Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-02596.html --- http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/02/gilmore/index.html It's time for ICANN to go John Gilmore, original "cypherpunk" and all-around Internet supergeek, explains why the organization that runs the Internet is broken. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Damien Cave July 2, 2002 | John Gilmore has spent 30 years shaping Internet culture and politics. An early employee of Sun Microsystems and a co-founder of free software pioneer Cygnus Software (now part of Red Hat), he has worked tirelessly to promote his civil-libertarian views on how cyberspace should evolve. Entities as diverse as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the "cypherpunks" and Usenet's wacky and subversive "alt" newsgroups can all trace their roots to Gilmore's efforts -- and, quite often, his funding. Gilmore has never been afraid to speak his mind on any issue, but the politics of Internet governance are particularly close to his heart. And right now, that means keeping a close eye on ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is the international body in charge of managing the Internet's domain name system -- the numbers and names that identify Internet addresses. Critics from across the political spectrum have claimed for years that ICANN is secretive, slow, inefficient and, worst of all, firmly in the pocket of special interests. But in recent weeks, the rhetoric has gone up a notch. Suddenly, ICANN is at a crossroads. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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