[liberationtech] Internet transition to private industry

[Karl Auerbach]

I'm not seeing the move of the net to "private" as much as I am seeing 
the net moving into the hands of quasi national entities, such as ICANN, 
that have almost national powers but no foundation in territory (thus 
outside of the Peace of Westphalia formulation) or of any form of "we 
the people" creative act by biological humans.  My sense is this 
fragmentation of plenary authority absent strong constitutional 
constraints or public accountability is going to become one of the great 
problems of the remaining part of the 21st century (assuming that we are 
not overwhelmed by climate issues.)

As for the move of the net towards "private" we have to realize that 
"private" is really a kind of dynamic, and ever changing balance over 
who has the power to say "no" to various acts.  There is always a public 
overlay to nominally private things.  For instance, even private land 
can be taxed and the criminal laws of the land still apply to acts 
performed on that land.  That balance will forever be shifting back and 
forth, based on the competition among political and economic points of 
view.)

And because a network is a synergy of its pieces there is "the curse of 
the installed base" that will act as an anchor.

So even a private internet (or as I see it, a world in which there will 
be multiple internets connected by highly policed bridges) will be 
constrained by a web of legal, financial, and technical obligations and 
duties.

(I wrote a somewhat long blog entry about how I see the net fragmenting 
here: https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/internet_quo_vadis/ )

Personally I believe that there must be some realm in which people must 
be free to try out new ideas and take risks.  So I am not a fan of 
mandatory obligations (yeah, I know that phrase is redundant) to conform 
to the status quo.  For instance I support the concept of competing 
domain name roots.  But we have to be careful not to sweep unknowing and 
non-consenting members of the public into new private innovations.

I am giving a talk in late October on the topic of the responsibilities 
of private network operators as the internet moves into a world in which 
users believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is safe for them to depend on 
the proper operation of the net in matters of safety, finance, and 
health - in other words, as people come to view the internet as a 
lifeline grade utility.

This ought to create an image in one's mind of an internet, perhaps 
privately owned (at least in pieces) but owned in the same way as our 
today's public utilities for electricity, gas, and (in the past) "the 
telephone company".  And also wrapped in elevated standards of care 
(i.e. requiring that one operate their private bailiwick with higher 
than the present levels of care in order to avoid liability on the 
grounds of negligence.)

BTW, I won my case against ICANN largely because California has a law 
that unequivocally gives sitting directors of corporations the "absolute 
right" (that's the words in the statute) to inspect and copy corporate 
materials.

         --karl--

On 9/25/19 5:44 AM, Sandy Harris wrote:
> Doug Schuler <douglas at publicsphereproject.org> wrote:
>
>> For an article I'm writing I'd like to know what are the best references to the decision-making that took place in transitioning the internet to private industry in the early 1990's (or point me in the right direction). You can share this with me personally or with the list. I'll be happy to share what I find with this list. Thanks!!
> Like most opinions on the topic, mine are highly debatable. However,
> here they are for whatever they may be worth. In the early years of
> this century, I was nowhere near the center of things, but I was on
> several mailing lists, following things & sometimes commenting. I gave
> up & unsubscribed sometime before 2010.
>
> As I see it, the whole organisation was subverted to become a
> management & enforcement operation beholden to various large companies
>   The original proposal had the board with a majority of elected
> representatives of the users. That never happened & eventually they
> eliminated user representation entirely leaving the "stakeholders" (I
> hate that word, almost as much as "human resources") in complete
> control.
>
> One example of this is that ICANN now has a whole complex mechanism
> for enforcing copyright & trademark claims, of course heavily biased
> toward the companies involved. There is of course an argument that
> some such mechanism is needed since the various national do not work
> well on the net. However, it does not seem at all clear that the
> current mechanisms are the right ones & there's also a strong argument
> the other way.
>
> Back in the days when Usenet was important, sys admins had a saying
> that they'd act against "abuse OF the net, not abuse ON the net", so
> for example they'd block spam but leave claims of libel or slander to
> the courts. Arguably, that should apply to ICANN, & if they are going
> to block anything it should be spammers and/or virus distributors, not
> copyright offenders. Arguably they should also look at things like
> making every router that connects to China drop the bogus TCP reset
> packets which the Great Firewall uses to disrupt connections.
>
> In the period when ICANN did have elected directors, one of them was
> Karl Auerbach who I am cc'ing on this message. I did not agree with
> everything he said, but did consider him one of the saner voices in
> the discussions. I'd say a through perusal of his blog at
> https://www.cavebear.com/ is essential to your project.
>
> Perhaps the most absurd example of ICANN malfesance turned into a
> lawsuit. Staff refused to give Auerbach some financial data without a
> non-disclosure agreement & he took the position that, as a director,
> he had a responsibilty to oversee things & staff a legal obligation to
> provide unrestricted access. He went to court & won:
> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/director-sues-organization-oversees-internet