[kictanet] [ISOC_KE] Death of the Internet?

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

Hi Ali,

Great blog piece. I think that it lays out the background and general
context of Internet Governance in a way that any layman can understand.

Admittedly, the subject of internet governance is an "elephant in the room"
for many countries (including our own) - and in most cases, really only
seriously discussed in closed door meetings by people with the right level
of security clearance.

The concept of a non-aligned movement is an interesting one. Could you
perhaps shed more light on what the principles and perspective of such a
movement would be? Or would it be more of an "abstain" whenever it comes to
voting for or against a particular policy in internet governance?

Best regards,

Brian


On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke> wrote:

> Brian
>
> Thanks for sharing. The issue of Internet Governance is a contentious one.
> And always will be. This article exposes the hypocrisy all round. We know
> that China, Russia and the Middle East and like minded governments don't
> make a secret of the fact that they snoop on their citizens and enemies
> alike. It was a foregone conclusion that the US does this as part of its
> National Security Apparatus.
>
> A few months ago on my blog I advocated for a sort of 'Non-Aligned
> Movement' and hinted that Kenya could actually take a leadership role in
> this space - which I think we already have been to some extent with our
> well organized IGFs courtesy of Alice Munyua, CCK, KeNIC and MOIC.
>
> See my blog on Internet Governance
>
> http://www.alyhussein.com/internet-governance/
>
> This could be the start of a Non-Aligned Movement in Internet Governance.
> And this is what we should be pushing.
>
> Ali Hussein
> CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd
> Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
>
> +254 713 601113/ 0770 906375
>
> "The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jul 29, 2013, at 11:05 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> A phrase in this article boldly states "the issue of internet governance
> is about to become very difficult.Given what we now know about how the US
> and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global
> infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue
> to control it has become untenable."
>
> Food for thought.....
>
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-internet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Repeat after me: Edward Snowden<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/edward-snowden> is
> not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of
> our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's
> mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised
> Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_%28novel%29> was
> one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are:
> incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or
> gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy
> rather than a whistleblower.
>
> In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is
> that they did. So as a public service, let us summarise what Snowden has
> achieved<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/global/the-service-of-snowden.html?_r=0> thus
> far.
>
> Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency (NSA<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa>)
> had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and videos of
> citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired the phone
> records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret court, it has
> been able to bend nine US internet<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet> companies
> to its demands for access to their users' data.
>
> Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US
> government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised
> business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such asBooz
> Allen Hamilton<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/edward-snowden-investigate-booz-allen> and,
> in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who
> shouldn't have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between
> Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas
> franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance
> between freedom and security lies.
>
> These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first-order
> consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our mass media are
> concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked. Instead, we have been
> fed a constant stream of journalistic pap – speculation about Snowden's
> travel plans, asylum requests, state of mind, physical appearance, etc. The
> "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA
> revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the
> direction in which it is heading.
>
> As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking about as
> a result of what we have learned so far.
>
> The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are
> numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be
> Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or
> jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran
> and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their
> citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.
>
> Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become *very*contentious.
> Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing
> their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the
> western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become
> untenable.
>
> Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out<http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/ueberwachung/information-consumerism-the-price-of-hypocrisy-12292374.html>,
> the Obama administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as
> patronising cant. "Today," he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet
> freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom agenda'
> after Abu Ghraib."
>
> That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also have
> implications for you and me.
>
> They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be
> trusted to protect our privacy <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/privacy> or
> data. The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft
> are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing,
> but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to
> be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the
> consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you're thinking of
> outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft,
> then think again.
>
> And if you think that that sounds like the paranoid fantasising of a
> newspaper columnist, then consider what Neelie Kroes, vice-president of
> the European Commission, had to say on the matter recently<http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-654_en.htm>.
> "If businesses or governments think they might be spied on," she said,
> "they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud
> providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold
> your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being
> shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn't matter – any
> smart person doesn't want the information shared at all. Customers will act
> rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity."
>
> Spot on. So when your chief information officer proposes to use the Amazon
> or Google cloud as a data-store for your company's confidential documents,
> tell him where to file the proposal. In the shredder
>
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