RE: WCIT outcome?

["Tony Hain" <[e-mail]>]

> Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
> ...
> There are some control points in the Internet but they are rather less
critical 
> than many imagine. IPv6 address space allocations, DNS zone management 
> and AIS numbers are arguably control points.
>
> If we can eliminate the control point nature of those resources then the 
> essential government needs in Internet regulation will have been met and
the 
> need for the ITU to be involved will disappear entirely. There are still
concerns 
> that an ITU-like body could usefully address. A treaty baring
cyber-sabotage 
> would be an important and useful effort that demands a diplomatic
approach.


> Fred Baker wrote:
>
> ...
> If you want something to fade away, making a fuss about it isn't a useful
> approach. The IETF's practice in the past has been to improve the
Internet; I
> tend to think that's as it should be.
> 
> That said, I'm also of the opinion that preventing a police force from
> conducting a proper criminal investigation is not a path to success. We
like to
> say that the Internet routes around brokenness; so do police forces and
> legislative bodies. They define "brokenness" as anything that prevents
them
> from doing their job, the same way we do. What I would far rather see is a
> set of technical mechanisms and supporting law that facilitate legitimate
> criminal investigations and expose the other kind.


> Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>
> ...
> That depended on how the various national monopolists chose to interpret
> the rules. In Switzerland we were particularly affected by the fact that
the
> PTT monopoly was a specific line item in the federal Constitution. In the
US,
> you had the benefit of Judge Greene.


> John Day wrote:
>
> ...
> Also, I would agree with Fred's comment on helping the police.
> Although as we all know that can be hard call and one has to hope that the
> proper controls are on them as well.  The problem as I see it is that it
is not a
> good idea to try to constrain a new technology to behave like the old
> technology.  It is the capability they want it shouldn't imply how.


Subject thread RE: Acoustic couplers (was: WCIT outcome?)
> John C Klensin wrote:
>
> ...
> That approach and position was contemporaneous with national regulations
> in many countries that one could run all of the TCP/IP services one wanted
as
> long as they were run over the national X.25 profile and sometimes as long
as
> one claimed they were "transitional" until OSI Connection-mode stabilized.
> There might be a useful lesson or two in that bit of history.


This entire thread(s) missed the point that about why the governments
control / restrict telecom. The national PTT's didn't come into existence
because the governments were better at operating those facilities than
private enterprise. Even the acronym hints at the evolutionary consolidation
and control over the flow of information. The fact that we are not already
operating as a collection of PTT(I/W) has more to do with the pace and
direction of global government agreements than it does with any special
characteristics of the inter-web standards process. Paraphrasing Klensin's
point 'use any bit pattern you want as long as it transits the regulated
infrastructure', is a case in point about consolidating and controlling the
flow of content. 

The IETF can't get into the realm of defining "legitimate criminal
investigations", because defining "legitimate" is the role of governments.
The only thing the IETF can / should do is recognize that governments have a
role, so facilitating basic information like identity and connection-point
is required.  Content control is out of scope for any particular government
related discussions, but is required by private enterprise so the IETF does
get involved, and those results will get used in unintended ways by
governments. Attempts to thwart that unintended use will only instigate more
explicit attempts at oversight and control over the standards process. 

Like it or not, governments are fundamentally opposed to the open nature of
'the Internet', and they always will be (even the 'reasonable' ones).
Managing information flow is how they derive and exercise power (even the
'open' ones use managed leaks to the free press to influence opinion).
Assuming that the standards process can be used to mitigate their exercise
of power is naive at best. The ITU will continue to exist, if nothing more
than a unified voice for the governments to state requirements of each
other. How long the IETF gets to stay independent of that will depend on how
responsive it is to meeting the needs of governments. If short-sighted
attempts at political maneuvering are exposed in the IETF, it will lose its
independence and finally bring that process under 'proper control'. 

It would be wise for the IETF participants to look at the countries that did
sign, and why. What is it that they are not getting that they need, and how
can that be resolved? To echo Day's point, it is the capability they
want/need, not the historical implementation. Some things that are business
relationship based and completely incompatible with the evolution of
technology like 'calling party pays', are easily dismissed by the 'resource
rich', but are absolutely critical to those that have relied on that income
to fund the information control organization. Simply acknowledging that this
is an area for research and investigation is a first step, which would
likely have softened the support the resolution did get. The I* has never
been good at, and is not currently equipped to deal with, the business model
part of the problem space. At the end of the day, I see this as the root of
the unhappiness with the IETF as a standards body. I doubt any of the
signatories would argue that the pace of technology evolution under an
independent standards process is a problem, *IF* they were getting their
business needs met. The only reason to slow and control the pace is to make
sure they are able to maintain control over information flow, and evolve /
align financial relationships. The IETF needs to either meet those
requirements, or acquiesce to the inevitable take-over.


Tony


PS: if you want to remove IPv6 allocations as a control point, see:  
        tools.ietf.org/id/draft-hain-ipv6-geo-addr-02.txt
that approach does require a 'peering business model' to be more like X.75
gateways, but itself does not require shutting down the existing peerings,
as they can operate in parallel.