Back from Africa

Back for several trips including a trip to Durban South Africa for the ICANN 47 conference. ICANN is the organization that controls name to number translation on the Internet. So when you type in google.com the Internet finds out where to take you.

The process uses a protocol called DNS which stand for domain name services. DNS is controlled worldwide by ICANN which is an international policy group that contracts with registrars and registries, sets up the root servers, and resolves disputes between countries who have differing opinions as to who gets what name and what they can do with it. (amazon the company vs. amazon the region).

ICANN is held in a different place each time. This meeting had 1800 delegates from 90 countries. I wasn't there representing the United States. I am part of the Non-Commercial Stakeholder's Group representing the Church of Reality. I also have a background in civil liberties as a former employee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and I have a spam filtering company and doing network security since 1989 which is ancient in the online world.

What's interesting about ICANN is that countries are just one of many voices at this conference. Unlike the United Nations that look at the world in terms of countries only, ICANN recognizes that there are mufti-national commercial entities and non-govermental non-profit groups that also have a say. Something the government advisory committee (GAC) is just getting used to.

What I found interesting about this mufti-stakeholder model is that everything happens from the bottom up. In order to get anything done people have to be respectful and cooperative and if there's consensus then it gets done. If there isn't then it sits there until people figure it out. So big countries don't get their way by bullying and bribing and gaming the system like they do at the UN.

The Internet has created a world community that transcends governments and that world community doubles every 18 months. I can see the day when government are no longer defined by lines on a map and that a world government system can arise out of something like ICANN. This model might well be a template for the future of humanity.

And - what I found amazing was that when I said I was from Gilroy California, a lot of people responded with some comment about garlic. It seems that the world knows we exist. The brand works.