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[Note that the Harvard Club is now "business casual". No more jackets
and ties... --RAH]
The Digital Commerce Society of Boston
Presents
Ted Byfield,
Moderator, Nettime
(among other things...)
ICANN, Intellectual Property,
and Digital Commerce
Tuesday, February 6th, 2000
12 - 2 PM
The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston
One Federal Street, Boston, MA
Through an erratic process intended to "lessen the burdens of
government," the Clinton administration transferred governance of the
Internet's essential functions to the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers. In trying to cement its status, ICANN has
sought to transform the net's cooperative structures into a
hierarchical contractual regime geared toward expanding and enforcing
intellectual property claims. The result of ICANN's deviation from
its technical coordination mandate into a captured policy-making
proxy for an absent-minded US government is a centralized namespace
that privileges the demands of late-adopters over innovative
expansions of DNS. This talk will provide a survey of ICANN's
activities to date and how they may advance alternative models and
extensions of DNS as a decentralized, cooperative system that is more
secure and less subject to political whim.
After working for over a decade as decade as an editor focusing on
intellectual and cultural history, Ted Byfield joined the faculty of
Parsons School of Design in New York City, where he teaches about the
social and political aspects of design. In addition to writing and
lecturing about areas where the technical and cultural collide, he is
a member of the rump Boston Working Group, co-moderates the Nettime
mailing list, and serves as an boardmember and advisor for various
New York-area cultural organizations.
This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held
on Tuesday, February 6th, 2000, from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown
Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, on One Federal Street. The
price for lunch is $35.00. This price includes lunch, room rental,
A/V hardware if necessary, and the speakers' lunch. The Harvard Club
has relaxed its dress code, which is now "business casual", meaning
no sneakers or jeans. Fair warning: since we purchase these luncheons
in advance, we will be unable to refund the price of your meal if the
Club finds you in violation of what's left of its dress code.
We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we
*really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of
Boston", by Saturday, January 3rd, or you won't be on the list for
lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston
will have to be sent back.
Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston,
Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The
Harvard Club of Boston", in the amount of $35.00. Please include your
e-mail address so that we can send you a confirmation
If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements
(we've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for
instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can
work something out.
Upcoming speakers for DCSB are:
March 6 TBA
April 3 Scott Moskowitz Watermarking and Bluespike
As you can see, :-), we are actively searching for future speakers.
If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, are a
principal in digital commerce, and would like to make a presentation
to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Committee,
care of Robert Hettinga,