[governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous Internet" ?

Sat Jun 23 12:35:00 EDT 2012

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.

M

 -----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Lee W McKnight
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:47 AM
To: parminder
Cc: McTim; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Louis Pouzin (well)
Subject: RE: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a
"Autonomous Internet" ?

Parminder,

What I believe McTim and I, and David, are saying, is that the sledgehammer
cannot be directed.

Messing with the root zone file in any way - always - would hit everyone's
fingers.

It would be the opposite of 'maintaining stability of the net.'

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.

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.  

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.

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. ; )   

Lee

  _____  

From: parminder [parminder at itforchange.net]
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 10:59 AM
To: Lee W McKnight
Cc: McTim; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Louis Pouzin (well)
Subject: Re: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a
"Autonomous Internet" ?

Lee

To make things clear from my side, what I am trying to do is to show is
that;

 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.That is why I brought in the OFAC regime into our discussion.
Dont you see this situation as problematic. It is, to those outside the US.

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 simply 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?

parminder 

On Saturday 23 June 2012 08:08 PM, parminder wrote: 

On Saturday 23 June 2012 06:58 PM, Lee W McKnight wrote: 

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 -

Lee, 

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.

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". 

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. 

(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
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.pd
f and
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/interne
t_freedom.pdf  )

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 :)

 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.

parminder 

 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 [dogwallah at gmail.com]

Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:34 AM

To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; 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
<mailto:parminder at itforchange.net> <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

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

http://www.webpronews.com/google-blocks-cuba-from-gaining-analytics-access-2
012-06

)

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

http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ .

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.

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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