[governance] RE: Has U.S. started an Internet war? By Bruce Schneier + tinyURL

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 19.06.13 00:29, Ian Peter wrote:
> In time these events may prove far more serious for the Internet's 
> future than may be apparent at this stage.

The future of the Internet does not depend on any kind of agreements, or 
oversight. This is how the Internet actually came to dominate -- 
bypassing the requirements for multilateral agreements and 
oversight/regulation. Internet functions on peer trust only.

> The most powerful advocate of Internet freedom and multistakeholderism 
> is being seen now as a party acting in its self interest rather than 
> for global interests, and multistakeholder is beginning to seem like a 
> philosophy of convenience to protect US dominant interests.

This is only true, if you believed the US Government has ever seriously 
advocated multistakeholderism. It has done so only as a tool to deter 
other Governments from implementing 'direct control'. It is the human 
society as such, that has created and evolved multistakeholderism -- 
because Internet was employing new technology that governments were not 
ready to control. Whether the society will give this up remains to be seen.

> I expect to see more and more walled gardens. I expect the IANA 
> oversight question to be raised more loudly, and US intransigence on 
> this question to lead to serious repercussions for ICANN as well.

These things existed before Internet, they exist today on Internet in 
many, many places. Remember AOL and CompuServe?

It seems many forget what IANA actually is: it is a repository/registry 
for various Internet related parameters. IANA has no power over Internet 
as such. What is it you think IANA can do to damage my business? Remove 
the port number or protocol assignment for my established application 
from it's database? How is this going to impact my business? It would be 
either hardcoded in code, or users will put it in local configuration. 
At the same time, by doing this, IANA will only create more havoc and 
reduce anyone's trust towards them. Hardly something IANA will ever do.

ICANN is an entirely different topic. The Internet happily existed 
without ICANN for quite some time. It can continue functioning without 
ICANN. ICANN too, does not have any real power over Internet. What can 
ICANN do? Remove .cn or .ru for no justification? That will last only 
few hours, at most.

> This might be the end game for the global Internet as we know it. I 
> don't see how we move on from here to achieve sensible outcomes. I'm 
> sure global connectivity will remain, but I dont see the sort of 
> facility we used to enjoy and we probably all hoped for remaining intact.

The Internet was designed to withstand nuclear war, loss of most 
components, total disaster. We are, thankfully, still not there!

Spying, hacking and abuse have always existed on Internet. If you can 
shut a power plant remotely, without sending your troops over there, why 
would you not do it? Especially, if you can attribute the action to some 
other party, eg. China.

I see far greater problem in the absurd implementation of Internet 
technologies by governments and "critical infrastructure" (usually state 
run) businesses, that are the direct result of employing wannabe experts 
and greedy public (i.e. shared irresponsibility) corporations. Close 
your infrastructure holes and the US spies will have rather hard time 
penetrating -- at the point the costs will exceed the potential 
benefits. In my book, SPAM is a bigger problem than US spies hacking 
something, because SPAM severely reduces trust in e-mail communication, 
which impacts everyday life much more.

Daniel

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