[governance] RE: Human rights and new gTLDs

[Karl Auerbach]

Thomas Narten wrote:
> Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> writes:
> 
>> There is no need for a single DNS root.  For years already there have 
>> been many such roots, most ill run and laughable, but some are 
>> professionally managed by people who really know what they are
>> doing.
> 
> It seems to be you are intentionally confusing two distinct
> issues. Global uniqueness of the namespace (i.e., everyone sees the
> same namespace, no matter where they are) vs. the implementation
> technology that is used to provide the actual mapping of names to
> addresses

Not quite.  I was raising the distinction between the belief that DNS 
must be singular, with exactly one root, and the fact that what we as 
users want is consistency.

As I pointed out DNS (modulo the impact of DNSSEC) can be, and is in 
practice, multi-rooted.

The idea that DNS names have the property of being globally unique is, 
as I discussed, untrue.  DNS names have too many forms of variance, 
particularly temporal variance, to be considered globally unique even 
over relatively short periods of time.

In addition, there is no force of governance whatsoever that prevents a 
community, a nation, an individual from setting up its own DNS 
mechanism.  The end-to-end principle is all about permitting things like 
this to occur.

And we should not forget that sometimes people do want to be insular. 
There is a small town, north of San Francisco, in which the residents 
invented a unique language, Boontling, for the purpose of not talking to 
tourists and outsiders - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boontling

There seems to be an odd belief that there must be an overlord of names 
to enforce the not-obtainable "global uniformity".  Yet, throughout 
human history we have lived with local assignments; we have created in 
our human processes the necessary collision resolution and translation 
mechanisms.  And as Shakespeare noted, no matter what name we use, a 
rose remains a rose.

The mechanisms that allow us to handle our linguistic and regional 
naming conflicts also exist to resolve conflicts that arise should two 
domain names or TLDs come into conflict.  In the case of TLDs, the most 
appropriate mechanism is the system of laws and treaties that allow the 
rise and enforcement of worldwide trade and service marks.  There is no 
need to create any new institutions; what we have works well enough; it 
ain't broken, it does not need fixing, it merely needs to be used.


>> Users can pick and chose which root system to which they will
>>  subscribe.
> 
> This is the crux of the problem with multiple roots (or more
> generally, a fractured namespace).

You are assuming that competing roots necessarily cause a "fractured 
namespace".  That is not the case.

And I sense that you consider "fractured" to be a negative 
characteristic when, in fact, it may actually be the key to solving one 
aspect of internet governance.

The issue is not singularity of roots but is instead consistency of 
namespaces.

Competing roots can perfectly well have consistent name spaces;  Indeed 
in practice virtually all are consistent with the NTIA/ICANN/Verisign 
root zone.

Competing roots do not necessarily lead to name dissonance.  And in 
practice they rarely do.  Indeed the largest dissonance to date was 
initiated by ICANN itself when it ignored the fact that there was an 
operational .biz in existence when ICANN chose to create a different, 
inconsistent .biz in its root zone.  The owners of the pre-existing use 
could have shut down ICANN's through legal action but they apparently 
chose the quieter, more gentle, and certainly less expense route of a 
simple and quiet death of their efforts.

Competing roots can lead to name inconsistencies, but enlightened self 
interest - the desire not to have customers and users flee - plus the 
coercive force of trade and service mark processes to create priority 
rights in TLD names will make inconsistency a poor business choice to 
make for a root zone provider.

Now, the definition of consistency is an interesting question.

There are those who say consistency is 100% identity with the 
NTIA/ICANN/Verisign zone.  I, personally, find that extremely 
restrictive and unwise.

The definition of consistency that I use is one in which a TLD, if 
offered at all by a root zone provider, is identical with that same TLD 
name as offered by other root zone providers.  But in this definition of 
consistency, each root zone provider might offer a somewhat different 
suite of TLDs.

This latter definition of consistency has many practical benefits.

First is that we know from massive experience (in everything from food 
markets to airlines to cable TV) that there will be a core set of TLDs 
that every root zone provider offers - this would be for the most part 
the NTIA/ICANN/Verisign suite of TLDs.

Second, this softer definition of consistency permits growth at the 
edges without any centralized permission.  New TLDs can spring up and 
fight for visibility and inclusion by root zone providers.  Some will 
grow to become new members of the core suite of TLDs that are offered 
pretty much universally.  Some will fail.  Some will remain local 
boutique brands.

Sure, this will mean that on occasion an email address or web URL will 
leak out to someone who can not use it.  Big deal.  Already on the net 
we frequently get dead and unusable email addresses.  And it is far from 
infrequent that we get URL's that point to machines that are gone, 
behind firewalls we can't easily penetrate, or with content that has 
moved or changed.

  The vast majority of users will not
> want to have to select/configure which name space they are using.

That is a statement which I find intriguing.

Users today already do that kind of name space selection when the pick a 
mobile phone provider or chose a TV provider.  AOL users get their 
filtered landscape.

In other words, users not only can, but do, make those choices, but they 
do so indirectly using knobs and levers that are quite distant from 
editing /etc/named.conf

And to argue that such a system must not exist is to deny the reality 
that there is now power on the internet to prevent competing roots, with 
or without consistent name spaces, from coming into existence.


> Here's a more apt analogy:
> 
>        Who needs to have one system of telephone numbers? Why not let
>        users decide which of (competing) phone number systems they
>        will use?

Do we really have a single system of phone numbers?  My sense is that we 
do not.  And we most certainly do have competing phone systems that 
users do select among.

Moreover, in today's telephone system we have exactly the situation that 
I described for competing DNS roots - core consistency with localized 
boutique namespaces.

In addition, there are user created and managed directory services.  The 
most basic being speed dial.  From my point of view my home phone is the 
single digit '2', my wife's mobile is the single digit '3', and her 
office is '4'.

When I call an airline to change some tickets the number I dial does not 
lead to one phone, but to an equivalence class of phones.

My SIP phone number initiates a search process that does parallel 
ringing on some phones (POTS and VoIP phones) and also initiates a 
follow-me search for my laptop and mobile phone.

The phone system, like the internet is full of systems that do mappings.

All in all, the idea of one universal name space for DNS is something 
that may be pretty to consider but is, in practice, impossible and 
invites the creation of a heavy, intrusive, inefficient, and expensive 
oligarchy, such as ICANN, that will suppress innovation and enterprise 
while, at the same time, tend to become an arm of control, as ICANN has 
become, for certain industrial or governmental interests.

It is much better to admit that DNS is imperfect and to allow those 
imperfections to become doorways through which imagination, innovation, 
and enterprise can act without the creation of a central authority.

		--karl--


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