[governance] Who Owns Your Valuable .COM Name and Other Questions ???

[Jim Fleming]

One of the shocking aspects of what people call "Internet Governance" is
the shallow depth of understanding of the past, present and future. There
also appears to be an almost dangerous level of apathy coupled with a
high-level of self-assurance that discussions in these forums will shape
companies and organizations who have no intention of changing their
direction.
It is similar to a group that stands near a train track and volunteers
someone
to stand and dare each coming train. As they are run over and tossed aside
the group shrugs and prepares to do it again and again. Maybe the electronic
nature of the medium turns it all into one big video game and people assume
they can push reset and obtain a new set of players tomorrow. Also, because
of the domination of these forums by journalists and historians who seem to
want to first dictate the history and then document it as so, maybe people
just
sit by and allow the show to play out as the historians want, as they match
it
to their shallow understanding of what is really going on.

Given the above bias, and the current reality of what is really going on,
there
are some questions that may be high enough level to fit into the hand-waving
and platitude category, yet attempt to focus on a major issue and future
solutions
that one would expect a forum of Computer Professionals with Social
Responsibility
would be able to develop.

The main question is:

Who Owns Your Valuable .COM Name ?

Do you ? Do you think you do ? Do you assume the U.S. Government's
Department of
Commerce owns the .COM names ? Do you think a U.S. Government contractor
does ?
Do you think a non-profit agency set up by the U.S. Government as well as
for-profit
contractors owns the .COM names ? If you land on an island, isolated from
the world,
do you still own your .COM name? If another government decides to run
parallel .COM
servers do you have any rights to your .COM name ?

Another question is:

What physical proof do you have that you own your valuable .COM name ?

Do you have a certificate from the U.S. Department of Commerce ? (similar to
a patent)
Do you have print outs of contracts from U.S. Government contractors that
verify you
own your .COM name ? Is your .COM name embodied in a separate corporation
or trust solely set up for the purpose of housing your .COM name ? Have you
noticed
companies that pay very large sums of money to gain direct access to what
some call
"The .COM Registry" in order to better ensure they really own their .COM
name ?
Does that impact the value of their .COM name ? because of the cost and also
show
some physical proof they are willing to go to great lengths to protect their
name?

Another question is:

Where do you think "The .COM Registry" is located ?

Do you think it is collectively operated by what some call Registrars ? Does
each Registrar
operate one of the servers that mirror each other ? Is instead "The .COM
Registry" stored
on some master server located in some super-secret location and operated by
a variety of
obscure companies ? How do packets reach such a server ? Are there ISPs
involved ?
How much data is really stored in "The .COM Registry", once all of the
financial data and
meat-space operational data is removed ? Is "The .COM Registry" backed up ?
What
would happen if a large number of .COM owners found themselves on an island
after a
ship-wreck, would they still own their .COM names ? Could they use their
.COM names?
Would they be able to re-build "The .COM Registry" ? at least with their
names ? Would
they have any physical proof that they could present to restore "The .COM
Registry" ?

Another question is:

What would happen if "The .COM Registry" was fully-distributed via
Peer-to-Peer technology ?

Would each .COM owner be able to start with a small 24x7 always-on node and
join
"The .COM Registry" in progress ? Would the sum total of the .COM owner's
nodes
collectively form "The .COM Registry" ? If so, why would there be any need
for a central
data center with spinning disks and centralized billing ? Could each .COM
owner actually
walk in and pick up a small physical device and prove to a court that the
device embodies
their ownership of their .COM name ? Could the device be moved around from
country
to country ? Could the device have a mated-pair that clones it to make sure
there are two
copies ? Could all of the devices in the Peer-to-Peer grid-agent .COM
Registry mesh
cooperate to clone each other and back each other up ? How do .COM names
enter such
a system ? Would individual .COM names ever go away ? If such a peer-to-peer
mesh
were to start-up, would it seem likely that **existing** .COM owners would
be the
natural early adopters ? Would they only pay for their device(s) ? If their
devices synch
with other devices and join The .COM Registry in progress, why would a
central
.COM Registry be paid anything ?

Another question:
Could part of "The .COM Registry" operate Peer-to-Peer and part in
centralized legacy mode ?

Would the nodes in the peer-to-peer version of "The .COM Registry" be able
to give
preference to other nodes with names ? As a last resort, could the old
centralized registry
be used in case nodes are not reliable at first ? What happens as the
peer-to-peer arrangement
grows and less and less traffic goes to the centralized registry ? Could
.COM owners be
given assurances that their names would be frozen in the old legacy systems
? Would it
be appropriate for the U.S. Government to give EACH .COM owner a written
assurance
in a physical form that they own their .COM name and are free to take it and
move it to
a modern peer-to-peer registry technology ? Would it be appropriate for the
U.S. Government
to also actively participate in the signing of various digital certificates
that are then burned
into the physical nodes that users can pick up and show prove they own their
.COM name?

Lastly:
Do you think the U.S. Government really wants you to own your .COM name ?
or, is this like **fiat currency** where you are expected to accept that
your .COM name
exists because everyone agrees that the U.S. Government backs it with some
high-level
hand-waving and contractual agreements between enough self-interested
parties that
you give up any hope of really owning your .COM name?

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