Re: [ALSC-Forum] Three points of disagreement

[Alan Levin]

Alexander, thanks for your posts they are most helpful.

> >1. Costs and fees
I understand that the main cost concern of the ALSC is around the posting of
the pins. A fee could be restrictive particularly in poor countries.
I have also spoken to people working in the local African namespace and they
have conceptually agreed to act as a 'distributed enrollment' point. I
believe that registries (not registrars) could be appropriate candidates
that could act as a 'trusted party' and sponsor for local distribution of
pin numbers. This could be developed into what has been suggested by Roberts
as "a connection to a local organization where truth
about identity is more easily found."

> >2. Membership and domain ownership
I am still trying to see how domain ownership is less open to fraud than the
postal pin (any DNS administrator could easily set up 1,000,000's of
fraudulant domain name holders). It is also complicated and potentially very
restrictive, again particularly in poor countries where often the tld is not
properly functional. At the meeting yesterday Pindar Wong did admit that the
only real means of authentication provided in domain registration is a fee
and an email address. I believe that the former is not completely true,
which leaves us with just the email address for authentication.

> >3. 50% vs. 31.6% of Board seats
This is an important debate.

Alan