FC: John Gilmore on ICANN, Net-stability, and response to terrorism

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

*********

To: declan () well com, gnu () toad com
Subject: Re: FC: Richard Forno on ICANN and Net-stability against terrorists
In-reply-to: <5.0.2.1.0.20010928135313.02283030 () mail well com>
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 21:10:05 -0700
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>

I agree wholeheartedly with Richard Forno; ICANN is only using 9/11 as
an excuse for delaying on its REAL work, which is to create real
competition and protect free expression in the domain name space.  But
since it's structured to be dominated by people who profit from the
lack of real competition, and who use trademark claims to censor free
expression, any excuse for further delay will do.

ICANN's major role in DNS stability and robustness has been to make
the DNS *less* robust.  It protected NSI's monopoly on top-level
domains, thus centralizing the vast majority of domain names into the
facilities of a single self-interested organization.  The single best
thing ICANN could do for DNS stability would be to produce a real
competitive market in top-level domains.  This would spread domain
service sites all over the world, into dozens or scores of independent
organizations, vastly reducing the risk from NSI's central points of
failure.  But this is exactly the action that ICANN has been refusing
to take since it was created.  And now it is saying that it must put
off this work yet again, in order to examine "Internet stability".
That statement is best interpreted as self-serving garbage.

The domain name system was quite robust during the events of 9/11.
Stability and robusness have been part of the DNS since long before
ICANN existed, and the independent root operators have been at the
heart of creating and executing on this robustness.  (See, for
example, RFC 2010, "Operational Criteria for Root Name Servers",
at http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2010.txt).

(ICANN has no larger role in Internet security or stability -- nor
should it.  Its mandate is limited to administration of names and
numbers.)

I do take exception to Forno's suggestion that the root servers be
confiscated by the US Government.  The existence of independent and
worldwide root server operators has been a good check on the power of
all the overblown parties in the domain name policy debates -- NSI,
the US Government, AND ICANN.  ICANN has been trying to centralize
its control over these operators by trying to force them to sign
contracts.  They should refuse, and ICANN should go back to its real
work of creating a free and competitive market in domain names.

        John Gilmore




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