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Ongoing items of the moment:
Who decides 'top' names on the Internet?
-- What new names are allowed, who gets a name when it's disputed,
and assures accountability and transparency of the domain name/number
serving system? This is still one of the most centrally organized
aspects of the Internet.
News Flash! Global "free"market
economy not the second coming! -- George Soros and
other unlikely sources' doubts about capitalism
Local currencies -- Printing
local money to bolster local economies and prompt us to think
about economics
Gulf War -- Before the Random Item
of the Moment, I realized a few things during the Gulf War.
Hazard to the Net -- The original Random
Item of the Moment
Y2k -- Will we learn more from this than we
have from other things that we have done to ourselves?
Doh! We've done it again! Y2k is perhaps one of the collectively
stupidest things that we have done to ourselves since inventing
nuclear weapons. Some people have managed to use nuclear weapons
to wake people up into real dialgue about peace. Perhaps we can
use Y2k to wake people up to real dialogue about technology and
some more general questions about how we do things in "modern"
society.
So, where does John say to go for interesting Y2k memes?
Co-Intelligence Institute
(on Y2k)
Co-intelligence has nothing to do with Y2k sirectly, it's a word/idea
that Tom Atlee has been working on for a while. He's working hard,
and it shows. Cross-linked by hand, there is more content here
than you could wade through in a month, but it is all interesting
and pointful. There are also countless links to other Y2k and
other interesting sites everywhere.
Much of co-intelligence is stuff that I, you, and many everyday
and ancient cultural/religious stories/figures have taught before.
But Tom says it well, and weaves a net cast wide into an increasingly
coherent whole.
Assuming some or any of these terms make sense, it's like complexity
theory with a moral component about working with everyone's (including
those who can't always speak their needs, like children, the ecosystems
we live in, etc.) interests in mind if not at heart.
Our cells work co-intelligently to transform resources into energy,
physical components for growth/maintenance/repair, etc. We work
co-intelligently (to some extent) in *collectively* producing
food and other basic needs for ourselves. Co-stupidity is just
as possible, as demonstrated by us human beings in creating problems
for ourselves, such as Y2k and nuclear war.
I think of Y2k as like nuclear war, but backwards:
Nuclear War Y2k
----------- ---
When? No idea (accidents happen) We've always known: 1/1/2000
How bad? The end of the world, No idea
as we know it (TEOTWAWKI)
Top 10 Y2k recommendations:
1 Keep talking about it. Look at the list of Y2k discussion boards at wild2k.
American News Service
Great short list of resources (on Y2k and *many* other interesting/related
things)
http://www.americannews.com/resources.html
And believe it or not the ABC/ZDNet Y2k site.
Who decides what names can
exist on the Internet?
Several answers:
1) Anyone can, for $35 a year, rent a name from the for-profit
company to which the U.S. government has granted a monopoly. You
can be mynewplace.com if no one's taken it. Check it out at http://rs.internic.net/
2) Furthermore, once you have mynewplace.com you can create anyaddress@mynewplace.com
and anything.you.like.mynewplace.com.
3) But what if you want mynewplace.corp? or mynewplace.ltd? Not
available. Who gets to decide that? The last time .com, .org,
and .net were created
Struggle is a-brewing over who gets to control new global top-level
domain names (gTLDs). gTLDs are the part at the end of Internet
addresses: .com, .edu, .org, .net, .mil, and all the country-based
address endings. Who gets to create new ones? Does anyone get
to disallow certain names (which others have an economic interest
in, or find offensive for example)?
History
The U.S. government contracted with Internic to
rent domain names for a reasonable fee to cover the cost of maintainaing
the databases and dealing with any disputes as they arose. The
U.S. government contracted with the Internet Assigned Number
Authority (IANA) (basically Jonathan Postel), to maintain
the 12 root name server computers around the world.
The contract with Internic was to end April 1, 1998. Until a few
months before that, the U.S. government was giving tacit support
to a plan called CORE. Ira Magaziner, the Clinton administration's
point man on this issue, presented a "green paper" with
suggestions not mentioing CORE. As April Fools' Day passed, it
became clear that the government was not going to hand things
over to CORE. Jonathan Postel went ahead and tested some of the
software changes needed if things were to be handed over to CORE
(or anyone else). When the government found out, they asked him
to switch it back. Before he did, two
of the computers were stolen!
The government extended the Internic contract until October 1,
1998. The "green paper" was heavily criticized by many,
and was followed by a somewhat more acceptable "white paper."
A number of conferences were called with many interested parties,
developing many ideas but in the end the form of ICANN (the new
non-profit that is being charged with making some important domain
name decisions) was determined, and the board chosen by Internic,
IANA and the U.S. government.
By this time it was clear that no complete system would be in
place by October 1, so the contract with Internic has been extended
for two years, with some recognition that there will be competition
long before the contract ends.
In October Jonathan Postel (head of the IANA) dies of a
heart attack (age only 55, though apparently he was known to have
heart trouble).
In November Ira Magaziner (the point man for the U.S. government
on this issue) resigns, and the CEO of Internic resigns.
"WIPO has held similar consultations in Africa, Latin America,
North America, Asia and Europe.
The consultations follow a request for WIPO recommendations on
the relationship between intellectual property and Internet domain
names made by the US government in its statement of policy on
the management of Internet names and addresses.
WIPO expects to issue an interim report based on comments received
during the consultation procedure on December 1 1998.
Further consultation will follow, and the final report is scheduled
for publication on March 1, 1999."
I have realized some things during the ongoing U.S. mis-adventure
(imperialism, anyone?) into Persian Gulf politics referred to
as the "Gulf War" in the United States. Massacre is
more like it, as losses during the military portion of the war
were many hundreds (if not thousands) of Iraqis per "allied"
casualty. Beyond the military portion hundreds of thousands have
died in Iraq as a direct result of embargoes on various critical
food and medical supplies.
Well, I'll stop blathering here. I wrote something reasonable:
[add essay in News from Nowhere]
Hazard
to the Net:February 8, 1996 Feb 8-10 June 26, 1997 The social and ---------------- -------- ------------- political struggles U.S. enacts Web pages U.S. Supreme over the Net are Communication across the Court strikes well underway. Decency Act (CDA) world go down online criminalizing black censorship How it all ends uncertain but (including provisions of up depends on vast portions this one) the CDA. what you and I do. of the Net. in protest. 1998: Senate passes, House about to vote on new censorship legislation...
In the meantime local governments in the USA and local &
national governments all over the world are instituting various
kinds of censorship, confiscating computer equipment and jailing
people, etc.
At the same time we need to pay attention to other
negative aspects of the telecommunications "reform"
bill (which the Communications Decency Act was only a part of),
and the positive possibilities of the Net's many new media. Puh-leaze...
Find out more, and learn what you can do, at my Good
Media Design page.
------------------------------------------------------------ __
John Abbe | Worst thing about censorship is %$#@#*@! //\\
johnca@cgl.org | Learn about Net censorship & what you can \\//
Cat herder | do: http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html //\\
Imagine my ribbon blue---> {/ \}