Re: [kictanet] [ISOC_KE] Death of the Internet?
Hi Ali, Great blog piece. I think that it lays out the background and general context of Internet Governance in a way that any layman can understand. Admittedly, the subject of internet governance is an "elephant in the room" for many countries (including our own) - and in most cases, really only seriously discussed in closed door meetings by people with the right level of security clearance. The concept of a non-aligned movement is an interesting one. Could you perhaps shed more light on what the principles and perspective of such a movement would be? Or would it be more of an "abstain" whenever it comes to voting for or against a particular policy in internet governance? Best regards, Brian On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
Brian
Thanks for sharing. The issue of Internet Governance is a contentious one. And always will be. This article exposes the hypocrisy all round. We know that China, Russia and the Middle East and like minded governments don't make a secret of the fact that they snoop on their citizens and enemies alike. It was a foregone conclusion that the US does this as part of its National Security Apparatus.
A few months ago on my blog I advocated for a sort of 'Non-Aligned Movement' and hinted that Kenya could actually take a leadership role in this space - which I think we already have been to some extent with our well organized IGFs courtesy of Alice Munyua, CCK, KeNIC and MOIC.
See my blog on Internet Governance
http://www.alyhussein.com/internet-governance/
This could be the start of a Non-Aligned Movement in Internet Governance. And this is what we should be pushing.
Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:05 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
A phrase in this article boldly states "the issue of internet governance is about to become very difficult.Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable."
Food for thought.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-int... --------------------------------------------------------------------
Repeat after me: Edward Snowden<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/edward-snowden> is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_%28novel%29> was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.
In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us summarise what Snowden has achieved<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/global/the-service-of-snowden.html?_r=0> thus far.
Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency (NSA<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa>) had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret court, it has been able to bend nine US internet<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet> companies to its demands for access to their users' data.
Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such asBooz Allen Hamilton<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/edward-snowden-investigate-booz-allen> and, in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who shouldn't have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom and security lies.
These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first-order consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our mass media are concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked. Instead, we have been fed a constant stream of journalistic pap – speculation about Snowden's travel plans, asylum requests, state of mind, physical appearance, etc. The "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the direction in which it is heading.
As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking about as a result of what we have learned so far.
The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.
Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become *very*contentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable.
Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out<http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/ueberwachung/information-consumerism-the-price-of-hypocrisy-12292374.html>, the Obama administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as patronising cant. "Today," he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom agenda' after Abu Ghraib."
That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also have implications for you and me.
They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be trusted to protect our privacy <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/privacy> or data. The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you're thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft, then think again.
And if you think that that sounds like the paranoid fantasising of a newspaper columnist, then consider what Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, had to say on the matter recently<http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-654_en.htm>. "If businesses or governments think they might be spied on," she said, "they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn't matter – any smart person doesn't want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity."
Spot on. So when your chief information officer proposes to use the Amazon or Google cloud as a data-store for your company's confidential documents, tell him where to file the proposal. In the shredder
_______________________________________________ isoc mailing list isoc@orion.my.co.ke http://orion.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/isoc
Thanks Brian. Indeed IG is an elephant in the room until people are hauled into court on frivolous charges emanating from social media updates. That's when issues like Third Party Liability crop up... However, the onus of making this mainstream is on us and we should continue this sensitization agenda. On the issue of Non-Aligned Movement concept on Internet Governance my initial thoughts are that this movement will seek to:- 1. Articulate an Internet governance agenda free of 'Cold War' nuances and vested interests. 2. Seek to determine a new structure for managing critical Internet resources free from any one government control. 3. Articulate the importance of the global citizen's right to a free and non-Balkanized Internet. 4. Agitate for universal freedom of usage - not one determined by different forms of government. And the list can go on and on. Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd +254 713 601113/ 0770 906375 "The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb Sent from my iPad On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:28 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ali,
Great blog piece. I think that it lays out the background and general context of Internet Governance in a way that any layman can understand.
Admittedly, the subject of internet governance is an "elephant in the room" for many countries (including our own) - and in most cases, really only seriously discussed in closed door meetings by people with the right level of security clearance.
The concept of a non-aligned movement is an interesting one. Could you perhaps shed more light on what the principles and perspective of such a movement would be? Or would it be more of an "abstain" whenever it comes to voting for or against a particular policy in internet governance?
Best regards,
Brian
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
Brian
Thanks for sharing. The issue of Internet Governance is a contentious one. And always will be. This article exposes the hypocrisy all round. We know that China, Russia and the Middle East and like minded governments don't make a secret of the fact that they snoop on their citizens and enemies alike. It was a foregone conclusion that the US does this as part of its National Security Apparatus.
A few months ago on my blog I advocated for a sort of 'Non-Aligned Movement' and hinted that Kenya could actually take a leadership role in this space - which I think we already have been to some extent with our well organized IGFs courtesy of Alice Munyua, CCK, KeNIC and MOIC.
See my blog on Internet Governance
http://www.alyhussein.com/internet-governance/
This could be the start of a Non-Aligned Movement in Internet Governance. And this is what we should be pushing.
Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:05 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
A phrase in this article boldly states "the issue of internet governance is about to become very difficult.Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable."
Food for thought.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-int... -------------------------------------------------------------------- Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.
In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us summarise what Snowden has achieved thus far.
Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency (NSA) had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret court, it has been able to bend nine US internet companies to its demands for access to their users' data.
Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such asBooz Allen Hamilton and, in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who shouldn't have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom and security lies.
These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first-order consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our mass media are concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked. Instead, we have been fed a constant stream of journalistic pap – speculation about Snowden's travel plans, asylum requests, state of mind, physical appearance, etc. The "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the direction in which it is heading.
As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking about as a result of what we have learned so far.
The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.
Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become verycontentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable.
Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out, the Obama administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as patronising cant. "Today," he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom agenda' after Abu Ghraib."
That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also have implications for you and me.
They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be trusted to protect our privacy or data. The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you're thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft, then think again.
And if you think that that sounds like the paranoid fantasising of a newspaper columnist, then consider what Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, had to say on the matter recently. "If businesses or governments think they might be spied on," she said, "they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn't matter – any smart person doesn't want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity."
Spot on. So when your chief information officer proposes to use the Amazon or Google cloud as a data-store for your company's confidential documents, tell him where to file the proposal. In the shredder
_______________________________________________ isoc mailing list isoc@orion.my.co.ke http://orion.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/isoc
Ali, I totally agree with your sentiment but calling it the 'Non-Aligned Movement' is about as Cold War as it gets. What you're really trying to do is move the Internet to a post-Westphalian system... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty It's been going strong for a few hundred years though so it won't be so easy to overcome. -Adam --- Kili.io - OpenStack for Africa: https://angel.co/kili-io Musings: https://twitter.com/varud About Adam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:50 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
Thanks Brian.
Indeed IG is an elephant in the room until people are hauled into court on frivolous charges emanating from social media updates. That's when issues like Third Party Liability crop up...
However, the onus of making this mainstream is on us and we should continue this sensitization agenda.
On the issue of Non-Aligned Movement concept on Internet Governance my initial thoughts are that this movement will seek to:-
1. Articulate an Internet governance agenda free of 'Cold War' nuances and vested interests. 2. Seek to determine a new structure for managing critical Internet resources free from any one government control. 3. Articulate the importance of the global citizen's right to a free and non-Balkanized Internet. 4. Agitate for universal freedom of usage - not one determined by different forms of government.
And the list can go on and on.
Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:28 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ali,
Great blog piece. I think that it lays out the background and general context of Internet Governance in a way that any layman can understand.
Admittedly, the subject of internet governance is an "elephant in the room" for many countries (including our own) - and in most cases, really only seriously discussed in closed door meetings by people with the right level of security clearance.
The concept of a non-aligned movement is an interesting one. Could you perhaps shed more light on what the principles and perspective of such a movement would be? Or would it be more of an "abstain" whenever it comes to voting for or against a particular policy in internet governance?
Best regards,
Brian
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
Brian
Thanks for sharing. The issue of Internet Governance is a contentious one. And always will be. This article exposes the hypocrisy all round. We know that China, Russia and the Middle East and like minded governments don't make a secret of the fact that they snoop on their citizens and enemies alike. It was a foregone conclusion that the US does this as part of its National Security Apparatus.
A few months ago on my blog I advocated for a sort of 'Non-Aligned Movement' and hinted that Kenya could actually take a leadership role in this space - which I think we already have been to some extent with our well organized IGFs courtesy of Alice Munyua, CCK, KeNIC and MOIC.
See my blog on Internet Governance
http://www.alyhussein.com/internet-governance/
This could be the start of a Non-Aligned Movement in Internet Governance. And this is what we should be pushing.
Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:05 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
A phrase in this article boldly states "the issue of internet governance is about to become very difficult.Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable."
Food for thought.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-int... --------------------------------------------------------------------
Repeat after me: Edward Snowden<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/edward-snowden> is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_%28novel%29> was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.
In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us summarise what Snowden has achieved<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/global/the-service-of-snowden.html?_r=0> thus far.
Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency (NSA<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa>) had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret court, it has been able to bend nine US internet<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet> companies to its demands for access to their users' data.
Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such asBooz Allen Hamilton<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/edward-snowden-investigate-booz-allen> and, in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who shouldn't have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom and security lies.
These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first-order consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our mass media are concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked. Instead, we have been fed a constant stream of journalistic pap – speculation about Snowden's travel plans, asylum requests, state of mind, physical appearance, etc. The "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the direction in which it is heading.
As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking about as a result of what we have learned so far.
The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.
Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become *very*contentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable.
Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out<http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/ueberwachung/information-consumerism-the-price-of-hypocrisy-12292374.html>, the Obama administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as patronising cant. "Today," he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom agenda' after Abu Ghraib."
That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also have implications for you and me.
They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be trusted to protect our privacy <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/privacy> or data. The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you're thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft, then think again.
And if you think that that sounds like the paranoid fantasising of a newspaper columnist, then consider what Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, had to say on the matter recently<http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-654_en.htm>. "If businesses or governments think they might be spied on," she said, "they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn't matter – any smart person doesn't want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity."
Spot on. So when your chief information officer proposes to use the Amazon or Google cloud as a data-store for your company's confidential documents, tell him where to file the proposal. In the shredder
_______________________________________________ isoc mailing list isoc@orion.my.co.ke http://orion.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/isoc
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Adam The allusion to Non-Aligned is just sort of a metaphor.. Some lessons good some not so good.. I agree with you though.. Regards Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd +254 713 601113/ 0770 906375 "The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb Sent from my iPad On Jul 29, 2013, at 2:33 PM, Adam Nelson <adam@varud.com> wrote:
Ali,
I totally agree with your sentiment but calling it the 'Non-Aligned Movement' is about as Cold War as it gets. What you're really trying to do is move the Internet to a post-Westphalian system...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty
It's been going strong for a few hundred years though so it won't be so easy to overcome.
-Adam
--- Kili.io - OpenStack for Africa: https://angel.co/kili-io Musings: https://twitter.com/varud About Adam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:50 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
Thanks Brian.
Indeed IG is an elephant in the room until people are hauled into court on frivolous charges emanating from social media updates. That's when issues like Third Party Liability crop up...
However, the onus of making this mainstream is on us and we should continue this sensitization agenda.
On the issue of Non-Aligned Movement concept on Internet Governance my initial thoughts are that this movement will seek to:-
1. Articulate an Internet governance agenda free of 'Cold War' nuances and vested interests. 2. Seek to determine a new structure for managing critical Internet resources free from any one government control. 3. Articulate the importance of the global citizen's right to a free and non-Balkanized Internet. 4. Agitate for universal freedom of usage - not one determined by different forms of government.
And the list can go on and on.
Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:28 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ali,
Great blog piece. I think that it lays out the background and general context of Internet Governance in a way that any layman can understand.
Admittedly, the subject of internet governance is an "elephant in the room" for many countries (including our own) - and in most cases, really only seriously discussed in closed door meetings by people with the right level of security clearance.
The concept of a non-aligned movement is an interesting one. Could you perhaps shed more light on what the principles and perspective of such a movement would be? Or would it be more of an "abstain" whenever it comes to voting for or against a particular policy in internet governance?
Best regards,
Brian
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
Brian
Thanks for sharing. The issue of Internet Governance is a contentious one. And always will be. This article exposes the hypocrisy all round. We know that China, Russia and the Middle East and like minded governments don't make a secret of the fact that they snoop on their citizens and enemies alike. It was a foregone conclusion that the US does this as part of its National Security Apparatus.
A few months ago on my blog I advocated for a sort of 'Non-Aligned Movement' and hinted that Kenya could actually take a leadership role in this space - which I think we already have been to some extent with our well organized IGFs courtesy of Alice Munyua, CCK, KeNIC and MOIC.
See my blog on Internet Governance
http://www.alyhussein.com/internet-governance/
This could be the start of a Non-Aligned Movement in Internet Governance. And this is what we should be pushing.
Ali Hussein CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:05 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
A phrase in this article boldly states "the issue of internet governance is about to become very difficult.Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable."
Food for thought.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-int... -------------------------------------------------------------------- Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.
In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us summarise what Snowden has achieved thus far.
Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency (NSA) had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret court, it has been able to bend nine US internet companies to its demands for access to their users' data.
Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such asBooz Allen Hamilton and, in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who shouldn't have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom and security lies.
These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first-order consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our mass media are concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked. Instead, we have been fed a constant stream of journalistic pap – speculation about Snowden's travel plans, asylum requests, state of mind, physical appearance, etc. The "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the direction in which it is heading.
As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking about as a result of what we have learned so far.
The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.
Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become verycontentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable.
Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out, the Obama administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as patronising cant. "Today," he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom agenda' after Abu Ghraib."
That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also have implications for you and me.
They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be trusted to protect our privacy or data. The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you're thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft, then think again.
And if you think that that sounds like the paranoid fantasising of a newspaper columnist, then consider what Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, had to say on the matter recently. "If businesses or governments think they might be spied on," she said, "they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn't matter – any smart person doesn't want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity."
Spot on. So when your chief information officer proposes to use the Amazon or Google cloud as a data-store for your company's confidential documents, tell him where to file the proposal. In the shredder
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participants (3)
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Adam Nelson -
Ali Hussein -
Brian Munyao Longwe