Re: [atlarge-discuss] HOWTO send a message to ICANN

[espresso@e-scape.net]

At 10:21 -0500 2003/02/10, Joe Baptista wrote:
>OK people - it's obvious to me your in need of some advise.  Now
>remember
>- i'm not asking you to trust me here.  I'll provide references.  But
>i'm
>about to give you all a WEAPON you can use against icann which will
>definately get alot of attention.  SO PAY ATTENTION.  and check the
>facts.
>
>The best way to kick icann in the ass is for every icann@large member
>here
>to get an inclusive namespace domain.  some admins offer them for free.
>
>http://www.dot-god.com/resources/DNP.html

Hello, Joe,

I, for one, am very glad you have offered us your advice.
However, I am also one of the vast majority of Internet
users -- you know, the folks who find all the "alphabet
soup" of acronyms and technical details about root
operations very hard to follow.

As I see it, one of the excuses advanced for making Internet
governance the private fiefdom of a corporate technocracy
is that ordinary citizens are just too stupid to understand
so of course they shouldn't be allowed democratic
participation in the decision-making.

Personally, I don't buy that argument at all, and the people
gathered here who really understand the whole technical side
are unwilling or unable to explain it in layman's terms to
the rest of us. It seems to me one doesn't need a degree in
engineering to understand technical subjects -- heck, I'm
no engineer but I've learned enough about railcar brakes and
hydraulic lifts to translate their documentation even though
I couldn't design or build them myself -- but one does need
an SME ("subject matter expert" = the guy who explains the
equipment or software so the technical writer can document it)
willing and able to communicate to others.

Your suggestions are intriguing but not all of us can
interpret your
>>one inclusive namespace user posting a
>>standard message to a newsgroup or conference/list can generate
>>thousands
>>of inclusive namespace urls which will end up being clicked on by usg
>>root
>>users and registered at the usg root level.  now you can communicate
>>your
>>disatisfaction using the dns.  much like voting.  hell you should all
>>like
>>that.  finally a vote that counts to the technical community.
for themselves. I've looked at some of the alternative namespace
sites in the past, including your own, and I'm by no means sure
I understand your suggestion. I *am* sure I'm not the only
Atlarge type who doesn't, so please help us out here by confirming
or correcting me on this.

1. Aside from the "normal" namespace where ICANN accredits
   companies to register domain names for the general public,
   there is an alternative "geekspace" where various people
   with advanced technical skills and a dislike for the
   ICANN/U.S. government model for the Internet can set up
   domain names without ICANN's blessing.

2. In this alternative "geekspace", a person like myself can
   apply for a domain name or even one's own unauthorized
   top-level domain (TLD), sometimes even without paying to
   register it. One can supply the domain name server (DNS)
   information for a server one already has and use it to
   host this unauthorized domain or TLD.

3. Domains in the alternate namespace vary in how they
   interact with the "normal" namespace [I got this from one
   such "illegal" registrar whose URLs won't work unless each
   user has a software utility which connects their normal
   space to the alternative space] but at least some of them
   can be reached by clicking on a URL in an e-mail or
   newsgroup message.

4. People who use those URLs put a strain on the normal DNS
   system and its infrastructure, which was designed to support
   only the "normal" domains under the U.S./ICANN's dominion.
   The root servers (which translate domain names humans read
   into server addresses computers can connect to) are already
   overburdened handling the "normal" addresses and using
   "unauthorized" ones makes them work even harder, so using
   URLs for the alternative namespace can be a means of protesting
   the "normal" policy of artificially limiting the supply of
   domain names so that commercial registrars can charge higher
   prices [see Economics 101 for the "law of supply and demand"]
   and artificially limiting the number of organizations "allowed"
   to give people domain names under ICANN's "authorized" TLDs so
   as to increase ICANN's power and income.

Have I understood you correctly? If not, please explain so we
can all follow your line of thought.

>now you can communicate your
>disatisfaction using the dns.  much like voting.  hell you should all
>like
>that.  finally a vote that counts to the technical community.
>
>     http://www.baptista.supports.fuck.icann/
>
>click on that and start voting.  even on click counts.  send the url to
>your friends and buddies - include it in your signature line.  use it
>every day.  make up your own.  the nice thing about the scaling factor
>against the usg root servers is that the mass population of usg root
>users
>tips the balance via the dns.  So you don't even need to setup a tld -
>as
>long as you use urls outside the usg you make a powerful difference.
>and
>if all 1,000 icann@large members did this - oye vey - the scaling
>could be
>in the millions per day considering archives and active crawlers.  you
>people alone could generate a technical disaster over time.
>
>i'd appreciate comments or questions.

The problem I see with this method of protest, Joe, is that we
Internet users want the Internet to be stable, reliable and
accessible to everyone. If we 1,000 took your advice and not
only used that URL ourselves but encouraged all our friends and
relations to do so, we'd be causing a "technical disaster" with
an effect opposite to what we want.

There is also no guarantee that the official response to the
disaster would be anything other than lumping us in with the vandals
and terrorists: that is, finding ways to arrest and prosecute us for
malicious attacks on the Internet. And somehow I doubt that this
kind of "voting" would count with the technical community as
anything but another problem.

What I can see as making sense in terms of using this technique
for protests is something like an explicit world-wide campaign:
1- a well-written call to action to be circulated through
  all the usual activist channels
2- a boycott of the "authorized" registrars and systematic
  registration of our domains in the alternative namespace so
  all our usual legitimate traffic would be causing the problem
  (i.e., we'd be behaving like good citizens, not attacking
  somebody else's servers for malicious reasons)
3- **instructions** explaining how normal Internet users can
  participate in the protest (registration, hosting, use of
  redirection where one doesn't want to lose traffic sent to
  one's "normal" domain ...)

Even then, I think such a campaign shouldn't be the first move,
especially not by ICANNATLARGE.ORG as a group.

I'd like to see this group start by articulating exactly
what is wrong with the U.S./ICANN model for administration and
governance of the Internet and lobbying against the "crony
capitalism" as well as for improvements in both the technical
underpinnings and the inclusion of Internet users in a more
transparent and democratic process. I think we would need to
do that in layman's language, so that all of our members and
all of the technically-unadept politicians could understand
what we're talking about.

Regards,

Judyth

##########################################################
Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
##########################################################
"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
"Un mot suffit aux sages; pour les autres, il en faut plus."
##########################################################



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