RConversation

China calls for an end to the Internet Governance Forum

There's been a global argument going on for some time now over how the Internet should be governed. Many governments, including China but also many others, are not happy that the "root" of the Internet is controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which ultimately answers to the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2005, there were proposals from various countries to move Internet governance from ICANN to a United Nations body of some kind, or something that would give more representation and power to a variety of governments. But there was no consensus. Human rights groups were rightly concerned that giving governments like China and Iran greater say in Internet governance would lead to more censorship and the elimination of privacy and anonymity. At the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, local dissidents got roughed up, a workshop on free expression nearly got shut down by the host government, and governments agreed to stick with the ICANN-led status quo for lack of any reasonable consensus. The Internet Governance Forum was formed as a platform to continue consultation and feedback from governments and a range of "civil society" groups, including coalitions calling for the protection of human rights and free speech.

At an IGF preparatory meeting in Geneva on Wednesday, China called for a disbandment of the IGF, on the grounds that it's useless. The full transcript of the proceeding his here. An archive of the webcast is here. Below are China's two statements in full. I've bolded some of the key parts. Note the discussion of Internet censorship at the end:

CHINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the delegation of China, I would like to present the position of the government of China on the fourth session of the IGF.

First of all, on the title -- the global title of the meeting, the delegation of China prefers the proposal put forward by Egypt, "Internet, an opportunity for all." We think that this topic is very closely linked to the international financial crisis we're going through at the moment. And in addition, it proves that the United Nations continue to work in order to promote the Internet. As we have said in February, the rights and principles for Internet is not an appropriate theme because the words "rights and principles" don't have an appropriate definition. As a meeting of the United Nations, it is not appropriate to adopt a theme which is not properly defined.

And on this matter, we suggest that we discuss the definition of "rights and principles" first of all, the workshop level.

Honorable Chairman, secondly, on the management of critical resources, the delegation of China feels that, first of all, the title of this theme should be "managing the critical Internet resources."

We feel that this title has been defined last year, after extensive discussions. And we think that this is a fairly neutral title. At the same time, it is a very sensitive theme, and we would suggest that we continue using this title this year.

Also, we would like to stress the fact that under the theme of "critical Internet resource management," we think that JPA is a very important theme and that it's not because we're going to reexamine JPA in September that we can't discuss it at the fourth session of the IGF. On the opposite, it's because we're going to do this in September that we should do it in IGF, too.

Thirdly, now, as to security, the delegation of China feels that this is a very important question. At the present time, security in the Internet, on the Internet and cybercrime is something that has become a worldwide enemy. And here we need to talk about regrouping the energies and resources of all parties concerned and to strengthen the international mechanism in order to promote security and stability for the Internet at the worldwide level.

We also think that there are some vital matters that have not been incorporated on this theme, for instance, how do we promote open source or intellectual property or traditional library resources. These are all very important questions in order to promote dissemination of knowledge.

We also think that this is a theme which should be discussed in the opening title.

We have also noted that some have talked about the URL blocking. On the URL blocking, this is a very sensitive matter.

In order to guarantee the security of states and to guarantee the interests of citizens to fight against terrorism and other crimes, all countries have the right to filter the contents of certain Internet sites. And I think that this is something that all countries are in the process of doing.

IGF as a meeting hosted, under the auspices of the United Nations, talks about URL blocking. Now, will this give an impression to the outside world that the United Nations are against content blocking? Are the U.N. against the practice of certain states filtering some Internet sites so that when we talk about "blocking," should the theme of blocking be incorporated in our IGF meeting? We have to be very careful about that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A second statement came in the afternoon session:

This afternoon, we are talking about the value of the IGF. And that's a very important question. The delegation of China has followed very carefully the previous statements made.

And now the delegation would like to make the following points. Firstly, we very much appreciate the secretariat for their excellent work. We agree in principle with what has been said by previous speakers on the specific aims of the IGF. We feel that the IGF has contributed a great deal in light of its historic mandate. But we have also noted the -- that the essence of IGF's work is establishing dialogue, exchanging points of view. But this is not enough to solve the problems. The real problem is that in the field of the Internet, there is a monopoly that exists. And we need to solve that problem. It's not by talking about principles merely that we can solve this problem.

We can also see this kind of discussion taking place. But it's not enough for developing countries who don't have enough resources and don't have the capacities to participate in this kind of dialogue without further commitments being made, which is why the points of view of developing countries, especially when it comes to Internet governance, their points of view are not sufficiently reflected in our discussions, which is why we don't agree that the IGF should continue its mandate after the five years are up.

So we repeat that the delegation of China does not agree with extending the mission of the IGF beyond the five years. We feel that after the five years are up, we would need to look at the results that have been achieved. And we need, then, to launch into an intergovernmental discussion.

I think that this should be a positive result of IGF's work.

The work of its next phase should be based on the results achieved in the previous years. We need to launch an intergovernmental discussion in order to solve the real problems that exist in this field of Internet governance.

Thank you.

The IGF Watch blog points out that China isn't alone in its frustration with the IGF and with ICANN. The EU's Viviane Reding proposed a new model of Internet governance last week in which ICANN would be reformed and overseen by a new "G12 for Internet Governance." But IGF Watch's Jeremy Malcolm thinks the debate may help to steer things in a more realistic direction:

True, it's just a shame that China had to be the stakeholder to make this bold point, since its motivations are transparently undemocratic - it was, for example, the only stakeholder at yesterday's meeting to openly oppose the inclusion of Internet rights and principles as theme for an IGF main session.

But from whichever source the realisation comes, given that the WSIS dream of a new consensual model of multi-stakeholder engagement in policy development has failed, it may be that we have to bite that bullet and fall back on the ugly alternative of agnonism - the recognition that the engagement of governments and civil society in global politics is inherently dialectical and conflictual, and that they will never truly deliberate as equals.

This might not even be such a bad thing. It need not in fact spell the death of the IGF, but rather its rebirth; as it would free the institution to make a clean break from its stifling Secretariat and the United Nations system generally. It could instead reconstitute itself as an independent private international institution much like ICANN itself, that would seek to participate on an equal footing in whatever institutions hold real power in Internet governance in the future, perhaps including Reding's new G-12 (or IG20, as Wolfgang Kleinwaechter had presaged it).

It's going to be an interesting year for Internet governance, and we are certain to hear a lot more from China. As it so happens, I'll be attending the next ICANN meeting in Sydney as well as the IGF meeting in Egypt as part of my research for my book.

Cyber-tarianism, IGF, ICANN

.Asia: New online real estate for the region

New virtual real estate is opening up for sale in Asia, as Edmon Chung, CEO of the new ".Asia" top-level domain, puts it.  .Asia officially launched here in Hong Kong on Wednesday.  They're a non-profit organization whose mission, they say, is "dedicated to the needs of the Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific Internet community... providing an online identity for people, organizations, and businesses who want "to express membership in the larger Asian community."

SFgate has a very detailed article about .Asia and its prospects. They describe a launch process which Edmon says he hopes will become a model for future top-level domains:

...unlike previous TLD launches, DotAsia is setting itself up to take maximum benefit from this opportunity, while forcing a leveling of the domain-registration playing field. Rather than simply opening the floodgates for speculators to register domains -- which makes winning a particular domain a matter of the fastest finger -- they've laid out a unique "sunrise" process for the first six months of their operation. After restricted names are reserved by governments and administrative organizations, valid international trademark holders and companies seeking to protect their operating names will have an open window to submit applications for those respective domains. When conflicts emerge -- the number of companies that can legitimately claim to have rights to names like "Sun" and "Star" in Asia is staggering -- verified stakeholders will have the right to participate in an open, Internet-based auction, designed to ensure that the entity that values the domain most will end up controlling it.

The same application and auction process will be followed for the first 30 days of open registration as well. Want a nifty generic domain name? Be prepared to bid on it. How much is porn.asia worth to you?

Before .Asia opens up in phases to governments, trademark holders, and then the general public, they are seeking applicants for their ".Asia Pioneer" program. The idea is to give out premium domain names to organizations, businesses or projects that will help build a quality and diverse Asian Internet community - rather than just selling everything to first-comers and highest bidders. According to the .Asia Pioneer website:

Breaking the mould of disinterested allocation of domains in a first-come-first-served race, the .Asia Pioneer Domains Program entrusts the most prestigious cyber real estate in .Asia to those who show genuine commitment to this community. The objective of the program is to immediately create active and relevant content on .Asia domains for the benefit of Internet users around the world. The program builds on the value of .Asia to provide a natural name for users to easily navigate and find the information they are looking for. Through the Pioneer Domains Program, DotAsia is giving out millions of dollars worth of domain names.

One journalist had some questions about how transparent this process will be. Edmon insists it will be very transparent. It will be fascinating  to see what comes out of this process.

At the launch party .Asia had these cute napkins (pictured at right) inviting people to scribble their ideas down and help populate Asia's new cyber-real estate. I actually scribbled down an online media idea (which I'm not showing). Unfortunately I don't have time to implement it this year given my other commitments and I certainly don't have the resources...  but maybe somebody else out there might be able to do something with it... 

China's New Domain Names: Lost in Translation

This morning I got a bunch of alarmist messages from friends asking about this English-language People’s Daily article titled: China adds top-level domain names.  The paragraph that’s freaking people out is:

Under the new system, besides "CN", three Chinese TLD names "CN", "COM" and "NET" are temporarily set. It means Internet users don't have to surf the Web via the servers under the management of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of the United States.

Not for the first time, it appears that the People’s Daily’s English translation is very misleading.

Here is a Chinese language story on the subject, and here is the original announcement in Chinese on the Ministry of Information Industry website. Below are the two most important sections, which I am translating/explaining in English (please post corrections in the comments section if you read Chinese and think I got anything wrong):

    二、我国互联网络域名体系在顶级域名“CN”之外暂设“中国”、“公司”和“网络”3个中文顶级域名。

2. “In China’s internet domain name system, aside from the “CN” top-level domains, there will be three Chinese language top-level domains: 中国 (which means “China”), 公司 (which means “company”), AND 网络 (which means “net”).”

In other words, China is NOT, I repeat NOT creating alternative .COM and .NET top-level domains that would be separate from those now administered by ICANN.  (Though it is true that CN, 中国, 公司, AND 网络 will not be administered by ICANN, but by a Chinese entity.) 

    三、顶级域名CN之下，设置“类别域名”和“行政区域名”两类英文二级域名。
    设置“类别域名”7个，分别为：AC—适用于科研机构；COM—适用于工、商、金融等企业；EDU—适用于中国的教育机构；GOV—适用于中国的政府机构；MIL—适用于中国的国防机构；NET—适用于提供互联网络服务的机构；ORG—适用于非营利性的组织。

3. “Beneath the CN top-level domain, there will be 2 kinds of sub-domains: topical categories and administrative regions. There will be 7 “topical domains”: AC for research institutions; COM for commercial; EDU for educational institutions; and GOV for China’s government organizations, MIL for Chinese national-defense organizations; NET for organizations providing internet services; and ORG for non-commercial organizations.”

Note that these are sub-domains, not top-level domains. So in other words, the websites will look like this: http://website.ac.cn, http://website.com.cn, website.edu.cn, website.gov.cn, website.mil.cn. website.net.cn and website.org.cn.

    设置“行政区域名”34个，适用于我国的各省、自治区、直辖市、特别行政区的组织，分别为：BJ—北京市；SH—上海市；TJ—天津市；CQ—重庆市； HE—河北省；SX—山西省；NM—内蒙古自治区；LN—辽宁省；JL—吉林省；HL—黑龙江省；JS—江苏省；ZJ—浙江省；AH—安徽省；FJ—福建省；JX—江西省；SD—山东省；HA—河南省；HB—湖北省；HN—湖南省；GD—广东省；GX—广西壮族自治区；HI—海南省； SC—四川省；GZ—贵州省；YN—云南省；XZ—西藏自治区；SN—陕西省；GS—甘肃省；QH—青海省；NX—宁夏回族自治区；XJ—新疆维吾尔族自治区；TW—台湾省；HK—香港特别行政区；MO—澳门特别行政区。

This section outlines the English letters used for administrative region domains. So Beijing will be website.bj.cn, Shanghai will be website.sh.cn, Tianjin will be website.tj.cn, and so forth.

A more accurate Interfax story is here. So my understanding is this: China will administer the 4 top-level domains of: CN, 中国, 公司, AND 网络 – and all their sub-domains – independently of ICANN.  China has not shut out the global internet, or created parallel evil twins of our well-loved and well-used top-level domains. What China has done is create its own Chinese sub-internet adjacent to the global one run by ICANN. This is precedent-setting. Will other governments follow? An Iranian-administered set of top level domains in Farsi? A Russian-administered set of TLD’s in Russian? Why not?

But to my knowledge, if you can read and write Chinese and have the ability to enter Chinese characters on your computer, you should be able to access those domains from anywhere, and the creation of this new Chinese sub-internet does not preclude Chinese internet users from typing in their usual .com and .net domains and getting at the same sites that we would from the U.S. – that is unless the Chinese government happens to be filtering those particular sites that you want to access.  UPDATE: This is not entirely correct, as Steven Murdoch explains below.

Will the existence of a Chinese-administered sub-internet make it easier for the Chinese government to filter the international internet more aggressively? Once the new Chinese domain system becomes well-populated and full of content, it seems likely that the answer would be “yes.”

FURTHER UPDATE (11:30PM EST TUESDAY): This entry has been posted over at CircleID where James Seng from Singapore, who has been following these issues for some time, has weighed in. He writes:

It is not an alternative root because there is no “root” being setup. And the ISPs continue to use the same default (IANA) root that ship with BIND.

In a longer comment James elaborates, copying a comment he wrote in another thread on another site, in response to somebody named Dave:

I just posted this on IPer where the news is spreading. I hope everyone calm down.

---

Hi Dave,

Just saw this news and find it funny because I just had dinner with Mao Wei and Prof. Qian last night (Mao is the Executive Director of CNNIC). To be exact, they have no idea of the news as they are in Perth right now. But after showing them the news and speaking to them, this is what I gathered.

The focus of the news is actually the launch of .MIL.CN, a new 2LD CNNIC is launching which requires a change in their Article. As a matter of procedure, they announced the revise Article that includes the the policy for the three Chinese TLD for .NET, .COM and .CN (网络，公司，中国). The Chinese TLDs was actually added 3 years ago in 2003. It is hardly news now.

It has been in operation for 3 years now as you can see from http://www.cnnic.net.cn/index/0B/index.htm

In practice, they did not actually use any alternative/parellel root. Instead, when someone registered a domain name like 联想.公司, what they get is 联想.公司.cn and the append of .cn is done automatically by the client resolution.

Dave, hope you can help to clarify this issue. The news is just .MIL.CN.

-James Seng

WSIS: Circumventing censorship and staying safe

Here is a picture from the workshop on secure communications and anonymous blogging conducted by my colleague Ethan Zuckerman, Dmitri Vitaliev of Frontline Defenders, Wojtek Bogusz of the Tactical Technology Collaborative, and Nart Villeneuve of the Open Net Initiative. These guys are basically the dream geek team for free speech on line. They gave instructions in detail about how non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, and individuals trying to speak the truth under dangerous circumstances can secure their communications and data, and minimize the likelihood that people will get caught or arrested as a result of their work. The second part of the workshop was devoted to anonymous blogging.

Much of the instructions they gave today can be found in the chapters on secure communications and anonymous blogging in the Reporters Without Borders Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents. (Try here if that link is blocked for you.)  Many of the tools they referenced can be found at the NGO-in-a-box website where you can download trustworthy and free software. There are also instructions on how to use these tools and tips about how to be more security-conscious. Also see the Tools & Manuals section from Frontline Defenders.
 

WSIS: Defending Free Speech in Tunis

Despite the odds, we managed to pull off our "Expression Under Repression" seminar here at the World Summit For Internet and Society, thanks to the strong spine of our sponsors, the Dutch NGO Hivos, who fended off a phalanx of plainclothes police who tried to shut us down. The goons finally backed off after the Dutch ambassador intervened and warned of a diplomatic incident. Before we began, uncertainty and rumor reigned about whether we’d be allowed to hold the event at all. On Wednesday, as I mentioned in a previous post, the Tunisian authorities told organizers that the seminar’s theme had nothing to do with the “ICT for Development” theme of the conference, and was thus inappropriate. On the morning of the seminar a sign outside the room said it was canceled. It was not included in the official program, and a rumor heard from delegates who visited the UNDP pavillion claimed that people who showed up would get arrested. Our colleagues have posted some eyewitness accounts of the action here.

Speakers included Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi, Chinese blogger Isaac Mao, Iranian blogger Hossein Derakshan, and Zimbabwean internet activist Taurai Maduna. My co-conspirator Ethan Zuckerman blogged about the circumstances under which we opened the seminar and my opening remarks. (See my own pre-seminar notes here.) He also blogged some of the presentations: Isaac and Taurai. Jeff Ooi spoke eloquently about how blogging is helping to democratize a media environment in Malaysia in which the media has traditionally been dominated by the ruling party and its allies.

UPDATE: Ethan has now posted a summary of Hossein's presentation.

The Open Net Initiative ’s Technical Director Nart Villeneuve also gave an excellent presentation on how governments are filtering and censoring the internet worldwide.  (UPDATE: See Ethan's post on Nart's presentation.) Nart is one of the authors of a new report on how Tunisia censors the internet with the help of a U.S. software company, released this week in conjunction with the summit. Here is his blog post about the issue. Tomorrow Ethan will lead a hands-on workshop to teach people how to circumvent this kind of censorship, and also how to blog anonymously.

Several Tunisian journalists in the audience challenged the validity of our subject matter, arguing that economic development and social stability are a priority over freedom of speech in poor nations.  Hossein, Isaac and Taurai strongly disagreed. Taurai pointed out that if people aren’t free to speak out when officials are stealing their food and misappropriating resources, they’re more likely to remain poor. Hossein agreed that poverty in many parts of the world is as much a product of repression and corruption than anything else, and that greater freedom of speech can empower citizens to pull themselves out of poverty.

If you read German, check out Markus Beckedahl’s account of the seminar here. Andy Carvin has this podcast of Hossein’s presentation on Iranian blogs and their socio-political impact.

Ethan also has an excellent post with updated photos on the parallel civil society summit held in downtown Tunis by democracy activists on Wednesday evening. Both he and I attended.

For other WSIS blogging by Global Voices community members, check out Jeff Ooi’s post on internet governance from a Malayisan perspective.

WSIS in Tunisia: governance issue settled, free speech issue boils

Here at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, a compromise has been reached on internet governance. Now the spotlight turns to free speech issues and the Tunisian government's heavy-handedness against dissidents and journalists.

In addition to the copious news reporting, bloggers are hard at work. Be sure to follow WSISblogs.org for the latest. The APC WSIS blog is also excellent. The Technorati WSIS tag page and search page are also great sources of WSIS blogging in all languages.

The tireless Andy Carvin has been faithfully blogging major speeches. Here is one quote he has from Kofi Annan:

The Internet's very life blood is freedom - allows journalists to do their work and citizens to hold govts accountable. Without this, the information revolution will stall and be stillborn.

And here is how he describes remarks by the Swiss president:

The president of the Swiss Confederation is speaking right now. He's just said he can't believe there are still UN members states that imprison citizens because of their opinons. He added that all people attending WSIS should be allowed to express their opinions freely and openly, clearly a reference to Tunisian interference in civil society's activities here. The comments were met with roaring applause from the civil society gallery.

The Tunisian government clearly does not agree. Ethan Zuckerman and I are participating tomorrow in a workshop called “Expression Under Repression.” We have heard that the Tunisian government has expressed the view that such a topic is not consistent with the conference theme of “ICT for Development.”  Of course, we have a different view, and are looking forward to a our session tomorrow. Our colleague John Palfrey has an excellent post on the impact of internet censorship on people’s lives and why we should care. Tunisian democracy activist Neila Charchour Hachicha has a poem in protest of the situation.

A number of people here are also disappointed that the local government’s behavior is detracting from what should be the central focus of this meeting: how to use technology to improve the lives of the world’s underprivileged, and how to bridge the digital divide.

China at WSIS: Cisco beware!

As nations reach compromise over who will govern the internet and the Tunisian government impresses nobody with its repression of dissidents and internet censorship (more about those things soon), the Chinese are hard at work doing business here at the World Summit on the Information Society.

Anybody who hadn’t heard of ZTE, China’s second-largest telecoms equipment maker, before WSIS will know who they are by the time this confab is over. As a conference sponsor, their logo in on flags lining the street around the conference center. (See some recent news about ZTE here.) They and “China’s Cisco,” Huawei, have bigger, more elaborate booths than pretty much all other high-tech companies except maybe Microsoft.

The booths of these companies are full of delegates from Africa and the Middle East. I spent a little time chatting in Chinese with the guys at both booths. They’re both doing aggressive business in developing countries, helping to build telecoms and internet infrastructure. They point out that not only is their pricing competitive, but having cut their teeth in a country where peasant farmers make up the majority, they say they’re simply better at meeting the needs of developing countries than their Western competitors. They also take markets in poor nations more seriously. 

A technology analyst once described Huawei to me as the “bottom feeders of the IT industry.”  Others compare the global strategies of Huawei and ZTE to Chairman Mao’s strategy for communist takeover in 1949: “surround the cities from the countryside.” Given that the majority of the world’s population is either poor or in the countryside, it sounds like a sensible long-term strategy for come-from-behind challenger brands with ambitions of competing head-to-head with Cisco and Sun.

Unlike Western companies who tend to train locals and transfer a lot of technology (as Cisco did in China, making Huawei possible in the first place) Chinese companies minimize technology transfer to the locals they work with. Some NGO guys I was talking to who do a lot of IT work in Africa were saying they see Huawei and ZTE all over the place, but they say they’ve observed that both companies take great pains to compartmentalize what they do, and use their own engineers as much as possible, so that local employees won’t be able to turn around and start up a home-grown competitor. Unlike the Chinese, African governments are not demanding technology transfer in exchange for contracts.

Tunisian protest site blocked

(Cross-posted from Global Voices Online)

As Tunisia prepares to host the controversial World Summit for the Information Society in November, Tunisian opposition activist Neila Charchour Hachicha informs Global Voices that the online freedom of speech protest site launched by Tunisians on Monday, www.yezzi.org has already been blocked by the Tunisian authorities.

The online protest, called "Freedom of Expression in Mourning," is organized by The Tunisian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Cyberspace (Association Tunisienne pour la Promotion et la Défense du Cyberespace).  Here is how they describe the protest and its motivations:

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) will be held in Tunisia from 16th to 18th November 2005. However:
* A World Summit on the Information Society cannot have any concrete impact on the world community, if the main concern of such a Summit, which should be the human being, remains relegated to a simple accessory.    
* Experience showed that concerning information issues, top level international meetings have never led to positive measures to make public's rights effective to get free access to information.    
* Dictatorships similar to that of the Tunisian General Ben Ali, use the information's restrictions as a strategic pillar conscious that without restrictions their tyrannies would fail.    
* Continuous impunity of tyrants, who violate on a daily basis the right of their people to freedom of expression, shows that apart NGO, it is illusory to count on "democratic" governments to support the right of free access to independent information.    
* Finally, if there's a stake in the World Summit on the Information Society, it should not only be about reducing the "digital gap ", but it should be about reducing the evil that corrode peace in the world which is the "democratic gap".

Therefore throughout the WSIS and in order to get the attention of the Tunisian and the International public opinion to the cruel absence of freedom of expression and information in Tunisia, and the obvious incoherence between the principles of this world summit and its hosting by the violent and repressive Tunisian regime, a working group has been gathered under the sponsorship of the Tunisian Association for the promotion and defense of the Cyberspace (TAPD - Cyberspace) in order to launch the campaign:

"Freedom of Expression in Mourning!"

This campaign starts today, October 3, 2005, and will end with the closure of the World Summit on the Information Society.

Within the framework of this campaign, we will immediately start an initiative defined by the following actions:    
* Since we are physically unable to demonstrate within Tunisian public spaces, we will use the internet to organize permanent virtual demonstrations in order to express our total disapproval with the Tunisian dictatorial regime.

Visit their website to view the online protest and contribute materials. The site is trilingual: French, Arabic and English. (Scroll down to the bottom for the English.)  You are also invited to download a badge and link it to their site in support of the cause.

Internet governance fight: will the real loser be human rights?

Much is being reported on the clash between the U.S. and most other world governments over who should control the internet... and the failure of diplomats at last week's Geneva meeting to agree on a document outlining the future of internet governance, which is (or was) supposed to get announced at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in mid-November.

Many of the governments who want to assert more control over the way the internet works are not friends of human rights and free speech. Like China, Iran, and the summit's host country, Tunisia.  Human rights groups are, shall we say, concerned about what this will mean for the future of free speech and human rights activism on the internet.  A case in point: China has moved to block the exiled Chinese dissident organization, Human Rights in China, from participating as a non-governmental organization at WSIS.   

Many other non-governmental and "civil society" groups have been allowed to attend WSIS - but just to voice their opinions about whatever gets announced, since none of these groups have been included in the actual negotiations.  NGO leaders say they're now considering a boycott of the meeting and may set up a parallel summit.  For more concerns see this account by Robert Guerra.

For more information about the future of human rights and internet governance, check out this WSIS Human Rights Portal built by Human Rights Internet.

Experts on internet governance issues are worried that we may soon need to bid goodbye to the global internet as we've known it so far. Susan Crawford writes: "efforts are underway around the world to make it possible for network providers to substitute their walled gardens for what we now think of as our internet." Read her whole post.

Dana Blankenhorn at Moore's Lore also worries the internet could soon become fragmented. He shares with us a long analysis of the WSIS internet governance mess by Dr. Milton Mueller of Internet Governance. He argues that while the U.S. intends to be a champion of free speech and the preservation of the internet as we know and love it today, it has so badly mishandled the situation that the outcome is likely to be a lot worse than it could have been. Here are the concluding three paragraphs: 

The US could have, and should have, privatized and internationalized its oversight authority when it had a chance. It could have, and should have, insisted on robust, democratic accountability mechanisms for ICANN that would have pre-empted demands for centralized, old- style inter-governmental oversight. It could have, and should have, insisted on negotiating binding international agreements protecting the Internet from arbitrary governmental interference and regulation. But it didn't. And now the debate has devolved to a choice between "US control" versus "UN control." If that is the choice, it is only a matter of time before collective international control wins.

What seems to have been lost in the shuffle is the idea of distributed, cooperative control that involves individuals, technical and academic groups, Internet businesses and limited, lawful interactions with governments. The idea that nation-states should not have the ability to arbitrarily intervene in the Internet's operation whenever they feel like it, but should be bound by clear, negotiated constitutional principles, has been crowded out of the debate.

As the WSIS debate spills into the US media, do not permit the US government to wrap itself up in the flag of Internet freedom. It is reaping what it sowed. Its own special, extra-legal authority over ICANN and the Internet has been the lightning rod for politicization. Its insistence on retaining control, and the spillover from its unilateralism in other areas such as the war in Iraq, has done tremendous damage to its credibility. Now the Internet is paying the price.

Blankenhorn then remarks:

Let me repeat something here. All the ITU or any international body need do in order to fork the Internet is to do it. There is no army, and no weapon, which can prevent the creation of new DNS regimes, especially if national governments choose to force ISPs to point to them.

The U.S. is allowing the Internet to be broken up into alternate, regional, and national authorities, replicating the stupidity of the old monopoly telecomm system, and preventing all but the elites of various nations from reaching one another.

As Mueller notes, this did not have to happen. And once it happens, its effect  cannot be reversed. 

Scary.

IT Industry, "Policenets" and "Warnets" Worldwide

My latest Cisco post has generated a lot of debate and a fair amount of criticism.

Several people have pointed out that the issue goes far beyond the question of how U.S. tech companies may be assisting Chinese police thuggery and state censorship. As many, including Dan Gillmor point out, there is a much bigger question about the relationship between the tech industry and curtailment by governments of freedom of speech and human rights worldwide. Dan writes:

...Moreover, the issues get even more fuzzy when you consider our own government's race toward creating a surveillance state, or worse. As Congress moves to reauthorize the grotesquely named "Patriot Act," who are we to blame domestic companies for cooperating with repression overseas when we're creating our own version at home?
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On a discussion list, Sasha Costanza-Chock writes of the need for more "ICT for Development" to balance out the extensive resources put by governments into "ICT for War" :

...Now, my point is not to argue about the equivalence or relative levels of state repression of internal dissent in China vs. the USA. And if it comes to that, then we could just shift the conversation to Cisco's role in the US' current multiple wars of aggression and occupation.

But the point is really not about relative levels of state violence, it's about the need to recognize the deep structural links between, not just Cisco, but the IT industry in general and the military-police apparatus everywhere. The IT industry can't be decoupled from state repression and violence by picking a few instances for delinking.

Yet Cisco-DOD contracts are of course funded by the public. So maybe the conversation and strategies are really about how to ensure that public money put into ICT isn't used to enhance state surveillance and violence but instead is used for 'development.' One (small) step for researchers is to be able to demonstrate the comparative spending levels for networked warfare vs. networked development. I'm shocked that, in all the WSIS process, I've barely heard mention of the military (though we did get a clause about information warfare into the CS Declaration at Geneva) and haven't seen 'civil society,' let alone government delegates, make frank comparisons of the budgets for ICT4War vs. ICT4Dev.
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Food for thought.