[icann-europe] ICANN, VRSN, ORG: please, let get real.

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Gentlemen,
I feel I am in the Titanic kitchen discussing tomorrows menu. Why not to 
get real? Do we want to be remembered as the French dancing aristocrats of 
1789. Let face it, for months some disregard what I say as being wild. But 
here we are:

1. there still are 13 root server machines only - 10 in the USA, 6 on the 
East Coast. As during the COBOL glory period. With an average of one month 
time or more to get a ccTLD updated, due to the procedures. With 60% of the 
requests for a 1490 entries in 89 K ASCII file resulting from user's typo 
from all over the world. With several advanced investigations over the 
planet to fix the many problems this situation leads into. With several 
architectural innovations at hand and rising Govs concerns.

2. for the second time the "wrong defined user name product" mammoth is 
laying off people, after buying back its own stock and its registrars. This 
makes it to be in a poor shape to give away M$ 5 for .org, to lose the M$ 
18 of .org yearly revenues, to give back the M$ X .org renewals for the 10 
years to come it has collected. And a prey for an alliance with MS to 
develop its M$ 200 DNS rewrite plan to try to control the DNS.

3. the managers of the international data network system's sub-network 
"Internet" - connected in 1984 and not redesigned since then, in spite of 
its growth - have made so many usual sophomore mistakes in managing their 
system that they say they cannot make it anymore.

They start understanding under hardship some basic network management rules 
: you do not manage different layers under the same organization, you never 
sell a network to its users but to who needs it to be used; you do not use 
a management style which does not match the network architecture; you 
cannot curb a networkusership but you serve it; a network is not a 
technical system but a social structure; whatever the source code permits 
will be attempted and will develop if there is an opportunity, a need or 
some fun; competitve innovation will never wait for your authorization, 
nature proceeds in surviving its many own failures, etc....

In fact they have not understood that their system has switched from a 
private interconnected system with a membership controlled through its DNS 
by a Czar, to a worldwide interconnecting system to be served by net 
keepers and open to everyone.


Now, we are in an critical situation. Actually we are in an emergency 
situation if we do not understand and of we do not accept that we are in a 
critical situation.

Is there a way out, a part from a worldwide economy collapse ?

Point 1. Do I over do it?  Please understand that this is what we are 
talking about if VRSN goes into disarray, if the ICANN is not properly 
reset or closed and if the NSDAQ goes down. The Internet is consensus. 
Consensuses stabilize on a mutual community trust. Only a few trust the 
ICANN right now. Managing 30.000.000 DNs is not a small thing: whatever way 
VRSN is organized it has working structures operated by people. When you 
start laying off people, the best people lose faith and trust,  and they 
start looking for a better job. Familiy protection comes before employer 
survival. NASDAQ lives on trust.

Point 2. The only solution we have IMHO is :

1. to accept that we are in a general critical situation, so we stop 
babbling and we think very clearly.

2. to accept that the problem is not with the ICANN but with the world 
society. So, let stop flattering our own egoes about our own visions of the 
ICANN, and let make a real common outreach effort to let decision makers to 
understand where we are.

3. to accept that the world society's problem is to understand and to code 
its (global) network   organization. Laws, economy, international 
structures, etc... This should be made clear though a GAC declaration (as 
the only existing structure for Govs). The preparation of the world submits 
on the information society would be a good occasion. So we have a social 
frame and a time frame.

4. within that time frame we can only make it with existing structures. The 
only existing structure is the ITU/T.

Pros:
a) ITU/T is segmented by layers, which will fit the first and main 
requirement: to manage different layers separately if one does not want to 
sterilize the whole things at huge costs and die. . (different layers are 
here because they are by essence different)
b) the ITU/T is open to everyone who feel concerned.

Con:
a) the ITU/T, as an international structure, is nation oriented, while the 
TCP/IP distributed networks are multinational by essence.
b) the ITU/T is operators oriented: the TCP/IP distributed architecture 
makes every participant to be technically an operator. We would overwhelm 
the ITU/T with thousands of small members.

The only solution is to multinationalize the ITU/T, at a "network system" 
level.

This means that the ITU/T is to participate on a peer to peer basis with 
the other large conceptual systems in :
- hardware : physical addressing,
- software : architecture and protocols,
- brainware : naming plans and semantic,
concertation committees,
- chaired on a rotational basis (to structurally protect from any take over),
- gathering on a natural stabilization scheme who ever think necessary to 
participate
- and supported by an ITU/T specialized secretariat of a very few individuals.

The purpose of these committees is
- to permit its participants to cross-fertilize,
- to help them individually decide by their own their own non conflicting 
strategies,
in common and network participants best interests.

This can be set-up quickly and trimmed upon experience later on, since no 
structural commitment will have been taken. The target could be to carve an 
organization charter into the stone in Tunis 2005.

A non negligible advantage is that it does not submit any decision to an 
ITU/T vote, what should help the USA to accept it.

5. societal issues can only be addressed through an "International Network 
Campus" where all the so called "mission creep" we experience will gather 
and use the same concertation system. Everyone interested in each "creep" 
will be welcome (and there will be many more in the years to come).

The target will probably be to develop "netiquettes"  (i.e. community 
correct thinking) helping:
- participants to develop policies and agreements in harmony, on a 
worldwide basis,
- and Govs to enact national laws making a common international sense.

6. once that societal and technical working frames have been established, 
we can figure out where the Internet "sub-network" and its partners fit in.

- if to survive, the ICANN (or it ssuccessors) is well prepared with its 
established experience and structures to participate into these committees:

1)  ASO for the Universal Network Addressing Concertation Committee.
2)  PSO for the Universal Network Architecture and Protocols Concertation 
Committee.
3)  the DNSO for the Universal Network Namespace Concertation Committee.
4)  the @large for the societal aspects - or to get it replaced once for 
all by the ISOC

- natural relations/selection will establish, stabilize and develop among 
committee participants : ITU/T and their members, Legacy, IP registries, 
IETF, ccTLDs, USG, EEC, China, Open Systems, Intlnet  and Newnet, Real 
Names and AOL, and the ISSN ISBN likes, etc  to the benefit of the users 
and of the revamped registries/registrars.

7. We have to accept that many ICANN problems come its DNS management, 
therefore from the ACPA (US Anti Cybersquatting Portection Act) and its 
territory creep. Territory creep being addressed as per above, the DN issue 
will be adressed in correcting the ACPA, probably though an Internet Act.

A DN is NOT anything else than a mnemonic pointer to the IP address of a 
network privately owned resource (a "cyber domain": site, equipment, 
etc..). The only duty of a DN is to correctly and stably point to that IP. 
Every other issues are to be addressed at the legal level of the so called 
domain. One cannot transfer a DN without the domain ownership (ask Mike 
Roberts if I could buy "ucla.edu"). The correction of the DN transfer error 
will drastically clean the situation and ... kill VRSN.

This is why we have to stop these chit chat about .org and new TLDs, and 
WLS. We have to openly discuss with Stratton Sclavos and the DoC about how 
to clean the mess and if, when and how .org is to be divested, and how to 
subsidize Verisign while it reconverts itself into one or several profit 
making registries, the way we may dwindle the "Registrars Industry" into 
something survivable, etc. The probably necessay Internet Act should also 
address the organization (ICANN?) and the budget of the ARPA inherited 
Internet/Govnet systems, of their relations with the other TCP/IP networks 
system managers and the fair redistrubution of the IP Blocks (if the US do 
not want the IP allocation to be a major negative issue in Geneva 2003 and 
Tunis 2005).

jfc


-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: icann-europe-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de
For additional commands, e-mail: icann-europe-help@lists.fitug.de