Copyright, Issues from Internet Technologies 3 – Internet Governance Roger Clarke, Xamax Consultancy, Canberra Visiting Prof/Fellow, Unis of N.S.W., Hong Kong, A.N.U. II/CCCS-3-IG.ppt UofQ CCCS, 6 December 2004
Copyright, Internet Governance Agenda Engineering Governance – IETF, et al. Policy Governance – ICANN The Politics of ICANN
Copyright, Version of Sep 2004 Internet Governance Key Players
Copyright, The Standards Organisations, By Layer Upper Layers: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) under ISOC/IAB World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Mid-Layers: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) under ISOC/IAB Lower Layers: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) International Telecommunications Union (ITU) European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
Copyright, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) "formed [in 1998] to assume responsibility for: the IP address space allocation protocol parameter assignment domain name system management, and root server system management functions [that were] previously performed under U.S. Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other entities ICANNs Web-Site
Copyright, Internet Governance Issues a la Observers of ICANN Lack of Public Visibility of ICANN's agendas, papers, decisions and rationale Lack of Public Participation, incl. the lack of public interest delegates the lack of feed of public issues into ICANN the pitiful role of the At-Large Committee The Domain Name rules for.org (ongoing permission for for-profit corporations) Relationships with U.S. Govt cf. the U.N.
Copyright, Internet Governance Issues a la WSIS WGIG Infrastructure development and accessibility Technical standards and the domain name system Information systems and network security Cyber-crime, spam, privacy, consumer protection Pricing of Internet traffic at the global level Taxation and customs duties Intellectual property Content development and regulation
Copyright, Internet Governance Directions of Change? ICANN is under pressure from: many interest groups, most seeking more democratic structures and processes the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Verisign, the dominant registrar, which wants to exploit its position for profit The currently powerful interest groups can be expected to resist change
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Copyright, Internet Engineering IAB| Internet Architecture Board| IETF| Internet Engineering Task Force| IETF WGs| IETF Working Groups| Non-Telephonic and Telephonic Bodies IEEE, ITU, ETSI, etc. The Internet Society ISOC
Copyright, IETFs RFC (Request For Comments) Documents This is a generic term that covers multiple categories: technical specifications, including: formally adopted Standards (STD) (a few) de facto standards (many vital RFCs) formally obsoleted de facto standards (many) proposals with little usage now (many) Best Current Practices descriptions (BCP), to describe how to apply a particular technology Informational Documents (FYI) A wannabe RFC is called an Internet Draft (I-D)
Copyright, Standards Development Processes Working Groups of IETF, IEEE, ITU, ETSI, W3C Well over 100 are active at any point in time In principle, open to contributors, but engineer-driven and highly esoteric In practice: dominated by Driven Individuals employed and travel-funded by large corporations not tightly controlled by corporations (because the Driven Individuals act as professionals rather than employees) but social interests are rarely represented
Copyright, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) IANA is the information provider for: Country-Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) General Assigned Numbers, of which there are scores, one relevant example being the list of Well-Known Port Numbers
Copyright, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) "formed [in 1998] to assume responsibility for: the IP address space allocation protocol parameter assignment domain name system management, and root server system management functions [that were] previously performed under U.S. Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other entities ICANNs Web-Site
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Copyright, ICANN Domain Name Supporting Organizations GNSO and ccNSO Advise the ICANN Board re DNS policy issues This involves the registration of: gTLDs (such as.com and.org) ccTLDs (such as.hk,.au and.us) In this arena, ICANN has considerable authority
Copyright, ICANN Address Supporting Organization (ASO) Advises the ICANN Board re IP address policy There are four Regional Internet Registries: ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers), North America, sub-Saharan Africa RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre), Europe, The Middle East, The North of Africa, and Parts of Asia APNIC (Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre) LACNIC (Latin America and Caribbean NIC) These organisations long pre-date ICANN, and it is not clear how influential ICANN is in this arena