Re: national security

Dear Vint,
thank you for commenting on the Internet national survival kit issue this 
way (we are one week before the last Geneva prepcom, where ICANN is 
disputed in a way the survival kit may affect).
Our common goal is to help consensus, not to increase tensions.

At 19:54 29/11/03, vinton g. cerf wrote:
> >OK, the big issue for those countries that want ICANN to be disbanded 
> and for the Internet to be handed over to the ITU is quite simple: ICANN 
> is a US-government controlled entity subject to US/Californian law.
> Please read the most recent MOU. The US Department of Commerce has gone to 
> considerable effort to outline the path by which ICANN becomes the party 
> responsible for the updating of the DNS root. The control you assert is 
> quite limited even today.

Objection is not that you are the root registry, but the USA and you are 
the registrant. RFC 1591 says IANA is not in the business of defining a 
country. Why to intrefere with countries? What is the intrinsic difference 
between root and TLD updates? The post KP&Quest updates are a good example 
of what Govs do not want anymore.
> Any formal body has to have some jurisdiction in which it is constituted. 
> One can argue whether California non-profit law is better or worse than 
> being a UN entity. I believe there are arguments against the latter as 
> much as there may arguments against the former.
The complexity is that ICANN wants to be two conflicting things (American 
and International) and to organize something multinational.
> that's not at all clear. ICANN has tried to promote the adoption of IDN, 
> for example, in a responsible way. John Klensin's efforts, and others, to 
> promote international compatibility to enhance the ability for parties to 
> communicate is commendable. What do you think is awful?
The IDN solution! :-)
it was doomed when ICANN refused it to be multilingual. Let not dispute on 
that. Vernacularization may come from a true internationalization (0 to Z) 
on the LHS. May be Keith Moore will find a reasonable way.
> >The IETF is about as close as we've got as an "authority" on the 
> Internet that is not bounded by geographic boundaries, governmental 
> control or commercial contract. You can make a reasonable argument that 
> we should be running the show here, not ICANN.
> Not unless you want to take on the full burden of Internet Governance 
> written large. Not even ICANN wishes to do that. In fact, ICANN's role is 
> very limited compared to the full scope of Internet Governance.
Four language problems in here I doubt we can reduce. ICANN understands its 
governance role as global coordination of the network. Our respective 
cultures have opposite understandings for governance, global, coordination 
(we will accept concertation), network. I suppose other cultures and 
languages have others. You probably stay in the middle. Hence your need to 
explain again and again "we are not what you believe we are". Should this 
not be plain obvious for now.
Consider the French (original) meaning of "gouvernance". For networks it 
would be "net keeping". Many ICANN relational problem would disappear.
>  Issues such as fraud, taxation, intellectual property protection, 
> dispute resolution, illegal actions are governmental matters and not even 
> UN has the appropriate jurisdiction. It will take cooperation among 
> governments and thoughtful domestic legislation to deal with many of 
> these matters. ICANN has high regard for IETF and IAB and for that reason 
> there is an IAB liaison appointed to the Board of Directors.
> >The UNITC meeting needed to happen several years ago, but now we're 
> there, realistically there is only one option left for a single, cohesive 
> Internet to remain whilst taking into account ALL the World's population: 
> ICANN needs to become a UN body.
> nonsense - as constituted today, ICANN is a better forum for interested 
> constituencies to debate policy FOR THOSE AREAS THAT ARE IN ICANN'S 
> PURVIEW (not shouting, just emphasis on limited purview of ICANN).
We all will accept the word "forum". The role I assign to ICANN is to guest 
forums and to cross polenize among them.
Why then to force participants to abide by your by-laws to come (ccTLDs). 
Paul Twomey's Nov. 19th paper is a contention point. It is seen as a bold 
ICANN move before the 5/6th meeting. And your own response about ccTLDs.
What would be the difference if the ccNSO resulted from an MoU? It would 
permit to help/join with ccTLDs, and RIRs, over a far more interesting 
ITU-I preparation. I suppose RIRs would not be afraid an ITU-I would not be 
here 2 years from now.
> The problem with the arguments I have heard, including yours, is that you 
> may be thinking of Internet Governance in the large while ICANN's role is 
> small and should stay that way. We need other venues in which to deal with 
> the larger problems and perhaps UN or some of its constituents have a role 
> to play. Probably WIPO and WTO do as well.
Agreement. Then why to have built a big machine to be the IANA + a forums 
guest. Until mid-run ERC was a good thing. IANA/ICANN is by nature a single 
point of failure (because unique with some some responsibility). Initial 
agreement (RFC 920) and update (RFC 1591) were technical. They could go for 
ever. NIC/IANA is just a registering secretariat. Intlnet was 3 hours of my 
time a week from 78 to 86 to carry the job of listing technical and 
commercial data of the word. Plus support of the international meetings and 
some PRs. No more than 1/4 of my time and asstants. ISO 3166 is managed by 
one single person. Why is ICANN needing so much more?
> >1. They don't listen to us, or those parties who have a genuine vested 
> interest in the Internet, UNLESS that party is a US Commercial or 
> Governmental entity.
> I disagree - please consider the last ICANN meeting in which the Board 
> went some distance to making changes in its policies in response to 
> international constituency inputs.
Vint, you will never change that IANA is part of the Internet and Internet 
is the current solution of the world for its datacommunications. So IANA 
must be involved. ITU is the way govs cooperate in communications (data, 
telephone, TV, radio) and where they have so many mixed interests that they 
must be cautious (this is what protects us, the consumers). So ITU must be 
involved.
If you are serious about becoming multinational, you must disengage from 
the US Gov. But IANA will never lose its US Flag without ITU. ITU will 
never develop an acceptable higher layers capacity (ITU-I) before long, 
without ICANN, ccTLD etc.
So, how long will we have to wait for you to ally (and not to try to 
swallow) with ccTLDs and to sit down with Mr. Zao, stop WSIS worrying and 
permits jointly care about fostering development and innovation.
> >2. Their incompetence at politcal levels has actually caused a delay in 
> making the Internet available to those countries that need access to 
> affordable communications infrastructures the most.
> Sorry, it is a lot more complex than you seem to think - the question of 
> who should have responsibility for a CCTLD is often very complex - it is 
> sometimes not even clear who the government of country X is.
Is that not contradiction? Is ICANN in the business to decide about 
domestic issues. Does the UN or the Union Postale chose the Head of the 
National Post Offices? You perfectly know what Brazil's position is. What 
is technical there?
A net keeper, trying to help patching difficulties? No more? This is he 
only thing which can work. We were quite helped understanding that because 
of the monopolies. Today you are confronted to sovereignty which is in this 
area the same.
> >3. Putting Computer Scientists in charge of anything is fundamentally a 
> bad idea. In fact, they have shown they are worse at being in charge than 
> politicians and lawyers... they will never get another chance after this 
> god-awful mess.
> The Board is not made up of computer scientists alone; nor is the staff of 
> ICANN. By your assertion, IETF should not be in charge of anything either. 
> I disagree with that, too.
IETF is to deliver technical solutions. IANA is to deliver a registry 
service. What is ICANN up to? Except what we agree: "to guest forums" to 
help consensus there.
BTW is that very different from ITU? Just that Paul Twomey's Nov 19th 
document would have resulted from a painstakingly g/sTLD consensus and 
would not have worried ccTLDs.
> there are any number of virtual private networks, some of them running on 
> top of the public Internet - that's fine as long as we also keep a fully 
> connected, public Internet in operation. Moreover, the creation of new 
> name spaces such as instant messaging handles has created new and useful 
> infrastructure - what's wrong with that?
The lack of users networks. Multiorganization TLDs Jerry made introduced as 
a reality we started experiencing. Just consider that the large user 
networks (SWIFT, SITA, VISA, Amadeus, Mnitel, etc.) started before 85. OSI 
brought X.400. CERN brought the Web. But ICANN - and unreliable technology 
- blocks ULDs (User Level Domains).
I just note that you never cared about Consumers organizationsn, while a 
world e-consumer council would have given you the legitimacy of billions 
and the weight to keep Gov partly at large, and satisfied. A National 
Security Kit would then be one of the ICANN raisons d'être, keeping Govs happy.
Best regards.
jfc











> vint cerf
>
> >--
> >Paul Robinson
> >
> >
>
> Vint Cerf
> SVP Technology Strategy
> MCI
> 22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
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> 703 886 1690 (v806 1690)
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> vinton(_dot_)g(_dot_)cerf(_at_)mci(_dot_)com
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