In article <telecom24.542.14@telecom-digest.org>,
Seth Breidbart <sethb@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <telecom24.516.2@telecom-digest.org>, Patrick Townson
> <editor@telecom-digest.org> noted in response to an article by
> Andy Sullivan wrote:
[ICANN]
>> And they do not want to make things _too easy_ to filter
>> out; that might make the internet useful for average, everyday
>> citizens once again.
> Is that why ICANN kicked AOL off the Internet?
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two comments, Seth ... _when_ did ICANN
> 'kick AOL off the internet'?
Once, again, we see that sarcasm doesn't play on the net.
> And, if as you claim, 'ICANN has no control over the wires' then how
> come if I do not sign their contract when requested, granting them
> ownership and sole arbitrator privleges over the name
> 'telecom-digest.org' they can refuse to allow me to be on the net?
Really? Who do you get your connectivity from? I get my home
connectivity from RoadRunner, and they don't require me to sign any
contract with ICANN; my colo server gets connectivity from another
provider, and they don't require any contract with ICANN either.
I have registered several domains, and _that_ requires a contract with
ICANN. But if I preferred to just give out the IP address, I wouldn't
need those either.
> I would say that if I am required to sign a contract
> which 'allows me' to use my name and make speeches on the net, then
> the person or entity who makes that requirement has a lot of control
> over the net, wouldn't you?
But I've been using my name and making speeches on the net for a long
time, since well before I had a domain. (Depending on how you define
"the net", I could argue I was doing so before ICANN existed.)
> And what real problem would there be,
> in the process of handing out those contracts to sign in which I must
> agree to certain things to _amend_ those contracts to include things
> dealing with spam/scam, etc? Everyone has to sign one of those
> contracts every so often, don't they?
No, they don't. When does schlund.de sign a contract with ICANN?
Seth
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I seriously doubt that schlund.de has
any contact with ICANN. I get my connectivity through cableone.net
both for personal matters _and_ for the Digest. In the case of the
Digest, I use puTTY (a secure form of telnet) to connect with massis.
lcs.mit.edu in Boston. I do _not_ do telnet to telecom-digest.org.
'telecom-digest.org' only exists as a figment of my imagination. It is
an _alias domain name_, ditto telecom-digest.com and telecom-digest.net.
The only one I use is telecom-digest.org (as you may know), and all
three of those aliases (.org/.com/.net) terminate on the computer
system of the mayor of Trumansburg, NY known as iecc.com. When calls
to those three alias names (let's call it http://telecom-digest.org )
hit the mayor's computing system, they are forwarded to MIT to the
massis.lcs.mit.edu computer where they then land, or go into the
telecom-archives directory. Calls for http first land on a web page on
the mayor's computer where they are instantly redirected over to
MIT. If I did (some form of) _telnet://telecom-digest.org_ I would
wind up on Mayor Levine's computer, rather than massis/MIT. So when I
start work here each day, I must telnet (or puTTY, actually) to
massis.lcs.mit.edu and login here _on MIT_ where I pretend I am
dealing with a fictious entity known as telecom-digest.org and do all
my editing work on massis before I send it out as telecom-digest.org
using sendmail with the flag -f ('trusted user' manipulates the 'From:'
portion of the email address, so that 'ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu'
becomes 'ptownson@telecom-digest.org' or 'editor' or whomever.) Now,
is all that clear?
So whatever I do here all day, either telnetting to MIT for this
Digest, or telnetting to one of my accounts at Berkeley, CA where I
have a couple .edu accounts or a couple other .edu accounts 'back
east' I begin by hooking my computer to the cable line of cableone.net
in Independence, KS and I have a 'backup' arrangement to do dialup via
TerraWorld.net here in Independence also. I do not know what
arrangements Cable One has with ICANN, nor do I know what arrangements
the various .edu sites I use have with ICANN. All I know is that my
_domain name_ telecom-digest (multipled three times, .org/.net/.com)
is registered with ICANN and they reserve the right to take it away
from me if they wish to do so. Either I (or someone) has to pay an
extortion fee to ICANN and _sign a contract with them_ waiving most of
my rights. If that is not having control over the net, I do not know
what is.
I keep hearing people saying "ICANN has no rights over your domain name,"
and I do not know where they come from or what happens with _their_
domain names. Surely they have to sign the same contract signing away
their rights to ICANN also. Am I some sort of exception to the rules?
I must obey ICANN's rules but no one else has to? That must be the
case. I must be some sort of exceptional case; no one else has to
sign away their domain name or pay some extortion payment? Is that
why I have to keep explaining this over and over? Why should I have
to pay ICANN exortion money to be able to use my name? PAT]
Seth Breidbart (sethb@panix.com)