Re: [council] For your review - GNSO Review of GAC Communique Hyderabad

[Rubens Kuhl <rubensk@xxxxxx>]

> On Dec 12, 2016, at 8:56 PM, policy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> Quick check of the ICANN website seems to indicate all sorts of references to 
> DNS Abuse.  Rubens, does something need a computer science definition even if 
> the rest of the community seems to already know what it is?  

If we want to define a standard, the answer is yes, we need a computer science 
definition; if we want to define practices, then we don't need. That's why the 
community has been defining practices but no standards for almost 20 years; 
that's what we can do, given the circumstances. 

Let's drill down on one thing that is behind a standard in almost every human 
knowledge area: a taxonomy. No taxonomy survived more than a couple of years in 
the Abuse area, and every yearly meeting of APWG and M3AAWG one of the 
presentations is likely to be one of a new taxonomy. Now trying building a 
framework where the taxonomy keeps changing... it falls apart every time and 
needs to be rebuilt every time. 

The lack of definition is a good thing, though; it allows an evolving threat 
scenario to be dealt with by an evolving anti-abuse culture and continuously 
improved anti-abuse procedures. The opponent we need to fight follows a famous 
Asian strategist:
"When campaigning, be swift as the wind; (…) as unfathomable as the clouds, 
move like a thunderbolt.” ; if we stay in a single place with a single way of 
defending we will start being more vulnerable. Law of Unintended Consequences 
at its best. 


Rubens