I'm not seeing the move of the net to "private" as much as I am seeing
the net moving into the hands of quasi national entities, such as ICANN,
that have almost national powers but no foundation in territory (thus
outside of the Peace of Westphalia formulation) or of any form of "we
the people" creative act by biological humans. My sense is this
fragmentation of plenary authority absent strong constitutional
constraints or public accountability is going to become one of the great
problems of the remaining part of the 21st century (assuming that we are
not overwhelmed by climate issues.)
As for the move of the net towards "private" we have to realize that
"private" is really a kind of dynamic, and ever changing balance over
who has the power to say "no" to various acts. There is always a public
overlay to nominally private things. For instance, even private land
can be taxed and the criminal laws of the land still apply to acts
performed on that land. That balance will forever be shifting back and
forth, based on the competition among political and economic points of
view.)
And because a network is a synergy of its pieces there is "the curse of
the installed base" that will act as an anchor.
So even a private internet (or as I see it, a world in which there will
be multiple internets connected by highly policed bridges) will be
constrained by a web of legal, financial, and technical obligations and
duties.
(I wrote a somewhat long blog entry about how I see the net fragmenting
here: https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/internet_quo_vadis/ )
Personally I believe that there must be some realm in which people must
be free to try out new ideas and take risks. So I am not a fan of
mandatory obligations (yeah, I know that phrase is redundant) to conform
to the status quo. For instance I support the concept of competing
domain name roots. But we have to be careful not to sweep unknowing and
non-consenting members of the public into new private innovations.
I am giving a talk in late October on the topic of the responsibilities
of private network operators as the internet moves into a world in which
users believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is safe for them to depend on
the proper operation of the net in matters of safety, finance, and
health - in other words, as people come to view the internet as a
lifeline grade utility.
This ought to create an image in one's mind of an internet, perhaps
privately owned (at least in pieces) but owned in the same way as our
today's public utilities for electricity, gas, and (in the past) "the
telephone company". And also wrapped in elevated standards of care
(i.e. requiring that one operate their private bailiwick with higher
than the present levels of care in order to avoid liability on the
grounds of negligence.)
BTW, I won my case against ICANN largely because California has a law
that unequivocally gives sitting directors of corporations the "absolute
right" (that's the words in the statute) to inspect and copy corporate
materials.
--karl--
On 9/25/19 5:44 AM, Sandy Harris wrote:
Doug Schuler <[email protected]> wrote:
For an article I'm writing I'd like to know what are the best references to the
decision-making that took place in transitioning the internet to private
industry in the early 1990's (or point me in the right direction). You can
share this with me personally or with the list. I'll be happy to share what I
find with this list. Thanks!!
Like most opinions on the topic, mine are highly debatable. However,
here they are for whatever they may be worth. In the early years of
this century, I was nowhere near the center of things, but I was on
several mailing lists, following things & sometimes commenting. I gave
up & unsubscribed sometime before 2010.
As I see it, the whole organisation was subverted to become a
management & enforcement operation beholden to various large companies
The original proposal had the board with a majority of elected
representatives of the users. That never happened & eventually they
eliminated user representation entirely leaving the "stakeholders" (I
hate that word, almost as much as "human resources") in complete
control.
One example of this is that ICANN now has a whole complex mechanism
for enforcing copyright & trademark claims, of course heavily biased
toward the companies involved. There is of course an argument that
some such mechanism is needed since the various national do not work
well on the net. However, it does not seem at all clear that the
current mechanisms are the right ones & there's also a strong argument
the other way.
Back in the days when Usenet was important, sys admins had a saying
that they'd act against "abuse OF the net, not abuse ON the net", so
for example they'd block spam but leave claims of libel or slander to
the courts. Arguably, that should apply to ICANN, & if they are going
to block anything it should be spammers and/or virus distributors, not
copyright offenders. Arguably they should also look at things like
making every router that connects to China drop the bogus TCP reset
packets which the Great Firewall uses to disrupt connections.
In the period when ICANN did have elected directors, one of them was
Karl Auerbach who I am cc'ing on this message. I did not agree with
everything he said, but did consider him one of the saner voices in
the discussions. I'd say a through perusal of his blog at
https://www.cavebear.com/ is essential to your project.
Perhaps the most absurd example of ICANN malfesance turned into a
lawsuit. Staff refused to give Auerbach some financial data without a
non-disclosure agreement & he took the position that, as a director,
he had a responsibilty to oversee things & staff a legal obligation to
provide unrestricted access. He went to court & won:
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/director-sues-organization-oversees-internet
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