[afnog] Re: Request for input: The Working Group onInternetGovernance

[Geert Jan de Groot]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:12:42 +0100  Robert.Shaw at itu.int wrote:
> ITU does not control
> what its Member States do. We can promote telecoms liberalization
> and privatization as much as we want (which we do) but we don't control
> MS policies. 

Like the Brians, I believe that the ITU proposal shows a worrying
misunderstanding of what the Internet is and how it works.

The Internet doesn't exist. You can't call the Internet,
it doesn't have an office anywhere, etc.
The only thing that exists is a community of technical folk who,
together, through consensus and cooperation, created a network. 
The community works on it on a daily basis like it has done 
for the last 30 years. We place our trust on this community 
when we use the network every day.

Via the proposal, governments of member states now try to change
the way the community works. The document explicitely ignores/defers
key issues that are vital to the way the Internet works:
> The details and constraints, in particular issues related to 
> routing table size, could be further discussed if this proposal 
> encounters favor.

I'm sorry, that it not the way it works: you can't force the 
community to build the thing to just jump to rules set by
ignorant outsiders, just like several states tried to define
pi to have the value of 3. Circles didn't get any rounder.

Scaling and routability are of continuous concern, and are actively
worked on *on a daily basis*. The current RIR scheme is partially
built on these technical concerns. 
The current registry mechanism is built by consensus, by the
community that built the network, and based on sound engineering
principles to keep the thing functional for the next few months 
or so (don't worry, death of the Internet has been predicted for
more than 20 years now).

To me, it therefore makes no sense to do what the ITU proposes
and ignore the technical issues that are the basis of the current
process. It is dangerous as it's technical consequences will cause
severe stability problems that the community has so carefully
been trying to avoid for at least two decades.

I also refute the ITU claim on problems in developing countries
in this matter. Specifically, the African ISP community is setting up
it's own RIR, AfriNIC. It is based on consensus, and driven
by the community it serves, the African ISP community.
I don't understand why the ITU can claim it does better, than the
ISP-community itself.

In an engineering community, like the community that builds
and maintains the infrastructure, respect is based on one's 
technical track-record, by showing competence in development
and engineering efforts, not on whether someone has a government job.
I highly respect the people who built the network we currently know and love.
I'm afraid that ITU's track record on engineering datagram-based
networks isn't very good: in fact, many ITU protocols are based on
circuit switching technology.
Without a clear track record of technical results in this area,
I don't believe that the ITU is in a position to claim what
it currently tries to do.

The ITU proposal is dangerous and is based on vital misunderstandings
on how the Internet works. I would very much like the ITU to stay
out of a mechanism that has a proven track record for at least a decade,
and that is based on consensus by the people who built the thing.

History has clearly shown that government interference in these matters
is damaging. I don't think that the ITU should lend itself as a vehicle
to make governments cause interference, as we have plenty of examples
of what this damage can do: telco monopolies, legislation about 
certain applications like VoIP, content control. 
I don't think the ITU should lend itself to be used as a vehicle
for governments to cause even more damage.

Please leave the operational side of the Internet to the 
propellorheads that have been building the thing. 
We have work to do, and government interference is something
we're really not looking forward to have.

Geert Jan de Groot