Subject: The Elephants Are Mating and the Future of the Internet is at Stake

From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 20:55:46 -0500

This is an answer to a post to day by Dave Hughes on the appropriately
titled 'up for grabs mail list'

You are right Dave Hughes, beware of those who masquerade as your friends.

This whole process [of Internet governance] has now become so drawn out and
so delayed that all the corporate behemoths are now fully aware of how the
Internet will reshape their future.... and you better believe they are
weighing in with Ms. Burr at the Department of Commerce.  IBM would like to
run a registry.  DNS and BIND are closing in on the limits of their
scalability.  A rootserver now takes a giga byte of memory to run.  With
DNS sec the demands on the system will increase by an order of magnitude.
Some say the increase will be 2 order or even 3.

People tell me that it will be a year or maybe even more before anything
drastic happens yet the also say that they think the current system has at
the very most three years of life.  It will be interesting to see whether
IBM and/or AT&T turn out to be working on a replacement for DNS that they
will offer just in time to save the Internet.  Then the questions to be
answered will be whether the actions of Kahin and Burr gave them an
unwarranted advantage.  They (IBM and AT&T) are not the only entities in
the US (or the world for that matter) capable of doing such a replacement.
But the question remains in the Washington frenzy - where Ms Burr continues
to set her own policy towards NSI and the Green Paper - who is getting the
advantage in this allegedly open, clean and "public" process?

When I realize that Larry Irving, Ms. Burr's immediate superior will sign
the resulting rule that will codify into law the outcome on behalf of the
Department of Commerce, I do not sleep better at night.  Defeat the nasty
corporate swayed american government designs, many are saying.  Take the
IANA out of the US and deliver it to Europe, that will preserve the
independence of the net.  Will it?  Elephants are mating here.  But in
Europe an Elephant called the ITU awaits the IANA.  The very ITU largely
run by the European telcos who are rapidly waking up to the reality that
the Internet - unchecked - is gaining the power and force to surplant them.
Unless, that is, they can capture control of the Internet by capturing its
governance.  Faced with these unpalatable alternatives, I would like to
believe that Ira Magaziner is the last best hope of the Internet as someone
who can "honest broker" a solution backed by the White House -- one will
preserve the independence of the net.

Certainly the process going on underneath Magaziner does not give cause for
optimism. I have said before that despite Brian Kahin's and OSTP's
obfuscation with the FOIA 's I presented to them, I have ample reason to
continue to believe that IBM and AT&T have had privileged access to this
process.  I now have a FOIA requesting from Ms. Burr

(1)  Copies of meeting logs with whom and when Ms. Burr has met with in the
private sector and all documentation regarding her interest that the govt
hold a competition for the creation of software for shared DNS
registries....

and more broadly

(2)  Copies of records of mtgs. or discussions with AT&T, IBM or Oracle, or
with any other government agency regarding the role of AT&T, IBM or Oracle
relevant to Domain Names....

She received that FOIA February 2.  I heard nothing further until yesterday
(Feb 27th) when the FOIA officer told me "On February 2, 1998, I forwarded
your request to Ms. Burr.  At this time
I still have no answer from Ms. Burr. . . "   So Burr is already in
violation of the statutory requirements of the FOIA and the request for
extension until March 13 is now typical of the foot dragging at OSTP.

Universal Service Fund Bias

Let's  consider the sorry display in Washington last week that Dave Hughes
writes about saying: "And the organizers of the Universal Service Fund
conference, when dealing with the 'rural' connectivity problem, were
offered the chance to integrate examples of the new wireless forms of
connectivity (real examples of real schools and communities connected
wirelessly in telco-bypassing and very very cost effective ways to connect
up) [said] they weren't interested! So I have given up on the NII Dept of
Commerce operation." [I think Dave means NTIA not NII].

Dave, it has become quite clear to me that, on every level as I watch this
sorry display of Internet based technology orgies on the part of our
government and the large corporations, the objective is the government use
of the alleged public interest and public good to prime the pump so that
the corporations can sell us the technology and get us hooked on the
continuing need to buy the hardware, the software and connectivity
services.  The obscene implementation of the Universal service funds to
benefit the LECs is one example.  Kahin and Burr's meeting with IBM, AT&T,
Oracle, and DEC may be another example.  (The whole idea of basing these
programs in the Department of Commerce that is set up to benefit the
interests of the large corporations creates an environment leads to the
public interest coming in well behind the corporate interest.)

Local Technology Empire Building

What you have here far too often is empire building by the technologists.
The NTIA TIIAP grants are a lovely case in point.  Consider MercerNet, in
Mercer County New Jersey where I have been a resident and homeowner for
nearly 22 years.  The MercerNet program was decided upon by the local
powers that be in early 1995.  The alternative was to give support to a
grant application by one of the best and most innovative k-12 teachers in
the US that would actually seek federal aid to invest in HUMAN Capital, to
use in setting up an on line institute for training teachers in Internet
use.  The idea of investing in human capital instead of buying more
technology was brushed aside in favor of the MercerNet program proposed by
Mercer County Community College (MCCC) where the TIIAP reviewers bought a
program that promised the moon but 3 years later has delivered pathetically
little.

Nevertheless our tax dollars were used to put COMCAST in bed with MCCC
which got a state-of-the-art TV studio hooked up by Comcast's fiber network
to 8 of the 11 high schools in this county.  MCCC now has a network where
it can use satellite centers in the high schools for teaching (through the
full motion video that travels a fiber network) courses with branch class
rooms through out the county.  We have, courtesy the federal gov't a
$100,000 state of the art video classroom in each high school and via a
UUNET feed and Comcast fiber Internet web capability built into the
teacher's full motion video console.  We have each school system spending
approximately $25,000 additional dollars to support the program every year.

Three years ago the crowing in the local papers was loud about how TIIAP
and our local technologists were improving education in Mercer county by
making advanced placement courses taught by one high school available in
four additional high schools in real time.  Schools could share faculty and
deliver more effective education for the tax payer dollars.  This was the
siren song sung by the technologists to the NTIA custodians of TIIAP.  And
the bureaucrats at NTIA bought the bill of goods with out so much as a
second glance with Laura Breeden having a nice flame war with me in the
fall of 95 when the award was announced and I had the temerity to criticise
what was done.

This morning I found out the reality.  Our high school is running two video
courses, rather than the 5 or 6 imagined, because our Ewing township
teacher's union contract requires the high school to have a full time
paid/certified teacher in that video classroom EVEN THOUGH THE CLASS IS
BEING TAUGHT IN ANOTHER SCHOOL and the teacher does nothing but sit and
observe.  A classic case of the featherbedding tactics that kept the
fireman on board the diesel locomotives 50 years ago.  So the cost benefit
of sharing teachers was never more than a pipe dream.  Did the
technologists tell us that. No.  TIIAP that?  Nope.  No way!  But NTIA's
TIIAP did give Comcast a tax funded beachhead into our school systems.
What has Comcast done for us meanwhile?  Nothing.  It has introduced cable
modem Internet service in counties to the north of us.  Cable modem service
in Philadelphia.  But for us residents of Mecer County nothing.   NADA.  No
service.  And thanks to TIAP, to NTIA, and to the Commerce Department we
have a million bucks worth of information super highway video equipment
that likely will sit totally disused in two more years when the schools
promised payments to Comcast are up.

So Dave you are right in going over to the enemies of our alleged friends
from NTIA and FCC.  For in reality these people are NOT our friends.

Gore and Nelson

Now you (Dave Hughes) write: "The biggest disappointment to me is Vice
President Gore. He is getting lousy and incomplete advice. Of all the
people in Washington who ought to be the champion of the new technological
ways to connect up schools to the Internet, ways coming right out of
Silicon Valley, and ways which force the big turf-protecting and
technically obsolete phone companies to eat some humble pie and start
competing rather than just lobbying, it should be he. But nobody is
educating Gore on telecom of the future, rather than of the past."

Ah yes.  Good old Al Gore.  Well if Gore is getting advice from anyone else
other than Mike Nelson, I'd like to hear about it.  Mike has been Al's
technology guru since 1985.  I worked for Mike at OTA from Sept 1990 to
March 1, 1992 and watched him pull every string he could on behalf of IBM
and ANS in the NSFnet privatization days.  I have no reason to think he
likes IBM any less in 1998 than he did in 1992.  Insiders have told me that
he was installed a year ago at Al's wishes as Director of Technology
Development (I may not have the title phrased exactly right) in the FCC
Office of Plans and Policy under Bob Pepper in order to have him on hold
for a major policy role in the Gore Administration in 2001.  Moved to FCC
for safe keeping was the way they put it.  Nelson is not someone whom I
trust.  Furthermore his removal from OSTP made it possible to bring Brian
Kahin to town.  I wonder who in the current administration would like to
take credit for *THAT* move?  On the basis of available evidence, it seems
unlikely that Mike has educated Al Gore on much of anything.  And if Al
doesn't realize that he has been failed, then one has to wonder about his
capacity to lead?  In fact as I watch these people, I am compelled to hope
that the Republicans might actually nominate someone worth voting for.

The Elephants Are Mating

The elephants are mating and the future of the Internet is most assuredly
at stake.  Watch out!  I am trying as I have tried consistently for the
past six years with my newsletter to bring out into the open what goes on
behind the closed doors of Washington.  In this respect I am glad that we
have Ira Magaziner as a counterweight to the Kahin's, Burr's and Nelson's.
I intend to publish electronically to my electronic subscribers on Monday
March 2, a 41,000 character long interview with Magaziner.  My paper copy
will be out by the 4th and by the 9th I will publish the full interview on
my web site. I will very likely also include an article with my own
analysis of Ira's position.  I think both are too important to informed
debate on what Ira and NTIA are doing to shape the Internet to keep them
proprietary for longer than a week.

This is my introductory paragraph for that interview: "We interviewed Ira
Magaziner by telephone on February 23rd.  We commend Ira for patient,
no-holds-barred, approach that he took in this discussion.  He doesn't have
all the answers and is not afraid of admitting that.  The conversation
below shows the current state of his thinking in a detail not elsewhere
available.  In it he describes with candor the methodology of his approach.
Those who don't take the time to look at and try to understand what he
reveals here about his decision making process and the direction in which
he intends to push events should not complain if, having opted out of the
process, they are later unhappy with the outcome."

And this is what we likely have in store according to an authority who
knows these processes better than I do.

"To give you an idea of what is likely to come next:

1. The NTIA will assemble and review the comments and a draft Report and
Order will be prepared.

2. This draft will be coordinated through the interagency committee with
all other agencies.

3. It will then go to Irving to officially approve.

4. There could possibly be another loop in the process - such as a Further
Notice of Proposed Policy/Rule Making.

5. Upon publication, it will have the force of law, will be reviewable by
the Federal Courts, and will form the basis of U.S. positions to
other governments and in intergovernmental organizations."

The elephants are mating.  What will be left for the rest of us when they
are done?

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---

From: "Simon Spero" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 23:29:39 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Goldstein <[email-masked]>

>Just for the record: the gestation period for elephants is 27 months.

Is that mating an Elephant with an  Elephant, or an Elephant with a pig? The
reason I ask is that we do seem to have found some five-arsed monkeys...

Simon