Legitimacy Of ICANN? 138
"ICANN is really a government no matter how much they deny it. They create laws that affect people internationally and levy taxes in the form of fees for doamin registration. It can control anyone's presence on the internet by taking away your domain name and your IP address as they see fit.
The popular opinion of ICANN seems to be that they serve to exclude people rather than include them. This was exemplified by the fact a the most recent election that only 5 seats were up when there should have been a lot more (apparently some members self-lengthed their terms from 1 to 4 years)...
So as I understand it, ICANN was just sort of created by the Commerce Department without regards to any outside opinions. It seems like the Commerce Department is extending governmental rights to ICANN since the Commerce Department pretty much goes along with whatever they say. Why should ICANN receive so much weight in the mind of the Commerce Department? Perhaps we, as Internet users, should petition the Commerce Department for changes we want to top-level domains and other naming issues. To this end, I think we should question the foundation of ICANN.
I am not saying that the Internet shouldn't have a governing body, but perhaps it should have been created through a system that drew on input of Internet users, instead of shutting them out."
Some of my thoughts on this..... (Score:1)
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:1)
I think he is actually referring to rules that he knows that we need.
What if AOL created new TLDs for its users? (Score:2)
Even IF this worked... (Score:2)
So don't point your DNS at ICANN's root servers. (Score:4)
Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:3)
Of course, this probably goes over about as well as a dead duck.
Re:A Single point of failure. (Score:1)
Re:With the change in the Senate (Score:2)
Your primitive Earth equation is too simplistic.
Movement will take time.
You only are calculating two dimensions rather than taking the whole thing into consideration. Any movement requires slight movement on all dimensions.
You need to remember that there is nothing as 'true rest', only relative rest. You put a rock on the ground. It is a rest in relation to the planet itself, but the world is spinning, while orbiting the sun which is rotating around the galactic center, which is moving outward from the big bang point.
Totally sense-making it is. If you move from point X1Y1Z1T1 to X2YxZxTx, everything has moved. Your primitive equation does not take that into effect. In a universe which permitted a state of true rest, your supposed loophole would, in fact, check out. But in our universe, it leaves out reality.
ICANN is a dictatorship (Score:3)
And like those despots, the only way things are going to change is for the people to revolt. If you want change, ICANN must be overthrown.
But a revolution requires mass public support. Despots don't typically get dethroned by a single person, nor even by a few hundred rabid guerillas.
And if there's one thing there ain't on the Internet, is a mass public that's informed enough to understand why it's necessary to overthrow ICANN.
Heck, there ain't even a mass DNS-controlling population that's got enough of a clue to understand that they can get root name serving from an alternative source.
Which basically means y'all are fscked. No revolution is going to happen until all the domain controller guys are educated as to why they should abandon ICANN name resolution, and go with someone else (OpenNIC).
And given that most people don't ever want to have to think, I think educating them stands a snowball's chance.
--
Repeat post: ICANN and IETF are not in a fight. (Score:2)
Simon Higgs is fighting ICANN, and using the internet-drafts process as a tool.
There is no fight between ICANN and the IETF as such. Not to say that all IETF members like everything ICANN does (we don't), but Simon Higgs' opinion is his own, even when expressed as internet-drafts.
P2P App for DNS? (Score:1)
I just wonder if it would be technologically feasible and practical to actually create a peer to peer application that would provide all the functions of the current Domain Name Service. One way to get rid of ICANN forever, and eliminate the weak link that binds the Internet (no pun intended). If the practical functions of the domain servers they own and control are taken away, well, that would be the end of them, I think. That will mean the beginning of the end for all dreams of central control over the Internet.
YES. (Score:1)
Re:The reason (Score:4)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology [nist.gov] (NIST) is part of the Commerce Department [doc.gov]. There are a lot of smart people at NIST. They have been involved in computer and network technology for many years.
Re:P2P App for DNS? (Score:2)
Where did my icons all go? (Score:2)
It's fairly easy to see we need some sort of central body or group to designate and dispense internet namespaces. The e-economy worth billions now and is supposed to be worth more billions in years to come wouldn't exactly work if amazon.com only pointed to the correct IP address on some but not all NS roots. But how exactly do you go about that? ICANN is fucking up because they're charging for TLD proposals and letting the proposers run said proposals. This means registrarX is fucked if registrarY gets control of
Legitimate? Humnf! (Score:2)
The only legitimacy that ICANN has is that DARPA funded the invention of the internet. Period. That's it. There's no logical connection, but they are both creatures of the US Govt. (ICANN a bit more on the sub-rosa side... it pretends to be a private monopoly.)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Legitimate? Humnf! (Score:2)
I admit that I had thought that prior to ICANN it was being run by a consortium of universities, and that Postel was the man in charge. But I did know that the universities ran on federal funding.
I guess I also have to admit that I was pretty much ignoring the internet until about '93 or '94.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:ICANN and IPv6? (Score:2)
IPv6 TLDs are the same as IPv4 TLDs. There is no difference whatsoever for the end-user.
At the name-server end, the only difference is that IPv6 name to address mappings are an AAAA record, instead of the A record used for IPv4.
It's all a cover-up to protect VeriSign (Score:1)
They claim to have a "bottom-up" consensus approach to their decision making. They claim to be "open and transparent". But, they are anything but. Rather than having the the public elections that they have TWICE promised the US Gov't -- they decided to do a long (2 yr.) and costly ($400 K +) study instead. There may never be public elections ever again!
Go look at the ICANN public forum regarding the recent decision to give VeriSign long-term control of
They conduct closed-door meetings. They post major policy changes only days before they get together to vote on it (leaving no time for public debate) and they have recently voted unanimously for pay-raises for ICANN members. Meanwhile -- the public outreach and education budget has been slashed to almost nothing.
The only group who might possibly be more crooked than ICANN would have to be the US Congress. But, guess who is lobbying both of them? VERISIGN !!!
The Answer: (Score:1)
It is an attempt by IP interests and big corporations (read: NSI) to take control of the root.
Oh, quit bitching (Score:2)
If they're bored, they should take a friggin' walk outside, or barring that, do everything they can to GET AWAY from the damn computers. Give your mind, eyes, and wrists a break.
Legal Background on ICANN's Legitimacy (Score:2)
Re:ICANN and IPv6? (Score:2)
DNS is a system to change verbose, human friendly names into IP addresses (and the reverse). Bind (the software that does this) version 9 supports IPv6 (Bind 8 is probably the most common version in use right now, but then, there is no real need to upgrade; plenty of Bind 4, etc. servers are out there). The DNS system, root servers, etc, all technically support IPv6 (well, in theory: there needs to be some upgrading of software and maybe a bit of hardware), they were designed to work together.
Now, having said that all, comes *my* question: has anybody seen a host registration form *anywhere* that can accept a IPv6 address? I'm moving my servers (the colo ISP is dying out from under us), and I have to reregister my nameservers anyway, so it might be cool to have ns3 be listed on a IPv6 and see what traffic it gets. It's a belt and suspenders host server anyway; it runs mostly my hobby stuff (personal mailing lists, etc).
--
Evan
Politics is the art of the impossible ... (Score:2)
The problem is that a statutory authority (effectively the address of IP resources) is also trying to act in a commercial role. There is a reason why regulatory/investigation arms of sharemarkets are separate from their operational arm. Another is that when Postel passed away, there wasn't any impartial authority with vision trusted by everyone for an alternative to evolve. For example, in a practical sense there is no scarce resource in the names (once IPv6 comes along). What is missing is someone smart enough to nominate a sensible name scoping extension to the BIND. When the new technological frontiers are interpreted by old rules, there is a serious disconnect with reality. In this case whoever was flogging street addresses for a namespace saw an opportunity to become a virtual real-estate agent. In the quest for an easy buck, the politics was probably not carefully thought out and now you have a situation where enough people are unhappy that mud is continually flying.
Is there a better solution? Well the AARNET was originally isolated islands trying to communicate. There's no reason why the same can't happen when you embed IPv6 subdomains within the wider scheme and have a suitable killer app.
LL
Sorry, numbers do NOT make you legitmate. . . (Score:2)
Claiming that sheer numbers give legitimacy is as idiotic as that old bromide about lemming hordes going over cliffs. . .
Re:Do you REALLY want to change this? (Score:2)
What next? Bus drivers complaining their bus isn't good enough, airline pilots only wanting to fly supersonic aircraft, etc, etc?
The point is that unless these programmers are programming games they don't need fancy graphics cards with more memory than the CPU...
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:2)
The major offender here is the USA with secondary offenders of the likes of Canada and Eire.
Most of the rest of the planet does have things organised sensibly. Indeed it's claimed that the German post office can deliver letters with just an email address on..
declaring given domains as either "trademark areas" or "non-commercial areas" where trademarks cannot be contested,
If the idea is to protect tradmarks then you need to factor in type of business as well as geography.
Also there are several possible catagories of "non commercial".
Re:ICANN == UN and the UN overrides US Constitutio (Score:2)
So poorly administered that a certain US city wants to hijack another country's TLD.
Re:the ICANN legitimacy debate is amazing (Score:2)
You only need this for non geographic TLDs. With geographic domains this authority is obvious and likely to be delegated to an appropriate level of government in such places as the USA.
You can't get this without a single authority for a zone that can enforce some discipline about how the zone is maintained and resolve disputes when there are conflicts.
But this does not have to be the same authority for every zone.
Re:Politics is the art of the impossible ... (Score:2)
The problem is due to miss use. e.g. insisting that everything is www.foobar.com. Effectivly turning the whole thing into a flat namespace. Rather than something more like product.company.com or product.company.(comercial area in some country's or some part of some country's namespace.) The leading www is often redundant.
Re:Telephone analog (Score:2)
Complicated by the fact that the USA dosn't actually have it's own country code. So must coordinate numbering with neighbours, most especially Canada.
It's not a model for the Internet, with its textual names, trademark claims, etc.
Not really sure that texual names actually really make a difference. Though maybe the likes of
As for tradmarks these are governed by geographically specific laws anyway.
Re:Oh, quit bitching (Score:1)
Re:ICANN == UN and the UN overrides US Constitutio (Score:2)
No, it doesn't. ICANN was created precisely because the United States Government (under pressure from the rest of the world) wanted to get out of Internet governance. ICANN derives it's legitimacy (such as it has) from the IFWP.
Amen to that. Jon did the job a lot better, a lot more efficiently, at far less expense. And if he made a decision you disagreed with, he'd listen to your arguments about it. However, Jon was more or less unique, and truely benevolent dictators are in very short supply.
Re:Lets not do anything cause it could get worse? (Score:2)
That is, unfortunately, the most sensible response to this story so far.
Your understanding is wrong (Score:3)
This is untrue. There was an extended process of consultation [domainhandbook.com], involving meetings in Geneva (which I attended), Singapore [isoc.org], and Buenos Aires.
Well, and what else are they going to do? If the United States Government tried to control Internet governance, the rest of the world would not be very pleased, to put it mildly. Face it, the Internet changes things, and makes national governments less and less relevent. We have to develop new ways to govern the Internet, and ICANN is an experiment. Personally I preferred it's predecessor [isi.edu], and I agree that the current lawyer-driven ICANN is a bit of a mess. But we're learning.
What has the government of one nation got to do with it? How can the United States government change things? If you want to change things, join ISOC [isoc.org] and come to Stockholm [isoc.org] next week. If you come to my tutorials [isoc.org], I'll even stand you a beer!
Re:No taxation without representation (Score:3)
I was using the Internet with a .uk address in 1985, which is to say seventeen years before ICANN was founded. It was created (as I've detailed in another post) following an extensive open international consultation process [domainhandbook.com] in which I took part - and you could have, too, if you'd been bothered. Certainly it's a mess; certainly it needs to be changed. Join ISOC [isoc.org] and campaign!
Re:Telephone analog (Score:3)
It's not a model for the Internet, with its textual names, trademark claims, etc.
ICANN is a recent creation of a dishonest lawyer (Score:5)
Sims set up ICANN, giving the top job first to newsletter writer Esther Dyson, and appointing the "interim" board. Most of them are still there, "boardsquatters"! ICANN made a deal with Ira Magaziner at the White House, who got DoC to accept them as the new authority.
Thus Joe Sims is the Melvin Dummar of the Internet. (Mel had a forged Howard Hughes will, giving him a share of the late zillionaire's estate. His phoney story made a funny film, "Melvin and Howard".)
Legally, their authority is only what you believe in. Anybody can set up a DNS server and anybody can set their resolver to whatever server they want. ICANN replaced Dyson with MCI Worldcom's Vint Cerf, keeping its UUNET (the largest ISP) on its side. But a grassroots movement can, in theory, give power to an alternative root. New.net is the latest one to have some credibility.
Vint himself, of course, is the Chauncy Gardner of the Internet. (Chauncy was the retarded protagonist of "Being There", whose simpleminded mumblings were confused with brilliance.)
For more info, you all might enjoy http://www.icannwatch.org/
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:1)
Another idea I've heard mentioned is to stop using DNS altogether. We've been able to handle phone numbers o.k., why not IP addresses?
[Bit of topic divergence here]
I've often thought the same thing --- in reverse. We don't put up with raw numbers online, why are we forced to put up with raw numbers in the world of telephones? Many of the reasons why it's bad to use raw IPs show up in the real world with telephones: move house? New phone number. Change phone companies? New phone number. Cellphones go part way to solving this, but I'd like to have some unique memorable string that I can take with me, and the underlying number can change transparently: no one need ever know.
--
Repton.
Alternate DNS system (Score:1)
Sure it mike make it more confusing, but the more choice, the better.
http://www.root-dns.org/ is a place to start.
Re:With the change in the Senate (Score:1)
I agree. The internet transcends national boundaries. It unites the entire human species. It should be an global body, with representatives for all peoples and adequate checks and balances. The only problem is that this would make it to big and unwieldy. However there is no reason we cannot have a rotating governing body.
Re:why does AOL it's own tld? (Score:2)
Hash: SHA1
>WHY would AOL want it's own tld?
>What's wrong with AOL.com ?
>What clear advantages does
I kind of doubt that they would use a
going for a
name and if they approved your site you would be issued a domain name
that would be accessable only to those who used AOL's DNS servers.
AOL would then implement a search engine (pretty easy, they already
have one) that only indexes
nicely censored subset of the internet to offer to over protective
parents.
This is actually starting to sound like a half decent idea, maybe I
should buy an book on Bind
after work and set it up on my box at home. If anyone tries to patent
a business plan for this. You saw it here first.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com>
iQA/AwUBOxaRlrfXGCgiKZQGEQIQ/wCg4f5W2Hd+puFnuqQ
yeYFgZ6KKq4aRpREKxrs/ccN
=jIyo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
________________________
Re:If you don't like the news, make some of your o (Score:2)
I propose (as if this will surprise anyone) that the Internet doesn't need a central governing body, ICANN or otherwise. Anyone should be able to start their own TLD (even with the same name) and any network should be able to choose which TLD's root servers they recognize.
--
I switched my DNS servers, have you done yours? (Score:2)
It's obviously a ploy by Network Solutions/Verisign to legitimize their new offer of the .BIZ TLD. They want to get as many users as possible to send them money, and build thier legitimacy at the same time. They want to prod people into action. In my case it worked, but I did the opposite of what they wanted, and you should too .
It appears that the legitimate holder of the .BIZ registry is biztld.net [biztld.net], and that NSI saw this as too much money to let someone else take, and is in the process of a coup d'état to grab it for themselves.
Instead of acting like a sheep to be fleeced, I took the following actions:
- Replied to their email with this:
.BIZ domain, what agreement have you reached with the current holders of that domain??
- Set up a new db.cache, for our companies name servers, which lists all the roots for each domain, including countries, and now I determine who is the legitimate registrar for every TLD
The blatant agrression on the part of NSI finally got me to act, and it was easy, only about an hour to research, implement, and test. Now I've taken back control and put government back in my hands for our companies part of the internet.It's my understanding that Network Solutions is NOT the legitimate operator of the
In my mind this is a stopgap measure, as my choice was arbitrary, and I really don't want the maintenance headache of having to keep a few hundred TLD entries up to date. I've taken our 30 users out of the ICANN/NSI pool, and will now seeks a better authority to trust in the long run.
It'll be interesting to see what grass roots efforts evolve from this, and what a democratically run Domain Name System looks like.
I strongly suggest everyone else do the same, and vote with your bits.
--Mike--
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:1)
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:1)
Re:Oh, quit bitching (Score:2)
I'll let you know when I think your opinions on my recreation & entertainment choices are worth anything.
1985+17=wha? (Score:1)
I look forward to ICANN finally being founded next year.
A letter hierarchy based scheme for arbitrary TLDs (Score:1)
How about this, I just posted this to the IETF dnsops wg list:
Let's SET UP NEW TOP LEVEL DOMAINS FOR ALL SINGLE LETTERS a., b.,...z. So the top domains will be the classical ones + these new one letter TLDs.
Now I want to have a name "anssi.abc." for my machine. I rewrite it (first in my head) to be "anssi.a.b.c."
I go to the "c." TLD server administration. I ask them, if anyone has registered a "b.c." first level name with them. If such domain exists, I go to its administrator, and ask, if they have a domain "a.b.c." already. And so on, up to the letter, that is not yet served by anyone. If the domain "a.b.c." already does exist, I can't register a new one. First come first served.
In this case, let's say the domain "b.c." did exist, but the domain "a.b.c." did not. Now I register my "a.b.c." with the domain "b.c." administration. There should be a rule, that single letter domains allow registration for any unregistered single letter subdomains!
So now I can set up names like "anssi.a.b.c." in my own name server, serving the domain "a.b.c.", registered at "b.c.".
NOW I MODIFY MY RESOLVER and ask everybody to do the same, if they please! The new versions of resolvers are standardized to TRANSLATE ALL UNRECOGNISED many-letter TLDs into a sequence of one letter domains. So "anssi.abc." will be resolved as "anssi.a.b.c." domain.
Additionally, domains "c.o.m.", "o.r.g." etc. and corresponding country domains like "f.i." and "u.k." can be set up as peered, synonymous domains for "com.", "org.", "fi., "uk." and such. So that the new resolvers would not even have to know any list of special "recognizable" classic TLD domains.
Anssi.Porttikivi@teleware.fi
Data communications trainer/consultant
Teleware, Helsinki
Re:A letter hierarchy based scheme for arbitrary T (Score:1)
Note, that if you have registered "a.b.c." with "a.b.", and somebody is resolving a name "www.anssi.foobarabc", a query can be immediately satisfied without delegation when it arrives to the DNS server at "a.b.c.". If all subdomains below "a.b.c." referenced in "www.anssi.f.o.o.b.a.r.a.b.c." are local to "a.b.c.", then they can be specified in the one and only zone file for "a.b.c.".
Additionally, note that although there will now be much more domain components in the names than before, it will probably not add much to the number of delegated subqueries in global statistics. The more queries your name server answers, the bigger part of the single letter hierarchy it will learn to cache. The single letter domains should have a long TTL. When your name server has answered order of alphabet_size^2 queries, it has probably cached most of the second level domains (a.a., a.b., a.c.,...z.z.). When it has answered alphabet_size^3 queries, it has cached most of the third level domain DNS IP addresses.
To make sure that this learning process is not interrupted too often, it would probably make sense to keep a disk based cache of the letter based root delta domains. And have a guideline specifying a minimun TTL value that the single letter domains must advertise.
Correction.... (Score:1)
In the beginning of my reply above, it should read:
and not like I wrote:
Here is another take... (Score:1)
your sorry bastard discussing his stupid ideas with himself
Lets not do anything cause it could get worse? (Score:1)
They are spitting in our faces and you're saying lets not do anything cuase it can get worse? I am not you're not the leader of any team I am following.
For starters ICANN can make the whole process a little more democratic. That ought to make things alot worse?
quasi-public authority (Score:2)
They are, nearly all, the fruit of the small government movement championed by Reagan and Bush pere. Ironically, they are held up as exemplars of quality public/private partnership by free market moderates (Clinton, Dole, et. al.)
the ICANN legitimacy debate is amazing (Score:2)
If you get rid of ICANN, you still need an authority to resolve disputes about the root zone. Without such an authority, we will inevitably have disagreements between various root servers and inconsistencies between the meanings of some DNS names. People want and need DNS names to be consistent across the entire Internet. You can't get this without a single authority for a zone that can enforce some discipline about how the zone is maintained and resolve disputes when there are conflicts. You can and should try to give that authority the bare minimum control that it needs to do its job, but you can't get rid of it entirely. This is what ICANN tries to be - a single authority for the root but one that exercises no more control than necessary. It's not perfect, by any means, but that's the idea.
If you were to set up an authority from scratch, it would need to be organized much like ICANN - with representation from various consituencies, including folks with technical clues about the DNS protocols, the registries, and so forth.
ICANN is a mess but it's not at all clear that you could do better by tearing it down and starting over. Too many people want control of the DNS root, because too many people see it as a way to extort money from people, or to exert control over people, or to gather information about people. Others want to do away with the DNS root because they see an opportunity to make money from a land grab of new TLDs - never mind that the DNS doesn't scale well to large numbers of TLDs (cache effectiveness goes way down, for instance).
One of the main reasons that ICANN is a mess is because folks from NSI (now verisign) worked hard to make it that way. For all practical purposes ICANN was created to keep NSI from controlling things (because they were treating the DNS root and the major TLDs as their monopoly). Since NSI recognized ICANN as an obvious threat to that monopoly, they lobbied in various ways (for instance, by having influential Congressmen attack it) to saddle ICANN with an unwieldy organization with significant clue dilution. They also encouraged those who, for reasons of their own, wanted to attack ICANN. Those efforts were largely successful. NSI will still control .COM for many more years despite providing really lousy service and subjecting their customers to unreasonable and unfair business terms designed to maintain NSI's control over the major TLDs, and ICANN has been hobbled by tremendous amounts of naive and uninformed criticism (along with some that they deserved) that was encouraged by NSI.
If we tried to tear ICANN down and start over, the same people who worked so hard last time around to make it ineffective would also work hard trying to make the new organization ineffective. For instance, Verisign would see this as an opportunity to regain control of the root and the major TLDs, various folks in the US government would assert (once again) that the Internet belongs to the US and should be under US government control, and ITU would probably insist that they should control it by virtue of international treaty. None of these represent the interests of Internet users.
It may not be possible to "fix" ICANN to the extent that we would like. There are too many politically powerful folks out there who are bent on destroying it, or controlling it, for their own greedy or power-hungry purposes. Right now we have a tentative agreement to work with the ICANN structure, and an uneasy balance of power between the factions that would like to control it. Folks are trying to make it better, and I think it's slowly improving. It's far more likely that we can get better results in the long run by making small incremental changes to ICANN than by tearing it down and starting over.
Re:This is... (Score:1)
hell yeah! (Score:1)
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:1)
Re:who are the "people" (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure that the numbers aren't anymore as high. of course, the point is valid: there's no reason why people who don't even use the net should have influence over it.
Not to mention the fact that Internet was created by the US government, so they should really be able to do what they like with it n'est ce pas?
Now that is bullshit. Like claiming that because an Englishman working at CERN invented the WWW, he should really be able to do what he likes with every website on this planet.
Re:This is... (Score:1)
Second, some of ICANN's Board of Directors was actually elected by internet users, and while that election may not have been organized very splendidly, those who say it had been rigged are full of it, because otherwise, the European representative, a member of the CCC [www.ccc.de] would never have been elected.
Re:This is... (Score:1)
As for the rest, perhaps you should read a basic CS text on how hierarchical structures are the only way to efficiently organize large amounts of data, and also something on how DNS works.
Re:This is... (Score:1)
As for the current taxonomy, that's totally a matter of debate. It does work. And anyway, what kind of system would you prefer? A more restrictive hiearchy or a less restrictive one? Can't have both.
Well, think about it... (Score:1)
Sources for replacement cache files? (Score:1)
I'd like to see locations where DNS ops can obtain replacement cache files for their DNS servers. Even something as crazy as a homegrown root zone delegating authority for known TLDs is better than all this talk and no immediate way to switch a DNS server over.
The reason (Score:1)
The biggest reason DoC goes along with almost anything ICANN proposes is that largely, DoC is tehcnically illeterate. Since they have little technical background, they go on the assumption that the members of ICANN know what they are talking about.
How do you expect DoC to question ICANN if they don't even know which questions to ask?
Re:Time to hit the big reset button? (Score:2)
Wait until IPv6 addresses become common.
Surf to http://3ffe:1900:4545:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf
Have fun.
Re:Do you REALLY want to change this? (Score:1)
I recently found that my new boss is a reformed Doom addict. I'm trying to figure a way to recast a whole-department deathmatch into a morale/teambuilding exercise.
Re:Lets not do anything cause it could get worse? (Score:2)
I assert that where we see a vacuum of competence and fairness, others see a vacuum of power and revenue. In any throw-it-away-and-start-over model, the 'others' will most likely win.
Sure, ICANN needs to change. Perhaps the way to change it is through government intervention, perhaps by inciting industry leaders. Perhaps boycotts. But bumbling incompetence is better to deal with than raw malevolence. That's my point, not that we shouldn't try to change.
Do you REALLY want to change this? (Score:4)
Instead, how about if domains were handled like frequencies, or any other semi-commercial venture. You know, auction off domain names to the highest bidder, trademarks be #$%&ed. Who needs
As bad as ICANN may be, it can clearly get worse.
The Guys At Work were griping about their offices and furniture a few weeks back. I suggested they not gripe too hard, because the OBVIOUS solution to their office/furniture problems would be
Measurable costs (Score:2)
- The (undefined) ammount of money lost because of the (undefined) number of people that left the company earlier than expected because of the (undefined) decrease/lack-of-increase of happyness due to not having DVD players and 3d boards
- The cost of X DVD players and X 3D boards
Saving/gaining money tends to be chosen instead of non-measurable things like employee satisfaction.<RANT>
Unfortunatly most managers tend to think in the tactical sense (immediatly justifyable actions) instead of the strategic sense (looking at the bigger picture)
</RANT>
Re:This is... (Score:1)
The internet started as a cooperation between the military and educational institutions. These are not "for profit" organizations. The fact that the internic turned into network solutions was an abomination.
Network Solutions turned an infinate resource, attached (enforced) arbitrary artificial limits on it, and started charging for this false scarcity. It's like saying that all names of cities must end in "y" or "p" - no other letters are acceptable. Further more, all cities must pay NSI $50 or their city won't be listed on any maps.
ICANN / Netsol should all be put in the pokey. This is extortion. Organized crime. Racketeering.
Re:Do you REALLY want to change this? (Score:1)
One.
If the developers don't perform, they don't get paid. I don't pay people to play games, watch movies, etc. I pay them to code. If they want to play games and watch movies, they can do so on their own time. I don't require my guys to work massive overtime - a regular 9-5 day (w/ flextime) is plenty. Tired programmers are useless. People need to be away from work to get useful downtime, be with their families / friends.
Two.
MIS's job is NOT to keep people "happy", its job is to provide technology and resources to business units. You try not to piss people off to much in the process, but by nature (enforcing policies / security,) you do.
Three.
Serious programmers don't need games, free soda, movies, etc. to "keep them happy." They need challenges, projects that are rewarding, a sense of ownership, the ability to expand their skills, recognition by peers. Wouldn't you rather have a great sense of pride in your product, with a bonus tied to that products success? Or do you get your kicks by acting like a school-yard child?
Bottom line:
A programmer playing games, surfing for p0rn, and watching movies is not doing very much programming is he?
"Do the math."
So I'm not saying that managers should be slave drivers, but they should NOT be baby sitters either. Managers should treat their people with respect, but also should expect that their employees actually produce what their being paid to produce.
This dot-com trend of treating your valuable assets like children (although, granted that some of them act like children) is goofy, and doesn't really help you recruit qualified experienced professionals. While there is no data to support it, you can't help but wonder how many companies wouldn't have failed if their people were more productive and they didn't spend massive amounts of money on toys, parties, overpriced computers (with 3D and DVD), etc. I think I would rather work hard and be paid a decent salery than play games and then get laid off... wouldn't you?
Re:This is... (Score:1)
If the current taxonomy works, how come EVERYONE including ICANN is trying to change it? (Of course ICANN's version sucks, but that's beside the point.) I believe you are confusing the term taxonomy with hiearchy - they are different.
Basically you can improve the taxonomy and hiearchy at the same time. You do this by increasing the width of the structure in an organized manor.
Let me try plain english.
Let's say you have two libraries. One lumps all books into fiction or non-fiction, children or adult. No other organization is performed. This is much like the current ICANN taxonomy.
The other library is the traditional library, and also has fiction, non-fiction, children's and adult, but also sorts by author, topic, etc. based on the type of book. Fiction may be divided into romance, sci-fi, mystery, etc. But wait! There's more! Modern libraries now have tapes, videos, CD's etc. The old taxonomoy had to be modified and expanded to handle this. Same goes for the internet.
Adding
So if you re-read my last post, my ideas were in the hundreds or thousands of TLD's - not infinite. I would also like to see the registration system enhanced to handle a multi-level hiearchy as opposed to the two level current system (which is mostly the single level
Re:This is... (Score:2)
As for your lecture: how is the flat
And
So the addition of
BTW, I'm QUITE well versed in DNS, thank you. Are you? The taxonomy of the current DNS system is BRAINDEAD. It made sense when there were hundreds of sites on the net. When there are millions, it is TOTALLY BROKEN as it does NOT efficiently organize names. Even if ICANN added 20 new TLD's, it DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM OF HAVING A SHITTY TAXONOMY.
Re:Do you REALLY want to change this? (Score:2)
Luckily for the boys upstairs, they'll never realize their error. It must be nice to be right all the time, even when the company is falling down around you. I long to be an executive, protected by many layers of reality-defusing lackeys... but for now I am stuck with doing real work.
(Bitter much? Well, a little, I just saw my workplace disintegrating like this a few months ago...)
On-topic content: ICANN sucks.
This is... (Score:3)
Legitimate != technically the best (Score:1)
I would suggest that legitimate is whatever most people use.
I'm not arguing that ICANN has any technical merits, I'm just saying that they've got the loudest voice.
Think of it as democracy. He with the most users wins regardless of technical merit.
As an aside, I think an alternate root needs between 5% and 10% of internet users resolving its names before the count for much on a global scale.
Numbers make them legitmate. (Score:2)
I support OpenNIC, but the fact remains is that I am in a VERY small minority. Until that changes, ICANN is "in charge".
Re:Telephone analog (Score:2)
Heh, I can see it now. Watch out whoever has the numbers that translate to 1800-MACCAS; the McDonalds lawyers are coming, and they're carrying hot coffee.
Clueless politicians (Score:2)
And for the US, though the situation might look to us, to a USE politician it does at least look like they've annexed the whole shebang: will DoC willingly concede control to something as hateful to (most) US politicians as the UN?
And, finally, that ICANN appears to be playing big coropration / monopoly games is not necessarily anything like anathema - so long as it is an American monopoly.
Sure it needs reforming; its more than amazing that things have got this bad this quickly. But I'm not holding my breath :-(
With the change in the Senate (Score:3)
After all, in a weird way it is trying to impose US sovereignity over other nations. I am sure that someone can make a big stink over this.
I am sure that these concerns should at least be looked at and sorted out by international treaty, instead of ad hoc for the benefit of the members.
Consider the panic if Bill Gates were a member of the ICANN board. or one of his underlings. Obviously Gates would never personally belong to such a low level organization, but you get the idea.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
No taxation without representation (Score:2)
Seriously, though, ICANN was created by a few folks back before most country codes were even used, and may have outgrown itself. Supposedly the UN should usurp it's power, but then it will become even more political, and we'll soon have China revoking all Taiwanese registrations, and other such actions.
So, be careful what you ask for, you may get it. And you won't be happy with the replacement either
Re:So don't point your DNS at ICANN's root servers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
ICANN or the UN? (Score:3)
The ITU is now a part of the UN but predates it by a few decades. It is the body that hands out frequencies, telephone country codes, satelite orbit slots, that sort of thing. It exists to do exactly the sort of beureacratic pen pushing that that type of task requires.
The advantage of having the UN control the root would have been that as a treaty organization it would be imune from the onslaught of lawsuits that the trademark owners threatened.
ICANN does not have immunity, nor does it have the funds to fight lawsuits. So it is little surprise that they act as the craven suplicants of the trademark owners.
The ITU is not exactly without critics but by and large it has far fewer critics than ICANN despite performing far more controvertial tasks.
The US invented ICANN to attempt to keep control of the Internet root. However in practice an attempt by the US to do something derranged would simply cause the root to pass out of their control. Imagine if the US decided to drop .uk or .de out of the root, the non-US ISPs would switch to an alternative root very quickly and most of the US ISPs would follow.
The only reason for keeping the root small is that it preserves this ability to switch the root over should that be necessary. If the root had 2,000,000 names in it it would not be possible to transfer it.
If you don't like the news, make some of your own. (Score:2)
If you can get a reasonable number of people to agree with your proposal, then propose it to the DoC. Even if they don't agree, it's likely that the proposal will start moving things in the right direction.
For example,
Re:I said it before, and I'll say it again... (Score:2)
We got .biz. We got .info. We did not get .tel and .news. In addition to .biz/.info we also got .name (which I work for) for personal domain names, .aero specifically for the aerospace industry, .coop specifically for cooperatives, .museum specificall for museums, and .pro for licensed professionals (engineers, lawyers, doctors etc.).
Not expanding the potential web real estate?
And throughout your post you confuse registrars and registries all the time.
In addition, the selection process looked at the quality of the registry (because it would be no point choosing a new TLD if the company willing to operate it was incapable of doing so properly and fairly), whether the domain had an interesting concept, to what degree they differentiated themselves from the others (.name for instance is restricted to personal names and names of fictional characters, and only allows registrations on third level).
But yes, the quality of the registry was one of the factors. Would you like to buy a domain name that's only available every other day because the registry chosen turned out to be incapable of running it?
The 50.000 (not 10.000) USD requirement was a processing fee intended at ensuring that only people economically capable of running a registry would bother applying.
Another thing you've apparently not understood is that this is a proof of concept phase: It is a way for ICANN to see a) whether there's a market for new TLDs, or whether people will just stick with .com etc., b) whether their procedures - both technical and legal - are good enough to handle more TLDs, and c) whether they are capable of choosing registries that are capable of actually running a TLD linked into the global root.
The intent is that once ICANN gets some experience with the seven new gTLDs, that they will open up for more applications, and perhaps even a less stringent selection process.
You may have reasons to criticize ICANN, but at least have your facts straight before you do, or you'll just look like a moron.
(Ob disclaimer: I'm in charge of development at GNR, the company that got .name, so I'm kinda biased :-)
Re:Legitimate? Humnf! (Score:2)
That wish from governments and institutions all over the world was what led the US government to form ICANN. No, ICANN is not independent of the US government. No, it does not have complete freedom. No, it is not a democratic organization where everyone gets to vote for the entire leadership.
But it is immensely more open that how it was before, when the process was completely closed for the public eyes and controlled exclusively by the US government.
It's a first step. Instead of crying about how bad ICANN is, why don't you suggest some constructive changes instead, and maybe more people would bother listening.
Re:I've always wondered (Score:2)
Second, none of the registries get paid 70 bucks to enter anything in their databases. If you go to www.icann.org and look at the posted contracts and contract proposals, you'll find that the prices for the registries lie around 4-6 dollars per domain per year. (Also not that the prices negotiated between the registries and ICANN are maximum prices - the registries can lower prices but not increase them beyond that point)
Now, this is not just for registration, but to cover the infrastructure for modifications, whois lookups and the operating the DNS servers for the TLD under very strict quality of service requirements. The registries may loose their TLDs if they can't provide the level of service required by ICANN.
ICANN also impose restrictions on behaviour, business arrangements the registry may enter into, and requires that the registry gives fair and equal treatment to all registrars. All of this because the registries effectively get a monopoly on their TLD in the contract period.
When you buy a domain, you do so from a registrar. And the registrars, however, does not have any price limitations, since they aren't in a monopoly situation. Thus if you're unhappy about the price you get at a registrar, you can find another one.
(ObDisclaimer: I work for the company that got .name, but the above are personal opinions)
Re:If you don't like the news, make some of your o (Score:2)
And (surprise), most people use the global root that is under ICANNs administration, because most people only care about being able to rely on a domain name getting them to the same place no matter where they type it in.
Re:This is... (Score:2)
And if anyone attached aritrary limits on it, it was the US government, not Network Solutions.
Re:This is... (Score:2)
Clue2: Part of the work that ICANN has done has been to ensure that Network Solutions have had to separate their registry and registrar businesses, and to get their registrar division competition by allowing more registrars equal access to their registry.
Re:Legitimate? Humnf! (Score:2)
The current incarnation of ICANN is a result of a compromise between the US and the rest of the world (who would presumably have preferred something with less US influence), since the US government has been very reluctant to give up control over central parts of the internet infrastructure.
ICANN has wide freedom to act, but has to get approval from the US Department of Commerce, so that the US government can override anything they might want to do that may seem to threatening to US interests.
Re:I said it before, and I'll say it again... (Score:2)
Tell that to the registrars - they're drowning in preregistrations.
And yes,you did confuse a registrar with a registry, as you did again in this post. A registrar does NOT run any registries. In fact, there are severe limitations in the ICANN contracts on even cooperation between registrars and registries. Afilias for instance, had to spend a lot of work on ensuring ICANN that it's owners (registrars) would not get unfair access to the registry because of their status as shareholders.
These requirements from ICANN is also why Network Solution operates the registry and registrar as two separate departments with separate employees working on it, and very limited information flow between them.
A registrar and registry can possibly be part of the same company, but they are completely different roles and require clear separation of work and information flow to be accepted by ICANN.
Re:I said it before, and I'll say it again... (Score:2)
Re:ICANN == UN and the UN overrides US Constitutio (Score:2)
And since ICANN falls under the UN, which was created by Treaty with the US and other nations, ICANN's wishes override the Constitution by our own Constitutional definition.
Bzzzt!
Sorry, but you are incorrect. The ICANN has nothing to do with the United Nations. From the About ICANN [icann.org] page:
ICANN derives its authority purely from a contract with the United States government. Essentially, ICANN was created to replace IANA [iana.org] (John Postel [postel.org] r.i.p.) and ARIN [arin.net].
The scary thing about ICANN is that they so quickly became beholden to Network Solutions [networksolutions.com] and the other vested big-money interests, instead of paying attention to what's good for the Internet as a whole.
Recent revelations about secret deals to allow Network Solutions to hang onto the .COM databases essentially indefinitely should have woken up the US Congress to the degree to which ICANN has already been corrupted, but so far, there is no sign that anyone in Congress has noticed, nor do they appear to care.
I've always wondered (Score:2)
Re:ICANN might not be the best thing, but... (Score:2)
--
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
ICANN and IPv6? (Score:2)