RE $50 Million NSF windfall??

[Michael Dillon]

On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Jim Fleming wrote:

> Yes Michael, that is a strong statement from a Canadian
> with apparently no concern for:
> 
> 	1. The national defense of the U.S.

It is in the national defense interests of the USA for the Internet to
exist, for it to operate reliably and for all nations to cooperate in
managing the infrastructure. Defense is about preventing wars and the
escalation that leads up to them. Good communications and strong economic
ties between nations are good for the defense of the United States. And
Canada. And most other places too.

> 	3. World economic development issues which must be
> 		dove-tailed with U.S. foreign policies. ARIN
> 		can not hope to track these issues and I can
> 		not imagine that the U.S. Government wants
> 		its citizens and U.S. businesses to discover
> 		that it is easier to get IP addresses as a dictator
> 		on an island in the Caribbean than as the CEO
> 		of an ISP.

Under the ARIN plan, the dictator of an island in the Caribbean would have
no special status and would have to get IP addresses from his upstream
provider just like the high-school kid in Cincinnati who has permission
from his parents to put 4 modems in his bedroom and start an ISP.

> 	5. The value of the IP Address Registry industry to U.S.
> 		citizens in terms of jobs, etc. This along with
> 		the domain name registry business is a
> 		multi-billion dollar per year industry and the
> 		U.S. is not going to allow that to walk away.

Then you must support the plan to transfer IP allocation services to ARIN
in Fairfax County, VA with the same staff (i.e. jobs) being maintained.

> "U.S. government oversight of ARIN is attempted..."
> 
> Do you own ARIN ?
> Are you compensated by Network Solutions, Inc. ?

No, and no. 

> Maybe this should be reversed. Any attempt by ARIN
> to walk off with the /8s that belong to the U.S. Government,
> the DOD, and/or the U.S. taxpayers will bring ARIN into
> a spotlight brightter than anything you probably have
> ever seen out there in British Columbia.

Fortunately ARIN has no such plans. The only group that does appear to
have such plans is the one you have recently started. 

> You often seem proud that you do not own a T.V. and
> live in an isolated area with very few neighbors. 

> Where do you get these visions up there isolated
> in Canada ?

People who don't watch TV have a lot more time to read. You can learn more
about what is going on in the world by reading newspapers and magazines
and even some Internet content. Also, we have CBC radio available which is
the best information source in the world.

> Your gross oversimplification of these complex problems will not likely
> play well in Canada and I can certainly tell you that it will not get
> far down here in the U.S. 

When explaining something to people who don't have a lot of background
information it is often useful to write a summary that explains the key
elements and provides a framework that the details can be plugged in as
the reader learns more. There is nothing gross about this.

In the future when you are writing messages to put one over on the
bureaucrats in the National Science Foundation, it would be nice if you
would not include us in the address list since we are smart enough to
know that you are intended to mislead, not to inform.

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-250-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com