[Chapter-delegates] Launch of the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit

[Richard Hill]

Thank you for this.

 

FULL DISCLOSURE: I submitted comments on early drafts of these papers and
participated in discussions with the drafting team. Many of my comments were
integrated in the final version, but not all. So I am posting here some
comments on the final version.

 

The Executive Summary states: "There have been many kinds of computer
networks, but none of them have been embraced by so many people on a global
scale and integrated into day-to-day life". Of course not, personal
computers did not exist until well after the Internet was developed and
deployed. So it makes no sense to compare the Internet to other computer
networks. One of the features that enable the use of the Internet by
individuals was the emergence of personal computers, and more recently
smartphones. So it the Internet's success is not just due to its technology
as a network, but also to the personal computing devices used to access the
network.

 

The first "critical property" is "An Accessible Infrastructure with a Common
Protocol".  This should be rephrased as "An Affordable Access Infrastructure
with a Common Protocol" because, in my view, not everybody understands that
"accessible" also means "affordable". Affordable is a key requirement.
Should this property should refer only to the access infrastructure, or
should it include other things that some might consider infrastructure, such
as search engines, e-mail, etc?

 

The critical property "Decentralized Management and a Single Distributed
Routing System" must be split into several different bits. All current ICT
networks are decentralized, what distinguishes them is the type of
decentralization.  All have single naming and routing systems, but what
distinguishes them is the nature of those systems. For example, compared to
the telephone network, Internet has a naming system (the DNS) whose
management is more centralized; on the other hand it has a more distributed
routing system.

 

The critical property "Common Global Identifiers" is, as noted above, not
unique to the Internet. No global network can function without it.

 

Under Critical Property 1, the paper states: Page 5: "You don't need
permission to connect to the Internet."  That's not true at two levels:
first, in most countries you need some sort of permission (often just a
notification) to provide Internet services.  Second, as a user, you need
"permission" (usually in the form of payment) from an ISP to connect. It's
not like air, which you really can breathe without permission. It's more
like clean drinking water, which is readily available, but only against
payment.


Same section:  "There is no international policy on who can connect or what
they should pay." True if taken literally, but that's also true of today's
fixed and mobile telephone networks. But it is not true de facto. Many users
connect to Internet via mobile phones. The GSMA roaming guidelines are, de
facto, an international policy on who can interconnect.

 

Same section: "An Internet user trying to use a new application doesn't have
to ask questions like 'Are they running the same protocol I am?'". True at
the protocol level, but not true at the application level. If you want to
connect to someone through, say, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, or Zoon, you
have to ask whether they are running the same application as you are.

 

Same section:  "The network is open to anyone willing to make an effort to
participate". This should read: "As discussed in more detail below, the
network is open to anyone able to pay for the necessary equipment and
bandwidth (where payment may take the form of personal data)".

 

Same section: Page 5: "Without a central authority dictating who, how, and
where connections are made". There isn't such a central authority for
telephony either, and never was.  More importantly, the Tier 1 providers
are, de facto, an authority (albeit not a single entity) that does determine
who connects where at what cost.

 

Under Critical Property 2, p. 5: "An application designer does not have to
start from first principles and wonder about the architecture and technology
of the underlying network". Not always true. Some application designers do
have to worry about that, because the packet-switching, best effort, nature
of the infrastructure means that latency, quality, etc. cannot be
guaranteed. One solution is to increase bandwidth, but that's something that
the application designer definitely has to worry about. For example, by
acquiring enough bandwidth, and/or using CDNs.

 

Same section: "the process of standardization is open to all interested and
informed parties". True, but not all parts of the process are open at no
cost. Attendance in IETF and ICANN is indeed free. But that is not the case
for W3C, IEEE, ISO/IEC, etc. And GSMA (e.g. 3GPP) is not at all open: it's
only for GSM operators.

 

Same section: "the results of this standards process are deployed on a
voluntary basis."  That's true for all current ICT standards. It is not
unique to Internet.

 

Critical Property 3, p. 6: As noted above, all current ICT networks are
decentralized, what distinguishes them is the type of decentralization.  All
have single naming and routing systems, but what distinguishes them is the
nature of those systems. In particular, I don't know of any current global
ICT network in which there a central controller dictating how and where
connections are made.


Critical Property 4, p, 7: As noted above, common global identifiers are not
unique to the Internet. No global network can function without it.

 

Under Critical Property 5, p. 8: "the Internet was designed as a general
purpose network-not optimized for voice, or particular usage patterns, or
special traffic characteristics". Not entirely correct. The Internet was
designed as a special purpose data network to connect a small number of
trusted computers that did not require guaranteed latency. It was optimized
for that. It's amazing that it has been able to handle the very different
purposes for which it is used at present, including voice and TV. This is
well explained a bit later in the paper.

 

Same section: "The Internet is completely agnostic about the content that
flows through it, neither guaranteeing quality nor connectivity." That's not
entirely true. As explained a bit later in the paper, there is lots of
traffic shaping (thankfully, otherwise nothing would work).  And, if you
consider that firewalls are part of the Internet, then it is definitely not
agnostic about the content that flows (even if the firewall blocks on the
basis of addresses and/or names and not content).

 

Same section: " For example, the first digital telephone networks were
optimized for voice, delivering calls with high quality and more efficiently
than the Internet can. Yet, these networks had to be completely renovated to
deliver a new feature, say a video call, at great expense and considerable
difficulty." That is correct: bandwidth is subject to the laws of physics.
The infrastructure on which today's Internet runs (mostly fiber in developed
countries) was completely renovated at great expense and considerable
difficulty.

 

Same section:  "A long-lived general purpose Internet design lets innovators
pursue, without permission, their ideas knowing the network's benefits and
drawbacks, enabling fast movement forward while in comparison the network
changes are small and gradual." Since it is difficult to predict the future,
it is difficult to design something for the future. I agree that the key
point is that the basic design should be sufficiently flexible to allow
change and innovation that will be needed to accommodate future, unforeseen,
needs. TCP/IP has been good from that point of view. The founding focus on
end-end security has not been good. The founding focus on no billing and
charging has had mixed effects. It might have been nice to add some degree
of introspection and self-critique regarding those issues.

 

In particular, the layered architecture surely is a key factor in enabling
innovation. Ideally, there should be standard interface points between each
layer and therefore make improvements on one layer without affecting the
others. The key is to design lower layers that do not restrict higher layer
openness, and TCP/IP has been excellent from that point of view.

 

Regarding the Use Case: Intermediary Liability, the base paper "Defining the
Critical Properties of the Internet" is about the network itself, at a
fairly low layer. It is not obvious that the properties discussed in that
paper can be automatically applied to a much higher-level concept, liability
of publishers or passive conduits of information, that exists outside the
network itself, and that is subject to fundamental human rights and national
laws. I think that it is a category error to attempt to apply the critical
properties of the lower layers of the network to constructs that exist well
above the highest layer of the network.

 

While I agree that passive conduits of information should not be liable for
the information (unless they have been notified that the information is
illegal), I do not agree that the US CDA 230 is an appropriate way to
implement that concept. On the contrary, I think that time has proven that
CDS 230 is not the right approach, see:

 

https://botpopuli.net/trump-and-cda-section-230-the-end-of-an-internet-excep
tion  

 

Thanks again and best,

Richard

 

 

 

 

From: Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org]
On Behalf Of Katie Watson Jordan via Chapter-delegates
Sent: Wednesday, 9 September, 2020 14:19
To: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
Subject: [Chapter-delegates] Launch of the Internet Impact Assessment
Toolkit

 

Hello all, 

 

As you know, the Internet Way of Networking (IWN)
<http://www.internetsociety.org/issues/internet-way-of-networking/>  team
undertook a Policy Development Process (PDP) last July. We are excited to
announce that between pre-PDP calls and meetings with external stakeholders,
and the PDP itself, we engaged with 40 individuals via Zoom meetings and 11
via email, representing all six of ISOC's regions. You can find more
information about the results of the PDP process in this Dashboard. The IWN
team has now reviewed that feedback and incorporated it into the final
Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit. 

 

The Internet Way of Networking team is pleased to announce today's launch of
the  <https://www.internetsociety.org/impact-assessment> Internet Impact
Assessment Toolkit.

 

As you know, our objective is to create a powerful narrative that empowers
the Internet Society and its community of chapters and members better
understand the foundation that underpins the success of the Internet. By
defining the critical properties of the Internet, we now have a baseline
against which new developments - from technology proposals to regulatory
interventions - can be analyzed. Thanks to the support of our global
community, we achieved our first major milestone towards this ultimate goal
with the release of the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit's core tools:  

*	Introduction to the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit 
*	The Internet Way of Networking: Defining the Critical Properties of
the Internet 
*	Use Case on Interconnection and Routing 
*	Use Case on Intermediary Liability 
*	Frequently Asked Questions 
*	Infographic 
*	Promotional Video 

The launch of the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit is a big deal for both
Internet Way of Networking project and the Internet Society as a whole. But
it is only the beginning. Now that we have defined the foundation that
underpins the Internet's success, we need to raise awareness of the Toolkit
with the people that should be using it, and working with our global
community to contribute new resources that help people everywhere protect
the Internet.  

 

Want to help us make the launch of the Toolkit an even bigger success? We
encourage you to share it with your colleagues and amplifying on your social
networks. Here are some suggested tweets you can share on your social
networks:

 

TWEET: Today, @internetsociety released a new tool to help policymakers,
technologists, & Internet users assess how their actions could impact the
architecture of the Internet.  Check out the Internet Impact Assessment
Toolkit (#IIAT). internetsociety.org/impact-assessment

 

TWEET: Don't let bad decisions break the Internet. Use the Internet Impact
Assessment Toolkit (#IIAT) to help make sure the Internet can reach its full
potential - bringing connectivity, innovation, and empowerment to all.
internetsociety.org/impact-assessment

 

We believe the launch of the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit is an
important step to help policymakers, technologists and Internet users
everyone make sure the Internet can reach its full potential - bringing
connectivity, innovation, and empowerment to all.  We look forward to
working with you moving forward to help you use this tool in your existing
work! 

 

Best regards,

The IWN Team

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