Re: [ga] ALAC statement on resolution of non-existing domain name s

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
 
> We chose not to enter into technicalities in our official statement
> because it is not our role to provide technical advice to ICANN - the
> corporation has other advisory committees for that purpose.

I disagree.  It is important to be able to support opinions with a solid 
foundation of facts and to articulate the logic that turns those facts 
into policies.

In that way can we get ourselves out of endless head-butting and into the
realm of rational discourse over the trustworthyness of the facts and the
rationality of the logic and an understanding (and mutual respect) of the
different value systems that lead some of us to start from the same facts
and end up at different places.

We are all guilty, myself included, in sometimes acting with more 
emotional heat than rational light.

However, we ought not to intentionally step into the darkness of 
opinion unsubstantiated by hard facts and logic.

> This does not mean that "we do not have the knowledge to understand"
> the topic on a technical level. Ok, I've never operated a registry,
> but I have been administering Internet-connected systems for the last
> eight years. Same applies to other ALAC members.

Sounds to me like you have the technical chops to come up with some good 
foundation stones for the conclusions.  ;-)

I believe that in this issue we can come up with some pretty reasonable
qualitative, and perhaps even quantitiative, measures of the affect of
Versign's wildcarding on traffic flows, response time, packet congestion
at exchange points, loss of efficiency of anti-spam mechanisms, loss of 
precision in the delivery of mail, and the potentiality of Versign 
obtaining some rather privacy-revealing information about e-mail flows.

There is another set of issues that this situation has raised that go 
beyond the technical - and that is the larger question of what is ICANN's 
role and what is a socially sound balance between private innovation and 
the public utility of the net.

I'm sure you've seen my "First Law of the Internet" in which I propose a
first cut at such a balance:

First Law of the Internet

+ Every person shall be free to use the Internet in any way that is
  privately beneficial without being publicly detrimental.

   - The burden of demonstrating public detriment shall be on those who
     wish to prevent the private use.

       - Such a demonstration shall require clear and convincing evidence
         of public detriment.

   - The public detriment must be of such degree and extent as to justify
     the suppression of the private activity.

Might I suggest that use that structure as a way to think our way through
the Versign wildcard issue.  It would go something like this

  a) We begin by articulating our goals (e.g. what is "stability" - I'll 
     resuggest my formulation from the other day:

    I define ICANN's obligations of "stability" to be to maintain
    the net in a condition such at IP packets may move with reliabily 
    and with dispatch from any source IP address to any destination IP 
    address, and that DNS queries processed by the upper tier of DNS 
    servers are answered reliably, promptly, and accurately.

  b) Ask whether Versign's actions impact that formulation in a way that
     constitutes a "public detriment" and support this will clear and
     convincing evidence

  c) Ask whether the public detriment caused by Versign's act is of
     such a degree and extent as to justify the suppression of that
     activity.  This is definitely a subjective balancing act, and it
     is time we started coming up with some rules to guide us when
     we try to make that balance.

        --karl--