[cooperation-wg] Copenhagen - The Movie!

For people who were “not there” - either not in Copenhagen or just in another session - the meeting archives can be a great resource.

And even if you were there it can still be useful over a coffee to revisit some of the presentations. There are often issues and unfinished business, stuff perhaps of general interest.

So thanks again to Meredith for an interesting programme.

But there was one item that is not in the archives as far as I am aware and that is the “Net of Rights” video from the screening organised by Corinne.

https://hrpc.io/net-of-rights/

Personal takeaways.

The density of clue in the room made an interesting counterpoint to the presentation by Chris and the discussion that followed. The big problem is that elsewhere there are groups who would really like to govern the Internet, to make decisions about the Internet and Internet users, and there the desire for power sometimes outweighs any notion of competence.

There was another remark as to the extent we are "at war" with governments, with our democratically elected governments. I found that a useful concept and one I tend to identify with. There is a hard contradiction there. We are not talking about “evil regimes” elsewhere. We are talking about our own countries, countries whose values we to a very large extent subscribe too. But to what extent do people feel they are obliged to collude with governments when it comes to surveillance. “Snoopers' charter" anyone?

I felt the film was to an extent "demonising the Internet”. That sends the wrong message. I think that it is wrong from several perspectives. Various players are abusing the openness of the Internet: their actions are the problem. I also don’t like the notion that the early implementers foolishly somehow did not get it. I think more that many of them knew they did not know where the road was going. But they made good decisions. Anyway those who did "get it" in that other sense largely failed. We in Europe had several programmes - RACE, ACTS, Telematics - to produce something else. Governments everywhere supported OSI standardisation. And where we did "get it right” with GSM we had a product that was in part built for the agencies. I have good friends who still complain about the embedding MAC-addresses in IPv6 addresses and yet find IMEIs totally OK. 

There was a view in the past and elsewhere of course that the folk in the Internet technical communities, the “techies” of the IETF and RIPE, were politically naive at best but more likely a bunch hippy anarchists! That does not correspond with what I have seen over many years. I was in Washington when the IETF discussed interception. The debate was reasoned and mature. I remember when I helped bring the chair of the ETSI WG on LEA interception to RIPE. The WG session was not at all hostile. It was friendly.

A stronger, perhaps more coordinated, presence in the EU-wide debates by the local technical community might be be useful. But see the presentation from Chris for other possible directions.

Gordon