RE: Statements against new.net?

[Vadim Antonov <avg () kotovnik com>]

On Wed, 14 Mar 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote:

> Two points, ICQ has an address manager add-on and my contact manager makes
> it so I don't have to memorize phone numbers. 

And so does any web browser and even all popular e-mail software.  The
point is: you don't _remember_ e-mail addresses with their FQDNs, you look
them up in the address book.

> Long-term human memory
> is much better at names than numbers and is MUCH better at general class
> names than specific identifiers.

Long-term memory is _much_ better remembering gestalts than precise ASCII
strings.  I'm exchanging e-mail with my colleague nearly every day, but
i can't remember what exactly variant of spelling is used for his name
(there's at least sixteen ways to spell his name in English, each as good
as any other :).

> It has to do with refresh rates, just like DRAM.

It has to do with the way the redundancy is handled in the brain.
Long-term potentiation is not a terribly reliable process.

> Okay, so you would propose yet another layer of virtualization? Let us count
> the layers we have already;
>
> 1) Layer 2 to IP, used by switches and the like. Services are divorced from
> IP addrs. Where you route is not where you think you are routing.
> 2) NAT, Site virtualization. You could renumber the underlayment of the
> NAT'd space and the outside world will never know ...
> 3) Straight IP virtualization, used by resonate and F5, as well as local
> directors, the answering host need never be the same host twice.
> 4) DNS, separates you from the IP addr layer altogether.

Actually i do not propose any new layers.  The "layer" in question exists
already, in form of address books, hyperlinks and search engines.

> If you put design dates on each of those you will probably find that they
> are pretty much developed in the order I listed. Each case was to implement
> a technical solution to a policy issue, in a futile attempt to build
> technical barricades between the technologist and the politicians. Give it
> up, you will be assimilated. You have been in retreat for years. You just
> didn't realize it. 

Actally i am not in retreat. I just have a funny habit of doing different
things, seeing new things and trying to know what other people are
thinking.

What i learned so far - if technology aims to change human nature, it
fails.  It is very naive to assume that brotherhood of technologists will
stay cooperative when real money gets in.  I do not like it any more than
any other techie, but let's face reality.  The control of domain name
space is passing from technologists to lawyers and politicos.

> Speaking of which, your other
> point about ASCII names is also moot, with iDNS.

iDNS is a crock.  A great way to subvert SSL (well, you rely on eyeball
recognition of URL; now, with iDNS you may have lots of ways to create
identically-looking but _different_ URLs).  Though, admittedly, the fault
is not in the iDNS idea itself, but in the Unicode.  And, yes, you cannot
even say if two domain names are the same if one is upper-case, and
another lower-case - because conversion depends on language.  Next bright
idea, please? :)
 
> The real answer was to stop the incursion of trademark crowd into the DNS.
> You can thank Dave Crocker, Kent Crispin, and their IAHC for that smooth
> move. 

You can't stop them.  They are the guys who are making laws.  The only way
to actually stop them is to organize revolution.  Can i opt out? :)

> Now if you think that they'd stop just because you have retreated
> behind yet another layer of abstraction, you are indeed naieve. They
> will come and hunt you out.

What i am proposing is to remove the contention point. When "names" do not
have intrinsic value, nobody'll fight over them.  Do you see many scandals
around people who own cool IP addresses? :)  Now, the lawers will keep
hunting trademark violators - but with nothing as tangible as single name,
they will have to prove the intent to defraud;  for now courts think that
just acquiring a well-known brand name (thus depriving "rightful" owner of
its use) is an ample proof of such intent.

> The inclusive root zone efforts, like that of the ORSC and PacRoot, are
> actually trying to keep the root intact. We saw the probability of outfits
> like new.net, years ago. We also recognised what it meant. 

It means that the ICANN soapbox is only fine because Microsoft has bigger
fish to catch.  Now imagine they ship an OS with a resolver with
"additional" functionality - conviniently pointing to _their_ registry if
"public" root didn't yield the result. You cannot charge them with unfair
competition because this is just an additional convinience to their
customers, and besides they already do similar things with keyword search
and messaging. If i understand correctly, no O.S. vendor has a contract
with ICANN specifically prohibiting expansion of search capabilities. I
think the present new.net scandal is bound to attract their attention.

> We spoke the warnings, we spoke them again at the Nov00 ICANN meeting
> in MDR. However, what really triggered the race was when the ICANN BoD
> assigned the BIZ TLD, knowing full well that the Atlantic Root had
> been registering domains there for years. That told the new.net folks
> that it is okay to create conflicting delegations. After all, the
> ICANN is doing it ... why can't they? There is no law that regulates
> that.

Because the current DNS has a single contention point, it is very
vulnerable.  It can be very easily taken over by a large corporate entity.
 
> There's a lot of other stuff behind that, but, I think that you get the
> point.

The Internet is successful precisely because it is decentralized.  There
is absolutely no reason to make the few "natural" central points
vulnerable by having them to dispense what is considered intrinsically
valuable property. (Thanks God, NAT made IP address allocations somewhat
less critical).

And if you think .COM fight is nasty... in other places conflicts like
that are sometimes resolved by means of sending goons with guns.  I
personally was threatened over a domain name dispute, because of my
affiliation with one popular community resource. Fortunately, that time
that was merely a bluff.

--vadim