- NA-Discuss - lists.icann.org

At-Large Community Meeting with ICANN Board members
by Nick Ashton-Hart Oct. 17, 2007

Oct. 17, 2007

Dear All: FYI, this is now set for 0900-1100 on Tuesday. NARALO members: your meeting is scheduled for 1000 - 1300. There was no option for the board that didn't overlap with this. Do let me know what you wish to do. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director, At-Large ICANN Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 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

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Re: [NA-Discuss] Getting the WHOIS word out to users
by RJGlass | America＠Large Oct. 17, 2007

Oct. 17, 2007

I'm still not sold. Just now I am watching a similar argument on TV. The similar argument is that of the sexual predator database that most police departments post online. The argument is that by having this database that they will thwart sexual predators. In reality, it is just a way to appear to do something to solve the problem rather than actually doing something to solve the problem. Just as with WHOIS, there are real solutions to these problems rather than just appearing to. -rj A@L On 10/16/07, Danny Younger <dannyyounger(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > Randy, > > This month alone there will probably be around 32,000 > unique phishing sites created with an average lifespan > of 3.8 days. These sites this month will defraud > customers out of over $26,000,000. > > There are some that will argue that their privacy is > more important than a government's right to > expeditiously deal with criminals. I am not in that > camp. > > WHOIS is a legitimate tool being used by groups such > as the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), law > enforcement, and by organizations such as the American > Red Cross (that uses WHOIS in pursuing the registrants > of fraudulent charity or disaster relief websites). > > These groups collectively have made proper use of a > service that has long been publicly available. To > curtail, restrict, limit or delay their use of this > service is not in Society's best interest. > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. > http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/ > -- ------------------------- AmericaAtLarge.org RJPacific.com DDMF.org

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Requesting Your Input...
by Thompson, Darlene Oct. 17, 2007

Oct. 17, 2007

Hi all, Here is one of the things that the Secretariats will be discussing in LA and I would like to get NA feedback before I'm there "representing" us. Here it is: "Currently, ICANN's budget provides that funding exists for approximately 18-20 persons from the At-Large community from the region each ICANN meeting is held in to attend the meeting. This has to the present day been used to sponsor one representative of each ALS in attending, but as the community grows this will not be sustainable. ICANN would like the input of the Secretariats about what kind of travel support is actually useful to support policy work. Would 'means testing' - requiring active engagement by community members in order to receive travel support, for example - be useful to increase participation? Would more regional ALS meetings be a better use of the funds? Is a hybrid approach of some regional meetings and some ICANN meetings sensible? In addition, this track of work is meant to discuss the idea for an At-Large Summit. What could it achieve, and how? Is such a meeting the only way to achieve certain objectives - and if so, which ones?" So, I would like your contribution into this issue. I, for one, will be asking for more regional input into HOW these funds are spent. Note - not ALAC input but our own region's input. But this is only part of what we will be discussing. So, if you have any thoughts, please forward them to me or discuss them on the list so that I will know which way we want to take this. Thank you, D Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-6531 Fax: (867) 979-8870 dthompson(a)gov.nu.ca

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Call for Statements of Interest for NA-RALO Chair
by Bret Fausett Oct. 16, 2007

Oct. 16, 2007

Dear Colleagues, As discussed on our last teleconference, we had one statement of interest submitted for North American Secretariat, from Darlene Thompson, and she has been selected by acclamation. As no one submitted a statement of interest for Chair, we agreed to reopen the call for a two week period. This time we will have at least one statement of interest, as I, Interim Chair, will put my name in the hat in an email following this one. If others submit their names, then Darlene will oversee an election. If only one candidate remains interested, then we will take steps to approve the appointment, for a period of approximately one year (through the end of the ICANN annual meeting in 2008), by acclamation. Those interested, please forward names and backgrounds to Darlene, who will post them to the list. Bret -- Bret Fausett (skype me at "lextext") smime.p7s is a digital signature http://www.imc.org/smime-pgpmime.html -------------------------------------

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Re: [NA-Discuss] Requesting Your Input...
by Evan Leibovitch Oct. 15, 2007

Oct. 15, 2007

Danny Younger wrote: > Do the registries get to determine how much money is spent on registry support services? > No, they have a financial interest in moving forward their agendas and see travel expenses as the cost of doing business. Same for trademark lawyers. NGOs and governments have their own needs, which are not financial but self-motivated just the same. And they're paid to do this kind of thing. > Do the registrars get to determine how much money gets spent on contract enforcement? > So how much transparency and input _is_ there into how much is spent on enforcement? Arguably the community SHOULD have a greater say in this; are you really defending the current -- and very opaque -- process of prioritization? > Do ICANN Fellowship recipients get to determine how many fellowships will be offered? > No, because that's treated as charity. Arguably, the Fellowship recipients should have a say in the criteria of who goes, rather than leave the whole process to staff. > Budgeted funds are not yours to control. There is no ICANN constituent unit that is granted the power to > determine how an allocation is spent. There is no other constituent unit that exists at ICANN's own request and actively solicited to be there. There is no other constituent unit that is demanded -- as a condition of its participation -- to promote ICANN to its members. There is no other constituent unit that is deliberately not comprised of ICANN policy experts. There is no other constituent body whose members have an explicit mandate -- agreed to by contract -- to serve the greater interests of ICANN rather than their own agendas. Personally, I have no interest in getting involved in budget issues myself, and it is easy to argue that ALAC in its current form is not competent to handle this kind of task. I am more interested in a transparent, well understood process than I am in actual control. I don't _have_ to have a say in money spent in my name, but doesn't it help all if this is a consultative process rather than an arbitrary one? > ICANN is not a membership organization, and as such you have no rights with regard to the distribution of funds. > I am here because ICANN asked me to be here, I did not seek it out. CLUE had zero interest in ICANN issues before I was actively solicited by Jacob. Even now, our policy efforts are far more deeply aimed towards non-ICANN issues such as fair dealing in copyright, openness in IT standards, and the anti-citizen effects of Canada trying to clone the DMCA. Yet it was exactly because of this -- because we had the capacity to understand ICANN issues, even though they were not a concern of ours at the time -- that we were solicited and asked to apply. This is an inherent and significant difference between At-Large and ICANN's other constituencies. By design we are responders rather than advocates; responding to our membership interests (which largely have nothing to do with ICANN) while responding to ICANN's need to see and be seen by an otherwise-disinterested public. The ICANN Board, in its wisdom, understood that it needed to reach out beyond the noisemakers, special interest groups, and career policy addicts for its public input. It took the difficult steps towards seeking out a public that was otherwise indifferent, and convince that public to care. It allocated a significant budgetary sum, in the awareness that soliciting qiality advice from this community would require resources not needed by others. The result of that is an entity that is correctly very different from any other in ICANN; it is disappointing -- though not surprising -- that both staff and existing ICANN insiders have such an extremely hard time understanding this, and appear incapable of seeing past the money. In my traditional CLUE work in advocating the use of open source in Canada I am fully aware of the difficulties in fighting inertia and closed-mindedness. I had hoped that I wouldn't have to do that here. Wishful thinking, I guess. - Evan

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IDN Wikis Go Live - in 11 Languages - http://idn.icann.org
by Nick Ashton-Hart Oct. 15, 2007

Oct. 15, 2007

From http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-15oct07.htm My Name, My Language, My Internet: IDN Test Goes Live ICANN launches global test of Internationalized Domain Names 15 October 2007 ICANN is celebrating the ability of people to get "My name, My Language. My Internet" wiki pages with the launch of the IDN evaluation with T-Shirts displaying example.test in the 11 languages. MARINA DEL REY, Calif.: Internet users around the globe can now experiment with their name in their language on their Internet with today’s launch of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers live testing of Internationalized Domain Names in 11 languages. “This is one of the most exciting times yet in the development of IDNs,” said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN’s President and CEO. “Internet users who speak the 11 languages of the test can play a key role in testing how IDNs operate, and help us move toward full implementation for all the languages of the world.” Internet users around the globe can now to access wiki pages with the domain name example.test in the 11 test languages -- Arabic, Persian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil. The wikis will allow Internet users to establish their own subpages with their own names in their own language -- one suggestion is: example.test/yourname. ICANN has also put a video explaining the evaluation process on YouTube, and available on the ICANN website. The wiki pages can be accessed by typing example.test in the characters of one of the 11 languages, or by going to http:// idn.icann.org. “These wikipages are key to the test. We want to know how the URL displays in the Internet browser, if it works when you cut and paste it into the body of an email to a friend, and how all of this impacts the root zone,” Dr Twomey added. The 11 evaluation wikis will remain online until IDNs are fully implemented and the first top-level domain is introduced in the evaluation language. The full introduction of IDNs will mean that people can write the whole of a domain name in the characters used to write their own language. Presently you can only use these characters before the dot, so .com, .net, .org and the like can only be written in characters from basic Latin. IDNs will change this so that literally tens of thousands of characters will be available to the world. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director, At-Large ICANN Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 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

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New gTLDs Working Group Formation
by Jacqueline A. Morris Oct. 12, 2007

Oct. 12, 2007

Dear At Large The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) has released a summary of the report on the Introduction of new top level domains for the At-Large community's consideration and use at the GNSO's New gTLD Workshop at the ICANN Los Angeles meeting on Monday, 29 October 2007. This document is meant to provide a concise and easy to read summary of the key elements of the Report, and is organized to correspond with the Workshop sessions. At-Large participants (such as the TTCS) are encouraged to consider the summary, and the Report, and submit questions in advance that they would like the Workshop panelists to address on the 29th. The At Large is creating a short term working group to discuss and generate comments for input into the process and transmission to the Board of ICANN. The Working Group will work via a mailing list, and interested persons can subscribe to this list at http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-liaison_atlarge-lists.i cann.org The timeframe for the working group is short, with a deadline of October 25th. A suggested work plan drawn up by a member of the WG is below. You can see that the work will be intense, but it is very important. 1) Timeframe of ad-hoc WG: ends on Thursday 25 Oct. (2) Links to reference documents are provided (3) The 20 GNSO new gTLD recommendations are cited (4) WG members will each draft comments on whatever issues they might have with certain recommendations (5) Initial comments due by 22 October (6) First draft of Final Document (incorporating all comments) by 23 October (7) Final Document by 25 October (8) ALAC reviews WG effort in LA and provides Statement to accompany the Final Document for transmission to the ICANN board. I hope that you will participate as this is a very important issue, with serious ramifications for the future direction of the Internet, and vitally important to individual users. Below please find links to the relevant documents related to the Introduction of New Top Level Domains. We will also shortly be creating a wiki workspace for the working group, but in the meantime, you can find information on the GNSO Liaison wiki page at https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?gnso_liaison. Additional documents: Recent public comments submitted by the community on the Introduction of new Top Level Domains http://forum.icann.org/lists/gtldfinalreport-2007/ The summary of the report on the Introduction of new Top Level Domains : http://ttcsweb.pbwiki.com/f/New+gtlds+workshop+document.pdf (PDF ; 191K) (Thanks to the TTCS, one of our Caribbean ALSes for hosting the pdf) The Actual Report on the Introduction of new Top Level Domains is available in two parts : Part A - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm Part B - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-partb-01aug07.htm (As soon as other languages are available, we'll post the links) Please participate! Sincerely Jacqueline A. Morris ALAC Chair No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.14.8/1064 - Release Date: 10/11/2007 15:09

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At-Large Summit update
by Evan Leibovitch Oct. 12, 2007

Oct. 12, 2007

Hello folks. We have been recently informed by Nick that the Summit, as it is presently developed as described at http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/At-Large_Global_Summit http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/ICANN_Ensemble is officially dead, by decree of ICANN staff. No staff support will be offered and no funding would be made available for anyone to attend. We are told by Nick (who has been our sole ICANN contact from day one) that the decision is final, though a conference call has been requested between us, Nick and Denise Michell in order to clarify the rationale. Although no formal application was ever made, we have been told that a formal rejection letter will be sent after the conference call. To say that this early rejection was unexpected and disappointing is an understatement. We have done absolutely everything that has been asked of us by Nick. We have acted in a manner that we believe to be professional, fiscally responsible, and accommodating to all concerns expressed by staff to date. What has been most upsetting has been the attitude of ICANN staff, which has obviously put itself in the role of sole judge of how to spend the money ICANN allocates for At-Large. (Indeed, while being constantly telling us that there was no money available for the Summit, staff has repeatedly refused to actually reveal what the allocation is.) We had hoped that we could work with staff as partner and facilitator, in the implementation of a project which has attracted support from ALAC and all regions. Instead we have found nothing but a stream of obstacles,from staff that clearly has a different vision of ICANN's At-Large community than the community has of itself. We thank everyone who has offered support and help so far, and are certainly welcome to ideas and methods of keeping the project alive. We still believe that the Summit has the potential to be a key component in the development of the community's ability to make substantial contribution to the ICANN decision-making processes. Since staff has been unsupportive of our request for ongoing collaboration resources, we will maintain the Google Group discussion area at http://groups.google.com/group/icann-summit to which all are welcome. Evan Leibovitch Darlene Thompson

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New Delhi will host the 31st ICANN Meeting, 10-15 February 2008
by Nick Ashton-Hart Oct. 11, 2007

Oct. 11, 2007

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-09oct07.htm New Delhi, India will host the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' 31st International Public Meeting from 10-15 February 2008. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director, At-Large ICANN Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 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

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IDN Introduction Video - multilingual - online now
by Nick Ashton-Hart Oct. 9, 2007

Oct. 9, 2007

Dear At-Large members: In case you have not already seen it, ICANN has produced a short video about IDNs, with subtitles in several languages. You can choose the language of your choice and view the video at: http://dotsub.com/films/idnspart/index.php We hope it is useful - and of course, welcome any comments you may have - including on the quality of the translations :) -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director, At-Large ICANN Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 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

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