[discuss] Draft Status Report - [was Problem definition 1, version 4]

[Michel Gauthier]

At 19:24 21/01/2014, Ben fuller wrote:
>Whenever I have taught research methods, I always tell my students 
>that defining the research question is the most important part of the process.

Ben,

If you want to compare to research, George is only presenting a 
charter for a tutorial work group.

1. The definition of the research question has been formulated by 
Nathalie and has not yet (and, therefore, not consensually) been 
answered: "what is the Internet?".
2. George being a Member of the ICANN BoD (not expressing in his 
mails until today [while they have been noted by every Gov]that he 
was not speaking on behalf of ICANN);
3. George is acting as a de facto WG chair using the ICANN /1Net 
mailing list as the ICANN/WG/1NET mailing list.

However, we are not in research here; we are in a political move that 
disregards most of all the other contextual elements. Some political 
evaluation questions are (this is part of a draft working report of mine):

1. why is George presenting that topic for a pre-Sao Paulo work when 
this is not a published priority, such an opposition to balkanization 
or an incentive for IPv6?
2. why is this ICANN/WG/1NET in need of a BRICS co-lead meeting?

The response seems (after yesterday's announcement) to be clear 
enough now for those used to analyzing the digisphere development. 
However, why is ICANN adopting such a convoluted approach for an 
extension of the internet governance "territory"? The only rational 
explanation at this time seems to be: in order to obtain a 
significant multilateral endorsement before any open-use wider 
non-monopolistic vision can develop.

One must wait for the designation of the 4 committee chairs and the 
announcement of the 11 lead Govs in order to understand the whole 
picture. Anyway, the plan of enlarging the internet governance to 
ICANN introduced newcomers to the detriment of the IETF (Brian 
Carpenter being active in refusing the concept of a technical 
governance), the still unorganized net aspects of the FLOSS, IUsers, 
and of the open use, is architecturally unbalancing (please consider 
who the Sao Paulo selected "technicians" are, and their branch of expertise).

This translates into the two current working trends that I have 
observed that are led by George Sadowsky and JFC Morfin.


I. ICANN WORKING TREND

George Sadowsky's preemptive proposition is in line with the usual 
ICANN attempts (GNSO, AtLarge, Registrars, IANA, gTLDs, DNSSEC, 
etc.). It consists in switching the ICANN politically attributed 
"market monopoly" to a self-rooted technical global monopoly, 
supposedly free from the US Gov umbrella. As usual, this will not 
work because naming, addressing, and coding belong to the users' use. 
The ICANN "globalization" move can only lead to a reinforcement of 
the US uniformity's influence against the users' global internet - as 
technically observed through Unicode.

However, George's proposition is important enough by what it says on 
the ICANN ambitions and by the support (people and organizations) it 
meets. It is necessary to establish the ICANN/BRICS (and other Govs) 
Sao Paulo settlement over the extension of the ICANN DNS role to ONS.

As quoted on this list: "... Separately, the leaders of the 
Internet's multi-stakeholder governing organizations have renewed 
calls to modernize the Internet's governing system and make it more 
inclusive. Their recent statement from Montevideo should be seen as 
an opportunity to seek that broad inclusion and for organizing 
multistakeholder responses to Internet issues that do not have a home 
today. And we must work together with them in good faith on these 
important issues. I think we can and all should agree that this 
effort cannot be used or manipulated in a way that centralizes power 
over the Internet in the hands of any one stakeholder.  ..."

Ambassador Daniel A. Sepulveda
Deputy Assistant Secretary and U.S. Coordinator for International 
Communications and Information Policy, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs
Bali, Indonesia
October 22, 2013

How well said that is! ICANN is, therefore, positioning itself as a 
non-stakeholder that is "servicing" every supposedly significant stakeholder.


II. IUSE WORKING TREND

The clarification of the intelligent use' doctrine seems to develop 
in parallel, based upon the idea that every stakeholder is 
significant. I analyze the following convergence as follows:

   1. the Internet is an incomplete proof of concept that overexposes 
the world economy, nations, and people to cyberwar/crime actions. 
This was exemplified by the NSA's ease in penetrating actually 
non-technologically protected US and non-US systems. The Internet 
weakness proceeds from the incompletion of the IEN 48 plan irt. 
catenet and the lack of extension to the Tymnet multitechnological 
level. The US technology at its present level cannot be trusted.

   2. if Sao Paulo is a strategic success, along the Fadi/Dilma's 
less and less undisclosed GS1 oriented projects, the technical 
situation will become critical for the network unless ISOC has plans 
for a non yet  disclosed correlative architectural move, in which 
case the technical situation would probably become harassing for 
IUsers and end-users, i.e. the people who would be definitely 
transformed in big data intellectual (state and private intelligence 
agencies) and physical (RFIDs) sources.

   3. Until now, an open code effort for the completion of the 
catenet/tymnet phase of the IEN 48 project was risky as crime-states 
("state" being every entity that can change the state of the world) 
and corporate-state TNCs (transnational corporations) could use it 
against nation states. Snowdenia has raised enough public attention 
to decrease that risk and make political concerns better understood 
when necessary to the stability of peace, commerce and life in the 
digital ecosystem, such as the Tallinn-Manual issues and 
cybercrime/warfare somatic (i.e. human/physical) losses and threat prevention.

   4. since:

       - they are excluded from Sao Paulo's IG revamp preparation by ICANN
       - GS1/ONS issues are snuck in, instead of being openly published
       - phase 2 Internet (cf. IEN 48 second motivation) 
catenet/tymnet level's distributed architecture is not considered
       - MS cooperative governance is incompatible with the concept 
of single root based unified/uniform/unique governance (BUG) 
centralized under ICANN coordination (in Joe Sims' continuity with 
the Zbigniew Brzezinski's doctrine that the peace of the world rests 
on global cooperation, ... coordinated by the USA).

   5. they are waiting for a full confirmation of their expectations 
by the Sao Paulo meeting committees to proceed independently in 
exploring, documenting, developing, validating, deploying, and 
governing a digital experience that everyone can use better rather 
than a few who can sell better (which does not exclude the latter).


III. ANALYSIS

The only stable solution (i.e. reducing general conflicts in local 
ones) is to distribute the MS power on the network throughout 
specialized enhanced cooperation initiatives as agreed at the WSIS.

ICANN has partly understood this but does not want itself to melt as 
a stakeholder in a coalition. The USGasked Joe Sims to  design ICANN 
to run the show. The only chage they can do is to close their shop: 
it would be too soon in the transition. They have called upon 
academic people for a make-believe extended MSism and in the hope of 
a proposition of theoretical innovations that they could use and 
master (i.e. decide themselves the parameters to enter in the IANA): 
this would make them necessary.

This is a clever move. However, the real internet innovation can only 
come from lead and intelligent users (i.e. from the kind of users who 
expect more from a better use of the internet and know how to obtain 
it) and/or be proven by them. This is something ICANN has overlooked 
so far: "[the internet] rejects kings, presidents, and voting. [it] 
believe[s] in rough consensus and running code". This is what makes 
IUsers the competent competitors of their own providers.

1. It seems that ICANN and Brazil have forgotten so far that in a 
people centered society (e.g. Information Society) the users are a 
necessary, main part of the MS consensus building process. One should 
not try to squeeze their rights, expectations, and interests for too 
long; otherwise growth will suffer.

2. IETF has eventually understood this (IUCG) and provided a 
technical housing to the IUsers community. This community still has 
not properly identified itself. However, this self-identification may 
be spurred in reaction to the ICANN Sao Paulo strategy. It will 
probably take a few years to develop and deploy until it will make 
forget dinosaurs like ICANN. This will be a form of smooth transition 
as good as any other one since ICANN refuses innovative cooperation 
from its very inception.

3. I understand that the architectural proposition of JFC Morfin (who 
was in charge of this area at Tymnet) is now simple enough: to 
consensually work in continuity on the intellition (intelligent 
connections) layers on the network side (i.e. the missing internet 
presentation layer six) and on the intelligent use of the network on 
the computer side.

4. I understand that as a result he has delayed his ISOC appeal 
concerning the lack of consensus building governance in the technical 
area (OpenStand general level) in RFC 6852, considering that the 
IUsers could form a "global community" market, powerful and 
structured enough not to endorse OpenStand but live with it until 
experience teach them the proper form of cooperation.


Anyway, the ball is in ICANN and/or Brazil's court.