There has been an interesting and important set of emails to the IFWP
mailing list which I don't have time to respond to in length now,
but I briefly want to comment on the more significant assumptions
which seem to have been floating around a while, without being out in
the open until now:
Gordon Cook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>writes, responding to
Dave Crocker who writes responding to Brock Meeks' article:
>>Fact error 3 and 4: The IAHC committee operated under the auspices of IANA
>>and ISOC. IANA had responsibility for DNS operations from its inception,
>>more than 10 years earlier, and ISOC provides the legal base for IETF
>>standards work.
>yeah but ISOC has not yet done this for ten years and all hands were not
>entirely comfortable with its doing it
What is important about the statement by Dave Crocker above is that
it is setting up the assumption that IANA, which was indeed under
contract with the DARPA, and thus with the U.S. government, had
the authority to privatize the IANA functions of the Internet.
(The domain name system, IP numbers, root server system, protocols,
etc.) This is not an authority that IANA had and thus it isn't
something that it could provide for the IAHC committee set up
by ISOC.
Also thought ISOC may have had as one of its founding purposes
to provide a legal base for IETF standards work, this, too, is
not what ISOC has developed into. As ISOC somehow has developed
into an organization to promote the commercialization of the
Internet.
The problem in general seems to stem from the effort of some
to privatize these functions of the Internet, rather than
to recognize that they are public functions which gained
their authority through their development under DARPA, i.e.
under the U.S. government.
The effort to privatize them is the problem, not the fact of
the authority they have had as they developed under the
U.S. government oversight and responsibility.
Instead of recognizing them as public and cooperative entities
and therefore able to function in a cooperative way,
there has been the effort to change the nature of these entities.
>
>>Though I'm not a lawyer, those who are have made clear to me that the law
>>is based on precedent and more than 10 years of practise DOES count. So
>>the IAHC work had strong basis both in law and Internet
>>administration/governance.....
>10 years iana perhaps not ten years ISOC
The 10 years of IANA practice being referred to (1986-1996?) here
is not practice out in the blue. It is practice as part of
contract with the U.S. government, ie. with DARPA.
I don't know the actual years of IANA-DARPA contracts, except that
it is likely to be from 1986-recently as the NSF took over
the ARPA/Internet development around 1986, but ARPA maintained
the responsibility for these important Internet functions.
Crocker's statement above, and Cook's response above
make it seem as if IANA acted at its own whim and wile, and that
it is only that it had several years of such actions to legitimize
what it was doing. That is a serious misrepresentation.
IANA had legitimacy for what it did as it was acting under the legitimacy
of U.S. government and of the public creation and development of crucial
aspects of the Internet.
However, there is *no* legitimacy and *no* authority of anyone to
privatize IANA.
And IANA had no authority to privatize itself. And certainly
ISOC has and had no authority to privatize IANA.
And ICANN similarly has *no* authority to privatize IANA.
The authority to create and support the development of IANA
that the U.S. government does have, does *not* include the
authority to give away these public assets and functions.
That is why the IAHC and then the ICANN activities have been
done with such secrecy.
They are trying to cover up the fact that they have no
authority for these actions.
When Beck Burr was asked by a Congressman at the October 7, 1998
hearing of the Subcommittee on Basic Research and Submcommittee
on Technology hearing, if the Dept of Commerce had the authority
to do what they were doing. All she answered was that their
lawyers told them they did. Then when the Dept of Commerce
posted a statement of their authority to create the ICANN
Memorandum of Understanding, all they did was post their
right to enter into an agreement. There was no authority provided
by which they can take the billions of dolllars of assets
represented by IANA and give them away to some private sector
entity.
>>>has simply rushed in to fill the power vacuum on the Internet, which has,
>>>since inception, operated in a spirit of consensus and community.
>
>Fact error 5: I've no idea what "power vacuum" is being cited. The
>committee operated under the authority of an existing 'power' structure and
>at all times acknowledged that structure's authority, claiming none for
>itself, except as was delegated to it.
>
The effort to privatize IANA is *not* a *power vacuum* but an
illegitimate activity that is being carried out to fleece the
public and the users of the Internet.
These IANA assets have been created by millions and millions of
dollars of public funding. The Office of Inspector General Report
of the NSF in Feb. 1997 noted that the U.S. government has a duty
to protect the right and ability of the public to these resources
which so much of their money has been used to create.
All the efforts to privatize IANA will only be to charge Internet
users for that which they have created so that some thief can
carry out their get rich quick schemes.
Everything will be made to cost more for no reason but the fact
that an illegiatimate theft of public property and rights has
been carried out.
>i'll tell you exactly what....the power vacuum was that the IANA powers had
>never been institutionalized....but they were carried around on the
>shoulders of jon postel whom some apparently thought immortal......
>certainmly no one DARED criticize jon for not sharing some of his power or
>even doing much thinking about the issue until it was too late
This is somehow the myth. The IANA assets and powers were rightfully
exercised under the U.S. government as an institution.
The problem is that these assets and powers do not belong to or
in any private institution.
The U.S. government needed to be backing Postel up, not putting
IANA out to the highest bidder, as the U.S. government has no
right to give IANA away to anyone or to create any private
means of institutionalizing IANA.
It wasn't that Jon Postel had power, but that he was functioning
under the power of the U.S. government, which is and was a
legitimate power for carrying out the IANA functions.
It is the illegitimate effort of the U.S. government to privatize
IANA that is the problem with ICANN just as it is the illegitimate
effort of the U.S. government to privatize the domain name
system that was the problem with NSI. (Though they contribute as well)
These are public functions that need to be carried out under
the protection for the public and the U.S. government has the
authority to do so, but *not* to privatize them.
Ronda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----------------
The Amateur Computerist
vol 9 no 1
25 year anniversary tcp/ip
Letter from Congressman Bliley to Wm Daley in October, 1998
DNS: Short History and Short Future
http://www.ais.org/acn/ACN9-1.txt
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