Re: [ALSC-Forum] Three points of disagreement

[Kent Crispin]

On Sat, Sep 08, 2001 at 10:41:04AM -0300, Alan Levin wrote:
> 
> 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.

I don't think that cost is the concern.  The cost of mailing a letter
around the world is < $2.  There are other continuing administrative
costs just in maintaining a large database of people's addresses -- 
addresses change.


> 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."

Whatever remote enrollment point you chose -- registries, Alexander's
scheme, governments, whatever method you chose -- can be dishonest. 
Fair, honest elections within a single jurisdiction are problem enough;
such elections across multiple jurisdictions are impossible.  Fair elections 
depend on a web of accountability/trust that simply doesn't exist across 
the globe.

> > >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).

Yes, I agree.  Both methods are extremely weak in terms of fraud 
prevention -- it's hard to make a choice between them.  They are not 
mutually exclusive, incidentally -- one could use a combination of 
methods. 

> 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.

The advantage of domain name registrations is that it gives a net of 
distribution points that are (or could be) under contractual 
obligations to ICANN.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain