Hi Keith, On 02/12/2017 16:31, Keith Moore wrote: > On Dec 1, 2017, at 7:26 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > >> >> I suspect the point intended in plenary was more about keeping politics >> out of protocol design. That's impossible, but IMHO minimising political >> impact is a goal. To be clear, what I meant to say is "minimising the impact of national or international politics on the design of protcols." > I disagree. The Internet is and always has been political. That is to say, the Internet is part of a vision of a better world - and trying to change the world for the better is inherently political. (Though we need to realize that the reality of the Internet falls well short of that vision, even in areas where we got what we thought we wanted.) I certainly believe that protocol design is not politically neutral and that it has ethical implications. And that engineers have ethical obligations that should impact protocol design**. (And that we don't always understand the ethical, social and political implications of what we do.) ** And linking to a different thread, at least ISOC has been fairly clear about this: http://www.isoc.org/members/codeconduct.shtml Brian