Netizens-Digest Wednesday, April 4 2001 Volume 01 : Number 376 Netizens Association Discussion List Digest In this issue: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NASCommmittee Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NASCommmittee Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NASCommmittee ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 14:04:38 -0400 (EDT) From: ronda@panix.com Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NASCommmittee I'm trying to catch up on some of the aspects I wanted to respond to in previous comments on the list. "Howard C. Berkowitz" hcb@clark.net Sun Apr 1 08:48:27 2001 wrote: >But remember this was all happening in an environment where no one is >in charge. The Internet is the most successful anarchy in the history >of humanity. There was no one to tell either the ICANN or IETF people >that one was right and one was wrong, and to enforce this. Only a >Darwinian model seems to apply. Interesting. Because the Internet really isn't an anarchy. It's a form of servo mechanism - a system (complex system) that is able to learn from past behavior toward achieving a goal (be it a changing goal.) I had spent quite a while participating online, researching the developments and had the sense that there was something important with regard to Internet development that needed to be understood. The Internet grew up out of the work of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA. JCR Licklider had a sense of the kind of computer development and networking development that it would be good to see as the future but he realized there would be steps to making that happen. He had come from a community of researchers who had studied information processing science and the science of servo mechanism in natural and artificial systems. He brought that background into the work he did at IPTO and the foundation he set for it. It was IPTO where first time sharing research, then research in packet switching and then in the Internet developments were originated. So it isn't that there was any anarchy. There was a scientific research foundation which it would be good to see continued in order to continue the development of the Internet. >>and I want to be a bit more awake when I try to expalin >>what I have come to understand about Internet governance >>from the study I have done of Internet development and mechanisms >>of feedback and the experience I have >>had over the years online. > >>Basically there are systems that are built where the feedback >>is crucial to their development and there are systems that >>don't use feedback. The Internet is a system that is built >>as a system dependent on feedback. >The role of (to use proper control system theory terminology) proper >negative feedback can't be overstated. There are delicate balances >between stability and freedom. I don't think you are saying that the >Internet should be totally ungoverned, but that, of course, is just >the position of many "Hacker collectives." Don't know about you, but >I wouldn't want telepresence surgery done on me, with the control >residing in a network where "information is free" and anyone can do >whatever they want. At the same time, I want telepresence surgery to >be available in underdeveloped area, and using IP technologies (not >necessarily "the Internet" in the public sense) is the only way we >can afford such availability. It is helpful you bring up control system theory and negative feedback. I have spent a few years doing research about the early mailing lists and newsgroups on the ARPANET and early Usenet and feel there is another important level of negative feedback that has functioned with regard to the development of networking and then of the Internet. This has been the open discussion on mailing lists and newsgroups of the problems of the developing network. I have several papers looking at this that are online at http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers For example the early human-nets mailing list discussed the social vision for the developing network. >If it was a simple problem, it wouldn't be much fun, would it? Yupe that is true :-) Cheers Ronda ronda@panix.com http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/nsfprop.txt. http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/nsfreview.txt. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 14:12:15 -0400 (EDT) From: ronda@panix.com Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NAS Commmittee This was posted on Dave Farber's IP mailing list on Sunday I think, but it is interesting that it didn't mention that the appointments were provisional and that public had 20 days from the date of their being posted to comment on them. It does seem that the NAS DNS process is already an even more closed process than the ICANN situation, and that was a serious problem because of the closed nature of that whole process. So I called and spoke with Margaret Marsh and asked when the date for comments to be in by was, and she said April 5, 2001. I mentioned to her that it would be good if the comments could be posted publicly, not just disappear into the bowels of the NAS committee never to be paid any attention to. In any case, probably it would be good to try to utilize the procedure, though all indications I have had from the NAS DNS committee is that there is no means of their taking seriously that they are dealing with a public question and that there is a public interest at stake and that a small, closed group of people like those on the committee cannot represent that public interest unless they find a way to open up the whole process. BTW I have sent two posts about this to Farber's IP list and he hasn't sent out either. This is indicative of the nature of what the NAS DNS committee process is unfortunately at this juncture. Ronda >From: "Alan Inouye" >To: dave@farber.net > >The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) >of the National Academies announces the launch of its study on > >INTERNET SEARCHING AND THE DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM: >Technical Alternatives and Policy Implications > >This project will examine the impact of technological developments >and policy changes on the domain name system and other mechanisms >that individuals rely upon to find the information that they seek on the >Internet. The final report (to be issued in 2002) is expected to characterize >the institutions, policies, procedures, research, and development needed >to ensure that searching on the Internet remains feasible and can improve >in capability throughout the decade and will include a discussion of the >important and unresolved issues concerning trademarks. >(See below for the full project scope and roster of members of the >study committee) This study is sponsored by the U. S. Department >of Commerce and the National Science Foundation and is mandated >by the U. S. Congress through Public Law 105-305. > >* First Meeting of the Project >The first committee meeting of this study will take place on >April 9-10, 2001, at the National Academies in Washington, DC. There >will be a session open to the public on April 9 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. >The panel sessions on April 9 will focus on the relevant policy context; >panelists will be asked to identify those topics that should be >emphasized in this study. Panelists include Becky Burr >(Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering), Alan Davidson (Center for Democracy >and Technology), Michael Froomkin (University of Miami), >M. Stuart Lynn (ICANN), Steve Metalitz [invited] >(International Intellectual Property Association), David >Post (Temple University), Michael Roberts (formerly of >ICANN), Shari Steele (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and >Emerson Tiller (University of Texas); additional panelists may >also participate. Aubrey Bush from the National Science >Foundation and representatives of the U. S. Department of Commerce >will also address the study committee. Since space is limited for >observers, advance registration is strongly recommended; please >contact Margaret Marsh at or 202-334-2605 >to register. Additional details concerning this first meeting or the >study may be found at the Web site of the National Academies >. Click on "current projects" >(at the top of the screen) and search for the name of this study. > >* Public Comment and Project Updates >Public comments to the study committee are welcome and may >be made at any time by sending email to . >CSTB will also be providing periodic updates on the project >and notices of upcoming sessions open to the public via an >e-mail list. If you wish to receive these updates, please send >your request to as well. > >* Project Scope >This project will examine the impact of technological developments >and policy changes on the domain name system and other mechanisms >that individuals rely upon to find the information that they seek on the >Internet. >It will assess the effect on Internet name assignment, addressing, and >searching of trends such as the continuing increase in the number of >Internet users and sites, the growth in embedded computing devices, >and the introduction of permanent personal and object identifiers. It will >identify, describe and evaluate emerging technologies that can affect >Internet searching. Some of the approaches to be considered are: the >addition of generic top level domains; new name assignment, >addressing and indexing schemes; new directory structures for locating >information or sites of interest; and improved user interfaces for >accessing information on the Internet. > >The technologies that support finding information on the Internet are >deployed within a complex and contentious international policy context. >The "right" to use a particular domain name can often be disputed-- >sometimes as an honest conflict among multiple, legitimate claimants; >sometimes by cybersquatters seeking to profit in the secondary market >for domain names; and sometimes by those who wish to post negative >information or parody a like-named organization. Effective solutions >must consider the potentially competing interests of domain name >owners and trademark holders; the different interests of large multinational >corporations, small business owners and individuals; and public interests >such as freedom of speech and personal privacy. > >This study will examine the degree to which the options offered by new >technology or new uses of existing technology can mitigate concerns >regarding trademarks and other economic or public interests, facilitate or >impede further evolution of the Internet, and affect steps being taken to >enhance competition among domain name registrars, the portability of >Internet addresses, and the stability of the Internet. For each of the >prospective technologies, the final report is expected to characterize >institutions, policies and procedures that should be put in place >to complement it and will specify the research (if any) required to >develop it. > >Additional information describing the National Academies >study process may be found at >. >Additional information concerning CSTB may be found >at . > >* Committee Roster >Provisionally Approved by the National Academies > >ROGER LEVIEN, Chair >Strategy & Innovation Consulting >Principal and Founder > >ROBERT AUSTEIN >Vice President of Engineering >InterNetShare.com > >CHRISTINE L. BORGMAN >Professor & Presidential Chair in Information Studies >Graduate School of Education & Information Studies >University of California, Los Angeles > >JEAN CAMP >Assistant Professor of Public Policy >John F. Kennedy School of Government >Harvard University > >TIMOTHY CASEY >Partner Resident >Fried Frank Haris Shriver and Jacobson > >LESLIE DAIGLE >Executive Vice President >Rattlenote Technology Inc. > >HUGH DUBBERLY >Principal >Dubberly Design Office > >CHARLES H. FERGUSON >Chairman >Juice Software, Inc. and Capital Thinking, Inc. > >TAMAR FRANKEL >Professor >Boston University Law School > >PER-KRISTIAN HALVORSEN >Director >Solutions and Services Technology Center >Hewlett-Packard Research Labs > >MARYLEE JENKINS >Partner >Robin Blecker & Daley > >JOHN C. KLENSIN >Internet Architecture Vice President >AT&T > >MILTON L. MUELLER >Associate Professor and Director >Graduate Program in Telecommunications and Networking Management >School of Information Studies >Syracuse University > >WILLIAM RADUCHEL >Executive Vice President >AOL Time Warner > >HAL R. VARIAN >Dean >School of Information Management and Systems >University of California, Berkeley > >PAUL VIXIE >Chairman >Internet Software Consortium > > >S T A F F > >ALAN INOUYE >Study Director and Senior Program Officer > >CYNTHIA PATTERSON >Program Officer > >MARGARET MARSH >Senior Project Assistant ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 14:45:15 -0400 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NASCommmittee Ronda wrote, >I'm trying to catch up on some of the aspects I wanted to respond >to in previous comments on the list. > >"Howard C. Berkowitz" hcb@clark.net >Sun Apr 1 08:48:27 2001 wrote: > >>But remember this was all happening in an environment where no one is >>in charge. The Internet is the most successful anarchy in the history >>of humanity. There was no one to tell either the ICANN or IETF people >>that one was right and one was wrong, and to enforce this. Only a >>Darwinian model seems to apply. > >Interesting. Because the Internet really isn't an anarchy. > >It's a form of servo mechanism - a system (complex system) >that is able to learn from past behavior toward achieving >a goal (be it a changing goal.) I'm reminded of a few good buttons/T-shirts: "1,000,000 lemmings can't be wrong." "It has been proposed that a million monkeys at typewriters would produce the works of Shakespeare. The experiment has been tried. It is called the Internet, and no new Shakespearean material was detected." > >I had spent quite a while participating online, researching >the developments and had the sense that there was something >important with regard to Internet development that needed >to be understood. > >The Internet grew up out of the work of the Information >Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA. > >JCR Licklider had a sense of the kind of computer development >and networking development that it would be good to see as >the future but he realized there would be steps to making >that happen. > >He had come from a community of researchers who had studied >information processing science and the science of servo >mechanism in natural and artificial systems. > >He brought that background into the work he did at IPTO >and the foundation he set for it. > >It was IPTO where first time sharing research, then research >in packet switching and then in the Internet developments >were originated. > >So it isn't that there was any anarchy. There was a scientific >research foundation which it would be good to see continued >in order to continue the development of the Internet. But again we come back to the issue of their being a monolithic definition of the Internet -- which I don't really think can exist. The scientific research model absolutely, positively has its role. I don't make the distinction you do between science and engineering in the Internet context. Even what is academically funded "Internet research" blurs: Internet II versus Abilene. There is research on network-enabled applications, and there is research into networking itself. Scientific research communities publish their open results, but frequently have invitational workshops and other quite closed discussion forums. Both in computing and in medicine, where I am most familiar with research communities, there emphatically are non-public forums. Yet in earlier discussions, you seemed to describe Freenets as the ultimate expression of "the Internet." So I'm confused. There are other aspects that don't fall into either a scientific or a public model. In a developed country, there's little question you will have dial tone when you pick up the telephone. In a developed country, there are quite serious questions of Internet reliability. Telephone networks are tightly engineered and run by rigid standards. They are primarily run by corporations. At the same time, there is active research into improving telephony. Where, in your model, is the place for highly reliable IP connectivity? Neither scientific nor "public" organizations are geared to run production environments. When I need to have heart surgery, I do not go to a pure scientist whose primary interest is genetically modulated angiogenesis. I go to a surgeon who does several procedures per week. Science is not the ultimate goodness. Correct me if I misperceive, but I am tending to detect a message that "anything is better than a corporate model". > > >>>and I want to be a bit more awake when I try to expalin >>>what I have come to understand about Internet governance >>>from the study I have done of Internet development and mechanisms >>>of feedback and the experience I have >>>had over the years online. >> >>>Basically there are systems that are built where the feedback >>>is crucial to their development and there are systems that >>>don't use feedback. The Internet is a system that is built > >>as a system dependent on feedback. OK. Can you accept the model that business, engineering/science, and public interest all represent sources in control systems? If so, what is the appropriate controlling negative feedback on each? > >I have spent a few years doing research about the early mailing >lists and newsgroups on the ARPANET and early Usenet and feel >there is another important level of negative feedback that >has functioned with regard to the development of networking >and then of the Internet. But you seem to insist that the 1970s model of Internet development is the pure one and should continue to apply. In a military context, that would mean that the people that took 2nd place in the Southeast Asia War Games should have applied all of their methodology to the Persian Gulf. Or that the sexual practices of the seventies should continue in a world containing HIV. Having lived in the seventies, I'm not happy about the latter! There's no question that the current economic environment is not the classical free market, in which building value and reputation was an economic good. But any market, even a warped one, does have feedback mechanisms. Again, I keep getting a sense of anti-corporate bias. Don't get me wrong -- I've spent far too much time in corporate environments where Dilbert is real. Free the ISO 9000! Howard ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 23:47:42 -0400 (EDT) From: ronda@panix.com Subject: Re: [netz] There is a need for online discussion of new DNS NASCommmittee "Howard C. Berkowitz" hcb@clark.net wrote: >>Interesting. Because the Internet really isn't an anarchy. >> >>It's a form of servo mechanism - a system (complex system) >>that is able to learn from past behavior toward achieving >>a goal (be it a changing goal.) >I'm reminded of a few good buttons/T-shirts: > "1,000,000 lemmings can't be wrong." > "It has been proposed that a million monkeys at typewriters would > produce the works of Shakespeare. The experiment has been tried. > It is called the Internet, and no new Shakespearean material was > detected." But what do you think Shakespeare would think of the Internet? I suggest he would marvel at it :-) However, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are saying. I'm saying that it was good science and research that made the Internet possible. And that we should try to look at what has been developed and how and build on it. Are you saying it was an accident? (...) >But again we come back to the issue of their being a monolithic >definition of the Internet -- which I don't really think can exist. I'm not saying its something monolithic. But I am saying that it can be understood. And that that understanding is significantly aided by understanding the research process and science at its roots. Do we disagree? >The scientific research model absolutely, positively has its role. I >don't make the distinction you do between science and engineering in >the Internet context. Even what is academically funded "Internet >research" blurs: Internet II versus Abilene. There is research on >network-enabled applications, and there is research into networking >itself. >Scientific research communities publish their open results, but >frequently have invitational workshops and other quite closed >discussion forums. Both in computing and in medicine, where I am >most familiar with research communities, there emphatically are >non-public forums. But what I have found in my studies of the development and ending of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA (1962-1986) is that there was a change in the autonomy the Director of the Office could exert at various times, and then the Office was ended. The office had been an important government institutional form to support some of the kind of basic research that had been helpful in making the Internet possible. So the ending of the Office was a blow to that basic research, and there is a need to learn from the lessons of IPTO and to find a way to support basic research again of a similar quality. That I agree that there are forms of research now, but I haven't seen the general nature kind of research that IPTO was able to support and inspire. And IPTO provided leadership to a research community. I realize I don't know all that is going on. I do try to pay attention to what I have access to. But I also pay attention to the research that has helped to make possible the advances we have today, and that is important too as a background in understanding the research roots of these developments. I am surprised that there seems so little effort in the computer science curriculum to familarize students with the important papers that were some of the foundation of the important networking and interactive computing achievements of our times. I see you follow medicine as well as networking based research. That is a good sign. That means you make an effort to be broad, not narrow. Licklider came out of a community that studied servo mechanisms in natural and artificial systems. And I have a sense that his contributions to the creation of the IPTO and the vision that has guided networking development in good part grew from his research instincts about the human brain, as well as from his respect admiration for the power of the computer and the need for an Intergalactic network. By the way, in an earlier post you pointed to the need for human factors research expertise. I guess Licklider helped to pioneer that field. And I agree that it seems to need to be reinvigorated today, building on Licklider's vision of the need for a symbiotic relationship between the human and the computer (and I would add network). >Yet in earlier discussions, you seemed to describe Freenets as the >ultimate expression of "the Internet." I didn't say it was an ultimate expression, but it was an early means of making access to all available that was different from a commerical model. (I realize you may have a different notion of freenet ) I was referring to the Cleveland Free-Net which began in the late 1980's. I learned about it in 1988 and it was then a cooperative means of people in Cleveland working together to make dialup access to the Internet and Usenet available at no charge to the people in Cleveland using dialup modems. I got onto Cleveland Free-Net in 1992 via an Internet connection from Michigan (using telnet). And I was able to get on Usenet from the Cleveland Free-Net and also to get access to mailing lists like com-priv . The Cleveland Free-Net model spread around the US fairly rapidly and then to Canada and to a few places in Europe. For example I think there was one in Erlangen Germany at one point. >So I'm confused. There are other aspects that don't fall into either >a scientific or a public model. In a developed country, there's >little question you will have dial tone when you pick up the >telephone. In a developed country, there are quite serious questions >of Internet reliability. >Telephone networks are tightly engineered and run by rigid standards. >They are primarily run by corporations. At the same time, there is >active research into improving telephony. >Where, in your model, is the place for highly reliable IP >connectivity? Neither scientific nor "public" organizations are >geared to run production environments. >When I need to have heart surgery, I do not go to a pure scientist >whose primary interest is genetically modulated angiogenesis. I go >to a surgeon who does several procedures per week. Science is not >the ultimate goodness. >Correct me if I misperceive, but I am tending to detect a message >that "anything is better than a corporate model". Interesting. When the ARPANET as split into an operational MILNET and a research ARPANET which would communicate via TCP/IP, that was my sense of probably one of the earliest Internet's. MILNET was operational. It wasn't commercial. It seems you are equating operational with commercial and suggesting that I am denying the need for a commercial Internet. I don't equate operational with commercial. I do agree that there is probably a place for operational networks that are part of an Internet. The Cleveland Free-Net and other Free-Nets that existed in the 1990's (and there are still some) were an example of a means access that wasn't commercial but still that provided an important form of Internet access to many people. Before the breakup of AT&T, the US had the best phone company in the world with its regulated AT&T and the Bell Labs section of AT&T. AT&T was a company, but it was under certain constraints and restraints from the US government to make it possible for there to be universal access and the research component (Bell Labs) that provided the most advanced technology to make it possible to provide that universal access to telephony for people in the US. So I am not denying that there is a reason to provide the kind of service that the pre-break-up AT&T was obligated to provide to the people of the US. I am though not agreeing that this means one has to have a commercial model to provide this service, and the research that makes it possible. In fact, there are many signs that the commercial model being used to privatize the Internet cannot provide the kind of service and research that is needed for the Internet to be able to thrive in the US. In fact I have been told by one of the people who is now in ICANN that the educational network is a hole in the commercial Internet. That seems to me to be fundamentally opposed to what I have learned about the design and nature of the Internet. That seems a rationale to try to end the Internet and replace it with the kind of one big network under one political and administrative power. >>>and I want to be a bit more awake when I try to expalin >>>what I have come to understand about Internet governance >>>from the study I have done of Internet development and mechanisms >>>of feedback and the experience I have >>>had over the years online. >> >>>Basically there are systems that are built where the feedback >>>is crucial to their development and there are systems that >>>don't use feedback. The Internet is a system that is built >>>as a system dependent on feedback. >OK. Can you accept the model that business, engineering/science, and >public interest all represent sources in control systems? If so, >what is the appropriate controlling negative feedback on each? This is something we should discuss further as it is an interesting question you pose. However, thus far the supposed effort of the US government has been to create what seems to be a means for business governance and that has been a real problem. This has not only left out the public interest and the engineering/science community, and all the other online communities like the educational, government, artistic, etc. But also the business model is the model that doesn't allow for the negative feedback. Rather it is a no feedback model. This seems some of the source of the problem with the conception of ICANN. The business and investment folks who got themselves in power in it have no reason to hear from anyone. And their goal isn't a social goal. It is a goal that is dictated by their own self interest. This flies in the face of the social goal that Licklider articulated in the 1960s' -- of all having access to this intellectual public utility. Licklider in an article he wrote with Robert Taylor said "For society, the impact will be good or bad depending mainly on the question: Will "to be online" be a privilege or a right?" (See the end of chapter 2 of "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet" http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook) Also this social goal was a goal raised by the NTIA online conference in 1994 where many people challenged the privatization plan of the US government. I do see that there is a need to have an infrastructure for the Internet that provides for the negative feedback to make the system able to scale. This means a better feedback system than currently exists for users (of all strata) to be able to participate more fully in helping to identify and then solve the ongoing problems of the Internet's scaling. I proposed such a prototype collaboration to make it possible to build such a feedback system to Ira Magaziner after talking with him about my problems with what was to become ICANN. He asked me to provide an operational form to demonstrate the import of the problems I had identified with the creation of ICANN. My proposal was up at the US Department of Commerce. It was submitted before the ICANN proposal. I proposed an international scientific collaboration to review the current means of human feedback systems and to propose a way to create a more effective feedback system. The proposal is at the US Department of Commerce web site and also at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/dns_proposal.txt You might be interested in taking a look at it and commenting on it. > >I have spent a few years doing research about the early mailing >lists and newsgroups on the ARPANET and early Usenet and feel >there is another important level of negative feedback that >has functioned with regard to the development of networking >and then of the Internet. >But you seem to insist that the 1970s model of Internet development >is the pure one and should continue to apply. You didn't say the problem with open architecture and the creation of the tcp/ip protocol. Nor do you look to see what this model has created and what can be learned from the achievement. Instead it seems you are trying to discredit the architecture by claiming it is from the 1970s. Isn't this a bit like trying to discredit the US by saying that it grew from a 1770's model (the Declaration of Independence) or an 1780's model (the Constitution). If you have a critique of open architecture and the creation of TCP/IP, you can make it. But it seems that to give the date that an advance happened as the means to discredit it isn't very helpful. (...) >There's no question that the current economic environment is not the >classical free market, in which building value and reputation was an >economic good. But any market, even a warped one, does have feedback >mechanisms. Again, I keep getting a sense of anti-corporate bias. The market model seems to be an equilibrium model, not a dynamic model. It's the feedback model, however, that allows for internal and external changes and adjustments when needed. It isn't a feedback model that allows for a changing goal and for feedback to understand how to reach that goal. And its the feedback model that was the basis to create and develop the Internet. And its the feedback model that is needed to determine how to scale it. That is the findings of my research thus far. There is a need to understand the implications of this. But the NAS DNS committee flies in the face of these findings. >Don't get me wrong -- I've spent far too much time in corporate >environments where Dilbert is real. I can understand. I have had my experiences as well :( And I continue to have them with the research agencies that seem determined to impose a market model on the Internet rather than to provide the needed support for the work to understand the model that is relevant to the development of the Internet. (I just had a bad experience with the NSF :( ) But the importance of the research is it helps to understand what is needed and that will find a way to have its effect :) Cheers Ronda And to remember: This is something we should discuss: >>>Basically there are systems that are built where the feedback >>>is crucial to their development and there are systems that >>>don't use feedback. The Internet is a system that is built >>>as a system dependent on feedback. >OK. Can you accept the model that business, engineering/science, and >public interest all represent sources in control systems? If so, >what is the appropriate controlling negative feedback on each? Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 ------------------------------ End of Netizens-Digest V1 #376 ******************************