Rafik and all,

The IETF has taken time during the meetings over the past year to have
screenings of privacy- and security-related films. At IETF 93 the
CITIZENFOUR film was shown, and then Snowden answered questions
afterwards:

https://gist.github.com/mnot/382aca0b23b6bf082116

At IETF 94 there was a preview of "A Net of Rights" before the
plenary, a short film about human rights protocol considerations.

The reason I bring this up is just to point out that other Internet
organizations find it acceptable to have on-site gatherings to engage
with controversial topics, to try to figure out what and how they can
improve the human rights situation.

While I think that a parallel event is a good idea, remember that as
the NCSG, human-rights is explicitly in our charter. It may not be
something that ICANN as a whole be involved with, but the NCSG does not
have to shy away from the topic.




More background for those who are interested...

The IETF was somewhat shaken by the Snowden revelations of 2013 and
onwards. While not a political organization, the IETF does have some
roots in the Berkeley 1960's counter-culture, and tends to favor
technologies that value the autonomy of individuals and companies. For
example, the IETF decided in 2000 that it did not want to pursue
technologies explicitly designed for tapping VoIP calls.

The IETF approached the Snowden revelations as a problem, to be solved
in the normal IETF way. A working group was created:

https://www.ietf.org/blog/2013/09/security-and-pervasive-monitoring/

An RFC describing the problem was published:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7258.txt

Work continues. For example, TLS 1.3 is being standardized to improve
encryption. I am following the separate DNS privacy working group very
closely (started largely due to the excellent work of Stephane
Bortzmeyer). The focus of the group is very limited, but I expect this
will expand over time as we enable more protections for users in the
protocols themselves:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/charter/

Just days ago an IRTF research group on human rights protocol
considerations was chartered (the IRTF is the Internet Research Task
Force, where the IETF looks at topics not well-formed enough to design
protocols for):

https://www.ietf.org/jabber/logs/hrpc/

There is plenty of related work in privacy and security, such as the
Let's Encrypt project or the CrypTech project. These exist outside the
IETF since they are working on more than protocol standards, but they
have lots of individuals from the IETF involved, and they do seek to
standardize things that make sense.

Cheers,

--
Shane


At 2015-12-10 11:39:15 +0900
Rafik Dammak <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Tapani,
> 
> happy to do that, I will first investigate what are the options and what
> can be done, discussing with the moroccan friends and locals. I am aware
> about the political context and sensitivity in the country, and will get
> more info and feedback anyway.
> 
> I saw the latest responses and I think they jumped too quickly to some
> conclusion. I didn't see any proposal for protest or something similar such
> occupying the space. I don't think those activists would ask for any bold
> action or ICANN as organization to take position in the matter. they are
> cautious and pragmatic, aware of the limits. we will discuss with them
> anyway about the best options, having their safety in mind.
> 
> btw regarding a parallel event, I may respond to that quickly. ADN, the
> association, was prevented several times from having public meetings so I
> would assume that option doesn't sound realistic.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Rafik
> 
> 2015-12-09 23:11 GMT+09:00 Tapani Tarvainen <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
> > Hi Niels,
> >
> > I think this is an excellent idea.
> >
> > But exactly what and how, that is a difficult question.
> >
> > Fortunately we have people with local knowledge who can
> > help us plan this in more detail. I should think Rafik
> > would be in an ideal position to coordinate this effort,
> > if his undoubtedly busy schedule allows.
> >
> > Rafik, what do you think?
> >
> > Tapani
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 09, 2015 at 10:56:11AM +0100, Niels ten Oever (
> > [log in to unmask]) wrote:
> >  
> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > Hash: SHA256
> > >
> > > Dear all,
> > >
> > > I hope this email finds you well. As you all know, the next ICANN
> > > meeting will be in Marrakesh. Morrocco hasn't got a great track record
> > > when it comes to human rights, and right now, seven human rights
> > > defenders are on trial.
> > >
> > > I think it would be good if we the NCSG we could give proper attention
> > > to this case and invite the human rights defenders to our session(s)
> > > so give them support, shed light on their case and call for the
> > > protection of freedom of expression in Morrocco.
> > >
> > > More information on the seven can be found here:
> > > https://www.freepressunlimited.org/en/news/these-seven-moroccan-human-ri
> > > ghts-defenders-are-on-trial
> > >
> > > and here:
> > >
> > > https://www.freepressunlimited.org/en/news/international-appeal-to-the-m
> > > oroccan-authorities-to-drop-charges-against-human-rights-defenders
> > >
> > > Am eager to hear from you how you think we could support these
> > > colleagues in distress, how we could visibility for their cases and
> > > how we could integrate these discussions in our work at ICANN.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > >
> > > Niels
> > >
> > > - --
> > > Niels ten Oever
> > > Head of Digital
> > >
> > > Article 19
> > > www.article19.org
> > >
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