Interesting People mailing list archives

Re: IP: ICANN Gets Green Light by Niall McKay

From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 11:26:53 -0500



I was in Japan for a spell so I was somewhat involved. I will answer your points before Monday

At 11:25 AM 11/27/98 -0500, Ronda Hauben wrote:

Dear Dave

On Nov. 17 you promised me a response to my open email to you of
questions about the current privatization of the Domain Name
System functions, IP numbers, root server system by the U.S. government
and your support for this.

I haven't yet gotten the response you promised so I am resending 
this to you, as I and others are eager to hear the response you
promised to send.

Ronda



Open Letter to Dave Farber part II

Dave, My original note to you on the IFWP list and com-priv list and 
netizens list is about the fact that you and several other pioneers 
of the Internet have a basis to know more what is happening that 
this privatization of the essential functions of the Internet is 
being carried out, and that you 5 folks have been in a position 
to both understand what the U.S. government is doing and to 
advise the U.S. government about what they are doing.

I also mentioned that I have made the effort (as a user) to be involved
in the process, and have *no* understanding of what the U.S. govt
is doing and why, despite repeated efforts to participate in a way
that would make it possible to understand what is happening.

More significantly I have spent a number of years both participating
in Usenet and the Internet and in studying the history and importance
of the Internet and the current signficiant change in U.S. policy
with so little open discussion of the fundamental issues of that
change, is very disturbing.

I have just returned from a trip to Europe where I was invited to 
speak on MsgGroup Mailing List and the principles to be learned 
from that for Internet Governance. I know you were one of the earliest
participants on MsgGroup mailing list in 1975. And I also know that
there was a real concern among those involved in creating the 
MsgGroup conferencing and email prototype that the users be considered
and that those involved in the work on the mailing list use the 
mailing list so they could understand how it would be useful toward
supporting facilitating informal communication in the U.S. Dept
of Defense. In reading the archives of MsgGroup I found the discussion
quite fascinating and valuable and the observations about the 
new kind of communication that a mailing list made possible very
insightful. 

However, with the creation of the privatization of the essential
functions of the Internet all the lessons of how to create online
prototypes that function and to improve them that have helped to 
build the ARPANET, Usenet or the Internet, as with MsgGroup Mailing
list, have been abandoned.

If there were a real problem that the U.S. government were trying
to solve with respect to the Internet, the obvious challenge
would be to find a way to create a functioning online form to 
solve that problem, and to explore the problems of creating that
online form through research processes as with MsgGroup mailing
list or other such efforts.

Also such an online form would be able to be accessible to anyone
online who was interested in the issues involved and there would
be a way, as well of involving those users who wanted to participate
in figuring out what the problems were and in solving them.

That isn't happening in the creation of ICANN. Instead a very
small group of people, some of whom probably have no or very little
experience with the Internet, are being involved in both creating
and in running some powerful new entity that will be given what
hitherto have been treated as cooperative and public Internet
resources.

My email to you said that I can understand your having your own
personal views as to whether this is good or bad, but that if
you are involved in acting as an advisor to the U.S. government
as a computer scientist (which I feel you are), then it would
seem especially important that what is happening be open and 
that as broad a set of people be involved in what is happening
as possible.

The online forms would make this possible.

However, what is being created is *not* an online form, but a
private corporate entity and it has been created by a process
within the U.S. government where no one knows who has made the 
decisions to create this form and who has made the decisions
of who will people the new private entity.

This is the exact opposite of the open processes that the online
forms make possible, and which are necessary for good decisions
to be made with regard to something as important as the Internet
and the ownership and control of its essential, controlling 
functions.


Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu> wrote:

Ronda, your note shows a very different view of net history than I have 
and maybe a view that is not based on fact. You are slipping into the 
consipracy theory and that is just wrong. While errors may have been made, 
they have been made in an honest fashion. I know no one in the current 
ICANN who stands to gain anything out of it (san Mike Roberts who is a 
paid employee). The advisors were far from secret and certainly criticism 
was heavy and often, when stated in a non nuclear bomb fashion, were 
paid attention to.


But any of those who have been appointed to the Board (by who knows 
whom and for what purpose) are being put in a position of tremendous
control over the Internet. 

Also Mike Roberts, as one of the advisors, is in a very compromised
position to have advised the appointment of himself to such a 
position of responsibility. 

To own and control 4.3 billion IP numbers and the domain name system
and root server system, as well as related protocols, port numbers,
etc of the Internet is a position of tremendous responsibility
and tremendous power.

In a recent article the Economist called this a "self-appointed
oligarchy". 

To be transferring such resources to a private entity, with 
no public discussion of why government is to be kept out, 
and what will be the effect of privileging private sector
corporate entities and people with being able to be part of 
this, this is a very serious affair.

Not everything was word by word open. It is hard to arrive at a 
consensus with millions looking on at each word and yelling before 
someone has a chance to change their mind.


A consensus of how many people? 

If millions of people will be seriously affected (as we will be
by such a severe change of policy) by the results of the
"consensus" arrived at behind closed doors, then there is
a very grave problem.

And this is a problem that C.P. Snow spoke to at the 1961 mmeting
about the future of the computer at MIT. He spoke to the need
for scientists, and especially computer scientists to recognize
the harm that could come from such government decisions and that
the way to guard against such harm was to involve the broadest
number of people in such decisions.

At this 1961 meeting John McCarthy first described time-sharing
which led to the developed of the time-sharing systems which
set the basis for the vision of the ARPANET. And this online
processes that time-sharing made possible also helped to 
create the online forms that make an open process involving
large numbers of people possible.

users showed up at some of the IFWP meetings but no one has a good 
idea how to either reach them (the millions) or distill what they 
have to say.


But isn't this then the challenge that has to be taken up before
transferring control and ownership over the essential functions of 
the Internet to a small clique of people who will then have control
over the Internet and its users?

I was at the Geneva IFWP meeting and *no one* was interested in 
hearing from users there. I have written an account of what 
happening which is at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/ifwp_july25.txt

There was only an interest in rushing through a declared consensus
that would allow certain people to begin getting profits on their
financial investments. 

This was the very opposite of a process to establish the kind of 
responsible and accountable management strucuture that can serve
the Internet community and the further scaling of the Internet.

One thing that does seem instructive is the ease with which 
network discussion groups can be hijacked by vocal often biased 
and some times self interested parties (NO NOT YOU). I don't know


This does need to be taken on as a problem. But I have found
that there are certain types of newsgroups or mailing lists where
this is more likely to happen than other such groups and I feel
it is an important problem that can be solved. And my proposal
to Ira Magaziner and to the U.S. Govt on this issue provided a 
process to create such an online form. However, it wasn't even
considered by them. And I also sent you a copy, and didn't feel
you felt there was any reason to take my proposal seriously or
to consider or discuss it with me.

And it is one thing to hijack a mailing list or newsgroup, 
but another and much more serious situation to hijack the 
ownership and control over the essential functions of the 
Internet by putting them into a secretive private corporation
where no one knows who is exerting the controlling power.

The U.S. Office of Inspector General in a report they issued
in Feb. 1997 said that even putting the IP numbers into
the control of such an organization would be a violation of 
U.S. anti trust law as it would be creating a very great
concentration of power and wealth. To put all the essential
functions into such a private organization is an ever greater
concentration of wealth and power.

how to stop that. It is the same as people more and more who shout 
down public talks of people they disagree with. That is destructive of 
open discussions and it has forced me to disengage with such lists 
due to the deep personal viciousness shown.


This is a serious problem as it is important to have your 
participation in such open processes. And I know you have a 
long experience of such participation. But isn't this an 
important problem to be taken on.

When I was on the com-priv mailing list in 1992-3 I experienced 
similar problems and it also led me to leave the list. 

But the problem there I felt was that instead of the U.S. 
government protecting the ability of people to participate 
in the list, they created a list which would be aimed at 
promoting such a hostile and unuseful environment. And then 
they claimed that that list was the indication that the U.S. 
govt was getting input into its policy decisions.

And U.S. govt officials were on the com-priv list during this
period and participated in this unhealthy environment.

But previous to that, and in many other situation even during
this period, the Acceptible Use Policy employed by the U.S.
govt with regard to the Internet kept other lists and 
newsgroups functioning in a good way.

With the privatization of the Internet, however, this kind of
hostile atmosphere, or the sending of junk posts to newsgroups
or mailing lists, has become much more commonplace.

Thus the privatization is a problem and the long development of 
the Net previous to the privatization has very important lessons
that need to be learned from.

I will try when I get a chance to go over your mailing carefully and 
point out the problems.


I hope you will.

Dave


But it seems from your response that perhaps there is some tentative
agreement that:

1) Open processes are desirable.

2) That it would be good to involve users in the decisions over
what will be happening with the Internet. And that a way needs
to be found to do so.

3) That online forms are valuable but also need to be maintained 
in a constructive way.

Is it fair to say that these are tentative points of agreement?

If so is there anything that can be done to take these into account
rather than rushing ahead with the creation of ICANN and ignoring these?

An online form is very different from a membership organization.

I don't know any membership organizations that function to provide
the ability of members to really be part of the decisions making 
process. 

But the Internet does make it possible for users to be part of the 
decision making process in decisions regarding what is happening
with the Internet.

Is there any way you would help me to explain this to the U.S.
govt officials who are rushing ahead to create this private 
organization?

Also there are other issues with regard to the creation of 
ICANN that it would be important to discuss publicly.

Dave, if you want to see an example of a constructive and 
valuable online public discussion, look at the archives
of the Nov. 1994 NTIA online discussion about the future
of the NSFNET. We have two chapters about it in our
book, chapters 11 "The NTIA Conference on the Future of the 
Net: Creating a Prototype for a Democratic Decison-Making
Process" and chpter 14 "The Net and the Future of Politics:
The Ascendancy of the Commons".

And also take a look at the NTIA archives which should also
be online. This was an example of a constructive and valuable
online discussion on important issues of public policy.
(The problem was the NTIA never utilized any of the lessons
from the discussion or learned anything from the discussion.)

But the discussion showed that it is indeed possible to 
involved a number of online users in important issues
by utilizing online processes.

The NTIA ignored what folks said at the online conference and 
the result is that the concern that everyone in the U.S. have
access to the Internet, something that required keeping 
government in the backbone operation, has not happened, 
and is unlikely to happen for a very long time in the U.S.
given market dysfunction and the high cost of access for
many people.

Privatizing these public resources ends up in costing the public
far more, and the social obligation of making public resources
available to all, is lost sight of.

This is an important set of issues so it is good we are making
the effort to have open discussion on them.

Ronda

Dave promised a response as follows on Nov. 17

Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu> wrote:

Ronda, since I am not, for some reason, able to get in the ifwp list, 
please forward this.

I for one have NO idea what the US Government is trying to do. It was, 
in my opinion, a great misfortune when they weighted in the way they did.  
Their competitive solicitation which established the semi monopoly of NSI 
started the problem. It was competitive but there was no effective mechanism 
to allow input from the community on the terms and conditions and it caused 
the same problems that the agreement with ANS did many years earlier. 
Then the Green paper which established the USG role in the net governance 
mechanism ended damaging , in my opinion, the consensus mechanism that 
existed in the community and to almost quote Crocker -- we will suffer 
from years from that.

Your notes are substantial in length and content and I don;t want to 
shortcut my responses  so I will promise this weekend to have at it

Dave

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