On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Randy Presuhn wrote: > Hi - > > > From: "Dean Anderson" <dean@xxxxxxx> > > To: "Randy Presuhn" <randy_presuhn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> > > Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 4:50 PM > > Subject: Re: just a brief note about anycast > ... > > Well, they think we are the chauvenists of unilateralism. If we had > > played more fairly and honestly, they might not be so suspicious of our > > How has the IETF been playing unfairly or dishonestly? > Or is the argument that ICANN has been unfair and dishonest? >From their point of view, we (ICANN/IETF/IANA) hasn't really included the developing world. They participate, but we participate more. From their point of view, they see the internet as a group of first world countries imposing control on their infrastructure. We control the root, the TLDs, and the IP addresses. If they start to depend on the internet, we can shut down or disrupt their infrastructure anytime we feel like it it. That's an intentional disruption and they don't trust us not to do that. I'm ignoring accidental and attack issues for now. > > motives. And its not just about disconnection. One can already > > disconnect if one chooses. So I think the developing world views it as > > about freedom from the undue control and influence of a unilateral power. > ... > > How would replacing ICANN (or the IETF) with the ITU > make things any less unilateral? As I see it, all that it would > accomplish is that it would give governments and corporations > a more direct voice in matters, at the expense of individual > technical contributors. It may be difficult to explain to people how anti-americanism affects thing like ICANN/IETF/IANA , or why the developing world especially puts more trust in the UN than in the US coalition. But that's how it is. Despite the qualifications of the experts, they arn't trusted. There is a certain irrationality to this, but also a certain justification to their perception. International cooperation is the purpose of the ITU and, as someone pointed out, it has performed this job for 136 years though 2 world wars and numerous other conflicts with political neutrality. Moving things to the the ITU shifts power away from developed world technocrats and corporations (we) and gives it (as you say) to governments. This makes sure that the decisions made will be politically neutral with respect to their governments. Put another way, there are 190 or so countries. There are, perhaps 30 or so frequently represented on this list. There are fewer which have control over the root, the TLDs and the RIRs. If you were in the under-represented 160 or so countries, generally hostile to or just untrusting of the top few on this list, what would you want? Not all 190 countries participate in the ITU, but you can bet that under the ITU, which gives equal weight to the US as to Sri Lanka, things will probably change somewhat. Some people on this list, perhaps many, won't like that. But it will be better than the alternatives. --Dean
We started the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society because we felft it was important that Pacific Islands get represented on the Internet. We (the PICISOC board) requested free membership to ISOC for a variety of reasons but mainly to remove access divide to ISOC. We got it. We have now 250+ members in ISOC. ISOC is about 10,000 members. Our members actively participate in the WSIS and ICANN.
If you know where to push, you can do it. If we want ICANN (just an example) out of the US, we can do it. We will get the numbers and the power to do it.
So my message to the developing countries, is that do not complain to be under-represented to bodies which have free/open membership. Just act.
Similary, I have been lurking on this list to remind from time to time the plea of the developing world when a new standard emerges. I will not write a standard nor participate in one (although...) but I can remind how the real world is out there to people who think 64kb/s is a slow connection and that there are no Internet daily breakdowns...
I think I like the Open-Source motto to people/governments who complain:
"What have you contributed to today?"
Cheers
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---- Franck Martin franck@xxxxxxxxx SOPAC, Fiji GPG Key fingerprint = 44A4 8AE4 392A 3B92 FDF9 D9C6 BE79 9E60 81D9 1320 "Toute connaissance est une reponse a une question" G.Bachelard |