AW: [governance] US Congrerss & JPA

[Karl Auerbach]

On 08/07/2009 05:56 AM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:

> Avri: well of course DoC does not have to do what the House Committee
> on Energy and Commerce tells it to do. And of course ICANN would have
> to agree (that is the Board not the CEO). Don't know if they will.
> what happens if they don't? And what is going to happen around the
> world as US insists that the DNS is theirs, all theirs?

The answer to that question is one that depends on whether one 
unquestioningly accepts certain assumptions as truths or whether one 
takes a deeper look.

The most basic of those assumptions is that there must be exactly one 
DNS for the internet.

Technically that is not true.

There can be (and in fact there are) many.  Most are badly operated, an 
unfortunate fact that has caused the disrepute of the operators to 
unfairly splash onto the idea.

What we need to recognize is that the real issue is not the multiplicity 
of DNS systems or DNS roots or DNS root zone but rather the consistency 
among them.  Users and providers (and people who have to repair the net) 
do not like and will shun inconsistency.

I have written about this, in particular how re-evaluation of our 
assumptions in this regard, can give us a path out of our centralized 
regulatory mess and also solve the TLD wars that have consumed a good 
part of ICANN this last decade:

http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000331.html

(You could read the whole thing, but for the purposes of this email, you 
could scan down to the section "The Alternative History")

The point of that note is to argue that if we adopt a slightly relaxed 
definition of "consistent" that the allowance of competing root zones 
that are disseminated by competing systems of roots gives us a path 
forward - it allows for the de-centralized growth of DNS and also give 
those communities that wish to reduce their view of the internet 
landscape (as some religious groups want to do) a means to do so without 
constraining those who do not want to go along.

		--karl--


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