At 23:50 10/10/2013, michael gurstein wrote:
My take is that many in the
technical community are feeling appalled and
betrayed by what they/we have learned through Snowden.
Dear Michael,
Thank you for your analysis. I think this is very important, if we want
to proceed positively, to identify, know and understand better each
others. To that end I will try to maintain this note and make an IETF
Draft of it. Comments are welcome.
Actually, the so called "technical community" case is critical
as its members detain (along late Peter de Blanc’s [ccTLD Chair at Marina
de Rey, 2000 ICANN meeting] well known response to Mike Robert, as an
a-parte to me) the keys of the “nuclear arsenal” of which ICANN tries now
for 13 years to prevent us to use. Something we are extremely cautious
about, and now we feel we have to review due to the loss of IAB
architectonical neutral guidance.
This calls for an architectonic decision. This memo explains this
decision.
The background
If you consider the IETF experience and terminology there are four
kinds of people who are technically concerned by the internet (cf.
RFC 3935 which defines the mission of the IETF based on three decades of
experience). I use to call them the “net keepers”:
(1) those who influence by their documentation,
(2) those who design,
(3) those who use, and
(4) those who manage the internet.
In your post, you implicitly refer to the first category which currently
has the focus, because some (cf. RFC 6852) want it to switch:
- from the neutral and democratic (yet not specifically defined) “goal of
making the Internet work better” strictly subject to documented values
(RFC 3935).
- to “the consideration of the economics of global markets, where the
deployment of standards is regardless of their formal status” and is to
“contribute[s] to the creation of new markets and the growth and
expansion of existing markets” in “foster[ing] global
competition”.
Personal involvements
I understand that you yourself belong to the fourth one, while most
of the people on this list belong to the third one. What is discussed
today is the behavior of the members of the second category, who design
and shape the internet mostly on political premises.
To fully understand what will happen, one has to consider the people from
the first category, those who technically influence. There are four
classes:
1. the professionals paid by a corporation or an academy.
2. the people voluntarily working for the people in the application area,
3. the people voluntarily researching and developing in the network
system area.
4. the lead users able to adapt their digital environment to their
needs.
Motivations
All of them enjoy the "joy of solving technical problems"
you mention, ethitechnically if possible because it respects their values
and is more difficult and, therefore, more fun. None of the seasoned ones
have learned anything technical through Snowden: they only have been
informed about the (sometimes odd or old) ways some of the things were
implemented by one of the leading intelligence centers (a significant
part of them is directly or indirectly an on intelligence center
payroll).
Concerns and capacities
1. "Class #1 people" perform paid work. Their position has
been well documented by the IAB in RFC 3869 and their ethic in RFC 3935.
These RFCs seem to be contradicted by RFC 6852.
2. "Class #2 people" are not really concerned by the network
issues.
3. "Class #3 people" number not so many. Their main concern is
the innovation limitations imposed by the Class #1 culture. This is
partly described in RFC 3774. Pioneers know that the true technical
problems are the architectonical complexity (exciting to explore) and the
political, economic, international, societal usual hysteresis that some
of them are now able to scientifically theorize.
4. "Class #4 people" will be able to move the world when they
reach a critical mass.
- FLOSS made them hope that they could join class #1 through ICANN
(@large) and/or IETF
(http://iucg.org/wiki), etc. but they
faced more interfacing problems there than class #3 people.
- Then they hoped that Civil Society could help but there is too much
politicalese.
- Govts try to help them but usually through too much bureaucracy.
- An ITU-I could actually be their best bet. But ITU demands big
budgets.
Architectonical esthetic
As "Class #4 people" reach criticality in terms of size,
exposure, available tools, etc. some of them realize that they are still
a small and emerging but key fifth multistakeholder group by their own,
forming the "Digital Society" with its own solutions, interests
and most of all esthetic (“a people centered, à caractère humain,
centrada en la persona” as Tunis proclaimed it – to be compared with the
RFC 6852 FRAND esthetic [“fair terms may vary from royalty-free to fair,
reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND)”] ),
They understand that they form a group that can
only grow. This group has tried over the years to document a technical
ethic toward their esthetic when designing, operating, and managing the
world digital ecosystem. To that end, its members dutifully participated
in the GNSO, IDNHO, icannatlarge.org, various ICANN @large lists, the
IGF, and civil society. They havebserved for 14 years, since Sotiris
Sotiropoulos' initial proposition of working out a 33rd HR article on
digital human rights, that no one but themselves could understand and
document the technical, architectural and architectectonic roots of this
cause and pragmatically advance it in the source where it belongs
("code is law") for the common good of all.
Identification by the other stakeholders
This is probably the major lesson of the current civil society
exchanges. Civil Society shows its limits in terms of influence and
decision capacity. However, while they only represent a limited number of
non-operative activists, they are seriously considered by key people in
charge of real operations (RIR CEOs are acknowledged managers heading
internet critical organizations) that "USSH inc." (US
StakeHolders, Incorporated) has delegated to inform and hear Civil
Society.
This happens while people with digital needs, concerns, uses, budgets
(private or small businesses), and most of all innovative solutions, are
not listened to, not even by the IETF which genuinely tried to welcome
them but is not adapted to their proceedings. This is something that must
change if the whole digital ecosystem is to reach equilibrium.
The common priority
The priority for all of us is, therefore, to get:
- the Digital Society identified as such (those who attend to the digital
sphere of our world) and acknowledged by all,
- its 4 classes listened to and supported until it shares in the MS
leadership of our world.
- This Digital Society to structure itself to better understand and help
to more intelligently use the common interest capacities of the world
digital ecosystem toward a sustainable development for all (including the
USSH clients).
This seems to become a practical necessity when we observe the
difficulties encountered by the four classical multistakeholder groups
alone. This necessity has been acknowledged by ICANN and Brazil in
considering that Telcos are members of the family. So are the IUsers
(intelligent network users).
A preliminary analysis seems to indicate that the needs are:
- a polycratic cooperation of openness-oriented projects, coalitions, and
people
- a brain/bot referential registry
- an Open Research and Development concerted (not centrally coordinated)
cooperation
- open funding information
- the establishment of mutual relations with the members of the four
other multistakeholder groups.
A concerted review toward an OpenUse initiative will be undertaken in the
coming weeks by digital society stakeholders.
jfc
These are folks who
helped build the tech of the Internet not for dotcom millions or to
support
one foreign/security policy or another but rather because they believed
that
the capacity for networking and communications that they were enabling
would
contribute to human betterment (and I would guess, for the sheer joy
of
solving the technical problems involved.
They more than anyone else now feel the sting of betrayal both
professional
(what were they building) and personal (who was telling them the truth
and
who wasn't) and they even more than others realize how much of the
Internet
was built on trust and continues to operate on the basis of trust,
how
fragile trust is, how quickly it disappears and how difficult it is
to
rebuild it (and whatever else relies on it) when it is gone.
The notice from the EFF concerning its withdrawal from the GNI, I
just
circulated is perhaps the first among many such formal withdrawals of
trust
and long term collaborations because of what has been revealed by
Snowden
but most definitely not the last.
M
-----Original Message-----
From: McTim
[
mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 2:02 PM
To: Raul Echeberria
Cc: [log in to unmask]; Carlos A. Afonso; michael gurstein;
Lee W
McKnight; Rafik Dammak; Joana Varon;
<,[log in to unmask]>,;
NCSG List
Subject: Re: [governance] [bestbits] Rousseff & Chehade: Brazil will
host
world event on Internet governance in 2014
Raul,
On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:20 PM, Raul Echeberria <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
>
> Carlos:
>
> I agree with you that the President Rousseff position is of course
not
based on the Montevideo statement. It should be very very arrogant to
think
that.
as well as not physically possible (unless you had a time
machine).
My point to Carlos and MG was that the T&A are taking the lead on
this in
the spirit of "continuing cooperation".
My reaction was also motivated by Jeremy saying;
"It also neutralises the effect of the old guard of the technical
community
(ISOC mainly) at the Working Group on Enhanced
Cooperation."
Which is 180 degrees different from my analysis. It seems to me that
ISOC
and the other Montevideo signatories are stronger in the WGEC becasue
of
these 2 events.
Would it be possible to disclose if the Summit was discussed in
Montevideo?
--
Cheers,
McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route
indicates how we get there." Jon Postel