Re: [ga] Santiago DNSO GA Chair

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, Aug 10, 1999 at 09:11:19PM +0200, Michael Froomkin wrote:
> Kent Crispin wrote:
> > 
> > On Mon, Aug 09, 1999 at 09:24:26PM +0200, Michael Froomkin wrote:
> > [...]
> > >
> > > This is not a movie.  No one has died, and I hope no one will (although
> > > it is not inconceivable that a result of the requirement of open whois
> > > is that someone with an unpopular web site will be found and killed;
> > > this worries me).
> > 
> > Does it worry you more than someone running an unpopular newspaper
> > being found and killed? And aren't you confusing "web site" and
> 
> I don't get this: of course both scenarios worry me the same. 
> Oppression is oppression.  What differentiates them, of course, is that
> it's nearly trivial to protect the internet publisher and very, very
  
I don't agree with this at all.  Songbird is an internet publisher, 
it is very nearly impossible to keep all my information secret. The 
domain name is only a small part of that.  You know very well that 
the kind of privacy you are talking about is *very* difficult to 
achieve. 

> hard to protect the samizdat publisher. This seems like a feature, not a
> bug: We have a technology that offers to remove a great danger faced by
> dead tree publishers, and yet we deploy it in a way that undercuts this
> advantage.
> 
> > "domain name"? Finally, why is this problem not simply solved by
> > someone (for example, you) providing an anonymous domain registration
> > service? Is it that you would prefer that the domain registrars be
> 
> Lots and lots of reasons: liability, ease of access, potential mistrust
> on the part of the registrant, potential abuse on the part of the
> purposrtedly trusted third party.  Why build a system that needs kludgy
> work-arounds when we can build it right to begin with.

But all these concerns apply equally to the registrar/registry, who
would have to meet all the standards you describe, and pay all the
associated costs...  

> Also, what's the default: privacy or not?  I think privacy is a human
> right.  It is not absolute, perhaps, but a darn good default.  The DNS
> should reflect that default, not require people to go to great efforsts,
> and at time additional expense, to exercise their right to privacy.

It is essentially impossible to engage in business with the kind of 
privacy you describe, and no matter what, achieving it has a large 
cost -- if not in direct money, in inconvenience and other factors.  
The vast majority of people, if given the choice would rather not 
pay that cost.  It would not be a good idea to design a system with 
that cost built in

[...]

> > And you, of course, are the only altruist in the bunch?
> 
> No, not the *only* one. ;>  But I don't have any financial interest in
> the outcome, if that's what you mean.

Neither do I, and neither do a lot of people.



> One of the nice things about
> being a tenured academic is that you have the financial freedom, and
> some of the time, to do this sort of thing.  Of course, I recongnize
> that one person's altruist is another's fanatic.  But again, that's
> life.
> 
> -- 
> A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin@law.tm
> U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
> +1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
>                 -->   It's hot there.   I'm elsewhere.   <--
> 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain