Zittrain: Hi.
A. This course = fun
+ no gut. 2 weeks ‘til invasion by
hordes of MIT’ers. Law schoolers. FAS students.
B. Can we figure out
what to do with Ethernet jacks? In-class polling. This course about a sense of the possible futures of the
Internet.
C. Intros: Hal Abelson (MIT professor/troublemaker); me –
Becca Nesson; Isaac Lidsky; Elizabeth Eaton; Amada Moger; John Palfrey.
D. Other stuff:
bring a laptop always if you can. Class
website <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is02>. Rotisserie (see website).
E. Theory of the
course. Cyberlaw has no boundary.
Step 1: All cyberlaw cases
represent the Internet. In the
beginning everyone was happy on the net.
Everyone was happy off the ‘Net.
Step 2: Some people got to be
unhappy on the ‘Net. Bad things
happened to them. Insulting email to a
person. Record companies are unhappy.
Step 3: Some people are mad and
won’t stand for it. They use weapons:
the Law, Lawyers.
-Don Henley Christian thoughts site. Poor guy threatened for using his own name
with threatening legal jargon (questionable validity) letter.
Another weapon: Tech. The rules don’t always apply to techies
(because they can get around it). They
built the ‘Net.
E. What is the
course about again? Who would want to
control behavior on the net? What are
the tools to do it? Can the ‘Net itself
be changed?
II. How the Internet, the web, domain names began.
A. A network – a way
of two computers talking to each other.
B. A numbering system - When there are more than two, assign
each a unique number. Packets may be
sent to many, but computers “know” to ignore packets not for them. (Some computers are “promiscuous” and look
at packets not for them.) We are
running out of numbers, IPv6 will have enough for everything and everyone.
C. A namespace - #s are hard to remember. You want a mnemonic. There was “The List”
with names connected to numbers. This
was good if your number changed, and good for remembering things. BUT it didn’t scale. The list got too big. Too hard to lookup, to hard to
add/remove/change. Too many requests
for same thing.
D. “They” – Some
people decided to fix it. Some guys in
a room having fun with toys and gov’t grants??? Engineers. Want a design where there is no doubt how
networking will work: RFCs.
E. RFCs: RFCs, when final, determine how things will
be. No enforcement, just that everyone
needs to do the same thing to make it work.
Example: all packets are equal.
Could use an RFC that deals with quality of service to make things that
need priority, like streaming video.
F. The IETF: (Internet Engineering Task Force). A bunch of guys (a few girls) who are
engineers talking about stuff. Not very
easy to sue b/c no president. Rough
consensus, by hum.
G. The DNS: (Domain Name System). (In an RFC) How it works:
1) type domain name into your browser; 2) browser decides what is a domain
name; 3) asks operating system to associate the browser with its IP address; 4)
OS asks your ISP (usually – but cf. new.net – competing domain name system)
Kazaa??? Duh; 5) ISP, looking for IP
address, goes to root and asks where to find the list of .edu’s; 6) Then asks
.edu list for stanford.edu, etc. etc.
This is totally distributed. So no one at the root has to care when things are added out on
the branches.
H. Managing the root/Jon Postel: The IANA = Jon. If you wanted IP #s or domain name, you went
to Jon. If you wanted a new TLD, you
went to Jon. (com, net, org, int,
addr?, arpa, edu, gov, mil, info, biz…). Jon was an unpaid martyr.
He was also the RFC editor. Jon
got bored and told the NSF to find someone else to do the job.
I. Country codes: He created country codes, starting w/
.uk. Didn’t want to get into foreign
policy, so found a big list of countries.
ISO 3166-1. If you want a country code, you have to be on the ISO
list. .pl for Palestine given last
year. Big fight over Pitcairn Island
because everyone on the island requested redelegation (by petition). .tv Tuvalu.
J. Postel cont.: He got NSI to manage .com, .net, .org. Gov’t contract to manage .com, .net,
.org. NSI started giving out the names
for free, first-come-first-served basis.
MCI got Sprint.com, Kaplan testing got Princetonreview.com. Corporate America started to get head out of
sand. NSI got the NSF to agree to making registering domain names a for-profit
operation. Registration only for 2
years for $70. Then you have to
re-register it (for another $35 per year).
They were making very big bucks even before the .com revolution.
K. Some other people got mad. People who wanted money.
People who’s names got taken (cybersquatting). People who wanted new TLDs.
L. What could/did Jon do?: whatever he wanted. He realized situation was delicate.
M. Root zone aside: Jon felt bad that the root zone was on
his personal computer. So he got NSI to
manage the root zone file along with .com, .net, .org. NSI -> :D. 12 backups as well.
L. cont. Jon
convenes committee: Internet
International Ad Hoc Committee. They
produced the gTLD-MoU. Sole purpose of
gTLD-MoU was to confuse. (hmm?)…..
M. Crisis: NSI said they wouldn’t do what Jon said
anymore. Jon not psyched. Jon redirects
half of the root server operators (who have no contract and are buddies with
Jon) to B instead of A. NSI has a cow –
calls FBI etc. etc.
N. Ira Magaziner (Clinton-ite): of the Commerce Department,
steps in. Took it from NSF to DoC. Produces the Green Paper, and the White
Paper. A statement of U.S. policy. U.S. gov’t attempt to put some stability
into system that started informally and was having big problems just when
becoming popular.
O. White Paper: by fall of 98 a new organization should be
created from the Internet community at-large to deal with the mess—deal with
DNS policy problems. Solicited many
(one) proposals.
P. IFWP: International Forum for the White Paper. NSI behind the IFWP?? See what we can get
consensus on. Consensus that new
organization should be open, democratic, inclusive, transparent, fair…. Meanwhile, Jon makes bylaws for a new
organization. IFWP makes nothing but
has lots of meetings. NSI wrote IFWP
community consensus bylaws. Would
Berkman Center introduce as “The Harvard Draft”? Nope.
Q. Big meeting planned by NSI: everyone but Jon would
come. Magaziner called Postel and NSI
(+ lawyers) and told them to work it out.
(Meeting at Harvard proceeds without them – produces BWG and BWG
bylaws). Produced joint bylaws from Jon and NSI. Called it ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers. Magaziner gives it to
ICANN but says they have to make BWG
happy by adding a membership.
R. Jon dies. Now
U.S. government has no one to whom to say yes.
Joe Sims (Jon’s lawyer) filed the bylaws and named the Board. They picked a chair (Esther Dyson) and then
named Joe Sims ICANN’s lawyer. They met
in Cambridge, hosted by Berkman Center.
S. Problems with DNS:
-
NSI has too much power/money, others want in. DoC talks to them and creates a distinction
between registries and registrars.
Registry actually keeps the list.
Registrars actually talk to people and then register the name with the
registry. Fee down to $18 for names
(when registrar pays registry).
Registrars can charge any amount they want. (NSI is both Registry and a
Registrar. They add a bunch of new registrars).
-
ICANN comes to oversee the agreements instead of the U.S.
gov’t. (U.S. gov’t control annoyed
other countries.)
-
Cybersquatting – ICANN establishes the UDRP (uniform dispute
resolutions policy). By registering a
domain name you agree to the UDRP arbitration procedure to settle disputes
about this. No specific
jurisdiction. Based on contract.
-
Expanding the namespace – many countries taking generic
registrations. Some new TLDs
approved. Proposals and $50,000 taken
and 7 new tlds added.
III. Questions:
A. ??: Who got
.info?
-
Afilias (owned by NSI and Register.com). Other companies got other ones.
-
Sunrise period so that TM owners could get in line
first. People claimed copyright in
words like “earth” and “science”.
People outraged. Now you can
challenge the sunrise registrations.
B. ??: How do new
registrars make money?
-
They charge a markup.
But some of them don’t. It’s a
bad business.
-
NSI has to actually has to pay the wholesale price to
themselves. (Actually they had to split
into two companies, at least officially).
C. ??: Is a registrar obligated to renew the contract after
two years? Can they auction it
off?
-
They aren’t allowed to do that sort of thing. It is all in the contracts. Much of it hasn’t been tested.
-
John P: NSI supports auctions so that if you want to auction
your name, you can put it into an auction directly after buying it or if a
registered name becomes unregistered.
D. ??: Is NSI a public company?
-
Used to be owned by SAIC.
Made 20% of it public. Made
lots. Then they got bought by
Verisign. Verisign is publicly
traded.
E. Jake Shapiro: What happened to membership?
-
There is still nothing much doing. There are 5 “At Large directors” on the board, elected online
(the African director by only ~63 votes)
-
A lot of people continue to fuss about it.
-
ICANN doing a study to see whether membership should still
exist.
IV. What is governing the Internet? Who is in control? How should it be governed?
A. Engineers deciding on technical
merits no longer works when there are policy issues.
B. ICANN “technical coordination”
of the Internet.
V. Welcome.
<http://cyber.law.Harvard.edu/is02>