RE: [ga] Older Registrations

["Christopher Ambler" <cambler@iodesign.com>]

I recalled that there was a story and interview with Jon a couple
of years back in which the question at hand was answered, by Jon.

Took me a while, but I found it.

=== begin archive ===

Industry asks: Who is Jon Postel?

By Todd Wallack and Ellen Messmer
Network World, 4/21/97

In the murky world of Internet governance, few organizations play as
critical a role as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

 IANA is ultimately responsible for assigning Internet addresses throughout
the world. It is IANA that assigns all top-level domains. And it is IANA
that doles out IP numbers to registries, which in turn issue them to
Internet service providers and users.

The Defense Department said it gave IANA $450,000 in late 1995 and has given
it millions over the years. NSI said it pays Postel $240,000 a year to
manage the .us domain, a country specific code that Postel for some reason
registered under his name and ISI's.

''Why he did that was never ex plained,'' said Tony Rutkowski, a former
executive director of the Internet Society and now a strong advocate for
reform. ''But it was a revenue opportunity for ISI.''

Postel denied anything sinister was involved. He said the university simply
''volunteered'' to handle the domain in 1986 and has been doing so ever
since. The money, he said, just covers expenses.

''The single point of authority is the IANA ... Dr. Jon Postel,'' said Don
Telage, NSI president. ''This has worked well, but we need to rethink the
situation.''

Though reluctant to talk about the details, Postel confirmed he is finally
talking to USC, the Defense Department, registries and Internet
organizations about turning IANA into a more formal organization. He said he
started the work in March, when the Defense Department indicated it planned
to stop funding IANA. He hopes to complete it by June.

To truly understand IANA, Postel said it is important to consider how the
Internet evolved - going back to the beginning of the Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network (ARPANet) in 1969.

At the time, the 'Net was run by a collegial group of researchers and funded
by the Defense Department. Postel even went to the same high school as
Vinton Cerf, who created TCP, and another Interet pioneer, Steve Crocker.

At the age of just 25, Postel got involved in running the Network Management
Center, which conducted performance tests and analysis on the earliest roots
of ARPANet. Since then, Postel has taken on more duties and become one of
the most venerated members of the Internet elite.

He has been the request for comment (RFC) editor for a quarter of a century.
He was the one who made sure every segment of the net work had a unique
identifier. In fact, he is mentioned at least 17 times in a book on the
origins of the Internet: Where the Wizards Sleep.

''IANA is just a name we invented in the '80s to describe this work,'' said
Postel, who sports a long white beard, ponytail and sandals.

Although Postel is ostensibly in charge of all domain names and IP numbers,
he says these duties do not take much time. Now and then, he simply
allocates a new block of IP numbers to a registry or helps registries with
special requests. But the registries actually handle all the day-to-day
details on their own.

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