[discuss] Snowden-Interview: Transcript

Tue Jan 28 13:42:29 UTC 2014

On Jan 28, 2014, at 7:45 AM, Guru गुरु <guru at itforchange.net> wrote:

> Specially for those who believe (or rather, who would like others to believe) that the status quo is to be preserved...

If, by "status quo", you are referring to Mr. Snowden's remarks re threats to his life and economic 
espionage, the former is detestable (no person should face risk of death due to their well-intended 
remarks) but I have serious doubts whether any change in the status quo of Internet governance
arrangements will impact that in the least.   Same with respect to economic espionage, the unique 
US role in Internet governance does not appear to enable or facilitate the pervasive monitoring that 
has been revealed, so changing that role will not impact it at all.   (The only good news on this front 
is that the IETF has taken up the issue of technical measures to prevent monitoring via its "perpass" 
efforts - <http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-farrell-perpass-attack-05.txt>)

If, by "status quo", you mean the unique role served by the USG in oversight of technical coordination 
of the Internet, then I'll note that I have seen very few folks on the 1net list support such a position, 
and there is no meaningful way that the Montevideo Statement can be read to support such a position.  

I believe there is a large number of ways to change the current structures to address the situation of
the unique USG role in Internet coordination, and it's hoped that actual discussion of alternatives may 
occur on this list in the near  future (once we all can move beyond posturing and get back to work on
a problem statement...)

/John

Disclaimer:  My views alone (and definitely not in support of the status quo)