Category Archives: WSIS/IGF

Spam and Internet Governance Forum

Posted by Patrick Vande Walle on 12 January 2006 None comments
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I have often argued both on this blog and in live discussions that spam is a non-issue, which could be addressed by the ISP industry if it really wanted to. All the tools are there. A free software like SpamCannibal could do the job for low traffic operations. For ISPs, they could link their routers to DNS backlists and drop packets on port 25 from rogue ISP IP addresses or AS’es. Once the legitimate customer of ISP X will start complaining that their e-mail are being rejected on a massive scale and threaten to switch providers, be sure that ISP X will effectively stop hosting spam operations.

Only the political/economical willingness is missing. Right now, ISPs are just making lots of $$$ out of spam. That’s selling bandwidth after all. This is what you get when an industry focuses on short term profits rather than societal/ethical behaviour. Or customers could begin to sue their connectivity provider and ask for compensation for damage. After all, spam is costing billions of dollars each year to individuals and companies, in terms of lost time and resources. Saying that the carrier is neutral and is not responsible for carrying spam is unresponsible.
If the industry does not want to auto-regulate itself and really enforce its AUPs, one day or another governemnts will have to threaten them with fines is they continue to carry spammers on their network. So, spam issues, in the WSIS context, is just a smoke screen to divert us from real issues, ie unilateral political control on key Internet resources. But spam is a popular subject, as everyone is facing it. It makes good headlines in the popular press.

Former FCC commissioner on WSIS

Posted by Administrator on 5 January 2006 None comments
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Harold Furchgott-Roth is a former member of the US Federal communications Commission. He currently runs a piece in several US newspapers on the outcome of WSIS.

It is titled “How the White House Defended the Internet” and is a fun read for those of us liking stupid, one-sided arguments. It seems only Steven Forrest can find this thrilling. Bret Faussett disagrees with most of the arguments presented.
While most consider the WSIS was a success for the US, as it did not have to surrender its control on the Internet,   Furchgott-Roth nevertheless considers that the UN is a winner, too .

As the title of the paper suggests, it it clear for him the US “saved” the Internet. However, he fails to mention that the USG is currently one of the biggest threats to the stability of the Internet, given the way US national politics has rotten the ICANN debate, as witnessed by the .XXX debacle.

Karl Auerbach on Galileo and DNS

Posted by Patrick Vande Walle on 29 December 2005 None comments
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Europe yesterday launched the first satellite of its Galileo project, which will go into operational service in 2010. Galileo is meant to compete with the US GPS system.

So, asks the tongue-in-cheek Auerbach, why would Europe start a competing project while the US GPS system has been running fine ? Why does Europe want to move away from a US-controlled GPS ?

Just replace GPS with DNS in the above sentence. All arguments applying to GPS stand true for the DNS. It is a well known fact the the USG has been degrading the precision of its GPS system on purpose for military strategic reasons. It is not unimaginable that the same could be applied to DNS also.

It is certainly not a coincidence that the former Internet czar of the European Commission and director of the ICANN Brussels office, Paul Verhoef, is now is charge of the Galileo programme.

Comments on “the foolish dream of an emperor”

Posted by Patrick Vande Walle on 24 November 2005 None comments
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Luc Faubert wrote an article on the ISOC@WSIS blog, describing ITU’s Itsumi (ie not the Itsumi we know and love ), as an emperor wishing to rule the Internet. While I certainly agree that the ITU is not the best authority to rule the Internet, whatever that means, there are some statements by Luc I disagree with. There are posted here as the moderator of ISOC@WSIS does not seem to read his e-mails to approve comments.

Governance discussions whose outcome have no impact whatsoever on users represented well over half the efforts

I would not be as affirmative as Luc is regarding the fact that it does not affect users. ccTLDs, for example, have much to do with patriotic feelings. The potential disappearance of a ccTLD under the current framework is a geostrategic issue. These two issues are addressed in the WSIS agreement. Porn TLDs do shock some cultures.
So yes, DNS TLDs are a political matter. This is a major concept that the technical community does not want to take into account. It is arguing that it is politicization of a purely technical matter. Sorry guys. Technology is here to serve societal and political goals. It is not an answer in itself, but can help addressing and solving the issues.

As for the “emperor”, there has been one for years and he made it clear he does not want to share its treasure. We should make sure there is no emperor, not even a soft-handed one. And if there must be an emperor somehow, let us apply the law of constitutional monarchies, ie the king reigns but does not govern.

Article on WSIS in Woxx

Posted by Patrick Vande Walle on 18 November 2005 None comments
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L’hebdomadaire Woxx a publié ce vendredi un article sur le Sommet Mondial de la Société de l’Information au travers d’un entretien avec votre serviteur. Le voici .

The Luxembourgish Woxx weekly has published this Friday an article on the World Summit on the Information Society through an interview with yours truly. Here it is. .