[At-Large] Opera now lets you ditch boring web links and use emojis instead

[sivasubramanian muthusamy]

True. DNS could do more than naming numbers :)

On Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 00:07 Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

> You are quite right about the constrictions of predefined taxonomy of
> attributes such as Dublin Core.  I suggested it merely to get people
> thinking about lookups by attribute rather than by name.  My sense is that
> we need something that allows growth via use, much like the hash tagging
> that we see in so many places.  There will, of course be conflicts and
> collisions.
>
> But if we look at the most successful of all resource-binding systems, the
> biological systems of living entities to find food and mates, we see a lot
> of collisions and conflicts.  We see butterflies and moths adopting color
> patterns as signals for the attribute of "species" (for mate finding) and
> also as a defense "my color pattern makes me look like another species that
> tastes bad, so don't eat me even though I am of a good tasting species".
>
> (In something as large, diverse, and changing as the internet we may have
> a lot to learn from the biological world.)
>
> Attribute systems are usually just a preliminary culling to find potential
> targets of interest.
>
> My example of wanting to buy some M-4 screws and looking up via attributes
> "hardware store" and "near me" could lead to results that are closed or
> deal only in wholesale sales.  So I'd have to do some additional refinement
> of the search results.  (This is true in biological systems as well.)
>
> Lookups by attribute create an interesting, and often quite valuable, side
> effect often called "serendipity" - that happens when you are looking for
> things of type X and you come across something close to X that turns out to
> be useful.  This occurs in libraries as one wanders the stacks looking for
> a particular volume (perhaps to discover that some professor checked it out
> 20 years ago and never returned it, grrrr) and you stumble across something
> else of interest.  DNS doesn't have serendipity.  DNS is a good system for
> use underneath attribute systems.
>
>     --karl--
> On 2/21/22 8:13 AM, sivasubramanian muthusamy wrote:
>
> The attributes concept of the Dublin Core model could be applied in public
> interest to enrich the way Domain names are chosen / registered, especially
> in the case of highly valuable/useful generic names.  The cataloguing model
> alone wouldn't suffice, because the library-class metadata coding by all
> segments of users (even business) would not happen so methodically as in
> the libraries, leaving autotagging by machine learning as the predominant
> method by which the catalogues would be compiled. ( comment based on a
> quick, rapid look for the first time on Dublin Core documentation, it is
> possible that I might have missed something very basic)
>
> Sivasubramanian M
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 8:40 PM Carlton Samuels via At-Large <
> at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Karl for prompting organic thinking every time you intervene in
>> these discussions. As an AT&T alumnus and having sat through a year of
>> training ( a week every month) at Bell Labs, the fellas were keen to teach
>> us some of those lessons
>> you reprised in commentary.
>>
>> Karl wrote.........
>>
>>
>> *"...I also am of the belief that on the net attributes are often more
>> important than names.  For instance, if I am looking to buy some machine *
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *screws I care more about the attribute "hardware store" than
>> anyparticular name of such a store.  In that vein I sense that it might be
>> a useful endeavor to create a list of attribute types [and for each
>> some definition of the possible values].  I'm thinking something like the
>> Dublin Core metadata definitions, but of more universal applicability.  To
>> make use of such a world in which things are known by their attributes as
>> much as by their names we would need new protocol and server machinery to
>> do the kind of soft lookups that attribute systems need.  As is my
>> tendency, I sense that such things might well learn from the biological
>> world in which "adequate matching" is often a key to survival."*
>>
>> By gum!  I taught in the library school at the UWI for years Karl,
>> specifically digital libraries and associated concepts of cataloguing and
>> searching where the Dublin Core is central to defining a metadata element
>> set that is inclusive of coding special collections.
>> I share your views on the relative importance of attributes vs. names for
>> information gathering. And have encouraged a kind of extension to the
>> Dublin Core orthodoxy in service.
>>
>> To the larger point you make on accommodating innovation from the edge,
>> one of my friends, Evan Leibovitch, has been arguing for years
>> that a reckoning is coming and will come to the DNS by several
>> usurpations, among them implementations based on attribute systems.
>> History will absolve him, I think.
>>
>> Carlton
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ==============================
>> *Carlton A Samuels*
>>
>> *Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Process, Governance, Assessment &
>> Turnaround*
>> =============================
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 20 Feb 2022 at 23:36, Karl Auerbach via At-Large <
>> at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:
>>
>>> As a personal issue I think the notion of emojis in DNS is little more
>>> than a concession to a (hopefully) passing childish fad.
>>>
>>> And from a security perspective (not to mention the confusion of users
>>> in genera) I have a intuitive sense that it is a fad that contains seeds
>>> of trouble.
>>>
>>> But I'm just one person out of billions of us.  I don't use emojis, but
>>> it seems that a lot of us do.
>>>
>>> And I don't want to be like the voice of Ma Bell in the 1960's loudly
>>> proclaiming that packet switching and the attachment of foreign devices
>>> were something to be avoided and banned.
>>>
>>> So how do I decide?
>>>
>>> So using the rubric of my "first law of the internet" I start with the
>>> position of "emojis ought to be allowed" on the basis of them being of
>>> private benefit (although I personally find it hard to see that benefit
>>> or credit it with value.)
>>>
>>> Then I say "but is there a public detriment and if so is it substantial
>>> enough to block that private benefit?"
>>>
>>> As things stand right now I can't clearly and concretely articulate the
>>> public detriments (although I feel that they are out there) much less
>>> measure them.
>>>
>>> Which, according to my rule means that I would conclude to take no
>>> action (at this time) against emojis in domain names.  But I'd suggest
>>> inquiries and research to obtain more concrete information about the
>>> issue.  (Yes, I realize that my conclusion contains a strong possibility
>>> that we could end up with an deeply entrenched ill practice.)
>>>
>>> Part of this is informed by my belief that the domain name system is
>>> slowly fading from the public eye; that we are moving into a world in
>>> which DNS names are becoming more a part of the hidden machinery of the
>>> net (like MAC addresses) and that higher level naming abstractions,
>>> things like Twitter names or Facebook handles, are becoming the more
>>> prevalent forms of naming on the net.
>>>
>>> I also am of the belief that on the net attributes are often more
>>> important than names.  For instance, if I am looking to buy some machine
>>> screws I care more about the attribute "hardware store" than any
>>> particular name of such a store.  In that vein I sense that it might be
>>> a useful endeavor to create a list of attribute types [and for each some
>>> definition of the possible values].  I'm thinking something like the
>>> Dublin Core metadata definitions, but of more universal applicability.
>>> To make use of such a world in which things are known by their
>>> attributes as much as by their names we would need new protocol and
>>> server machinery to do the kind of soft lookups that attribute systems
>>> need.  As is my tendency, I sense that such things might well learn from
>>> the biological world in which "adequate matching" is often a key to
>>> survival.
>>>
>>>         --karl--
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2/20/22 17:29, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>>> > Karl,
>>> >
>>> > TL;DR, QED for no emojis in DNS. Thanks.
>>> >
>>> > Alejandro Pisanty
>>> >
>>> > On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 3:52 PM Karl Auerbach via At-Large
>>> > <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>>> > <mailto:at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >     On 2/20/22 8:52 AM, sivasubramanian muthusamy via At-Large wrote:
>>> >
>>> >      > What does ICANN think about private and often proprietary
>>> >      > 'innovations' that aspire to "cause a major shift in the way the
>>> >      > Internet [DNS] works" ?
>>> >      >
>>> >     Remember, the Internet came from a rejection of the status-quo, the
>>> >     world of circuit switching and central control.
>>> >
>>> >     The question you asked is not far distant from a question whether
>>> we
>>> >     ought to nail down the Internet in the same way the telcos of the
>>> first
>>> >     three quarters of the 20th century ossified the telephone networks.
>>> >
>>> >     Ma Bell and other telco's imposed extreme, and often arbitrary,
>>> limits
>>> >     on innovation at the edges. Take a look at the 1956 US case
>>> regarding
>>> >     the Hush-a-Phone. (In that case AT&T tried to block the attachment
>>> of
>>> >     what was essentially a plastic hand that would be attached by the
>>> user
>>> >     to the mouthpiece of a telephone. At&T made wild claims that that
>>> would
>>> >     cause the telephone network to collapse and repairmen would blown
>>> off
>>> >     the top of telephone poles.)  Then look at the Carterphone and MCI
>>> >     cases.
>>> >
>>> >     One of the hallmarks of the Internet is permissionless innovation
>>> at
>>> >     the
>>> >     edges. Clearly there are balances to be made, but we risk a balance
>>> >     that
>>> >     pushes too much control to the center.
>>> >
>>> >     Some decades ago I distilled this balance into a short formulation:
>>> >
>>> >     First Law of the Internet
>>> >
>>> >     + Every person shall be free to use the Internet in any way
>>> >         that is privately beneficial without being publicly
>>> >         detrimental.
>>> >
>>> >          - The burden of demonstrating public detriment shall
>>> >            be on those who wish to prevent the private use.
>>> >
>>> >              - Such a demonstration shall require clear and
>>> >                convincing evidence of public detriment.
>>> >
>>> >          - The public detriment must be of such degree and extent
>>> >            as to justify the suppression of the private activity.
>>> >
>>> >     https://www.cavebear.com/old_cbblog/000059.html
>>> >     <https://www.cavebear.com/old_cbblog/000059.html>
>>> >
>>> >               --karl--
>>> >
>>
>>
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