Subject: Re: [iucg] Last Call: Modern Global Standards Paradigm

From: JFC Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:22:52 +0200

At 19:16 11/08/2012, John C Klensin wrote:
>Given the fraction of the ITU budget and the even larger
>fraction of the T-Sector budget that come from the US and
>US-based Sector Members, that would be fairly irrational
>behavior for those who wanted to preserve a healthy and
>well-staffed ITU.

John,

This paragraph of yours is rather disturbing as it denotes a 
contradictory evaluation with mine, while I should be one of the 
people to convince the IETF is reasonable.

My personal understanding, for having participated to CCITT under 
Earl Barberly's jurisdiction and related with ITU in personal 
capacity, is that the US and US-based T-sector Members are for the 
ITU a paid but also costly dominance and that getting rid of the US 
is a commercial dream shared by many non-US business ITU-T Members. I 
always imagined that for the US to leave the ITU would be like 
commiting suicide?

The reason why I believe this is that North-America is technically 
and commercialy an island. It needs the continent far more than the 
continent needs it. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the guy who lead to the USSR 
dislocation and defined the US survival strategy as a world global 
cooperation coordinated by the USA, talks of present "loss of U.S. 
international credibility, growing U.S. international isolation."

Please understand that the IETF is like ITU or UNESCO, to be 
internationally credible they should *not* be affected by the 
departure of one or one full class of its members, even if it is the 
USA or the US communications industry. So far, the RFC 3935 does not 
refers to a single country as an IETF protocol mandatory element.

>On the other hand, irrational behavior would be nothing new in this 
>area so I can't disagree with the possibility.

Correct. This is why, if I understand the motivation, I strongly 
disagree with the wording of the document and your evaluation of the 
situation. The US/IETF rationale being used is disagreed by non-US 
related industries and most probably by every Government (including 
the USG) because it looks like SDOs wanted to decide alone, based 
upon market results, about the standards for the people they represent.

Worse, there may happen a good-will unilateral declaration supported 
by an island consensus which appears as an arrogant war declaration 
on the continent. Please remember that a Government is by the people 
for the people, and that Governments have consensually declared (IETF 
not bothering to attend) that the information society is to be people 
centered. People are to decide, not markets. Laws are the rule, not 
the RFCs. So, let try to workout RFC that can meet the laws and 
better explain how to make the laws to law makers.

However, this might be an occasion for a true broad consensus 
research 
(http://iusg.org/wiki/20120813_-_Statement_proposing_an_open_IETF/WG/RFC3869bis)

Sorry, but one should not help friends to commit an mistake, even if 
one might benefit from it in the short term.
jfc

---

From: Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:11:36 +0200

On Mon 13/Aug/2012 03:22:52 +0200 JFC Morfin wrote:
> the USG) because it looks like SDOs wanted to decide alone, based upon
> market results, about the standards for the people they represent.

FWIW, I'd like to recall that several governments endorse IETF
protocols by establishing Internet based procedures for official
communications with the relevant PA, possibly giving them legal
standing.  Francesco Gennai presented a brief review of such
procedures[*] at the APPSAWG meeting in Paris.  At the time, John
Klensin suggested that, while a more in-depth review of existing
practices would be appreciated, the ITU is a more suitable body for
the standardization of a unified, compatible protocol for certified
email, because of those governmental involvements.

[*] http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/83/slides/slides-83-appsawg-1.pdf

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:50:25 -0400

--On Monday, August 13, 2012 11:11 +0200 Alessandro Vesely
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> protocols by establishing Internet based procedures for
> official communications with the relevant PA, possibly giving
> them legal standing.  Francesco Gennai presented a brief
> review of such procedures[*] at the APPSAWG meeting in Paris.
> At the time, John Klensin suggested that, while a more
> in-depth review of existing practices would be appreciated,
> the ITU is a more suitable body for the standardization of a
> unified, compatible protocol for certified email, because of
> those governmental involvements.
> 
> [*]
>
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/83/slides/slides-83-appsawg-1.pdf

Alessandro,

Please be a little careful about context, as your sequence of
comments above could easily be misleading.  

For the very specific case of email certified by third parties,
especially where there is a requirement for worldwide
recognition (the topic of the talk and slides you cited), the
biggest problem has, historically, been an administrative and
policy one, not a technical standards issue.  We know how to
digitally sign email in several different ways -- there is
actually no shortage of standards.   While additional standards
are certainly possible, more options in the absence of
compelling need almost always reduces practical
interoperability.  Perhaps the key question in the certified
mail matter is who does the certifying and why anyone else
should pay attention.  The thing that makes that question
complicated was famously described by Jeff Schiller (I believe
while he was still IETF Security AD) when he suggested that
someone would need to be insane to issue general-purpose
certificates that actually certified identity unless they were
an entity able to invoke sovereign immunity, i.e., a government.

For certified email (or certified postal mail), your ability to
rely on the certification in, e.g., legal matters ultimately
depends on your government being willing to say something to you
like "if you rely on this in the following ways, we will protect
you from bad consequences if it wasn't reliable or accurate".
If you want the same relationship with "foreign" mail, you still
have to rely on your government's assertions since a foreign
government can't do a thing for you if you get into trouble.
That, in turn, requires treaties or some sort of bilateral
agreements between the governments (for postal mail, some of
that is built into the postal treaties).  

International organizations, particularly UN-based ones, can
serve an important role in arranging such agreements and
possibly even in being the repository organization for the
treaties.  In the particular case of certified email, the ITU
could reasonably play that role (although it seems to me that a
very strong case could be made for having the UPU do it instead
by building on existing foundations).

But that has nothing to do with the development of technical
protocol standards.  Historical experience with development of
technical standards by governmental/legislative bodies that then
try to mandate their use has been almost universally poor and
has often included ludicrous results.

A similar example arises with the spam problem.  There are many
technical approaches to protecting the end user from spam
(especially malicious spam) and for facilitating the efforts of
mail delivery service providers and devices to apply those
protective mechanisms.  Some of them justify technical standards
that should be worked out in open forums that make their
decisions on open and technical bases.  But, if one wants to
prevent spam from imposing costs on intended recipients or third
parties, that becomes largely a law-making and law enforcement
problem, not a technical one.  If countries decide that they
want to prevent spam from being sent, or to punish the senders,
a certain amount of international cooperation (bilateral or
multilaterial) is obviously going to be necessary.   As with the
UPU and email certification, there might be better agencies or
forums for discussion than the ITU or there might not.  But it
isn't a technical protocol problem that the IETF is going to be
able to solve or should even try to address, at least without a
clear and actionable problem statement from those bodies.

I do believe that the ITU can, and should, serve a useful role
in the modern world.  The discussion above (and some of the work
of the Development and Radio Sectors) are good illustrations.
But those cases have, as far as I can tell, nothing to do with
the proposed statement, which is about the development and
deployment of technical protocol standards.

regards,
    john

---

From: JFC Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:24:36 +0200

Alessandro,

You give a very interesting example. Which hits the core of the 
question we now face : as users we need extra netowrking layers, who 
is to document them? IMHO there were three options:

- logically consider three coordinating strata sharing ethitechncal 
core values  (people centric, open use, sustainable development 
driven): (1) plug to plug telecoms basic services, (2) end to end 
internet value-added services, (3) fringe to fringe internet+ 
extended service supported by ITU, IETF and IUTF, the IUCG assuming 
the liaison between IETF and the emerging IUTF.

- politically consider three cooperating standardization poles by : 
regalian sector (ITU), private sector (IETF), IUse sector (IUTF), 
spurred by specialized dynamic coalitions and deployed through 
dedicated enhanced cooperations (along WSIS conclusions). However the 
enhanced cooperations mechanisms had to be worked on in common: ICANN 
and USG delayed the process, IETF did not attend the WSIS.

- a mix of them in considering historics, experience and users' 
trust. This should have resulted from the WSIS, but Brian Carpenter 
thought that the less IETF would be involved the better for the 
Internet. The IETF not attending, ICANN objecting, ISOC lobbying and 
the US activist led "civil society" made it difficult.

Into this everything is a question of trust. Until now, like 
Governments and general public, I trusted the IETF on the basis of 
its best effort, with a big question mark about the definition of a 
"better internet" in RFC 3935, and being uncertain about the 
universal acceptance of its "core values".

The IAB/IETF Chairs clear affirmation makes me sure now I cannot 
trust the IAB/IETF for the very reasons they are proud of. They want 
to be market driven, while I adhere to the WSIS consensus of an 
information society which is to be "people centric, à caractère 
humain, centrada en la personna". I want to things to be sustainable 
development and intelligent use driven on an end-user best serve 
basis, I do not stand for an open market and international 
competition but for a fair and efficient open use.

Day to day operations along IETF protocols may be 100% correct, 
however we could lose faith in the motives of the IAB  motives 
architectural choices. They may be biased and result in fundamental conflicts.

What worries me most is that the Chairs and the US Members really 
share an US consensus not realizing that they describe the IETF 
American merchants want. Remember that RFC 3869 states: "The 
principal thesis of this document is that if commercial funding is 
the main source of funding for future Internet research, the future 
of the Internet infrastructure could be in trouble.  In addition to 
issues about which projects are funded, the funding source can also 
affect the content of the research, for example, towards or against 
the development of open standards, or taking varying degrees of care 
about the effect of the developed protocols on the other traffic on 
the Internet.". The way the Affirmation is worded leads to an 
Internet infrastructure in trouble and possibly split (US Island vs 
Rest of the World): such a "balkanization" would be madness.

I will try this after-noon to word out a more positive and 
comprehensive appreciation.

jfc

At 11:11 13/08/2012, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
>_______________________________________________
>iucg mailing list
>[email-masked]
>https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iucg

---

From: JFC Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 03:25:14 +0200

John, Allessandro,

Let's get simple, clear, and real.

We all implicitly refer to the OSI model. In this model, ITU made the 
"I" stand for plug to plug interconnectability, i.e. basic services. 
The IETF made it stand for end to end interoperability, i.e. 
value-added services. This establishes the complementarity between 
the ITU and IETF. The IAB and ITU have now ruled how this 
complementarity is to be exercised nowadays and one may hope that 
there will be an [email-masked] mailing list created in order 
to help/discuss the practicalities of this complementarity, as there 
is a [email-masked] mailing list.

Some, like myself, make the "I" stand for fringe to fringe 
interintelligibility, i.e. extended services, which has been my job 
since Tymnet/1985. This is in full respect of the Internet 
architecture (i.e. RFC 1958: intelligence at the fringe). RFC 5895 
illustrated the "unusual" nature of documenting fringe issues and 
was, for this reason, not published in the standard track by the 
WG/IDNAbis but rather as an independent submission in the information 
track. It was then necessary to understand whether the IETF area 
encompassed the fringe additional layers, identified as the IUI 
(intelligent use interface), extending the dumb Internet into a smart 
"Internet+".

One may also make the "I" stand for intercomprehensibility, a 
research area introducing the Intersem (semiotic Internet) that our 
today innovations should stay open to.

1) The appeals have shown that the IESG and IAB did not think the 
Internet+ stratum was part of the IETF area, but that they were concerned.

2) The IUCG was, therefore, created in order to explore this new IUse 
area, where the user is not yet the end-user but its IUI, i.e. 
his/her/their own smart network middleware, which he/she/they can 
utilize to obtain the best possible use of the Internet and of all 
the other systems of the whole digital ecosystem (WDE).

3) The IETF Chair authorized the non-WG [email-masked] in order to 
discuss the border technological issues, welcome lead users in their 
relations with the IETF, and experiment the interest and mechanisms 
of a place where to make sure that interoperability can be extended 
into interintelligibility and do not prevent potential ulterior 
intercomprehensibility.

4) The conclusion that one drafted was that an IUTF was necessary, 
which would copy the IRTF organization in order to stay in the same 
spirit and easily interface with other organizations. It would be 
sponsored by the IUSG enhanced cooperation among IUsers, which would 
assume the role of the governance of the IUI stratum. Now, the time 
has come for the emergence of this IUse community around this 
correlative IUI architectural stratum and to support extended 
services (such as, for example, your email certified by third parties 
or OPES projects).

This ITU/Basic services, IETF/Value added services, and ITU/extended 
services complementarity seems logical. If we consider the history of 
these three poles and the nature of their financial and legal 
environments, one can observe that:

- ITU is interested in long-term lines and bandwidth investments at 
the governmental level (laws and treaties).

- IETF is interested in middle term computer (hardware) and protocols 
(software) networking level (RFC, contracts, parameters).

- IUTF should be interested in man/machine/machine/man utilization 
processes (middleware), operational rules, configuration choices, and 
referential data.

- it leaves open an upper brainware oriented stratum for a possible Intersem.

This means that, at the end of the day, end-users should be provided 
with a coherent and harmonious connection, communications, and 
relations technical set of complimentary services, made of basic 
signal oriented services, value-added passive content oriented 
services, and extended interactive contents oriented services. This 
is why the "ITC" formula is incomplete and "ITCS" should be 
preferred, the notion of service being in particular fundamental to 
middleware. Sometimes, when the buzz was all about the statement that 
"people do not like problems, they want solutions", the response was 
"but they prefer services". Google, and now the Internet+ Google+, 
has well understood this truism.

At this stage, such an SDOs multipolar equilibrium is slowly forming. 
One may identify, however, three key points of concern to be attentive to:

- the strata border issues (subsidiarity): the cooperation 
flexibility introduced by the new IAB RFC on the IETF/ITU interfacing 
seems to be adequate but should be validated and pedagogically activated.

- the introduction of the "OSEX" (Extended OSI) "PLUS", plugged 
layers on the user side, identified as (1) user side network 
services, (2) their interoperations among themselves, with network 
side applications, and the user own realm, and (3), in the Internet 
case, the presentation/authentication layer.

- mutual trust and respect based upon compatible core and working 
values, project mutual distribution and documentation harmonization.

These last points suffer from:

- an early lack of recognition of the IUTF that is still in its early 
emergence phase. This is why the IETF Drafts on the IUTF description 
and its architectural framework should be completed with the help of 
IETF and ITU researchers.

- an unexpected emerging divergence in the core values between the 
IETF and ITU, as expressed by the proposed IETF/IAB Chairs' Affirmation.

The ITU and IUTF views adhere to the WSIS' declaration making the 
common effort toward a "people driven, à caractère humain, centrada 
en la persona" society. Until now, this could fit in with the 
affirmed IETF effort toward a "better" internet, even though what 
exactly "better" might mean was not explicated, but through RFC 3869, 
which states: "The principal thesis of this document is that if 
commercial funding is the main source of funding for future Internet 
research, the future of the Internet infrastructure could be in 
trouble. In addition to issues about which projects are funded, the 
funding source can also affect the content of the research, for 
example, towards or against the development of open standards, or 
taking varying degrees of care about the effect of the developed 
protocols on the other traffic on the Internet".

Now, there is this blunt discovery that this understanding might be 
wrong and there is a possible fundamental conflict between the 
people/person driven apolitical centennial ITU and the new IUTF that 
both strive for a sustainable development and millennium objectives, 
and a market driven and competition fostering oriented ISOC/IETF 
supporting a political vision that sounds to be the GNI vision 
publicly supported by some of its most influent Members. This creates 
a non-technically neutral situation and needs to be clarified at the 
global Internet governance level.

The ambiguity seems to come from discrepancies resulting from:

- the currently discussed evolution of the Telecommunications 
International Rules (ITR)

- the incompleteness of the IUTF Mission statement and Architectural Framework.

- the different readings/lack of application of RFC 3869 where "the 
IAB believes that it would be helpful for governments and other 
non-commercial sponsors to increase their funding of both basic 
research and applied research relating to the Internet, and to 
sustain these funding levels going forward", because reduced 
governmental funding and profit, low-risk, short-term, and market 
focused funding "has been a decline in higher-risk but more 
innovative research activities. Industry has also been less 
interested in research to evolve the overall Internet architecture, 
because such work does not translate into a competitive advantage for 
the firm funding such work."

It, therefore, seems that a good way to proceed from here would be 
for each of the three poles to target a concerted clarification. The 
ITU has planned its own homework for December; the IUTF is working on 
its Drafts and would welcome the participation of everyone 
interested. The IETF/IAB Chairs' Affirmation, RFC 3935, and the IAB 
Road Map could be used as an initial basis for a WG/RFC3869bis of 
which the charter would be to clarify what a "better internet means 
today in terms of core values and innovation objectives and what are 
the role, missions, and expected recognition areas of the ISOC, 
ICANN, and IANA.

At the end of this memo, it should also be added that:

1. the world is today governed by different sets of principles 
embodied in various organizations involved in normalization and 
standardization, such as ISO, WTO, WIPO, and UNESCO that our own 
standardization effort should consider and respect. There are 
tensions due to political visions, industrial preoccupations, 
commercial interests, technological evolution, etc. and affirmation 
mutual inconsistencies with a great economic impact. This is the role 
of governments to protect their citizens from these tensions, prevent 
their exasperation, and maintain peaceful equilibriums. In the 
interconnected world of today, it is up to the Internet community to 
be the first to help their task and prevent undemocratic reactions in 
educating them in its technology, bringing the innovation their 
people need, and devising communication tools for a peaceful and 
rewarding life for all.

In particular, there is confusion between normalization (i.e. 
documenting the normality) and standardization (i.e. building on top 
of this normality in order to adapt it to accepted evolutions). It 
permits standardization, through the WTO Agreement opposing technical 
barriers to trade, to be further used against legitimate NTMs 
(non-tariff measures) in order to obtain advantages on foreign 
markets through strategies of the insidious modifications of their 
normality that have not been democratically accepted. This dominance 
policy trend is often called "internationalization". WTO principles 
for the development of international standards are a way to counter 
this risk. In the same way as they may include a security section, 
normative documents should also detail how they took these principles 
into consideration.

- Such an ethical effort when developing a standard is called 
ethitechnical and should also care about any possible conceptual or 
commercial prevention of further innovations.

- This should prevent standardization organizations from getting 
polluted by competition and protectionist economic doctrines. This 
belongs to the general concept of network neutrality.

2. each pole should target a section in its contribution that would 
introduce the other poles to its own constituents. One cannot hope to 
truly progress together as long as parts of the different Memberships 
genuinely believe the others are obscure, secretive, and devil-driven plots.

jfc

---

From: Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:10:09 +0200

On Tue 14/Aug/2012 02:24:36 +0200 JFC Morfin wrote:
> Governments and general public, I trusted the IETF on the basis of its
> best effort, with a big question mark about the definition of a
> "better internet" in RFC 3935, and being uncertain about the universal
> acceptance of its "core values".

+1, a rather common stance.  In addition, the openness of the IETF and
its democratic leadership legitimate its operations in a way similar
to a government's acts:  Netizenship must mean something.

> The IAB/IETF Chairs clear affirmation makes me sure now I cannot trust
> the IAB/IETF for the very reasons they are proud of. They want to be
> market driven, while I adhere to the WSIS consensus of an information
> society which is to be "people centric, à caractère humain, centrada
> en la personna". I want to things to be sustainable development and
> intelligent use driven on an end-user best serve basis, I do not stand
> for an open market and international competition but for a fair and
> efficient open use.

I too am worried by that use of the term "market".  However, that term
is sometimes used as a synonym of people's liking, so one can talk of
the "market" of free products such as open source software.  The
Paradigm is ambiguous in that respect.

Of course, money-centric thinking promotes strategies akin to greedy
algorithms, which are bound to fail in multimodal situations.  I read
somewhere that people-centric thinking engages different areas of the
brain.  In fact, it can easily produce plans with an horizon of 10 or
20 years ahead, much better than the typical 5-year business plan.

The major concern should be to preserve the IETF from corruption.

---

From: JFC Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 21:09:34 +0200

>The major concern should be to preserve the IETF from corruption.

This is a very interesting point. It can be considered as 
intellectual corruption as well, coming from different types of 
polutions. I use "ethitechnical" for an ethical approach of the 
technical design (in order to help a further ethical use of the 
technology). "corruption" tells the things more clearly and bluntly.

A good slogan and a key phrase in a charter for a WG/RFC3869bis.

IRT the use of "market" this is a loaded word. This is precisely the 
word opponents to corruption do not want to hear. So why to use it 
when "usage" would be better; event if it means the same thing for 
some. Either it is a mistake, and it is easy to explain and correct. 
Or it is on purpose and we need to know it. I had that point with 
ISOC when we had a split in ISOC France over this matter. The ISOC 
documentation specifically proposed Platinum Members to sponsor what 
they wanted as research in the IETF. Truely what is to precisely word 
is what "better" means in the IETF mission's "for the Internet to 
work better" (RFC 3935) and to be clearer about core values. The 
internet has nothing to do with liberal values, it has to work.

Actually we need to trust the IETF as being politically neutral as 
garanteeing a neutral network technology. Otherwise we cannot build 
on top of it.

Best
jefsey