[governance] WCIT Russia

Wed Nov 21 05:57:05 EST 2012

Hi WCIT friends,

here are some excerpts from the proposal, table by the Russian Federation: 

Preamble: 

The additions to the ITRs proposed below are aimed at formulating an approach that views the Internet as a new global telecommunication infrastructure, and also as a part of the national telecommunication infrastructure of each Member State, and, accordingly, at ensuring that Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources are considered an international resource.

Article 2, Definitions

Internet: An international conglomeration of interconnected telecommunication networks which provides for the interaction of connected information systems and their users, by carrying their traffic using a single system of numbering, naming, addressing, identification, protocols and procedures that is defined by Internet Standards. (IETF RFC 2418, taking into account the terms and definitions in the ITU Constitution and Convention and the WSIS (Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005) outcome documents).

Internet traffic: Traffic generated by interacting information systems connected to the telecommunication networks that constitute the Internet. 

Internet access: The ability to interact through the exchange of Internet traffic with any information systems connected to the telecommunication networks that constitute the Internet.

Basic Internet infrastructure: Telecommunication facilities and information systems which are vitally important for ensuring integrity, reliable operation and security of the Internet.

National Internet segment: Telecommunication networks or parts thereof which are located within the territory of the respective State and used to carry Internet traffic and/or provide Internet access.

New Article 3?: Internet

3A.1     Internet governance shall be effected through the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. (§ 34 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, WSIS, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005).

3A.2     Member States shall have equal rights to manage the Internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources and to support for the operation and development of basic Internet infrastructure. (§§ 38, 52 and 53 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, WSIS, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005).

3A.3     Member States shall have the sovereign right to establish and implement public policy, including international policy, on matters of Internet governance, and to regulate the national Internet segment, as well as the activities within their territory of operating agencies providing Internet access or carrying Internet traffic. (Preamble to the ITU Constitution and §§ 35a, 58, 64, 65, 68 and 69 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, WSIS, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005).

3A.4     Member States should endeavour to establish policies aimed at meeting public requirements with respect to Internet access and use, and at assisting, including through international cooperation, administrations and operating agencies in supporting the operation and development of the Internet. (Article 33 of the ITU Constitution and §§ 31, 37, 49 and 50 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, WSIS, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005).

3A.5     Member States should ensure that administrations and operating agencies cooperate in ensuring the integrity, reliable operation and security of the national Internet segment, direct relations for the carrying of Internet traffic and the basic Internet infrastructure. (Article 38 of the ITU Constitution, §§ 39-41, 44 and 45 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, WSIS, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005).

See below a good example how the multistakeholder model does (doesn´t) work in Russia, published by the Economist. 

Internet censorship in Russia

Lurk no more

Nov 16th 2012, 18:26 by J.Y. | MOSCOW

ON NOVEMBER 11th Russian internet-users began to notice that Lurkmore, a 
sometimes funny, often vulgar website with a cult following, was no longer 
accessible. Lurkmore <http://lurkmore.to/ <https://server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://lurkmore.to/> > (pictured) is a user-generated 
encyclopedia, a Russian-language wiki Wikipedia focusing on obscure internet 
jokes and memes, or what its co-founder, Dmitry Homak, calls "the kind of stuff 
said by the characters on SouthPark". Although no one had officially told Mr 
Homak anything, it soon became clear that the site had fallen into the Russian 
government's "Single Register" of web content to be banned under a law passed by 
the Duma in June.

The law <http://www.economist.com/node/21559362 <https://server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.economist.com/node/21559362> > came into force on November 
1st. It requires Roskomnadzor, the state's media monitoring agency, to maintain 
a list of content to be banned in three categories: child pornography, 
instructions or propaganda for drug use, and material promoting suicide. The law 
also allows for a site or page to be blocked in accordance with any court order: 
a vague, potentially wide-ranging clause that has given rise to worries over 
censorship, given the frequent politicisation of the Russian judicial system.
The register itself is not public, but any user can check to see if a particular 
web page or site is blocked through a state-run portal <http://zapret-info.gov.ru/ <https://server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://zapret-info.gov.ru/> > 
.. So far, more than 180 sites have been added to the list, the government 
says-though that number will surely grow, as various state agencies and local 
courts make their own additions, and internet users submit potentially offensive 
material. Lurkmore ended up on the list for its entry on "dudka," which means 
"penny whistle," or in its slang usage, a bong or some other pipe for smoking 
marijuana.

For the first two weeks of November, few people paid attention to the 
implementation of the blacklist or which sites had ended up there. But the case 
of Lurkmore drew immediate attention on the Russian-language internet-itself a 
rapidly growing community of around 50m users, representing an online market 
that will soon overtake Germany's. However lowbrow its humour or marginal its 
popularity, Lurkmore was the kind of generally innocuous, admirably irreverent 
site whose troubles now seem a harbinger of online censorship to come.
The lack of transparency in the blocking process raises further questions. As 
Irina Levova of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications notes, 
Lurkmore appears to have been blocked by IP address, a technique that has two 
obvious drawbacks: first, offending sites can simply change IP, as Lurkmore 
itself did, to avoid the ban; and two, such an approach risks blocking access to 
dozens if not hundreds of other, unrelated sites that may share the same IP. For 
Ms Levova, Lurkmore is "vivid example" of the many drawbacks of the new law.
Both before and after its passage, Ms Levova and colleagues visited the Duma, 
the Ministry of Communication, and Vyacheslav Volodin, the chief of staff to 
President Vladimir Putin. They offered their technical advice, suggesting tweaks 
to the wording of the law and its implementation, so as to be less of a burden 
on internet companies and less of a disruption for users. "We were ready for 
dialogue," Ms Levova says, "but nobody listened to us." In the end, Ms Levova 
says, the suggestions of experts were "ignored" and the law came into force with 
little thought as to how it would be carried out.

According to research <http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/russia-surveillance/all/ <https://server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/russia-surveillance/all/> > 
published by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, two experts on the Russian 
security services who have studied internet controls in Russia, the only way 
internet service providers (ISPs) can comply with the new law is through "deep 
packet inspection," or DPI. With DPI, ISPs can filter internet traffic into 
separate streams, making it easier to block particular services, such as Skype, 
or pages, such as a certain Facebook group. DPI provides the technical backbone 
for internet filtering and control in China and Iran, among other countries.
Yet Mr Soldatov notes that two factors keep Russia from having a Chinese-style 
firewall-at least for now. The first is that the law does not block or 
criminalise the use of proxy browsers that mask what sites a user visits and 
keep browsing anonymous. But Russia may be headed in this direction: a September 
article <http://izvestia.ru/news/535724 <https://server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://izvestia.ru/news/535724> > in Izvestia said the Duma will soon 
add amendments to the internet law banning such services, including the popular 
service Tor, which masks online activity. Second, Mr Soldatov says is that 
Russia has not outlawed the use of secure browsing protocols, https, used by 
Facebook, Gmail, and other sites with sensitive personal data. But he says that 
some ISPs have already been approached by Russian security agencies and told to 
prepare for such a possibility.

All this is expensive and unwieldy. In a rush to pass the law and with little 
time or enthusiasm to listen to outside experts, the Duma did not allocate any 
additional funding or personnel for maintaining the internet blacklist. Deputies 
"thought it would work on its own somehow", says Ms Levova. For its part, 
Roskomnodzor is not particularly enthusiastic about having to update the 
register twice a day, a chore for which it received no new staff.
Meanwhile, experts have put the cost for ISPs at implementing the new law at $10 
billion. Their reason for resisting the law is more financial than political or 
moral. But relief may be coming: a Duma deputy from the pro-Kremlin United 
Russia party, Robert Schlegel, has suggested that the government will pick up 
their costs for installing and maintaining DPI.

All of this has the IT industry in Moscow worried; it's hard to make business 
plans and raise investment when it's unclear how the internet will function in 
the coming months and years. Moves toward internet filtering send a 
contradictory signal at a time when the Russian government has made 
technological innovation an economic priority. As a manager in a Western 
technology company says, the new law makes the environment for foreign 
investment in the Russian technology sector "more tense and less transparent".

Best wishes

wolfgang

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