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<DIV>I have to agree wholeheartedly with John Curran when he wrote -</DIV>
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<DIV>“</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Agreed. I would hope that a
"techno-centric" shift is _not_ what is occurring via the <BR>"coalition
initiative" discussed yesterday, but also believe that healthy skepticism
<BR>(plus a willingness to constructively engage) is quite prudent whenever
faced with any<BR>situation of high ambiguity. My best wishes to civil
society in your efforts to engage<BR>and clarify things, as it is my hope that
we are simply seeing the consequences of a <BR>fast-moving and dynamic situation
(as opposed to actual departure from basic values<BR>of open and equal
participation that are necessary for legitimacy of such an
initiative.)”</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Ian Peter</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=kichango@gmail.com
href="mailto:kichango@gmail.com">Mawaki Chango</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, October 24, 2013 9:45 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=jcurran@istaff.org
href="mailto:jcurran@istaff.org">John Curran</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=governance@lists.igcaucus.org
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">Internet Governance</A> ; <A
title=dogwallah@gmail.com href="mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com">McTim</A> ; <A
title=jeremy@ciroap.org href="mailto:jeremy@ciroap.org">Jeremy Malcolm</A> ; <A
title=bestbits@lists.bestbits.net
href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net">mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [bestbits] Re: [governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy
meeting tomorrow lunchtime</DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 9:06 PM, John Curran <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:jcurran@istaff.org"
target=_blank>jcurran@istaff.org</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV class=im>On Oct 24, 2013, at 12:53 AM, Mawaki Chango <<A
href="mailto:kichango@gmail.com">kichango@gmail.com</A>> wrote:<BR><BR>>
Thanks, Jeremy, for alerting us about what is going on with the "technical"
community.<BR>> Personally, I'm okay with moving the call for endorsement
to 24hrs earlier --just as I agree with the need for more private/f2f
strategizing.<BR>><BR>> McTim, multistakeholder does not mean
anti-governmentalism. Nor does it say the "technical community" takes over
from government. It really means "on equal footing" etc., governments
included, if you ask me. Furthermore, I do not think I have any track record
for celebrating governments, but I'll say this. In some circumstances,
governments may be evil, but it was also a world led by governments which gave
us the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related texts, which have
served as formidable normative tools for social progress. And sometimes, some
of them put a stake into seeing those norms upheld.<BR>><BR>> Left to
their own devices, techies don't necessarily have the best interest of the
user at heart (I suspect Vint Cerf would agree with me since while opposing
the notion that Internet is a HR, he suggested that designers could do a
better job in making the technology more HR-friendly, so to speak, in short.)
While they do a lot of wonderful things --there's no denying that, not of my
part anyway-- techies cannot write a clean and accurate user guide for...
users!<BR><BR></DIV>There are also inherent limits what can be accomplished
based on principles which<BR>are basically voluntary in nature. For
example, even if there were common, global<BR>agreement on social norms
regarding unsolicited commercial email, the mechanisms<BR>that would be
provided from an entirely techno-centric Internet cooperation system<BR>would
be limited to various voluntary measures of increasing complexity, in the
typical<BR>"arms race" of increasing subterfuge and improved detection and
mitigation. These<BR>not really a solutions at all, just a sequence of
coping strategies which result in<BR>increasing costs and pain for the
users.<BR><BR>Whereas, if there were a common and global agreement on
acceptable social norms in<BR>this area (hypothetically), and given engagement
of all parties (including governments),<BR>there likely would be far superior
mechanisms available which provide a higher level of<BR>assurance and lower
costs to users globally.<BR><BR>i.e. it is not at all clear that an Internet
limited solely to voluntary technical mechanisms<BR>(and based on the
technical communities particular sense of social norms) can
actually<BR>elevate itself to the global platform for enabling social and
economic benefits that that<BR>mankind actually deserves...<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I cannot agree with you more. Case in point: governments have been stepping
in one way or the other, including in the United States of America of all
places, to back the effort of establishing authentication and identity
management mechanisms on the Internet with the force of the "full faith and
credit" (my adapted characterization) which only they can wield at the scale of
large populations of private citizens and individual users.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>mawaki </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV class=im><BR>> .. So yes, seeing "multistakeholderism" as the
opportunity to shift from "government-centric" to "techno-centric" should be a
matter of concern to CS --or to any plain citizen, for that
matter.<BR><BR></DIV>Agreed. I would hope that a "techno-centric"
shift is _not_ what is occurring via the<BR>"coalition initiative" discussed
yesterday, but also believe that healthy skepticism<BR>(plus a willingness to
constructively engage) is quite prudent whenever faced with any<BR>situation
of high ambiguity. My best wishes to civil society in your efforts to
engage<BR>and clarify things, as it is my hope that we are simply seeing the
consequences of a<BR>fast-moving and dynamic situation (as opposed to actual
departure from basic values<BR>of open and equal participation that are
necessary for legitimacy of such an
initiative.)<BR><BR>/John<BR><BR>Disclaimers: My views alone (and I may
have had my membership in the Church
of<BR>
Technological Utopianism revoked as a result of sending this email
;-)<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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