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"DonorGate" Is Latest Scandal To Hit Wikipedia
by Jeffrey A. Williams March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008

All, Seems truth and honesty on Wikipedia yet again in question. Seems to me anyway, the stench of Wikipedia is getting nearly overwhelming whether or not these latest allegations are true or false... In the latest of a long train of scandals to hit Wikipedia, the Sydney Morning Herald reports on an accusation that founder and Wikia President Jimmy Wales traded a multi-thousand dollar donation for an article re-write. Jeff Merkey, formerly of Novell, claims that Wales approached him in 2006 and said that for a fee, Wales would personally see to it that the article on Merkey, which had cast him in a negative light, would be re-written in Merkey's favor. Merkey claims that after he donated $5,000, Wales followed through on this quid pro quo. The Wikipedia edit history does indicate that Wales wiped out the article on Merkey, and then personally re-wrote it. The SMH reports that Wales has called the allegation 'nonsense. See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/more-woes-for-jimmy-wales/2008/03/11/1205125… Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by http://slashdot.org/~kdawson/ KD : Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh provided this official statement: "Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone." Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1(a)ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827

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Re: [At-Large] FW: Transmittal of SAC 025 to ALAC
by Veni Markovski March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008

At 21:15 12.03.2008 +1200, Franck Martin wrote: >Huge cross posting and e-mail with no relevance and facts. What are >you talking about again? Frank, I don't mind you sending such letters, but do you mind cutting the quotes? I have filters for Jeff himself, but if I put the filter to delete everything that contains his name, that will delete other, legitimate, mail. There's no need to quote him, esp. that you are also not so interested in what he says. Let's try to focus on the substantative emails, not on the noise. veni >On 12/03/2008, Jeffrey A. Williams ><<mailto:jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>jwkckid1(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: >Dave and all,

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Re: [At-Large] Proposal of the ALAC Chair on Code of Conduct Enforcement
by Michele Neylon March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008

JFC Morfin wrote: > Because I think this mail of yours is disruptive and non-democratic. Democracy would fail if leaders did not take firm positions > Would you accept to be banned for six months without the possibility to > object? If I was being blatantly disruptive I'd expect to get banned > I guess not. So, this has to be organised. Drum justice is not good for > mailing lists. > Cheers! > jfc -- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection http://www.blacknight.com/ http://blog.blacknight.com/ Tel. 1850 929 929 Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Fax. +353 (0) 1 4811 763 ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,Ireland Company No.: 370845

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Proposal of the ALAC Chair on Code of Conduct Enforcement
by Danny Younger March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008

I'm extremely disappointed by the Proposal of the ALAC Chair on Code of Conduct Enforcement -- I don't think I have ever seen a more milquetoast approach. So here's a counter-proposal: Upon the Chair's determination that there has been a Code of Code violation, the Chair will immediately impose upon the violator a minimum six-month suspension of posting rights. The Chair's initial proposal may be found here: https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?al_alac_cc_0308_1_5_proposal_of_the_cha… ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

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FW: Transmittal of SAC 025 to ALAC
by At-Large Staff March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008

Dear At-Large community members: We have the pleasure of providing the attached for your review. ------ Forwarded Message From: Dave Piscitello <dave.piscitello(a)icann.org> Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:00:49 -0700 To: Nick Ashton-Hart <Nick.Ashton-Hart(a)icann.org>, <rguerra(a)privaterra.ca>, <vanda(a)uol.com.br>, <cheryl(a)hotek.com.au> Cc: Steve Crocker <steve(a)shinkuro.com> Subject: Transmittal of SAC 025 to ALAC 12 March 2008 Transmittal of SAC025: Fast Flux Hosting and DNS to the ALAC At the direction of the ICANN Board of Directors, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee invites the ALAC to consider the accompanying Advisory, SAC 025: Fast Flux Hosting and DNS. A PDF of the Advisory may be downloaded from the ICANN web site at http://www.icann.org/committees/security/sac025.pdf Cyber-criminals and Internet miscreants use Fast Flux hosting to frustrate anticrime efforts aimed at locating and shutting down web sites used for illegal purposes. Fast flux hosting supports a wide variety of cyber-crime activities (fraud, identity theft, online scams) and is considered one of the most serious threats to online activities today. One variant of fast flux hosting, "double flux", exploits the domain name registration and name resolution services. SAC 025 describes the technical aspects of fast flux hosting and fast flux service networks and explains how the DNS is exploited to abet criminal activities that employ fast flux hosting. The Advisory discusses current and possible methods of mitigating fast flux hosting at various points in the Internet and identifies those methods that SSAC considers practical and sensible. SSAC asks that the ALAC consider in particular the Section entitled Shut Down the fast flux hosts, where measures to reduce the number of hosts that attackers can compromise and use in fast flux attacks are discussed. While these measures alone cannot eliminate fast flux hosting, they can greatly improve the overall Internet security baseline if implemented broadly and uniformly. We thank you in advance for your time and consideration. David Piscitello ICANN Senior Security Technologist, On behalf of the SSAC ------ End of Forwarded Message

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Re: [At-Large] List Posting and Moderation
by Cheryl Langdon-Orr March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008

As you know, considerable email traffic and discussion on this topic has recently occurred in the Public At-Large email list... As you also know the matter of moderation/ sanction (and an unfortunately I admit L somewhat complex procedure for future management of complaints on postings and list activity ruled to be outside of that permitted under Rule 22 of that ALAC Rules of Procedure) was on the Agenda for discussion at the ALAC meeting held at 1330 UTC on 11th of March. This message is to inform this list of the outcomes of that part of the meetings discussion and the associated resolutions of the ALAC, in advance of the meeting notes being posted, as well as the meeting recording and transcript (if any) being posted to the Wiki page associated with that meeting... Please be advised that any person who has been deemed as having been posting to this list in variance with our existing Code of Conduct for list activity has recently received a private message from me, indicating that they are now moderated, as at 1200 UTC March 12, 2008. They have also received the following explanatory text. Please also note that:- 1. Considerable time was taken in our discussion of this complex matter in an effort to find a balance between the requests of many list Members and the desire to ensure that we continue to provide a forum where opinion and points of view can be posted, providing they are within the published ALAC list guidelines. 2. As a result of our deliberations you are now being moderated in the At-Large (public) email list, and that moderation means that you will currently have a posting limit of three (3) messages per day. These will literally be the first three (3) messages sent in any 24hr period beginning from 1200 UTC 12th of March, 2008. 3. Moderation is manual, will be conducted by the At-Large staff with no attention being paid to the content or topic of the messages. They will simply forward the first three (3) messages to the list and all others (in any 24hrs 1200 UTC onward) will be deleted regardless of topic or content. 4. This level of moderation will be reviewed in 30 days. 5. Further activities outside of our list code of conduct (with or without complaints from list Members), will result in an increase in moderation, and could result in removal from the list. 6. The ALAC At-Large List will now be informed of these outcomes, without any specific reference to any particular list Member(s). Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO) ALAC Chair 2007-2008

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Re: [At-Large] Proposal of the ALAC Chair on Code of Conduct Enforcement
by Thompson, Darlene March 11, 2008

March 11, 2008

Well, fortunately we all are reasonable people and that would never happen. Hey, lets face it, I have a pretty big mouth at times. There have been times when a person or two have e-mailed me privately to say I was stepping out of line or my reasoning was faulty because... No problem. Thank you and I will govern myself accordingly (and have done so). People like the ones we are seeing now have been warned repeatedly and I cannot conceive of an instance where the chair would just pull the rug out from someone without any kind of explanation and warning. It wouldn't happen and if it did then I'm sure we would all hear about it in short order. I support Danny, Michele, Evan, et al, in giving the Chair a WHOLE lot more latitutde to act definitely and quickly without so much red tape. The notice going out to the list is a good idea and then state what action is being taken and then take it. Done. Darlene ________________________________ From: alac-bounces(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of JFC Morfin Sent: Tue 3/11/2008 1:53 PM To: Michele Neylon :: Blacknight; Danny Younger; At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] Proposal of the ALAC Chair on Code of Conduct Enforcement At 17:50 11/03/2008, Michele Neylon :: Blacknight wrote: Content-Language: en Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=_000_C3FC68CA2B183micheleblacknightie_; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-428E52CB Agreed. If there's a disruptive person on a mailing list simply ban them. I don't see why you have to make it into a bureaucratic mess Because I think this mail of yours is disruptive and non-democratic. Would you accept to be banned for six months without the possibility to object? I guess not. So, this has to be organised. Drum justice is not good for mailing lists. Cheers! jfc

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Press coverage of NTIA/JPA event
by Brendler, Beau March 11, 2008

March 11, 2008

FYI, if you haven't already seen it. BB WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY February 29, 2008 Friday Businesses Attack ICANN for Registrar, Registry Influence SECTION: Vol. 9 No. 41 LENGTH: 1234 words Business gets short shrift from ICANN in areas unduly influenced by registrars and registries, representatives of industry said Thursday at an NTIA meeting on the agency's mid-term review of its joint project agreement (JPA) with ICANN. Speakers generally credited ICANN with much progress in the agreement's first 18 months. Under it, the nonprofit must meet 10 conditions to escape U.S. oversight. But they said the ICANN board's aloofness, lack of contract enforcement and unsavory domain-name practices, and reforms proposed for the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council, are concerns. The meeting began amid controversy over sales practices and alleged lax oversight by ICANN and domain-name managers and sellers. NeuStar and Afilias proposed limits on their .biz and .info domains for "tasting" -- purchasers testing names' profitability for five days and returning them for a full credit (WID Feb 11 p1). A suit recently accused Network Solutions of "front-running" -- warehousing domain names searched for by users so other registrars can't sell them -- and ICANN of not barring the practice (WID Feb 27 p9). ICANN groups are investigating both practices. The problem in measuring ICANN's performance in the JPA is that "they're really just getting off the ground," said Steven Metalitz, counsel to the Coalition for Online Accountability, a copyright industry group. ICANN has done little to punish contract violations by its partners, such as registrars, giving the impression that the nonprofit lacks practical authority, he said. Scott Evans, a lawyer for Yahoo who helped draft ICANN's dispute-resolution policy, said only by suing parties it finds out of compliance can ICANN show it's serious. Martin Boyle of .uk registry Nominet warned that the U.S., ICANN's "benign dictator," could be replaced by a "malign oligarchy" of nations with designs for regulating the Internet unless ICANN shows it can defend itself. A "false sense of security" marks the mid-term review, which is like the first half of a school semester, NetChoice Coalition Executive Director Steve DelBianco said from the audience. ICANN's fast-track development of internationalized domain names contrasts with the world's view of the project as an "abject failure," and the Internet Governance Forum is "waiting for a failure" at ICANN to strengthen its hand in moving Internet governance to the UN, he said. "The second half of the semester is going to be a rocky one where the private sector support essentially disappears," he said. "Many in the business community feel that we are marginalized" and that ICANN is becoming a "trade association" for registrars and registries, Evans said with visible restraint. "We take great umbrage" at the suggestion that ICANN naturally would pay more heed to managers and sellers of domain names because they pay dues to ICANN, he said. Yahoo spends millions on services from the groups and has a direct contract with ICANN, and Evans circles the world for ICANN meetings at which he's largely ignored, he said. A footnote in ICANN's report on the agreement's comment period especially incensed businesses, characterizing their 75 comments, about a third of the total, as being from "lobbyists," he said. Registrars and registries have an "outsized role in the policy development process," and a plan under consideration at the GNSO Council would cut business influence, Metalitz said. Network Solutions Chief Policy Counsel Jonathon Nevett, who chairs ICANN's registrar constituency, objected to registrars and registries being characterized as in cahoots. The role of registrars such as Network Solutions would shrink under the GNSO plan, he said. Registrars under contract are already at a disadvantage because they must follow "consensus policies" finished only after contracts are signed, Nevett said. He assailed the "competitive advantage" of registrars without contracts. It's unclear if the registrar accreditation agreement even addresses tasting, an issue ICANN needs to resolve, said Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports WebWatch and member of ICANN's at-large advisory committee. But he said the Internet user constituency was "beginning to form bonds" with registrars. Nevett said tasting is sensitive to the market -- users always can take their domains to one of 800- plus other registrars if unhappy with a registrar's practices. ICANN's proposed nonrefundable transaction fee for purchased names will "seriously curb" tasting, he said. Metalitz warned ICANN not to make a tasting decision after a "closed discussion" with registrars. Phil Corwin, counsel to the Internet Commerce Association, said from the audience that the domain-name investor group worries about proposed "national law exceptions" in the new accreditation agreement, which he said could encourage "forum-shopping" by registrars. ICA expected to review a new agreement before ICANN's mid-February meeting in New Delhi and now fears ICANN will release the proposal just before the meeting in Paris, leaving little time for review before approval, he said. ICANN's proposed 20 cent fee for purchased domains may have scant effect in .com, despite the success of the 5 cent fee approved by .org, which virtually stopped tasting on that TLD, said a spokesman for the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. There was never much tasting in .org anyway, "and you should know that," he said. ICANN seems to be disconnected from average Internet users, as evidenced by low interest in TLDs introduced the past five years, he said. The .org model wouldn't necessarily work for .com, Nevett said, but ICANN can apply its own fee to gTLD names without any action necessary by registries, which should mitigate .com tasting. The ICANN board will be insulated from accountability until it revises its bylaws, Nevett said. A majority of the board can do just about anything with impunity, he said, recommending that ICANN create a "task force" to come up with independent review procedures. Board decisions should include "analytical components" so that the reasoning is clear, and ICANN should have to make proposed contracts available for public comment before they're finalized, he said. Steve Goldstein, the only ICANN voting board member at the meeting, defended the board's actions and spoke to correct what he said were misunderstandings. Some registrars have good arguments for the grace period that enables domain tasting, though it remains a matter of dispute, he said. ICANN's "trial" budget and operational plan for the coming year were the first to be open to public comment and will be "refined" after that, Goldstein said. Several board members are enrolled in spring National Association of Corporate Directors classes for training on corporate governance, he said. -- Greg Piper * * * * * NTIA Acting Administrator Meredith Baker is leaving the agency overseeing ICANN to pursue other opportunities, she told us Thursday. "I will stay on to ensure a smooth transition" with the White House nominee, Baker said, noting she had been thinking about leaving for several months. The White House is expected to name Neil Patel, assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney, to the job, several Hill and industry sources said. Patel did not return a call for comment. Baker joined NTIA in January 2004, and took over for John Kneuer, who was appointed in 2006, when he left in November. -- AV

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Users Issues: New petition calls for open standards in the European Parliament
by Jeffrey A. Williams March 11, 2008

March 11, 2008

All, Mor important users issues in the EU for example seem to be contrary to some of the remarks coming from certain ALAC members of for that matter remarks from certain ICANN Board members as well. Roberto! Frankly, our members are demonstrably in support of the below mentioned and elaborated upon open standards in that they promote openess and transparency as well as aid in accountability. [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ] ++ New petition calls for open standards in the European Parliament http://www.openforumeurope.org/press-room/latest-news/new-petition-calls-fo… The petition can be found here: www.openparliament.eu Brussels 6 March 2008. At a time when the EU Commission investigates the anti-competitive behaviour of a market-dominant player, the European Parliament (EP) still imposes that same specific software choice on both the European Union's citizens and its own MEPs. OpenForum Europe, The European Software Market Association, and the Free Software Foundation Europe today launched a petition to call on the EP to use open standards so that all citizens can participate in the democratic process. Graham Taylor, Chief Executive of OpenForum Europe says: "The benefits of the Internet were achieved from open standards, freedom of access, participation for all, innovation where it really mattered. Not proprietary lock-in and monopoly. Government and Parliament need to show leadership in ensuring full participation for all its citizens. Pieter Hintjens, General Secretary of Esoma explains, "Small businesses are moving to modern open standards like Open Document Format, yet to write to their MEPs they have to switch back to old proprietary formats? The EP should lead the way in open government, starting with open standards for documents and recordings." Ciaran ORiordan, FSFE adds, "If our elected representatives don't like a software package or its terms of use, they should be able to choose another software package. This issue and the promotion of open standards must be tackled together to get past a chicken and egg problem: Not being able to choose your software often means you're stuck with one vendor's proprietary format, and using that proprietary format means you, and everyone you communicate with, is shoe-horned into using the same vendor's software. For FSFE, it is important that MEPs be able to choose Free Software." The signatories are encouraging citizens and other stakeholder groups to publicly support the objectives of the petition by signing up on www.openparliament.eu ++ Background It is the right of all citizens to be able to freely communicate with their elected representatives, and have full and free access to the proceedings of Parliament. In todays electronic world of the internet, email and video streaming, citizens rightly have high expectations on the European Parliament to ensure full participation without technical restriction. Yet it is a fact that the domination of current suppliers, unless challenged, does impose unnecessary restriction, forcing citizens to purchase specific software, maintaining lock-in to that supplier and limiting competition and choice. Openness is all about the freedom to innovate, integrate and participate. For example there are already internationally approved standards for document exchange, supported by a multitude of competitive main stream products - yet these standards are unsupported by the European Parliament, which instead only supports products based on proprietary protocols. Not only does this potentially increase cost, restrict access and impact social inclusion, but it restricts the opportunity to take advantage of new innovation offered by tomorrow's technology. The co-signatories of this Petition call on the European Parliament to open up their IT systems, maximising the use of open standards and ensure full democracy for its citizens. ENDS Issued by Open Forum Europe through Chelgate Ltd. Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1(a)ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827

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Report on "OneDay" for ALAC/AtLarge Workshop in New Delhi
by Veronica Cretu March 10, 2008

March 10, 2008

Dear ALAC/AtLarge colleagues! Warmest Greetings from a rainy Moldova! Back in LA meeting ALAC has launched a "OneDay" workshop initiative. "OneDay" initiative is part of the Organizational Development @ ALAC. With the formation of all five RALOs, ALAC/AtLarge Organizational Development represents the single most important parameter when considering the sustainability of any changes that may have been put in place during the process. Because the results of the LA meeting have proven the need to continue the initiative, the second phase of the "OneDay" has been organized on February 10, 2008 in New Delhi. Today, the “OneDay” Workshop team is happy to provide you with a report on that meeting. Millions of thanks for all those who participated in the event and made it happen, and more importantly, to all those who have provided their feedback: comments, suggestions, recommendations on the OneDay in New Delhi. Don’t hesitate to contact us should you have any questions, comments, etc. related to the Report. Wishing you all a great week ahead! On behalf of the OneDay Workshop team, As ever, Veronica Cretu Veronica Cretu President, "CMB" Training Center (www.cmb.md) Phone: 373 22 55 68 64, 27 45 04, Fax: 27 31 96 ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) At Large Advisory Committee Member from Eastern Europe, LA, USA http://www.icann.org/committees/alac/cretu.html

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