> ... Now let's move on to the next step, and find a way to think
> about the Internet as something we all share, which needs massive
> cooperation to make it work.
I disagree that it needs "massive cooperation to make it work".
There is a need for coordination of things like TCP port numbers and other
things that go on at the transport level and below. The IETF, W3C, and
IANA have done a fine job of that. All they need is a bit of money to pay
for a couple of people at IANA to keep track of this. These are
non-contentious issues.
ISP's have a self-interest in making sure that routing of IP packets work
-- an ISP that is unreachable or which can't reach the outside world is
going to lose its customers really fast. So there is no need for top-down
regulatory coordination of this, nor has there been to date other than the
sanity check on address allocation performed by ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC.
There can readily be a multiplicity of domain name systems. (See
http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_2.htm ) The DNS systems
that give answers that don't keep people happy is a system that will
rapidly fall by the wayside. So there is no need for a top-down
regulatory body such as ICANN to sit on top of the DNS.
The issue that may require coordination is one with some really tough
technical, economic, and political issues - inter ISP
peering/transit/billing policies. It is unclear whether the current
inter-ISP sitution isn't one being used by the "big guys" to squeeze the
"little guys". On the other hand, the small guys aren't screaming that
loudly (or I'm not hearing 'em.)
There is an increasing need for better operational coordination to hunt
down denial-of-service attacks. But I don't think we yet need an imposed
apparatus for that to form.
--karl--
