Re: [saag] [Pearg] Ten years after Snowden (2013 - 2023), is IETF keeping its promises?

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Jan 9, 2023 at 11:08 AM Tony Rutkowski <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi Phil,
>
> To be fair, while nation states constrain what is allowable, there an
> array of other constraints in play which are perhaps even more forceful.
> They include what the marketplace will support or allow; what industry
> groups will support or allow; what legal systems will allow or support,
> especially relating to competition policy and normative obligations.
> Consider what will occur if Sec. 230 disappears.
>
You miss out people like myself: Technologists with a personal agenda and
independent means to pursue it. The Internet has always been shaped by
hacktivism.

My sense is that few IETF participants have a sense of what is ensuing
> through the new EU legislation as the new regulations and directives begin
> to come into force in 2023.  The free-for-all days of TCP/IP disruptive
> services and providers layered on top of other networks without controls or
> encumbrances will be coming to an end.  The secondary effect will be to
> diminish the IETF's already diminished value proposition.  On the other
> hand, it will not stop people who engage in the IETF for the personal
> pleasure obtained there.   It is perhaps ironically a bit like the new U.S.
> Congress.
>
The US view of government is strongly shaped by the legacy of the slaver
rebellion of 1776 and the subsequent civil war. People who strongly believe
it is their right to own other people as property tend to see government as
the problem. People who strongly object to that notion are likely to see
government actions such as the Mansfield decision, the Quock Walker case,
etc. as guaranteeing freedom.

The free for all in anti-censorship is not over, it has hardly begun. Now
that the distraction from BTC etc. is coming to its inevitable end, the
field is cleared for a new generation of cryptography that provides
personal privacy and freedom.

The interesting question that is raised here is where does the line lie
between what is a legitimate role for government action and what is not?

My personal view is that it lies in the locus of collective action.
Government is a form of collective action that regulates society by
establishing a monopoly on the use of force.

According to my view, the individual has the absolute right to do any
action that affects nobody but themselves.

Between those poles, there are many gradations. There are cases in which we
(correctly) assert the right of government to regulate interactions between
two consenting individuals, especially but not only if one is a minor. But
the locus of interest relevant to Internet regulation lies on the opposite
side: To what extent should government act to regulate collective action by
institutions, corporations, trades unions, etc.

I think it is rather obvious that government does have a legitimate
interest in preventing collective power being used to establish a de-facto
monopoly on the provision of Internet communication services.