IP: "We are the most public secret cabal in the history of the world."

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: "Dave Wilson" <dave () wilson net>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: Re: Re:  ICANN and what it is
> Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 14:05:42 -0400
>
>
> As background, I'm the senior technology reporter for the San Jose Mercury
> News, and work in the Washington bureau. ICANN has a reasonably responsive
> and informative media operation, in my experience.
>
> I think the real problem for the media is a lack of education about the
> technology (and its history) among journalists, a dearth of analogies --
> there really isn't anything else like this system that I know of -- that can
> be used as a kind of shorthand to tell people what's going on, combined with
> a longstanding suspicion among some -- you know who you are -- that a
> "secret cabal" is running the show. As Dr. Postel said to me shortly before
> he died, "We are the most public secret cabal in the history of the world."
>
> A more accurate concern would be a lack of oversight in Internet operations.
> I would argue that it is this issue that ICANN has come to symbolize, and
> the concerns being raised have existed since the development of democratic
> society: Who guards the guardians? It's been a couple of thousand years, and
> we still don't have a great solution to that problem; I don't expect things
> to change any time soon. But my point -- and I do have one -- is that ICANN
> could do a much better job of explaining the competing balances of power
> that its participants hope will keep the institution from running amok, not
> unlike the Federalist Papers explained to a largely uneducated colonial
> population the system of checks and balances that would govern the United
> States of America.
>
> -dave wilson