Re: WCIT outcome?

[John Day <[e-mail]>]

At 9:03 AM +0000 1/2/13, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>On 01/01/2013 18:32, John Day wrote:
>...
>
>>>  Not only tariffs. Historically, it was national enforcement of
>>>  international
>>>  regulations set by CCITT (now known as ITU-T) that prevented
>>>  interconnection
>>>  of leased lines**.
>>
>>  But creating a VPN with in an international carrier that crossed
>>  national boundaries would not fall under that rule?  Actually neither
>>  would a VPN operating over a couple of carriers that crossed national
>>  boundaries, would it?
>
>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.

I could see it being viewed as commerce and subject to tariffs.  (Not 
that I think tariffs are a good idea.)

>
>>>  This is an arcane point today, but if CERN hadn't been
>>>  able to use its status as an international organization to bypass that
>>>  restriction in the 1980s, it's unlikely that TBL and Robert Cailliau
>>>  would
>>>  ever have been able to propagate the web. It's even unlikely that Phill
>>>  would have been able to access Usenet newsgroups while on shift as a grad
>>>  student on a CERN experiment.
>>
>>  ;-) Actually what they don't know won't hurt them.  ;-) We were moving
>>  files from CERN to Argonne in the 70s through the 360/95 at Rutherford
>>  over the ARPANET.   Not exactly the way you want to do it but 15 years
>>  later I am sure it was upgraded a bit.
>
>This would probably have counted as a store-and-forward network,
>which was exempted in many countries.

;-)  I of course was joking. But I remember being told that it was 
illegal, or maybe it was that no one was sure (we were all pretty new 
to this stuff back then) and figured asking was not a good idea!  ;-)

(In several reports at the time, our node was the highest user of the 
Rutherford, probably of nodes on the net at the time.)

>
>>>  Also, it is exactly because ITU was in charge of resource allocations
>>>  such as radio spectrum and top-level POTS dialling codes that it was
>>>  a very plausible potential home for IANA in 1997-8, before ICANN was
>>>  created. Some of the ITU people who were active in that debate were just
>>>  as active in the preparation for WCIT in 2012.
>>
>>  Yea, this one is more dicey.  Although I think there is an argument that
>>  says that you need ccoperation among providers about assignment, but I
>>  don't see why governments need to be involved.  When phone companies
>>  were owned by governments, then it made sense.  But phone companies are
>>  owned by governments any more.
>>
>>  That doesn't leave much does it?  (Not a facetious question, I am asking!)
>
>Indeed. But I think you'll find that in general, the countries that signed
>the WCIT treaty are those that still have some semblance of a government-
>controlled PTT monopoly.

I was wondering about that and guessing that it might be the case. 
Thanks for the data.

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.

Of course, the other problem which really wasn't present before (just 
because of cost and/or availability) is that if the user chooses to 
encrypt everything they send, the network provider can provide the 
data but that  is it.