[governance] NTIA says ICANN "does not meet the requirements" for IANA renewal

[Karl Auerbach]

On 03/12/2012 02:09 AM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:

> Unless of course, the alternative root operator has the "official"
> DNSSEC keys in their possession. In which case they do, indeed own the
> root.

Each competing root system has its own "official" keys.  That's why I
said that when switching from one root to another whatever resolver the
user is using needs to get a new set of startup hints and root keying
information.

On a comparative level-of-effort basis it is certainly a lot less effort
to disseminate that information - information so small that could fit
into a QR code - than it is to switch to IPv6.

The real issue is where is the incentive to undertake that effort.

> Your assumption, that one can reconfigure all of the Internet computers
> to use different root could work.. only under controlled environment.
> There is no way it could work on global scale. Which means there will be
> many small Internet islands created, and today nobody want's to be on an
> isolated island. Users will just change their ISP whatever, for the
> "real thing".

I disagree in a couple of ways.  First is that as a general matter users
do not like surprises.  Thus, for example, if a root system X were to
contain a deviate form of .com that root system would become disfavored
and probably would die.  Thus as I see it, competing roots would largely
have an identical inventory consisting of all the standard TLDs,
unchanged and unaltered, plus a few boutique TLDs that are striving for
light and acceptance.

Second is that there are people who really do want an island-based (or
what I call a "lumpy" internet).  Consider China, consider religious
groups that want to shape the internet landscape they can perceive,
consider those who want lumps/islands so that they can monitor, block,
or tax inter-lump/inter-island flows.

> Or, in summary -- this alternative root business is already game over.

I take the opposite point of view; I believe that it has never really
been tried.

Were I to do it I would use the root position to do what Google does -
data mine the query streams to produce analytics that I could sell to
derive revenue.  I'd take part of that revenue and use it to pay ISPs to
switch to my root system - as Google has proven via its AdSense program
giving people a taste does affect their behaviour.

My own sense is that competing roots will occur also from another force
- which is the slow fracturing of the internet as the net is stressed by
the desire of countries to establish non-bypassable portals, by the
desire of companies to data mine and limit traffic flows, by the desire
of law enforcement to monitor and block, by failure of IPv6, and by the
rise of application level gateways that allow the establishment of
separate IPv4 spaces (i.e. a network of internets just as the internet
is a network of networks.)

The end-to-end principle has died and all that users today care about is
whether their favorite Apps work - that means that elegant internet
internal plumbing is no longer a visible feature that users care about.
 That change in perception opens the door wide to islands/lumps.

> Or, in other words, right on the topic: we all want and need ICANN to
> make up their mind and behave.

ICANN is a handmaiden to several industrial and governmental groups and
it has been since its inception.  Based on that history, hoping that
that the ICANN zebra will shed its strips is rather wishful.

	--karl--

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