DNS : Toward an International Public Internet (fwd)

[Marloth _at__ t-online.de (Heinz Marloth)]

Liebe KollegInnen,
die folgende mitteilung aus den usa leite ich gerne an sie weiter:

> The Internet an International Public Treasure
> A Proposal  by Ronda Hauben, ronda _at__ panix.com
>
> In testimony before the Subcommittee on Basic Research of
> the Committee on Science of the U.S. Congress on March 31, 1998,
> Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, indicated the great
> responsibility that must be taken into account before the U.S.
> Government changes the administrative oversight, ownership and
> control of essential aspects of the Internet that are part of
> what is known as the Domain Name System (DNS)*.
>
> Kahn indicated that "the governance issue must take into account
> the needs and desires of others outside the United States
> to participate." His testimony also indicated a need to maintain
> "integrity in the Internet architecture including the management of
> IP addresses and the need for oversight of critical functions."
> He described how the Internet grew and flourished under
> U.S. Government stewardship (before the privatization - I wish to
> add) because of 2 important components.
>
> 1) The U.S. Government funded the necessary research
> and
> 2) It made sure the networking community had the responsibility
> for its operation, and insulated it to a very great extent from
> bureaucratic obstacles and commercial matters so it could
> evolve dynamically.
>
> He also said that "The relevant US government agencies should
> remain involved until a workable solution is found and, thereafter
> retain oversight of the process until and unless an appropriate
> international oversight mechanism can supplant it."
>
> And Kahn recommended insulating the DNS functions which are critical
> to the continued operation of the Internet so they could be
> operated "in such a way as to insulate them as much as possible
> from bureaucratic, commercial and political wrangling."
>
> When I attended the meeting of the International Forum on
> the White Paper (IFWP) in Geneva in July, which was a meeting
> set up by the U.S. Government to create the private organization
> to take over these essential DNS functions September 30, 1998, none
> of the concerns that Kahn raised at this Congressional hearing
> were indicated as concerns by those rushing to privatize
> these critical functions of the global Internet. I wrote a report
> which I circulated about the political and commercial pressures that
> were operating in the meeting to create the Names Council that
> I attended. (See "Report from the Front", Meeting in Geneva Rushes
> to Privatize the Internet DNS and Root Server Systems". The URL
> is http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/  )
>
> But what is happening now with the privatization plan of the
> U.S. Government involves privatization of the functions that
> coordinate the International aspects of the Internet and thus
> the U.S. Government has a very special obligation to the technical
> and scientific community and to the the U.S. public and
> the people of the world to be responsible in what it does.
>
> I don't see that happening at present.
>
> A few years ago I met one of the important pioneers of the
> development of time-sharing, which set the basis for the research
> creating the Internet. This pioneer, Fernando Corbato, suggested I
> real a book "Management and the Future of the Computer" which
> was edited by Martin Greenberger, another time-sharing pioneer.
> The book was the proceedings of a conference about the Future of
> the Computer held at MIT in 1961 to celebrate the centennial
> anniversary of MIT. The British author, Charles Percy Snow made
> the opening address at the meeting and he described the
> importance of how government decisions would be made about the
> future of the computer.
>
> Snow cautioned that such decisions must involve people who
> understood the problems and the technology.  And he also
> expressed the concern that if too small a number of people were
> involved in making important government decisions, the more
> likely it would be that serious errors of judgment would be made.
>
> Too small a number of people are being involved in this important
> decision regarding the future of these strategic aspects of the
> Internet and too many of those who know what is happening and are
> participating either have conflicts of interest or other reasons
> why they are not able to consider the real problems and
> technological issues involved. (About the 1961 conference, see
> chapter 6 of Netizens at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120)
>
> What is happening with the process of the U.S. Government
> privatization of the Domain Name System is exactly the kind
> of danger that C.P. Snow warned against.
>
> I have been in contact with Ira Magaziner, Senior advisor to
> the U.S. President on policy with these concerns and he asked
> me to write a proposal or way to put my concerns into some
> "operational form." The following draft proposal for comment
> is my beginning effort to respond to his request.
>
> ---------------
> Note:
> *I am requesting help circulating this proposal among the
> Internet community and asking for comments and discussion both on
> the proposal and on the issues involved with the U.S.
> government plan to privatize these essential functions of
> the Internet by September 30, 1998.
>
> Also we will be starting a mailing list for those interested
> in discussing this and it would be good if a newsgroup would be
> created on Usenet about this issue as well. For too long these
> issues have been carried out where most people online and off do not
> know of what is happening or are being told it isn't
> important, or where it is hard for interested people to find a
> way to participate.
>
>
> Please write me at
>
> ronda _at__ panix.com with any comments on the proposal.
>
> The draft proposal for comment follows:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                       Draft Proposal
>     Toward an International Public Administration of Essential
>        Functions of the Internet - The Domain Name System
> 			Ronda Hauben
> 			ronda _at__ panix.com
>
> Recently, there has been a rush to find a way to change
> significant aspects of the Internet. The claim is that there
> is a controversy that must be resolved about what should be the
> future of the Domain Name System.
>
> It is important to examine this claim and to try to figure out
> if there is any real problem with regard to the Domain Name
> System (DNS) that has to be solved.
>
> The Internet is a scientific and technical achievement of great
> magnitude. Fundamental to its development was the discovery of a
> new way of looking at computer science.(1) The early developers
> of the ARPANET, the progenitor of the Internet, viewed the
> computer as a communication device rather than only as an
> arithmetic engine. This new view, which came from research
> conducted by those in academic computer science, made the
> building of the ARPANET possible.(2) Any changes in the
> administration of key aspects of the Internet need to be guided
> by a scientific perspective and principles, not by political or
> commercial pressures. It is most important to keep in mind that
> scientific methods are open and cooperative.
>
>
> Examining the development of the Internet, an essential problem
> that becomes evident is that the Internet has become
> international, but the systems that allow there to be an Internet
> are under the administration and control of one nation. These
> include control over the allocation of domain names, over the
> allocation of IP addresses, over the assignment of protocol
> numbers and services, as well as control over the root server
> system and the protocols and standards development process
> related to the Internet. These are currently under the control
> and administration of the U.S. Government or contractors to it.
>
> Instead of the U.S. Government offering a proposal to solve the
> problem of how to share the administration of the DNS, which
> includes central points of control of the Internet,
> it is supporting and encouraging the creation of a new private
> entity that will take over and control the Domain Name System.
> This private entity will magnify many thousands fold the
> commercial and political pressures and prevent solving the
> genuine problem of having an internationally shared protection
> and administration of the DNS, including the root server system,
> IP number allocations, Internet protocols, etc.
>
> Giving these functions over to a private entity will make it
> possible for these functions to be changed and for the Internet
> to be broken up into competing root servers, etc. It is the DNS
> whose key characteristic is to make the network of networks one
> Internet rather than competing networks with competing root
> server systems, etc.
>
> What is needed is a way to protect the technology of the Internet
> from commercial and political pressures, so as to create a means
> of sharing administration of the key DNS functions and the root
> server system.
>
> The private organization that the U.S. Government is asking to be
> formed is the opposite of protecting the Internet. It is encouraging
> the take over by a private, non accountable corporate entity of
> the key Internet functions and of this International public
> resource.
>
> In light of this situation, it is important to draft a proposal
> which will help to establish a set of principles and
> recommendations on how to create an international cooperative
> collaboration to administer and protect these key functions of
> the Internet from commercial and political pressures. This draft
> is offered as a beginning of this process.
>
> The first essential requirement is that the U.S. Government stop
> the process it is involved in, including the International Forum
> on the White Paper (IFWP) whose objective is to create a private
> organization to be given the key Domain Name System including
> the root server system by September 30, 1998.
>
> The second essential requirement is that the U.S. Government
> create a research project or institute (which can be in
> conjunction with universities, appropriate research institutes,
> etc.) The goal of this project or institute is to sponsor and
> have carried out the research to solve the problem of what should
> be the future of the DNS and its component parts including the
> root server system. The U.S. should invite the collaboration
> (including funding, setting up similar research projects, etc.)
> of any country interested in participating in this research. The
> researchers from the different nations will work collaboratively.
>
> A collaborative international research group will undertake the
> following:
>
> 1) To identify and describe the functions of the DNS system that need
> to be maintained. (The RFC's or other documents that will help
> in this need to be gathered and references to them made available
> to those interested.)
>
> 2) To look first at the Internet and then at how the DNS system and
> root server system is serving the diverse communities and users
> of the Internet, which include among others the scientific
> community, the education community, the librarians, the technical
> community, Governments (National as well as local), the
> university community, the art and cultural communities, nonprofit
> organizations, the medical community, the communications
> functions of the business community, and most importantly the
> users whoever they be, of the Internet.
>
> 3) To maintain an online means of input into their work and of
> reporting on what they are doing.(This should include as many of
> the open processes used in the development of Usenet and the
> ARPANET as possible, including appropriate Usenet newsgroups,
> mailing lists,  RFC's etc.)
>
> 4) To produce a proposal at the end of a specified finite period
> of time. The proposal should include:
>
>    a) an accurate history of how the Internet developed and how the
>    Domain Name System developed and why.
>
>    b) a discussion of the vision for the future of the Internet that
>    their proposal is part of.  This should be based on input
>    gathered from the users of the Internet, and from research
>    of the history and development of the Internet.
>
>    c) a description of the role the Domain Name System plays in the
>    administration and control of the Internet, how it is functioning,
>    what problems have developed with it.
>
>    d) a proposal for its further administration, describing how the
>    proposal will provide for the continuation of the functions and
>    control hitherto provided by U.S. Government agencies like NSF
>    and DARPA. Also, problems for the further administrations
>    should be clearly identified and proposals made for how to
>    begin an open process for examining the problems and solving
>    them.
>
>    e) a description of the problems and pressures that they see
>    that can be a danger for the DNS administration. Also
>    recommendations on how to protect the DNS administration
>    from succumbing to those pressures. (For example from
>    pressures that are political or commercial.) In the early
>    days of Internet development in the U.S. there was an
>    acceptable use policy (AUP) that protected the Internet and
>    the scientific and technical community from the pressures
>    from political and commercial entities. Also in the U.S.,
>    Government funding of a sizeable number of people who were the
>    computer science community also protected those people from
>    commercial and political pressures.
>
>    f) a way for the proposal to be distributed widely online, and the
>    public not online should also have a way to have access to it.
>    It should be made available to people around the world
>    who are part of or interested in the future development
>    of the Internet. Perhaps help with such distribution can come
>    from international organizations like the ITU, from the Internet
>    Society, the IETF, etc.
>
>    g) comment on what has been learned from the process of doing
>    collaborative work to create the proposal. It should identify as
>    much as possible the problems that developed in their
>    collaborative efforts. Identifying the problems will help
>    clarify what work has to be done to solve them.
>
>    h) It will be necessary to agree to some way to keep this
>    group of researchers free from commercial and political
>    pressures -- government funding of the researchers is one
>    possible way and maybe they can be working under an agreed
>    upon Acceptable Use Policy for their work and funding.
>
> Please let me know any thoughts or comments you have on this
> draft proposal as it is a beginning effort to figure
> out what is a real way to solve the problem that is the essential
> problem in the future administration of the Internet, and
> that if the principles can be found to solve this problem,
> the same principles will help to solve other problems of Internet
> administration and functioning as well.
>
> ------------------
> Notes:
> (1) See Michael Hauben, "Behind the Net: The Untold Story of the
> ARPANET and Computer Science", in "Netizens: On the History and
> Impact of Usenet and the Internet", IEEE CS Press, 1997, p. 109.
> See also "Internet, nouvelle utopie humaniste?" by Bernard Lang,
> Pierre Weis and Veronique Viguie Donzeau-Gouge, "Le Monde",
> September 26, 1997, as it describes how computer science is a new
> kind of science and not well understood by many. The authors
> write: "L'informatique est tout a la fois une science, une
> technologie et un ensemble d'outils....Dans sa pratique
> actuelle, l'introduction de l'informatique a l'ecole, et
> malheureusement souvent a la'universite, est critiquable parce
> qu'elle entretient la confusion entre ces trois composantes."
> (2) Ibid.
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> An updated copy of this proposal, as well as other related material
> will be available at
>   http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/
>
> I will also try to have copies available at
>   http://lrw.net/hauben/
>
>
>                   Netizens: On the History and Impact
>                     of Usenet and the Internet
>                 http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
>                 also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6


mfg   H.M.
--
Heinz Marloth   Seehofstraße 15   D-60594  Frankfurt, Germany
Tel.  069 - 61 23 94              eMail:  marloth _at__ t-online.de