Re: [ga] More on Sitefinder suspension

["John Palmer" <jp@xxxxxxxx>]

Excuse me, Stephane, but you are badly mistaken when you say that
"there are additional TLDs but that most of them don't work".

The Registry business is a real industry with real businesses that employ
people and produce economic output. You insult all of the people in
the industry with your flippant remarks.

I will name just a small number of the many REAL TLDs with REAL servers and real registrants:

.AMERICA
.EARTH
.USA
.Z
.LION
.ETC
.NOT
.ONLINE
.COM2

The Inclusive Namespace even has two sophisticated shared registry systems POSSR and INRS (Inclusive Namespace Registry System)
and although they arent operated on 240 servers in 20 data centers around the world, they are scalable and can run circles around
OpenSRS
(I know, I singlehandedly developed INRS myself).

Millions of dollars have been spent on infrastructure for the Inclusive Namespace and more is on the way (can't talk about those
details
in public yet, but when it does become public it will be an earthquake that rocks the internet from one end to the other - in a good
way).

Its not just about duplicate "toy" roots. Its about providing an alternative to the strangehold that a corrupt monopoly has on the
internet.

The worst example is the UDRP which is forced on people who register under an ICANN TLD. If  ICANN were the only choice, then
you would not be able to get a domain without being forced under the opression of this hideous policy. The UDRP is nothing but a way
for rich intellectual property concerns to steal domains from poor people.

The internet is supposed to democratize things - to give everyone a voice, but those in power don't want that. They want to control
it
so that only they have that voice. The Inclusive Namespace provides an alternative that allows concerned citizens to route around
ICANN. ICANN was given its green light during the Clinton Administration with promises that it would be operated by an "open,
democratic process", but almost from its inception, it has done everything to shut out democracy and fold itself into a secret star
chamber. People have had enough and the smart ones realize that ICANN really has no power over them because EACH PERSON as an
individual user control the DNS resolver addresses that their computer uses. Millions of internet users do it on a daily basis.
That you can't see this is puzzling (or is is?).

The fight against ICANN tyranny is more than a fight about "one root" or "multiple roots". Its really a fight for the soul of the
Internet itself. Will the Internet remain a free and open space or will it end up like television, with a handful of voices allowed
to
speak while the other 6 billion or so human beings end up reduced to passive observers, absorbing all of the "gospel" from
"big brother" without question? That attitiude (of passive absorption) is what disgusts me most about my fellow countrypersons. They
have turned over their birthright (of freedom) to the politicians and big corporations. The internet may be a way for them to wake
up
to diverse opinions about the world.  Thats not what the power brokers want and ICANN is the first step in shutting down this
"dangerous free expression" that threatens their power base.

The DNS is one of the single chokepoints of an otherwise very robust system, designed by the military to withstand a nuclear
attack, whose same resiliency allows it to withstand attempts to censor it, except for one critical point - the DNS. Thats what
this is about - control of the internet, not control of the DNS.

Think about that a little before you criticize those who would try to protect the net. That is, unless you are an ICANN synchophant
planted to make the remarks you did..... I cannot tell which.

John Palmer


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephane Bortzmeyer" <bortzmeyer@xxxxxx>
To: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ga@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 06:46
Subject: Re: [ga] More on Sitefinder suspension


> On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 03:36:21AM -0700,
>  Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
>  a message of 141 lines which said:
>
> >   In order to simplify things let me adopt some simple terminology:
> >   "Root-D" stands for the dominant (NTIA controlled) DNS root - this
> >   is the one that serves the vast majority of Internet users.
> >   "Root-X" stands for any of the other root systems.
>
> It is funny that you compare Root-D with Root-X but never Root-X with
> Root-Y, another dummy root. Your scheme works because there is a
> reference: Root-D. It would not work without it. (There are a lot of
> inconsistencies between the dummy roots while they all try to keep in
> synch with ICANN.)
>
> >   B) Root-X has more top-level domains than does Root-D but for
> >   those TLDs in common, the contents are identical.
> >
> >   Case B represents the situation that obtains today between the
> >   NTIA controlled root and the other root systems.
>
> With a few problems, some TLD are not the same in both cases. It is
> typically only the case with a few small ccTLD whose situation is
> unclear (last time I checked, ".tk", for instance). Probably not a big
> problem in practice.
>
> >   C) Root-X and Root-D contain at least one top-level domain with
> >   the same name but with different contents.
> >
> >   Case C represents a situation that may readily occur and that most
> >   people consider pathological.
>
> Yes, it happens today between Root-X and Root-Y, for instance ".home"
> or ".mp3" are not delegated to the same dummy registry, it depends on
> the dummy root you use.
>
> > There are, in fact, reasons to have additional roots - not the least
> > is one situation that I've had to endure several times, the loss of
> > all connectivity to "the outside" due to natural disaster.  The
> > ability to establish a local root is a very important tool for
> > getting communications up and running pending reconnect to the
> > larger net.
>
> I agree. But many people do so, specially in the Third World, where
> complete loss of conenctivity between the country and the rest of the
> world is common. It is quite frequent for ISP or campuses to have an
> unofficial replica of a root DNS name server on their premises. It is
> easy to do, since the root zone file is public. Some even announce it
> with OSPF, creating a rogue anycast server :-)
>
> Since their content is the one dictated by ICANN, it is purely a
> technical issue.
>
> > There is also the issue that is raised by the Verisign wildcard
> > situation - what prohibitions should exist on private acts on the
> > net?
>
> Are you aware of a dummy root that redelegated ".com"?
>
> > 1. There is nothing intrinsic about the catholic root that makes it
> > scale better than competing roots.  Should Microsoft or AOL, or
> > anybody with some money to spend, wish to deploy their own roots,
> > they could easily deploy a set of servers with capacity that would
> > be amazing.
>
> I was thinking of political scaling (the ability to make policies in a
> very large and diverse environment, not a small and homogeneous
> commune), not to technical scaling (no longer a problem with anycast).
>
> > 2. I see few republics condemn communities who do have managed to
> > establish direct democratic systems.  Yet the catholic root
> > community seems to take every chance to deamonize the even the
> > concept of competing roots.
>
> Any sign of active repression from ICANN? (Besides ICP-3, I mean.)
>
>
>