Re: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance [2x]
Table of Contents: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance Ronda Hauben [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance - reply to Morlock Elloy Morlock Elloi [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:02:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Ronda Hauben [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance It is good the issue of Internet governance is being raised here as the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) has been having meetings and there is what seems to be some challenge going on to ICANN's usurpation and effort to privatize the management of the Internet's infrastructure. There seems very little knowledge outside of a small group of people that there is discussion and activity going on at the UN over how to determine the principles and structure for the Internet's infrastructure. This subject would benefit from being part of a global public discussion. Instead it is a question being limited to people who have the time and resources to be able to travel to Geneva or other countries to take part in the WSIS activities. Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 12:45:39 +0200 (CEST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Subject: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance A view from New Delhi. Original to the Asiasource mailing list. Fwded with the author's permission. my $0.02 on the subject of Internet governance, your contribution solicited at http://www.india-gii.org/wiki/index.php/Presentations/WSIS Arun Unpacking Internet Governance -- And Finding Red Herrings Arun Mehta, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet seemed to come out of nowhere. Governments didn't plan it, international institutions hadn't even discussed it, and industry largely also didn't expect it. This may be what seems, but it is not the reality. The Internet's development was inspired by the vision of J.C.R. Licklider who proposed a world wide communications network which would be available to all and where the online users would have a say in the development of the Network. The Internet was then developed by a set of pioneers and then netizens who shared this vision. There is a paper describing this history and development of the Internet online at the WSIS. The paper is online at http://www.wgig.org/docs/Ronda-Hauben.doc or http://www.columbia.edu/~rh20/other/misc/wsistalknov2004.doc Most remarkable in its growth, was the seeming absence of governance of any kind. There was management in the development and spread of the Internet. This was good management (or governance). It is important that the actual way that the Internet was created and developed be public knowledge, not myth. Another paper which documents some of this development is online at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_tcp.txt The Internet: On its International Origins and Collaborative Vision (A Work In Progress) The US government certainly wasn't in charge, except for some minor areas, like domain names. An international scientific and technical community working as part of the government or in universities were in charge. The Acceptible Use Policy that was in place until 1995 was a set of standards that limited commercial activity and provided a certain protection for public purpose uses like education and research. That most people are completely stumped when asked this question, indicates, according to me, how well the Internet is run, and cheaply at that. Actually there are real problems with how the Internet is run since the privatization. For example, some of the rules about domain names that were poorly created under ICANN's reign resulted in the hi-jacking of one of my service provider's domain name and created serious confusion and loss of access to many users to their email and other functions for a few days until it could all be sorted out. The issue of how the Internet is to be administered and managed is a serious issue, not one to be treated lightly. The governments and international bodies seeking to take charge of the Internet would do well to learn from the model of governance that the Internet practices, instead of seeking to enforce their obsolete models of centralized control and command. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. How will the public infrastructure of the Internet be administered and managed? This is a serious question. In 1998 ICANN was created by the US government to privatize the public infrastructure. The IP numbers, domain names, and protocols are critical to the operation and continued evoltution of the Internet. Who will have control over these? Will it be a private company created under the charity laws of the state of California? This is a serious mismatch. But whether the discussion and activity going on at the UN under the ITU and WSIS can fix this is another matter. Should the ownership and control over the vital infrastructure of the Internet
nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance - reply to Morlock Elloy
To nettime on request - Forwarded message from Arun Mehta [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:02:58 +0530 From: Arun Mehta [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Re: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance] Along with calling people names, Morlock, some sensible arguments would be nice to have. Suggesting that google might divert Indian queries to Pakistan must surely rank as the wierdest argument I have heard in a while. If Google starts to misbehave, there will still be yahoo and msn. Other companies would love for Google to make such a blunder and lose its reputation and leading position. If all of them turn ugly, we should fairly easily be able to make our own search engine, in a collaborative fashion using P2P networks, for example. OK, latency would go up, but so what. Ever wondered why the level of interest in the whole ICANN debate is so low among the general Internet population, even among those who aren't naive (or is that how you define naivity vis-a-vis the Internet: anyone who thinks this is not a big deal is by definition naive) I do see the whole copyright entanglement of domain names, but have little sympathy with the McDonalds of this world, for whom they are such a big deal. I see domain names as a serious copyright issue, not so much an Internet governance one. For the Internet, domain names used to be very useful, when search engines were poor. These days, I rarely bother to type domain names into my browser, rather go straight to google, and click on I'm feeling lucky. Oh, and while you are at it, please tell me why the rest of the article is naive too. If you have any past publications that might help me understand your point of view, I would gladly read them. Arun - Forwarded message from Morlock Elloi [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 11:39:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Morlock Elloi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net This is perhaps the most naive part of the otherwise very naive article: (...) # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance
A view from New Delhi. Original to the Asiasource mailing list. Fwded with the author's permission. my $0.02 on the subject of Internet governance, your contribution solicited at http://www.india-gii.org/wiki/index.php/Presentations/WSIS Arun Unpacking Internet Governance -- And Finding Red Herrings Arun Mehta, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet seemed to come out of nowhere. Governments didn't plan it, international institutions hadn't even discussed it, and industry largely also didn't expect it. Most remarkable in its growth, was the seeming absence of governance of any kind. The US government certainly wasn't in charge, except for some minor areas, like domain names. Other governments, conservative to different degrees, were horrified to discover a lack of content control that they could do almost nothing about. The telecom companies, which carried the traffic, were too busy selling bandwidth at growth rates of 500% per annum, to worry that here, for the first time, significant technological innovation in telecommunications happened outside their control, and even without their significant involvement. The ITU first learnt of the power of the Internet, when its X.400 email standard was summarily rejected. Now, Wi-Fi, a wireless Internet, you might say, is seriously undermining Bluetooth and 3G, both technologies in which the ITU and telecom companies have made huge investments. Once, the ITU ruled telecom: progress took place at the rate at which lawyers in Geneva could hammer out agreements. For governments, telecom companies and the ITU, the situation now is akin to that of a leader of the French Revolution, who, looking out of the window, said, There go my people. I better find out where they are going, so I can lead them there. The Internet has not only managed furious numeric growth rate with hardly a hitch, it has exhibited rapid technological progress as well. E-mail, chat, the web, e-commerce, file sharing, are just some of the innovations that we have seen in the last two decades, and each have had profound impact. Once, the postman was a much-awaited daily visitor, now who uses paper and envelopes to send letters? The publishing industry once published vast quantities of glossy pamplets to distribute at exhibitions. Now, few people bother to even visit, let alone pick up the raddi. While e-commerce is transforming the way business is done inindustry after industry, file sharing in perceived as a serious threat by the huge entertainment industries. And technological progress on the Internet is showing no signs of slowing down. RSS (Rich Site Summary) has made it far more attractive to keep track of news electronically, rather than to peruse several paper newspapers and magazines. Perhaps the most remarkable attribute of the Internet, is that nobody seems to know who runs it. Our only experience of authority is our Internet Service Provider, who may be lazy, and maintain poor service levels and security, or authoritarian and prevent access to certain services. But most people do not perceive the ISP to be a serious problem, and if they do, they usually can switch to a better one. But other than the limited role that the ISP plays, who governs the Internet? That most people are completely stumped when asked this question, indicates, according to me, how well the Internet is run, and cheaply at that. The governments and international bodies seeking to take charge of the Internet would do well to learn from the model of governance that the Internet practices, instead of seeking to enforce their obsolete models of centralized control and command. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Problems of the Internet This is not to suggest that the Internet doesn't have problems: 1. Poorcountries pay for traffic in both directions, when connecting to rich countries like the US. 2. We all receive far too much junk mail, or spam. 3. There are too many viruses and worms floating around the Internet. That the ITU has not been able to sort out problem 1, is an indication of how little the genuine problems of the Internet seem to matter to the ITU: asymmetric bandwidth pricing is hardly such a big problem that some negotiation, and the setting up of local, national and regional bandwidth exchanges couldn't quickly take care of. Spam could easily bebrought under control, if governments, globally, were to hold ISPs liable for the spam emanating from their network. The same, I would submit would work for viruses: a few fines, and ISPs would quickly tighten their security. There could be a couple more genuine problems that don't occur to me at the moment, but other than that, we have a bunch of red herrings. The Red Herrings Foremost among them, is the whole discussion of domain names, and who should control them. Internet traffic is routed using IP addresses, similar to phone numbers on the telecom network. People came up with the clever idea of allowing people to use groups of
Re: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance
This is perhaps the most naive part of the otherwise very naive article: Foremost among them, is the whole discussion of domain names, and who should control them. Internet traffic is routed using IP addresses, similar to phone numbers on the telecom network. People came up with the clever idea of allowing people to use groups of alphanumerical characters instead of these large numbers, with computers automatically making the conversion. Such a big deal should not be made about who uses which name to represent a specific IP address, and frankly, most of us don't care. We just use google to find whichever company or individual we are looking for. There is a deep discrepancy between reality and perception here. Using regulated dictionary approach (DNS ICANN) enables, at least, each participant to control the name and associate it with marketing/advertizing strategy (commercial, ideological, social, whatever.) Search engines, on the other hand, are private entities that can (and always will) do anything that maximizes their gain (sometimes in the short and sometimes in the long run.) For instance, it is perfectly possible for Google, Inc. to dissapear India as such and direct all queries to Pakistan or whatever. (maybe because Pakistan bought Google, via indirect or direct means.) The point is that you want your dictionary (and both DNS and search engines are dictionaries, with different latencies) ran under published rules. This rampant ignorance of alleged activists is the most scary phenomenon lately. end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __ Do you Yahoo!? Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides! http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Arun Mehta: Unpacking Internet Governance
I know many on this list will be aware of the various technical and factual inaccuracies in Mehta's piece (WiFi vs Bluetooth? a new one on me), even outside of the techno-determinist rhetoric and unhelpful equation of governance==government. Two alternative sources below that I think give a excellent overview of the Internet Governance issues (Peake's is good for the general reader, Drake for people who already have been following some of the dialogue). The issues are *not* mostly about control by ITU - few of the civil society folks most critical of ICANN want to see control handed over to the ITU. Nevertheless the flaws in ICANN's governance are real and significant, as others on nettime have pointed out, and it is *already* implementing law in relation to trademark issues - it's just that the law happens to only reflect that of the national government whose MoU constitutes ICANN as a legal entity in the first place. ICANN continues to pretend that developing countries' governance concerns (or even European concerns, given the serious allegations over ICANN's awarding of the .net contract to Verisign,) are mere rabble rousing and will eventually go away. If they do go away, it might be literally through the establishment of alternative root server systems that will make for some *very* interesting platform competition. Of course, old-schoolers will say that the end-to-end principle should not be compromised, but with growing economic incentives for de-peering in highly developed countries, national firewalls in many developing ones , and ballooning Network Address Translation on eg the GPRS network I'm sending this mail from, I think we should be mindful that there are no principles that can't be thrown out the window if some people can make enough money from doing so. It may not be long before we reflect on the global medium of the Internet with the wistfulness that we might hold for the Geneva Convention. Peake, Adam (2004) Internet governance and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Report for Association of Progressive Communications, http://rights.apc.org/documents/governance.pdf Reframing Internet Governance Discourse: Fifteen Baseline Propositions. In, Don MacLean, ed. Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration New York: United Nations Information and Communication Technology Taskforce, 2004, pp. 122-161 (book at http://www.unicttf.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1392). Also published as a working paper of the Social Science Research Council's Research Network on IT and Governance, 2004. http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/publications/Drake2.pdf Cheers, Danny -- http://www.dannybutt.net weblogs: adventures in cultural politics - http://acp.dannybutt.net digital media - http://digital.dannybutt.net On 4/16/05 8:45 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A view from New Delhi. Original to the Asiasource mailing list. Fwded with the author's permission. ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
