[kictanet] (Warning: high risk of targeted Social Engineering Virus!) Fwd: [Internet Policy] A summary of the report of the UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation

Thu Jun 13 17:36:58 EAT 2019

 Listers, 

This model of "don't worry, we'll read the policy/research for you and summarize" (i.e. dumbing down research & policy for negligent/lazy/disorganized policy practitioners) is very dangerous in many ways. It is not a wise solution to "tl;dr" (too long didn't read) and should be actively discouraged. 

Rationale: (and I invite cyber-security and internet safety experts to quip in with their thoughts/perspective please):
1. The idea of unofficial versions of important policy documents that have not been independently vetted or certified - and targeted at "time-poor (sic)" policy practitioners - should trigger alarm bells in this day and age. In the case of https://digitalcooperation.org/ report , what is wrong with their official 4-page Executive Summary which is plainly written, in six UN languages)? If policy practitioners can't understand it, perhaps the question to discuss is whether we have a competence problem?

An experienced, high-profile internet policy consultant should know this and avoid doing it because it promotes the entrenchment of high-risk habits that prime policy practitioners for targeted disinformation and malware.
2. The premise of Nissaba.net is that official policy documents are too complex or too long. So Nissaba.net hopes to attract the tl;dr audience (people who don't like reading or are cognitively lazy or presumably are "too busy" to read important things that affect them). Do you see the danger here? This model gives the site owner(s) immense power as an information gatekeepers and influencers - with a target audience of cognitively lazy (or negligent) individuals. 

This kind of high-profile nannying, if deemed necessary due to realities like nepotism/corruption (which guarantee incompetence) is something that can only be done credibly by transparent multilateral organizations that have independent checks and measures. Policy activists should be combating incompetence - not enabling it.

3. Besides the raised concerns above, there needs to be clarity on: What methodology are they using to summarize. How do they choose what is important and what is not? Do they have a vetting framework? How do they choose what reports/event to summarize and what not to cover? What tools do they use to create & scan the document? Do they have resources to protect themselves from being targeted as unwitting virus dissemination vectors?
4. Why is she not running this as a non-profit organization that can be subjected to non-profit rules and scrutiny? Her credentials and incredible levels of access (and exposure) don't paint her as a blundering amateur. Is this the result of reckless negligence or an excited rush to implement a half-baked idea? It doesn't make sense. What's going on?

5. If she got the idea from somewhere, she should have consulted the idea originator for implementation (execution)  strategies that would not increase the danger of turning a bad situation into something far much worse. It could be that the idea originator (if not her) protected the idea by not reveling the most critical aspects of its execution.

We cannot claim to be promoting internet health - and then we appear to do things that worsen internet health, just because we are known/trusted in policy circles!
What am I missing here?

Brgds,Patrick.

Patrick A. M. Maina[Cross-domain Innovator | Independent Public Policy Analyst - Indigenous Innovations]

    On Thursday, June 13, 2019, 3:48:43 PM GMT+3, Grace Bomu <nmutungu at gmail.com> wrote:  

 Samantha is a well known writer on these issues. She's had a mission of making complex negotions digestible and many in the internet policy making space follow her reports. Please Google her, she's as old as WSIS etc.
Cheers,
On Thursday, 13 June 2019, Patrick A. M. Maina via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

 Interesting. Who owns / runs Nissaba.net? I could not find any information anywhere about the organization's founders, directors or team members (except, after a bit of online digging, for one individual named Samantha Dickinson, an "internet governance consultant/writer" based in Australia who is publishing the summaries).

They are publishing high profile summaries on major policy issues - and they claim to have this "big idea", yet the it looks like the (sic) "small team" repeatedly mentioned on Nissaba.net has chosen to operate behind the scenes? That does not make sense.
How do we know that their summary is a credible and trustworthy representation of the original (UN /ITU) documents?
Considering the targeted high-profile audience, there is risk of people downloading a document that has an embedded virus. This could be a massive social engineering / spear phishing vector.
I'm also curious how they got their "big idea" because it looks very familiar and the timing of Nissaba.net's appearance is very strange to me as it curiously coincides with certain ongoing initiatives.
Anyone with insights / information / clarifications?

Brgds,Patrick.

Patrick A. M. Maina[Cross-domain Innovator | Independent Public Policy Analyst - Indigenous Innovations]

   On Thursday, June 13, 2019, 2:02:17 PM GMT+3, Barrack Otieno via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:  

 Listers,
Might be of interest.
Regards

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch>
Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 5:45 PM
Subject: [Internet Policy] A summary of the report of the UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation
To: Internetpolicy at Elists. Isoc. Org <internetpolicy at elists.isoc. org>

Here is a very short summary of the cited report:

  http://nissaba.net/tldr/hlpdc- report/ 

Best,
Richard

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