August 2008 - At-Large - lists.icann.org

Re: [At-Large] Updates to New gTLD Program Implementation andauctioning model.
by JFC Morfin Aug. 10, 2008

Aug. 10, 2008

At 03:29 10/08/2008, Hong Xue wrote: >What Chris said reminds me of the ALAC statement at the ICANN Public Forum: >ICANN should encourage the IDN gTLDs be run by the small-scale, >non-commercial and language community-base registries. But under the auction >model, these applicants will be simply out of the question. > >Hong Dear Hong, We are in a real world. This world has a digital ecosystem, which is the convergence of all its digital resources. The usage of this ecosystem is understood by people, governments, and businesses as the "Information Society". It is internationally supported by seven main bodies: ITU for the underlying telecommunications, ISO for the normative aspects, WSIS/IGF for the datacommunications aspects, UNESCO for the cultural and educational part of emerging metacommmunications, and the commercial aspects that are being dealt with by the WTO. The IntellectualProperty issues are addressed by WIPO. The seventh body is the Internet itself, which RFCs call the "Internet Community", that we call "@larges" the lead users, the WSIS calls "the people", and ICANN calls "the market". This results from the very architectural nature of the Internet (the network of the networks): there is no "Internet Operator". This is something quite new. However, increasingly more global mechanisms are developing in that way, as a concerted effort rather than as a directed or a collective effort. This means that we are in a transition between those who want to control the world (and will never be able to do so) and those who want to help it work in its new ways. This changes simply results from the number of people, education, parity, and the state of the art. They make us transition from a world of 200 countries or so to a world of 6.5 billion partly internationally sovereign people). You are right. This boils down to can ".china" be sold by ICANN to banks that will associate in order to protect ICANN even if the JPA is not renewed? This simply means, who in our digital world is to say what China is: a country or an e-commerce market. The one who can is actually the one who owns the IANA as the referent center of the Internet and the core of the world digital ecosystem. This is why there is a race between: - internationalization with a unilateral IANA which documents all the languages and shall remain the center of the Internet - and multilingualisation with an extended multilateral IANA distributed system documents Internet interoperability and interintelligibility among all nations, cultures, languages, trades, communities, and people. A single Google or billions of interrelated ISO 11179++ e-empowered and real time ontologies. Trillions of dollars, national powers, industrial strategies, and billions of lives are at stake. Until the NTIA spoke up, ICANN believed it possessed IANA forever and could negotiate it with the several entities that are engaged in trying to control it. Now, ICANN has to expedite the process and commit something in favor of its IANA involvement before August 31, 2009. DNSSEC was a possibility and ISOC (.org) is trying to speed up its deployment. IANA's own management and new services that would require ICANN's expertise is another possibility (IANA under XML, and new services signed with TLD Managers, Escrow policy). Obviously, the key one is the Internationalized Internet that has to be played with the main industrial entities through their Unicode consortium (which will necessarily welcome the business IDNccTLD operators for reasons that are plain to you if you are on the WG-IDNABIS or WG-LTRU mailing lists). This is why the real issue is between the Internationalized and Multilingualised Internet. One has to understand the devil's trap. The Internationalized Internet is still devised in a centralized manner (IDNA, LSR, ICANN IDNccTLDs). That architecture will impose an enormous load on the IANA machines and lines; moreover, the way that IDN, langtags, IDNccTLD have been designed, with no specific system having been developed to update billions of users. This is the same as if Host.txt was still supporting the Internet names and we had no DNS. There will be a day (chosen by a few Unicode members in changing a few lines of codes in the ICU language routines used everywhere) when the lingual applications will start (along their own updates) to really interchange with the IANA machines, dumping the huge LSR registry and creating the largest DoS ever. That day, an emergency decision will have to be made: who is going to operate the IANA. There are only two answers: Unicode or UN, meaning in the short term Google or the USA. The bet is that "people" (press, media, "activists", etc.) will "oppose" "non-democratic" US control over the Internet, which would lead to "UN" control through the IGF. I do not think that we should be impressed. Because all of this is based on a centralized root server system, adherence to the langtags, a well working IDNA, a general technical sleepness among @larges around the world, and a lack of early enough warning of ISO, ITU, UNESCO, and Governments. ICANN's root server IP address story, the overdelays in writing the RFC 4646bis (langtags upgrade), the acknowledgment by Vint Cerf (Chair of the WG-IDNABIS) that the IDNA200X that they are working on will not be the ML-DNS that people expect (which would offer in every language the same quality of service as the current DNS in ASCII English), etc. make that the unilateral management of the most multilateral system ever developed is not that easy. However, this does not mean that they will not hope to succeed, in turn creating confusion. As the one you oppose. This is what we have to be prepared to cope with. 1) in helping ICANN decide whether they want to do good, how and when. And to help it as most will be at a relational level. This is the ALAC real job. It is critical for ICANN. 2) in helping devise technical solutions and relational organizations that can help those users who are not protected by their Government and their Language as, for example, the Chinese community is. jfc

1 0

Competitive Root [was: Updates to New gTLD Program Implementation and auctioning model.]
by JFC Morfin Aug. 9, 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

Dear Hong Xue, Patrick, as you know I fully share your concerns and defeated last year an attempt to control IDNccTLD allocation permitting this kind of absurd behavior. Yet, this did not made them to change tack. However, I would really be interested if you could (or anyone else) quote a text making possible a different ICANN strategy. (1) the higher the price the more the buyer will defend the seller's strategy. Obviously ICANN prefer to make friend with large corporations rather than with a few @larges who have no BoD vote. (2) As far as I recall ICANN is to "foster competition" in the domain name area. NTIA says they do not enough. However, - ICANN was not to be a Registry (I do not know if this is still in the ByLaws) - competition at Golden TLD level can only be carried by (a) Competitive Root(s) - it/them being capitalistic, nationalistic, people centric? jfc At 00:03 10/08/2008, Hong Xue wrote: >Thanks for drawing our attention on this paper. Given that the new gTLD >process embraces the IDN TLDs, the paper presents a very surprising, or >shocking view, on allocation of TLDs. If the paper is primarily on the >economic consideration, I wonder if the ICANN has any other consideration, >such as protecting cultural diversity and bridging digital divide, on >selection of new gTLDs (IDN gTLDs). As a governing body of a critical >Internet resources, ICANN should envisage the values that are more important >and fundamental than the highest bidding amount. I echo what has been >precisely stated by Vittorio: > >Another wrong assumption is that monetary value is the only quantity that >counts.In fact, personally I think that the "value" of a TLD is mostly >connected to other factors. For example, one is how many final users of the >Internet will ever use services located inside that TLD; another one is how >strongly these people will feel attached to that TLD, i.e. whether the TLD >contributes to build any kind of "community identity" for an online group of >people that presently does not have it; a third one is whether the new TLD >will spawn innovative uses of the DNS or enable innovative services. None of >these is directly connected to monetary value, and it is quite disturbing to >me that an organization like ICANN, which is meant to steward scarce global >public resources in the interest of the entire community of the Internet, >still seems to have such a partial and narrow view of where the value of the >Internet itself lies. >Hong > > > > >On Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Patrick Vande Walle <patrick(a)vande-walle.eu > > wrote: > > > http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-08aug08-en.htm > > > > ICANN has published a paper from its contractor PowerAuctions LLC, > > regarding the use of auctions to award new TLD strings in case of > > contention. > > > > http://icann.org/en/topics/economic-case-auctions-08aug08-en.pdf > > > > I think it would be important that the At Large speaks up. The model > > proposed in the document is a purely capitalistic one. It is based on > > the assumption that all gTLDs are created to make as much money as > > possible. Smaller, community based TLDs seem quite difficult to launch > > in such context. > > > > The mere possibility of auctions will actually generate contention on > > some strings. The little guys wishing to establish a not-for-profit TLD > > will be outplayed by the wealthy ones. > > > > A public forum has been established at > > http://forum.icann.org/lists/auction-consultation/. > > Comments to auction-consultation(a)icann.org before 8 September 2008. > > > > -- > > Patrick Vande Walle > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > At-Large mailing list > > At-Large(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > > > > > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.ican… > > > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org > > >_______________________________________________ >At-Large mailing list >At-Large(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org >http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.ican… > >At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

1 0

Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams - ICANN - Jefsey
by JFC Morfin Aug. 9, 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

At 19:31 09/08/2008, Bill Silverstein wrote: > > At 08:49 09/08/2008, Bill Silverstein wrote: > >>Many of his recent comments have been relevant to the internet > >>community, but not to the issues of ICANN. > > > > Would you mean there would be a difference ? > > > > jfc > >I would say yes. The purpose and function of ICANN is the operation of >the Name and number service of the internet (ie. DNS, registry, registrar, >etc.) > >For example, on censorship: The greatfirewall of chine: No., Free speech >in Iran, no. A registrar canceling the domain name: bushsucks.com w/o >notice ,Yes. Bill, I obviously agree with you. My jest was to underline that @larges are not dedicated to ICANN, but ICANN is dedicated to @larges as the Internet Community front runners (lead users, common consumers reps). @larges come first. Everything of concern to @larges should raise a question at ICANN: "Is ICANN in a situation to help?". @larges are the ICANN lead customers. This is why they were to initially be 50% of its BoD. The US industrial dominance has changed the bylaws, but cannot change the reality of life. If one way or another we cannot restore that - at least in the way de BoD listen to us, I am afraid it will be finished with ICANN except as golden TLD syndicate. This is at least the way I and many others read the NTIA. It seems very difficult, from the very beginning, to protect ICANN interests against their will. The recent "Internet for the Rich" strategy IMHO calls for a very quick review with our help and endorsement, _if_ they want to remain credible to Govs and Civil Society. jfc

1 0

Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams - ICANN - Jefsey
by NameCritic Aug. 9, 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

Now thats funny, I don't care who you are. Chris McElroy ----- Original Message ----- From: "JFC Morfin" <jefsey(a)jefsey.com> To: "Bill Silverstein" <icann-list(a)sorehands.com>; <at-large(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org> Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 10:23 AM Subject: Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams - ICANN - Jefsey > At 08:49 09/08/2008, Bill Silverstein wrote: >>Many of his recent comments have been relevant to the internet >>community, but not to the issues of ICANN. > > Would you mean there would be a difference ? > > jfc > > > PS. I had actually two reasons to question Beau : > > - to understand if he was genuine when asking what non-American > really think about ICANN the biaised way he did (most do not mind the > USG, they mind the "stakholder"'s dominance). As several others, for > 8 years, I try to understand who "Jeff Willians" really _are_, what > is exactly their role and the wheight they carry in the Internet > community, who pays and inform them, who support or use them. This is > why I am always interested in the activists who are serious about > Jeff Williams, resurecting them once they have been dealt with, and > being unnecessarily rude (a way increase the attention). > > - to help ALAC to get real. If their mechanic cannot cope with "Jeff > Williams" there is a bug or a civilization issue : who is to be the > reference - the mechanic or the person. This is very important : if > ALAC choses to protect instead of improve the mechanic while the WSIS > consensus (including the USA) said that the Information Society had > to be "people centered, à charactère humain, centrada en la persona", > then we definitly know on which side people are to be. > > Let get real. If ALAC wants to be/stay as a stable community helper, > it must able to survive scores of Jeff Williams, from 200 national > ALAC communities in 250 languages. This means considering a similar > approach to ISOC which consider an adequate relational tool. It must > also consider an adequate structural architecture. The whole ICANN > problem everyone can observe through the IIC issue is the one that > the French GAC VP asked Peter Dungate Trush : > - you say that ICANN's structure adequately survived the last 10 > years and has just to be consolidated. > - some do not think it was adequate. > - how do you know that a centralized American English ASCII oriented > structure would be adequate to a Multilingual distributed Internet. > > If ALAC wants to really help ICANN, it must first to become "Jeff > Williams Proof" in English, then in French, in Chinese, and in 250 > national languages (ISO 3166) and then in 30.000 geolingual > environments (ISO 639-6 - LS640). > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > At-Large mailing list > At-Large(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.ican… > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

1 0

Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams - ICANN - Jefsey
by Bill Silverstein Aug. 9, 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

> At 08:49 09/08/2008, Bill Silverstein wrote: >>Many of his recent comments have been relevant to the internet >>community, but not to the issues of ICANN. > > Would you mean there would be a difference ? > > jfc > > I would say yes. The purpose and function of ICANN is the operation of the Name and number service of the internet (ie. DNS, registry, registrar, etc.) For example, on censorship: The greatfirewall of chine: No., Free speech in Iran, no. A registrar canceling the domain name: bushsucks.com w/o notice ,Yes. Virus infection vectors, No. DNS virus infection by DNS poisoning, yes. All of the above are important to internet users, but ICANN has a limited charter and should stay within that charter. > PS. I had actually two reasons to question Beau : > > - to understand if he was genuine when asking what non-American > really think about ICANN the biaised way he did (most do not mind the > USG, they mind the "stakholder"'s dominance). As several others, for > 8 years, I try to understand who "Jeff Willians" really _are_, what > is exactly their role and the wheight they carry in the Internet > community, who pays and inform them, who support or use them. This is > why I am always interested in the activists who are serious about > Jeff Williams, resurecting them once they have been dealt with, and > being unnecessarily rude (a way increase the attention). > > - to help ALAC to get real. If their mechanic cannot cope with "Jeff > Williams" there is a bug or a civilization issue : who is to be the > reference - the mechanic or the person. This is very important : if > ALAC choses to protect instead of improve the mechanic while the WSIS > consensus (including the USA) said that the Information Society had > to be "people centered, à charactère humain, centrada en la persona", > then we definitly know on which side people are to be. > > Let get real. If ALAC wants to be/stay as a stable community helper, > it must able to survive scores of Jeff Williams, from 200 national > ALAC communities in 250 languages. This means considering a similar > approach to ISOC which consider an adequate relational tool. It must > also consider an adequate structural architecture. The whole ICANN > problem everyone can observe through the IIC issue is the one that > the French GAC VP asked Peter Dungate Trush : > - you say that ICANN's structure adequately survived the last 10 > years and has just to be consolidated. > - some do not think it was adequate. > - how do you know that a centralized American English ASCII oriented > structure would be adequate to a Multilingual distributed Internet. > > If ALAC wants to really help ICANN, it must first to become "Jeff > Williams Proof" in English, then in French, in Chinese, and in 250 > national languages (ISO 3166) and then in 30.000 geolingual > environments (ISO 639-6 - LS640). > >

1 0

Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams - ICANN - Jefsey
by JFC Morfin Aug. 9, 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

At 08:49 09/08/2008, Bill Silverstein wrote: >Many of his recent comments have been relevant to the internet >community, but not to the issues of ICANN. Would you mean there would be a difference ? jfc PS. I had actually two reasons to question Beau : - to understand if he was genuine when asking what non-American really think about ICANN the biaised way he did (most do not mind the USG, they mind the "stakholder"'s dominance). As several others, for 8 years, I try to understand who "Jeff Willians" really _are_, what is exactly their role and the wheight they carry in the Internet community, who pays and inform them, who support or use them. This is why I am always interested in the activists who are serious about Jeff Williams, resurecting them once they have been dealt with, and being unnecessarily rude (a way increase the attention). - to help ALAC to get real. If their mechanic cannot cope with "Jeff Williams" there is a bug or a civilization issue : who is to be the reference - the mechanic or the person. This is very important : if ALAC choses to protect instead of improve the mechanic while the WSIS consensus (including the USA) said that the Information Society had to be "people centered, à charactère humain, centrada en la persona", then we definitly know on which side people are to be. Let get real. If ALAC wants to be/stay as a stable community helper, it must able to survive scores of Jeff Williams, from 200 national ALAC communities in 250 languages. This means considering a similar approach to ISOC which consider an adequate relational tool. It must also consider an adequate structural architecture. The whole ICANN problem everyone can observe through the IIC issue is the one that the French GAC VP asked Peter Dungate Trush : - you say that ICANN's structure adequately survived the last 10 years and has just to be consolidated. - some do not think it was adequate. - how do you know that a centralized American English ASCII oriented structure would be adequate to a Multilingual distributed Internet. If ALAC wants to really help ICANN, it must first to become "Jeff Williams Proof" in English, then in French, in Chinese, and in 250 national languages (ISO 3166) and then in 30.000 geolingual environments (ISO 639-6 - LS640).

1 0

Moderation of Jeff Williams
by At-Large Staff Aug. 9, 2008

Aug. 9, 2008

Dear List Members: On Tuesday 5th August, Jeff Williams was notified by the Chair of the ALAC that further off-topic postings such as that entitled ³How to carjack a top Google exec, according to Google² would result in his posting privileges on the public At-Large list being revoked, for a time to be decided by the ALAC. Since that notification, further off-topic postings have been sent, and as a consequence we have been asked to suspend his posting privileges. He will continue to receive messages from the list, however, posts sent to the list will be bounced back to him automatically. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart, Matthias Langenegger, Frederic Teboul ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

5 4

Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams
by JFC Morfin Aug. 8, 2008

Aug. 8, 2008

At 21:06 08/08/2008, Brendler, Beau wrote: >This message makes no sense in English or in French. Don't you also >operate under the alias of Louis Bleriot as well? Setting up filters >and deleting messages from my mailbox hinders productivity. and 4 days before : >"ICANN has made significant progress in several key areas, but most >participants agree that important work remains to increase >institutional confidence through implementing effective processes >that will enable: long term stability; accountability; >responsiveness; continued private sector leadership, stakeholder >participation; increased contract compliance; and enhanced competition." > >I would be interested to hear what others think, especially those >outside the U.S. who have an understandable desire to see ICANN out >from under U.S. Gov't oversight. I suspected it was a troll and checked the source :-) jfc

1 0

Re: [At-Large] Moderation of Jeff Williams
by JFC Morfin Aug. 8, 2008

Aug. 8, 2008

At 15:34 08/08/2008, Brendler, Beau wrote: >I'd like to make a motion that the suspension be permanent, on the >basis that similar warnings/suspensions have been issued many times >before and ignored, and that the poster has long been known to the >ICANN community as a disruptive presence. Dear Beau, I am afraid that on such a basis many would think the first to be permanently suspended should be ... ICANN. It happens that this is precisely the theme of this year as this may be the case on Sept 1st, 2009. Don't you think it could be more productive for all of us, including Jeff Williams, to debate this point, as the NTIA does. Another discussion priority could be : why france@large has not yet received the readable terms answer promised by the Staff, what prevents it to engage into any reconsideration procedure. J'ai peur que sur cette base beaucoup ne pensent que la première à devoir être suspendue de façon permanente devrait être ... l'ICANN. Il appert que ce soit précisément le thème de cette année puisque cela peut être le cas au 1er septembre 2009. Ne pensez-vous qu'il nous serait à tous plus productif, y compris à Jeff Williams, de débattre de ce point, comme le fait le NTIA. Une autre priorité de discussion pourrait être : pourquoi france@large n'a-elle toujous pas reçu la réponse en termes lisibles promise par le Staff, lui interdisant tout appel. jfc

1 0

test
by at-large-content＠box.atlarge.icann.org Aug. 8, 2008

Aug. 8, 2008

test from forum mail conduit ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

1 0