Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
The principle that kept telegraph and telephone apart wasn't a functional layering concept, it was a technology silos concept under which all communication networks were assumed to be indistinguishable from their one and only one application. If you read the Communications Act of 1934, you'll see this idea embodied in the titles of the act, each of which describes both a network and an application, as we understand the terms today. Wu wants to make law out of the OSI model, a very different enterprise than traditional telecom regulation. On 3/25/2011 10:27 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: aka the separation principle ( Tim Wu - the Master Switch) What surprised me is that when I put his point to Richard R.John at the Columbia Big media event back in Nov http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1563 - John totally agreed with it, citing the precedent of the telegraph companies being locked out of the telephone business back in the day. j On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:52 PM, George Bonsergbon...@seven.com wrote: It is only in very recent times that we have been able to overlay Internet on both cable and television, and to have television competition via satellite. In the old days the phone company didn't provide content. You called someone and the people at each end provided the content or the data going over the network. The phone company simply provided the network. I still believe the biggest mistake we made was breaking up the Bell System. We should have let them be, regulated the crap out of them, and then said no, you can't get into the business of providing content. They system should have been left as a regulated public utility. To that end, I think the US would be much better off with fiber to the home on a single distribution infrastructure. That could be owned and operated by the municipality (like the water system) or owned and operated by a corporation granted an exclusive right to service an area (think telephone, at least pre CLEC). Yup, bring back The Bell System. Where you immediately run into a snag is the next layer up. Should the government provide IP services, if the fiber is government owned? Should private companies be required to offer competitors access to provide IP services if the fiber is privately owned? I would say they provide network access only, not content. They would be kept out of providing content and kept in the business of reliably connecting content to consumer. That would be their focus. Having looked around the world I personally believe most communities would be best served if the government provided layer-1 distribution, possibly with some layer 2 switching, but then allowed any commercial entity to come in and offer layer 3 services. I don't. What happens when the government then decides what content is and is not allowed to go over their network? If one had a site that provided a view that the government didn't like, would they cut it off? I want the government very strictly limited in what they can and cannot do and I want them to have to go to an outside entity for things like lawful intercept because it is another check on their power. A private entity might insist that there is a proper warrant or subpoena while the government might simply decide to snoop first, get the paperwork later. Keeping the network at arm's length from the government helps to make sure there is another entity in the loop. For simplicity of argument I like people to envision the local government fiber agency (like your water authority) dropping off a 1 port fiber 4 port copper switch in your basement. Big difference. Water is not a good analogy. The content in that case is from a central source and everyone gets the same thing. With the network, you have people communicating back and forth and much of that communications is private or expected to be private (say, a phone call or a secure financial transaction). If a private entity screws up, it is much easier to fine them or fire the person responsible than it is to punish a government department or fire a government worker. Besides, we really don't need yet more people on the government payroll. Though I do agree that it is a natural monopoly. It should be managed by a regulated utility that is explicitly prohibited from providing the content, only provide access through the network. -- Richard Bennett
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
I take your point, the separation was of a different order. But a separation, nonetheless. The motive is not so much different. I think we can all accept that traditional telephone regulation is rapidly losing its grip as the beast morphs. Now that applications outnumber networks new problems require new solutions. I've heard Allied Fiber's Hunter Newby argue convincingly that really it's about separating Level 0 - the real estate, the wires and the head end premises - from everything else, and facilitating sufficient open access to guarantee healthy competition in services. And yes, where there's a monopoly there will have to some price regulation. At least that's traditional. As we've seen in the UK, while it's not so much a stretch to impose even higher level unbundling on the telcos, when it comes to the cable industry it's going to be a very painful pulling of teeth. http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=46077id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10 j On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 2:01 AM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.comwrote: The principle that kept telegraph and telephone apart wasn't a functional layering concept, it was a technology silos concept under which all communication networks were assumed to be indistinguishable from their one and only one application. If you read the Communications Act of 1934, you'll see this idea embodied in the titles of the act, each of which describes both a network and an application, as we understand the terms today. Wu wants to make law out of the OSI model, a very different enterprise than traditional telecom regulation. On 3/25/2011 10:27 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: aka the separation principle ( Tim Wu - the Master Switch) What surprised me is that when I put his point to Richard R.John at the Columbia Big media event back in Nov http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1563 - John totally agreed with it, citing the precedent of the telegraph companies being locked out of the telephone business back in the day. j On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:52 PM, George Bonsergbon...@seven.com wrote: It is only in very recent times that we have been able to overlay Internet on both cable and television, and to have television competition via satellite. In the old days the phone company didn't provide content. You called someone and the people at each end provided the content or the data going over the network. The phone company simply provided the network. I still believe the biggest mistake we made was breaking up the Bell System. We should have let them be, regulated the crap out of them, and then said no, you can't get into the business of providing content. They system should have been left as a regulated public utility. To that end, I think the US would be much better off with fiber to the home on a single distribution infrastructure. That could be owned and operated by the municipality (like the water system) or owned and operated by a corporation granted an exclusive right to service an area (think telephone, at least pre CLEC). Yup, bring back The Bell System. Where you immediately run into a snag is the next layer up. Should the government provide IP services, if the fiber is government owned? Should private companies be required to offer competitors access to provide IP services if the fiber is privately owned? I would say they provide network access only, not content. They would be kept out of providing content and kept in the business of reliably connecting content to consumer. That would be their focus. Having looked around the world I personally believe most communities would be best served if the government provided layer-1 distribution, possibly with some layer 2 switching, but then allowed any commercial entity to come in and offer layer 3 services. I don't. What happens when the government then decides what content is and is not allowed to go over their network? If one had a site that provided a view that the government didn't like, would they cut it off? I want the government very strictly limited in what they can and cannot do and I want them to have to go to an outside entity for things like lawful intercept because it is another check on their power. A private entity might insist that there is a proper warrant or subpoena while the government might simply decide to snoop first, get the paperwork later. Keeping the network at arm's length from the government helps to make sure there is another entity in the loop. For simplicity of argument I like people to envision the local government fiber agency (like your water authority) dropping off a 1 port fiber 4 port copper switch in your basement. Big difference. Water is not a good analogy. The content in that case is from a central source and everyone gets the same thing. With the network, you have people communicating back and forth and much of that communications is private or expected to be
Re: [v6z] The growth of municipal broadband networks
On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Paul Graydon p...@paulgraydon.co.ukwrote: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/133-us-cities-now-run-their-own-broadband-networks.ars Ars Technica has a short article up about the growth of municipal networks, but principally a nice little 'hey check out this website' ( http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap) The whole scenario around municipal broadband networks in a hopefully unbiased nutshell: Increasing numbers cities and counties seem to be getting frustrated with what they see as the lack of progress in broadband speeds from their incumbent provider(s) (even after incumbent provider(s) have been approached requesting faster speeds) and are deciding to do it themselves. Whilst that's certainly true for some areas, it's definitely not the case for all of the areas marked on that map. The only entry for the SF Bay area is San Bruno, where the municipal-owned cable provider *is* the incumbent, and has been for the past 30 years. Not only are they the incumbent, but they are also a monopoly who have blocked competition, resulting in higher prices than in much of the rest of the bay area. Scott (Happily no longer living in San Bruno)
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
- Original Message - From: George Bonser gbon...@seven.com I would say they provide network access only, not content. They would be kept out of providing content and kept in the business of reliably connecting content to consumer. That would be their focus. We aren't even suggesting that, George. We're suggesting that they *provide access to people who provide network access*; we (most of us, anyway) don't even think the muni's should provide IP routing. They should provide *connectivity* to people who do that. And given how STBs work these days, those wholesale customers could even be cablecos, in addition to telcos, or IAPs. Cheers, -- jra
Re: Which internal WAN protocol?
Original Message - From: Mikael Abrahamsson swm...@swm.pp.se If you google for isp essentials the first hit is a pdf from 2003. It has a lot of best common practice for ISPs and I'd say all of it is still valid. Just a reminder to all: this is no longer a valid citation methodology. Given the amount to which Google customizes results these days (as Lauren Weinstein pointed out the other day), you can't assume that anyone will see the same google results as you, anymore -- at least not if one of you has a google account (I never have, but between work using Wave, and my buying a Thunderbolt this week, I'm now held at gunpoint...) Cheers, -- jra
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On 3/21/11 1:19 PM, Stefan Fouant wrote: So the days of pointless TLDs are amongst us as we've now given would-be registrars the right to print money and companies are forced to purchase useless domain names in order to protect their trademarks, prevent squatting, etc. When will sanity prevail? First, not all registrars assume the credit-card risk model, or pursue the defensive registration, or ad word markets. Second, the advocates for no necessity or utility requirement, or some form of public interest test for would-be applicants, is far, far larger than the 20 to 40 registrars engaged in that advocacy agenda. An analysis that does not start with the legacy monopoly registry operator, and continue to the operators of open (now standard) registries, is simply ill-informed or advocacy art, missing the Registry Stakeholders Group as a mostly unified[1] policy advocate. An analysis that does not continue from these materially interested contracted parties and include domainers, and the ideologically committed parties, whether motivated by free trade, or thousand flowers, is also simply ill-informed or advocacy art, missing the Non Commercial Stakeholders Group as a policy advocate. Third, an analysis that fails to observe that the Internet Service Providers Stakeholder Group has no policy agenda at ICANN is curious when offered in a network operator group. It might be reasonable when commenting on a recent development in the Law of the Sea (but see also bouys have bits), but slightly absurd when commenting on a recent development in the corporation acting as a registry of unique network identifiers, autonomous system numbers, and protocol parameters. Finally, because pancakes are calling, the very complainants of squatting and defensive registration (the 1Q million-in-revenue every applicant for an open, now standard registry places in its bizplan), the Intellectual Property Stakeholder Group is also an advocate for trademark TLDs, arguing that possession of $fee and a registry platform contract (there is now a niche industry of boutique .brand operators-in-waiting) and a $bond establishes an absolute right to a label in the IANA root. So, rather than memorizing the digits of Pi, for some later public recitation, one could start reciting brand names, for some later public recitation, for as long as there is a single unified root. Have I managed to suggest that claims to sanity that are not exceeded by actual work are without foundation? Eric P.S. to Joel Jaeggli. You need to work harder. 20 bytes is less than sufficient to make any point usefully, and you missed .name/.pro, as well as the 2004 round .jobs/.travel as well as .asia/.tel, not as yet depurposed. [1] Exception to the RySG no public interest advocacy are the few sponsored registries which were not covert open registries, and are not dependent upon open registry operators for registry services, viz. .cat, .coop, and .museum.
Re: The state-level attack on the SSL CA security model
On Mar 26, 2011, at 12:21 12AM, Franck Martin wrote: On 3/26/11 15:36 , Joe Sniderman joseph.snider...@thoroquel.org wrote: On 03/25/2011 11:12 PM, Steven Bellovin wrote: On Mar 25, 2011, at 12:19 52PM, Akyol, Bora A wrote: One could argue that you could try something like the facebook model (or facebook itself). I can see it coming. Facebook web of trust app ;-) Except, of course, for the fact that people tend to have hundreds of friends, many of whom they don't know at all, and who achieved that status simply by asking. You need a much stronger notion of interaction, to say nothing of what the malware in your friends' computers are doing to simulate such interaction. Then again there are all the friend us for a chance to win $prize gimmicks... not a far jump to friend us, _with trust bits enabled_ for a chance to win $prize Yeah sounds like a wonderful idea. :P Wasn't PGP based on a web of trust too? Yes -- see Valdis' posting on that: http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-March/034651.html --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Re: The state-level attack on the SSL CA security model
On 25/03/2011 6:45 PM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:19:52 PDT, Akyol, Bora A said: One could argue that you could try something like the facebook model (or facebook itself). I can see it coming. Facebook web of trust app ;-) Gee thanks. I'm going to have nightmares for *weeks* now... :) Based on the Facebook model: 1. Friends - people among whom are some I most probably never knew before, or some I would not even say hello to. 2. Trusted friends - people I actually say hello to I think you'll need Highly trusted friends as a 3rd level :) And that will hold for about 1 month, until people will start banging on your inner circle virtual door, and soon enough your list of trusted and highly trusted friends will start filling up. What does trusted mean in this particular case ? There is no one list of criteria for being trust worthy, and some people are more trusting that others. How would trustworthyness be measured anyhow ? How many people signed your thing, who are also trustworthy themselves (which means that their SIG was also signed by trustworthy people, see the vicious circle). And would people from a certain part of the globe or certain countries be more trust worthy based on their country trustworthyness, or maybe on their culture being more open and trusting ? If this is to become some kind of global meaningful thing, it needs to be standardized, so it will have the same meaning regardless of where this is applied, and it will have straightforward means of measuring trust. Is there such a standard in place ? Just for an example, we have in Israel a CA that is recognized by the government - they are allowed to issue certificates used for signing documents - and signing with certs issued by this CA is admissible in court under the electronic signatures law. The government has put up a certain standard for what a CA needs to do in order to be recognized as trustworthy. Only one CA in Israel attained this status. Does that mean they are trustworthy to you ? I don't think so. So it can't be a local thing, it needs to be a global thing, and the standard needs to be global and accepted as well. --Ariel
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
I think the motive for the traditional separation actually was completely different from the one for new separation. Silos had the effect of limiting competition for specific services, while the avowed goal of functional separation mandates is to increase competition. Opportunities for service competition between the telegraph and telephone networks were limited by technology in the first instance - you couldn't carry phone calls over the telegraph network anyway because it was a low bandwidth, steel wire system with telegraph office - to telegraph office topology - but you could carry telegrams over the phone network, but only if permitted by law. In a sense, ARPANET was telegraph network 2.0, and even used the same terminals initially. Paper tape-to-tape transfers became ftp, the telegram became email, and kids running paper messages around the office became routers switching packets. The layer 0 model has some merit, but has issues. In areas nobody wants to provide ISP services, and there is still a tendency toward market consolidation due to economies of scale in the service space. Facilities-based competition remains the most viable model in most places, as we're seeing in the UK where market structure resembles the US more than most want to admit: Their two biggest ISPs are BT and Virgin, the owners of the wire, and they have less fiber than we have in the US. Creating the conditions for network competition is a hard problem with no easy answers. RB On 3/25/2011 11:48 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: I take your point, the separation was of a different order. But a separation, nonetheless. The motive is not so much different. I think we can all accept that traditional telephone regulation is rapidly losing its grip as the beast morphs. Now that applications outnumber networks new problems require new solutions. I've heard Allied Fiber's Hunter Newby argue convincingly that really it's about separating Level 0 - the real estate, the wires and the head end premises - from everything else, and facilitating sufficient open access to guarantee healthy competition in services. And yes, where there's a monopoly there will have to some price regulation. At least that's traditional. As we've seen in the UK, while it's not so much a stretch to impose even higher level unbundling on the telcos, when it comes to the cable industry it's going to be a very painful pulling of teeth. [1]http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=46077id=e938181 7-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10 j On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 2:01 AM, Richard Bennett [2]rich...@bennett.com wrote: The principle that kept telegraph and telephone apart wasn't a functional layering concept, it was a technology silos concept under which all communication networks were assumed to be indistinguishable from their one and only one application. If you read the Communications Act of 1934, you'll see this idea embodied in the titles of the act, each of which describes both a network and an application, as we understand the terms today. Wu wants to make law out of the OSI model, a very different enterprise than traditional telecom regulation. On 3/25/2011 10:27 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: aka the separation principle ( Tim Wu - the Master Switch) What surprised me is that when I put his point to Richard R.John at the Columbia Big media event back in Nov [3]http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1563 - John totally agreed with it, citing the precedent of the telegraph companies being locked out of the telephone business back in the day. j On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:52 PM, George Bonser[4]gbon...@seven.com wrote: It is only in very recent times that we have been able to overlay Internet on both cable and television, and to have television competition via satellite. In the old days the phone company didn't provide content. You called someone and the people at each end provided the content or the data going over the network. The phone company simply provided the network. I still believe the biggest mistake we made was breaking up the Bell System. We should have let them be, regulated the crap out of them, and then said no, you can't get into the business of providing content. They system should have been left as a regulated public utility. To that end, I think the US would be much better off with fiber to the home on a single distribution infrastructure. That could be owned and operated by the municipality (like the water system) or owned and operated by a corporation granted an exclusive right to service an area (think telephone, at least pre CLEC). Yup, bring back The Bell System. Where you immediately
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Stefan Fouant sfou...@shortestpathfirst.net wrote: So the days of pointless TLDs are amongst us as we've now given would-be registrars the right to print money and companies are forced to purchase useless domain names in order to protect their trademarks, prevent squatting, etc. When will sanity prevail? If the creation of .xxx is a preliminary step in making the fact of your web site only being accessible by a name ending in .xxx an affirmative defense against a charge of allowing minors to access your site then a) it's not pointless, and b) sanity is prevailing. IF. But then, it has to start somewhere. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
Again excellent points. And I agree, in the current UK model there appears very little opportunity for independent ISPs to offer any significantly improved service over the incumbent's own, and thereby grab market share. It's all a matter of what else one can package with it - effectively the separation principle anyway. Creating the conditions for network competition is a hard problem with no easy answers. Where there's a will there's a way. The big question, to some extent is, is there the will? One doesn't miss one's water etc. I was cheered to see in the recent Canadian usage pricing fracas, Marc Garneau handing out buttons saying My Internet Shouldn't Suck[1], and also to see Susan Crawford urging students to take to the streets over the issue [2] before it's too late. But it's going to take the equivalent of 10 Tahrir Squares to overcome the incumbent clout and establishment inertia. Meanwhile we are seeing widening pre-emptive strikes like N. Carolina. the incumbents ride roughshod over everyone stating words to the effect - if we can't gouge we won't build.. There surely still have to be answers, however tough - and some kind of separation would seem to be an inescapable component. I am no techie, but alternatively I imagine what could be practically discussed is how much new technologies like cheap plastic fiber driving little wi-fi chips, mesh etc, could give those communities that haven't already been legislated out of the game an opportunity to economically and successfully build their own connectivity. [3] j [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/crtc-wont-include-retail-services-in-internet-price-hearing/article1938694/ [2] http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1930 http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1930 [3] I am in the process of organizing a panel to discuss same at the INET NY on Jun 14, expressions of interest welcome offlistj...@punkcast.com?subject=INET-NY . On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 4:28 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.comwrote: I think the motive for the traditional separation actually was completely different from the one for new separation. Silos had the effect of limiting competition for specific services, while the avowed goal of functional separation mandates is to increase competition. Opportunities for service competition between the telegraph and telephone networks were limited by technology in the first instance - you couldn't carry phone calls over the telegraph network anyway because it was a low bandwidth, steel wire system with telegraph office - to telegraph office topology - but you could carry telegrams over the phone network, but only if permitted by law. In a sense, ARPANET was telegraph network 2.0, and even used the same terminals initially. Paper tape-to-tape transfers became ftp, the telegram became email, and kids running paper messages around the office became routers switching packets. The layer 0 model has some merit, but has issues. In areas nobody wants to provide ISP services, and there is still a tendency toward market consolidation due to economies of scale in the service space. Facilities-based competition remains the most viable model in most places, as we're seeing in the UK where market structure resembles the US more than most want to admit: Their two biggest ISPs are BT and Virgin, the owners of the wire, and they have less fiber than we have in the US. Creating the conditions for network competition is a hard problem with no easy answers. RB On 3/25/2011 11:48 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: I take your point, the separation was of a different order. But a separation, nonetheless. The motive is not so much different. I think we can all accept that traditional telephone regulation is rapidly losing its grip as the beast morphs. Now that applications outnumber networks new problems require new solutions. I've heard Allied Fiber's Hunter Newby argue convincingly that really it's about separating Level 0 - the real estate, the wires and the head end premises - from everything else, and facilitating sufficient open access to guarantee healthy competition in services. And yes, where there's a monopoly there will have to some price regulation. At least that's traditional. As we've seen in the UK, while it's not so much a stretch to impose even higher level unbundling on the telcos, when it comes to the cable industry it's going to be a very painful pulling of teeth. http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=46077id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10 j On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 2:01 AM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.comwrote: The principle that kept telegraph and telephone apart wasn't a functional layering concept, it was a technology silos concept under which all communication networks were assumed to be indistinguishable from their one and only one application. If you read the Communications Act of 1934, you'll see this idea embodied in the titles of the act, each of which
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
It's all a matter of what else one can package with it - effectively the separation principle anyway. effectively negating the separation principle anyway. -- --- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org -- -
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
If the creation of .xxx is a preliminary step in making the fact of your web site only being accessible by a name ending in .xxx an affirmative defense against a charge of allowing minors to access your site then A charge of what? ICM and .XXX are headquartered in Florida. Could you give some examples of the laws you're referring to, and cases where people have been convicted under them? R's, John
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 1:55 PM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: If the creation of .xxx is a preliminary step in making the fact of your web site only being accessible by a name ending in .xxx an affirmative defense against a charge of allowing minors to access your site then But do you really believe playboy are going to give up playboy.com? Or that new websites are going to register an address that will result in their website not being visible by 1/6th of the worlds population ( http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/127009/20110325/india-blocks-xxx-domain.htm - and we all know China and several other countries won't be far behind so we're probably talking closer to half or more of the worlds population). At first glance this might sounds like a good idea, but do you know any *.travel or *.asia (etc) websites that don't also have the equivalent or similar .com version? Nobody uses these domains as their only domain, it's just yet another one that they will register - and yet more money they need to pay to the registries each year to protect their brand. Scott.
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 5:13 PM, John Levine jo...@iecc.com wrote: If the creation of .xxx is a preliminary step in making the fact of your web site only being accessible by a name ending in .xxx an affirmative defense against a charge of allowing minors to access your site then A charge of what? ICM and .XXX are headquartered in Florida. Could you give some examples of the laws you're referring to US Code TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 71 § 1470 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_1470000-.html , and cases where people have been convicted under them? Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
RE: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
But do you really believe playboy are going to give up playboy.com? They aren't going to give up Playboy.com but they are probably going to have to purchase playboy.xxx anyway. What bothers me is that most companies are now going to be forced to purchase .xxx domains simply to keep someone else from buying it and sullying the company's image. So it is an instant cash windfall for the domain registrars. There was no reason why we needed this.
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
US Code TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 71 § 1470 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_1470000-.html That law includes the phrase knowing that such other individual has not attained the age of 16 years. That's why porn sites have a home page that asks you how old you are. As far as I can tell from looking for case law, all the 1470 cases are basically child molestation cases where the 1470 count was piled on in addition to the real charges, unrelated to kids looking for porn sites. So, in short, there's no problem for .XXX to solve. Regards, John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
RE: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
What bothers me is that most companies are now going to be forced to purchase .xxx domains simply to keep someone else from buying it That's the norm for new tld and a part of the their owners business plan. Probably most of their income given how little I see them used directly. and sullying the company's image. In this case which would sully our name more, registering bbc.xxx ourselves or a 3rd party who is clearly not us once people see the content? brandon
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On 3/26/11 5:17 PM, Scott Howard wrote: ... But do you really believe playboy are going to give up playboy.com? Or that new websites are going to register an address that will result in their website not being visible by 1/6th of the worlds population ( http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/127009/20110325/india-blocks-xxx-domain.htm - and we all know China and several other countries won't be far behind so we're probably talking closer to half or more of the worlds population). Claim 1. That return on investment is proportional to population, overlooking the density of graphic displays, and bandwidth provisioning, which are probably not prudently overlooked from a bizplan perspective. Google metrics give 72.4 million pages in Estonian, 86.9 million pages in Hebrew and 88.1 million pages in Greek, and 108 million pages in Hindi in the .com name space, suggesting that the natural traffic for existing .com Hindi language (422 million native speakers) properties is similar to that of Hebrew (7.6 million speakers, second language speakers included), or Greek (11.3 million native speakers) or Estonian (1.3 million speakers). Overlooking differences in currency, disposable incomes, and cultural norms, which are probably not prudently overlooked from a bizplan perspective, a Hindi targeted .xxx enterprise is about as interesting as a Utah or Rhode Island targeted .xxx enterprise. To put it gently, there is more money in the metro east, Atlanta to Boston, than in India, or China, or India and China, even if the respective governments wanted revenue shares not firewalls. At first glance this might sounds like a good idea, but do you know any *.travel or *.asia (etc) websites that don't also have the equivalent or similar .com version? Nobody uses these domains as their only domain, it's just yet another one that they will register - and yet more money they need to pay to the registries each year to protect their brand. Claim 2. That domains that have no pre-existing, or simultaneous existence in .com form a set of measure zero (or something handwavy close to that when I'm not pretending to be a mathematician). At present at least 50% of all .cat domains have no pre-existing, or simultaneous existence in .com or .es. This form of claim is highly relevant to competition policy, as it may be considered a form of market power. In this form Verisign has market power relative to .travel/.asia, but has no market power relative to .cat. Therefore Verisign may exercise that market power over registrars selling Verisign's inventory, as well as Afilias' inventories, as well as .travel inventory. Eric
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 5:43 PM, John R. Levine jo...@iecc.com wrote: US Code TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 71 § 1470 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_1470000-.html That law includes the phrase knowing that such other individual has not attained the age of 16 years. That's why porn sites have a home page that asks you how old you are. In court, willful negligence is generally the same thing as knowing. As far as I can tell from looking for case law, all the 1470 cases are basically child molestation cases where the 1470 count was piled on in addition to the real charges, unrelated to kids looking for porn sites. It gets messy because obscenity hinges on local community standards. But that's the rub -- as a porn purveyor you can't know what the community standards are in the user's community. Not many examples of web sites being taken to task for web content, not yet, but lots of examples of mail-order porn owners having a really bad year year, legally speaking. So, in short, there's no problem for .XXX to solve. Suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that a statute or precedent came about to the effect that a community which permits access to .xxx sites (by not censoring the DNS) implicitly accepts that kind of thing isn't obscenity under local law. Further, suppose its found that the individual in such communities circumventing the technical safeguards in place to censor his access to .xxx is solely liable for such access, that the porn purveyor is -presumed- to have a reasonable belief that said individual's activity was lawful... merely because they access the site using the .xxx extension. Suppose, in other words, it comes to be that an internet porn purveyor is protected from local community standards for obscenity so he need only worry about staying away from stuff that's illegal in his own back yard. Where the prosecution has to support a claim that the site is accessible other than through the .xxx name in order to survive an early motion to dismiss. -Bill -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
Suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that a statute or precedent came about to the effect that a community which permits access to .xxx sites (by not censoring the DNS) implicitly accepts that kind of thing isn't obscenity under local law. If we're doing counterfactuals, let's suppose that everyone in the world thinks that .XXX is a great idea, and ICANN runs itself efficiently on a budget of $1M/yr. R's, John
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On Mar 26, 2011, at 6:31 PM, John Levine wrote: Suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that a statute or precedent came about to the effect that a community which permits access to .xxx sites (by not censoring the DNS) implicitly accepts that kind of thing isn't obscenity under local law. If we're doing counterfactuals, let's suppose that everyone in the world thinks that .XXX is a great idea, and ICANN runs itself efficiently on a budget of $1M/yr. For some reason the aerodynamics of pigs comes to mind here. Having pigs fly is just about as likely as having ambitious Southern prosecutors give up the ability to bring meaningless, but newsworthy, porn prosecutions, ICANN's new TLD or no. Regards Marshall R's, John
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On 3/26/11 7:17 PM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: ... For some reason the aerodynamics of pigs comes to mind here. Having pigs fly is just about as likely as having ambitious Southern prosecutors give up the ability to bring meaningless, but newsworthy, porn prosecutions, ICANN's new TLD or no. ICM retained competent counsel for the ICANN issue advocacy. I expect Stuart will retain competent counsel for the follow-on issues. Eric
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
On Mar 26, 2011, at 5:28 PM, George Bonser wrote: But do you really believe playboy are going to give up playboy.com? They aren't going to give up Playboy.com but they are probably going to have to purchase playboy.xxx anyway. What bothers me is that most companies are now going to be forced to purchase .xxx domains simply to keep someone else from buying it and sullying the company's image. So it is an instant cash windfall for the domain registrars. There was no reason why we needed this. But that is an excellent reason why someone would want it. I was involved in the IETF NEWDOM WG way back in ~1996 and heard all of these arguments then. IMHO this was snake oil 15 years ago, and it is even more snake oil now. Regards Marshall
RE: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
-Original Message- From: Marshall Eubanks [mailto:t...@americafree.tv] Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 9:41 PM But that is an excellent reason why someone would want it. I was involved in the IETF NEWDOM WG way back in ~1996 and heard all of these arguments then. IMHO this was snake oil 15 years ago, and it is even more snake oil now. And I'm afraid we'll be seeing a whole heckuva lot more of this snake oil once ICANN finalizes the Generic TLD process in June: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382233,00.asp Stefan Fouant
RE: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
-Original Message- From: Eric Brunner-Williams [mailto:brun...@nic-naa.net] Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 7:24 PM ICM retained competent counsel for the ICANN issue advocacy. I expect Stuart will retain competent counsel for the follow-on issues. Yes, it is certain that Stuart will retain competent counsel for all follow-on issues, I mean, the guy bragged to Bloomberg that ICM is set to make at least $200 million a year through these registrations (believe me, if I were in his position, I'd have the best lawyers money could buy). That doesn't even touch the $3-4 Billion in porn transactions ICM is hoping to process and get a cut of once they launch their payment processing service. What changed ICANN's mind between the ruling in 2007 and the ruling in 2010? ICM brings in an independent arbitrator and ICANN agrees to go along with the findings, yet for the life of me I can't find any majority who believe this was necessary. The ACLU objects because of censorship issues. Family and religious groups oppose because they believe .xxx legitimizes porn. Heck, even the porn industry itself opposes because it will increase operating costs and open the industry to more regulation. I can't seem to find anyone that would benefit from this, with the exception of Stuart and ICM's shareholders. Stefan Fouant
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
The determining question was did the application satisfy the 2004 criteria? The .cat application was the best application in the 2004 round, according to the evaluators, and the .xxx application was the next ranked application. So the point in the 2004 cycle where .xxx could have been prevented, assuming for the sake of argument that one held that as a goal, was in the admission criteria for the 2004 round. Had that criteria been extended by an additional requirement such as the sponsor's mission must have been to provide a name space for a linguistic or cultural purpose, the .xxx application, however technically competent, would have failed under the 2004 admissions criteria. Each time the issue has been before the Board, I've spoken to the issue -- the application met the stated criteria. There are no valid unstated criteria. A related problem was the subject of a recent blog post, http://crookedtimber.org/2011/03/19/the-hollowing-out-of-icann-must-be-stopped/ There are very few at ICANN now who were involved in the 2004 round, let alone the 2000 round, and so little in the way of corporate memory exists. Eric On 3/26/11 10:30 PM, Stefan Fouant wrote: -Original Message- From: Eric Brunner-Williams [mailto:brun...@nic-naa.net] Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 7:24 PM ICM retained competent counsel for the ICANN issue advocacy. I expect Stuart will retain competent counsel for the follow-on issues. Yes, it is certain that Stuart will retain competent counsel for all follow-on issues, I mean, the guy bragged to Bloomberg that ICM is set to make at least $200 million a year through these registrations (believe me, if I were in his position, I'd have the best lawyers money could buy). That doesn't even touch the $3-4 Billion in porn transactions ICM is hoping to process and get a cut of once they launch their payment processing service. What changed ICANN's mind between the ruling in 2007 and the ruling in 2010? ICM brings in an independent arbitrator and ICANN agrees to go along with the findings, yet for the life of me I can't find any majority who believe this was necessary. The ACLU objects because of censorship issues. Family and religious groups oppose because they believe .xxx legitimizes porn. Heck, even the porn industry itself opposes because it will increase operating costs and open the industry to more regulation. I can't seem to find anyone that would benefit from this, with the exception of Stuart and ICM's shareholders. Stefan Fouant
Google security
I have a client that acquired a domain name and affiliated company as a product of lengthy and extremely turbulent litigation. The client believes (and I have found evidence to suggest) that the previous owner is somehow interfering or interacting with the new owner's Google Analytics/Webmaster Tools/Places/Adwords accounts. Since I am representing the new owner, I am trying to find a forensics analyst or clueful contact at Google to act as an independent third party to 'certify' that in fact the previous owner is or is not interfering in the new owners Google Accounts. I've followed the standard protocol, i.e., post your question in the Google forums and wait for a response. To date the single response I've received is change your password which wasn't what I had in mind. If that contact or independent third-party forensics expert exists, I'd greatly appreciate any advice you can provide. Best regards, Christopher
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
Subject: RE: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet Date: Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 10:07:08PM -0400 Quoting Stefan Fouant (sfou...@shortestpathfirst.net): From: Marshall Eubanks [mailto:t...@americafree.tv] even more snake oil now. And I'm afraid we'll be seeing a whole heckuva lot more of this snake oil once ICANN finalizes the Generic TLD process in June: The only possible thing that could save anyone with a valuable meatspace (tm) from having to buy its string representation in all the new TLDen is to make TLDen ubiquitous to a degree where the TLD can't be assumed anymore. A root zone with several thousand TLDen is no technical problem. I wonder when the effect kicks in. If it does. A positive side-effect would be to enable the altroot kooks to buy a TLD (.altroot -- under which they can run their own mini-Internets) of their own, which would disable some, if not all of them. -- Måns Nilsson primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina MN-1334-RIPE +46 705 989668 An Italian is COMBING his hair in suburban DES MOINES! pgpoVJj6JXiNw.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
What changed ICANN's mind between the ruling in 2007 and the ruling in 2010? The growing certainty of an expensive and very embarassing lawsuit if they turned ICM down. Despite the clear lack of industry support for .XXX, ICM carefully jumped through every hoop, dotted every i, and crossed every t in the 2004 application process and the subsequent appeal and review processes. I expect the board and staff really really would not want to have to answer questions under oath like who did you talk to at the US Department of Commerce about the .XXX application and what did you say? and why did you vote against .XXX when they followed the same rules as the TLDs you voted for? R's, John
Re: Google security
On Mar 27, 2011, at 11:55 AM, Christopher Wolff wrote: To date the single response I've received is change your password which wasn't what I had in mind. The thing to do is to ensure that your client's machines/networks aren't compromised, and then to change the password(s) from a known good machine on a known good network. Other than that, my guess is that retaining an attorney and working through the legal system is the only additional measure to take (IANAL, of course). --- Roland Dobbins rdobb...@arbor.net // http://www.arbornetworks.com The basis of optimism is sheer terror. -- Oscar Wilde
RE: ICANN approves .XXX red-light district for the Internet
-Original Message- From: John Levine [mailto:jo...@iecc.com] Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2011 12:57 AM The growing certainty of an expensive and very embarassing lawsuit if they turned ICM down. Despite the clear lack of industry support for .XXX, ICM carefully jumped through every hoop, dotted every i, and crossed every t in the 2004 application process and the subsequent appeal and review processes. I expect the board and staff really really would not want to have to answer questions under oath like who did you talk to at the US Department of Commerce about the .XXX application and what did you say? and why did you vote against .XXX when they followed the same rules as the TLDs you voted for? Agreed. And ICM made damn well sure that they had the ways and the means to wage a considerable and sustained amount of legal pressure by selling over a quarter million pre-registrations at $75 each, generating over $20M in revenue... Stefan Fouant
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
On Mar 25, 2011, at 6:46 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote: - Original Message - From: Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org Having looked around the world I personally believe most communities would be best served if the government provided layer-1 distribution, possibly with some layer 2 switching, but then allowed any commercial entity to come in and offer layer 3 services. For simplicity of argument I like people to envision the local government fiber agency (like your water authority) dropping off a 1 port fiber 4 port copper switch in your basement. On that device they can create a layer 2 VLAN/VPN/Tunnel from any of the copper ports to any provider in the town CO. You could buy video from one, voice from one, and internet from another, on three different ports. You could buy everything from one provider. +5 Cheers, -- jra +more Owen
