Re: [ga] Older registrations

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

Simon and all assembly members,

  Simons comments and history here is also essentially correct as it is
stated below.  I have some additional notes to which I will add my
part to what isn't in Simons comments in a general manner, but come
from parts of transcripts and E-Mails that Jon had privately sent to me
or we had over the phone.  (See below Simons comments)

Simon Higgs wrote:

> Craig,
>
> Time to reminisce again Harald... ;-)
>
> >Simon,
> >
> >I want to congratulate you for providing a very interesting and useful
> >recounting of these events. Folks here may be interested to know that also I
> >have some stuff written about this at
> >http://www.flywheel.com/ircw/dnsdraft.html and
>
> Um... thanks, but I've definitely been misquoted. I think I have to put a
> hit out on you now... ;-p

  Yes indeed you have.  Craig has a history of doing this "Misquoting" on
several other occasions from my notes regarding that history.  He was also
a firm supporter of the IAHC and later the gTLD-MoU effort that became
a mess, that lead us to the current ICANN mess we have on our hands now.

>
>
> RE: (This quote awaits verification)
>
> I questioned whether it would be right for me to be on the first IAHC
> because I was also a TLD applicant and it would probably constitute a
> conflict of interest. Jon thought it would be OK if I just sat out my
> application (it was supposed to be a less formal process than today). But
> before I got a firm answer back ISOC had taken the process away from Jon.

  Just prior to the ISOC taking over the process from the IANA and Jon
is when Jon had contacted me by phone as was very concerned about
Don Heath.  He didn't trust Don after he had thought about several things,
which I will not go into here in great detail now, but is a part of documented
history that is rarely discussed now as it was quite embarrassing at the time
to Don and Jon.

> I
> only described IAHC in negative terms after their first draft when they had
> proved to me beyond a shadow of doubt they were not listening to, or
> benefiting the Internet community, or even attempting to build on the prior
> IANA work. What I actually said will probably get your web site RBL'd. ;-)

  This is essentially what Jon was thinking and it troubled him terribly after he
had gotten into bed with Don Heath.  IMHO it was at least part of what lead
to Jon's untimely death.  Many who do not know or knew Jon prior to
this time frame would likely strongly disagree with me here, but I talked to
Jon allot and frequently during this period.  We also privately exchanged
E-Mails as well.  All of which I have archived.

>
>
> If you could amend that paragraph please.
>
> >http://www.flywheel.com/ircw/overview.html .
> >
> >Of course, you were there through the whole thing, and I was not until
> >spring of
> >1997 (and it took me another few months after that to figure out why the
> >participants seemed to hate each others' guts so thoroughly). I am primarily
> >interested in assessing this in terms of the wider context of modern
> >society and
> >social thought: namely, the big picture story about how computer engineers
> >engage in social architecture. But it's also important to have a clear view of
> >how the smaller pieces of the story fit together.
>
> Just an FYI, I was the recipient of the CommerceNet '96 VIP Award for Best
> Online Community for a site I designed in 1995. The technological
> architecture definitely shapes and enables social architecture if done
> correctly. This comes down largely to correctly programming the human
> interface, but other areas are equally instrumental to the human psyche
> such as "identity". This, of course, is where names and addresses become
> important.
>
> Having said that, the best online resources showing computer engineers
> engaging in social architecture are http://www.dilbert.com/ and
> http://www.userfriendly.org/. ;-)
>
> >That said, I want to ask some questions and add one or two comments.
> >
> >1) You said you opened up the original shared-tld mailing list. I'm afraid I
> >don't seem to have anything on that one. Can you point me to archives?
>
> The mailing list was never archived. I have a copy of all the traffic in
> Eudora mailbox format on a CD, but no-one has ever asked to see it.
>
> >2) You mentioned a plan to create a small series of ad hoc committees.
> >This is a
> >very important point, mentioned in the January 96 draft at
> >ftp://rg.net/pub/dnsind/relevant/draft-ymbk-itld-admin-00.txt . But the
> >authors
> >were floating ideas. The same draft contemplates the alternative, creating a
> >more formal permanent body. What's your sense of who favored a permanent
> >body at
> >the time, and who preferred the ad hoc approach?
>
> Who has motive and who benefits? I think everyone involved in the early
> days favored independence from governmental oversight.

  I was one of the few that did not favor NO government oversight.  I did
favor limited government involvement by the US Govt.  Jon wasn't sure here,
but felt I think pretty much the same as I did, however was receiving pressure
from the ISOC at this time and was in a crux or a rock and a hard place.

> The idea of a
> permanent body was to establish a stable mechanism (something that would
> have the authority to delegate new iTLDs). Unfortunately, there are people
> who have used the idea of a permanent body as a career leveraging move (a
> marketing decision).

  A career leveraging move is exactly what was being attempted with several
players, not the least of which was Don Heath.  Jon became more and more
aware of this thinking that it would end up in a quagmire, which it did, and has
lead us to where we are now with the ICANN.

> Thus the establishment of a blue ribbon panel instead
> of a panel of unwashed geeks with rough consensus and running code. Looking
> back now writing this I think this is how the original situation got
> thoroughly "Dilberted".

  Agreed.

>
>
> >3) One key point of controversy that I think needs emphasis was Postel's
> >motivation in finding alternative funding sources for the IANA and the
> >consequence of this. Some of the Spring 96 drafts contemplated a hefty fee for
> >blessing a new TLD registry, and this provoked heated opposition.  Isn't this
> >what prompted Denninger, Kashpureff and Fenello to try to go out on their own?
>
> Each of their motivations were different. Karl didn't agree to any kind of
> taxation. Eugene was Jon's grand experiment which went wildly out of
> control (in another Jon-prompted situation I ended up enquiring on buying
> NSI from SAIC and discovered SAIC's plans to IPO it). I'm not sure about Jay.

  I had figured this was going on at the time from a number of other sources
and positioned myself to acquire as much of the NSI stock through different
sources as I could.  I did so and than held on to most of it until late last year.

>
>
> The "hefty fee" was a 2% royalty per 2LD delegated, paid to IANA. I think
> most agreed with this in principle. The problem was defining the audit
> trail. There was a lot of uncertainty among the competing registries about
> how the audits could be trusted, and the misunderstandings led to this
> royalty being called a tax. Remember that we were designing a system to
> create competition against NSI and creating a commercial advantage is part
> of that, whether you like it, or not. This is probably where the claims of
> "greed" come from. CORE, on the other hand, created an environment of pure
> greed (a closed, exclusionary community) and sanctified it by doing it in
> the name of a public trust.

  This is about right here word for word that I heard from Jon about in
another Phone conversation I have recorded.

> I've stood at CORE members trade show booths
> and have been plain lied to. Fortunately they've now been roped in by USG
> and are now having to compete legitimately with the rest of the Internet
> community.

  In a sense yes they must compete but they also are in key positions or
are seeking to be in key positions within the ICANN structure presently.

>
>
> >4) Ambler, on the other hand, recognized the potential windfall of obtainin an
> >official blessing that he could own .web, and he was more than willing to
> >pay to
> >get it. Thus, as I see it, he tried to force a contract on Postel by way of
> >Manning. This is where personality makes a difference. Postel was by this time
> >apparently rather fed up and didn't want to be bothered; Ambler is one of the
> >most aggressive people you'll ever meet; and Manning is the archetypal
> >nice guy
> >who is uncomfortable saying no to people. He said no to Ambler's entreaties at
> >least once that fateful day, but Ambler kept up the pressure, and (with
> >everybody buzzing on the MSG from too much Chinese food?) Manning finally
> >succumbed, accepting a sealed envelope that Ambler calls an application
> >fee. At
> >least Manning kept enough good sense to sign nothing. Postel intervened
> >the next
> >day, sent back the envelope to Ambler, and announced that no commercial
> >applications were being accepted. (Unfortunately, I just discovered that the
> >link at umich.edu that I used to cite Postel's email to this point is no
> >longer
> >good).
>
> I was there too. That's one opinion you could make if you weren't there. ;-)
>
> First, Jon Postel was never employed by IANA full time. He was employed by
> USC and his duties included mostly IANA-related things. He was busy on
> other projects that day. Bill Manning arranged the meeting as a consensus
> gathering exercise for Jon's draft. I never figured that out until the end
> of the meeting and we agreed upon the notes/minutes for the meeting. Both
> Chris Ambler and myself attended as TLD applicants. During the meeting Bill
> got out the file of applications and confirmed our TLD applications were on
> file. The check is a really big red herring. Because the Postel draft was
> going to require a fee to accompany the applications before they could be
> processed, Bill agreed to add a sealed envelope to the applications with
> the understanding that the contents were to remain sealed until the
> application was processed. The purpose of this was so IANA would not
> receive money ahead of the application, yet the application could be
> immediately processed when the proper time came. In practice it would work
> out the same as if we were to go home and mail in the check based upon the
> Postel draft requirements. Either one would be satisfactory. Remember, the
> underlying motive of all this was to satisfy the Postel draft requirements,
> have the iTLD application successfully processed, and get the chosen iTLD
> in the root. I didn't have my check book with me otherwise I would have
> done exactly the same thing.

  This is essentially how Jon explained it to me as well over the phone the
next day as well.

>
>
> Did Bill Manning or Jon Postel know what was in the envelope? I know who
> knew, but it really doesn't matter one way or the other.

  Yes they both knew.

> They weren't doing
> anything wrong. What caused the stink was that someone leaked the rumor on
> newdom that IANA was accepting payments for iTLDs. This wasn't true.

  Exactly right.

> The
> facts are that IANA did not, at any time, receive money for the delegation
> of iTLDs. But in order to avoid the appearance of doing so - now the whole
> world knew what was in the sealed envelope by way of newdom - they were
> forced, by convention, to publicly return the envelope.

  Again this is how Jon discussed it with me at the time.  I also supported
this action after he told me what had occurred.  I warned him never to
accept money in this manner again and should have known better in the
first place.

>
>
> I can't comment on Chris' claims as I was not part of his private
> discussions with IANA. What I can comment on is IANA's blessing at that
> meeting for the proposed registries to fulfill the requirements of the
> Postel draft. This included turning on the registries to meet operational
> requirements, and ensuring the visibility of the iTLD's DNS records to the
> public. This also included accepting paid registrations in the applicant's
> chosen iTLD(s) - I was against collecting a fee until the iTLD was in the
> root but Bill said it was part of the overall operation so it was OK. Later
> Bill emailed out a legal disclaimer for the test registries to use that
> explained that domain name registrations would not be in the root until the
> iTLD application had been approved, and that that may, or may not, happen.
>
> >5) I don't know how much CORE pressured Postel to reorient part of the root. I
> >do know that Vixie and others had been pressuring him for some time (years) to
> >take control of the dot, because they didn't trust NSI. If CORE (or CORE
> >supporters) were pressuring Postel in early 98, which certainly seems
> >plausible,
> >it is clear that who ever was doing that was simultaneously escalating that
> >popular old anti-NSI rationale, offering scenarios that NSI was on the
> >verge of
> >adding its own selection of private TLD operators to the root. It would be
> >great
> >to know more about the evolution of those rumours, and Postel's private
> >reflections about what happened.
>
> I can't give you Jon's private reflections. I can only give you my
> observations. Jon was pressured from the time AlterNIC came online because
> no one had ever challenged the root authority before on this scale. Paul
> Vixie (of BIND, ISC, and f.root-servers.net fame) and Eugene Kashpureff
> (AlterNIC) went head-to-head at the 36th IETF (June 1996). I think it was
> there that Paul coined the phrase "DNS pirate". Think about it. The root
> server operators jealously guard their Internet wizardry and prowess in
> holding the net together. This was directly challenged by a the creation of
> a second experimental root. What if that root became more popular, and AOL
> and the ISP community started to use it instead? That pressure increased
> from all sides until the original process was taken away (announced by Don
> Heath at the IAHC BOF at the 37th IETF). Now look, today, at who is locked
> in, economically, as registrars to the ICANN root:
> http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html Is the light bulb on yet?

  Yep!

>
>
> Also Jon was worried about finding a legal umbrella for IANA's activities.
> Liability coverage was an issue that proved to be an obstacle to the
> original Postel draft process (the contested 2% royalty would have funded
> legal expenses). There was the increasing involvement of the ITU, which
> could have provided that umbrella, at the expense of the loss of both IANA
> and the IETF's independence. The ITU is well known for assuming control of
> communication standards and then charging for documentation, and this was a
> disturbing thought for the keeper of both the Protocol Numbers and RFC
> Editor. So far these particular concerns have proved groundless but at the
> time nobody (including Jon) had the answer. When ISOC took the process away
> from Jon, IANA gained that legal umbrella. I think Jon traded the original
> iTLD process away to ISOC for that legal protection in order to prevent a
> wholesale takeover by the ITU.

  In a sense Jon had little choice at this time frame but to pick a side.  He
and I discussed some of this on the phone and through a series of E-Mails
as well.  Jon felt he had to choose between the lesser of two evils so he
choose the ISOC, which he regretted later, but knew it was better than
the ITU.  So essentially Simon right here, except that Jon did know
at this point he had blundered terribly some time before (See above).

> He was a consensus builder which ultimately
> means he went along with whatever the prevailing community wanted, even if
> (as previously documented) he really didn't want to go in that direction to
> begin with. This might explain his actions in splitting the root. It was
> just "an experiment" remember.

  Exactly.  But by this time the net was growing faster than Jon had anticipated,
even though some of us warned him some time previous (years).

>
>
> NSI has always been expected to add any new TLDs to a.root-servers.net, but
> only from the master zone file held by IANA. NSI were contractually bound
> via the NSF agreement to IANA's ultimate authority for the contents of the
> root zone. The rumors of NSI adding private TLDs came from the same people
> who took the original process away from Jon Postel - who just happened to
> later decide the name space was a public trust and, later still, attempted
> to reorient the root. Opportunity and motive. I don't really know why Jon
> did what he did, but by that time IANA was a willing participant in the
> gTLD-MoU. The reorientation itself showed that the lines were clearly drawn
> between the gTLD-MoU and the US Government.

  Exactly right.  Jon felt, or stated to me he felt he must work with the gTLD-MoU
folks for a time and that maybe things could be hashed out with respect to iTLD's
added to the root.  This did not occur because some parties felt that they had
a previous claim and right to their applications at least being seriously
considered.
At this juncture, they could not be by the gTLD-MoU unless they were all
shared iTLD's or gTLD's.  That was not expectable to some parties involved
that had previous applications prior to Jon's coming to the idea that the DNS
and the Internet itself as a whole was a public trust.  But he did so after the
fact,
which started the mess to become even messier still....  This is essentially
where we are today with the DNS and the Root structure.

>
>
> >6) At the time it seemed like he had to eat crow, but the consequence has at
> >least one healthy aspect. If there can't be some adhoc process controlled
> >by the
> >IETF/IAB/ISOC crowd, it won't be controlled by NSI, or by the USG acting
> >cavalierly either (as it did when NSF first allowed NSI to start charging).
>
> The US Government was not acting cavalierly by allowing NSI to charge.
> While I may not agree with how it was done, it was a legitimate
> cost-recovery exercise to remove the burden from the U.S. taxpayer from
> funding domain names in the international space. The contractor involved
> still needs to get paid for processing the applications. How this is done
> is where it gets messy.

  I t sure does get messy!

>
>
> >Postel's move forced the USG to pay even closer attention, and to tread
> >carefully,
>
> The USG took note of the lines of polarization and intervened directly.
> This resulted in the complete invalidation of the gTLD-MoU by the USG
> (according to Ira C. Magaziner in a conference call). It also accelerated
> the creation of ICANN.

  Agreed.  And later Ira said that ICANN was starting to look allot like the
gTLD-MoU/CORE situation all over again.  Just after that Ira took a powder.

>
>
> >and it forces everybody else involved to seriously consider what it
> >means to have a legitimate formal process for governing key elements of the
> >Internet's most hierarchical feature. Even if this means endorsing some
> >kind of
> >proprietary pioneer preference for gTLDs (which I don't prefer, sorry), at
> >least
> >and at last the rule would be openly and widely stated.
>
> It's a non-zero sum game, and the sum of the whole should be greater than
> the sum of individual participants. That should make everyone a winner
> (pre-IAHC, post-IAHC, and post-ICANN). That's how you build a successful
> community. Not by forming a Draconian empire and enforcing totalitarian
> control - it won't work as the Internet will route around it (again).

  Very much agreed...  So here we are....

>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Simon
>
> --
> The future is still out there...
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman INEGroup (Over 95k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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