[discuss] [governance] [bestbits] Fwd: Heads up on Brazil meeting preparation
Suresh Ramasubramanian
suresh at hserus.net
Wed Jan 29 21:10:17 EST 2014
The ORSN faded because of
1. A widespread lack of enthusiasm against replacing a known to work solution with something rather more poorly managed
2. The fact that "US dominance of root servers" is and has been for years a nonsensical canard. I doubt that there is any nation in the world that doesn't have an instance of at least one if not more of the root servers within its territory.
--srs (iPad)
> On 30-Jan-2014, at 7:23, Hindenburgo Pires <hindenburgo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Jean-christophe Nothias,
>
> I have read your paper published on Huffington Post, I would like to congratulate for your careful report, mainly about the established control of the Internet's root servers on the American continent.
> In 2002 an alternative counter-hegemonic had been developed with the creation of the Open Root Server Network (ORSN). There are some reflections on these issues in my papers:
> a) 2008 - Global Internet Governance: The representation of toponyms of countries in the cyberspace: http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn/sn-270/sn-270-151.htm
> b) 2012 - National states, sovereignty and regulation of the Internet: http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn/sn-418/sn-418-63.htm
>
> The ORSN was shutdown in 2008, as it was explained through the document: https://lists.dns-oarc.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2008-October/003339.html
>
> In 2013 with revelations of Edward Snowden on the NSA surveillance by intelligence agencies in the United States, the system of the OSNR was again reactivated with the idea of reducing the asymmetry caused by the Internet control maintained by a single country.
>
> I believe ORSN could be an alternative against this control and it doesn't represent a fragmentation of internet.
>
> This was the reason for reactivation of the ORSN: http://www.orsn.org/en/
>
> Welcome to the project page of the Open Root Server Network.
>
> The ORSN was founded in January 2002 and operated to the middle of 2008. At that time, the former ICANN organists DNS root server were mainly represented on the American continent. Only a few systems were installed in the rest of the world. Our aim is it to reduce this imbalance and make the European Community less dependent on the American system. Our DNS network was constantly expanding over the past years between 2002 and 2008. We operated up to 13 root servers at peak times in many European countries, such as France, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and even one system in the United States that was operated by the founder of the ISC and BIND developer Paul Vixie.
>
> The main reason why ORSN is necessary is to counteract the geographically imbalance of important DNS servers. Another point is the fact that only a single nation (United States) possesses the actual power of managing the all DNS servers in the world. The ICANN root servers are still under the power of the US Commerce Department. Such important infrastructure should actually be under the leadership of a global organisation. So far there is no changed in sight.
>
> As in 2008 the ICANN and its operators set up AnyCast centers worldwide and copied all our 13 root servers and flooding the market by using the BGP protocol in the Internet, we decided to close down our service as we had no technology to expand our DNS rooter as fast as the ICANN. Till today all Internet users are depended on what is registered and stays registered in the servers. That's why ORSN is needed to establish an independent and transparent server for responsible and equal use for all Internet.
>
> And that is exactly the reason why the ORSN was again activated in June 2013. After the revelations of Edward Snowden and reports in the media about the extent of total surveillance by intelligence agencies in the United States (NSA with Prism) and the Britsh EU partner (GCHQ with Tempora) now we only learn about the degree of observation and control by this government run agencies. We don't know how far the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is involved in previous "programs". At this point one could ask why revived the ORSN on the basis of the monitoring measures? What do we both have in common? What can the ORSN do against this?
>
> The simple answer to these questions is: Nothing at all!
>
> ORSN will have no technical possibility to disable surveillance or fight against them. But we as Internet users (community) can distance us from this system (which record our daily communications and processes) and build or own private DNS-server network which will be controlled by the community in Europe and other parts of the world.
> ORSN will have the same standard of DNS information as in 2002-2008. ORSN is 100%-compatible with the ICANN root server network systems. You will not find any TLD in our database.
>
> There will be however a difference to ICANN. The control is located in the community and therefore in the people that makes the Internet so interesting. The people in each country who use ORSN giving their consent that their data is for public use compare to data being retrieved with out consent by the ICANN.
> We hope the ORSN receives again worldwide popularity and will be able to put the trust back into the Internet and its users.
>
> This platform will document the entire work of the ORSN team. You can see in real time the operating States of our infrastructure. We will publish our database. ORSN focuses on transparency and on data security. Appropriate protection mechanisms will ensure that in the future no nation in the world will be deleted from the DNS.
>
>
> 2014-01-29 JCN Global <jc.nothias at theglobaljournal.net>
>> Do not be so impatient to jump at new ideas with guns and pistols! Still I am happy to elaborate a bit on a small part of it, as many other things have to be taken in consideration here.
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>> It seems like you have some difficulty with the word 'legitimacy'. You might also have trouble to make a difference between 'norms' and 'policies'. Beyond norms and standards, there are other words that do embed values and principles. Norms and standards are for many of them technically oriented if not technically or voluntary biased. We all know that the architecture of the ONE Internet we know today was set on purpose with 'holes' that were part of a grand design - no conspiracy thinking please. Just a technical setting that reflected a political will at the time. Any technician would have considered this 'hole' has an imperfection, but this same imperfection was there on purpose - Tech is not that neutral, it often comes with a 'policy'.
>>
>> Even though that is not my best bet, I was wondering if the technical community of the Internet - on a broad scope - would find it that difficult to connect 2 Internets to each other. Or 3 Internet to each other. In other words, I was wondering about a Multinet, if the designing (or change of grand design) of a ONE Internet has reached its limits for giving way to a fair 'Law of the Internet'. I am sure than all the smart e-minds around would not find it that difficult, neither very expansive. Again, this is not my best bet to have 2, 3, 4… Internet. Just wondering. Eli Noam and others find it inevitable. I think you do remember the video conversation you guys had all together few months ago. That being said, I do not buy straight up the idea that a MULTINET would create so much frictions and increase costs for doing business, a concern Chehadé is now raising to push the US companies into some form of compromise about IG. Cheahdé, as a good player would do, has asked the Boston Consulting Group to bring some arguments against a MULTINET. This has to be debate in the open, and in details.
>>
>> According to you John, is 'Privacy' a norm or a standard? I don't see it that way. If it was so, why does Vint Cerf explains with his usual sense of 'Star Wars' humor, that privacy does not exist anymore? "Why do you guys bother about it?" Indeed he belongs to the Asymmetrics that do not have any specific consideration for 'privacy'. His business (Google's) is to exploit our privacy for the need of advertisers. Google is being copied by many, so far never been equalized or overpassed. Google did so well, that they made a fortune out of violating our privacy, destroying by the same token many independent media that suddenly were not able to compete in the face of advertisers. Good for Google though. Google brought many other tools and norms to the world, but it was not without huge returns for itself. You know that around the world there are different perceptions of privacy and the way law can consider that 'our' data, including metadata belong to each one of us.
>>
>> Regarding Internet Human Rights, please bring to the table any serious professor of law, knowing a bit of what are human rights, and see what he thinks of digital human rights. Sorry we have some good ones here in GENEVA. Have we got per say, "Print Human RIghts", or 'Phone Human Rights", or "Traveling Human Rights". Human rights cover all aspects of rights without consideration of the 'vehicle'. With the UN Human Rights charter, you already have all what you need to get anyone condemn for infringement of human rights over the Internet whether you take Freedom of expression, or any other sort of violation. You could argue that the UN could put up a case against all the big corporation that are violating 'privacy' of billion. The Human Right Council should be a good venue for this. The expression of Internet Human Rights comes from where? From my observation it came out of the US State Department. Alec Ross whom I interviewed before he quitted his job as Senior Digital Advisor to Secretary Clinton had a smile hearing my question about these 'rights' . He confessed on the record me that these Internet or Digital Human rights did not exist but that the expression was getting 'support' as you said earlier. Again, this support is very questionable, as we don't know who are the supporters, if they represent more than themselves, and, at the end of the day, if they have any legitimacy. Privacy is not specific to so-called Internet Human Rights. Privacy is an hold asset to human rights.
>>
>> Norms and standards are 'applicable', but do you understand "applicable" in the technical sense meaning 'doable'? Or 'applicable' in the sense of law, meaning possibly enforced with the intervention of justice and police force. These are complete different ideas.
>>
>> Law, national and international are part of the IG debate, and so far the Asymmetrics have managed to escape them. Law would be the ultimate villain. Law and governments. This has to come to an end, when you consider spamming, surveillance, cyberwar...
>>
>> I see the technical community as people enjoying the 'no-limit' game, or no-boundaries game. A 'Law of the Internet' would call for respect of values, common values, and not just norms and standards.
>>
>> This is one of the few points where the gap or divide between the current holders of an asymmetric IG are not ready to go. History will prove them that they are wrong by confusing norms/standards and values/law. All of them have to come together. And that requires much more TRUST, LEGITIMACY.
>>
>> Think about it John, this is only a DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGE. Asymmetrics have to accept a global demand to introduce DEMOCRACY back in the game, not just a phony 'equal footing' norm or standard, that clearly means nothing to any honest Democrat.
>>
>>
>>
>> JC
>>
>>
>>> Le 29 janv. 2014 à 16:56, John Curran a écrit :
>>>
>>>> On Jan 27, 2014, at 12:17 PM, JCN Global <jc.nothias at theglobaljournal.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Contrary to the idea of a disjunction and or a subset of ICANN/IANA functions away from the US DoC, I do believe that what is most need is a supreme international body to which stakeholders can turn themselves to in order to have any claim brought to a truly independent body. I am more interested to see how a 'Law of the Internet' can be taken care of by such a body. Detaching the DoC from ICANN is indeed what is of present concern. But refusing to take International law, as the right way to get all national authorities signatures at the bottom of an international treaty, is so unthinkable that I do believe the status-quoers are fully aware of what they are doing to oppose any change. I do not see how any 'Equal Footing' empty principle could ever bring a government to sign such a treaty. You have been refusing this for years. It is no longer a sustainable position. And I do suspect that you know it.
>>>
>>> JC -
>>>
>>> Regarding the scope of your hypothetical "supreme international body" (which is apparently your
>>> proposed solution to the present situation) - are you advocating that there be treaty body to establish
>>> "Law of the Internet" as opposed to recognition of the applicability of existing international norms
>>> to actions that now take place over the Internet?
>>>
>>> i.e. "Internet" Human Rights distinct from Human Rights, "Internet" Personal Privacy distinct
>>> from Personal Data Privacy rights, "Internet" Diplomatic law rather than Vienna Diplomatic
>>> relations, etc.?
>>>
>>> The Internet is a communications medium, and while it may have unique aspects, I am trying to
>>> discern whether that is the limit of the scope of your hypothetical supreme international body
>>> or whether it is something greater.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>> /John
>>>
>>> Disclaimer: My views alone.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Hindenburgo Francisco Pires
>
> Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
> Departamento de Geografia Humana
> Sítio-web: http://www.cibergeo.org
> ____________________________________________________________
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