Michael Sondow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Ronda Hauben a =E9crit:
>> 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.
>This is a correct statement, IMO. Ronda is right. Her analysis is
>true. But it leaves us nowhere because obviously the same entity
>that made these blunders - the USG in the form of the DOC - can't be
>trusted at all to manage the DNS and the Internet themselves. So,
>who's to do it? The U.N.? The ITU? WIPO?
To the contrary, it leave it for the U.S. government to deal
with IANA in a way that is legal and legitimate.
So what you say here Mike is illogical. If the U.S. government
doesn't something illegitimate, then what should one do,
challenge the U.S. government to stop doing what is illegitimate,
or use that as an excuse to do someting else that is illegitimate?
The history of the U.S. is that folks challenge the illegitimate
actions of the U.S. government and fight for legitimate actions.
For example in the late 1950's when the U.S. government wasn't
supporting science and technology, and Sputnik went up and
showed the world the backwardness of U.S. technology and scinece,
it wasn't for people to privatize the U.S. presidency, but
for the U.S. President to support having scientists invited
into working in government.
A number of institutions grew out of that problem.
The same situation exists now. The problem is that the U.S.
government hasn't recognized that it needs computer science
and technology as part of how the Internet is administered
and as part of how IANA is administered.
Instead the U.S. government made the mistake of thinking that
some so called "market" could take over and do what computer
science and technology is needed to do.
So the U.S. government has to recognize its error and change
what it is doing.
My proposal to Magaziner and the NTIA was the beginning
of a way to do that and that proposal still stands and
should be funded and put into operation. It is at
the NTIA web site and also at
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
>What's the answer? Probably, a new entity needs to be created. This
If a new entity has to be created that subject has to be
openly examined and the questions of what kind of entity
discussed and determined. Should the entity be public?
private? How does one control the vested interests?
How have they been controlled in the past?
These are some of the legitimate questions that need to
be asked before creating any entity.
Without the questions being clearly identified and examined,
they can't be solved.
And ICANN is the disaster that occurs when some snake oil salesman
comes peddling his wares and he is allowed to intervene rather
than a legitimate process being put into place.
Also ICANN is the old, that the Internet has replace, it is
the vested interests being put in control of something that is
new and something that they want to keep from developing or
flourishing.
>is what ICANN is doing, many will say. However, because of its bad
>birth and the apparent inability of its interim board to deal
>effectively with the many difficult problems involved (e.g. no
>solution, nor even a suggestion of one, for the thorniest question
>of all: voting), ICANN doesn't seem able to fulfill the
>responsibility it's been given.
But ICANN was *never* a solution to any real problem.
It is only a new problem being foisted on the users of the Internet
and on all those present and future users who depend on the
Internet for the communication it makes possible.
>Would the IFWP have been able to do so? Maybe. The people who were
No because it was only those who felt they had a commercial self
interest in the outcome. In my research I have found in the early
development of the Internet, how government officials realized
they had to hear from the users, and that it was a serious problem
if they only heard from those with a commercial self interest
in a piece of planned legislation related to the Internet.
>in line to be chosen for the initial, creating council of the IFWP's
>NewCo seemed at least to understand the problems better than the
>present ICANN board does, and had proven that they were not going to
>opt out by taking the path of least resistance as ICANN is doing,
>not so much out of opportunism or even their personal partiality but
>because they are simply unable to deal with the challenges.
No the IFWP was not interested in trying to figure out what
was best for the Internet as a whole, but was only to figure
out how to divide up the pie a little differently.
But the Internet pie should *not* be divided up. It is the
result of the computer science breakthroughs and massive
public funding and user contributions that contributed to
all and thereby all gained.
This is the heritage that has to be respected, not attacked.
The Whole IFWP process was flawed as it didn't start from
the recognition of the Internet as a communications medium,
instead it was intent on turning the whole Internet over to
those smaller set of interests who were intent on changing
the Internet to make it an ecommercenet.
But with all the efforts to create so called ecommercenets
in the past, they couldn't accomplish what they tried,
and instead the Internet grew and developed as a public
communications medium.
Anyone who wants to create some ecommerce network should do
it separate from trying to steal the Internet from those
who have contributed to its growth and development over
more than 30 years.
>A NewCo able to put the Internet on a firm structural footing
No comapny can put the Internet on any firm "structural footing"
as a company in its conception and form is fundamentally hostile
to the nature of the Internet as a public communications
medium.
>remains a possibility. The Internet community is capable of creating
>such an organism. But it requires some sophistication and experience
>in the use of methods for creating a democratic institution. The
>present designers don't have this experience. Their naivety is
>perfectly well evidenced by their abdication from the all-important
>methodological challenges of informational and voting mechanisms and
>their apparent helplessness in structuring the DNSO process and the
>current constituency formation. The shield of "self-formation" no
>longer convinces anyone.
I agree that the self-formation mythology has been unveiled as
fraudulent.
Howevever, it is not that any newco can solve the problem.
The Internet has grown and flourished because of the role
of computer scientists and engineers and users and the
government in its development.
The online processes have been used to minimize means of
seizing power -- this is some of what my proposal used as
its foundation --
while ICANN is based on the outmoded and inappropriate model
of a private company.
>What the Internet needs are a few experienced administrators. Such
>people can no doubt be found. It's not unlikely that, if the IFWP
>process had been allowed to evolve, its leaders would have realized
>the need for administrators and sought them out, because the IFWP
>was pragmatic. The present ICANN board isn't; they are covering up
>their own inadequacy, and when people are doing that they have no
>sense of what needs to be done and where to look for help because
>they fear that doing those necessary things will reveal their own
>ineptitude.=20
No it isn't any few experienced adminsitrators that can solve
the problem of how to get away with privatizing a public asset.
My proposal starts a prototype for creating a public and online
form that will help to figure out how to scale IANA and make
deal with any problems it needs to deal with.
>How many companies with a good product go down the drain just at the
>time they could achieve success, only because their directors can't
>admit that they don't know how to manage a successful company? Maybe
>the majority. They become the objects of takeovers and are often
>turned around in very little time and become successful, just
>because the new directors have no stake in proving their own
>capacities, like the original ones did, but are only interested in
>the well-being of the enterprise.
But the Internet is *not* a company and the experience of companies
is *not* relevant to what is needed for IANA to function most
effectively and to be adequately protected from the vested interests
trying to seize control and ownership for their own narrow self
interest.
>So, while Ronda's critique is just it doesn't point to the solution,
>which is not really conceptual or even political but practical: how
>can the Internet be administered efficiently? For that,
That isn't true. My proposal is in fact for a prototype to be
under the control of computer scientists supported by govenrment
who will work to make an open and online form to examine the
problem and how to solve it.
This is a beginning of taking up the real issues, rather than
ICANN which is only making the problems with NSI look like they
were something good in comparision.
>administrators are needed. Can they be found? Yes. Will they be
>searched for? Not by the present people in charge. Who will do it,
>then? The persons shaping up to take charge of the IFWP, like Jim
>Dixon, Tony Rutkowski, Kathy Kleiman, Barbara Dooley, and others,
>might have known where to look for them. What's going to happen now,
>then? Things are going to get worse, and the Internet will suffer,
>until this process has to start over again. When you get on the
>wrong train, it doesn't matter how long you ride, you never get to
>your destination.
None of those individuals can do any better than what is already
happening because this is a structrual problem of the wrong
kind of structure being foisted on the Internet.
Also at least one of the people you mention has helped encourage
the U.S. government to create the whole ICANN mess.
The Internet is *not* the result of empowering an individual
over others, but rather of creating a form where those who
are using the medium can participate.
That is what my prposal began the process of doing as well.
Ronda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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
