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<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>Lee,</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=876453523-24062012></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>I got the "joke" and reference very well...
</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>My point though was that the 95% of the world that don't adhere to
the Red, White and Blue would also get it; but wouldn't, given the rather
sorry recent history of the US, necessarily think it was a joke.
</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>Rather, in fact, many/most would likely see it as a rather
unpleasant and ever-present reality or possible reality. "Hi I'm from the US
government and I'm here to "help" (in Iraq, in Guyana, in Vietnam, in
Cambodia, in Laos, in Salvador, in Brazil (with the generals), in
Argentina (with the Generals), in Chile (with Pinochet), in the
Congo etc.etc.etc.) is not a "joke" to a lot people"...
</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>So when folks say "we're with the USG trust us" as certain folks on
this list seem to be saying, a lot of other folks think of that other
famous quote of Reagan's--"trust, but
verify...</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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face=Tahoma><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=876453523-24062012></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=876453523-24062012>Best,</SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=876453523-24062012></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>Mike</FONT> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=876453523-24062012></SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT
size=2><SPAN class=876453523-24062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial> </FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=876453523-24062012> </SPAN><STRONG>:</STRONG> Lee W McKnight
[mailto:lmcknigh@syr.edu] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, June 24, 2012 4:17
PM<BR><B>To:</B> michael gurstein; governance@lists.igcaucus.org;
'parminder'<BR><B>Cc:</B> 'McTim'; 'Louis Pouzin (well)'<BR><B>Subject:</B>
RE: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous
Internet" ?<BR><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT>
<DIV
style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma; DIRECTION: ltr; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Michael,<BR><BR>Sorry
for my dated and obscure reference, which is in fact quite apropos. <BR><BR>I
elaborate in case, as you suggest, my attempt at keeping this discourse on a
lighter tone, was possibly misconstrued.<BR><BR>Reagan's position and the
hypothetical views of the 95% you allude to, towards the USG, is essentially
the same. Meaning that neither actually believes the US government is - here
to help. <BR><BR>While we have been discussing exactly how the root zone file
oversight mechanism, which we might agree helps 2 billion Internet users
globally, since without it there would be no inter-net, is managed by the USG.
And while it may be hard to believe, it has in fact as David points out, never
been mismanaged for domestic political purposes. <BR><BR>Now, do you get
it? Meaning, Reagan was very critical of the US government, even as he led it.
And others may be very critical of the US government, even as one corner
of it (NTIA) performs a function for all Internet users worldwide, at no
charge except to us US taxpayers. So, of course my joking reference was - just
because - folks around the world would not believe, just as Reagan did not,
that government was of much help. <BR><BR>Obviously, as we discussed on
another variation on this thread, going towards a 'globally open, transparent,
and accountable' mechanism is preferrable, we agree. <BR><BR>All joking aside,
the mechanics of these processes must be well-understood - before one
proposes, specifically, how to change them, which is what my various
interventions on this thread have been attempting to help folks not natively
of the technical community. <BR><BR>If my attempt at making some
points in a briefer and lighter way brought offense, well,
sorry.<BR><BR>Lee<BR><BR><BR>
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<DIV style="DIRECTION: ltr" id=divRpF687925><FONT color=#000000 size=2
face=Tahoma><B>From:</B> michael gurstein [gurstein@gmail.com]<BR><B>Sent:</B>
Saturday, June 23, 2012 12:35 PM<BR><B>To:</B> governance@lists.igcaucus.org;
Lee W McKnight; 'parminder'<BR><B>Cc:</B> 'McTim'; 'Louis Pouzin
(well)'<BR><B>Subject:</B> RE: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing
for a "Autonomous Internet" ?<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=465363016-23062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>The problem, Lee, is that for roughly 95% of the population of
the world that joke would not be funny at all and the fact that folks
on this list if nowhere else can't see the validity of that fairly
simple observation is a source of a lot of the difficulties we are
having in moving on with this discussion.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=465363016-23062012></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN class=465363016-23062012><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial>M</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=465363016-23062012></SPAN></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=465363016-23062012> </SPAN>-----Original
Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Lee W
McKnight<BR><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:47 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
parminder<BR><B>Cc:</B> McTim; governance@lists.igcaucus.org; Louis Pouzin
(well)<BR><B>Subject:</B> RE: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese
preparing for a "Autonomous Internet" ?<BR><BR></FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT
face=Tahoma><FONT size=2></FONT></FONT>
<DIV
style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma; DIRECTION: ltr; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Parminder,<BR><BR>What
I believe McTim and I, and David, are saying, is that the sledgehammer
cannot be directed.<BR><BR>Messing with the root zone file in any way -
always - would hit everyone's fingers.<BR><BR>It would be the opposite of
'maintaining stability of the net.'<BR><BR>And, OFAC would have that
explained to them in whatever way works, metaphorically or not, should they
ever attempt to go there, by NTIA, and others.<BR><BR>So yeah, again,
totally understand why others might be nervous about the sledgehammer lying
in the corner, we're all just saying - it's too heavy for anyone to try to
pick up. <BR><BR>Which again, is not to say that some global circle of
friends holding hands stopping each other from ever going to that corner
would not be a better thing.<BR><BR>But until Norbert's hypothetical ECTF
issues its RFA's - you'll have to rely on President Reagan's old joke - I'm
from the (US) government and I'm here to help. ; ) <BR><BR>Lee<BR>
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<DIV style="DIRECTION: ltr" id=divRpF41463><FONT color=#000000 size=2
face=Tahoma><B>From:</B> parminder
[parminder@itforchange.net]<BR><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, June 23, 2012 10:59
AM<BR><B>To:</B> Lee W McKnight<BR><B>Cc:</B> McTim;
governance@lists.igcaucus.org; Louis Pouzin (well)<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
[governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous Internet"
?<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Lee<BR><BR>To make things
clear from my side, what I am trying to do is to show is
that;<BR><BR> for the US government to act, if it does choose to act,
to interfere with the root in a manner that *only* affects some or even all
foreigners (and not US citizens) is so much easier, and already provided in
the law, than to do a similar thing within the US, affecting US citizens.
The latter may require something like the so called Internet Kill Switch
Bill, for US gov to be able to interfere in such a basic way with the
Internet within the US. However, for US to do so for select countries it
chooses to target, it is so much easier.</FONT><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">That is why I brought in the OFAC regime
into our discussion. </FONT><FONT face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Dont
you see this situation as problematic. It is, to those outside the
US.<BR><BR>Now, when the US citizens have a right to raise such a outcry as
they did against giving sweeping powers to the US President regarding
possibly even switching off the Internet, why do our friends in the US think
that those outside the US are </FONT><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">simply </FONT><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">being over-sensitive is trying to
see that the US gov does not hold a similar metaphorical sledgehammer over
their 'foreign' heads. They have a much greater right to be worried because
the US President is not even their President. Dont you think so? Why these
differential standards?<BR><BR>parminder <BR></FONT><BR>On Saturday 23 June
2012 08:08 PM, parminder wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BR><BR>On Saturday 23 June 2012 06:58 PM, Lee W
McKnight wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE>Parminder,
Just to be superclear about this, you are either on the inter-net, or off. That's all that the root zone file signifies.
Being on the inter-net does not guarantee access to a particular - service or application -</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Lee,
<BR><BR>I am superclear about it. I surely know root zone file in about
being off or on the Internet, and quite different from availability of any
particular service over the Internet. Not sure, what made you believe I
was confused between the two.<BR><BR>I only said, and I believe so, that
the same US's OFAC regime that applies to google services *can* very
easily apply to any non profit or even government agency providing root
server and DNS kind of services to the sanctioned countries. To quote
their website, OFAC orders apply to ' "All U.S. persons and entities
(companies, non-profit groups, government agencies, etc.) wherever
located". <BR><BR>So you are wrong to claim that if OFAC wanted to hit the
root server services (or even domain name services like accepting cctld or
new gtld applications form the sanctioned countries) it would have
to go around persuading NTIA etc. In any case, in the kind of
circumstances we are talking about, all wings of the administration
act as one. So OFAC and NTIA would no doubt talk, but it will be the White
House deciding. <BR><BR>(BTW, taking Iran's example, do see the manner how
any OFAC diktat is carefully and elaborately worded to suit US's short and
long term political and economic interests at <A
class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.pdf"
target=_blank>http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.pdf</A>
and <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/internet_freedom.pdf"
target=_blank>http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/internet_freedom.pdf</A>
)<BR><BR>As for the sledgehammer metaphor you employ, no one likes someone
standing with a sledgehammer over his/ their head, especially when there
is a way to get the holder of the sledgehammer to put it down. Would you
like it, if it were with you :)<BR><BR> If one is not going to use
the sledgehammer ever, there is no point on insisting on holding it over
other people's head, as US does in not agreeing to internationalise
'oversight' of CIR management.<BR><BR>parminder <BR><BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE> which can be unavailable for any number of reasons. Most commonly, not paying for it. Even for free services can be unavailable, for example because the provider is unable or is not bothering to extract ad revenue from particular geographies, for various reasons. So they don't want to bear the costs for the load on their own servers coming from areas they can't make $$ from. Typically though, most folks on the Internet will accept and send traffic anywhere, since the cost per - whatever - is so low.
Then there's cases of national-level filtering and blocking eg China's great firewall.
Or service provider-level filtering which could be in place for business reasons, or due to - national-level law.
But as McTim notes, all of those cases are separate matters entirely from the operation of the root-servers that are distributed on-off switches - metaphorically speaking.
Now to switch metaphors: )
Think really really heavy sledgehammer and a bee (from OFAC view).
Even if the US has been in conflict with Cuba of one sort or another for the past...50 years +.....you wouldn't think to try to swat the bee with the sledgehammer, since you would realize that it is far more likely that you would drop the sledgehammer on your own foot, than hit the bee.
Not to mention, OFAC has no permission or administrative authorization to pick up that sledgehammer.
According to US law and administrative practice, they would have to ask NTIA to please help them go after the US root zone operators; and/or would have to ask other governments to drop the sledgehammer on their own root-zone operators, since the bee's somewhere else.
There's sequences of improbable events which lead to worst-case scenarios, which can and do happen, and then there's - firebreaks, administrative procedures, and various levels of service above and beyond - being on the net.
Nonetheless, as I have previously noted, this is not to suggest I favor the USG still having its hands so close to - ICANN/IANA/Verisign's - expert finetuning fingers tweaking the rootzone file. Since yeah we can always imagine a sledgehammer being dropped, on our own hands/net.
Lee
________________________________________
From: McTim [<A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com" target=_blank>dogwallah@gmail.com</A>]
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:34 AM
To: <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org" target=_blank>governance@lists.igcaucus.org</A>; parminder
Cc: Lee W McKnight; Louis Pouzin (well)
Subject: Re: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous Internet" ?
Hi,
On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 12:46 AM, parminder <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net" target=_blank><parminder@itforchange.net></A> wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE>On other issue of, whether US gov can or could take unilateral steps with
regard to ICANN and root server management;
To take an example. if anyone tries to access the services of google
analytics from Cuba she is greeted by the following message (for the full
report see
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://www.webpronews.com/google-blocks-cuba-from-gaining-analytics-access-2012-06" target=_blank>http://www.webpronews.com/google-blocks-cuba-from-gaining-analytics-access-2012-06</A>
)
We’re: unable to grant you access to Google Analytics at this time.
A connection Has Been Established Between your current IP address and
acountry sanctioned by the U.S. government. For more information, see
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/" target=_blank>http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/</A> .
Google Earth, Google’s Desktop Search tool and Google Code Search are
similarly blocked.
It is my understanding that a simple order from the Office of Foreign Assets
Control to ICANN/ Verisign could put provision of root server services to
Cuba and its nationals ( and those of some other countries) under similar
sanctions. That is how close we are to what many think is an impossible
calamity.
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE>Your understanding is flawed.
Serving the root is binary, a DNS root-operator either serves it or
they don't.
If you are talking about filtering routes, well that is done in
routing, and if an order
went to ICANN/Verisign, they have no way to command the other root-ops to
route filter based on IP range.
I doubt $current_employer (F) would filter as above, even though they
are a US 501(c) corp.
I am sure $former_employer (K) would not as they are not a US corp,
and have said as much (IIRC) during WSIS.
So Cubans would still get the root served to them.
--
Cheers,
McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
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