RE: [council] Whois Committee Report

[Theresa Swinehart <Theresa.Swinehart@wcom.com>]

Ken,

Thank you for your response, I was not going to respond to the Whois
committee report, but feel the need to.

I have to say I'm disappointed in the tone of the report, and was very
disturbed when reading it. This is not a balanced report, it does not
present the issues (which remain unclear to me what it is there is an issue
about) and I do not think the NC should spend much time on a report or
statement that is seeking to lead down some pre-determined path. We have a
lot of work to do, so I would suggest that the report, if needed, is
redrafted and submitted to the next NC call, in a manner that is subjective
and addresses the issues that the drafters believe the NC needs to address.
And I would note, please be clear on what role the NC has with this, and why
it should spend time on it. I merely raise this as one option of how to
proceed. But the current report doesn't provide, I think, the NC with an
objective basis from which to discuss it.

On a personal note, and merely an observation, it is these kinds of things
that discredits any work out of the DNSO and NC. We need to demonstrate to
the ICANN board that the NC is capable of providing constructive input. That
they can rely on the DNSO for guidance on issues, and receive objective and
well thought out guidance when appropriate. In reading a report, I look for
a balanced depiction of the issues, of the views, to be able to have a
discussion. I am fully supportive all representation of all views and agree
that it is very useful in addressing issues, but would have hoped that a
report under review by the NC cites to several sources, from a cross sector
of views, not only a selected few -- this report cites only one reporter
(http://www.tbtf.com), and only a selected constituencies. I guess I'm
curious why this is the case?

I agree that the issues you raise are something the review process will
address, in goes to the overall credibility and input of the dnso.

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council@dnso.org [mailto:owner-council@dnso.org]On Behalf Of
Ken Stubbs
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:19 AM
To: council@dnso.org; YJ Park
Cc: Karl Auerbach
Subject: Re: [council] Whois Committee Report


yj & fellow council members

speaking as a council member i would have to strongly disagree here with the
wording of the objective of the report.

the objective as stated in this paper,    ("This initial effort aims at
evaluating whether it is proper for ICANN
staff to set up the Whois Committee through lack of consultation process
with other relevant interest parties which has brought up criticisms such as
lack of openness and its transparent procedural flaw.")
represents, what appears to me to be, a personal opinion and is, by no
means, a consensus opinion that there was a "lack of consultation" or "lack
of openness and transparent procedural flaw"

i do not personally believe that any of the actions-to-date by the ICANN
staff or members of this group reflect the statements made above and feel it
is wholly improper to include these statements in this motion or the
supporting documentation.

i do not like the implication that, as a names council member, i am being
led down some sort a pre-determined path .

the key to any review process is objectivity and this is not by any means,
at face, an objective document. the context of the motion proposed assumes
an existing impropriety and i feel is, again, a statement of opinion to
which i cannot subscribe.

to me personally, the concepts discussed here have good validity but if
every action we as a council must take in the future becomes pre-biased or
adversarial, then we  become more ineffective.

ken stubbs
p.s. this issue i present here and the other comments i presented in
conjunction with the dnso review working group proposal,  represent tangible
concerns which i feel must also be addressed in the context of the DNSO
review as well.






----- Original Message -----
From: "YJ Park" <yjpark@myepark.com>
To: <council@dnso.org>
Cc: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@CAVEBEAR.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 12:49 AM
Subject: [council] Whois Committee Report


Hello Council members,

As it was promised, Whois Committee report is hereby presented.

Hope we can have other relevant docusments for deep and substantial
discussion during the NC teleconference.

Thanks,
YJ
========================================
            Whois Committee Report to Names Council

                                                             2000. 12. 13
             YJ Park(Non-Commercial Constituency Rep)
------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents

1. Whois Committee Discussion Development in the DNSO
2. Objective of this Report
3. The position from the ICANN Staff, especially Louis Tuton
4. The positions from Karl Auerbach, At-Large Board Director
5. European perspective expressed by Dany Vandromme, NCC Rep
6. Opinions from Paul Kane, Registrar Constituency Rep
7. The concerns expressed YJ Park, NCC Rep
8. Motion to the NC
9. Reference
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. Whois Committee Discussion Development in the DNSO

Its first public appearance "Whois Task Force" is on the DNSO's
registrars' mailing list on July 15, notifying that this ICANN task
force has participants from many other constituency.
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg00077.html

Its highlight on Whois Committee started since it was mentioned
by Louis Tuton during Oct NC teleconference on Oct.19th.
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20001019.NCtelecon-minutes.html

It was discussed among the whole NC for the first time during MdR
on Nov. 14 wrapped by Louis' comment, "Receiving comments from
the public, and managing consensus, is the NC’s role, not the Staff’s
role. We’ll leave that to you."
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20001114.NCmdr-minutes.html

2. Objective of this Report

This initial effort aims at evaluating whether it is proper for ICANN
staff to set up the Whois Committee through lack of consultation
process with other relevant interest parties which has brought up
criticisms such as lack of openess and its transparent procedural flaw.

This initial effort aims at clarifying the "functions" of Whois Committee
by exploring the potential chances to be involved with the policy-
related issues and if it is decided by the public that it is NC's role
as Louis had suggested in MdR, NC has to develop its own more
equivalent structure from Registrar- and IP-focused current mix.

If it is decided by the public that it is ICANN staff's role, NC is
entitled to ask for its more specific timetable which doesn's provide
its current Whois Committee Report.
http://www.icann.org/committees/whois/

3. The position from the ICANN Staff, especially Louis Tuton
Based upon roving_reporter Ted Byfield, (See Ref. 1)

Whois Committee has been looking at Technical/operational aspects
of implementation of the Whois provisions of the ICANN-NSI Registry
Agreement(See Ref. 2) and the Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
(See Ref. 3) Section 9 of the Registry Agreement and Section II.F
of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement require the provision of
various web-based and port 43 services.

ICANN staff,  which is responsible for implementing the agreements
asked the group to provide technical suggestions for ways to implement
these provisions without unnecessary burdens on the registrars.

Current participants are NSI Registrar, Melbourne IT, CORE,
Domain Bank, Sarah Deutsch, Richard Kroon, Mark Kosters,
and Jonathan Whitehead, with Rebecca Nesson providing coordination.

When and if it does, it is expected to write up its suggestions
for further consideration by the procedures and in the venues
that are appropriate based on the nature of the group's suggestions,
and for the suggestions to be disseminated to the registrars and
posted on the web site.

4 Positions from Karl Auerbach, At-Large Board Director

The whois, particularly, when unified, will be viewed by many as one of
the net's largest potential privacy exposures.  As one who has spent many
years dealing with privacy and security technology, I am very concerned
about the difficulty - difficulty often approaching impossibility - of
layering on patches after the basic architecture has been cast in stone.

We are rapidly, indeed more rapidly than some feel comfortable, moving
towards an internationalized DNS.  This will likely have a significant
impact on the issues of data representation, but it will have even a
greater impact on the issue of searching and on the software by which
security and privacy policies are applied.

The whois structures are used in the IP address space.  Indeed, from an
operational perspective the whois data associated with IP addresses has a
far more important operational role than it does in the DNS side of
affairs.  It's probably well worthwhile examining to what extent common
elements, particularly a common data representation technique, can be
shared between these regimes.

Again, as the issues are viewed not as a set of registrars meeting their
contractual requirements, but rather as something that establishes policy
for DNS in general, or has the likelyhood of establishing such policy by
becoming a model that others will copy, then I think that the scope must
necessarily expand to address these, admittedly difficult but nevertheless
important, issues.

5. European perspective expressed by Dany Vandromme,
    Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency

European countries feel very concerned about protection of
personal data, privacy and related matters. The single point about anonymous
registration thatt you mention in you letter, is by no way, an adequate
scope to answer these issues. Therefore I would recommend that ICANN
includes also these aspects in the work of the group.

6. Opinions from Paul Kane, Registrar Constituency

As for the ICANN WHOIS Committee, I urge the Committee not focus
on Policy issues which are better handled in a different forum, but
on an WHOIS output remembering that the published "output" is a "window"
or small amount of the total data held by the Registrar (who may for example
hold but not display the billing record associated with a domain).

7. The concerns expressed YJ Park,
    Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency

Concern 1: Unclear Scope, Timetable and Formation Procedure

The scope described in .com/.net/.org Whois Committee is not clear
whether this can be limited to "implementation" issues only. For example,
there is an explicit willingness to take actions regarding policy issues
other than implementation ones in the Subsection II.F.8 in the staff report.
"This subsection concerns future, amended Whois policies."

Regarding Implementation Issues listed up in the ICANN staff report,
there are some parts which will directly to lead to the "policy issues".

- If a standard format is to be encouraged, what should it be?
- to provide supplementary data
- to limit the number of queries from a particular site
- to limit the number of responses returned to a single query
- to provide nameserver IP addresses in response to Whois inquiries
- a standard definition of the role of technical and administrative contacts
- better dissemination of information about the anonymous registration
   mechanism

Concern 2 : More Specific Description Needed.

This committee was created before 7 new TLD registries has been
designated by the Board. What would be the potential relations between
this project on .com, .net, .org and the 7 new TLD registries and their
registars? This is also unclear.

8. Motion to the NC:

Based upon the reference report provided by ICANN staff, it is noted
there are many concernable policy issues are mingled with implemenation
ones without proper representatives from the diverse DNSO stakeholders.

Therefore, NC hereby proposes to Whois committee and ICANN staff
as it was proposed by Louis in MdR start to receive comments from
the public and decide its authorized formation equipped with diverse
membership structure and open and transparent procedure with clearer
description regarding its scope and timeframe.

Reference:
1. http://www.tbtf.com/roving_reporter/index.html#2
2. http://www.icann.org/nsi/nsi-registry-agreement-04nov99.htm
3. http://www.icann.org/nsi/icann-raa-04nov99.htm