IP: Signapore Diary #2 -- ICANN etc

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

I am now back from Singapore. As usual the trip back was deadening. Long and with three bad hours in Tokyo jammed into 
the Red Carpet Club (the revenge of JAL for UA competing with them).

I spent much of the time in Singapore attending the Apricot and ICANN meetings and hall talk, I also went to Internet 
World Asia which was small and lean. Nothing at all interesting.

I gave the main Keynote right at the beginning of the Apricot Conference and right before the ICANN   Open meeting. It 
was recorded by Harvard Beckman Center and I will ask them where it is stored (also the ICANN part)  My talk had three 
parts: 

Part one talked about ICANN.  I strongly supported the need for the success of the ICANN experiment offering as the 
only alternative I could see Adult Supervision -- namely government control. I also noted that it was Jon Postel's last 
activity and his memory deserved a serious try at making it work. Since I decided what to say after a long and 
difficult set of arguments with myself, I suggest you hear yourself the tone and contents. 

All throughout the meeting I pleaded with the Board members and others for openness.  I suggested to various Board 
members an idea I like -- namely  that there be at all Board meetings a Public Observer. The PO would observe the 
activities and would not be an active participant but rather a witness for the proper process. The PO would offer 
comments to the Board in writing when the proces went wrong and would have the right to go public if correction was not 
made. I envision a panel of say three to minimize the load. I would rather the meetings be completely open but this 
actually might be better in the short run.

One serious worry  I had after several days was that we might replace one "monopoly " with two or three - NSI, Core .. 
I heard very little real talk about open competition -- just established players fighting for position and profits -- 
properly stated in politically correct  terms. I heard endless talk about the technical difficulties of open 
competition and suggested to several they start reading the literature in theVery Large Distributed Database area 
rather than either re-inventing it or claiming it cannot be done.

The rest of my keynote was about Optical networks and the IT2 US initiative. 

I attended the Membership Committee meeting  (dull) and heard reports from the Government Committee where Country 
"representatives" sat with name and country plaques in front of them -- just like the UN. The report said there was 
widespread national support stated for ICANN. Personally I think the attendees were a bit junior to really represent 
their countries enduing support  but the heart was there.

Rest of my stay had me visiting IBM Emerging Technology Group and meeting with several other folk.  Met with Ivan Tam 
and Meng Wong -- both "former" students.

All in all a good trip.

We are now in LA for a week and last night GG and I visited Mrs Postel and Mort Postel and his family. It was a 
wonderful evening with tears and joy. I had forgotten one thing. It was 25 years ago that Jon Postel submitted his PhD 
thesis. That Thesis was seminal in establishing the field of Protocol Validation.  I will try to get it on line. Still 
worth reading.

More latter

Dave