back to article OK, forget DNS for a sec. Why not shift IP addresses and protocols away from Uncle Sam?

The director general of regional internet registry APNIC, Paul Wilson, has called for a staggered transition of the critical IANA contract away from the US government. Rather than be forced to wait until the controversial and complex issue of domain names is decided, Wilson proposes that the two other key elements of the …

  1. Mage Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    and resisted by the names community.

    Indeed, as the article says, no surprise.

  2. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Service Level Agreement

    The very phrase sends a terrible sense of fear and trembling along my spine.

    I foresee artificial targets with no relationship to reality

    Decisions made so that targets can be met, without any reference to what is needed.

    Endless disputes over tiny percentages of irrelevance.

    Or am I imagining that this is what usually happens?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a cluster

    ...all because some folks perceived inequity with the U.S. managing ICANN properly.

    1. Ian Michael Gumby

      Re: What a cluster

      For those of us who've been on the 'net going back to the 80's , The government hasn't done a bad job. (At least up until now... )

      All these new domains mean more places for spammers to hide and to hit us.

      (.ninja for example...)

      I don't know why the AC was down voted for speaking the truth.

  4. AustinTX

    ICANNT BELIEVE THEY PAY US FOR THIS

    It's been my long-time practice to add custom HOSTS entries to facilitate projects I'm working on which don't have "proper" domain names yet, or to clobber spam sites. What we need to do is set up an alternate DNS system that allows us to register any freaking 255-character string we want as a domain name. Similar to the abundance of free subdomain providers.

    An alternate DNS could be federated, to avoid duplication. It would, of course, fallback to existing and future ICANN domains to retain compatibility. Spam, and stale/parked/abandoned domains would be a growing issue, but it always has been - it's not like the existing, restricted DNS system prevents this at all.

    I honestly don't see how ICANN could fight us. They don't have a patent on DNS or HOSTS files, do they? There's simply no sense in paying $10-$30+ per year for some fatcat to rent us a dot and a specific word for us to place at the end of our web page names! This has become big business, big politics, and without proportionate benefit.

    Our primary obstacle is adoption. Getting a big player involved would really help, though we could launch this viraly, too. I wish Google, freedns or opendns would take up on this. Since they already provide "custom" responses, through their spam/virus/adult content filtering, they seem to have exactly the machinery we need already in place. How about Google gives everyone a free domain with each gmail account? No .com, .net, .org, .info, for me. How about http://austin.texass.loves.theregister/

    1. iLuddite

      Re: ICANNT BELIEVE THEY PAY US FOR THIS

      Another 'free' service from Google? What will that cost?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ICANNT BELIEVE THEY PAY US FOR THIS

        50% of the cost of using 8.8.8.8 with a fallback of 8.8.4.4

    2. Suricou Raven

      Re: ICANNT BELIEVE THEY PAY US FOR THIS

      The purpose of those names is to be easily readable and learnable to humans. This means some names are going to be more valuable than others, possibly very highly valuable. It also means some are going to be trademarks. This in turn means you need the legal system involved, and so a degree of centralization and administration to allow judgments to be enforced.

  5. Beachrider

    Ethernet protcols allow...

    Much of the dark-web uses alternate IP-addressing and alternate services (like DNS, etc.). Although many find the dark-web to be associated with non-legal activity, its technology is available to everyone for any purpose. If you want your own IP-scheme or other local control, you can use these technologies.

    Perhaps the shared net-services draws people back, though.

  6. Yes Me Silver badge

    Excuse me but...

    ...Paul has no standing to comment on protocol parameter matters. That's the IETF's job and the IETF has spoken.

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ianaplan-icg-response-09

  7. Yes Me Silver badge
    WTF?

    Oh, and there's more...

    "The IETF is even less attached to ICANN. It shares a "supplemental agreement" with IANA/ICANN that it can walk away with at any time with 30 days' notice."

    Rubbish. Firstly, it's an MoU (signed in March 2000) and secondly the notice period is 6 months.

    "Wilson's plan for a staggered IANA transition has, somewhat expectedly, been warmly welcomed by the numbers and protocols community, ..."

    Rubbish. It hasn't even been discussed in the protocols community (i.e. the IETF's IANAPLAN working group.)

  8. Panicnow

    Let me set up a competitor ( And anyone else)

    DNS operation need NOT a monopoly. One could set up an alternate services with alternate defined terms and conditions.

    I fancy that the ICANN DNS database "SHOULD" be legitimately mined, but even without doing it, a clever set of Ts&Cs ( $0 price for registration) and automated registration could create a usable copy pretty quickly..

    Ts&Cs by TLD could include domains that define jurisdiction, domains that "promise" Kosher, Halal, Christian, Free Speech, only sites ....

    And nice two fingers to everyone involved in the ICANN débâcle

    Any support?

    1. Ian Michael Gumby

      Re: Let me set up a competitor ( And anyone else)

      Sure. Go ahead and set up your own root servers and make sure that they are route-able addresses because you're using a shared resource to connect your networks.

      No biggie there.

      But you're not competing with ICANN because you're still routing over their controlled network.

    2. AustinTX

      Re: Let me set up a competitor ( And anyone else)

      You've got my complete support! And no worries over the "ICANN-controlled Internet". ICANN controls the leading DNS database, not the network. That does give them quite a bit of influence, but not ownership of it. It's like assuming Google and Yahoo own the concept of email just because they have popular webmail. We can all walk away and play at someone else's house any time we want. :P

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who else will protect free speech?

    The US has the strongest free speech laws in the world and the American people believe in free speech pretty much like a religion. Remember that draw Mohamed thing in Dallas? Crazy... but in the US that is protected speech. Try to do that anywhere else in the world. Any other country in the world would ban that.

    And even though the event was predictably attacked... still totally legal in the US to do that.

    Look at the laws flowing through France that want to restrict speech and remove sites from the internet. Look at the laws flowing through Estonia wanting to do the same thing. Look at the laws flowing through Canada that want to censor things on the internet.

    Is the US perfect? God no. But the internet is only as free as it is because the US made it that way. Give it to any other country and it will get censored. And give it to a conglomerate and all you'll do is let them censor the internet while claiming it was a group decision.

    I know there is a lot of anti US stuff going around because the NSA and stupid politicians that should have retired 40 years ago. But the alternatives are worse. The US on the issue of internet freedom is as good as it gets. Name a nation better. It is either too weak to have the clout to face down more powerful nations or it doesn't have the near religious convictions of the US in regards to free speech... or both.

    Practically every country besides the US wants to censor the internet. In the US, we have the First Amendment. And that means that politicians have to get a super majority to change the law. You're talking about 75 percent agreement. Which isn't happening.

    Look at how hard they try to change the gun laws which are protected by the 2nd Amendment. Whatever you think about the guns, that isn't the point. The point is look at how resilient US Constitutional amendments are to political pressure. Big popular president like Obama comes in... democrats control both houses of congress... zero traction against guns. Nothing. Because they didn't have 75 percent.

    So if you ACTUALLY want to protect free speech on the internet, keep the authority with the US. Wiser and cooler heads will tell you it is the best option.

    1. Adam Inistrator

      Re: Who else will protect free speech?

      well said

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