[ga-full] RE: [ga] *IF* ICANN fails what about UN?

["!Dr. Joe Baptista" <baptista@pccf.net>]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Ben Edelman wrote:

> In my prior message, I should also have mentioned an article in the Berkley
> Technology Law Journal that Jonathan wrote on the same subject -- expanding
> in somewhat greater detail on the question of "What if ICANN Fails?"
> 
> <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/zittrainbtlj.pdf>

This is the usual jibberish one can expect of lawyers.  The statements by
Jonathan are about as scholarly as spreading butter on sliced bread.  I
will now make correction the Zittrain nonsense.

> suggests, the power of the root derives from the fact that a critical mass
> of system administrators and “mirror” root zone server operators choose to
> follow it. A drastic turnaround in the management of Internet top-level

That is a complete misunderstanding of how the root came into
being.  system administrators have at no time in the past or present
choosen to follow it - i.e. point themselves to the root servers.  The
root server cache which performs this function is distributed with each
release of bind as a standard file and root server pointer.  Most system
administrators have no idea their are options - nor do the distributors of
BIND bother to advise them of alternate roots.

Indeed as system administrators become aware of options and alternatives
to the current USG root system would one expect competition and
eventually a migration away from the USG.

In fact control of the internet routing infrastructure is in the hands of
about 150,000 domain server operators identified by the BIND1999 Survey.

The remainder of Zitrains argument you have quoted is dismissed as more
legal jibberish.

> Surely there exist other scholarly commentaries on the subject, but I
> unfortunately know of no others.

Like I said - Zitrains arguments amount to a bread and butter show, and
that is the extent of any scholarly disposition.

Regards
Joe Baptista

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