[kictanet] Internet-pioneer-leaves-oversight-group

[Wanjira, Alice Munyua]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/net-pioneer-leaves-oversight-group/
2007/10/29/1193555566207.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

October 29, 2007 - 9:52AM

In the 1970s, Vint Cerf played a leading role in developing the
internet's technical foundation. For the past seven years, he's faced
the more daunting task of leading a key agency that oversees his
creation.

After fending off an international rebellion and planting the seeds for
streamlining operations, Cerf is stepping down this week as chairman of
the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers.

"My sentence is up," Cerf said with his characteristic sense of humour,
which he and others credit for helping him steer the organisation
through several high-profile battles from which it emerged more stable
and stronger.

Cerf, 64, who's also a senior executive at internet search leader
Google, joined ICANN in 1999, a year after its formation to oversee
domain names and other internet addressing policies. Cerf was elected
chairman in 2000 and leaves the unpaid position after Friday's board
meeting in Los Angeles because of term limits.

When he joined the board, many questioned whether ICANN would survive.
Now - though some people still complain that ICANN is arbitrary,
secretive and slow - the focus is more on improving it than replacing
it.

Under Cerf, the organisation withstood power struggles and ballooned in
size. It also has shown signs of movement on key issues: After years of
debate, for instance, it is now beginning to create mechanisms for more
easily adding internet addresses, including domain names in languages
besides English.

"In some respects it has gained credibility," Cerf said. "It is now
part of the internet universe as opposed to a thing that was open to
some serious debate."

That has been particularly so since ICANN, teaming with the U.S.
diplomats, resisted efforts by China, Brazil and other developing
countries to replace the group with a more U.N.-like organisation over
which world governments would have greater control.

Among other things, ICANN critics wanted quicker action on addresses in
other languages, saying the current restrictions are akin to requiring
all English speakers to type in Chinese. Many foreign governments also
resented the U.S. government's veto power over the Marina del Rey,
Calif.-based nonprofit agency.

Calls to strip ICANN   and the United States - of its oversight of
domain names, which are key for computers to find Web sites and route
e-mails, grew as world leaders gathered in Geneva for the 2003 U.N.
World Summit on the Information Society. The European Union even joined
by the time the summit convened again in 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia.

But ICANN ultimately emerged intact.

Credit goes to many people besides Cerf, yet many say he had the
gravitas to meet with heads of states and senior ministers - and tell
them, "no."

"He has a certain star quality," said Paul Twomey, ICANN's chief
executive since 2003. "He can open a door. He can talk to anybody. He
can say, 'Me and my colleagues actually invented the internet and
here's how it works.' There was a lot of ignorance, and he was able to
say, 'It just doesn't work the way you think it works.'"

Cerf tested the first internet hookups in 1969 when he was a graduate
student at UCLA. As a professor at Stanford University in the 1970s,
Cerf led a team that invented the protocols, known as TCP/IP, that now
serve as the internet's basic communications tools.

Known since as one of the internet's founding fathers, Cerf continued
working on internet technology at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency and later developed MCI Mail, the internet's first
commercial e-mail service. Google lured him in 2005 to be its "chief
internet evangelist" and gave him an office a few doors from CEO Eric
Schmidt.

In 1997, then-President Clinton presented Cerf and TCP/IP co-inventor
Robert Kahn the National Medal of Technology, and in 2005 President
Bush gave the pair the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As ICANN chairman, Cerf has played a hands-on role, attending many
committee meetings and workshops in his trademark three-piece suit,
often asking questions and contributing his know-how.

Jeffrey Eckhaus, a business development director at domain registration
company Register.com Inc., found him "very knowledgeable about every
single topic that would go on. He would really know all the ins and
outs."

Besides his sense of humour and his technical knowledge, Cerf brought
business and administrative acumen, many ICANN participants say. He has
a slew of anecdotes ready and has displayed a willingness to listen to
concerns and "engage with people from heads of states down to
university students," Twomey said.

Now that Cerf has guided ICANN from nearly its inception through a
tumultuous adolescence and into early adulthood, many believe it's time
for an ICANN driven more by procedures than personality.

"It doesn't demean Cerf's towering legacy to say people are ready for a
change," said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor and
frequent ICANN critic.

The short list of potential successors includes telecommunications
expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush. Both have been
active with ICANN, but neither has Cerf's name recognition or
long-standing ties to the internet.

"The bad news is we're not going to find another Vint," said Steve
Crocker, a high school classmate of Cerf's and fellow internet pioneer.
"It's equally a form of good news. We're now going to go through a
period where ordinary mortals are managing things."

Even with Cerf's clout, ICANN has had its share of battles. For one, a
decision to reverse preliminary support for a proposed ".xxx" domain
name for porn sites was criticized as arbitrary and politically
influenced.

During Cerf's tenure, ICANN's staff and budget have grown, permitting
faster response. Its roughly 100 staff members are paid out of a $41.6
million budget for fiscal 2008, compared with about a dozen employed
during fiscal 2001, when ICANN budgeted $3.78 million for operating
expenses.

The board and its constituency committees have reorganized numerous
times in an effort to better reflect the internet community, and
minutes to private board meetings have been posted more quickly to
improve transparency.

Nonetheless, many critics still complain that ICANN has neither opened
the decision-making process enough nor acted as quickly as it should on
issues like adding domain names   after several years, it is just now
streamlining the approval process.

Few of those complaints, however, are directed at Cerf.

"It would have been a lot more without Vint," said David Farber, former
chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. "I don't
have warm, fuzzy feelings about ICANN, but Vint is not a person you
want to get into battles with. He's a nice guy. He's smart. He's
reasonable to talk to."

Cerf plans to disengage entirely from ICANN for at least a year,
freeing him to write books and devote more time to his Google duties.

"This is a very important test ICANN both must pass and will pass, that
it can withstand a change of its senior management," Cerf said. "I have
no hesitation at all turning this over to a new team."

AP
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