Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at IGF 2012
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0:02 - 0:05>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I would like to welcome everybody to the Dynamic
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0:05 - 0:08Coalition on Internet values. We do have one or two panelists that
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0:08 - 0:12are actually going to join us a little bit late. Dr. Cerf should be here in
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0:12 - 0:17about 30 minutes or so. And I know we have some remote participants as
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0:17 - 0:22well. So just two or three minutes on this particular Dynamic
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0:22 - 0:25Coalition and its history, and then we will ask the panelists to
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0:25 - 0:28introduce themselves and respond to a question which I will actually
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0:28 - 0:31pose in a moment .
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0:32 - 0:34But this particular Dynamic Coalition came out of a workshop on the
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0:34 - 0:37fundamentals, particularly around the Core Internet Values, which was
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0:37 - 0:43held back in 2009 in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. And then following
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0:43 - 0:47that workshop a Dynamic Coalition was established and there have been
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0:47 - 0:54two other presentations since that time, one at the IGF in Vilnius and
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0:54 - 0:58another at the IGF in Nairobi.
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0:58 - 1:02This is the third meeting of the Dynamic Coalition, and one of the
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1:02 - 1:06things we want to come out of this meeting with is really trying to be
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1:06 - 1:10quite concrete about some next steps and some work. The purposes of
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1:10 - 1:13the Dynamic Coalition are to actually do work between meetings.
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1:13 - 1:19Largely remotely. There's an awful lot of work being done on Core
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1:19 - 1:23Internet Values in various parts of Internet ecosystem. But I think
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1:23 - 1:25we'd like to try to define whether or not there's something specific
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1:25 - 1:30we want to do here, particularly in the multistakeholder format.
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1:31 - 1:36So the Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values was actually
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1:36 - 1:43organized to debate questions such as what makes the Internet what it is?
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1:43 - 1:46What are its architectural principles? What are some of its core
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1:46 - 1:49principles and values and what's happening to them in the process of
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1:49 - 1:51Internet's evolution?
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1:51 - 1:56So specifically, when we talk about core values and principles, the
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1:56 - 1:59things we often quote are openness, transparency, collaborative
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1:59 - 2:09processes, bottom up, local processes such as that embodied in the RIR
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2:09 - 2:15process and, of course, the distributed nature which is central to how
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2:15 - 2:20a lot of the work actually gets done across the Internet ecosystem.
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2:21 - 2:25So over time, some of those principles and values have been
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2:25 - 2:33threatened, I guess, sometimes, you know, perhaps less intentionally
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2:33 - 2:38in terms of trying to address or solve some problem without clear
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2:38 - 2:41understanding of the impact it actually has on the Internet, other
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2:41 - 2:46times we could probably ascribe more intent to some of those actions.
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2:47 - 2:50Before I do that I want to ask each one of the panelists to take a
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2:50 - 2:52moment to introduce themselves. In particular, I would like a quick
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2:52 - 2:58reflection on whether or not they think the Internet principles are
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2:58 - 3:02alive and well. Are they thriving or are they under some level of
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3:02 - 3:09threat for lack of a better word? So I will turn to my right and I'd
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3:09 - 3:12actually like to thank Siva as well. Because Siva was actually the
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3:12 - 3:17driver and the instigator behind the very first workshop, and has been
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3:17 - 3:22central to the other two and was very central and the driving force
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3:22 - 3:25behind this particular workshop. So it's really to Siva that we
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3:25 - 3:28actually owe all of us being here today.
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3:28 - 3:35One final comment, while I am with the Internet Society and a number
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3:35 - 3:38of the people on this panel here are Internet Society members, this is
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3:38 - 3:43not an Internet Society workshop, panel, or Dynamic Coalition. The
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3:43 - 3:48Dynamic Coalitions are definded by having members from a minimum of
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3:48 - 3:53three different multistakeholder communities. So if I say 'we', I am
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3:53 - 3:58doing my best to say that 'we' in the context of what we are here as a
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3:58 - 4:02Dynamic Coalition, not specific to an ISOC set of activities or an
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4:02 - 4:08ISOC kind of ownership, if you will for this paticular idea. We all
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4:08 - 4:11own the Core Internet Values. So Siva?
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4:12 - 4:22>> SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: Thank you, Lynn. I'm Sivasubramanian, I
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4:22 - 4:26serve as the president of Internet Society India Chennai, which is
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4:26 - 4:33also an ICANN At-Large Structure. I'm from India and that's in brief
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4:33 - 4:39about me and responding to the question by Lynn, I think Internet core
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4:39 - 4:44values are under a serious threat and a lot of things that are
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4:44 - 4:48happening all around us, a lot of changes, a lot of regulations that
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4:48 - 4:55are proposed, a lot of legislations underway - they seek to threaten,
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4:55 - 4:59to alter the core values considerably.
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4:59 - 5:06And in my opinion, a lot of these changes are happening quite
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5:06 - 5:11unintentionally. It's not that governments want to alter core values
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5:11 - 5:17intentionally, it is just that Internet is new to us and Internet is
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5:17 - 5:23new to governments and there are several departments handling
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5:23 - 5:28Internet. For example, in Germany, at least six different ministries
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5:28 - 5:35deal with different policy functions related to Internet, and then
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5:35 - 5:39France, there are roughly three ministries that handle different
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5:39 - 5:44policy aspects of Internet and there are often not sufficient
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5:44 - 5:47coordination between these ministries and it so happens that sometimes
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5:47 - 5:54somebody in some department who does not quite sufficiently understand
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5:54 - 5:59how Internet works tends to make some policy changes, some policy
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5:59 - 6:05proposals, that end up being very, very harmful to the Internet and
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6:05 - 6:07its core values.
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6:08 - 6:11For example, we know that the government of India has been very, very
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6:11 - 6:17positive, and the minister from India was here at this IGF - Minister
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6:17 - 6:23Kapil Sibal - and he has understood Internet and he's understood how
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6:23 - 6:27Internet Governance works and he has been very positive and was even
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6:27 - 6:33saying that the term Internet Governance itself is an oxymoron and he
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6:33 - 6:37was talking about Internet accountability and to that extent he was
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6:37 - 6:41positive. He was reaching out.
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6:41 - 6:44At the same time, somewhere else -- from somewhere else in India, a
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6:44 - 6:53proposal was filed at the ITU that was very bad. I don't want to use
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6:53 - 6:56a different language. I would simply say that the proposal was very,
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6:56 - 7:03very bad. This is one example of how the lack of coordination between
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7:03 - 7:07government departments give rise to some proposals that invariably
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7:07 - 7:16end up threaten the Core Internet Values. So what the core values
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7:16 - 7:25coalition and what the Internet institutions could do is to make sure
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7:25 - 7:30that every corner of the policy making sphere understands how the
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7:30 - 7:35Internet works. Once there's sufficient understanding of how the
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7:35 - 7:39Internet works and how it has to evolve, I think most of the policies
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7:39 - 7:42will be in the proper direction. Thank you.
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7:43 - 7:48>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you Siva, that was very very clear. I'm just
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7:48 - 7:51going to go direct through the panelists, because I really do want an
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7:51 - 7:54exchange amongst the panelists and to invite the remote participation,
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7:54 - 7:57and obviously the individuals here in the room as well. So the
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7:57 - 8:01purpose of this runthrough was just to get a broad perspective of
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8:01 - 8:04views. Sébastien Bachollet?
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8:04 - 8:11>> SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you, Lynn, and thank you, Siva for
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8:11 - 8:20organizing and supporting this Dynamic Coalition since its inception.
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8:20 - 8:28I'm a member of ISOC and I am board member of ICANN. But I am not
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8:28 - 8:32talking on behalf of any of those organizations.
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8:32 - 8:38I want to follow what Siva just explained and push just a little bit
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8:38 - 8:45further. It seems that in a lot of countries, whatever the type of
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8:45 - 8:51political organization, democratic or not totally democratic, or not
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8:51 - 8:56democratic at all, we end up with the same type of decision to make a
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8:56 - 9:03law each time we have trouble with something that happened once on
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9:03 - 9:12Internet. And we end up to add law to law to law, and, in fact, the
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9:12 - 9:18situation will be better handled by the private sector, the civil
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9:18 - 9:30society and in discussion, in finding some consensus discussion, and
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9:30 - 9:39the fact that it's very often ending in the parliament where people
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9:39 - 9:45are really not aware of what is happening. They take bad decision and
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9:45 - 9:52then it's one element to threaten more the Internet as we knew it and
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9:52 - 9:55as we would like to have it in the future. Thank you.
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9:56 - 10:03>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sébastien. Paul Wilson?
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10:03 - 10:09>> PAUL WILSON: Hi. I'm from the organization APNIC, the Regional
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10:09 - 10:13Internet Address Registry for the Asia-Pacific. So we're a member of the
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10:13 - 10:19technical community, and have been for coming up to 20 years. We
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10:19 - 10:23operate as a nonprofit, mutual community organization that has got
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10:23 - 10:29this particular technical responsibility of managing IP addresses. And
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10:29 - 10:33I guess because we are a predominantly technical organization, we have
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10:33 - 10:36taken a fairly pragmatic and practical view of what we do. We know
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10:36 - 10:41well what we have to do and we know technically how to do it and
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10:41 - 10:45probably haven't spoken so much about the values, the vision of the
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10:45 - 10:47values behind what we do.
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10:48 - 10:51But I think, as years have gone by and particularly as we get into
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10:51 - 10:57this much more complex world, that I think the IGF exemplifies, it's
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10:57 - 11:01become more and more important to talk about our values, to have
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11:01 - 11:04people understand what we as an organization are and I think it's --
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11:04 - 11:10it can be said fairly reliably -- that movements and organizations
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11:10 - 11:13that actually have values and vision to express are generally more
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11:13 - 11:19successful than those that go from day to day on a -- just knowing
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11:19 - 11:22simply what they do and how they do it.
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11:23 - 11:26So we have been spending a bit of time on this, and I think the same
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11:26 - 11:32thing I described actually goes to the Internet itself, that the idea
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11:32 - 11:37of having identified, some identified vision and a set of values for
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11:37 - 11:43the Internet gives us a very good, a very good idea, if down the track
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11:43 - 11:47the Internet were to change, I mean, and that's what we are talking
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11:47 - 11:49about here. We are talking about the way the Internet might evolve in
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11:49 - 11:54future. I think of whatever network we are using in the future, it's
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11:54 - 11:56going to be an IP-based network and we will call it the Internet but
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11:56 - 12:00how would we know if the Internet 10 or 15 years down the track has
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12:00 - 12:05become a different Internet from the one we enjoy today. It may not
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12:05 - 12:09be so easy to tell, but it certainly helps if we have an idea of the
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12:09 - 12:12values that are being supported and a vision of the Internet and how
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12:12 - 12:18it is really intended by a consensus of us to operate.
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12:19 - 12:25I think to -- the question that Lynn asked is whether the principles
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12:25 - 12:30of the Internet, which I think we do need to enumerate, whether those
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12:30 - 12:33principles are here with us today, and I actually think they are. I
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12:33 - 12:36think the only reason why the Internet has been -- absolutely the only
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12:36 - 12:40reason why the Internet has been so successful is because of values
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12:40 - 12:45that are either implicit or explicit in the way it's been envisaged
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12:45 - 12:48and the way it's run, and the Internet today is still thriving. The
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12:48 - 12:53Internet growth is phenomenal. The growth of applications, of content,
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12:53 - 12:57of usage and of the user base of the Internet is phenomenal. So
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12:57 - 13:00today, today we are doing well. The question is whether tomorrow the
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13:00 - 13:05Internet or as I said 10 or 15 years down the track the Internet might
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13:05 - 13:11be on a path towards change that does damage those values and the
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13:11 - 13:13success.
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13:13 - 13:18So the values are things like the Internet as a single global
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13:18 - 13:21accessible network that links every point of the Internet to every
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13:21 - 13:25other point. The fact that it's a neutral network, where the actual
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13:25 - 13:32infrastructure of the Internet, the Internet itself is separate from
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13:32 - 13:36and can be separated from the applications and the content that run
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13:36 - 13:40across it, whether the Internet continues to be open and accessible.
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13:40 - 13:45These actually are -- these are values that I think we all actually
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13:45 - 13:48understand these days and they are -- they are critical values. They
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13:48 - 13:52are values which have been actually delivered to us and they have been
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13:52 - 13:55enabled by the -- both the original design of the Internet and the way
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13:55 - 13:59that it has been maintained.
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13:59 - 14:03I mean, we tend to take these things for granted. As I said, the
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14:03 - 14:05Internet is the Internet, and we just sort of think we know what it
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14:05 - 14:08is. But in fact those things have not been delivered automatically or
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14:08 - 14:15sort of magically by the Internet, they have been designed and they've been maintained. So there
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14:15 - 14:19are numerous ways in which those values may or may not be served by
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14:19 - 14:21developments.
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14:22 - 14:26Over time, we might see a sort of fragmentation of the Internet down
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14:26 - 14:30the track, and an increase in the complexity of the Internet down the
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14:30 - 14:33track, where you have fragments of the Internet which have more
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14:33 - 14:39complex interconnections between them than exist today. That could
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14:39 - 14:44happen. That could be a result, for instance, of a failure over the
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14:44 - 14:48next 10 years of IPv6 to be deployed, so at a technical level you get
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14:48 - 14:52a fragmentation and a breakdown of the global nature of the Internet.
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14:52 - 15:00It could also happen by political policies -- by policies, regulations being
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15:00 - 15:03adopted that actually start to break the Internet up.
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15:03 - 15:08The neutrality of the Internet, likewise, is something that could be
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15:08 - 15:12threatened by various different factors, whether it's commercial
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15:12 - 15:16decision making that becomes predominant and unregulated, whether it's
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15:16 - 15:21other governmental or regulatory actions. I mean, the interesting
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15:21 - 15:24thing about network neutrality is that the term didn't exist before
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15:24 - 15:29the Internet at all. The term -- prior to the Internet, there was no
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15:29 - 15:32such thing as a neutral network, because a network was provided by a
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15:32 - 15:35telecoms carrier that bundled the transportation and the applications
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15:35 - 15:42and everything you did into a stack of services and it was never
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15:42 - 15:47neutral. It couldn't be neutral. So network neutrality, the ability
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15:47 - 15:49to have a debate about network neutrality, no matter what your
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15:49 - 15:55position on it is -- the privilege we have of having a debate about it is
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15:55 - 15:58something that the Internet has delivered to us. And, once again,
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15:58 - 16:02that is something that could be eroded and disappear so that we find
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16:02 - 16:05ourselves technically unable, or for other reasons unable, to deliver
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16:05 - 16:09a network that's neutral in the same way that the Internet is today,
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16:09 - 16:13and that debate then becomes a thing of the past.
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16:13 - 16:18So there's many aspects of this and I won't go on hogging the
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16:18 - 16:23microphone, but I think the -- the Internet is thriving. The values
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16:23 - 16:27are still with us. I think there are -- there are all sorts of
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16:27 - 16:32circumstances, call them threats or inadvertent circumstances that
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16:32 - 16:34might change or threaten the values that we have and I think it's
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16:34 - 16:41really useful in this forum to be able to actually talk about them,
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16:41 - 16:44identify them and help to understand how we would recognize if they
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16:44 - 16:47disappeared or how we might help to avoid that from happening.
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16:47 - 16:48Thanks.
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16:49 - 16:54>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Paul, and that was actually a nice level
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16:54 - 16:58and a nice thorough, sort of exposé of some of the Internet values. I
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16:58 - 17:02actually can't see what the name tag says right to your immediate left
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17:02 - 17:08and if it says -- okay, Désirée. Désirée was actually a tentative,
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17:08 - 17:11and apologies on some of the flux on the panel here. There are a
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17:11 - 17:14number of other workshops that are schedules in parallel and people
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17:14 - 17:19are fighting over resources. Correct Olivier? So let's move to
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17:19 - 17:21Alejandro.
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17:22 - 17:30>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you Lynn. My name is Alejandro Pisanty, I
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17:30 - 17:34am the chair of ISOC Mexico and a professor at the National University
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17:34 - 17:42of Mexico. I'm not speaking on behalf of the University, and I'm very
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17:42 - 17:46tentatively speaking on behalf of the chapter because this is work
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17:46 - 17:47that will go back there.
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17:48 - 17:53First, I want to join Lynn in embracing, enormously, the efforts of
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17:53 - 17:57Sivasubramanian Muthusamy. He has kept the continuity of the effort in
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17:57 - 18:01times that were of duress for many others of us and I'm enormously
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18:01 - 18:10thankful and in recognition of what you have enabled us to achieve and
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18:10 - 18:18achieved yourself. We really have a great debt of gratitude to you.
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18:18 - 18:22It's hard to improve on what Paul Wilson has already said. I think
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18:22 - 18:28that there's something to add, which is that these threats -- the
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18:28 - 18:34threats that I see are very concrete. They are pervasive, they are of
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18:34 - 18:39a permanent nature, and they are of a recurring nature. It's not only
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18:39 - 18:44that some actors or some involuntary circumstances will continue to
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18:44 - 18:49present, it's also that new actors and circumstances will continue to
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18:49 - 18:57present. We can only not foresee when and how strongly a company will
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18:57 - 19:01do something, including lobbying a government for legislation that
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19:01 - 19:07actually interferes with network neutrality. That's one of the most
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19:07 - 19:10visible threats right now. That will interfere with the end-to-end
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19:10 - 19:15principle, or other of the technical principles. We don't know whether an
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19:15 - 19:19apps developer will come up with something that becomes very popular
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19:19 - 19:25and will actually breaking the openness and interoperability to which we
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19:25 - 19:29have become used to. I think we have also become used to see the
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19:29 - 19:35threats coming and we should be warned about them. That's my
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19:35 - 19:39assessment about this general -- let's say, at the more technical
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19:39 - 19:44level of the core principles and certainly the principles of
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19:44 - 19:53collaboration, decentralization, the whole multistakeholder setup are
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19:53 - 19:57also continuously both being built up and being threatened. When I
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19:57 - 20:01see this kind of circumstance, my reflex now is to think of performing
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20:01 - 20:06a risk assessment, which has to be very objective. It includes
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20:06 - 20:12strengths and weaknesses. It includes threats that are very
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20:12 - 20:15improbable, very unlikely but would be of very high impact, and
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20:15 - 20:19includes classifying the threats by their impact and probability
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20:19 - 20:25therefore, and to try to make a rational, assessment. I think there is
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20:25 - 20:31an important space to do this in the format of a Dynamic Coalition, or
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20:31 - 20:35a similar one, in the sense that many organizations that come together
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20:35 - 20:40in different fora are able to perform some parts of this and we are
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20:40 - 20:47able to crowdsource and bring in a more popular and open participation
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20:47 - 20:50to these by individuals, small companies, small consultancies,
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20:50 - 20:55government units, the whole multistakeholder gamut and that would be
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20:55 - 21:02one possible task to perform that would grow on the competencies and
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21:02 - 21:05strengths of the existing organizations and would add a lot more to
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21:05 - 21:06the mix.
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21:08 - 21:11>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Alejandro, excellent as ever and
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21:11 - 21:16thankyou for repeating the thanks to Siva as well. Nick, I want to
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21:16 - 21:18make sure that you really feel like you are a part of the panel and
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21:18 - 21:21not sort of falling off the table there. So, if we need to move down a
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21:21 - 21:26little bit, we'll scoot down. But please introduce
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21:26 - 21:30yourself and give us your thoughts on the Internet values.
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21:30 - 21:33>> NICK ASHTON-HART: Sure. Thank you very much Lynn and my thanks
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21:33 - 21:37also to Siva for keeping the flame alight when there weren't many
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21:37 - 21:42others to carry it and I'm glad to be here today. I'm Nick Ashton-
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21:42 - 21:46Hart, I'm the Geneva Representative of the Computer & Communications
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21:46 - 21:52Industry Association -- which has the privilege and the burden of
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21:52 - 21:56being the only technology industry association that has a permanent
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21:56 - 22:04presence in Geneva. So I get to watch the sometimes painful way in
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22:04 - 22:10which struggles over the identity of the Internet play out in
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22:10 - 22:14different aspects of international policy, be they at the ITU, or in
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22:14 - 22:19the World Trade Organization, where there are negotiations on
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22:19 - 22:23liberalizing services and in recognition that the openness of the
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22:23 - 22:26Internet is of key economic importance to the future, interestingly
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22:26 - 22:27enough.
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22:28 - 22:32And there is -- I think there are values to the Internet, there's no
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22:32 - 22:38question. The application of those values, I think is the difficult
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22:38 - 22:44part. If you think of the Internet as a general purpose technology
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22:44 - 22:46that affects everything, not just some things, the last, I think --
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22:46 - 22:55probably the best example was the development of the steam engine in
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22:55 - 23:02the 1800s. And if you think about that, before the steam engine came
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23:02 - 23:07about, time was not synchronized. Every village in England had
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23:07 - 23:14different time. The reason they had to create a common time was
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23:14 - 23:18because of railway schedules. Railways which were made possible by
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23:18 - 23:19the steam engine.
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23:20 - 23:22People literally traveled by horses, and it took so long to travel
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23:22 - 23:26between points you didn't need to have common time. And so you think
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23:26 - 23:30of the total transformation in life of just changing from having
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23:30 - 23:35village time to national time. And I think this is what the Internet
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23:35 - 23:40is doing to the modern world. It's completely transforming everything
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23:40 - 23:46about it, and not everyone wants to be transformed. Not everyone
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23:46 - 23:49wants to see the same videos. Not everyone wants their nationals to
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23:49 - 23:51see the same information.
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23:51 - 23:59Human rights are recognized in pretty much every country but we would
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23:59 - 24:05not recognize the application of those rights in many countries as being congruent with our
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24:05 - 24:07concept of what those rights mean.
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24:08 - 24:12And so I think the challenge is going to be to recognize that we need
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24:12 - 24:16to have common understandings of the architecture of the Internet, and
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24:16 - 24:20of its core characteristics which must be respected in order for it to
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24:20 - 24:25be used for any purpose. While living with the fact that at times the
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24:25 - 24:30application of norms, social norms to what people use the Internet for
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24:30 - 24:36will vary widely, and there are societies which are not willing to
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24:36 - 24:42accept a globalized concept of the individual at the same pace as
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24:42 - 24:47others. Whether we like that or not, I think we are going to have to
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24:47 - 24:51-- to recognize that people, different cultures, have a right to
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24:51 - 24:57define their norms slightly differently even if we disagree with them.
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24:57 - 25:02Because otherwise we will see the internet becoming balkanized, we will
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25:02 - 25:07see private country networks like we are seeing in Iran and the like.
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25:07 - 25:12And then we are all lessened by the result. I suspect that's a
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25:12 - 25:20controversial conception. But I see -- at the moment, I see the way in
-
25:20 - 25:24which content is perceived and the way in which the network is being
-
25:24 - 25:30perceived as being conflated together. And the result is, it's easier
-
25:30 - 25:34for countries to say let's just turn off the connection, let's just create
-
25:34 - 25:40a firewall and attempt to remove what we don't like. It's not very
-
25:40 - 25:43successful doing that, as we've seen, because people in China find a
-
25:43 - 25:49way around that, freedom finds a way, and speech finds a way. But I
-
25:49 - 25:52think this is going to be a key challenge is -- is those countries
-
25:52 - 25:59which socially even have a consensus that say this is not something we
-
25:59 - 26:05are willing socially to see, or read, or hear. How are they to be able
-
26:05 - 26:10to feel comfortable with the globalized parts of the Internet that do
-
26:10 - 26:13work for them and for everyone else?
-
26:13 - 26:17This is going I think to be a key policy challenge, and an
-
26:17 - 26:20uncomfortable one for all of us who would like to see the
-
26:20 - 26:27democratizing, and levelling, characteristics of the Internet carried
-
26:27 - 26:31to every corner. It may take a little longer for that vision to
-
26:31 - 26:35become -- to become reality than we would like.
-
26:36 - 26:41>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Nick. I want to kind of moderate this
-
26:41 - 26:45in quite a light way. So I am going to first ask the panelists if
-
26:45 - 26:49anybody wants to react to Nick's comments. I think he was trying to
-
26:49 - 26:54elicit a response or a reaction there. Second, to ask if there's any
-
26:54 - 26:58other discussion the panelists would like amongst themselves, and I'm
-
26:58 - 27:03looking to see if this any a remote participation or questions from
-
27:03 - 27:07the audience. And I do see there's one back there. While we actually
-
27:07 - 27:13get a mic, could I see if there's anybody who wants to take up Nick's
-
27:13 - 27:17challenge on what he thought was a somewhat controversial statement?
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27:18 - 27:25>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: I'd rather see the audience.
-
27:25 - 27:29>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Sébastien actually wants.
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27:30 - 27:37>> SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you. Yeah, to what Nick just expressed,
-
27:37 - 27:42I fully agree with him, but I am not sure if it's just the case of the
-
27:42 - 27:48democratic or not democratic country, it's also happening in the
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27:48 - 27:56democratic country where there are -- decisions that are part of
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27:56 - 28:04publications can't be on the internet, and that the open Internet,
-
28:04 - 28:13it's not anymore open, and when you have difficulty to -- to access to
-
28:13 - 28:19different publication, it's the start of censorship.
-
28:19 - 28:25Of course, we feel that it's more important when it's happening in
-
28:25 - 28:31some non-democratic regime but I would like to say it's more broader
-
28:31 - 28:35than just those country. Thank you.
-
28:37 - 28:42>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you. So there was a question from the
-
28:42 - 28:46audience, which we will go to and that will give me a moment to get
-
28:46 - 28:47Vint settled.
-
28:47 - 28:51>> COURTNEY RADSCH: Thank you. Can you hear me?
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28:51 - 28:52>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Yes and could you introduce yourself as well?
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28:53 - 28:55>> COURTNEY RADSCH: My name is Courtney Radsch, I am with Freedom
-
28:55 - 28:59House and also an academic writing my dissertation about cyber
-
28:59 - 29:03activism. And so I'm very interested by the last person's comments,
-
29:03 - 29:10I'm sorry I didn't catch your name -- Nick. You mentioned at the end
-
29:10 - 29:15about the efforts by Iran to create their own national Internet. We
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29:15 - 29:20see this very much across the world as regimes are learning from each
-
29:20 - 29:27other, et cetera, but I was fascinated by your example of time and how
-
29:27 - 29:30that developed out of the steam network. And time does not belong to
-
29:30 - 29:35any countries, right? The countries not sovereignty over time. So why
-
29:35 - 29:40do we not conceive of the Internet as something, why are we -- let me
-
29:40 - 29:45rephrase that -- why are we conceiving of the Internet based on
-
29:45 - 29:50sovereign nation state boundaries? Doesn't the Internet hold the
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29:50 - 29:55potential along with other trends such as the power of multinational
-
29:55 - 30:01corporations and the power of individuals to connect across borders,
-
30:01 - 30:05hold the potential for conceiving of a different set of organizing
-
30:05 - 30:11principles outside of nation state sovereignty? And I think that it
-
30:11 - 30:14would be interesting to hear at this forum if we can get beyond this
-
30:14 - 30:19idea of the nation state. It concerns me both from a human rights
-
30:19 - 30:23perspective, but also as an individual who has grown up with the
-
30:23 - 30:28Internet, that we are still conceiving of the Internet and its rules
-
30:28 - 30:33as being governed by states and that they should still get to govern -- they govern
-
30:33 - 30:38their citizens so we don't care what they do inside of their borders,
-
30:38 - 30:40but online, we have the potential to have something different. I
-
30:40 - 30:43would love for us to think about, how do we make that possible?
-
30:44 - 30:49>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So thank you. That's also a very -- I'm lacking a
-
30:49 - 30:52word this late in the day -- question. But let me first go to Nick
-
30:52 - 30:55because the question was specifically directed to him, and then we'll
-
30:55 - 30:58ask Vint to come in and add any comments he'd like to to the last
-
30:58 - 31:03comment. We actually started this discussion with some discussion on
-
31:03 - 31:07the Core Internet Values and the question - are they alive and well, are they under
-
31:07 - 31:08threat?
-
31:09 - 31:12>> NICK ASHTON-HART Well, I would say, you know, can we move to a
-
31:12 - 31:16conception that is not based on the old, centuries old, concept of
-
31:16 - 31:19sovereignty. I certainly hope that's true. I certainly hope that's
-
31:19 - 31:23true. In fact, I think it's inevitable that we will do. I think you
-
31:23 - 31:27already see social constructions which on the Internet, which are not
-
31:27 - 31:32boundary related. They are bounded by what people identifying with
-
31:32 - 31:36other people that are perceived to be like them, which is a more human
-
31:36 - 31:42construct than a physical border. But just like it wasn't overnight
-
31:42 - 31:47that people said well, I'm going to give up my concept of time in my
-
31:47 - 31:51village, and agree on a national or international concept of time. It
-
31:51 - 31:53actually took a little while.
-
31:53 - 31:57There's some interesting books on it. It was quite controversial and
-
31:57 - 31:59people felt very strongly about this. They felt if they gave up the
-
31:59 - 32:06ability to determine what time it was, they were giving up their
-
32:06 - 32:11concept of the world in a real visceral way. This is why you still
-
32:11 - 32:14have daylight savings time and this kind of stuff. We've -- in two
-
32:14 - 32:18and a half centuries, we haven't totally disposed of this. We are still
-
32:18 - 32:23changing the time in the summer because of the perception of people
-
32:23 - 32:26who wake up early in agrarian environments.
-
32:26 - 32:33So, I hope, and I believe, that that vision -- we will get to that vision.
-
32:33 - 32:37All I'm saying is I think we may have to be patient. It may take some
-
32:37 - 32:41time for social constructions to catch up with a boundaryless world.
-
32:41 - 32:43That's all.
-
32:43 - 32:47>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So Vint, if you could also just say a word or two to
-
32:47 - 32:50introduce yourself. I am sure you are known to everybody here, but
-
32:50 - 32:52when people look back at these archives in 10, 20, 30 years,,
-
32:53 - 32:56>> VINT CERF: They will wonder who was that bearded, ancient person.
-
32:56 - 33:00Hello, I'm the talking dinosaur on the panel. My name is Vint Cerf,
-
33:00 - 33:06I'm Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. The
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33:06 - 33:10question that you've raised is one which I have recently become
-
33:10 - 33:16intensely interested in, thanks to two things that have happened in
-
33:16 - 33:19literally the last few days, partly a consequence of this Internet
-
33:19 - 33:26Governance Forum. Bertrand de La Chapelle, who is probably known to
-
33:26 - 33:31you, is the 21st century reincarnation of an 18th century French
-
33:31 - 33:38philosopher. And he gives us much to think. He says that the notion
-
33:38 - 33:44of sovereignty in a highly connected environment may have to change
-
33:44 - 33:50because actions taken on the sovereign grounds may have impact on
-
33:50 - 33:57others outside of the territory of that sovereign domain. He gives an
-
33:57 - 34:01analogy where river is flowing through country A and country A chooses
-
34:01 - 34:06to pollute the river just as it leaves the borders of country A and
-
34:06 - 34:11flows into country B visiting all kind of serious and deleterious
-
34:11 - 34:13results on country B.
-
34:14 - 34:22The gentleman Minister from India, Mr. Sibal, made a rather bold
-
34:22 - 34:26statement that sovereignty was dead and that the concept of
-
34:26 - 34:32sovereignty was no longer appropriate in the Internet environment.
-
34:32 - 34:37I'm not quite prepared to give up all notions of sovereignty but I
-
34:37 - 34:41will tell you, and remind you, that John Perry Barlow wrote an
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34:41 - 34:47interesting manifesto about the online environment of cyberspace. I
-
34:47 - 34:54can't reproduce it literally, but it basically said the cyberspace is
-
34:54 - 34:59a different universe and you governments can butt out. I don't think
-
34:59 - 35:04we can quite get away with this yet, and here's why. If we want to
-
35:04 - 35:10adopt a non-national kind of environment in the Internet, we have to
-
35:10 - 35:16emulate at least some of the protections that are given to us under
-
35:16 - 35:22the notion of sovereign social contract. We expect the governments to
-
35:22 - 35:27protect the citizenry. We actually give up some of our freedoms in
-
35:27 - 35:33exchange for safer environment. When we are harmed we expect that the
-
35:33 - 35:40state will have set up processes so that we can recover from that harm.
-
35:40 - 35:46That the victim has recourse against the party perpetrating the harm.
-
35:46 - 35:53There are a variety of other social order elements that show up in
-
35:53 - 35:57this social contract. If we are going to move away from the
-
35:57 - 36:02mechanisms that sovereignty gave us, we will have to find a way to
-
36:02 - 36:06reincarnate something like that in the cyberspace environment, because
-
36:06 - 36:10if we don't then we will have no recourse against harms occurring to
-
36:10 - 36:16us in that space. So, this isn't to argue that sovereignty needs to
-
36:16 - 36:19be retained necessarily but it's an argument that something has to be
-
36:19 - 36:24introduced into the cyberspace environment that provides protections
-
36:24 - 36:30and assurances of safety for people who are using that space. And
-
36:30 - 36:32that may take some effort.
-
36:33 - 36:40>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Yes. And just while the mic is going to the young
-
36:40 - 36:44woman there? Are there any questions from the remote participants in
-
36:44 - 36:46queue? Not yet.
-
36:47 - 36:51>> COURTNEY RADSCH: So, I think that might be the case if we are
-
36:51 - 36:56talking about democracies, but I think if you look at North Korea, if
-
36:56 - 36:58you look at Burma before the transition, if you look at many
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36:58 - 37:04authoritarian governments, there is no social contract, right? So we
-
37:04 - 37:08are talking about sovereignty, I think in the United States is very
-
37:08 - 37:13different, but the problem with this idea of national sovereignty is
-
37:13 - 37:18that means they get to control whatever they want to do over that
-
37:18 - 37:21population of the citizenry. And so, you know, when we are talking
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37:21 - 37:25about the Internet, I think that looking at the nation state as being
-
37:25 - 37:28sovereign over these parts, I mean this is what's happening in Iran.
-
37:28 - 37:33That's why they can create their own Internet, same with Saudi Arabia
-
37:33 - 37:36being able to create only one Internet access point and control all
-
37:36 - 37:43Internet flows. And I disagree that we're definitely on the track towards
-
37:43 - 37:47getting above and beyond that notion, I think there's a very strong
-
37:47 - 37:52push back against that. And that there are many states, and democracies
-
37:52 - 37:56included, who are very much trying to maintain the traditional
-
37:56 - 37:59concepts of sovereignty. So I would just push back a little bit on that.
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37:59 - 38:03>> VINT CERF: Let's keep pushing. I still want to debate with you.
-
38:03 - 38:09First of all, you seem to have avoided the point that I was trying
-
38:09 - 38:14to emphasize, which is that if we are going -- if it were, in fact,
-
38:14 - 38:17possible to create a uniform Internet, which we do not have for
-
38:17 - 38:23exactly the reasons you just outlined, but supposing we had one, we
-
38:23 - 38:26are still going to expect a kind of social contract in that environment. May
-
38:26 - 38:32I ask if you reject that? You want to be unsafe in the Internet? Is
-
38:32 - 38:34that what you are looking for?
-
38:34 - 38:36>> COURTNEY RADSCH: I think we would need multiple social contracts.
-
38:36 - 38:39I don't think there's going to be a single social contract.
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38:39 - 38:41>> VINT CERF: Then you are going to have a really tough time
-
38:41 - 38:44figuring out how to deal with jurisdiction. You have a big problem. You
-
38:44 - 38:50are going to have to come back to the table with a design that does
-
38:50 - 38:53what you want it to do because right now I don't see it.
-
38:54 - 38:58I'm not disagreeing with the vision that you have necessarily, but I
-
38:58 - 39:02would posit that we are certainly going to need some kind of
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39:02 - 39:06protections, you are saying maybe more than one. I don't understand
-
39:06 - 39:08how the jurisdictional questions get solved, but let's set that aside
-
39:08 - 39:12for a moment. The other side of the coin is reality, and that is that
-
39:12 - 39:16the Internet is constructed out of real things. It may be an ethereal
-
39:16 - 39:23space of concepts and abstractions, but it arises out of a real,
-
39:23 - 39:28physical system and the real physical system does lie inside of nation
-
39:28 - 39:32state boundaries, and unless we were going to do away from nation states which
-
39:32 - 39:35I don't think is likely to happen in the near term, they will have the
-
39:35 - 39:37ability to do a certain amount of control.
-
39:37 - 39:44So the attractive vision that you dangle in front of us is not
-
39:44 - 39:49necessarily reachable if there are -- if nation states as they exist
-
39:49 - 39:54today have the ability to control that virtual environment that --
-
39:54 - 40:01that you seek to instantiate. I don't know how to undo that either,
-
40:01 - 40:05no matter how hard we may work at special pieces of software to tunnel our
-
40:05 - 40:10way out of the traps that we might exist in. That is still an
-
40:10 - 40:17artifact and anything we can do, technically other people can
-
40:17 - 40:22interfere with. So I think we are a ways away from being able to
-
40:22 - 40:24realize that vision. But it's very important to recognize that, if we
-
40:24 - 40:27were to realize the vision, we'd still have to figure out how to
-
40:27 - 40:30make it the place that we want to live in.
-
40:30 - 40:34>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Vint and now Alejandro has asked to get
-
40:34 - 40:35in the queue.
-
40:36 - 40:43>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Lynn. Again, I'm a little bit
-
40:43 - 40:46uncomfortable with the radio format here.
-
40:46 - 40:49(Laughter).
-
40:49 - 40:53So this is Alejandro Pisanty speaking. I think this exchange points
-
40:53 - 41:00us in -- towards some of the things -- ways to do things, and things
-
41:00 - 41:03to attend to, that will be very productive for a group of interested
-
41:03 - 41:07people of all stakeholder groups. So I will go back first. This post-
-
41:07 - 41:13Westphalian regime which would look beyond -- let's say to have a lot
-
41:13 - 41:20more power and a lot more of life defined by life on the 'Net, instead
-
41:20 - 41:24of life determined by nation states has been pointed out long ago
-
41:24 - 41:28among others by Wolfgang Kleinwachter in the Internet Governance
-
41:28 - 41:33sphere, and long before that with utopian cyberspace visions of John Perry
-
41:33 - 41:38Barlow and many others. It has also been described by Manuel Castells
-
41:38 - 41:41as the Space of flows and it's something that we actually do know a
-
41:41 - 41:46lot about. And, of course, we know a lot about that and we know a lot about
-
41:46 - 41:49the limits that we find, the boundaries that we meet, and the walls
-
41:49 - 41:53against we bump, when we get to the nation states. And we know that
-
41:53 - 41:59some of the walls between nation states are a lot harder, and less
-
41:59 - 42:03porous, like some of the ones you mentioned. In a UN context like the Internet Governance
-
42:03 - 42:07Forum, we refrain from pointing out specific countries but
-
42:07 - 42:12innuendo and other rhetoric tricks allow you to know exactly who you
-
42:12 - 42:14are speaking about, even more.
-
42:14 - 42:26So, the way I see that this very valuable exchange feeds into the work
-
42:26 - 42:30of the Dynamic Coalition is very concrete. It's a very direct
-
42:30 - 42:37funneling. What we want to see happening over the next years is that
-
42:37 - 42:40the way the Internet continues to be built and expanded -- and it's
-
42:40 - 42:45not the way the Internet grows and expands, because that doesn't
-
42:45 - 42:48happen spontaneously -- it's people, companies, governments, technical
-
42:48 - 42:51organizations doing it. So, the way the Internet continues to be built
-
42:51 - 42:59and expanded has to be in such a way that it allows by design, or
-
42:59 - 43:05incentivates and invites by design to live more in the Space of flows,
-
43:05 - 43:11to live more to make more easy to have the -- those transnational
-
43:11 - 43:15flows that are easy to do, that are the low hanging fruit like the
-
43:15 - 43:19transfer of information, for example, communication, right to free
-
43:19 - 43:25speech, right to free association. These are easily available,
-
43:25 - 43:31compared to things like taxation or, as Vint mentioned, the ultimate
-
43:31 - 43:34social function of the monopoly -- the legitimate monopoly of force,
-
43:34 - 43:39that corresponds to protecting the citizens militarily or let's say,
-
43:39 - 43:44at a level of physical security. That's a harder wall to climb but we
-
43:44 - 43:49do want, is to make sure that the design with neutrality, with
-
43:49 - 43:53openness, with interoperability, with multistakeholder decentralized
-
43:53 - 43:58decision making, goes in the way of enabling these transnational
-
43:58 - 44:05global way of working against a trend which would enable more easily
-
44:05 - 44:10the national boundaries to prevail more strongly against even those
-
44:10 - 44:13things that you have already achieved to do in the Space of flows.
-
44:13 - 44:17That will tell us a lot of what we will have to be watchful for. If we
-
44:17 - 44:23see, as you mentioned national Internets, if we see layers of national
-
44:23 - 44:30Internets-like proposals to administrate the IPv6 addressing with
-
44:30 - 44:37national administration, if we see coercion or legal mandates to link
-
44:37 - 44:44IDNs to nationalized ccTLD management instead of the enlightened
-
44:44 - 44:49global ccTLD management we have, and that to do things like taxation,
-
44:49 - 44:54civil life expression, individuals registration, before speaking,
-
44:54 - 44:59anything that builds that platform, that would -- would have to cause
-
44:59 - 45:02an alarm to be sounded and action to be taken by those who can
-
45:02 - 45:06actually take action. I think that feeds very directly into the need
-
45:06 - 45:09for this Dynamic Coalition to exist and operate.
-
45:10 - 45:15>> VINT CERF: This is -- I'm sorry I don't mean to prolong this
-
45:15 - 45:20unnecessarily, but it occurs to me that if you look at this sort of
-
45:20 - 45:26utopian view of Internet, one thing you need to keep in mind is you
-
45:26 - 45:30are not your avatar. You are you. Your avatar is only a
-
45:30 - 45:34representation of you. The map is not the territory. And it's
-
45:34 - 45:41inescapable that the Internet is rooted in a physical world. So if we
-
45:41 - 45:47are going to move away from purely national boundaries for legal
-
45:47 - 45:51jurisdictions and the like, there will have to be at least some amount of
-
45:51 - 46:00multilateral or global agreement about social norms and at least legal
-
46:00 - 46:05norms that will allow abuses to be dealt with in this cyber
-
46:05 - 46:07environment.
-
46:07 - 46:10>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Well, I have to thank you for the question. It's
-
46:10 - 46:15obviously given rise to a lot of very interesting debate and I also
-
46:15 - 46:18appreciate Alejandro I think starting to move the discussion forward
-
46:18 - 46:22with what might this Dynamic Coalition do going forward? Before we
-
46:22 - 46:25pick that up, there was actually a question or a comment from a remote
-
46:25 - 46:28participant.
-
46:28 - 46:52(No audio).
-
46:52 - 46:57>> REMOTE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. As a follow-up to previous
-
46:57 - 47:06questions, we got several questions from our remote participants.
-
47:06 - 47:12First, a question was from Joly MacFie. As entertainment is
-
47:12 - 47:19increasingly delivered via Internet content distribution networks, how does
-
47:19 - 47:24this affect peering arrangements and the end-to-end principle, as
-
47:24 - 47:29users access content rather than hosts?
-
47:29 - 47:38The next question was from the United States, from Marcus Ledbetter.
-
47:38 - 47:43Do we all agree that this is just one Internet?
-
47:43 - 47:51And the last one, was to Mr. Vint Cerf, balancing sovereignty,
-
47:51 - 47:56openeness, regulation, and national laws, seems to me a very tricky and hard
-
47:56 - 48:02job to do. So my question to Vint Cerf, which body do you think would
-
48:02 - 48:07have the task to manage this complex task?
-
48:07 - 48:14>> VINT CERF: OK. Shall I try to answer the last one? Maybe this
-
48:14 - 48:21Dynamic Coalition is where that solution starts. Maybe this is a
-
48:21 - 48:26group that can begin examining what's possible and what isn't. It's
-
48:26 - 48:30pretty clear, though, if you are going to have international
-
48:30 - 48:37agreements that create a kind of homologized legal framework, that
-
48:37 - 48:41ultimately you are going to have to go to bodies like the World Trade
-
48:41 - 48:44Organization, or the World Intellectual Property Organization, or
-
48:44 - 48:49other parts of the UN -- or you are going to have to go to a
-
48:49 - 48:54collection of multilateral treaties in order to establish agreement.
-
48:54 - 48:57I think we will probably end up starting with the lowest common
-
48:57 - 49:02denominator, simple things. For example, what does a notarization
-
49:02 - 49:06mean, and what's a digital signature mean, and does it have common
-
49:06 - 49:09weight in all countries? We're going to have to build this up a
-
49:09 - 49:12little bit at a time. I don't think there's one body that solves all
-
49:12 - 49:16the problems.
-
49:16 - 49:20>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: There were two other questions that were posed.
-
49:20 - 49:23One was do we all agree there is one Internet and the other had to do
-
49:23 - 49:28with content and peer to peer and whether the impact on the end-to-
-
49:28 - 49:30end.
-
49:30 - 49:35So I'm sure Vint's ready to jump in and respond to that. But is there
-
49:35 - 49:39anyone else who wants to -- Nick, and then Paul.
-
49:39 - 49:42>> NICK ASHTON-HART This is Nick Ashton-Hart. So on the content
-
49:42 - 49:45question, I'll take that one. since I will be cursed for the rest of my life
-
49:45 - 49:49in dealing with -- with copyrighted material and what happens to it,
-
49:49 - 49:55given that I was a music manager for over 20 years, off and on. This
-
49:55 - 49:58is the great -- this is a perfect example of the clash between
-
49:58 - 50:04sovereignty law and the real world of the Internet and how it's really
-
50:04 - 50:09used. The copyright system is a national system and it's implemented
-
50:09 - 50:14different in different countries and yet cloud computing by its nature
-
50:14 - 50:17means that you access the same resource, two different times in the
-
50:17 - 50:21same day and you are accessing multiple different servers in multiple
-
50:21 - 50:26different countries on each of those occasions.
-
50:26 - 50:33And the application -- how to deal with the legal issues there. There
-
50:33 - 50:39has been a treaty negotiation going on in Europe for 50 years to try
-
50:39 - 50:45and determine how international law and private law, the law of
-
50:45 - 50:48individual countries, works together? And they have been unable to
-
50:48 - 50:53agree this. This is an enormously thorny question. I think it's
-
50:53 - 51:03certainly true that the desire for enforcement has an impact on what
-
51:03 - 51:06people can access. We all can see that the iTunes store has different
-
51:06 - 51:09material at different times. And I do think we're going to have to
-
51:09 - 51:15come up with some way to internationalize the way in which rights --
-
51:15 - 51:19national rights work in an international environment. There's going to
-
51:19 - 51:22have to be some way around that. It's not just for entertainment
-
51:22 - 51:27contentment but simply for the efficient functioning of services upon
-
51:27 - 51:34which increasingly large amounts of the economy rely. Pfizer, one of
-
51:34 - 51:38the world's largest drug companies, recently transferred its entire
-
51:38 - 51:43supply chain and connected directly all of its vendors to a cloud-based system
-
51:43 - 51:48so that they can see in realtime absolutely everything about their
-
51:48 - 51:50product. Where they are being made, where they are being shipped,
-
51:50 - 51:56where they are running out of them? And this is going to become
-
51:56 - 52:01increasingly the case, and the more of the world that is integrated in
-
52:01 - 52:06that way, the more in which conflicts of laws become very
-
52:06 - 52:12difficult. There is going to have to be some change in the conception of how laws
-
52:12 - 52:18work on the Internet. And I think the 50-year conversation will end
-
52:18 - 52:21much sooner -- it won't take another 50 years because the commercial
-
52:21 - 52:27realities of dealing with this will require a pragmatic result that
-
52:27 - 52:30wasn't required by the situation over the last 50 years. It was an
-
52:30 - 52:33academic discussion for 50 years because it could be. Now it's not
-
52:33 - 52:36academic anymore.
-
52:36 - 52:40>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Nick. Paul?
-
52:40 - 52:43>> PAUL WILSON: I wanted to answer the question about one Internet in
-
52:43 - 52:47a slightly different way, and that's -- but it's a way that depends on
-
52:47 - 52:55how you define the Internet in asking the question. Because I used the
-
52:55 - 52:59term loosely before in terms of how, what would the Internet be like
-
52:59 - 53:04ten years down the track, or some time down the track, and would it become a different Internet.
-
53:04 - 53:07In that case, the Internet's kind of everything, it's the universe
-
53:07 - 53:11that we are talking about. There's only just one of those. But if you
-
53:11 - 53:14start to drill down through that either to the level of users, or
-
53:14 - 53:18content, or applications, then it's really -- the Internet is in the
-
53:18 - 53:24eye of the beholder, and there are many different ways to perceive the Internet, and I think it's withiin all of those layers that we
-
53:24 - 53:26start to get confused in Internet Governance. What are we really
-
53:26 - 53:29talking about? There's the broad definition, there's the narrow
-
53:29 - 53:34definition. But actually speaking technically the Internet is the
-
53:34 - 53:38transport layer of the network that we are talking about. It is the
-
53:38 - 53:43thing that I was referring to before that is the single global neutral
-
53:43 - 53:47network that allows any point to connect to any other point, and
-
53:47 - 53:54actually that thing is in its ideal form that we are all working to
-
53:54 - 53:58preserve. It is one network. And that is the beauty of it. So let's
-
53:58 - 54:03not sort of mix up ourselves too much about saying which Internet we
-
54:03 - 54:06are talking about, and yes there are many, or yes there are none,
-
54:06 - 54:09because if you want to be quite specific about the Internet layer of
-
54:09 - 54:12the network that we all enjoy, the Internet layer is the transport
-
54:12 - 54:15layer. There has to be just one of those and it's really not a matter
-
54:15 - 54:19of perspective, it really is -- is simply the technical infrastructure
-
54:19 - 54:23and that is something that, as within this discussion about values, we
-
54:23 - 54:28should really identify, as I say, which Internet we are talking about
-
54:28 - 54:30and be quite precise about that. Thanks.
-
54:30 - 54:35>> VINT CERF: So it's Vint again. I would like to make a small nuance
-
54:35 - 54:40here. We all understand that the Internet protocols don't necessarily
-
54:40 - 54:43have to be used in the global interconnected sytem. People have used
-
54:43 - 54:47these same protocols to build private networks. But I don't consider
-
54:47 - 54:52those to be capital-I Internet, those are lowercase-I, clones that
-
54:52 - 54:57don't have the same scope and probably have very different intent. I
-
54:57 - 55:03wanted to come back though to this question of rights management and dealing
-
55:03 - 55:10with intellectual property in a digital environment. It occurs to me
-
55:10 - 55:16that, if we treat content as digital objects for just a moment, not
-
55:16 - 55:19differentiating what they are, whether they are books, novels, music, or some
-
55:19 - 55:25game or some other thing, piece of software, just imagine them as bags
-
55:25 - 55:27full of bits.
-
55:27 - 55:32And if we thought that it was possible to build mechanisms for access
-
55:32 - 55:38control to those bags of bits so there was some form of enforcement
-
55:38 - 55:43for access and use, if we thought it was possible to achieve that,
-
55:43 - 55:50then we might actually come to a general purpose solution to the
-
55:50 - 55:53problem of --that you were talking about, Nick.
-
55:53 - 55:58And so, I think there may be technical mechanisms that might be
-
55:58 - 56:03implemented to make access to digital content, and digital objects of
-
56:03 - 56:10all kinds, manageable. And here, I think, if we were able to demonstrate that
-
56:10 - 56:14you could establish whatever terms and conditions you wished and that these
-
56:14 - 56:18are for access and use, and if those terms and conditions could really
-
56:18 - 56:26be enforced, technically enforced, then many of the problems that have
-
56:26 - 56:30arisen in the national context of copyright, for instance, would
-
56:30 - 56:36evaporate, and be assimilated into this more general system.
-
56:36 - 56:39>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So I want to see if there are any remote
-
56:39 - 56:43participants or anybody here in the audience who would like to either
-
56:43 - 56:48follow up or engage on any of the discussions to date or a new topic.
-
56:48 - 56:51We need a mic up here in the front row.
-
56:51 - 57:09(Silence)
-
57:09 - 57:13>> SUBI CHATURVEDI: Hi. My name is Subi Chaturvedi and I teach
-
57:13 - 57:16journalism and communication at Delhi University, and I run a
-
57:16 - 57:19foundation called Media for Change. We just put together one of the
-
57:19 - 57:26first IGFs in India. I think it's been a fantastic experience for me just
-
57:26 - 57:30to have been here and experienced this. But when we are
-
57:30 - 57:33looking at the core values of the Internet and there have been several
-
57:33 - 57:39threats that I've observed just now and the fact that we are having a
-
57:39 - 57:45discussion. But I'm coming from a country which is India, and when we
-
57:45 - 57:51talk about access, diversity precedes access, and I do not think that
-
57:51 - 57:56the question of Internet as a physical layer that transports data.
-
57:56 - 58:01Because the Internet in India, per se has been an enabler, it's been a
-
58:01 - 58:07facilitator. it's meant different things to different people. And as,
-
58:07 - 58:13probably Susan would read things, it is not one thing but many, and
-
58:13 - 58:15then we are looking at core values.
-
58:15 - 58:19I wanted Vint in particular to address this because I would slightly
-
58:19 - 58:24disagree. The discussion on the Internet and the future of the
-
58:24 - 58:29Internet has almost not been academic enough. On the contrary, it's
-
58:29 - 58:33been in every space possible. I would on the other hand
-
58:33 - 58:38suggest that we need to institutionalize learnings both from the IGF.
-
58:38 - 58:42It's been a fantastic bottoms up approach. So there are two questions
-
58:42 - 58:46there because there's clearly -- and I'm putting this across in the
-
58:46 - 58:51context of the ITU and the ITRs, we are looking at a situation where
-
58:51 - 58:55we could be writing binding, mandatory treaties. So what happens to
-
58:55 - 59:00core values such as permissionless innovation, openness, the idea of
-
59:00 - 59:02putting together structures, and the modularity of Internet. Because
-
59:02 - 59:05clearly some of the issues that the -- the new ITRs are trying to
-
59:05 - 59:11address are local, they're domestic. And then we are trying to bring
-
59:11 - 59:14in questions like IP to IP interconnectivity in spaces such as those.
-
59:14 - 59:18So, my concerns are many and there are several threads and strains of
-
59:18 - 59:22questions. I don't even know if I have been able to articulate the
-
59:22 - 59:26right thing but if some of the panelists could comment or take those
-
59:26 - 59:29issues up, I'd be most grateful. Thank you.
-
59:29 - 59:31>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I'm sure Vint"s in the queue,
-
59:31 - 59:33>> VINT CERF: Yeah, anybody else?
-
59:33 - 59:36>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Alejandro and Nick.
-
59:36 - 59:46>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you. And I will ask you for your name
-
59:46 - 59:50later for the record I am keeping. And I think that I am very glad to
-
59:50 - 59:55hear that the discussion is not academic enough. At the same time that
-
59:55 - 59:58I hear -- especially at the same time that I hear the discussion is
-
59:58 - 60:02too academic. I think we are lacking. We are continuously lacking
-
60:02 - 60:08discussions in both senses. I think there's a dearth of academic --
-
60:08 - 60:14solid academic research and reflection, that has to expand the body
-
60:14 - 60:18that's already growing from many other angles, and on the other hand,
-
60:18 - 60:24we have to be able to take the knowledge, the informed opinion, that
-
60:24 - 60:30we are obtaining in the I -- from academic discussions down to -- to
-
60:30 - 60:33the questions as you have mentioned, for example, how to institutionalize the
-
60:33 - 60:39knowledge coming from the IGF without institutionalizing the IGF too
-
60:39 - 60:45much, because that's one thing that we continuously want to -- I won't
-
60:45 - 60:48say to avoid, but to manage properly.
-
60:48 - 60:52And, again, you mentioned what happens to the core values, things like
-
60:52 - 60:59the ITRs have the potential to crystallize or to -- yeah, or else I
-
60:59 - 61:04will keep it to that, to crystallize things that should continue to be
-
61:04 - 61:09flexible, and that's the kind of permanent watch that probably a well
-
61:09 - 61:14functioning Dynamic Coalition on Internet Core Values should be able
-
61:14 - 61:18to at least report on and maybe deliver the appropriate calls for
-
61:18 - 61:21action.
-
61:21 - 61:24>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So I'll go to Nick and Vint and in the last 15
-
61:24 - 61:28minutes, that was an excellent series of questions, in the next 15
-
61:28 - 61:32minutes I would like to go to what might this Dynamic Coalition
-
61:32 - 61:36address going forward. The reason we keep coming back with these
-
61:36 - 61:39workshops is because we have interesting discussions like this and we
-
61:39 - 61:42find enough of interest to get us hooked. We get just now to take the
-
61:42 - 61:46next step and be a little more concrete so we can actually keep it
-
61:46 - 61:49alive between forums. So Nick?
-
61:49 - 61:53>> NICK ASHTON-HART: I will try and start on that with this. Your
-
61:53 - 61:57questions are excellent ones and it made me think that perhaps one of
-
61:57 - 62:04the answers is WCIT itself because, as Alejandro and others have
-
62:04 - 62:11described, because WCIT is designed to regulate the relationships that can
-
62:11 - 62:16impact the permissionless nature of interconnectiion, as you put it,
-
62:16 - 62:20the fundamental foundation of the Internet. That is why
-
62:20 - 62:24they have attracted, I think, such a visceral and strong response. And so it
-
62:24 - 62:30occurs to me that perhaps one of the things this coalition could do is
-
62:30 - 62:36to try and articulate a vision for the fundamentals of the Internet,
-
62:36 - 62:45and then recognize that people may take a different view about how
-
62:45 - 62:50societies, not necessarily nation states, but how societies approach
-
62:50 - 62:55information that is sent, differently than they approach the
-
62:55 - 63:00importance of preserving the free flow of data inherently, and the
-
63:00 - 63:04inherent architecture of the Internet, so that it can work. I hope
-
63:04 - 63:09that that's not true. I hope that people understand that you can't have
-
63:09 - 63:13one without the other, but maybe we can start -- we can get a broader
-
63:13 - 63:20consensus if we start, saying how do we ensure the widest possible
-
63:20 - 63:23access to the Internet, with the highest performance, at the lowest
-
63:23 - 63:26cost, for the maximum number of people, on a permissionless basis,
-
63:26 - 63:32such as we have enjoyed so far. So that we get as much of the world
-
63:32 - 63:38online at the lowest cost possible, as a starting place, which is
-
63:38 - 63:41obviously clearly happening as Internet access growth is exploding in
-
63:41 - 63:45the areas where it is least dense. Maybe that's not the right
-
63:45 - 63:51solution and you can all tell me I'm wrong but --
-
63:51 - 63:54>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Vint?
-
63:54 - 63:58>> VINT CERF: I don't think you're wrong, Nick. It's Vint. Let me
-
63:58 - 64:05start by asking you to think a little bit about how the Internet is
-
64:05 - 64:10actually constructed. It is a layered architecture. I don't want to
-
64:10 - 64:17make that overly rigid or prescriptive, but it's helpful to think of
-
64:17 - 64:22it as a layered architecture, and what happens is that, as you work
-
64:22 - 64:29your way up in the layers, you abstract from the behavior of the lower
-
64:29 - 64:35layers, you actually hide some of the details. And as a consequence of
-
64:35 - 64:42this abstraction going upwards, there are emerging properties that
-
64:42 - 64:47come out of those abstractions. And what is interesting about the
-
64:47 - 64:50emergent properties is that as you get up to the point where you are
-
64:50 - 64:54in the application space, you are in a universe which is very nearly
-
64:54 - 65:00unbounded because it is an artifact of software. It is literally an
-
65:00 - 65:04artifact of what the software -- how the software interprets the bits
-
65:04 - 65:10that it's moving around. The consequence of this notion of emergent
-
65:10 - 65:18property is that the jurisdictional aspects of who is responsible for
-
65:18 - 65:24what, how do you go about enforcing some particular practice might
-
65:24 - 65:29vary from one layer to another, which is why, for example, we might
-
65:29 - 65:35tolerate an ITR environment which is focused on the layers of physical
-
65:35 - 65:40interconnection, but we might not tolerate an ITR environment that
-
65:40 - 65:44looks up into the application space and says something about content
-
65:44 - 65:48and what we can or can't say, or do.
-
65:48 - 65:57So I think we are going to have to keep in mind that order arising out
-
65:57 - 66:03of this abstraction and emergent properties is going to vary from one
-
66:03 - 66:06layer to another.
-
66:06 - 66:10Second point, I think, is that the Internet has evolved successfully
-
66:10 - 66:15over the last 30 years of its operation primarily because it's been a
-
66:15 - 66:21regulation-free environment. Most of the decisions that get made are
-
66:21 - 66:26freely made among parties. The protocols that are invented and
-
66:26 - 66:32adopted are a consequence of consensus in the IETF. The decision to
-
66:32 - 66:37interconnect or not, or even to build a piece of Internet, or to
-
66:37 - 66:40choose a particular piece of equipment, or a particular version of
-
66:40 - 66:46software is entirely open. And each individual operator chooses, even
-
66:46 - 66:51you do when you buy a router to put at home and build a Wi-Fi station,
-
66:51 - 66:57you make a choice. Nobody dictates to you anything except, perhaps, you should
-
66:57 - 66:59buy one that does the following things, because if you don't it won't
-
66:59 - 67:06work. It should do IPv6 now because you need IPv6, things like that.
-
67:06 - 67:12So I think that the one core principle that we don't want to lose, is
-
67:12 - 67:16that the relatively deregulated environment has allowed a lot of other
-
67:16 - 67:23forces and incentives to choose a way forward for Internet to evolve.
-
67:23 - 67:29Prescribing its evolution with a set of constraining treaty-like
-
67:29 - 67:33agreements does not sound like, we would reproduce in the next 20 years,
-
67:33 - 67:37what we have enjoyed in the last 20.
-
67:37 - 67:40>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So I'm going to ask Siva to say some comments and
-
67:40 - 67:44at the same time see if we can get a mic up here on the front. Because
-
67:44 - 67:48Fatima wants to come in after. And while we do that I will say that
-
67:48 - 67:51the small committee who was pulling the panel together obviously
-
67:51 - 67:54failed horribly in terms of gender balance. I'm extremely happy
-
67:54 - 67:57though that that the three questions we have had from the floor have
-
67:57 - 67:59come from the women in the audience, so thank you.
-
67:59 - 68:03But if you could get a mic over here for Fatima, while we go to Siva.
-
68:03 - 68:06we'll be able to move forward a little more quickly.
-
68:06 - 68:09>> SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: Actually there was supposed to be
-
68:09 - 68:11greater gender balance, Désirée was supposed to be here and I made
-
68:11 - 68:16some miscommunication error in communication so she is not here.
-
68:16 - 68:21I want to reflect on the suggestion by Nick Ashton-Hart. He was
-
68:21 - 68:25talking about the Coalition articulating a vision for the future of
-
68:25 - 68:30the Internet. And what we could do is bring together some of the most
-
68:30 - 68:35brilliant minds. Vint was talking about Bertrand, the 18th century
-
68:35 - 68:39philosopher reincarnated in the 20th century. And I can think of
-
68:39 - 68:47people, like diverse people, with diverse opinions, people like John Perry Barlow, Vint,
-
68:47 - 68:53and some of the early founders of Internet, not only to think of
-
68:53 - 68:58Internet as the layer, as it means to technical people, but to think
-
68:58 - 69:02of Internet as what it means to the common man. It is -- it is much
-
69:02 - 69:07broader than the layer. It is much bigger than the layer. It is
-
69:07 - 69:08everything for the common man.
-
69:08 - 69:13And we want to articulate a vision for that Internet, put together
-
69:13 - 69:17some of the brilliant minds and come up with a vision and communicate
-
69:17 - 69:23that vision to governments, to other stakeholders so that we start working
-
69:23 - 69:27on it in the long term, and that is one of what I think we could do,
-
69:27 - 69:31and it's open for corrections.
-
69:31 - 69:38And the other thing we could to is have even between IGFs and not --
-
69:38 - 69:43I'm not talking about only about events, some activity between IGFs.
-
69:43 - 69:49It could be an event. It could be -- it could be anything. It could
-
69:49 - 69:53be anything happening in different parts of world, one in New York,
-
69:53 - 69:58one probably in Mexico, India, Pakistan, everywhere and so that way we
-
69:58 - 70:04can continue our activities and we could also expand participation in
-
70:04 - 70:11our mailing list. And so, these are some of my ideas and suggestions. And
-
70:11 - 70:16it's for Lynn to think over and do it for the next one or two years or
-
70:16 - 70:19more.
-
70:19 - 70:22>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: As somebody on my staff says, I think that was a
-
70:22 - 70:28lateral pass to what he believes is a more nimble player! (Laughter).
-
70:28 - 70:29I'm not sure the pass won't go back.
-
70:29 - 70:32>> VINT CERF: That's called delegating upwards.
-
70:32 - 70:36>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I'm only doing what Siva tells me to do. Did you
-
70:36 - 70:40have any other comments, Vint, before we go to Fatima?
-
70:40 - 70:50>> FATIMA CAMBRONERO: Now? Ok, thank you. I'm Fatima Cambronero. I am
-
70:50 - 70:58ISOC ambassador, but I speak in my personal capacity. We are speaking
-
70:58 - 71:03about the bottom up processes and regarding to the future of the
-
71:03 - 71:07Dynamic Coalition, it's a suggestion, I think it would be a good idea
-
71:07 - 71:16to do the outreach in the national and regional IGFs, to get the input
-
71:16 - 71:21of the community, the local and regional community, to the Global
-
71:21 - 71:33Dynamic Coalition. Thank you.
-
71:33 - 71:37>> SUBI CHATURVEDI: I will just make a twitter comment. I couldn't
-
71:37 - 71:41agree more with Siva when he mentions the fact that there should be
-
71:41 - 71:45more IGFs. You could call a rose by any name but one would want a
-
71:45 - 71:49thousand flowers to bloom. One of the things that really concerns us
-
71:49 - 71:53is when you are looking at any -- because Internet largely has
-
71:53 - 71:56become for us in this part of the world, public good. When you are
-
71:56 - 72:01looking at any policy that affects that, it has to be taken into
-
72:01 - 72:06consensus by multistakeholders and it has to, has to look at opinions
-
72:06 - 72:11because it's going to affect our future. So that was one submission.
-
72:11 - 72:14And the second was, we've had the Occupy Wall Street, we've had the
-
72:14 - 72:17Arab Spring. If you could look at this as an Internet Governance
-
72:17 - 72:22movement and not merely a forum and keep us all connected, because
-
72:22 - 72:26there are vulnerable communities, and I speak from the margins, and
-
72:26 - 72:31mostly women and children are used as a peg by a lot of governments,
-
72:31 - 72:37in a lot of spaces, for backhand regulation. So that must not happen.
-
72:37 - 72:41And if we could somehow facilitate this process of engagement, and
-
72:41 - 72:45disseminate the learnings, that becomes crucial because we celebrate
-
72:45 - 72:51this movement. We celebrate this opportunity but I do believe we owe
-
72:51 - 72:56it to the universe, at the risk of sounding dramatic, to make sure that we
-
72:56 - 72:59preserve what we have, which is ours. Thank you.
-
72:59 - 73:02>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I'd sign up to follow you into that vision. In a
-
73:02 - 73:06second. And we should certainly pull you into the steering committee,
-
73:06 - 73:09if we can identify one as such.
-
73:09 - 73:11>> VINT CERF: Did you just delegate in the other direction there?
-
73:11 - 73:15>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Just pulling in multiple voices. This is a Dynamic
-
73:15 - 73:18Coalition which is composed of multiple stakeholders,
-
73:18 - 73:21drawn from different communities.
-
73:21 - 73:25Let me see, is there anybody who wants to come in or that or any other
-
73:25 - 73:28suggestions? I know, we certainly have taken a number of
-
73:28 - 73:33possibilities away in terms of things we might go do more concretely,
-
73:33 - 73:37and we will get you the mic back. And we'll take that away. There is a
-
73:37 - 73:40mailing list which is open, so please join the mailing list, and let's see if
-
73:40 - 73:46we can identify some concrete activities. Yes, I know. Yes. We will go
-
73:46 - 73:50to you and then we will go to Vint.
-
73:50 - 73:53>> COURTNEY RADSCH: Hello, so on concrete recommendations and
-
73:53 - 73:56following up on the comments, we were actually on a panel yesterday
-
73:56 - 74:01about national and regional IGFs. And I think for those of us who are
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74:01 - 74:05attending the international IGF for the first time, but who have also
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74:05 - 74:09attended the national ones, it is very unclear how are these related
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74:09 - 74:13and how do these feed into each other?
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74:13 - 74:20And I want to go -- you -- yes, so Subi, you have a very long name,
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74:20 - 74:25the gentleman from India, mentioned what can we do inbetween. I mean,
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74:25 - 74:28one of these things could at least be to create a wiki or something
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74:28 - 74:34online where some of the outcome documents, can be put online, and
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74:34 - 74:38maybe have a discussion online. I think that having physical events
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74:38 - 74:42obviously produces barriers to participation, even though we do have
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74:42 - 74:45remote participation and that sort of thing. So I think there are
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74:45 - 74:50multiple ways of doing that, and you know, the core values of the
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74:50 - 74:53internet, ultimately, I think is one of the most important debates
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74:53 - 74:56that's at hand. So this is a great opportunity.
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74:56 - 75:01And one thing I would like to get from you guys before this ends is
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75:01 - 75:07how to continue this discussion inbetween IGFs.
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75:07 - 75:09>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I really appreciate your comments and we will go to
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75:09 - 75:13Vint and I'm also really, really heartened to hear the support for Core
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75:13 - 75:18Internet Values because within ISOC, we spent so much time talking
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75:18 - 75:22about it, that at some point, you could start to feel it is overdone, if you will, even
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75:22 - 75:26when you see evidence that in fact it's still needed, and more is needed.
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75:26 - 75:28So I appreciate that. Vint?
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75:28 - 75:33>> VINT CERF: So I have two suggestions, maybe three. In the Internet
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75:33 - 75:39Engineering Task Force, where working groups develop standards, one of
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75:39 - 75:43the tactics that's used to solve particular problems is to send a
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75:43 - 75:48design team out, maybe three or four people, not many more than that,
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75:48 - 75:52to work through the problem and make concrete propositions. We might
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75:52 - 75:56pick particular problems and have a design team approach to proposals
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75:56 - 76:02to solve them, or at least, proposals to approach them. Example,
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76:02 - 76:06Internet -- I'm sorry, intellectual property management, of course, is
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76:06 - 76:11a huge area, but the design team that tackles a conceptual framework
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76:11 - 76:16for dealing with that, in an online environment, might be a concrete
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76:16 - 76:19thing that could be done. I don't suggest that that's the only thing. I'm
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76:19 - 76:25picking that as an example. The other thing which I find extremely
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76:25 - 76:29appealing is this notion of Internet Governance movement. Somehow sometimes
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76:29 - 76:35the words capture exactly what you want and this is not a point
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76:35 - 76:39solution thing. This is a continuous process.
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76:39 - 76:44And in the case of core values, this Internet Governance movement, I
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76:44 - 76:47would interpret to mean the preservation, a movement to preserve the
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76:47 - 76:52values that have made the Internet what it has been, and what it
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76:52 - 76:57should be in the future. So I like the term very much and I appreciate
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76:57 - 77:06you introducing that meme into our intellectual universe. There was
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77:06 - 77:11one other very practical thing to suggest. Google+ has a service
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77:11 - 77:15called hangouts, and if you have adequate access to Internet
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77:15 - 77:19bandwidth, hangouts turn out to be a pretty convenient way to have a
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77:19 - 77:23design team discussion even if you are not physically in the same place.
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77:23 - 77:28>> SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: That is a limitation of ten users, and
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77:28 - 77:29so..
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77:29 - 77:31>> VINT CERF: But that's why I said design team, which typically has
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77:31 - 77:33three to four.
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77:33 - 77:37>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I think he was trying to give you a product
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77:37 - 77:41message. (laughter)
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77:41 - 77:47Before we -- I want to go around once more, giving preference to those
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77:47 - 77:50who have'nt spoken so much, so Sébastien has asked for some comments,
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77:50 - 77:56and I think Paul, Alejandro, Nick, closing comments?
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77:56 - 78:01>> SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Yes, it's a comment on the comments you made
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78:01 - 78:08about the Internet Forum, and the fact that you start to be involved
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78:08 - 78:12at the national level and the regional level before to come to the
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78:12 - 78:17international one. It's interesting because the IGF was created the
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78:17 - 78:22other way round. It was created not bottom up, but top down, and --
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78:22 - 78:32and even at the beginning, it was very difficult to make understood
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78:32 - 78:37that we need regional and national IGF, and it's still not understood
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78:37 - 78:43everywhere. In France, there's no IGF at all. And I don't see when
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78:43 - 78:48it will be. Then it's interesting the way it was done and the way you
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78:48 - 78:56leave with. But I would like to take as a very good suggestion that,
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78:56 - 79:05how we can, under this subject, in each and every IGF, and not just
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79:05 - 79:08traveling because it's quite complicated, but people who could be
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79:08 - 79:11involved like you in your country or in your region, and with the
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79:11 - 79:17tools we can have to be in remote participation on that
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79:17 - 79:23subject. I think if we can globalize this local intervention, it will
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79:23 - 79:26be a good way to go. Thank you.
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79:26 - 79:32>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sébastien. Anyone else?
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79:32 - 79:41>> PAUL WILSON: Final remarks. Well, I think the suggestion with
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79:41 - 79:43reference to the regional and national IGFs is really well put. And I
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79:43 - 79:49think this kind of -- the ongoing process that's implied by Dynamic
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79:49 - 79:54Coalition is a really good one for linkage at the regional and
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79:54 - 79:57national levels. And, come to talk of that, there was recently an
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79:57 - 80:01Australian IGF, which had a really nice session - a little too
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80:01 - 80:04ambitious as it happened for the time available, but it was a really
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80:04 - 80:09nice approach to Internet values, which started with a brainstorming
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80:09 - 80:13on what are the aspects of the Internet that we believe are
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80:13 - 80:17fundamental, and which we either take for granted, as I mentioned
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80:17 - 80:23before, or which we would regret if we lost.
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80:23 - 80:27And I think that's a really interesting approach, but one of the --
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80:27 - 80:30one of the sort of problems I guess I had with the process was that it
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80:30 - 80:34was a little bit overly expansive for me. So it tended to capture
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80:34 - 80:37everything that we wanted out of the Internet, whether freedom of
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80:37 - 80:40speech was on the list, I'm not sure, but it was sort of -- it could
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80:40 - 80:46have been, the way, with that brainstorming approach. And I think the
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80:46 - 80:49powerful term there is a word I learned to spell during WSIS which is
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80:49 - 80:54subsidiarity, and it's this idea, that the solution to any given
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80:54 - 80:57problem is best located closest to that problem. It doesn't mean
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80:57 - 81:02geographical actually. I'm just recalling that Roham Samarajiva made
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81:02 - 81:05this statement that international treaties should be limited to what
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81:05 - 81:09they, and they alone, need to do. Which is also a statement of
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81:09 - 81:12subsidiarity. So if we are talking about Internet principles I'd
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81:12 - 81:15like to suggest to bear that in mind and to be really looking at what
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81:15 - 81:19fundamental to the Internet, not to do with our expectations and our
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81:19 - 81:23higher aspirations, out of the Internet. Because we kind of know
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81:23 - 81:28that's unlimited, really, but to look at it from that point of view,
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81:28 - 81:33and maybe that's something that an exercise, in the meantime, or
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81:33 - 81:38through linkage to regional, national, IGFs we could look at. Thanks.
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81:38 - 81:40>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Some very interesting comments, as well Alejandro,
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81:40 - 81:44or Nick, any quick closing comments before people need to run?
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81:44 - 81:51>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Very briefly, I think the point of subsidiarity
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81:51 - 81:57is very well put by Paul. We must make form follow function. In many
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81:57 - 82:02countries raising a national IGF brings a number of metaphors. It's
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82:02 - 82:08like kicking a sleeping dog while you are raising a high antenna under
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82:08 - 82:12a thunderstorm and painting yourself a target, and a few more of
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82:12 - 82:17those, but it's really not necessarily a desirable thing. You have to
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82:17 - 82:20find the tactic that's locally appropriate.
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82:20 - 82:26I do take very seriously, the excitement and the enthusiasm, the wiki
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82:26 - 82:30actually already exists. We have to -- I take responsibility, I
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82:30 - 82:34guess, together with Siva, to activate it and make it known, and make
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82:34 - 82:37it available for you to contribute, and we have a mailing list that we
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82:37 - 82:43will include you in and make more active. All the things exist and I'm
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82:43 - 82:47committing to you to put a lot of effort into making it continue,
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82:47 - 82:51and be of service, and be actually fed by everybody.
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82:51 - 82:55>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Nick? And just one quick comment, you can actually
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82:55 - 82:57get to the Dynamic Coalition from the IGF home page on the left-hand,
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82:57 - 83:00and we will make sure that you can get easy access to the list and
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83:00 - 83:03that sort of information from there as well.
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83:03 - 83:05>> NICK ASHTON-HART That was going to be my question is do we want
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83:05 - 83:08it, like, people to give an address or something, who want to get on
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83:08 - 83:11the mailing list, or is it easier to just go to the IGF website or
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83:11 - 83:14something?
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83:14 - 83:19>> SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: What you could do is you can all give me
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83:19 - 83:22your cards and I'll straight away, by today evening, I will send you a mail
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83:22 - 83:28giving you the link to the mailing address, or sending you an invitation
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83:28 - 83:31to the mailing list straight away.
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83:31 - 83:37>> VINT CERF: I'm having a small cognitive dissonance right now. And
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83:37 - 83:41the reasaon is that, we were talking about trying to move away from
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83:41 - 83:45nation state, sovereignty and everything else. So why do we think
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83:45 - 83:49that we have to have national and regional IGFs? Why aren't we
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83:49 - 83:54talking about people who are -- have common interests, no matter where
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83:54 - 83:57they happen to be and the organizing principle is not where you are,
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83:57 - 84:00but what you think and what you are interested in.
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84:00 - 84:04>> PAUL WILSON: It has to do with travel costs. (Laughter)
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84:04 - 84:06>> VINT CERF: No, that's why we use the Internet to in order to do this in the
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84:06 - 84:07first place.
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84:07 - 84:09>> PAUL WILSON: But Google hangout only allows ten people at once.
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84:09 - 84:13>> VINT CERF: Well, so, that's what a design team's all about.
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84:13 - 84:17And besides which, there's also On-The-Air version which allows a bazillion people to
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84:17 - 84:19listen in while the other ten are talking to each other.
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84:19 - 84:21>> PAUL WILSON: I knew you'd have an answer.
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84:21 - 84:25>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So I actually think we need both obviously. There
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84:25 - 84:28are some discussions that are really well advanced local level, local
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84:28 - 84:31language, really particular, you can take it to the concrete, and
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84:31 - 84:35then you can actually use that to move forward and drive action. And
-
84:35 - 84:38yet there's an awful lot of learning that happens in broader forums
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84:38 - 84:41and exchange of best practices and thoughts and your ideas are
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84:41 - 84:45enriched. So I think there's a lot of value in both of them. And I
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84:45 - 84:48think that's actually one of the good things about the global IGF, if
-
84:48 - 84:53that's what we are calling it and a whole host of different types of
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84:53 - 84:57forum, whether it's a national IGF or it's some workshop, you know,
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84:57 - 85:02it's about discussion, communication and exchange of ideas. We are a
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85:02 - 85:04little over time. I would like to thank the remote participants for
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85:04 - 85:13hanging in there. I'm sure this isn't nearly as robust or enriching
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85:13 - 85:17an activity as when you are in the room. And I see one comment back
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85:17 - 85:25here from --
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85:25 - 85:31>> REMOTE MODERATOR: Just one comment to the recent comment of Mr.
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85:31 - 85:43Cerf, from a remote participant. Seth Johnson says, the general
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85:43 - 85:48purpose nature of copyright comes from the inherent flexibility of
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85:48 - 85:52information, once it's published. This is reflected in the fact or
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85:52 - 85:58idea versus expression dichotomy. You don't really deal with the
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85:58 - 86:03nature of copyright online, if you just talk about works as bags of
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86:03 - 86:10bits. So I think this is a question. Why is sovereignty strictly
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86:10 - 86:16limited to rights? People assert their rights via local
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86:16 - 86:20sovereignties. It's a matter of recognizing that the people must rely
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86:20 - 86:26on that for rights, versus the broader oversight the nation states
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86:26 - 86:30attempt. So it was a comment, general.
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86:30 - 86:37>> VINT CERF: If you want me to respond, one thing I need to respond, one thing I need to point out is that
-
86:37 - 86:43the bag of bits is not static, necessarily. Because if it's a piece
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86:43 - 86:46of software, or if the bits need to be interpreted by a piece of
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86:46 - 86:52software, it's a very dynamic thing. So if the criticism, or comment, is that the
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86:52 - 86:58bag of bits is similar to a book or other static object, I don't believe that
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86:58 - 87:04they have to be. They cab extremely dynamic kinds of elements.
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87:04 - 87:06>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I wasn't forcing you to respond but I always like
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87:06 - 87:11your responses. So I'd also like to thank everyone here in the room,
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87:11 - 87:14particularly for being so engaged and I think some excellent questions
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87:14 - 87:19and suggestions. Obviously thank you to the panelists, and a very big
-
87:19 - 87:22thank you to Siva as well. As I said, he really has been, as
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87:22 - 87:27Alejandro has said, the person who has kept actually kind of this
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87:27 - 87:30alive from forum to forum. So I would like to give everybody a round
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87:30 - 87:34of applause and thank you very much. (Applause)
- Title:
- Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at IGF 2012
- Description:
-
Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at the Internet Governance Forum, Baku, Azerbaijan on November 8 2012.
The third meeting of this Dynamic Coalition examined the challenges to the Open and Global Internet, define present issues and arrived at recommendations for fair policies for the further evolution of the Internet as a free and open eco-system
Chair:Lynn St Amour, President of the Internet Society,
Participants include:
* Nick Ashton-Hart - Geneva Representative, Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA)
* Sebastien Bachollet, ICANN Board
* Fatima Cambronero - President, AGEIA DENSI (Argentina)
* Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
* Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, President, Internet Society India Chennai
* Alejandro Pisanty, Chair, Internet Society Mexico,
* Paul Wilson (Director General, APNIC)http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/Meetings/dynamic-coalition-core-internet-values
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- Captions Requested
- Duration:
- 01:27:50
ISOC-NY edited English subtitles for Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at IGF 2012 | ||
ISOC-NY edited English subtitles for Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at IGF 2012 | ||
ISOC-NY edited English subtitles for Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at IGF 2012 | ||
ISOC-NY edited English subtitles for Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values Workshop at IGF 2012 | ||
ISOC-NY added a translation |