I'm going to play journalist for a while and make some calls.
Ok, first part of my mission is a success. I spoke with a Jim Hock from Bite Communications (Verisign's PR firm), very nice conversation, started out with Verisign's concerns, then we spoke a little bit on the issues people have brought up here. He will be comminicating with me over the next week or so, as well as putting me in touch with some technical people there. So here is where I need your guys help. Put together a list of questions, comments, etc that you feel are appropriate (about the general issues of verisign, its implementation of sitefinder, its handling of the root servers, and other things of importance) in an e-mail to me and send it off. I'll compile a list of questions and pose them to the people I talk to. Don't worry, unless you ask me to, I won't mention who these questions are from. I'm not siding with Verisign on this issue - not by far. But one thing that I discussed with my admins today was the need for better communication between Verisign and the tech community. Thus, I'm going to put aside my misgivings about the past with them and try to hopefully open a worthwhile dialog between everyone who wants to be heard. Verisign has admitted they made mistakes in their handling of the issue, and it sounds like they want to try to do things right this time. ICANN has a job to do, and I'm sure they will do the right thing, but there is a rift forming between the community and Verisign, and thats not going to help the situation at all. You all may not like me, or agree with me, but this is hopefully an oppertunity where you can get some of your voices heard outside of an official process like the SECSAC, and that might result in a better understanding on both sides. I will of course keep everyone who wants to know up on how things are going and what I talk about with them, and you are all welcome to comment to me about anything. The worst that can happen is that we get nowhere with talking and everyone is still divied with nothing accomplished. But, heres to hoping that something good might come out of this. -------------------------- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.sosdg.org ICQ: 8077511