Re: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC commentson proposed Bylaws modifications)

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Marc Schneiders wrote:

> ... How would the ITU be
> able to deal with a network that is designed in a totally different way
> than the one it already knows so well for a hundred (?) years, vid. the
> telephone? You can only connect rather dumb machines of one particular
> type to the telephone network, and only over one set of 'cables', owned by
> one company ("the last mile"). You can connect all sorts of devices, even
> ones that you've built yourself to the internet...

When telephones first came about, people were able to attach phones of
their own design to telephone systems of their own creation.  As one can
imagine, this did cause interoperability issues and, since real copper
wire was involved, it also created safety issues.  (I.e. putting a
significant voltage onto a phone wire could more than "surprise" a
switchboard operator or a lineman.)

Today's Internet gear comes in various flavors, but that which directly
attaches to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) circuits must
in fact obtain the appropriate certifications from the FCC (in the US) or
other national authorities.  And if you build internet gear that attaches 
to cable-TV net then you better have a Cable Labs certification sticker.  
And if you attach to fiber, you had better use appropriate drivers - there 
is more than a bit of truth in the warning "do not look into end of fiber 
with remaining eye."

The "freedom" that you mention on the Internet tends to occur at the 
higher protocol levels - you are indeed free to build your own IP stack.

However, my wife's company, InterWorking Labs, tests such implementations.  
And the quality of many such implementations falls far short of even the 
most liberal interpretation of "acceptable".  As the recent measurements 
of DNS query traffic to a root server indicate, the ramifications of badly 
done code are significant and the not at all localized to the machines 
containing the bad code.

It is not unforeseeable that, as the net moves towards lifeline/utility
status that there will be requirements that code has to pass certain
technical certifications before it will be allowed to source and sink
packets onto the public switched packet network (PSPN) called "the
internet".

Given the fact that ISPs are private bodies, we might expect that such
certification requirements may start in that context as matters of
self-protection and then evolve and expand.

As for ICANN - it has demonstrated that it is utterly unwilling (and
incapable) of dealing with technical questions; that it is enthralled with
dictating non-technical social, business, and economic polices; and that
its committment to the public good is illusory.  ICANN/IANA has
demonstrated - as when it refused to update delegation NS records for
ccTLDs - that it is willing to gamble with the actual operational
stability of signficant parts of the internet, without any benefit to the
public, merely to induce ccTLD operators into signing contracts with
ICANN.

> I would hope that if ICANN is ever replaced, completely or in part, that
> it will be by a better organization.

Or organizations, plural.

It is my belief that much of ICANN's job can be done by a set of distinct
organizations, most of which would be small service or clerical bureaus
with no discretionary powers.  See http://www.cavebear.com/rw/apfi.htm

		--karl--



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