nettime: name.war.begins.on.net.

[mf@MediaFilter.org (MediaFilter)]

<B>name.war.begins.on.net.</B>

the latest developments on name.space:

the Name War on the net began last night with a mysterious
caller at 1am, trawling for information, you could say, "socially
engineering" me, about name.space.

I suspected that it was a spy for Alternic, the other "free-market"
name registry who claims to own and license top level domains.
The following day, I received a telephone call from a man claiming
to own the word "web" who threatened me with legal actions for
providing registrations under the word "web".  I referred him to
my attorney and wished him good luck.

Later, 30 min before I was to record a webcast for hotwired,
another call came in.  A stern voice, obviously on a speakerphone,
boomed through the phone "Mr. Garrin?"....
"I'm Mr. Garrin," I replied, "what can I do for you?"
"Karl Deniger here, MCS Communications, Inc."
"I think you will be receiving a lot of calls like this", he said
in a threatening tone.
"and what kind of calls might that be, Mr. Deniger?", I asked in
a polite tone.
"Cease and Desist calls, that is!" he boomed in an arrogant tone.
"You are infringing on my right to franchise..."
Then he began to demand to know details about who I was, who my
comapny is, etc., etc.
I replied to him:
"Get a pen....and write this number down...."
and I dictated my attorney's name and telephone number.
"You can get all the information you are reaquesting from that
gentleman".
"Thank you for your call".
--hang up


After eating my take-out food, with my lawyer on the
phone, I recorded the "hotseat" confrontation via telephone
with an adversary from WIRED's camp, named "Simpson", someone
with purportedly some degree of technical knowledge, and a
bizarre fixation on the details about how the internet came
to be, and the personalities involved in forming it under the
umbrella of the US Department of Defense.

He went on to proclaim why name.space. doesn't work, although
he admitted that he never tried it, and refused to believe that
it would resolve all the internic hosts, as it does.

He pontificated about IANA's authority, and set himself up for
contradiction by the Head of IANA's own quote from the NY Times
(article of Nov 23, "Rebellion over Who Controls the Net").

I quoted Mr.John Postel admitting that IANA's authority is questionable.

[...] more...

You will be able to get the whole thing, edited from the wired p.o.v.,
in realaudio format at http://www.packet.com/hotseat
It will be released on Friday, December 6, 1996.

This is not an ad for wired!


I'll keep you posted.

Paul Garrin
http://name.space.
http://namespace.autono.net.


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