[governance] IANA contract to be opened for competitive bidding on November 4

[Ian Peter]

Hi Ronald,

>†he US didn't arrogate such a right to itself. It invented the Internet and
gave it to the international > community.

Well hardly, although I realise many people believe this to be true.

The Internet was invented simultaneously in several countries as a
cooperative effort – for more on simultaneous invention and its commonality,
particularly in technical areas, it’s worth reading
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1856610 . The sole
invention of the Internet in the Arpanet computer time sharing experiments
sponsored by the US Government is a convenient myth – Louis Pouzin’s work in
France, Donald Davies’ work in UK, the private enterprise work conducted by
John Schoch and others at Parc Xerox Labs, all of these have equally
credible claims to the origins of the Internet. There are a few other more
indirect claims as well which various historians are now beginning to write
up. I have an out of date paper on this at
http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/origins.html which
I hope to revise one day as there are many omissions there.

The single point of origin myth is propagated by those who don’t know better
or who have something to gain by not having the full story known.  The US
Government does not own the Internet, has no intellectual property rights to
it, did not develop it unilaterally, and really has no right to determine
its future unilaterally.

That being said – yes I agree with you, their past involvement has been
benign and actually useful in the development of the Internet. But the time
has now come for ICANN to be able to perform the IANA functions without a
role for the US Government.

Ian Peter


From: <KovenRonald at aol.com>
Reply-To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, <KovenRonald at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:48:53 -0400 (EDT)
To: <pouzin at well.com>, <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
Cc: <powerginny at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [governance] IANA contract to be opened for competitive bidding
on November 4


In a message dated 10/23/11 6:33:12 PM, pouzin at well.com writes:


What international agreement allows the USG to make unilateral decisions on
the management of a common good ?


†he US didn't arrogate such a right to itself. It invented the Internet and
gave it to the international community.

Most of the alternatives proposed to the present system involve giving
control to intergovernmental bodies in which authoritarian governments have
heavy influence. The present system is admittedly unsatisfactory from a
theoretical standpoint, but the US has in practice refrained from exercising
control, with only a couple relatively minor exceptions. It seems unlikely
that China or Russia, or even France, amongst the UN Security Council
permanent members, would have exercised that much self-restraint.

Pending invention of a system that is both theoretically equitable and free
in practice, the present setup seems to be a matter of leaving well enough
alone.

Rony Koven, World Press Freedom Committee

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