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

[Karl Auerbach]

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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