The People vs. The ISOC/IAHC

[Jim Fleming <JimFleming@doorstep.unety.net>]

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"Comments of the Internet Society (ISOC)"

"These discussions, among the broad Internet community as well as in the
Internet Engineering Task Force (which was not suited to making progress on
policy, rather than technical, issues), did not result in a rough consensus.
Therefore, the Internet Society created the IAHC."

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What the ISOC fails to mention is that "they" created the IAHC and
carefully selected 9 people who would clearly create a biased proposal
(now called the MoU). The ISOC named Don Heath to be the chair of the
IAHC. Don Heath had recently been named as CEO of the ISOC and had
very little experience with the Internet. That became clear as he attempted
to lead the IAHC. The focus shifted from meaningful discussions to Press
Releases with "done deals", and no discussion.

One of the first things that the ISOC/IAHC did was showcase NSI as
a supporter in their early Press Release. People who had been discussing
these issues for years were shocked that NSI would be used to provide
the ISOC/IAHC with credibility, when so many people were concerned
about the economic and intellectual power that was already in NSI's hands.
This concern did not seem to matter to the ISOC/IAHC.

Another move by the ISOC/IAHC was to add a couple of additional
members. Again, people were carefully added for strategic credibility
reasons but not participatory reasons because the people selected had
not participated in any of the discussions in the past and offered little or
no participation in the IAHC. Again, the focus was on the Press Releases
and not results.

The resulting IAHC ended up with two groups. An extremely small working
group of people who were known to be biased against the emerging Registry
Industry (the industry they claim to be helping). The second group was there
to make Press Releases look good but to offer little or no comment. The
result was that an extremely small group of people (4-5) made arbitrary decisions
behind closed doors while claiming to be open by showcasing the IAHC as
some global Blue Ribbon Panel with world consensus.

Many groups active in the Registry Industry were not only left out of the
IAHC, they were also ignored by the working group of the IAHC. Much of
the technical work and governance work that had been done prior to the
IAHC was tossed out by the small working group. The silent credibility
group was so inexperienced it had no ability to pull this work back in or
to see what was going on.

When people raised complaints to the ISOC leadership comments were
made about the IAHC only being set up to provide "advice" BACK to the IANA
and that this advice would then be taken and reviewed and the IANA and IAB
would formulate a direction. None of this happened. Instead, the IAHC created
a plan which allowed the biased IAHC members to continue on while dumping
the silent credibility group. (Their usefulness was ended and in fact Don Heath
was one of the first to jump ship along with the NSF) The remaining biased group
then forced the IANA and the ISOC to accept their dictates and proceeded
to create one of the largest bureaucracies known to mankind. (iPOC, POC,
PAB, CORE, exCOM) This was then sold (literally) to unsuspecting companies
who assumed that the process had the support of the Registry Industry. This
was hardly the case.

Normally, the U.S. Government takes a long time to act. In the case of
the IAHC, it was easy to see how biased the process was and how many
stakeholders in the Registry Industry had been carefully prevented from
participating (while the ISOC/IAHC claimed to be open). The U.S. Government
has acted with unprecedented speed which is a clear indication of the
recognition that market manipulations by the ISOC/IAHC has done serious
damage to the emerging Registry Industry.

The U.S. Government appears to be taking the course of action where
they will FIRST get the Registry Industry back on track and THEN deal with
the ISOC and what they have done. The first step is easy because the
problem is easy. The first step is focused on getting an organization in
place to manage the legacy Root Name Server Confederation (RSC) that
the U.S. Government controls (via NSI).

The second step will be more complex and will likely involve agencies
such as the IRS, SEC, DOC, DOJ, and NSF in evaluating the damage
a small, IRS-approved, U.S. non-profit company called the ISOC, has
done to the Registry Industry. Congress will likely have to get involved
to investigate all of these matters. If current laws need better enforcement
or new laws or needed to control the ISOC in the U.S., Congress will
be the place that debate is held, not the IETF working groups.


Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation
IBC, Tortola, BVI