Subject: [hrpc] challenges regarding draft-irtf-hrpc-research-07

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 14:22:37 +0100

Following up on Roland Bless' note, and as last call has closed, I wish
to raise a concern about repeated discussion about the selection of
rights that has been discussed in the draft.  The interplay between
different human rights and the impact of that interplay on this
interdisciplinary work requires that there be some reasonable level of
cross-disciplinary review, and yet unfortunately that has not happened. 
The one review we do have from someone clearly working within political
science disputes the premise of the work and concludes that the draft be
completely rewritten.[1][*]  This wouldn't matter that much for an
individual submission.  However, that's not the current intended trajectory.

I suggest the chairs seek broader review from additional people with
subject matter expertise re human rights, political science, and / or
international relations.  Absent that level of review neither this group
nor the IRSG are competent to assess the political / human rights
aspects of the draft, and the draft should not proceed.  We don't go to
network nerds for medical advice; neither should we rely on ourselves
for the human rights / political aspects of the draft.

Eliot

[1] Jeanette Hofmann, 7 Jan 2017

[*] This is not to say there aren't learned people in this discussion. 
I count no fewer than five PhDs engaged, and several otherwise
knowledgeable people.

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 14:44:32 +0100

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 02:22:37PM +0100,
 Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 83 lines which said:

> We don't go to network nerds for medical advice; neither should we
> rely on ourselves for the human rights / political aspects of the
> draft.

I strongly disagree with this line of reasoning. It seems common (the
famous New Yorker
cartoon... <https://twitter.com/WillMcPhail/status/815899174474567680/>)
but it is nevertheless wrong. Politics is special because it comes
from the citizens, not from experts (or not just from experts). It is
quite different from medecine (or computer networking...), where
things are right or wrong, and people can learn the difference.

If having studied political science would make you better at judging
issues around human rights, then we could shutdown democracy (not just
the current instances, but any idea of democracry as well) and replace
it by a governement of PhDs in political sciences. But, in the current
state of science, it is not true.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 14:51:14 +0100

Stephane,

There is a difference between participation in politics and research
into the discipline.  This is the Internet RESEARCH Task Force, not the
Internet POLITCAL PARTICIPATION Task Force (although I'll grant it feels
like that sometimes).  If the document does proceed without the academic
review, then let us at least be honest with ourselves that it is a
political work and not a work of research.

Eliot

---

From: Jeanette Hofmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 14:52:17 +0100

+1
jeanette

Am 18.01.2017 um 14:44 schrieb Stephane Bortzmeyer:
> _______________________________________________
> hrpc mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc
>

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:04:36 +0100

May I suggest that this document has been reviewed by academics? For
instance Molly Sauter, Harry Halpin, Roland Bless, Nathalie Marechal,
Scott Craig are all academics as well as Stephen Farrell.

Furthermore, I've replied to Roland where he brought this up and offered
a solution to that specific issue.

I also do not think that conflating all issues to one (and not taking
the discussion and solutions into account) and therefore dismissing the
draft is not really fair imho.

Best,

Niels (with his author hat on)

Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

PGP fingerprint    2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488
                   643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:38:36 +0100

Niels,

You are missing my point.  What I asked for was additional review from
people in the other disciplines be sought.  Nowhere did I suggest that
the draft be thrown away, nor would I (that was Jeanette Hofmann, by the
way, who wrote that on the 7th of January).  For one thing, on the
precise interplay I mention, I myself do not feel qualified to go much
further but to note that it is there.  Second, of the people you mention
many are computer scientists.  Also, of the people you mentioned there
is no record of the review of some of them.  I think it's fine that you
got review from them, but if this is to be a consensus document, perhaps
you would share those?

Eliot

---

From: "Bless, Roland (TM)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 18:35:44 +0100

Hi Eliot,

I agree that interdisciplinary work is required, but people
from social sciences alone won't fix it. Interdisciplinary work
is usually hard, because we (as mostly technical people) need to
understand the viewpoints / perspectives of the other disciplines
(e.g., social sciences, legal sciences, ethics etc.) and vice versa.
That starts with a common understanding of certain terms and probably
ends up in finding out methods how to consider human rights impacts
in protocol design. So the main point of this draft and RG is to
raise awareness on issues related to HR impact. This indeed needs
more discussion between the disciplines.

Moreover, protocol specifications are only a small part of the
story. I think that a large part has to do with operational and
administrative practices and entities: especially authorities who manage
addresses and namespaces exert power in certain ways, e.g.,
affecting the right to access, right to participate, the right to
freedom of assembly and expression. In some cases authorization
may be enforced by technical means (e.g., building access control
into the network), in other cases merely by operational
means (e.g., being the administrative entity who owns and operates the
corresponding server). The IETF covers operational issues to some
extent, while others are left to the market. The mentioned impacts
by operations would largely fall into the institutionalization domain.
This should also be discussed a bit in the draft, however, IMHO it is ok
to firstly concentrate on protocol design and protocol mechanism issues.

Regards,
 Roland

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 12:57:08 -0500

> got review from them, but if this is to be a consensus document, perhaps

It was always sort of strange to me that we were trying to make this a
consensus document anyway.  It's an IRTF product, and the IRTF need
not work by consensus.  It's also a research document.

Maybe the problem is that we're trying to hit the wrong goal.  I think
the document has been widely reviewed.  I think there are some known
issues that some have with it; I've made several suggestions not all
of which have been IMO incorporated, but I think the authors are in a
position to do make that call.

If this were an IETF document, I think it would be in trouble because
the rough seems large and multifaceted.  But for a research document,
there's nothing wrong with that outcome normally.  Why is this case
special?

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:06:46 +0100

Andrew,

I too find it strange to aim for consensus, mostly because truth doesn't
rest on such a political concept.  Be that as it may, I'm not seeking
perfection, either in the process or the work.  Still, it's best to know
that there are those who understand and agree (or at least do not
object) to the usage of such references as [UDHR], [Cath], [Jabri],
[Schroeder], and [King] in the same way that you would assess reference
to [RFC1958].

Eliot

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:50:38 +0100

Hi Andrew,

On 01/18/2017 06:57 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> I've made several suggestions not all

I am sorry to hear that, I would be happy to review specific issues
again to see if we can come to compromise. I thought we had already come
to that point.

> the rough seems large and multifaceted. 

I was under the impression we were doing quite OK with addressing issues
and finding solutions. Luckily I will not need to be the judge of that.

But if people want to point out issues I am more than eager to work
finding solution for consensus with you all.

Best,

Niels (with author hat on)

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 20:40:07 -0500

> again to see if we can come to compromise. I thought we had already come

I've pointed out recently, for instance, a case where we deeply
disagree about the interpretation of RFC 1958.  It's your research
publication, so you get to say what you want, though, and therefore I
don't think it appropriate to press any more on it.  

> and finding solutions.

I think the RG appears to be converging on things in a way that the RG
can live with and that would be appropriate for an IRTF RG to publish.
My comments, at least, have all been with the filter that this is an
IRTF RG document and that ultimately it cannot govern IETF work.  I
think the questions that people might ask themselves are potentially
useful, and a way to learn about their utility is to publish a
document and then see what people do with it.  

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Marco Hogewoning <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 10:31:54 +0100

> On 19 Jan 2017, at 02:40, Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> IRTF RG document and that ultimately it cannot govern IETF work.

HI Andrew, Niels, all,

Although I wholly agree with you on process and the status of this work as research paper produced by IRTF. We might have to be careful on how people further away perceive this. Unfortunately I do not have any straight away answer on how to fix this. But for people who are less engaged with the inner workings of our forums and especially the difference and relationship between IRTF and IETF, this might still parse as “IETF work” as they are unable to distinguish the difference. This could be especially the case when people start quoting from it in non-scientific publications, a headline “The IETF recently….” is quickly written :(

Again, process wise we are totally on the right track here, but it might be worth to at least think about the possible side effects, also because this topic is so broad and has a lot of interest from groups outside the technical community.

MarcoH
(no hats, concerned citizen)

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 09:55:26 -0500

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 10:31:54AM +0100, Marco Hogewoning wrote:

> work as research paper produced by IRTF. We might have to be careful
> on how people further away perceive this. Unfortunately I do not
> have any straight away answer on how to fix this. But for people who
> are less engaged with the inner workings of our forums and
> especially the difference and relationship between IRTF and IETF,
> this might still parse as “IETF work” as they are unable to
> distinguish the difference.

Yes.  Some of us (I am actually among them) think that it's been many
years since "the RFC series" was understood as having different
streams, and that we should stop publishing anything except IETF
consensus documents in it (which means no IAB stream, no IRTF stream,
and no independent submissions).  But that's not the rule that we're
living under today, alas, and we'll have to deal with the fallout.

For the alternative consequence of the above observations is basically
just that the RG shouldn't publish an RFC on this topic, period,
because it doesn't have IETF consensus and cannot.  I doubt the RG is
going to accept that conclusion.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: "Bless, Roland (TM)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 17:15:59 +0100

Hi,

one more comment below.

> rights that has been discussed in the draft.  The interplay between

This is actually not so difficult to solve.
I proposed to list the considered human rights and to provide a
rationale when HR impacts from technical properties/mechanisms are derived.
As a start one could use the same reasoning as in our paper [*]:
"The main source of the values of human rights is the International
Bill of Human Rights that is composed of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) [33] along with the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) [34] and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) [35]. In the light of
several cases of Internet censorship, the Human Rights Council
Resolution 20/8 was adopted in 2012, affirming “. . . that the same
rights that people have offline must also be protected online. . . ”
[36]. In 2015, the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the
Internet [17] was developed and released [18]. According to these
documents, some examples of human rights relevant for ICT systems are
human dignity (Art. 1 UDHR),
non-discrimination (Art. 2),
rights to life,
liberty and security (Art. 3),
freedom of opinion and expression (Art. 19),
freedom of assembly and association (Art. 20),
rights to equal protection, legal remedy, fair trial, due process,
presumed innocent (Art. 7–11),
appropriate social and international order (Art. 28),
participation in public affairs (Art. 21),
participation in cultural life,
protection of intellectual property (Art. 27), and
privacy (Art. 12)."

[*] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2935634.2935640 can be freely
accessed via http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2016/program.php
(last paper).

Regards,
 Roland

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 15:53:18 -0500

Three things an interdisciplinary approach would bring in would be:

1. People adept at their discipline tend to develop one skill and
that's an eye towards unintended consequences.

Accounting may seem like just a lot of arithmetic and some pages of
rules until your accountant sees you've created a risk of an expensive
govt audit. Computer and networking systems people obsess, and rightly
so, on looking for unintended consequences. And so with govt policy
veterans, lawyers, etc. As is often said in business the primary
purpose of professionals you hire is to keep you out of trouble, not
get you out of trouble.

2. People from other disciplines can help improve language
particularly where that language is to be understood by people in
their discipline as the authors intended. But also just general
accuracy and precision. Mere dictionaries are often not sufficient,
terms of art abound, even intellectual fashions abound and may push
the wrong buttons. How many here might be comfortable using the word
"populism" in a sentence to be read by a wide policy audience?

3. Professionals in their discipline tend to have a lot of experience
in the cost of actually implementing what might seem on the surface
good ideas. Not only in money but in terms of controversy,
distraction, and benefit. A software professional can make a good
guess at what the cost of implementing a protocol change might be. A
policy professional might do the same in the effort it would take to
gain broad acceptance of its intentions, and from whom.

Which is to say I agree with what Eliot Lear actually said.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | [email-masked]             | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD       | 800-THE-WRLD
The World: Since 1989  | A Public Information Utility | *oo*

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From: "Bless, Roland (TM)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2017 10:18:27 +0100

Hi,

> Which is to say I agree with what Eliot Lear actually said.

I'm not sure whether there is a misunderstanding, but
I also supported Eliot's suggestion (I said
"This indeed needs more discussion between the disciplines").
My point was that interdisciplinary work requires even more
than just several reviews by a community from other disciplines.
Especially, a common understanding of terms, thinking and
viewpoints usually requires lots of (close) interactions. More reviews
from other disciplines is inevitable and a good start, but
probably not sufficient.

Regards,
 Roland

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2017 12:18:57 +0100

Hi all,

> from other disciplines is inevitable and a good start, but

I think we're actually already doing quite a good job of (starting to)
attracting people from other disciplines here. I'd hope this is only the
beginning, and pushing out a draft would probably get us more exposure
and thus a higher ability to get people in and work on follow-up drafts.

With the film we've made, and a lot of talks Corinne and I held about
this topic to ISOC fellows, at universities, at NGO's in the global
south (Argentina, Brazil (Rio and Sao Paulo), Kenya) and the global
north (Amsterdam, Brussels, Washington DC, Wellington), we see that
there is interest, but there are still barriers. Both Avri and I
publicized the draft in a lot of non-IETF/IRTF mailinglists for
reviewed, but unfortunately some response I got was that quite some
people did not feel confident enough to post here, which is a pity imho.

Therefore I hope the perfect will not be the enemy of the good here. As
someone who is quite invested into cross-disciplinary research, I could
not support this quest more, but as a lot of things, I think this is
iterative.

All the best,

Niels

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2017 12:40:56 +0100

Hi Roland,

> accessed via http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2016/program.php

I like this proposal a lot and would indeed add more clarity, a
justification as well as a genealogy. I have added it to the text:

https://github.com/nllz/IRTF-HRPC/commit/894fca9c626d72040747c0bdb5aefcb8e7d470bf

Best,

Niels