Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1143
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST          Saturday, April 27 2002          Volume 01 : Number 1143

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 14:43:35 +0200
From: Jefsey Morfin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] The NC & ICANN Reform

Dear Danny,
the strategy you describe is always the same.
1. Take advantage from a problem,
2. propose a wrong solution yet not too far to your own agenda,
3. make the people discussing how to better the wrong solution (hardly 
feasible so you are OK they will talk but nothing result from it),
4. propose many fora open to all so nothing remains and no one knows what 
the others think;
5. claim that votes are OK when you can manipulate them otherwise say that 
they will be hijacked,
6. accept the pldeges and efforts of the most motivated in making them 
believe they can influence you so they have not the time and the money to 
influence those who could really influence you,
7. and proceed with you real agenda hidden under the screen of smoke of the 
wrong solution.

BTW who does pay jsims' fees when he attends an NC metting, ICANN or DNSO.?
jfc

On 19:31 25/04/02, [email-masked] said:
>Pretty much as expected, the Names Council is marching to the beat of
>Stuart's drum.
>
>The Lynn plan called for the establishment of a Generic TLD Names Policy
>Council, as well as a Geographic TLD Names Policy Council.  The Names Council
>is now recommending creating a new advisory body for gTLDs, and creating a
>new advisory body for the ccTLDs.
>
>To support the activities of these groups, the Names Council has recommended
>that ICANN's policy advisory bodies should be made more effective by the
>provision of full-time staff to support all aspects of policy.  This matches
>the language in the Lynn plan that states:  <<In order for them to be most
>effective, each of these Councils should be supported by the appropriate
>staff.>>  As ICANN already provides plenty of staff support to the
>registrars, gTLDs, ccTLDs, and plans on hiring even more staff support for
>these folks, this NC recommendation adds little to the equation (other than
>an endorsement of Stuart's plan and expansive budget which, of course, makes
>no provision for salaried staff support to the At-Large).
>
>By stating that ICANN policy advisory bodies should formulate policy
>recommendations based on a clear, bottom-up, consensus process of all
>stakeholders that should be managed by the ICANN Board, the NC is effectively
>declaring the NC and the DNSO defunct (as the NC was formerly responsible for
>the management of the consensus building process) and this function has now
>been elevated upward to the Board level.
>
>The NC Chair is recommending that these advisory bodies should elect or
>select a selection of Board members, and this is in keeping with Stuart's
>plan that the Chairs or designees of these Policy Councils select some of the
>five Ex Officio Trustees.
>
>By proposing that the Board should be set at a size that balances two goals -
>large enough to be representative, small enough to be functional, the NC
>Chair is making yet another typically vague recommendation that will allow
>Stuart's plan for a 15-member Board of Trustees to go unchallenged.
>
>Stuart Lynn has argued that "with a properly funded and independent Ombudsman
>in place, there is neither a need or justification for some independent
>review mechanism process that creates a "super-Board" for some purposes."
>The NC Chair is putting forward the following recommendation which comes
>straight from Marilyn Cade's BC position paper: <<Create a committee for
>independent review to over see the work of a professional ombudsman. The
>committee could comprise a designee of the GAC, a designee of the IAB, past
>board members, and an ombudsman.>>  Why anyone would have a committee that
>includes an ombudsman to oversee the work of an ombudsman is beyond me, but
>it points to the fact that the NC Chair will advocate for creating an
>Ombudsman position.  Once such a position is created, Stuart, of course will
>continue to see no justification for some independent review mechanism
>process, and all checks and balances will go right out the window (which is
>perfectly in keeping with Stuart's plan).
>
>Judging from the discussion in yesterday's NC teleconference with Joe Sims,
>Stuart Lynn, and Alejandro Pisanty, the ICANN Staff and the Board Committee
>on Evolution and Reform remain intent on pursuing Stuart's plan (no big
>surprise there) as indicated by the discussion on the "forums" that Stuart
>proposed:
>
>apisanty: looking at advantages of forum approach; the forum approach
>definitely seems to be a very good.
>slynn: forums should be much more flexible.
>jsims: notion is that today we have a finite and fixed number of
>constituencies. under forum approach no fixed number of fora.
>apisanty: advantages: you get to hear different voices. if you don't read the
>constituency list, you don't see all the valuable points. e.g. a north
>american business forum, e.g. a geographically diverse small business forum.
>still mechanics to work out.
>jsims: forums would provide input to policy councils in stuart lynn proposal.
>
>Members of the NC quickly moved into lock-step mode with their support of
>this portion of Stuart's plan as well:
>
>mcade: forums feeding into policy-development process is fine, but structure
>must be defined.
>tholmes: agree that structure must be defined.
>btonkin: support general dynamic concept
>hfeld: need for formal structure.
>
>All that really remains is for the majority of the Council to come on board
>with regard to the Nominating Committee proposed by Stuart... and as expected
>Stuart had some additional comments on that topic:
>
>slynn: nominating committee intended to focus on problem that we want to make
>sure that icann is seen as effective and credible organization. nominating
>committee is one way of dealing with this; many have pointed to the problem
>of
>accountability of the nominating committee, can be improved.
>
>No one argued this point (even though the ISPCP has gone on record against
>this concept:  <<The ISPCP is opposed to the introduction of a Nominating
>Committee and questions whether such a scheme could ever fulfil the
>requirements of openness and transparency required to gain the support and
>trust of the ICANN community.>>).
>
>These leaves us at a point where no one from any constituency has offered up
>any alternative to the Lynn plan.  By heeding the admonition of the Board's
>Evolution Committee to focus on the Lynn plan as a point of departure for
>their comments, they have been insiduously co-opted into supporting Stuart's
>plan instead of presenting any more reasonable structural alternatives.
>
>Even the recent preliminary proposal submitted by Karl Auerbach and cited at
>http://www.cavebear.com/rw/apfi.htm adopts the fundamental constructs (termed
>modules) proposed by Stuart.
>
>When no alternative considerations are put on the table, the Board has no
>option other than to endorse the Lynn Plan as modified by the Evolution
>Committee.  Within the Lynn Plan there is no place accorded for the GA, there
>are no more At-Large directors, and even more power and influence is granted
>to the registries and registrars at the expense of everyone else.
>
>Is this what you all want?  If not, what are you prepared to do about it?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:14:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: George Kirikos <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

Hello,

As I type this, Verisign (stock symbol: VRSN on Nasdaq) is down 37%.
See:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?h=1&s=vrsn&d=t

Does ICANN have contingencies in place should a registry operator be in
such dire financial straits that it's unable to operate the registry?
(unlikely for the com/net/org registry, but with all the other ones in
existence, what happens if they sink into oblivion?

Hopefully those employees of VRSN on the list got out at a better
price. I've heard it's a false statement that opponents of VRSN are
saying "we're not through, until Verisign's under 2" (the real mantra
is "we're not done, until Verisign's under 1"). :)

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/

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Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 13:39:27 +1200
From: Joop Teernstra <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

At 07:14 26/04/02 -0700, George Kirikos wrote:
>Hello,
>
>As I type this, Verisign (stock symbol: VRSN on Nasdaq) is down 37%.
>See:

went to -45%.

This seems to disprove Sotiris' theory.
ICANN and VRSN's fortunes are moving in tandem.

At 9.50 a share  atlarge members can now  afford to have a say in Domain 
policy via the VRSN general meeting.
It would be win-win for both.

- --Joop Teernstra LL.M.--
   interim webmaster
www.icannatlarge.com
Sign up and spread the word.

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Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 00:34:58 -0400
From: Sotiris Sotiropoulos <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

Let's wait and see what happens.  It ain't over yet.

Sotiris

Joop Teernstra wrote:

> At 07:14 26/04/02 -0700, George Kirikos wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> As I type this, Verisign (stock symbol: VRSN on Nasdaq) is down 37%.
>> See:
>
>
> went to -45%.
>
> This seems to disprove Sotiris' theory.
> ICANN and VRSN's fortunes are moving in tandem.
>
> At 9.50 a share  atlarge members can now  afford to have a say in 
> Domain policy via the VRSN general meeting.
> It would be win-win for both.
>
>
> --Joop Teernstra LL.M.--
>   interim webmaster
> www.icannatlarge.com
> Sign up and spread the word.
>
>
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Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 16:08:16 +0800
From: Joseph <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

Hi,
	Sorry I've not been active for quite a while.  Been busy.

	With 1000 members and each member acquire a 10 unit stake, it will come to
just 90 lots.  A grain of sand in the total # of common shares floating in
the market.

	However, I think that this is a very interesting idea: if icannatlarge.com
is able to acquire enough stake in some company to exert influence over it.
However, one will argue that verisign does not control icann.  It will only
work if icann@large has a huge member-base.  Alternatively, someone/party is
willing to "pledge" their votes (proxy) to icann@large.  On the reverse,
since the [email-masked] needs more "say"/interest revenue from the
undertaking, it might indirectly suggests it's members to do business with
it.

	I can also see a lot of down-side, like clash of interest.  However, it is
still an interesting idea, something worth building on?  Care to add value
(+ve or -ve) to this?  cheers.

regards,
- - Joseph LEE Fook Heng
=========================

- -----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Joop
Teernstra
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2002 9:39 AM
To: George Kirikos
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

At 07:14 26/04/02 -0700, George Kirikos wrote:
>Hello,
>
>As I type this, Verisign (stock symbol: VRSN on Nasdaq) is down 37%.
>See:

went to -45%.

This seems to disprove Sotiris' theory.
ICANN and VRSN's fortunes are moving in tandem.

At 9.50 a share  atlarge members can now  afford to have a say in Domain
policy via the VRSN general meeting.
It would be win-win for both.

- --Joop Teernstra LL.M.--
   interim webmaster
www.icannatlarge.com
Sign up and spread the word.

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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 14:37:00 +0200
From: Jefsey Morfin <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] ICANN, VRSN, ORG: please, let get real. 

Gentlemen,
I feel I am in the Titanic kitchen discussing tomorrows menu. Why not to 
get real? Do we want to be remembered as the French dancing aristocrats of 
1789. Let face it, for months some disregard what I say as being wild. But 
here we are:

1. there still are 13 root server machines only - 10 in the USA, 6 on the 
East Coast. As during the COBOL glory period. With an average of one month 
time or more to get a ccTLD updated due to the procedures, and 60% of the 
requests for a 1490 entries in 89 K ASCII file resulting from user's typo 
from all over the world. With several advanced investigations over the 
planet to fix the many problems this situation leads into, with several 
architectural innovations at hand and rising Govs concerns.

2. for the second time the "wrong defined user name product" mammoth is 
laying off people, after buying back its stock and its registrars. This 
makes it to be in a poor shape to give away M$ 5 for .org, to lose the M$ 
18 of .org yearly revenues, to give back the M$ X .org renewals for the 10 
years to come it has collected. And a prey for an alliance with MS to 
develop its M$ 200 DNS rewrite plan to try to control the DNS.

3. the managers of the international data network system's sub-network 
"Internet" - connected in 1984 and not redesigned since then, in spite of 
its growth - have made so many usual sophomore mistakes in managing their 
system that they say they cannot make it anymore.

They start understanding under hardship some basic network management rules 
: you do not manage different layers under the same organization, you never 
sell a network to its users but to who needs it to be used, you do not use 
a management style which does not match the network architecture, you 
cannot curb a networkusership but you serve it, a network is not a 
technical system but a social structure, whatever the source code permits 
will be attempted and will develop if there is an opportunity, a need or 
some fun; competitve innovation will never wait for your authorization, 
nature proceeds in surviving its many own failures, etc....

In fact they have not understood that their system has switched from a 
private interconnected system with a membership controlled through its DNS 
by a Czar, to a worldwide interconnecting system to be served by net 
keepers and open to everyone.

Now, we are in an critical situation. Actually we are in an emergency 
situation if we do not understand and accept that we are in a critical 
situation.

Is there a way out, a part from a worldwide economy collapse ?

Point 1. Do I over do it?  Please understand that this is what we are 
talking about if VRSN goes into disarray, if the ICANN is not properly 
reset or closed and if the NSDAQ goes down. The Internet is consensus. 
Consensuses stabilize on a mutual community trust. Only a few trust the 
ICANN right now. Managing 30.000.000 DNs is not a small thing: whatever way 
VRSN is organized it has working structures operated by people. When you 
start laying off people, the best people lose faith and trust,  and they 
start looking for a better job as familiy stability comes before employer 
survival. NASDAQ lives on trust.

Point 2. The only solution we have IMHO is :

1. to accept that we are in a general critical situation, so we stop 
babbling and we think very clearly.

2. to accept that the problem is not with the ICANN but with the world 
society. So let stop flattering our own egoes about our own vision of the 
ICANN and let make a real common outreach effort to let decision makers to 
understand it.

3. accept that the world society's problem is to understand and to code its 
network (global) organization. Laws, economy, international structures, 
etc... This should be made clear though a GAC declaration (as the only 
existing structure for Govs). The preparation of the world submits on the 
information society would be a good occasion. So we have a social frame and 
a time frame.

4. within that time frame we can only make it with existing structures. The 
only existing structure is the ITU/T.

Pros:
a) ITU/T is segmented by layers, which will fit the first and main 
requirement: to manage different layers separately if one does not want to 
sterilize at huge costs and die. .
b) the ITU/T is open to everyone who feel concerned.

Con:
a) the ITU/T, as an international structure, is nation oriented, while the 
TCP/IP networks are multinational by essence.
b) the ITU/T is operators oriented: the TCP/IP distributed architecture 
makes every participant to be technically an operator. We would overwhelm 
the ITU/T with thousands small membes.

The only solution is to multinationalize the ITU/T, at a "network system" 
level.

This means that the ITU/T is to participate on a peer to peer basis with 
the other large conceptual systems in :
- - hardware : physical addressing),
- - software : architecture and protocols
- - brainware : naming plans and semantic
concertation committees, chaired on a rotational basis (to structurally 
protect from any take over), gathering on a natural stabilization scheme 
who ever think necessary to participate and supported by an ITU/T 
specialized secretariat of a very few individuals.

The purpose of these committees is to permit its participants to 
cross-fertilize, to help them individually decide non conflicting 
strategies, in common and network participants best interests.

This can be set-up quickly and then trimmed upon experience later on, since 
no structural commitment will have been taken. The target could be to carve 
an organization in the stone in Tunis 2005.

A non negligible advantage is that it does not submit any decision to ITU/T 
vote, what should help the USA to accept it.

5. societal issues can only be addressed through an "International Network 
Campus" where all the so called "mission creep" we experience will gather 
and use the same concertation system. Everyone interested in each "creep" 
will be welcome (and there will be many more in the years to come). The 
target will probably to develop "netiquettes" :  i.e. community correct 
thinking) helping participants to develop in harmony on a worldwide basis, 
and Govs to enact national laws making a common international sense.

6. once that societal and technical working frames are established we can 
figure out where the Internet "sub-network" and its partners fit in.

- - if to survive, the ICANN (or it ssuccessors) is well prepared with 
established experience and structures to participate into these committees:

1)  ASO for the Universal Network Addressing Concertation Committee.
2)  PSO for the Universal Network Architecture and Protocols Concertation 
Committee.
3)  the DNSO for the Universal Network Namespace Concertation Committee.
4)  the @large for the societal aspects - or to get it replaced once for 
all by the ISOC

- - natural relations will establish, stabilize and develop among committee 
participants : ITU/T and their members, Legacy, IP registries, IETF, 
ccTLDs, USG, EEC, China, Open Systems, Intlnet  and Newnet, Real Names and 
AOL, and the ISSN ISBN likes, etc  to the benefit of the users and of the 
revamped registries/registrars.

7. We have to accept that many ICANN problems come DNS and therefore from 
the ACPA and territory creep. Territory creep being addressed as per above, 
DN will ba adressed in correcting the ACPA probably though an Internet Act.

A DN is NOT anything else than a mnemonic pointer to the IP address of a 
network privately owned resource (a "cyber domain": site, equipment, 
etc..). The only duty of a DN is to correctly and stably point to that IP. 
Every other issues are with the so called domain. One cannot transfer a DN 
without the domain ownership (ask Mike Roberts if I could buy "ucla.edu"). 
This when corrected will drastically clean the situation and ... kill VRSN.

This is why we have to stop these chit chat about .org and new TLDs, and 
WLS. We have to openly discuss with Stratton Sclavos and the DoC on how to 
clean the mess and if, when and how .org is to be divested and how to 
subsidize Verisign while it reconverts itself, the way we may dwindle the 
"Registrars Industry" into something survivable, etc. The probably necessay 
Internet Act should also address the organization (ICANN?) and the budget 
of the ARPA inherited Internet/Govnet systems, of its relations with the 
other TCP/IP networks system managers and of a fair redistrubution of the 
IP Blocks (if the US do not IP to be a major negative issue in Geneva 2003 
and Tunis 2005).

jfc

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Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 09:13:16 -0400
From: Dan Steinberg <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

This message is just in reply to the thread not directed personally at
George or anyone else.

I  watched a few posts about the versign stock price and
thought...hmmmmmm what is everyone so x-cited about ?

It strikes me as a very restricted world view.
We think of VGRS (the network solutions that Verisign acquired) as big.
But Verisign...is waaaaay bigger.  And their core business is not DNS. 
They do other *stuff* mostly.  Listmemebers who have cycles to spare can
check out what businesses Verisign is in, what other companies they
acquired, and what business these acquisitions are in. Here's a
statememnt from their website:

"VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq:VRSN) is the leading provider of digital trust
                      services that enable businesses and consumers to
engage in
                      commerce and communications with confidence."

What does this have to do with the GA? As someone pointed out a few
years ago, less than a thousand people in the world (or on mars) know
how to spell DNS *and* care enough about it to sign up for the various
lists (like the GA).

Face it, we may be as a group be able to effect change within (or
without) ICANN.  But to suggest that we are at all significant at the
level of Verisign stock price, or that it is somehow linked to
ICANN....is ludicrous! 

What happened to verisign?  Its simple. 
three words: 
unexpected
earnings
drop

stock price is based on expectations. you dont perform as
expected...people get worried.
you have unexepcted drop in earnings...and your stock price goes through
the floor.

Why were the earnings below expectations?  dunno and personally, dont
care.  But if people want to engage in conspiracy theories and search
for hidden meanings, net.detectives might want to check out stories of
bugs in some of Verisigns other products to see if they can figure out a
plausible rationale for the unexepected earnings drop that resulted in
the stock tanking. Me? I stay away from the stock market 'cause I dont
claim to have a clue and dont trust anyone who claims to have one.  

Sotiris Sotiropoulos wrote:
> 
> Let's wait and see what happens.  It ain't over yet.
> 
> Sotiris
> 
> Joop Teernstra wrote:
> 
> > At 07:14 26/04/02 -0700, George Kirikos wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> As I type this, Verisign (stock symbol: VRSN on Nasdaq) is down 37%.
> >> See:
> >
> >
> > went to -45%.
> >
> > This seems to disprove Sotiris' theory.
> > ICANN and VRSN's fortunes are moving in tandem.
> >
> > At 9.50 a share  atlarge members can now  afford to have a say in
> > Domain policy via the VRSN general meeting.
> > It would be win-win for both.
> >
> >
> > --Joop Teernstra LL.M.--
> >   interim webmaster
> > www.icannatlarge.com
> > Sign up and spread the word.
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
> 
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End of GA-DIGEST V1 #1143
*************************