Netizens-Digest Saturday, October 11 2003 Volume 01 : Number 528 Netizens Association Discussion List Digest In this issue: [netz] Architectural issues involving Sitefinder & related functions Re: [netz] Fwd: VeriSign Capitulates posts from the North American Network Operators Group Re: [netz] Architectural issues involving Sitefinder & related functions Re: [netz] Fwd: VeriSign Capitulates posts from the North American Network Operators Group [netz] 10,000 foot view of DNS/Sitefinder/Verisign [netz] Internet and epistemic communities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:25:37 -0400 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: [netz] Architectural issues involving Sitefinder & related functions (since I haven't gotten back my enrollment confirmation, it seemed appropriate to crosspost this to NANOG. While I will address Sitefinder, there are broader architectural and operational issues). Let me assume, for the sake of this discussion, that Sitefinder is an ideal tool for the Web user, helping with the problem of not-quite-correct URLs. Given that, I'll stipulate in this discussion that the implementation of Sitefinder, along with the .com and .net wildcards that lead to it for unresolved domains, is a true benefit for the Web user. The Internet, however, is more than the World-Wide Web. It seems only logical to be able to discuss Sitefinder in two contexts: 1. Where it becomes the default, as with the recent Verisign wildcards 2. Where it is reached in some other manner. My architectural concern is defining a way in which context #1 serves the _non-Web_ services of the Internet. If DNS were purely an information service for Web users, the architectural conflict would go away, and only commercial and policy issues remain. I would hope that within the scope of the Sitefinder discussion list, or alternatively in another forum, is an approach to reconciling the IP-level DNS such that it continues to serve non-Web applications. Is there disagreement that Sitefinder provides no functionality to SMTP trying to deliver to an unresolved domain? To a user who mistypes the name of an FTP site and does not intend to use a Web browser? What about failover schemes for non-HTTP cooperative research across the Internet, where the inability to resolve a host name (assume that cached records have a zero lifetime) triggers selection of an alternate server? Seriously, technical people at Verisign may have thought about this and actually have suggestions. They may be very good ones, but, judging on the reactions to the Sitefinder deployment, it might be well to discuss them in open technical forums before a change is made. I'm really not trying to make it a matter of personalities, but there have been public statements by Verisign executives that such a process inhibits innovation. If Verisign policy is that as operator of .com and .net, it has the right to make unilateral changes, I think that needs to be clear to all concerned. I recognize that a number of independent parties suggest that the ICANN contract does not explicitly prohibit such unilateral action. Ironically, I worked with the original founders of Network Solutions, and almost was a principal back when it was a couple of rooms in McLean. Gary Desler, the founder and a fine engineer, always used to say "there is no technical solution to a management problem". In the current context, I simply want to know the rules for the playing field. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 12:40:58 +0200 From: Alexandru Petrescu Subject: Re: [netz] Fwd: VeriSign Capitulates posts from the North American Network Operators Group Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: > This has also spread to the Internet Law list of the American Bar > Association; Which is at...? Alex GBU ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 12:48:17 +0200 From: Alexandru Petrescu Subject: Re: [netz] Architectural issues involving Sitefinder & related functions Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: > Is there disagreement that Sitefinder provides no functionality to > SMTP trying to deliver to an unresolved domain? To a user who > mistypes the name of an FTP site and does not intend to use a Web > browser? HTTP clients, FTP clients, SMTP sendmail queues are still only a small part of the entire range of types of client software users use. Content streaming (such as video) is another type largely in use. Peer-to-peer apps, database access and others come to mind too. I assume that enhancements in the way DNS replies back to this myriad of clients can only work if all clients are modified too to support these enhancements. However, modifications of each and all of these looks to me like a Herculean task, but can be done of course. Alex GBU ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:25:33 -0400 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: Re: [netz] Fwd: VeriSign Capitulates posts from the North American Network Operators Group >Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: >>This has also spread to the Internet Law list of the American Bar >>Association; > >Which is at...? > >Alex >GBU Send a message to listserv@abanet.org with "subscribe ST-ISC" in the body ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 09:50:57 -0400 From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" Subject: [netz] 10,000 foot view of DNS/Sitefinder/Verisign After attending the afternoon ICANN Security & Stability Committee meeting, I realized that the issues involved fall into several related but independent dimensions. Shy person that I am *Cough*, I have opinions in all, but I think it's worthwhile simply to be able to explain the Big Picture to media and other folk that aren't immersed in our field. In these notes, I'm trying to maintain neutrality about the issues. I do have strong opinions about most, but I'll post those separately, often dealing with one issue at a time. For those of you new to the media, it's often best to put things into small, related chunks. 1. Governance issues - -------------------- Did Verisign have the right, regardless of technical merit, to do what it did without prior warning? I'm simply saying "did they do anything contractually or otherwise legally forbidden", not "was it strongly counter to the assumptions of the Internet" or "were they mean and nasty." The news/political interest here is whether any other group should or could have affected this, or if we need new governance mechanisms. Has this revealed any conflict of interest issues? To what extent should a registry be able to act unilaterally? These points are meant to be examined here in the context of law, regulation and governance, as opposed to the less formal points in #2. 2. Process (slightly different than governance) issues. - ------------------------------------------------------ Moving away from the letter of their contracts, what should they have done (if anything) about open comment and forming consensus? This is vaguely making me wonder if they had evidence of WMDs....oops, wrong controversy. Assume they had no requirement for prior discussion. What, if any, requirements did they have for testing and validating their approach, given that a top-level registry is in a unique connectivity position with special privileges. 3. Internet architectural impact (slightly different than effects on innovation and/or effect on existing software). - -------------------------------------------------- I think it's reasonable to state that Sitefinder, and changes of "internal" behavior, violates at least the traditional end-to-end and robustness principles. This should be considered in the spirit of the core vs end state discussion in RFC 3439, and the architectural work going into midboxes. A general question here is to what extent is it important that the Internet be consistent with its relatively informal architectural assumptions? Even among the newer technical folk, when teaching, I rarely hear anyone aware of the architecture work---they think "7 layers" is the ultimate answer [1]. [1] I spent over five years of my life in OSI research, development and promotion. We may have had the answer, but, unfortunately, we never could articulate the question. That is a lesson here 4. Is the Internet the Web? Are all Internet users people? - ---------------------------------------------------------- I don't think it's unfair to say Sitefinder is web-centric. The current responses may be useful for people who can interact with it. Apparently, there are patches that will help with mail response and even anti-spamming tools. But what of other protocols, especially those intended to run without human intervention? What about failover schemes that employ DNS non-resolution as an indication that it's time to pick an alternate destination? Is the apparent trend to move from "everything over IP" to "everything over HTTP" a good one? _could_ it be a good one in well-defined subsets of the Internet? 5. Effects on innovation - ------------------------ Innovation and stifling innovation has come up quite a bit. If one looks at the End-to-End Assumption, the historic perspective is that the "killer apps" appear at the edges and depend on a consistent center (e.g., web and VoIP, the latter with a QoS-consistent center [2]). Development in the core tends to be more evolutionary and subject to discussion (e.g., CIDR). Other development in the core tends to be with the implementations (e.g., faster routers and lines). [2] Remember that the access links to an ISP usually aren't the QoS problem. Once you get to the POP, voice and other delay-critical services can go onto VPNs or other QoS-engineered alternatives to the public Internet. Verisign says Sitefinder is innovative, and let's assume that it is. But, if so, it's an innovation in the core, which is not the "time-proven way". When I speak of time-proven, I certainly don't mean that there isn't innovation -- this message did NOT reach you over a 56 Kbps line between IMPs. Internet Explorer, for example, has a means of dealing with domain typos, but it is contrary to the way Sitefinder does things. IE also does it at the edge. How do we deal with potential commercial wars between the edge and core as far as competition for innovation? 6. Stability - ------------ Assume that Sitefinder and the associated mechanisms are ideal. In such a case, users would expect it. Unless a large number of users learn to spel and tipe gud, these instances will be points of heavy traffic. What are the availability requirements to make the service dependable? This includes clustered servers at individual nodes, as well as distributed nodes. There has to be sufficient bandwidth to reach the nodes, and even if the node has adequate connectivity bandwidth, there are subtle congestion issues. It was pointed out that wireless implementers, used to expecting a small error message in their bandwidth-limited edge environments, are less than thrilled about getting a 17K HTML response. Remember, if these concepts prove themselves in .com and .net, users will expect them in all TLDs -- or we get to the generally undesirable situation of different behavior in different domains. Let's assume Verisign has an adequate track record of running reliable servers -- but what would be the requirements for a new operator of .com and .net for people expecting the Sitefinder functionality. In a new TLD, what has to be the support on Day 1? A very different question is whether business models associated with this service are sufficiently robust to be sure it stays present once users expect it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2003 11:53:05 -0400 From: Mark Lindeman Subject: [netz] Internet and epistemic communities I'm not sure how far this thread will go, but it certainly seemed time for a new subject line. Howard had written, in small part, that "there is a very real sense of community -- or meritocracy -- among a group of people who live by electronic communications." I related this to the idea of "epistemic communities" in the political science literature, and mentioned that some people have used "global Internet community" and "global epistemic community" interchangeably. Howard responded in part: >After my own google, I like the discussion at >http://www.svet.lu.se/webcourses/webkurser/002_Politisk_kommunikation/Grundlaeggande/Extra_resurser/Sem6_resurser/epistcomm.pdf > >This brings up some immediate questions beyond the original point of my >thread. Assuming the Internet engineering community forms an epistemic >community A, do our definitions of "Netizen" meet the criteria for such a >community B? If so, what is the relationship of A and B? Overlapping? A >is a subset of B? Disjoint sets, if A's technocratic barriers to entry are >emphasized? The PDF to which Howard refers is a handy short primer from the standpoint of political scientists in the field of international relations. It is convenient to quote Peter Haas's definition as reproduced there: >An epistemic community is a network of professionals with recognized >expertise and >competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to >policy-relevant knowledge >within that domain or issue-area >The professionals may be from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds but >must have: >1) a shared set of normative and principled beliefs, which provide a >value-based rationale for the >social action of community members. >2) shared causal beliefs, which are derived from their analysis of >practices leading or contributing >to a central set of problems in their domain and which then serve as the >basis for elucidating the >multiple linkages between possible policy action and desired outcomes >3) shared notions of validity-that is, intersubjective, internally defined >criteria for weighing and >validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise >4) a common policy enterprise- that is, a set of common practices >associated with a set of >problems to which their professional competence is directed, presumably >out of the conviction >that human welfare will be enhanced as a consequence. I believe that Haas originally developed the term as a way of describing the role that environmental scientists had played in shaping negotiations on water pollution in the Mediterranean. In the mid-90s I got interested in applying the concept to global climate change, but never got around to trying to publish anything -- I haven't even gotten around to finding out who _did_ go ahead and publish on that topic. To Howard's questions (with the disclaimer that every sentence that follows could be liberally larded with "maybe"s and "IMHO"s): Based on Howard's characterizations, I believe that the Internet engineering community (1) can be described as an epistemic community under Haas's definition, and (2) is an important subset of Netizens, defined as Internet users who try to contribute to the Internet's use and growth. Many Netizens primarily make 'social' contributions to the Internet; the engineering community also and crucially makes technical contributions, which take form through a distinct social process. (These technical contributions require professional expertise -- not necessarily a formal credential, but demonstrated competence within the domain.) Moreover, many other epistemic communities thrive on the Internet, and function as Netizens in so doing. Note that Haas defines epistemic communities as networks of _professionals_ not to be elitist, but on the premise that their professional standing is the source of their authority in policymaking. Many Internet communities function as 'knowledge communities' [1] without striving for policy-relevance. It may well be that some Internet communities develop policy-relevant expertise as they go. [1] "Epistemic" comes from the Greek for "knowledge"; "scientific" comes from the Latin. Haas wanted a phrase that would describe not "the scientific community" but a certain kind of knowledge community, and this is what he came up with [or perhaps borrowed from someone else]. There are many, plural, global epistemic communities ("global" meaning geographically extensive, not universal or even necessarily large in number). Google just gave me some 8100 hits for "global Internet community," which seems to be used sometimes as a plural concept ('creating a global Internet community of doctors') and sometimes as a singular concept ( a delegee "has a duty to serve the residents of the relevant country or territory, as well as the global Internet community" -- http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/speeches/twomey/ccTLD/tsld013.htm ). "Global epistemic community" seems generally to be used as a plural concept ('the global epistemic community of climate scientists'), but in the essay I mentioned previously, at http://www.casayego.com/webconf/papers/2001bugs/2001bugs.htm , the author seems to equate "the global Internet community" with "the global epistemic community," citing another paper. The idea of a singular global epistemic community doesn't seem very fruitful to me at first glance, but I may be misunderstanding the argument. It doesn't really matter what the True Definition of "epistemic community" is, but I'm interested because of the distinctive role that Internet engineers seem to play in protecting the terrain on which we function as Netizens. Are we troubled by the thought that we depend on the contributions of technocrats? (I had written, "are at the mercy of technocrats," but that seemed both hyperbolic and rude!) Across a wide range of issues, citizens must hope that experts will 'use their knowledge only for good'. A recent book by two U.S. political scientists argues that in the United States, at least, most citizens would actually prefer the government to be run by benevolent technocrats, if only we could find any. (I do not mean "benevolent _dictators_": in the U.S. even more than most other countries, citizens emphatically support limiting the scope and powers of government.) In some sense, we seem to have found some benevolent technocrats (again, not dictators) to "run" the Internet, and/or to intercede influentially (as in Haas's framework) with the authorities. The Internet is intensely "democratic," but certainly in nothing approaching the strong sense that we all can participate meaningfully in ICANN committee meetings. Sigh. Every time I try to fill in the obvious gaps and misdirections in what I've written (the ones obvious to _me_, never mind anyone else), the post gets longer. This might mean that there is room for a careful paper that tries to develop some of these themes more systematically, but I need to canvass the prior art. I just received the following invitation [APSA is the American Political Science Association]: >This is just a reminder of the Information Technology Politics (ITP) >Section call for papers for the 2004 APSA conference. This year's >conference theme is "Global Inequalities". The section encourages >proposals that consider the evolving role of information technology at >the local, national, and/or global level, as well as the theoretical and >policy implications for interactions between these levels of governance. > Such topics include, but are in no means limited to e-government, >e-democracy, digital divide, intellectual property rights, activism, >representation, and rule making. [...] Mark Lindeman ------------------------------ End of Netizens-Digest V1 #528 ******************************