Re: [gnso-ff-pdp-may08] Confused and Frustrated about the process

["Mike O'Connor" <mike@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Marc,

Sorry about the sluggish reply.  I removed my Fast Flux hat and 
donned my Minnesota Ultra High Speed Broadband Taskforce hat after 
our call yesterday and kinda took a vacation from Fast Flux for a while.
Let me expand on the "tech" part of your note as a way to explain 
what the trouble is.
Let's say somebody handed you some electronics to fix and just after 
you dug into the burnt part, they started saying "oh, by the way" 
(not unlike the way Dilbert's pointy-haired boss does).
Oh, by the way, there are 250 more of these things that don't work 
either... and,
Oh, by the way, this is the control module for the emergency 
shut-down system in a nuclear reactor... and,
Oh, by the way, the last time we fixed one of these, it killed a 
bunch of people and the guy that fixed it was thrown in jail afterward...
Maybe you would take a different approach to fixing it?

Nobody is saying "don't solve important problems."  We're saying 
"let's understand the problem before we try to fix it."
Hang in there.  We're going to make a heck of a contribution with 
this effort.  I just want to avoid the "ready, fire, aim" 
problem.  No sense of adventure, that's me.
mikey


At 03:35 PM 8/15/2008, Marc Perkel wrote:

> I am somewhat confused and frustrated by the process and in part 
> it's probably my fault. But I want to bring this up and see if I can 
> get a better idea of what's going on.
> I have not been part of these kind of groups before and feel like a 
> very small fish in a big pond and I have a very limited 
> understanding of the problems and politics within the ICANN 
> community. And - being self employed I'm more used to just fixing 
> things that working within a group. And I'm an engineering type - 
> one of those who would rather work with computers than people - and 
> working in a group isn't my strongest skill.
> So - my understanding of the problem is that we are given some sort 
> of mandate to deal with "fast flux". The reason behind it is that FF 
> is used by criminals (but not exclusively by criminals) to cheat 
> banks out of money. And I'm assuming that the victims of phishers 
> are interested in putting a stop to the practice.
> It seems however that the problem isn't FF in itself as there seems 
> to be legit uses for the technology. And from what I understand is 
> if we do just what we are told to do then the result is that we 
> would have to return a verdict that we need a new mandate. And I 
> would assume that then the "higher ups" for lack of a better term 
> would tell us what they really want us to do.
> Excuse me if I'm oversimplifying - but that how I deal with things.
>
> However - as I understand it - the idea of looking into fast flux as 
> it relates to fraud - that should be on the table as it is clearly 
> implied. So my understanding is - and this is where I'm experiencing 
> confusion - that there is an implied mandate to solve FF problems as 
> it directly relates to fraud. If i'm wrong about this - please 
> explain it to me.
> I'm a tech - so if someone brings me a computer and asks me to fix 
> the hard drive - and it turns out that the problem isn't the hard 
> drive but the hard drive cable - I make the assumption that the 
> customer really wants me to fix that hard drive cable because the 
> real mandate is to make the computer work. However - someone else 
> might return the computer unfixed stating that the hard drive is 
> fine, or making the customer ask that the hard drive cable be 
> repaired before we can continue.
> So - in my way of thinking - and I think as a tech - that I 
> interpret the mandate to be "figure out how to stop the fraud where 
> FF is part of the problem". So even if we determine that "stopping 
> FF" isn't the answer, that we shouldn't just stop there. We should 
> come up with solutions, or rather "ideas for solutions that should 
> be further investigated" so that at least if they kick the ball back 
> to us they have a better idea of what to ask for.
> Another issue I have in working with a group of people is that I 
> think differently and I solve problems differently than most people 
> do. Most people start at the beginning and work their way to the 
> end. If they get stuck in the middle they stop and the problem 
> doesn't get solved. That is what I see happening here. That we can 
> reach the solution phase if we haven't defined the problem.
> I'm not someone who accepts that limitation. What I do in cases like 
> this is to start looking at solutions and then think about the 
> effect the solution has. If the solution tends to solve the problem 
> then I might have accomplished the mission even if I don't 
> completely understand what I'm fixing.
> As an example. I've often been called upon to repair electronic 
> equipment that I have absolutely not training or experience fixing. 
> In fact in many cases I don't even know how to operate the equipment 
> that I'm trying to fix. I'm just told that it's broken and it's my 
> job to make it work again.
> So I open the machine up and I smell burnt electronics. So I look 
> around and I see parts burnt. So I replace the burnt parts with new 
> parts and ask someone who knows what the machine does to turn it on 
> and tell me if it's working. They try it out, it works, I'm declared 
> a genius, and I walk away with a check. And that's how I made a 
> living back when I was 19 years old. My job wasn't to understand the 
> problem, nor was it to be trained and competent. My job was to make 
> the machine work.
> The point here is that if I has limited myself to the requirements 
> of experience and training then I wouldn't have ben able to attempt the repair.
> OK - getting to the point. If I were not part of this group and I 
> were a consultant hired to just fix this then I would be doing 
> things in a different order than this group is doing it. I would be 
> looking at possible solutions as a way of defining the problem. 
> Sometimes if you get stuck in the middle you have to work back from the end.
> For example - the TTL limiting idea - we have (I think) already 
> determined that to be mostly not the solution in that we can 
> identify collateral damage. It kill all legitimate use of FF that 
> might be used for free speech. So - without determining what the 
> problem is, we know what the solution is not.
> What do we agree on? I think that we all agree that FF is bad when 
> it is used to steal money from banks and peoples accounts (phishing 
> in general). So - if we can agree that the folks who want us to look 
> at FF are really mean they want to stop FF in connection with 
> phishing, then we have a problem that we can then try to solve.
> So - if we can present ideas as either solutions or pieces of 
> solutions that can help to inhibit fraud and that do not have any 
> effect on free speech or other unintended consequences then it seems 
> to me that it's worth putting something together to at least return 
> something useful that could at least perhaps define the problem and 
> give other something to work with for the next step. And there are 
> ideas on the table for solutions that are promising that haven't 
> been sufficiently discussed because the group is locked into a 
> sequential process and is stuck at a place before the solution phase.
> I see it as putting together a picture puzzle. You dump the pieces 
> on the table and the first thing you do is find any two pieces that 
> fit together. There is no order to the process. Eventually it all 
> fits. But if you start with the upper left corner and limit yourself 
> to doing it sequentially then it's much harder to solve. I look at 
> this problem in a similar way. Maybe we can't build the puzzle, but 
> we can put a few pieces together,
> I personally do not see the FF problem as it relates specifically to 
> fraud as a very hard problem to solve. I think the issue of 
> distinguishing between FF phishing and FF free speech is trivial and 
> can be accomplished with no false positives at all while taking a 
> huge bite (possibly 90%+) out of FF used for phishing. It seems to 
> me that if I were in control of everything that it would only take a 
> couple weeks at best to code something up that would work. But I'm 
> not in control of everything and I'm working within a process that 
> include a lot of things that I'm not good at and I'm feeling awkward 
> in this environment.
> So - some of this is just venting - but I've always looked at my 
> part of the process as being one of the people who figures out the 
> solution part as my way of making a contribution to the process. And 
> I'm needing some advice as to how to be part of a group and 
> accomplish something useful. I feel like a TV repairman who is 
> called to do a home service call and there's no TV to fix.
> Thanks in advance for your understanding and advice.
>
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