[bestbits] [governance] The decentralization of IP addresses

[Lee W McKnight]

Hi Jean-Christophe ,


I appreciate your effort to summarize many conversations across many threads, from your point of view.


But as to your interpretation that my +1 = 'very upset'; I beg to differ. I was merely agreeing with Stephane, and am not at all upset honestly.


As to what is indeed ripe for further decentralisation in an age of Things and other Non-Person Entities with their own Internet addresses among other attributes, that is a better question; but still  not quite on target I humbly suggest.


We are nearing release of v0.4 of the Open Specifications Model, which is completely virtualized and hence decentralized by its nature from cloud to edge; that model incorporates - everything - at all OSI layers, physical or virtual; and beyond. Which exists now, or can exist in the future.  v0.3 is here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274754770_Open_Specifications_Model_v0.3_Wireless_Grids_Internet_of_Things_Technical_Requirements

Students, faculty and firms from every continent save Antarctica have contributed already, as have many governmental and community organizations.


We are admittedly still far from v1.0, so plenty of time for folks to dive in and contribute in the Open Specification Model's formative phases.


Some of you may recall we have shared every version from the beginning with the Internet Governance Caucus; and that this model builds on civil society values as exemplified by its incorporating the Charter on Internet Rights and Principles into v0.3.


Open innovation communities - wherever - we anticipate will (continue) to contribute to its further evolution, just as for example IGF and its dynamic coalitions on Internet Rights and Principles, and on Internet of Things, are being - synchronized/incorporated into the model itself. Without asking Wolfgang;s or anyone's permission. : )


In sum, I am not at all upset, just +1'd Stephane's  attempt to - politely educate - others who imho are asking off-target questions displaying to be frank, their misunderstanding.  Assuming the target is open/permissionless Internet innovation, wherever, more or less same as it ever was, but now with many many more contributing; that is in that sense further decetralized.


But this time around with hopefully better security and privacy for data & things to keep bad bots and other malicious actors from stealing your bits, identity, or other resources; and with civil society values baked into the model itself.


To be clear, what I am suggesting is you, and others are free to add on to the Open Specifications Model further features and attributes as you wish, without needing to wade into the spheres or domains of IETF, ICANN or RIR allocation processes, since after all who really cares about autonomous systems and networks when their key feature from an Internet point of view is that they -- recognize and pass bits as the sender requested?   If interested in further information on autonomous systems, this article from Geoff Huston does a good job explaining the mechanics and references the relevant RFCs if further study of that aspect of the Intenet architecture is of interest.


Happy to elaborate further, or provide further links, if so requested.


In any case when v0.4 is good to go, we will pass links to that along with 5 or 6 use cases, and open code, to the IGC list; should anyone desire to build one's own open cyberphysical Internet of ....without asking anyone's permission.


Lee




________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org <governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org> on behalf of Jean-Christophe Nothias <jeanchristophe.nothias at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2015 12:59 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Jefsey
Cc: willi uebelherr; Paul Wilson; 1net.org discuss; 0net.org discuss; BestBits; APC forum; IUF brasil; WSF discuss; Nw Labour discuss
Subject: Re: [governance] The decentralization of IP addresses

Dear lists,

A view among others.

I note that this topic of 'the decentralization of IP addresses', even though a few have mocked the questioner and the question, is raising some debate. I was asking myself why do we suddenly have some activity as regards to Willy's wishes and questioning?

Let us see what this thread has to say so far:
- Suresh very briefly summarized Willy's views by calling for an end to confusion between TCP/IP and the Postal service. A sarcasm to the least. Too bad, Suresh doesn't mention the fact that ITU is handling a non geographical space of futurist and strategic importance i.e. the Space, and its many satellites - another technology inherited from the Telegraph century?! ITU the organization helping dummies inhabiting the atmosphere to communicate with us, the grounded.
- David gave some more detailed thoughts about "understanding names and numbers". Saying that names are abstractions is fine, but short of clarity; writing that 'systems geographically based involve a great deal of governance' is also confusing. It is not clear if David meant that today IPs are living their life with no governance at all, or if a different model for handling IPs would be such a burden on economic or technological grounds. Could David provide an analysis comparing the two systems with pro and cons, data and figures? David recommended to ask ITU for feedbacks on regional and national governance. Another taste for sarcasm it seems. Acknowledging that Willy's ideas were raising 'lot of questions', David noted that 'many of us would disagree with quite a few of Willy's assumptions as both misguided in their intent, and based on some fairly basic misunderstandings'. That makes a lot of assumptions for David to counter Willy's assumptions.
- Suresh joined again to highlight David's mention of ITU: 'such proposals have been floating around ITU circles for a great many years". Probably another terrible plot by the villains in Geneva!
- Cedric asked: '...would it not be premature to assume other models cannot exist, and that managing an address space (or certification such as PKI) always has to require any central or hierarchical co-ordination?'
- Chantal provided a link to Louis's work, getting us back to the origins and basics of transmitting data in a network of networks. Still working today.
- Paul provided a reference - not mentioning that it was a link to a post he wrote - challenging ITU's work about IPs; to no one's surprise he advocated against it or any attempt to change the system. The post is very long but it doesn't necessarily mean that Paul is right. Paul emphasized the absence of geography for IPs, even though the network of networks is made of networks geographically established in national boundaries and under national jurisdictions, something that hasn't destroyed the idea of INTER-connected NETworks - to the contrary. Maybe I should simply write that the Internet is an international network of national networks, therefore with a lot of geographic national bounds and boundaries. When Paul concludes his blog he notes: 'The structure of today's Internet is a geography of independent networks around the world' - he omits to indicate the national specification and very nature of these networks - 'with transparent borders allowing traffic to flow freely between any pair of locations'. Such narrative should sounds like poetry to many techos, - and to me as well - and its allegoric style should not forbid us to challenge what seems to be well established (see jfc's email for that). Indeed there are many ways to flow freely between any pair of locations" wIth or without the current DNS, or within the current DNS. Here again a lot of assumptions.
- By then Nick argued that they were other profound issues 'threatening the network', and therefore, we should all stop discussing Willy's question and views. Obviously Nick's comment does not exactly bring substance to the thread.  On a personal note, I am sure everyone on these lists is quite able to decide whether or not to enter any debate, to their best judgement. Calling for an end to a debate (which is having a few guns exchanging shots) is relatively surprising for someone from the business industry so prompt to call for protection of freedom of expression, human rights, and who has seen himself as the next ICANN's CEO with some self confidence. (I know this a bad habit among self-(s)elected folks). By the way, how would you label folks calling for stopping debating? Democrats, yes that must the right word.
- 'srs' came in with an interesting IP technologist's quote: 'IP addresses, though randomly allocated, could easily be listed on a per country basis by the Agencies. Existing filtering system does this with zero need to reallocate anything...'
- Stéphane who's used to demonstrate his googling of RFCs had this to ask to the lists: "When are we too polite?" His answer was compelling: his message was saying something like be gross and mean. Stéphane didn't give any RFC number to support his contra 'too polite' stance.
- Barry would call his great sense of humor to keep the debate open, ironically calling for a multistakeholder bottom-up trick to solve the issue. Just need to read Barry once to make sure you have respect for geography.
- Lee was happy with Stéphane's contra 'too polite' stance and used a '+1'. Both must be very upset with the question.
- Lately, 'jfc' would somehow support Stéphane's critic of Willy's clarity, but would be kind enough to clearly support what he sees as a decent ITU investigation. 'jfc' provided two excellent RFC references to support his support.

I see a couple of interesting points being made here.

First, could people provide a link to ITU investigation, and a link to a source describing the current governance for IPs. At least for those who are not so acquainted.

Second, I wonder why Willy and his question create such a fuss. Many hypothesis. One seems to be the role of the 'decentralizing' idea in the questioning. In fact, most pro status quo folks (aligned with multistakeholderists) are professing an already decentralized Internet. 'Therefore how could we decentralize an already decentralized system?', they seem to ask. According to them, this doesn't make sense, and must be defeated as pure non sense. So maybe the question is some sort of major embarras de principe. Maybe then the basic solution is to kill the question for it would be insane, confusing, impossible, unreadable, part of another ITU temptation to grab power - please feel free to be unpolite - ... The question seems unbearable. When it is not, at least on technical and public policy grounds. But of course, there are other hypothesis.

Third, challenging the Internet architecture seems to be a red line, something that no multistakeholder/status quo champion could ever discuss, debate, think of. They should think twice. And not because of the ITU, but because of the US obstructive stance, and because technology calls for innovation and disruption. (Thanks to jfc for the RFCs on this).  IPs can obviously be distributed on a national basis - maybe not the best system - but that is doable. Of course, an NGO located in one of these evil, rogues or villain states will put its digital content behind IPs located out of their unfriendly homeland.

Here, we are talking Internet architecture, the political and societal impacts it has, and the rules it obeys to, and not just its beauty code. Of course, we have many pending Internet governance issues, something that will be demonstrated sometime in NY in December, but let's stop talking about 'digital Human Rights' for a sec. (Alec Ross once said to me that they didn't exist, as they were invented to serve a greater purpose: the US interests)

There is an IP/root-zone/DNS governing model behind the current status quo. For the time being, it leads us to IETF/IAB for the most part, and to RFCs for the historic part. We all know that IANA's transfer is a kind of écran de fumée when the real power lies beyond it. Giving IANA from ICANN under NTIA/DoC/USG to ICANN without NTIA/DoC/USG won't make a difference. A true decentralization (in terms of coordination) would create a new set of governance, not just bring one to a space that used to live without one centralized governing set of rules. I am convinced that technology would be happy to adapt, as a neutral thing - it loves to be challenged anyway. Some will even argue that IANA and ICANN are not critical resources when it comes to Internet architecture. I tend to agree, as ICANN/IANA are valets to the architects, or guardian of the current DNS aspect of the architecture. The network of networks is fragmented by nature, but it is/looks a coherent and fluid space - thanks to Louis and followers for making this possible. As regards to the current DNS, things could be set otherwise, still coherent and fluid, two qualities that are not enough for us who ask for more social justice, democratic regulation, transparency... Tomorrow we could have a multi-rooted Internet. We (the users as the real Internet community) would simply have different concierges: each user would be offered a choice at any time to chose his/her concierge (Emilio Iccano, Pedro Oproot, Marcello NameSpace, Willy Uncleario...). Browsers would allow users to chose which root concierge they want to use at anytime. Of course, concierge with special connection to mass surveillance paranoids might lose the favor of the public. If the NSA would catch a few nihilists, that would greatly help to justify the billion they cost to the US taxpayer. Soon some geeks/startups/companies will make profits out of such ideas. We don't need ICANN to live and navigate the Internet. ICANN is only one out of many solutions. ICANN's power comes from the fact that there is promiscuity and connivence between the commercial and security US players. ICANN has a monopolistic nature because some commercial giants, and security folks need it. Of course, ICANN et al claim that any competitor would disrupt and fragment the Internet. Which is of course a fairytale. Maybe we shouldn't bother as over the next decade some geeks will ruin the DNS as we know it.

The ones telling us that we need to fight any attempt to broke what works so well, simply omit to tell us that the Internet architecture can be different and more consistent with all of what many of us are advocating here, with more responsibility, with more competition, more innovation, more distributive power at local and community level, with greater respect of our Rights. The overall vision of an Internet being un-fragmented is propagated by the ones who wish to protect giants and tyrants's sovereignty on markets and people. The digital economic war now raging over the planet will only drive to the dismantlement of the existing fortress, de facto monopole, tyranny of a few. The US policy, strictly applied by his pet followers (Sweden, UK, Japan, Canada, and the commonwealth - love this name), is there to preserve its interests.

Decentralization is needed (a real one) in a revised global legal framework to protect it, and the people's rights and their own conception of what are the new Commons. Such a legal framework,  an international law would hold part of it as far as governments are concerned, would distribute more responsibility, competition, better protect rights, and it would also drive economic wealth in a more distributed way, not just to the big players imposing their rules (not to confuse with regulation). Since it exists, Google has greatly contributed to kill pluralism in the media landscape. Who cares? Thanks to its financial torque, it has bought for itself intellectual rights to part of the human legacy in health, literature, science... Who cares? The game is to capture audiences, one way or another, as famously and appropriately put by Susan Crawford. This means more centralization, more concentration. This is not what the founders of Internet dreamt of - I am referring to the academic folks who invented it, with no multistakeholder process behind them, and before the USG took control in 1998.

Instead the US should start setting a competitive digital world with more root concierges (for more TLDs). That would demonstrate and protect a diversity and plurality of languages, culture, traditions, media, markets, still under interoperable norms and regulations (sorry I could not avoid to use that ugly word). A multi-rooted Internet would offer more search engines, neutral and less commercially biased ones. A multi-rooted approach would also be complementary to a multipolar, fluid and decentralized Internet. A multi-rooted approach would help achieve an alternative Internet with an immediate more balanced governance, with interoperability and competitive approaches, with no tyrants to dominate others, in the interest of users around the planet. IPs are IPS, and content are located at IPs. So asking to different concierge would fragment nothing, except the current monopoles. The surveillance and commercial ones. Something we would love the US to be the champions of. Something for a New Frontiers president. (Someone is telling me that the guy exists but that he was assassinated by his fellow countrymen -  the country of the Free with the record number of assassinated presidents). So let's wait for the next New Frontiers president to emerge. In the US, or anywhere else. Or let's use what we already have at hand.

So indeed, it seems that behind the "decentralization of", there is a lot to be concerned with.

The decentralization question is helping to deconstruct the fairytale of a decentralized and ungovernable Internet that we have been given for granted over the last 17 years since 1998.

JC

Le 29 nov. 2015 à 08:19, Jefsey a écrit :


At 18:23 28/11/2015, willi uebelherr wrote:
many thanks for your reference. For your constructive participation in this discussion.

At 20:36 28/11/2015, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
Your texts are impossible to understand, and the little that is
understandable is hopelessly confused. Your proposal is "not even
false" (by which I mean it is not possible to make sense of it, and
then to determine if it's true or false.)

Willi,

This being said, having been in charge for several years (1982/1986)
of the global DNIC based X.121 addressing implementation, I supported
10 years ago the ITU _investigation_ (it was not a proposition).

Why? Because we will necessarily move into a more open world once the
1986-2013 "status-quo" culture has progressively unfrozen through
experimentation and (now technically correct) "permissionless innovation".

The difference between the "ITU/RIRs" period and the post ICANN
leadership evolution should be the multiplication of registries
(continents, nations, RFC 6852 global communities, ISO/IEC 11179,
etc.) and types of numbering plans.

The same as 15 years ago they documented why new TLDs would spoil the
nets. At that time no one considered possibilities such as SixXS, nor
an RFC 6852 pleading for the technology to be driven by markets
economics, nor the IETF to consensually accepting to be bound to the
ICANN "global community" and subject to NTIA review.

Now, I suggest you at least read two RFCs:

1. RFC 1958 "architectural principles of the Internet".  Its first
section is named "Constat change". It starts stating: " In searching
for Internet architectural principles, we must remember that technical
change is continuous in the information technology  industry. The
Internet reflects this.  ... Principles that seemed inviolable a few
years ago are deprecated today. Principles that seem sacred today will
be deprecated tomorrow. The principle of constant change is perhaps
the only principle of the Internet that should survive indefinitely."

2. RFC 3439 states " The  implication for carrier IP networks then, is
that to be successful we must drive our architectures and designs
toward the simplest possible solutions."


jfc

Am 28/11/2015 um 08:51 a.m. schrieb Paul Wilson:
For reference, here's an article on this topic, written 10 years ago in
response to an ITU proposal for geographic/nationalised management of
IPv6 address space.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/the_geography_of_internet_addressing

Paul.


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