[cooperation-wg] Minutes Cooperation WG 4 May 2011

Cooperation WG

Wednesday, 4 May 2011 ? 14:00

Co-Chair Maria Häll introduced the agenda. The minutes of the previous 
Cooperation WG session were approved.


B. Internet Intermediaries ? Moderators: Paul Rendek, Patrik Fältström

- Introduction: Patrik Fältström

- Internet Intermediaries

- The human rights perspective

- Striking a balance between integrity/neutrality, law enforcement, 
business

Niall O?Reilly noted the importance of understanding how these three 
factors (neutrality, law enforcement and business) affect each other, and 
that the ?best? balance between them may favour two out of three. Patrik 
agreed that this was an important calculation, but one that is not widely 
enough discussed.

Benedikt Stokkeland noted that there is a need for regulation in some 
areas that is going unmet. He cited the example of ADSL providers 
providing telephone services over ADSL, the reliability of which means it 
cannot be a replacement for a standard telephone in an emergency 
situation. He noted that ?Responsibility? is another axis that conflicts 
with the money-making axis - there is a need to ensure people can?t be 
sold something dangerous to them.

Olaf Kolkman suggested that ?Public benefit? is a plane that cuts through 
this multi-plane structure in Patrik?s presentation. He also noted that in 
the non-Internet space, much experience has already been gained in 
balancing law enforcement and freedom/openness. In terms of regulation, 
there is a need to make available technology that is of public benefit in 
the long-term, and this should contribute to decision-making.

Jim Reid argued that ?Public benefit? can mean many things ? RIPE may 
differ with the Chinese Government on what is constitutes ?public 
benefit?. He also noted that there are additional dimensions added to the 
calculation by ?alliances? between those different positions, and cited 
the UK, where ISPs challenged a law to make ISPs enforce laws, a decision 
based on their own business case, rather than in the interests of 
?freedom?. Patrik added that different definitions of ?lawful? around the 
world also pose a problem.

Wout de Natris suggested that this discussion demonstrates that all 
stakeholders are still learning how to work together, but that this 
cooperation will be vital in ensuring that when there is a crisis, 
governments do not ?panic? in responding.

Constanze Bürger emphasised the need for awareness, and suggested that 
governments have a responsibility to ensure that the freedom of the 
Internet is not abused, but that regulation may not be the best tool for 
this.

Patrik Fältström noted the lack of harmonization of positions even within 
governments, and that often, within a government, there is one group 
talking about opennesss and another group talking about cybercrime issues, 
each coming to different conclusions for Internet policy.

Maria Häll asked whether it is actually desirable to have a different 
legal framework for the online world.

Edmund Juskevicius, of Industry Canada, noted that the Internet tends to 
work pretty well most of the time, and asked how has this sort of 
cooperation been done up to this point. Patrik noted that there has been 
work done in some areas from an EU regulatory perspective, but there has 
been a more general lack of focus, and this is now starting to change. 
Paul Rendek also noted the greater interest being taken by international 
organisations like the OECD, with whom the RIPE NCC is working as part of 
the Internet Technical Advisory Committee.

Malcolm Hutty highlighted the importance of government participation in 
developing cooperative relationships, and noted that this has often been 
lacking. In terms of the larger question of liability, he noted that there 
are people who break laws, through content or activity, and people want 
that stopped, and that this situation raises certain questions: what is 
the mechanism for doing this? If it is through intermediaries, what are 
the checks? Can private sector intermediaries act as law enforcement 
agencies, that is call in evidence, witnesses etc.? While such a solution 
may look attractive to stakeholders dealing with a large number of 
complaints, it would mean a very different system of justice for the 
online world. It is government?s role to create these definitions and 
balance the needs of law enforcement agencies against citizens? rights. 
Malcolm suggested that at this point, governments are only hearing from 
the complainants, and they need to take a more balanced view on such 
issues.

Niall O?Reilly emphasised that it is governments that must face this 
responsibility and that there must be some kind of evidence-based review. 
He noted that in terms of the Internet, it will be impossible to predict 
the results of new policies without some kind of evidence-based review and 
discussion.

Aleksi Suhonen highlighted the case of Finland?s child porn filter and the 
unforeseen consequences of this policy, which can serve as a warning case. 
He also noted that many operators are multi-national and therefore need to 
navigate different, often competing legislations, which can be very 
difficult.

Toomas Lepik noted that the Palestinian government would like to turn off 
some Autonomous Systems from the routing path.

Constanze Bürger argued that it is necessary to discuss these issues, and 
that the Internet poses real challenges in terms of borders, 
self-regulation and democracy. She noted that laws are not the only 
solution, and that government needs to look to other sectors for solutions 
as well.



C. Update on European Union Activities:

Data Retention Directive ? Patrik Fältström

Jochem de Ruig of the RIPE NCC asked about law enforcement and data 
retention, and noted that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have concerns 
regarding IPv6 and the logs that ISPs keep regarding assignments and 
allocations. Patrik noted that the first issue knowing which ISP is using 
which IP address, which comes back to the quality of the RIPE Database. He 
pointed out that some parties have argued we need something other than RIR 
databases, and for this reason he is wary of making changes to policy that 
will affect data quality in the RIR databases. If you find the ISP, the 
issue is then what is the responsibility of the ISP? At the moment, most 
existing regulation says that the ISP must know who had which IP address 
at a given time.

It was noted that there are often different rules for IP, cell and 
fixed-line telephony, and this is problematic. Maria Häll and Patrik 
Fältström noted that Sweden has made a proposal (not implemented) that is 
technology neutral, but this is not reflected in the Directive. Patrik 
believes, though, that the people working on this in the Commission would 
like the revised Directive to be technology neutral.



European Critical Infrastructure Directive ? Kurt Erik Lindqvist, Chris 
Buckridge

Kurt Erik (Kurtis) Lindqvist and Chris Buckridge presented a brief summary 
of the discussions currently going on around the revision of the European 
Critical Infrastructure Directive, and the possibility that it will be 
expanded to cover the ICT sector.

Leo Vegoda asked if the Directive intended to apply to organisations based 
in EU. Kurtis responded that it was his understanding that the Directive 
targets physical assets rather than organisations.

Maria asked, given the closed nature of the EC discussions to date, 
whether there is a problem in terms of lack of information flowing between 
the different stakeholder groups. Kurtis acknowledged that an open 
discussion such as would happen at a RIPE Meeting would be preferable, but 
that it is a positive step that the Commission has reached out and invited 
a wide range of industry and technical community representatives to 
contribute to the discussion.

Kurtis also gave a brief account of the recent critical infrastructure 
discussions held in Hungary, and the joint EU-US work that is being done.

Jaap Akkerhuis noted that while the Directive talks about cross-border 
issues, there is a feeling that national telco industries don't talk to 
each other and are isolated. He also noted that for most telcos, borders 
don't really exist apart from regulation. Kurtis noted that the point of 
the work in this area is that physical assets clearly affect more than one 
country. While the industry can route around many borders and obstacles, 
however, the cable infrastructure demonstrates that there are limits to 
this. He noted that the Directive talks about infrastructure that affects 
more than 2 member states



D. Update on Council of Europe Activities ? Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Chris Buckridge gave a quick update on the work being done by in the 
Council of Europe on a set of Principles for Internet Governance, 
particularly the conference held in April that brought together a wide 
range of stakeholders to discuss the issue. This work is ongoing.

Maria Häll commended the important work being done by the Council of 
Europe.



E. CSTD WG Update ? Nurani Nimpuno

Nurani Nimpuno provided an overview of the work being done in the Working 
Group convened by the UN?s Commission on Science and Technology for 
Development  (CSTD) to examine ways to improve the IGF. While initially 
composed only of government representatives, there was a concerted push 
for greater multistakeholder involvement, and Nurani was selected as one 
of the five technical community representatives.

Nurani noted that the initial meeting turned out to not be very 
substantive, though it was clear that there are very diverging views on 
the issues. A second meeting in Geneva also failed to produce a report, 
and the WG?s report will now be written by the Chair. The technical 
community representatives have stated their objection to this outcome, as 
it places this back in the hands of Member States alone.

Nurani noted that the technical and business communities have failed to 
some extent in reaching out to the civil society stakeholders, and that 
better coordination between these groups will be important moving forward.

Maria Häll noted that this whole process is an attempt to make the 
multistakeholder model work on a global level.

Constanze Bürger noted that it was difficult to convince some in 
government of the value of participating in the IGF, but noted that the 
regional and national IGFs can be very useful in this regard. Nurani agree 
on the need to more effectively demonstrate the value of the IGF to all 
stakeholders.



F. ICANN GAC Update - Maria Häll

Maria Häll gave an update on the activities of the ICANN Governmental 
Advisory Committee (GAC), noting that has grown to 109 members. The issue 
of new gTLDs has been the major area of activity for the GAC over recent 
months, and the GAC has been working with the Board and community to 
resolve a range of issues identified in a ?Scorecard?.



Z. AOB

Steve Nash noted that while there has clearly a lot of work going on in 
this area, the working group?s mailing list has been virtually silent, and 
it would be great to see more discussion on the list. Maria agreed, and 
noted the Working Group Co-Chairs will be working to improve this over the 
coming weeks and months.

Wout de Natris pointed out that few government people were in attendance, 
and that the technical community members need to take these specific 
topics to their relevant government people and challenge them to take 
part. He also noted, in response to an earlier point from Malcolm Hutty, 
that the Internet poses one significant difference for law enforcement to 
their usual work: when you track someone down on the Internet, you may 
have to go to addresses where the actual perpetrator isn?t there, only a 
hosting provider with a command-and-control centre for that network. This 
has major implications for obtaining evidence, and establishing a 
framework for how this works is a role for government and law enforcement.

Jim Reid noted that it is clear that government representatives are not 
taking part in RIPE Meetings in great numbers, and it might be necessary 
to change tack. He suggested that it might be useful for more community 
members to take part in the RIPE NCC Roundtable Meetings. Paul Rendek 
thanked Jim for the suggestion. He noted that while the Roundtable 
Meetings are deliberately closed, to facilitate government participation, 
it may be useful to invite more community members to contribute, and the 
RIPE NCC will look into this option.

Maria Häll closed the meeting.


Best, Patrik and Maria



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