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

[Carlos Afonso]

I keep trying to think long-term, considering the Internet is still in 
its infancy in a fast process of very complex growth (we still see a lof 
of debris of the initial late nineties' explosion passing by).

I asked Vint and Bob (Kahn), yesterday at the IGF Emerging Issues panel, 
about the current names-and-numbers paradigm and whether there will be a 
paradigm shift (along the lines described by Thomas Kuhn) -- a scenario 
in which a "semantic Web" will dominate finding of any information space 
(the largest significant glimpse of it being Google search) and 
eventually totally replacing the URL approach (at least at the user 
level) to locate information and services. Thus, domain to number 
resolution will we pushed so far in the background that it will become 
irrelevant regarding the current business model on top of which the 
Icann system sits.

Vint of course agreed this is already happening somehow, and so did Bob.

--c.a.

Karl Auerbach wrote:
> 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--
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>     governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
>     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
> 
> For all list information and functions, see:
>     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
> 
> 
> 

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance