The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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MODERATOR: Thank you, everyone, for joining us. This is a technical community breakout room for the DFI discussion. My name is Akinori Maemura. I am from JPNIC local, and I'm real happy to receive all of you as the Japanese here. So, that's another thing.
And then I'm the moderator here. And then the lady next to me is the ‑‑ introduce yourself.
JENNA FUNG: Hello, everyone. I'm Jenna. Happy to be here as Rapporteur for this session today.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much. We have the still 75 minutes or something. It's quite sufficient.
Let me proceed one round of the self‑introduction. Maybe it will be good for making the team. Then maybe I think there is a microphone. And then I'd like to start with ‑‑ could you pass it, please pass it to the ‑‑ Mr. Holland? And then please start the round of the self‑introduction. Thanks. Byron?
>> Yes. You can call me Byron. Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA. We're the ccTLD operator for Canada.
>> I'm Charles Noir Vice President of CIRA community investment.
>> Hello my name is Jordan Carter. I'm the Internet Governance and policy director at the Australia domain administration, the .au ccTLD manager.
>> Good morning, everyone, Annaliese Williams. Policy adviser at the .au administration.
>> Hi, good morning. I'm CEO for dot ccTLD for Portugal.
>> Good morning, everyone, my name is Marta Diaz and I'm also .pd, the Portuguese registry, and president of the board of directors.
>> I'm Washington, analyst from China Internet information centre. CNIC.
>> Hi. Good morning. I'm from academic. But I came here as a developer of the encrypted messaging services.
>> Good morning, everyone, my name is Monica, senior institutional relations adviser Internet Society.
>> Hi, everyone, my name's Iner Bowen. Internet registry numbers.
>> Hollings from the RIPE NCC's Internet registry for Europe, Middle East and parts of central Asia.
>> Good day, everyone. Paul Wilson, head of APNIC, the Asia‑Pacific Internet address registry, one of the five RIRs that are responsible for IP address management around the Internet. Thanks.
>> Good morning. I'm Lise Fuhr, Director General of ETNO, it is the European telecom trade association in Brussels.
>> Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry. Good morning, everyone. This is Jasmine from Asia. Based in Hong Kong as registrar. Nice to meet y'all.
>> My name is Enrico Calendro. Project director for cyber resilience for development EU for dealing with ‑‑ primarily for national search.
>> Good morning, everyone, I'm from Sri Lanka cert and work in cybersecurity specifics in capacity buildings to policies and projects. Thank you.
>> Good morning. Sandra from EuoroDic, which is the registry for the EU.
>> Martin, independent strategic adviser on Internet Governance matters, also ICANN board. And I'm also on the GOCE capacity building events for III around the world which is truly good because like the national and the regional IGFs, it provides how much insight how diverse we are. And chairing the DCOIT.
>> Good morning, all my name is Catherine Townsend. I run measurement lab which provides the largest open dataset about the performance of the Internet around the world and I also advise the World Wide Web foundation policy and research started by Tim Berners‑Lee.
>> Good morning, everyone, Jody Anderson. I'm the Internet Governance lead for Internet New Zealand. We have the .nc ccTLD.
>> Vivian Matterhorn also from Internet New Zealand.
>> Good morning, everyone. My name is Susan Chalmers, and I lead the Internet Governance team of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the Department of commerce.
>> Good morning, everybody. I'm Len Hawes, senior technology adviser for the U.S. State Department's cyberspace and digital policy bureau.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much. And then some people are back here. If you don't mind please join to the front table. But the mic is now going around and please introduce yourself, please.
>> Yes. From Germany from DW academy from the German public broadcast. Thank you.
>> Good morning. My name is mark work from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and I used to be technical community.
>> Good morning. My name is pat from the World Bank Washington D.C.
>> Good morning, everyone. My name is ‑‑ Kim. I'm working for Korea Internet and security agency, the KR registry.
>> Hi, good morning. My name is Yana Choi and I'm also from KISA in Korea. And I'm here on the policy team. Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: All right. Thank you very much, everyone. So, let's start the discussion. And then I don't remember some part of that. Eileen mentioned about that we have three or four themes for the discussion. As I understand, one is the priority, second, process and the measurement of the success and through the members that remains, what is that? Cooperation authority. We have the four themes to have discussed. And then maybe it will be good to have, you know, divide the hour, right now I think we will have 70 minutes into four. So, that means 15 minutes each with extra time.
So, in that way, I'd like to suggest you to start with substantial priority of the DFI. Then if you had the particular idea or ‑‑ I'm really welcome to have those who make a kick start for the discussion of the substantial priority. Anyone?
[Silence.]
Martin? Yes, please. Microphone coming. Please pass the microphone to the ...
>> MARTIN: This is on?
AKINORI MAEMURA: Yes. Please state your name.
>> Yes. Martin. Just speaking from a personal perspective. But if you're here together as technical community, I think we can celebrate that we've been able to keep the Internet up and running for the last 50 years. I think the most important thing for us is to make sure that we can continue doing that. And let not the Internet fragment by handing it over to an other kind of governance than what we've been doing together. So, let's make very clear that we are up to it. And that we are committed to continue to do it. And maybe our emphasis is less on the first principles than to the third, fourth and fifth. Just thinking out loud here.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Okay. Thank you very much.
Does anyone?
Well, we are just starting it, so if you had any idea for the better way to proceed this discussion, that's also welcome.
But maybe this part is to discuss the substantial priority out of the DFI. We have some element for the (?)
Yes, please pass the microphone to Hato‑San. I think we have two microphones here. The other microphone. Oh, there, okay. State your name, please.
>> It's kind of ice breaking thing. I think DFI is first good step, but I personally regret that it still has not expressly mentioned the importance of encryption, end‑to‑end encryption or so it implies it.
As you know, encryption is the foundation of Internet. But I think it's now under attack, like recent UK safety bill or EU, the U.S. move to reintegrate end‑to‑end encryption.
So, either you want to know what you think about the encryption or policy encryption policy. I think the registration of protection or something of encryption would be indicator of success, mean success for DFI.
Thank you very much.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much.
>> I think it is all about the privacy part.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Again, please. With the microphone.
>> Hi, my name is Tilam from Sri Lanka. I think it's all about data security. I think it is about data security and encryption. So, we can focus on the data security and the privacy part, yeah.
AKINORI MAEMURA: You mentioned about that importance, yes.
Any other points? Okay. Pass the microphone. Okay.
>> Thank you. So, I would just offer, building on your point, I do think that the people in this room are probably focused on three, four, and five. But I think it's important that we hold all of the stated values in the work that we do because of free flow of information is the intention of the Internet and the Web, as are Human Rights. And if we only focus on the connectivity or sort of the nuts and bolts of building the Internet and not on how it is used and by whom and how it's observed and tracked, then we may lose the overarching goal.
So I think we can prioritize our intervention, but I think all of these are what we need to have forefront in mind in the work that we do.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
Then Hato‑San, please. Pass the microphone. Thank you.
>> Okay. Being also a representative from the leadership panel, I think this is a very important document. So, my comment is more on the overall document as such.
We have this declaration for the future of the Internet. We also have the Paris declaration for security. We have a lot of documents floating out there. To me, it's important we get a common understanding of the Internet we want. That's also why the leadership panel is trying to create a framework, hopefully that can embrace also this. And the dream is to have sustainable goals also for the Internet so we measure and we ensure that there is a progression and also that these goals that we put in also in this declaration for the future of the Internet is being held accountable to all the stakeholders.
So I think this is a very good document, but I also hope we can merge it into one common understanding of what it is we want the Internet to be, but also what we want digital to be. Because Internet is much more than just the Internet it was 20 years ago; we need to see it with AI. We need to see it with cybersecurity. We need to see it with all the SDGs in general.
Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Internet we want. That's the slogan of this IGF.
>> Paul Wilson again. I'm very glad to be here as part of the technical community. And I hope that being here, it's not the case that the technical community is disappearing in any way. One of the ‑‑ this is on a different track, but one of the recent publications that I was involved with was in response to the idea under Tripartheid under the Government's model in the GDC is that technical might be involved into Civil Society. I joined with ICANN and Aaron that we didn't think it was the right idea at all.
The technical community has a very good basis, if not to the start of WSIS and the Internet Governance, and the IGF is one of the parts of the critical multistakeholder that was discovered by the inter‑‑ that was one of the secrets to the Internet success. I think it is notable under those circumstances. And I hope that maybe we can also rely on the recognition of the technical community in this process to continue to strengthen and reinforce that idea.
But as to the points, the five principles of DFI, I do think in response to the ‑‑ I'm sorry, I have forgotten your name ‑‑ but principle number 2, promoting a global Internet that advances the free flow of information, the thing is: You can't advance the free flow of information unless the free flow of information is possible.
And I think what the technical infrastructure has always allowed is the free flow of information. So, I think the idea of advancing is right. In fact, the free flow of information is possible by default is actually a kind of a critical part of what we take for granted in the global Internet. That's absolutely provided by the management of the technical infrastructure and the lack of fragmentation of the technical infrastructure that in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of different scales and geographic dimensions might get in the way of allowing the free flow at all.
So, I do think number 2, although it sounds a little political in saying that we're advancing the free flow of information, I think the enablement of the free flow of information is a fundamental thing that we can very definitely get behind.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you, Paul.
Any other comments here? Okay, please.
>> So, I want to connect what you were saying, the free flow of information. But I think we also have to deal with the integrity of information, what information is, what kind of information do we want to have? Is it sensitive information? Is it unsensitive information? Or is it even artificially produced information?
And if we want to guarantee free flow of information, then we are saying okay, we want all the stuff coming from AI, free floating on the Internet. And I think this is the question of today, how we deal with this, what we see as information. And it is good and productive information for everyone.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
Yes, John. Microphone for the gentleman. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Just a couple of observations to add into the discussion. I think when I read this declaration as ccTLD operator, it wasn't clear that there were any changes that were being asked of us and what we do.
So, I think it's just ‑‑ that's actually an observation I borrowed from my colleague next door. But it is an important one to just note because it can lead us into the sounding conservative about this community that everything is fine.
So, I want to loop back to the first comment to say that we do need to be engaged about these higher‑level issues around development of Human Rights around the positive potential of the Internet as a technology stack, and that comes partly to Lisa's comment about the connecting things to some SDG‑like goals so we can show that there is a positive impact from this Internet and that our niche in technical community and running it stably is just by itself a contribution to the global public interest.
The only other comment I'll make is that the declaration itself does represent in the nicest way a form of governance fragmentation. We have this multiplicity of different tools and statements that come. And I think that's natural in the kind of choppy geopolitical waters that we are in.
But I think that we should lend our voice in an organized, structured way as a technical community to advocate for a more harmonized and consistent global framework to make life easier for us and all the other stakeholder groups so that we don't have to engage with 20 different declarations or 20 different processes and, ideally, growing it around this very IGF framework that we are in today.
So, just a few things to add into the mix.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
To Byron, please.
>> BYRON: Sure, thanks. I would definitely support Jordan's comments.
When I read the declaration and I read these five principles, of course intuitively they make sense. I can support them.
As a technical operator ‑‑ and if I often revert back to one of my favourite images, which is the seven‑layer stack of technologies, and where we as a DNS operator, in particular, as a ccTLD operator, what do we really do? We run a registry, we run the DNS. Different CCs have different flavors of what they do.
But as a DNS operator ourselves, trying to maintain an independent, fair, trusted, unbiased technology layer that we provide to all others as the foundation upon which they build their presence on the Internet, however it is, whatever it is, to me that is the critical job that as a DNS operator, ccTLD, that we're engaged in.
And while, of course, I want to advance and promote and protect and do other things, I'm often concerned that as a technical operator, when we drift into public policy‑oriented activities, it puts us at risk as a trusted independent, technical operator.
Of course, I and many of the people in my shop, have very strong thoughts and ideas on how the Internet should be operated. But it's a fine balance between being that fair and trusted technical operator and taking particularly strong advocacy positions. And I'm not saying we don't. In fact, we actually do in a domestic way.
But I think it's worth noting the challenge and the fine balance that as technical operators we kind of ride on. Because it's easy to tip over. And then start to become more biased on a particular policy issue. And in our own domestic environment, that may put our independence as a technical operator at risk or make it suspect.
So I just ‑‑ you know, I'd like to get other technical operators' thoughts on that. How far do you stray into nontechnical issues?
AKINORI MAEMURA: Any other? Oh, okay. Martin.
>> MARTIN: (Off mic.)
AKINORI MAEMURA: Microphone, Martin. Please check.
>> MARTIN: Normally you hear my voice, but now everybody hears my voice also that is online. Martin.
So, of course all five are important. But what we can offer is an enabling infrastructure. And that should be our first priority. Then we can from our good heart and good citizens from this world promote the other ones, that's fine. But if we don't offer this enabling infrastructure, and we are at that task, I think, I believe, then it becomes more difficult.
So how the infrastructure is used, for the good or for the bad, is not always in our hands; but we can make sure that the infrastructure ensures integrity of where you go, the messaging and things like that. So in full support of the full declaration, but this is what I think the technical community should for, and Lisa has something to add to that.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Let's pass microphone to the right‑hand side.
>> Hi, Lisa again. I just wanted to make a quick comment to Byron's shoutout to the technical community about how far you can move on doing advocacy because as I see it right now, 20 years ago maybe standards were standards and how we worked were much more apolitical. And I do believe in an open and trustworthy and equal Internet for all. But that's the thing we need to protect. And that has become political. So, I think there is no way we can shy away from doing advocacy for the baseline that I hope we all believe in the open Internet. So, to me it's not a matter of that we try to stay apolitical, because it's a thing that we lost a long time ago. And we just need to be out there and advocate for the open Internet, so.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thanks. Pass the microphone. Okay.
>> Good morning. It's Vivian here from New Zealand. I wanted to comment on a bit of a similar vein, actually. I'm always asking myself the question: When there's a discussion of independence, who does the independence, the state of current independence favour? Because there's always bias in what we're doing. And, you know, you ask me, the women and girls, including our whole diversity workshop, and I was really struck when the Government voices joined that Forum that they started off saying: We really need you. And this morning the same. You know, we really need you.
But it's like that's the end of the invitation. I'd really like us to get to ‑‑ okay. So, what does the technical? Jordan, I really want to jump off your invitation into: So, where do we bring how we would like it to look in terms of all these processes from here?
So, I feel like I want to really support your comments about, look, these principles are all great. It's whole. It's a whole. None of them will work without the others really well. Now, what about the process of bringing that forward?
We've got the GDC. We've got all these things. So, as a technical community ‑‑ Paul, you've mentioned don't forget the importance of the technical community. So, I'd love us to talk about how do we want to operate and work and pull together the thinking that goes into whichever of these, I'm still learning about all these sets of documents, and I don't yet understand how they all relate. But it does feel like the technical community is a constant across all of them. And we need to organise to bring our thinking forward. Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
>> Len. I'm relatively new to the government process. I've only been there four years. But I spent 40 years in the technical community. And one of the things that I found in bringing my technical views to the Government was. How do we explain the ‑‑ I know it was mentioned several times ‑‑ how do we take this architecture and how do we bring that explanation to the policy community so that when they're trying to address items, they have that view of the architecture in their mind and they can address it saying: "Here's a problem. What part of the architecture do we need to assign it to?"
But I will say one general thing that I talk as I teach this in the policy community is that of the word Internet, the "inter" part is the hard part. And when we talk about fragmentation, we're not talking about everybody learning the same, to speak the same languages. We want all those languages to be able to operate.
I think that's a critical part that the way the technical community looks at this. How do we make these disparate systems and these disparate data structures interoperate with one another as kind of the primary thing? And that's a different way of viewing it as opposed to saying: Everybody has to speak the same language.
So, I think that's a perspective that the technical community can build into and have that discussion with the policy groups.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Susan, please go ahead. Maybe the online information?
>> Thank you. Just a housekeeping note. We thought it would be helpful to put the questions on the screen here. It would be a bit easier for folks to see and have also listed the DFI principles down here. We need to refer back to them.
So, I'm in your hands, Akinori.
I don't seem to see any questions in the chat at this point.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Okay. Thank you very much.
The next speaker is next to me.
>> Okay. Thank you very much. I want to comment on Byron and Lisa about, you know, what is defined balance, as Byron has said, between to be apolitical and technical or politically and how far you can go.
We had this discussion 20 years ago in the wiki poll mentioned it and we came out with the formulation in the definition of Internet Governance. We have differentiated between the evolution and the use of the Internet. So, the evolution is certainly related to the technical available use, all the same protocols. And the use of the Internet is to the Internet‑related public policy issues. Interlinkage, but two separate shoes. And we have to wear both on the interlinkages and the differentiation.
The problem is in the early days, this "One World, One Internet" philosophy relates mainly to the technical layer. And the dream was 25 years ago this will, you know, go up to the application layer. But reality isn't. We have faced this reality that we have 193 different national jurisdictions on the application layer.
And the risk what I see now is that, you know, there are some governments who want to insulate this 193 jurisdictions model to the technical layer. I think this is a challenge. And so far we have to be very careful in saying, you know, what is part of the quote/unquote "national sovereignty" of a country where we can advocate or support groups? But the strongest instrument for technical community is if they speak with a united voice.
I think 10 years ago after Snowden, there was this Istar meeting in Montevideo which really had a tremendous impact. What I've seen in the last years is that the technical community is not operating anymore in a united form. There is no permanent meetings where raised their voice in policy meetings like the open‑ended Working Group in the United Nations or the negotiations on the Convention on Cybercrime. So, there is one single voice from one technical community or another. If the technical community acts united, then, say, have a much bigger impact than to do it in a single way.
And as you have just said, you know, a lot of governments today understand quite well the technology, but they have different plans. They have different intention. So, it's not anymore we have to teach them and we have to inform them about how it is.
So, we have to be united as a technical community and to say: This is what we have to say. And this is probably a good guideline to find the right balance. It's difficult to find the balance. We have to differentiate. But we cannot be, as technical community, be apolitical. It's impossible.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much. As Susan reminded, we have such a priority was maybe to the priority among the five principles, which is raised by ‑‑ and then if you get the paper handout, then it is described in the overview part. With that, if you need to articulate priority, then it is welcome.
But as I said in the beginning, we have the three other aspects of the discussion, and then I'd like to encourage you to make your intervention for the cooperation modality, please.
So, moving to the section. But still welcome if you say something for the first part of the priority.
Please, bring the microphone to the far end. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Akinori‑San. On the cooperation modalities, I think it's important to pick up on what Vivian and Paul and Wolfgang have all said in slightly different ways.
If you think about the technical community organizations, we're often very focused on our narrow‑focused winners. And we're often within our forums and debates that we have focused on. We have guardians and guardrails. ICANN must not deal with content is a classic example, right.
So, the forums, we come together with a broader focus to look at these higher‑level principles seem to be really limited. This is one of the main ones that happens, the IGF process; but even here we often end up in rooms with each other where we are not necessarily trying to hammer out a common position together. Whereas, I remember my first group in Bali, the Civil Society groups had a full day of working out shared positions in advance to then advance through the process.
And I lament the lack of that at the technical community leadership between ICANN and ISOC and some of the bigger registries. Because I think it's the gap of those common positions that is giving the opening to some people to marginalize this community as a legitimate stakeholder group.
If you're not exercising your voice, eventually people are not going to expect you to. And eventually they might write you out of the script.
So, to secure that vital role, which I think there is for the Internet technical community, because of the principles that we've advanced and our ability to be a guardian of the layer that Byron and others have talked about, we do have a responsibility to collaborate in new ways. And if we were to do that ‑‑ I don't think we're going to solve that today ‑‑ it would mean that the cooperation modalities of initiatives like the DFI would have something to attach to, some group to talk to, some stance to refer to.
So I think there is a leadership role that's crying out to be played within the technical community to pull this together. I don't know if it's another Montevideo statement. I don't know how it is or what it is. But I feel like I see the absence of it. And I just wanted to put that very squarely on the table.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you. Next one?
As a moderator, I usually need to focus on that moderating, but I have some say for that part.
I was impressed to see the Declaration of the Future of the Internet for the first time. It's like stipulating what the technical community has been doing in the Governmental declaration. So, that's really new to me. I'd like to figure out what does it mean? That's one that in the theme of the collaboration modality. Please.
>> To Jordan's point, I completely agree that the technical community needs also to take some leadership in this. But what I also think is extremely important is whatever we do as a technical community also needs to be communicated widely because what we do as a technical community as a very big importance for everyone around the world.
The Internet, all the technical standards, whatever you are running is creating the foundation for many, many things, businesses, people. And we saw the ‑‑ I just discussed the sanctions that was raised on Russia where ICANN kept the Internet running. That's extremely important. We cannot create the fragmented Internet ourselves.
So, again, also to Wolfgang's point, we cannot stay apolitical. But we need to keep the basis of an open Internet up and running. And that's, for me, the most sacred of all of this.
But if the Internet ‑‑ or the technical communities are to take leadership, you also need to be better at communicating this leadership all over the world. And I think IGF has been good, but IGF is still a bit of a closed club.
This declaration for the future of the Internet could be a good starting point. But, again, my dream is more ‑‑ we have SDGs for the Internet. Everyone knows the SDGs. Even small businesses all around the world, they use it and they use it for the businesses. If we can have the same for the Internet, that would kind of implement what we do much better.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much.
Michael.
Please bring the microphone to Michael.
>> MICHAEL: Yes, it's the Government waiting in the back of the wall. No.
I was triggered by something Lisa said about, yeah, explaining what you do. And I fully echo Jordan's comments about reunifying the technical community and that leadership position is strong position. But I think it's also important for you to explain what you don't do.
People already mentioned like, yeah, we're sort of apolitical. We don't want certain things to go into the technical or anything. I think it's very important to explain what you do, but that that also sometimes means not doing it because it's not your role and you want to keep that neutral, enabling role. And I think that's also lacking a bit from the current conversation.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
Next.
>> Thank you very much. I am just bringing some personal comments. Not representing anyone or any organisation. The seems brought by the leadership panel makes me think that they want to do something, but they don't know what to do. And they want to act, but they don't know what to act, which is personally I, I feel, awkward. For example, you have a feeling, then you want to compose poetry on it. You don't say, "I want to compose a poetry and then I squeeze the feeling for it." It's saying the opposite way.
I want to say that status quo is the status quo because it is already the best situation after our best possible solution. And multistakeholder, all kind of stakeholders bargaining and negotiations already the best result. Thanks.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much.
Any other points? That's very good discussion. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Byron Holland. I guess first I want to just clarify. I didn't say we should be apolitical. My point was about how far do we stray from what our task is in layer three? Of course we're going to have political decisions to be made and political perspectives on the operation of that space. It's really more about: Do we stray up to layer 7 and have thoughts and comments on that? Maybe, maybe not.
But as we do, we run greater and greater risk of compromising our both real and perceived expertise of running the foundation of the Internet. And that's a risk that we take when we stray too far from our core remand.
I think that it's also valid to say that over the last handful of years, perhaps COVID and years prior, that in the post‑Diana world, we all, many of us went back to our respective organizations, home countries, and focused on our core tasks. As a result, we don't have as unified a voice as maybe we had, let's say, through the IANI transition as an example.
When it comes to working together as a community, I think that's a very good point that we're maybe not doing it as much as we had during that period.
But, of course ‑‑ and nobody's said the world WSIS+20 yet, but as we enter the next couple of years, we are very much going to have a period where we need, in my opinion, to pull together with common messaging as we go through the WSIS+20 process.
And I thought it was interesting that this ‑‑ the American representative said there's 70 signatories, roughly, right now. When I think back to the WCIT and how it broke down, I think it was in 2012, we will probably have something similar in nature as we enter or go through the WSIS+20 process.
And I think when we are thinking about community and we're thinking about voice, when we are thinking about what our core role is, it's going to be very important for this community over the next two years to try to come together with common voice and be sharing that voice through the WSIS+20 process, which is going to impact us potentially. And I think it's important to share our role, perspective, and expertise in the process with all the communities, because 70 have signed up for this. There's 193. There's a whole bunch that do not share the views that have been espoused in the last half hour or hour. And it's incumbent for us to be advocating for our views. Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Bring microphone to this. Thank you, Paul.
>> I will make a comment on a slightly different track, which is about practical. And the reason is because we seem to be telling ourselves we've got a lot of very important work to do and the work is becoming more complicated and more critical.
The technical community, I'm not sure what we think it includes. But if we look at who's actually contributing, then I find a lot of this work is being done by the nonprofit technical organizations, the ICANNs, the RIRs, the CCs and so forth. And I'm not sure that we've got the resources to do what we are telling ourselves is so important. And I'm not sure if we're yet selling the message effectively enough to gather the resources that do what needs to be done.
Byron mentioned a couple of things over the next couple of years, which sounds great. Sounds like cooperation. But cooperation doesn't come for free. It's really actually a very challenge and expensive thing for us to do.
I find if you look across all the organizations that I'm talking about here, the technical nonprofit administrative bodies, we're all actually struggling a bit at the moment financially. I mean, everyone is saying that the financial conditions we're in are pretty tough. And we're not expanding at all; whereas, in some cases contributing and in some cases being denied resources or increases in resources by our memberships and so forth. It's a bit of a reality check as to how this stuff is going to be done.
In supporting the IGF, I think something that people may not know, but the NRO, being the collective of the RIRs, have been the one consistent contributor to the expenses of the IGF Secretariat ever since IGF started, and there's actually nobody that's contributed more than we have on that IGF fundraising effort.
And, yet, over the 20 years, we're talking about an Internet that's become many times more valuable, many more times more profitable, many times more complex. And, yet, I don't see a change in the way the critical work that we seem to be talking about is actually being funded, frankly, and being resourced.
And it really is a sales job that, frankly, I would say all of us Internet technical organizations actually need quite a bit of help with, if not actually active contributions to help us to do the work that we seem to think still needs to be done.
And, I mean, we all know that within the RIR community, there's been an RIR in crisis for quite sometime. It's one more example of how times are changing. Very dramatically. Costs are rising very dramatically. I think we're fooling ourselves if we think we're going to be able to do very much more than we're currently doing, for instance, in being here and being at other gatherings and coordinating to the extent that our resources allow us to do.
We will be able to do more than that only if we really can raise the bar on the resourcing that's being made available to those activities.
Thanks.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
Bring the microphone to the middle. Thank you.
>> I appreciate being able to intervene here as I'm so formulating a bit.
The space that I would caution about prioritizing resources, because we need resources ‑‑ and I hear what you're saying that you've already put a lot in ‑‑ is that we're actively seeing now a lot of countries and a lot of governments that do not hold point, with 1 and 2 at their centre, are at the forefront of providing resources. And they're providing it in this venue that we're in, the conversations that are hosting this year and next year. And they're influencing a lot of the spaces where Internet Governance happens.
And so if we say that the most important thing is to chase funding, which I don't think is what you mean, but you are saying we need to figure out how to get funding resourced, we're going to get pulled away from points 1 and 2 pretty dramatically.
And so I think Lisa's sort of call to arms a bit: We need to have a goal that we can rally around. We need to have metrics that we're going towards. Because, you're right, when we have these fragmented organizations that are underresourced, part of the strategy is to have us be diluted in as many spaces as possible, because we're not able to work as effectively and we're stretched and we're overextended.
So when we have a common goal and we have a common mission that we're working towards, then we can take small pieces of that and drive forward in it. And if we have some metrics that we're measuring and data that we're making public about it, then I think that we can at least feel that we're working towards a common cause and have that leadership voice in there.
And as somebody who works with a person who made a very large contribution to the world and did not monetize it, it makes a big difference when you have money and when you do not how long and how wide your voice carries. And I think we should just pay attention to whose voice gets to be the loudest in the room.
Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
>> Can I just add to that? Yes, World Wide Web has contributed great and to becoming so popular. Otherwise, we still have the connections and the typing online, which wouldn't have made it as popular as it is today. So, fully recognizing that.
It's all about the entrepreneurs. And it's two roles we all have here. One is as citizens of this world. And one is technical community to make certain things happen.
And I think what we can do ‑‑ and I think what we're committed to do and we will also see is happening is that we are enabling, again, also, the protection of Human Rights, promoting of global Internet, all these things by making the Internet more and more secure, more and more reliable on doing what you think it does, more and more hardening the Internet and ensuring the integrity of the addressing of the messaging, and that is key.
And if we look at, for instance, how this developed in ITF, which is setting a lot of the Internet standards, nowadays part of any standard they make is the cybersecurity component, is: How do we make it more secure?
I can see that in there. There's also considerations of Human Rights, maybe. But I know for sure that there's also progression, also in ITF service, to talk about, for instance, sustainability. That's the new work stream coming up in ITF. And take that aspect into account by how we provide the standards and the Internet to the world.
So in that way, I think one thing is as people, as organizations, we can all support and stand behind all five points, but, again, pleading for the focus on getting our work done well and enable the world to make use of an open Internet that you can rely upon.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
Mic to here, please. Thank you.
>> Sorry to come back to that comment from before, but on resourcing, I wasn't intending for a moment to suggest that someone external, parties external to our own organizations and communities should be funding us. I think many or most of us would rather starve than be seen to be accepting resources at all for the risk of ‑‑ just for the risk of those resources being potentially tight.
So I'm actually talking about self‑awareness within technical communities that we've got to better sell ourselves and our missions and our broader missions to our stakeholders. And hopefully with the support of others who also rely on us to have some understanding of the fact that that is ‑‑ that's needed.
Because my point still stands as the way kind of ‑‑ it might seem in some way that we're starving ourselves in not being able to sell properly to our communities, but we've got very diverse communities and we've got different debates going on. We've got people saying RIRs shouldn't be sharing any more than the costs of maintaining records. And if we didn't do that, then I wouldn't be here. And very much of what we do wouldn't be happening.
So, I guess I'm certainly not asking for charity towards these organizations because I actually think the job we do is so important directly to our stakeholders, and our stakeholders should be able to foot that bill. But it's kind of ‑‑ it is kind of tough. And so if we're going to raise the bar on our performance and our activities, then that's something we're all going to have to face and sell better.
Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Susan?
>> SUSAN: Yes, thank you. Excuse me. The title of this event is called from Principles to Action. So I was wondering if it might be useful ‑‑ and this is a very practical approach ‑‑ but if I'm looking at these DFI principles and I'm thinking: How can they be advanced through the technical community? Whether it's our colleagues in the numbering space or the naming space, some of things that come to mind are: Advancing inclusive and affordable connectivity. If I see advancing inclusive and affordable connectivity, I think of universal acceptance. I think that would be a way to put the principle into action.
If I'm looking at promoting trust in the global digital ecosystem and thinking very kind of granularly on the policies that the technical community, different parts of the technical community use to ensure that their account holders or their subscribers are ‑‑ can trust in that organisation that their personal information is protected, so for what it's worth, I feel like it's kind of coming out of left field.
But just in terms of advancing Principles to Action, that might be something that the group might also want to consider in the time that we have left.
But over to Akinori.
AKINORI MAEMURA: I know. Thank you.
>> Thank you. This is on, right?
AKINORI MAEMURA: No.
>> Is it on now? I have a bone with Aaron. What are the RIRs?
And thank you for that intervention, Susan. One of the things I was looking at when I looked at the principles, which I hadn't looked at in over a year, actually, so thank you to the governance for organising this session on the DFI and bringing it to our attention again.
One of the things I realised is that my organisation's mission statement actually covers, to a certain extent, 2, 3, 4, and 5. We don't cover Human Rights in our mission statement, but we do cover those other four. And we are held accountable by our members and our community. And I can report to our community what these principles are, but I can't tell them to implement them. That might take an employee or participant in our meetings from Government to come and say that what these principles are and request that our members implement these.
I'm just thinking out loud on some of these things. Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you. Please.
>> I think it's a very important question how you go from Principles to Action. And one of them, what I tried to say in the beginning is we have too many declarations, too many things that we're ‑‑ or too many declarations that tries to say kind of the same. So, if we could merge them. And we have the Global Digital Compact coming up. We have the Summit for the Future where all of this will be discussed.
To me, it's important we find some common principles overall that also embraces this Declaration for the future of the Internet and then we set some more granular targets and more actionable targets because as this ‑‑ it's easy to say "I comply," but how do you comply? How do you measure it?
And I think it's important we do this in the broad way, the multistakeholder community is ideal to discuss what kind of more granular goals could we have? But also how do we hold anyone accountable for it?
Because that's the second part. We need to all be accountable. And this is why, again, in the leadership panel, we tried to make this also Internet for All framework, which is on top of everything.
So, I want us to merge all of this into one set of goals, a framework, because right now there's too much and people get confused.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thanks.
Here comes a nice idea. I think.
>> I think somebody has ways. What is the technical community? If I look around, more or less we are the same institutions as 20 years ago. But technical world has changed also in the last two decades. And what about outreach? Is there technical community in space communication? We see Elon Musk's, these are people that are very close to very close DNS community things around in the mobile communication field. You have also a lot of technical communities.
So, I think they are challenged, as people working there, with nothing to do with the IGF or with ICANN, but they are facing the same global problems raised in the DFI.
So it would make sense to start enhanced communication and leading to also enhanced collaboration with these other groups. And a final comment.
What I have also experienced in the last years, while everybody increased, at the end of the day you need somebody who push for the process leader. That's why we have the leadership panel. And it's also question of leadership in the community.
Thank you.
>> I would just like to respond to that on the composition of the technical communities. It might look quite the same, but it actually has expanded in diversity and in number. And the CERT community, for one thing, if we include those, have grown in number greatly over the last 20 years.
And this is only sort of increasing the need for what you're saying, Wolfgang, is that bringing together this community is actually more challenging than it was 20 years ago, for sure. Because there are CERTs. There are also network operator groups and numerous others that are kind of increasing in number and in diversity and in their own individual challenges.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you. We have another 15 minutes to conclude at the time limit.
Yes. We are discussing quite bunch of overall situation, not only the priority and modality. But we still have the process and measurement of the success. Please keep that in mind. And then if you had comments, please raise your hand and make it.
>> Thanks. One of the things I like about what Lisa was saying before is this idea of specific goals to help sort of give some trajectory to the Internet Governance debate. I had a reference that suggestion. I don't know if we gave you credit or not, Lisa, in the Internet Governance roadmap we published in August because it seems to us it was ‑‑ if we could elaborate some goals like that, it would give the bigger and broader digital policy debate something to connect with the Internet Governance debate about. And that that was sometimes missing.
Sometimes it feels like we're in our cave, we're in our sort of deep tech, even though it's not specifically deep tech dialogue in an IGF.
And there are lacks of hooks for policymakers to understand what we're trying to get at. So, it might make us more accountable to the broader global society to do that.
But the puzzle, one of the puzzles is: The process to elaborate such goals. You know, if we don't do them here, we floated the suggestion of something like 10 years after NETmundial events, which I know others have been floating, as well. And that was appealing for one reason ‑‑ well, two reasons. One, there was an existing set of principles and a framework that you might want to review and elaborate.
But the most important one is it was generally multistakeholder approach to having the discussion. Anyone who was there 10 years ago, remember there were four Qs. The four communities had an equal say one by one. So, it forced a sharing of views together in a way that hasn't happened before.
In the existing institutional structure of dialogues that we would otherwise have in the next year or two, there aren't many opportunities like that. The IGF is one of them. But the next IGF is after the Global Digital Compact will be negotiated.
So I'm interested, Lisa, if you have any or ‑‑ or anyone in the room ‑‑ how we might elaborate such goals. And any particular views whether people think it's a good idea or whether it's barking up the wrong tree.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Yes. Thank you.
>> LISA: Just a ‑‑ very because of the location of the IGF, there will be significant, widespread boycott by Civil Society. Not speaking on behalf of Civil Society.
Okay. Just the point to say I wouldn't necessarily rely on this being a space where we could have a significant co‑equal multistakeholder process.
So, yes, anything in the interim would be welcomed and appreciated.
Since I have the mic, I am curious how people have been breaking down each of these components into things that are specific and measurable.
As an organisation that works on measuring the speed and quality of the Internet around the world, we try to use speed, which is an undefined term, as a proxy for people's personal experience. And so we're working with ISOC now on an Internet quality barometer to try to expand a bit more from the technical community what it means to have quality Internet service.
The Civil Society community has talked to us a lot about meaningful community. But we're trying to get the technical perspective in there. I do hope that there is something in the metrics that could be measured.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Okay.
>> It's open. From IPCC. Very interesting discussion. A lot of stuff I agree with.
Thinking of measuring success, I initially ‑‑ I look at the list of partner countries, right, that undersign this declaration and that's probably indicative of the geopolitical context, you know all the tensions surrounding it. So, hopefully being positive measurement for success, having more and maybe some more surprising countries undersign this and commit to it.
And then when committing, I'm thinking of culpability ‑‑ opening up for multistakeholder now. But it's countries that sign, governments that commit to this.
I think as an idea, it would be nice in terms of being accountable, okay, you commit to these principles, but also in terms of when within a jurisdiction our country comes up with regulation, legislative initiatives affecting digital spear, can you actually check? Is there a way to actually see in advance whether you are committing and sticking to the principles and not doing anything detrimental there?
Mostly thinking of the example that was referred to earlier by Lisa, a call from the Ukraine that affected ICANN. But it also directed to the IPCC for doing cut operators off the Internet, which we could not commit to or not follow up on, basically maybe to some extent in line with the principles here.
But on the other hand, the IPCC in the Netherlands, part of the European Union, we are affected by sanctions regulations and other things. We are indirectly affected by all regulations coming from the U.S. ‑‑ European Commission, Netherlands, U.S. I think signing these are actually conflicting with these principles.
So, it's about accountability here. I'd argue need to make something there and hopefully make that actionable.
Thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you.
>> Two quick comments. One to Wolfgang that we should have broader involvement. Completely agree.
But we need the kind of insurance, the banking, they all relate on technology now. They all relate on AI. There are a lot of industries that need to be here that are involved in what we do.
The second one was to Jordan on how to create these goals. We need to do it bottom‑up. But we also need to have a framing first. And then have the reaction from the bottom‑up community but also be very respectful of it.
Because if we start on a blank sheet of paper, it's never going to fly. It's going to take years. We don't have years. Need to go there now.
How to do it in the most respectful way, I don't know yet. But I'm trying, with the leadership panel, to create a process that we can come out and suggest for this community and others.
>> I'm going to sound like a stuck record, but on challenge, I really, I really do think that major challenge we've got here is to resource the public interest efforts of this community in this environment which is so much more complex and challenging and multidimensional.
Jordan mentioned the plethora of documents to respond to. We won't be able to unilaterally do anything about that. We ignore them or we respond.
Lisa mentioned the people who should be here and need to be reached. The process of reaching people to bring them, this is not ‑‑ doesn't happen for free.
I think IGF itself is a great example. I think 18 years of under‑resourcing of IGF has really put it in a position where it's seriously under threat. And with better resources to run a Secretariat to run the MAG, to run the event could have well made a very big difference to the event that we're in now, today, and its future in the next couple of years.
So I really do think from the point of view of a nonprofit organisation, try to do this increasing amount of work with the resources that we have like those around us constrained and are seriously constraining our ability to contribute to this effort. And that's one of the major obstacles, I feel, we have.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Okay. We have five minutes remains. Maybe you can make the final remark for this discussion?
>> Testing. Yes. Well, I'd like to ‑‑ I'd like to thank the governments again for coming to the IGF and having this session, Japan and the U.S. and others. As said before, it was excellent discussion.
Perhaps ‑‑ I lost my train of thought. Essentially the point was to thank the governments for bringing this discussion.
Oh, the thing I wanted to say was ‑‑ and including the technical community as one of the four stakeholders of today's breakout rooms and discussion, that was really excellent, and thank you.
AKINORI MAEMURA: Thank you very much.
Susan, do you have any concluding remark?
Pass the mic, please.
>> SUSAN: Just to also thank you, everybody, for coming together and spending this time to discuss the principles.
When we go back into the room, we will have a brief readout from each of the breakout groups and then Special Envoy Donohoe will try to tie everything together.
There's been a lot of planning that's gone into this event. I'm personally very excited about putting the report together and putting the messages together.
So, really, it's just offering my thanks for everybody being here.
AKINORI MAEMURA: All right. Thank you, Susan.
Thank you very much the quite valuable intervention.
And then thank you very much for supporting me as the moderator. That's quite, you know, the first time that you didn't really speak up. But five minutes is just enough to have that speed of the discussion. Thank you very much. And then we will resume in the big room in 20 minutes. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
(End of session.)