[governance] enhanced cooperation consultations

Ian Peter ian.peter at ianpeter.com
Sun Dec 5 04:11:58 EST 2010 

Great start to a list Miguel. Although it may be contentious, I would also
add dealing with illegal and/or offensive content. Consistency, a policy
framework and a set of principles for appropriate action mechanisms here
would IMHO be far better than the current ad hoc removal or blocking of
sites by a variety of players for a variety of dubious reasons.

Ian Peter


> From: Miguel Alcaine <miguel.alcaine at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Miguel Alcaine
> <miguel.alcaine at gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2010 09:00:33 +0100
> To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> Subject: Re: [governance] enhanced cooperation consultations
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> It is convenient to have an answer like the one suggested by Parminder
> to the question launched by DESA, but it needs to offer examples:
> 
> - Global collaboration - from voluntary to legally binding - in
> trans-border procedures needed to combat cyber-crime.
> - Universal coverage of countries and territories by CERT and National
> Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT)
> - Creation of an Internet Charter of Principles, consistent with the
> UN Charter, aiming to become origin principles for the distinct term
> of services found. (e.g. Brazil example).
> - Measurement of the impact of IG on development.
> 
> I am sure people on this list are able to add other examples of global
> internet related policy issues not being addressed by existing
> mechanisms.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Miguel
> 
> On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 4:01 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi All
>> 
>> A specific proposal for the IGC for co-oordinators attention... Also since
>> the new communication from UNDESA asks for 'what global Internet related
>> policy issues are not being addressed by current mechanisms'
>> 
>> Should we add to our EC statement, one line to the effect that
>> 
>> "There are numerous pressing trans-border issues of Internet governance and
>> Internet related policies that require urgent resolution, but are not be
>> addressed by existing mechanisms. We need to examine what institutional
>> mechanisms will be able to address these important Internet related public
>> policy issues in a globally democratic, inclusive and fully-participative
>> manner."
>> 
>> Parminder
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sunday 05 December 2010 02:20 AM, Ian Peter wrote:
>> 
>> The real issue is that some governments around the world are trying to shut
>> down an organization that helps whistleblowers publish information.
>> 
>> In the absence of any policy regime covering such internet usage issues,
>> corporations are bowing to government pressure and/or acting unilaterally to
>> preserve government secrecy and the way things used to be before the digital
>> age.
>> 
>> This absence of a policy regime and any universally accepted principles is
>> one of the internet governance issues we should raise in the current
>> enquiries.
>> 
>> .
>> 
>> Ian Peter
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: "Carlos A. Afonso" <ca at cafonso.ca>
>> Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2010 18:35:35 -0200
>> To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
>> Cc: Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh at syr.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [governance] FW: [IP] Fwd: Wikileaks Domain Revoked?
>> 
>> Yes, and we believe in fairy tales and in Santa Claus. :) I would like
>> to see in Wikileaks in the near future the exchange of "cables" between
>> Lieberman and Bezos :)
>> 
>> --c.a.
>> 
>> On 12/04/2010 06:24 PM, Ian Peter wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Sure, sure - and paypal just denied wikileaks donations on policy grounds,
>> and everydns shut the site because of usage issues after a call from Joe
>> Liebermann....
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Lee W McKnight<lmcknigh at syr.edu>
>> Reply-To:<governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Lee W McKnight<lmcknigh at syr.edu>
>> Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2010 14:54:57 -0500
>> To: "governance at lists.cpsr.org"<governance at lists.cpsr.org>
>> Subject: [governance] FW: [IP] Fwd: Wikileaks Domain Revoked?
>> 
>> Since we're talking Vittorio's holiday shopping...Amazon's denial re their
>> cessation of service w Wikileaks was not politics but for violating terms of
>> service, below.
>> 
>> Lee
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Dave Farber [dave at farber.net]
>> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 4:11 AM
>> To: ip
>> Subject: [IP] Fwd: Wikileaks Domain Revoked?
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> From: Sam <samwaltz.groups at gmail.com<mailto:samwaltz.groups at gmail.com>>
>> Date: December 3, 2010 9:18:23 PM EST
>> To: Dave Farber IP<dave at farber.net<mailto:dave at farber.net>>
>> Subject: Wikileaks Domain Revoked?
>> 
>> This may be of interest to the list.
>> 
>> Sam
>> https://www.mensa.org/user/6020
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-knocked-off-net-d
>> ns
>> -everydns
>> 
>> WikiLeaks fights to stay online after US company withdraws domain name
>> Everydns.net<http://Everydns.net>  says attack against leaks site endangered
>> other
>> customers' service ­ effectively pushing site off the web
>> Charles Arthur and Josh Halliday
>> guardian.co.uk<http://guardian.co.uk>,     Friday 3 December 2010 07.54 GMT
>> 
>> WikiLeaks was removed from its wikileaks.org<http://wikileaks.org>  address.
>> Photograph: Joe
>> Raedle/Getty Images
>> The US was today accused of opening up a dramatic new front against
>> WikiLeaks, effectively "killing" its web address just days after
>> Amazon pulled the site from its servers following political pressure.
>> 
>> The whistleblowers' website went offline for the third time in a week
>> this morning, in the biggest threat to its online presence yet.
>> 
>> Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate's committee on homeland
>> security, earlier this week called for any organisation helping
>> sustain WikiLeaks to "immediately terminate" its relationship with
>> them.
>> 
>> On Friday morning, WikiLeaks and the cache of secret diplomatic
>> documents that have proved to be a scourge for governments around the
>> world were only accessible through a string of digits known as a DNS
>> address. The site later re-emerged with a Swiss domain,
>> WikiLeaks.ch<http://WikiLeaks.ch>.
>> 
>> Julian Assange this morning said the development is an example of the
>> "privatisation of state censorship" in the US and is a "serious
>> problem."
>> 
>> "These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be setting off
>> alarm bells about the rule of law in the United States," he warned.
>> 
>> The California-based internet hosting provider that dropped WikiLeaks
>> at 3am GMT on Friday (10PM EST Thursday), Everydns, says it did so to
>> prevent its other 500,000 customers of being affected by the intense
>> cyber attacks targeted at WikiLeaks.
>> 
>> The site this morning said it had "move[d] to Switzerland", announcing
>> a new domain name ­ wikileaks.ch<http://wikileaks.ch>, with the Swiss
>> suffix.
>> However, the
>> new address still only points to an IP address, suggesting WikiLeaks
>> has been unable to quickly find a new hosting provider.
>> 
>> The Wikileaks.ch<http://Wikileaks.ch>  domain name, which only surfaced on
>> Friday morning,
>> is being served by the Swiss Pirate Party. And the routing to it is
>> still being done by everydns.
>> 
>> Late yesterday evening Tableau Software, a company which published
>> data visualisations, pulled one of its images picturing the WikiLeaks
>> diplomatic cables at the request of Senator Lieberman. Writing on the
>> company's blog, Elissa Fink said: "Our decision to remove the data
>> from our servers came in response to a public request by Senator Joe
>> Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, when he
>> called for organisations hosting WikiLeaks to terminate their
>> relationship with the website."
>> 
>> Mark Stephens, the London-based lawyer acting on behalf of Assange,
>> wrote on Twitter after the shutdown: "Pressure appears to have been
>> applied to close the WikiLeaks domain name."
>> 
>> Andre Rickardsson, an expert on computer security at Sweden's Bitsec
>> Consulting, told Reuters: "I don't believe for a second that this has
>> been done by everydns themselves. I think they've been under
>> pressure," he said, apparently referring to US authorities.
>> 
>> A new Germany-based WikiLeaks domain ­
>> wikileaks.dd19.de<http://wikileaks.dd19.de>  ­ also
>> appeared on Friday morning, with its data apparently hosted in
>> California. People have also taken to setting up alternative domain
>> names that point to the WikiLeaks address. Robin Fenwick, a UK-based
>> web services director, this morning launched
>> Wikileeks.org.uk<http://Wikileeks.org.uk>  ­ a
>> "joke domain" that points to the WikiLeaks DNS address.
>> 
>> In a statement on its website, the free everydns.net<http://everydns.net>
>> service said that
>> the "distributed denial of service" (DDOS) attacks by unknown hackers
>> ­ who are trying to knock WikiLeaks off the net ­ meant that the leaks
>> site was interfering with the service being provided to other users.
>> That in turn meant that WikiLeaks had broken
>> everydns.net<http://everydns.net>'s terms of
>> service, and it cut the site off at 3am GMT on Friday (10PM EST
>> Thursday).
>> 
>> DNS services translate a website name, such as
>> guardian.co.uk<http://guardian.co.uk>, into
>> machine-readable "IP quads" ­ in that case 77.91.249.30, so that
>> http://77.91.249.30 will show the Guardian site. If the DNS fails, the
>> site is only reachable via IP address ­ but WikiLeaks has not yet
>> provided one via Twitter or other means.
>> 
>> Everydns.net<http://Everydns.net>  said that the attacks ­ which have been
>> going on all
>> week, and led the site to temporarily host its services on Amazon's
>> more resilient EC2 "cloud computing" service ­ "threaten the stability
>> of the EveryDNS.net<http://EveryDNS.net>  infrastructure, which enables
>> access
>> to almost
>> 500,000 other websites".
>> 
>> WikiLeaks was given 24 hours' notice of the termination, and everydns
>> said: "Any downtime of the wikileaks.org<http://wikileaks.org>  website has
>> resulted from its
>> failure to use another hosted DNS service provider."
>> 
>> The move comes after several days of WikiLeaks coming under a
>> determined DDOS attack, apparently from hackers friendly to the point
>> of view of the US government, which has disparaged the site's leaking
>> of thousands of US diplomatic cables.
>> 
>> US companies have also come under intense political pressure to remove
>> any connection to, or support for, WikiLeaks. Amazon ended its hosting
>> of the cables on its EC2 cloud computer service earlier this week, but
>> last night insisted in a blogpost that its decision was not due to
>> pressure from Senator Joe Lieberman, who has called for the removal of
>> the data ­ and who has influenced at least one other US company to
>> withdraw support for WikiLeaks data.
>> 
>> In a blogpost late on Thursday, Amazon said reports that government
>> inquiries prompted it to remove the data were "inaccurate".
>> 
>> Amazon said:
>> 
>> "[Amazon Web Services] does not pre-screen its customers, but it does
>> have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not
>> following them. There were several parts they were violating. For
>> example, our terms of service state that "you represent and warrant
>> that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the contentŠ
>> that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and
>> will not cause injury to any person or entity". It's clear that
>> WikiLeaks doesn't own or otherwise control all the rights to this
>> classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary
>> volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing
>> could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that
>> they weren't putting innocent people in jeopardy."
>> 
>> It noted that:
>> 
>> "When companies or people go about securing and storing large
>> quantities of data that isn't rightfully theirs, and publishing this
>> data without ensuring it won't injure others, it's a violation of our
>> terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere."
>> 
>> But as commentators have pointed out, that stance is contradicted by
>> the fact that Amazon has previously hosted the "war logs" from
>> WikiLeaks which contained data about the US wars in Afghanistan and
>> Iraq.
>> 
>> Connecting to WikiLeaks is presently not possible until it gets a new
>> DNS service. WikiLeaks itself said on Twitter that the ending of DNS
>> services was allegedly due to "claimed mass attacks" and called for
>> further donations to "keep us strong".
>> 
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