Category: ICANN and Governance

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the continent have advanced plans to send a 20-member delegation to the Internet Governance Forum to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November to ensure that African voices are heard.At a roundtable session on internet governance organised by the Open Society Institute for Southern Africa (OSISA), at the ongoing 11th annual Highway Africa conference in Grahamstown this week, CSOs resolved to ensure that Africa is not relegated at the global meeting.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200709120242.html
http://bizcommunity.com/Article/196/16/17979.html

Australia might struggle to survive a cyber-attack of the type recently experienced by Estonia and must increase preparations to deal with online threats, according to Dr. Paul Twomey, CEO and president of ICANN.Twomey said that lack of co-ordination among government agencies and failure to involve the private sector in cyber-security preparations should be addressed in short order given that the Estonian incident demonstrates that such attacks are possible.
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com.au/topics/article.asp?DocID=6100810

Open Internet advocates just received a parting gift from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.In a Thursday filing to the Federal Communications Commission, Gonzales’ Department of Justice urged the agency to oppose Net Neutrality — the principle that all Internet sites should be treated equally.The DOJ stated that broadband companies like AT&T should be able to erect toll booths and filter traffic — upending the even playing field that has made the Web an unrivaled engine of democratic discourse and new ideas.The DOJ ruling once again proves the point — argued here at Huffington Post and elsewhere — that powerful corporate and government gatekeepers are working together to dismantle Internet freedoms and impose their will upon the Web.While Gonzales’ feckless reign at Justice is near an end, his legacy is becoming clear: His department has established itself as a friend to the powerful and enemy to the basic freedoms that Americans once took for granted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/guess-whos-afraid-of-an-_b_63655.html

The US Justice Department has said that ISPs should be allowed to charge for priority traffic. The agency said it was opposed to “network neutrality”, the idea that all data on the net is treated equally.The comments put the agency at odds with companies such as Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to guarantee equal access to the net.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6983375.stmAlso see:

Net neutrality hopes hit by DoJ criticism

The US Department of Justice threw its weight behind telecommunications operators, warning telecom regulators against imposing ‘net neutrality’ rules that would block carriers from charging content providers premium prices to prioritise some web traffic
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/72aa6548-5cc3-11dc-9cc9-0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/07/1188783431412.html [AP]
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2007-09-06-priority-web-traffic-charge_N.htm [AP]

Bush Administration Restates Position on Proposed Internet Traffic Policing Rules

The Federal Communications Commission should not enact new rules to prevent telecommunications providers from discriminating against certain kinds of Internet traffic, the Justice Department said in a filing with the Commission Thursday.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/09/bush-administra.html

Ten things that finally killed Net neutrality

If you haven’t heard much about Net neutrality this year, you’re not alone. It went from being the political equivalent of a first-run Broadway show, with accompanying street protests and high profile votes in Congress, to a third-rate performance with no budget and slumping attendance. So what killed Net neutrality? Declan McCullagh gives his list of reasons.
http://news.com.com/8301-13578_3-9773538-38.html

A Possible Missing Piece of Net Neutrality Puzzle: Backbones and Peering? by Susan Crawford

I remember being told three years ago that, in general, internet backbone issues weren’t really a subject for regulatory involvement, and didn’t need to be. Although the last mile was a problem, the upstream fat-pipe relationships weren’t – they were all competitive and thriving. Or at least that’s what people thought. Over the last couple of days I’ve been looking around trying to figure out what the facts are about backbones and peering. It seems that we don’t even know what we don’t know..
http://www.circleid.com/posts/79512_backbones_peering_points/

Last month, the British television industry belatedly joined in a ritual that has been performed by a variety of industries over the past decade. Pointing manically at the rising tide of digital technology, it shook itself awake, and demanded a little more panic.The occasion was the annual Edinburgh International Television Festival. The figure who did most to rouse the assembled producers and executives from their slumbers was Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google and Chair of ICANN.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/06/william_davies_panic_in_tvland/

O Brasil acena para uma mudan?a em sua postura na guerra diplom?tica pelo controle da internet. O Pa?s ir? sediar em novembro uma confer?ncia da ONU sobre a rede mundial de computadores e, por anos, insistiu na cria?ao de um organismo internacional que fosse respons?vel por essa gestao, hoje nas maos da Icann, entidade ligada ao governo dos Estados Unidos. Agora, membros do governo j? indicam que poderiam ficar satisfeitos com uma ampla reforma da Icann para garantir a independ?ncia da rede e evitar o seu controle por apenas um governo.

Die Vergabepolitik von IPv4-Adressen in der Vergangenheit ist mit daf?r verantwortlich, dass Adressen besonders in den Entwicklungsl?ndern knapp sind. Die k?nftige Vergabepolitik f?r IPv6-Adressen m?sse daher beim geplanten zweiten Treffen des IGF auf die Agenda, forderte ein Vertreter der chinesischen Regierung bei einem in Genf stattfindenden Vorbereitungstreffen f?rs IGF im Herbst in Rio de Janeiro.

Vint Cerf talks to the Financial Times’ Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson about the need to expand internet capacity, improve stability and address the concerns of user privacy. Other issues covered include IPv6 with “more address space” being something that he would have done differently had he his time over again; that a secure and stable network is the most important issue on the internet, with privacy also a very important issue. Vint also answers FT reader’s questions.
http://video.ft.com/specials/?clipid=1359_FT0384

The man who created the internet and the protocols on which it still functions highlighted the dangers we face with ever changing file formats, applications and operating systems.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/30/cnnet130.xml

It was almost certainly one of the simplest interviews that Google has ever conducted. The Silicon Valley giant, famous for its punishing hiring process and exacting standards, received a short email asking a straightforward question. “Do you need any help?” it said. A one-word response – “yes” – was enough to secure a job with the company.It was unusual in many respects, of course: the man saying yes was Google chief executive Eric Schmidt – and the man asking the question was Vint Cerf, the pioneering researcher commonly regarded as one of the founding fathers of the internet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/30/guardianweeklytechnologysection.google