Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 22:52:18 -0800 From: R. A. Hettinga Subject: DCSB: Ted Byfield; ICANN, Intellectual Property, and Digital Commerce The Digital Commerce Society of Boston Presents Ted Byfield, Moderator, Nettime (among other things...) ICANN, Intellectual Property, and Digital Commerce Tuesday, February 6th, 2000 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA Through an erratic process intended to "lessen the burdens of government," the Clinton administration transferred governance of the Internet's essential functions to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. In trying to cement its status, ICANN has sought to transform the net's cooperative structures into a hierarchical contractual regime geared toward expanding and enforcing intellectual property claims. The result of ICANN's deviation from its technical coordination mandate into a captured policy-making proxy for an absent-minded US government is a centralized namespace that privileges the demands of late-adopters over innovative expansions of DNS. This talk will provide a survey of ICANN's activities to date and how they may advance alternative models and extensions of DNS as a decentralized, cooperative system that is more secure and less subject to political whim. After working for over a decade as decade as an editor focusing on intellectual and cultural history, Ted Byfield joined the faculty of Parsons School of Design in New York City, where he teaches about the social and political aspects of design. In addition to writing and lecturing about areas where the technical and cultural collide, he is a member of the rump Boston Working Group, co-moderates the Nettime mailing list, and serves as an boardmember and advisor for various New York-area cultural organizations. This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on Tuesday, February 6th, 2000, from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, on One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $35.00. This price includes lunch, room rental, A/V hardware if necessary, and the speakers' lunch. The Harvard Club has relaxed its dress code, which is now "business casual", meaning no sneakers or jeans. Fair warning: since we purchase these luncheons in advance, we will be unable to refund the price of your meal if the Club finds you in violation of what's left of its dress code. We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, January 3rd, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", in the amount of $35.00. Please include your e-mail address so that we can send you a confirmation If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (we've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Upcoming speakers for DCSB are: March 6 Steven Levy How the Crypto Rebels Won April 3 Scott Moskowitz Watermarking and Bluespike As you can see, :-), we are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, are a principal in digital commerce, and would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Committee, care of Robert Hettinga, . -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 7.0 iQEVAwUBOnkHb8UCGwxmWcHhAQGoYwf7BICzqzJRQvlFdU3k2qYqlKmjeqa82CvM ey7+oZ/Z4xEVn5pfoAF87+ak/L5WlA0DsJOTo1JUaUB8UvrpTlbU5pIAvZoSKkLw v39ztgLf7zmZ8HV7n3C7/gCrJuhfRD3zl29vv2QR9vkaWGY+hYrEt5H/VF36J5SN bx43cs0hBCX06I7eywPaDfCqxXWkWHPl3ZNn1P5R+ZPiH8ZsL5aMfnsmK0yvKSPM hkrfYEkBo7F4WojE1jBElEhkpP2hNMcvZnnLC4Qt3dKkEGoeDE86uuV0fnUqlqCd Aw5M8wcMgtye/2lsiah3IUiavBaPBA7tVh/N3qSGEco/MMxrLn9GVg== =ETnt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe from this list, send a letter to: Majordomo@reservoir.com In the body of the message, write: unsubscribe dcsb-announce Or, to subscribe, write: subscribe dcsb-announce If you have questions, write to me at Owner-DCSB@reservoir.com