Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: IP: ICANN Gets Green Light by Niall McKay
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 11:26:53 -0500
I was in Japan for a spell so I was somewhat involved. I will answer your points before Monday At 11:25 AM 11/27/98 -0500, Ronda Hauben wrote:
Dear Dave On Nov. 17 you promised me a response to my open email to you of questions about the current privatization of the Domain Name System functions, IP numbers, root server system by the U.S. government and your support for this. I haven't yet gotten the response you promised so I am resending this to you, as I and others are eager to hear the response you promised to send. Ronda Open Letter to Dave Farber part II Dave, My original note to you on the IFWP list and com-priv list and netizens list is about the fact that you and several other pioneers of the Internet have a basis to know more what is happening that this privatization of the essential functions of the Internet is being carried out, and that you 5 folks have been in a position to both understand what the U.S. government is doing and to advise the U.S. government about what they are doing. I also mentioned that I have made the effort (as a user) to be involved in the process, and have *no* understanding of what the U.S. govt is doing and why, despite repeated efforts to participate in a way that would make it possible to understand what is happening. More significantly I have spent a number of years both participating in Usenet and the Internet and in studying the history and importance of the Internet and the current signficiant change in U.S. policy with so little open discussion of the fundamental issues of that change, is very disturbing. I have just returned from a trip to Europe where I was invited to speak on MsgGroup Mailing List and the principles to be learned from that for Internet Governance. I know you were one of the earliest participants on MsgGroup mailing list in 1975. And I also know that there was a real concern among those involved in creating the MsgGroup conferencing and email prototype that the users be considered and that those involved in the work on the mailing list use the mailing list so they could understand how it would be useful toward supporting facilitating informal communication in the U.S. Dept of Defense. In reading the archives of MsgGroup I found the discussion quite fascinating and valuable and the observations about the new kind of communication that a mailing list made possible very insightful. However, with the creation of the privatization of the essential functions of the Internet all the lessons of how to create online prototypes that function and to improve them that have helped to build the ARPANET, Usenet or the Internet, as with MsgGroup Mailing list, have been abandoned. If there were a real problem that the U.S. government were trying to solve with respect to the Internet, the obvious challenge would be to find a way to create a functioning online form to solve that problem, and to explore the problems of creating that online form through research processes as with MsgGroup mailing list or other such efforts. Also such an online form would be able to be accessible to anyone online who was interested in the issues involved and there would be a way, as well of involving those users who wanted to participate in figuring out what the problems were and in solving them. That isn't happening in the creation of ICANN. Instead a very small group of people, some of whom probably have no or very little experience with the Internet, are being involved in both creating and in running some powerful new entity that will be given what hitherto have been treated as cooperative and public Internet resources. My email to you said that I can understand your having your own personal views as to whether this is good or bad, but that if you are involved in acting as an advisor to the U.S. government as a computer scientist (which I feel you are), then it would seem especially important that what is happening be open and that as broad a set of people be involved in what is happening as possible. The online forms would make this possible. However, what is being created is *not* an online form, but a private corporate entity and it has been created by a process within the U.S. government where no one knows who has made the decisions to create this form and who has made the decisions of who will people the new private entity. This is the exact opposite of the open processes that the online forms make possible, and which are necessary for good decisions to be made with regard to something as important as the Internet and the ownership and control of its essential, controlling functions. Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu> wrote:Ronda, your note shows a very different view of net history than I have and maybe a view that is not based on fact. You are slipping into the consipracy theory and that is just wrong. While errors may have been made, they have been made in an honest fashion. I know no one in the current ICANN who stands to gain anything out of it (san Mike Roberts who is a paid employee). The advisors were far from secret and certainly criticism was heavy and often, when stated in a non nuclear bomb fashion, were paid attention to.But any of those who have been appointed to the Board (by who knows whom and for what purpose) are being put in a position of tremendous control over the Internet. Also Mike Roberts, as one of the advisors, is in a very compromised position to have advised the appointment of himself to such a position of responsibility. To own and control 4.3 billion IP numbers and the domain name system and root server system, as well as related protocols, port numbers, etc of the Internet is a position of tremendous responsibility and tremendous power. In a recent article the Economist called this a "self-appointed oligarchy". To be transferring such resources to a private entity, with no public discussion of why government is to be kept out, and what will be the effect of privileging private sector corporate entities and people with being able to be part of this, this is a very serious affair.Not everything was word by word open. It is hard to arrive at a consensus with millions looking on at each word and yelling before someone has a chance to change their mind.A consensus of how many people? If millions of people will be seriously affected (as we will be by such a severe change of policy) by the results of the "consensus" arrived at behind closed doors, then there is a very grave problem. And this is a problem that C.P. Snow spoke to at the 1961 mmeting about the future of the computer at MIT. He spoke to the need for scientists, and especially computer scientists to recognize the harm that could come from such government decisions and that the way to guard against such harm was to involve the broadest number of people in such decisions. At this 1961 meeting John McCarthy first described time-sharing which led to the developed of the time-sharing systems which set the basis for the vision of the ARPANET. And this online processes that time-sharing made possible also helped to create the online forms that make an open process involving large numbers of people possible.users showed up at some of the IFWP meetings but no one has a good idea how to either reach them (the millions) or distill what they have to say.But isn't this then the challenge that has to be taken up before transferring control and ownership over the essential functions of the Internet to a small clique of people who will then have control over the Internet and its users? I was at the Geneva IFWP meeting and *no one* was interested in hearing from users there. I have written an account of what happening which is at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/ifwp_july25.txt There was only an interest in rushing through a declared consensus that would allow certain people to begin getting profits on their financial investments. This was the very opposite of a process to establish the kind of responsible and accountable management strucuture that can serve the Internet community and the further scaling of the Internet.One thing that does seem instructive is the ease with which network discussion groups can be hijacked by vocal often biased and some times self interested parties (NO NOT YOU). I don't knowThis does need to be taken on as a problem. But I have found that there are certain types of newsgroups or mailing lists where this is more likely to happen than other such groups and I feel it is an important problem that can be solved. And my proposal to Ira Magaziner and to the U.S. Govt on this issue provided a process to create such an online form. However, it wasn't even considered by them. And I also sent you a copy, and didn't feel you felt there was any reason to take my proposal seriously or to consider or discuss it with me. And it is one thing to hijack a mailing list or newsgroup, but another and much more serious situation to hijack the ownership and control over the essential functions of the Internet by putting them into a secretive private corporation where no one knows who is exerting the controlling power. The U.S. Office of Inspector General in a report they issued in Feb. 1997 said that even putting the IP numbers into the control of such an organization would be a violation of U.S. anti trust law as it would be creating a very great concentration of power and wealth. To put all the essential functions into such a private organization is an ever greater concentration of wealth and power.how to stop that. It is the same as people more and more who shout down public talks of people they disagree with. That is destructive of open discussions and it has forced me to disengage with such lists due to the deep personal viciousness shown.This is a serious problem as it is important to have your participation in such open processes. And I know you have a long experience of such participation. But isn't this an important problem to be taken on. When I was on the com-priv mailing list in 1992-3 I experienced similar problems and it also led me to leave the list. But the problem there I felt was that instead of the U.S. government protecting the ability of people to participate in the list, they created a list which would be aimed at promoting such a hostile and unuseful environment. And then they claimed that that list was the indication that the U.S. govt was getting input into its policy decisions. And U.S. govt officials were on the com-priv list during this period and participated in this unhealthy environment. But previous to that, and in many other situation even during this period, the Acceptible Use Policy employed by the U.S. govt with regard to the Internet kept other lists and newsgroups functioning in a good way. With the privatization of the Internet, however, this kind of hostile atmosphere, or the sending of junk posts to newsgroups or mailing lists, has become much more commonplace. Thus the privatization is a problem and the long development of the Net previous to the privatization has very important lessons that need to be learned from.I will try when I get a chance to go over your mailing carefully and point out the problems.I hope you will.DaveBut it seems from your response that perhaps there is some tentative agreement that: 1) Open processes are desirable. 2) That it would be good to involve users in the decisions over what will be happening with the Internet. And that a way needs to be found to do so. 3) That online forms are valuable but also need to be maintained in a constructive way. Is it fair to say that these are tentative points of agreement? If so is there anything that can be done to take these into account rather than rushing ahead with the creation of ICANN and ignoring these? An online form is very different from a membership organization. I don't know any membership organizations that function to provide the ability of members to really be part of the decisions making process. But the Internet does make it possible for users to be part of the decision making process in decisions regarding what is happening with the Internet. Is there any way you would help me to explain this to the U.S. govt officials who are rushing ahead to create this private organization? Also there are other issues with regard to the creation of ICANN that it would be important to discuss publicly. Dave, if you want to see an example of a constructive and valuable online public discussion, look at the archives of the Nov. 1994 NTIA online discussion about the future of the NSFNET. We have two chapters about it in our book, chapters 11 "The NTIA Conference on the Future of the Net: Creating a Prototype for a Democratic Decison-Making Process" and chpter 14 "The Net and the Future of Politics: The Ascendancy of the Commons". And also take a look at the NTIA archives which should also be online. This was an example of a constructive and valuable online discussion on important issues of public policy. (The problem was the NTIA never utilized any of the lessons from the discussion or learned anything from the discussion.) But the discussion showed that it is indeed possible to involved a number of online users in important issues by utilizing online processes. The NTIA ignored what folks said at the online conference and the result is that the concern that everyone in the U.S. have access to the Internet, something that required keeping government in the backbone operation, has not happened, and is unlikely to happen for a very long time in the U.S. given market dysfunction and the high cost of access for many people. Privatizing these public resources ends up in costing the public far more, and the social obligation of making public resources available to all, is lost sight of. This is an important set of issues so it is good we are making the effort to have open discussion on them. Ronda Dave promised a response as follows on Nov. 17Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu> wrote:Ronda, since I am not, for some reason, able to get in the ifwp list, please forward this.I for one have NO idea what the US Government is trying to do. It was, in my opinion, a great misfortune when they weighted in the way they did. Their competitive solicitation which established the semi monopoly of NSI started the problem. It was competitive but there was no effective mechanism to allow input from the community on the terms and conditions and it caused the same problems that the agreement with ANS did many years earlier. Then the Green paper which established the USG role in the net governance mechanism ended damaging , in my opinion, the consensus mechanism that existed in the community and to almost quote Crocker -- we will suffer from years from that.Your notes are substantial in length and content and I don;t want to shortcut my responses so I will promise this weekend to have at itDave
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