Re: [ga] whois.txt, ala robots.txt, as a standard ?

["J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

As you know, Jeff, the Internet technical development is carried by 
lawyers. This is the big lesson of ICANN. IETF did not analyze what a 
domain name is and document it, so lawyers are trying.

The leading thinking at IETF (from the Congress collectively developed 
network technology) is "internetting". As Vint Cerf and Bob Khan reminded 
us a few week ago that US Gov's "internetting" prevailed over the French 
Louis Pouzin's and Inria (French Gov Labs) conception of "Catenet". The 
whole issue (names, ICANN, etc.) rrot there.

- Internetting is a mutual *access* concept (one to one among many): there 
is no network middleware as such. This is a (n inter)connexion thinking.

- Catenetting was to chain all the different network systems into a single 
continuity (you could receive datagrams on many different IP addresses on 
the same machine/system and concatenate them into a single flow). Together 
with some BBN people who shared in Internet and Inria, this rooted the OSI 
thinking  It was a communication thinking.

A typical example is what IETF names OPES (draft accepted yesterday as an 
RFC. Example: the web page the server sends to you uses gif files, but the 
OPES can replace them with jpeg). IETF thinks of them as "Pluggable Edge 
Services". OSI has not worked on them, but documented where they should be 
at the core of the network (cf. X.400). Tymnet called them Network Extended 
Services, buried in the network user's relations servicing continuity 
(Tymnet Extended Services was a relations thinking).

What all this means in term of domain names?

- Congress' technology considers the domain name as an expandable regstrant 
side access tool (you can lose it, transfer it and renew it). This supports 
the ICANN commercial thinking, Verisign, Registrars, etc.

- oher technologies consider the domain name as an alphanumeric pointer 
relating the user's mnemonic way to cal the registrant to the current site 
IP address. So it is a sotfware class both inheriting from the the mnemonic 
brainwaire class (free, life long, privacy protected, owned by the holder) 
and from the IP address hardware class (can be changed, may be charged, 
technolgy dependent). Your Judge will replace the IETF which has declared 
itself incompetent in brainware: will he be competent enough in hardware 
and software?

Just remember the simple three (and not two) steps action yours if you want 
to access IBM on the net.

1. brainware: your brain tries to resolve the mnemonic "IBM" into IBM.com, 
IBM.net IBM.us and then go to Goggle.
2. sofwtare: the DNS resolves "IBM.com" into an IP address.
3. hardware: the IP address resolves into a MAC on the machine .

Anyone, "lawyer or/and technician", can understand this; if not prevented 
by a life long and legal confusion between netting and internetting.

Another way to understand this is to consider the OSI model and the TCP/IP 
model: there is no "protocol stack" as such: the lower layers are the same; 
the upper layers difference only show whatis specificly network dependent.

The internetting being also used as a network system, this buries the 
netting within the end user system (and Windows 2005 will burry them very 
very deep into the "data storage part", trying to keep control as much as 
they can through the "standards" - the ICANN DNS). This is why if you want 
to stay consistent with OSI layers and to extend them to the upper layers 
(interapplication, assistancy, user/communities; structures, society) you 
have to rethink the user's system architecture.

But then you discover you do not need any root anymore, nor Windows 2005, 
and you become a "nethilist :-).

jfc



At 03:34 07/02/03, Jeff Williams wrote:

>Marc and all former DNSO GA members or other interested parties,
>
>   As you should know of may recall Marc, the Calif. Supreme court
>is to hear a case to perhaps determine if a Domain Name is actually
>owned by the registrant.  I posted that case filing on this very
>forum some time ago.  I believe the arguments are to be heard
>later this month.
>
>   There is no need for a piece of paper to show ownership of a stock
>so why is or should there need or seem to need to be a piece of paper
>to show ownership or registration of a Domain Name?  None!
>
>   The problem here is showing who registered or is the registrant of
>record is a non-problem itself.  Rather the personal data such as
>their home address, and phone # are not needed and are a potential
>violation of their personal privacy as well as security.
>
>Marc Schneiders wrote:
>
> > An aspect of whois that, I think, is often neglected, is the sense of
> > security of 'ownership' that it gives the registrant. The domain name
> > industry is a fully online business. As a registrant you don't get a piece
> > of paper to prove that you have some rights in a domain. Registrants will
> > start asking about that, if there is no public whois to prove who holds
> > the domain. Of course this problem (if it is one) can be solved by
> > attaching this feeling of ownership to the password to log in to change
> > nameservers, and perhaps an optional whois, for those who want their
> > details in there.
> >
> > And if it is optional all the accuracy problems we are dealing with
> > disappear :-)
> >
> > --
> > This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
> > Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
> > ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> > Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
>Regards,
>
>--
>Jeffrey A. Williams
>Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 129k members/stakeholders strong!)
>================================================================
>CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
>Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
>E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
>Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801
>
>
>
>
>---
>Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.449 / Virus Database: 251 - Release Date: 27/01/03

--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html