I really regret I couldn't be physically present this
morning, but it appears there was a fair bit of good
discussion.

On 26-05-16 11:47, Meredith Whittaker wrote:

>   * *Johan Helsingius* -- (tentative nominee, as above). I'm not sure of
>     his background or interest, but I invite him to disclose this in an
>     email here. 

"Sic transit gloria mundi"... :)

I guess there is poetic justice that having at one point (when IP
packets were still conveyed by pterodactyls) been the largest
provider of anonymity on the net (some of you might remember me
as [email protected]), I have now managed to achieve anonymity
among the younger generation of the RIPE community.

As for my background, I started out, as so many of the pillars
of our community, as part of the "EUnet Mafia", running the
email/usenet backbone for Finland in the 80's, dealing with
the regulatory issues around the ITU model and telecom
monopolies. My pro-privacy and pro-free-speech projects
got me the EFF Pioneer Award, but also got my picture on
the front page of The Observer, with the lovely caption
"The Peddlars of Child Porn on the Internet". As you can
imagine, that led to a fairly strong involvement in content
regulation policy issues, and also my involvement as an early
board member in Bits of Freedom.  As one of the original
cypherpunks, I also did my own small part in the Crypto Wars.

I do confess to having had a role in getting the Soviet
Union connected to the Net, but you will have to pry
me with copious amounts of vodka if you want to hear
any juicy details.

On the downside, I have spent far too much of my life in the
corporate world - after having been part of putting together
the first pan-European ISP, I ended up as CTO and EVP of
the ill-fated carrier and IP services operator KPNQwest.
Having realized I am not very compatible with corporate
structure and hierarchy, I have since been involved with
smaller technology companies. I spent a number of years as
the chairman of the board of IoT device manufacturer Viola
Systems (now part of ABB), and having been a board member
for a long time, I just got appointed chairman of the
board for IoT services provider BaseN.

I am currently the Nomcom appointee in the Non-Contracted
Parties House of the ICANN GNSO Council.

Oh, and just for completeness, I am a Swedish-speaking
Finn (*not* from the Åland Islands), but I have been
living in Amsterdam since 1997.

As to my view of the role of a co-chair for this WG,
I think RIPE-542, as posted by Hans Petter, sums it
up pretty well. Will try to participate in the discussion
and answer any questions, but will be on the road with
sporadic connectivity until Monday evening.

        Julf


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