********* To: declanat_private, gnuat_private Subject: Re: FC: Richard Forno on ICANN and Net-stability against terrorists In-reply-to: <5.0.2.1.0.20010928135313.02283030at_private> Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 21:10:05 -0700 From: John Gilmore <gnuat_private> I agree wholeheartedly with Richard Forno; ICANN is only using 9/11 as an excuse for delaying on its REAL work, which is to create real competition and protect free expression in the domain name space. But since it's structured to be dominated by people who profit from the lack of real competition, and who use trademark claims to censor free expression, any excuse for further delay will do. ICANN's major role in DNS stability and robustness has been to make the DNS *less* robust. It protected NSI's monopoly on top-level domains, thus centralizing the vast majority of domain names into the facilities of a single self-interested organization. The single best thing ICANN could do for DNS stability would be to produce a real competitive market in top-level domains. This would spread domain service sites all over the world, into dozens or scores of independent organizations, vastly reducing the risk from NSI's central points of failure. But this is exactly the action that ICANN has been refusing to take since it was created. And now it is saying that it must put off this work yet again, in order to examine "Internet stability". That statement is best interpreted as self-serving garbage. The domain name system was quite robust during the events of 9/11. Stability and robusness have been part of the DNS since long before ICANN existed, and the independent root operators have been at the heart of creating and executing on this robustness. (See, for example, RFC 2010, "Operational Criteria for Root Name Servers", at http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2010.txt). (ICANN has no larger role in Internet security or stability -- nor should it. Its mandate is limited to administration of names and numbers.) I do take exception to Forno's suggestion that the root servers be confiscated by the US Government. The existence of independent and worldwide root server operators has been a good check on the power of all the overblown parties in the domain name policy debates -- NSI, the US Government, AND ICANN. ICANN has been trying to centralize its control over these operators by trying to force them to sign contracts. They should refuse, and ICANN should go back to its real work of creating a free and competitive market in domain names. John Gilmore ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Oct 01 2001 - 08:08:03 PDT