from the aug 98 cook report pp. 17-19
Behind Closed Doors & With IANA Backing USPS Floats Plan to Take Over .us TLD
Kahin and IANA Support Attempt to Offer All Citizens Electronic Mailbox in
Context of Continued Non
Disclosure by Burr's Task Force and ITAG
Editor's Note: Herewith some personal observations written in the heat of
the governance wars after our return from Russia on June 16.
On June 16th, on [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nick Lordi complained
about IANA handling of .dot us: "Why haven't the Administration or IANA
shown leadership in addressing the one domain they clearly have under their
control, the .US domain?" Also on June 16 the ITU's Robert Shaw answered:
"There is a draft circulating in USG (from a USG person who's working on
it) on revamping .us. Whether this draft will be put up for comment by NTIA
is not known." How could it be, I wondered, that Shaw, a non US citizen
and agent of the ITU in its announced intention to take over Internet
governance, would know about this proposal before the American government
told its own citizens?
I started to call my sources from East coast to West. I struck pay dirt in
California. The result is a copy published below of the USPS's intentions
(with Postel's blessing} to take over the administration of .us. I must
ask who in the administration decided to pass out this example of the post
office's inane plan to the treaty agency (ITU) which is most hostile to the
idea of a self governing Internet and do it before it was shared with US
citizens?
Look once more at Shaw's words: There is a draft circulating in USG (from a
USG person who's working on it) . . . Could it be any one else other
that Brian Kahin whom the Clinton Gore administration brought to washington
more than a year ago to "fix" things up? In mid winter Brian was removed
from the co-equal role he used to enjoy with Becky Burr and given .us to
fix.
The USPS power grab is currently under review by the Inter agency DNS task
force which unfortunately has declined so far to grant it the open air
hearing that they advocate for the IANA corp design. I think that the rest
of the net should have the same data that I believe Kahin to have given to
the ITU. Therefore I publish it below.
>From the point of view the agencies' desire to perpetuate its own tax free
monopoly, the proposal makes perfect sense. But gentle readers who among
you is ready to give the USPS a key to your electronic mail box? The
question becomes who and how the security of traffic is guaranteed. The
question is not answered in the draft below. Perhaps the key question is
will use of the USPS dot us addresses to be VOLUNTARY or mandatory? If
voluntary will many will use it? If mandatory there will be a firestorm of
opposition. But even if use is to be voluntary. Many questions remain and
much cost and complexity for little return. I will NOT as a matter of
policy give the US Gov't the key to my email box, even if so called
security assurances are there.
Who ever has the use of the us domain we must all ask what will the checks
and balances of the use of the domain will be. With the proper safe guards
to ensure security and political tampering, the availability of a postal
service alternative to commercial service might not be totally absurd. On
the other hand movement into electronic commerce has never been a key role
for the postal service. And the service states its role with the .us
domain as being one of establishing the INFRASTRUCTURE of electronic
commerce for the nations. Read the draft and decide for yourselves and
then ask how IANA COULD PRESUME IN PRIVATE TO MAKE SUCH A CHOICE FOR US ALL?
COOK Report: The day after we broke this story on [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jon
Postel published the following lame response.
Hello: About a year ago we sent a memo about the possibility that it might
be necessary to begin charging for delegations of locality names in the US
domain. It turns out that we have avoided that by obtaining further funding
through 30-Sep-98. And we have had discussions that will most likely lead
to funding for the next year (Oct98-Sep99) or more from the United States
Postal Service (USPS). Since there has been some news about the USPS
becoming involved in the US domain today we want to clarify the situation.
ISI will need some funds from a new source to continue management of the US
domain after 30-Sep-98. Brian Kahin (of the US Government, OSTP) did
introduce management people in the USPS to me, and we have had some
positive meetings, and now have a general understanding that the USPS is
interested in supporting our work on managing the US domain at ISI for the
year Oct 98 - Sep 99 (and possibly additional years). No contract as yet,
though pre-contract paper work has been exchanged.
I believe that in the long run nearly all the country codes will have some
government influence acting on their management. Within the US, the USPS is
a very unusual thing in that it is not officially part of the government
but an independent non-for-profit corporation, yet closely supervised by
the government. If the US Government told the IANA to allocate the US
domain to some agency or another there could be a lot of worse choices.
The USPS is trying to think of ways to provide additional services through
the US domain. They've asked me to review some of these and there may be
some ideas they haven't told me about yet. One of the discussions is about
ways to add branches to the US domain to make more desirable to businesses
to use names in the US domain. Another idea is that everyone with an
address that the USPS can deliver physical mail to could automatically have
an email address in the US domain. I think this idea still needs a lot of
work to understand all the implications both technically and socially.
No one expressed any desire to keep any of this secret, on the other hand
no one felt things had progressed to the point that a public announcement
or press release was warranted. There may be internal confidential memos
about proposed ideas that are still being debated within the USPS, and I
wouldn't know about that.
In managing the postal system the USPS is a very significant user of
Internet technology. The following is a brief description of some of their
Internet capability. The Postal Service currently manages a large
information systems network. The USPS manages a class A license for IP
addresses (56.X.X.X). Within the internal USPS network are 15 autonomous
systems, with 16 areas each, which provide service to up to 34,000 local
area networks. When fully deployed, the USPS internal network will provide
TCP/IP connectivity to over 150,000 individual networked devices. Within
the usps.gov second level domain, the SPS has one primary and sixteen
secondary domain name servers which currently handle over 125,000
individual host names. Because of the high bandwidth demands of the digital
image traffic used in mail sorting, USPS networks have a total capacity
equivalent to over 700 T1 lines. Firewalls between the USPS intranet and
the public Internet handle 1.5 million transactions per day at a peak rate
of 140,000 transactions per hour, exchanging 14 GB of data in the form of
web pages and files. In addition, the USPS, as a non-profit government
enterprise, is able to obtain the best technical expertise available from
private industry through consulting and contracting arrangements. The USPS
organizational structure and supplier sourcing agreements currently in
place can provide services within the existing .us TLD, and will scale
readily to handle any growth in future demands.
>From our California source:
CONFIDENTIAL DRAFT USPS Coordination of the .us Domain May 8, 1998
Building on its legislative mandate to offer universal delivery while
promoting commercial infrastructure development, the United States Postal
Service (USPS) proposes to coordinate the development of the .us domain as
a national addressing infrastructure. This coordinated framework for
addressing will efficiently link physical and virtual space and accelerate
and universalize the growth of electronic commerce.
The Postal Service is working with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) on the mapping of .us locality addresses to the postal address
database. These street-level addresses under .us will provide a
privacy-protected space which will allow US residents to define their own
terms for electronic communications. In the interest of initiating
widespread personal and commercial use of .us, the Postal Service is
willing to commit additional resources to: _ engage the private sector in
the development of credentialed, commerce-enabling space under .us _
promote classified business addressing under .us at local, state, and
national levels as an open reference for public and private delivery
systems and competing directory services _ manage an open policy process to
develop policies for expanding the .us domain _ work toward the
establishment of a governance structure that will represent the diversity
of stakeholder interests - private, nonprofit, and public - in a fully
developed .us domain space
To these ends, the Postal Service specifically proposes to support the
following functions: Current registry operations: Initially, provide
funding for the IANA to continue its current operation of the .us TLD under
contract to the USPS. With IANA, develop a transition plan that ensures a
seamless and transparent continuation of existing DNS services within the
.us TLD.
Geopolitical addressing system: Refine conventions for Internet addressing
of public agencies at the federal, state and local levels. Reassess the
present system of private registrars.
Second-level domain name structures: Seek input from Internet users
regarding the creation of additional second-level domain name structures
within the .us space, such as industry-sector/trademark-oriented structures
or affinity group names. Explore options for delegating second-level
domains to appropriate private-sector organizations.
Policy development: Observe federal formalities to ensure that all
stakeholders have an opportunity to participate. Establish advisory
committees and work towards participatory governance.
A National Addressing Infrastructure: Unique among national Top-Level
Domains, the geopolitical structure of .us has been populated largely by
public agencies rather than private users. Ironically, the absence of
unstructured commercial space under .us has preserved an opportunity to
develop and exploit an ordered and secure space quite distinct from the
flat, unstructured space of .com and other TLDs.
Instead of simply serving as a mnemonic link to a company or product,
domain names can serve a range of functions. A mail or server address in
.us can provide assurance that a user is in fact physically within the
United States. An address can represent that the site sells cars. It can be
used to certify that its owner is a doctor, lawyer, or accountant in good
standing. It can signify membership in the Better Business Bureau or
warrant adherence to a code of privacy practice. It can bind the identity
of a person with a certain level of confidence or subject to specified
conditions.
While the Postal Service is uniquely positioned to perform some of these
functions, it is also uniquely able to initiate an addressing
infrastructure open to development and use by a wide variety of
private-sector companies, associations, and nonprofit organizations. As it
is, the .us space lacks recognition as a commercial domain. The Postal
Service can serve as an administrator for .us, bringing legitimacy,
leverage, and scale to elicit investment by others and achieve critical
mass.
The Postal Service can brand .us as the universal domain for the United
States by linking physical addresses and electronic addresses through
residential and business .us addresses. Services designed to link
electronic input to physical mail delivery are already being tested by the
Postal Service. The Postal Service can combine legal protections and
technology to ensure that users will be able to control the flow of
commercial communications through a protected address. Having a secure
address space will ease customers' concerns about privacy and security thus
promoting more rapid acceptance of electronic commerce.
The Postal Service processes 40 million requests for change of address from
individuals, households, and businesses each year. This forwarding service
has been expanded through a web site, MoversNet
(http://www.usps.gov/moversnet/). Once security features have been added,
the MoversNet site will enable customers to receive a .us address
equivalent to their new physical address and choose among a variety of
options for personal identification and attribution, controlled forwarding
of information (from the .us address to existing email accounts) from
government agencies and businesses at the new location, and new services
offered by private sector firms such as electronic bill presentation and
payment.
The Postal Service could also assist in the development of classified
domains into which businesses would voluntarily register and help make sure
that similar classification practices apply at local, state, national, and
international levels. Such classified domains could help mitigate the
trademark problems that have been experienced in generic top- level
domains. The Postal Service does not intend to enter the directory business
but would be willing to engage the private sector in developing the
classification system as well as policies for usage, delegation, and
self-governance. Private directory publishers would have access to the
classification system and associated databases and would build value-added
directories on top of them.
USPS Capabilities: The US Postal Service is uniquely suited to coordinate
the development of .us by virtue of its scale, universal reach and
international relationships, its experience in policy formulation and
implementation under public scrutiny, and its historic role in stimulating
infrastructure investment. Its mandate to provide secure, private and
universal access to personal and business correspondences and transactions
enables it to administer a secure universal electronic address system
within the .us space tied to the universal physical address system it
maintains for all households, businesses, non-profit organizations and
government entities in the U.S.
Historical Role: The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 defines the mission
of the USPS "to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational,
literary, and business correspondence of the people." The Act further
requires that the Postal Service offer services to every patron and every
community within the United States. Throughout its history, the Postal
Service has played a pivotal role in supporting the development of the
infrastructure required to ensure universal delivery - from the development
of post roads in the 18th Century to support for the aviation industry in
this Century. Today, the Postal Service is the only organization that
regularly serves every individual and business in the country by delivering
190 billion correspondences each year to every household and business in
America.
Trusted Public Agent As an independent establishment of the federal
government, the USPS is owned by the people of the United States. It
operates on a break-even basis, not for profit. It is subject to sunshine
laws that require that its policies and strategies be shared with its
stakeholders, the American public. The Federal Register Notice process
provides an official vehicle for seeking comment from stakeholders
regarding proposed USPS activities. Policies refined through this process
have the force of law, publicly and legally binding the Postal Service to
perform the activities defined in the Notice.
Privacy As its mandate requires, the Postal Service has, throughout its
history, vigilantly protected both the privacy of correspondences sent
through the mail and the security of the mailboxes and post office boxes
where these correspondences are delivered. As a federal entity, the Postal
Service is also subject to the Privacy Act which requires that all customer
records held by the institution be kept secure and private.
Role of the Inspection Service The Postal Inspection Service investigates
crimes under a variety of criminal statutes. This dedicated group of law
enforcement personnel provides an important practical advantage in the
investigation of crimes designed to undermine the integrity of postal
systems. The Postal Inspection Service has an active and experienced
computer forensic group to investigate and prosecute computer crimes. This
technical expertise has been used extensively in investigations in which
computers were used, including investigations involving activities on the
Internet. [Editor: Sections omitted in the interests of saving space.] The
United States Postal Service, the world's largest address manager and a
public agency sensitive to policy concerns, is prepared to commit
substantial resources to accelerate the development of .us as an enabling
framework for electronic commerce.
Someone Plants Fraudulent
Story as USPS
Advocates
Push Forward
Without Public Scrutiny
July 4 1998 -- It is beginning to look as though some people want the US
Postal Service to grab control of .us name space so badly that they are
planting false reports in the Internet press. Witness the following: US
Postal Service Bid to Control the .US Domains Advances Internet News -
Story at <http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/1998/07/0203-postal.html
The story declares: "US Postal Service Bid to Control the .US Domains
Advances [July 2, 1998] A United States Postal Service proposal to take
control over the .US domain gathered support at the Global Incorporation
Alliance Workshop (GIAW) conference in Reston, VA today."
I, Gordon Cook, attended the workshop. I heard no such presentation. Kark
Auerbach has stated on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
.NET that he heard no such presentation and that "No such plan was endorsed
by the participants." Jay Fenello on the same list stated "I agree with
karl." Terry Calhoun on [EMAIL PROTECTED], wrote: "I flitted from
group to group with the intent of monitoring (at least) all vectors of
discussion. I did not hear the USPS mentioned in any venue. Tony Rutkowskii
stated on [EMAIL PROTECTED] There was no place on the agenda for
this subject to be raised, nor was it raised. There were two postal system
related people present: Carole Dobbs, an Information Systems Specialist at
USPS; and Hany Elmanawy, Manager of VAN Services at the Universal Postal
Union in Berne (which is establishing the .POST domain as an initiative
among postal administrations). Both of these people were there as
observers, engaging many people individually in discussions and watching
the work being accomplished.
Einar Stefferud wrote in response to my private question "I know nothing
about any USPS presentation at the IFWP/GIAW conference I attended. As far
as I know, it never happened." Mikki Barry added: Same here. I doubt that
anything like that could have happened and nobody here had heard about it.
Otherwise, I think that the firestorm would have received a lot more
attention. I am hoping that this report wasn't something spread in an
attempt to derail the process before it even begins." Jon Quarterman
responded: "I saw no evidence of the USPS participating at the IFWP/GIAW
conference while I was attending it, and as far as I know there was no such
participation." Steff, John and Mikki have given me their permission to
quote their responses. My other quotes are from public lists.)
In short I have been unable to find a soul who was there who heard any such
report as was alleged by Scott Clark ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) the author
of the story. I find it interesting that what looks to be a wildly
inaccurate story is posted on the Mecklermedia site with no reporter's by
line. I have enough evidence to conclude that Clark was the author of the
story. If this becomes an issue I will back up my conclusions. I have
emailed him and await his reply. I have so far tried unsuccessfully to
find a phone number for him. I don't look at Internetnews.com so I cannot
conclude whether it is their generally accepted style to print stories
without author's names. In this case it was certainly not helpful.
I will categorically state that any discussion of the USPS plan in any
formal sense whatsoever would have been directly contrary to the agenda of
the conference which was to discuss PROCESS issues involved in setting up
the new IANA corp. Process - not POLICY. Process - not content.
Discussion of the advisability of any government agency having control over
some part of domain name space has nothing whatsoever to do with the issues
of the incorporation of the new IANA corp., its articles of incorporation,
its bylaws or its board.
Therefore, in this context, consider the next paragraphs of Clark's
article: "The USPS asked conference participants to endorse its plan to map
all street addresses within the United states to the .US domain. Every
home, store and office would have an Internet address to match its postal
address. Some supporters of the plan believe it could end many domain name
disputes involving trademarks, copyrighted names, etc. For example, a
Hollywood, California-based business named "John's Cars" could have the Web
address (URL) "johnscars.hollywood.ca.us" and an e-mail address of
"john@johnscars.
hollywood.ca.us" for its owner. At least that's the concept behind the
USPS' proposal. According to US Postal Service documents obtained by
InternetNews, other aspects of the proposal include establishing a
governance structure for the .US domain space."
COOK Report: Ah! Is the USPS now leaking its own material to Clark in an
effort to delude him and push its own agenda? Or does Clark merely refer
to the postal service plan published by the COOK Report two weeks ago?
Clark's write up continues:
"Currently, IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) administers the .US
domain, and has delegated registrar status to dozens of volunteers. The US
Postal Service is currently testing services that link electronic input to
physical mail delivery. The USPS believes that this can ease customers'
concerns about privacy and security, promoting a more rapid acceptance of
electronic commerce in general. Proponents of the proposal include Dr. Jon
Postel, director of the IANA, who is under pressure to reduce his direct
involvement in naming registration. Postel wrote in an e-mail to .US domain
registrars, "If the US Government told the IANA to allocate the US domain
to some agency there could be . . . worse choices. The USPS organizational
structure and supplier sourcing agreements currently in place can provide
services within the existing .US TLD [top-level domain], and will scale
readily to handle any growth in future demands." "
Is Clark a witting or unwitting shill for the agenda of the USPS? You
decide. What continues to be clear is that Brian Kahin either cannot
control or does not wish to control the process that he has been guiding
for some six months with Postel's assistance behind closed doors and
outside the knowledge of the Internet community. What is also clear is
that the USPS needs to engage in public discussion of its plans and that
failure to do so will be taken by observers to be affirmation of the worst
of intents.
I don't claim this to be a definitive report on these events and look
forward to hearing from Scott Clark, the USPS, or anyone who can shed
further light on what looks to me to be the most sleazy and devious of ways
for someone to be pushing the USPS agenda. If this indeed turns out to be
what it looks like, the USPS has just demonstrated that it should not be
trusted to manage the .us space. The Clinton administration owes the
Internet an explanation of the not so cute games being played.
Editor's Note: July 8th -- Scott Clark was so sure of himself that he
wrote an affirmation of his story. I mailed him the preceding rebuttal
which I had widely posted on the net 48 hours earlier. Ninety minutes
later his editor called claiming that the story was written before the
meeting based on assurances of what they were told would happen. An
assertion that, given the use of tenses in the article, makes no sense.
Two hours after his call, the bogus story was replaced without exclamation!
The Reston IANA Incorporation
Meeting: Our
Reflections
Overall - successful. A positive first step. Marred by some mud puddles.
Among them. Domain Name Rights Coalition's (DNRC) removal from the
Conference Organizing Committee by Barbara Dooley on behalf of the CIX.
Smelled like a naked power play at a time when none are needed. At least
DNRC was there as a full participant.
"Press" primarily Ken Cukier and myself, were expelled about ten minutes
after the beginning of the first working group session. Murkiness of the
decision became clear when it was pointed out that Don Heath and John
Quarterman published newsletters and when even Dave Farber chimed in that
he had a rather large electronic news service known as IP. Decision was
Professor Frankel's and at another non Internet venue, the decision might
not have been controversial. Tony Rutkowski interceded on our behalf and
after about 75 minutes we were allowed back in.
ISOC was there in the person of Don Heath and the ISOC president. CNRI
(Chuck Brownstein whose position is reasonable & later Bob Kahn.)
Educom/Educause (Mike Roberts). CORE (Keith Stubs) and a gentleman (Joe
Simms) identified as Jon Postel's lawyer. I was given a copy of Don
Heath's June 10th message to these folk outlining a strategy not friendly
to the success of this meeting. I had criticized Heath's conduct in a
message on June 12th from Russia. My criticism was based on a invitation
to Heath on June 9th and a comment by Robert Shaw on the 11th. If I had
seen the message of the 10th at the time I would have complained even more
bitterly than I did. In the interests of diplomacy, let it be said that
these folk then were hoping that the Reston meeting would fail. Let me
also say that I did not see any positive contribution from them at the
meeting. They stuck together for the most part and hand little interaction
with the rest of the attendees. And on a positive note let it also be said
that the meeting succeeded and set precedents for the ISOC Geneva meeting
that can be ignored by ISOC there only at the peril of the collapse of the
process and an international governmental take over of the IANA functions
as the consequence of failure that Ira Magaziner warned of in his meeting
keynote.
The results reported at the plenary closing session were, I thought
constructive and indicative of progress. A considerable amount of
consensus was found, although much work remains to be done. Peter Rony,
however, raised a public question that I could not let pass without
response. He said that he had heard a rumor that the charter and the by
laws of the new IANA corporation had already been worked out and that the
interim board members were pretty well identified. When the Chair who was
well meaning, but not well connected, suggested that rumors weren't worth
paying attention to, I went to the mike. I stated that while I had nothing
to do with this rumor, there was substance to it because Jon had appointed
6 friends as an IANA Transition Advisory Council (ITAC) and that one of the
six had stated that indeed the ITAC had its own design for the new IANA
Corp. Any design is also quite likely to have its own ideas about interim
board members. I suggested that it was high time that Jon and his ITAC
release its IANA Corp draft.
Somewhat to my surprise a few minutes later in the hallway Don Heath agreed
with me that Jon should publish the ITAG design and if I recall correctly
even went to far as to say that he was URGING Jon to do so!
Certainly Jon Postel's absence from the meeting looks peculiar�.especially
in the context of Heath's June 10th letter. There is a statement on the
web that IANA can't afford to attend every world wide meeting. Maybe so.
But look at it this way. Why did Jon boycott the first meeting of the
process and the only one held in his own country and in the country where
HE helped build the net? His public statement read at the meeting was
hardly a warm endorsement. I hope that by the ISOC follow on in three
weeks time Jon and ISOC will realize that we need to play a non zero sum
game.
Finally a quick summary of the positive events. Steff suggested a board
constrained in its powers and dependent on fair hearings processes to
handle complaints bubbling upward through the councils. John Curran
suggested that we have two state holders protocols and ip numbers that are
in good shape and that all we need is a names council to be able to come up
with its board members. Of course getting the names council together is a
very difficult job. Still if we put the two proposals together, and tell
the would be names council folk they get no new tlds and no board members
until they have their council set up and working, this would solve a lot of
our problems.
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The COOK Report on Internet 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA
(609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cookreport.com
NOTE: Contempt in which ICANN PRES. MIKE ROBERTS holds rest of Internet:
"Some of those people think the management [ICANN] should check with the
public [the Communities of the Internet] every time they make a decision,
which is crazy," Roberts said. "That's flat-out crazy." WIRED NEWS 2/4/99
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