I think ICANN; I know ICANN (and Pollock's WiFi)

Much confusion today in IT Blogwatch, as the U.S. says it'll cede control of the Internet. Maybe. Errr, well, not just now anyway, if it's all the same to you. Not to mention being Jackson Pollock and how to stop your neighbor stealing your WiFi...

Juan Carlos Perez has the story:

Internet governance experts argued yesterday for and against having the U.S. government hand over the technical coordination and management of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) completely this year to ICANN, a private, nonprofit organization. Those in favor of the transition, which began in 1998, said the political price of having the U.S. involved in DNS management has become too high and holds back the international development of the Internet. Meanwhile, others warned that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) isn't yet ready to take on this task alone and that a premature withdrawal by the U.S. government could compromise the Internet's security and stability. The U.S. Department of Commerce set up yesterday's public meeting as part of its consultation process on the upcoming expiration of its deal with ICANN to co-manage the DNS. That agreement ends in September. In the weeks preceding the meeting, which was webcast, about 700 written comments were sent to the Commerce Department.

A breathless Kieren McCarthy calls the meeting "extraordinary":

In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet. Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body. However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net's root zone file - at least in the medium-term ... the internet - despite its global reach - remains an English-speaking possession. Not one of the 11 panel members, nor any of the 22 people that spoke during the meeting, had anything but English as their first language. While talk centered on the future of the internet and its tremendous global influence, the people that sat there discussing it represented only a tiny minority of those that now use the internet every day ... Everyone recognised the meeting as an historic turning point in the future of the internet, causing a strange amount of one-upmanship among those taking part.

But Ars's Eric Bangeman disagrees:

Currently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is responsible for parceling out IP addresses and domain names. In turn, ICANN operates under the auspices of the US Commerce Department, an arrangement that doesn't sit too well with parts of Europe, the UN, and many developing nations. Contrary to some reports, things are not about to change. After a meeting at the Commerce Department, Acting Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, John M.R. Kneuer, said that the existing arrangement was likely to continue, at least for another year ... When ICANN was created in 1998, the US government intended for it to be fully privatized by 2000. However, that has failed to happen for a couple of reasons, namely a reluctance on the part of the US to let go control and ICANN's inability to meet some performance benchmarks ... Kneuer did reiterate the US government's commitment to ultimately relinquishing control over ICANN.

GMSV's John Paczkowski chimes in:

Riiiiggggghhhhtttt.....(rolls eyes). At a U.S. Department of Commerce hearing Wednesday, the United States said it may be willing to cede at least some control Internet domain name management body, but it didn't say when. And today, despite strident calls for more international control, it remains unclear, at best, when or if the U.S. government will permit a shift to privitization of the Internet DNS ... I'm guessing it's still a question of "if."

Maybe it's because Glyn Moody is a Londoner:

I have been writing about the Internet since 1994, and about ICANN, the body that oversees the domain name system, since 1999. Unfortunately, in those seven years, ICANN has confirmed the fears of myself and many other observers about the stultifying effect it would have on the functioning of the Internet. Given that ICANN was backed by the US Government, which is not known for its sensitivity to the views of others, especially mere foreigners, I had largely resigned myself to this sorry state of affairs. But miraculously, something seems to have happened ... For me, the main thing to come out of this is the hope that ICANN might finally be forced to open up its totally inappropriate secrecy, and as a result that maybe - just maybe - it will start serving the Internet community in the way it was supposed to all those years ago.

BarbedY has a suggestion:

One of the things the experts should consider is ridding the Internet of its IP address pool of untraceable IP addresses. Those addresses, though pointing to IANA as the owner, will get a denial by IANA of any knowledge of the use of those IP addresses. So whoever hacks from those addresses are safe from searchers. Is that managing the pool of IP addresses of the Internet? That seems more like contributing to the bad behavior of Internet users.

Dewaun's voices in his head made him write this:

Ultimately, what came out of a gathering of the (English-speaking) great and the good regarding the internet was two things:

• That the US government recognises it has to transition its role if it wants to keep the internet in one piece (and it then has to sell that decision to a mindlessly patriotic electorate)
• That ICANN has to open up and allow more people to decide its course if it is going to be allowed to become the internet's main overseeing organisation

Let's see how long internet free speech remains free

Patrick Vande unpicks the MoU:

The Internet Society yesterday read a very direct, unambiguous statement on the role of the USG in the ICANN process ... I heard a zillion times that ISOC was the USG’s best friend. I hope this will definitively show it is untrue.

Buffer overflow:

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And finally... Be your own Jackson Pollock plus bonus link: How to stop your neighbor stealing your WiFi

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk.