Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
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There can't have been anyone in the local Net industry who didn't watch with
interest the defamation case between Alan Brown and Patrick O'Brien as it
unfolded in the courts last year.
Brown called O'Brien some nasty names and challenged his competence as the
CEO of Domainz, New Zealand's Internet domain name registry.
One of Brown's justifications for making such claims was the fiasco surrounding
the commissioning, development and implementation of a new suite of registry
software.
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Unfortunately for Brown, he didn't "box smart", so even though some of his
assertions in respect to Mr O'Brien may have had merit, he ultimately
lost the case and was slapped with a huge judgement.
In the period since O'Brien departed Domainz, the defamation case wrapped up,
and Brown left the country, an investigation has been undertaken and a
report issued into that expensive and flaky software commissioned by
O'Brien for the registry.
Based on this story,
one can't help but wonder whether justice was really served when the courts
penalised Brown so heavily for his comments.
The revelations of this report won't look good on
O'Brien's Curriculum Vitae
and it also makes the
recent hissy-fit
voiced by former ISOCNZ Chairman Jim Higgins appear even more churlish and
vindictive.
It certainly seems that Higgins was at the very least "confused" and at worst
telling giant porkies when he described the software in question as a "system
which has been happily and very efficiently running the .nz domain for
the past three years or so."
The report itself simply confirms what everyone (except Higgins and O'Brien)
already knew -- the project concerned was a real disaster. Perhaps Higgins
should have listened to his own words -- "It's hard to find a convincing
business plan for spending so much money on a new system – to say nothing
of the huge risk to the Internet in New Zealand".
I wonder whether the pair will now attempt to sue Domainz for defamation
in the wake of this report?
Are We Being Locked Out?
I've received an email which suggests that NZ is running the risk of being
grouped along with China and some other Pacific Rim countries and added
to lists of blocked address ranges.
The effect of this would be to make connectivity to areas using the
blocking lists impossible from this part of the world.
Who remembers the problems that affected some NZ web-surfers a few months
back (see: Hello, Help Desk? on
this page)? Will we
see more of this type of lock-out in future?
I'm looking for more information on this issue so contact me if you can
help.
Have your say.
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