[discuss] Report from the BR meeting local organizing group - Dec 2013

Sun Dec 22 20:46:49 UTC 2013

Brian,

As our arguments become more granular, it seems we can agree on a number of
things you've stated below, not all but certainly more than enough to forge
a way forward. Please let me just highlight one paragraph that sums it up,
in my eye.

> The technical community is already looking at what can be done against
pervasive surveillance. But in all honesty I don't think the negative
issues have technical solutions; they are societal and political issues.

It tells me two things. One, despite your own skepticism (well noted), some
in the technical community may still be of the opinion that some technical
improvements are possible, and they are trying to achieve that. Two, you
recognize that there are some negative issues, but you think they are
of societal
and political kind and so will be their solutions, if there are solutions.

There is nothing I disagree with there. So for me it's simple. I don't
think the BR meeting purports to be an IETF kind of meeting with a view to
come up with a blueprint for the redesign of the Internet, not at all. The
talk that will take place there is, IMHO, of the societal and political
kind --which you recognize may be relevant in this context. And if, in
addition to bringing some clarity to the issues on that front, the outcome
of the BR meeting also sends a signal of encouragement to those in the
technical community already striving to make some improvements so that they
take a long and hard view in order to come up with some
innovative/ingenious possible (if only partial or incremental) solutions,
wouldn't that be enough? I would think so (keeping in mind that all these
folks have been running around to IGFs since 2006 without accomplishing any
of these.) After all, wasn't one of the defining innovative features of the
TCP/IP architecture to be modular and capable of evolving?

Thanks,

Mawaki

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
*Mawaki Chango, PhD*
Founder & Principal, DIGILEXIS Consulting
http://www.digilexis.com
m.chango at digilexis.com
twitter.com/digilexis
twitter.com/dig_mawaki
Skype: digilexis

On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 7:38 PM, Brian E Carpenter <
brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mawaki,
>
> Thanks for this helpful reply. Some comments in line...
>
> On 22/12/2013 22:39, Mawaki Chango wrote:
> > Brian,
> >
> > Thank you for your precise answers to which, as a matter of courtesy, I
> > respond with my limited/partial reading of the situation as follows.
> >
> > 1. As someone mentioned in another thread, despite claims by AT&T
> engineers
> > in the early days of the Internet, most phone calls are now traveling
> over
> > IP we're contemplating a situation where the slogan "everything over IP"
> > has made some serious progress toward realization. So there might be a
> case
> > to be made that the capabilities of the Internet today (including its
> > possible loopholes, vis-a-vis security, privacy or otherwise) has a
> > significant effect on most of our communications today --at least among
> > those who have access to phone and internet-- possibly amplifying even a
> > problem that originated from or was already around with phone networks.
>
> Certainly there's an amplification. For example, email makes it much
> easier to bulk-mail scamming letters. But the crime is still the scam,
> and it's the crime that needs to be tackled, not the mechanism. That seems
> to me to be a very fundamental thinking error that occurs all the time.
>
> > 2. My sense, precisely (albeit very modestly, in every sense), is that a
> > non-negligible portion of Internet users think or perceive that the
> > internet in its basic design does not help much to protect privacy and
> > other relevant human rights
>
> Well, there is an intrinsic conflict between freedom of information
> and privacy. Again, information technology amplifies that conflict,
> and telecommunication amplifies it further. The technology that enables
> things like blogs, tweets, search and wikileaks also enables phishing,
> surveillance, consumer profiling, censorship, information manipulation,
> etc.
>
> > and that we could do a better job at that and
>
> The technical community is already looking at what can be done against
> pervasive surveillance. But in all honesty I don't think the negative
> issues have technical solutions; they are societal and political issues.
>
> > that is, at least in part, an aspect of the "thing" that has set the BR
> > meeting in motion (from this second perspective, the NSA massive
> > surveillance revelations have mainly opened a window of political
> > opportunity while they may also be seen as the most immediate trigger.)
> > Now, is that "global IG"? Maybe not, but the fact is those issues are
> > related to some extent to the design of the internet and they have been
> > being discussed in IG spaces, too.
>
> I dispute that they result from the specific design of the Internet.
> IMHO they result from the very nature of information technology and the
> vanishing costs of computing power and data transmission. Redesign
> the Internet as you will: as long as it allows free exchange of
> information between any N points, it will allow surveillance,
> censorship, etc.
>
> > It may well be possible for some of the engineers out there to come up
> with
> > a great deal of arguments and technical detail showing that the above
> view
> > (or the views I'm trying to so describe) is/are wrong, and that there are
> > other ways to resolve those problems than calling for a global meeting
> (I'm
> > sure there are). At this point it doesn't really matter. The fact is, for
> > one, Internet has been around us for more than two decades now and many
> > people don't see those issues are being resolved,
>
> That's true, because they are intrinsic issues that will never be resolved
> technically. Society has to deal with them, as we previously dealt with
> (say) the printing press, and later with widespread literacy, which had
> profound effects on society at the time. I don't think society has yet
> understood how profound the effects of IT will be.
>
> > and for another, the BR
> > meeting will take place and those views as well as competing/countering
> > ones will be displayed and maybe/hopefully better articulated than they
> > have ever been. And perhaps the BR meeting in its attempt to produce
> > principles will serve as a catalyst to make progress where progress is
> > actually needed (say, as per engineers' view) or maybe those principles
> > will be enough acceptable to most that they will become norms that most
> > actors will try to live by and they will gain some political clout so as
> to
> > pressure governments to uphold/respect them (or at least CS actors may be
> > able to use those principles to do so.)
>
> Principles about how society adapts its rules to deal with information
> technology would be great. What would not be great is any attempt to
> toy with the technology in the mistaken belief that there's a technical
> solution to societal issues.
>
> > Again, I do not intend the above to explain everything about why we are
> > where we are today and where we're heading. It's a partial view which I
> > think has a place in answering so of our questions. At any rate, that is
> > how I see the BR meeting, at least in part and for now (things may
> change),
> > and what I may be looking forward to out of it. It may be wishful
> > thinking... we'll see. But I doubt the day after the BR meeting there
> will
> > be a major power shift among internet stakeholders.
>
> Indeed not. There is no reason that would happen.
>
>    Brian
>
> >
> > Mawaki
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 1:51 AM, Brian E Carpenter <
> > brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Mawaki,
> >>
> >> On 22/12/2013 12:49, Mawaki Chango wrote:
> >>> On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 7:42 PM, Brian E Carpenter <
> >>> brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 22/12/2013 08:31, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> >>>>> Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On 22/12/2013 05:36, Carlos A. Afonso wrote:
> >>>>>> ...
> >>>>>>> 8. Expected outcomes as success indicators
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Official launching of a review process of the global IG
> >>>>>>> frameworks/models;
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Development of a set of universally acceptable core of principles
> >>>>>>> for global IG;
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Tentative draft of a global IG model.
> >>>>>> Thanks for the update. However, I find these objectives very
> >>>>>> disturbing. They seem to assume
> >>>>>> (a) That there is a problem caused by defective IG.
> >>>>>> (b) That the solution is a "global IG model".
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I am not aware that either of these assumptions have been justified.
> >>>>>> That should be the starting point IMHO.
> >>>>> I disagree with the view that that “expected outcomes” statement
> >>>>> contains assumptions that need justification before this can proceed.
> >>>> Norbert, then what is the problem caused by defective IG? (That is not
> >>>> the same question as "What is the problem?".) Again, I am not trying
> >>>> to be clever or sarcastic: I simply don't know the answer.
> >>>>
> >>>> If, for example, the answer is "Pervasive surveillance by NSA and
> >>>> their friends" I would strongly dispute that defective Internet
> >>>> governance is the cause.
> >>>>
> >>>>    Brian
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> My turn to be a little confused by... your question, actually.
> Because I
> >>> frankly thought there was an emerging agreement among various actors
> >> about
> >>> a problem. Maybe that would help if you please answer the following
> >>> questions for me: What was the motivation and the purpose of the
> >> Montevideo
> >>> statement (if nothing else)?
> >> There are three quite clear and self-explanatory bullets in the
> Montevideo
> >> statement, which I fully agree with, and one bullet that refers to
> >> "Internet
> >> Governance challenges" without explaining what these challenges are.
> That
> >> is
> >> my puzzlement - I don't know, in practical terms, what that phrase
> refers
> >> to.
> >>
> >>> Why did Chehade go see president Rousseff to
> >>> agree (and maybe even suggest, some say) to convene this meeting?
> >> That is not a question I can answer.
> >>
> >>> Or is the problem here with using the words "global IG" to label this
> >>> topic? Are we heading for a semantic debate here (I hope not, because
> I'm
> >>> already worn out by the process/non-process/anti-process debate)? Do
> you
> >>> think there is any such thing as "global IG" to begin with (and that
> this
> >>> meeting is not or should not be about that thing)? Maybe not, and maybe
> >>> this is all a misnomer. But language is a human thing and it's
> imperfect.
> >>> There's no real logical relationship word-to-meaning; it is in the way
> >>> humans use the words that sometimes make the meaning.
> >> Indeed. But the WSIS definition of IG doesn't help, because it is so
> >> non-specific. That's where I get stuck.
> >>
> >>> So maybe we can just say: let's the BR meeting discuss about the
> "thing"
> >>> that moved the Montevideo statement to occur, and Chehade to suggest or
> >>> agree with president Rousseff to convene the BR meeting (which she
> might
> >>> have agreed to, maybe, just maybe for the same reason that moved her to
> >>> give that speech of hers at the UNGA last September, which in turn may
> >> have
> >>> prompted Chehade's visit/outreach to Rousseff). Let these folks discuss
> >>> about the "thing" that they want to see addressed and assist them find
> >> ways
> >>> to possible/acceptable solutions. Maybe then we/they will discover that
> >>> those solutions have nothing to do with "global IG" but belong
> elsewhere.
> >>> As long as they provide keys to the solutions to the "thing" and are
> >>> accepted as such, who cares what the "thing" was once called, pr is
> still
> >>> called, anyway? So many things are wrongly called in the media
> everyday,
> >>> and we still live with that.
> >> Well, if the "thing" is the revelation of massive telecommunications
> >> monitoring,
> >> I think it's extremely dangerous to the Internet to call it "Internet
> >> governance". After all, it started in a serious way in 1914 if not
> earlier,
> >> due to the fact that most intercontinental telegraph lines went through
> >> Great Britain, and the British Government intercepted everything it
> wanted
> >> to. If the "thing" is certain governments abusing the media, including
> the
> >> Internet, for thought control, that's been going on for even longer.
> >> Allowing
> >> governments, and the media themselves, to view these as things that are
> >> specific to the Internet puts the Internet in danger of government
> >> interference
> >> that I trust none of us wants.
> >>
> >> If the "thing" is to reform ICANN, it seems to me that the ICANN Board
> >> could do that tomorrow. There is a window of opportunity, while the USG
> >> is flapping around dealing with Snowdenia.
> >>
> >> So I believe that it really does matter which "Internet Governance
> >> challenges"
> >> we are supposed to be dealing with.
> >>
> >>     Brian
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
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