[governance] RE: [bestbits] "UN must step in to stop cyber threats"

[parminder]

Yes, Michael, beyond hand wringing one must go - as a responsible 
political group....

I have suggested that the Internet Rights and Principles (IRP) Coalition 
anchors this as a civil society initiative, building it on its existing 
IRP document.... Comes up with principles that should govern ownership 
of personal data, and other legal processes around it.

But, this can usefully happen only around an institutional anchor with 
possible international adoption, and thus fruitfulness.... Like OECD's 
Internet policy committee seeking to adopt such norms and principles, 
and civil society making the initial contribution, and then keeping up 
the pressure.  Something like that at a global scale.

Internet is a new shared global 'living space', like perhaps none before 
(or just a few, like macro geo-ecology) ..... We must, with some 
urgency, come to begin setting the norms and rules for our collective 
sharing and living in this new space..... There is just no other option, 
Sooner we realise this, the better. (But of course those who can 
dominate this space in absence of legitimate norms and rules use all 
kinds of devices to push back any such progressive move. The problem is 
that civil society has mostly taken the bait.....)

And so we need to figure out not only the possible blueprints of such 
norms and rules (which themselves beg a platform to take them forward), 
but also the institutional systems for their fruitful adoption, and, to 
the extent needed, enforcement.... Like Dominique recently suggested on 
this list, an International court for digital rights.... Such kind of 
stuff.....

Time we pulled our proverbial head out of the sand.....

parminder


On Tuesday 02 July 2013 12:35 PM, michael gurstein wrote:
>
> If this is to move beyond hand wringing into some sort of action then 
> there will need to be some very concerted and high quality 
> intervention from CS.  Many of those with an interest in these matters 
> are quite compromised (including various of the larger states) and 
> will have security appartuses which will be very reluctant to support 
> initiatives.
>
> Many smaller states with an interest will not have expertise.
>
> Perhaps a working group of CS might be struck specifically to be 
> thinking about measures that could be proposed concerning the control 
> of security/privacy interventions at a global level.
>
> It would be great I think, (in fact necessary if possible) that this 
> be truly multi-stakeholder with a very very signficant role for the 
> Technical community, associated/sympathetic private sector and 
> sympathetic governments, but I think that CS needs to take the lead in 
> beginning some sort of formulation and the creation of the framework 
> to undertake this work.
>
> M
>
> *From:*bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net 
> [mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] *On Behalf Of *parminder
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 02, 2013 10:34 AM
> *To:* governance at lists.igcaucus.org; &lt,bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt,
> *Subject:* [bestbits] "UN must step in to stop cyber threats"
>
>
> Below from an Indian newspaper.... 
> http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130702/commentary-dc-comment/commentary/un%E2%80%88must-step-stop-cyber-threats 
>
>
> Now that the chimera of the US as the unique upholder of Internet's 
> values and people's rights on the Internet is so obviously 
> exposed....... and we know that when US calls for a single unified 
> global Internet, and its unique historic role in its governance (read, 
> control), what really does it mean....
>
> parminder
>
> from the Deccan Chronicle
>
>
>   UN must step in to stop cyber threats
>
> DC | 2 hours 7 min ago
>
> "This is not the Cold War anymore,” says an upset Germany. This was 
> the mildest of rebukes thus far in the wake of the revelations about 
> the American NSA courtesy Edward Snowden.
>
> Spying has been taken into another dimension altogether and the 
> present battle could well be called the “Great Cyber War”. The United 
> States, caught spying, does not have a fig leaf of deniability.
>
> This is not just Big Brother watching over its citizens, as portrayed 
> in the landmark novel 1984. The US has crossed all limits and is now 
> spying on its closest friends and thickest allies as well.
>
> European Union nations have been forced to undertake security sweeps 
> to ensure their computer systems are not being hacked into and their 
> telephone conversations eavesdropped upon.
>
> China, first typecast as the world’s original cyber bad boy, is 
> mockingly pointing to its great rival across the seas to show the 
> world there isn’t just one culprit in modern espionage. If all nations 
> do not get together and sign a treaty to stop cyber espionage, things 
> are only going to get worse for those who love privacy.
>
> The United States’ spying on its allies takes the issue beyond the 
> fundamental argument that the threat of terrorism overrides the tenets 
> of privacy and justifies invasion of individual liberties. What the 
> great National Security Agency spy programs of Maryland and Utah have 
> been doing is to spy on governments, their trade, science, military 
> and political secrets.
>
> All explanations regarding PRISM and other programs studying only 
> metadata, and not prying into individual interactions over the 
> Internet and telephone, cut no ice with a world that is aghast at the 
> temerity of the most powerful nation in a virtually unipolar world.
>
> Much like Germany, India, too, protested so mildly that its voice was 
> hardly heard when US secretary of state John Kerry came calling last 
> week. So protective of his guest was our foreign minister, Salman 
> Khurshid, that the media could not question the visiting dignitary on 
> what his country’s real intentions are in setting up this elaborate 
> $40-billion-plus spying apparatus that snoops on the world.
>
> China came through far more aggressively in questioning the United 
> States on all that the world has heard ever since a sub-contractor 
> went on the lam and spilled the beans from Hong Kong with the help of 
> WikiLeaks.
>
> If clarity and transparency are the qualities most needed to cool 
> tensions among nations and passions among privacy-seekers, what will 
> really serve society is for the United Nations to pay serious 
> attention to this crisis of confidence and come up with an action plan 
> to mark cyber boundaries and make them as inviolable as possible by 
> common consent.
>
> ***
>
>
>

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