Alternative DNS systems and net neutrality - Was: Re: [governance] DNSsec and allternative DNS system

[Alejandro Pisanty]

Karl,

thanks a lot for putting in the effort. You even managed to use 
disqualifying terminology very scarcely. When followed consequently your 
argument still doesn't hold.

And, there may be some among us who even enjoy your note more when you 
once again go into the Victorian and so on but the logic stopped earlier. 
The coordination layer, the avoidance of "user surprise" or at least 
keeping it within acceptable levels, etc. are more fraught than you 
suggest.

As Suresh has already stated, we've come full circle yet again.

Alejandro Pisanty


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      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
Director General de Servicios de Computo Academico
UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
Tel. (+52-55) 5622-8541, 5622-8542 Fax 5622-8540
http://www.dgsca.unam.mx
*
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On Thu, 15 Nov 2007, Karl Auerbach wrote:

> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:38:49 -0800
> From: Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com>
> Reply-To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com>
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Cc: Meryem Marzouki <marzouki at ras.eu.org>
> Subject: Re: Alternative DNS systems and net neutrality - Was: Re:
>     	[governance] DNSsec and allternative DNS system
> 
> Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>
>> ... do you have a view on the coordination of alternative roots that does 
>> not either devolve to the ICANN model or create a new, additional, 
>> yet-to-be-designed entity to manage the coordination?
>
> The mechanism that I have suggested - a mechanism that can be done today 
> without anyone asking permission of anyone - requires no external 
> coordination at all.
>
> Those who run root systems that provide inconsistent contents will create 
> user surprise.  Users directly or via their proxies (i.e. their ISP's) will 
> avoid those root systems that create such surprises.  Users do not need some 
> $50,000,000 a year bureaucracy to "coordinate" away surprise any more than 
> they need a bloated bureaucracy to tell 'em to avoid a stinky skunk.
>
> Remember Monty Python's Tobacconist Sketch? - 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Hungarian_Phrasebook - A competing root 
> that surprises users would be like that ill mannered phrasebook. Once its 
> character became known its use would plummet (except as a novelty.)
>
> As for the "coordination" of making sure that .com (and the other TLDs found 
> in the NTIA/ICANN/Verisign root zone) remain "pure" - that's the province of 
> trademark law - Verisign, for example, plenty of legal tools to ensure that 
> no body markets a TLD product using the .com name.  PIR, similarly, has the 
> power to use trademark law to shut down anybody who offers a ".org" that 
> isn't PIR's version.
>
>
>> A large number of people in the technology, policy, and interface fields 
>> have not taken a dogmatic view about alt-roots, just answered that question 
>> in a logical, thorough way, carrying the reasoning thoroughly, and 
>> repeatedly found that, as a previous posting said, the single-root system 
>> in use is the "best worst", and some even find it good.
>
> I strongly disagree.  ICANN's own statement on this matter was simply a 
> self-protective creation based on thin air.  And the IAB's statement is 
> social engineering based on what they would like the internet to look like 
> rather than a document filled with compelling technical arguments.
>
> Such statements are typically filled with the "logic" that <insert 
> institution name here> knows what users need and want more than do the users 
> themselves.  The paternalism in these statements resembles the kind of thing 
> that came out of King Leopold of Belgium and Queen Victoria of England in 
> their systems of colonial governance during the the 19th century when the 
> standards of the European upper classes were applied, often quite ruthlessly, 
> onto indigenous cultures in Asia, the Pacific islands, and especially Africa.
>
> It is long past time when the US, NTIA, and NTIA's creation, ICANN, ceased 
> telling internet users how to use the internet.  The internet is not some 
> creation to enforce Borg-like uniformity, rather it is an instrumentality 
> that we hope will empower individual creativity, group cohesion, and bring 
> human aspirations closer to fruition.
>
> Users of the net have every right to shape their view of the internet 
> landscape in accord with their values and ideas.  If that means that some 
> people outside their group have a hard time reaching in then so be it.  Do we 
> condemn the Amish communities in Pennsylvania because they chose not to have 
> telephones and thus deny telemarketer the ability to call and interrupt their 
> evening prayer?  Yet that seems to be the logic underlying many of the 
> catholic [again, lower case 'c'] singular root arguments.
>
> Moreover, competing roots have existed for years - I went forth and used them 
> for several years for myself and my company - they do not cause things to 
> break.
>
> Look at the ORSN, a competing root system - 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Root_Server_Network - is it dangerous and 
> to be condemned?
>
> Remember, the key word here is "consistency".
>
> Taiwan ran for about a year using its own root system - it was so transparent 
> that they forgot they were using it and it was only when I discovered it and 
> bought that fact to the attention of ICANN was it disabled.
>
> By-the-way, it has long been my position that the internet runs best when run 
> on the basis of the End-to-End principle and when users at the edges make the 
> choices, not centralized bureaucracies, such as ICANN.
>
> That is why I have proposed this ( 
> http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000059.html )
>
>  First Law of the Internet
>
> + Every person shall be free to use the Internet in any way that is privately 
> beneficial without being publicly detrimental.
>
>   - The burden of demonstrating public detriment shall be on those who wish 
> to prevent the private use.
>
>       - Such a demonstration shall require clear and convincing evidence of 
> public detriment.
>
>   - The public detriment must be of such degree and extent as to justify the 
> suppression of the private activity.
>
> Consequently, those who are on the side of demanding the suppression of 
> competing roots have the burden to demonstrate, with clear and convincing 
> evidence, that competing roots cause public detriment.
>
> 		--karl--
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