<nettime> villa voice over namespace digest [byfield, hauben]

["nettime's_letter_editor" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
     Re: <nettime> Village Voice on Paul Garrin and Name.Space
ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben)
     Re: <nettime> Village Voice article irresponsible journalism?

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Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 12:16:16 -0400
From: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> Village Voice on Paul Garrin and Name.Space

nettime's roving reporter (Thu 04/05/01 at 06:26 PM -0400):

> http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0114/ferguson.shtml

slashdotters were a bit more critical than the article:

     <http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/03/2258226>

...which is pretty remarkable, because comments about DNS on
slashdot tend to be naive in the extreme: lots of 'hard-nosed'
libertarian types and people saying 'we should set up our own
root'--as if there weren't already lots of alt roots.

this one was especially notable, imo (note the author's domain):

     Possible Solution: The British Way of Doing Things
     (Score:5, Insightful)
     by The Dodger (dodger@2600.com) on 01-04-04 6:13 EST
     (User #10689 Info) http://www.2600.com/

     The .uk domain is administrated by Nominet, a not-for-profit
     organisation, whose membership is open to "any person or
     organisation with an interest in the Internet". Effectively, it's
     a kind of co-op and the most active (and, therefore, the most
     influential) members of this particular co-op are it's biggest
     customers - the ISPs who register *.uk domains. 
     
     Nominet is a monopoly, in that it has exclusive control over the
     .uk TLD, but few complain about this, because it is largely run
     by and for the benefit of it's customers. 
     
     Furthermore, the oversight inherent in an organisation with open
     membership and the competition between those ISPs in the
     marketplace ensure that Nominet's actions benefit all UK Internet
     users. 
     
     This is how all TLDs should be administrated - for the common
     good, instead of for the profit of the company who won the
     contract. 
     
     And, incidentally, this is how ICANN should be run, too. 
     
     D. 
     
cheers,
t

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Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 11:35:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@ais.org (Ronda Hauben)
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> Village Voice article irresponsible journalism?

>Week of April 4 - 10, 2001
>Paul Garrin Says Monopolies Choke the Web. Now Congress Is Starting to Listen.
>Casting a Wider Net
>by Sarah Ferguson

(...)


>From the moment the U.S. government moved to privatize the Net back in
>1995, handing Network Solutions a lucrative contract to administer the
>.com, .org, and .net domains, critics have questioned why this "truth" has
>to be so narrow. Why should one company have the right to charge people
>premium rates-at that time $100-to sign up for Web suffixes devised when
>the Net was still a Cold War military and education project? Why should an
>aspiring artist have to scrap to be www.sculptor.com when she could just
>as easily be www.erotic.sculptor or www.heavenly.form?

(...)

The Internet is *not* a "Cold War military and education project".

It is the result of scientific research to make technical communication
and resource sharing possible across dissimilar networks
under different political and administrative control, networks
that were very different technically as well.

The DNS was *not* intended as a directory system.

It is being used for a function that it was never intended to 
serve and can't serve.

Those who are exploiting the current problem for their own
self benefit are not helping to understand or solve the problem.

Just as in the telephone system there has been a need for directories
to serve a directory function, and that the telephone numbers
couldn't be made to serve that function, so with the Internet,
it is not to try to make the DNS serve the need for a directory
function.

It would be good to see more responsible reporting in the Village
Voice of this problem so that the public is educated.

Ronda
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/centers-excellence.txt

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