Re: [ga] Re: [ALSC-Forum] Re: [GTLD Registries List] What is the accreditation status of registrars that made fake applications?

[Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>]

Eric Dierker wrote:

> Jeff Williams wrote:
> 
> > Eric and all stakeholders or interested parties,
> >
> > Eric Dierker wrote:
> >
> > > Thank you for your comments,
> > >
> > > 1.    When should a RFC be disregarded?  What is the criteria?
> >
> >   Look it up yourself.  It is on the IETF web site as to when, and how
> > this is determined.
> >
> 
> All positive comments welcome.
> 
> All comments referring back to the originators of the offending documents are bull.
> 
> Everyone knows we are friends but this kind of comment stretches things, as it
> offends us dotcommoners.

If you're offended because you don't understand it, please either learn it
or shut up. 

I can suggest some good starting points:
http://www.tcpipprimer.com/index.cfm
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO/
but there are dozens of others including web sites, books, courses, ...
Choose one to your taste.

If you think you understand it and are offended by parts of it, start
participating in IETF Working Groups, working toward improving it.

If you don't understand it, don't want to learn it, and are offended
by it, why on earth should anyone care?

> The IETF web site is bullshit and we all know it. It is an offense to all
> common users of the net.

The IETF and its predecessors designed the net, and overall they've done
a brilliant job of producing something open and flexible, and of value
not only to the big companies and gov'ts that own most of the
infrastructure, but to the "dot commoners" as well.

Of course it's not perfect and there's still work to be done. No wonder.
RFC 1118 was a "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet" published in 1989,
before the web was invented. From its section on "Internet problems:
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1118.txt

"     When the Internet was designed it was to have about 50 connected
"     networks.  With the explosion of networking, the number is now
"     approaching 1000. ... 

The Internet still works at least moderately well today despite the
continuing explosion. The number of networks today must be at least
in the tens of thousands; for all I know it could be far higher. If
it still works, that far outside the original design spec, there's
no denying it's a fine piece of work overall.  

The only other major attempt to define protocols for an internet was
the ISO (International Standards Organisation) work on their OSI
(Open Systems Interconnection) project. This was largely dominated
by big telephone companies and heavily supported by various gov'ts.
It was a miserable failure, completely eclipsed by the technically
superior and far more open IETF TCP/IP suite of protocols.

So the fact is that the /only/ demonstrably successful way to design
and run an Internet is via the open processes of the IETF.

My main objection to ICANN is that they are abandoning those proven
methods:
	all the crap about constituencies instead of the IETF model
	 open to anyone interested
	game-playing with the At Large Board seats to give those
	 constituencies even more power
	abandoning IETF's open Working Groups in favour of closed
	 Task Forces
	WIPO involvement
	giving The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) and
	 ETSI (European) equal status with IETF and W3C in the PSO
	...

I'm inclined to think we'd be further ahead scrapping ICANN entirely
and reverting to the model we had before, with Jon Postel and a
small staff just running the show. 

The only hard part would be finding someone as savvy and as widely
respected as Postel. You need someone who has demonstrated high levels
of both social conciousness and Internet technical knowledge. Methinks
there are a few around:

	John Gilmore http://www.toad.com/gnu/
	Karl Auerbach http://www.cavebear.com/
	Paul Vix http://www.vix.com/
	Bill Simpson (I don't know his home page, but here's
	 one of his papers http://cryptome.org/esigs-suck.htm)

Give any of that lot a small system adminstration staff and a good
secretary, and beyond doubt they'd do a better job cheaper than ICANN's
entire structure.
 
> When you speak at me, remember you speak to a user not an engineer.
 
When you speak of the IETF, remember that they've done a fine job
overall, and that when it comes to the technical questions of
protocol design "you are constitutionally entitled to have a
personal opinion, but not to have a professional opinion".

Also remember that the engineers aren't the enemy. Most of them just
want to design and build usable systems, with whatever resources
they can get at. 

Note that the two ICANN Board members who consistently advocate
reasonable positions from the point of view of user interests

	Karl http://www.cavebear.com/
and	Andy http://www.icann.org/biog/mueller-maguhn.htm

are among most technically competent members of that board. Several of the
ones consistently on the opposite side are lawyers or telephonists,
the least adept folk there in terms of Internet technology.  

Many techies are quite concerned about user interests, and about issues
like freedom and privacy.

See for example some RFCs on privacy protection:
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1984.txt
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1421.txt
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1991.txt

Or the major annual conference on such issues:
http://www.cfp2002.org/

Or the various organisations working for net civil liberties:

http://www.eff.org/
http://www.cpsr.org/
http://www.gilc.org/

Note that all of these were founded by -- and are still largely
composed of -- technical folk, but they are the only organisations
around that deal seriously with various issues that might well be
of major concern to "dot commoners".

It seems to me the most useful contribution you might make to
further development of the net would be to get involved in those 
organisations and encourage large numbers of other "dot commoners"
to do the same.

At any rate, this would be a better use of your energy and enthusiasm
than gratuitously slagging the IETF.
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