NSI Roughed Up in Congressional Hearing

phred writes "It didn't turn out quite the way NSI had set it up. They wanted House Commerce Committee chair Rep. Thomas Bliley, representing their area of Virginia, to beat up on ICANN at Thursday's hearing into the unfolding competitive environment for the Domain Name System registry. Instead, panel members turned their attention to new NSI boss Jim Rutt, who didn't do so good. The New York Times is on the case, but C-Span is not, as they are not apparently planning to show the hearing. " (Usual NYT "free registration required" to read the article.)

N$I Sucks

[delmoi]

I really hate those guys

I *really* wish I knew how to register domains before they started charging money for it....

well, I was only like 15, I know how to do it *now*

$70 is really a lot of money

down with n$i!!!!

second post? (that's why the grammer is bad, to get this in on time....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:N$I Sucks

[thlinuxgod]

Goto www.nic.cx. Their domains are real cheep, for the first 2 years and setup is 20 UK pounds and each year after is 10 UK pounds. I have my own domain with then, madlinux.cx, and it's great. I tried to use NSI to register and it complained about my DNS and told me my IP was not registered. The irony is how do I get my own domain if I have to have my IP registered? Go figure.

IP registration

[delmoi]

I think IP registration is diffrent from domain registration, in that an IP address gets handed out from the internet assigned names and numbers asscosation (if it still exsists), but I could be wrong. I always thought a .nu would be cool, I'll check out cx though
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

http://slash.

[delmoi]

or they could just be slash., if they registerd the 'slash' TLD. a dot at the end of a domain name still works (as in http://slashdot.org.)
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:Top-level Domains

[EEPROM]

If people were allowed to register TLDs, then the top-level name space would become crowded very quickly. It would create a low of new possible domains at first, but soon it would become just like *.com and *.net.

It would be good for new TLDs to be added, but opening it so any idiot can register a TLD is not good.

Why we need the $1 tax

[Evro]

I really think it would be a terrible disaster if domain name registration was free of charge. I mean, you see the amount of squatting that's going on now, and now you actually have to pay $70. If it were free, what would stop me, you, anybody from going around and buying thousands and thousands of names every day? Wired had a story a couple of months ago about some geek club in Europe who registered 75,000 (using a cgi script or something) of the remaining 4 letter domain names with no intention of purchasing them. I think what should be done is a $15 charge should be levied upon domain registration. ICANN should get NONE of this money. It should all be donated to charity or something worthwhile. Not lining Esther Dyson's pockets. Also, if payment is not received within a week or something, it should automatically go back into the pool. I still think squatting will be a huge problem under "my" system, but not as bad as it would be under the free-registration system. I thought for a minute that the government was making a good move getting domain name registration out of the hands of NSI, but they put it into the inept hands of ICANN, or as they should be known, I CAN'T. I don't see why the government didn't just take over if they wanted there to be no charge. I mean, if they gave NSI the monopoly, why not just take it back? If they are so concerned about costing people money to register, why don't THEY just give out the names on a First-come-first-served basis? I just don't get it. I don't understand what the point of ICANN was, is, or ever will be.

Re:Esther Dyson

[dangermouse]

She's a professional pundit, mainly. One of the "Wired" magazine crowd, those doofy "digerati" people who run around telling venture capitalists what the Next Big Thing is gonna be. She's into the EFF and stuff too.

Re:Top-level Domains

[Anonymous Coward]

New top-level domains aren't going to do any good until they mean something. The biggest problem with DNS now is that the top-level domains no longer have any real meaning. When a for-profit company can exercise control over an .org domain name based on their claim of trademark ownership, then .org no longer has any meaning as a not-for-profit domain. The blame for this current sad state of affairs lays directly at the feet of NSI, who did nothing to enforce the original intention of the DNS, and in fact has done everything they can to blur it in pursuit of the almighty buck. Unfortunately, I don't see ICANN doing any better in this regard, with their emphasis on "protecting" the IP rights of trademark holders!

Re:Why we need the $1 tax

[edhall]

When ICANN was formed, its bylaws stated that it would fund itself through domain registration. Just how this would be done was left unsaid, but it was tacitly assumed that some sort of a fee would be arranged. When ICANN did the obvious thing with the $1/domain fee, NSI turned its FUD-generating PR apparatus loose, and swore publicly that they'd never pay ICANN a dime. As a result, ICANN--which was to help broker between the several domain authorities--is in serious debt, and thus pretty much unable to do much of anything.

As for Esther Dyson, she's one of those people who has long been working toward intra-industry coordination. She sits on the boards of a number of organizations Slashdotters might know about, such as the EFF and Cygnus Solutions. (She chaired the EFF until stepping down to head ICANN.) I'm mystified why some folks here want to demonize her or put her in the same catagory as magazine pundits.

-Ed

Re:Top-level Domains

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw - I just get REALLY sick of NSI trying to milk the DNS market for money with this shit:
--
These Web Addresses are also available!
Register your name in all 3 extensions (.com, .net, .org) to create a stronger Internet identity. Just click the box next to each Web Address you want to register.
--
(In response to a search)
Now just why the fuck is there a .com, .net, and .org? I mean, isn't there supposed to be some reason, like one guy having .com and another guy with a same or similar name getting .org or .net? NSI encourages people left and right to waste this finite resource to pad their wallet.

ICANN and Money

[mattdm]

Guess what? ICANN is a non-profit corporation. No money goes towards lining anyone's pockets -- certainly not the unpaid board members'. In fact, ICANN currently is losing money. Any organization doing what ICANN is supposed to do will have many legitimate expenses. Where is the money supposed to come from? The tooth fairy?

The people criticizing ICANN seem to be either a) companies with money to gain, b) wackos who think the United States owns and/or should own the Internet, or c) completely uneducated.

Check out the ICANN web site [icann.org] for more information.

--

www.internic.net

[gregm]

This whole thing pisses me off... I saw it coming years ago but couldn't think of a way to do anything about it. We were led to believe that the Internic was a not for profit division of Netwinksolutions. When they started charging for domain names I didn't bitch I realized it takes some serious hardware to handle that database. I watched and helped network solutions create a monopoly.

Now Nutwink Solutins is practically hosting websites! Where in the hell do they get off? Where was Uncle Sam when I was starting out? Why didn't I get setup with a buttload of money and talk about a captive audience!

I don't understand why we can run our own DNS but not register domain names and host a little piece of the whois database just like we do with dns. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems doable to me.

And why does www.internic.net have a link to netwadsolutins right at the top but no link to register.com or any of the others?

And this is the clincher..... how can the whois database be theirs? I typed in the info for 60 or 70 domain names and no one has mentioned anything to me about being a non-paycheck getting, data entry person who works for Nitwit Solutions.

Did I mention this pisses me off? :)

The only REAL solution to this whole problem....

[trims]

DNS is an essential service for everyone on the internet. I don't think it's a good idea in any sense to have a single commercial organization at the controls, as NSI has been for the last upteen years.

Instead, what needs to happen is this (and I realize that it's partway there, but not fully):

1. The US Congress needs to pass a law giving ICANN the same (or similar, since it won't have Constitutional protection) status as the USPS. That is, ICANN sets the standards, makes the rules, and is the final authority on decisions.
2. ICANN needs to be given the authority to decide name conflicts decisively. That is, ICANN is the final arbiter, not the court system. Of course, ICANN should be obligated to spell out the conflict resolution system in advance, in detail.
3. ICANN does NOT actually run DNS. They contract it out like they are now to various registries.
4. $1 (or something like that) should be charged each Registry for a domain. That is, ICANN should get $1 for each domain registered. ICANN should use this for operating costs, etc. They should NOT be allowed to accept outside money of any kind, and should be required to run a balanced budget. Therefore, all their income should come from domain registration fees, insulating them from pressure by big corporate donors, etc.
5. ICANN should specify that IT OWNS ALL REGISTRATION INFO, and THAT IT MAY NOT BE USED FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN REGISTRATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES. No hording the info between Registries. No using it for bulk emailing. No funny business, period.
6. ICANN should have the legal authority to fine or revoke a Registry's contract should they fail to live up to the standards, or are caught doing something naughty.

I realized that some people will think that this centralizes a lot of power in a gov't-sanctioned organization, but I think it's really the only sane way to keep everything in line. If it's done properly, and the controlling board of ICANN is both fiscally and politically insulated, then I think it would be far and away the best thing for us.

And I thought M$ was bad. Sheesh, I've been around for over 10 years now, and NSI has gone from a nice, little company to a royally assinine monopoly that just needs to be taken apart, brick by brick. I'd LOVE to see Congress strip NSI of its Registry status, sue them for trademark infringement, and fine the living hell out of them for illegal appropriation of gov't property (the whois database).

-Erik

Re:Top-level Domains

[Chameleon]

No, exclusive top level registration and ownership is a bad idea. Unlimited TLD registration, without ownership is a better one. That way, you could own "slash.dot", while someone else could own

"linux.dot". By doing that, of course, the problem is that the internet would lose the already-pathetic system of sorting sites. Also the influx of new domain registrations (I know I would register at least one, wouldn't you?) would create something of a headache for NSI & co., at least for a while. Of course, they deserve it, don't you think? :-)

Re:Top-level Domains

[Chameleon]

That's true, but I don't think you're going to be able to reverse it. The only thing that can be done is to establish unlimited creation of new TLDs, without total ownership of the TLD in question. (e.g. slash.dot, mike.dot, both owned by different people.) The registration of the second-level domain name is still the important part, the TLD is just there to create additional combinations. With that sort of setup, companies would have no possible way to register all the combinations.

I'm still open to a limitation on the number of characters allowed in a TLD. The current scheme of a 3-character maximum primarily exists to allow faster identification of the type of site in question. However, since this would no longer be an issue under the new system, "chameleon.chameleon" would make as much sense as "chameleon.cha".

Another benefit of TLD deregulization would be the effective elimination of domain name resellers. Then, on to domain name squatters, spammers, bulk emailers, script kiddies and AOL! :-)

Re:http://slash.

[Chameleon]

No, I think it's important to keep TLDs around, in addition to second-level domains. It would be far too easy for big business to "secure" them otherwise.

Re:The only REAL solution to this whole problem...

[Chameleon]

As both a Canadian and someone who is not an American, :-) I have to say, I don't like the idea of the US effectively running the internet. I realize this is pretty much already the case, but IF a government has to be at the heart of this (and let's face it, it does), it should ideally be up to the UN. Handing over control of the database to the juistiction of the United Nations would be a good start for the US at paying off their overdue membership bills... :-)

Re:The only REAL solution to this whole problem...

[Chameleon]

Thank you, I believe I shall.

.DOT

[rs79]

The .DOT top level domain was the first "rogue"
to level domain and was created on the Usenet2
mailing list about 5 years ago. It exists today
and many root server confederations support it.

If you want your own tld in general, first pass
the clue test - set it up. Then petition the
various root server confederations to carry it.

Don't hold your breath for ICANN to do it.

--

Re:ICANN and Money

[Froomkin]

For extensive evidence that you can criticize ICANN and falsify conditions (a)-(c) above (i.e. have nothing to gain, have some sanity, and probably too much education), see The ICANN Watch site [icannwatch.org] organized by yours truly, David Post and David Farber.

A. Michael Froomkin [mailto]
U. Miami School of Law,POB 248087
Coral Gables, FL 33124,USA

The real DNS situation

[sjames]

ICANN is assuming authority that it doesn't have. So is NSI. In truth, there is no law or RFC of any kind giving anyone authority over DNS. The closest thing to that is an RFC that states the current convention for TLDs.

Any organiation or individual is perfectly free to alter their DNS configuration to use any available root server they like. There are a number of root servers out there that already recognize .nom .per .art .shop .biz .web (yes, there is a tangled.web). In addition, they have NS records pointing back to the .com .net and .org namespace.

DNS was established by convention only for the common good (by no authority at all, basically because Jon Postel said so). The thing needed to change the convention is enough 'buy in' from DNS admins on major networks. Once a few support it, the rest will give in to customer pressure. There is no real cost to an ISP, they just add a few lines to their bind configuration.

The US government can choose to place ICANN over NSI, or even cancel NSI's contract and demand that they turn over the whois and DNS records. That is legal because NSI was CONTRACTED to run the DNS for .net, .com, and .org. If the people of the net don't like it, they can (and should) decide on an alternate system and use it. There is no need for permission.

I strongly advocate a careful and considered decision on the issue. A smooth transition is in everybody's best interest.

DNS should be widely distributed, and show no national favoritism. It should not prefer corperate over personal and small business. It should not get involved in trademark disputes. If someone has a genuine claim, let them take it to court, and let the court order the name holder to de-register or transfer the name. Individual registrars can (and should) offer trademark lookup services, if possable, to help prevent disputes in the first place, but it's up to the registrant to make a final decision.

Registration should NOT be free and open at the same time. If someone wants to run a free registration TLD for non-profit organizations, they should require proof that the registrant is in fact a non-profit organization. Otherwise, it should be reasonably priced, and should require payment up front or in short order to prevent squatters from taking a free ride. Name availability should be determined based on a publicly accessable database. That database should provide a standardized and documented answer to a query (no breaking scripts with dubious legal notices etc). One possability would be to have the primary server do it through DNS. An on-hold domain could either point to mars (or localhost) or just return a TXT record with contact info.

Netizens SHOULD do everything they can to keep law and government out of DNS. The last time the US government stepped into allocation, all but the corperates were pushed out of radio and television. The equipment is cheap, but getting a frequency allocation is a process only Douglas Adams could adequatly describe.

The issue of too many TLDs can be solved by reasonable entry requirements based on technical ability to reliably serve DNS for a TLD. Things like requiring multiple servers on different networks in seperate geographical areas to ensure that the service stays up. It may be advisable to require that a completely seperate entity must provide some of the secondary servers to protect against a business going under (or unfairly using the power inherent in serving a TLD). There should be demonstrable demand for the TLD. A TLD that has (and always will have) only a handful of secondaries should NOT be added to the root system. If anyone wants that, they should run an unofficial server and have those that want to see it configure appropriatly (it's easy in *nix, Win-ders will need to work on it).

With the above, ICANN (or is it ICANT), NSI, and anything the US government does with them will all be a moot point.

Re:Why we need the $1 tax

[rs79]

Sigh. Where to begin.

Esther is a very nice lady. I enjoy very much
the time I spent with her - short though it
may be - she is very, very busy.

She is no dount an expert on telling VC companies
what to invest in but IMO she doesn't have a good
grasp of the legal and administrative framework
that the net operates under. The net looks very
different from a 5th avenue Penthouse.

Look up her achievments on the net. Thats's
what she's done.

She has admitted Ira Magaziner and IBM's VP
Roger Cochetti picked her for ICANN, and
I suspect they did so for her celebrity status
and connections.

http://www.hotwired.com/collections/genetics/6.0 2_freeman_dyson10.html

Re:Yeah, RIGHT. GREAT idea...

[Chameleon]

Can I just interject here and ask that this not turn into yet another US vs. everyone else thread?

Besides, taxation of the internet is not something that is feasible in any way. That's already been proposed endless times by countless agencies. To assume that the UN would attempt to pull it off is silly.

...and to clarify: having the root servers under the control of a single country or company is a poor idea. Look what's happened so far. Placing it under the juristiction of an international, non-profit regulatory body (such as a UN-affiliated program) is the solution, but I can't see how anyone would voluntarily give up control.

Re:ICANN and Money

[rs79]

Render unto me a fucking break. ICANN is non
profit ?

Joe Sims, an attorney in Los Angeles offered Jon
Postel some free legal advice. He then went on
to set up ICANN and the board. ICANN admitteed
yesterday they owe him $500,000 of their
$800,000.00 debt.

Lessee, he picks the board, then they pick him
to do their very expensive legal work. Jon
Postel did all this on under a million a year
with no legal, budget. Heloooooo?

OTOH, ICANN flys all over the world and stays
in 5 Star hotels. Non-profits with 10 board
members racking up $5000 a night in lodging
alone is typical of the abuses non-profits
suffer from. Other problems are: lack of
accountability (who are these guys accountable
to? Nobody except the Congress of the United
States and the California State Attorney
General) and legitimacy - does the NTIA have
the authority to turn off an American publicly
traded company (NSI) a.

Then there is the question of legitimacy. The
US Government white paper said the newco
that manages names and numbers will result
from Internet self organization. While
Ira Magaziner was saying this to us in far
away places like Geneva and Singapore where
a bunch of us traveled to attend IFWP
conferences, he was running around with big
business picking a board that doesn't have
a clue how the net works, and included one
IAHC committee memeber and Mike Roberts,
who is as good as.

We were told they were selected because they
had no previous involvement in the DNS.

Right. Read Esthers book and see how
uninvolved you think she is.

I've been involved in this for 3 years
before ICANN was created and don't consider
myselt uneducated. As an advocate of a
cost-recovery model for TLD management I
am not looking for a windfall, and I DON'T
think the USG should control the Interent.

ICANN is a bad thing. A REALLY bad thing. It
represents nothing less than a global
psuedo-government regulatory agency - this
was tried wth OSI and failed miserably.

Forget NSI - that't not your bigegst problem
and will correct itself when true competition
comes about - new top level domains, not just
a bunch of new sales agents for NSI which is
all these registrars are.

To say nothing of the fact the TM abuses that
can occur because names are now $9 to registrars

Do a whois on intel-inc.com for example. $9
gets you the right to buldgeon Intel.

Well, thank God for competition...

mcdonalds-inc.com anybody ? $9.

Re:Yeah, RIGHT. GREAT idea...

[rs79]

The Internet is not a public utility. It's
not a public network. If it was, it would
be subject to regulation by the International
Telecommunicatrions Union (ITU.INT).

Instead it's an enhanced data service. This
lets it go around the legal framework
surrounding internatinal networks.

In other words the net is a collection
of private networks. You own yours, I
own mine. Together we agree to use TCP/IP
to interoperate.

The "ruling class" of the Internet is the
collection of all people that own networks
and servers. Government, in any form doesn't
come into it in anyw ay shape or form.

You want to hand the net over to world
Governments like the UN or to ICANN's
"Government Advisory Committee" (the
aptly named "GAC"). Now, when the GAC
"advises" ICANN, how much weight do you
suppose ICANN will place on "advice" rendered
by the governments of the world compared
to us lowly users?

Re:Ira?

[rs79]

Yup, that's our Ira. About 2 years ago, he met will all the playwers it the new domain game. All of the. He wanted to meet them personally to feel them out.

His idea was to work a compromise so nobosy got what they wanted, but everybody could live with it. This was the "green paper" that said there'd be 5 new top level domains right away.

The trademark poeple and one hotshot in the EU (Christopher Wilkinson) made a huge deal out of this, and the successor to the green paper - the "white paper" took out those 5 new TLDs, gave us greater TM control and gave us the ICANN board.

I don't think Ira is too terrible. Now, Becky Burr at the Department of Commerce NTIA that is administering ICANN - there's a piece of work.

I was told the following story by an NSF staffer:

When the US Government Interagency Task Force was meeting to decide what to do about the domain issue, Commerce kept telling everybody they had all the answers, so, eveyrbody said "great, YOU handle it then" and are now laughing their asses off as Commerce mismanges this thing into the ground.

Remember, Commerce brought us OSI, too.

The truth is out there

[rs79]

http://www.dnso.com [dnso.com]

Re:www.internic.net

[travisd]

NSI has always had "other" business- when they got the contract to be "internic" it was just a small part of their business.

Re:N$I Sucks -- egg before the chicken

[SendBot]

It's been a while, but I remember going through that. I tried to register a domain, but couldn't specify any of my hosts because they weren't registered. I didn't have a domain to register them under, so got a couple ml.org names to them and tried to specify them as those. That didn't work, as I am not an administrative contact for ml.org. So then I sent in something that confused the automated system; I specified nameservers under the domain that I was registering, and it responded that it was submitted for manual processing and it would be done in five days. 7 days later, I still had nothing back from them, so I mailed them with all my invoice numbers and demanded some response. I also registered another name through register.com so I could at least get SOMETHING working. That domain went through just fine and so I set up a couple nameserver addresses through there and registered them with NSI. Still no response on the other domain. Finally, 10 days after I sent NSI a registration request that it didn't immediately reject, I got a humanoid response saying that my specified nameservers were invalid and that she changed them to the ones I had recently specified. The documentation on the entire process of getting a domain was crap. It didn't mention registering NS hosts or anything. I must say that it's a lot better now, but it still sucks.

Moral of the story: NSI is a chicken. (?)

Re:The only REAL solution to this whole problem...

[Kento]

NOT the UN. You think the US is bad, well the UN is evil. The day the UN gets any control over the internet is the day I start building cruise missiles. Don't get me wrong; the US shouldn't be at the middle of this. What I would like to know, is why anyone hasn't suggested expanding IANA. I don't know too much about this, but wasn't the IANA pretty much set up directly by Jon Postel? I think we could trust it.

Good ol' UN paranoia

[Sinner]

It always makes me laugh when I hear Americans getting all paranoid about the UN. I don't know why they do, since the rest of the world sees the UN as a hopeless beaurocracy and talking shop. I guess it's just part of the American psyche, some deep-seated need for an evil global conspiracy to be frightened about. Gives us a little light relief from worrying about their foreign policy, anyway.

Re:The only REAL solution to this whole problem...

[WorldMaker]

Yeah, and most Sci-Fi writers in the 60s and 70s wanted the UN to become the global government and take over the world (so that it would be a better place)... Niven's UN (with Secretary Generals being hereditary like kings) is one of the most interesting in this department. Perhaps the UN and Interpol should get their acts together and set up a Government-Free center of the Internet. Or perhaps not. What I suggest is we, the people of the Internet, declare that the Internet is a seperate, virtual soveriegn with no ties to any other countries government, and with its own Government of sorts, with a Court System (IRC you in court mister! courts.internet.gov #Trademark! :), and with rights and laws.