Subject: Regarding focus of draft-nottingham-for-the-users

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 09:20:16 +0100

(I note that the disucssion is largely not on the venue, but the content 
of the draft.)

IN looking at the draft, and looking at the discussion of the draft, 
there is one aspect that strikes me as confusing that I have not seen 
mentioned.

I can not argue that the end human beings who make use of the Internet 
are very important to the question of "what are we trying to 
accomplish?" and "what does it mean to make the Internet better?".

However, I have been hearing for years about machine-to-machine 
communication.  And its growing importance.  The current incarnation is 
IoT, but that is just one aspect.  There are lots of other ways that 
machines interact over the Internet.  The Internet is "for" those 
interactions as well.

One could argue that those interactions are eventually for the benefit 
of some human (or humans).  But even if one wants to take that tack, I 
have trouble viewing those important people as "users" of the Internet 
for these interactions.

So I think we need to be a bit careful to keep track of the difference 
between "the Internet is for human beings" and "the Internet is only for 
human beings".  The later seems to be the thrust of the current langauge 
in the document.

Yours,
Joel

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 06:54:38 -0400

On 3/20/19 4:20 AM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:

> between "the Internet is for human beings" and "the Internet is only 
> for human beings".  The later seems to be the thrust of the current 
> langauge in the document.

My view is that the "things" in the "Internet of things" must primarily 
serve human beings, not the corporations that make/sell them, and 
especially not the things.

Keith

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:04:37 +0100

The Cylon constituency is going to be very disappointed.

> On 20 Mar 2019, at 11:54, Keith Moore <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> So I think we need to be a bit careful to keep track of the difference between "the Internet is for human beings" and "the Internet is only for human beings".  The later seems to be the thrust of the current langauge in the document.
> 
> My view is that the "things" in the "Internet of things" must primarily serve human beings, not the corporations that make/sell them, and especially not the things.
> 
> Keith
> 
>

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:18:36 +0100

The question of whom the various devices on the Internet serve, while an 
interesting one, is not as far as I can tell either a technical question 
nor a question on which the IETF is in a position to provide useful 
influence.  It also is not, again as far as I can tell, the subject of 
either the draft in quesiton or the general topic the IAB seems to want 
to discuss.

It seems to be a complex political and economic question.  And likely a 
space full of unintended consequences.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 11:22:26 +0000

> especially not the things.

This is novel and disruptive idea.  I like it.

Nick

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 07:50:32 -0400

On 3/20/19 7:18 AM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:

> The question of whom the various devices on the Internet serve, while 
> an interesting one, is not as far as I can tell either a technical 
> question nor a question on which the IETF is in a position to provide 
> useful influence.  It also is not, again as far as I can tell, the 
> subject of either the draft in quesiton or the general topic the IAB 
> seems to want to discuss.

If the things that we're building don't serve the needs of the users who 
are ultimately paying for them (whether with money or via some other 
means, say disclosure of personal information), they will eventually 
fail, and the correction will be painful. It's our job to build an 
Internet that serves the needs of users and will continue to do so in 
the future, not one that causes significant harm to people.   And the 
danger is real.  Perhaps IETF only influences that in peripheral ways, 
but it is still a powerful influence.

We can either stick our heads in the sand, or try to have some 
foresight.  Our foresight will certainly be imperfect, but it's probably 
better than willful blindness.

>
> It seems to be a complex political and economic question.  And likely 
> a space full of unintended consequences.
>
undoubtedly.

Keith

---

From: "Martin Thomson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:01:32 -0400

> better than willful blindness.

I agree with Keith's points here, but I don't think that the draft is demanding any more than what we can (and mostly already) do.  Just a recognition that what we do isn't free of consequence and that we have a responsibility to engage with those consequences.

I don't think that we've had a problem of willful ignorance or blindness. I'd suggest that it's more a case of denial.  Denial of the fact that there are wider consequences to our choices.  More seriously, denial of the fact that ignoring them is a very particular way of engaging with those consequences.

Yes, we are better at making decisions when we can concentrate on technical matters, but any decisions we make will be more relevant when their greater context is considered in that process.  My view is that anything less would be irresponsible.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 10:14:21 +0100

Martin:

> On 21 Mar 2019, at 02:01, Martin Thomson <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

One cannot but agree with the abstracted point you have made.   Unfortunately, that is not what the draft actually states (see my first email in this thread).

> I don't think that we've had a problem of willful ignorance or blindness.. I'd suggest that it's more a case of denial.  Denial of the fact that there are wider consequences to our choices.  More seriously, denial of the fact that ignoring them is a very particular way of engaging with those consequences.

A claim that others are in denial is either true or a discounting of considered experience and conclusions of people with different perspectives.  Can you elaborate on why you believe it to be the former and not the latter?

> Yes, we are better at making decisions when we can concentrate on technical matters, but any decisions we make will be more relevant when their greater context is considered in that process.  My vi…

That's not only because just because we as a community are primarily techies, but also because people have different priorities and concerns.  It is hard to find consensus on our works when conflicting values have technical implications; and in those cases it should be hard.

As you implied above, this tussle is already necessarily playing out.  A new normative document could, by design, place a finger on the scale, as I previously wrote, in such a way as to short circuit consideration of consequences, leading to the very irresponsible outcome you wish to avoid.

Eliot

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From: "BRUNGARD, DEBORAH A" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 16:00:13 +0000

+1 Eliot (especially first mail), Jari, Kathleen, Stewart (and of course, others, e.g. Stephen, on the uncertainty of the scope vs. rest of the document).

I think it is misleading/oversimplified to identify specific "groups" as threats. It doesn't help any constructive discussion to say "us vs. them" especially when "them" is probably the majority of us.

I'd suggest if continuing with this draft to generalize, e.g.:
the IETF tends to protect their interests over those of parties such as network operators or equipment vendors/s/the IETF tends to protect their interests over other interests which may harm the user.

And this sentence:
While networks need to be managed, employers and equipment vendors need to meet business goals, and so on, the IETF's mission is to "build a better human society"/s/ The IETF's mission is to "build a better human society".

This document, especially the above sentence, does not accurately reflect RFC3935. There is no sentence in RFC3935 implying some IETF participants "need to meet business goals". RFC3935's mission statement is inclusive. This document as currently is divisive. I prefer RFC3935.

Deborah
(no hats)

From: ietf <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Eliot Lear
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2019 5:14 AM
To: Martin Thomson <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Regarding focus of draft-nottingham-for-the-users

Martin:

On 21 Mar 2019, at 02:01, Martin Thomson <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Eliot

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From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 16:13:07 +0000

I have been thinking about this some more, and the right approach is to 
take the problems one at a time, each on their own merits as we usually 
do. That has historically been the most successful approach for us.

There is no recipe approach to these decisions, we have to build 
community consensus every time using the best knowledge we have and it 
is the job of the various leadership level to drive that process.

- Stewart

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 12:35:56 -0400

On 3/21/19 12:13 PM, Stewart Bryant wrote:

> I have been thinking about this some more, and the right approach is 
> to take the problems one at a time, each on their own merits as we 
> usually do. That has historically been the most successful approach 
> for us.
>

I'm starting to think that the draft would be better if it did not cite 
specific examples of decisions made to favor the interests of users.   
There's a tendency for people to consider the examples as more 
authoritative than the idea behind them.

But when a participant believes that a proposal favors the interests of 
other parties over those of (ordinary, human) Internet users,  this 
should be considered a legitimate reason for objecting to the proposal. 
   When determining whether or not there is rough consensus on a 
proposal, objections that the proposal harms the interests of ordinary 
users need to be taken seriously, and evaluated on the basis of whether 
the argument seems credible, rather than dismissed as irrelevant.   This 
should apply whenever such objections are raised: within a WG, or during 
IETF-wide Last Call, or on appeal.   And strong arguments that an 
existing standard harms ordinary users could be justification for 
revising the standard, deprecating it, or changing its status.

Keith