Andy Muller-Maguhn's maxim is "distrust authority" - hardly words you would expect from the new European board member of ICANN, the closest the Internet has to a regulatory authority. But then, he was elected by ordinary Internet users.
When the 28-year-old Berliner, founder of the Chaos Computer Club, takes up the position next month he will be the virtual voice of the old continent in cyberspace. The organisation he is joining, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has unprecedented influence over the Internet's future use and growth.
Next month, the organisation will decide on one of the most pressing issues facing the Internet - the re-organisation of the rules and standards for naming websites. Since the late 1980s, it has been possible to register websites such as ireland.com using universal resource locators (URLs) ending in a suffix that identifies the nature of the site.
The most common is .com, indicating a commercial site, while .edu is an educational site, .gov a government site and .org a non-commercial organisation. But like a city that is running out of telephone numbers, the Internet is running out of meaningful domain names and users want additional suffixes.
ICANN is currently asking Internet users what new suffixes they would like to see introduced, such as .eu, .shop and .sex, and the organisation's final decision is expected next month. Whatever the decision, it is bound to be controversial. Since it was established by the US government two years ago to manage domain names, the non-profit organisation has been accused of a bias towards commercial interests over those of the individual.
"Whoever registers a .com address can theoretically be sued by an Egyptian upholsterer just because they have the same brand name," says Muller-Maguhn of his new employer. Last week, Madonna won the right to evict a cybersquatter from the Internet address madonna.com after an international arbitrator said that only the material girl herself had a legitimate interest in madonna.com, a name the singer says she has been using professionally since 1979.
The cybersquatter had registered the name simply in the hope of making a quick profit, the arbitrator decided as he ruled in favour of Madonna. The arbitration body, which is based in Geneva, has found in favour of complainants in 80 per cent of cases since it started its work last year. Often the complainants are companies or well-known figures held to ransom by cybersquatters, who may even fill the site with pornography in the hope of selling the site back to the celebrity whose name forms the Internet address.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and actress Julia Roberts recently reclaimed the rights to their names, but Sting, on the other hand, failed in his attempt to win sting.com because the arbitrator decided sting was "a common English word".
Muller-Maguhn agrees that in the cybersquatting debate ICANN has, until now, tended to come out in favour of commercial interests. Indeed, Internet users have long suspected the involvement of their fellows in ICANN is merely what Muller-Maguhn describes as a "simulation for legitimacy's sake".
Existing board member Esther Dyson opposed the elections that allowed Muller-Maguhn and his fellow new board-members onto ICANN, fearing "free elections could propel objectively stupid candidates onto the board". But ICANN felt it needed elected board members from each continent to obtain the credibility it urgently needs Mr Muller-Maguhn caused a stir by claiming the whole procedure had no democratic legitimacy. Of the 300 million Internet users worldwide, only 76,000 had the right to vote, he said. Voting took place entirely over the Internet and was organised by continent to limit the influence of the United States, which has a disproportionate share of Internet users.
The election process was marred somewhat by a technical problem that left some voters shut out of the system. The problem was quickly fixed, though, and almost all of the affected voters eventually cast their ballots.
Still, the African director was elected by only 130 African netizens who were registered to vote, while the European poll consisted of just 11,000 registered voters.
Internet users hope the new directors will open up an organisation that critics say retains the trappings of an archaic tribe. MullerMaguhn campaigned on greater openness and transparency within the authority and beat six rivals, including an ICANN-backed candidate. He will be joined on the board by Karl Auerbach, the new US director, and another "hacker's choice" candidate.
Auerbach is an outspoken critic of ICANN, calling it "an organ of the trademark lobby".
"No one trusts ICANN any more, and it may not be recoverable," he says. "I'm going to try to recover it" - explaining his decision to go into enemy territory, adding: "It's a brave new world."