20140404-JFC Morfin response to Alejandro Pisanty

At 07:53 04/04/2014, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:

(NB: Mail is sent to John Curran, on the http://1net.org "discuss" mailing list)

John,
at this point an asymmetric approach to the problem may be productive (addressing Michael Gurstein and Parminder Jeet Singh as well):

• Very briefly: Frank LaRue, the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, has proposed for years that instead of defining "Internet rights" positively, in detail, etc. we focus on the rights themselves and prevent, prosecute and punish their violations independently of whether "online" is involved or not (disclaimer: very briefly, my own summary for this discussion.)

• In the same mode of thinking the questions about public interest can be recast. What specifically goes against the public interest, and how vital is it to solve it? (solving one problem has the cost of opportunity of not solving others.) A framework similar to risk management (identifying separately probability and impact; assessing the risk/damage-cost-benefit relations) may be useful.

This approach may quickly lead us to productive steps on the problem Milton continues to discuss and the one now posed by George. The other approach seems to me to have been wrung drier than by lyophilization.

Yours,

At 16:11 04/04/2014, Jefsey wrote

(NB. In previous mails Alejandro Pisanty has constantly given the feeling to be attentive to the productive results of concrete experimentation)

Alejandro,

1. I agree that Milton's approach (not the solution) is the only one we can currently work on since George said he is to revamp his position.

2. from your questions, you want to see real actions to be tested/discussed rather than putative thoughts to be “blah blah blah”ed.

These two points seem to be enough in order to address the issue in the way the NTIA wishes it.

1. there are three possibilities because in real life you do not change things, you build aside things, so:

1.0. either the internet is closed and something else is to replace it.

1.1. either the current system is continued; this is George's line as far as I understand it.

1.2. or a new system is built and tested in parallel.

• This is where Milton's line should lead us if he was not actually trying to reform the current system with new ideas.
• This is what I have triggered and reported, based upon Milton's initial logic.

2. If you consider only the 1.1. and 1.2. options, there are only two possible known stable systems: top-down or bottom-up. A hybrid proposition cannot be expected to build-up easily and auto-maintain stably. The current system is top-down due to the claimed legitimacy from building the internet is from the leading world power. The NTIA removal has only two possible results:

2.1. either it reinforces the leading power’s influence on stability in bringing the stability of the leading power's law as a referent instead of its political executive. This is the NTIA MSist hypothesis. It calls for an adaptation of the US law (by Congress) before the 9/9/19 date, as assigned by the NTIA (cf. L. Strickling), if we allow three weeks for a pre-crash emergency agreement.

2.2. or it switches to the other stable system: bottom-up and proves that it has fully assumed the transition before 9/9/19.

This means that it is ICANN vs. DNSA.

In order to clarify the debate, I suggest that

• the “discuss” and “IANAtransition” keep discussing the 2.1. George/Milton solution (i.e. ICANN plus possible DNSA),
• and “agora” is the list to debate the 2.2. solution at http://dnsa.org/mailman/listinfo/agora_dnsa.org. (i.e. DNSA including ICANN as a leading stakeholder).

Both solutions obviously share the same "MSism" intent that in EU English is called "concertation".

• In the 2.1. approach, the stakeholders (or partners) are chosen by the top and have to be clearly defined by the law for the system to be resilient. The need is to determine the law and to get it implemented and accepted.

• in the 2.2. approach, the partners (or stakeholders) are the multitude, i.e. everyone who "wishes to be" a participant, like at the IETF and Wikipedia. There is no leadership, but a steering secretariat can be forked at any time, making it accountable to the network itself. By the multitude for the multitude: the DNSes’ Wikipedia.

The origin of the whole issue is, therefore, that our known governance systems do not scale to the globally “catenet”ed human society. We have to invent one that will be adapted to the new scale of the computer assisted human gathering and decision processes, beginning with the governance of that very system.

• There are those who want to enhance the existing governance to make it more “democratic”.

• There are those who want to carefully (ICANN/ICP-3 gives good guidelines) test (a) new system(s), so that evidence will show on 9/9/19which is the one to retain (or if they can cooperate). This is what the NTIA is calling for.

This does not prevent those who think that the proper global granularity is neither with the doers nor with the users but with the rulers to pursue an ITU based proposition. IMHO, but this is only on my opinion, the three systems apply, each at its own stratum in the network pile. This is why they do not oppose but complete. We have 5.5 years to observe, learn, and agree how.

This being said, I triggered the DNSA for it to belong to everyone and its own technical target is to be its own “named data system”, so that the leadership issue is fully diluted in our polycratic networked society.

This is algorithmic governance, it should therefore be algorithmically governed by public protocol.