Well, it looks like we're once again going to be asking the question "Who is going to oversee the core shared resources of the internet?"
How are we to chose? I have a suggestion - C8H10N4O2 - Caffine.
So perhaps we ought to chose the group that serves the best quality of coffee at their meetings.
By that measure the ITU looses out completely. The IETF wins on quantity but does quite badly on quality. The UN comes out mixed on the quality scale and poorly on the availability dimension. ICANN's coffee quality and quantity are completely unpredictable.
At the ITU coffee comes from vending machines.
At the UN there are cafes that have pretty good coffee, but they seemed surprised that anyone might actually want some at 9am just before a meeting.
The IETF has gallons and gallons of warm brownish liquid made from syrup and hot water.
And ICANN depends on whatever sponsors chose to contribute.
Just what we don't need - a four way race with a four way tie for last place.
There's an article today (.Mobi's Case For Mobile Domains) that makes me nervous.
If you read this blog regularly, you know that I believe that new top level domains should be granted to pretty much anyone who can demonstrate technical competence and a willingness to abide by relevant internet technical standards. This is really a corollary of what I call "The First Law of the Internet".
I believe that .mobi, or rather the technology approach that it represents, could contain a significant "public detriment" by virtue of a potential lack of adherence to the spirt of some internet standards.
The article mentions that .mobi is needed because mobile devices change addresses and that due to the caching in DNS, DNS data will tend to be out of data as machines move. This is not a new concern; we had the same concern back in 1987 when we did RFC1001/RFC1002.
(I do not know why the .mobi folks think they need a new TLD to solve this problem - they could just as easily do it under a second or third level domain. Nor do I understand why they want to turn DNS on its head and use it as a rapid-change distributed database. It seems to me that they could get a lot more bang for their efforts by establishing rendezvous servers and using something like LDAP to query and update those servers.)
What scares me is the fact that the article indicates that mobile devices will tend to lose their DNS information when they are power cycled. This means that every time one of these things is powered up it is going to have to go to its DNS hints, re-learn the root zone name servers, re-learn the major TLD name servers, etc.
DNS only works (or to use proper internet terminology - DNS only "scales") because of caching. Without caching the traffic loads on the root servers and TLD servers (and other DNS servers) would increase many times over.
The article indicates a potential naivete the part of the mobile industry with respect to DNS. Given the number of mobile devices (cell phones, pagers, etc) out there today, a little naivete could mean a big risk that core DNS servers could be overloaded with queries that could have been obviated through the use of a bit of "clue".
The Sixth Meeting of the UN ICT Task Force will be this week in New York.
I will be attending.
I have prepared and submitted a short note, entitled "Questions and Answers About The Internet and Internet Governance".
The Open Voting Consortium (with which I am affiliated) is going to be demonstrating an open source, voter veriable, auditable, accessible to physically disabled voters, voting system that runs on commodity hardware and freely available operating systems:
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ad/ovc-mar22-pressrelease.pdf
Thomas Roessler's blog has an entry commenting on my opinion that a .mobile top level domain would be a dumb idea.
Thomas is right that ICANN should not be inquiring whether the proposed use of a top level domain is good or bad. I have always believed that ICANN should be blind to the way in which an operator of a TLD uses that TLD (as long as the technical requirements of internet standards are followed.) See my statement on new TLDs in my campaign platform from year 2000.
However, as long as ICANN insists on restricting the number of TLDs to only a chosen few then preference should be given to those applications that have minimal limitations on usage and have maximum room for innovation by users. Equally we should eschew those applications that are clearly intended to benefit a single industry segment.
So, if ICANN were to open up the TLD space to a really significant number of applicants then it would be wrong to look beyond the technical capacity and intention of the application.
Unfortunately the current state of affairs is that ICANN is restraining trade by allowing entry into the domain name marketplace to only a selected few based on highly questionable,and clearly non-technical, considerations.
ICANN's TLD policy is a rolling disaster. It is arbitrary and capricious. It has no foundation in technology. It serves no technological purpose nor does it enhance the stability of the internet. ICANN's TLD policy has kept domain name fees artifically high.
ICANN's TLD policy is nothing more a bald imposition of business policies and economic limitations designed to protect certain selected business actors and to exclude new ideas and actors from the domain name marketplace.
Update (March 16, 2004): There is a discussion along similar lines occuring between Edward Felton and Lawrence Solum - see http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000549.html and http://lsolum.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_lsolum_archive.html#107919996827843036 and http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000550.html
It was pointed out to me the other day that the ICANN/NTIA/Verisign root zone file contains a previously undiscussed top level domain.
The contents of this TLD suggest that it was created by Verisign, the company that actually constructs the root zone file used by the dominant set of root servers. (The same zone file is also used by at least one of the competing root systems.)
That TLD is .root. It's existence is as real as any other TLD such as .com or .org.
Unlike most TLDs, .root TLD is not delegated to a second tier or servers. Instead it is handled directly by the root servers themselves.
.root contains exactly one name: vrsn-end-of-zone-marker-dummy-record.root.
That name is associated with exactly one resource record: a TXT record containing the single word "plenus", a Latin word meaning "full" or "complete".
You can check this for yourself. Try running the following Unix/Linux/BSD command:
dig vrsn-end-of-zone-marker-dummy-record.root. any @a.root-servers.net
You'll get a error-free, authoritative response that looks something like:
; <<>> DiG 9.2.2-P3 <<>> vrsn-end-of-zone-marker-dummy-record.root. any @b.root-servers.net ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 16573 ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 13 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;vrsn-end-of-zone-marker-dummy-record.root. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: vrsn-end-of-zone-marker-dummy-record.root. 172800 IN TXT "plenus" ... [the remaining part of response is elided] ...
You can confirm this by inspecting a copy of the root zone itself.
Where did this TLD come from? What purpose, if any, does it serve? Who authorized it?
I went to one of the ALAC meetings at the ICANN meeting near Rome.
I do not believe that ICANN's ALAC system will work. Under ALAC an individual must join an ICANN-approved local club that, in turn, must join an ICANN-approved regional club that, in turn, sends a few delegates to ICANN's ALAC that, in turn, sends a few delegates to ICANN's nominating committee (other non-ALAC bodies also get to send delegates) that, in turn, names a portion of the ICANN Board of Directors who, in turn, routinely rubber-stamp the output of ICANN's "staff". Under this system, an individual has about as much ability to affect ICANN's decisions as he or she has ability to affect the selection of the next Pope.
When I was on ICANN's board, I was hoping that my belief would be proved wrong and I voted to support the ALAC effort. The ALAC was chartered roughly one year ago. Since then the growth of the ALAC has been disappointing.
The ALAC meeting in Rome was held in a small hotel room - the total attendance was less than 20 people, including at least two representatives of ICANN who are not really part of the ALAC.
The meeting topics did not seem to include the question of how to get people to participate in ALAC and how to grow what is now a tiny seed into something of significance. Rather, the discussions concerned substantive policy - such as ICANN's TLD review.
The opinions expressed on these substantive policy matters were reasonable, well thought through, and articulately expressed.
However, it seems to me that the present business of the ALAC is to build a system for individuals to participate in the making of internet policy. It seems to me that given the ALAC's existing minimal size that the ALAC ought refrain from substantive policy matters and focus exclusively on its own growth. Debate on substantive policy ought to be postponed until the ALAC is actually a viable body, with real membership and real structures for ascertaining and developing the opinion of the public.
In addition, it seems to me that the ALAC should be sending a consistent message to ICANN about substantive policy questions. That message should be that the ICANN policies made to date have all been made without the full consent of the community of internet users and that, as a result, those policies are grounded on incomplete and weak foundations and that such policies are considered as tentative until ratified by an ICANN that includes the fully empowered voice of the community of internet users.
Here's a link to my presentation (and my notes) from the ITU's Workshop on Internet Governance held at the end of February 2004 in Geneva.
I'm here at the ICANN meeting in Rome - in the suburbs of Rome actually.
Anyway, remember what the "I" in ICANN stands for? It's "Internet". So one might expect that there would be reasonable access to the net to support the meeting. Unfortunately reality fails to rise to match that expectation.
Access to the network from here is pathetic. It's a wireless setup with inadequate coverage (and signal strength too low) and inadequate (congested) backhaul (it's an ADSL link.) It bounces up and down like a clown on a pogo stick. And to make it worse, it's one of those hotel card-based systems that intercepts TCP port 80 and forces the user to deal with a per-person web-based registration system. Connectivity in the terminal area (the only area in the hotel where the level of fresh and stale cigarette smoke is merely slightly less than immediately carcinogenic) is shut down fairly early in the evening.
The marketing hype here at the ICANN meeting now reaches trade show levels. There are vendor booths! And there is a carrousel of terminals - you can sit in a seat and use the net while the seats (and terminals) go round and round. All it needs are a few wooden ponies and a calliope. Which, come to think of it, would be exactly the image for the kind of commercial trade show that ICANN meetings are becoming.
Thinking of useless hype drowning out actual discussion - I went to the reception last night. It was in a cool (figuratively) place - a papal hospital built around the time of Columbus. Too bad the sponsors (there is even an "official" airline for this meeting) decided to blast out a video at high volume making it impossible to talk to one's table neighbors without a bullhorn.
I head home at crack-o-dawn tomorrow, labor unions willing. I hope to have a note of more substance and less impressions before then.