<nettime> National Academy of Science and future of Internet addressing and DNS

[ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben)]

There's a new study of the Internet's DNS system that is being set up 
at the National Academy of Science which is a policy institution 
created by the US Congress to advise the US government.

The goal appears to be the same privatization of the Internet's public
infrastructure that has so derailed the activities of ICANN.


       Internet Addressing and The Domain Name System: Technical
          Alternatives and Policy Implications
        URL:
http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/Projects+_by+_PIN/CSTB-L-99-07-A?OpenDocument


And instead of learning from the mistakes of ICANN the choice 
of the committee members that has just been announced (and which are
open to be commented on for a short period of time) include
several who were part of the process of supporting  ICANN's 
creation and development.

The scope for investigation for the committee narrows the online
community to 


   "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."


   from: Project Title: Internet Addressing and The Domain Name System:
   Technical Alternatives and Policy Implications
   Project Identification Number: CSTB-L-99-07-A


To see the Internet community as large multinational corporations,
small business owners and individuals, and to have these represented
on the committee as those to make the decisions for the future of 
the Internet's infrastructure shows the US government's continued
lack of understanding of the need for effective channels of 
communication and feedback into policy decisions for the whole Internet 
community which includes the scientific and technical community,
the artistic community, the education community, etc.

The Internet was built on the basis of effective feedback, but
the efforts to privatize its infrastructure has tried to change
the course of the Internet and of the goal of its development.
Instead of learning from the effective development of the Internet,
the US government is trying to restructure Internet development
into the narrow confines of a narrow corporate model of society.

Unless one understands the nature of the feedback system that made it 
possible to build the Internet, it will not be possible to effectively
scale the Internet. However, it appears that the US government is more
interested in privatizing the Internet's infrastructure than
in finding a way to scale it successfully.

ICANN is one indicator of the US government's misdirected policy goals,
and now the formation and composition of the new NAS committee
is another such indicator.

Ronda
ronda@panix.com

http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/birth_internet.txt
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

I am working on a paper about a governance model that set the 
foundations for the Internet and would welcome comments on a draft
that I hope to have available soon.  The ICANN fiasco has shown
that there is a need for a constructive model for Internet governance.
I welcome hearing from those who feel this is a need and who 
are willing to try to collaborate toward this goal.

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