Feelings about ICANN
I get irritated at ICANN. Even angry sometimes. But was reminded yesterday of what it is like for those who loathe ICANN. I spent a few hours as an invited panelist at the ITU in Geneva and met a few people whose hatred foams. I should note these were not ITU staff, they are ok. But it was some of the ITU delegate types and some who serve them.
I had expected a techno-political meeting on a proposal for augmenting DNS services by using the Class capability. An interesting idea with, in my opinion, far too many technical challenges to seem practical. Something that even if all the technical challenges could be overcome would take far too long to deploy, so that I wonder whether the effort might not be better spent in other endeavors.
But this became beside the point as part of the meeting turned into an attack on ICANN and the US. And this hatred was fueled by misinformation. Which I tried to counter, but fear with little effect.*
With some of the people attending there was genuine interest in the idea and what its potential benefits might be. But with some of them, the value proposition was not in the services it might bring, or in a interesting idea on ways to use a long ignored protocol element (always a favorite activity of mine), but rather a way to get ICANN. Hatred was the killer app.
I have never before thought of someone encouraging technology development out of hatred. I suppose that is the case in some military development efforts - but that may just be my prejudice showing. But it took me by surprise to see hated in action in such a raw form around a table in a techno-political discussion.
But it was a useful experience. Sometimes my particular battles within ICANN start to seem very large to me. It was good to be reminded that there are dragons out there.
I will probably be back to arguing against ICANN-this and ICANN-that in my next blog. But I thought it useful to take a few minutes to draw the difference between fighting to change an organization you believe in and fighting to destroy that organization.
——
* deliberate misinformation is so much harder to counter then just incorrect information; though i am not sure how one identities the difference between the two so I cannot be sure whether what i was seeing was deliberate or not. i think it was a mix.
