----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoav Nir" <ynir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "SM" <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 2:35 AM On Nov 8, 2013, at 3:03 PM, SM <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > From the Economist [1]: > > "On November 6th a meeting in Vancouver of the Internet Engineering > Task Force (IETF), an organisation which brings together the > scientists, technicians and programmers who built the internet in > the first place and whose behind-the-scenes efforts keep it running, > debated what to do about all this. A strong streak of West Coast > libertarianism still runs through the IETF, and the tone was mostly > hostile to the idea of omnipresent surveillance. Some of its members > were involved in creating the parts of the internet that spooks are > now exploiting. "I think we should treat this as an attack," said > Stephen Farrell, a computer scientist from Trinity College, Dublin, > in his presentation to the delegates. Discussion then moved on to > what should be done to thwart it. > > As a sort of council of elders for the internet, the IETF has plenty > of soft power. But it has no formal authority. Because its standards > must be acceptable to users and engineers all over the world, it works > through a slow process of consensus-building. New standards, guidelines > and advice take months or years to produce." > > There is a sort of council of elders of the internet around here. :-) And we are apparently delegates. <tp> But we are NOT Engineers, just 'scientists, technicians and programmers'. Seriously, I think that a lack of comprehension of the existence of engineering is a major hindrance is some parts of the world, such as where the Economist comes from. Tom Petch Yoav