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

Sun Dec 22 19:38:13 UTC 2013

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
>>
>>
> 