Much Ado About Names The internet naming system, known as the "domain name system" has made the transition to the private sphere from the once taxpayer supported public sphere, under guardianship of the National Science Foundation. The current operator of the name registry, the InterNIC (internet network information center), is Network Solutions, Inc.who now enjoys a highly profitable monopoly. Network Solutions, Inc., who is owned by Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) began charging for the once gratis name registrations in September 1995 as the internet was well on its transition to a commercial marketplace. Their registration fee of $100 for the first 2 years of service has richly lined NSI's coffers as the number of registrations reached around 50,000 per month during 1996. During this interval, the limitations of the current naming paradigm became obvious as companies discovered that they had to race, or in some cases litigate, to secure their internet identities, "their-name.com"--only to discover that it was already assigned. Some, like golf protege, Tiger Woods, became victims of name speculators who registered famous names in hopes of selling them back to their rightful owners. The holders of "tigerwoods.com" were said to be willing to give the REAL Tiger Woods his name back only if they could do his website! Part of the problem lies not just in human greed, but in the limited number of the so-called "top level domains" administered by the InterNIC, "com." "edu." "org." "net." and "gov.". Under this system, which has its roots in the US Dept. of Defense bureaucracy, was designed to identify the purpose or geographic location of computers on the internet. The "com." domain was the division given to commercial network addresses, who at the time the system was established, were a minority of networks on the interet--the majority being "mil." "gov." "edu." and "net.". Now that the number of commercial networks has grown beyond any scale ever imagined by the architects of the internet, the "com." domain has proven to have reached its limits. Users have been frustrated by the limitations, speculation, and buraucracy associated with registering an address on the internet with the InterNIC/NSI/SAIC monopoly. Pressure on the committee that assigns unique parameters on the internet, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has pushed IANA to for an ad-hoc committee to decide how to deal with the domain name "shortages". IANA has put forth a controversial plan to license comapnies who wish to compete in the market for domain name service--in a market- place which was recently deregulated, and in which IANA has no congressional authority to impose regulation, or levy taxes --or as they frame it, collect license fees: a $1000 non-refundable application fee, a $2000 annual license fee, plus 2% of comapany revenues. IANA claims that these funds will be spent on maintaining the rootservers--the computers which hold the central name dabase. The computers holding the domain name database are currently run by an inner circle, most of whom are members of the IANA. The server at University of Southern California, USC, for example, is run by Mr. John Postel, the head of the IANA. The locations and operators of the current rootservers include: Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN-DOM) Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Working Group, Networking Subcommittee c/o Director U.S. Army Research Laboratory Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005-5067 Domain Name: DREN.NET Administrative Contact: Reschly, Robert J., Jr. (RJR3) reschly@ARL.ARMY.MIL (410) 278-6808/8676 (DSN) 298-6808/8676 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Fielding, James L. (JLF) jamesf@ARL.MIL University of Maryland (UMD-DOM) Academic Information Technology Services Network Operations Center Bldg 224, Room 1301 College Park, MD 20742 Domain Name: UMD.EDU Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Sneeringer, Gerry (GS307) sneeri@NI.UMD.EDU (301) 405-2996 Network Solutions, Inc. (INTERNIC-DOM) 505 Huntmar Park Drive Herndon, VA 22070 Domain Name: INTERNIC.NET Administrative Contact: Network Solutions, Inc. (HOSTMASTER) hostmaster@INTERNIC.NET (703) 742-4777 (FAX) (703) 742-4811 Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact: Kosters, Mark A. (MAK21) markk@NETSOL.COM (703) 742-4795 (FAX) (703) 742-4811 Los Nettos (LN-DOM) USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695 US Domain Name: LN.NET Administrative Contact: Postel, Jon (JBP) POSTEL@ISI.EDU <-----Mr. Postel is head of IANA****** (310) 822-1511 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Woolf, Suzanne (SW145) WOOLF@ISI.EDU (310) 822-1511 Billing Contact: Anderson, Celeste (CA534) celeste@ISI.EDU (310) 822-1511 University of Maryland (UMD-DOM) Academic Information Technology Services Network Operations Center Bldg 224, Room 1301 College Park, MD 20742 Domain Name: UMD.EDU Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Sneeringer, Gerry (GS307) sneeri@NI.UMD.EDU (301) 405-2996 U.S. Sprint/NSF International Connectivity Project (ICP-DOM) VAHRNA0401 13221 Woodland Park Road Herndon, VA 22071 Domain Name: ICP.NET Administrative Contact: Kurt, Gastrock (GK368) gastrock@SPRINT.NET 1-800-230-5108 Technical Contact: Kilmer, Hank (HK468) hank@SPRINT.NET 1-800-230-5108 (FAX) 703-904-2292 Zone Contact, Alternate Contact: Sprint Network Info. & Support Center (SPRINT-NOC) noc@sprintlink.net (800) 669-8303 Billing Contact: Goel, Vab (VAB-US) vgoel@SPRINT.NET 7039042635 NORDUnet (NORDU-DOM) c/o SUNET-KTH S-100 44 Stockholm SWEDEN Domain Name: NORDU.NET Administrative Contact: Eriksen, Bjorn [System Manager] (BE10) BER@SUNIC.SUNET.SE +46 8 790 60 00 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Liman, Lars-Johan (LL846) LIMAN@SUNET.SE +46 8 790 65 60 (FAX) +46 8 24 11 79 Vixie Enterprises (VIX-DOM) Star Route Box 159A Woodside, CA 94062 Domain Name: VIX.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact: Vixie, Paul (PV15) paul@VIX.COM (415) 747-0204 DOD Network Information Center (NIPR-DOM) Government Systems, Inc. Attn: NSI (Hostmaster) 14200 Park Meadow Dr., Suite 200 Chantilly, VA 20151 Domain Name: NIPR.MIL Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: Government Systems, Inc. (HOSTMASTER) 703-802-4535 (FAX)703-802-8376 HOSTMASTER@NIC.DDN.MIL IANA's plan, which has no congressional mandate, is imposing regulation on a deregulated market, subsidizing corporations, and collecting double taxes on US and International companies, as evidenced by the identities of the networks who would reap the benefits of any fees imposed on other registries. To add insult to injury, is to examine the profile of SAIC, a 2 billion dollar company with strong ties to the Pentagon and the NSA. SAIC is an employee-owned company of 20,000 with about 450 offices around the globe. Its current board of directors include former National Security Agency chief Bobby Inman, Former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, and the former head of research and development for the Pentagon, Donald Hicks. Ex-CIA director Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense William Perry and CIA Director John Deutsch have been past board members. Eighty-three percent of SAIC's $2 billion annual revenue comes from government contracts, including defense, intelligence and law enforcement contracts. SAIC is designing new information systems for the Pentagon, helping to automate the FBI's computerized fingerprint identification system, and last year won a $200million contract to provide "information support" to the IRS. (source: John Dillon, "Networking with Spooks", CAQ magazine, winter, 1996). Enter the free market. Individual comapnies cropped up in response to the command economy of artificial shortages that had been imposed by a US-centric, militaristic bureaucracy and created new networks of rootservers outside the "sanctioned" servers on which all connections on the internet depend. If your name does not appear in the "sanctioned" database (the rootservers detailed above), your name will not be found everywhere on the internet....only other computers who check the "outsider" database will be able to resolve the new domain names created by the independent companies.--and there are already around 200 new possible names under which one can register on these new services. This poses a problem for the independent upstart name registries because, although they may have a fully functional rootserver system in place, and a fully automated and operational registration service in place, they are essentially frozen out of service becuase the de-facto rootservers, controlled by members of IANA, decide which entries will be in the database of the "sanctioned" rootservers. Hence, the IANA has a vested interest in protecting their control over the "whos-who" list of internet networks, as do their compatriots at Network Solutions, Inc., SAIC, and the government agencies who do business with them. For an example of a fully functional, independent name registry, please go to http://namespace.pgpmedia.com. For some further information on the controversy, please go to http://www.packet.com/hotseat this is a "realaudio" webcast between John McChesney of NPR, Paul Garrin of name.space., and Simpson Garfinkel of WIRED magazine. Also see, "Rebellion Over Who Controls the Net" by Christine Biederman and Jamie Murphy (N.Y. Times, "Cybertimes", November 23, 1996) "Internet Domain Names: Whose Domain is This?" http://www.itu.ch/intreg/dns.html by Robert Shaw,Advisor, Global Information Infrastructure Information Services Department, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Geneva, Switzerland (Presented at the workshop "Coordination and Administration of the Internet" held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, September 9-10, 1996). the John Dillon article "Networking with Spooks" appears in the latest issue of CAQ, available soon at http://mediafilter.org/caq (or http://caq.mag.)