Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1249
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST            Friday, May 31 2002            Volume 01 : Number 1249

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

Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:50:18 +0200 (CEST)
From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] your comments

On Thu, 30 May 2002, at 15:15 [=GMT-0400], Joe Sims wrote:

> I appreciate the clarification.  And you have certainly highlighted some
> issues that are important to some people.  The issue of cc's that act like
> gTLDs is a particularly relevant issue; if a cc registry is going to
> aggressively solicit name registrations from people all over the world,
> shouldn't it have to meet the same minimum standards as do gTLDs?

I don't think so. Tell us why you do, please.

> Such
> things as escrow requirements to protect against failure,

If I register a domain under the law of some unstable country, that is my
risk. I will not blame ICANN if it goes down.

> dispute
> resolution procedures or something equivalent to guard against
> cybersquatting,

Why? Don't the laws of the country of the ccTLD registry apply? Global
democracy may be a bad idea (I am not convinced yet), but global
Intellectual Property enforcerment may also, don't you think so? It does
in any case open up ICANN to reproaches of trying to set up global
government...

> whois
> systems that actually work so people can find our who
> to contact when an issue arises

Or to spam. Exactly what issues that are really important, make it
necessary, that anyone can find out who owns a domain? All criminal acts
are also traceable through the IP number, often even better. Domains can
be faked so easily. With an IP number that is much harder.

> -- stuff like
> this?  It is one thing to
> argue that a ccTLD that restricts registrations to its nationals or
> residents of the country of its charter should have the "right" to do what
> it wants on these points, since those adversely affected always have
> recourse to the national government, local courts, etc.  But when the
> registry decides to take advantage of the stable global DNS to attract
> registrants that, as a practical matter, do not have those protections, and
> can do so only because the rest of the world is working together through
> ICANN to maintain the global infrastructure that permits that behavior,
> that seems to me to be a different situation altogether.

Great marketing speech. What it comes down to, is that there are root
servers that carry the ccTLDs, right? Quite unclear how this stable global
DNS relates to ICANN. The latest MoU is still not available to read, is
it?

> As I understand
> the ICANN position, there is no desire to interfere in any way with local
> policy development; that should be up to the local community.  But when the
> registry takes actions that have global implications or effects, it should
> be subject, as are all other similarly situated registries, to the global
> policy development process.  What I take from your post is that you want
> someone else to shoulder the burdens of preserving and protecting the
> global DNS

What else than keeping the root servers running? That is all we need. Not
a global police. Conforming to certain _technical_ standards is necessary.
Nothing more. If TLDs must submit to some police to be served within the
root, they could decide to search elsewhere for the services. It is really
not that difficult to keep 13 nameservers running. It is also not
expensive.

If you are worried about fraud, bad customer care, and the like, well give
us 5 examples where ICANN did something about complaints regarding ICANN
accredited registrars. Then we can see whether we find this useful as
customers.

> that makes it possible for the ccTLDs to function, but to
> basically leave you alone to do with it what you please (although maybe you
> would be willing to contribute to the purely mechanical work of keeping
> your database records straight).  In antitrust economics, this is called
> "free-riding" and is generally not considered something to be admired or
> protected.

If you are so worried about anti-trust, stop trying to get all TLDs into
ICANN's cartel!

- -- 
Marc Schneiders

http://marc.schneiders.org/

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 14:36:35 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
From: Karl Auerbach <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] Costs of running necessary parts of DNS

Everybody talks about DNS stability but nobody defines it.

I assert that with respect to ICANN, that DNS stability means that its
system of root servers operates with acceptable reliability, acceptable
reachibility, and with acceptibly accurate contents.  In addition, DNS
stability means that updates to the information in the root zone and meta
information about the root zone (contact information) is updated
reasonably quickly and for a reasonable cost, taking into account the need
to properly validate the authenticity of the update.

I leave it open to debate whether technical stability requires that ICANN
create minimal operating standards, such as data escrow formats, annual
audits for adequate preservation of business assets, etc for the DNS
layers beneath the root.  That raises the basic question of to what degree
ICANN is a consumer protection body.

(Notice that I did not include trademark concerns - I categorically reject
the assertion that such concerns are part of technical stability.)

Getting back to the root layer -

About two months ago I undertook to make a quick (one day) inquiry how
much it would cost to establish an entirely new set of root servers,
deploy them around the world, and maintain them.  (I did not include the
cost of root zone file maintaince itself.)

The people I worked with on this have many, many years of experience in
establishing and running 24x7 high availability/high volume services all
over the world.  These are people who I consider the professional's
professionals both in terms of servers and in terms of networking.

We defined a basic server-group consisting of 8 distinct servers (running
4 different operating systems to provide common-mode attack resistance)
sitting behind redundant load balancers/firewalls, with remote control of
things such as power and console access.  The design was such that each of
these server-groups could be expanded manyfold simply by adding more
individual servers.  And individual servers in each server-group could be
removed (for maintainance or replacement) or added without taking down the
entire server-group.  The basic server-group would fit in less than 1/2 of
a standard 19" rack making it nice for fork-lift installation as a unit.

The whole server-group is designed to be controlled from afar - including
taking individual servers offline, working on their software, and power
cycling them - via secure communications.

We made the assumption (one based on practical experience) that there are
high-quality co-lo's with excellent connectivity and acceptable physical
security and environmental (power, temperatature, humidy) systems.  Also
based on practical experience, we assumed that we could hire local
"trusted hands" to do those few jobs that actually required physical
access to th equipment.

We also assumed that monitoring and management would be performed from
existing management centers by existing personnel, thus incurring only
incremental costs.

What does it all cost:

The server-groups ran to between $35,000 and $50,000 each to build.
These are one-time costs.

(No we didn't figure in the life expectency of the equipment and build a
depreciation/replacement fund - a five year period isn't unreasonable, but
it could probably be rather longer and still be quite realistic.  Given
the architecture of these server-groups, they could evolve over time
without the need for a fork-lift [replace the entire thing] upgrade.)

Installation varied widely and consisted mainly of shipping from a central
construction site (we've had several years positive experience with this
build-wrap-and-ship technique), plus either hiring on-site "trusted hands"
or going there and doing it.  Obviously the cost range for this would vary
widely depending on location.  But it was a non-trivial expense amounting
to at least several $1,000s of per server cluster.

So we're talking about something on the order of $750,000 to $1,000,000
one time cost to establish 12 new root server-groups.  We actually wanted
to go further and create any-cast clusters to produce 96 server-groups
with 8 server-groups for each of the 12 IP addresses that are assigned to
the root servers (one address per logical server.)

In terms of recurring costs, there are several components:

Co-lo costs were low.  We estimated high at $1000/per server-group per
month.  In other words about $150,000/year.

Bandwidth costs could potential be rather higher.  There are contradictory
reports of the relative bandwidth of the incoming and outgoing DNS
streams.  We made the worst-case assumption, that outgoing bandwidth would
be higher than incoming, and concluded that co-lo payments for bandwidth
could amount to more than $1,000/month per site.  This is a highly
variable cost component and is subject to negotition with the co-lo
operators.

(The bandwidth to transmit root zone files for update purposes is
negligable - a compressed version of a root zone file is about 15K bytes -
smaller than the gif/jpg buttons on many web-pages.)

Day-to-day management and operations costs were very low - remember we
excluded the costs of maintaining, preparing, and triple-checking root
zone file contents and the dissemination (and subsequent triple checking
by the recipient) - and amounted to essentially a web of automated, low
cost "is it running at all", "is it reachable from diverse locations", and
"is it returning sane answers in a timely manner" polling.  But we decided
to be very conservative and threw in several FTEs (full time employee).

Because we assumed incremental use of existing management/operations
centers, the incremental cost for building/office space was low - nearly
negligable compared to the cost of the FTE's.  (Because we were looking at
overloading an exisiting system, we obtained an automatic benefit of
multiple sites around the globe for management/operations.)

We estimated with a broad brush that mangement/operation costs would be on
the order of between $500,000 to $1,000,000 year.  (We figured that much
of the time the FTEs that gave rise to this expense would be twiddling
their thumbs.)

On-site costs for "trusted hands" was assumed to be fairly rare and we
estimated that $1000 per month per server-group would cover it.  In other
words for 12 server-groups we figured about $150,000 per year.

One more thing, we figured on having enough liquid assets on hand that we
could cover emergency disaster recovery situations.  Since we were working
with the context of an existing worldwide enterprise (you would all
recognize the name, but I'm not going to say who), this financial
resiliancy wasn't a big issue.

>From a political point of view, we knew that this single-provider plan
would have a hard time.  But we did the exercise in order to get some
notion of the concrete costs of undertaking to provide DNS root
infrastructures.

Obviously much cost efficiency in these estimates was gained by making use
of existing management/operation infrastructures and by using high-quality
co-los rather than constructing special purpose centers and hiring
dedicated operations staff.

And as I mentioned several times, we did not deal with the costs of
maintaining a root zone file.  But our gut feelings were that that is a
job requiring much less than one FTE.

Obviously there are many "guestimates" here, but they are educated ones.
There are probably items we forgot - this was a very informal effort done
very quickly.

This is what DNS technical "stability" is all about.  I started talking
about this stuff from my first day on ICANN's board.  I've met stone walls
that were more responsive.  (And you won't find any of my materials on
this on ICANN's web site, ICANN's management has apparently chosen a
"non-publish" policy with respect to anything I write, even though it
routinely publishes even the most banal of statements from other Directors
or "staff".)

		--karl--

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 23:59:26 +0200
From: Thomas Roessler <[email-masked]>
Subject: How to get rid of volunteers (Re: [ga] How to disenfranchise 489 members of the DNSO)

Possibly the GA representatives to Task Forces should just go on  
strike, or something like that.  That would certainly be healthy  
for real life... Kristy, what do you think?

I personally agree that the GA must be changed in order to fulfill  
its function as a forum for meaningful exchange between  
constituencies.  I even believe that GA votes on substantial  
resolutions do not make it easier for the GA to fulfill this  
function, and that open polls on such issues are more appropriate  
(different thread ["tools"], please comment on this topic there).

However, I strongly believe that restricting GA membership to  
constituencies' members would be a mistake. 

The DNSO would deprive itself of valuable public input, and it would 
also deprive itself of quite some amount of volunteers' dedication  
and effort, and of external insight and comments.  The DNSO would  
remove the (possibly lose) connection to "veterans" who may no  
longer be active within constituencies, but still hang around [even  
when they are quiet most of the time; this may be a good opportunity 
for some of you folks to speak up].  The DNSO would lose the ability 
to use the GA as a forum for cross-SO exchange - not even the ccTLDs 
would be admitted!  The DNSO would lose the (necessary!) flexibility 
which the GA adds to a task-force based policy-making process; that  
loss cannot be fixed by a public comment period, or by surveys.  

I'm sure I forgot quite a few points why this recommendation is the  
wrong approach.

"For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and  
wrong."

In the case of the GA, the Names Council has picked a solution of 
that kind.

To Philip: When I asked for a change to and further discussion of  
this recommendation, I meant that. I did not mean a mere footnote  
stating what the GA chair thinks.

- -- 
Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/

On 2002-05-30 14:40:02 -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
>From: [email-masked]
>Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 14:40:02 EDT
>Subject: [ga] How to disenfranchise 489 members of the DNSO
>To: [email-masked]
>
>Names Council Recommendation 23 - General Assembly . The gTLD policy 
>development body should have a general assembly whose prime role is to 
>provide a forum for broad inter-constituency exchange. Consequently, 
>membership should be limited to the agreed stakeholders who are represented 
>in the policy development body.
>
>This recommendation has been approved by every constituency in the DNSO.  
>
>There are no more than 100 members of the GA voting roster that have 
>identified themselves as "agreed stakeholders".  The rest of us that don't 
>belong to established constituencies (489) have been told to take a hike by 
>the elitists on the Council.  
>
>This type of fuck-you attitude is precisely what is wrong with both the DNSO 
>and ICANN. 
>--
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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 15:03:19 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] Transfer Task Force issues

Thursday, May 30, 2002, 10:25:36 AM, Ross Wm. Rader wrote:

>> When, if ever, do you expect to have recommendations ready?  When
>> will there be a public comment period provided?

> I can only speak as an individual member, but I expected both months ago. It
> has been very difficult moving the process forward based on the varying
> degrees of participation of the TF members.

It is time that this Task Force got its collective act together.

This has gone on too long.  And every week that it continues, more
registrants are suffering from the abusive practices of predatory
registrars like Verisign and Register.com, who apparently have decided
that they have the right to start blocking transfers in advance of
their expiration dates now as well.

Verisign's cs reps are giving conflicting reports, stating the policy
is 45,40, or 30 days before expiration, but they are confirming that
the company now has a policy to block outgoing transfers at least 30
days in advance of the expiration date.  They know that many people
wait until the last month to transfer their domains out (something I
have always advised registrants against doing, transfer them much
sooner than that, get them out of their now) to avoid paying a
renewing fee unnecessarily in advance of when they feel they have to.
And they are taking advantage of that mindset now to start screwing
these people, so they can force them to give them a $29 extortion fee.

And of course, there is no recourse for these registrants.  ICANN has
no authority, and the Registry, who has the authority, is the same
company.

And I am getting so far unconfirmed reports that Register.com is also
beginning to engage in this practice.

I don't know who is to blame specifically for the Task Force dragging
its feet, but it is time for this Task Force to get a sense of urgency
on this issue.  EVERY DAY that this Task Force does not present a
solution, they are allowing more and more registrants to be harmed by
predatory registrars doing whatever they can get away with to prevent
outbound transfers from succeeding.

I will be taking action myself, which I will probably announce Friday,
to begin applying pressure to this Task Force and to ICANN and
Verisign over this issue.  I'm fed up, it has taken WAY too long for
you to get to this point, and you still have NOTHING substantive to
show for it.  There is no solution on the horizon.  The Registrants
who are being harmed by this need a voice, so its about time someone
gave it to them.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
Save Internet Radio!  
CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

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

Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 15:06:29 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] DNSO Reform:  Process Issues

Thursday, May 30, 2002, 10:38:05 AM, [email-masked] wrote:

> Enough is enough.

Exactly.

> Give your fellow TF members a good kick in the butt and get them working on 
> the solutions.  You have been entrusted with solving the problems.  The rest 
> of us aren't allowed onto your TF.  We are stuck with having the TF members 
> doing the job.  So get the job done.   Please.

Sadly, I don't think Ross alone can get the rest of this TF off their
collective rear ends.  I believe he has tried, I know how much vested
interest Tucows has in the resolution of this issue.  I think it is
time for some outside pressure to come to bear on this Task Force and
its members.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
Save Internet Radio!  
CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

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

Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 18:44:40 -0700
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] your comments

Joe and all assembly members,

Joe Sims wrote:

> Peter Dengate Thrush wrote:
>
>
>  the cctlds have been one of the supporters of the
>  ICANN project since its inception
>
>
> It is certainly true that some ccTLDs have been very supportive, and it is
> also true that many ccTLDs will say privately that they do not support the
> more radical statements of their "leaders," but as far as I can tell, your
> position has been that the cc's that you speak for will come into ICANN
> only if ICANN agrees that they get to have a veto over any ICANN policies
> that they don't care to follow.

  I cannot see a good reason that any ccTLD registry that have been pretty
much independent for some many years now, needs to always adhere to
any and all policies that ICANN may wish to dictate or otherwise
impose, Joe!  Why should they or their registrants acquiesce to such
a broad sweeping requirement.  And in fact in some instances, doing
so would be in violation of that ccTLD's host countries laws..

>  We might be able to agree that all parties
> could have perfomed better over the last years, and by that I mean all
> parties -- the GAC, cc administrators, ICANN staff and Board, and
> individual national governments.

  Agreed that ALL parties could and should have performed better.
However you left out Individual Domain Name holders and
Stakeholders/users as those parties, Joe.  I hope that was just
a oversight on you part...  ???

>  But there is still a core issue:  do the
> operators of these particular TLD registries have any obligation to the
> global Internet community, in addition to their obvious responsibilities to
> their local Internet community?  If they do, ICANN is the vehicle for
> establishing policies that reflect that obligation to the global community.

  The answer is of course yes to your question Joe.  But the more
important question is or remains: is the responsibility to the local
community and Registrants more important than to the global
community?  IOHO, the answer to this question is also yes...

>
> This has been the position of the staff, and the Board, and the GAC, from
> the beginning, and until this principle is accepted, it seems unlikely that
> we will make much progress.

  I agree here as well as do I believe most of our members.  But you still
leave out the second and maybe more important question which I posed,
that qualifies to an extent your question Joe.  See just above...

> From your posting and its continuing criticism
> of the GAC principles, I don't see much sign of progress.  Nevertheless, I
> look forward to your upcoming meeting, and hope that it will help bring
> closure to what has to date been an unproductive debate.

  Well I don't know about unproductive.  But certainly, the entrenched
positions of both sides of this debate are still firmly entrenched.

>
>
> Joe Sims
> Jones Day Reavis & Pogue
> 51 Louisiana Avenue NW
> Washington, D.C. 20001
> Direct Phone:  1.202.879.3863
> Direct Fax:  1.202.626.1747
> Mobile Phone:  1.703.629.3963
>
> ==========
>

Regards,
- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 124k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 17:57:40 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] Anyone with a clue at MelbourneIT?

Anyone here from MelbourneIT who can help a customer of one of your
resellers (Yahoo Domains) who has been trying to update her admin
contact email address and nameservers for months?

Yahoo Domains! is providing no assistance at all, told her to login to
their website, when she tried that it says her account doesn't exist.
They gave her the "registry key" to make the change at the
MelbourneIT website herself, and it is not working either.  Now,
because she couldn't change her nameservers, the email address in the
admin contact address does not work either.

I've even taken her account info from her and tried to do it on both
the Yahoo Domains website and the MelbourneIT website, to make sure
there wasn't an "operator error" situation.

The reseller (Yahoo Domain) is completely clueless and unable to
provide her with any assistance, taking days to answer emails and
providing no telephone support at all.

If someone with a clue at MelbourneIT or Yahoo Domains can contact me
off list, I'd like to help her resolve this.

I hope this experience with Yahoo Domains! and MelbourneIT is not the
norm.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
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CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 20:51:01 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Anyone with a clue at MelbourneIT? (fwd)

Thursday, May 30, 2002, 7:38:53 PM, Doug Barton wrote:

>         I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience. I realize how frustrating
> that can be. Without knowing what domain it is, I can't help directly,
> so I have asked a customer care supervisor to contact you. However, if
> the registry key you have doesn't work, then it's likely that contacting
> Melbourne IT directly is your fastest route to a solution. If the e-mail
> address currently listed in whois is out of date (as you mention below),
> then your customer should visit:

> http://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php

> and submit her request to them. Meanwhile, if this situation isn't
> resolved to your satisfaction by Monday, please let me know.

Thank you Doug, I have CC'd your message to your domain registrant as
well.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
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CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 23:57:36 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Kristy McKee)
Subject: Re: How to get rid of volunteers (Re: [ga] How to disenfranchise 489 members of the DNSO)

Thomas,

My garden would certainly benefit from a strike.

- ---

I am disappointed the GAC is not concerned about protecting the rights of 
netizens as a whole and that they support the intentional elimination of 
communication channels to those folks whom are permitted "control" over OUR 
RESOURCES.

 From the beginning we have known ICANN itself does not want community 
participation or support, for example look at the way they treated the At 
Large (creating only to disband) and especially our At Large Directors.

It has been apparent, but not obvious that ICANN's DNSO also does not want 
to provide a voice for netizens a whole; but rather to service providers 
only.  (I guess they think they know what their customers want without 
going through the pain of consulting with them.)

I wonder, can I continue to work on the WHOIS Task Force now that the NC 
has made this decision and when will the GA have new elections since 
neither you or Alexander qualify for membership?

Life goes on, the world turns round, none of this will matter in a hundred 
years.

:)

~k

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:56:08 -0700
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: How to get rid of volunteers (Re: [ga] How to disenfranchise 489  members of the DNSO)

I am having a hard time with this one.

What a sick heading for a not for profit.

What a sick mindset for a leader.

This is just plain wrong.

Eric

Thomas Roessler wrote:

> Possibly the GA representatives to Task Forces should just go on
> strike, or something like that.  That would certainly be healthy
> for real life... Kristy, what do you think?
>
> I personally agree that the GA must be changed in order to fulfill
> its function as a forum for meaningful exchange between
> constituencies.  I even believe that GA votes on substantial
> resolutions do not make it easier for the GA to fulfill this
> function, and that open polls on such issues are more appropriate
> (different thread ["tools"], please comment on this topic there).
>
> However, I strongly believe that restricting GA membership to
> constituencies' members would be a mistake.
>
> The DNSO would deprive itself of valuable public input, and it would
> also deprive itself of quite some amount of volunteers' dedication
> and effort, and of external insight and comments.  The DNSO would
> remove the (possibly lose) connection to "veterans" who may no
> longer be active within constituencies, but still hang around [even
> when they are quiet most of the time; this may be a good opportunity
> for some of you folks to speak up].  The DNSO would lose the ability
> to use the GA as a forum for cross-SO exchange - not even the ccTLDs
> would be admitted!  The DNSO would lose the (necessary!) flexibility
> which the GA adds to a task-force based policy-making process; that
> loss cannot be fixed by a public comment period, or by surveys.
>
> I'm sure I forgot quite a few points why this recommendation is the
> wrong approach.
>
> "For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and
> wrong."
>
> In the case of the GA, the Names Council has picked a solution of
> that kind.
>
> To Philip: When I asked for a change to and further discussion of
> this recommendation, I meant that. I did not mean a mere footnote
> stating what the GA chair thinks.
>
> --
> Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/
>
> On 2002-05-30 14:40:02 -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
> >From: [email-masked]
> >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 14:40:02 EDT
> >Subject: [ga] How to disenfranchise 489 members of the DNSO
> >To: [email-masked]
> >
> >Names Council Recommendation 23 - General Assembly . The gTLD policy
> >development body should have a general assembly whose prime role is to
> >provide a forum for broad inter-constituency exchange. Consequently,
> >membership should be limited to the agreed stakeholders who are represented
> >in the policy development body.
> >
> >This recommendation has been approved by every constituency in the DNSO.
> >
> >There are no more than 100 members of the GA voting roster that have
> >identified themselves as "agreed stakeholders".  The rest of us that don't
> >belong to established constituencies (489) have been told to take a hike by
> >the elitists on the Council.
> >
> >This type of fuck-you attitude is precisely what is wrong with both the DNSO
> >and ICANN.
> >--
> >This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
> >Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
> >("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> >Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
> --
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Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 09:01:44 +0200
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] your comments

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Sorry Joe, the real issue as I documented it in a private detailed mails - 
so you cannot say we do not try to respond willingly, positively, with well 
made points, out of any dispute and virtual tomatoing  - is a real 
misunderstanding of what is the expectation of the world community about 
the ICANN.

The ICANN is not the Internet owner. We are the owners. All of us, you 
included.

You own 1/550.000.000 of the Internet and your share alone, as mine, as 
anyone here is no real worth if we are alone.

Now we are organized at two community levels. Local and Global. Our Trustee 
for the local community should be/is the ccTLD manager (RFC 920/1591). Our 
Trustee for the Global community should be/is the IANA.

2 questions:

1. First Question : ccTLDs have well defined that their legitimacy comes 
from their local community (Best Practices in MdR 2000). ICANN has not done 
the same yet. ICANN legitimacy can come in three ways.

- - from the USG as the owner of the former private Arpanet system - they 
dont want it anymore
- - from the owners at large - but you say that the delegation of trust 
though votes is a problem
- - form the owners' trustees - the ccTLDs and partly the gTLDs.

As long as you do not accept that, none of your proposition will stand as 
the owners and their trustees and their trustees supports (Govs, laws, 
consumers, techs, etc..) are eventually bigger than any "Internet Yalta" 
you might form. As soon as you accept this for the IANA, you will have full 
support from every one.

2. Second Question : apart from its duties to the IANA function, the ICANN 
may certainly claim the right to organize the "legacy" space (JonPostel's 
Private Net) from the USG legitimacy. The way you organize it is up to you: 
it has its own problems with the size of VRSN, the ACPA and the UDRP... I 
however feel you will succeed if you try to join the standard way rather 
then building a different one.

Anyway, this gives you no right over non-US namespaces. I understand that 
you would like to have some and rule the world as an American world. But I 
am afraid France, China, UK, Japan or Burkina-Fasso are grown enough to 
have heir own management of their namespace. And their Govs have the right 
and the duty to their own citizens, to have an independent digital 
international relations policy.

What you risk to obtain is the contrary of what you want. Today the ccTLDs 
feel dependent from the ICANN/US root. But China has already made the move, 
and I suspect that from the Stuart attempt to take over the root system, 
several others consider it. If they keep concerted (with the ICANN) it will 
be OK and will improve the global DNS stability and resilience. But if they 
dont ...

jfc

On 21:15 30/05/02, Joe Sims said:
>I appreciate the clarification.  And you have certainly highlighted some
>issues that are important to some people.  The issue of cc's that act like
>gTLDs is a particularly relevant issue; if a cc registry is going to
>aggressively solicit name registrations from people all over the world,
>shouldn't it have to meet the same minimum standards as do gTLDs?  Such
>things as escrow requirements to protect against failure, dispute
>resolution procedures or something equivalent to guard against
>cybersquatting, whois systems that actually work so people can find our who
>to contact when an issue arises  -- stuff like this?  It is one thing to
>argue that a ccTLD that restricts registrations to its nationals or
>residents of the country of its charter should have the "right" to do what
>it wants on these points, since those adversely affected always have
>recourse to the national government, local courts, etc.  But when the
>registry decides to take advantage of the stable global DNS to attract
>registrants that, as a practical matter, do not have those protections, and
>can do so only because the rest of the world is working together through
>ICANN to maintain the global infrastructure that permits that behavior,
>that seems to me to be a different situation altogether.  As I understand
>the ICANN position, there is no desire to interfere in any way with local
>policy development; that should be up to the local community.  But when the
>registry takes actions that have global implications or effects, it should
>be subject, as are all other similarly situated registries, to the global
>policy development process.  What I take from your post is that you want
>someone else to shoulder the burdens of preserving and protecting the
>global DNS that makes it possible for the ccTLDs to function, but to
>basically leave you alone to do with it what you please (although maybe you
>would be willing to contribute to the purely mechanical work of keeping
>your database records straight).  In antitrust economics, this is called
>"free-riding" and is generally not considered something to be admired or
>protected.
>
>
>Joe Sims
>
>
>
>
> 
>
>                     DPF 
>
>                     <[email-masked]     To:     "Joe Sims" 
> <[email-masked]>
>                     m>                   cc: 
> [email-masked], [email-masked]
>                                          Subject:     Re: [ga] your 
> comments
> 
>
>                     05/30/02 
> 02:48 
>
>                     PM 
>
> 
>
> 
>
>
>
>
>
>On Thu, 30 May 2002 08:35:52 -0400, "Joe Sims" <[email-masked]>
>wrote:
> >Peter Dengate Thrush wrote:
> >
>
> > the cctlds have been one of the supporters of the
>
> > ICANN project since its inception
>
> >
> >It is certainly true that some ccTLDs have been very supportive, and it is
> >also true that many ccTLDs will say privately that they do not support the
> >more radical statements of their "leaders," but as far as I can tell, your
> >position has been that the cc's that you speak for will come into ICANN
> >only if ICANN agrees that they get to have a veto over any ICANN policies
> >that they don't care to follow.
>
>This is not my understanding.  the position AFAIK is that on a narrow
>range of technical policy issues, ccTLDs are happy to adhere to a
>global policy in the interests of making the Internet work.  In fact
>they all pretty much adhere to them now.  Such policies may be number
>of name servers, geographical diversity of name servers etc.
>
>What ccTLDs are not keen to do is give ICANN power to impose the UDRP
>(for example) on them.  Or to be able to unilaterally declare that
>certain ccTLDS which do not restrict registrations will in future be
>treated like gTLDs.
>
> >We might be able to agree that all parties
> >could have perfomed better over the last years, and by that I mean all
> >parties -- the GAC, cc administrators, ICANN staff and Board, and
> >individual national governments.  But there is still a core issue:  do the
> >operators of these particular TLD registries have any obligation to the
> >global Internet community, in addition to their obvious responsibilities
>to
> >their local Internet community?
>
>Yes - the obligation is on narrow technical issues of
>inter-operability.  But no there is not an obligation to be forced to
>spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for example on changing all
>their registry databases to conform to a standard whois specification
>which is not a technical necessity but a preference of certain people.
>
> >If they do, ICANN is the vehicle for
> >establishing policies that reflect that obligation to the global
>community.
> >This has been the position of the staff, and the Board, and the GAC, from
> >the beginning, and until this principle is accepted, it seems unlikely
>that
> >we will make much progress.
>
>The ccTLDs have stated they will accept ICANN policies but only in
>certain pre defined areas.  I do not  believe they will not give carte
>blanche decision making authority to ICANN, especially when ICANN has
>shown itself numerous times to ignore the advice of SOs on matters
>which affect them.
>
> >From your posting and its continuing criticism
> >of the GAC principles, I don't see much sign of progress.  Nevertheless, I
> >look forward to your upcoming meeting, and hope that it will help bring
> >closure to what has to date been an unproductive debate.
>
>I would also ask why ICANN has to be the body to establish global
>ccTLD policies?  WHy not a world federation of ccTLDs?  Now that ICANN
>has abandoned any pretence to being a representative body, why is it
>more suited to decide what is good for the global internet community
>compared to say such a federation of ccTLDS.  At least the majority of
>them allow individual registrants the ability to join and vote on
>policy issues.
>
>DPF
>
>(PS - note once again I speak for myself not for InternetNZ in this
>forum)
>--
>[email-masked]
>ICQ 29964527
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>--
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