ICANN's contrarian gets the boot

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4384835.htm

ICANN's contrarian gets the boot
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press

SCOTTS VALLEY - Karl Auerbach joined the Internet's key oversight body as a
voice of the online public, pledging to transform an organization he
considers beholden to vested commercial interests.

Auerbach got his change all right.

Fellow board members on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers responded to Auerbach's caustic challenges by eliminating his seat
and those of the four other publicly elected directors.

Auerbach was consistently the contrarian on a board whose decisions on
Internet domains affect everything from how Web sites are named to how
e-mail is sent.

As he prepares to step down in December, an exhausted and frustrated
Auerbach believes ICANN is as out of synch as ever with the needs of
innovators and the general Internet public.

``I wasn't expecting to get a lot passed, but I wasn't expecting the kind of
knee-jerk reaction of anything I put forward must be bad,''' Auerbach said
in an interview in a bare conference room at his office, still visibly tired
from an early morning ICANN conference call that day.

Online early

The 52-year-old network engineer was online before most of the world was.
For three decades, he developed tools for running and fixing the network.

Auerbach's current work station is set up more for functionality than for
show. Orange, yellow and green Ethernet cables bind his traffic routers,
monitors, laptops and desktop computers, some operating with the cover
opened.

Hardly a household name but well-known within technical and policy circles,
Auerbach is as opinionated about Internet matters as people are opinionated
about him.

``He's a hero to some people, a villain to others,'' said Barbara Simons,
past president of the Association for Computing Machinery, the nation's
oldest information-technology association. ``Very few people who know Karl
are neutral.''

``Karl's a conundrum,'' ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf added.

Auerbach occasionally has good ideas but his approach isn't always
constructive, Cerf said, citing specifically a lawsuit Auerbach filed to
obtain internal ICANN records.

Having once run a start-up into the ground, Auerbach wanted to inspect ICANN
records to make sure it was on solid footing. Staff told him he needed to
first sign a nondisclosure agreement. He refused and filed a lawsuit
instead.

A California judge ruled that Auerbach, as a director, was indeed entitled
to inspect records without prior restriction.

Cerf suggested Auerbach could have explored cheaper alternatives to
litigation. ICANN chief executive Stuart Lynn, who once described Auerbach's
efforts as ``misplaced,'' declined comment for this story.

Auerbach joined the ICANN board in 2000, winning the seat by tapping into
online activists' growing frustration with an organization they consider too
broad in jurisdiction and too deferential to business.

He worries that without proper public accountability, ICANN could inhibit
innovation -- for example by discouraging directory alternatives more
fitting for tomorrow's needs than the current, two-decade-old system of
domain names.

The Internet should work more like a utility, Auerbach believes: anyone can
do anything with it until harm is proven. Though ICANN believes it must set
ground rules to ensure stability now that the Net is fundamental to
commerce, Auerbach said it should stay out unless absolutely necessary.

It needs fixing

Lynn and the ICANN majority agreed that the organization needs fixing. But
their solution was to eliminate elected seats, including Auerbach's. The
restructuring is to be finalized in China this coming week.

Auerbach's interest in fixing the organization grew out of his past work
with software for maintaining the Internet.

``My grandfather repaired radios. My father repaired TVs,'' Auerbach
recalled. ``I'm really interested in repairing networks.''

Auerbach first got online in the early 1970s while working on encryption and
security for a military contractor. He developed networking and
troubleshooting tools for various start-ups and worked on advanced Internet
video at Precept Software, later acquired by Cisco Systems.

Auerbach is also an activist at heart.

He was tear-gassed and clubbed while protesting the Vietnam War. After an
intensive police search during a traffic stop, Auerbach went to law school
to learn more about his rights. He got a degree in 1978 and is accredited to
practice law, though he never has.

One thing Auerbach lacks is political savvy.

Auerbach likes to speak his mind, allowing ``ICANN to falsely paint him as a
loose cannon,'' says Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor
and frequent ICANN critic.

Esther Dyson, former chairwoman of ICANN, said she agrees with Auerbach on
increasing public involvement but finds his approach ``mostly
counterproductive and polarizing.''

Auerbach acknowledges he can be pushy, confrontational and politically
naive. But he believes he has a unique perspective as a deep-seeded
generalist -- his undergraduate major at Berkeley was in geography.

Though soon leaving the ICANN board, Auerbach vows to keep complaining. And
he leaves with no regrets -- he'd do it again.

``It's the Sisyphus complex,'' Auerbach said, referring to the mythical king
condemned to repeatedly rolling a large stone up a hill, only to have it
roll back down. ``I'm going to push that rock up the hill again.''

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