[discuss] FW: Comcast undertakes 9 year IETF cosponsorship!?

Sat Mar 22 17:29:17 UTC 2014

You’re right – you’ve moved beyond snide insinuation to outright accusation that the IETF and ISOC are corrupt and that their processes and outcomes are influenced by Comcast’s sponsorships.  And, while you’re at it, that the “US telecom policy and regulatory system” are “corrupted” and that multistakeholderism “at its heart” is “an attempt to foist” that policy and regulatory system “on the Internet and on the world.”

I’ll let Comcast fend for itself, but your accusations regarding IETF, ISOC and the multistakeholder organizations are quite outrageous and completely unsupported.

I’m fairly confident that no matter what anyone does, says, or shows, you will stick to this worldview.  Since it would be a waste of time to crawl into the ditch with you and argue these points, I will install award you the first, inaugural “Tin Foil Beret” award.  As you can tell from the name, I didn’t expect that you would be the first winner, but as a resident of a quasi-Francophone country, you’re more than qualified on style as well as substance.  I’m sure you will wear it with pride, since you clearly think that the rest of us, lacking such haberdashery, are in the thrall of some massive mind-control exercise that you and a select few have managed to avoid.  So, while I disagree with virtually everything you’ve said here and believe that it has absolutely no basis in fact, you’ve earned this award with the courage of your convictions.

Greg Shatan

From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2014 1:00 PM
To: 'McTim'
Cc: bestbits; '1Net List'; governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [discuss] FW: Comcast undertakes 9 year IETF cosponsorship!?

I’m not sure why it might be a “snide insinuation”…

It seems quite explicit that the IETF and ISOC, two of the major pillars of multistakeholderism which is so vehemently being promoted by the US Government and its followers in the tech and civil society communities as a replacement for democratic governance of the Internet, have long histories of accepting payments from Comcast a major US corporation which is widely understood as being among the least ethical and possibly most active in undermining US policy and regulatory processes in support of its own narrow economic self-interests (increasingly encompassing the Internet).

http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/corruption-distortion-control-comcasts-real-life-house-of-cards-238904

InfoWorld Home<http://www.infoworld.com/> / Notes from the Field<http://www.infoworld.com/blogs/robert-x.-cringely> / Corruption, distortion, control: Comcast's...
[Robert X. Cringely]<http://www.infoworld.com/blogs/robert-x-cringely>
March 21, 2014
Corruption, distortion, control: Comcast's real-life 'House of Cards'
The frenzy over the proposed Time Warner merger hides damning details of Comcast's power-hungry moves
By Robert X. Cringely<http://www.infoworld.com/author-bios/robert-x-cringely> | InfoWorld<http://www.infoworld.com/>
Let's talk about Comcast, he said, hands trembling and the big vein in his forehead throbbing like a jungle drum. I hit the FCC's Net neutrality delusion<http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/railroads-superhighways-and-the-fight-fair-access-237815> in a previous post, where FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler interpreted the Supreme Court's Net neutering decision as giving the FCC even broader powers of control over the big Internet providers instead of the steel-toed kick to his crotch it really is. Complete double-talk seems to the standard for the Internet provider business these days.
Comcast is a perfect example of a we-don't-care, double-talking, slavering, rampaging telecom/cable monstrosity that's using this consumer-crippling legislation to topple our competitive choices like Godzilla strolling through Tokyo. It's only going to get worse. Sure, there are tinfoil hats preaching ridiculous Comcast conspiracies, but maybe the wingnuts are on to something, even if they're starting out from pothead premises.
The deal that's been in the news the most recently is Comcast's move to devour Time Warner Cable. You'd think Time Warner might not be superhappy about this deal, but its CEO, Rob Marcus, got up at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom Conference held earlier this month in the highly industrious locale of Palm Beach, Fla., and enthused that the $45 billion merger will put all of us in happy-happy land.
Newsflash: It won't. Rather, get ready to be dumped into hugely-screwed-douche-broom land. The deal means that Comcast is set to service about two-thirds of the American population with both Internet and entertainment. How many of those folks are going to have an actual, practical choice?
Comcast spreads it tentacles
Tellingly Marcus has been Time Warner's CEO for only about two months, and recently leaked information on his compensation package shows that he stands to make robber baron money if the merger goes through -- to the tune of about $80 million<http://bgr.com/2014/03/20/comcast-twc-merger-news-ceo-marcus/>. How could he possibly be biased? I know I'm a cynical old fart, but is it loony to suspect that Comgraft may have had a hand in getting this guy a key to the executive bathroom? If there was any justice, he'd have to write a resignation letter right this minute with ink made from rectal blood and salty tears.
The fate of U.S. Internet pipes isn't all that's on the block. With Net laws castrated as they currently are, Comcast can also opt to bully content providers and control what you can and can't access on what amounts to its Internet. In a recent blog post, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sounds like he's complaining about this trend -- never mind he's already validated it. Netflix complained of degraded throughput to its customers about a month ago, then paid Com-lie an exorbitant extortion fee, and presto! Its service quality was magically restored. Hastings and Comcast paint this as a big win for consumers, but they're actually saying we're as dumb as a bag of hammers…
Doesn’t seem very snide or insinuatory to me…

And yes, most non-corrupted public policy processes are publicly funded with appropriate degrees of transparency and accountability and with clear boundaries between public interests and private interests guarded with varying degrees of ferocity by laws governing conflicts of interest and suborning of public officials and public policy processes.  What isn’t made clear in the overwhelming forces and banshee howling of support for MSism is that at its heart it is an attempt to foist the generally acknowledged as corrupted US telecom policy and regulatory system on the Internet and on the world.

And a question for you and all the other multistakeholderists—is this what you want for Global Internet Governance?

M

From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org> [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of McTim
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2014 7:07 AM
To: Michel Gauthier
Cc: 1Net List
Subject: Re: [discuss] FW: Comcast undertakes 9 year IETF cosponsorship!?

On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 9:12 AM, Michel Gauthier <mg at telepresse.com<mailto:mg at telepresse.com>> wrote:
At 02:45 22/03/2014, McTim wrote:
If you are trying to make an argument by quoting rfc3869 and then quoting a page from the ISOC website I think you will have to do better than that, as one is related to research and the Comcast partnership is about IETF meetings and other activities.  ISOC itself doesn't do research in the way that DNS-OARC or CAIDA or others do it.  ISOC does surveys mainly and recently economic effects of IXPs, etc.

If you would prefer public funding for IETF activities, then please state that, otherwise, one can't tell what your argument is all about.

I only do my collection, analysis and reporting job after sorting real, tricky, naive and noisy inputs, on this and other equivalent lists or fora where real infuencing strategies are observable.

So far, you are not even speculating that there is an 'influencing strategy", you are merely posting random factoids seemingly in support of the other MGs snide insinuations.

To my knowledge DNS-OARC is a private club

This has nothing to do with what I pointed out about them, that they do research of the kind that you suggested that the IETF does.

of which the interest in users support is characterized by its https://www.dns-oarc.net/oarc/services/dnsentropy page which states: "On August 7, 2008, Dan Kaminsky<http://www.ioactive.com/kaminsky.html> will release additional details about these poisoning attacks. "

another tangental red-herring.

CAIDA membership is beyond financial access to FLOSS IUsers and corporations interested in their market, what is my focussed area.

This doesn't mask the fact that they do research on 'future Internet issues"

My question to you still stands.

How would you like the IETF to be funded??

rgds,

McTim

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