[governance] Root etc.

Mon Aug 20 12:32:50 EDT 2012

Hi

I was silent in this debate about root servers and USG role in authorization of the publication of TLD zone files in the root because everything has been already said since years and I did not see any big news since this was discussed at length and in detail by the WGIG. My article in Bill Drakes WGIG book (2005) has analyzed all dimensions and I see little reason to add something more in the light of the developments in the last seven years. 

The only two new things which has been emerged are
a. we have now more than 150 anycast root server which makes the whole system more flexible, less dependent from the 13 members of the legacy root and improves the situation in particular in developing countries a lot (faster responses etc.) .
b. we have seen the "moment of truth"  with regard to the role of the USG in the authorization of the publication of a TLD Zone file which went through the ICANN process. The USG - pushed by the US Congress - was more or less against .xxx. Theoretically they could have stopped the publication of the zone file in the root (and EU Commissioner Kroes wanted to encourage the USG to do so). The DOC/NTIA did not and after the San Francisco meeting Strickling explained to the US Congress (and to the rest of the world) that the USG was, is and has to be the "neutral stewart" of this technical function and can not use this role to implement national policies.  

I understand, trust is good, a treaty is better. But in this case we have all reasons to trust and I have my doubt whether a treaty would be better. 

The idea of an "internationalization" of the authorization function was discussed, as I said above, by the WGIG and in this discussion in became clear that a transfer of this technical function to an intergovernmental body would unavoidably provoke an unwanted politization of this function with a tremondous potential for collatoral damages. Such a body would evolve into something like a UN Internet Security Council. This body would become soon a theater of political, economic, ideological, religious conflicts where different governments will fight until the bitter end to block the authorization of specific TLD zone files, even of ccTLDs when a ccTLD (of a hated enemy) has to modify their entry into the root for a new name server or something like that, Imagine if each of the new gTLDs, which will come to the root, would have to go - after adoption by ICANN - through a discussion of such an intergovernmental body? How you would organize voting in such a body? Which countries would get a veto right?  How to select members? Will it have permanent members or will membership rotate? You open a box of pandora which would backfire to the three billion internet users of the world who would be the big loosers, including the developing countries which would be blocked to get benefits from a future internet development. 

I understand that governmental policy needs symbols and the root and the role of the USG is a good case to make noise because it is full of symbolism. But it should be one of the responsibilities of the members of this list to help governments to understand the issue better. 

In one of the first meetings WGIG had with Kofi Annan he said: You can not wish away history. The system , as it stands now, is the result of such a historic process and it does not harm and it is not broken. If you start to change the system the risk is high that you do harm. 

For people who have an interest in history I recommend to have a look into the history of the time zones. http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/time-zones-history.htm. When in the middle of the 19th century the need for a standard time was growing, the British governments proposed to use the Zero Meridian in Greenwich as a starting point. The man who invented the zero meridian decided that zero is where his table stands. If you go to Greenwich you can stand there with the right leg in the Eastern and with the left leg in the Western hemisphere. But this simple proposal became the subject of an incredible political struggle. It was rejected by the French govenrment as "British imperialism", that the UK wants to highjack the time zones etc. The waned to have the zero meridian in Paris. It needed 20 years of diplomatic negotiations and a intergovernmental conference in 1884 (in Washington, D.C., initiated by the US president) to reach a compromise. The compromise was: The UK got the Greenwich time (now UTC), and France got the "control" over the time which was delegated to the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) headquatered in Paris. The BIPM was established in 1875 based a the socalled intergovernmental "Meter Convention" and it was responsible to oversee the "metric system". With other words, if our time has to be fixed now for another milisecond this is done in Paris (under French jursidiction), but when we start counting our time zones we start in Greenwich. Today nobody says "Greenwich-Time" anymore, it is just UTC. The British empire is gone, but the system works. 

Wolfgang

________________________________

Von: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org im Auftrag von McTim
Gesendet: Mo 20.08.2012 17:20
An: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; parminder
Betreff: Re: [governance] Tangential (On Exceptionalism Wikileaks) America's vassal acts decisively and illegally

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:14 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

<snip>

	The alternative is clear;

There is an even clearer alternative, that of NO oversight by governments.

Since we are CS, why would we insist on having gov'ts take on this role when we can do it ourselves (as a "free--floating" ICANN run by an international BoD)? 

Not only is this more desirable IMHO, but actually something that might be achieved.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

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