> The net is having a significant impact on us all - users and non-
> users alike.
Without meaning to direct this at the poster but at
ALL reading this and most especially ICANN, I have to bring something forward which
has been on my mind for years now.I have been using electronic communication via
computer since 1983 when I first got my very FIRST modem, the fastest available in
Australia, a 300/300 which you had to flick a switch on to issue a carrier. Obviously
this isnt as long as a lot of people but it DOES reflect 17 years.
Obviously, I
became interested in BBSs in the days before Fido had any impact on Australia and
thus set one up for myself and other people to use. Eventually Fido made it here
and it changed the BBS world significantly. We had access to overseas thought at
low cost to those of us who didnt actually make the overseas call to pick up data
and messages sent could expect overseas replies within a week and if you got it just
right, a few days. It went ot rather well for a few years and then the political
beasts, sensing a cauldron of "perceived power" made THEIR impact and began the degradation
of the whole process. A lot of people eventually decided that the fighting wasnt
worth the effort and some of the more enterprising created their own versions of
Fido with different names and different numbering systems to represent the nodes
participating in that network. I was a member of Fido and 2 other networks for some
time.
What I wish to bring forward is that right now Internet is still an infant
in many ways. Political posturing is now starting to surface here and there. Is ICANN
ready for it? What's to stop a few aggrieved people with the ability to do so actually
setting up a backbone not using Internet but using the same software and thus having
yet another Internet, degrading what we have now? Face it - it MAY be costly to do
that but the rewards, if properly done, are there. It cant be ILLEGAL to do so via
any country's law right now because I doubt any legislators have even dreamed of
such a thing happening, yet there it is, as a possibility.
Sounds farfetched doesnt
it? In Fido, no-one really saw the same thing happening there until it was a reality.
I hope Icann are intelligent enough to realise this possibility and address it.
Regards,
Gregh.