Subject: Last Call: Modern Global Standards Paradigm

From: IETF Chair <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:19:34 -0400

The IETF Chair and the IAB Chair intend to sign the Affirmation
of the Modern Global Standards Paradigm, which can be found
here:

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-15.pdf

An earlier version was discussed in plenary, and the IAB Chair called
for comments on the IETF mail list.  This version includes changes
that address those comments.

Th IETF 84 Administrative plenary minutes have been posted, so that
discussion can be reviewed if desired.  The minutes are here:

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/minutes/minutes-84-iesg-opsplenary

On 8 August 2012, the IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors
approved this version of the document.  The approval process is
underway at the W3C as well.

The IETF Chair and the IAB Chair intend to sign the Affirmation in the
next few weeks. Please send strong objections to the [email-masked]
and the [email-masked] mailing lists by 2012-08-24.

Thank you,
  Russ Housley
  IETF Chair

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:31:33 -0700

>http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-15.pdf

[snip]

>and the [email-masked] mailing lists by 2012-08-24.

"Collective empowerment" sounds like a marketing term.  "contribute 
to the creation of global communities, benefiting humanity" does not 
sound like something the IETF would say as it comes out as hollow words.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:49:17 -0400

I think the point needs to be made that standards organizations can
only advise and not dictate.

There is really no risk that ITU-T is going to end up in control of
the technical standards that are implemented by the likes of
Microsoft, Cisco or Google, let alone Apache, Mozilla and the folk on
SourceForge and Github.

The key defect in the ITU-T view of the world is that it is populated
by people who think that they are making decisions that matter. In
practice deciding telephone system standards right now is about as
important as the next revision of the FORTRAN standard, it is not
completely irrelevant but matters a lot more to the people in the
meetings than anyone else.

The strength of the IETF negotiating position comes from the fact that
we cannot dictate terms to anyone. The consensus that matters is not
just consensus among the people developing the specification document
but consensus among the people who are expected to act on it.

ITU-T can certainly set themselves up a Friendship Games if they like
[1]. But they can't force people to show up, let alone implement their
'requirements'.

>From a censorship busting point of view, the best thing that can
happen for us is for the states attempting to gain control of the net
in their country to attempt to standardize their approach. Much easier
to circumvent fixed blocks than the current moving target.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Games

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 22:38:08 +0100

Hi Russ,

I am conscious that this text needs to have the consensus of the three groups
planning to co-sign, and we also need consensus of the IETF community that you
sign it.

Given the first of these, I think the question you ask is "Are there strong
objections?" not "Could we wordsmith this so we would be happier with it?"

Had you asked the second question, I would have been first in line (actually, I
already sent my thoughts a couple of weeks ago). But I agree there is no scope
for that at this stage.

Since you asked the other question: No, I have no strong objection, and I
support this statement being signed by you and the IAB chair.

Thanks,
Adrian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:ietf-announce-
> [email-masked]] On Behalf Of IETF Chair
> Sent: 10 August 2012 16:20
> To: IETF-Announce
> Cc: IAB; IETF
> Subject: Last Call: Modern Global Standards Paradigm
> 
>

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:55:45 -0700

I support the IETF and IAB chairs signing document.

Bob

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:52:59 -0700

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read what the proposal is. The proposal being put forth is not that the ITU-T wants to write Internet standards. The proposal being put forth is that ONLY ITU-T standards will be the *legal* standards accepted by signatory nations.

At best, this would be a repeat of GOSIP in the U.S., where the law was the U.S. government could only buy OSI products. The issue there was the private sector was still free to buy what it wanted and DoD did not really follow the rules and bought TCP/IP instead. TCP/IP in the market killed OSI.

The difference here is some countries may take their ITR obligations literally and ban products that use non-ITU protocols. Could one go to jail for using TCP/IP or HTTP? That has an admittedly small, but not insignificant possibility of happening. Worse yet, having treaties that obligates countries to ban non-ITU protocols does virtually guarantee a balkanization of the Internet into open and free networking and controlled and censored networking.

Just as it is not fair to say that if the ITU-T gets its way the world will end, it is also not fair to say there is no risk to allowing the ITU-T to get a privileged, NON-VOLUNTARY, position in the communications world.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 23:09:12 -0400

This has been going on for quite a few years now and I had read many
iterations before the ITU-T Dubai meeting emerged as the venue of
choice for the latest push on this idea.

The real problem is that many of the smaller countries have lost tax
revenue that used to be collected on international telephone calls and
Russia and China are offering them the fiction that they will be able
to recoup that if they bring the net under control. That idea is even
more attractive to the telecommunications ministers who were getting a
cut of that revenue.

I think the idea that the ITU-T is going to write a treaty that
western governments feel obliged to sign is rather silly. The US has
had no problem refusing to sign treaties and withdrawing from UN
charter bodies, none. Europe isn't a pushover either. Does anyone
really imagine that the Senate is going to ratify any treaty that
comes out regardless of what it says?

There is a big difference between aspirational and necessary goals.
The SCO countries aspirational goal is control of the net. Their
necessary goal is to ensure that undue US influence over Internet
governance might lead policy makers to believe that they could impose
a digital blockade. Now I am pretty sure that the technology does not
allow them to do that but what really matters is what the policy
makers believe and there are some individuals who could well be in
very senior policy making positions who clearly think it does.

The necessary goal for the US is to maintain the openness of the
Internet. At least that is what the State dept considers the primary
goal at the moment. The big liability in the US position is the
aspirational goal of maintaining control. Take that off the table and
there would be remarkably little support for the SCO scheme.

---

From: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 07:26:51 +0000

> I support the IETF and IAB chairs signing document.

+1

(I'd even co-sign for the IRTF, but I think that isn't really appropriate in this case.)

Lars

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 08:44:28 +0100

I support this too.

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

On 10/08/2012 23:55, Bob Hinden wrote:
> .

---

From: Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 11:39:12 +0200

I wish to thank Phillip and Eric for their illuminating comments.

However, I'm still not clear on the role that great powers may play in
the standards development and deployment, compared to that of vested
interests.  Stranger to economics, I may be conflating the concept of
open standard with that of open source, and their relationships with
markets.  I'd be grateful if someone can explain the IETF's position
in this game.

At a first glance, many traits of the IETF look similar to those of
open source organizations:  Voluntary, unpaid participation, free
products, meritocracy, even hairstyle.  However, the hype that the
Modern Global Standards Paradigm poses on industrial and commercial
competition dwarfs the aim at benefiting humanity --"hollow words"
someone said.

With different purposes and techniques, networking giants, closed
countries, and SDOs, all aim at controlling the Internet.  The IETF
has historically been different, AFAIK.  But looking at it going to
sit around a table with the sort of players mentioned in the messages
quoted below, as in a remake of the Congress of Vienna, makes me feel
doubtful.

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 02:35:34 -0700

At 15:52 10-08-2012, Eric Burger wrote:
>that the ITU-T wants to write Internet standards. The proposal being 
>put forth is that ONLY ITU-T standards will be the *legal* standards 
>accepted by signatory nations.

Phillip posted the following comment previously:

   "The strength of the IETF negotiating position comes from the fact that
    we cannot dictate terms to anyone. The consensus that matters is not
    just consensus among the people developing the specification document
    but consensus among the people who are expected to act on it."

If one accepts the above principle signatory nations would still use 
some IETF standards for systems and equipment and push back on 
competing standards proposed within another organization.  The 
sweetener in what was proposed is that developing nations would be 
provided with assistance to evaluate product compliance.

A significant number of these nations do not understand what is the 
IETF and how it works.  This does not affect the IETF as long as 
there isn't an alternative standard developed within an organization 
which these nations consider as reputable.

>The difference here is some countries may take their ITR obligations 
>literally and ban products that use non-ITU protocols. Could one go 
>to jail for using TCP/IP or HTTP? That has an admittedly small, but 
>not insignificant possibility of happening. Worse yet,

It is highly unlikely that someone would be sent to jail for using 
the protocols mentioned above.

>  having treaties that obligates countries to ban non-ITU protocols 
> does virtually guarantee a balkanization of the Internet into open 
> and free networking and controlled and censored networking.

Some of issues which the organization seeks to address are:

  - cybercrime

  - spam

It has been mentioned within the IETF that the walled garden service 
model simplifies a number of issues.  I don't think that some nations 
would consider network control to solve these issues as censored 
networking.  Whether these issues could be solved without a strong 
regulatory regime is another question.

>revenue that used to be collected on international telephone calls and

I would describe it as a motivation to support a change which might 
bring in more revenue for these countries.  The end user will get 
fleeced but that's just a matter of detail.

>a digital blockade. Now I am pretty sure that the technology does not

That debate has been going on for years.

>very senior policy making positions who clearly think it does.

Yes.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 08:05:13 -0400

> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-15.pdf

no brainer.

randy

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:58:24 +0100

On 11/08/2012 10:39, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
> interests.  

Traditionally, and still in some countries, the telecommunications
monopolist *is* the government, so defending the monopoly is directly
in the government's financial interest. In other countries, where
there's still a de facto monopoly, that monopolist is very good at
political lobbying. So in both those types of country, the vested
interest drives the government position. Add that to the governments
that want central control and/or monitoring of information, and you
get a strong bloc of political support for standards and regulations
that support monopoly, control, and eavesdropping.

    Brian

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 15:17:20 +0100

This is the kind of thing to which I'd normally pay
no attention at all, but I don't get away with that
these days;-)

Anyway, I do reckon this is an important issue and,
stilted language and all, this is very much worth
supporting. So, I'd encourage everyone to try find
out more about it and to support Russ and Bernard in
signing this, and to spread the message locally that
the IETF way of doing this stuff is, while not near
perfect, the best we've seen to date.

S.

---

From: "GTW" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:45:41 -0400

I support the thrust of the "Modern Global Standards Paradigm"  It is 
particularly timely  as the US formally prepares for meetings of the ITU and 
CITEL and there are some aspirations from some members and staff at ITU 
inconsistent with the market based approach to standards setting the 
document embraces.  I support IETF Chair and the IAB Chair signing such a 
document.

While I am content with the wording of the section on IP  this text  is 
nevertheless imprecise.

clip from 

4. Availability. Standards specifications are made accessible to all for

implementation and deployment. Affirming standards organizations have 
defined

procedures to develop specifications that can be implemented under fair 
terms.

Given market diversity, fair terms may vary from royalty-free (especially 
where

open source is commonplace) to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory 
terms

(FRAND).

end clip

 If there were time for tweaking it would be helpful.  What are time 
constraints?   The first sentence  seems to be describing the availability 
of specifications to users ... this is the issue of copyrights and fees 
charged for copies of standards.  Specifications have to be available to 
users under reasonable terms but not necessarily for free.  But the words 
are not clear that is what is being addressed. The second sentence seems to 
describe that   licenses to practice essential patent claims related to a 
standards  are available under "fair terms"  However the global patent 
policy concept generally is  that such licenses should be available under 
"reasonable and non discriminatory" terms.   The single  term   "reasonable 
and non discriminatory" covers  the situation where there may be a "fee" 
involved or not.  There may be  non fee based terms in what other wise be 
called "royalty free" licenses It is not that RAND and FRAND are different 
from "royalty free" It is that "royalty free"  falls under the overall 
condition of  fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory term when there may 
be non royalty terms involved.  Sometimes the "royalty free" situation is 
described as  "RAND(0)"   I   am also curious about the IETF experience with 
its patent policy.  What is further background  to the statement that "often 
our IPR terms at  IETF end up being much worse than that."  The comments 
below that the paragraph does not  accurately describe the IETF experience 
are worrisome.

clip from 

 Cullen Jennings: I was just noting that the IPR terms vary from RF to
FRAND. I wish that was true. But I think that often our IPR terms at
IETF end up being much worse than that.

Russ: Understand.

Leslie Daigle: I wanted just to help you out a bit by popping up a
level and giving the broader context of this whole statement. You have
alluded to the fact that it was born from discussions with a number of
organizations. Everyone should appreciate that Russ is presenting today
something that he thinks is viable for the IETF. The challenge has been
that indeed the words have been discussed extensively for a period of
time and there was fairly wide divergence exactly on the point that
Cullen just mentioned. Have been seeking terminology that says something
positive about how to do things, and also encompasses a broad range of
ways that different organizations do things. We are very different from
the WC3, which is very different from the IEEE. But we are trying to
capture things that are positive, constructive, new -- as compared to
the establishment, if you will, of the SDO world. So that has been the
challenge. Having input from people in terms of support or not is
probably quite useful. The document -- and I will personally take
responsibility for some of this -- is not in the best English ever. So,
some of the comments on it would be better if it were written this way,
you'll get a polite smile and a nod, and we will take that into
consideration in the next iteration. So, just by way of context, it is
a joint effort, and I hope we are capturing something useful that
expresses something the community believes in. Because personally, I
think the really novel thing is to stand up and say, there are formal
standards development organization in the world, and there are other
organizations that get together and are doing something that is
slightly different, being driven by different motivations. We are
seeking technical excellence, are dedicated to being open, are
dedicated to providing standards that will be built by industry. And
that isn't an immature form. We are hoping not to grow up into the
more traditional form. We are trying to make a statement so that more
people understand that this is a real thing, and that it is valuable.

Scott Bradner: I made some comments on this document to the authors. I
think it is a very important thing to say, for the reasons that Leslie
just described. But I do worry that it has to be accurate. And I do
believe that the specific text of the IPR section is not accurate, when
it comes to the IETF. And could be used against us because it is not
what we do.

Russ: Thank you, and I can tell you that those words are still under
discussion. The concerns that Cullen any you raised are representative
of a comment that I have already shared with the people trying to put
this to together

end clip

George T. Willingmyre, P.E.
www.gtwassociates.com
301 421 4138

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 07:47:42 -0700

On 8/10/2012 3:52 PM, Eric Burger wrote:
> Just as it is not fair to say that if the ITU-T gets its way the
> world will end, it is also not fair to say there is no risk to
> allowing the ITU-T to get a privileged, NON-VOLUNTARY, position in
> the communications world.

Given the historical example of GOSIP, and its ilk, that you cited, we 
actually do have a basis for believing that a similar arrangement now 
will do quite a bit of damage.

The difference in timeliness and pragmatics between a voluntary, 
industry-collaborative effort like the IETF's, versus a legally-enforced 
position like the ITU's work, has already been demonstrated.

The latter never got their system running at scale.

Occasionally in an email presentation, I'll ask an audience who among 
them is familiar with X.400.  Very few hands get raised, yet for 15 
years, it was in exactly the legally-enforced position being proposed now.

d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:56:38 -0400

--On Friday, August 10, 2012 15:52 -0700 Eric Burger
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read what the proposal is. The proposal
> being put forth is not that the ITU-T wants to write Internet
> standards. The proposal being put forth is that ONLY ITU-T
> standards will be the *legal* standards accepted by signatory
> nations.

> At best, this would be a repeat of GOSIP in the U.S., where
> the law was the U.S. government could only buy OSI products.
> The issue there was the private sector was still free to buy
> what it wanted and DoD did not really follow the rules and
> bought TCP/IP instead. TCP/IP in the market killed OSI.
>...

Eric,

In the interest of understanding our position in this area as
well as possible, I don't think the facts support "TCP/IP in the
market killed OSI" except in a vary narrow sense.  It would be
much more accurate to say that OSI self-destructed and the
TCP/IP was then available as a working technology that satisfied
most of the relevant requirements.  The self-destruction
resulted from some combination of untested specifications that
weren't quite implementable in an interoperable ways, promises
that things would be ready two years in the future (a sliding
target for more than a decade), gradually growing awareness of
excessive complexity and too many options, and possibly other
factors.  

It is worth remembering that in the most critical part of that
period, the IETF wasn't developing/pushing TCP/IP in the
marketplace but had its face firmly immersed in the KoolAid
trough: we even had a TCP/IP transition area  into the 90s.  I
might even suggest that we have abandoned the principle of
simple and clear protocols with few options and, in a few cases,
adopted the "reach consensus by giving all sides their own set
of options" model that was arguably a large component of what
made the OSI suite vunerable to self-destruction.  The
once-legendary speed with which we could do things has also
yielded to a larger and more process-encumbered IETF.   Today,
we may have more to fear from ourselves than from the ITU.

None of that has anything to do with whether the proposed
statement is appropriate.

> The difference here is some countries may take their ITR
> obligations literally and ban products that use non-ITU
> protocols. Could one go to jail for using TCP/IP or HTTP? That
> has an admittedly small, but not insignificant possibility of
> happening.

What happened last time was that a number of countries banned
their communications carriers from carrying TCP/IP (or anything
else) that didn't run over ITU protocols.  Unsurprisingly, those
bans were fairly effective in countries that were serious about
them -- and that list of countries was not limited to
out-of-the-way developing nations.

Whether that would be realistic today is another question.  The
Internet is fairly entrenched, things have not gone well for
countries who have tried to cut it off once it is well
established, and some experts have even suggested that excessive
restrictions on the Internet might constitute a non-tariff trade
barrier.  Relative to the latter and in these fragile economic
times, one can only speculate on whether countries are more
afraid of trade limitations and sanctions than of the ITU.
More important, as Phillip (with whom I generally disagree on
these sorts of matters) has pointed out, there is a long and
rather effective history of what countries do when a UN body's
behavior operates significantly against their national
interests: they refuse to sign the treaties and, in severe
cases, withdraw and stop paying dues and assessments.
Remembering that there is no such thing as a Sector Member from
a non-Member country, someone who was very cynical about these
things might even suggest that the most effective way to get the
ITU out of the Internet would be to have them pass these
measures in their most extreme form with the medium-term result
of wrecking their budget and, with it, their ability to
function.   Or one might speculate that is the reason why ITU's
senior leadership appears to have largely backed away from the
most extreme of those proposals.

> Worse yet, having treaties that obligates countries
> to ban non-ITU protocols does virtually guarantee a
> balkanization of the Internet into open and free networking
> and controlled and censored networking.

A form of that risk exists whether such treaties are created or
not.  If a country considers it sufficiently necessary to its
national interest to withdraw from the Internet and adopt a
different and non-interoperable set of protocols, it will almost
certainly do so with or without approval from Geneva.  I believe
we should make that process as easy as possible for them,
designing things so that they can't hurt others when they do so.
Countries who isolate themselves from contemporary
communications technologies have not been treated well by
history, economics, or their own populations.

We also should not discount some possible advantages: for
example, the withdrawal of a few selected countries from the
Internet and enforced requirements there to use only
non-interoperable protocols could do wonders to reduce the
amount of malicious spam introduced into the network.  :-(

> Just as it is not fair to say that if the ITU-T gets its way
> the world will end, it is also not fair to say there is no
> risk to allowing the ITU-T to get a privileged, NON-VOLUNTARY,
> position in the communications world.

Certainly there are risks.  And certainly we should be aware of
those risks and think through the various strategies we and
others might adopt.  But let's not confuse ourselves with
specious arguments about disaster scenarios.

Again, it seems to me that none of the above has much to do with
whether this statement should be issued.

   john

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 08:11:14 -0700

On 8/11/2012 7:56 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
>      I don't think the facts support "TCP/IP in the
> most of the relevant requirements.

Not really.

In much of the world, OSI created the market demand for open systems. 
And yes, TCP/IP filled it when OSI couldn't.  (In the late 80s, 25% of 
my TCP/IP product revenue was from Europe, including the IT department 
at ISO...)

However had there been no TCP/IP, the OSI folks would have had to find a 
way to make their stuff work.  While we like to think that original 
design decisions for OSI are what killed it, there's plenty of 
experience showing that really bad designs can be made viable, given 
enough effort.[1]

The underlying problems with OSI design made success for OSI massively 
more difficult.  However failure would not have been allowed had they 
been the only game in town.

The presence of a viable and -- ahem -- superior alternative to OSI is 
what finally killed it, by diverting market interest to the alternative.

d/

[1] The IETF-based characterization of this was by Marshall Rose:  With 
enough thrust, pigs /can/ fly.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:51:40 -0400

+1

But do not discount the possibility that inducing the US to withdraw
is the objective of certain parties in this little exercise.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:16:58 -0400

--On Saturday, August 11, 2012 12:51 -0400 Phillip Hallam-Baker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> But do not discount the possibility that inducing the US to
> withdraw is the objective of certain parties in this little
> exercise.

Given the fraction of the ITU budget and the even larger
fraction of the T-Sector budget that come from the US and
US-based Sector Members, that would be fairly irrational
behavior for those who wanted to preserve a healthy and
well-staffed ITU.  On the other hand, irrational behavior would
be nothing new in this area so I can't disagree with the
possibility.

    john

---

From: "Sprecher, Nurit (NSN - IL/Hod HaSharon)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:51:10 +0200

I support the IETF and IAB chairs signing the document,
Nurit

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
ext Adrian Farrel
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 12:38 AM
To: 'IETF'; 'IAB'; 'IETF-Announce'
Subject: RE: Last Call: Modern Global Standards Paradigm

Hi Russ,

I am conscious that this text needs to have the consensus of the three
groups
planning to co-sign, and we also need consensus of the IETF community
that you
sign it.

Given the first of these, I think the question you ask is "Are there
strong
objections?" not "Could we wordsmith this so we would be happier with
it?"

Had you asked the second question, I would have been first in line
(actually, I
already sent my thoughts a couple of weeks ago). But I agree there is no
scope
for that at this stage.

Since you asked the other question: No, I have no strong objection, and
I
support this statement being signed by you and the IAB chair.

Thanks,
Adrian

> of the Modern Global Standards Paradigm, which can be found
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-15.p
df

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 11:10:24 -0700

>> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-15.pdf

Even with a brain, the document is obviously good. Please sign it.

--Paul Hoffman

---

From: Tobias Gondrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:52:24 +0100

> Even with a brain, the document is obviously good. Please sign it.

Agree and support.
Please sign it.
- Tobias Gondrom

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 11:41:58 -0700

Yes.

Nowadays some governments only own a share of the telecommunications 
monopoly.  Other operators, for example some companies who are part 
of the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association ( 
http://www.etno.be/Default.aspx?tabid=1239 ), have a financial 
interest in these monopolies.

The US does not need central control because most of the content 
accessed by its users is internal traffic.  It's easy to apply local 
laws.  The EU can also use its laws on a country basis.  Revenue 
which is a significant incentive for content providers.  Advertising 
revenue per user for a one content provider is as follows:

   US/Canada  $9.51
   EU         $4.86
   Asia       $1.79
   Other      $1.42

Here is a rough estimate of users for one content provider:

   US     158,758,940
   Brazil  54,902,560
   India   51,925,180
   UK      37,569,580
   France  24,345,920
   Italy   21,822,640
   Canada  17,474,940
   Spain   16,075,560
   Egypt   11,513,720
   Russia   5,560,080
   Romania  4,928,100
   Tunisia  3,107,040
   Libya      608,380
   China      520,780
   Uganda     444,560

If tomorrow Italy decides to adopt a "sending party pays" model it 
may still be financially viable for the content provider to remain in 
that market.  It may not work that well for Uganda.

If tomorrow Libya decides that it would be in its interest to control 
access to the Internet, operators can route around the problem as we 
all know that's how the Internet works.  Well, not really, if most of 
the traffic passes through one international gateway.  You can send 
traffic over port 443 to prevent eavesdropping as that port is 
secure.  Well, not really, if the user already trusts the wrong SSL 
certificate.

If you are on an Internet governance soapbox you might as well talk 
about how the US is evil and it should not be the only country 
running the Internet.  You might also want to add that having only 13 
root nameservers is all part of a conspiracy and that the IETF must 
fix that.  Obviously someone must be running this Internet thing or 
else you will have to review your belief system.

Yes.

Yes.

>amount of malicious spam introduced into the network.  :-(

There are advantages in everything.

At 08:11 11-08-2012, Dave Crocker wrote:
>[1] The IETF-based characterization of this was by Marshall 
>Rose:  With enough thrust, pigs /can/ fly.

FWIW the original statement was different.

At 08:13 11-08-2012, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>(That's also what you choose your leadership for.
>If we don't like the outcome, we can always decide not to re-elect Russ :-)

I am taking bets on who will be the next IETF Chair. :-)

In traditional telecommunications the cost of sending one MB of data 
is around US$30.  A user can get a one GB Internet subscription for 
the same price.  In the traditional standards organization you don't 
have a say if in the baking of the standard.  In the IETF you wring 
the neck of the WG Chair or Area Director if he/she does not let you 
have a say.

As an anecdote, I was notified that I will be unsubscribed from an 
ISOC mailing list due to technical limitations.  It is unconceivable 
for that to happen in the IETF.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Michael Tuexen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 21:32:06 +0200

> Even with a brain, the document is obviously good. Please sign it.
I agree.

Best regards
Michael

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 23:08:09 +0300

On Aug 11, 2012, at 9:41 PM, SM wrote:
> all know that's how the Internet works.

These operators are (hypothetically) Libyan citizens, right?  Residents of Libya who could go to jail for routing around the problem. Most likely on a charge of espionage. 

> Well, not really, if most of 
> the traffic passes through one international gateway.  

The number of international gateways does not matter, if all the operators have to comply with the government's blacklist, or have to install a government-mandated policy on a government-mandated firewall.

> You can send 

Not trusting the certificate just means you get annoying warnings. It won't let you circumvent it. Living in an authoritarian country means you don't get to play cat & mouse with your government

> else you will have to review your belief system.

I thought it was Al Gore running the Internet from his garage, no?

Yoav

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 23:08:54 +0300

> Even with a brain, the document is obviously good. Please sign it.

I'm dubious as to how much influence this will have on the outcome, but +1

Yoav

---

From: Scott O Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 18:51:23 -0400

singing this statement is the right thing to do 

Scott

(responding to a sorta-last-call)

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 01:14:13 +0200

> singing this statement is the right thing to do 

For 0.29 seconds, I imagined you in front of a microphone in a recording studio, singing "Modern Global Standards Paradigm" to the tune of "All the young dudes".  For 0.29 seconds...

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: Allison Mankin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:35:09 -0400

Wonderful image. IETF Discuss List, The Musical.

I thought very well of Russ's discussion of the statement in Vancouver. I
support signing it.

Allison
On Aug 11, 2012 7:14 PM, "Carsten Bormann" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> For 0.29 seconds, I imagined you in front of a microphone in a recording
> studio, singing "Modern Global Standards Paradigm" to the tune of "All the
> young dudes".  For 0.29 seconds...
>
> Grüße, Carsten
>
>

---

From: Scott O Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:54:51 -0400

ah yes - Mac Mail being helpful (again)

:-)

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:06:08 -0700

Hi Yoav,
At 13:08 11-08-2012, Yoav Nir wrote:
>These operators are (hypothetically) Libyan citizens, 
>right?  Residents of Libya who

Yes.

>The number of international gateways does not matter, if all the 
>operators have to comply with the government's blacklist, or have to 
>install a government-mandated policy on a government-mandated firewall.

Yes.

As these government-mandated policies only end up intercepting HTTP 
traffic it not worth the bother arguing about it.  The entertaining 
part of the government blacklists is that they are maintained by an 
organization in another country.

>Not trusting the certificate just means you get annoying warnings. 
>It won't let you circumvent it. Living in an authoritarian country 
>means you don't get to play cat & mouse with your government

In most countries you don't play cat and mouse with the government.

:-)

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 06:55:00 +0300

> In most countries you don't play cat and mouse with the government.

In most western countries you can use TOR and wear a tinfoil hat. This might make some government agency suspicious, but they don't get to arrest you and question you about what you're hiding/

Yoav

---

From: "Bert Wijnen \(IETF\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 12:41:33 +0200

I support that IETF and IAB chairs sign this document.

Bert

---

From: ALAIN AINA <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:46:15 +0400

+1

--Alain

---

From: Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:11:36 +0200

On Mon 13/Aug/2012 03:22:52 +0200 JFC Morfin wrote:
> At 19:16 11/08/2012, John C Klensin wrote:
> 
>> On the other hand, irrational behavior would be nothing new in this
>> area so I can't disagree with the possibility.
> 
> Correct. This is why, if I understand the motivation, I strongly
> disagree with the wording of the document and your evaluation of the
> situation. The US/IETF rationale being used is disagreed by non-US
> related industries and most probably by every Government (including
> the USG) because it looks like SDOs wanted to decide alone, based upon
> market results, about the standards for the people they represent.

FWIW, I'd like to recall that several governments endorse IETF
protocols by establishing Internet based procedures for official
communications with the relevant PA, possibly giving them legal
standing.  Francesco Gennai presented a brief review of such
procedures[*] at the APPSAWG meeting in Paris.  At the time, John
Klensin suggested that, while a more in-depth review of existing
practices would be appreciated, the ITU is a more suitable body for
the standardization of a unified, compatible protocol for certified
email, because of those governmental involvements.

[*] http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/83/slides/slides-83-appsawg-1.pdf

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:50:25 -0400

--On Monday, August 13, 2012 11:11 +0200 Alessandro Vesely
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> protocols by establishing Internet based procedures for
> official communications with the relevant PA, possibly giving
> them legal standing.  Francesco Gennai presented a brief
> review of such procedures[*] at the APPSAWG meeting in Paris.
> At the time, John Klensin suggested that, while a more
> in-depth review of existing practices would be appreciated,
> the ITU is a more suitable body for the standardization of a
> unified, compatible protocol for certified email, because of
> those governmental involvements.
> 
> [*]
>
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/83/slides/slides-83-appsawg-1.pdf

Alessandro,

Please be a little careful about context, as your sequence of
comments above could easily be misleading.  

For the very specific case of email certified by third parties,
especially where there is a requirement for worldwide
recognition (the topic of the talk and slides you cited), the
biggest problem has, historically, been an administrative and
policy one, not a technical standards issue.  We know how to
digitally sign email in several different ways -- there is
actually no shortage of standards.   While additional standards
are certainly possible, more options in the absence of
compelling need almost always reduces practical
interoperability.  Perhaps the key question in the certified
mail matter is who does the certifying and why anyone else
should pay attention.  The thing that makes that question
complicated was famously described by Jeff Schiller (I believe
while he was still IETF Security AD) when he suggested that
someone would need to be insane to issue general-purpose
certificates that actually certified identity unless they were
an entity able to invoke sovereign immunity, i.e., a government.

For certified email (or certified postal mail), your ability to
rely on the certification in, e.g., legal matters ultimately
depends on your government being willing to say something to you
like "if you rely on this in the following ways, we will protect
you from bad consequences if it wasn't reliable or accurate".
If you want the same relationship with "foreign" mail, you still
have to rely on your government's assertions since a foreign
government can't do a thing for you if you get into trouble.
That, in turn, requires treaties or some sort of bilateral
agreements between the governments (for postal mail, some of
that is built into the postal treaties).  

International organizations, particularly UN-based ones, can
serve an important role in arranging such agreements and
possibly even in being the repository organization for the
treaties.  In the particular case of certified email, the ITU
could reasonably play that role (although it seems to me that a
very strong case could be made for having the UPU do it instead
by building on existing foundations).

But that has nothing to do with the development of technical
protocol standards.  Historical experience with development of
technical standards by governmental/legislative bodies that then
try to mandate their use has been almost universally poor and
has often included ludicrous results.

A similar example arises with the spam problem.  There are many
technical approaches to protecting the end user from spam
(especially malicious spam) and for facilitating the efforts of
mail delivery service providers and devices to apply those
protective mechanisms.  Some of them justify technical standards
that should be worked out in open forums that make their
decisions on open and technical bases.  But, if one wants to
prevent spam from imposing costs on intended recipients or third
parties, that becomes largely a law-making and law enforcement
problem, not a technical one.  If countries decide that they
want to prevent spam from being sent, or to punish the senders,
a certain amount of international cooperation (bilateral or
multilaterial) is obviously going to be necessary.   As with the
UPU and email certification, there might be better agencies or
forums for discussion than the ITU or there might not.  But it
isn't a technical protocol problem that the IETF is going to be
able to solve or should even try to address, at least without a
clear and actionable problem statement from those bodies.

I do believe that the ITU can, and should, serve a useful role
in the modern world.  The discussion above (and some of the work
of the Development and Radio Sectors) are good illustrations.
But those cases have, as far as I can tell, nothing to do with
the proposed statement, which is about the development and
deployment of technical protocol standards.

regards,
    john

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:26:12 -0400

+1. The ITU is not evil. It just is not the right place for Internet standards development. As John points out, there are potential uses of the ITU-T for good.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:08:12 +0200

+1

---

From: ALAIN AINA <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:21:58 +0400

I will say "there are potential uses of the  ITU for good".

--Alain

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:35:12 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "ALAIN AINA" <[email-masked]>
To: "IETF" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 1:21 PM

<tp>
Yes, they did a brilliant job in developing standards which allow
the proprietary phone network of one country to interface to
the proprietary phone network of another country, without
which we could never have had International Subscriber Trunk
Dialling.  Whether this is a suitable model for the Internet
seems doubtful to me.

Tom Petch

</tp>--Alain

On Aug 14, 2012, at 6:26 AM, Eric Burger wrote:

> +1. The ITU is not evil. It just is not the right place for Internet
standards development. As John points out, there are potential uses of
the ITU-T for good.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:11:33 -0400

--On Monday, August 13, 2012 22:26 -0400 Eric Burger
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> +1. The ITU is not evil. It just is not the right place for
> Internet standards development. As John points out, there are
> potential uses of the ITU-T for good.

Eric,

I'd narrow your first statement further and say "Internet
technical standards development" or "Internet protocol standards
development".  There are, at least potentially, other
categories.  Those at least mostly fall outside the IETF's scope
and there may well be useful work for the ITU to do in some of
them.  

I find it interesting that ISO and many of their Member Bodies
(including, fwiw, ANSI) make a careful distinction between
standards that have direct bearing on safety issues and other
types... and use different approval criteria for the former.
The IETF doesn't do safety standards (emergency reporting is
really not in that category) and I'm not quite sure what a
safety standard at the IP layer or above would look like (I can
imagine some at physical layer, but we don't do those either).
If there were such a thing as a safety standard involving
communications technology, I could imagine an ITU role there
(although I can't think of any examples for which ISO/IEC JTC1
would not be more appropriate).

I don't see that as contradicting the proposed statement in any
way although, if we had more opportunity to quibble about
wording, I might think some fine-tuning was in order.

    john

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:23:30 +0000

Hi,

I think very strongly that IAB should sign this document.

Cheers,

Jonne.
-- 
Jonne Soininen
Renesas Mobile

Tel: +358 40 527 4634
E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: IETF Chair <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:11:13 -0400

Thank you for the lively discussion.  Based on the great number of messages, I judge that there is rough consensus for the IETF Chair and the IAB Chair signing the Affirmation.  The Last Call asks for people to speak up if they have strong objections.  Despite the phrasing of the question, many people spoke in favor of this action.

A few people raised concerns about the process that lead to this document.  First, Bernard Aboba, acting as IAB Chair, sent the statement out and asked for comment.  Then, the document was discussed in the plenary session on Vancouver.  Finally, on August 10th, I sent out the Last Call.  Comments sent in reply to Bernard's message and comments from the plenary discussion were addresses prior to the Last Call.

Here are the versions:
Asked for comment: http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-4.pdf
Last Call: http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-15.pdf

This document is not intended for the standards track.  The IAB is considering publication as an Informational RFC to preserve the document in the RFC series.

Based on the comments received during the Last Call, one change is being made to the document.  The document said:

  4. Availability. Standards specifications are made accessible to all for
  implementation and deployment. Affirming standards organizations have defined
  procedures to develop specifications that can be implemented under fair terms.
  Given market diversity, fair terms may vary from royalty-free (especially where
  open source is commonplace) to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms
  (FRAND).

The Last Call raised a concern, asking for deletion of this phrase:

  (especially where open source is commonplace)

Based on the Last Call discussion, this change was recommended to the other signers.  This change was accepted, and this phrase will be deleted.

Thanks again,
  Russ Housley
  IETF Chair

---

From: IETF Chair <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2012 15:45:14 -0400

The version with the phrase deleted is now available:
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-16.pdf