Hijack ?

[Jim Fleming]

On Friday, July 18, 1997 11:02 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
@ On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:55:56 CDT, Jim Fleming said:
@ > ARIN is currently three people from Network Solutions, Inc.
@ > This is a private company launching another private company
@ > to apparently "inherit" U.S. Government assets (IPv4 Addresses)
@ > to use to their financial advantage.
@ 
@ I would love to hear the legal argument in an international court of law
@ stating that the US Government *owns* integers.
@ 
@ Remember - it's *NOT* about ownership.  It's about coordinating *registering*
@ who is *using* what integers to prevent collisions and similar problems.
@ 
@ You don't own your Social Security number - it is registered so nobody else
@ (hopefully) uses it.
@ 
@ You don't own your credit card numbers - but somebody keeps track of which
@ ones you use and which ones are somebody else-s.
@ 
@ You don't own the license plate number on your car - but somebody runs a 
@ registry to make sure that *you* have *your* number and not somebody else's.
@ 
@ Some of these registries (some of which are even governmental) charge you
@ for this service (credit cards, license plates), others are paid for out
@ of your tax dollars for the "common good" (social security numbers).
@ 
@ IP allocation has been in this last category  (free governmental) for so
@ long that the attempt to move it to some other category (registry by a 
@ for-pay private organization) that the resulting mental stress is causing
@ some of us to lose track of what is *really* going on.
@ -- 

Here was a response posted on another list...


With Internet resource allocation issues the discussions
always seem to divide along the lines of private vs. state
ownership.

In the U.S., most people are comfortable with the model
of private ownership backed by a state safety net. People
own land, but if they die or disappear the state has methods
to absorb the land back into the system. In some cases
the state has the ability to take resources for the good of
the society for example when land is purchased for highways.

The Internet seems to have just the opposite model. The
Internet leaders continue to try to build a system based
on state ownership backed by a private safety net. The
private safety net is a small circle of people who attempt
to work behind the scenes to keep the communist/socialist
Internet running.

In my opinion, this second model does not scale and it
will never mesh well with societies that have already
worked out the logistics of private ownership backed by
the state. The small circle of friends can never replace
the state and investors will expect private ownership to
make sure that their investments are secure.

It seems unlikely that the Internet leaders are going to
change their ways. By acting as the safety net, all of the
financial rewards that normally go to the state, such as
taxes, go to the small circle of friends. Meanwhile, people
are expected to build businesses on resources that are
supposedly owned by this virtual "cyber-state". In many
cases, there is no state in the picture because the leaders
of the government are clueless and the small circle of
friends work hard to make sure the state does not become
educated and enter the picture.

In summary, the academic, socialist system that was
used to formulate the Internet does not have a smooth
migration path into democratic and capitalist societies
as found in the U.S. Converting the Internet is almost
as difficult as converting the Soviet Union to capitalism.
Resources owned by the "cyber-state" have to now be made
private and one would expect the state to provide the
safety net. The safety net position is occupied by private
people that are looking to cash in on their work and they
are clearly not going to move.

This deadlock situation will be deadly for the net...
--
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation