"Bret A. Fausett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responding:
>Ronda Hauben wrote:
>>This gives the sense that these are delegates of the Internet
>>community. They are *not*. The Internet community is being
>>disenfranchised by the whole process of the ICANN which is
>>in itself an unauthoritized activity of the U.S. government
>>acting outside of any legitimate channels.
>>
>>The Internet, however, is a global entity and the activities of
>>the small set of people who can afford to globe trot around the
>>world to participate in trying to grab what belongs to
>>the public and claim they have the right to make decisions for
>>the Internet community is far from *important*.
>Ronda -- It's my understanding that the Board made its decision based on
>all of the information before it, including the two formal proposals, the
>Singapore document, and the formal comments submitted online. It was also
>clear to me that, even if they're not posting, most of the Board members
>are reading this mailing list.
It is unclear *how* or *why* the Board makes its *decisions* as they
are done via a secret process just as the choice of these board
members was done by a secret process, and just as the bylaws
and other means of incorporation by the ICANN was done by a
secret process carried out by the U.S. government.
It seems that there is an opinion of the GAO that the U.S. government
was *not* allowed to set up a nonprofit corporation.
This would explain why the U.S. government has carried out all their
activity in secret with regard to the creation of ICANN as they
know they are acting in violation of the Government Corporation Control
Act.
But to do something that is illegal when it is done openly in secret,
does *not* make it legal. In fact, it makes it even more illegal.
But even more important, what is being done by ICANN is harmful to
the Internet and to its current and further development.
None of the Board members have expressed or demonstrated *any*
desire to work for the best interests of the Internet or its
millions of users. Instead they are all in place on the Board
through some secret process to carry out their narrow and self
interested agendas.
I was at the Berkman Center meeting in Cambridge in January and
someone who had formerly been an advisor to the U.S. Vice President
Gore was there, having been sent by the Kennedy School of Government
Dean. She expressed her understanding that a membership organization
was an inappropriate form for an entity that would have control
and power over the economic life of people. No one on the Board
who was there, and there were a few members, asked her any
questions or since then have raised any of the issues she expressed
concern about.
I have raised significant questions over a long period of time
on this list and also to the U.S. government. No one from the
Board has ever even bothered to respond, much less demonstrate
any concern about the responsiblity to the Internet and to
the Internet users that they are supposedly undertaking.
If they did they would ask for an investigation and disclosure
of how they were selected and why it was done secretly.
If they did, they would treat the concerns raised seriously.
They are only supposed to be functioning under a design and
test mandate, *not* under anything further. Thus they have
an obligation to seriously examine the problems that they
are sitting on.
Instead they act as if they have been annointed reigning
sovereigns of the Internet and that they will act accordingly.
This is totally out of their mandate and any mandate they
should want.
My proposal was a proposal to create a prototype and one key
aspect was to create online means of making it possible for
as broad a base of the Internet community to be involved
in the problems and discussion of the issues involved in
the administration of the controlling Internet functions.
If anyone from ICANN were interested in the Internet community
and in participation by that community they would have seriously
supported that my proposal be implemented. (It was common
in developing various aspects of the Internet to support
different prototype development as this was needed to figure
out what is most appropriate.)
Also according to the U.S. NTIA-ICANN Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) the U.S. Dept of Commerce is supposed to be overseeing
via a 50% involvement what is happening with ICANN but Becky
Burr doesn't answer email and there is no sign of anyone
else from the U.S. government either overseeing or being at
all concerned about what is happening with ICANN.
Thus both ICANN and the U.S. Dept of Commerce are violating
their MoU with regard to these activities that they are
participating in.
>But that's not meant to undercut the point you make here, which is that
>ICANN (and the DNSO, the other SOs and the General Membership, for that
>matter) *must* make on-line participation a priority. In advance of the
>Berlin meeting, I would like to see further discussion about how to make
>real-time, remote participation a reality. Perhaps the people at the
>Berkman Center, who have been doing wonderful, experimental things with
>on-line classes and webcasting, could assist us in that effort. (The
>Singapore meeting was webcast, but we need to have a better way of moving
>information and questions in both directions.)
I appreciate your agreeing that online participation is a priority.
And I welcome the discussion on this. However, I don't have the
capabilty for real-time participation via webcasting etc.
And if the Internet community is to be involved there need to
be more discussion about how and in a way that people who have
minimal Internet connectivity can participate.
That takes work and effort, *not* easy solutions that only allow
those with expensive technology to be involved.
And the Berkman people wouldn't even allow and support people
who came to their meeting on Jan 23 to participate, let alone
people who can't afford to come to their meeting.
They supported cutting me off from the microphone when I was
trying to say that the agreement among people online is that
they are online "to communicate". But that isn't the agreement
of the Berkman Center or the White Paper or the Green Paper.
These are narrowly cast in the objective to support e-commerce,
thus substituting the narrow particular objective of a small
set of users with the broader generic objective of all
Internet users.
>I was extraordinarily pleased to see ICANN adopt a DNSO with a General
>Assembly model, but if we can't make the General Assembly work
>effectively over the internet, it will be (IMHO) a hollow victory. I see
>the need for on-line participation as one of ICANN's highest priorities
>-- because that's the only way that it can give the internet community at
>large a vested role in its policy processes.
Again it is good to hear that you want to broaden participation in
the ICANN activity, but unfortunately the Board has demonstrated
that it doesn't share this objective and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce
is *not* doing any of what is needed to make such an objective
a reality, even though the MoU provided funding for there to be
such activity by the U.S. Dept of Commerce.
Again, however, the concern with the interests of only a small
segment of the Internet population is the larger problem that
ICANN represents. And that includes the notion of having substituted
the private sector (or some very small portion of it) as the
category to be involved rather than the government supported
computer scientist involvement that has made it possible to
build the Internet and is needed to continue to have it scale,
which is what the IANA functions are crucial for.
>In my opinion, the success of the March 2nd Singapore meeting was based,
>in part, on the fact that it was a face-to-face meeting, but you're
>right, only those who lived locally or who could afford the trip (or had
>the trip paid for by their company) were there. I don't suggest that we
>abandon in-person meetings, but we need to find a way to enhance those
>meetings with remote participation.
But there is a larger issue. I was at the Boston Meeting in Nov.
and in January with Board members and they demonstrated *no*
interest in the concerns of the broader Internet community nor
in hearing them and considering them. So it seems that if they
can schedule face to face meetings in a way that excludes the
broader set of Internet users' interests, they can claim that
face to face meeting are fruitful. However, the face to face meetings
where they were confronted with broader issues were *not* fruitful,
except for being able to register the fact that ICANN is not
a structure nor a set of people who have any interest in nor
concern for the well being of the Internet that is a unique
medium of worldwide communication.
>It seems to me we have plenty of time to ensure that this happens by the
>Berlin meeting (which, I understand, may also include the first meeting
>of the DNSO General Assembly). I think everyone would welcome any ideas
>on how to make effective, remote participation a reality.
My proposal to Ira Magaziner and to the NTIA proposed how to do
the prototype work to make an online means of participation by
Internet users possible. The proposal I submitted needs to be
implemented, despite what ICANN is doing.
> -- Bret
Ronda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
See proposal at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
Also see testimony to the Committee on Science, Subcommittee on
Basic Research and Subcommittee on Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives, 105 Congress, 2nd Session, Oct 7, 1998 (in "The
Domain Name System, Parts I-II, [No 78] pg. 401-409)
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/testimony_107.txt
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
published by IEEE Computer Society
