Chuck,
At 09:06
PM 1/27/99 -0500, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
You don't have a clue what you are talking
about with regard to NSI and I am
It's unfortunate to see
that you are dealing with your frustrations by engaging in pure ad hominem
attacks, and pointedly ignoring matters of content. As one who has far
too much tendency to do the same, let me encourage you to take a deep breath
and find a way to focus on issues and details, rather than on
personalities.
Since you chose to include ALL of Kent's note, yet
refer to none of it, let's try to discover what you might be objecting
to.
First of all, you comment only on Kent's comments with respect to
NSI.
That leaves open your assessment of the matters involving
Cook's continuing effort to help NSI and hurt the development of true
competition. (Yeah, I know, you see things differently, but I am
noting that you did not respond to any of that portion of Kent's
note.)
So with respect to Kent's references to NSI:
Given that, according to amendment 11
it is NSI's responsibility to set up the TAG, and ICANN only had the
ability to propose names, yes, it is very interesting how this
process was carried out. I will describe it
below.
Is there a matter of fact about NSI's
responsibility that Kent got wrong?
NSI could not arrange a meeting until we were provided the list of
names. It was given to us on January 13th. It was do on
December 1st.
[...]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] in many
search engines yielded nothing
Interesting -- this rather
strongly narrows down your source, because
this misspelled mail
address was on a message that David Graves
mailed to a rather
small group. So it was either someone at NSI that
gave you
this, or one of that small group.
Care to comment on who sent
you got a copy of that email?
Kent cited a
matter of fact. Are you claiming that the fact is incorrect? He
stated the basis for the fact, so it would be helpful if you stated the
basis for refuting it.
The fact is that it was NOT from NSI. Do you need a basis for that
fact?
I have been involved in the design of
shared registry systems and
their protocols for quite some
time. I have designed and implemented
a prototype for one,
was technical editor of the CORE SRS
requirements document, and
edited the ietf draft for the shared
registry system working
group. Objectively speaking, I have genuine
expertise in
the area.
Are you claiming that Kent is not, in
fact, an expert in this topic and that his background is not
extensive? Now THAT would be truly interesting to see you
document.
Absolutely not. My comments related only to Kent's negative
assertions about NSI.
But you needn't worry, Gordon -- NSI is
quite capable of defending
itself without your lapdog
"journalism":
- The TAG is toothless. The
language from amendment 11 is to
Are you
claiming that a committee chaired by NSI, with non-disclosure restrictions
on its "advisors" and with no requirement that NSI pay any
attention to the committee's comments is NOT toothless? If so, please
elaborate.
I guess we will find out today.
Kent is
far from the only one who sees this committee as a sham.
- The meeting was set up for
January 28 (in 4 days), and the
invitation, with the NDA,
was sent out just a few days ago. That
doesn't leave
a great deal of time to get a lawyer to review
the
Are you claiming either that Kent (and the
other advisors) did, in fact, get more time to process the NDA?
No. Unfortunately, the list we received on January 13th, only
had email addresses so we had to request physical addresses and phone
numbers. On January 19th we sent the NDAs via FedEx with enclosed
FedEx return packages to facilitate the process.
NDA, and arrange the
travel. I don't know when the other TAG
members were
asked if they would like to participate, but I believe
the
names were given to NSI before Christmas. Given that
this
Kent says "I believe".
That is not an assertion of fact, but rather one of second-hand
knowledge. If he got it wrong, then what are the correct details?
Kent's general principle: If it involves NSI, believe the worst
and communicate it. I have obviously lost patience with that as you
can tell. It's fine to disagree with NSI's actions. I have no
problem with that. But when negative assertions are communicated
without any valid knowledge of what really happened, that bothers me,
especially when it is done repeatedly.
review was required as a part of
amendment 11, and thus known for
quite some time, it has
taken NSI a rather long time to get in
touch with the
invitees, wouldn't you say?
Well, now we are
down to a matter entirely of opinion. On the other hand, the NSI
agreement with the US Government stated the requirement that the committee
be formed by December 1, 1998, so NSI is more than 6 weeks late. Given
how strongly NSI makes claims that it is on an aggressive schedule, do you
really believe it is unreasonable to point out the seriousness of this
delay? An aggressive schedule requires keeping to milestones.
NSI has been ON-TIME with every Amendment 11 date except for those
that were dependent on action by the USG and/or ICANN. How do we get
in touch with invitees if we do not know who they are.
- Several of the invited
participants are overseas, and there is no
funding for
them to participate in this exercise -- they pay their
own
way. This is despite the fact that amendment 11 mandates
that
NSI should create the group.
And, as you have been careful to state
publicly, NSI HAS been willing to expend funds for travel by others
"contributing" to this process.
DoC said we should not fund participation.
How curious that it made no such offer to help those with serious
expertise, formally tasked with reviewing NSI's technical work.
- Absolutely no details were
known before the belated invitation
was sent -- I didn't
know who any of the others were until I got
the letter
from Mr Graves, just like you. (In fact, I asked
ICANN
about this a couple of times, and they said they had
heard nothing,
either.) Therefore the group has absolutely
no chance to discuss or
think about how the
"review" might take place.
The
individual invitees have, in fact, been kept isolated from each other.
More precisely: No effort has been made to form them as a group during
the stage Kent cites. If you wish to claim otherwise, please document
it.
My own research has shown that Kent has the details
exactly correct, so I'd be fascinated to hear data to the contrary.
As you can see, you are WRONG just like Kent was.
- The agenda for the one day
meeting is purely a dog and pony show
-- NSI will give a
series of presentations describing the system,
and their
plans for testing. At the end of the day there is an
hour and fifteen minute slot for "open discussion".
That is the extent of the
review.
This assessment exactly matches the
copy of the agenda that I saw. A day of presentations, including a
tour of the NSI facility, and virtually no time for serious
scrutiny.
This will be tested today.
For that
matter, the idea that a meaningful technical review can be conducted in only
one day is ludicrous, contributing fully to the assessment that this is
nothing but a toothless dog and pony show.
The real interesting thing here,
Gordon, the thing that any real
journalist would notice
instantly, is how adroitly NSI has managed to
block any
meaningful review of their system.
An explicit
reference to NSI. So, Chuck, has there been, or will there be,
meaningful review of your system? How are you going to get it and from
whom? It's clear that this committee won't be providing it (and that
the public won't have access to the details.)
The real test will come in April.
Rather the
continue to indulge in ad hominems, Chuck, how about responding to the
content?
Done.
d/
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Dave
Crocker
Tel: +60 (19) 3299 445
Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA
Brandenburg Consulting
Fax: +1(408)273
6464
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