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

Lee W McKnight lmcknigh at syr.edu
Sun Jun 24 19:17:22 EDT 2012 

Michael,

Sorry for my dated and obscure reference, which is in fact quite apropos.

I elaborate in case, as you suggest, my attempt at keeping this discourse on a lighter tone, was possibly misconstrued.

Reagan's position and the hypothetical views of the 95% you allude to, towards the USG, is essentially the same. Meaning that neither actually believes the US government is - here to help.

While we have been discussing exactly how the root zone file oversight mechanism, which we might agree helps 2 billion Internet users globally, since without it there would be no inter-net, is managed by the USG. And while it may be hard to believe, it has in fact as David points out, never been mismanaged for domestic political purposes.

Now, do you get it? Meaning, Reagan was very critical of the US government, even as he led it. And others may  be very critical of the US government, even as one corner of it (NTIA) performs a function for all Internet users worldwide, at no charge except to us US taxpayers. So, of course my joking reference was - just because - folks around the world would not believe, just as Reagan did not, that government was of much help.

Obviously, as we discussed on another variation on this thread, going towards a 'globally open, transparent, and accountable' mechanism is preferrable, we agree.

All joking aside, the mechanics of these processes must be well-understood - before one proposes, specifically, how to change them, which is what my various interventions on this thread have been attempting to help folks not natively of the technical community.

If my attempt at making some points in a briefer and lighter way brought offense, well, sorry.

Lee


________________________________
From: michael gurstein [gurstein at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 12:35 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Lee W McKnight; 'parminder'
Cc: 'McTim'; 'Louis Pouzin (well)'
Subject: RE: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous Internet" ?

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.pdf and http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/internet_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<mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com>]
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:34 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto: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 <parminder at itforchange.net><mailto: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-2012-06
)

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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