InterNIC 2000 - v1.0

[Jim Fleming]

On Wednesday, March 12, 1997 2:23 PM, John Curran[SMTP:jcurran at bbnplanet.com] wrote:
@ Jim,
@  
@    o As noted, the difficulty of ISP's getting 
@      non-portable allocations is something that
@      I expect the AC should look into it and give
@      some direction.
@ 

Fine...the Regional InterNICs can help with that...

@    o With respect to AC composition, these folks
@      will be selected by the membership.  I don't
@      know about the startup condition, but would
@      expect folks to be selected based on their
@      qualifications not position/organization.
@ 

In my opinion they should be selected from
the Internet community and the regional communities

@    o The Internet is a success that we'd like to 
@      continue, and hence capricious changes to 
@      the operational model are generally not 
@      encouraged.  If you've got a viable change
@      which addresses a real problem, then I'd
@      definitely let folks know about it.
@ 

John,

Can you explain who we is in "we'd like to continue..."?

Does your statement above imply that there is
small circle of people that have everything worked
out and really do not want input ?...and input is
labeled "capricious"...?

For your information, I am not suggesting
"capricious changes". In fact, just the opposite is
the case. I am suggesting that people stop, step
back, develop a plan and not jump into something
like ARIN which I find to be capricious and self
serving of not only the people founding ARIN but
also Network Solutions, Inc.

Let's review the facts.

1. Network Solutions, Inc. is profiting from domain registrations
	and their monopoly arrangement provided by the U.S.
	Government and the National Science Foundation (NSF)
	they have recently crossed the one million domain mark.
	<http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,8704,00.html>
	Unfortunately, they are having trouble keeping track of
	who has paid and who has not paid. It has been clear
	to many people that the growth needed to be distributed
	but Network Solutions, Inc., the IANA and the NSF
	did not forge ahead and make anything happen months
	or now years ago when they were warned by many of
	the companies still here waiting to be recognized as
	TLD registries.

2. Since October of 1992 Network Solutions, Inc. has wanted
	to be the "single contractor" handling everything.
	<http://rs.internic.net/nsf/nis/proposal-toc.html>
		"Network Solutions believes NSF's objectives will be met
		most effectively by the award of the bulk of the services to
		a single contractor."
	The NSF wisely chose THREE companies to work together.
	These three companies formed the InterNIC. Network
	Solutions, Inc. is not the InterNIC. The InterNIC is
	currently AT&T and NSI the two companies that remain.		

3. Mr. Jon Postel (the IANA) was listed as a subcontractor to Network
	Solutions, Inc. on their proposal which is on their
	web site.
	<http://rs.internic.net/nsf/nis/sectionM.html>
		"Network Solutions proposes Mr. Jon Postel as the
		IANA Manager and Chairman of the Advisory Panel for
		the NREN NIS Manager project. He will provide services
		as an employee of USC's Information Sciences Institute (ISI),
		subcontractor to Network Solutions."

4. Mr. Postel's decisions and/or lack of decisions have helped to
	delay the progress thus allowing Network Solutions to
	increase their market share and further enjoy their monopoly
	arrangement. Several people have experienced several
	iterations of discussions, proposals, hand-offs,
	policy changes, etc. with no clear decisions being made
	causing the potential participants to be hand-cuffed
	by this indecision from groups that have U.S. Government
	backing and funding.

5. Mr. Postel was instrumental in forming the IAHC and in
	selecting the people he wanted to assist the IAHC.
	It is likely that he had some idea of what they would produce.
	He obviously did not select random people or people
	who were known to represent a broader consensus.
	Many of the people selected, including the ISOC
	CEO and the Chair of the IAHC were very inexperienced
	and did not understand the complex issues of the
	domain name system or the history of the committee
	members selected for the IAHC.

6. For months, Mr. Postel has been seeking a "legal umbrella" to
	protect himself. The ISOC was selected in the Spring/Summer
	of 1996 and as you can see, the IAHC chaired by the CEO of
	the ISOC, Mr. Donald Heath, is well represented by
	the legal profession. Mr. Postel and Mr. Heath are now
	named as defendants in the following lawsuit resulting
	from the apparently inexperienced decision making by
	the IAHC.
	<http://www.iahc.org/iahc-discuss/mail-archive/1815.html>
	<http://www.iodesign.com/complaint.html>

7. The IAHC report has not threatened Network Solutions, Inc.'s
	future in any way and if anything has delayed the process
	even more, once again allowing Network Solutions, Inc.
	to increase market share and further enjoy their monopoly.
	Despite claims that NSI is losing money and can no longer
	fund all the contracted NSF services such as IP address
	allocations, NSI is able to fund new services such as
	Digital Certificates.
	<http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/mar97/shoppingcart.html>
	In January of 1997 the NSF paid NSI more money...
	<http://rs.internic.net/nsf/agreement/amendment5.html>

8. While the IAHC and other companies were "busy", Mr. Postel
	and Network Solutions, Inc. have also been busy
	deploying more Root Name Servers. Mr. Postel evidently
	spent very little time with the IAHC. He invested his time
	in other ways. These Root Name Servers compete
	with the recently announce eDNS Root Name Servers.
	<http://www.edns.net>
	Some of the servers are located at NSI and some at ISI.
	The claim is they will be moved to other locations.

9. While companies have been "on-hold" waiting for these
	elaborate decision-making processes other significant
	events have occurred:
	Mr. Jon Postel was appointed to the Board of Directors
	of Genuity a subsidiary of Bechtel <http://www.genuity.net>
	In November of 1996, the National Science Foundation
	awarded USC/ISI another $1.5 million dollars.
	<http://www.nsf.gov/ftp/awards96/awd9615/a9615927.txt>
	In January 1997, plans were announced by NSI to launch
	ARIN to charge for IP addresses Mr. Jon Postel is listed as
	a proposed Board member of ARIN. <http://www.arin.net>

10. Despite claims of cooperation of the IAHC and NSI on the
	original ISOC/IAHC Press Release, Network Solutions, Inc.
	has clearly invested their time and energy in other ways.
	A summary of NSI's progress can be found at...
	<http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/feb97/registry.html>
	Information on the 1,000,000th domain registration is at...
	<http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/mar97/million.html>


@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Here are the real problems....InterNIC 2000 helps address these...

	1. Internet resources are not being distributed in
		a fair and equitable manner.

	2. Companies are being prevented from participating
		in the industry on a level playing field.
		Simple decisions and changes could open
		up huge markets and opportunities but
		only one or two people can make the decisions
		and they do not. They instead make what I
		consider to be "capricious" decisions.

	3. The Internet Registry Industry is not expanding as
		rapidly as it could because control is constantly
		centralized in a few geographic areas and
		educational programs and community outreach
		are not being encouraged. Instead the focus
		is on building a company to take public.

	4. Customers are not satisfied with the services that
		NSI provides. This holds for the domain name
		registration side of the business as well as the
		IP Address Allocation part. There are many,
		many reasons for this dissatisfaction, the
		most important being:
		A. Lack of ability to handle volume billing
			accurately.
		B. Lack of understanding and sensitivity to
			ISP-customer relationships.
		C. Double billing and refund policies.
		D. Added regional costs of doing business with
			a company in Fairfax County Virginia.
			(travel, phones, consultants, etc.)
		
	5. The notion of the InterNIC is being lost. People
		now assume the InterNIC equals Network
		Solutions, Inc. Even Network Solutions, Inc.
		uses the names interchangably on the
		InterNIC web site and AT&T is rarely mentioned.
		This is not a service to the Internet community.
		The ONLY reason that the InterNIC has been
		successful is because the average user assumes
		it is an agency of the U.S. Government similar
		to the FCC or FAA.

	6. The IS, DS, RS stable three-legged stool structure
		is being lost. When the IS company was
		ejected by the NSF, another company should
		have been selected. Instead the IS functions
		and RS functions were merged. This left NSI
		to watch over the operations because AT&T
		is too big to pay proper attention and the NSF
		seems unwilling to be active program managers
		because they are supposed to fund "science"
		and not "business".

	7. More efforts are needed to look at the long term need
		to merge the Internet and standard Government
		bodies. This continued view that a separate
		Internet republic can be created that is above
		the law does not scale and is not in the best
		interest of the people who have funded much
		of the Internet development.

ARIN's solution appears to be to have a small circle of
friends take important Internet Resources into their
private non-profit company to allocate as they see fit
without any checks and balances, guarantee of stability,
or ability of the people to shape the outcome.

ARIN has not addressed...
	...the fairness issue (#1 above)
	...the level playing field issue (#2 above)
	...the NIC expansion issue (#3 above)
	...the customer service issues (#4 above)
	...the InterNIC/government relationship issues (#5 above)
	...the stability of cooperative IS, DS, RS structures (#6 above)
	...the need to find a place in government issue (#7 above)

--
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation

e-mail:
JimFleming at unety.net
JimFleming at unety.s0.g0 (EDNS/IPv8)