The Internet in Asia

3 Jolting Statements at the IGF

Three statements jumped out at me on the Opening Day plenary.

Jolting Statement #1:
So we believe that restrictions on the Internet content have to be done transparently, have to be done as a result of rule of law, which is -- has great care, including the enactment in the rule of law.
US Ambassador David Gross: about a third of the way through http://www.intgovforum.org/IGF-Panel1-301006.txt.

Comment: Initially, I could not believe that an official from the US Government would actually endorse content regulation albeit with terms and conditions. There had been reports that the CIA was working on anti-censorship software to be used to circumvent China’s censorship firewall—a bad idea because it could easily boomerang on the US. Such an acceptance of content regulation must be the result of the War On Terror. Someone I spoke to said that perhaps the US Government is priming the internet community for content regulation based on the WOT.

Jolting Statement #2:
So I would like to come back to that because to the extent we talk about multistakeholder models and we talk about three-party participation, I think that's actually embedding today's political models and trying to put it on top of a development that just doesn't naturally fit. So to come back to the question that was just asked, I think it's actually about dialogue, and I don't think the Internet Governance Forum is a place for decisions or for recommendations. I don't think the process is nearly inclusive enough. I don't think it's got the right level of participation. I don't think people can come together for four days and have a discussion and believe we have addressed the technological, political, social, cultural ramifications of something that’s so vast. So I go back to I think it needs to go back to national level, local level, participation in the forms that are available to you, that are important to you as an individual. We are not all interested in everything. We are not all experts in everything. You can’t all be everywhere for every one of these discussions. So make it local, bring it back to the forums where you are interested in, where you specifically have something to contribute.
Lynn St Amour President, ISOC (Internet Society) http://www.intgovforum.org/IGF-Panel1-301006.txt about 52% through

Comment: The debate over Internet Governance and the purpose for which WGIG was formed is that there was (and still is) not enough expertise in the world for the issues to be discussed adequately. Even in the IGF itself, my conversations with some of those who I thought knew the basic issue suggested that even some of the more vocal well-intentioned souls working on internet matters are not adequately informed. So a Forum that brings together the Who’s Who on internet governance seems to me an eminently sensible idea.

Yes, the process can be more inclusive, and it is being attempted with webcasting and full transcription of the event. Taking away the Forum and moving such meetings to the national and local levels would only reduce the quality of the discussion when was is needed is higher, not lower quality.

Jolting Statement #3:
I think that if you are going to try to introduce some kind of competition, you had better do it in a way that does not create ambiguity. So let’s say if we can figure out how to do that. Today, you go to ICANN in order to register top-level domains. And we authorize those. Similarly, you go to the -- the RIRs go to ICANN to get chunks of Internet address space. And those are then allocated to parties who need to have a guaranty that no one else has been given that same I.P. address. Otherwise, again, you get ambiguity. I suppose you could imagine having -- taking the -- the domain name space and saying, “Well, here's a new organization, we'll call it FU, and this organization, FU, is going to be allowed to create some more top-level domains.” Now, we have to make sure that FU and ICANN don't simultaneously create the same new top-level domains. Well, how do we do that? Well, I guess we better create another organization that makes sure that ICANN and FU don't both pick the same top-level domains. So you just recreated a hierarchy which has authority somewhere to make sure ambiguity is avoided and uniqueness is preserved. So I think that in the course of doing what you’re suggesting, you recreate where we are today. Well, to the time warp.
Vint Cerf http://www.intgovforum.org/IGF-Panel1-301006.txt about 60% through

Comment: Cerf is arguing that there cannot be competition at the root zone, that ICANN is a “natural monopoly” not in the strict economic sense but because of the requirements of the system—there can only be one root.

Cerf, however, misses a major point—in the good old USA as well as significant portions of the civilised world, there is only on way to handle monopolies—regulate them. This is precisely the issue of internet governance. If ICANN is indeed an inevitable monopoly, then it inevitably invites regulation. Anything less would not be transparent or fair.

Ang Peng Hwa

Internet Governance Forum Report 2: Why The Need for IG

I am surprised at those who continue to say that (i) the internet is working fine, (ii) that therefore it needs no governance and (iii) that the phrase “internet governance” should not exist.

Taking the arguments one at a time:

(I) The internet is working fine

Two words are at issue: “is” and “fine”.

The operative word is “is”. The purpose of these meetings is to prepare for the future. There is indeed no need to talk about the present.

The word that may need qualification is “fine.” It depends on what aspect of the internet one is talking about and who it affects. For example, China believes that it is absurd when a university in the USA has more IP addresses than the whole of China itself.

Many governments feel uneasy that the internet can be cut off by a unilateral decision of the government of one country.

(II) therefore it needs no governance

Governance is not “government”. One is talking about the process of governing. So there is governance on the internet. At the most technical, the protocols that enable communication through websites are a part of governance. The value of freedom of expression and how that might be protected and promoted on the internet is a form of governance.

(III) the phrase “internet governance” should not exist.

I was struck at the level of ignorance of a rather high-profile contributor whose identity will, for obvious reasons, not be revealed.

The one issue that caught the attention of governments the world over was the cutting off of Iraq from cyberspace. And Iraq was not cut off from cyberspace for a few hours as this person thought but for a few years.

The managers of the .IQ country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) were not Baathists or cronies of Saddam Hussein. Rather, they were Texans.

Just before the war in Iraq started, they were arrested and charged with the sale of unauthorised computer parts to Libya and Syria. Google “Bayan Elashi” to get the details.

Iraq returned to cyberspace in the interim period when the WGIG Report was sent to translation and before the translated version emerged. The reason given: there was no government to hand the .IQ domain name back to.

This handing back certainly helped defused the tension with respect to governments. And so at the WSIS meeting in Tunis, when the US agreed that ccTLDs would be in the hands of the respective governments, the main sticking point was resolved.

This issue of US dominance shares common features with two other technologies where the USA is dominant. In GPS technology, the European answer is to build a parallel system called Galileo. Check out the FAQ for a blunt and frank answer for the reason of Galileo. Second, the Euro fighter jet that the USA is building with the NATO partners. The USA agreed to share the source code after Britain threatened to pull out.

I plan to hold a workshop in the World Journalism Education Congress to eduate journalists—who I believe want to get the facts straight—on the IGF. We owe it to ourselves and the world.

Ang Peng Hwa

Reliable articles

I've had a query about "trustworthy" articles to read.

Having worked with professional journalists and having been one myself, I know that most of them do try to get the facts right.

One of the better articles is by the BBC at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6087174.stm. Even here, there is a slight error where it says: “The IGF was borne out of the World Summit on the Information Society meetings, the last of which was held in Tunis.” World summits, like the highest peaks of mountains, can only be one. In fact, that there are two summits—one in Geneva and one in Tunis—indicates that there is more than meets the eye in WSIS.

Another fine piece is http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/igf_meeting_ends/.

Ang Peng Hwa

Internet Governance Forum Report 1: What's It All About

The IGF has come and gone. It was an "outstanding success".

I had meant to blog some thoughts about the IGF but had more travels before I returned and succumbed to the potent combination of lack of sleep and jetlag. I suppose it’s delayed but better late than never.

The first question to answer is: What is the IGF all about?

I thought we were passed that but it amazes me how the media still continue to misreport what the Internet Governance Forum is about. A sour-grapish editorial in the Bangkok Post, an otherwise respectable Thai paper, illustrates:

UN unsuited to control internet The United Nations has called yet another great meeting, at another luxury site, to discuss its relentless campaign to gain control of the internet. This time, diplomats, UN officials and NGOs are on the expense account in pleasant Athens, where previous “summits” of Geneva and Tunis now have become an IGF. http://www.bangkokpost.com/031106_News/03Nov2006_news26.php

The IGF is a talk shop. It was intended to be a talk shop. It is explicitly designed as a talk shop. The size of the panels with 12 to 14 persons—the largest number of conference panellists I have ever seen in my life—means that no one person can dominate and the tendency will be towards sound-bites. Those who have something to say and can speak to the point, crisply and, ideally, humourously, will get a close listening. Others, wisdom and IQ notwithstanding, will be forgotten.

The IGF has no decision-making powers and no one wants it to have such powers. So the argument that the UN is on a “campaign to gain control of the internet” is, at best, a strawman argument—an argument set up for the sole purpose of easy demolition.

The reason the IGF has no decision-making powers is that all stakeholders fear a deadlock. With decision-making powers, there would be so much fighting that critical decisions would be stuck in bitter political battles. In the nightmare scenario, the internet would be stuck in a time-warp.

So yes, there are the plenary sessions but they are not designed to “solve problems”.

Instead, the IGF Advisory Council, which determined the programme for the meeting, decide that the IGF should look at security, diversity, openness and accesss. These are not even descriptions of problems. They are nice titles for graduate classes on internet governance issues but they are not problems in the sense commonly understood.

Personally, I would have preferred the IGF to at least point to some direction of problem solving. Take an issue like spam. I would have thought that if the IGF wanted a quick success (aka low-hanging fruit in Americanese) it would have tackled spam, which is a significant problem; everyone is united in the fight against it although they might differ on the precise mechanics.

But looking at the crowd that turned up, pointing to problems to solve was probably not necessary.

The Who’s Who working on internet governance issues turned up. If there are problems to be resolved, it will be from some grouping (called “dynamic alliance”) from the Forum, not the Forum itself.

Of course, for the paranoid, it will be the dynamic alliance who will be trying to take over the internet world.

Ang Peng Hwa