Re: [kictanet] Day 1 0f 10:-Internet Governance Discussions, Introductory Theme
Hi All, The internet has become an essential instrument of today's society......however,its potential is far greater than what we have seen.....As Michuki,puts it...we are yet to see the best and worst of it...in this regard, its governance...seeks a lot of creativity....(We cant afford to go the traditional way,of setting 3-5year policies)etc.. what we have to bear in mind...its boderless and still evolving.... Curiosity: What would 'Internet governance' be in Swahili? Utawalaji wa interneti? Kind Regards, NB: Mwende,I love your disclaimer :-) On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke>wrote:
Thanks Brian and Many contributors on Internet Governance Subject and Discussions thereafter.
More challenging is the development of policies and guidelines which could be adopted in the various sectors / sub-sectors in order for us as a country to have sound IG.
More recently, in Education Sector for example, Technology (Particularly Internet - Social Networks) blame was featured in some media, to be possible cause for the youth stir-up in Secondary Schools. I think as Walu and most of us contribute in this worthy discussion at Macro level, lets also think of Micro-level as well. Before a National Policy is in place, proposals need to be put forth for specific sectors to move on develop into guidelines and standards.
Recently, UNESCO's ICT Division organized a conference to discuss ICT ethics and morals and indeed Internet Governance (Globe perspective) became one of the critical aspects to be focused by a group of experts as a matter of priority, since more schools and education institutions are really connecting to Internet or pushing for having the faclity.
Kind regards
BKS
------------------------------ *From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *mwende njiraini *Sent:* Monday, August 11, 2008 5:02 PM *To:* bksang@education.go.ke *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Day 1 0f 10:-Internet Governance Discussions,Introductory Theme
Brian, you have pointed out issues that we need to consider at a national level with the increased use of the internet; What are the stakeholders initiatives are there in the area of promoting cyber-security and trust? For example is the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT-KENYA: http://www.csirt.or.ke/) active? Do the provisions of the Draft ICT bill 2008 (Part IV – Electronic Transactions and Cybercrime) adequately address your concerns?
Regards
Mwende
Disclaimer: These comments are the author's own.
On 8/11/08, Brian Munyao Longwe <brian@caret.net> wrote:
Good intro Walu. I will add a few points:
Besides the concern that other governments had/have over USA's control over the numbering and naming mechanisms of the Internet, there are also a number of themes that have arisen within the Internet Governance debate that have prompted many countries to start seriously considering measures that relate to governance of the Internet within as well as without their borders. Some of these follow: 1) Cyber-Crime: Due to the vast nature of the network, the Internet can be used as a medium for electronic crime or computer assisted crime/fraud without the perpetrator ever physically stepping into the "victim" countries territory. Investigations have shown that in many cases, multiple computer and network systems in multiple jurisdictions have been compromised and used as part of elaborate schemes that either target a particular system or series of systems. a good example here is the Nigeria "419" scams which in the recent past seem to be originating more from the USA/Europe than from Nigeria itself. 2) Cyber-Warfare: also known as "information warfare" it is defined in Wikipedia as "... the use and management of information in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare may involve collection of tactical information, assurance that one's own information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of opposing force information and denial of information collection opportunities to opposing forces." - the Internet plays a key role in many country's cyber-warfare strategies. An excerpt from a USA department of Defense report says this about China's Peoples Liberation Army "The PLA is investing in electronic countermeasures, defenses against electronic attack (e.g., electronic and infrared decoys, angle reflectors, and false target generators), and computer network operations (CNO). China's CNO concepts include computer network attack, computer network defense, and computer network exploitation. The PLA sees CNO as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. " 3) Child Pornography: Among other evils that plague the Internet, this is probably the most disturbing. Law enforcement agencies across the globe have been stretched beyond their limits in trying to catch and shut down producers and propagators of these illicit materials. Once again, the vastly international nature of these networks makes it very hard to deal with cross-jurisdictional issues, laws on evidence, privacy and the like. While there have been cases where multi-national networks have been busted and entire child-porn rings dismantled, there is still great concern in this area 4) Spam: it has been reported that unsolicited commercial email and more recently malicious, meaningless email garbage constitutes almost 80% of all email transmitted over the internet. This carries incredible implications especially for the end users who pay a high price for their connectivity. Once again, a largely multi-national phenomenon - spam is clearly an issue that will need many countries, network, techies etc to sit together and figure out a way of dealing.
I could keep going on but will rest my case here - hope that the discussions find time to discuss/shed light on some of the above areas....
Regards,
Brian
On Aug 11, 2008, at 9:56 AM, John Walubengo wrote:
Greetings all,
Today we just want to get upto speed with the genesis and rationale for Internet Governance. Internet Governance issues arose from the increasing use of the Internet during the mid and late 1990s. Most countries were surprised at the increasing role the internet was having on their Socio-economic as well as Political landscape. They then realised that lacked the oversight power the US government unilatery enjoyed over the development and use of the Internet resources.
Indeed one of the Key questions then as it is now, was why should one Government influence the direction of a global resource without reference to other governments? The way the Internet was governed was definitely not commensurate with its global reach or nature. A lot of lobbying and pressure particularly from Latin America, Asia Pacific and ITU started agitating for a change in the oversight role the US government had and continues to have over the Internet. The anti-change proponents however maintained that the current governance structure through the US Dept of Commerce and ICANN is what has given the Internet this phenomenal growth – hence the famous cliché – "If it ain't broken, why try to fix it?"
The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) process was commissioned by UN in the late 1990s to look into this and other emerging issues of the Internet such as the legal, economic and social-cultural dimensions of the Internet. The WSIS process concluded in Tunis, 2005, give no definite rulings on these issues but recommended instead the creation of a multi-stakeholder forum, the IGF – the Internet Governance Forum which continues to study and deliberate on these issues to date. WSIS also supplied the working definition for Internet Governance as:- the development and application by Stakeholders of the rules, norms, procedures and practices that influence the evolution and use of the Internet.
The Stakeholders (States, Civil Society, Academia, Media, Businesses, etc) are all actively involved in the Internet Governance Forum with the sole objective of ensuring that their interests are catered for as the Internet continues to evolve. The IGF has so far held two summits, Greece, and Brazil with a 3rd due at the end of this year in India. The stakeholders propose positions on the emerging and contentious issues that are used to somewhat inform the direction the Internet takes. However, most of Africa continues to sleep as Nations and other stakeholders scramble to claim a stake and positions on what is becoming the most important battle of the 21st Century – the battle for the Information Superhighway.
Those with experiences, comments, clarifications, observations or objections have 1day to say something on today's Introductory theme.
walu.
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-- "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Day 2 of 10 - Infrastructure Issues DNS/Root Servers/ IP addressing Thanx all for your comments on yesterday's introductory theme. Today we want to start looking at the Infrastructure issues of DNS/Root Servers/IP Addresses, Internet Interconnection Charges and the Security/Stability of the Internet. But first some explanation on the terminologies and their context before we present the issues/debates. DNS, Domain Name System is basically a translation mechanism that allows users to type in human-readable internet names e.g. www.statehouse.go.ke and translates them into unique machine-readable form/numbers such as 62.33.8.1 (Internet Protocol (IP) Address) This way user requests are able to be transmitted and delivered to the correct machine or computer on the Internet. This translation mechanism is by design hinged on hierarchical, translation tables that are distributed accross the globe. At the top of this heirarchy are the translation tables that deal with topmost internet names such as .com, .net, .edu. These topmost translations tables are hosted on 13 computers/servers known as the Root Servers. All these Servers and IP addresses are managed by the US/ICANN. In addition, 10 the 13 Root servers are situated in the US. The Main beef with this arrangement is that other stakeholders (Govt, Civil Society, Businesses, Individual Netizens, etc) want a say on how these Root Servers are managed and control. Specifically, they rightly claim that: i) The records in the translation tables are in latin characters (read english) and so for example the Chinese wanting to have their domain names in the Chinese alphabet cannot do so (read discrimination) ii)Stakeholders, particularly, commercially oriented users cannot have new top level internet domains easily introduced e.g .TV, .porn amongst other contentiously proposed names. iii)Users, particularly in developing countries, must have their DNS queries traversing expensive international links to the US to get their translations serviced. iv) IP Number Assignments is also monopolised by ICANN procedures and ITU in particular would like to see choice (read Competition) for Internet Users in this space Some of these issues have been resolved through work-arounds but the debate continues unbated because those very work-arounds were unilaterally provided for by US through its contracted party the ICANN. Developing countries in Latin America, Asia-Pacific and silently, even some European states want the procedures revolving around DNS/Root Servers/IP addresses to be -democratised. The US says that there is no way (in hell?) a country like Somalia or Afghanistan can have the same veto power (as the US) on such critical internet resources because their level of electronic sophistication does not warrant it. I am not sure what they tell the Europeans/Japanese/Koreans/etc given that their Internet use/penetration is commensurate with the US. What should be our take as East Africans? Should we have any? We have 1day for views on this and tomorrow we go onto the Internet Interconnection Issues. walu. --- On Tue, 8/12/08, Judy Okite <judyokite@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Judy Okite <judyokite@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 1 0f 10:-Internet Governance Discussions, Introductory Theme To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 2:31 AM Hi All,
The internet has become an essential instrument of today's society......however,its potential is far greater than what we have seen.....As Michuki,puts it...we are yet to see the best and worst of it...in this regard, its governance...seeks a lot of creativity....(We cant afford to go the traditional way,of setting 3-5year policies)etc..
what we have to bear in mind...its boderless and still evolving....
Curiosity: What would 'Internet governance' be in Swahili?
Utawalaji wa interneti?
Kind Regards,
NB: Mwende,I love your disclaimer :-)
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke>wrote:
Thanks Brian and Many contributors on Internet Governance Subject and Discussions thereafter.
More challenging is the development of policies and guidelines which could be adopted in the various sectors / sub-sectors in order for us as a country to have sound IG.
More recently, in Education Sector for example, Technology (Particularly Internet - Social Networks) blame was featured in some media, to be possible cause for the youth stir-up in Secondary Schools. I think as Walu and most of us contribute in this worthy discussion at Macro level, lets also think of Micro-level as well. Before a National Policy is in place, proposals need to be put forth for specific sectors to move on develop into guidelines and standards.
Recently, UNESCO's ICT Division organized a conference to discuss ICT ethics and morals and indeed Internet Governance (Globe perspective) became one of the critical aspects to be focused by a group of experts as a matter of priority, since more schools and education institutions are really connecting to Internet or pushing for having the faclity.
Kind regards
BKS
------------------------------ *From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *mwende njiraini *Sent:* Monday, August 11, 2008 5:02 PM *To:* bksang@education.go.ke *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Day 1 0f 10:-Internet Governance Discussions,Introductory Theme
Brian, you have pointed out issues that we need to consider at a national level with the increased use of the internet; What are the stakeholders initiatives are there in the area of promoting cyber-security and trust? For example is the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT-KENYA: http://www.csirt.or.ke/) active? Do the provisions of the Draft ICT bill 2008 (Part IV – Electronic Transactions and Cybercrime) adequately address your concerns?
Regards
Mwende
Disclaimer: These comments are the author's own.
On 8/11/08, Brian Munyao Longwe <brian@caret.net> wrote:
Good intro Walu. I will add a few points:
Besides the concern that other governments
control over the numbering and naming mechanisms of the Internet, there are also a number of themes that have arisen within the Internet Governance debate that have prompted many countries to start seriously considering measures that relate to governance of the Internet within as well as without their borders. Some of these follow: 1) Cyber-Crime: Due to the vast nature of the network, the Internet can be used as a medium for electronic crime or computer assisted crime/fraud without the perpetrator ever
"victim" countries territory. Investigations have shown that in many cases, multiple computer and network systems in multiple jurisdictions have been compromised and used as
schemes that either target a particular system or series of systems. a good example here is the Nigeria "419" scams which in the recent past seem to be originating more from the USA/Europe than from Nigeria itself. 2) Cyber-Warfare: also known as "information warfare" it is defined in Wikipedia as "... the use and management of information in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare may involve collection of tactical information, assurance that one's own information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize the enemy and the public, undermining
opposing force information and denial of information collection opportunities to opposing forces." - the Internet plays a key role in many country's cyber-warfare strategies. An excerpt from a USA department of Defense report says this about China's Peoples Liberation Army "The PLA is investing in electronic countermeasures, defenses against electronic attack (e.g., electronic and infrared decoys, angle reflectors, and false target generators), and computer network operations (CNO). China's CNO concepts include computer network attack, computer network defense, and computer network exploitation. The PLA sees CNO as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. " 3) Child Pornography: Among other evils that
this is probably the most disturbing. Law enforcement agencies across the globe have been stretched beyond their limits in trying to catch and shut down producers and propagators of these illicit materials. Once again, the vastly international nature of
it very hard to deal with cross-jurisdictional issues, laws on evidence, privacy and the like. While there have been cases where multi-national networks have been busted and entire child-porn rings dismantled, there is still great concern in this area 4) Spam: it has been reported that unsolicited commercial email and more recently malicious, meaningless email garbage constitutes almost 80% of all email transmitted over the internet. This carries incredible implications especially for the end users who pay a high price for their connectivity. Once again, a largely multi-national phenomenon - spam is clearly an issue that will need many countries, network, techies etc to sit together and figure out a way of dealing.
I could keep going on but will rest my case here - hope that the discussions find time to discuss/shed light on some of the above areas....
Regards,
Brian
On Aug 11, 2008, at 9:56 AM, John Walubengo wrote:
Greetings all,
Today we just want to get upto speed with the genesis and rationale for Internet Governance. Internet Governance issues arose from the increasing use of the Internet during the mid and late 1990s. Most countries were surprised at the increasing role the internet was having on their Socio-economic as well as Political landscape. They then realised that lacked the oversight
government unilatery enjoyed over the development and use of the Internet resources.
Indeed one of the Key questions then as it is now, was why should one Government influence the direction of a global resource without reference to other governments? The way the Internet was governed was definitely not commensurate with its global reach or nature. A lot of lobbying and pressure particularly from Latin America, Asia Pacific and ITU started agitating for a change in the oversight role the US government had and continues to have over the Internet. The anti-change proponents however
current governance structure through the US Dept of Commerce and ICANN is what has given the Internet this
the famous cliché – "If it ain't broken, why try to fix it?"
The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) process was commissioned by UN in the late 1990s to look into this and other emerging issues of the Internet such as the legal, economic and social-cultural dimensions of the Internet. The WSIS process concluded in Tunis, 2005, give no definite rulings on these issues but recommended instead the creation of a multi-stakeholder forum, the IGF – the Internet Governance Forum which continues to study and deliberate on these issues to date. WSIS also supplied the working definition for Internet Governance as:- the development and application by Stakeholders of the rules, norms, procedures and practices that influence the evolution and use of the Internet.
The Stakeholders (States, Civil Society, Academia, Media, Businesses, etc) are all actively involved in
Governance Forum with the sole objective of ensuring that their interests are catered for as the Internet continues to evolve. The IGF has so far held two summits, Greece, and Brazil with a 3rd due at the end of this year in India. The stakeholders propose positions on the emerging and contentious issues that are used to somewhat inform the direction the Internet takes. However, most of Africa continues to sleep as Nations and other stakeholders scramble to claim a stake and positions on what is becoming the most important battle of the 21st Century –
had/have over USA's physically stepping into the part of elaborate the quality of plague the Internet, these networks makes power the US maintained that the phenomenal growth – hence the Internet the battle for the
Information Superhighway.
Those with experiences, comments, clarifications, observations or objections have 1day to say something on today's Introductory theme.
walu.
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Morning!, John Walubengo wrote:
Day 2 of 10 - Infrastructure Issues DNS/Root Servers/ IP addressing These topmost translations tables are hosted on 13 computers/servers known as the Root Servers. All these Servers and IP addresses are managed by the US/ICANN. In addition, 10 the 13 Root servers are situated in the US.
This is not entirely accurate Walu. The 13 toor servers are managed by root-server operators. A listing of the operators is available at www.root-servers.org. Further to this there are now over 100 Root-servers in the world distributed through what is known as anycast topology. This was an initiative of the root-server operators - as you will see from the url not all have distributed their instance in this manner. Africa has 3 countries and more will be coming in the future. The main reason Africa has few, is lack of the requisite infrastructure to host root-servers. Fortunately this has changed and we are seeing more and more places ready to host instances.
i) The records in the translation tables are in latin characters (read english) and so for example the Chinese wanting to have their domain names in the Chinese alphabet cannot do so (read discrimination)
There has been alot of work on the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) space. At the moment the big issue is purely on the policy side of implementing IDNs and not a technical one. Some countries like japan already have IDNs registered in the country code top level domain (ccTLD) registry in Japanese characters. Another hot issue under debate is for instance the .ke ccTLD is in ascii who gets allocated the management of the equivalent .ke in say Arabic, Chinese and other characters that will be entered into the root zone.
ii)Stakeholders, particularly, commercially oriented users cannot have new top level internet domains easily introduced e.g .TV, .porn amongst other contentiously proposed names.
Well this has sort of been overtaken by events now, currently ICANN has opened up the root for additional TLDs and will be auctioning TLDs. The issue will be that so who will own .KENYA, .Africa, .EAC, .SADC, .COMESA and what happens to the more controversial ones as well. PS: .TV is the ccTLD for Tuvalu and is run by Verisign through a mutual commercial agreement with the Government of Tuvalu.
iii)Users, particularly in developing countries, must have their DNS queries traversing expensive international links to the US to get their translations serviced.
Yes, and this can be resolved by approaching any of the root-server operators to have a local instance of the root-servers, and TLD-servers as well. For instance here in Kenya we do local resolutions using two Root-servers (F-Root and J-Root) TLD for .COM and .NET and .KE and word has it that there's discussions to bring in .org. The question is what role are the stakeholders playing to ensure this happens in their respective regions.
iv) IP Number Assignments is also monopolised by ICANN procedures and ITU in particular would like to see choice (read Competition) for Internet Users in this space
The only interaction users have when it comes to IP address space requirements are with their Regional Internet Registries and not ICANN/IANA. The only time ICANN/IANA gets involved is when there's a global policy issue that needs to be implemented and with the distribution of the IP space to the RIR. A global policy has to be approved in all the 5 regions i.e Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific, European and the Americas before its considered for implementation. Secondly there's only two IP spaces v4 and v6 its difficult to see how there can be two managers managing the same resource i.e IP. Lastly, there are bigger issues facing the Internet today. What i see however, is that there's very little effort to fix what is broken or whats not efficient and much effort on the control of the organizations. IMHO i would be pleased to see more debate about how we can empower more participation of the communities at both local and regional level in the policy debates relating the the management of these resources. How to further strengthen the organizations that manage these resources. They may not be broken, but it doesnt mean they dont need optimization. Regards, Michuki.
Morning!, John Walubengo wrote:
Day 2 of 10 - Infrastructure Issues DNS/Root Servers/ IP addressing These topmost translations tables are hosted on 13 computers/servers known as the Root Servers. All these Servers and IP addresses are managed by the US/ICANN. In addition, 10 the 13 Root servers are situated in the US.
This is not entirely accurate Walu. The 13 toor servers are managed by root-server operators. A listing of the operators is available at www.root-servers.org. Further to this there are now over 100 Root-servers in the world distributed through what is known as anycast topology. This was an initiative of the root-server operators - as you will see from the url not all have distributed their instance in this manner. Africa has 3 countries and more will be coming in the future. The main reason Africa has few, is lack of the requisite infrastructure to host root-servers. Fortunately this has changed and we are seeing more and more places ready to host instances.
i) The records in the translation tables are in latin characters (read english) and so for example the Chinese wanting to have their domain names in the Chinese alphabet cannot do so (read discrimination)
There has been alot of work on the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) space. At the moment the big issue is purely on the policy side of implementing IDNs and not a technical one. Some countries like japan already have IDNs registered in the country code top level domain (ccTLD) registry in Japanese characters. Another hot issue under debate is for instance the .ke ccTLD is in ascii who gets allocated the management of the equivalent .ke in say Arabic, Chinese and other characters that will be entered into the root zone.
ii)Stakeholders, particularly, commercially oriented users cannot have new top level internet domains easily introduced e.g .TV, .porn amongst other contentiously proposed names.
Well this has sort of been overtaken by events now, currently ICANN has opened up the root for additional TLDs and will be auctioning TLDs. The issue will be that so who will own .KENYA, .Africa, .EAC, .SADC, .COMESA and what happens to the more controversial ones as well. PS: .TV is the ccTLD for Tuvalu and is run by Verisign through a mutual commercial agreement with the Government of Tuvalu.
iii)Users, particularly in developing countries, must have their DNS queries traversing expensive international links to the US to get their translations serviced.
Yes, and this can be resolved by approaching any of the root-server operators to have a local instance of the root-servers, and TLD-servers as well. For instance here in Kenya we do local resolutions using two Root-servers (F-Root and J-Root) TLD for .COM and .NET and .KE and word has it that there's discussions to bring in .org. The question is what role are the stakeholders playing to ensure this happens in their respective regions.
iv) IP Number Assignments is also monopolised by ICANN procedures and ITU in particular would like to see choice (read Competition) for Internet Users in this space
The only interaction users have when it comes to IP address space requirements are with their Regional Internet Registries and not ICANN/IANA. The only time ICANN/IANA gets involved is when there's a global policy issue that needs to be implemented and with the distribution of the IP space to the RIR. A global policy has to be approved in all the 5 regions i.e Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific, European and the Americas before its considered for implementation. Secondly there's only two IP spaces v4 and v6 its difficult to see how there can be two managers managing the same resource i.e IP. Lastly, there are bigger issues facing the Internet today. What i see however, is that there's very little effort to fix what is broken or whats not efficient and much effort on the control of the organizations. IMHO i would be pleased to see more debate about how we can empower more participation of the communities at both local and regional level in the policy debates relating the the management of these resources. How to further strengthen the organizations that manage these resources. They may not be broken, but it doesnt mean they dont need optimization. Regards, Michuki.
Hey Listers, I hope Michuki has not gone too technical to make most of us silent. Remember the offer for the leading 3 contributors to attend the Regional IGF still stands... Anyhow, I wish to take this opportunity to thank Mich for his input on this discussion. His technical responses are quite true but they remain 'work-arounds'. Work-arounds are similar to someone asking to learn HOW to fish but someone responds by PROVIDING the fish - and hoping you will forever shut up thereafter because you have had your fill anyway. Take for example the point that root-servers are NOT really US Government managed but are actually in private sector management. Very true, day to day management of these root-servers is largely under private sector but these private sector act according to ICANN Policies which are subject to US Dept of Commerce (their very own Ministry of Trade). 100 root-servers using anycast technology? Very true. Infact in Kenya we have our very own instance of this wonderful technology at KENIC. It allows our DNS queries to be locally serviced rather than traversing expensive links to the US. But again, that is still the 'provided fish' I mentioned; we do have a solution but as a country still lack the oversight to decide on the which, when, where and how such solutions shall be deployed, now and in the future. International Domains? Thanks to extensive pressure, this is happening as Mich reports for the Japs and possibly others to follow (i was not aware). Previously the position was that the internet can break up the moment non-latin characters get on board the DNS system. Imagine a more representative and proportionate oversight role for internet resources:- such solutions would have definitely been on board much earlier. IP address management beyond ICANN? i.e. under two or more Organisations? Oh yes, I quite agree that this looks like an impossible if not outrageous proposal. But that's because we are so used to the 'if it ain't broken, do not fix it' phylosophy. But introducing competition at IP address and even DNS management level could revolutionalise the way ICANN manages this space or resources. ITU in particular has been pushing to provide internet citizens with optional service at IP and DNS level. What's wrong with splitting the IP address range or DNS name space into two and charging ICANN and ITU to provide oversight for the management of both? Collaborative competition so to speak. I hope this is not too technical - techies can hide behind jargon to confuse policy makers. I am just attempting to do the opposite but not sure if it is working...in class if you teach and there are no questions or comments, it only means one of the two things- everything was so clear or nothing was... walu.
Hi Walu, et al, John Walubengo wrote:
I hope Michuki has not gone too technical to make most of us silent.
Yes me too :)
Anyhow, I wish to take this opportunity to thank Mich for his input on this discussion. His technical responses are quite true but they remain 'work-arounds'. Work-arounds are similar to someone asking to learn HOW to fish but someone responds by PROVIDING the fish - and hoping you will forever shut up thereafter because you have had your fill anyway.
Using the word workaround(s) is probably IMHO giving the wrong impression and so does the analogy :). Lets go back to the history of the Internet and start there. For all intentions, the folks who designed it did not intend for it to be what it is today. It was a US military project supported by scientists. It was later adopted for the academic community and now its the bread and butter for the whole world.
Take for example the point that root-servers are NOT really US Government managed but are actually in private sector management. Very true, day to day management of these root-servers is largely under private sector but these private sector act according to ICANN Policies which are subject to US Dept of Commerce (their very own Ministry of Trade).
So going back to the history - this is purely a legacy issue. When the first contract for ICANN/IANA was being signed with the DOC am not sure if i have read anywhere any significant concerns over the contract. In any case before ICANN/IANA came into being - everything was run by one by name of John Postel!. So why is it that then the ITU being far and large did not raise its concerns again at that point in time? - well maybe the internet was not mature then as it is now. Now that the internet is mature - is it a high time we got involved?. Well maybe it is, however, how do we want to get involved? is it by contributing to its growth or just its management?. What do i mean, for instance, here in the developing world there are few (if any at all) folks involved in the Internet Engineering Task Force IETF where Internet protocols are developed for the betterment of the Internet. However, we have not been left behind when it comes to the discussion of how the Internet should be run!. If i was to take the US position, i would also wonder why everyone seems to have taken such a huge interest in the running and little or no interest in its technical development! actually i would be very skeptical to say the least in letting go!. But thats just me :)
100 root-servers using anycast technology? Very true. Infact in Kenya we have our very own instance of this wonderful technology at KENIC. It allows our DNS queries to be locally serviced rather than traversing expensive links to the US. But again, that is still the 'provided fish' I mentioned; we do have a solution but as a country still lack the oversight to decide on the which, when, where and how such solutions shall be deployed, now and in the future.
So having said the above - inherently, the DNS has a technical limitation of a max of 13 name-servers. In this case, anycast is a workaround - but its also a technology that addresses the inefficiencies of the internet protocols.
International Domains? Thanks to extensive pressure, this is happening as Mich reports for the Japs and possibly others to follow (i was not aware). Previously the position was that the internet can break up the moment non-latin characters get on board the DNS system. Imagine a more representative and proportionate oversight role for internet resources:- such solutions would have definitely been on board much earlier.
Maybe this could have happened, but only if we thought that the Internet was going to be useful tool then. But how many regions do actually take the resource seriously as others do?. Those that do i.e Japan, Sweden and the US are way ahead in many respects both policy and technical development. Thats probably why they even host the Root Servers that are outside the US - they were there from the start. The only way we can get involved, because most of the work starts at the technical level before it goes to the policy development and not vise-versa. Only the engineers see the technical limitations and propose solutions/workarounds the the policy development and implementation process kicks in. For many years IDNs have been under discussion at the technical level both at the IETF and IANA. Now that its clear how it will be technically implemented, the policy discussions are ongoing who will manage the new implementation in a way that preserves the stability and security of the Internet as it is today. Because if anything was to happen that breaks the Internet as it is today as a result of policy implementations, well ....
IP address management beyond ICANN? i.e. under two or more Organisations? Oh yes, I quite agree that this looks like an impossible if not outrageous proposal. But that's because we are so used to the 'if it ain't broken, do not fix it' phylosophy. But introducing competition at IP address and even DNS management level could revolutionalise the way ICANN manages this space or resources. ITU in particular has been pushing to provide internet citizens with optional service at IP and DNS level. What's wrong with splitting the IP address range or DNS name space into two and charging ICANN and ITU to provide oversight for the management of both? Collaborative competition so to speak.
Well for a start, that if two organizations were involved - they would both have different policies. The IANA and the RIR's policy was based more on aggregation and conservation of the address space. Now with IPv6 the policy is more on aggregation than conservation. Would they share the same policy especially if their member driven policy development processes?.
I hope this is not too technical - techies can hide behind jargon to confuse policy makers.
I would want to believe that the policy makers have clue in the space they are developing policy's for or at least its in their area of expertise. If thats the case, then there shouldnt be much confusion IMHO :) Good morning! Michuki. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
My reaction to this is simple. A lot of East African IP addresses to get announced to the world first(read Connectivity), then we engage on this "high-end" spectrum debate. On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:06 AM, John Walubengo <jwalu@yahoo.com> wrote:
Day 2 of 10 - Infrastructure Issues DNS/Root Servers/ IP addressing
Thanx all for your comments on yesterday's introductory theme. Today we want to start looking at the Infrastructure issues of DNS/Root Servers/IP Addresses, Internet Interconnection Charges and the Security/Stability of the Internet. But first some explanation on the terminologies and their context before we present the issues/debates.
DNS, Domain Name System is basically a translation mechanism that allows users to type in human-readable internet names e.g. www.statehouse.go.ke and translates them into unique machine-readable form/numbers such as 62.33.8.1 (Internet Protocol (IP) Address) This way user requests are able to be transmitted and delivered to the correct machine or computer on the Internet. This translation mechanism is by design hinged on hierarchical, translation tables that are distributed accross the globe. At the top of this heirarchy are the translation tables that deal with topmost internet names such as .com, .net, .edu. These topmost translations tables are hosted on 13 computers/servers known as the Root Servers. All these Servers and IP addresses are managed by the US/ICANN. In addition, 10 the 13 Root servers are situated in the US.
The Main beef with this arrangement is that other stakeholders (Govt, Civil Society, Businesses, Individual Netizens, etc) want a say on how these Root Servers are managed and control. Specifically, they rightly claim that:
i) The records in the translation tables are in latin characters (read english) and so for example the Chinese wanting to have their domain names in the Chinese alphabet cannot do so (read discrimination)
ii)Stakeholders, particularly, commercially oriented users cannot have new top level internet domains easily introduced e.g .TV, .porn amongst other contentiously proposed names.
iii)Users, particularly in developing countries, must have their DNS queries traversing expensive international links to the US to get their translations serviced.
iv) IP Number Assignments is also monopolised by ICANN procedures and ITU in particular would like to see choice (read Competition) for Internet Users in this space
Some of these issues have been resolved through work-arounds but the debate continues unbated because those very work-arounds were unilaterally provided for by US through its contracted party the ICANN. Developing countries in Latin America, Asia-Pacific and silently, even some European states want the procedures revolving around DNS/Root Servers/IP addresses to be -democratised. The US says that there is no way (in hell?) a country like Somalia or Afghanistan can have the same veto power (as the US) on such critical internet resources because their level of electronic sophistication does not warrant it. I am not sure what they tell the Europeans/Japanese/Koreans/etc given that their Internet use/penetration is commensurate with the US.
What should be our take as East Africans? Should we have any? We have 1day for views on this and tomorrow we go onto the Internet Interconnection Issues.
walu.
--- On Tue, 8/12/08, Judy Okite <judyokite@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Judy Okite <judyokite@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 1 0f 10:-Internet Governance Discussions, Introductory Theme To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 2:31 AM Hi All,
The internet has become an essential instrument of today's society......however,its potential is far greater than what we have seen.....As Michuki,puts it...we are yet to see the best and worst of it...in this regard, its governance...seeks a lot of creativity....(We cant afford to go the traditional way,of setting 3-5year policies)etc..
what we have to bear in mind...its boderless and still evolving....
Curiosity: What would 'Internet governance' be in Swahili?
Utawalaji wa interneti?
Kind Regards,
NB: Mwende,I love your disclaimer :-)
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke>wrote:
Thanks Brian and Many contributors on Internet Governance Subject and Discussions thereafter.
More challenging is the development of policies and guidelines which could be adopted in the various sectors / sub-sectors in order for us as a country to have sound IG.
More recently, in Education Sector for example, Technology (Particularly Internet - Social Networks) blame was featured in some media, to be possible cause for the youth stir-up in Secondary Schools. I think as Walu and most of us contribute in this worthy discussion at Macro level, lets also think of Micro-level as well. Before a National Policy is in place, proposals need to be put forth for specific sectors to move on develop into guidelines and standards.
Recently, UNESCO's ICT Division organized a conference to discuss ICT ethics and morals and indeed Internet Governance (Globe perspective) became one of the critical aspects to be focused by a group of experts as a matter of priority, since more schools and education institutions are really connecting to Internet or pushing for having the faclity.
Kind regards
BKS
------------------------------ *From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *mwende njiraini *Sent:* Monday, August 11, 2008 5:02 PM *To:* bksang@education.go.ke *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Day 1 0f 10:-Internet Governance Discussions,Introductory Theme
Brian, you have pointed out issues that we need to consider at a national level with the increased use of the internet; What are the stakeholders initiatives are there in the area of promoting cyber-security and trust? For example is the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT-KENYA: http://www.csirt.or.ke/) active? Do the provisions of the Draft ICT bill 2008 (Part IV – Electronic Transactions and Cybercrime) adequately address your concerns?
Regards
Mwende
Disclaimer: These comments are the author's own.
On 8/11/08, Brian Munyao Longwe <brian@caret.net> wrote:
Good intro Walu. I will add a few points:
Besides the concern that other governments
control over the numbering and naming mechanisms of the Internet, there are also a number of themes that have arisen within the Internet Governance debate that have prompted many countries to start seriously considering measures that relate to governance of the Internet within as well as without their borders. Some of these follow: 1) Cyber-Crime: Due to the vast nature of the network, the Internet can be used as a medium for electronic crime or computer assisted crime/fraud without the perpetrator ever
"victim" countries territory. Investigations have shown that in many cases, multiple computer and network systems in multiple jurisdictions have been compromised and used as
schemes that either target a particular system or series of systems. a good example here is the Nigeria "419" scams which in the recent past seem to be originating more from the USA/Europe than from Nigeria itself. 2) Cyber-Warfare: also known as "information warfare" it is defined in Wikipedia as "... the use and management of information in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare may involve collection of tactical information, assurance that one's own information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize the enemy and the public, undermining
opposing force information and denial of information collection opportunities to opposing forces." - the Internet plays a key role in many country's cyber-warfare strategies. An excerpt from a USA department of Defense report says this about China's Peoples Liberation Army "The PLA is investing in electronic countermeasures, defenses against electronic attack (e.g., electronic and infrared decoys, angle reflectors, and false target generators), and computer network operations (CNO). China's CNO concepts include computer network attack, computer network defense, and computer network exploitation. The PLA sees CNO as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. " 3) Child Pornography: Among other evils that
this is probably the most disturbing. Law enforcement agencies across the globe have been stretched beyond their limits in trying to catch and shut down producers and propagators of these illicit materials. Once again, the vastly international nature of
it very hard to deal with cross-jurisdictional issues, laws on evidence, privacy and the like. While there have been cases where multi-national networks have been busted and entire child-porn rings dismantled, there is still great concern in this area 4) Spam: it has been reported that unsolicited commercial email and more recently malicious, meaningless email garbage constitutes almost 80% of all email transmitted over the internet. This carries incredible implications especially for the end users who pay a high price for their connectivity. Once again, a largely multi-national phenomenon - spam is clearly an issue that will need many countries, network, techies etc to sit together and figure out a way of dealing.
I could keep going on but will rest my case here - hope that the discussions find time to discuss/shed light on some of the above areas....
Regards,
Brian
On Aug 11, 2008, at 9:56 AM, John Walubengo wrote:
Greetings all,
Today we just want to get upto speed with the genesis and rationale for Internet Governance. Internet Governance issues arose from the increasing use of the Internet during the mid and late 1990s. Most countries were surprised at the increasing role the internet was having on their Socio-economic as well as Political landscape. They then realised that lacked the oversight
government unilatery enjoyed over the development and use of the Internet resources.
Indeed one of the Key questions then as it is now, was why should one Government influence the direction of a global resource without reference to other governments? The way the Internet was governed was definitely not commensurate with its global reach or nature. A lot of lobbying and pressure particularly from Latin America, Asia Pacific and ITU started agitating for a change in the oversight role the US government had and continues to have over the Internet. The anti-change proponents however
current governance structure through the US Dept of Commerce and ICANN is what has given the Internet this
the famous cliché – "If it ain't broken, why try to fix it?"
The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) process was commissioned by UN in the late 1990s to look into this and other emerging issues of the Internet such as the legal, economic and social-cultural dimensions of the Internet. The WSIS process concluded in Tunis, 2005, give no definite rulings on these issues but recommended instead the creation of a multi-stakeholder forum, the IGF – the Internet Governance Forum which continues to study and deliberate on these issues to date. WSIS also supplied the working definition for Internet Governance as:- the development and application by Stakeholders of the rules, norms, procedures and practices that influence the evolution and use of the Internet.
The Stakeholders (States, Civil Society, Academia, Media, Businesses, etc) are all actively involved in
Governance Forum with the sole objective of ensuring that their interests are catered for as the Internet continues to evolve. The IGF has so far held two summits, Greece, and Brazil with a 3rd due at the end of this year in India. The stakeholders propose positions on the emerging and contentious issues that are used to somewhat inform the direction the Internet takes. However, most of Africa continues to sleep as Nations and other stakeholders scramble to claim a stake and positions on what is becoming the most important battle of the 21st Century –
had/have over USA's physically stepping into the part of elaborate the quality of plague the Internet, these networks makes power the US maintained that the phenomenal growth – hence the Internet the battle for the
Information Superhighway.
Those with experiences, comments, clarifications, observations or objections have 1day to say something on today's Introductory theme.
walu.
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participants (4)
-
Gakuru, Alex -
John Walubengo -
Judy Okite -
Michuki Mwangi