[governance] help: internet rights violations - open architecture

[Karl Auerbach]

karen banks wrote:

> We have examples of all but one:
> 
> ===
> 6.4 The right to open architecture
> 
> The internet as a ‘network of networks’ is made up of many 
> interconnected networks, based on the key underlying technical idea of 
> open architecture networking, in which any type of network anywhere can 
> be included and made publicly available. Open architecture must be 
> protected.

I do not see this as necessarily a good thing - your wording may need 
some refinement.

Most innovations leave somebody behind.

For example, IPv6 will leave behind a lot of people who refuse to 
upgrade from their IPv4-only world.

And unicode rather than ASCII leaves behind those who don't upgrade 
their applications.

I'm sure that this isn't what you mean by "open architecture" but some 
folks might think that way.

Also, "open" should not necessarily be equated with "free" (as in no 
money).  Some things do cause costs - very low jitter end-to-end paths 
do tend to require somebody to spend time to do traffic engineering and 
often such paths require that there be spare, often used, capacity. 
Those things are not free of cost.

My sense is that what you are suggesting is a network in which 
communicating peers at the edges need not ask permission of anyone 
(besides one another) to do something that is carried in standard IPv4 
or IPv6 packets.

Is this violated in practice - yes.  Sometimes in subtle ways, such as 
ADSL modems that appear to be Ethernet but which can't handle MTU 1500 
and thus impose a fragmentation burden.  Sometimes in major ways - as in 
the way that Comcast usurps the identities of the communicating peers 
and generates TCP resets using those forged identities.

An in-between practice is firewalls - it is not always clear who is the 
"communicating peer" who is consenting to the firewalling, particularly 
in corporate or parental situations.

My own summary is something I call "The First Law of the Internet":

+ Every person shall be free to use the Internet
   in any way that is privately beneficial without
   being publicly detrimental.

    - The burden of demonstrating public detriment
      shall be on those who wish to prevent the
      private use.

        - Such a demonstration shall require clear
          and convincing evidence of public detriment.

    - The public detriment must be of such degree and
      extent as to justify the suppression of the
      private activity.

		--karl--

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