evaluation of the IWG on DNS
I normally don't post any material from my newsletter to NANOG, but I have just had a strong "nudge" from a list member regarding the December issue that I published tonight. Here is the portion of my Exec. Summary from a LONG article on Internet Governace issues. The Governance Wars Continue, pp. 13 - 22 Motivated by an abiding hatred of Network Solutions' "monopoly" the federal Interagency Working Group on DNS (IWG) ironically adopted, at the end of the summer, an attitude that since the ISOC CORE effect in Geneva was the only other game in town, it should have the US government embrace the very folk that the IWG had been set up in fear of. We have been told that the idea of assistance in the creation of the database software needed by CORE has been tried out in negotiations for changes that would make the CORE Swiss cartel more 'democratic'. Having been warned that Brian Kahin was holding behind the scenes discussions with IBM, AT&T and Oracle on the question of the data base software and that Becky Burr, Kahin's partner at NTIA, was testing the waters for the idea that a competition for software design be held, we submitted a FOIA to OSTP on October 7 seeking all relevant data to the IBM, Oracle and AT&T discussions. On the 27th were were told that more time would be need because of the "substantial interest in the determination of our request." When on Friday November 14 no documents had been delivered, we complained and were told that the reason was because they involved coordination with the FCC since they mentioned Mike Nelson, an ex OSTP employee. However by the afternoon the story changed to merely that there were too many and they were waiting to send them all. During the week that began on November 10th, the working group was making its own leaks that it would have its findings released - first by the 14 and then by the 17th. We complained in a public appeal to Ira Magaziner on the 12 and on the 13th received a phone call in which he assured us for attribution that no policy would be made for a number of weeks yet and perhaps even for several months. On the basis of our conversation we believe that 1. he is the 'boss' of the IWG and will prevent Burr and Kahin from doing an end run around him in their desire to kill the NSI monopoly. 2. That he has a sincere and humble recognition that he simply doesnUt understand the matter well enough yet to reach the right decision. We are encouraged to hear that he will be doing heavy duty fact finding of his own. Coming to understand much better the reasons for Tony RutkowskiUs dislike of the ITU, after the Secretary General admitted that he would like to have the ITU take over Internet governance, we believe that it is critical for Magaziner to understand that the Internet's creative vitality comes from Einar Stefferud calls its self-organizing 'bounded chaos'. Just as no one entity can control the global economy so no single entity can control the Internet. Stef has a profound understanding of these issues and the final third of our article is a compendium of his recent writings on the subject plus a concluding section that he wrote on November 15 in response to our findings about the working group activities. Here he states that Mr. Magziner must realize that there is no crisis; and that no new top level domains should be added to the root servers until all parties have joined into a confederation using IETF processes to develop their own governance plan. He concludes by pointing out that the ultimate recourse lies in the power of thousands of DNS administrators world wide to point to the root machines that offer the best service to the network. ************************************************************************ The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/ Internet: cook@cookreport.com New Special Report: Internet Governance at the Crossroads ($175) http://cookreport.com/inetgov.shtml ************************************************************************
The part of the COOK article on IWG that I liked best was not included in the snippet Gordon just posted. At the risk of violating the COOK report license by sending excerpts of the material, I'll quote it here: On a level apparently equal to Burr we have Brian Kahin, the intellectual property attorney from the Kennedy School at Harvard. Unfortunately we have yet to hear any one we respect express anything but dismay that Brian was placed in this position and we have yet to hear a kind word from anyone about his competence. I'd like to go on for about three kilobytes right here about the past crimes against net.humanity perpetrated by Mr. Kahin, but if I did that Randy would try to CONFIG NET the whole message into his IOS box.
Unfortunately, Gordon seems intent on spreading his views on this topic to one an all venues, no matter the difficulties with his assessment. To whit: At 11:50 PM 11/17/97 -0500, Gordon Cook wrote:
end of the summer, an attitude that since the ISOC CORE effect in Geneva
One problem is this lovely focus on Geneva, ignoring the rather considerable oversight functions and constraints provided by the POC which is not based anywhere and has global participation, with even more broad review by the supporting signatories to the gTLD MoU. Rather, it is more convenient to paint CORE as part of ISOC which, of course, it is not. Even more interesting is the view that Swiss law is somehow an essential problem with the gTLD MoU structure.
We have been told that the idea of assistance in the creation of the database software needed by CORE has been tried out in negotiations for changes that would make the CORE Swiss cartel more 'democratic'. Having
An idea has been tried out? What does this mean? For all this focus on US government folks, the problem here is that the work being done by CORE is being done by CORE and Emergent, with the relevant required assistance from the Policy Oversight Committee, and by no one else. Others may hold whatever discussions they want but it's difficult to understand why they are important. And about the inflammatory, but incorrect, term cartel. One tires of its continued use as an effort to wave red flags at everybody. My dictionary says a cartel controls production, pricing, and marketing. One could argue that the gTLD MoU does control production, in the sense of regulating the creation of one class of new TLDs, but it does not control pricing or marketing. Criticisms about the control of available gTLDs ignore legitimate questions about DNS scaling.
believe that 1. he is the 'boss' of the IWG and will prevent Burr and Kahin from doing an end run around him in their desire to kill the NSI
This I like a lot. The idea that they would do an end run around Magaziner. You'd have to have met these folks to realize how humorous that idea is. For starters, Magaziner explicitly directed Burr to to be the point of contact on this topic.
of the ITU, after the Secretary General admitted that he would like to have the ITU take over Internet governance, we believe that it is critical
The SG admitted no such thing. He used a phrase along the lines of "greater role in the Internet". It takes a special degree of paranoia to translate that into "take over Internet governance". But what the heck, the latter makes more exciting copy.
control the Internet. Stef has a profound understanding of these issues ... states that Mr. Magziner must realize that there is no crisis; and that no
It's always interesting to see those who are uninvolved in operations make such firm assessments about operational requirements. This makes it so much easier to ignore the 3 1/2 year history to this topic and the fact that the DNS operations community considered this a crisis ONE YEAR AGO.
new top level domains should be added to the root servers until all
I'm sure that governments and organizations outside of the US will be interested in seeing the United States government take such proprietary (or paternalistic) actions towards an activity which is attempting to facilitate entrepreneurial efforts for new registrars and provide substantially better competitive benefits for consumers.
parties have joined into a confederation using IETF processes to develop their own governance plan. He concludes by pointing out that the ultimate
That's exactly what the gTLD MoU represents. It was designed quite carefully to reflect IETF-like processes. But where the IETF process fails, as do all others, is with those who are constantly declaring that a topic needs further study. I guess 3 1/2 years is not enough. d/ -------------------- Dave Crocker +1 408 246 8253 Brandenburg Consulting fax: +1 408 249 6205 675 Spruce Dr. dcrocker@brandenburg.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA http://www.brandenburg.com Internet Mail Consortium info@imc.org, http://www.imc.org
participants (3)
-
Dave Crocker -
Gordon Cook -
Paul A Vixie