On Tue, 22 Sep 2009, Peter Saint-Andre wrote: > As an example, does your definition of "business as usual" include the > topics, presentations, and discussions that occurred in the net > neutrality session during the technical plenary at IETF 75? That kind of > session is business as usual for the IETF, but it might not be perceived > as the usual business of a technical organization by those who are > proposing to host this meeting. I see absolutely NOTHING in the transcript of the IETF 75 session on net neutrality that I would consider disrespectful or demfamatory of any government. Sure, it describes the state of affairs, it talks about blocking for various reasons, it discusses what role the IETF should or should not play, it quotes the participants more or less verbatim, for example, this snippet from Leslie Daigle: "From our perspective, it is important that the technical specifications stay focused on building specifications that are about structure and transmitting of packets for a global network that supports innovation and development and deployment of new applications. QUOTE RAVEN: "The IETF, an international standards body, believes itself to be the wrong forum for designing protocol or equipment features that address needs arising from the laws of individual countries, because these laws vary widely across the areas that IETF standards are deployed in. Bodies whose scope of authority correspond to a single regime of jurisdiction are more appropriate for this task." Describing the state of affairs, documenting what technology is used for and observing current practice does not constitute disrespectful behavior in my view, and hopefully someone from the PRC will back me up on this. For example, the restrictions placed on the use of the Internet in China are not secret. If you want to operate a website in the .cn domain, you need to be registered with a government agency, and you need to display a registration number on all of your webpages. And the registration has to correspond to a real physical address. This isn't a secret, you would be told this if your company set up shop in China and registered in .cn. The way Google works in China is also well known, and clearly spelled out. You could do a fascinating presentation comparing the results of various searches and tracing how the packets go. If that discussion focused on technology, I don't believe anyone would object. But if you did something for the sole purpose of embarrassing the host or the host country, I think it would be considered rude, regardless of venue. Dean said: "I've certainly found discussions on thwarting "the government's" will to be a central part of a great many security-oriented discussions at IETF. Specifically, we're been concerned with the individuals human rights with respect to security of communications and privacy. We've refused "government mandates" to require cryptographic back doors time and again." And I would not expect us to curb discussion of this topic at a meeting in China, if the topic came up. Disagreeing with (or simply documenting) a government's law or its rules governing the use of a technology is not at all the same as inciting a riot or encouraging anyone to march on Parliament House (or whatever the building might be called). Peter said: "I'm talking about discussion of technical topics that impinge on the political realm: things like the use of encryption to protect personal privacy (especially from the prying eyes of Isaac and Justin), the Internet as a technology that routes around censorship as damage, and the simple human right to be *left alone* by government bureaucrats and other such busybodies if one is going about one's business in a peaceful manner." Once again, I see nothing in the offending language that prohibits us from either discussing or using encryption in any way we see fit. If you want to host a BOF on how to circumvent certain rules and you want to invite people off the street to attend, then, yeah, maybe someone might take you aside and suggest that isn's such a good idea, but I would argue that such a BOF is quite outside the normal business of the IETF. Sigh, I will get a high Narten score this week.... Ole _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf