[ga] Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] Re: Decentalization proposal for ICANN Evolution and Reform

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Karl and all,

  I have a few comments on this thread that I hope you will pay some
attention to Karl.  (See more below Karl's comments/remarks)

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, James Love wrote:
>
> > This is a specific proposal for ICANN decentralization.
> >
> > 1.   Get ICANN out of the protoccal and numbering business, and focus on the
> > names issues, where the lack of an accepted decision making structure is the
> > most problematic.  Let the ASO and PSO be independent and sort our their own
> > issues.
>
> I'd have to disagree with you here - While I do believe that there is no
> need for any public body to handle what is essentially a clerical job of
> writting down "protocol parameters", there need for a rational policy on
> IP address allocation is essential for the net to get IP packets from
> sources to destinations.

  I essentially agree with you here Karl.  But I think that there is much
more to this than you mentioned here...

>
>
> IP address allocation policy is frought with public policy issues - but so
> far nobody except ISPs and router vendors have noticed.  Fortunately they
> are issues that don't carry the additional burdens, such as trademark
> concerns, that have so bedeviled anything to do with DNS.  Today the RIR
> system of allocating addresses is working acceptably well - the RIR folks
> have dulled the sharp edge of their early policies so that there are not a
> lot of divergent points of views on the allocation policies except at the
> very edges, and hence least vocal parts, of the net.  And IPv6, if it
> ever gets here, will significantly reduce even those complaints.

  Ok here there are a few things that I believe you omitted or didn't
want to mention for some reason or another.  One thing is that
IPv6 will never be broadly excepted IMHO, as it is not ready for
prime time yet and has been under development for more than 7
years now.  IPv8 and IPv16 are being deployed now more
rapidly than IPv6 is and yet amongst a strong core group in
the IETF/IESG IPv8 and IPv16 don't really exist.  That tells
me that there are some unrealistic thought processes within the
ASO that need addressing and soon...

>
>
> Last night I was having a discussion with someone we all know and I
> suggested a division into four distinct and completely separate entities.
>
>  A. An IP address allocation policy body.  The RIRs would still exist
>     under this body.  Funding would come from the RIRs.

  Ok but whom would determine which RIR's would be legitimate
or which new ones are to be created and under what set of
rules/principals?   The RIR's themselves or the ASO?

>
>
>  B. An essentially clerical body to do the non-discretionary parts of
>     IANA.  This would be funded by those who use it, primarily the IETF.
>     No need for public participation here.
>
>  C. A body to administer a DNS root zone file and to either manage or
>     operate (or both) the collection of root servers for that zone file.
>     This body would deal with routine zone file maintaince, like
>     updating records, but would have no authority to add, remove, or
>     redelegate any delegation.  It could only do that per instructions
>     from the fourth body, below.

  Agreed here.

>
>
>     I don't see this as a big or expensive operation, apart from its
>     own administrative elements, the actual work could be performed
>     by a very small number of people.  The biggest cost  issue is
>     that of the root server operations themselves, something that I
>     believe can cost relatively little (apart from possible one-time
>     startup costs) if we realize that 24x7 oversight of root servers can
>     be accomplished by two or three people with pagers as long as there
>     is some means to invoke a trustworthy set of hands at each server site
>     to do things like power cycle a box or insert/eject a CD.  And a lot
>     of the better co-los into which one might consider placing a root
>     server have such people.
>
>     My own quick estimate for this was $3,000,000 one time cost to
>     establish 12 fully owned, co-lo located root servers.  (This number
>     doesn't have a huge amount of safety margin - I was assuming each
>     root server would be built using solid PC or Sun class servers fronted
>     by some sort of load balancer, F5 or Cisco local director or
>     whatever.)  $250,000 per site buys a lot of hardware these days
>     including a trip to install it wherever it is to be.

  Agreed here as well...

>
>
>     I estimated yearly operational costs to be anywhere from 4 FTE's -
>     for a total of $500,000 to $1,000,000 year depending on salary rates
>     and overhead - to as much as 3x that, i.e. a max of $3,000,000/year.
>     Co-lo space rental for 12 servers at $1,000/month per site still
>     amounts to only $144,000/year, i.e. it's a small percentage of the
>     labor cost.

  This looks pretty close to right here to me as well.

>
>
>     There is nothing special about the facilities, so they don't need to
>     be armor clad - if they burn down or there's an earthquake, as long
>     as the access keys are kept safe, one could actually administer the
>     remote servers via SSH from a laptop in a coffee house. ;-)
>     (That's not really that weird - we did that kind of thing here in
>     Santa Cruz after the 1989 earthquake.)

  Yep.  We operate our SAT based servers by remote as you can
understand.  >;)

>
>
>     Funding for this would come from a number of sources - such as an
>     override fee on TLDs (much like ICANN does today), update transaction
>     fees, etc.
>
>  D. A DNS policy body.  This is where the trouble would continue to exist.
>     But at least it would be in a smaller, and less expensive, container.
>
> By-the-way, when drawing the line as to what is technical and what is
> policy, I have suggested the following metric:
>
>   A matter is "technical coordination" of the Internet if:
>
>   - A wrong decision has an immediate and direct impact on the
>     ability of the Internet to deliver its fundamental service, i.e.
>     the end-to-end transport of IP packets.

  Yep.

>
>
>   Otherwise it is a policy matter.
>

LOL!  Well yes that's about it!  >;)

>
> > 2.    Begin with an ICANN/DNSO, I'll call ICANN-1, that is particularly US
> > Centric, and according to observors, tends to do, for better or worse, the
> > following things.
>
> >      b.  Embraces US style approaches to protection of consumers and in
> > areas where it has a responsibility, trademark issues.
>
> I find the injection of trademark issues into network operation to be one
> of the single worst things done to ICANN.

  Here here!

>  From a US legal perspective,
> there is still no reason to believe that the agency of the US government,
> the Dept of Commerce, which itself has now power to regulate trademarks,
> has any authority to empower a private body to do the job that it can not.

  Exactly right.  And this is why the UDRP is extralegal.  And the
second most damaging thing ICANN has done...

>
>
> I'd suggest that we abandon that failed experiment of private lawmaking
> and let national legislatures do what they are supposed to do.

  This is a problem.  They don't want to do that job where the internet
in concerned, they don't really understand the issues so confusion
will be forthcoming if this approach was taken.

> Sure the
> trademark people will yell and scream that their inexpensive and fast UDRP
> has gone away - but we have to remember that the UDRP is inexpensive and
> fast because the concepts of due process, effective review, and even
> handed procedures have been eliminated.

  If the stakeholders had had the opportunity to vote on the UDRP
in it's present form, it would not exist in that form today if at all...
And this iw where ICANN failed and seemingly continues to fail.

>
>
>                 --karl--
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@icann-ncc.org
> http://www.icann-ncc.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 121k members/stakeholdes strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


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