Subject: [Internetgovtech] US Government response to the European Commission statement

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 15:27:07 -0500

FYI...

> Statement of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling on the European Commission statement on Internet governance:
>  
> The U.S. government welcomes the strong and continued commitment of the European Commission to the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.  We will work with the Commission and other Internet stakeholders to make multistakeholder governance more inclusive, especially to support the engagement of countries in the developing world.  We have long encouraged the further globalization of ICANN as reflected in our work the last five years to improve the accountability and transparency of ICANN to all nations and stakeholders.

---

From: Gordon Lennox <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 21:50:32 +0100

Yes. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe-wants-less-us-power-over-internet/2014/02/12/7e231bde-9409-11e3-9e13-770265cf4962_story.html

A good piece.

But I would suggest caution about taking certain phrases at their common reading. What do other people really mean by internationalisation or globalisation?  

Before and elsewhere a lot of people presumed there was agreement about "enhanced cooperation". But this was also a standard piece of EU jargon which referred to a group of member states, nation states, getting together to achieve certain goals.

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/enhanced_cooperation_en.htm

But as both the US and ETNO are doing, it is part of the game to try and impose your preferred interpretation early!

Gordon

On 12 Feb, 2014, at 21:27, Russ Housley <[email-masked]> wrote:

> FYI..
> _______________________________________________
> Internetgovtech mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.iab.org/mailman/listinfo/internetgovtech

---

From: Gordon Lennox <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 21:51:07 +0100

Yes. 

A good piece.

Gordon

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 15:53:00 -0500

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=4453

I find this document very interesting, especially page 5.

Russ

---

From: "Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 05:50:56 +0000

Russ,

and what do you think of pages 7-8, "Technical Norms Shaping the Internet"?

Alejandro Pisanty

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
Facultad de Química UNAM
Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

+52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD

+525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO SMS +525541444475
Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

________________________________
Desde: Internetgovtech [[email-masked]] en nombre de Russ Housley [[email-masked]]
Enviado el: miércoles, 12 de febrero de 2014 14:53
Hasta: Gordon Lennox
CC: [email-masked]
Asunto: Re: [Internetgovtech] US Government response to the European Commission statement

Russ

Yes.

A good piece.

Gordon

On 12 Feb, 2014, at 21:27, Russ Housley <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

FYI..

_______________________________________________
Internetgovtech mailing list
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
https://www.iab.org/mailman/listinfo/internetgovtech

_______________________________________________
Internetgovtech mailing list
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
https://www.iab.org/mailman/listinfo/internetgovtech

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 13:07:36 +0100

"An effective
multistakeholder approach to specification setting on the internet
will be based on efficient
mutual interactions between technical and public policy considerations
so that technical
specifications more systematically take into account public policy concerns."

It a good goal, and in some way I have seen some IETF efforts in that
direction (this list for example). We just need to be careful in not
add to much policy to technical discussions or to create a new
standard body with that aim.

-as

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 6:50 AM, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
> http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
> But I would suggest caution about taking certain phrases at their common
> reading. What do other people really mean by internationalisation or
> globalisation?
>
> Before and elsewhere a lot of people presumed there was agreement about
> "enhanced cooperation". But this was also a standard piece of EU jargon
> which referred to a group of member states, nation states, getting together
> to achieve certain goals.
>
> But as both the US and ETNO are doing, it is part of the game to try and
> impose your preferred interpretation early!
>
> Gordon
>
>
> Statement of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and
> Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling on the European
> Commission statement on Internet governance:
>
> The U.S. government welcomes the strong and continued commitment of the
> European Commission to the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.
> We will work with the Commission and other Internet stakeholders to make
> multistakeholder governance more inclusive, especially to support the
> engagement of countries in the developing world.  We have long encouraged
> the further globalization of ICANN as reflected in our work the last five
> years to improve the accountability and transparency of ICANN to all nations
> and stakeholders.
>
>

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:02:57 +0100

(I'm not speaking on behalf of the European Commission right now)

> standard body with that aim.

Honestly innocent question. Why wouldn't you want to create a new standard
body with this aim? Inefficiency? Duplication?

Is there a structured mechanism through which the IETF performs this kind
of "efficient mutual interactions", besides participating in mailing lists
and organising workshops from time to time?

I have been following - and enjoying - the debate on IETF-discuss on the
perpass proposal. I was often struck by the differences of view, among IETF
participants, on whether the IETF should even talk about the issue.

(Note: I'm not taking a position on the whole "pervasive passive
surveillance" issue for the time being. It doesn't mean I don't have one,
but simply that I don't think it's relevant for this particular discussion).

Thanks,

Andrea

---

From: Gordon Lennox <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:07:58 +0100

> (I'm not speaking on behalf of the European Commission right now)

Andrea,

Maybe it would help if you used your Commission e-mail address when you are speaking officially - and at least some of us know what that might mean - and your private address when you are speaking as a individual citizen.

Gordon

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:36:06 +0100

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Gordon Lennox
<[email-masked]>wrote:

> Maybe it would help if you used your Commission e-mail address when you
> are speaking officially - and at least some of us know what that might mean
> - and your private address when you are speaking as a individual citizen.
>

I could do it if that makes things easier for people, although it means I'd
need to be subscribed with two email addresses. I know I can turn off
delivery of messages for one of the addresses, but multiplying for all the
relevant mailing lists I'm subscribed it becomes a bit tricky to manage.

It should also be noted that even when writing from my European
Commission's email address, I cannot speak officially for the European
Commission unless (1) I am clearly stating so (rare) or (2) I am
distributing official documents of the European Commission (in which case
it is the documents which express an official position of the European
Commission as the case might be).

But again - if this is important for people on this list, I can do that.

Best,

Andrea

---

From: "cdel.firsthand.net" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:00:21 +0000

There are plenty of "standards" bodies. 

Mostly public policy should encourage and protect open standards and their adoption in the market not define them.

Intervention may be justified if standards are being gamed by vested market dominant interests because that is likely to negatively impact on competitive open networks and markets over them. But in a global space with many local markets the challenge is I expect better focussed on engaging local interests globally in standards activities that reflect real market needs rather than defining some local special sauce.

Liaisons can and have been established  in european context. I remember helping set one up managed by european ISOC chapters with IAB approval after IETF London in 2000 with EU ICT Standards board for example. I would observe that defining local Standards has ... limited utility as it has scope. 

Christian de Larrinaga

> On 13 Feb 2014, at 13:02, Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Arturo Servin <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> "An effective
> Honestly innocent question. Why wouldn't you want to create a new standard body with this aim? Inefficiency? Duplication? 
> 
> Is there a structured mechanism through which the IETF performs this kind of "efficient mutual interactions", besides participating in mailing lists and organising workshops from time to time?
> 
> I have been following - and enjoying - the debate on IETF-discuss on the perpass proposal. I was often struck by the differences of view, among IETF participants, on whether the IETF should even talk about the issue.
> 
> (Note: I'm not taking a position on the whole "pervasive passive surveillance" issue for the time being. It doesn't mean I don't have one, but simply that I don't think it's relevant for this particular discussion).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Andrea

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:23:47 +0100

Hi Andrea,

Speaking only for myself.

On 2/13/14, 2:02 PM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
>
>
> Honestly innocent question. Why wouldn't you want to create a new
> standard body with this aim? Inefficiency? Duplication?

Why not both? ;-)  Seriously, probably most people in the IETF want to
see a growing healthy secure Internet, but our primary focus is global
voluntary standards that have been developed and reviewed by experts to
achieve that goal, without having to end up dealing with externalities
that come tied to government interactions.  And I think we've done
pretty well at it.

>
> Is there a structured mechanism through which the IETF performs this
> kind of "efficient mutual interactions", besides participating in
> mailing lists and organising workshops from time to time?

ISOC does a great job on public policy issues that intersect this space,
but that doesn't absolve the IETF leadership from paying attention or
contributing to the discussions on occasion.  The IAB has set up this
list for community discussion around issues that do intersect technology
and policy, where policy might become either an inhibitor or enabler (I
have personally seen both).  The focus was initially meant to be just
PP, but other similar meetings would seem apt as well (again, speaking
only for myself).

>
> I have been following - and enjoying - the debate on IETF-discuss on
> the perpass proposal. I was often struck by the differences of view,
> among IETF participants, on whether the IETF should even talk about
> the issue.

I find that healthy, and I hope you do too.  I hope you will follow the
results of the STRINT workshop[1], by the way.

Eliot
[1] http://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/strint/

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:35:02 +0100

Dear Christian,

> There are plenty of "standards" bodies.

Agreed. That's a fact. :)

> Intervention may be justified if standards are being gamed by vested
> market dominant interests because that is likely to negatively impact on
> competitive open networks and markets over them. But in a global space with
> many local markets the challenge is I expect better focussed on engaging
> local interests globally in standards activities that reflect real market
> needs rather than defining some local special sauce.
>

A few points, trying in earnest to understand your position.

First, you seem to take the position that the only role for public
authorities should be to avoid abuse of dominant positions / market power
(including, I assume, via cartels) in the definition of standards.

Secondly, your reasoning seems to be that as long as open networks and
markets remain open, and standard- or specification-making activities are
not "gamed" (for whatever definition of "gaming" one might have), then the
final result will be good.

Thirdly, you conclude that "local" standards are sub-optimal and that one
should rather try to make sure that local communities / people / groups
engage in "global" standards.

I would like to make sure I fully and well understood your points before
expressing some further (personal :) opinions on them, and perhaps trying
to see how this could match with the rationale for the section that has
been quoted from COM(2014) 72/4.

> Liaisons can and have been established  in european context. I remember
> helping set one up managed by european ISOC chapters with IAB approval
> after IETF London in 2000 with EU ICT Standards board for example. I would
> observe that defining local Standards has ... limited utility as it has
> scope.
>

I don't question the usefulness of liaisons, quite the contrary. I'm just
wondering (honestly - I will not repeat the qualifier again :) if they are
sufficient.

Best,

Andrea

--
I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it
in mind.
Twitter: @andreaglorioso
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=1749288&trk=tab_pro

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:47:56 +0100

Dear Eliot,

> Speaking only for myself.

I assumed so. ;)

>
> Why not both? ;-)  Seriously, probably most people in the IETF want to see
> a growing healthy secure Internet, but our primary focus is global
> achieve that goal, without having to end up dealing with externalities that
> come tied to government interactions.  And I think we've done pretty well
> at it.
>

I think that the notion of "growing" can be defined in a way that would not
be very much open to debate. But how do we define what is a "healthy" or a
"secure" Internet?

I also find it interesting - and I absolutely don't mean to be flippant -
that you use the term "externality" to refer to "government interactions",
mostly because in economics externalities can be positive or negative. You
seem to assume (or I think you seem to assume) that any interaction with
governments generates a negative externality (although you do say below
that policy can be an "inhibitor or an enabler").

> kind of "efficient mutual interactions", besides participating in mailing
> lists and organising workshops from time to time?
>
> contributing to the discussions on occasion.  The IAB has set up this list
> for community discussion around issues that do intersect technology and
> policy, where policy might become either an inhibitor or enabler (I have
> personally seen both).  The focus was initially meant to be just PP, but
> other similar meetings would seem apt as well (again, speaking only for
> myself).
>

I know well ISOC's work and I appreciate it, whether or not I (or the
European Commission) agrees with the relevant output. I wonder how much
that kind of work trickles down into the IETF (participants) and
vice-versa.

And to be clear, I think this list is an absolutely excellent idea, but
having been on mailing lists for a good part of my 36 years, I am somehow
skeptical about the ability of such instruments to "scale" to the level of
structured interactions that would probably be needed in order to ensure a
good bidirectional transmission chain between technology and policy.

I assume that by PP you mean the ITU Plenipotentiary Meeting?

I find that healthy, and I hope you do too.

That there are differences of view? Yes, absolutely.

> I hope you will follow the results of the STRINT workshop[1], by the way.
>

I was very much hoping I could attend that workshop but alas it will not be
possible. I will however read with great interest the relevant results.
(And by the way, that particular workshop is co-hosted / co-organised by
participants to the STREWS project, which is funded by the European Union
under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological
Development, or FP7 as we call it. Allow me a bit of promotion ;)

Ciao,

Andrea

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 10:58:59 -0800

Hi Andrea,
At 09:47 13-02-2014, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
>I think that the notion of "growing" can be defined in a way that 
>would not be very much open to debate. But how do we define what is 
>a "healthy" or a "secure" Internet?

Credits to Detlef Bosau for the following:

   "But you will agree: WHEN you are interested in scientific questions, don't
    ask students or professors, but ask a kid."

To answer the first (quoted) question I would ask the person what he 
or she considers as a "healthy" or a "secure" internet.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 21:24:57 +0100

Hi Andrea,

Again, speaking only for myself.

On 2/13/14, 6:47 PM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:

> would not be very much open to debate. But how do we define what is a
> "healthy" or a "secure" Internet?

These are of course subjective terms.  Healthy to me is one where the
Internet can effectively and safely serve the needs of its users.  In
the context of the IETF and for purposes of this discussion, let's keep
it bounded to providing interoperable connectivity at ever increasing
scale, in a manner in which links are used efficiently and with some
notion of fairness (that is to say, two competing applications will gain
roughly the same share of a link, all other things being equal.  This
includes transport mechanisms such as TCP, UDP, and SCTP; the addressing
and routing systems, which are tightly bound together, as well as
auto-configuration (a'la DHCP) and the like.  Examples of unhealthy
would be if the routing system were injured in some way.  Policy can
have an impact on that, by the way.  Again, scoping this to IETF
matters, "secure", to me, means confidentiality, authenticity, and
integrity of communications are maintained.  Security can be impacted by
many policy aspects Imagine, for example, a government mandating
implementation and use of broken encryption.

>
> I also find it interesting - and I absolutely don't mean to be
> flippant - that you use the term "externality" to refer to "government
> interactions", mostly because in economics externalities can be
> positive or negative. You seem to assume (or I think you seem to
> assume) that any interaction with governments generates a negative
> externality (although you do say below that policy can be an
> "inhibitor or an enabler").

And indeed I agree there are both positive and negative externalities. 
We can't forget that it was a government that first funded this great
project, and many governments have devoted and talented people who have
worked at the technical level to scale the network.  We just held a
workshop on Internet Technology Adoption and Transition (ITAT) in which
researchers presented a bundling model that takes into account both
positive and negative externalities.[1,2]  On the other hand, in a
government context there is the possibility of linkage to issues where
the "good" is quite opaque, and quite frankly I have seen this linkage
in action, and it is not pretty.  The merits (if any) of the work are
lost.  This is why I support the OpenStand principles
(www.open-stand.org), and why I think everyone should.

Eliot
[1] http://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/itat/
[2]
http://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2013/06/itat-2013_submission_2.pdf

---

From: "cdel.firsthand.net" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:56:05 +0000

Inline 

> On 13 Feb 2014, at 17:35, Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Dear Christian,
> 
>> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 3:00 PM, cdel.firsthand.net <[email-masked]> wrote:
> First, you seem to take the position that the only role for public authorities should be to avoid abuse of dominant positions / market power (including, I assume, via cartels) in the definition of standards.
> 

No that isn't what I wrote. I was specific to describe need for a split of effective responsibilities between policy oversight and standards negotiation. The examples I give are indicative not a gospel. 

> Secondly, your reasoning seems to be that as long as open networks and markets remain open, and standard- or specification-making activities are not "gamed" (for whatever definition of "gaming" one might have), then the final result will be good.

Not good but open to innovation and change. Unlike telephone networks which prevent innovation by asserting vertically integrated ownership rights.

I'd also split the design from any specific implementations which you did not. So IETF designs and standardises (rough consensus) on an agreed demarcation of two independent real world implementations (running code) to prove it works and there are independent references to make it work in practice but the market dynamics of operating a network that chooses to deploy or not deploy those standards is a separate issue . Often locally significant.

> 
> Thirdly, you conclude that "local" standards are sub-optimal and that one should rather try to make sure that local communities / people / groups engage in "global" standards.

If you want to connect globally it is necessary I think to have the same basic rules or standards.

> 
> I would like to make sure I fully and well understood your points before expressing some further (personal :) opinions on them, and perhaps trying to see how this could match with the rationale for the section that has been quoted from COM(2014) 72/4.
>  
> I don't question the usefulness of liaisons, quite the contrary. I'm just wondering (honestly - I will not repeat the qualifier again :) if they are sufficient.
> 

Communications without understanding or to give the tech sense "clue" is not sufficient by definition. It turns out to be very hard to impart and share clue. 

> Andrea
Hope that helps 

Christian
> --
> I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it in mind.
> Twitter: @andreaglorioso

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:22:51 +0100

Forgot to reply to the list

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Arturo Servin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Andrea,
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 2:02 PM, Andrea Glorioso
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Both.
> In fact, why would you want to create one? I see very low value to do
> it, and a lot of duplicate efforts, inefficiency, L9 wars, angry and
> flappy birds, etc. Not a very good idea so far.
>
>>
>> Is there a structured mechanism through which the IETF performs this kind of
>> "efficient mutual interactions", besides participating in mailing lists and
>> organising workshops from time to time?
>
> It depends of what you define as structured mechanisms, but there are
> efforts from the IESG and the IAB to be more involve in not 100%
> technical activities. If this worked, eventually this would be
> something than WG and drafts authors may do. There are some examples
> where, we as technical people try to bring concerns (not just
> operational but policy concerns) to WG to work on better standards.
>
> We need to have a balance between flexible and structured mechanisms.
> Perhaps today we are too flexible but having more structured
> mechanisms does not seem to be a good alternative.
>
>>
> The most interesting is the bast differences in views and how in the
> end we could come up with something useful. That is a rare value that
> the IETF has.
>
> Regards
> as

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 21:07:12 -0500

> and what do you think of pages 7-8, "Technical Norms Shaping the Internet"?

The situation is complex.  There is not a unified technical community, and there is not a unified policy community.

Let's look at three real world projects that are going on right now.  These are just examples off the top of my head.

(1) PAWS (http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/paws/charter/)

I really hope that the result of this working group is able to make television whitespace available for data all over the world.  This cannot be successful unless the spectrum regulatory bodies are engaged in the process.  The FCC was the first to engage, and the first versions of the specifications seem to meet their needs, and then OFCOM provided some comments that caused a complete redesign.  I hope others engage very soon so that a global solution is possible.

(2) ECRIT (http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/ecrit/charter/)

I really hope that the result of this working group is able to specify emergency service access on a global scale from every mobile VoIP device.  One challenge is that many governments can reference IETF standards in their regulations.  This could lead to interoperability problems.

(3) STIR (http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/stir/charter/)

I really hope that the result of this working group make it more difficult for  robocalling, vishing, and swatting all over the world.

In each of these examples, a different portion of the policy community needs to participate.  I believe they have been invited to do so.  I do not know if they will.

Russ

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:46:11 +1300

Andrea,

I can't speak for Christian, but I woukld like to comment
on these points.

> (including, I assume, via cartels) in the definition of standards.

That is IMHO certainly the most useful thing a public authority can do
(as the EC took the lead in Europe in telco demonopolisation in the past).

I think there can be an important role in stimulating new technologies;
I suspect that EC actions had more than a little effect in stimulating
GSM for example, and that required stimulating multivendor standards
of course.

But when there is already a very healthy and vigorous open voluntary
standards body in place, I don't see what value a public authority
can add.

> final result will be good.

If it isn't good, it won't be used. Indeed, a lot of standards efforts
go to waste because it turns out that there is no corresponding market
demand. That's like any R&D activity: failure is always an option; the
risk of failure has to be accepted as well as the chance of success.

> engage in "global" standards.

Definitely. In the Internet, local standards are a big waste of
effort. Note: I'm talking about infrastructure. Obviously there is
scope for local entrepreneurship for applications that match a
particular culture or economy. But that shouldn't concern the EU,
should it?

> wondering (honestly - I will not repeat the qualifier again :) if they are

I don't see how to do better. We surely don't need yet more SDOs.

Regards
    Brian Carpenter

---

From: Jefsey <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 18:26:54 +0100

At 03:07 14/02/2014, Russ Housley wrote:
>The situation is complex.  There is not a unified technical 
>community, and there is not a unified policy community.
>Let's look at three real world projects that are going on right 
>now.  These are just examples off the top of my head.

Russ,
your examples shows a correct vision. The problem is that:

>In each of these examples, a different portion of the policy 
>community needs to participate.  I believe they have been invited to 
>do so.  I do not know if they will.

They will probably not because they feel they are not competent 
enough and many techies oppose the idea. As you know I think the 
solution lies in the lead users. The problem is to find a way for a 
very few people to introduce a new concept that can work (the 
important point is not that is does deploy, but that it could).  And 
then one needs a trigger.

After several others (multilingualism, diversity support, 
subsidiarity, etc.) I thought I found a trigger with the good work of 
RFC 6852, but with the final say being left to commerce and techies 
and not to people in case of architectonical disagreement. Still 
complex. I thought it would be possible to do something in using 
Brian's agreement on a MS defined root and an HomeRoot 
experimentation project. But there is still the idea that the root 
file is a command not a report. Then Mike Roberts came with the fact 
of the life that the congress-military-insdutrial complex would block 
any non-US favorable reform (what will be the same for any other gov).

This is the opening for the "simultaneous VGN" (vitual global 
networks) concept, parallel national/community governances, 
strengthening the global unity of the network in piling 192 legal 
bodies over it. A global governance of MS global governances, for a 
network of networks. MSism means that every of us are operating our 
own virtual global network on the same footing as billions others and 
Govs, and the US Gov for the ARPANET intenetting.

This is a technically uncompleted project (http://vgnic.org)? We are 
going to complete it. In fully respecting RFCs. Because the work done 
by the IETF so far is excellent. It will motivate people for the 
fringe to fringe layers where we need to support presentation layer 
six security, multilingualism, multitechnology, starting with EDI and the IoT.

Now, what will be the response?

- call me a fool/troll? good it will make publicity to VGNs
- kill the mailing list? on which grounds? added publicity if you 
have to accept it.
- dispute the project: good! it will help making it be better.
- technically oppose it? how?

Cheers.
jfc

---

From: Jefsey <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 01:32:54 +0100

>>now.  These are just examples off the top of my head.

FYI. FAQs on VGNs. http://iucg.org/wiki/VGN:_FAQs

I will try to maintain the various related topics at 
http://iucg.org/wiki/VGN_and_VGNICs, a VGN/VGNIC portal for further 
work on the issue. I do not know how long it will take to catch but 
this is an inflexion point. VGNs are certainly a way to implement 
OpenStand in the real world, review the whole governance issue, and 
arouse big enough interests to oblige an RFC 6852 inflexion toward a 
conflict management system where the ultimate decision rests with an 
MS decision process.

jfc

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:21:03 +0100

Dear SM, all,

sorry for the belated replies. Increased workload + health issues in the
family.

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 7:58 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I think that the notion of "growing" can be defined in a way that would
>> not be very much open to debate. But how do we define what is a "healthy"
>> or a "secure" Internet?
>>
>
> To answer the first (quoted) question I would ask the person what he or
> she considers as a "healthy" or a "secure" internet.
>

The first step in any conversation which aims to be productive for all
parties is to make sure there is a common understanding of the terms of the
discussion (but see my PS below)

At a certain point, however, it becomes rather cumbersome to check each and
every time what each term means. That's not how social systems work.

Coming to the IETF, I think I have a rather good idea of what this
community considers to be a "secure" Internet. I'm less sure there is a
shared understanding of what "healthy" means.

Hence my question.

Best,

Andrea

PS: actually, there can be cases in which it is actually productive and
perfectly logical (although not very sustainable) for each party to make
sure that each word has a different meaning, in order to be able to later
claim that there was an agreement, but also that what was concluded has the
specific meaning each party wants it to have. I understand this sounds like
anathema to a specification-setting body, but it does happen in many walks
of life, from romantic relationships to global political negotiations.
Anyway, I don't want to digress. ;)

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:31:28 +0100

Dear Eliot, dear all,

sorry for the delay (yadda-yadda-work-yadda-health etc)

> And indeed I agree there are both positive and negative externalities.

Ok, then I had misunderstood - apologies.

> worked at the technical level to scale the network.

This is indeed true, but I would add that many governments / public
authorities
have also played / are also playing a role outside the "technical level",
for
example by designing public procurement systems to promote IPv6, working
on legislation to foster Internet adoption, etc.

(I'm sure lots of people, myself included, could come up with examples of
public interventions which went in the opposite direction. My aim here is
simply to point out that "technology" does not live in a vacuum. I think we
actually agree violently on this)

> We just held a
> positive and negative externalities.[1,2]

I was hoping I could read all the papers of this interesting workshop, but
this intention was quickly filed into the "wishful thinking" category. I'm
looking forward to a summary / report, which I understand will be published
soon-ish.

> On the other hand, in a
> lost.

Here I am intrigued. It's one thing to say "this [ legislation | policy |
... ]
will decrease broadband adoption / break DNSSEC / screw up global
routing efficiency". These things are more or less measurable.

But I really don't understand what you mean by referring to the "possibility
of linkage to issues where the 'good' is quite opaque".

This is why I support the OpenStand principles
> (www.open-stand.org), and why I think everyone should.

I know the principles but I don't immediately see the link between them and
the possibility of "linkage" you mention above (probably because I'm not
entirely clear about what this "linkage" actually is).

Ciao,

Andrea

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:48:48 +0100

Dear Brian, dear all,

(sorry for the belated reaction - work + health +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFvujknrBuE ).

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 4:46 AM, Brian E Carpenter <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> Andrea,
>
> I can't speak for Christian, but I would like to comment
> on these points.
>

Sure - thanks for the comments.

> (as the EC took the lead in Europe in telco demonopolisation in the past).

I understand.

> GSM for example, and that required stimulating multivendor standards

Just to be clear - the stimulation of new technologies does not only pass
through competition policy (fight against abuses of dominant positions,
cartels etc). In fact, it might require forms of intervention which some
parties might consider to be an undue alteration of the "market" and in
some cases even anti-competitive.

So there is often a fine line to walk here.

> standards body in place, I don't see what value a public authority

Well, public authorities are often very important users of technology. So
their participation in the definition of the specifications / standards of
such
technology might actually be useful for later adoption.

I also believe that standard setting which does not take into account the
broader socio-legal environment in which the relevant technologies will
be used is not particularly sustainable. I posit that public authorities are
an important - but not the only, and perhaps in some cases not even the
primary - source for these broader considerations.

Which does not mean, by the way, that public authorities should be in
the driving seat (I'm saying this only because I know the usual reaction
to the notion I mentioned above is "oh! You want to take-over!" which is
not what I, or for that matter the Commission as an official position,
want to do).

[SNIP]

> particular culture or economy. But that shouldn't concern the EU,

I'm not sure why it shouldn't concern the EU. Care to elaborate?

> I don't see how to do better. We surely don't need yet more SDOs.

To be clear: I am not suggesting we need a new SDO. But I think it's useful
to put very clearly on the table what would be the pros and cons of having
one,
and this is why I asked the question.

However, if there is a shared agreement that more structured and
bi-directional
dialogues and engagements between the "technical community" and the world
of governments / public authorities would be beneficial (and quite frankly
I'm
not convinced we are there yet) then one can find middle solutions between
'ad hoc' liaisons and new, full-blown SDOs.

Ciao,

Andrea

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 11:03:34 +0100

Dear Arturo, dear all,

> kind of
> > technical activities.

I know some of these efforts (and I think it would be useful to have a
complete
list of them somewhere, for easier tracking) and I personally commend IESG
and IAB people for this. I know by experience that walking in different
worlds
is a tiring and sometimes very frustrating exercise (it is as much for the
technical community when dealing with governments as it is the other way
around, believe me).

> If this worked, eventually this would be

Such as? (This is not a confrontational question - I'm curious as to what
would
be your idea of "policy concerns").

> > mechanisms does not seem to be a good alternative.

Why not? Too much structure certainly can stifle discussion. But too little
structure can easily lead to energy waste, duplication, lack of
information, etc.

Or to put it another way: I'm not a historian of the IETF but I would be
surprised
if the *current* structure of the IETF (the way WGs are organised in Areas,
the
interactions between WG Chairs and Area Directors, the role of the IESG,
the various steps and back-and-forths that Internet Drafts have to pass
through
before moving to the glory of becoming RFCs or BCPs or STDs, if ever...) was
exactly the *same* structure of when Steve Crocker wrote his first RFC.

(Actually, I know that at the time there was no such thing as the IETF, but
I
hope you get my point).

Structure is just one of the ways in which human beings handle complexity.
If we agree that:

(1) the world of Internet technologies is becoming more complex,
because the Internet has become such a planetary success that it underlies
almost all kinds of human transactions for billions people on this planet,
and

(2) that this introduces the need to take into account other constraints
than simply
"does this packet get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible",

then I fail to see how we can disagree that it would be a good thing to
introduce
more structured  ways (or, if you prefer, more "efficient", "effective",
etc) to ensure
that cross-constituency dialogue in this  "more complex" world truly scales.

Of course, we might well disagree on the premises. ;)

I have the impression that when I use the term "structure", people -
especially
in the IETF community - read "laws". That is neither the intended meaning
nor
a necessity.

Best,

Andrea

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 11:44:53 +0100

Hi Andrea,

On 2/25/14, 10:31 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:

> have also played / are also playing a role outside the "technical
> level", for

Oh I can see we're going to have what I call an "agree'o'thon".  Yes,
indeed an enabling regulatory environment has been extremely helpful to
the Internet's growth.

> Here I am intrigued. It's one thing to say "this [ legislation |
> policy | ... ]

Suppose governments A, B, and C are trying to agree a standard. 
Governments C wants an unrelated agreement out of B.  B says to C, "vote
with me on the standard, and I'll sign."  The result had nothing to do
with the quality of the standard, and everything to do with the
importance of the agreement to C.  Government A is wondering what
happened because she wasn't party to the other agreement.  Lack of
transparency and a lack of quality are the result.  Simply put, A
suffered from a quid pro quo between B and C.  This can occur between
standards within an organization or even across whole sectors.  I have
seen both forms in this industry.  Depending on the rules of the meeting
this sort of behavior is more or less difficult to detect.

>     (www.open-stand.org <http://www.open-stand.org>), and why I think
>     everyone should.
>
>

The best approach to avoid the above is to focus on the work at hand and
judge it on its technical merits alone.  The Open Stand principles
support open review based on technical merits.

Eliot

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 12:08:02 +0100

Dear Eliot,

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote:

> indeed an enabling regulatory environment has been extremely helpful to the
> Internet's growth.
>

Well, I'm not sure the "agree'o'thon" will cover every area of our
discussion, but let's enjoy it while it lasts. ;)

> with me on the standard, and I'll sign."  The result had nothing to do with
> the quality of the standard, and everything to do with the importance of
> the agreement to C.  Government A is wondering what happened because she
> wasn't party to the other agreement.  Lack of transparency and a lack of
> quality are the result.  Simply put, A suffered from a quid pro quo between
> B and C.  This can occur between standards within an organization or even
> across whole sectors.  I have seen both forms in this industry.  Depending
> on the rules of the meeting this sort of behavior is more or less difficult
> to detect.
>

That's very helpful, thanks. I now fully understand what you mean. I also
note that you shift from "Governments" in your example to other
organisations (including industry) in the rest of your paragraph. So I
think we can agree (again!) that this dynamic does not depend on the nature
particular players involved, but on the rules / procedures employed.

> judge it on its technical merits alone.  The Open Stand principles support
> open review based on technical merits.
>

"Judging on technical merits" is fine if all you are interested about is
the technical quality of the end-result. There are cases in which
"technical quality" is not the only consideration (and even judging what is
"technical quality" can sometimes be difficult). This does not mean that
"open review" should not be applied to other considerations, too; the point
being, however, that depending on what the other considerations are, one
has to make sure that the "right" persons / organisations are around the
table.

In this light, but perhaps worth having a separate thread, let me also
point out that "openness" is not the same thing as "inclusiveness". It is
certainly a pre-condition; but saying "the door is open; you are free to
participate" is not the same as fostering an environment in which
participation of the "right" persons / organisations is incentivised.

Best,

Andrea

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 06:14:18 -0800

Hi Andrea,
At 01:21 25-02-2014, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
>sorry for the belated replies. Increased workload + health issues in 
>the family.

I hope that things are better now.

>The first step in any conversation which aims to be productive for 
>all parties is to make sure there is a common understanding of the 
>terms of the discussion (but see my PS below)
>
>At a certain point, however, it becomes rather cumbersome to check 
>each and every time what each term means. That's not how social systems work.
>
>community considers to be a "secure" Internet. I'm less sure there 
>is a shared understanding of what "healthy" means.

I don't think I have a good answer to the above but I'll give it a try.

   A healthy Internet is one where devices on any two autonomous networks can
   communicate with each other while using hardware and software which adhere
   to widely-accepted standards.

>PS: actually, there can be cases in which it is actually productive 
>and perfectly logical (although not very sustainable) for each party 
>to make sure that each word has a different meaning, in order to be 
>able to later claim that there was an agreement, but also that what 
>was concluded has the specific meaning each party wants it to have. 
>I understand this sounds like anathema to a specification-setting 
>body, but it does happen in many walks of life, from romantic 
>relationships to global political negotiations. Anyway, I don't want 
>to digress. ;)

There are times when we might use different words and yet we mean the 
same thing. :-)

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 15:20:13 +0100

Hi Andrea,

Again, these are just my views.

On 2/25/14, 12:08 PM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
>
> That's very helpful, thanks. I now fully understand what you mean. I
> also note that you shift from "Governments" in your example to other
> think we can agree (again!) that this dynamic does not depend on the
> nature particular players involved, but on the rules / procedures
> employed.

Sure.  However, the scope by which this occurs with governments is
vastly broader.  What's more, I focus on the governmental case because I
observed it happening, at what I believe was at the expense of technical
quality (see below).  As an engineer, that offends my sensibilities. As
an IAB member, I grow concerned when it happens in such a way that can
harm overall interoperability or security, or otherwise lead to overall
slower growth of the technology.  We have seen proposals in
intergovernmental fora in which all of these issues have come to play (I
am not, by the way, singling out any one institution- there are many).

Furthermore, governments have a tendency toward these sorts of linkages,
especially as relates to national strategies.  I think that's why the
Uruguay Round made clear a preference against national standards and for
global standards.  Well, if governments can play their national hands in
an international arena, they've just gotten around the TBTs.  That's bad
not just for trade (about which I know comparatively little) but for
interoperability (about which I know something).

Of course, governments do have an important role in our ecosystem (as we
have discussed).

>     The best approach to avoid the above is to focus on the work at
>     hand and judge it on its technical merits alone.  The Open Stand
>     principles support open review based on technical merits.
>
>
> "Judging on technical merits" is fine if all you are interested about
> is the technical quality of the end-result. There are cases in which
> "technical quality" is not the only consideration (and even judging
> what is "technical quality" can sometimes be difficult).

These are both important statements, Andrea.  If the end result of a
quid pro quo is avoidance of a war, as a citizen of the world, I should
happily eat a little interoperability problem.  But suppose it's a minor
trade agreement, or a maybe favor in exchange for tickets to the opera. 
Part of the Internet's success, if you will, is that IETF standards have
by and large avoided this sort of thing, thanks to thorough review at
multiple levels.

I don't recall that we have a clear and objective definition for
technical quality, but it generally falls in line with engineering
discipline- meet a set of real world practical requirements that have
been provided to them in the least costly manner, taking into account
the scaling factors and security requirements of the Internet.    Those
requirements come from diverse groups of individuals, including
governments.  If we have no requirements and we try to design, we end up
with what I would call, for lack of a better word, art.  It might be
nice in and of itself.  It might even be usable.  It might even be
revolutionary.  But it is not engineering.  Steve Jobs was part artist.

But enough of my going on. What do you think the other considerations are?

> This does not mean that "open review" should not be applied to other
> considerations, too; the point being, however, that depending on what
> the other considerations are, one has to make sure that the "right"
> persons / organisations are around the table.
>
> point out that "openness" is not the same thing as "inclusiveness". It
> is certainly a pre-condition; but saying "the door is open; you are
> free to participate" is not the same as fostering an environment in
> which participation of the "right" persons / organisations is
> incentivised.
>  
I would be curious of your views on the very important topic you raise.

Eliot

---

From: "Russ White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 11:45:23 -0500

such
> technology might actually be useful for later adoption.

As _users_. The problem is that it's often taken as a given that if a public
authority determines it should use technology x in a specific way, then the
market must (as a matter of course) adopt it. One of the rather healthy
things to happen in the US, for instance, was the non-adoption of ADA even
though it was mandated through various laws, etc. That showed that the US
government didn't, at that point, have a "controlling interest" in where the
market went, and hence the market could develop better solutions to problems
as they arose.

> broader socio-legal environment in which the relevant technologies will be
> used is not particularly sustainable. I posit that public authorities are
an

Can you explain the use of the term "sustainable" here? Just curious what
you actually mean when you say the social legal environment won't be
"sustainable..." Are you saying that governments can't maintain control over
their populations if technology is not properly controlled, or... ?? I don't
know if I understand the meaning in this context.

:-)

Russ

---

From: "Russ White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 12:05:41 -0500

(Speaking only for myself, and not for any organization of which I might
happen to be a member, work for, etc., etc.)

> structure can easily lead to energy waste, duplication, lack of
information,
> etc.

Structure doesn't necessarily solve these problems, in my experience.
Structure can be used to reduce wasted energy, but it can also be used to
force nonoptimal solutions by saying, "we've already discussed this; the
debate is over," even when no real debate has taken place. It can also be
used to freeze suboptimal solutions in place far beyond their marginal
usefulness. What we often tend to forget is that the structure itself
accrues value (look at the value placed on holding a leadership position in
the IETF, for instance -- something that wouldn't have been really thinkable
just ten years ago), and hence attempts to be self-perpetuating whether or
not it is still useful.

> Structure is just one of the ways in which human beings handle complexity.

Yes. But sometimes structure adds complexity that isn't necessary, as well.

and
> (2) that this introduces the need to take into account other constraints
than
> simply

> introduce more structured  ways (or, if you prefer, more "efficient",
> "effective", etc) to ensure that cross-constituency dialogue in this
"more
> complex" world truly scales.

The problem here is this line of thinking assumes "more structure == more
efficient." It simply isn't true in all cases. The right structure is more
efficient than the wrong structure and no structure. The wrong structure is
often worse than no structure at all. The key point is not, "should we put
structure around this or not," the key point is, "how much, and where do we
need to apply structure." The underlying themes should be to err on the side
of less structure rather than more, and allow structure to grow rather than
being imposed. We'll more often misread and put the wrong structure in place
rather than making the right choice the first time, or in the "early days." 

This argument can even be made in the case of government sponsored research,
which can warp a market in the name of creating one. We're often reminded of
the wonderful things government sponsored research has provided (TANG,
anyone?); we're not often reminded of the many and varied mistakes
governments have made in choosing one technology over another, etc. (TANG,
anyone?). I know this will make some folks mad (and I apologize in advance
for anyone who's offended) -- but, IMHO, BGPSEC is a case in point (not the
RPKI, but BGPSEC proper). Government money has warped the discussion to the
point that useful discussion can no longer take place. The technology was
chosen before the requirements were actually investigated, and no proper
evaluation of actual tradeoffs was taken into consideration. Rather, one
problem was pinpointed that one government sponsored solution could "solve,"
and all effort, since then, has gone into "solving" that one problem,
regardless of what else must be considered "out of bounds," etc., to get
there. IMHO, this end result isn't a good piece of technology, and it
doesn't solve the problems that need to be solved.  

Hence there is both potential danger, as well as potential "progress," down
this path. We should be aware of both, and try not to override the natural
progression of things on a technology front.

Just my 2c. 

:-)

Russ

---

From: "Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 17:38:45 +0000

Russ,

mostly +1.

It's the physiology that counts, not the anatomy.

If there were a clear and flagrant need for meta-technical considerations in technical standards-setting, which is posited here as a European point of view, wouldn't the EU already have bridled ETSI with it? (and no, I'm not promoting this idea - it is a reductio ad absurdum argument.) Is the OOXML story of Europe-as-fast-track a harbinger?

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

________________________________________
Desde: Internetgovtech [[email-masked]] en nombre de Russ White [[email-masked]]
Enviado el: martes, 25 de febrero de 2014 11:05
Hasta: 'Andrea Glorioso'; 'Arturo Servin'
CC: [email-masked]
Asunto: Re: [Internetgovtech] US Government response to the European Commission statement

information,

and
than

"more

Just my 2c.

:-)

Russ

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 19:00:40 +0100

Dear Russ, dear all,

> market went, and hence the market could develop better solutions to

That may be possible, but to be clear it has nothing to do with what the
Commission wrote in the statement (the Communication of 12.2.2014) which
originated this thread.

> be

Sure. But let me first of all observe that making the logical leap from the
notion of "sustainability" to that of "control", and on top of that reading
in my two paragraphs (which I quote for completeness below - note the
final sentence of the second paragraph please) any wish for governmental
control over their populations, is in my opinion quite surprising. It
almost
looks like you have some rather strong and well-formed prejudices towards
public
authorities.

But I do accept the notion that I might have completely misunderstood your
logic.

Having said that, this is what I wrote:

"I also believe that standard setting which does not take into account the

want to do)."

And here is some further explanation on what I mean.

In order to make sure that a technology, or set of technologies, is broadly
accepted by the general public / citizens, technical efficiency /
effectiveness
(against some agreed benchmark) can hardly be the only criterion. If
that were to be the case, we would not be having right now (in Europe and
elsewhere) the whole debate about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms).

Market adoption is a valid proxy for success in many cases, but we know
very well that markets are far from perfect entities (probably that's my
crypto-socialist European soul speaking here). And especially when it
comes to GPTs (General Purpose Technologies) such as the Internet (which
would probably be best described as a set of different technologies) with
its
many impacts on social, cultural, political phenomena, I'm not at all sure
that I would want "market success" to be the only criterion to judge the
overall
impact of an Internet protocol / specification / technology.

So, to the notion of sustainability: if you ask a citizen on the street, I
doubt
that he will judge "the Internet techies" only, or even mostly, on the
basis of
whether protocol X is great at mitigating network congestion. The citizen
on the
street is worried (depending on whom you ask) whether the Internet can
ensure his / her security, privacy, whether his / her children are protected
while they are online, whether "the Internet" will help him / her find a
better
job or lose the one s/he has, etc.

Does this mean that the "citizen on the street" should run the IETF? I
certainly hope not. :)

But I do think that if the kind of concerns I highlight above are not taken
into consideration, sooner or later the relevance of the IETF in producing
technological specifications will be challenged. Not because it lacks
technical skills - to the contrary - but because technical skills are not
the only concern out there, now that the Internet has moved from being
a playground for scientists to a vital technology for billions of persons.

That's the "sustainablity" I am talking about.

And of course many of the concerns I very simplistically mention above
are not the job of the IETF to solve.

If, however, one accepts the notion that technological choices do have
broader impacts on society, I - and, most importantly, the Commission -
believe that it would be good to at least start a reflection on how such
interactions play out; and, to the extent possible and deemed useful,
to make sure that the dialogue, between those who "produce" technology
and those who "consume" it, does exist and is well structured.

As I said in another email (possibly in another mailing
list) the Commission is clearly NOT calling for a purely bidirectional
conversation between technologists and public authorities, but for a broader
"multi-stakeholder" engagement.

I hope this helps a bit.

Andrea

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 19:11:06 +0100

Dear Russ, dear all,

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:05 PM, Russ White <[email-masked]> wrote:

> usefulness.

I completely agree.

> What we often tend to forget is that the structure itself

Don't forget that I work for a public administration. I'm sure I could show
you
a thing or two about "self-perpetuation". :)

> Yes. But sometimes structure adds complexity that isn't necessary, as well.

Agree.

> rather than making the right choice the first time, or in the "early days."

Well, I recognise that I should have said "better structured ways" rather
than
"more structured way" (don't forget I'm not a native speaker of the English
language). I stand corrected - thanks.

But let me also say that "the right structure is more efficient than the
wrong
structure" is a truism.

I absolutely agree that the key question is "how much structure [should we
put
around this], and where to we need to apply structure". That is the question
we are asking. As I said elsewhere - we are trying to have a dialogue, not
impose anything that anyway it wouldn't be in our power to impose.

But I do think that, IF we agree that better dialogue between the world of
the Internet "technical community" and other worlds (public administrations,
civil society, etc) is a "good thing", we not refrain from at least
experimenting.
You might disagree, but it seems clear to me that the approach "the mailing
lists are open, you just need to subscribe" (which seems to me to be the
standard 'modus operandi' around the IETF) has not produced a huge increase
in involvement from other constituencies.

> doesn't solve the problems that need to be solved.

This is an interesting discussion to have but, just to be clear, I don't see
much connection with the policy statement made by the European Commission
on 12.2.2014, which originated this debate.

> progression of things on a technology front.

Perhaps we have a fundamental disagreement here. I don't think that there
is such a thing as a "natural progression of things on a technology front".
There
are human choices, with implications for human beings, behind and after
such
progression(s). It's not a matter of "overriding" them, but simply be aware
that
they exist, make sure they are visible, and debated with everyone they need
to be debated with.

Best,

Andrea

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 19:38:32 +0100

Dear Alejandro, dear all,

I confess that I have often difficulties understanding your quite synthetic
prose (my fault undoubtedly) but...

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> If there were a clear and flagrant need for meta-technical considerations
> in technical standards-setting, which is posited here as a European point
> of view, wouldn't the EU already have bridled ETSI with it? (and no, I'm
> not promoting this idea - it is a reductio ad absurdum argument.) Is the
> OOXML story of Europe-as-fast-track a harbinger?
>

First of all, you will appreciate that we do NOT specifically mention the
IETF in the Communication which includes the passage under consideration
here. The IETF is one (very important) entity developing Internet
technology (or technology specifications). But this is an IAB mailing list,
so I guess it would be bizarre to talk about other organisations.

Secondly, ETSI has been working on issues such as energy efficiency,
accessibility (for persons with disabilities) etc; and has done so in
cooperation with EU Institutions and bodies, as well as other stakeholders,
as is its mandate to do. I will freely admit I'm not an "ETSI expert", so
I'll be happy to put you in touch with more knowledgeable people if you
wish.

Thirdly, you use of the term "bridle". That's how you might see it, but all
the Commission is proposing is to have a reflection / dialogue on the
opportunity for better structured, multi-stakeholder engagement and
discussions on the relationships between technology and public policy
issues. I'm not sure that's enough to qualify for the term. ;)

Best,

Andrea

---

From: "Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 20:05:42 +0000

Andrea,

to cut to the chase, "bridle" is the test to which any redesign of technical standards development organizations should be subjected. That includes of course redesigns that are not internal but instead just place a group of benevolent overseers on top.

Alejandro Pisanty

________________________________
Desde: [email-masked] [[email-masked]] en nombre de Andrea Glorioso [[email-masked]]
Enviado el: martes, 25 de febrero de 2014 12:38
Hasta: Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch
CC: Russ White; Arturo Servin; [email-masked]
Asunto: Re: [Internetgovtech] US Government response to the European Commission statement

I confess that I have often difficulties understanding your quite synthetic prose (my fault undoubtedly) but...

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
Russ,

mostly +1.

First of all, you will appreciate that we do NOT specifically mention the IETF in the Communication which includes the passage under consideration here. The IETF is one (very important) entity developing Internet technology (or technology specifications). But this is an IAB mailing list, so I guess it would be bizarre to talk about other organisations.

Secondly, ETSI has been working on issues such as energy efficiency, accessibility (for persons with disabilities) etc; and has done so in cooperation with EU Institutions and bodies, as well as other stakeholders, as is its mandate to do. I will freely admit I'm not an "ETSI expert", so I'll be happy to put you in touch with more knowledgeable people if you wish.

Thirdly, you use of the term "bridle". That's how you might see it, but all the Commission is proposing is to have a reflection / dialogue on the opportunity for better structured, multi-stakeholder engagement and discussions on the relationships between technology and public policy issues. I'm not sure that's enough to qualify for the term. ;)

Best,

Andrea

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 15:20:41 -0500

[Heavily snipped, and I hope I have not missed another thread that 
answers my question.]

When I read the EU statement, the short section of government 
involvement left me confused as to what was wanted.  maybe, using this 
as a basis, you can help me understand what might be desired (as you see 
it personally.  I am not asking you to provide a statemen for the EU on 
what they want.)

On 2/25/14, 4:48 AM, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
...
> to put very clearly on the table what would be the pros and cons of
> having one,
> of governments / public authorities would be beneficial (and quite
> frankly I'm

What I get confused about is whether having folks in the room, who come 
from government, and can articulate the issues they see, is sufficient. 
  That is what has been done in the past.  It seemed to work.

But there seems to be a desire, maybe in my head misreading your text, 
for a structure that more formally recognizes the government role.  Is 
that what you think is needed?  If so, can you explain what sort of role 
and why one might want it?

One factor to keep in mind is that one making some standards that are 
not used is fine.  It is in fact inevitable.  That is part of why we 
call these voluntary.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

> Andrea
...

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:43:03 -0800

Hi Andrea,
>in involvement from other constituencies.

It is better to take some decisions, e.g. building a wind farm, with 
the participation of:

   (a) Government

   (b) The private sector

   (c) Civil society

(a) and (c) do not participate in the IETF to the same extent as 
(b).  I read what was quoted above as increasing the involvement of 
(a) and (c).  I agree that having a venue open to anyone, in this 
case the mailing list, does not produce the huge increase in involvement.

There are some parts of the IETF where the work would benefit from 
the participation of governments.  Most governments do not see a need 
to spend money on that.  Civil society would not have the financial 
means or the expertise to participate.  If one does not want civil 
society to be used as a Trojan horse the only avenue is for the 
relevant government to pick the tab.

As I wrote the above I am left with the sense that I looked at the 
matter from the wrong end.  The most that can be done at this point 
in time is to experiment.  The problem with experiments is that one 
would have to accept failures.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:00:51 +0100

Dear SM,

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:43 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:

> It is better to take some decisions, e.g. building a wind farm, with the
> participation of:
>
>   (a) Government
>
>   (b) The private sector
>
>   (c) Civil society
>
> (a) and (c) do not participate in the IETF to the same extent as (b).  I
> read what was quoted above as increasing the involvement of (a) and (c).  I
> agree that having a venue open to anyone, in this case the mailing list,
> does not produce the huge increase in involvement.
>
> There are some parts of the IETF where the work would benefit from the
> participation of governments.  Most governments do not see a need to spend
> money on that.  Civil society would not have the financial means or the
> expertise to participate.  If one does not want civil society to be used as
> a Trojan horse the only avenue is for the relevant government to pick the
> tab.
>
> As I wrote the above I am left with the sense that I looked at the matter
> from the wrong end.  The most that can be done at this point in time is to
> experiment.  The problem with experiments is that one would have to accept
> failures.
>

Thanks for summarising part of the discussions we have had until now.  I
don't think there is a "right" or a "wrong" end to look at this, or other
issues. It is of course possible to read in other people / organisations'
positions things that are simply not there, but I don't think you have done
so.

The only thing I would like to underline is that the European Commission's
Communication on Internet Policy and Governance, and specifically section 6
(which has been until now the focus of the discussion, although I don't
think it is advisable to read each section of the Communication in complete
isolation from the others) is clearly not prescriptive. As I said
elsewhere, this is both because the Commission is well aware that its power
to "prescribe" something in this field is limited; but most importantly,
because it does not believe that "prescribing" is the right recipe for the
challenges ahead.

Or, in other words, experimenting is exactly what we are looking for. And
of course, when experimenting, one has to accept failures. What is harder
to accept is to assume from the start that the experiment would lead to
failure (unless it can be shown that it has already been tried and failed -
I'm not sure that's the case).

Best,

Andrea

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:24:03 +0100

Dear Alejandro,

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:05 PM, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>  Andrea,
>
>  to cut to the chase, "bridle" is the test to which any redesign of
> technical standards development organizations should be subjected. That
> includes of course redesigns that are not internal but instead just place a
> group of benevolent overseers on top.
>

Indeed, that's a good idea: let's cut to the chase.

Could you please point me at which parts of the Communication on Internet
Policy and Governance - which is a formal position of the European
Commission, to which it is politically and in certain cases legally held to
account - state (or, you read as stating) that:

- technical standards development organisations should be redesigned
- a group of benevolent overseers should be placed on top of technical
standards development organisations

Thanks,

Andrea

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:41:42 +0100

Dear Joel,

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:20 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked]>wrote:

> [Heavily snipped, and I hope I have not missed another thread that answers
> my question.]
>
> When I read the EU statement, the short section of government involvement
> left me confused as to what was wanted.  maybe, using this as a basis, you
> can help me understand what might be desired (as you see it personally.  I
> am not asking you to provide a statemen for the EU on what they want.)
>

It is a bit difficult for me to tell you how I see things personally on the
basis of a document which states an official position of the European
Commission. But I'll try to walk that fine line.

First of all, however, please note that the Communication from the European
Commission (section 6) does not call for "government involvement", but "*to
strengthen (and where appropriate create) structured mechanisms to allow
regular, early and truly inclusive upstream participation, review and
comment in technical decisions*". Involvement of goverments / public
authorities is part of the broader involvement of other constituencies.

(I would also like to point out that section 6 includes another action,
i.e. "The Commission, together with interested parties, including the
European Internet industry, proposes to convene a series of workshops with
international experts in law, ethics, social sciences, economics,
international relations and technology. This expected output will be
concrete and actionable recommendations to ensure coherence between
existing normative frameworks and new forms of Internet-enabled
norm-setting", which is more 'theoretical' and to my understanding has not
been the subject of discussions so far).

>  That is what has been done in the past.  It seemed to work.

I think the question is - can we make this approach more effective and
scalable, taking into account that the IETF is not the only organisation
doing "technical stuff" when it comes to the Internet?

> But there seems to be a desire, maybe in my head misreading your text, for
> a structure that more formally recognizes the government role.  Is that
> what you think is needed?  If so, can you explain what sort of role and why
> one might want it?
>

No, sorry, that's a misunderstanding. As I said above, what the Commission
is calling for is a strengthening (i.e. we fully recognise certain
mechanisms already exist) or, where appropriate, the creation of "*structured
mechanisms to allow regular, early and truly inclusive upstream
participation, review and comment in technical decisions*". This is not
about "formally recognising" the role of governments / public authorities,
but ensuring that there are effective, efficient and scalable methods /
tools / ways to assess, as early as possible, how technical specifications
can take into account public policy concerns. As I said, we are quite
flexible on identifying ways to do that, without necessarily having to
"formally" recognise anything.

One factor to keep in mind is that one making some standards that are not
> used is fine.  It is in fact inevitable.  That is part of why we call these
> voluntary.
>

Sure. I don't understand how this relates to the discussion, though.

Ciao,

Andrea

---

From: "Russ White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:30:31 -0500

(again, not as a member of any specific organization, nor as an employee of
any company, nor...)

> notion of "sustainability" to that of "control", and on top of that
reading in my
> two paragraphs (which I quote for completeness below - note the final
> sentence of the second paragraph please) any wish for governmental control
> over their populations, is in my opinion quite surprising. 

I was asking you what you mean, rather than making a statement.

> It almost looks like
> you have some rather strong and well-formed prejudices towards public
> authorities.

Nice ad hominem attack. As it turns out, my worldview/philosophy is probably
orthogonal to yours, but let's leave that aside for the moment (as much as
possible, anyway).

effectiveness
> (against some agreed benchmark) can hardly be the only criterion. 

The internet standards system is not based on "market acceptance." While
standards are ultimately judged by the market (just as GM foods will be, for
better or worse, because you ultimately can't _make_ people eat them), "the
market" doesn't design these standards. Engineers do. In a sense, then,
there already is an "oversight committee," that looks after internet
standards. We aren't discussing total chaos verses government control here,
we're discussing how governments should influence the standards process that
already exists. Let's not devolve into a false dichotomy.

> Market adoption is a valid proxy for success in many cases, but we know
very
> well that markets are far from perfect entities (probably that's my
crypto-
> socialist European soul speaking here). And especially when it comes to
GPTs
> (General Purpose Technologies) such as the Internet (which
its
> many impacts on social, cultural, political phenomena, I'm not at all sure
that I
> would want "market success" to be the only criterion to judge the overall

So what you seem to be saying is: "Governments should assess the political
and social impact of technology choices, and have some way to input these
impacts into the standards setting process." Can you verify this is what you
are saying, or correct my misunderstanding?

doubt
basis of
> whether protocol X is great at mitigating network congestion. The citizen
on
> the street is worried (depending on whom you ask) whether the Internet
> can ensure his / her security, privacy, whether his / her children are
> protected while they are online, whether "the Internet" will help him /
her
> find a better job or lose the one s/he has, etc.

There is some mixture of the technical and social here... Security and
privacy are clearly concerns the IETF has not taken seriously enough in the
past (and even today, we're running in the wrong direction on some of these
issues). Of course, I'm not certain we all agree on what "secure," and
"private," really mean. Part of the conflict here is what the NSA
(apparently, as a given instance) considers "secure and private," is a
different definition than what I consider "secure and private." :-)

> That's the "sustainablity" I am talking about.

"Nice standards body you have there... I wouldn't want anything bad to
happen to it." :-)

>From an engineering perspective, the question that matters is where the
rubber meets the road. What do you (or the commission), think this
interaction will look like? More involvement from government stakeholders in
the process as it stands? Or an additional step someplace along the way to
ensure any new protocol choices meet some sort of social standards setting
(and by whom)? If this is what you're saying -- on what basis should
governments evaluate the social and political impact of technologies? And
how can governments have this sort of input without de facto overruling any
and all technical considerations, in the end?

My answer is -- governments should influence the standards like everyone
else does, through providing technical expertise and determining which
standards are applicable to specific technical problems. Not through any
form of "formal oversight." The IETF has a process in which anyone can
participate. I see the value of reaching out to government folks to show
them the ropes. I don't see the value in adding some further layer to the
standards process to get some form of government approval.

:-)

Russ

---

From: "Russ White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:43:26 -0500

> 	But there seems to be a desire, maybe in my head misreading your
> text, for a structure that more formally recognizes the government role.
> Is that what you think is needed?  If so, can you explain what sort of
role and
> why one might want it?
is
> calling for is a strengthening (i.e. we fully recognise certain mechanisms
> already exist) or, where appropriate, the creation of "structured
mechanisms
> to allow regular, early and truly inclusive upstream participation, review
and
> comment in technical decisions". This is not about "formally recognising"
the
> role of governments / public authorities, but ensuring that there are
> effective, efficient and scalable methods / tools / ways to assess, as
early as
> possible, how technical specifications can take into account public policy
> concerns.
> As I said, we are quite flexible on identifying ways to do that, without
> necessarily having to "formally" recognise anything.

But this is precisely where I'm confused. The two statements:

"We don't want a formal process, just strengthening the ones that are
already there."

And

"We want to create structured mechanisms to allow regular, early, and truly
inclusive upstream participation..."

Are in tension. Is the commission asking for new processes, or just for
government folks to get more involved in the processes that already exist?
Can you claify?

:-)

Russ

---

From: Brian Trammell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:51:06 +0100

hi Andrea, all,

Zero hat disclaimer applies: I, as Andrea, speak only for myself.

On 26 Feb 2014, at 10:00, Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Thanks for summarising part of the discussions we have had until now.  I don't think there is a "right" or a "wrong" end to look at this, or other issues. It is of course possible to read in other people / organisations' positions things that are simply not there, but I don't think you have done so. 
> 
> The only thing I would like to underline is that the European Commission's Communication on Internet Policy and Governance, and specifically section 6 (which has been until now the focus of the discussion, although I don't think it is advisable to read each section of the Communication in complete isolation from the others) is clearly not prescriptive. As I said elsewhere, this is both because the Commission is well aware that its power to "prescribe" something in this field is limited; but most importantly, because it does not believe that "prescribing" is the right recipe for the challenges ahead.

The language there is... to me... vague enough that one could read it differently. And this is, I think, part of the problem. RFCs can appear obfuscated to people who are not well-versed in their peculiarities. The same holds for communications from the Commission. So I'm very happy to hear that this is your interpretation of that section (in context of the document as a whole).

And this, I think, illustrates the main reason why the IETF's "show up on the list" policy _doesn't_ lead to increased input from policymakers: the key problem here seems to be to be the language barrier. We deal with mechanisms, policy people with policy, and even then the vocabularies for the same concepts are often wildly different.

We (generally) try very hard in the IETF to define protocols which are "situation agnostic"; this comes from the fact that separation of mechanism (how you do things) and policy (what exactly it is you want to do) is good engineering practice, not least because what I want to do may not be what you want to do, and what we both want to do may change over time. Experience has shown that when we do embed policy, we create protocols that are less scalable, less capable, less successful.

There are exceptions to the rule, where we have taken more or less political stands, but we generally do even this for technical reasons: RFC 1984 rejects baking "lawful intercept" into our protocols not merely because we found it odious but because experience has shown that protocols that are designed to be broken in certain situations pretty much always break in unintended situations as well. RFC 6973 defines a set of privacy considerations with the implicit assumption that privacy is a Good Thing, but still treats the problem in technical terms.

I don't see that there is much to be gained at all from changing this set of operating principles. Where there is a need for more public policy involvement in protocol design, it has to happen at the intersection of policy and mechanism, but in terms of mechanism, for it to be a useful input to the IETF.

Perhaps it would be useful to have some sort of outreach to describe the _minutiae_ of the IETF process to a public policy audience, but without people in that audience who already have a pretty good grounding in the technical concepts to which these minutiae are applied, I'm afraid we'd only be swapping one kind of confusion for another.

> Or, in other words, experimenting is exactly what we are looking for. And of course, when experimenting, one has to accept failures. What is harder to accept is to assume from the start that the experiment would lead to failure (unless it can be shown that it has already been tried and failed - I'm not sure that's the case).

Since most of the above is (at least to me) relatively obvious, the fact that we're _not_ seeing a lot of such activity is possibly an indication that governments aren't seeing the cost-benefit for direct public policy community participation in the IETF. 

It's also possible that the interests of governments are sufficiently represented in the IETF by nongovernmental entities whose interests are already implicitly and/or explicitly aligned. This doesn't give public policy interests an explicit voice in the process. But since one very nice thing about our process is that _every_ stage of work is transparent, one would assume that red flags would get thrown up if anything truly odious from a policy perspective was in danger of making it all the way through.

Cheers,

Brian

---

From: "Russ White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:12:56 -0500

> And this, I think, illustrates the main reason why the IETF's "show up on
the
> list" policy _doesn't_ lead to increased input from policymakers: the key
> problem here seems to be to be the language barrier. We deal with
> mechanisms, policy people with policy, and even then the vocabularies for
> the same concepts are often wildly different.
> 
> We (generally) try very hard in the IETF to define protocols which are
> "situation agnostic"; this comes from the fact that separation of
mechanism
> (how you do things) and policy (what exactly it is you want to do) is good
> engineering practice, not least because what I want to do may not be what
> you want to do, and what we both want to do may change over time.
> Experience has shown that when we do embed policy, we create protocols
> that are less scalable, less capable, less successful.

+1

Thanks for saying this, Brian -- you expressed it perfectly.

:-)

Russ

---

From: Andrea Glorioso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 17:44:57 +0100

Dear Russ,

I cannot answer right now to the important points you make, but I wanted
to immediately react on one thing.

> orthogonal to yours, but let's leave that aside for the moment (as much as

I absolutely did not want to make an 'ad hominem' attack. To be honest I
do not find my words can qualify as such, but I know that on the
IETF-discuss
mailing list there is already a debate on the semantics on the term so I
will not repeat it here :)

The important thing anyway is that you interpreted it as such. I want to
apologise to
you for this; that was not my intention. I very much value the conversation
we are
having and, even though we might not agree on everything, it is nonetheless
a very
enriching exchange.

I will reply to your other points as soon as possible.

Best,

Andrea

---

From: "Russ White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 17:59:04 -0500

IETF-discuss
> will not repeat it here :)

I didn't take offense! :-)

> I will reply to your other points as soon as possible.

Okay, thanks... No rush.

:-)

Russ

---

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 13:01:20 +0100

Hi,

One of my problems with this attempt to strictly separate Mechanisms 
from Policy only seems to work in some theories, but rarely in practice.

We may think we are being strict, on either the engineering or policy 
side of the coin, but deeper analysis rarely bears that up as most 
mechanisms have policy implication, and most policies interfere with 
engineering mechanisms at some point.

avri

---

From: Pranesh Prakash <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2014 05:53:25 +0100

> this sort of behavior is more or less difficult to detect.

This kind of vote-rigging isn't unique only to states.

It happens quite frequently when businesses want to get international 
standard-setting organizations' approval for their formats as standards.

Something akin to a quid-pro-quo of this sort also happens when 
companies A & B collude to keep out a competitor C's technology from 
being included within a standard (whether for reasons of a patent, a 
business deal between A & B, the possibility that C's technology might 
pose problems for government X, or whatever other reason), despite the 
competitor's technology actually being superior.

So when you say:
> in action, and it is not pretty.

I actually don't see what that's restricted to the government context.

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society
T: +91 80 40926283 | W: http://cis-india.org
-------------------
Access to Knowledge Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School
M: +1 520 314 7147 | W: http://yaleisp.org
PGP ID: 0x1D5C5F07 | Twitter: https://twitter.com/pranesh_prakash

---

From: Pranesh Prakash <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2014 06:26:13 +0100

> Thanks for saying this, Brian -- you expressed it perfectly.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with this :)

Protocol decisions whether it is the trust system which underlies BGP, 
the CA system, or the attempting to make all public XMPP servers use s2s 
and c2s encryption by default, or many other kinds of decisions, are 
inherently deeply political.

The decision to require all SMTP servers to only prepend to the 
"received" header, has political ramifications.  The attempt by so many 
people to "fix" what they see as the broken system of e-mail (since 
until further changes are made[1] there is neither metadata integrity 
(for the most part, discounting that which DKIM covers) nor is there any 
possibility of concealing metadata) is also deeply political.

The question of whether to allow for patent-encumbered standards is a 
deeply political question.[2][3][4]

It is, imho, futile to pretend that engineers don't make political 
decisions all the time.

  [1]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cailleux-secure-headers-04
  [2]: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3979.txt
  [3]: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html
  [4]: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ipr-wg/current/msg02436.html

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:34:45 -0800

Hi Pranesh,
At 21:26 28-02-2014, Pranesh Prakash wrote:
>Protocol decisions whether it is the trust system which underlies 
>BGP, the CA system, or the attempting to make all public XMPP 
>servers use s2s and c2s encryption by default, or many other kinds 
>of decisions, are inherently deeply political.
>
>"received" header, has political ramifications.  The attempt by so 
>many people to "fix" what they see as the broken system of e-mail 
>(since until further changes are made[1] there is neither metadata 
>integrity (for the most part, discounting that which DKIM covers) 
>nor is there any possibility of concealing metadata) is also deeply political.
>
>The question of whether to allow for patent-encumbered standards is 
>a deeply political question.[2][3][4]
>

A technical specification can have a political ramifications.  There 
are also privacy considerations.  I am not sure at the moment whether 
to list that under political ramifications or not.  I made the 
following argument some time ago [1]:

   "When a person sends an email the person consents to the transmission of an
    email address.  The email address is necessary for the recipient 
of the email
    to be able to reply to it."

I cannot think of another way for the technology to work if, for 
example, I do not include an email address for you to send me a 
reply.  As I have not reviewed the S/MIME draft I prefer not to 
comment about it.

There can be political ramifications to BGPSEC, the CA system, and 
maybe even email.  It would require  a lot of people to identify the 
political ramifications [2].  Let's say that some entity is created 
for all that.  The open source people might have a higher barrier to 
overcome [3].

A well-written technical standard would have minimized political 
ramifications to an extent that it is not worth bothering 
about.  There is still the intellectual property question.  Open 
source people usually do not like technical standards which are 
covered by patents.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-moonesamy-privacy-identifiers-01
2. There are a lot of technical specifications and different 
organizations involved.
3. There is already a high barrier as it is to stay involved.