FWD: Another US DNS Policy Study

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From:          Jay Robert Hauben <jrh29 at columbia.edu>
To:            "Zur Entwicklung der Kommunikationsnetze in Praxis und 
Forschung" <NETZFORUM at medea.wz-berlin.de>
Subject:       Another US DNS Policy Study
Date:          Sat, 31 Mar 2001 10:43:49 -0500 (EST)
Reply-to:      NETZFORUM at medea.wz-berlin.de


Behind the scenes, the US government makes its policy decisions 
based in part on the outcome of studies. Such a study has been 
commissioned from the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on 
what is needed for development of the Internet and specifically 
the Domain Name System.

This is an area of technical development that will impact all 
users of the Internet. The composition of the committee is not 
frozen yet. An article about this process appears in TELEPOLIS,  

"National Academy of Science Enters the DNS Controversy: New 
Committee Established to Do Study for US Congress" at

http://www.telepolis.de/english/inhalt/te/7248/1.html

The Internet is still today a general purpose interactive and 
international human-computer-communications metasystem. But is the
committee being considered for the NAS study capable of building on
this achievement?

The TELEPOLIS article by Ronda Hauben asks the question:


   "Considering [the]... background and the official role of the NAS 
   to advise the US government on scientific matters, what expertise 
   is needed to fulfill this request by the US Congress? Does the 
   definition of the problem and the composition of the NAS committee 
   demonstrate an understanding of the challenge? "


The public has 20 days from the date that the initial appointments 
were made to make comments on the selection of members. The initial
appointments were supposedly made on March 16. This would mean
that comments on the provisional appointments would need to be
submitted to the NAS by April 4.

In such a controversial matter, it seems a serious problem that there 
has been so little public discussion or awareness of the creation 
and composition of this committee thus far.

It is hard to know how the public can have any impact on this process,
but one can predict what will be the outcome if the online community
continues to be excluded from the activity of the NAS in the formation
and workings of this committee.

Jay

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