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

[Ian Peter]

Daniel, your basic assumption seems to be that nothing that governments can 
do can affect the future of the Internet. Here I disagree. I think they have 
enormous power to break up the Internet, and there are plenty of examples 
out there already of how governments can restrict open access. Yes, there 
are Tor and other workarounds in some cases, but for the majority, national 
firewalls and censorship are effective.

Which is why we need protocols and policies to avoid the sort of unilateral 
actions (or actions by national groupings of stakeholders) which threaten a 
global internet.

As you say,the Internet is based on peer trust. I think the big issue we 
face is that the trust is now highly questionable to many of us. It's the 
breach of trust by a dominant stakeholder that concerns me and leads me to 
believe that the path back to internet freedom may be difficult.

But I appreciate your optimism!


Ian Peter



-----Original Message----- 
From: Daniel Kalchev
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 5:26 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] RE: Has U.S. started an Internet war? By Bruce 
Schneier + tinyURL


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







____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t 


-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t