[kictanet] [ISOC_KE] Death of the Internet?

Mon Jul 29 14:33:12 EAT 2013

Ali,

I totally agree with your sentiment but calling it the 'Non-Aligned
Movement' is about as Cold War as it gets.  What you're really trying to do
is move the Internet to a post-Westphalian system...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty

It's been going strong for a few hundred years though so it won't be so
easy to overcome.

-Adam

---
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On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:50 AM, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke> wrote:

> Thanks Brian.
>
> Indeed IG is an elephant in the room until people are hauled into court on
> frivolous charges emanating from social media updates. That's when issues
> like Third Party Liability crop up...
>
> However, the onus of making this mainstream is on us and we should
> continue this sensitization agenda.
>
> On the issue of Non-Aligned Movement concept on Internet Governance my
> initial thoughts are that this movement will seek to:-
>
> 1. Articulate an Internet governance agenda free of 'Cold War' nuances and
> vested interests.
> 2. Seek to determine a new structure for managing critical Internet
> resources free from any one government control.
> 3. Articulate the importance of the global citizen's right to a free and
> non-Balkanized Internet.
> 4. Agitate for universal freedom of usage - not one determined by
> different forms of government.
>
> And the list can go on and on.
>
> 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 11:28 AM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 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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>>
>>
>
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