FC: More on .union top level domain and SEC Internet monitoring

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[I am in Toronto for CFP this week. --Declan]


> Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 18:46:37 -0700
> To: declan () well com, politech () vorlon mit edu
> From: Lizard <lizard () mrlizard com>
> Subject: Re: FC: Jamie Love on .union organizing meeting last week
>
> Ooo! I want to register holy.union and then sell it to some company 
> selling bridal supplies!
>
> (Am I the only one who feels that forcing the Internet to set aside a 
> domain which you need 'permission' to register under is a bit scary? The 
> comment that 'the AFLCIO could prevent people' from registering is rather 
> disturbing...contrary to the bizaare fantasy world Mr. Love lives in, 
> unions today aren't about helping poor oppressed workers fight the evil 
> robber barons, they're about giving large campaign contributions in 
> exchange for kickbacks and contracts.)
>
> He is correct about one thing, though -- the system can handle a lot more 
> TLDs, and it should start doing so. There's no real need for a central 
> repository -- all DNS does is match an IP number (the only thing on the 
> net which truly must be unique) to a convenient 'handle'. Therefore, 
> ANYONE can, in theory, provide a lookup, and it would probably be best to 
> dump ICANN entirely and turn the entire process of linking names to 
> numbers over to the unregulated market.
>
> Glass of water for Mr. Love!


> Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 15:02:57 -0400 (EDT)
> To: declan () well com, love () cptech org
> Subject: Re: .union domain
> From: kragen () pobox com (Kragen Sitaker)
>
> Jamie Love writes:
> > The first would be to provide a way to indicate if a domain was
> > controlled by a bona fide union, just like .gov or .edu does for the
> > government or real higher degree granting educational institutions.
>
> You mean, like gop.gov, a political party, and aa.edu, a high school?
>
> ICANN, registrars, and existing unions should not be in the business of
> deciding who is and is not a bona fide union, much less which union
> gets control of the putative nike.union and when it changes hands.  It
> is likely that their decisions will be inconsistent, as in my examples
> above, and it is dangerous that they will be capricious.
>
> ICANN is in the business of ANNs, assigned names and numbers.  The
> sole virtue of ANNs lies in their stability --- they are not at the
> mercy of day-to-day or year-to-year fluctuations in network
> infrastructure, organizational structure, or --- until recently ---
> political climate.  They make it possible to build networks of
> interlinked people and information that continue to work in the face of
> change.
>
> This is why aa.edu still has its domain --- this was IANA's basic
> operating principle.  Domains are not about policy; they are about
> long-term naming.
>
> Injecting political policy into domain-name discussions ensures that
> domain names will be at the mercy of political policy, which changes
> with the wind.  The inevitable result will be the undermining of the
> grassroots Internet and Web; the only entities you'll be able to count
> on finding in ten years will be IBM, Microsoft, and the US Government.
>
> Deciding who is and who is not a legitimate labor union is a very
> difficult task.  Are the Teamsters?  Remember when they "represented"
> the grape pickers in California, just before the grape boycott?  Was
> Solidarity a legitimate labor union in Poland in 1985?
>
> I know that a century ago, here in the USA, working-class unions were
> disdained by the craft unions, and immigrant-accepting unions were
> vilified by the chauvinistic more-mainstream immigrant-barring unions
> of the day.  Had there been a .union TLD then, with admission
> controlled by the mainstream unions, the AFL and the CIO would probably
> not have been able to get .union SLDs.  Perhaps that would have killed
> them.
>
> I think the labor movement in the US is a little more unified today,
> but I suspect that struggles like these are not altogether over.
>
> --
> <kragen () pobox com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
> The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
> <URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
> The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)


> From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt () hotmail com>
> To: declan () well com
> Subject: Re: FC: SEC is creating Net-surveillance system, and a response
> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 17:44:38 PST
>
> so, every government agency imaginable is going to create redundant giant 
> electronic databases of everything every citizen has ever said in printed 
> form that might somehow be relevant to a future prosecution?
>
> and I thought the FBI's file keeping habits under J. Edgar Hoover were bad
>
> maybe we should just have the government mandate that every email and news 
> client and forum software program cc "bigass badly designed bureaucrat 
> database () mis governmentagency gov"?!? that would certainly make their 
> lives easier and be really exciting
>
> i say, that we organize a counter demonstration, and deluge the SEC and 
> other agencies with 1,000,000 FOIA requests in response, demanding to know 
> what information they have on file about us, and the opportunity to correct it
>
> thomas



> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 08:28:25 -0800
> From: Jason Lindquist <jlindqui () babylon5 figure1 net>
> To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> Subject: Re: FC: SEC is creating Net-surveillance system, and a response
> Reply-To: Jason Lindquist <linky () see figure1 net>
> X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i
> X-Examined-For-Subversive-Content-By: Night Watch <nightwatch () earthforce int>
> Organization: SETEC Astronomy
> X-URI: <URL:http://web.figure1.net/~jlindqui/>
> X-Also-By-Jon-Katz: The Music Industry, Kids and Oppression
>
> In our last episode, Declan McCullagh expounded:
> [Quoting a letter by Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA)]
>
> > To use an analogy based on current practices, the fact that telephones may
> > be used to commit fraud does not entitle the FCC, the FBI, or the SEC to
> > engage in wholesale monitoring of all telephone conversations.
>
> This isn't a very good analogy.  Tapping a telephone is eavesdropping
> on a point-to-point communication whose participants have a reasonable
> expectation of privacy.  Sifting web sites and newsgroups is examining
> public speech.  There's no expectation of privacy--indeed, the whole
> purpose is to speak to whoever wishes to listen, isn't it?.  I fail to
> see how this proposal is any different from sifting dead-tree open
> literature for insider tips and fraud.
>
> Now, if the SEC were proposing intercepting private e-mail, *then*
> we'd have problems...
>
> --
> Jason Lindquist  <*>   "Peter, you're twelve years old.  I'm ten.  They
> linky () see figure1 net   have a word for people our age.  They call us
> KB9LCL                  children and they treat us like mice."
>                          -- Valentine Wiggin, _Ender's Game_ (Orson Scott 
> Card)

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