Oki all, For those of you in the Lower-48, plus Alaska and Hawai'i, I sent this to my local ISP association. You can ignore it, ridicule it, or adapt it to your state and pretend to have written it. I don't mind either way. If you do want to try it chez vous, and you want my help (or hinderence, depending on perspective) drop me a line. Eric ------- Forwarded Message Message-Id: <200503041805.j24I5kxZ015316@nic-naa.net> To: maineisp@lbs.midcoast.com Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:05:46 -0500 From: Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <brunner@nic-naa.net> X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at midcoast.com Subject: [Maineisp] DoC opens .us to spam, forward from WiReD/NANOG, and some commentary X-BeenThere: maineisp@lbs.midcoast.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Maine ISP Association <maineisp.lbs.midcoast.com> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lbs.midcoast.com/mailman/listinfo/maineisp>, <mailto:maineisp-request@lbs.midcoast.com?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://lbs.midcoast.com/pipermail/maineisp> List-Post: <mailto:maineisp@lbs.midcoast.com> List-Help: <mailto:maineisp-request@lbs.midcoast.com?subject=help> List-Subscribe: <http://lbs.midcoast.com/mailman/listinfo/maineisp>, <mailto:maineisp-request@lbs.midcoast.com?subject=subscribe> Sender: maineisp-bounces@lbs.midcoast.com Errors-To: maineisp-bounces@lbs.midcoast.com X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at midcoast.com Folks, By way of background, this is part of the "whois foodfight" in the policy area of ICANN and the DNS. The working assumption is that every domain is either of interest to an intellectual property owner (infringement) or to a law enforcement officer (pedi-porn), and vastly lower down the rational food chain that every domain is used in some form of UCE scheme (spam). These are all deeply problematic assumptions, but that hasn't made any impression on the actors at ICANN, or the less than best-and-brightest at the DOC/NTIA which owns .us. I wrote the proposal for NeuStar to operate .us in 2001, which the DOC/NTIA selected, so I'm modestly clueful on the operational and policy issues. What this means here in Maine is that no one can now register domain names of the form: "michal-heath-is-a-big-fat-idiot.me.us" or "the-monopoly-ilec-blows-chunks.me.us" or "workarounds-for-nannyware-pending-constituional-challenge.me.us" without providing the semblence of a personal (or corporate) identifier, consisting of a personal (or corporate) name, and contact information, as well as an email address which is not that of a 3rd-party proxy such as attornies and registered agents, which will be accessible to anyone who wants to "look behind the veil", without restriction. I can't fix the retardation at ICANN or the DOC/NTIA, but I can ask you all to think about whether you want the Maine Legis to remain silent on the sanity of assuming that every domain name registrant is infringing on a trademark, or a publishing pedophile, or otherwise engaging in some conduct that necessitates the registrant providing an address for legal service, their identity, and expose a mail address (your product) to the address harvesters for resale to spam-based marketing operations (your problem). If you haven't passed out already from my boring prose, and you'll do me the kindness of reading another paragraph, where this is heading is moving the policy oversight for me.us, that is, the marketing of "Maine" as a state on the internet from the DoC/NTIA to Maine, and the operations for me.us from Virginia to Maine. Then we can use John Baldacci or Steve Rowe, who presumably couldn't be bothered who thinks Michael Heath is a big fat idiot, or has unflattering things to write about Verizon or TimeWarner, or discusses breast feeding, to "proxy" registrations, preserving free political and commercial speech, until due cause for "lifting the veil" is argued, and at some non-trivial standard of proof. Plus we innoculate our local policy makers from a highly contagious case of bird brain flu on issues like spam, privacy and jurisdiction. Thanks for your patience, really. Eric - ------- Forwarded Message
From WiReD:
"The U.S. Commerce Department has ordered companies that administer internet addresses to stop allowing customers to register .us domain names anonymously using proxy services." "The move does not affect owners of .com and .net domains. But it means website owners with .us domains will no longer be able to shield their name and contact information from public eyes." http://wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66787,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 - - - ferg - ------- End of Forwarded Message _______________________________________________ Maineisp mailing list Maineisp@lbs.midcoast.com http://lbs.midcoast.com/mailman/listinfo/maineisp ------- End of Forwarded Message