On Monday, November 18, 1996 4:14 PM, Michael Dillon[SMTP:michael@memra.com] wrote: @ On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, Jim Fleming wrote: @ @ > @ relationships with key suppliers and customers. The Internic IP registry @ > @ is a key supplier for any large ISP and that means if they have not @ > @ developped a relationship with the IP registry people during their early @ > @ days, they will run into this sort of problem when they need the IP @ > @ registry's help. @ @ > Hmmm...develop a relationship...are people getting married ? @ @ Yes. In order to succeed in business you must develop relationships with @ key suppliers that are much like marriage relationships. @ @ > or just trying to get a government clerk to assign some numbers ? @ @ Government clerks are not involved here. @ Michael, Once again, I do not think that you have your InterNIC facts straight. While I understand that you might like to "spin" things up there in Canada so that Internet users think that there is no U.S. Government involvement in the Internet, the facts speak otherwise. Also, suggesting that people hire a consultant (as opposed to an attorney) to help them cut through the Internet red tape, gives the impression that these are technical problems. This is misleading and will not help people acheive their goal. JF @@@@@@ The InterNIC is an abstract entity of the National Science Foundation (NSF) which is funded by the United States Government. (Note the .GOV top level domain below as a clue). The InterNIC was originally composed of THREE contractors. General Atomics - Information Services AT&T - Data Base Services Network Solutions, Inc. - Registration Services General Atomics was removed by the NSF after a panel of experts reviewed their performance. AT&T and NSI remain. For some reason the "spin doctors" keep trying to make people think that NSI and the InterNIC are one and the same. This is not the case. The person most responsible for the InterNIC and all of its operations is Dr. George Strawn of the U.S Government funded, National Science Foundation. Dr. Strawn was recently appointed to the IAHC <http://www.iahc.org> and also recently reported to the Federal Networking Council Advisory Committee (FNCAC) on the status of registries, etc. <http://www.fnc.gov> The FNCAC advised the NSF to get out of the registry business, but that is not going to happen very quickly. For one reason, there are tens of millions of dollars at stake, which are supposed to be spent on Internet infrastructure. Someone has to account for all of that money and make sure that it is properly managed. The NSF can not walk away from that "government" responsibility. @@@@ http://www.cise.nsf.gov/ncri/Georgehome.html Dr. George Strawn Division Director, Division of Networking and Communication Research and Infrastructure National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Room 1175 Arlington, VA 22230 Phone: (703) 306-1950 Fax: (703) 306-0621 Email: gstrawn@nsf.gov @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ In my opinion, anyone that can not get "customer" satisfaction from the InterNIC should contact Dr. Strawn. He and his staff are responsible for those operations and contracts. If you still can not get satisfaction, you should check out the Office of Inspector General of the National Science Foundation. Unlike the Internet Government being formed by the various I* organizations, the U.S. Government has already worked through many of the problems that can arise when a few people make arbitrary decisions about huge sums of money or valuable resources. The OIG provides an appeals body and a direct link to the U.S. Congress. @@@@@@@ http://www.nsf.gov/oig/oig.htm Office of Inspector General On February 10, 1989, the National Science Board established NSF's Office of Inspector General (OIG) in compliance with the Inspector General Act Amendments of 1988 (Public Law 100-504). OIG recommends policies to: promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in administering NSF programs and operations; prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in NSF programs and operations; and prevent, detect, and handle cases involving misconduct in science. OIG is headed by the Inspector General (IG), who reports directly to the NSB and Congress. The IG is independent and may not be prevented from carrying out any audit or investigation or issuing any report. Under the law, the IG has the authority and responsibility to conduct audits and investigations involving any NSF proposal, award, program, function, system, or operation. In support of these responsibilities, OIG has statutory authority to subpoena or otherwise obtain all records, files, reports, documents, or any materials needed to perform audits and investigations. If you need further information or want to discuss confidentially any allegation or suspicion of misconduct in science, fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement, please contact the appropriate Assistant Inspector General or the Counsel to the Inspector General. Office of Audit (703) 306-2001 Investigations (703) 306-2004 Oversight Activities (703) 306-2006 Legal Issues (703) 306-2100 Hotline (703) 306-2004 Electronic Mail Hotline oig@nsf.gov @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ The above "government" agencies can be very helpful in obtaining the Internet resources that you need allocated from the InterNIC. Any U.S. citizen or company that does not take advantage of these agencies is wasting their tax dollars (and their time). U.S. taxpayers are funding the above agencies and the employees of those agencies, and their contractors, should treat the taxpayers as customers. It has been my experience that the NSF clearly understands this "relationship" agreement and can make things happen very quickly at the InterNIC. -- Jim Fleming UNETY Systems, Inc. Naperville, IL e-mail: JimFleming@unety.net JimFleming@unety.net.s0.g0 (EDNS/IPv8)