Re: Battle Heats Up - but the real issues are still being hidden

[Ronda Hauben <ronda at panix.com>]

>Fred Baker <fred at cisco.com> wrote:
>>At 04:05 PM 10/5/98 -0400, Ronda Hauben wrote:
>>The U.S. Govt is offering to set up a private corporation 
>>for them to be able to carry on their control over the Internet 
>>with no accountability or oversight over what they do.

>With all due respect, I don't believe that's an accurate description of the
>current IANA proposal. There are three "supporting organizations" that have
>this oversight. They are explicitly not US in origin, and are intended to
>be international. There is also a specific comment about the make-up of the

So you are saying that the supporting organizations have oversight 
over the Board and that the Board is accountable to them?

According to the lawyer who spoke at the Geneva IFWP final 
Plenary Session, that would be illegal according to American
corporate law as the Board has to be in charge.

But even if that weren't true how can the supporting organizations
be oversight over a Board of Director?

The form of the IANA proposal is that of a corporation. In a 
corporation the Board has to be in charge.

There was an interesting effort in Canada with one of the Freenets
to explore whether it was possible to have a democratic non
profit structure. They document the roadblocks they hit and
some of the problem was that the Board had responsibility to 
be in charge of the structure and so would keep running up 
against their legal obligations and the ideal they had.
And there there was an online community that was an integral
part of the effort. 

So even in the most favorable circumstances, where no one had
any special interests to pressure for, having a democratic
participatory structure proved to be basically not possible.

And the situation being created with IANA is where some of the
supporting organizations have people pressuring for their 
special interests to support their financial investments
(as in the Names Council meeting I went to in Geneva). So
the situation being set up is that the forces I saw operating
at the Names Council needed someone to oversee them. It
wasn't that they were in any way capable of being the oversight
over anyone else.

Someone I know when to the group that was going to form
the Protocols and the Numbers Councils. (Two separate groups)
The service providers at the meeting said what a difficult
time they had getting IP numbers and getting any response
from the Number registry. They said they were little guys
and so there was no response to their needs. Then they
said it was like forming an organization of your vendors
to oversee your vendors relationship with you. (I.E. the
one to be overseen is in charge of the organizational
form.) 

So it demonstrated that without government there was no place to
go with a complaint.

When I originally presented a comment about this kind of situation
at an ISOC meeting where some of the large U.S. backbone and service
providers were speakinxg and other providers at the time
were speaking (it was in Montreal in 1996), one of the large 
service providers said I could always "vote with my feet" if I 
didn't like what they were doing. I could go to another one.

I don't call that voting and I don't call that oversight.

I call that removing the necessary regulation that is needed to 
have something worthwhile and legitimate happening.

That's some of the reason for government to exist. And these
efforts to remove government from the process leaves the process
open to the worst possible abuses.

>Board (if it's still in the current draft) which suggests an equal number
>of persons from each major geographic region of the planet.

I didn't think it was equal numbers of persons from each major region,
but I would have to look again as well.

But it was clear from the people named to the board that many regions
or countries and all users had no recourse via the Board. And the
principle of the user being able to speak for oneself, which is
the principle that has helped to build the APRANET and then the
Internet is gone. Instead there is a group of people that someone
has chosen to be in control of us. That is contra what the 
U.S. Federal District Court in the CDA case, backed by the U.S.
Supreme Court required of the U.S. Govt. The court decision required
that the U.S. Govt protect the autonomy that the Internet provides
to the ordinary citizen as well as the media magnate.

That autonomy is gone via this board.

Also, to have some members from different countries or regions of 
the world is not in any way "international".  There are many 
corporations in the U.S. who have people who work for them who
are from different countries. That in no way makes the 
corporation "international". 

To be international involves a relationship among nations, not
of people of different nationality.

The Internet, on the other hand, is international.

That is because it is the development of communication supported by
different nations and peoples around the world.

The Acceptable Use Policy governing the development of the NSFNET
offered to allow communication with people in other nations as
long as those other nations granted the right to communicate to
the people from the U.S.

And my proposal is international as it proposes a prototype form
(based on the research I have done about how the ARPANET and 
Usenet were formed and developed) that supports cooperative work
among researchers supported by their nations or regions of the 
world.

I have other examples of international if you want me to describe
others -- like for example the cooperative efforts that helped
UNIX and Usenet to spread to Europe and Australia etc. It involved
work by people at mc in Amsterdam, at inria in France, I think at
cern in Switzerland, etc. These were cooperative efforts with
the support from the computer science research centers in different
countries. Most often these centers were connected with or
under government support and funding.

This is how science can be international. 

>>Therefore, the third proposal is one I was asked to write by Ira 
>>Magaziner, after I complained to him and the world
>>online and at ISOC in Geneva, about what was happening in 
>>privatizing these essential functions.

>As I understand your proposal, you would have the US government, with other
>countries who choose to participate, fund a project to write a proposal.
>That proposal would include a record of history about the DNS, and suggest
>a way to manage it.

No that is not my proposal. That is a piece of my proposal. But it 
is good you raise the question and that you are making the effort
to understand my proposal.

Basically my proposal is to create a prototype for the kind of 
international cooperation and collaboration that is needed to 
protect the integrity and functioning of these essential functions
of the Internet.

To create the prototype I have proposed the first essential work
that this prototype cooperative collaboration would undertake,
which has to do with the 3 points I outline in Part IV.

But before looking at that aspect of the proposal it is important
you look at Section III. 

This section requires the researchers to utilize the Internet 
as much as possible in carrying out the work they will do for 
section IV. 

This means "they will develop and maintain a well publicized 
and reachable online means to support reporting and getting 
input on their work." 

This means they have an obligation as an integral part of the 
proposal to establish a way to both report on what they are
doing and to welcome input via the Internet on the work they
are doing. This becomes a problem they have to solve as part
of their work, much as the folks on early MsgGroup mailing 
or on Usenet were using the Network they were developing to
solve the problem of creating the Network.

Here the researchers have to solve the problem of both using
the Internet to cooperate in their work together and in
also maintaining contact with and input from the online 
community who are interested in participating in what the
researchers are doing.

The last part of Section III requires that the reseachers
"explore the use of Usenet newsgroup, mailing list and web
site utilization, and where approprite RFC's etc." in their
work.

That means that part of their research is to see how each
of these forms can be helpful in the objective of both doing
their coordinated work and also in the reporting to and 
gathering input from the online community.

For example, I used to be able to access the IETF mailing 
list via a newsgroup I could get connected with Usenet.
That made it easier for me to stop in and check on whether
what was being discussed was something relevant to my
research. I haven't been able to get the IETF mailing list
as a newsgroup any longer, and I don't have room for multiple
mailing lists so it is harder for me to look in on and
see if the discussion going on is something relevant to
my work.

It would be an obligation of the researchers to try to see
how to create online means to make it possible for people
online to be able to both learn of and be part of discussing
the work tha  was being done.

>First, check me on that - do I correctly understand your proposal?


Does this description of parts I, II, and III help you to 
see that your quick statement about my proposal didn't 
really look at what the proposal was outlining? (all of the 
above is basically in the proposal, with the exception of the 
example of the ietf newsgroup.)

Part IV describes in more detail the duties of the research group.

Those duties are not trivial. And they are duties that will help
to make possible the transfer of the task of protection of the 
essential functions of the Internet to an international collaborative
group as 

1)they outline what functions are, what is known about
them and what RFC's have been created,

2)they provide for an examination of how the Internet is serving
the communication needs of its users and the different communities
of users on the Internet, so that a broad and general view is 
the focus of the work to be done and so that the special and 
valuable characteristics are identified so that they won't be lost
in trying to solve some more particular problem.

3)they provide for an examination of the essential functions that
are to be transferred so that the problems that have developed
are identified and so that there is an understanding of the critical
nature of the functions that are being transferred, and what must
be protected. (This means involving the people who are part of 
adminstering these essential functions now in the examination 
the international group of researchers is doing.)

 
4)that out of this analysis and research into the general and important
characteristics of the Internet, and the online reporting and discussion
with interested online participants will come a proposal that is 
produced as a result of this online process and particular examination 
of the special and general nature of the Internet.

5) The proposal has several other specific requirements which I will
be glad to further elaborate on, and which are designed to determine
how to protect these essential functions and to learn from the 
prototype work done doing this cooperative work, how to form the
kind of needed international and cooperative body of people to 
oversee and provide for the needed administration of the essential
functions of the Internet.

(See part IV(3)(a-h) ) in the proposal. 

I will be glad to describe each part and how it is integral to the 
development of the needed cooperative model to solve the problem
of sharing control and support for the essential functions of the
Internet including root server system, management and distribution
of IP numbers, protocols, domain names etc.

>Second, assuming that I do understand it, let me say that I believe that we

No you didn't understand it, so perhaps you can look over what I 
have elaborated and then see what your thoughts are.

>are past the time for a research project. We are at a point where the

That is strange. It seems to me that the private corporation being
proposed by both different other proposals to manage the essential
functions of the Internet and to determine public policy with regard
to this strategic and important communications and people system,
that these other proposals are in fact conducing research, but 
without acknowledging that and without building on the lessons
principles and models that have grown up as part of the Internet.

So what these proposals are offering is the most irresponsible form
of research because it is imposing a model hostile to the development
of the Internet to take over control of essential functions of the 
Internet.

>>discussions that needed to happen have for the most part happened, and most

I was in Geneva at the IFWP meeting and when I asked for discussion I 
was told that wasn't allowed. Instead there was the vote for
consensus with no discussion permitted.

If you want to see my report from the meeting in Geneva of the 
Names Council, it is available at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other

So it is clear to me there is no discussion that has taken place,
or the secret negotiations that have gone on wouldn't have had to
be secret, and the views and input of others would have been 
welcomed, but it wasn't.

>of the parties understand each other's viewpoints. Now is the time for

Who are these parties that you are referring to?

The Internet community is primarily a community of users- and it has
been from its earliest days.

That is one of the essential characteristics of the Internet as the
users contribute and it is a users network.

Clearly what you are referring to is not an Internet or a users network
but something else. If that is true maybe you and those who feel
that users are no longer needed to be the architects of the Internet,
maybe those parties should go off and form the kind of experimental
research network you have in mind.

I don't understand why you think you can take over the Internet,
disenfranchise the users and the public who has supported its
development with public funds and all kinds of other volunteer
contributions. 

If you think you can build a better network without users, go and
build it.

But why do you think it is ok to get rid of the Internet as a users
network to do your experiments on?

In the early 1980's there was compuserve and there was the ARPANET
and Usenet.

Clearly the ARPANET grew and developed into the Internet with the 
help and support of Usenet. 

And compuserve was fine for a commercial network, but it didn't
have regenerative capability to grow and develop into an 
international and worldwide network of networks like the Internet.

Therefore if you have a model more like compuserve which is the
kind of network run by a corporation, then that's fine.

But in the early days of networking folks explained that those wanting
to do commercial networking would see as a problem a public network.

That seems to be the case now. 

The forms and structures of the Internet have made it possible to 
evolve and develop a worldwide communications system that is one
of the proudest achievements of our past century.

But it seems that there are those who find the principles and 
forms that have nurtured the growth and development of the Internet
no longer what they deem worthy of support.

Then they should go and do their experiment in forming a network
built on the corporate model and controlled by a corporate model.

But it is a curious question why those who think that the corporate
model is so powerful, why they don't just gather their money
together and form their own network based on their corporate
model.

Why are these folks trying to take the Internet which has done
fine via the cooperative and collaborative processes, why the
folks who want to experiment with creating a corporate 
modeled communication system, why they don't just leave the 
Internet alone, and go off and do their experiments with their
own funds?

Why this effort to take the the public and international Internet
and experiment with it?

I realize that as long as there is an Internet then the corporate
model may have some of the so called "competition" that seems
to be the buzz word of those who are the proponents of 
how the corporate model can build a better network.

If so, then the folks doing this shouldn't need to take over
the Internet to perform their experiments.

Or is it that in fact the Internet, with its old fashioned cooperative
ways and collaborative methods has proven superior for creating
a human-computer network of network communications system?

Is it in fact that the corporate model has lost out in the 
"competition" with the cooperative and collaborative Internet mdoel
model?

Is that what is underlying this effort to grab private control over
the essential elements of the Internet?

Is it that otherwise those speculating and devoted to the success
of the victory of the corporate model are worried?

>closure and action.

When I walked into the Names Council meeting and the call was made
for consensus, and I asked what about discussion, and was told 
none was needed, that was the same kind of call for "closure and
action."

Interesting.

This is time to discuss the different proposals.

That means examining the details and processes and the principles
behind each of the proposals.

To claim that it is too late for a proposal makes it seem as if 
you have no logical analysis of the problems of the proposal
and that the only way it can be dismissed is on an excuse like
saying "this is the time for closure and action."

To the contrary, Sept 30 has come and gone. There is *NO* 
proposal with the support of the great majority of the Internet
community to be implemented. And implementing some of the proposals
created after the Sept. 30 deadline is not only outside any
mandated procedure but would also be outright irresponsible
as the proposals to form a corporate structure to own and 
control resources that have been created in a public process
and cooperative agreement.

Thus there is no basis to give over such resources to a privately
owned and formed corporation. That is an illegitimate activity.

So maybe it would do well to stop claiming that the time for
figuring out the problem is over. 

And instead it would be a good idea to support the discussion 
of the real issues involved in how to make the DNS and other 
functions of the Internet that are the essential functions 
and that need to be protected, to support the discussion of 
how to create the kind of international cooperation to 
provide the needed support and protection.

My proposal does provide a prototype to do that.

So it deserves to be considered and discussed with the greatest
of seriousness and then accepted and implemented.

It is good that you have begun this process :-)

Ronda
ronda at panix.com


             Netizens: On the History and Impact
               of Usenet and the Internet
          http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
            in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6