[discuss] Transiting e-mails

Wed Jan 8 01:40:46 UTC 2014

> On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:27 PM, Michel Gauthier <mg at telepresse.com> wrote:
> 
>> At 00:05 08/01/2014, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>>
>>> Michel, it isn't a question of caring or not caring. The issue is
>>> technical: the Internet is a datagram network, not a circuit-switched
>>> network, and in a datagram network the sender has no control over the
>>> path taken by the packet, which is determined dynamically inside the
>>> network.
>>>
>> Brian,
>> I am sorry: this is a not an adequate response.
>>
>> 1. the question is: how users can specify their needs and get their
>> interests represented and defended? There is no consumer organization in
>> the IG nor on /1net.

Well, please remember that every single person who has ever contributed
to the IETF's work, starting 1986 at the first meeting, was a user. In many
cases they are users who also work for many other users in their own
organisation. So while this is not a complete answer to your point, the
Internet technology is a little unusual in that its designers are all
its users too. Also, anyone who wishes to participate in the IETF can do
so - that certainly includes people from any organisation comprising users.

I cannot speak for "the IG" since I still don't know what it is.

>>
>> 2. this question is illustrated by a vital case with a double suggestion
>> for a solution:
>>     - the first suggestion calls for a more advanced routing management
>>     - the second suggestion calls for a modification of the packets that
>> could be used to support in international cyberwar convention.
>>
>> If something which is needed by users is not technically possible in the
>> current status of a technology, it is up to ist designers to work out a
>> technical solution. 

I'd say it's up to somebody to design an alternative technology.
But the first stage is to persuade some group of engineers that
there's a problem to be solved. As far as pervasive surveillance
is concerned, I think that has been achieved. It's entirely unclear
that the solutions will be along the lines you suggest, but that
dsicussion is just starting in the IETF.

>> As a user I am not interested in your best effort but
>> in the delliverable. If it turns out that the technical community does not
>> know how to deliver, or does not bother, an alternative must be seeked in
>> calling on competition. This is what the lack of interest in the users'
>> demands by the IAB leads to.

Why do you bring the IAB into it? New work enters the IETF because
people choose to bring it to the IETF. Actually I suspect the same
applies to W3C, IEEE and ITU-T.

>> Users wants a solution to be protected from private/public NSAs'
>> surveillance. You say that the IAB/IETF cannot do it 

No, I said that your suggestion about routing can't be done.
(And it wouldn't help anyway, since the signals intelligence
commmunity has interception points in many countries.)

>> (while others say
>> otherwise). Users therefore want an alternative proposition. This is why
>> their Govs first look at the ITU. 

Right, the ones who have completely failed for more than 100
years to prevent signals intelligence agencies intercepting
international traffic. The Zimmermann telegram is the most famous
case.

>> The US oppose. Then they to their own
>> national R&D capacities. The users also ask FLOSS architects and designers.
>> The I*people do not own the bandwidth: the users pay for it.
>>
>> This is why the question is: will the balkanization of the internet result
>> from the IAB governance? 

No. To the extent that it happens, it results entirely from nation
state actions.

>> If people do not trust the internet anymore it is
>> because they trust the NSA, as being fully able to make it insecure. Why is
>> the NSA able to do it so easily? Whose fault? 

Jacquard, Babbage and Turing. They made the fundamental inventions
that created information technology. People really need to understand
that this issue is a basic property of digital information.

>> The internet is broken, who
>> can fix it? 

I haven't noticed anything that works less well recently. I admit,
I have assumed since about 1996 that all my email may be examined
by NSA or their friends; I don't care, having nothing to hide.

>> What is the cost? 

I expect that the cost of limiting the scope of pervasive surveillance,
if that is your concern, will be very high. It's a cost we were bound
to pay sooner or later; Snowdenia means it will be sooner.

>> If the fault is with the IAB governance, can
>> we trust the IAB governance to fix it?

The IAB is not a governance body in any shape or form.

>>
>> I do not know what Sao Paulo will really be about. Someone asked today:
>> will Sao Paulo find plumbers for the Internet, outside of the Watergate
>> ones? I think this is the whole question everyone has.

I have no questions about that. As far as I know, the plumbers are already
at work on the problem. Actually some plumbers seem quite happy that
the public revelations have been made, since it legitimises their
concerns.

(If you want to sample the technical analysis, I suggest
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-barnes-pervasive-problem)

>>
>> I am sorry to be tought and thought provoking. But we need constructive
>> answers, now: because alternative R&D and transition call for time.. We
>> (the world) need to know if there is some able skippers in the cockpit, or
>> if they just do not have the answers because it is too complicate.

It is complicated, so patience is needed.

   Brian