wsis digest no. 5

[geert lovink]

World Summit on Information Society
Nettime Digest, no. 5 December 18, 2003

1.   Allan Liska: More Questions Than Answers
2.   WSIS Report by Jo van der Spek
3.   Richard Stallman on WSIS
4.   OurMedia Clemencia Rodriguez reports
5.   Wolfgang Kleinwächter (Telepolis, in German)
6.   World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities
7.   Official WSIS Press Release
8.   Civil Society Representatives Present Declaration
9.   WISIS-Award.Org
10.  NTK on WSIS

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1. WSIS Leaving More Questions Than Answers
By Allan Liska

http://www.circleid.com/article/397_0_1_0_C/

An amazing thing has happened over the last month: People all over the
Internet are saying nice things about ICANN. It is difficult to imagine
something that would make so many people stand up and defend ICANN, and yet
they are. What brought about this sudden change? The change in attitude
reflects the idea that an organization even more derided than ICANN might
take over the governance of the Internet.

That organization, of course, is the United Nations, under the banner of the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The WSIS is an attempt by
the United Nations to extend the reach of information technology throughout
the world and to use the power of information technology to allow people to
reach their full potential and improve their quality of life. One of the
ways the United Nations proposes to encourage this development is to take
the control of the Internet from ICANN and instead place it under control of
the United Nations.

The WSIS is organized around two different documents, A Declaration of
Principles and A Plan of Action. The two documents discuss a broad range of
technology issues, but the area that has created the most controversy are
the few paragraphs discussing Internet governance.

Two things are important to stress. First, nothing was decided in this
meeting, and no actions will be taken until the next meeting in 2005.
Secondly, and more importantly, as with anything the devil is in the
details. Given the vagueness of the documents available, there are few
reliable conclusions that can be drawn from the summit. Those who wish to
see bad things will see them, those who want to see good things will find
them as well.

The fact that the documents are so vague actually generates more questions
than answers, especially in the area of DNS control.

Management of ccTLDs:

The final Plan of Action produced by preparatory committee (the December
12th version) encourages governments to "manage or supervise, as
appropriate, their respective country code top level domain name (ccTLD)."

This implies that the United Nations would take over the management of the
ccTLD DNS infrastructure. At one level this is not a bad idea. ICANN is not
a political organization -- political in the sense of dealing with the
structure or affairs of government -- the United Nations is entirely a
political organization. One of the problems Jon Postel, and his staff, ran
into when initially setting up country code domains is determining what
constituted a country. Rather than make that decision, the DNS forefathers
decided to use the country code list from the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO 3166).

Over time, the original list of ccTLDs has become outdated, which results in
oddities like the ccTLD .su still being in use, even though the Soviet Union
no longer exists. It can also be difficult, not to mention outside the scope
of their responsibility, for members of a non-political body to determine
who the rightful owner of a ccTLD is.

The downside is that precisely because the United Nations is a political
organization the delegation of ccTLD authority may not be handled in an
equitable fashion. It is possible that one country will unduly influence the
delegation of the ccTLD for another country. There is no indication, within
the Plan of Action, that safeguards should be put in place to ensure the
ccTLD process is not politicized.

Management of gTLDs:

An obvious omission in both the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of
Action is discussion of generic top level domains (gTLDs). GTLDs account for
more than 90% of all registered domains. These domains are not political in
nature, and therefore require a different level of scrutiny than ccTLDs.
Conspicuous because of their absence, does the United Nations intend to
leave the gTLDs under the control of ICANN, or do they intend to take those
over as well. If the United Nations intends to take control of gTLDs, what
is the justification for that?

Also not mentioned in the Plan for Action is what would become of ARIN,
RIPE, and APNIC (as well as the smaller registries). Currently, IP Address
assignments fall under the control of ICANN, would those move to the control
of the United Nations, or would ICANN maintain control? IP Address
assignment is currently decided based on need, if the United Nations assumes
control, would that remain the same, or would they choose another criterion

wrong signals [Dani, Pieter]

[nettime's_knuckle_rapa]

   Re:  wrong signals 
 "Dani" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   

   re;  wrong signals 
 "Pieter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   


--

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:48:56 +0100
From: "Dani" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re:  wrong signals

Ian Dickson  wrote:
> The pictures I saw (on the BBC) of cheering crowds in Iraq seemed to 
> indicate that lots of people in Iraq, those who know SH best, are 
> quite pleased with the turn of events.

Not everybody is so happy.  Read some blogstream media
.

murphy  wrote:
> Did anyone else notice that one of the "spontaneous demonstrations" 
> shown on TV had a number of communist flags waving?

>From Riverbend blog (the link above):
| central Baghdad was a storm of gunfire. The communist party were 
| scary- it's like they knew beforehand. Immediately, their red flags 
| and banners were up in the air and they were marching up and down the 
| streets and around Firdaws Square. My cousin was caught in the middle 
| of a traffic jam and he says the scenes were frightening. 
| 
| The bullets are supposed to be an expression of joy… and they 
| probably are- in a desert, far from buildings, streets crawling with 
| vulnerable people and cars. In Baghdad, they mean chaos. People were 
| literally ducking and running, trying to get out of the rain of 
| firepower because what goes up must, eventually, come down. 

- -- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service


--

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 04:28:37 +0100
From: "Pieter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: re;  wrong signals

Ring ring braaahh

Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 13:16:32 -0500
From: Rick Bradley 
Subject: Re:  wrong signals

>The fallacy, discredited soundly 825 days ago, yet still so readily at
>the hand of the ignorant ...
>This conflict is being prosecuted in large part as a penance...
>To put it as plainly as possible, we have been soundly and bloodily
>instructed on the matter and the lesson is this:  if we don't humiliate
>Them They will kill us...

Sorry, SH was not behind the 9/11 attacks as far as we know, nor did he
have any links with OBL or AQ as far as we know. The analogy stinks, as
does most of your argument.

>it is stupid not to accelerate the war of attrition
>against the radical hatemongers bent on turning this planet into a
>Wahabbist acid-throwing honor-killing jihadi nightmare is asking for a
>fucking wake-up call.

Sorry, SH is not a Wahhabi. If anything he was yr average US-backed
secular postcolonial dictator and had severe trouble over his infidel
ways with his neighbors, as has been well documented.

Have you ever visited an Arab country I wonder? You should. No more
medieval than say Brussels I assert.

Cheers, P.

En overigens ben ik van mening dat vrije radio erkend dient te worden
als derde, niet-commerciële, niet-publieke categorie van radio.
http://freeteam.nl/patapoe


--

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Sniffing Polls

[Ryan Griffis]

When the media portrayal of dissent isn't enough... 

from:
http://www.jordantimes.com/Sun/opinion/opinion5.htm
Pew poll on 'trade' doesn't pass the sniff test

By Norman Solomon
  DRAWING ON poll numbers gathered last year, the
influential Pew Research Centre for the People and the
Press waited until the recent trade summit in Miami to
put out a report under headlines that proclaimed
“Support for Free Trade” and “Miami Protests Do Not
Reflect Popular Views”. But a much more fitting
headline would have been: “Report Conclusions Do Not
Reflect Actual Data”.

The first sentence of the Nov. 20 report claimed
direct relevance to current disputes over proposals
for a Free Trade Area of the Americas: “The
anti-globalisation protesters who have clogged the
streets of Miami voicing opposition to negotiations to
create a free trade area in the Western Hemisphere are
not speaking for the strong majorities throughout the
region who believe trade is both good for their
countries and for them personally.”

Interesting. But true?

Both survey questions cited by the report asked people
in 10 nations of the hemisphere about “the growing
trade and business ties” between their country and
other countries. But the report overlaid the replies
about generic commerce onto particular types of trade
arrangements — “free trade” deals such as the proposed
FTAA.

After contacting the Pew Research Centre about this
evident disconnect, I heard back from Bruce Stokes, a
columnist for the National Journal and former senior
fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's now a
Pew Research Centre fellow.

Stokes responded that “we did not poll on the issue of
the `rules' of trade and so did not report results to
that effect. Nor did we report people's views about
`free trade'. We merely reported that people generally
think greater trade is better for their countries and
their families.”

Yet the report went far beyond merely gauging
attitudes towards generic trade. From the outset, it
referred to protesters “voicing opposition to
negotiations to create a free trade area” — and
equated support for “trade” with support for “free
trade”.

The equation is more than a little skewed. “Most
people I know weren't in Miami to discuss the abstract
issue of trade, but rather the very concrete set of
rules contained in the FTAA,” said Karen Hansen-Kuhn,
trade programme coordinator at The Development GAP.
“To suggest that the anti-corporation globalisation
movement is anti-trade is completely off-base,” said
Sarah Anderson, a fellow at the Institute for Policy
Studies, who has been following FTAA negotiations
since 1994.

“Yes, there is a tiny subset that calls for less
global trade, based primarily on the argument that
long-distance transport of goods has detrimental
environmental impacts,” Anderson noted. “But the vast
majority of people in the streets in Miami and at
similar protests around the world are not opposed to
international trade and investment. They just want
different rules to ensure that the benefits of this
economic activity actually benefit ordinary people
instead of the rich.”

Similar comments came from author Edward S. Herman, an
economist and media analyst who is professor emeritus
of finance at the Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania. “What is super-deceptive about the Pew
questions is the conflating of `growing trade' with
`free trade' agreements, which is like conflating
`fighting against crime' with support of capital
punishment,” he said.

Herman added: “The critical failure of the Pew
questions is that they don't ask about the rules that
are installed in `free trade' agreements like NAFTA
and the proposed FTAA agreement — that subordinate
national sovereignty to the demands of foreign
investors and traders, impose rules like honouring
patent monopoly rights and limit government rights to
tax or regulate foreign investors. A more honest
question would ask about trade-offs between national
sovereignty and the rights of foreign investors and
traders, not one that asks, essentially, if you favour
more rather than less trade.”

The FTAA is highly controversial in Brazil — one of
five South American countries highlighted in the
report from the moneyed Pew Research Centre. But Maria
Luisa Mendonca, director of the Network for Social
Justice and Human Rights, based in Brazil, told me
that the survey's research “has nothing to do with the
FTAA”.

Brazil is a crystal-clear example of how the Pew
report obscures key realities. In early November,
Brazil's president “travelled to Africa to increase
trade and also cultural and political relations with
African countries”, Mendonca points out. “There were
no protests in Brazil against that. On the other hand,
a grassroots plebiscite that included over 10 million
people last year showed that over 98 per cent of the
voters were against the FTAA and wanted the Brazilian
government to leave the negotiations.”

Without any tally of people's views about “free trade”
arrangements, th

Bug devices track officials at summit

[jo van der spek]

Bug devices track officials at summit
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20031214-011754-1280r.htm

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Officials who attended a world Internet and technology summit in 
Switzerland last week were unknowingly bugged, said researchers who 
attended the forum.
Badges assigned to attendees of the World Summit on the Information Society 
were affixed with radio-frequency identification chips (RFIDs), said 
Alberto Escudero-Pascual, Stephane Koch and George Danezis in a report 
issued after the conference ended Friday in Geneva. The badges were handed 
out to more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other high-level 
officials from 174 countries, including the United States.
The trio's report said they were able to obtain the official badges with 
fraudulent identification only to be stunned when they found RFID chips  a 
contentious issue among privacy advocates in the United States and 
Europe  embedded in the tags.
Researchers questioned summit officials about the use of the chips and how 
long information would be stored but were not given answers.
The three-day WSIS forum focused on Internet governance and access, 
security, intellectual-property rights and privacy. The United States and 
other countries defeated an attempt to place the Internet under supervision 
of the United Nations.
RFID chips track a person's movement in "real time." U.S. groups have 
called for a voluntary moratorium on using the chips in consumer items 
until the technology and its effects on privacy and civil liberties are 
addressed.
Mr. Escudero-Pascual is a researcher in computer security and privacy at 
the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Miss Koch is the president 
of Internet Society Geneva, and Mr. Danezis studies privacy-enhancing 
technologies and computer security at Cambridge University.
"During the course of our investigation, we were able to register for the 
summit and obtain an official pass by just showing a fake plastic identity 
card and being photographed via a Web cam with no other document or 
registration number required to obtain the pass," the researchers said.
The researchers chose names for the fake identification cards from a list 
printed on the summit's Web site of attendees.
The hidden chips communicate information via radio frequency when close to 
sensors that can be placed anywhere "from vending machines to the entrance 
of a specific meeting room, allowing the remote identification and tracking 
of participants, or groups of participants, attending the event," the 
report said.
The photograph of the person and other personal details are not stored on 
the chip but in a centralized database that monitors the movement. 
Researchers said they are concerned that database will be used for future 
events, including the next summit to be hosted by Tunisian authorities.
"During the registration process, we requested information about the future 
use of the picture and other information that was taken, and the built-in 
functionalities of the seemingly innocent plastic badge. No public 
information or privacy policy was available upon our demands that could 
indicate the purpose, processing or retention periods for the data 
collected. The registration personnel were obviously not properly informed 
and trained," the report said.
The lack of security procedures violates the Swiss Federal Law on Data 
Protection of June 1992, the European Union Data Protection Directive, and 
United Nations' guidelines concerning computerized personal-data files 
adopted by the General Assembly in 1990, the researchers said.
"The big problem is that system also fails to guarantee the promised high 
levels of security while introducing the possibility of constant 
surveillance of the representatives of civil society, many of whom are 
critical of certain governments and regimes," the report said.
"Sharing this data with any third party would be putting civil-society 
participants at risk, but this threat is made concrete in the context of 
WSIS by considering the potential impact of sharing the data collected with 
the Tunisian government in charge of organizing the event in 2005," it said.
The organization Reporters Without Borders was banned from attending the 
summit and launched a pirate radio broadcast to protest the ban and detail 
press-freedom violations by some countries attending the meetings, 
including Tunisia.
"Our organization defends freedom of expression on the Internet on a daily 
basis. Our voice should therefore be heard during this event, despite this 
outrageous ban," said Robert Menard, secretary general of Reporters Without 
Borders.
Tunisia is among several countries Reporters Without Borders has accused of 
censoring the Internet, intercepting e-mails and jailing cyber-dissidents.



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