Subject: Re: An exercise in electronic democracy

From: "William Allen Simpson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 98 18:44:34 GMT

As much as it pains me to disagree with our esteemed colleague, he has
underestimated the force and effect of this Rule, by too narrow an
interpretation of the scope.

The Rule was promulgated under 47 USC 904(c)(1), which applies to the
ENTIRE CHAPTER, not a specific section.  The chapter includes
enforcement provisions.

The Rule explicitly cites authority under 47 USC 902(b)(2)(H), "...
policies and standards ... including (but not limited to) considerations
of interoperability, privacy, security, spectrum use, and emergency
readiness."

That includes DNS, DNSSec, IPSec, and even Open-PGP.

The Rule also cites 47 USC 902(b)(2)(I), "The authority to develop and
set forth telecommunications policies pertaining to the Nation's
economic and technological advancement and to the regulation of the
telecommunications industry."

Note well, IAB: develop, not just assign.  The wording of item #4 was
                not an accident.

Note also, IETF: policies _and_ regulation.

The Rule explicitly places the new corporate entity above the IAB
(now relegated to a minor consulting role) and the IETF, and
considerably expands its powers outside the current IANA scope.   This
is not a "new IANA" folks, this is much more!

This Rule creates an entity that will serve as a policy advisory
committee, "as appropriate to carry out the most effective performance
of [NTIA] functions."  47 USC 904(b).  It meets all the requirements,
including the 2 year renewable sunset required by section 14 of Public
Law 92-463, now an Appendix to Title 5 (5 USC).

Policies are enforcable.  Indeed, other agencies are required to provide
"information, support, and assistance, ... as [NTIA] may require in the
performance of its functions."  47 USC 904(c)(2).   Such "other agencies"
include the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the NSA, etc.

As an example, this language is the same used to seize "pirate radio"
equipment.

I recommend moving IANA out of the US as quickly as possible.

We need to take nominations for its location.  Finland?  New Zealand?

The CORE equipment was already stolen last week, very professionally, at
the instant the security person called in "sick".

We need to disperse the CORE database, and get it operational.

> From: Karl Auerbach <[email-masked]>
> As mere policy, the plan can not cause any contractual relationships to be
> formed with NSI, nor to assign property, nor anything else.
>
> There is no statutory authority stated in the Fed Reg notice that enables
> NTIA doing anything with NSI.
>
> If that is tried, you will see other people, such as those who brought the
> action against the 30% fund, come out of the wordwork to challange the
> award.  And the challangers will almost certainly win.
>

[email-masked]
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32

---

From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 23:28:22 -0500

Hello Bill,

Sorry, you have lept to the wrong conclusions.  Though I have said before
and I will say so again, I am concerned that there is too much free agentry
by Ira's deputy at the department of commerce going on.  While this is the
case, Ira Magaziner is responsible for the outcome of this process.
Ira.... not Burr, not  Larry Irving. Ira made that very clear to me this
afternoon in conversations I had with him earlier today about that issue.
The timing of the IAB statement today was fortuitous.  I had an interview
scheduled with Ira at 4 pm.  It turned into a long and very interesting
conversation that I hope to publish in full within two weeks.

>Note well, IAB: develop, not just assign.  The wording of item #4 [Cook: I
>>think you mean #3] was not an accident.

Cook: Bill, let's look at what you are complaining about. Brian Carpenter
today wrote:

 3. The IAB is a committee of the IETF, the open international
voluntary standards organization for basic Internet protocols.
We are therefore concerned that the proposed responsibility
of the new corporation to

	coordinate the development of other
	technical protocol parameters as needed to maintain universal
	connectivity on the Internet.

might be misread in such a way as to undermine the autonomy of the
IETF. We propose that the word "development" should be replaced by
the word "assignment".

Cook: I spent some considerable time going over this statement with Ira.
Read it slowly... couple of times.  Gave him time to ponder. He agreed that
"development" was a poor choice of words and said that he would be happy to
agree to Brian Carpenter's use of the word "assignment".  Brian, ask him
directly and get direct confirmation.

The intent, he made very clear, was to accurately translate the scope of
Jon's current authority in this area and not to increase it nor diminish it
in any way.

So there is your answer.  This was not a plot on the part of NTIA to take
over and subvert the IETF. Although, as i said above, I get reports of free
agentry at NTIA that leave me very uncomfortable.

[snip]

>We need to disperse the CORE database, and get it operational.

COOK: I believe such action would be extremely ill-advised and would play
into the hands of neanderthal elements in this country.  Such people would
love to have that as an excuse to force the US congress and executive to do
the very things that Bill Simpson and the rest of us fear.

COOK: I spent a good 30 minutes discussing the membership of the policy
council and trying to hammer home to Ira that seven user members would
cause it to fail.  He said that he found my arguments persuasive.  But he
also said that in the last week before the green paper release there was a
lot of push from user groups who claimed that, without a seat on the policy
council, their needs would not be met. The result was the explosion in
membership.

COOK: He seemed open to the idea that it could be a separate body from the
one for IP numbers and the protocol port assignment....  Along the lines of
"IANA lite" if I remember Jim Dixon's comment.  He admits that the time
lines for getting something in place by september 30 are extremely tight
and I think he is willing to concede that the effort needed to get user
members aboard would detract from other urgent pressing business.  He saw
nothing wrong with the idea that something like an open root server/dns
confederation might be told that it was to nominate one or two members to
an IANA policy council that totaled not more than seven.

COOK: But he also made something else very clear and that is that the only
way the green paper's unwieldy, unworkable (my words) 14 member IANA policy
council would be derailed was for the internet TECHNICAL community.... yes
the IETF..... to stand on its hind legs and make it very clear in well
reasoned comments *WHY* it wouldn't work.  My interpretation of what i
heard him say was that it won't do for only the IAB to say so.  Rather that
the more who complain the better.  And by complain i don't mean say its
stupid, but give a well reasoned explication of *WHY* it's unworkable.  If
every member of the IAB, IESG and every chair of ever working group files a
comment, he will have to listen.  he didn't say so in so many words but
this is, i believe, what he implied would be the case.

>> From: Karl Auerbach <[email-masked]>

[snip]

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---

From: Karl Auerbach <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:13:00 -0800 (PST)

> .... Ira made that very clear to me this
> afternoon in conversations I had with him earlier today...

Your comment has me very ticked off.  Not at you, but at Magaziner.

I've been trying to set up an appointment with him for over four weeks
now.  No luck.

He's obviously playing favorites.

Perhaps he knows that I feel that the best way to improve the so-called
"Green Paper" is through the liberal application of a paper shreder.

		--karl--

---

From: Einar Stefferud <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 01:42:25 -0800

Now that the narrow issue of "develop" vs "assign" is cleared up, I
would like to simply point out that there is a possibly subliminal
message buried in all this, to wit, that it is time for us in the
Internet Community to stop fighting and start cooperating.

This has been my personal goal since getting involved in the whole
mess more than a year ago, and I seriously renewed this objective
sometime last summer when I began to work with other people who agree
that we are confronted with a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma
Problem wherein things work well when everyone cooperates, and does
not work well when they do not.

Another view is that this need not be a zero-sum game where in
anything I gain must come our of your gain, on the assumption that
there is a fixed amount of gain to be divided among the contenders.

I must say that this has not been the Internet way to solve the
problems of dividing up the gains to be taken from our amazing
expanding industry which has given all of us so much over the years,
and which offers such amazing opportuities for the future.

The Internet way to solve the problem is to simply create more gains
to be divided up.  In short, until now, the Internet has not fallen
into the trap of thinking in zero-sum terms.  We have traditionally
just gotten together and created huge new chunks of value to be widely
shared among the growing Internet Multitides.  There is no fixed limit
to the pie to be divided among us.  There is no need to play zero-sum!

So, this is a plea to all of you out there in the Internet (or here in
the Internet) to find the values in mass cooperation by working around
the problems and finding Rough Consensus, and take the game back into
the non-zero-sum realm.

What is the point of fighting over our perceived (and abstract)
grievances about politicians in general, and Ira in particular.  Why
should we fight over all the dumb things that have happened over the
last year.

What we have to rejoice about is that the Green Paper in fact opens
the door to accept Rough Consensus for the Internet to self organize
itself to manage the coordination, stability and coherence of the
whole DNS system, plus stabilize the funding and management of IP
address allocations and assignment of Protocol parameter values.

The door is open for us to just self organize and show that we know
how to behave responsibly, in place of what over the last year has
shown that we absolutely are not.  However, I assure you that Ira and
the US Govt is quite capable of sifting the wheat of reason from the
chaff of bistering bluster and massive EMail PR Blitzkreigs.

If you are of a mind to join in an effort to build a Rough Consensus
with Running Code solution to this whole mess, just let me know, and I
will connect you into what we have been doing.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a fight, or being more
selective and only looking for the right fights to win, you need not
apply.  We do not do any of our work by fighting among ourselves or
fighting with anyone else.

Cheers...\Stef