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LA Times BLog: ACTA: Turning ISPs into enforcers
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 9, 2008

July 9, 2008

All, You may want to contact your ISP in this regard as well as your legal representative. I personally find this to be a very dangerous idea. It seems to have originated from organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA. http://opinion.latimes.com/bitplayer/2008/06/acta-turning-is.html Los Angeles Times - Home Blogs Bit Player - latimes.com ACTA: Turning ISPs into enforcers Riaa_logo Knowledge Ecology International, a group that seeks to reduce the control wielded by patent and copyright holders, recently posted a list of suggestions that the RIAA purportedly sent to the U.S. Trade Representative for what to include in the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Ars Technica's Nate Anderson took up the issue today, accusing the record companies of trying to disembowel the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA. I checked the legitimacy of the Knowledge Ecology post with Neil Turkewitz, the RIAA's point man on such things, and he said it looked accurate. Not surprisingly, however, he offered a somewhat different take than Ars. Yet he acknowledged that some aspects of the RIAA's proposal for ACTA go beyond U.S. law on the enforcement of copyrights online. ACTA, which aims to establish a multinational standard for anti-piracy enforcement, has generated a fair amount of concern in the blogosphere because a) it's being negotiated in secret, as are all trade pacts, and b) some media outlets have suggested that it could lead to people's laptops and iPods being searched at the border. Here's the RIAA's position, according to the Knowledge Ecology post: Provide that competent authorities have the authority to initiate border measures ex officio, with respect to imported, exported, or in-transit merchandise suspected of being counterfeit or confusingly similar trademark goods, or pirated copyright goods, without the need for a formal complaint from a private party or right holder, and regardless of whether the relevant right that is being infringed is recorded with Customs otherwise registered. What that means is, border agents wouldn't have to wait for a complaint from Warner Bros. Studios to be on the lookout for a few hundred bootlegged DVDs of "The Dark Knight." U.S. border agents already search laptops at random and without warrants, yet it's hard to picture them spending the time and energy to catch people smuggling camcorded films on their iPods. Much more problematic is the RIAA's wish list for online enforcement. The suggestions would seem to shift the legal ground in favor of copyright holders on issues that remain in dispute in U.S. courts, and possibly on a few that have been settled here or in other countries. Two examples of the latter are suggestions to make manufacturers liable for products and services whose "predominant application" is aiding piracy -- a more onerous standard than the one the Supreme Court laid out in the Sony Betamax case -- and to insure that copyright holders have access to the data they need from ISPs to bring lawsuits -- a potential conflict with some European court rulings. In an e-mail, Turkewitz said the RIAA wasn't trying to make a wholesale shift in the balance of legal power. "The bulk of this section is devoted to trying to secure harmonization around fundamental US legal principles of secondary liability and contributory infringement, including adoption of the `induce' standard articulated by the Supreme Court in Grokster," he wrote (link added). The RIAA's proposal would also ratchet up the pressure on ISPs and search engines to weed out infringements. According to the Knowledge Ecology post, one RIAA suggestion would require ISPs "to employ readily available measures to inhibit infringement in instances where both legitimate and illegitimate uses were facilitated by their services, including filtering out infringing materials, provided that such measures are not unduly burdensome and do not materially affect the cost or efficiency of delivering legitimate services." Another would require them to clamp down on or banish repeat infringers. The RIAA and MPAA have pressed U.S. courts to oblige ISPs to police their networks, but judges haven't exactly agreed. Wrote Turkewitz, "The Supreme Court in Grokster suggested that in the appropriate circumstances, an entity that is aware of the fact that they are facilitating piracy may assume an obligation to filter, although there is clearly no separate and independent legal obligation to do so. Likewise, termination of a repeat infringer may or may not form a part of an ISP's current responsibility." To Turkewitz, the point isn't to turn ISPs into copyright cops ("No one is suggesting that ISPs monitor their networks," he said in an interview). It's to address rampant online piracy in a more efficient way than the broad measures ISPs currently use, such as traffic shaping. Similarly, having ISPs notify suspected infringers could actually reduce the amount of enforcement done, Turkewitz said, by educating Internet users about copyright law. Yet there's no magic bullet to identifying and stopping pirated material as it's traveling from one PC to another online, at least not yet. Even if ISPs could automatically identify when a song was being transmitted, technology alone can't discern an infringement from a likely fair use (e.g., a parody or a transfer among family members). And one non-trivial problem with the notice and escalating penalties idea is that it can be hard to identify who actually was using a particular broadband account when an infringement occurred. IP addresses can be faked, wireless routers can be hijacked. But Turkewitz was not deterred. "You can deal with all of those issues," he said of the potential notification problems. "I think the critical thing is that you canât let everything just stop forward motion. There are always issues. You have to advance in a reasonable way, and be flexible and accommodating in making sure all reasonable expectations are met." "Reasonable," "flexible" and "accommodating" aren't words often used in connection with the RIAA's campaign against individual file-sharers. But while the RIAA may be the most aggressive in trying to stop piracy by individual Internet users, it's hardly alone in seeking to force ISPs to play a greater role in protecting intellectual property. "This is early in the ACTA process, and we have no idea how this will develop," Turkewitz wrote. "Does RIAA want the parties to discuss the role of ISP's in the fight against piracy? Absolutely. How can you talk about fighting piracy in 2008 without talking about a key aspect of this challenge?" He added, "Having said that, there is zero chance that the [U.S. government] would agree to a binding obligation on an issue of this magnitude without the consent of Congress -- and most importantly for present purposes -- we are not asking them to do so.... Our submission to the US negotiators should certainly not be construed as asking the US to legislate. These are some of our ideas about how to enhance enforcement." Addendum: Having talked about ACTA entirely in the context of pirated entertainment, I neglected to make a point that bloggers often overlook about contemporary piracy. There's much more at stake than just music and movie industry profits. All sorts of branded products -- medicines, batteries, auto parts, toys, apparel, etc. -- have become targets for counterfeiters. In some cases, those fakes pose a real risk to health and safety. That's why there's broad support from U.S. industry for a crackdown, as evidenced by the involvement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There are also complex issues involving how developing nations compete, but that's a subject for an even longer post. Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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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REMINDER: NARALO Teleconference 14 July 1900 UTC
by At-Large Staff July 8, 2008

July 8, 2008

Dear all, This is to remind you about the upcoming NARALO teleconference scheduled for Monday, 14 July at 1900 UTC. Please find additional information about this meeting on the meeting page: https://st.icann.org/naralo/index.cgi?14_july_2008 We will post the agenda shortly. Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart, Matthias Langenegger, Frederic Teboul ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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Domain Name Warehousing - No rules, why not?
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 8, 2008

July 8, 2008

All, ICANN Not Enforcing Rules Against Registrar Warehousing Because There Are No Rules July 6th, 2008 Now I wonder when new gTLD's and especially IDN gTLD's begin to be introduced, how and what will be done or considered to thwart this ugly and regressive practice? Will ICANN drag it's feet yet again in accepting proposals in doing away with this practice by registrars and registries? In any event, if you want to get some action on this bad business practice by registrars and registries, you can let ICANN know at raa-consultation(a)icann.org. Regards, Art. ref.: http://www.thedomains.com/2008/07/06/icann-not-enforcing-rules-against-regi… Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] New gTLDs and e-mail
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 7, 2008

July 7, 2008

Bret and all, Than you need to review Yahoo.com's DNS configuration, for example. I certainly believe that Apple or Yahoo would do just exactly whatever they wanted irrespective of compliancy of major RFC's. So either you are not paying attention very closely or just unaware for whatever reason. For yahoo.com's DNS see: http://private.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=yahoo.com&token=27a01… Bret Fausett wrote: > I have a hard time believing that Apple or Yahoo or any other major > customer-facing business would roll out a branded TLD with an email > service that wasn't compliant with major RFCs. > > Bret > > > > _______________________________________________ > ALAC mailing list > ALAC(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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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Aigrain's Blog:Corruption overflow in the telecom policy-making environment
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 5, 2008

July 5, 2008

All, FYI, and something to think about and/or consider in respect to new gTLD's and IDN gTLD's... "On Monday 7 July 2008, two committees of the European Parliament is going to vote on proposed amendments to the telecomm packet regulation, in what is but a provisional step of a skirmish in a much bigger struggle on the regulatory environment for intellectual rights and freedoms. This is a good time to take a step back and look at another much bigger problem." More here: http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/?p=158 Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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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RIAA Wants To Throw In the Towel On 3-Year-Old Case
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 5, 2008

July 5, 2008

All, RIAA back in the news and again, and not a favorable mention. When will the IPC see the light, and revoke the RIAA's membership? When will ICANN or DOC/NTIA take action and demand they be removed as a IPC member? See: http://beckermanlegal.com/ After three years of pursuing a home health aide in Brooklyn who has http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/03/0313250&tid=123 never even used a computer, the RIAA has announced it's ready to http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/06/riaa-wants-to-throw-i… throw in the towel. Only thing; it wants the dismissal to be 'without prejudice' so it won't be liable for attorney's fees. The courts have been saying that where a copyright plaintiff gives up, the defendant is http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-7th-circuit-case-… presumptively entitled to an attorney's fee award. So, Ms. Lindor says 'no way.' She wants the dismissal to be 'with prejudice,' and http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/07/ms-lindor-opposes-ria… she wants her attorney's fees." We've been discussing this case and http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1723253&tid=123 Ms. Lindor's fight against the RIAA for http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/03/237211&tid=185 quite some time. Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] ICANN Board Approves Censorship Policy for DomainNames Based on Morality: 2 Board Members Speak Against It]
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 5, 2008

July 5, 2008

John and all, I and our members agree fully with your last paragraph of your argument entirely. It is essentially a significant part of our core concerns for the past 9+ years. ICANN hasn't shown that it can manage much of anything very well to date including it's own Domain Names, IP addresses, root servers, or web site and mailing lists. Yet the ICANN leadership for the past 9+ years has been more interested in trying to make judgment calls of the social type and translating those to how the DNS and IP numbering system is managed. Such has failed on most counts far too frequently based on someone's notion of "Political correctness" as though such applied to everyone on the face of the planet. Not only is such a fools errand, it is politically not tenable. The "Church" of ICANN, as it were is a small and divided congregation indeed... The more ICANN pushes, the stronger the push back becomes... Internationalizing ICANN or nationalizing the DNS in terms of gTLD's or especially IDN gTLD's will have limited success I predict. Lets take the first, Internationalizing ICANN. Such a nebulous notion will never meet the full desires, needs, and demands of a ever changing marketplace in a market based global economic marketplace as the winds of political power change, sometimes very slowly, but always changing. International NGO's and corporations need, and will demand via one method or another what they want or feel they need, and squash to the extent possible the nationalized space holders into oblivion. This in some ways explains why .Coop has been a dismal failure as has .Travel. Yet, .mobi all be it's slow growth, is far more flexible and as such has met with success to the extent associated with it's growth. The second, nationalizing the DNS to the extent IDN's can accomplish such, also has limited but perhaps useful and interesting value to indigenous peoples of those nations so interested in such a IDN gTLD name space. But such is a child of language differences and unwillingness to recognize an already well established international language, english by some nations populace and even those in english speaking nations such as the US. Being multilingual as a entragal part of a DN web site is very useful for some that want or seek international reach and exposure, for others, not so. IDN gTLD's in as much as Censorship on moral grounds can or will be imposed by other nations will cause confusion amongst users for years to come, if not decades and seek to divide not unite peoples of different nations. Such is not a healthy thing but may be mitigated IF the GNSO can determine a formula to filter in or out such IDN gTLD's without offending those nations partioners and their representative polulace/users. A judgment call that I personally don't believe ICANN or the GNSO collectively or individually possesses, and never has. John Levine wrote: > > ... On the same scale 1 to 100, what would be the importance of a TLD > > for communities who would ask for its use, in the case of, say, > > ".kill-all-[add your favourite minority]", ".[add your favourite > > insult][append your favourite trademark]", or any other subject that > > might have controversial "morality" or "public order" implications? > > IMHO, much higher than 97. > > Actually, TLDs stopped being important about the time ICANN started. > Back when I wrote the first few editions of Internet for Dummies in the > 1990s, once we got past the mechanics of getting online, most of the rest > of the book was about how to find stuff, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, WAIS, > with only one chapter on this newfangled WWW thing. At the time, it > seemed reasonable to hope that the DNS would grow into a directory, along > the lines of what .MUSEUM has tried to do. > > I expected WAIS, a full text search system, to be the next big thing, > since like nearly everyone else I didn't anticipate the way the web would > absorb everything else. But in a sense I was right, because the killer > app for the web was and is search engines. These days I know a lot of > people whose home page is Google, and who have no idea what the difference > is between the Google search box and the browser address box. Domains and > even URLs don't matter. They type some words into one of the boxes, and > if they get to a place they like, they bookmark it. > > This means that for small language communities, while it's important that > their writing system is included in Unicode, and that there be display > fonts and input methods available for browsers and MUAs, the domains don't > matter because nobody's going to type a domain more than once. After > that, the sites are going to be bookmarked and the e-mail addresses will > be in the address books. > > At this point, the only reasonable argument I can see for a new TLD is > branding, and there only in areas where brand vs not-brand is interesting. > Among the reasons that .coop and .aero are flops is that nobody cares > about real vs fake co-ops or real vs fake whatever it is you have to be to > get into .aero these days. It looks like .mobi will work because .mobi > sites work on phones with tiny screens, mobile users care about that, and > .mobi has a compliance process to check that the sites work like they're > supposed to. Something like .bank might be useful to help distinguish > actual banks from phishes. Other than that, the main motivation for new > TLDs seems to be wishful thinking combined with faith-based budgeting. > > > And I might sound very old-fashioned and illiberal, but my personal opinion > > is that we have more than enough hate speech given the current state of > > affairs, that I don't see the need to create more ways to convey it. > > I don't think anyone disagrees with you. Personally, I think that the > $100K application cost will be a far greater bar to hate domains than any > sort of morality screen that ICANN sets up. The reason I'm opposed to the > morality screen is that, based on ICANN's history, it won't work. > Instead, it will be perverted for the benefit of the usual lobbyists. I > expect the trademark lawyers to object to every new TLD on every possible > basis, technical, moral, community, and anything else on the list. Why > wouldn't they? What do they have to lose? As far as they're concerned, > every new TLD is just another shakedown of their clients who'll have to > waste money on defensive registrations. And beyond that, I don't see a > clear explanation of what the morality screen is supposed to accomplish. > Is it supposed to bar all nasty words? Nasty words used in nasty ways? > How would they handle my example of .NAZI if it's a group of Holocaust > museums who want historical and educational sites? ICANN can barely > handle the mechanical bits, and I see no hope of them successfully > managing any serious judgement calls. > > R's, > John > > PS: FYI, the message to which you were responding was from Canada, where > the speech laws are more like European ones than US ones. Not everyone in > North America grew up with the 1st amendment. > > _______________________________________________ > ALAC mailing list > ALAC(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] New gTLDs and e-mail
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 5, 2008

July 5, 2008

John and all, You would think that indeed new registries could do their own due diligence. But of course experience clearly shows that they rarely do. Ergo, diligence of users and perhaps the ALAC is necessary. Secondly, as ICANN doesn't do the oversight it should do, especially given the fact that they can't even keep track of their own Domain Names as was reported earlier this past week, someone needs to either fill in the gaps in oversight, or ICANN needs to step up much better than they have been doing over the past 9+ years. I can't see that how much $$ a proposed registry puts up really has anything what so ever to do with their creditability, after all any drug dealer or cartel can back any proposal with $$ easy enough. So your logic as far as price for a gTLD has little to do with doing good due diligence. John Levine wrote: > > So, do I understand correctly that, because one obscure non-RFC compliant > > e-mail address has been out there for a decade this is enough of a test to > > guarantee, there will be no issues with the current market leading MUAs and > > MTAs (and legacy ones) ? > > There will certainly be issues with MTAs and MUAs, since there are plenty > of them that implicitly or explicitly assume that every domain name > contains a dot. > > What we do know is that the existence of such addresses doesn't cause any > global problems. Why does this issue need the ALAC's limited time, rather > than being just one more minor question for the purchasers of new TLDs to > deal with? If they'll be spending $100K or more on their new domain, I > think it's reasonable to assume that they can do their own due diligence. > > R's, > John > > _______________________________________________ > ALAC mailing list > ALAC(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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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Bavarian Police Can Legally Place Trojans On PCs
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 4, 2008

July 4, 2008

All, Is goose stepping next? One thing is for sure, no traveling to Bavaria for me! See: "The Bavarian Parliament passed a law that allows Bavarian police to place 'http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Bayerischer-Landtag-setzt-den-Bayerntrojaner… Remote Forensic Software' ( http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewstic… Google translation) on a suspect's computer as well as on the computers of a suspect's contacts. They may break into houses in secret to install the RFS if a remote installation is not possible; and while they are there a (physical) search is permitted too. The RFS may be used to read, delete, and alter data." The translation says that RFSs may be used in cases of an "urgent threat to the existence or the security of the Federation or a country or physical, life or liberty of a person... Even where there is a reasonable assumptions on concrete preparatory acts for such serious offenses." Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k 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: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Paris debrief
by Jeffrey A. Williams July 3, 2008

July 3, 2008

Nick and all, Nice Cheerleading. Quite frankly though the ALAC punted on Domain Name Tasting, passed the buck on WHOIS accuracy, made little progress in determining a consensus position regarding GNSO review and restructure, and has yet to do much on new gTLD's. Some good progress seemed to be made on Fast-Flux and Front-Running. However there is not a determined or stated consensus on either of those two issues. Further, there is little progress made on the privacy front, DNSSEC, and DNS configuration which are key issues. Nick Ashton-Hart wrote: > Dear All: > > It may be useful for you to know that actually I have heard quite a lot of positive comments about At-Large's work in Paris. There seems to be a widespread view that the community is working harder than in the past and that it is more engaged and constructive with each passing meeting. > > For what it is worth, I can say that with respect to the review, I have seen no evidence that there is anything deliberate about the timing of the release of the report from the perspective that you are wondering about below, Evan. What I can say is that there is a larger question, which a number of you discussed in Paris, about the number of simultaneous public consultations that start (and sometimes end) in close proximity to ICANN meetings, making it difficult for anyone to respond in the time allowed. Some steps have been taken to deal with this in respect of some consultations - you will see that at least one of them doesn't end until August. > > With respect to the travel policy, you will no doubt recall the statement on the first draft put forward by ALAC with community input. I can tell you that Doug absolutely did read this carefully and he spoke highly to me of the contents and the thoughtfulness it held. I do not know what Board members thought of it - perhaps Wendy will know more. > > On the point of reacting very late on the GTLD issue: We discussed this in Paris and everyone acknowledges that more needs to be done earlier to help ensure that all At-Large - and other stakeholder groups - are briefed earlier on issues and that the briefings take formats that are most useful for different groups. We have started to make some progress here I think - the two June briefings for example - and the policy briefs which have started to come out. I know of at least two additional briefings from Dave Piscitello of SSAC which he has said he'd like to arrange and you'll hear more soon. > > In summary I guess I would say that to me this seemed like the most effective meeting for the community that I've been a part of. You touched a nerve with your comments on morality and public order and it seemed to me that more than a few people agreed with you and that your statement did change the debate on the subject. I know that there will be many more opportunities for comment on the new GTLD issue as the implementation plans move forward and we will do all we can to ensure that you have the information that you need to decide what you want to say. > > On 03/07/2008 18:44, "Evan Leibovitch" <evan(a)telly.org> wrote: > > Hello everyone, > > On behalf of ALSs who didn't go to Paris, and indeed at least some of > those who did, I would like to find out from the various At-Large > attendees how you perceived At-Large's strategies and accomplishments. > > We were involved in a number of issues; the Summit, GNSO review, gTLD > creation policy, and of course the ALAC Review. There were first (and in > most cases very productive) meetings with GAC, NCUC, SSAC, GNSO and the > registrar constituency. There was effectively no time to play tourist, > though I do recall driving past the Louvre once or twice. > > Smokers will remember Paris as their dream venue, where you could light > up without dirty looks, at least some of the people rolling their own > cigarettes in the street were actually using tobacco. And Sebastien was > as perfect a host as anyone could ask for, right up until the final > evening at "Jimmy the Frog's" (or whatever the French name for it is...). > > Yet I cannot come away from the Paris without having felt At-Large to be > the object of some kind of manipulation. I can't tell by how, or quite > how, but it was definitely there. We had zero response on a travel > policy that will certainly negatively affect At-Large's ability to > accomplish its role over the coming years. And while I stand behind the > positions taken on the issues, from a distance I can see how we came > across as shrill and obstructionist. > > I am frankly tired of lurching from one panic-based ALAC reaction to > another. It is distressing to see so few members of ALAC shouldering all > the group's policy work. And I would really like, for once, enough > opportunity to understand issues early enough to be able to take > positions that are part of the solution rather than just trying to fix > problems. > > Some of this is of ICANN staff's doing, through a pile of trivial little > things that while not technically incorrect _seemed_ designed to keep us > off balance. The timing of the release of the Westlake report seemed > almost deliberately timed to force hasty response during Paris. The > consultants themselves were clearly uncomfortable with the way that > timing played out, and I seem to recall one of them indicating privately > that they would have preferred to consult during Paris and release the > draft docs afterwards. I am especially and thoroughly disgusted with the > manipulation of the public forum, which was stage-managed to the point > of being considerably even more useless than usual. And ICANN's > translation strategy, while having made some improvements is still far > behind what it needs to be for ICANN to go beyond the anglophone world. > > Of course At-Large is not without blame as well. The thing Westlake > recommended with which I most agree was for the need of a strategic plan > -- a prioritized list of issues and policies that require our focused > attention and resources, set out enough in advance to give us the > ability to be constructive participants. There are far too few ALAC > members doing work that should be spread around to 15 people. On issues > such as the RAA, my instinct says we should preparing ourselves for work > on this yet I don't even know where to start. And if the involved > people here don't know the basics upon which to discuss policy, I know > it will be even harder getting ALSs aware (let alone involved). I have > this sneaking suspicion that, sometime in the future, we will be in a > panic situation rush-releasing a response on this too. > > Is this just me? Or does At-Large really need to seriously take stock of > its strategies, priorities, and the allocation of our eager-to-help > staff resources? In advance of the Summit I'd really like to see us with > our collective act together better than it is now. Just PLEASE don't > tell me that the response requires a return to obsession with process. > > And finally, getting back to the stuff still on the table. > > 1) It is now up to At-Large to propose _constructive_ reaction to the > ALAC review, that builds upon whatever slivers of it that are agreeable > and offers something of substance to the governance committee. > > 2) Given that the gTLD thing is a done deal and Twomey is busy > contracting teams of mercenary Solomons ... what can we do to keep the > objection procedure narrow enough to serve its obvious intended purposes > (keep off TLDs that are of widespread revulsion) without using it to > stifle communities that are large and benign but objected to by some > cultures (ie, .gay)? > > 3) Are we ever going to have an internal debate on the travel policy? Is > there a way to craft input that doesn't sound totally self-serving? > > Please keep some of this in mind when planning for the ALAC call next week. > > - Evan > > _______________________________________________ > ALAC mailing list > ALAC(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org > > -- > > Regards, > > Nick Ashton-Hart > Director for At-Large > Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) > Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 > USA DD: +1 (310) 578-8637 > Fax: +41 (22) 594-85-44 > Mobile: +41 (79) 595 54-68 > email: nick.ashton-hart(a)icann.org > Win IM: ashtonhart(a)hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart(a)mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart > Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart > _______________________________________________ > ALAC mailing list > ALAC(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org > > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!) 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