Re: [hrpc] Summary ID on Human Rights presentation & next steps

[Mallory Knodel <[e-mail]>]

Hi joana

Congrats on sparking an interesting debate at the IETF in Hawaii. I
found all comments in the transcript useful, even those that questioned
the foundation of the research. In particular, I thought the suggestion
to analyze RFCs carefully for assumptions of rights is a better approach
than searching for overt mentions of rights. Interviews in Dallas could
certainly give more weight to the findings if we take this approach.

Questioning the apolitics of protocols is really a fundamental goal of
this work. I think while difficult, it would also be extremely
productive to continue to engage with folks in the community who feel
technology should strive to be apolitical, thereby developing a very
strong counterposition.

Very happy to lend a hand with this work,
-Mallory

On 01/20/2015 10:34 AM, Joana Varon wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Happy 2015! We hope it will bring us the opportunity for enlightening
> and rich debates on human rights and protocols over here.
>
> For the purpose of doing so, this is an attempt to summarize and and
> structure our work. So, please, find underneath (a) the summary of the
> session at IETF91 where we presented the Internet Draft on Human
> Rights considerations for Internet protocols and (b) a brainstorming
> of some research priorities for the coming time.
>
> At the bottom you can also find the links for the records of the
> session and related documents. The full transcription of the Q&A are
> also here attached.
>
> All comments, questions and suggestions for research methods and
> angles are very welcome. We are also looking for more help of
> researchers who are interested in helping us with researching specific
> RFCs to help us refine the methodology. Please, feel free to ping us
> on or offlist.
>
> Best,
>
> Joana and Niels
>
> *
> **a) Summary of the Session*
>
> An active debate about standards, protocols and human rights took
> place during the meeting of the Security Area Advisory Group -- SAAG
> at IETF 91, Hawaii. The discussion was framed by the Internet Draft
> "Proposal for research on human rights protocol considerations". [1]
>
> The Draft departs from the work that has been done by IETF on privacy
> and Internet protocols, such as RFC 6973 on Privacy Consideration
> guidelines [2], suggesting that some standards and protocols can
> solidify, enable or threaten human rights, such as freedom of
> expression and the right to association online. The proposal aims to
> establish a research group under the IRTF to study the structural
> relationship and impact between Internet standards and protocols and
> freedom of expression and association.
>
> A deeper rationale for presenting such proposal was explained during
> the presentation at SAAG. The presenters, who are also the authors of
> this note highlighted that the Internet was designed with freedom and
> openness of communications as core values, but were also questioning
> whether this a structural value that can or needs to be preserved on a
> technical level. As the politicization of the Internet management
> space increases, it is argued that IETF should have an active role to
> promote a more structured and holistic approach. This would allow
> sustained future proofing of standards and protocols to avoid ad hoc
> decisions following incidents or disclosures at a variety of other
> foras and actors.
>
> The proposal raised some eyebrows and concerns about the
> politicization of the work of the community. Dan Harkins posed that:
> "doing the human rights study will likely politicize protocols. Not
> want the technology to have political context. I want technology to be
> so unpolitical as possible." This sparked a discussion with a rapid
> follow up by Justin, who stated that "we have to stop pretending that
> technology is a non-political decision", a remark that was followed by
> a round of applause. One of the presenters responded that the research
> proposal was exactly aimed at avoiding further politicization of
> protocols or the community, but rather give the community time in a
> proper process to define its position.
>
> Both John Levine and Alissa Cooper remarked that it is crucial to
> start of with a focus on specific human rights, because it will help
> keep the research manageable and help start the thinking about the
> balancing of different rights. The presenters reaffirmed that the
> primary focus will indeed be on the rights to freedom of expression
> and right to association.   Alissa Cooper mentioned the IAB ID  on
> filtering considerations [3] and the RFC  Policy Considerations for
> Internet Protocols [4] as relevant sources for research.
>
> Several RFCs already make quite explicit statement about the
> objectives of the Internet, such as RFC1958 which  mentions 'the
> community believes that the goal [of the Internet] is connectivity,
> the tool is the Internet Protocol'.  It continues a bit further: 'The
> current exponential growth of the network seems to show that
> connectivity is its own reward, and is more valuable than any
> individual application such as  mail or the World-Wide Web.'  This
> marks the intrinsic value of connectivity which is facilitated by the
> Internet, both in principle, and in practice.  This shows that the
> underlying  principles of the Internet aim to preserve connectivity,
> which is fundamental and similar to the part of article 19 of the
> Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which defines a right to
> receive and to impart information.
>
> But there are also protocols that enable freedom of expression and
> access to information in an unprecedented way, such as HTTP. Even
> though there is not an explicit reference to rights in RFC7230, it
> does form the basis for a rights enabling architecture. The challenge
> of the research would be to seek out the specific protocol
> attribute(s) that enable that protocol to affect a specific human right.
>
> The major challenge as next step would be to developed to develop an
> appropriate methodology to research the existing implicit safeguards
> in current standards and protocols, and making them explicit. Open
> discussions already gave some insights for possible methodological
> approaches. Richard Barnes suggests: "seems that you are reading RFCs
> and that you are looking for statement on rights and human rights that
> are laid out in RFCs. You might risk irritating people at least by
> reading reading technical documents as political statements. I think
> it might be more useful to use RFCs as a window into the rights that
> the community that developed these RFCs presumes." Mark Nottingham
> also proposed a perspective of stakeholder prioritization as described
> in ID Representing Stakeholder Rights in Internet Protocols [5]  which
> is as already implemented at the W3C.
>
> Other very useful remarks were made during and after the session, as
> well on the mailinglist [6] which are currently being used to improve
> the next version of the draft, possibly, to be further discussed at a
> Birds of Feather session in Dallas.
> *
> **b) Research priorities and next steps*
>
> The proceedings of this session lead the presenters and authors of the
> ID to conclude that the subject and the research raised interest in
> the community. Their aim is to continue the research work an produce
> an updated ID before the Dallas meeting.
>
> The research in the coming time will focus on documenting the specific
> protocol attributes that explicitly or implicitly affect specific
> human rights. For achieving that, a research methodology will be
> further developed; suggestions for the first steps consist of:
>
> a) improving the list of RFCs that possibly have attributes to the
> right to freedom of expression and association;
>
> b) conduct interviews at the Dallas meeting to further understand the
> intention that Area Directors and RFC authors have with specific
> protocols and how rights play a role in that;
>
> c) set a common template to analyze standards and protocols describing
> the exact features, functions, characteristics or entities that allow
> a more defined understanding on the relation between them and the
> right to freedom of expression and association.
>
> Nevertheless, these are just our suggestions to keep developing the ID
> and the work ahead of it. Comments, suggestions, hints are more then
> welcome and very much appreciated.
>
>
> *References*
>  [1] Proposal for research on human rights protocol considerations,
>  http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-doria-hrpc-proposal-00.txt
>
>  [2]  RFC 6973 on Privacy Considerations for Internet Protocols
>  https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6973.txt
>
>  [3] Technical Considerations for Internet Service Blocking and Filtering
>  http://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-iab-filtering-considerations-06.txts
>
>  [4]  Policy Considerations for Internet Protocols
>  https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-morris-policy-cons-00
>
>  [5] Representing Stakeholder Rights in Internet Protocols,
>  https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-nottingham-stakeholder-rights-00.txt
>
>  [6]  https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/hrpc
>
> * Other relevant links and information*
>  IETF91 SAAG Agenda:
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/91/agenda/agenda-91-saag
>  IETF 91 SAAG minutes:
>  http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/91/minutes/minutes-91-saag
>  IETF 91 SAAG audio recording:
>  http://www.ietf.org/audio/ietf91/ietf91-coral3-20141113-1300-pm1.mp3
>  Presentation starts at 40:15
>  Presentation:
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/91/slides/slides-91-saag-6.pdf
> -- 
> --
> Joana Varon
> @joana_varon
> https://antivigilancia.org
> Fingerprint 
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>
>
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-- 
Mallory Knodel
Association for Progressive Communications :: apc.org <https://apc.org>
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