________________________________________________________________________________ ========================================[from: Ronda Hauben ]== The following is from a discussion on the IFWP mailing list about the issues of whether there are people who have a social interest, or if it is that people can only have a private self interest. "A.M. Rutkowski" wrote: At 01:55 AM 6/5/99 , John B. Reynolds wrote: JBR>>P.S. Tony: the fact that I am an ordinary Internet user and not a hired JBR>>gun does not disqualify me from commenting on matters of Internet policy. AMR>You missed my point. I'm speaking favorably AMR>about your participation in discussions - AMR>just wondering why you (and for that matter AMR>other people who passionately argue a particular AMR>point or attempt to speak authoritatively) care. Tony you asked me a similar question in 1992 when I got on the com-priv list and tried to explain that there was a public interest involved in what was to happen with the Internet *not* merely the interest of those trying to get their cut of the pie that was being put up for grabs. I wonder why you don't recognize that there might be people who have some public interests, that there are indeed citizens and netizens. There have been human beings who recognize that the French Revolution and the U.S. revolution marked a significant change in society from where the King ruled all and had sovereignty to where the people became the sovereigns. And the Internet has followed in this tradition as it is not a set of wires and cables, but a relationship between users and computers and networks which is fundamentally dependent on users having sovereignty. The Interent has been built by the open interface and interactive computing concepts where the users were recognized as having to be active in designing their own end of the interface. That is why the Internet makes possible the cooperation of people and networks and computers around the world. It is fundamentally based on that cooperation and your private power grabbing is the challenge to the Internet and the netizens and more and more are recognizing the challenge. AMR>In my own case, I've been analyzing and writing AMR>about similar public policy, legal developments It doesn't seem that you are in fact writing about "public policy" as I haven't seen anything you write recognize that anything "public" exists. And I don't understand how you can claim that you have been analyzing so called "similar" "legal" developments for 25 years, as what you are proposing is fundamentally unconstitutional and thus illegal. To try to disenfranchise the citizen or the Netizen has no legal foundation, despite your claims to the contrary. You do indeed write about effort to "privatize" what is public policy, but that doesn't qualify what you write to be regarded as public policy, only the effort to sidetrack the discussion so the real issue, the public issues are never discussed. AMR>for the past 25 years. None of what is now AMR>occurring domestically and internationally is AMR>particularly new. What you find typically with AMR>these developments, is that there are multiple AMR>different potential outcomes that evolve with AMR>time, and no intrinsically right or authoritative AMR>answer - just directions.. How strange for you to say this. I sat in the U.S. Congress and heard people say that the effort to create ICANN is setting a fundamentally new model for which will serve as a precedent to be copied. And even in some of your writing you propose things like creating something like the ITU without governments involved (or openly involved that is). Also the history and development of the Internet shows that the creation of ICANN is fundamentally unsound and "new". As the Internet is the result of an interface between the computer science community and government/s which led to the decisions being made on a criteria that were sound and also made possible the needed scaling so the Internet could grow and flourish. All that is happening now with ICANN trying to replace both the computer science community and the government/s role of support for that community with a set of people operating behind the scenes in a very vicious power grab is a serious departure from what is appropriate to happen. It flies in the face of open government processes as the U.S. government is manipulating behind the scenes what is happening here in a way that makes impossible the kind of accountable or legitimate activity that is needed to provide for the present future direction of the Internet. And this corrupt activity of ICANN flies in the face of any regard for the need for the computer science community to be involved in the administration and scaling of the Internet. Thus it is flies in the face of the history and development of the Internet and of the history and development of science and government as they have evolved since the earliest days in the U.S. However, there is something that seems a much more serious falsification in what you write. In another post you claimed that it is impossible to have multiple countries involved in the administration of the Internet and that is why one has to put up with the deceit and conflict of interest crooked activity of ICANN. According to your view of history the Internet never developed. You fail to understand or at least pretend you don't understand that it is through the cooperative efforts of computer scientists in a number of different countries, often supported directly or working for their governments, that the Internet evolved so successfully. You want to throw out all that actual experience of what serves Internet development and substitute a fantasy theory you are proposing of how the Internet can be run by behind the scenes governments and private interests -- as a so called "private" ICANN. Your theories don't substitute for reality however. A few days ago, during the Berlin meetings you did a post that seemed to acknowledge the problems that ICANN has demonstrated is its essence. At that time I wondered if even you were admitting the corruption that is the ICANN model. But I see by your posts today that you continue to promote this corrupt model by trying to question anyone who recognizes there is a public interest and a public purpose for society or for the Internet. Despite your misrepresentations there are indeed citizens and netizens and none of your words or deeds or protestations that such don't exist, can change that. >--tony Ronda ronda@panix.com --------- See " Cone of Silence: ICANN or Internet democracy is failing" by John Horvath URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html And see Amateur Computerist vol 9-1 http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt ================================================================================ ========================================[from: Ronda Hauben ]== >Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 20:11:36 -0400 (EDT) >From: Ronda Hauben >To: bburr@ntia.doc.gov, emaxwell@doc.gov >Subject: Open Letter to Elliot Maxwell of U.S. DOC about ICANN An Open Letter to Elliot Maxwell, U.S. Dept of Commerce My proposal to the NTIA in Fall '98 provided for an open process and for computer scientists from the U.S. and other interested countries to contribute to making that open online process into a reality. This was the first necessary step in determining what cooperative means were needed to porotect the essential name, number and protocol functions of the Internet. That proposal should have been funded by the U.S. government and any other country that cared to help create a cooperative process for protecting these vital Internet functions. That is still the challenge to all, but primarily to the U.S. government, and to Elliot Maxwell, who supposedly replaced Ira Magaziner as the person determining Internet policy in the U.S. but who has been carefully hidden from view. I am requesting that Elliot Maxwell join the IFWP list and the Netizens Mailing List and begin to participate in the discussion of what is happening and what should be happening with regard to creating appropriate institutional forms for these crucial functions of the Internet. Ronda Below is an important discussion with comments that occurred on the IFWP list on May 25 while many were involved in the conference in Berlin and thus may have missed these comments on the IFWP mailing list. "A.M. Rutkowski" wrote on May 25, 1999: >Karl, AMR>It's obvious that you and a few others on this list AMR>have alternative ideological constructs of the universe AMR>surrounding Network Solutions. Those of use who were AMR>actually part of this activity and dealing with these AMR>issues since 1992 have a different set of experiences AMR>and knowledge base. AMR>I think most of us can agree, however, that Network AMR>Solutions is only one of many players, and the real AMR>problems here surround those claiming to be king of AMR>the mountain, and the activities in which they are AMR>engaging. The institutions, regulations, taxes, AMR>licensing, and claims being advanced by ICANN and AMR>its GAC are broad and far reaching. They are what AMR>threaten the Internet, not NSI. AMR>--tony >From the above comments I thought that perhaps Tony Rutkowski had acknowledged and recognized that ICANN is a serious problem that must be taken up to be challenge by anyone who is concerned about the present and the future of the Internet, but the more recent posts by Tony seem to say that this was a mistaken conclusion from his posts as he is once again claiming that ICANN is the only possible way forward for the Internet. Also on May 25, 1999 "A.M. Rutkowski" wrote: At 10:16 AM 5/25/99 , Karl Auerbach wrote: KA>>I certainly find it hard to justify allowing NSI to retain its unfair KA>>advantage on the basis that after a great deal of investment and work, a KA>>big competitor may possibly, maybe arise. AMR>Unfair? It was NSI's risk, investment, and entrepreneurship AMR>over the past six years that built their segment of the AMR>business. They've agreed and are proceeding rapidly to AMR>open most of that segment up to 5, then 29, then other AMR>companies to harvest the market segment that they built. AMR>Frankly, I regard that as unfair - but they're actually AMR>doing it anyhow in the belief that a rising tide raises all AMR>ships. AMR>When the various NSFNet cooperative agreements were terminated, AMR>I didn't see MCI-IBM, Sprint, and the regionals (now largely AMR>Verio), give up their networks, addresses, intellectual property AMR>and customer bases in a spirit of largesse emanating from the AMR>"unfairness" of their market segments. They walked with billions AMR>in assets and revenue streams. AMR>Maybe we want to list all the several thousand companies and AMR>institutions that received NSF awards and agreements, figure AMR>out what that's worth, and ex post facto divvy up their assets AMR>in a grand spirit of fairness. AMR>--tony And Dave Crocker responded: >At 10:54 AM 5/25/99 -0400, A.M. Rutkowski wrote: AMR>>Unfair? It was NSI's risk, investment, and entrepreneurship AMR>>over the past six years that built their segment of theM AMR>>business. They've agreed and are proceeding rapidly to DC>NSI had no risk and made no entrepreneurial investment. DC>By the time they finally decided to treat this as a real business, DC>they had a massive, government-protected revenue stream, with fees DC>set to be 3-7 times too high. DC>This extra money provided all the investment funds. DC>NSI did not go out and create a business plan, acquire investment money and DC>then try to create a new business. THAT is entrepreneurialism, Tony. (You DC>should try it sometime; it's quite exciting and rewarding.) DC>What NSI has done is to feed at the government trough. And they did it DC>based on an existing service built by others. They can't even take the DC>credit for creating the service they now profit from. (...) DC>Dave Crocker But all of this is a fight it seems over who will get which piece of the carcass of the Internet. In Tony's first post that I cite here, he acknowledged that there is a problem with ICANN. However, it didn't seem that he acknowledged that ICANN taking over ownership and control over controlling functions of the Internet such as the root server system, the domain name system, the IP numbers and the protocols is a very big power play. And as Elaine Kamarck, a former advisor to Gore, and a political scientists at Harvard, acknowledged at the Berkman meeting in January over the membership question for ICANN, there is no machinery to oversee or punish any abuse of power in a "non-profit" corporation that is intended for other kinds of purposes, *not* for the purposes that ICANN is being created for. Elaine pointed out that government was created and has mechanisms to deal with the kind of conflict of interest economic power that is being vested in ICANN, and a membership or non membership non-profit organization where all one can do is throw out board member, doesn't have such machinery. Tony and Dave, do either of you have any idea of the importance of the Internet to people around the world, both those who are online and those who hope to one day get online? And I have the same question to the others on the IFWP list where this discussion is going on. If so, I wonder how you can be quibbling over who gets which piece of an Internet carcass that it seems those grabbing are trying to create, rather than considering what harm is being done by the current creation and development of ICANN. Is there any way either of you can recognize that ICANN is a fundamentally flawed model and should be dumped. That it is supposed to be a "design and test" situation and the test has failed and thus the U.S. government should be acknowledging the failure and stopping the damage before it gets any greater. The U.S. government has *no* authority to give away the cooperative and public assets and functions and policy making processes that are being offered to ICANN. There do need to be ways found to protect these essential functions of the Internet from abuse and to administer them in a way that provides for the well being of the Internet and its users and the scaling of the Internet. There is plenty of good experience to build on in the cooperative processes of a number of nations and of computer scientists from around the world in building the Internet. Therefore isn't it time to get on with dumping this cherade that is ICANN and beginning to explore what is needed by the Internet community and the public around the world in terms of supporting the current and future development of the Internet?. Ronda ronda@panix.com ronda@ais.org Proposal is at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt --------- See Cone of Silence: ICANN or Internet democracy is failing by John Horvath URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html and Amateur Computerist issue 9-1 http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt ================================================================================ ========================================[from: Ronda Hauben ]== Sadly the Internet Society doesn't seem to recognize that inviting and supporting a diversity of viewpoints and is what has made the Internet possible. I want to bring to your attention the Internet Society's (ISOC) refusal to grant editors of the Amateur Computerist a press pass for this coming INET '99. We wrote a criticism of what happened at the IFWP meeting last year and also an article about INET '98 pointing out that there was a narrow agenda for the topics for the conference which left out consideration of library issues, community networking issues and other such public concerns about the current and future state of the Internet. Apparently, those in the press who are critical of ISOC's narrow agenda lose the right to press passes to their functions. We were encouraged to apply for the press pass and to send an issue of the Amateur Computerist. After the issue was received, our application was rejected. Editors of the Amateur Computerist have attended two previous ISOC conferences on a press pass INET '96 and INET '98 and reported on both conferences in the Amateur Computerist and in accounts that went out over the Internet and are in various other online or periodical journals. We have more than fulfilled any criteria given by ISOC to be entitled to a press pass, but are being denied press passes. ISOC's narrow agenda of support for only ecommerce as the present and future of the Internet is a deliberate effort to deny the public their ability to have public purposes and public participation on the present and future Internet. Also several of those in the Internet Society leadership have been active promoting ICANN to take over essential functions of the Internet in the interests of some hidden private sector entities. One of the reasons that I have been told that a press pass was denied is for participating in the IFWP meetings (chaired by David Maher) after the INET '98 meeting. At the INET '98 press conference all the press were invited to participate in and cover the IFWP meeting which followed INET '98. Also after talking with Jon Postel after the press conference last year about that users were being disenfranchised by the plan creating ICANN, he said to go to the IFWP meeting and to make these concerns known. There was an effort to do so. The response by an official of ISOC was to tell an editor of the Amateur Computerist that she wasn't allowed to participate in the IFWP meeting or that she would have to give up her press pass. That was a criteria distinctly different from what had been announced at the press conference and also from a criteria applied to anyone else from the press. ISOC it seems has enpowered people to make up the rules as they go along and to try to deprive the press of any right to a critical reporting of what happens or else one will lose ones press pass. The Internet Society is supposedly created to educate the public about the Internet. However, it has done all it can to hide what is happening with the creation of ICANN to take over essential functions of the Internet from the cooperative and public way they were previously owned and controlled. We have asked for a way to appeal this denial and have not been given any procedure to do so. Ronda ronda@panix.com For the issue of the Amateur Computerist reporting on INET '98 see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt About ICANN, See Cone of Silence by John Horvath URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html ================================================================================ # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 1999 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. more information: mail to: majordomo@rolux.org, subject line: , message body: info. further questions: mail to: rolux-owner@rolux.org. archive: http://www.rolux.org