In addition to the distasteful restriction on freedom of speech placed on attendees (comments, perhaps made in jest, during the plenary or even in the hallway about the "great firewall of china" might cause summary ejection of the individuals or the entire groups), there are two other issues that don't seem to be addressed in the Hotel agreement. (1) What assurances if any can be given about IETF members being granted or denied visas based on blog postings talking about, say, Google or Cisco being evil due to their aiding and abetting China's censorship of the Internet made available to their citizens (not to mention those who may have in the past rendered technical assistance to those in China desiring to circumvent the "Great Firewall")? (2) What sort of access will IETF'ers have to the Internet? Will IETF'ers behind the Great Firewall? What about the ability for IETF'ers to use encryption (ssh, IPSEC, etc.) to connect to their corporate Intranet? Note that encrypted tunnels could be used by IETF'ers to proxy out to get unfiltered internet access --- but will the Chinese government allow this on the grounds that they won't be able to monitor network activity for "political activity"? If these restrictions prevents people from being to connect to their corporate networks, it would seem to be an absolute showstopper. - Ted _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf