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ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE
U.S. Office of Public Policy
of the Association for Computing Machinery
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July 27, 2000 Volume 4.5
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CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION
POLICY BRIEFS:
**ALERT** ICANN's AT LARGE MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION CLOSES JULY 31
ICANN To Take Suggestions For New gTLDs
USACM Director's Letter on European Draft Convention on Cybercrime
Afternic.com Drops Suit Against ICANN
NTIA, Copyright Office Request Comments On DMCA
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INTRODUCTION
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The Association for Computing Machinery is an international
professional society whose 80,000 members (60,000 in the U.S.)
represent a critical mass of computer scientists in education,
industry, and government. The USACM provides a means for promoting
dialogue on technology policy issues with United States policy makers
and the general public. The WASHINGTON UPDATE reports on activities
in Washington, which may be of interest to those in the computing and
information policy communities and will highlight USACM's involvement
in many of these issues.
To subscribe to the ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE send an e-mail to
listserv@acm.org with "subscribe WASHINGTON-UPDATE" (no quotes) in the
body of the message. Back issues are available at:
http://www.acm.org/usacm
For information about joining the Association for Computing Machinery,
see: http://www.acm.org/membership/join.html
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POLICY BRIEFS
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**ALERT** ICANN's AT LARGE MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION CLOSES JULY 31
ICANN At Large members must register by July 31 in order to vote for
their regional ICANN At Large Board member elections for the next
year. The nominating committee's nominations are due July 31, and
self-nominations will be accepted from August 1 to August 31. The
campaign phase will last from September 1 to September 31, and online
elections will occur from October 1 to October 10.
The registration page for At Large members is available at:
http://members.icann.org/join_now.htm
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ICANN TAKES SUGGESTIONS FOR NEW gTLDS
During its July 16 meeting in Yokohama, ICANN hammered out a timeline
for the introduction of new generic top level domain names, which
currently include .com, .edu, .gov, and .org. On August 1, ICANN
will issue a formal call for proposals by those seeking to sponsor or
operate one or more new TLDs, accompanied by a New TLD Registry
Application Form, instructions for filling out the application, and
a statement of criteria for the Board's eventual decision. The
deadline for applications will end on October 1, public comments on
proposals will end on October 15, and on October 20, the ICANN Board
will annouce selections for continued negotiations.
ICANN's Yokohama meeting notes are available at:
http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-16jul00.htm
ICANN's background paper on new gTLDs is available at:
http://www.icann.org/yokohama/new-tld-topic.htm
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USACM DIRECTOR'S LETTER ON EUROPEAN DRAFT CONVENTION ON CYBERCRIME
USACM Chair Dr. Gene Spafford, along with an ad hoc global coalition
of over 80 security experts, academics, industry leaders and IT
professionals sent a letter to the Council of Europe, addressing
flaws in the Draft Convention on Cybercrime.
The issues raised with the Draft Convention include the proposed
criminalization of the development and distribution of software tools
that could be used to circumvent computer security measures and the
equation of possession of such tools with the intent to circumvent
security measures. The letter notes that the development and
distribution of tools that circumvent computer security are integral
to computer security research and that the enactment of the current
Draft.
Convention could result in the criminalization of a significant
percentage of independent computer security research.
Dr. Spafford's letter is available at:
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/spaf/coe/TREATY_LETTER.html
The Council of Europe's Draft Convention on Cybercrime is available
at:
http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/projets/cybercrime.htm
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AFTERNIC.COM DROPS SUIT AGAINST ICANN
AfterNIC dropped its suit against ICANN on July 7, just days after it
filed the suit. According to the terms of the suit, Afternic.com will
withdraw its application for registrar accreditation, and substitute
the registrar accreditation application of eXtraActive, an affiliate
of Afternic.com that will be required to operate as a separate
enterprise from Afternic.com. Afternic.com sued ICANN because, as a
domain name auctioneer, ICANN refused to accredit Afternic.com as a
domain name registrar.
In related news, Network Solutions is auctioning off domain names that
it has registered but never paid for, in an effort to recoup losses
from the registration.
ICANN's annoucement of the settlement of the suit is available at:
http://www.icann.org/announcements/icann-pr07jul00-1.htm
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NTIA, COPYRIGHT OFFICE REQUEST COMMENTS ON DMCA
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(under the Department of Commerce) and the Library of Congress are
requesting comments from interested parties on the effects of the
anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act
(the same provisions at issue in the DeCSS case in New York) on
Sections 109 and 117 of the Copyright Act. Section 109 is the
codification of a doctrine called the first sale doctrine, which
permits a consumer to sell or otherwise dispose of an individual copy
of a work as they wish. Section 117 permits owners of computer
programs to copy them 1) if copying is inherent in the function of
the program and 2) for archival purposes. Comments on the DMCA are
due August 4th, 2000. Reply comments are due September 4th, 2000.
Electronic mail submissions should be submitted to 104study@loc.gov
and 104study@ntia.doc.gov as attachments in one of the following
formats: (1) Adobe Portable Document File (PDF) format (preferred);
(2) Microsoft Word Version 7.0 or earlier; (3) WordPerfect 7 or
earlier; (4) Rich Text File (RTF) format; or (5) ASCII text file
format. Comments sent by regular mail may be sent to Jesse M. Feder,
Policy Planning Advisor, Office of Policy and International Affairs,
U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright GC/I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest
Station, Washington, DC 20024; and Jeffrey E.M. Joyner, Senior
Counsel, Office of Chief Counsel, National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA), Room 4713, U.S. Department of
Commerce, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
20230. Paper versions should include a version on diskette in one of
the formats specified.
More information is available at:
http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=
0955320886+7+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve
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Washington Update is a biweekly publication of the U.S. Public Policy
Office of the Association for Computing. http://www.acm.org/usacm.