Netizens-Digest Saturday, November 9 2002 Volume 01 : Number 409 Netizens Association Discussion List Digest In this issue: [netz] Re: [IP] Protecting the Internet's Domain Name System and my rave note Re: [netz] What is the contest over ICANN really about? [netz] Re: DNS and NRS [netz] About ICANN's decreasing user participation in its processes [netz] The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Re:[netz]The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Re:[netz]The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Re:[netz]The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 07:54:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Ronda Hauben Subject: [netz] Re: [IP] Protecting the Internet's Domain Name System and my rave note On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, David Farber wrote: > [By the way, this is an excellent example of the problem I talked about > in the rave message. We have known for years (as the results of millions > of dollars in research money and development) how to build highly > distributed data base systems that are robust and hard to break. Yet > many insist that that can not be done -- that it is too hard a problem. > > An excellent example of -- I don't see how to do it therefore. (luckily > Karl is not one of these. > Dave] However, this message below from Karl represents a more serious problem. We could dispense with the domain name system altogether and the Internet could still function. Early on in the development of tcp/ip, which was developed thru an international collaboration, the University College London (UCL) where the UK research on tcp/ip was centered had their own naming system and the US researchers had the domain name system that they were developing. Though it wasn't an easy situation to have the early Internet development function with two different domain naming systems, this was the Internet's early development. In a recent article I explain: "(....)The least critical aspect of this infrastructure is the DNS. The Internet could function using IP numbers in place of the names, just as telephone addressing is in general by numbers, rather than names. But the IP numbers and protocols are critical to the functioning of the Internet." >From "The Internet and Its Governance: Where Should We Look for Models?" Article url: http://www.circleid.com/articles/2545.asp It is important that the distinction between the naming systems and the addressing systems be recognized and understood. The addressing system is critical for the Internet's infrastructure. That is the system that involves the IP numbers. The naming systems could be changed, as long as the mapping to the IP numbering was changed. So the domain name system is *not* a critical system. But the addressing system involving the IP numbers is a critical system. It is interesting that ICANN, which supposedly is to be in charge of the IP names and numbers and protocols, doesn't seem to recognize the difference between the domain name system and the IP addressing system or the critical nature of the IP addressing system. This seems another sign of the failure of ICANN to be able to administer, own or control the infrastructure of the Internet and of the US Department of Commerce to be part of designing an entity appropriate for the Internet's infrastructure Ronda ronda (at) panix (dot) com http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120 > > > > Karl Auerbach <[mailto:karl@cavebear.com]> wrote a rather thought > provoking note that follows: > >> http://www.cavebear.com/rw/steps-to-protect-dns.htm ) > > Protecting the Internet's Domain Name System > > ICANN is now taking a look at the actual stability of the net - this is > both refreshing and proper. And it's about time. > > Let us take a moment and ask ourselves: Why, on an Internet that was > originally designed to survive a nuclear holocaust, is this DNS thing > seemingly so vulnerable? > > The reason is pretty obvious: Nearly every other part of the Internet is > based on the concept that the individual parts should be able to operate > independently. But of all the parts of the Internet, the Domain Name > System has a clear heart, a singular point from which all other parts > radiate. On most of the net, if one damages a part, the rest of the net > will remain and will function. With DNS as it is presently deployed, if > one damages the heart, then the rest of DNS becomes uprooted and lost. > > (This note will come back to this singular vulnerability of DNS and ask > the question "why", but that will be a bit later. In case you need > instant gratification - here's a preview: DNS could be more fully > distributed and its singular point of vulnerability eliminated. The > deeper question will thus be: Are we intentionally refusing to consider, > much less adopt, a solution that could give to DNS the same near > invulnerability that adheres to the rest of the Internet? Are we > captives of our own dogma and blinding ourselves to solution, > > snip > > > > ------------------------------------- > You are subscribed as ronda@panix.com > Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 08:08:08 EDT From: SimonHardyB@cs.com Subject: Re: [netz] What is the contest over ICANN really about? - --part1_c9.2ab07c34.2aebdfa8_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit - - Hi, Ronda. How are you and Jay doing? Just touching base to see how everything is going. Got any big trips coming up? Hope to talk to you soon. Cheers. :-) - - Simon - --part1_c9.2ab07c34.2aebdfa8_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit - Hi, Ronda. How are you and Jay doing? Just touching base to see how everything is going. Got any big trips coming up? Hope to talk to you soon. Cheers. :-)



- Simon - --part1_c9.2ab07c34.2aebdfa8_boundary-- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 16:22:29 -0400 (EDT) From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben) Subject: [netz] Re: DNS and NRS From: "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond" Jay, I am not on the Netizens list, so here's my reply: The discussion below was a reply to Ronda Hauben's statement that in the past, the UK interfaced with the Internet although it was running different protocols. NRS was a simple table lookup system, with PAD (Packet Assembler/ Disassembler - X.3) numeric addresses being mapped to names, pretty much like TCP/IP addresses were mapped to named in the days of .ARPA, when DNS was fully implemented. (boy, that's a long long time ago. :-) At the time, there were only a few hundred hosts around in the UK. NRS would be completely unworkable today. There was no direct interfacing or mapping between IP & X21/X25 in the UK. Regards, - -- Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D. |--> Global Information Highway Limited E-mail: | Tel:+44 (0)7956 84 1113 | Fax:+44 (0)20 7937 7666 Web: http://www.gih.com/ & http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html > From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" > Subject: [netz] Re: IP numbers and the Infrastructure of the Internet > > I'm confused, because the discussion below doesn't have anything to > do with addresses such as 192.0.2.1/24 (IP) or > 47000500100000C0A0F2C3B142 (OSI). It is referring to names, which > map to addresses (and vice versa). > > >From: "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond" > > Ronda Hauben wrote: > >> Distributed solutions to the Domain Name problem are possible and probably > >> the future. In my research about the history of the international > >> collaboration that created the tcp/ip protocol suite, I came across the > >> fact that early on the UK had its own form of domain name system, and the > >> US had its form of system, and the early tcp/ip development was not > >> affected by the fact that these were different systems for naming. > > Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond answered: > >I fear that in taking this example, we may be comparing Apples with Oranges. > >I recall the early days of the Internet, and the trek that one needed to > >pursue > >to connect to the Internet when the UK had a different addressing system > >than the Internet. > Howard Berkowitz responded: > You're talking here about naming, not addressing. I can't think of a > time the addressing system ever differed regionally. . . . . [The rest of the discussion has appeared in this thread on the netizens list and can be seen in the digest at: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/netizens/digest/Digest_1-408.txt ] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 19:46:48 -0500 (EST) From: Subject: [netz] About ICANN's decreasing user participation in its processes A recent article in circleid about ICANN's manuevers: - ------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. A Closed And Secret Process Is Not The Answer To Reform The recent meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in China demonstrates a serious dilemma for Internet users around the world. In the name of reforming and making it more responsive, ICANN ended the seats of the At-Large directors on its board. Instead of any efforts on it's part to respond to a problem, they have done the opposite. By Ronda Hauben >> Full Story: http://www.circleid.com/articles/2550.asp - ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 21:05:17 -0500 (EST) From: Subject: [netz] The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Today the UN security council voted for war and against peace The press release about authorizing this move toward war is at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm The voices they report of governments claiming that this resolution is bringing peace to the world is difficult to read. As I understand it, arms inspectors previously left Iraq because 1) There was an acknowledgment that they were being used to spy on Iraq. 2) The US and Great Britain were going to begin to bomb Iraq and the arms inspectors didn't want to be the victims of the bombing. No where in this resolution is their language acknowledging the facts of the UN activity to allow the arms inspectors to be used as spies on Iraq. Also it is difficult to watch the US government, and other governments like the governments of England, and France, and China, and even Norway and Syria as part of the unanimous agreement to this resolution. There were up to 200,000 people in the US in Washington DC and many more around the country, yet the US government continues to press its efforts to control the oil of Iraq. And there were 400,000 in London and many in other countries also protesting these activities. Clearly the UN is *not* caring about the interests or concerns of the world when it goes along with such an activity as the US government's demands for support for its harrassment of Iraq and its people. How the peoples of the US and the rest of the world will find to stop such dangerous activities as the UN is now setting in motion, is hard to understand. But the peoples of the world need to find some way to challenge this march toward war that the US and now other governments of the world have complied with. Where is the opposition? Why none in the Security Council? Why such an intimidation of any honest or progressive actions in the world? Wondering but persisting And in solidarity with the people of Iraq and of other country's around the world who care for peace and cooperation among nations In support of netizenship and citizenship Ronda http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other http://www.ais.org/~ronda/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 21:22:46 -0500 (EST) From: lindeman@bard.edu Subject: Re: [netz] The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Ronda, Forgive me for responding to just one part of your post. > As I understand it, arms inspectors previously left Iraq because > > > 1) There was an acknowledgment that they were being used to spy on Iraq. > > 2) The US and Great Britain were going to begin to bomb Iraq > and the arms inspectors didn't want to be the victims of the bombing. I dunno about an "acknowledgment" at the time (I don't quite remember what facts came out when), but it is true that the U.S., ummm, 'leveraged' the arms inspections. However, Iraq decided in early August 1998 to end cooperation with UNSCOM until sanctions were lifted. So it's _at least_ plausible that Iraq, rather than the US and Great Britain, precipitated the crisis. Of course we could go over all the history and try to allocate blame cumulatively. At any rate, _some_ attention should be given to Iraq's actions, not only the US and Great Britain's. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 08:29:38 -0500 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: Re: [netz] The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Referring to the subject line, I fail to see how the UN action has anything to do with the Internet or its netizens. I'm not necessarily arguing the political issue; I'm questioning its relevance to this list. >Today the UN security council voted for war and against peace > >The press release about authorizing this move toward war >is at > >http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm > [snip comments on UN inspectors in Iraq] >No where in this resolution is their language acknowledging the >facts of the UN activity to allow the arms inspectors to be >used as spies on Iraq. > >Also it is difficult to watch the US government, and other governments >like the governments of England, and France, and China, and even >Norway and Syria as part of the unanimous agreement to this resolution. Why is it difficult? From a standpoint of world unity, this is impressive. Ronda, you give the impression that you believe Iraq's government is somehow more legitimate than these others. > >There were up to 200,000 people in the US in Washington DC and >many more around the country, yet the US government continues >to press its efforts to control the oil of Iraq. First, demonstrations aren't net activities. Second, I live in the Washington DC area and there have been only small protests. Believe me, from the major protests against the Viet Nam war, I saw crowds of 200,000+ in the area. There was nothing close. Third, assume there were 200,000. Last I looked, that was a small minority of the American population, probably less than 1 percent. > >And there were 400,000 in London and many in other countries >also protesting these activities. > >Clearly the UN is *not* caring about the interests or concerns >of the world when it goes along with such an activity as the >US government's demands for support for its harrassment >of Iraq and its people. > >How the peoples of the US and the rest of the world will find >to stop such dangerous activities as the UN is now setting >in motion, is hard to understand. But the peoples of the >world need to find some way to challenge this march toward >war that the US and now other governments of the world >have complied with. > >Where is the opposition? Why none in the Security Council? Because I really believe it's off-topic for the list, I don't really want to get into the reasoning for opposition. I will simply make two observations: 1. War is not always better, for the good of the many, than non-war. 2. Could there be little opposition because there is consensus among governments? It's certainly difficult to think of China as being an US puppet. > >Why such an intimidation of any honest or progressive >actions in the world? Specifically, what is honest about Iraq's regime? Frankly, I don't know what "progressive" means other than as a term used by certain political populations to speak of what they and their supporters do, and to condemn the rest of the world as reactionary. Howard Berkowitz ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 11:58:45 -0500 From: Philip Busey Subject: Re: [netz] The UN Security Council's vote for war and the netizen desire for peace Ronda's subject title leads us from netizens, to their presumed desire for peace, to the UN Security Council. That's a stretch, but if the UN Security Council's actions lead us to World War III and to the destruction of life on earth, then there will be no netizens, and no net. I do not anticipate a result so drastic, but even the most benign outcome may have negative consequences on netizens and netizenship. First, however, peace is generally not understood until people are sick of war. The Peace Conference leading to the League of Nations occurred 68 days after the Armistice of World War I. The United Nations charter was adopted 49 days after the World War II surrender of Germany. The large U.S. protests during the "Vietnam Conflict" followed years of war. When there is peace, people generally do not protest for peace. When war is imminent, people generally still don't protest for peace, or at least not in large numbers. All it takes is complacency and uncertainty for people not to support peace. No intimidation was needed, as many people were content to stay home and watch TV and play games on the net. As for the international diplomatic efforts, the world community heard the U.S. administration say that the U.S. would go it alone if it had to. If you want to consider that ultimatum a form of intimidation, then it was utimately the U.S. voters who intimidated the world on Nov. 5, 2002, by electing Republicans in large numbers all across the U.S. and giving teeth to this administration. I am worried about what if any secret gifts the Bush administration may have given to other Security Council members, but Secretary State Colin Powell deserves great credit for negotiating with the world community into an agreement intended to preserve peace. Second, war is used as an element of foreign policy, in some cases rationally, to prevent worse war. If there had been a United Nations that could have voted in favor of peace, sometime between 1933 and 1939, and whose members had taken collective action against Hitler's published plans for world domination, he would have been stopped. Regrettably, I cannot think of a single clear example of war preventing major war, but the intention of the UN Security Council was to vote for peace. Characterizing their actions as a "vote for war" is a misleading and unilateral characterization of their intentions. The hawks do have a similar problem as the peaceniks, which is that if they take preemptive action without compelling evidence, they lack moral conviction, are unlikely to garner volunteer enlistment, and are unlikely to maintain discipline on the battlefield. So war begets both war and peace, but peace begets neither. The people of Iraq are not effectively netizens. I understand that their media is controlled by the state, which is controlled by the Bathist family dynasty. When I see that 100% of their presumed electorate voted for the same candidate, that's a cruel joke. There is nothing honest or progressive about the Iraqi regime, or anything associated with it. It is difficult to talk about solidarity with the Iraqi people, except in the most abstract way, when they are not allowed to speak freely as all netizens should be able to do. Is war the answer? I seriously doubt it. Is the U.S. administration risking the very consequences that they say they are trying to prevent? Yes. Should war be used as an element of foreign policy to prevent war? Maybe. This will be a lot easier for us to judge based on the consequences. There are potentially negative consequences for netizens, even if the peace can be restored or if a small surgical war can prevent a worse war. The net has already been used by terrorists to send encrypted messages, there are instructions posted for destroying property and people, and hate groups of every shade of extreme are using the net to gain converts. With this threat, government can rationally intrude in the guise of Homeland Security, Predator software, etc. But this could seriously disrupt the efforts of free political discussion. What is to prevent some future political party in power from intercepting opposition messages to disrupt campaign strategy? Those of us who want to live in a free and open society, who cherish the goal of world community and world peace, are seeing enough bad apples to wonder whether we should go a little slower on globalization. Nations need to have some safety in their own national boundaries before they can feel secure enough to move to netizenship and world citizenship. Phil Philip Busey veld@veld.com ------------------------------ End of Netizens-Digest V1 #409 ******************************