Internet Governance

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Internet Governance
Internet Maintenance, Coordination, and
Development

• Fred Baker

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One discussion,many questions

• The subject of Internet Governance covers a
  range of questions, few of which actually have to
  do with governing the Internet
• Mostly has to do with
• The roles of public and private sector
• Decision and management processes
• Power and control
• Development

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Broad questionWho will control the Internet?

• Issues of control
• Internet names and numbers
• Management of the DNS root
• Management of the ENUM root
• Specification development
• Public sector vs. private sector models

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Public sector

• Historically had a lot to do with telecom,
• Tends to ask why are we not responsible for its
  operation?

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Private sector

• Tends to ask what is so broken about private
  sector management that we have to change it?
• Engendered much of Internet technology
• DARPA, NSF, NASA, DOE money
• Currently responsible to run Internet.

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Issues in power and control

• Laws people would like to pass
• Services governments would like to mandate
• Politics of these services
• Standardization

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Laws people would like to pass

• Pornography
• Viruses
• Spam
• Taxation

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Services governments would like to mandate

• Lawful intercept
• Internet intelligence gathering
• MLPP/GETS-style emergency services

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Politics of these services

• Who pays for the service?
• Often an unfunded mandate
• Privacy issues
• Often with technical or economic side-effects

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Standardization

• ITU-T is more familiar to many nations (de jure)
• IETF has historically been writing the
  specifications (de facto)

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What is the place of the United States in
Internet politics?

• Issue of national sovereignty
• Basically US vs. everyone else
• ICANN politics

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Issue of national sovereignty

• If the us government in fact runs the Internet on
  behalf of all the other countries, perhaps
  through its surrogates, in what way are those
  countries?

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Basically US vs. everyone else

• US view
• Us has played a custodial role
• Is slowly trying to get out.
• Sought non-US participation early
• Funded initial development
• Non-US view
• US has played a custodial role
• Slowly trying to get out, or perhaps not at all.

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ICANN politics

• ICANN is seen by some as a private sector
  surrogate for the US government
• Resented
• Especially as it is licensed by the US government
  
• Has to run certain decisions by US DOC NTIA

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One of two things has to happen

• ICANN has to be/become independent of the US
  government, or
• A replacement acceptable to other governments
  must come into being

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Broad QuestionDeveloping nations

• What is the role of the developing country?
• What do developing countries want from the
  'digital developments'?
• Is it a consumer, a full player, something in
  between?
• Where does needed education and development (and
  money) come from?

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Questions before the house

• How will the standards process be timely and
  effective for all concerned?
• How will new Internet applications be developed
  and deployed?
• National sovereignty issues
• Public sector vs. private sector debate
• What is the place of developing nations?

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Standards for new models, facilities, and services

• Called for by service providers, enterprise
  networks, and governments.
• The standards process,
• The process of writing these technology and
  policy specifications,
• Now done by a combination of overlapping
• National standards bodies
• International public-sector-sponsored
• International private-sector groups and fora
• How will the standards process be timely and
  effective for all concerned?

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New Internet applications

• Innovative services and applications
• RFID facilities and inventory management
  processes,
• Social software,
• Web services,
• File sharing,
• Rapidly deploying new services that the Internet
  infrastructure was not necessarily designed to
  handle.

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Questions regarding Internet applications

• With new applications come difficult policy
  questions
• Detection of, access to, and management of
• The devices
• The information they exchange.
• Where and how will these be discussed,
• How will the necessary new policies be designed?

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National sovereigntyInternational law

• Sovereignty has historically meant that
• A nation is absolutely in control of what happens
  within it,
• Bears no responsibility for what exits from its
  borders.

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Changing international law

• Maritime law
• A nation is responsible for some of the
  side-effects of what it permits
• Pollution
• Over-taxing of resources.
• The Internet challenges that
• Robustness principle
• Be conservative in what you send and liberal in
  what you receive
• Do for/to others what you would have them do to
  you

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Internet impact on international law.

• Increasingly, nations are responsible for spam,
  viruses, and attacks that cross their borders.

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Changing law regarding sovereignty

• In what areas does the nation-state remain
  responsible only to itself, and in what areas
  must it forge agreements with its neighbors?
• What structures will best facilitate brokering
  and maintaining those agreements?

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Public sector vs. private sector in network
operation

• Are there only two ways?
• Is there a third possible way?
• What is the best model for managing the names and
  numbers in the Internet?
• What is the best way to build operational policy
  for the Internet?

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What is the place of developing nations?

• Are they doomed to forever be consumers of other
  nations' products?
• Can they produce technology? How can they use
  Internet technology to overcome the digital
  divide?
• What is the proper role of more industrialized
  countries in facilitating this?

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Internet Governance
Internet Maintenance, Coordination, and
Development

• Fred Baker