On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Marshall Eubanks <tme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > The Chinese government has imposed a rule on all conferences held > since 2008 regarding political speech. Perhaps more material to this discussion, the government has imposed severe and wide-ranging restrictions on people's access to the Internet. This bites most sharply at the Web/HTTP level. [Non-rhetorical information-seeking question: Is IRC access unrestricted?] Thus, operators of a Web-centric conference might have to decide between declining to go, based on the Web's being restricted to a crippled subset of itself, or alternatively to use an event there as a teaching platform as to the benefits of an uncensored Web. Also, bear in mind that there are a large number of people around the world who are very angry at the Chinese government, and are looking for opportunities to stage protests as visibly as possible. It is not inconceivable that some of them are IETF attendees and might choose to try to do this in the IETF context. The thought of the IETF or hotel being held liable for what the government perceives as illegal action, or on the other hand being forced to be a party to trying to prevent what I'd see as a legitimate protest, are both extremely unattractive. Finally, it wouldn't be that surprising if there was some amused news coverage about the IETF meeting in the world capital of Internet censorship. -Tim _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf