Re: [IAB] Request for community guidance on issue concerning a future meeting of the IETF

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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
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