[governance] FW: Domain names battle threatens Net

[Garth Graham]

On 28-Oct-05, at 6:05 AM, Gurstein, Michael quoted:
> The United States is openly isolated and being pushed to relinquish  
> control, or the more aggressive nations will simply develop their  
> own Internet ... which would be a global disaster, a major  
> earthquake for e-commerce, causing the most disruptive global  
> shockwave to our daily lives that mankind has ever seen.
> The end of cyber presence, corporate branding, corporate image and  
> identities, e-marketing and the entire e-commerce driven corporate  
> communication systems. The end of website driven marketing and  
> branding.

Why is that a "disaster?"  Even if those "ends" are true, that sounds  
like kicking the conventions of both empire and capital in the  
teeth.  Sounds like the promised land to me!

But, the more I try and understand what an effective goal for  
"Internet Governance" from the Internet's point of view would be, the  
more I bump into what, for lack of a better black box name, I'm going  
to call "Web2."  As I understand the potential, that's where, with my  
choice ... my house, my community, my city, my nation, my planet, all  
as networks, "becomes the computer."  We must not get tricked into  
letting nation states play geo-political games using the Internet as  
a pawn.  The path towards a meaningful CS statement (goal)  lies in  
guessing where the Internet can go next, if we agree to let is grow.

To illustrate what I'm pointing to, below are three fragments that  
surfaced on my desktop in the last 2 days...

Garth Graham
Telecommunities Canada
--------

http://www.vonmag.com/issue/2005/jun/columns/frankston.htm
Connectivity is a Utility, It’s time to share and share alike..
"Providers have no business looking at how we use the packets. It's  
in the nature of the Internet that we can extend the net ourselves.  
The carrier doesn't define the meaning of the bits and hence cannot  
dictate how they are to be used." ...Per-subscriber billing prevents  
the net from being an effective commons. "
"...The meaning of the bits does not depend upon the path they take.  
It's only because the current IP protocols make mobility difficult  
that carriers have any control at all. Web browsers can use your  
connection for one page and your neighbor's for the next page. It  
actually takes effort to keep the packets from finding the most  
effective path. This is especially true when using wireless protocols  
such as 802.11.
Not only is it difficult to prevent sharing, but it's expensive. If  
aggregation is easy and provides great economic benefits, then why do  
we try so hard to prevent it at an enormous cost in complexity and at  
an enormous price for the users? Even worse, the limitations  
discourage vital applications like medical monitoring because you  
can't assume casual connectivity!

Once connectivity is 'just there', we don't need to contain it within  
wires. Wireless access points become a public good. The PSTN lost to  
IP because of simple economics. The complexities of the cellular  
phone system are impressive and fatal."

... the utility model is a business model-it is a way to fund and  
maintain connectivity and assure increasing capacity.  
Telecommunications is an artificial industry kept alive at a cost in  
defiance of economics and normal marketplace forces. It's not just  
about money-the freedom to connect is priceless!

---------------
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200510/ 
msg00009.html
Subject: [IP] Beyond the DNS
From: Bob Frankston

Thinking a little further it's useful to note that the DNS "solves" two
problems -- one very poorly and the other only as an illusion.

The first "solution" is providing stable handles in lieu of the IP  
address
which is not stable because it has to serve the roles of both handle  
(name)
and path. But the DNS entries are leased and reused so aren't really
stable. But they are stable in the wrong way -- they are difficult to
change and overstay their welcome. This is why John Levine posited  
that the
CellCos may want their own mechanism for mobility -- I disagree, but  
I can
understand the problems with using the DNS and its very long TTLs --  
over a
second!

The other problem is mapping intent to entry -- the names used as  
keys are
dangerously misleading but 'nuf said on that.

We don't need all this stuff. You can coin your own stable handle  
using a
GUID (Globally Unique ID) which is self-generated. It's fundamental to a
lot of software and systems. A crypto-GUID is even better -- it's
unguessable.

The routing is not a layer but an optional service if two end points  
want
to exchange packets. These end points are not computers but abstractions
such as a conversation. Since naming is independent of path it is
intrinsically mobile. Maintaining the relationships is a matter of  
finding
new path and that's an engineering problem that has many solutions. In
fact, I claim it's easier than today's approach which requires the net
track all the LANs while depriving of the ability to dynamically  
update the
path identifiers to facilitate routing.

Note that in this scheme the net is no longer a LAN of LANs --  
routing is
not a layer and the model is not hierarchical.

The other problem is finding end points and the big change is that  
you are
found only if you list yourself where you want to be found and in  
doing so
you choose who is allowed to find you.

There are lots of interesting implications beyond simply obviating  
the DNS
and ICANN authority that derives from the DNS and beyond making the
relegating the IP address to the status of a temporary circuit  
identifier.

---------------------------------

From: "Bill St.Arnaud" <bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca>
Date: October 27, 2005 5:27:57 PM PDT (CA)
To: <news at canarie.ca>
Subject: [CAnet - news] Will the future Internet sit on top of port 80?
Reply-To: bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca

Some may see use of Port 80 has a hack as it becomes the facility to  
enable
pervasive applications ( at least the most popular ones), but as port 80
becomes the pervasive gateway for most popular Internet applications,  
it may
have the benefit enabling new underlying physical architectures.

In fact the need to define a new Internet "architecture" may disappear.
Instead with applications moving to port 80 network operators will be  
free
to define their own underlying network architectures as long as they  
support
interoperability at port 80. Indeed this what we have proposed with  
CA*net 4
& UCLP that all aspects of the network from the forwarding plane,  
through
the control plane to the management plane be expressed as web service
building block which the user ( or their proxy) can assemble in any  
way that
best fits their needs.
  ----------------- end -----------------------


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