[Chapter-delegates] How can ISOC chapters help in the development of IP-based networks?

[Marcin Cieslak]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010, Veni Markovski wrote:

> I made a simple suggestion - to see which chapters could involve 
> in the work the ITU does, using the Resolutions 101,102, 133, 
> etc., using the ITU regional offices, or the governmental 
> representatives to the ITU (usually Ministry of Communications). 
> This suggestion moved to something which I have not suggested, and 
> even went ad hominem, hopefully that's behind us now.

I'd like to give everyone a sample from what's cooking in our country.

AFAIR ITU processes are concentrated around the incumbent PTT
company, although some work has been done with other players (like
NASK, the .pl registry, participating in some ENUM-related work).

Early December a Polish Chamber of IT and Telecomunications Industry
(PIIT) issued a statement related to the proposed personal data
protection framework in the EU. Our incumbent PTT (Telekomunikacja
Polska, now subsidiary of France Telecom) is a major player in this
honorable institution.  The president of the Chamber is a major
figure in Polish IT world. To quote the statement[1], page 3, point
(h)

"""h. We also believe that the European Union should re-organize the
Internet as the internatet within its own area with its own DNS
servers.  The network would be connected to the rest of the Internet
via the controlled gateway. Disturbances to the network operation
in other regions of the world should not impact the stability of
the intra-EU network. Access to the data could be much more controlled
within such a network (not only personal data but all). [We believe]
that all data of the European Union should be stored only with the
borders of the Union""".

One of memebers of ISOC Poland had blogged about it [2] and had
obtained additional comment:

"""Out of 13 root DNS servers, 10 are located in the U.S., 2 in the
Europe and one in Japan. According to the experts the failure or
shutting down of those Root servers will cause problems within an
hour in our country and after 24 hours will cease to functions.
Therefore there is an idea (it's not ours by the way) that 500
millions of EU citizens would not be stripped off the Internet in
case of problems somewhere else (...)

"""A controlled gateway means lots of gateways -- more or less so many
interconnection points as we have right now

""">>Control<< should be understood in a technical sense, i.e.  those
gateways should be controlled in a pure operational sense, with
regards to proper functioning or to detect cyber attacks.  (...)
It does not mean any form of content control"""

I don't have to tell you how our community reacted to this, given that
at least two instances of the K and J root servers are hosted in Poland.

There is a lot of potential for education, if anything else.

//Marcin

[1]
http://www.piit.org.pl/_gAllery/10/67/10675/Uwagi_MSWiA_do_Stanowiska_rzadu.pdf
[2]
http://echelon.pl/content/piit-chciał-europejskiego-internetu-za-żelazną-kurtyną