Good afternoon My name is Alan Davidson and I am the director of the Open Technology Institute here at the New America Foundation On behalf of all of us at New America. I am delighted to welcome you all here today This happens to be my fourth day on the job. So This is actually the first one of these kind of assemblies here at New America that I've had the pleasure to introduce And I am really especially delighted to be talking about internet governance, which is a topic near to my heart and Essential to the work that we do here at the Open Technology Institute for some that years now the topic of internet governance has Excited the minds of communication policy wonks and constitutional scholars and international lawyers Few others in the general public have shared that enthusiasm I should say Acronyms like the ITU or ICANN or ITF, you know, chip off the tongues of us governance wonks But the long-term impact of these groups Is more likely to be intuitively obvious to insiders than to The public or the policymakers around the world We have a hard time explaining why people should care about this I think that dynamic is beginning to change in the last year or two We've seen internet governance issues increasingly emerging on the global political stage. It's easy to see why The internet matters a lot more in people's lives It's becoming clear that internet governance matters in their lives, too These governance bodies the kinds that we're going to talk about today are centrally located in the debate about free speech Online about the future of the domain name system Which even my mother begins beginning to understand a little bit the Issues around government surveillance in the wake of the Snowden disclosures The future of groups like the ITU or ICANN is now a much bigger deal to average people And finally the outcome of these debates debates We're going to be talking about today remains in doubt for the first few decades of the internet's Existence it was easy to take its architecture and its biases Towards freedom and openness. It was easy to take those for granted today. Those are no longer a given And the technologies of freedom and opportunity we're seeing can often be turned into technologies of control as the next two billion people come online not all of them will be coming with the same tradition of American or Western democratic values that informed the internet's early development What kind of internet governance will they want what kind of internet governance will the next two billion people online want to build? So I would just say our event today could not be more well timed even though we've been working on it for a little while The multi stakeholder model that has governed the network of networks It's technical aspects and the policies that affect it is now under great stress We've seen powerful sometimes non-democratic governments challenging this model of government There have been calls for the ITU to expand its regulatory reach to the upper layers of the internet and here at home There have been mixed reactions to the recent department that might be a generous term Mixed reactions to the recent Department of Commerce announcement about the transition of the IANA function to a new global multi stakeholder community This year there are a number of crucial meetings that will shape the direction of governments Including the net Mundial meetings later this month and the ITU plenipotentiary later this year So into this complex But important set of issues and meetings and conversations Comes Laura D'Artis's excellent new volume. I guess not so new either but excellent volume the global war for internet governance and In simple terms it spells out both the stakes in this debate And it gives us a roadmap to understand the major structures that are having an impact on it my colleague Rebecca McKinnon who's a senior Senior advisor here at the New America Foundation recently called it required reading For those seeking to understand the basics of internet governance, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm delighted And we are all delighted that Laura's here to share Her insights with us We're also glad to both welcome Laura here today, but also have this distinguished and insightful panel of people working in the field To share their observations a few quick housekeeping notes First today's event is being live streamed and a recording of the panel will be available on the numerical website after the event So tell all your friends Second for those who are both who are in the room and watching online We encourage you to continue the conversation on Twitter, and we're using the hashtag pound net governance Give that a try okay, so Finally to introduce our speaker more fully and our panel. I'm delighted to turn things over to Carolina Rossini she's a project director here at the New America Foundation for the internet freedom program and Unfortunately, I'm afraid to say she will soon be leaving us for the public knowledge not very far away, but It is good to see her still in the space So and I should say Carolina also just recently testified yesterday in the House Commerce Committee hearing on internet governance So she is fully primed for all of your comments and questions and to be a provocateur I hope today So on behalf of New America, thank you for being here. Thank you to our panel and to Laura and I look forward to a great discussion So I want to be sure to jump directly in the fun part of this which is our debate with our guests But before I want to introduce Laura and everybody else and explain a little bit the dynamic we like here So Laura is gonna present a little bit in her book Then we're gonna have the other guests speaking a little bit commenting on her book And then we're gonna open for informal conversation. So we we should feel that we are all in the same in the same living room We do have coke outside, but unfortunately, we don't have beer right now So I gonna open I gonna make some discussions and hope you guys enjoy and enjoying the debate. So Laura here on my side We met many years ago and I was very privileged to work with her. I was still in Brazil and she was at then a TAO She's an internet governance scholar and a professor and associate dean in the School of Communications at American University Her books includes includes the war the global war for internet governance Opening standards the global politics of interoperability from by MIT press protocol politics and Information technology in theory. She's a senior fellow at the Center for International Governments Innovation CG and holds an international appointment has the director of the research for the global Commission on Internet Governance announced at the World Economic Forum recently She served has the executive director for the information society project at we al and has degrees on Engineer and a postdoctoral fellowship from Yale Law School Benoni Belly my Brazilian colleague at the panel is a minister counselor at the Embassy of Brazil in Washington and in DC He's in charge of congressional affairs cooperation with the US states and local governments and additionally press and public diplomacy Mr. Belly previous assignment includes the Brazilian mission to UN in New York where he worked with human rights issues The Embassy of Brazil in Buenos Aires and the Embassy of Brazil in Algiers In Brazil, yeah, he worked at the Human Rights Department and at the South American Bureau Then we're gonna have Richard Beard Sorry Richard is the senior international policy advisor at wheel a ring Advocacy dr. Beard was formerly a senior deputy of United States coordinator for international communications and information policy and The office director for much lateral affairs within the US Department of State He also served at the Department of State was served was founder of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation of APEC Forum on telecommunications working working group and has multiple decades experience of organ off with the OECD He was the first official From the United States to be elected has the share for the international telecommunications unions console the ITU and Finally my colleague Emma Nelson from the center of technology for democracy and technology free expression project which works to promote Policies that support users free expression rights in the United States and around the world Emma joined CDT in 2009 Has the Bruce and his first amendment expression and global internet policy fellow She helped the lead CDT work around ITU 2012 Wicked Conference And she has a devoted to maintain the decentralized multi-stakeholder model of internet governance I'm very proud to say that Emma and I we work Really well together through an international Group that's called best beats Emma has a JD for from Yale Law School And she has been also admitted to the New York State Bar, so I would just like to Dive directly in our debate and ask questions later so loud up, please Good afternoon everyone. I'm absolutely delighted to be here. I want to thank the new America Foundation for hosting this event And I'm just completely honored to be part of this panel with my colleagues some great thinkers The new book is called the global war for internet governance And I decided to select a provocative title because I really do believe that some of the debates over internet governance Are spaces where political and economic power is working itself out in the 21st century? as Alan already said Internet control points exist and they mediate civil liberties such as freedom of expression and privacy They affect national security They affect global innovation policy But this has been traditionally such a technically an institutionally concealed area and Somewhat arcane that it has been to a certain extent outside of public view But there are a lot of controversies that have changed this in the last few years think about the last Four years alone. We had wiki leaks Then we had Hillary Clinton's now famous internet freedom speech at the museum right around the corner where she called on American corporations to push back against Requests of repressive governments for surveillance and censorship and then we had the cognitive dissonance of looking at that speech versus the more recent disclosures about Expansive NSA surveillance, of course, we had the Egyptian internet outage. We had ghost net the great firewall of China Too many denial of service attacks to recount and Now we have the open question of how to transition United States authority over the root of the internet to a more international Entity if I can call it entity. We don't know what it will be yet So at the same time that we have every aspect of our economic and social life completely dependent upon this Infrastructure we have somewhat of a loss of trust a loss of trust in technology and governments and by default to some extent the Institutions that manage and coordinate cyber infrastructure So hence the rising political attention to internet governance, which is just making life more interesting by the day But one point to make is that the internet is already governed But there's no single system of Coordination and one of the reasons that I wrote this book is to try to explain and Disaggregate this concept internet governance into various layers and to explain. What is at stake in these? So one area for example involves Control of critical internet resources, so that would include domain names and the administration of things like autonomous system numbers I won't get into what that is and what you've heard of internet addresses binary numbers Now the requirement for each of these to be globally unique has brought about a certain form of governance in some cases centralized governance and the global struggle over who controls and oversees this is Not a new issue This has been going on for a very long time tensions have reflected U.S. Versus United Nations control and especially struggles over control of the root zone file Which is it's described by some as the center of the internet Which is a little bit of an exaggeration, but it is the authoritative mapping between top-level domains and associated IP addresses So there are a lot of new institutions in this area, which is why it's so interesting it transcends national boundaries I can is one of them the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers Everyone has heard of I can it's a nonprofit corporation Incorporated in the state of California Now this is a technical area I Have a background in engineering and I love the technology of it But the work that I do identifies the politics in the technology and What are some of the public policy issues that arise over critical internet resources just to name a few? One is of course adjudicating domain name trademark disputes when you have a domain name like united.com Who should own that United Airlines United Arab Emirates the Manchester United United van lines and who should decide? When we authorize new top-level domains freedom of speech is at stake as well as spaces for innovation as well as concerns for companies that have Trademarks and have new spaces in which to enforce trade their trademark rights So is it okay to have dot triple X is it okay to have dot Republican? Is it okay to have dot sucks? Is it okay to have dot gay? When someone introduced dot gay the Saudi Arabian government said well We would rather not have that top-level domain So you can see the kinds of free speech issues that arise in cyberspace over this and of course still the larger problem is the impasse over the oversight of this mapping and the historic relationship between the Department of Commerce and This function and the end transitioning to a new form of oversight. So it's both technically complicated and it's also political But one point I'd like to make is that this is only one area of internet governance And it's not the whole internet despite how some in the press are portraying. It's not the whole internet It's one part and I decided in this book Knowing full well that there's been so much attention to this area to make that one chapter And I made it the second chapter after the introduction and then the rest of the book explains other critical areas of internet governance So just to name a few of these Technical standards People's eyes are glazing over at the sound of it technical standards But it's a very important area of oversight of the internet many are household names Wi-Fi MP3 is an audio compression standard HTTP Bluetooth these are all standards and they're designed by a number of institutions Such as the internet engineering task force and the worldwide web consortium And they're very technical you could read standards. They're blueprints. They're not actually software code or hardware but they're blueprints that you can read and a thesis of Of my book which drew from my doctoral dissertation advisor Janet Abbate who wrote inventing the internet in 1999 is That protocols are politics by other means. So how can these kinds of technical standards affect policy? Well, you don't have to look farther than encryption standards Which often mediate between national security and individual privacy Protocol like bit torrent. There's another example. That is it serves a technical function of efficient file sharing But we link that always with piracy in our minds. So it's it's politicized because of its usage and Of course other standards affect things like access to the internet for the disabled So it's a very important area and whereas these And I'll I'm I'm going to Channel my friend Alan Davidson who's written extensively about this and whereas these kinds of standards set public policy Then the manner in which they're set is a procedural matter that is a form of governance And so having openness transparency and participation in this it speaks to the issue of public policy legitimacy So that's another area of internet governance and perhaps more obvious is cyber security governance beginning with the 1988 Morris worm how many remember the Morris worm of 1988 and many in here to the more recent Stuxnet code targeting nuclear control systems internet security attacks have become increasingly more sophisticated Much of the responsibility in this area as in other areas of internet governance Rests with the private sector companies that run infrastructure and that secure their own Transactional services and data, but there's also an area that involves public private Oversight such as computer emergency response teams and Certificate authorities and a number of institutions that serve as trusted third parties That are responsible for handling the authentication of our transactions when I go to buy something on Amazon comm It also involves Security of actual internet governance technologies. So how do we secure the domain name system? How do we secure the systems of routing and addressing? It's a very Technical area, but we take it for granted sometimes because the internet has worked so well It's not an easy area though securing those kinds of infrastructures that we rely on Another area I just wanted to toss out a few that maybe can be food for thought for some of the discussion interconnection governance I Eyes glaze over again interconnection governance Everyone knows that the internet is not actually a cloud But is a series of conjoined networks that involve private industry making decisions to interconnect with each other It's it involves technical and financial arrangements many of which are just privately negotiated Recently in the news this there was some attention to this area because of the Netflix and Comcast Decision to directly connect their network. So it's a it's an interconnection issue and Is is it a net neutrality issue should net neutrality be brought into this area? There's a lot of pressure from around the world to have regulation of this area What should that look like? What will that do to the pace of innovation and to the rights of corporations versus having public oversight of an area with a lot of public interest Issues so again lots of lots of policy issues there and then we have the area of the the role of private companies the role of private information intermediaries such as search engines information aggregation sites like YouTube and Flickr and Reputation systems like Yelp that provide free services to us and They're monetized through online advertising But all of them establish public policy whether you think about the constantly changing privacy Policies of social media companies. I have all of my students read every single letter of all the privacy agreements and study how they change over time or decisions of an information intermediary to remove hate speech or a decision to comply with or not Request of a government to remove information. So a lot of issues there in which private companies are Establishing a form of governance through their content intermediation And of course Intellectual property is another area that I won't get into in great detail It's a subject of a 10-hour discussion with this crowd But it doesn't just involve protection of copyrighted material and of trademarks But also the embedded intellectual property that exists in infrastructures of internet governance So there are patents on standards There's there are domain name trademark disputes and rights and there's the issue of trade secrecy in many areas of internet infrastructure such as Search engine algorithms just to name one. So my new book tries to address what is at stake in all of these areas? And I think what I'll do is I'll just I'll just close with three themes that kind of tie all of that together the first theme in this book and Actually that underscores all of the research that I do is that arrangements of technical architecture are also arrangements of power The complex institutional and technical scaffolding of internet governance is behind the scenes Not visible in the same way as our devices our content our applications but nevertheless they do embed political and cultural tensions and after a career in Information engineering and a background educationally in information engineering I decided to get a doctoral degree in a field called science and technology studies and that Is an entire field that? Exams the cultural and political embeddedness of technology. So I enjoy doing this very much So they the politics of the technology Internet protocols are politics in both their design and their effects Even routine bandwidth inspection techniques and network management can be politically charged when they rely on Invasive content and inspection techniques like deep packet inspection that opens up a packet and looks at what's inside So changing if one believes this that the the technical is technical But it's also political and economic then when you think about changing the technologies architecture what you're doing is changing forms of politics and structures of society and Creating possibilities for both different forms of governance and unanticipated outcomes A second theme is that internet governance infrastructures are increasingly becoming proxies for content control and for broader political battles Traditional intellectual property rights enforcement based on Notice and takedown or suing individuals has done little to stop piracy So there's a turn to infrastructure using the domain name system for that Many governments have lost control of the content within their borders So they are turning to infrastructure to block flows. The best example of that is in either Egypt or Syria So the truth is that global internet choke points do exist despite the decentralized geography of the internet and Despite the diversity of institutions overseeing this infrastructure There are centralized points of control and all are increasingly recognized as Points of control over content mediation. There's no doubt about that and then the the final theme is that We have a privatization of internet governance Obviously governments perform many internet oversight functions. I'm not trying to suggest that they don't regulating computer fraud and abuse performing antitrust Oversight responding to internet security threats enforcing child protection laws Enacting privacy laws. There are many examples of this developing national and regional statutes but in reality most internet governance has been carried out by the private sector through technical design and through new institutional forms and through Information intermediation by a private company So private companies are doing this Not in just carrying out their core functions, but they're being asked to be on the front lines of content mediation for example by governments So there's delegated censorship delegated enforcement Governments ask search engines to remove links. They approach social media companies to remove defamatory material They ask internet service providers to hand over personal information about their subscribers for law enforcement or political reasons Delegated censorship delegated surveillance delegated enforcement delegated copyright enforcement have shifted governance Into the private sector and into these private intermediaries. So the truth is that the that the internet is governed But another point I would like to make is that this governance is not fixed Any more than technical architecture is fixed There are many global debates underway now. We're going to discuss some of them in this panel But there's not one global debate There are global debates if one believes that there are many layers of internet governance and when you understand the technical Architecture, it's very easy to see that. There are many debates. So when I get the ask the question as many of you do A question such as this who should run the internet It doesn't make any sense on its face Should Google run it should should the ITU run the internet should the US government run the internet or should I can? It's a non sequitur and it stems from this misconception that internet governance is monolithic There are many other open questions too. I mentioned the one about interconnection. There's the question of the future of anonymity online There's the ever-present concern about moving from a relatively universal internet into a more fragmented internet You could argue if Someone would raise their hand immediately and say well wait. We don't have a universal internet now What if you don't speak English you have a very different view in different areas of the world? There are our bandwidth constraints. There are filtering systems all kinds of ways that we may not have a universal internet at the Content level, but at the technical level we have all the building blocks for internet universality Now there is increasing concern about this even very recently post Snowden. We've seen reactions Ranging from wanting to route around US internet exchange points to localization of customer data in certain countries to having nation specific cloud services So I'm an advocate of a universal internet I know not everyone is but do we want to be concerned about this possibility of fragmentation? Is this really a possibility? It's an issue that I raise in the book So a closely related challenge, and I'll just end with this Is the question of the appropriate balance of powers between various stakeholders such as in the us oversight transition What would be a worst-case scenario in in my opinion would be a transformation from Roughly what we have right now, which is multi stakeholder internet governance to multilateral internet governance At the same time, we can't have this word Multistakeholderism be the answer to every problem that we raise in every issue in internet governance So it's time to unpack the word multi stakeholderism Which is the basic idea of shared coordination among private industry governments and civil society But it can't be a value in itself It has to be something that meets more salient public interest objectives for some reason So I wrote this book to try to provide some insights into this geopolitics of internet governance And how it works right now as well as the history of it and raise some of the debates that will shape The future of the internet and therefore the future of internet freedom And I do think that these debates are important and I in it's a wonderful thing that there's more public attention to it and growing policymaker attention to this Because the security and the stability of the internet really should rank Among other global collective action problems like environmental rights human rights And basic infrastructural systems of food and water Because if we have now the public sphere that is technically mediated And we have this technical mediation that is run through private intermediation and Always forces of control from repressive governments wanting to To push content control in a certain way versus forces of freedom that want to keep the internet open So I do feel that it's important. I'm very honored to be here today at the new america foundation With my friends carolina rossini and with alan davidson and with this wonderful panel So I will end there. I very much look forward to the discussion and thank you very much Thank you laura. I have always feel extremely honored to hear you speaking and Putting so much straightforwardness on a lot of things that sound so complicated sometimes I don't know if you guys have seen her last paper in ssr. And uh impacting impacting the multistakeholderism process Rethinking yes When I read that paper I said wow She was able to put in one table that you can print in one page All the bodies that govern some layers of the internet. So I immediately printed that and pasted on my wall and it's actually there So I recommend you guys taking a look at that. It's really helpful. So now I would like to pass the word to My colleague benoni belly from brazil And you you are welcome to speak from there from here. Yes. Thank you very much Uh, first of all, I would like to thank alan davidson And carolina rossini for the invitation to be here today with you And of course, uh, I would like to thank dot a laura denardis for the privilege to discuss her insightful book and for her enlightening presentation here Of course, it's also a pleasure to be with this distinguished panel and audience I'm a little bit the outsider in this Room All of you are experts, but sometimes it's too. It's good to have someone from outside to Bring a different perspectives as well Since internet governance is not an issue that pertains only to the domain of experts it's now an issue that has It's very important for the whole society governments and all stakeholders as you Used to call Those involved directly with the issue What I would like to do, uh, is to, uh, highlight the aspects of the book that I think these are more Really interesting or more interesting from my perspective, of course, the whole book is interesting, but I had to make a few choices Based on my My background And then I'll raise a little a couple of questions and add a few more comments of my own I think that, uh Of course, the book is a very comprehensive analysis of the wide-ranging areas and mechanisms through which internet governance is shaped and manufactured And I employ the words shape and manufacturer to emphasize the idea that internet governance is not a natural phenomenon It is not a god-given resource It is in fact the outcome of negotiations of struggles in a number of different areas As dr. Donardis points out Internet governance is a contested space reflecting broader global power struggles I'd rather say after reading the book That the global war for internet governance is actually a set of different conflicts Battles squirmishes guerrilla wars and even old-fashioned duels depending on the context Uh, it is still not a null old war And nor is it a war characterized characterized by two clear cut camps One representing values of democracy and progress And another representing the forces of evil authoritarianism and back wardeness There are many shades of gray in these different struggles and conflicts One of the most important merits of the book in my view Is that it avoids the simplistic view Of describing the war for internet governance as a fight between the good guys and the bad guys This conflict exists because the internet has become a very important source Of course of economic and social power dr. Donardis quotes manual castells who explained That communication And i'm quoting an information have been fundamental sources of power and counter power of domination and social change I think it's important to keep that in mind The book also dispels the romantic idea of the internet architecture and governance as embodying democratic values of equality openness And multi stakeholder oversight these are ideas that are worth pursuing For sure, but internet governance not always reflects such values and objectives It becomes clear that internet governance is not always a positive social force And that without social context it is difficult to to understand if it is positive or negative The example provided by dr. Nardis is really convincing one of the examples of many that she provides The ability to use filtering technologies to block child pornography for instance It's not different from the use of the of technology to block political speech The first question is how to determine That a particular governance outcome is good or bad Well, if we were talking about domestic governance here in the united states, for instance You have your national realities Maybe the answer would be the domestic political system It will the the the local law the regulations those will be the Arbiters, but what about the global arena? An internet is global by its definition. Can international law play a role? This is the first question that i'd like to to raise in this regard Some would say that the answer is the multi stakeholder approach which ensures more transparency participation Of all those involved It is tempting to see multi stakeholderism as a sort of panacea Well, that can that can guarantee the best possible results for the interaction of all stakeholders Again, the important question is about determining the type of multi stakeholderism that can better work for a number of different situation I think that's another contribution that dr. Denides brings for for the discussion of these issues And I found particularly interesting that dr. Denides does not endorse the multi stakeholder approaches a magic wand For internet governance. She stresses that it's not a value in itself She mentioned in her presentation here. It is also in the book The right question is what form of a demonstration is necessary in any particular context The answer is that certain areas of internet governance should be overseen by national governments or via international treaties others areas are Administered by effectively administered by private sector and non-profit institutions depending on each situation The most interesting part of the book In my opinion is this discussion about state multi stakeholderism as a kind of zeitgeist And the assertion that this concept can obfuscates hidden agendas Or it could become a race to the lowest common denominator in what is acceptable for instance as a democratic value It seems that there is attention in the book not fully resolved It becomes clear when dr. Denides mentions the difference between a top-down imposition of multi stakeholderism With the risk of a race to the lowest common denominator And the way actual multi stakeholder approaches organically grow in practice It seems that the key to understand how the author sees that this tension lies in the assertion that the decentralized and distributed balance of power is likely responsible for the ongoing resilience stability and adaptability of the internet So from this chaotic multi stakeholder struggle for power in different arenas Of internet governance emerges This resilient stable and adaptable internet from cal's Emerges order despite the shortcomings of such orders, of course Which is always an imperfect Order it would be interesting to hear from dr. Denides How in her view we can avoid the pitfalls of the top-down imposition of multi stakeholderism as we move forward For instance in the ongoing discussion at the united nations itu IGF and the upcoming global conference on the future of internet governance in brazil Dr. Denides reminds her readers that even in democratic countries degrees of internet freedom related to privacy expression An individual autonomy are constantly negotiated against conflicting values of national security and law enforcement The problem once more Is how to we undertake such negotiations at the international global level It is not rare to hear that any enhanced role for such institutions like Multilateral institutions would Mean empowering countries that are not democratic or giving them the capacity to influence the decision-making process about internet governance I really think that such misgivings are sometimes exaggerated It all depends on the specific issue at hand If mud stake holder is no panacea And if broadly defined it can obfuscate power struggles the rejection in lemony of multilateralism Can also become in practice a defense of the status quo Multilateral institutions such as the un are composed by diverse membership But they also Are composed by a huge number of democratic countries developing and developed Whose contributions to find common solutions are necessary and must be taken into account Take for instance the recent resolution at the un About right to privacy in our digital era sponsored by brazil and germany This resolution was an important stepping stone to build universal consensus Around an age the notion that internet governance is not just a technical issue But also a human rights issue This is not to say that multilateral institutions should be the only or even the most important decision-making mechanisms in every aspect of internet governance Let me be very clear. There will be issues that must be dealt with in multilateral institutions while others Others will require a different approach Um, well, I think I have already But I have still Two things to to highlight Uh Since we scheduled this event for the first time Two major event developments occurred. I think that's what mentioning here The u.s. Government has announced that we have stopped the preparation to relinquish its remaining oversight authority in the area of the main name system This decision has entailed a political debate. We are familiar with and the second And this of course it would be great to know if dr. Denades could share her views on this issue in particular. What are the prospects for the globalization of ican and how it could be carried out I know that is a very difficult question Everyone is thinking about that but it's interesting to have her perspective on that The second development I'd like to underline was the adoption By the brazilian chamber of deputies of the marco civil bill. It's our constitution for the internet Which is also a very important step It establishes a strong assertion of rights and principles for internet governance that maybe could be inspiring for our discussions in the upcoming Meetings global meetings to conclude. Let me go back to the idea of war for internet governance And I like to call the israeli writer amos os I think he could be a source of inspiration here regarding the conflict Between israelis and palestinians amos os declares that he is not a proponent of make love Not war His stance has been make peace not love Because the opposite of war is not love but peace And peace requires pragmatism negotiation and sometimes painful concessions We should not expect all stakeholders to love each other But it is important to find common ground in the most important areas of internet governance In other words, we should try to prevent this war For internet governance from becoming bloody We will not be able to overcome different values of In conflict of interest, of course, but we can try to build more efficient internet governance arrangements The meeting in brazil Is meant to be a contribution to that end by bringing the stakeholders together to think about principles and a roadmap for the evolution of of internet If a bloody war Actually outbreaks the main casualty might be the internet as we know it It is extremely important that such war does not turn out to be a nuclear war And this field the mutual assured destruction doctrine would not work This is a clear But I like just to finish that with a very important assertion There is a clear malage With major aspects of internet governance The book helps us to understand why and what is at stake in the multiple power struggles that characterize such war wars A more democratic system of governance is desperately needed to inject a minimum of trust Among all stakeholders this little minimal level of trust is important Because without it, I think the alternative is not order Uh, it will be destructive chaos and fragmentation. Thank you I don't know if you need a minute to brief after that Presentation Benoni, thank you so much. I think it's a privilege to have a representative of the brazilian government with us today In the last few months I've been to many many incontable meetings here in DC Discussing what's going on in brazil and what brazil can do without any Representative so it's an honor for us and for new america to have us to have you with us today So I want to just uh go ahead and and here from first hand, right? So I want to move ahead and uh invite dr. Richard birger to to to give his words Well, thank you very much, and it's a great pleasure to be here. We'd like to thank the Alan davidson and colleagues for this invitation It's always a pleasure to be with professor denardus. It's a stimulation of Thought that she always brings to these issues and as well as A remarkable amount of expertise and and insight Um, I will try to be brief since I think that through professor denardus comments as well as my colleague Uh, counselor billy, uh, I think we've covered many issues, but I would like to make these points And that is first. I think that professor denardus has done us all a great service By introducing a very old notion and that's geo politics in the debate I have watched the evolution of the policy side of the internet From the moment in which There was a need to be a decision made as to who was going to take over the domain name system when That the structure that john postell had created and Transitioned to university and to a private or or into a public organization and the question became Who was going to take it over and that question was of course given to the united states government But from that point it seems that we had lost sight a little bit of the The the interplay between governments and internet that have been a part of the Origin of the internet and its evolution Um, and that is something that I think professor denardus brings back to our attention Uh, which is that you cannot speak about internet governance? Without speaking about very traditional notions of political theory um I would like to emphasize in my remarks that portion of her extraordinary text Page 228 for those of you who are checking whether or not I read the book In which she talks about multi stakeholderism And there she creates a typology on page 229 In which she says there are certain kinds of multi stakeholderism Uh, there is the widely diffused form There are the uh that which is government led And then that which is private sector led And then she says multi stakeholderism Directed in a top down manner Or directed broadly Rather than at a specific administrative function is usually a proxy For a broader political power struggle Uh, and of course, she's quite right in that regard The challenges that we find ourselves in today is precisely trying to understand some fundamental issues Uh, a political theory that has to do with what multi stakeholder means in a very practical Sense and that debate Is ongoing my colleague from brazil Has indicated that context is everything And he may be, uh, correct in that regard But, um As we look at this issue of multi stakeholderism We are going to notice that in fact it derives as at least as we interpret it and as we may have a preference in one direction or the other It derives from ultimately a broader interest which is whether or not We see or how we see scarce resources to be distributed And there are a considerable number of scarce resources identified With the internet and its management Because of course we cannot separate currently the internet From the whole global economic system But um what I wish to then uh say is that as we look at these issues and we understand that There is a geopolitical element to them that there is a If you will a traditional political theory Associated or associated with these issues We also must say that the internet Whether we speak of it as the internet or whether we speak of it for those who deploy and use internet Is still aspirational Which is why I think we're still we are having the debates that we are having And it's aspirational in the sense of what we wish Our societies to become And we use the debate over internet governance to As a means as she says as a proxy for the broader political debate Now this debate is going to of course take place this year at some meetings coming up that have already been described or at least Named Which is the Plenty Potentiary in Busan in October And the and I would also add the world summit on the information society review in 2015 I am confident that the issues that professor denardis has described So well in her book are going to be at play In those meetings But I would just conclude by saying that we all should Uh express our appreciation to her again for As her table of contents indicates that when you begin to consider issues of standard cyber security free flow of information critical information internet resources access And um Accountability in a sense you're talking about some fundamental issues Uh of politics and that cannot be separated from a debate on internet governance Um, so in conclusion, I wish to express my appreciation to again professor denardis for Bring a source text to our attention That I know will have an enduring impact upon our thinking. Thank you very much Thank you. And finally, I want to call the last stakeholder in our conversation Civil society with emma from cdt. Thank you Great. Well, and I'll I'll try to keep this Quick so that we can move on to um discussion with everybody who's here But uh, thank you so much for the opportunity to join the system panel today And to provide some comments on laura's excellent book Like all of laura's work on internet governance. I found it to be a very clear articulation of some tricky and complicated topics I think in the so in the I guess introduction of the book you outlined five features of global internet governance As a conceptual framework, which are are reflected in the three themes that you Mentioned earlier And I found these this framework Really particularly useful because it helps to tease out the the different orientations or lenses that different people can bring To the same topic And I think that's one of the things that's really helpful for a point of debate We often see debate around governance topics get very muddled very quickly whether we're talking in dc In geneva or anywhere else in the world um from an advocate's perspective I think it's extremely helpful to have a framework like this to really sharpen our own understanding of What the real issues are that we're talking about and also to be able to pinpoint where and how a conversation So to take as a very Non-global example even just the the current debate going on in the us around the ntias announcement that it's going to transition The iana functions and I know that you Tried not to make your book all about the uh the iana functions, but unfortunately we we had the news So so it's um what everybody's been buzzing about uh for the past few weeks um So as laura explained the um the the ntias has an oversight role in um management of the root zone file control of the authoritative Mapping of the names and numbers of the internet for the global internet So when I hear about the ntias announcement that they're going to transition this oversight role to the global multi stakeholder community I think ah this clearly falls in that privatization frame the privatization of internet governance That laura mentioned which is not just about shifting things to private companies, but to new institutional forms And to me is really bound up in this idea of multi stakeholder Governance where with the idea that no particular party be it government civil society industry or technical experts Necessarily has a determinative role In internet governance The privatization frame is about shifting governance functions out of explicitly government driven or controlled situations And into something where private non governmental actors have at least as much say in the process and decision making an implementation So the ntias transition is about getting rid of that vestigial formal contractual tie between the us government and the domain name system And is about putting that oversight role in the hands of the global multi stakeholder community Um a community which though it does include governments as members Um is decidedly non governmental or private in nature So thinking in this frame the ntias transition obviously raises all of the usual questions about privatization of internet governance Functions transparency of decision-making processes participation in agenda setting defining of a process as well as the development of proposals and the ultimate decision making Accountability who is accountable to whom and through what mechanisms and many other questions This is where a lot of the conversation Within the internet governance community within the community of people who already knew about the iana functions and cared about them That's where a lot of this has been focusing You know who's going to run the process? How are they going to run it? What are we even talking about? What's this ultimate entity going to look like? But then we look at popular press coverage of the issue and it's been discussed almost entirely in the second frame The propensity to use internet governance technologies as a proxy for content control Of course, some of this is politically motivated It's hard to expect the media to to pass up a good alarmist headline about The government handing over control of the internet to the russians But it it's too easy to dismiss the rhetoric as entirely politically motivated Or to just write it off as the result of not understanding the role that the ntias currently plays or what the iana functions actually are I think it's much more useful to actually use the second frame, which has proven true many times over There is a propensity of governments and others to look at Governance technologies as a way to exert content control And to have that Informer thinking about what are the genuine concerns here? To use that to better inform the discussions of process and accountability That we've already identified, you know need to be happening So we should be asking, you know, how could oversight of the iana functions Be used to exert control over online content? As laura noted, there are many free expression implications with having control over the root zone file It's not hard to imagine in a worst case scenario That intentional and malicious mismanagement of dns root zone file Could have an effect on access to information Not saying that I think this is a likely outcome of anything, but just, you know, let's let's think think it through Acknowledge the technological potential for this Then we can think about important questions for the transition You know, what's been keeping this doomsday happen scenario from happening so far and what does all that What does that entail? How do we build those safeguards into the next evolution of oversight of this function? So from an advocate's perspective, I think being able to clearly pull this apart and articulate it in a non-hyperbolic fashion Helps both in responding to the hyperbole that might be used to delay a process And also helps inform the process to make sure that whatever gets developed Has been as a Steve W. Yonko put it at yesterday's hearing at the house energy and commerce committee Make sure it's stress tested make sure it can withstand Whatever any party around the world, you know might try to do to it But I so I just wrap up by saying that I think you know any anyone involved in this discussion Who's trying to insist on putting only their frame on this debate? is really Not going to help move the conversation forward and if we can take something like what Laura articulates in her book and use it to help really elucidate what all is going on here and what are all the different Angles and and potential motivations. We're on a much better track to actually Coming up with a good policy solution Thank you. We must so much for bringing the public interest perspective To this table So I'm gonna go directly to the questions. I'm dying to ask more about any ti a but I'm gonna leave that a little for later So I would like you to discuss a little bit with us What do you identify has some of the most shocking political events in the internet history? And anybody can grab the question I'll jump in there for me It was 1988 when I was a graduate student at Cornell and an internet user And the Morris worm hit Because that really shaped my view of how important internet security Was and you know an estimated 10 of the internet was taken down at the time Now it got traced back to a computer at MIT and then a computer at Cornell And it was another graduate student at Cornell Really shaped my thinking But but I do want to say that you know It really has been in the last five to seven years when the the starkest events have happened The cutting off of citizen access in Egypt I would say it's the number one to me when you think that in entire Countries internet access can be taken down whether withdrawing border gateway protocol routes or by calling up A wireless the president of a wireless company and say, you know cut this down I think that tells us and it's a reminder that there are internet choke points And I do think that the nti a announcement. I'm going to go right to that I want to say that there are two extreme views of that right now On one side It's being described as Obama's internet surrender On the other side some people very well respected people are saying this is no big deal And what I would say is this actually is a big deal It is a big deal in the history of the internet because I recognize a lot of faces in the room and I know people have been involved in this You know very closely This debate has been going on a long time and the announcement about the transition I think it is a big deal and at the reality is somewhere in the middle and if all goes well We'll still you know, as I like to say we'll still watch orange is the new black on netflix Right, it will continue to work. But but it is a big deal and it has to be very carefully crafted what the new Multistakeholder oversight will look like Anyone additional comments Any additional comments No, I don't think I have I mean, I think professor denardus has summarized a number of things. I mean For every extraordinary technology and it goes without saying the internet is an extraordinary technology. There is the There is a dark side that is possible with it and If we were to judge what is the most shocking We begin to Expose more about ourselves and I think we wish to in this room in terms of what we see about human behavior But regardless Let me focus rather on a Positive note if I may because I think Laura has summarized it very well with respect to the nta announcement. I do think it is a big deal And I wish to compliment assistant secretary strickling and his staff for For the courage that they're demonstrating and the interagency process that inevitably led to the decision It's important For a variety of reasons. One is the fulfillment of a promise from 1998 That this would be fully privatized then the hope was the year 2000 Okay, fine. It's it's been delayed Secondly It's been given over to a multi stakeholder process to come back with a proposal That's a remarkable an international multi stakeholder process to come back with a proposal. That is extraordinary And the third thing is the united states government has declared that There are certain conditions Which is to say that the promise again of the internet will not be lost in this transition Uh that It cannot be a transition to yet to a A governmental or intergovernmental organization. It has to retain Uh a multi-stageholder nature of it. So for those reasons, it seems to me that this is a remarkable decision That needs to be given its full credit for what it is And it is not a small thing. It is a big thing I'll leave it that Actually a question I'd love to kind of hear from the room just to get a sense of People generally what they think the most shocking thing is I ended at the risk of Exposing more about myself than that. I might It's shocking. It can be good. I mean I'd say No, I mean I I would my mind immediately goes to the revelations the Back in the fall One of the the many revelations that we've gotten from edwards noden But I'm thinking specifically of the one about nsa subverting encryption and intentionally incorporating non randomness into random number generators to put it at a very high level for encryption technologies that form the The the baseline of not just government to government communications But the entire global internet for that everyone Government civilian alike uses You know, that's when laura talks about a kind of a loss of trust So much of what has happened in internet governance is built on these foundations of trust and if you have Subversion of fundamental encryption technologies. That's just obviously Completely counter to that Thank you Many events that could be identified as being very shocking But the the degree of the pervasiveness of the mass surveillance that was revealed to the general public and acknowledged So far is something that we would not Imagine that could happen So and has implications of course for global The governance and and for national interests of different countries the privacy of individuals The sovereignty of states The Interests of different companies around the world that were targeted By these programs. So this is I think really shocking Thank you very much I was just Speaking there because I want to be sure that I break a little bit the protocol And send the opportunity for you guys to ask something and then I'm gonna make another question So do we have any questions here? I'm gonna get one from the audience and then I'm gonna come back and then there Thank you Is this on anyone hear me? Yes. Okay. Uh, I'm dr. David Wood among other things. I'm a practicing software engineer And I work with the w3c As the internet becomes governed more internationally I I certainly respect the need for The top the amount of the degree of top-down governance to increase However, if we look at the history of the internet Traditional political theory as dr. Baird was speaking about Doesn't seem to me to deal well with the sort of bottom-up innovation That we've seen on the internet. So Um, professor Nardis mentioned a bit to it which was developed by a single programmer Has never been standardized I think if we look back We could see that the same thing was true with the web. It was a single developer Same thing with dns same thing with most of the tcp ip family So We don't have any reason to believe that this Development of new protocols new tools new techniques Some of which capture hundreds of millions of users in a fairly short amount of time Is in some way slowing As a matter of fact, we have reason to believe that the amount of innovation on the internet is in fact increasing And so I wonder As we move into this new world of increasing the amount of top-down governments how we Avoid the unintended consequences Killing the goose that lead the golden egg and I hope the panel would be so kind of respond I'll be happy to take that kickoff the discussion on that. I think it's um, you're making an important point Not just asking a question and My hope is that we don't get top-down Mandates in in the standard setting environment and that it changes Do you see any place where that's happening? I see a few places where that's happening I also see trends away from interoperability And I think that the pace of innovation could really be affected by that not just Government top-down mandates but having Greater intellectual property rights that are embedded in standards in the way that that could affect Effect innovation so having points of control whether it's government mandates whether it's top-down Design of standards or whether it's intellectual property within the standards itself I think i'm kind of agreeing with your What you're suggesting in the question that that would affect the pace of innovation. Let's try to imagine a world in which The some of the standards that Have been developed over the last 20 years were completely encumbered by By patents Would we have the internet that we have now? If we went no if we went if we went with the open open systems interconnection instead of tcpip I I don't think we would have the innovation that we have now. So having this kind of Grass roots Development of standards is important, but it's also important to have The procedural legitimacy for this to be maintained Primarily in the private sector and through processes so I actually have another book about the issue of open standards and I strongly advocate for having openness in in development where anyone can get involved now granted It takes a lot of technical expertise. It takes money. It takes cultural Competency and other things, but having that openness Is very important then openness and implementation where the standard is published whether where the public and others can inspect it and Have some kind of accountability and then the openness in In how it's Used in that there are multiple competing standards. So it's you raise a topic that is one of my favorites And I hope that we continue in a world where we have open standards and grassroots development of them A few words, I think if you thoughts about that, I think that for developing countries It's really what not only for developed countries because the internet is a tremendous tool for democratizing knowledge and the and the capacity to innovate So Nowadays you have people in india in brazil Whatever in any place in the world that have access to the internet and can innovate and can be successful in the world economy And we have to preserve that so The whole debate about intellectual property rights has to be updated In the light of this tremendous tool that this internet If you we don't want to stifle the innovation The global level as well So we're gonna take the word back and and and ask another question So what do you feel it's missing in this internet governance ecosystem today? I heard the word trust mentioned many times here. Could you comment on that, please? It's trusting what? Or in who? Well, not not to go back to the NTIA transition again, but The question reminds me a little bit of you know, something I noticed at the hearing so there was a house energy and commerce subcommittee hearing yesterday on this NTIA transition and the you know Go to the hearing carolina was one of the The witnesses and and it was a fairly Lopsided room There are lots of members from the republican party there to ask a lot of questions But it was really interesting throughout the hearing from the democrats too That there were there were quite some balls Uh, but it what was really interesting in watching the panel was hearing in you know in every panelist that that spoke Which included larry strickling head of NTIA Fadi Shahade head of ican Ambassador david gross carolina steve obianco Everybody was talking about the need for the open and transparent and accountable process And every question that was coming was about how are you going to ensure this process is open and transparent and accountable? It's like okay good. We're all on the same page here But what the the distance I saw was that no matter how much Um, you know Secretary strickling and mr. Jahade. We're assuring that you know, we're don't worry. This process isn't going to rush We're not going to let anybody run away with the ball here Trust us the response that was coming from at least some of the The members of congress was we'd rather have a law that says you can't do this until we say it's okay There's a bill that's been introduced and so that was a sort of Like fundamental kind of gap in How do you understand the multi stakeholder process? It's if you're going to have a Open and participatory way of figuring out what the next step of this is You have to be willing to come to the table and trust that when everybody else says Yes, we're going to talk this through that that's going to happen. Um, it doesn't seem like that trust is quite there yet And to add that the trust is also built through participation, right? I got the From yesterday the trust is built through participation, right? And one of the things I said was that you of course the gal can develop report the congress has the right of ask reports and Expert advice, but you should not hold back. You are one more of the stakeholders involved in this in this in this process So do you an accountability and openness and transparency so engage with it, right? So I I I much agree with you On on on that barrier Just one other quick point following up on that because you asked a question about trust But you also tied that into areas that need to be addressed And I would say that the connection between trust and security is something that has not had enough attention And if I think the the internet freedom framing that has been the dominant frame for the last five years has In a way done a disservice by not By focusing on one Aspect of the internet and not Things that happen in reality in the infrastructure sometimes that are not so positive whether it's consumer data breaches or problems between networks at the Borders where routes can be withdrawn or other other kinds of security things so having moving more into the area of I don't like to use the term weaponization of cyberspace But I do feel that this is an area where we need to place more concern both from private industry And from civil society because there are increasingly markets for things such as knowledge about vulnerabilities and code and protocols And to say that this is being stockpiled is To use a kind of language from another area of society We don't have the language to describe it yet But I think that the the cyber armaments the stockpiling of knowledge about protocol Vulnerabilities, this is an area that there needs to be more attention that's related to trust So passing the word back to you any more questions not likely on the back there Well, I really There you go. Really enjoyed this always. Um, sorry meant here. I've heard many of these people speak before it's always a pleasure um, in particular, um Dr. DeNardis is comment about the variability of multi the application of multi stakeholderism in which cases it's not always the best Application or the best solution However, we might want to focus in on that a little more especially given that we've got this recommendation for the ANA functions that we now have to talk about I would like to hear thoughts on perhaps how we might figure out or what kind of procedure or Framework we can use to analyze where is multi stakeholder Multi stakeholderism appropriate. Where is it not? What are the trade-offs of actually implementing in one place to the other now that we've established that multi stakeers not a Panacea we should establish to what extent it is actually helpful or unhelpful Right that that is the crux of the question going forward Um, how do you determine Which function actually should have multi stakeholder participation? And if so, how versus functions that do not have multi stakeholderism, that's the nature of your question, right? right, so there are You know, there are a number of ways to divvy that up one is you can have is it a local? Is it something that just affects a local? Entity or something that has global ramifications. Is it something that involves? Critical internet resources that that have to be globally unique Versus things that don't have to be globally unique. You could do it based on the public interest implication of the area So there are a lot of ways that you can divide it and I don't really have a good answer I mean there are 144 different functions of internet governance. So we have to talk about any particular one I'll just give you a couple of examples on one end of the spectrum I think that applying something like multi stakeholderism and this is going to be a controversial statement because I know a lot of people disagree with this applying multi stakeholderism in an area such as interconnection Is the synonymous with saying that we need government regulation Of interconnection because right now it's um in many cases It's private industry making local decisions about how they can join their networks It's something that has to happen very quickly if you look at the what is the problem that's being addressed in any of these areas If you look at the growth of and spread of internet exchange points, it's been growing very rapidly There's more interconnection than ever. So in an area like that where it's based locally That could be an argument for having For for being okay with the privatization of that but in an area like critical internet resources in ican That absolutely is an area that has to be multi stakeholder Part of it is due to the design of the internet where there's a requirement for global uniqueness in both names and numbers And part of it is because you need these in order to use the internet at all and you can't route around this System now granted in 20 years. Maybe we won't have the domain name system anymore and this whole issue will be moot but right now this is um the foundation of the internet and the global globally unique requirement And the public policy issues at stake I'd say that that is an area that has to be multi stakeholder And I would argue that it already is that ican is multi stakeholder. It's just a matter of how to shift it Um away from the government, uh, us government oversight. So let me ask you a question What if at the end of the day, okay, and you don't have to answer this but Maybe the ideal situation is for the same people that are in iana now to continue doing what they do Right, I mean there are a lot of you you could argue that it already is multi stakeholder in some ways. There's Some over some advisory role of a government of the GAC the government advisory committee There are people with expertise There are companies that carry out various parts of this like verisign So it is multi stakeholder But what do you replace the uh contractual relationship of the us with Is the question of does it need to be replaced? What are the alternatives for that? And that's that's what we don't yet know And I would say that we're at the beginning of the process and not at the end of it So you raise the salient question that we'll hear a lot of deliberations about in brazil and the at the igf and going forward Uh, just a quick question and then um, so what are Talking about brazil, what are your hopes For the net munjau at the end of this month and how this announcement can actually be a signal of Trust that us is a meeting. How do you see all those connected? I really don't know we have 187 contributions from various different stakeholders And there are people that are already Trying to figure out Areas of consensus or areas in which there's no consensus at all Things that are more controversial controversial others. I think that what will come up in the end is a field guiding principles for the internet governance and a few areas in which We can advance more quickly and others that will require more debate I think that For instance, the brazilian internet steering committee has submitted its contribution there and I see that the most of it it's about The future of ican and how it's going to evolve in the future and they have some interesting ideas and they I saw that they they called uh, dr. Denardis in their official Contribution so It's very interesting They defend multi-state multi-stakeholderism as something that is important to keep in this in this area Although they have specific ideas on how to organize this and how it it should evolve So I think that it's our hope that this Net mundial will first of all bringing everyone together with this new environment in which The u.s. Government has been open to discuss the future of Of a global or internationalized or globalized ican We will have a good environment of trust in order to advance And and and make progress. So that's what I can say for now Well, I have Actually looked at most and read I should say read most and looked at all Of the 187 contributions and I and I would Commend them to your attention. They're wonderfully organized on the website By their abstract and and then the full text But I do commend them to your attention because Consistent with this discussion this afternoon They are a snapshot or a reflection of the First the aspirations Of a large section of those involved Stakeholders involved in the internet as to what they want the internet to be How they want it to govern I was fascinated by the extent to which rights Was mentioned by various contributions Some very prominent contributions spoke exactly the language of professor denardus by saying that There is always a policy side to every technical issue And how do we manage that? So in in many ways I think Again the compliments to the government of brazil For bringing this meeting together And I think it has already achieved a remarkable A remark it already has a remarkable achievement in the sense that The texts that have been contributed to the meeting will I think be Should be studied and looked at Going forward to help answer many of these very complex Questions that are being posed in the room today So in any case, I have found it very enlightening To consult the website And congratulations. I offered congratulations to the government of brazil For this achievement And I'd say in addition to um to those points, uh just to Kind of pick up on something that the carolina mentioned about Kind of trust and comfort with the multi stakeholder model. So ever since this, you know, brazil summit was announced Back right around the the igf Last year many of us have been working very very hard to make sure that it's, you know, multi stakeholder all the way down that the Committees to figure out the agenda to figure out the process for submissions that it's it wasn't ever, you know Any one entity's meeting or any one government's meeting Um, so there's already been a significant multi stakeholder process around the meeting And the meeting itself is going to be the same sort of thing And I think i'm hoping that it will be a good example Particularly to the governments who attend um of of what this slippery multi stakeholders and concept means You know, if you compare going to an itf meeting to going to a meeting hosted at the un Procedures are very very different. Um, the way a meeting happens how people respond to each other How people interact to each other, you know, to take two extremes. It's just completely different worlds And so I think part of the um stumbling block that we run into when, you know, if you're In civil society and trying to advocate against a purely intragovernmental model Even explaining what this this multi stakeholder thing is Can be very difficult And so I hope that this gives a little bit of that that participation that direct first-hand experience with what does it mean to sit at the table as equals and Talk about key points talk about our aspirations talk about where we see Things that can be approved uh, and and get get everyone a little bit more habituated to that Thank you. So back to you just behind you Yeah The u.s. Has derived considerable benefits from its major role in sort of Creating much of the internet and I can I'm cannot picture key other countries china russia maybe brazil Continuing to be happy with that situation this unlevel playing field So my question is how strong is the international pressure from other countries To change this to reduce the u.s. Influence dominance Um Kind of probe your question a little bit because it it's it's kind of there are two issues there One is I don't know that I would say that the the u.s. Government has derived Economic benefit from the oversight of the root zone file and things like that I I don't I I think that all governments have derived Benefit from that and the u.s. Government has done an excellent job Managing that process part of the reason we take it for granted is because it's been run so well And it's like an it manager in a way. You don't know they're there until your network goes down And then suddenly there's a problem, but it's it's been run very well. So I would say that All all governments have derived benefit from the domain name system and from the way that it has been run over time So what do you want to ask a Well, let's say from a security point of view something like I don't know the number you you're the experts Of a majority of messages from Moscow to Kiev go through northern virginia That helps in SA. I don't think the Russians like that And the same like in brazil, uh 95 of our websites are actually hosted in us And 90 of our traffic just do pass through us. So we do have that we are now Developing international backbones and also ix local xp's to change a little bit that situation, but I mean 20 years ago when there were 13 B servers with servers the vast majority were in the us very few overseas. I don't know Yeah, they well that that's right the historic reality is that the internet sprang from We're here outside of herndon and reston and you know a lot has been happening in this area So there's the historic trajectory, but it's also very important to disaggregate things like The physical infrastructure from the virtual management of critical internet resources because I I really do think those are completely separate issues And so the way that for example ip addresses are distributed Is a different issue from How domain name from from how the dns is distributed across various servers and run by various registries Still completely separate issue From interconnection and how undersea cables are routed and the system of internet exchange points So in each of those areas there are questions about The nature of how it's grown the the regional geopolitics of it So I I would just say that the um the root zone file and the um the management of critical internet resources If you just think of that about that as one issue that it has been run very well And that the u.s. Government has derived a lot of that we the u.s. People and the u.s. Economy has derived We've derived a lot of benefit, but equally so other countries have so it's in the best interest of every country for it to continue to be run Very well We don't want to take it for granted and want the stability and the security of that particular area of internet governance to Go on into the future Seems to me. I'm sorry go ahead No, please. I've already spoken a number of times No, go ahead, please now it is Questions that you ask and the gentleman in the In the back About what type of multi stakeholder should we have? You know, I think part of the discussion that we will increasingly have and The net moon gel meeting has created the context for it And other meetings that we're going to have in the next two years and more And I might say the discussion that NTIA has started as a result of this announcement One of the things I think let me speak just as an american in this context if I may For my many years that I spent at the OECD I watched the debate there and one issue that they let me say there were two issues that fascinated The now I think 33 countries around the table One Why is it that if you introduce the same technology that is used in the united states Into a european office You do not get the same productivity that you get out of the united state office in the united states The second point is How is it that silicon valley came into existence? And why can't we in france? This is a particular case Recreate a silicon valley I recall the french government decided they were going to have a silicon valley So they invited entrepreneurs to come to the stadium outside of paris, which you may know in the way to Charles de Gaulle airport that you'll see on your right and then there they had a festival Of entrepreneurs and from that they were hoping to create the silicon valley Americans should I hope in this discussion do not lose sight Of the context by which the internet And other aspects of our innovations at the edges as my colleague from The worldwide web referred to Some of which we did not create in this generation. We inherited it. I commend to your attention Detoke bill's Extraordinary journals on the united states And one of the observations he made was he had never been in a country Where people so easily organized themselves For common purpose. He was amazed at the writing of his time That there was he didn't have the term A multi stakeholder environment already in existence that americans as a culture Find very easy now. Let me go back to that office experience, which I've had this discussion at length at the OEC And my european friends will say the following. You know what the difference is and I said no They said the following In europe if you have a staff meeting One person tends to speak If you go to a staff meeting in the united states, it's a concoffining of voices Around the room trying to solve the problem So Here's what I wish to say Amidst all of this discussion about the internet About multi-stakeholderism and about foreign views in the united states We should never lose sight as americans that there is something organic about our culture That has allowed this to come about The internet And that there is something about our culture and our society that has allowed it to flourish And we should not apologize for that but rather Use it as a point of discussion with other countries But if you want a silicon valley You've got to have a free flow of information between three primary institutions universities The private sector and the government And I will challenge Most countries including those of my friends are on the OECD to say To what extent do you have a free flow of information between those Three institutions because if you don't have it You're not going to have a silicon valley So I just wish to make that Point that we don't lose in addressing your very good point That with the challenges that are going to be coming towards united states in the years to come in the months to come We should not lose sight of that organic quality that we have as a society And we should not hide from it as being one of our virtues if I may say Sounding very patriotic, but I do think it's it also has a substantive point to it But you this does not happen by chance and you cannot just simply Create it by fiat by declaring we will now have a silicon valley doesn't work that way Thank you. I actually heard A similar story from uh, Andrew Herrick who is the head of the icc chapter here in the sea and he was actually the He was invited to live in singapore for a couple of decades exactly to structure their regulatory System and I have the pleasure the honor to have lunch with him a couple of times And then he told me when I was in the off sea Everybody was quiet and I would make a question and they would not answer me Until I I provoked them saying or you make a question or you leave the meeting then he Injected that culture so it's it's it's it's really amazing and it's it's really true in many cultures So I just when I get a last question from the audience and then I think it's it's it's time To end after that So apologies to conflate paradigms, but Just for a broad take I mean you raise a lot of issues and a lot of troubling things that could happen could not happen But are you sort of optimistic about the future? I mean, are we going to get stuff? Uh technology developments that are going to solve all Um all these sorts of problems Do you see everything taking a turn for the worse and all the scary things that have been revealed over the past? a few years Coming true like what what are your guys's? Um Forecasts I guess I I'm very optimistic cautiously optimistic and I I will say this that I raised a number of issues of things that could happen and I decided to just have it in the last chapter Because I wanted the rest of the book to explain that there are these systems that keep the internet operational and The truth is that at the very core of me. I'm an engineer and I appreciate the amount of Um design and intelligence that has gone into this system Not just in the technologies, but in the in the innovations and governance So I feel that we have a good history a good track record and um, I am optimistic, but that being said We can't just take this for granted the reason that things have run fairly smoothly is because of certain forms of innovation certain forms of governance and as dick said so well the free flow of information so it's um The the main message is to not take that all for granted and to be careful in how things proceed That's that's why even with something so um on the plate right now as the ntia transition It's It is a big deal. Yeah And it's not right what people are saying that This is just you know, there's no big deal here at all That's not right any more than it's right to say that this is an internet surrender So that moving forward as grown-ups Figuring out how to preserve the free and open internet is the task that we have as this generation That's good and and And if I may bring him back a little bit the ntia issue It is a big deal and has an incredible symbolic meaning to it While the functions can be small The symbolic is is what we are talking. That's the big deal and you are right that some countries Including Non-democratic countries have been using this has an excuse to push for issues in the itu for example So there is uh geopolitics here and I do like that view a lot And how things represent we need to be aware of the symbolism of all The debate we have internet governance and how this affects the geopolitics of it. So these are I'd like to add just uh another idea. I think that this has to to be a global conversation because You know, uh, even though the internet is stronger here if it was born here and the us has a pivotal role And takes a lot of advantage economic events other countries as well. Uh, it is important not to Mimic the same kind of of reasoning that I we've we've seen in other Fora and in other situations For instance, I the other day I read an article that referred to a human universal human rights As if those rights were those enshrined in the us constitution so with no reference to The the international system of protection of human rights universal declaration the the international covenants on civil and political rights and other And the whole beauty of of conventions and impacts that are important as well So when we talk about trust here, we must Take into account the fact that this is must be a global conversation or this Governance or this conversation will not Bring about, you know a stable open internet for everyone because now we cannot have just an open internet In the united states we have to to to fight for an open secure Internet All over the world and for that to happen We have to to have a global conversation with all stakeholders not in the only in the united states That's a little bit the trust issue. I think has to do with that showing that it's not only Through action, but also through symbolism even though the us is not Having a very important role with regard to to a root zone file the fact that there is this link It it undermines the trust from abroad and the fact that icon Is incorporated according the laws of California poses a problem for several countries as well because of course there is an advantage that it's the american legal system so This issues must be Taking into account in the way that if the us wants to be trusted must be also willing to Have this global conversation and find global solutions For for the issue not not not just imposing top-down A solution that is Crafted inside the united states. I think that's what this announcement Proves is that there is political will to do that And that's why I think that the environment for the net movie always much better now And I think that we are going to have A good conversation in brazil Your final any final remarks Yes So anyway, I want to thank you so much. It was an incredible honor to host you here today and Was amazing class to hear to all of you and thank you so much for all of you who stayed with us until the end. Thank you