning the truth. Yup. > What I would like to see is a technical answer to the political pressure > ... multichannel routing that can't be throttled (or bugged), Bangpaths! > distributed name spaces that can be citizen controlled (why can't KPLUG > have a name space and name server?), stuff like that. We could. But who would use it? The problem isn't that it's hard to set up our own name space. The problem is that it's good for business and convenient for people for everyone to use the *same* namespace. > How could they put > toll booths and check points on the roads if we could all build our own > roads and add road signs? It's a matter of trust. A top-down hierarchy lets you concentrate your trust on a few entities; a decentralized system means that you have to verify each road independently. Didja see the movie "Rat Race"? Remember the squirrel lady? > When it comes to information, I trust people over nations, and there > aren't any nations I trust more that any others. Trust No One. -Stewart "Trust is hard." Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
