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"Christian" == Christian de Larrinaga <cdel@firsthand.net> writes:

Christian> The scenario suggested by the Mr. Kisrawi has the DoC Christian> striking off .arpa or replacing the IAB authority over Christian> .arpa and the existing delegations in .arpa not being Christian> inherited by any successor "owner". This is a Christian> remarkable plot. Perhaps it could happen Whether it could or couldn't happen is not the point. The problem is some governments are very uneasy that they do not have an understood legal framework for the internet -- contracts, treaties, etc -- as they do for other forms of communication like post and telephone. Without that framework, they feel their national interests are not adequately safeguarded. This hasn't been helped by seeing some countries lose control over their TLDs. The next problem is that ICANN is a US company subject to US jurisdiction, not an offshoot of an international organisation. A fundamental principle of international law is the national resources of one state cannot be under the control of another. The wrangling over e164.arpa at SG2 is a scale model of that larger concern. Please note too that SG2 is largely a forum for governments and regulators. They're used to dealing with regulations, laws and contracts. The culture of the internet -- benign anarchy, liaison statements with organisations that legally do not exist, etc -- is alien to them. And perhaps frightening for some. The point Mr. Kiswari and others is making is not that DoC could pull the plug on .arpa. It's that if this happened, what redress do governments have? Who do they complain to and what power does that body have to resolve the issue? Since there are no contracts or treaties... BTW Christian, the mail server you're using is broken. It's gratuitously mangling email addresses: "enum-wg@ripe.net"@smtp.nildram.co.uk <"sob@harvard.edu"@smtp.nildram.co.uk> Could you please get this fixed?