There are precedents. I stopped buying National Geographic magazine when the Society sold it to Fox.

From https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/national-geog...

> On Wednesday, the iconic ­yellow-bordered magazine, beset by financial issues, entered its own uncharted territory. In an effort to stave off further decline, the magazine was effectively sold by its nonprofit parent organization to a for-profit venture whose principal shareholder is one of Rupert Murdoch’s global media companies.

I'm not sure that's a valid precedent. National Geographic was facing bankruptcy with a bleak future. Their options were to sell or shut the doors - they took what they believed to be the lesser of two evils.

.org prints money - they have almost no overhead, and a basically guaranteed revenue stream. This isn't a public good that has no other options to survive - it's a bunch of shady board members attempting to enrich themselves at the expense of the public good.

Looks like that stake went to Disney when most of Fox was sold to them. Interesting.

It's on all Disney+ ads.

https://i.imgur.com/avn5ck8.jpg

I hear magazine and tv divisions are still very much separate.

It’s still commercial.

I was buying the mag because I was happy that the profits went to the researchers in jungles all over the world etc.

I loved the nature and antiquity and exploring stories that used to dominate.

Steadily through the 2000s I found more and more stories that I skipped because they felt political and us-centric.

And then the sale? That was enough.

Did you ever get a copy of Nat Geo Adventure / Traveler?

It was one of the sub-magazines that proliferated (probably as they were trying to keep the print business alive). Grabbed a couple in an airport, but they seemed more interesting and focused than the main one.

You may note that ICANN only really got into these sorts of games after gaining independence from the US government...

Interestingly, this act itself proves that whilst the US DOC was, and claimed, to have moved ICANN to international ownership [1], it is in fact still under the control of the US government.

As long as the Internet namespace, or DNS, is governed by US (California state specifically) law, the Internet itself will be operating under the same jurisdiction as DNS is generally considered critical to the function of the Internet.

This is a very strong reason that, just like currency [2], the Internet namespace is also ripe to be decentralized to distributed ownership by the people [3].

The internet deserves to be owned by the people - not any single government.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN

[2] https://weusecoins.com

[3] https://handshake.org

And like currency, it turns out that it's almost impossible to have a fully decentralized, trustless system for all but the most basic functions. Maybe you prefer that to the current system, but it's not like handwavingly suggesting blockchain makes any of this better. There are all sorts of real-world issues that you can't handle on-chain.

> There are all sorts of real-world issues that you can't handle on-chain.

There are definitely a lot of issues that aren’t working in the ICANN system as we all know [1][2][3].

What are the issues that can’t be handled in the Handshake blockchain ecosystem?

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202...

[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/we-need-save-org-arbit...

[3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/symantec-issues-rogue-...

It’s easy to say that a hypothetical system will do everything you want, similar to how Bitcoin salespeople spent most of a decade saying it’d be better than cash and credit cards before trying to claim they’d had different goals all along.

You first need a system which works and scales to plausible levels before we can say anything about whether it’s a viable solution for anything. In particular, it’d be important to have real cost and control information to show that it wasn’t trading ICANN for a different group which has similar control — and the inherent inefficiency of a blockchain means that there’d be more of a likelihood that power would consolidate in a few major players.

(As an aside, Symantec screwing up does not seem relevant to a discussion about ICANN. Perhaps you could explain why you believe it to be?)

> similar to how Bitcoin salespeople spent most of a decade saying it’d be better than cash and credit cards before trying to claim they’d had different goals all along.

As someone following Bitcoin for a long time since just after genesis, I can assure you that replacing cash and credit cards was never on the original agenda but instead a byproduct of the goal. Make no mistake, the goal was always to decentralize currency and give the “power” of money back to the people. That said, in a decentralized system, there can be more than one goal and goals do not need to be unified across participants. That freedom is one of the beauties of decentralization.

As long as a third party central authority controls our money system, we will always be subject to the whims of the few. Bitcoin is helping to liberate us and it’s absolutely working.

> it’d be important to have real cost and control information to show that it wasn’t trading ICANN for a different group which has similar control

This exists by virtue of our trust in cryptography - which for me is absolute.

> As an aside, Symantec screwing up does not seem relevant to a discussion about ICANN. Perhaps you could explain why you believe it to be?

Less directly and more by way of overall system architecture, the separation of DNS and “truth” has caused many issues to the Internet. It’s relevant because Handshake finally combines DNS and truth [1] by essentially completing the once incomplete DNSSEC.

[1] https://github.com/handshake-org/hdns

> As long as a third party central authority controls our money system, we will always be subject to the whims of the few. Bitcoin is helping to liberate us and it’s absolutely working.

A bold claim without evidence. In fact, the opposite may be true [1]. This is but one counterpoint; another notable problem is the centralization of bitcoin mining in China [2].

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-08/the-bitco...

[2]: https://thebitcoinnews.com/study-argues-chinese-mining-centr...

> A bold claim without evidence. In fact, the opposite may be true [1].

> [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-08/the-bitco...

The same can be said about any money system in a capitalist economy (e.g., 1% owns 40% of the wealth in the US [1.1]).

> This is but one counterpoint; another notable problem is the centralization of bitcoin mining in China [2].

I'm not sure this is 'looming' today as the article boldly claims, but centralization is definitely a risk. It's important for everyone to participate in the system as they can for a more equal distribution of ownership - akin to how one should exercise their vote in US elections.

[1.1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

> As someone following Bitcoin for a long time since just after genesis, I can assure you that replacing cash and credit cards was never on the original agenda but instead a byproduct of the goal.

As someone who was also there, I stopped reading at this point. The things getting circulation were bold predictions about replacing cash and credit cards in daily life and anyone who questioned that inevitability was dismissed as not understanding it. Everyone knew it was an attempt to dress up “use your money to make me rich” in a more noble guise but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

You must have been on a different forum and IRC network. :(

I disagree with the claims about effectiveness, but this is otherwise correct.

Bitcoin emerged from the Cypherpunks crowd; while nobody has positively IDed the 'real' author of the paper, the ideological motivations are rooted in anarcho-capitalist thought. The operative theory is really not that different than Grover Norquist's; attack the tax base and the state withers. Grover is just less ambitious.

The flaw in the bitcoin thesis is that the internet is powerful tool of centralized control and reinforces authoritarians, not the opposite.

I don't know why people are downvoting this comment as it is correct.

The only thing I would disagree with is the disagreement about the claims about effectiveness.

While we may not have "replaced money," make no mistake, we have entered a new era - bitcoin was not stopped even though they tried.

Bitcoin has succeeded. It is our symbol of proof - proof that we the people can control our own money.

I'm resigned to losing internet points any time I open my mouth about bitcoin. I'm neither a cheerleader nor an opponent, so approximately nobody involved likes what I say about it.

We probably disagree on other things bitcoin-related, but right here I think it is only about how we're defining 'success'. I agree that it is an existence-proof for decentralized currency, and am not trying to downplay the significance of that.

I think Bitcoin was stopped, it was adopted by a secondary tier who were only using it to speculate, then it was brought into the tax systems of governments, now it's treated as principally something other than for daily transactions.

It's so volatile it's useless except for speculators.

Greed ruined it, I feel, like it does with everything else.

> What are the issues that can’t be handled in the Handshake blockchain ecosystem?

From the handshake FAQ: 'There are no social or technical guarantees with the renewability or ownership, this is an experimental system, please read the code to see details of how it currently works'. That's below the bit where they auction them off to the highest bidder. There are plenty of issues with ICANN, but it isn't a toy with a short term profit-maximization scheme attached...

> That's below the bit where they auction them off to the highest bidder. There are plenty of issues with ICANN, but it isn't a toy with a short term profit-maximization scheme attached...

The blockchain auctions domains off to the highest bidder thru a blind Vickrey auction [1] wherein the winner pays the amount of the second highest bid.

After the auction completes, the coins are burned (provably destroyed).

Both the legacy ICANN system and new TLDs on Handshake [2] are working together in harmony.

To be clear, everything on the internet including the internet itself started as an experiment.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction

[2] https://dns.live - Domain Adoption

> That's below the bit where they auction them off to the highest bidder.

The hns paid for winning an auction are destroyed.

> There are plenty of issues with ICANN, but it isn't a toy with a short term profit-maximization scheme attached.

Handshake is anything but a short term profit-maximization scheme! The Handshake developers took $10 million of VC money and donated it to free and open source foundations: https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/

It's under US law like any other entity operating within our borders, but it's not really under US government control anymore, which seems to have been to everyone's detriment.

Some organisations are granted special status - for example, CERN is built straddling the frano-swiss border and can issue its own diplomatic vehicle registrations. Not to mention things like the UN building in New York.

If for some reason the US thought ICANN shouldn't be subject to US law, they could do something similar. Being inside a country's borders doesn't always mean being subject to its laws.

Of course, the corruption in the .org selloff doesn't make me feel ICANN needs less oversight. And it's questionable whether the US can grant independence it cannot revoke, at least from an international realist perspective.

Why did we let the ICANN go? Could we take it back?

Wasn't Verisign a problem before ICANN became a non-government entity?

Because other governments found it unfair that one country (the US) could control the global namespace.

It should probably belong better under the umbrella of the UN.

Eh - the UN doesn't really have a good track record with things like this. See the ITU as an example.

The ITU has done just fine, as far as I can tell.

Ah yes, UN, excellent idea https://unwatch.org/un-sells-3-womens-rights-bodies-oil-rich...

Perhaps like democracy it is the least bad option.

I fear for the .tw domain space if ICANN were to fall under the purview of the UN in any way.

The sad part is, giving up control doesn't seem to have stopped other nations from slowly severing themselves from the global conversation like the Great Firewall and Russianet.

Until homo sapiens evolves past tribal effects, those sorts of things will continue happening. Lamentable but symptomatic.

And now look at how many TLDs we have.

What's so bad about having maths TLDs?

People having a passing familiarity with all the TLDs increases security. You know to trust Microsoft.com but it would be easy trick someone into clicking a link to Microsoft.c0m or some such.

There is no c0m but it’d be more like Microsoft.ninja or Microsoft.fun

Microsoft.trust?

Then I know I’m being phished!

micro.soft

>> "bake my cake bigot!" debate

What do you mean by that?

In 2018 the Supreme Court decided the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case in favor of the cakeshop, which had originally refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The couple sue the cakeshop, claiming illegal discrimination (in Colorado) but the cakeshop won the case not because of its merits, but because US Supreme Court ruled that the members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission were biased... against Christians.

Don’t forget to take into account that religious liberty is a real thing in the US... literally the first thing spelled out in the Bill of Rights. That’s why the court considered the state commission’s bias against the religious person’s exercise of their sincerely held belief. Plus, you know, the whole “state can’t compel speech” thing (also part of the Bill of Rights) kind of makes the resulting decision pretty unsurprising.

They are referring to the supreme court case revolving around a bakery in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake if it was going to be served at a gay wedding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

Sure, I've never heard it described that way. That makes it sound like the point of asking to be served is to punish and frustrate the bakery. I've never heard civil rights protests called the "serve my lunch racist!" debate.

The sentiment behind the phrase "bake my cake bigot!" seems to trivialize the issue of being discriminated against by a public business and incorrectly attributes malice to the person being discriminated against.

I'm not attributing any ill-intent to you but wanted to give feedback on that terminology which is why I asked the question. Thanks for your response.

When I read about the cake shop story, I believe the reason I didn't automatically side with the gay couple was because it appeared they visited multiple shops, specifically looking for a shop that would not accommodate their request to make an overtly "gay-themed" cake. Even when they found the shop that was sued, the baker offered to make them alternative cakes, just not one that had their preferred phraseology. It seemed more like they were trying to make a point/easy cash grab, which ultimately backfired.

And I'm glad that you've illustrated my point perfectly. Having misinterpreted my statement to be homophobic, you've chanted the magic words to summon the specter of censorship.

Where exactly do you see homophobia in their comments?

See, this is the problem right here. Whenever people like you hear something they disagree with you'll start screaming "bigot" or "homophobe" or "nazi". How are we supposed to have a mature, civilised discussion about these things?

I find it unacceptable of accusing people of things they didn't do.

When you know that Ethos Capital (that wants to buy .org) was co-founded by an ex-ICANN CEO, and that it employs several other former high-ranking ICANN staff, then it starts to make a lot of sense.

Corruption in centralized entities isn't a question of if - it's a question of when.

And centralization of decentralized entities isn't a question of if - it's a question of when.

Decentralization has so many downsides compared to centralization when things are going "right" that centralization has competitive advantages over decentralization.

Except that centralization will eventually give rise to corruption =p. It's and endless debate I guess. But for an organization like ICANN my vote goes to decentralization.

Fascinating. Source?

The wikipedia page has a bunch of sources in the references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos_Capital

> I can't see any way selling .org from a non-profit to a commercial entity who is profit motivated makes sense at all.

It’s not about making sense. It’s about making dollars.

>It’s not about making sense. It’s about making dollars.

Now it started making sense!

Their argument is that .org is akin to a school owning large playing fields in the middle a rapidly expanding city.

Selling off some or all of an asset that has become unexpectedly valuable can fund the organisation’s wider mission with a windfall endowment.

No one buys such an argument in this case because, just as sports are a big part of school, so too is it ICANN’s core mission to provide equitable access to names in TLDs — or at least that’s what most people would say it is.

(Apologies if this ruffles the feathers of anyone fighting a school playing field sell off battle, especially if you also own yourschool.org too.)

That's a good analogy IMO, they put short time finance above the altruistic aims they're supposed to engender. At least the school do it for the students, and not to enrich private individuals.

Member of a past bidder for .org here (Poptel)

1 .org is not a non profit and is not just for us style "non profits"

2 What ICANN (or ICANT as those of us that have had dealings with them call it) stinks to high heaven.

What should happen is a proper transparent biding process which is how it used to be done.

If icann is broken, which it seemingly is given this catastrophe handling of .org, then the solution is pretty obvious. Remake icann with a strong and clear purpose and goal of making the internet infrastructure more stable and safer. Selling off all the different part of icann to for-profit companies will have the usually effect when the goal become to farm taxes on commons.

I don't agree with it, but the reasoning goes like this:

It makes sense for both parties because for the seller the investment gains from the capital they're getting from this transaction will be similar to what they're making from running the registry. But they no longer have the headaches of running the registry.

For the buyer, well, it's a monopoly so the sky is the limit. Even if current seller is able to raise the prices, they might not want it due to the backlash this would cause. Current buyer is less constrained by this.

After seeing all this corruption, I started putting a lot more trust in ccTLDs. Hopefully OpenNIC and Tor will become more popular in the future.

Then again you probably aren’t at the receiving end of that cool one billion dollars!

ICANN is no longer under american control I thought?

I'm not sure much of value is lost. the .org TLD has not been a strong signal of credibility for some time now. for example, "4chan.org" has been registered since 2004. AFAIK, there has not been any requirement to actually show that the registrant is a non-profit for decades.

with the possible exception of .gov (and local equivalents), people should not be encouraged to use TLDs as a positive signal of credibility. imo, the only things that matter are that domain should point to the expected entity (eg, wellsfargo.com points to the bank, not a phishing site) and that disputes over who gets to use a specific domain get handled in a reasonable way.

You point to one example (4chan) yet there are probably hundreds of thousands of counter-examples of usage of ORG domains.

There is no perfect solution of course, but generally speaking ORG domains have been used to signal that you are an organization vs. a corporation, and potentially a non-profit.

That said, just like in the real world, individuals are encouraged to do their research and confirm that one is what they claim to be (just like door-to-door charity workers) before engaging.

> There is no perfect solution of course, but generally speaking ORG domains have been used to signal that you are an organization vs. a corporation, and potentially a non-profit.

this is the convention, but I don't think it's ever been enforced by the registrar. see questions 5, 7, and 8 on this archived faq: https://archive.is/20120716084313/http://pir.org/get/faq/gen...

what I'm getting at is: if ICANN never enforced the convention in the first place, and they are selling it to someone else who also doesn't intend to enforce it, what should I expect to change?

when it comes to security in particular, conventions that are usually (but not always) followed are often worse than having no convention at all. it sets dangerous expectations for lay people.

> what I'm getting at is: if ICANN never enforced the convention in the first place, and they are selling it to someone else who also doesn't intend to enforce it, what should I expect to change?

I think the biggest concern with this sale is around pricing more than "correctness of use", where I agree with you the ship has long sailed.

Selling PIR to a for-profit company, a private equity firm no less, means you can pretty much 100% guarantee that in the future pricing would be increasingly profit-driven.