July 3, 2002

12:16 PM

Anyone who ever spent any time on the Domain-Policy mailing list before NetSol shut it down without warning a year or more back (it was starting to look evidentiary, you see, and they didn't want to get sued...) will be familiar with much of what's in this Salon piece about John "Gnu" Gilmore, CORE, ICANN('t), and the Great Domain Registration Fiasco.
posted by baylink (7 comments total)

That's a great (although extremely depressing) interview. I always thought the problems were with the registrars but this makes it look like they go all the way to the top.
posted by timeistight at 1:58 PM on July 3, 2002

The registrars are a recent invention and relative newcomers. NSI has been botching administration of the DNS for decades.
posted by majick at 2:33 PM on July 3, 2002

When I said registrars, I meant Verisign (aka Network Solutions) plus a couple of others. I had always thought that ICANN were above the crap.
posted by timeistight at 2:42 PM on July 3, 2002

ICANN simply inhereted the existing policy and practice from NSI, and proceeded to do nothing useful and much that's destructive. I'm startled to discover that anyone has or had an opinion of ICANN that's anything but fiercely negative. Most of the registrars (who are, for the most part, NSI resellers) are relative innocents by comparison.
posted by majick at 2:50 PM on July 3, 2002

I'm startled to discover that anyone has or had an opinion of ICANN that's anything but fiercely negative.

Especially Cerf. I still, years later, have a hard time getting my brain wrapped around that fact. Sigh.
posted by WolfDaddy at 3:24 PM on July 3, 2002

Anyone following this issue may be interested in this thread at Interesting People
posted by webchick at 7:53 PM on July 3, 2002

ICANN is what happens when people insist on wanting a non-profit board to run things at any cost... if you've ever seen a committee at work -- and I do MOST weekday mornings -- you quickly realize how futile it is to really try and operate in that manner.

Oh yeah, and Verisign s*cks. My last experience with them? Being told on the phone that my SSN was incorrect... only to receive a letter from the very same dorks a few days later informing me that my domains had been transferred to a new account! VS or their former incarnation, Network Solutions, just never 'got' the whole 'convenient internet method' thing.
posted by clevershark at 4:41 AM on July 4, 2002