+1 But do not discount the possibility that inducing the US to withdraw is the objective of certain parties in this little exercise. On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 10:56 AM, John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > --On Friday, August 10, 2012 15:52 -0700 Eric Burger > <eburger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read what the proposal is. The proposal >> being put forth is not that the ITU-T wants to write Internet >> standards. The proposal being put forth is that ONLY ITU-T >> standards will be the *legal* standards accepted by signatory >> nations. > >> At best, this would be a repeat of GOSIP in the U.S., where >> the law was the U.S. government could only buy OSI products. >> The issue there was the private sector was still free to buy >> what it wanted and DoD did not really follow the rules and >> bought TCP/IP instead. TCP/IP in the market killed OSI. >>... > > Eric, > > In the interest of understanding our position in this area as > well as possible, I don't think the facts support "TCP/IP in the > market killed OSI" except in a vary narrow sense. It would be > much more accurate to say that OSI self-destructed and the > TCP/IP was then available as a working technology that satisfied > most of the relevant requirements. The self-destruction > resulted from some combination of untested specifications that > weren't quite implementable in an interoperable ways, promises > that things would be ready two years in the future (a sliding > target for more than a decade), gradually growing awareness of > excessive complexity and too many options, and possibly other > factors. > > It is worth remembering that in the most critical part of that > period, the IETF wasn't developing/pushing TCP/IP in the > marketplace but had its face firmly immersed in the KoolAid > trough: we even had a TCP/IP transition area into the 90s. I > might even suggest that we have abandoned the principle of > simple and clear protocols with few options and, in a few cases, > adopted the "reach consensus by giving all sides their own set > of options" model that was arguably a large component of what > made the OSI suite vunerable to self-destruction. The > once-legendary speed with which we could do things has also > yielded to a larger and more process-encumbered IETF. Today, > we may have more to fear from ourselves than from the ITU. > > None of that has anything to do with whether the proposed > statement is appropriate. > >> The difference here is some countries may take their ITR >> obligations literally and ban products that use non-ITU >> protocols. Could one go to jail for using TCP/IP or HTTP? That >> has an admittedly small, but not insignificant possibility of >> happening. > > What happened last time was that a number of countries banned > their communications carriers from carrying TCP/IP (or anything > else) that didn't run over ITU protocols. Unsurprisingly, those > bans were fairly effective in countries that were serious about > them -- and that list of countries was not limited to > out-of-the-way developing nations. > > Whether that would be realistic today is another question. The > Internet is fairly entrenched, things have not gone well for > countries who have tried to cut it off once it is well > established, and some experts have even suggested that excessive > restrictions on the Internet might constitute a non-tariff trade > barrier. Relative to the latter and in these fragile economic > times, one can only speculate on whether countries are more > afraid of trade limitations and sanctions than of the ITU. > More important, as Phillip (with whom I generally disagree on > these sorts of matters) has pointed out, there is a long and > rather effective history of what countries do when a UN body's > behavior operates significantly against their national > interests: they refuse to sign the treaties and, in severe > cases, withdraw and stop paying dues and assessments. > Remembering that there is no such thing as a Sector Member from > a non-Member country, someone who was very cynical about these > things might even suggest that the most effective way to get the > ITU out of the Internet would be to have them pass these > measures in their most extreme form with the medium-term result > of wrecking their budget and, with it, their ability to > function. Or one might speculate that is the reason why ITU's > senior leadership appears to have largely backed away from the > most extreme of those proposals. > >> Worse yet, having treaties that obligates countries >> to ban non-ITU protocols does virtually guarantee a >> balkanization of the Internet into open and free networking >> and controlled and censored networking. > > A form of that risk exists whether such treaties are created or > not. If a country considers it sufficiently necessary to its > national interest to withdraw from the Internet and adopt a > different and non-interoperable set of protocols, it will almost > certainly do so with or without approval from Geneva. I believe > we should make that process as easy as possible for them, > designing things so that they can't hurt others when they do so. > Countries who isolate themselves from contemporary > communications technologies have not been treated well by > history, economics, or their own populations. > > We also should not discount some possible advantages: for > example, the withdrawal of a few selected countries from the > Internet and enforced requirements there to use only > non-interoperable protocols could do wonders to reduce the > amount of malicious spam introduced into the network. :-( > >> Just as it is not fair to say that if the ITU-T gets its way >> the world will end, it is also not fair to say there is no >> risk to allowing the ITU-T to get a privileged, NON-VOLUNTARY, >> position in the communications world. > > Certainly there are risks. And certainly we should be aware of > those risks and think through the various strategies we and > others might adopt. But let's not confuse ourselves with > specious arguments about disaster scenarios. > > Again, it seems to me that none of the above has much to do with > whether this statement should be issued. > > john > -- Website: http://hallambaker.com/