Re: U.N. conference ponders Internet's future

[David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky () attglobal net>
Date: November 17, 2007 4:33:27 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: [IP] Re:   U.N. conference ponders Internet's future

[for IP if you like]

Dave,

Having just returned from the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Rio,  
I must say that the contents of Jack Chang's article do not adequately  
characterize the event or the audience.

There were 1300 people who showed up, from 109 countries.  Many of the  
were governmental and NGO representatives. The IGF is not a planning  
body, as Chang asserts, but a forum for discussion, and it must stay  
that way.  It was set up as a compromise result of the WSIS (World  
Summit on the Information Society) conferences in Geneva in 2003 and  
Tunis in 2005.  The negotiation over the summit statement and the  
terms of reference of the IGF were  not the friendliest.

A major issue at this year's Forum (the first was in Athens last year)  
was U.S. "control" over the Internet,  The Brazilians hammered this  
theme until the end, and were aided by the Russians, who announced on  
the last day that they would introduce a process in the UN General  
Assembly to allow the Internet to transition to intergovernmental  
control. Whether that's a credible threat is still to be seen.  There  
was a lot of ICANN bashing, since ICANN is the embodiment of that  
"control."

The deliberations ranged from serious to ridiculous.  perhaps you  
remember the meeting we both attended at the UN at the end of March  
2004; this was a continuation of the same.  Political correctness was  
the order of the day, with "multistakeholderism" being the word that  
would allow disputes to be settled and problems to be solved in peace  
and harmony.

All of the main sessions were transcribed by the excellent team that  
ICANN uses, and all of the detail is on line at www.intgovform.org. It  
makes for fascinating reading, and anyone who wants to protect the  
Internet and help it to evolve should read some of this to understand  
how representatives, some self-appointed, from other parts of the  
world view this technology and the institutions that enable it  
presently.

Regards,

George Sadowsky

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The At 11:42 AM -0500 11/17/07, David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Date: November 16, 2007 12:57:18 PM EST
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] U.N. conference ponders Internet's future
>
> Posted on Thu, Nov. 15, 2007
>
> U.N. conference ponders Internet's future
> Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers
> last updated: November 15, 2007 07:25:55 PM
>
> <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/v-print/story/21582.html>
>
> RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When more than 1,700 technology experts  
> from around the world envision the Internet's future, they see cars  
> and household appliances that are online, wireless Internet networks  
> in remote African villages and astronauts e-mailing one another from  
> different corners of outer space.
>
> Such visions of the future were trumpeted at a landmark U.N.  
> Internet Governance Forum to plan the next stages of one of the most  
> revolutionary communication tools in history. Participants can't  
> make binding decisions, but can lay the groundwork for future policy.
>
> Many of the government officials, technology experts and other  
> trendsetters at the conference, which ended Thursday, said the  
> Internet has only now hit its stride. Key to its future, many said,  
> will be bringing online the four-fifths of the globe that still  
> lacks Internet access, as well as combating cybercrime and other  
> malicious uses of the network.
>
> The next generation of technology is on its way and will make the  
> Internet an even more integral part of people's lives, said Vinton  
> Cerf, a U.S. computer engineer and one of the fathers of the Internet.
>
> He's now chief Internet evangelist to technology giant Google and  
> remains a pioneer. One of his side projects is helping the National  
> Aeronautics and Space Administration build an interplanetary network  
> that would let astronauts e-mail each other without routing their  
> messages through Earth.
>
> "Wherever you are, you'll have the potential to get all this  
> information, really all of the world's knowledge," Cerf said. "If  
> you don't take advantage of this information available to you and  
> others do, you'll have a hard time competing."
>
> Holding up his BlackBerry, Cerf said that such mobile devices would  
> soon become the main portal to the network, with global positioning  
> systems that tell users where they are and what's around them, no  
> matter where they are on the planet.
>
> He also said that molecular-scale computing would become the norm as  
> conventional technology bumps into the laws of physics that limit  
> how quickly processors run and how compact they can be.
>
> Molecular computing means harnessing the computing power of DNA and  
> other biological material to run computers tens of thousands of  
> times faster than those with today's conventional processors.
>
> For billions of people in the developing world, however, just  
> getting online would be an improvement, said John Dada, the program  
> director of a nonprofit Nigerian anti-poverty agency.
>
> More than 4 billion people aren't online, and many of them have  
> never sent an e-mail or accessed a Web site, he said. Only 4 percent  
> of Africans are online, compared with about four-fifths of U.S.  
> residents.
>
> "There is absolute awareness of the Internet in the world," Dada  
> said. "The hardware is the problem."
>
> [snip]
>
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