[governance] India's communications minister - root server misunderstanding (still...)

[David Conrad]

Parminder,

On Aug 5, 2012, at 4:47 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>> While I personally believe existence and an ability to perform a function does imply some level of legitimacy (perhaps this comes from sitting through too many presentations describing the wonders of unreleased software :-)), I don't think this is particularly relevant to how the technical community can improve the understanding of the technological underpinnings of the Internet. My question isn't about how ICANN can justify what it does, it's about how we in the technical community can get those outside that community to understand "this is how the Internet works".
> 
> David, Since you (and, perhaps, some others) have sincerely asked what can the 'technical community' do to make others, chiefly, policy makers, understand 'this is how the Internet works', let me try to respond with all sincerity, as I really see it.

Thanks!

> The basic problem here is that the so called 'technical community' is indeed largely what may in fact be called as the ICANN/ISOC community. It does not consist of all the people who have sound technical knowledge about the subject, it systematically attracts, encourages and organises (even, variously, incentivizes) those who can largely defend a certain techno-political status quo around the Internet. And it equally, discourages, distances, dis-incentivizes, and disables possibilities of organising of those technically- knowledgeable people who could offer 'neutral' or factual views, and, certainly, those who could advocate techno- political alternatives.

I note you imply that "the ICANN/ISOC community" does/can not offer neutral or factual views.  An interesting bias.

> As a result, what we have as the most visible, active etc 'technical community' is indeed, often, directly or indirectly, aggressively or more subtly, found as trying to 'justify what ICANN does'. Here 'what ICANN does' becomes a place-holder for the current techno-political paradigm around the Internet.

Alternatively, one could view the comments of the 'technical community' as trying to describe the on-the-ground technical reality of the Internet as it is now and the historical/pragmatic justifications for that reality.  This does not necessarily imply that there are no alternative ways things can be done in the future or even that the way things are being done is the best way, rather it is simply a description of the way things are now.

> Now, there is nothing wrong in holding a techno-political outlook and philosophy. Indeed, my organisation and I do. However, and this is my main point, there is everything wrong in holding such a outlook, and professing that one does not, and behaving as one is merely providing 'neutral' technical details. I have found very few people on this list, if any, merely provide technical facts, in that sense. Everything has been thoroughly wrapped in a certain techno -political viewpoint, in fact, mostly, in quite a strong techno-social viewpoint.

Can you provide examples of things that are 'thoroughly wrapped in a certain techno-political viewpoint"?

> A 'technical community' committed to such specific and clear 'techno-political' viewpoint can do very little to improve the understanding of political actors, who could have different base political positions, or at least would want to keep alternatives open. It is my view that this is 'the' key issue at the bottom of what we see here often as the display of disappointment/ dismay by many of the 'technical community' or close-about on this list about what seems to them as such poor understanding of political actors, and their pious statements of desire to do something about to improve it. 

When someone makes a statement like "Globally, internet traffic passes through 13 root servers.", there can be no techno-political viewpoint regarding the current Internet in which this is accurate. It is simply and plainly wrong. It is equivalent to stating "1+1=3". When that person is responsible for communications infrastructure/policy within a country, I personally find this distressing and my engineering background causes me to ask how I can help fix it.

Now, if you are saying that politicians voluntarily choose to ignore reality in order to drive a particular agenda, I can understand that (after all, I live in a country where stuff like http://news.yahoo.com/law-north-carolina-bans-latest-scientific-predictions-sea-165416121--abc-news-topstories.html happens), however this has nothing to do with the "techno-political status quo", rather it is simply sticking ones head in the sand and should draw universal condemnation.

Regards
-drc


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