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

Sat Mar 22 20:01:12 UTC 2014

Hi Michael,

I think you're very far off base there, if you're suggesting
that the IETF are somehow corrupted by this sponsorship. If
you're not suggesting that, then making that clear would be
helpful I think.

The IETF's funding is pretty transparent I think. Between this
kind of new multi-year deal and meeting sponsorships, I think
it mostly does come from large IT/networking companies. (But a
substantial chunk comes from meeting participants via meeting
fees.)

It seems to me that no large company has even been a saint. But
so what? That has afaik no influence on what the IETF does other
than individual people thank the sponsors now and then.

Also, I don't recall the IETF ever proposing that our way of
handling rough consensus would, could or should be used in any
other context. Maybe some people have said or think that but
the IETF hasn't said any such thing that I recall. So you're
also conflating entirely separate things I think, and in an
unfair manner.

Anyway, sponsoring the IETF doesn't get anyone any favourable
treatment that I've seen in the last nearly 19 years of being
involved with the IETF. You can believe me or not on that, and
either way you can audit all the mailing lists and (since the
datatracker tool was developed) all the IESG comments on
drafts as they become RFCs. I don't believe you will find even
a dubious correlation, but I'd be interested if you did.

IMO you are just barking up the wrong tree.

S.

On 03/22/2014 05:00 PM, michael gurstein wrote:
> 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-r
> eal-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... 
> 
>  <http://www.infoworld.com/blogs/robert-x-cringely> 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-f
> air-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] 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> 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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