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

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 16 nov. 07 à 18:02, Carlos Afonso a écrit :

> 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.

 From what I read on IGF website (sequence reproduced below), they  
didn't gave exactly the same answer. While Cerf quickly agreed - his  
answer was not that elaborated -, specially since the question you  
asked directly referred to search engines and to your observation  
that "we very seldom use URLs, domain names" (any stats or study  
actually showing such trend, BTW? Would be interested in any  
pointer), Kahn referred to the "Handle" system, which is a resolving  
system and not a search engine, and this makes a big difference.

And, frankly, I don't see how navigating between Scylla and Charybdis  
would solve the problem.. If it's all about getting rid of ICANN to  
have no other option than Google, thus going through the whole list  
of results that DoubleClick wants me to access instead of the content  
I'm looking for, then no, thanks!

Meryem
======
Excerpt from http://www.intgovforum.org/Rio_Meeting/IGF2- 
EmergingIssues-15NOV07.txt (Nik Gowing moderating the session):

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:   I am Carlos Afonso from RITS Brazil and the Internet
  Steering Committee in Brazil. I would like to ask Vint Cerf and Bob  
Kahn two
  questions.

  >>NIK GOWING:   Can you keep it very brief?  I want to hear your  
view on
  emerging issues.

  >>CARLOS AFONSO:   Today we navigate and get information using  
search engines,
  and we very seldom use URLs, domain names. I wonder if this is the  
tip of the
  iceberg pointing to a new structure of addressing in which we no  
longer need
  domain names to find what we need. Is this a new paradigm we are  
going to?  And
  how this will evolve.  My question is to Vint and to Bob Kahn.

  >>NIK GOWING:   Can you give very quick answers, Vint and Bob.

  >>VINT CERF:   My quick answer is, yes, it's very possible that  
will happen.
  And I point out that URLs have the bad characteristic that things  
disappear off
  of the Net.  They're not permanent references.  What we need are  
permanent
  references over time. So, in fact, I'm much in favor of reexamining  
how we
  identify things in the network so that no matter where they are, no  
matter
  which host they're on, we can find them, even if the domain names  
have changed.

  >>ROBERT KAHN:   This was a perfect opportunity for Vint to help  
plug our
  Handle System, but I see he didn't do that. So let me just say that  
that's
  actually an area that I've been working on for many years.  In  
fact, Vint and I
  started working on it back in the '80s in terms of mobile programs  
in the
  Internet.  And part of that, we came up with a digital object  
architect that I
  think was my attempt at a reconceptualization around managing  
content.  And it
  involves unique identifiers.  And there is a system on the net  
called the
  Handle System, it's on the handle.net site, that allows you to do  
exactly what
  you're talking about.  It's got many potential applications.  I  
won't try and
  even list a few of them today. But the fact of the matter is that  
URLs do have
  a very short half-lifetime.  And in five or ten years, most of them  
won't work
  at all.  The publishers got very interested.  Because in publishing  
and
  journals, they would like it to have the same effectiveness on an  
electronic
  bookshelf that a regular library has.  It's a stilted replication,  
because it's
  replicating the paper world in the electronic world.  But if you  
pull an
  electronic journal off the world many years from now, I guarantee  
you that the
  URLs will not work, but the Handle System might.
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