These are unedited transcripts and may contain errors.
Cooperation Working Group:
CHAIR: Could you please sit down. The rooms have been swapped. This is the Cooperation Working Group session. Everybody who wants to attend to the Cooperation Working Group is welcome to come here and have a seat. Hopefully they have the same announcement in the other room, so if there is some swapping issues, we'll give a couple minutes so people can come down and be in the correct and right room.
Anyway, I think we're settled here. Welcome once again to yet another of the Cooperation Working Group. I am Maria Hall. I'm working for the Swedish government, Minister for enterprise communications and IT
PATRIK FALTSTROM: I'm Patrik Faltstrom, the other co?chair, employed by Cisco.
CHAIR: It's a pleasure to be here as always and have an opportunity from the governmental side to meet you and discuss a lot of things. There's a lot of issues for the governments, getting really involved in many ways in the internet governance arena, and the more knowledge we get about the internet and how it works and the better dialogue, the better it is. Of course, in many many ways, it has to increase a lot actually. We have some problems, we have some challenges ahead of us, not only the new program with blocking and all of these problems but other issues around who's going to decide how internet is going to be governed and how we can interact and what kind of role the governments have. I'm not going to take the floor too much more. Hopefully good discussions and open the floor to you guys, come with a lot of questions. We have Kris, he's going to select the scribes, and also you you see the finalized agenda, we had to swap it a little bit, a little different from the one you saw on the site. We're going to start with ?? Andrea Glorioso is going to be on the phone. First I want to have some approval from the minutes of the last meeting. Do we have any comments or other statements on that one? Otherwise, I think we can say that they are approved. Chris? Perfect. Do we have Andrea Glorioso on the phone? Chris Buckridge we do. /TKPWHROER
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Hello. You're on the stage.
SPEAKER VIA PHONE: Thank you very much. Can you hear me? I have a lot of feedback just for your information.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: I think it's better now, right? Andrea Glorioso yes, it is. So can I go?
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Yes.
Andrea Glorioso: Hello everybody. First of all, my apologies for not being able to be there in person but just I'm just back from a trip conference in Paris and Dakar and the London conference and the patience of my wife is getting close to its limits. I couldn't be there in person. I'm sorry. I hope there will be an occasion to meet in person at the next meeting. I'm happy to be there with you even remotely. And my purpose is to have an open discussion with the members of the RIPE community and RIPE NCC as well between the relationships between the European Commission and RIPE. I hope the slide is on the screen.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: It is on the screen.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: It is not very imaginative. Can you go to the next slide, please.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Yes.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: Good. So if you see this picture of me that was made by former students of mine and it's a picture that I like very much. It can reflect my past and present. And I like it so much that I use it normally. But if you go to the next slide there's a picture of me which reflects more the reality. Will you please go to the next decide. So that's actually me in a more European Commission officer style. If you can go to the next slide.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Done.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: So here we go to the meet of what do I do at the European Commission? I am a policy officer. I work in the director general for information society and media. And specifically I work in unit A3, which is the unit that deal with his internet and network and information security. These are two separate topics even though there are many interactions. Even more specifically I work in the internet governance team. We deal with everything that you can put under that umbrella, IGF, ICANN, RIPE, et cetera, et cetera, you name it. So what do I actually do? Well I've been told that I see people, I do things and I find stuff on the internet to look intelligent but more seriously my job is to do analysis, provide recommendations on internet?related policies for the real decision makers, that means the vice?president, director general, et cetera, so I try basically to advise them on what is intelligent and not to do when it comes to internet?related policies. That's in a nutshell of what I do, who I am and what I do. The purpose of this intervention is not to talk about me, even though I think it's useful for people to know who I am. At the end of the presentation I'll give you all the ways you can contact me should you wish to do so. But the purpose of the intervention is to have a discussion on how we can cooperate better between the Commission and RIPE. Now, the Commission, specifically the information society but not only the information society, has a number of policies which have an impact on the internet, as most of you will probably know. I think it might be useful to try to provide some clarity, as much as possible, on what the Commission actually does, because in my importance sometimes there's a bit of confusion and it's useful to verify. The European Commission, has both a legislative and non?legislative role. In terms of legislation, we propose legislation. This is important to keep in mind because whether it's in the internet space or any other area, with some exception, the ones that actually decide on new legislation, on the legislation of the European union, the European parliament, and the members states. This doesn't mean the Commission is not important. We have the so?called right initiative, we propose stuff, and that means that if we don't want to propose something, in a particular area, including an internet?related area, that cannot be legislation, so our role is important. But we do not take the final decision.
We also have a knowledge role which is an area that we try to have with coordination within the member states, but also with the private sector, facilitating basically meeting of the minds and facilitating workshops, seminars, issuing reports, so on and so forth.
One thing that I guess it's quite important to mention, specially when we consider how the Commission and RIPE can learn to better cooperate together is of course the responsibilities of the Commission pertain to the union. So to the 27 member states which make up the European union, I don't need to list them, you know them, my understanding is the so?called RIPE and therefore the policy region is quite larger than that, and this is something that I guess it's good to keep in mind when we discuss anything, any matter of common interest, that my view is always going to be a little bit due to the geographical differences, it doesn't mean we shouldn't cooperate, but something to keep in the back of our mind.
Now, I had a brief discussion with the coordinators of this Working Group and my original plan was to give a presentation on a number of initiatives that we have ?? we are running right now which might be of interest to RIPE, but then we decided this might turn into a boring list and given that I can't choose on what you're doing, I don't know whether you're following me or checking your e?mails so we decided to reserve the more detailed discussion on the initiatives perhaps at a later stage and to focus this session on the way in which we as a Commission can understand what are your needs as part of the RIPE community and conversely, how the members of the RIPE community can understand the needs and perspectives and priorities, et cetera. This working group is an excellent way to do it, but it cannot be the only way. Of course, we should strive to have a more coordinated structure and continuous interaction, which to be absolutely clear I feel that even though it might be be operating some information sharing is already there, just to make an example. I as well as colleague, we scribe to most of the RIPE working group's mailing list, we do monitor what's being discussed. Quite frankly, some discussions are of particular interest to us and I will mention one, discussion on the resource public infrastructure, quite important from the policy point of view, discussions on... there are some other discussions which not necessarily very technical but simply because we do not feel that we have any need to intervene in what is a very successful approach from the RIPE community. So if I may summarize this point it's to say that even though we do not intervene in the RIPE mailing list, or the discussion, doesn't mean that we're not following what is happening.
Now, I have been told through various discussions it's been suggested, in fact, that it might be a good idea for the Commission to participate more directly into the policy development processes, into the PDPs of RIPE. This is not a new suggestion. In fact, we as members of the parliamentary advisory committee, we see the same suggestion from the ICANN community, that that we should participate more actively. Now, I don't want to take a final position on this. This is something we should continue to discuss and it would be very much open and very much be looking forward to your ideas. But I have to say from the start that it is quite tricky for a Commission officer ?? well, first of all, you can not expect, quite frankly and bluntly, you can not expect a commissioner to follow the policy government policies of every organization. This is a task that will fall on the shoulders of officers like me. It is sometimes quite difficult for an officer of the Commission to take any kind of position into a mailing list or any other public forum, without risking to create the confusion that that position is the position of the Commission. Because when we speak in this kind of ?? every time I say something, I write or I say well this is not the position of the Commission, this is my personal view, which tends to become cumbersome, my perception or experience is, anyway, even when we do that, there is a kind of expectation from the counterparts, from other participants in the discussion, that when I express an idea into a mailing list or in any other way which a PDP can be developed, when I express an idea, that is an idea of the Commission and then the Commission will not change its mine as time goes on. The Commission does not really work like that. We have very vibrant, I have to say, discussions but at the end of the day the discussions are taking by the 27 Commissioners and they're taken collectively and that is the position of the Commission. So the question I guess this is even more than a statement, it's a question that I put on the floor, on the participants, how can we ensure that there is a synchronicity, that we're synchronized as much as possible, because there will be times that the Commission agrees with the RIPE community and vice versa and we should be ready to accept that. How can we ensure that we are taken into account what I just said, which is that it's a very tricky for us officers of the Commission to take early positions on certain topics without having a full consultation that usually take quite a bit of time, so there's also this disconnection between your normal timing of discussions on the RIPE mailing list, to continue with the example, and the timing of internal debate in the Commission which are quite structured and this is on purpose to allow everybody to have a voice and internal discussions of the Commission, but this means that such discussions take quite sometime. So that is more or less the question that I have for you. And I would very much like to hear from the audience their ideas on what the Commission could or should do better, whether you have any ideas on how to create a more structured and effective relationship between the RIPE community and the Commission.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Thank you very much.
I am the only one that is close enough to the telephone so you can hear it. So I will repeat everything that is said in the room.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: Thank you very much.
CHAIR: Does anyone have any questions for the Commission so far? I think Patrik has a couple of questions.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Patrik Faltstrom here, co?chair of the Working Group. One question I have regarding the synchronization is you talk quite a lot about the process that is used by the Commission before actually the Commissioners come to a decision. So it seems to be the case that you have just like we have in the RIPE community, there is some discussion happening before a policy decision is made and then you have the policy decision made. I think what I hear people are talking about is not only how do we synchronise but how do we synchronise as early as possible without having any of the two communities misunderstand when something is said that might only be like an issue to discuss and when it is something that is actually a final position?
ANDREA GLORIOSO: Okay. So I confirm that indeed your understanding is correct, before taking a position by the college of Commission and there are quite prolonged discussions which can go on for months, sometimes and these are the internal discussions of the Commission. Of course we try as much as possible not to live in a kind of crystal palace and be completely disconnected from the outside world. I think we can do better but we're not as closed as it might appear. If I understand your question correctly, what are the channels to ensure that the between the RIPE community and us can understand what's going on inside the Commission and can intervene in the debate if the Commission before the actual decisions are made.
Basically one way to monitor what is happening in the Commission is to use the so?called Commission work program. This is a formal document, an official document which is published on website of the European Commission. I don't have the URL handy with me, but I will send it to you Patrik, and to Maria Hall as soon as the presentation is finished so it can be distributed to all the interested participants of the RIPE community. This document is a document which contains the list of all the initiatives that the Commission is planning, planning to take in the year coming. And sometimes for some initiatives it goes even on the following year. This is a useful instrument and this is about all the initiatives not only internet?related ones. This is separated in topics so it's easier to understand where to look and you don't need to check all the initiatives to find the particular internet?related initiative you might be interested in. If you look at the Commission work program, you can have quite a reasonably good idea of what the Commission is thinking or its priorities for the year to come. As I said, the Commission for the programme is published quite in advance. When you see something on that, you have a reasonable expectation that discussions are starting. So that is already where you can make your voice heard.
Just to be one hundred percent clear and this is related to the prerogatives of the European Commission and I'm not going to bore you, but the fact that we put an initiative under the Commission work program does not force us, does not oblige us to follow?up with that initiative. We can for a number of reasons, we can decide to kill a particular initiative, to postpone it, slightly change it. Having said that, we do make lots of efforts to ensure that what is in the Commission work program is a good indication of what our priorities are. This is to monitor what is going on. Now, in terms of having a voice in the discussion, there are basically, I would say, informal and formal ways to do it. Informally and by way the way what I'm telling you, informally does not mean illegally. It's legal, we always have a channel open with the community and stakeholders that are going to be impacted, but informally you always should keep in mind that European bureaucrats are human beings and they have a voice and can listen to you and if you have a point of contact, which for the RIPE community I'm happy to play that role and it's necessary to relay your points or concerns to what are necessary, but to not hesitate to contact me or either colleagues. It's always easier when you have a single point of contact because then information is more structured. Do not hesitate to make your voice heard as early as possible. As soon as you notice possibly the Commission work program, as I mentioned or through other means, there is an initiative being planned, intervene early on, via mail, via phone, whatever way you prefer. Don't misunderstand the fact that we ?? you may have the perception that we do not always have or do not strongly enough come enough for the opinion of other constituencies including yours. Keep in mind that a lot of different things, different stakeholders, it can be challenging, for us to go to each and every single stakeholder for their opinion. Sometimes it's more efficient if the stakeholder makes an informal opinion. More formally, for the vast majority of the initiatives that we run, we have an obligation actually which to run for the public consultations. Again there's a website and there is a section on website of the European Commission and I can send a link together with the other one when this session is finished which lists all the public consultation that the Commission opens. Again, if I remember correctly these public consultations are divided by topics so it's easier to know when one you're interested in is open. They're accepted, and they have to run for at least eight weeks, if I remember correctly, that's two months.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Thank you. The last comment I would like to have on it, I think this myself, I think this paper is ?? what we were saying here, theability for various different kind of issues, the open consultations and other things that you have on the meetings in Brussels, there are some people in the RIPE community that feel a little bit confused when issues and questions are asked over there that could have been asked indirectly in the RIPE community, IPv6 related issues and other kind of things. But I do understand that you're now sort of requested ?? you sort of ?? what you are saying, if I understand you correctly, is that for example, Maria and myself, as Working Group Chairs, can try to synchronise with you that we in Working Groups can also do things helping in your work. Is that correctly?
ANDREA GLORIOSO: That would certainly be very beneficial. If I may just ?? that would be most welcome, and I thank you in advance for your work and for Maria's work on this. If I may quickly react to the point you make about the confusion sometimes that members of the RIPE community might have, indeed we might try to make an effort to ask certain questions, however, you have to keep in mind that RIPE is ?? RIPE is a community is a very important and relevant player, that's without question, but when you're talking about IPv6 it's certainly not the only player. There are many other stakeholders which have an interest, different layers for different reasons. Now, we at the Commission we have to be very careful not to be seen as preferring one to another. So again, as I said ?? yes.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: There was some reaction in the room here and we have one question. But we have an immediate reaction to IPv6 and that is the fact that the policy development process in the RIPE region is in RIPE, that is ?? that is the fact. That was the reaction I got over here.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: That is absolutely clear, Patrik. But on the other hand, think, for example, about the needs and the requirement we receive from the industry not the ?? but the manufacturers or from public administrations which have a stake in the transition to IPv6. I'm not entirely sure that these are right, this absolutely does not mean that we should not interact, perhaps even more strongly, although I do not IPv6 supposedly we have other colleagues. My understanding is that we have consulted in the past, if there's ways to do it for efficiently let us know and we'll do that.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Okay. We have a question of questions here.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Ministry of interior in Germany. Thank you for your offer. I think the idea is very good to discuss this process and to be involved in the governmental level and that policy building process. I have two hats on, first the [LIR] hat and on the other side, the governmental head. So I would prefer that discussion about this process. It's long on my agenda. But too less time following all the mailing list. So I'm very happy if we can push that process to discuss about some things and I don't know how can it work, but let's talk and I use your offer to do this and we can stay in touch. Thank you.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Did you hear at all what she said?
ANDREA GLORIOSO: No, not at all. If you could repeat the question. Olaf Kolkmann: If you could come here and talk directly into the phone. Bring the microphone.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hello, do you understand me?
ANDREA GLORIOSO: Yes, perfectly.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I thank you for your offer. And I welcome this. I think it's necessary to talk about the policy building process in our level. Germany has two hats, the [LIR] and, on the other hand, the governmental side, and so I'm very thankful to that, if we can discuss the needs and this on a high level or level with other governments, it's very good to do this, and I try to contact you or you try to reach me and we bring in Patrik and Maria as well. Thank you.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: Again, that was not a question, but a comment.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: So was there anyone else here in the room that wanted to say something?
ANDREA GLORIOSO: But thank you very much. Let's follow?up on this.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Thank you very much for being able to do this. We appreciate that you could make the phone call. We will move on to the next agenda. Thank you very much.
ANDREA GLORIOSO: Thanks. Thanks to all and see you soon in person, I hope.
(Applause)
CHAIR: Yes, thank you very much for the European Commission. Okay. Let's move on to the next agenda item. Now, we're going to have Chris with an update on the IGF. If he could give us a brief on that one, thank you.
Chris Buckridge: This is quite a brief update on the internet governance forum that happened last month. As I'm sure you all know from past Cooperation Working Group sessions the RIPE NCC has been working and participating in the IGF since its inception. This event that happened last month was the sixth annual and it took place in Kenya in September. This was ?? it was a very positive and interesting event actually. The biggest really ?? I'm not sure if the biggest ever but the biggest in a few years, more than 2,000 participants, and among those 125 different governments taking part. That was very pleasing to see. The other thing there was 823 remote participants, so they were taking part from 47 hubs throughout the world and that focus on remote participation is something we've been pushing in our comments on improving the IGF, try to make the IGF a more broad model, even if there were a few technical hiccups. As part of these four days, there were 122 workshops, main sessions and other meeting, coalitions and some other ad hoc groups. In the RIPE NCC participated in those both as the RIPE NCC but also as part of the number of resource organization which is the five internet regional registries working together. The NRO organized two of those workshops and the first one of those was enhancing understanding, facilitating internet governance through openness and transparency. It followed up on a workshop we did last year, a bit of an experiment but something we put together with the Swedish government and we had Maria Hall and Paul Rendek co?chairing it. Last year it was called enhancing transparency and it was looking at it with all different stakeholders, emphasized the openness and transparency and asked is this something we can see more of in other stakeholders, including government, business. That was a really good discussion in 2010. So we wanted to follow?up on some of the points that were made in that session. One of the points that was made is transparency is a first step towards understanding. There needs to be not just huge amount of information, there needs to be a way for stakeholders to make sense of what they're being given, to actually understand other stakeholder groups. This discussion we had was focused on ways that hopefully you can do that and make the information you're providing more accessible, more comprehensible and more useful. So there were reports on both of these workshops on the NRO side, and so they list a few of those, the outcomes of that workshop.
The second workshop was more our bred and butter, understanding IPv6 deployment. And the focus, I think Paul mentioned yesterdays in report on external relations in the RIPE NCC, he pointed out the importance, one of the things external relations is focussing on educating people about the capacity building work that the technical community does. In a multi?stake environment where we're talking to governments, civil society, one of the important things that we focus on is how the work of the technical community is helping to build capacity, particularly in developing areas. That was one of the key messages we were trying to put across in this IPv6 workshop. We had Marco who is our RIPE IPv6 working group chair as one of the panelists and he presented the analysis that he gave in this meeting as well about RIPE NCC training event, meetings, world IPv6 day have had on things like the percentage of networks ?? I think that was also a really positive message that we were able to bring there. That was a feeder workshop into the main session on critical internet resources. So that's really a broad definition and it includes domain name issues. So really for the last 12 months at least, all of the oxygen in that discussion has been taken up with the new TLD discussions. The report from the IPv6 workshop took up about 90 seconds at the end of a 90?minute session, which is fine. It was good to not be the controversial ones. We brought in a positive message and we were happy for there not to be too much disagreement with that.
Overrule, our take away from the IGF this year. First and for most, continuing to evolve as an important global forum. This was a bigger event than previous years. That came as a surprise by a lot of people. It was encouraging to see how many people were taking part and how diverse the geographic sector, age, everything, in terms of the audience was. It was also encouraging perhaps more than previous years to see some examples of the multi?stakeholder model on which the IGF model is based in action. This was something we saw in terms of government participation. In the lead up to this IGF there were a couple of government proposals made in different forums, including one by India, Brazil and South Africa, which caused some controversy and concern, including the technical community and civil society. But it was encouraging to see there were panels at the IGF where there were members of the Indian government on the panel, actually answering the questions and comments of other stakeholders. That's something we haven't always seen and have to read as a good thing.
The other thing that we were pleased to see from a sort of organisational perspective is the RIPE community and RIPE NCC was recognised in various places for the work we've done in events like IPv6 roadshows, things like RIPE Labs where we're presenting data and analysis that have been useful for people. That's something we've been aiming for and we're's starting to see the pay off for that.
Finally it's important to note that we need to explain and defend the roles, the method and the processes that the technical community has. I think there's still a lack of understanding in some ?? between some stakeholder groups as to how, say the RIPE policy developmental process works and whether that can synchronise and work together with governmental policy making processes. So I think that's something that is going to continue to be discussed and worked on in the IGF as it continues.
Yes, that's it from me. I'm not sure if Maria or Patrik had anything to say or if anyone had any questions.
CHAIR: Do we have any questions for Kris about the IGF?
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Could we remind people. Maybe we'll get more questions after Nurani Nimpuno's presentation.
CHAIR: Thank you so much, Chris. I think you covered pretty much the outcome. And I must say that we're's rather fortunate in the RIPE community in our part of the world because we are coordinate ?? we are reasonably coordinated, also with the European Commission and the member States but also because we have this kind of cooperation dialogue between the communities and one of the things that we discussed in this transparency group meeting that we had was actually it's not absolutely just that you ?? or a part of just one community, I represent the governments, yes, but I feel part of the RIPE community so I think you should more discussion about that we are all part of the internet community and that's something we had heard before. That was obvious at this meeting, it was very very good. And also as Chris said, we were able to talk about more sensitive things this meeting without ?? well, without ?? there have been some issues at other meeting, but you couldn't discuss human rights and freedom of speech, but this was possible for this meeting.
Let's go to the next agenda, Nurani Nimpuno is going to give us an update on the working group that is going to take some kind of advice how IGF could evolve. That is absolutely important now because there are challenges in that group, I understand.
Nurani Nimpuno: Yes, indeed. What do I do?
PATRIK FALTSTROM: You just have to wait and then it will come up.
Nurani Nimpuno: Good morning. My name is Nurani Nimpuno. I work for Netnod based in Sweden. I will give you an update based on this exciting UN working group within the Commission for science and technology for development in the UN. It's kind of a specific small Working Group, but it relates to all these other things, some of the things that obviously the IGF as a whole and then some of the other parallel process. I could speak for five minutes or 15 minutes. I'll try do something in between. I'll give you an update on the working group and throw out some of the other related discussions and proposals that are on the table at the moment and see what people are interested in knowing more about. Does that sound all right? Okay.
Okay. So a quick recap. Basically the internet governance forum, the IGF, was established in 2005, which was ?? came out of the world summit information ?? World Summit Information Society. It was given a five?year mandate, we're going to create this forum, no one knows what it is, multi?stakeholder forum, give it a five?year mandate and review. That means mandate expired last year. So it was up to the general assembly to take the decision whether or not to continue it. So they did. I think it ?? the IGF has proven to be such a sort of successful and big event that it was hard to do anything else. But they sort of did it ?? not with a condition but they said, okay, as we're extending it, we'll also create this working group which will look at how the IGF IGF can be improved. What's sort of ironic, when you look at people talk about how the IGF had been so successful being a multi?stakeholder forum, it was unique, let's look at creating a working group to look at its improvement and they make it a government?only working group. Of course, there were quite strong reactions from the community which resulted in them backing off from that and saying, well, know we'll make this a multi?stakeholder working group. So basically there were five intergovernmental organisations invited, civil society business and technical. I was one of the ones sucked to represent the technical community. The first attempt took place earlier this year and I gave a report on this at the last meeting. It was two two?day meetings. Switzerland was the chair. He put together this questionnaire that he circulated widely and it got responses from lots and lots of different organisations outside of this working group. And then this was supposed to be discussed in these two two?day meetings. It became very very clear very early on that people wanted different things out of this working group. Some think that the IGF is doing okay as it is, there are things we can do to improve it. And some want some radical change to the IGF. The other thing that was interesting was that it also became clear that not everyone was that interested in having a report at the end of this. So the idea is that the working group produces a report that is given to the CSTD that then does something with it. For us it was important to produce a report because it ?? because this was a Working Group that was multi?stakeholder. If we didn't manage to produce a report, it would mean that the CTSD was free to come up with whatever they wanted. We failed to produce a report. At the end of the first ?? sorry, at the end of the second day of the first meeting, well still not agreeing on the agenda for the two days that had passed. So that sort of shows, also, that there were different ?? well, different motivations in this group. So what we did was actually to ?? so this was presented to ?? this was supposed to be presented to the CTSD in May. Because we failed to produce it, the chair produced the chairman's summary that was provided to the CTSD. We requested an extension for the working group because it was still important for us to produce a report and we got that extended. Second attempt with a new chair was basically to try to do it all again, to present it to the CTSD. Peter Major, the Chair, he's pretty determined to get a result. So in a way that's positive, he wants a report with recommendations. Of course it all depend on his how this report looks, right. So I just come back, I missed three days of lovely RIPE meet to go spend three days in the CTSD Working Group in Geneva. So what happened this week? Well, for those of you who are sad enough to want to follow some of the details, we've been very good at Tweeting out of this working group because we think it's important for others, because it's a closed working group we think it's important to get the word out what's happening. It was a shaky start no agreement on how to produce and for a while it was looking pretty dark. Another thing sad to see, there were quite a few participants missing, 50 percent of government representatives were not there, and these are people based in Geneva, this is their job and they couldn't come. The only person who couldn't come was Oscar, based in Mexico, and they're going through restructuring. Sam in Australia participated. One of the criticisms that come up, well, you know, governments are not, you know, the IGF is obviously not relevant enough because governments are not participating. It's real easy to sit on the outside and not participate in any of these processes and then criticize the process.
But I actually came back from that meeting a little bit more encouraged than last time. After the sort of shaky start, we ?? I think we can say that the technical community took control of the process. We were not even sure if we were allowed to speak at first, but I think we got braver and braver as we proceeded. So we took the floor and said we would like to, as a start, propose some sentences to put up on the screen where we think there's broad consensus. To my great surprise, we managed to get all of them through. This was a huge step. So that was the end of day one. And our view is that ?? I mean, even if ?? even if that's all we get and if we then have specific recommendations under that, that's already a pretty good report.
So and then after that we discussed lots of different areas, that those who want improvements like, you know, better communication from the IGF, better website or things like that. Then there's the other side who ?? some proposals on the table, where they want the IGF to produce outcome documentation stating the IGF's position on various things. This will be transmitted up into the UN structure through the general assembly, this should be conveyed to various relevant internet organisations, and they should request the response from these organisations.
Right. Okay. But so end of first meeting first out of three, there was a lot more convergence than expected, but it's not over until the fat lady sings, anyone who wants to sabotage it will do it at the very end, right. What was kind of interesting is funding came up. Again, we scored some points there because funding is one of the core issues. If you want any types of improvements to the IGF, if you want the secretary to do more, you want them to produce documents, you want better remote participation, you need funding. It's currently based on voluntary funding. We argue that it should stay that way and remain independent from the UN. But there are certainly a few parties who argue for UN funding only. What was really neat, I thought, in this Working Group is, we actually managed to ask UN and the secretariat of this working group for a clarification, is it even possible to make this part possible to make it part of the UN budget or is it a red herring and if it's technically possible what are the chances? It's a long and complicated process, at least two years, in reality the UN budget has been cut, 3% cut, it's been reduced, no way we're going to find any money so chances of getting money from the UN are slim. We're going to have two more meetings. The chair is set on having a report which is good. He wants specific recommendations. We're a little bit we'rery of this because we think the IGF should be allowed to self improve. We don't think that a Working Group within the UN should decide if the IGF should have two days of workshops, three days of main sessions or if it should have, whatever. We think that's micro management. Best scenario, we get some good general recommendations which endorses the IGF and strengthens them and emphasizes the multi?stakeholder element and worst case scenario is, who knows.
That's actually the end of my CTSD working group presentation. It's hard to talk about some of these things without mentioning some of these other proposals and discussions going on. Chris mentioned the IBSA proposal. This is what I find interesting. On the one hand I thought this was one of the best IGF's ever, some of the most sensitive issues were actually discussed in public and that just simply wouldn't have happened five years ago. The fact we had the Indian government sit on a panel and answer to this multi?stakeholder community and having to explain themselves, that's pretty amazing. On the other hand, they do that and then they still write the proposal and still put it to the general assembly. So it's interesting times because on one hand there's all these things happening where you have a lot of this ?? a lot of these dialogues taking place in a more public place where other non?government representatives are present but if they don't feel that they get what they want out of that process, they will still go to the UN general assembly.
I'll just leave that there. If people want to know more, we have some time to discuss. I think that's it basically. I put some references at the end. You'll see that in the presentation.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. You had a very quick brief but in the end all this kind of boils down, as we will say in Swedish, to the actual governments would like to take more control over internet resources or have their in?plans or whatever you call it or get involved, you can have a lot of these expressions. But nevertheless this is a trend we see all over the world, in different areas, not only the IGF involvement but also the ITU and so on. That's why I think it's extraordinarily important to have this dialogue with you and you be aware what's happening.
Nurani Nimpuno can I comment on that, I think it is difficult to get your head around all these different discussions and I think it's also ?? we should be careful about actually using I'm saying that governments want to take over because there's ?? we tend to see governments as one entity and it's not. They're vastly different opinions there. So you certainly see ?? I think it's constantly sort of managing that tension. And of course it's ?? it's sort of a natural reaction from governments to want to understand and then possibly control, but I think it's important to understand that different players act differently.
CHAIR: Exactly. Involvement is very good and the dialogue is good. It's very very many areas when this multi?stakeholder environment is very good. But of course this has to be balanced in a good way.
Anyway, I would like to give the floor to anybody having the questions for Nurani Nimpuno. I thought Paul you were ?? at least before you said you have some ideas.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Paul Rendek. I do have a question because I've come here a few times and told the community what the RIPE NCC does and what our involvement does. Now, that we have you up there, what do you suggest that we do as a community or what do you think that the RIPE community should be doing to kind of further on our involvement in here? Or what do you see as something that would be important for this community?
Nurani Nimpuno: One thing I would like is an ongoing dialogue. We dip into this, for example, at the Cooperation Working Group here and you have people give updates but there's so many issues it's hard to keep of. I think using the mailing list more actively is one thing. The other thing is also reaching out to governments to participate here. I mean, we're lucky to have Maria but she's also a wanna?be techie. So it's easier to get her than other people.
I think the round?table initiative is a good one as well. But I think we also need to be careful about just ?? I think we have a tendency to just report to each other and that's not necessarily dialogue. And then just another very quick thing is that what I think has been positive in the IGF is we've sort of been forced to cooperate with parts of civil society, with parts of business, with some governments and that in itself leads to new connections.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: That's a good point because we have looked at the round?table meetings that we do in the RIPE NCC and we need to look at them and see if they need to be revamped again. We have done quite a lot in fostering relationships and playing this whole popularity contest. That's what I call it. For the last seven years we've been scampering around making sure we are as popular we can be in every bit of this internet governance circus. It's great. We've done some strides here together with industry partners and for the first time actually at the last IGF and maybe a few other meetings we've been at in the governance kind of arena, this year I felt actually I could see that all that work that we've done is starting to work, because finally we've got governments that are calling us at the RIPE NCC for information that we have, they know what we've got, they're digging to see what else they can find on data. We're sitting on this gold mine data. It's not just us running around trying to see what kind of influence we can have. We're start to go see we're cooperating not only with governments but civil society, we see ourselves partnering up with them in different areas or even the business community for instance. So I'm just wondering where we're going to take it from here now. I can see that we finally have a bit of influence and that's a really big word. And I think we've worked hard to have that influence for this technical community. I think I am fearing and you made a very good point, I fear a bit our community doesn't understand the realities of what is coming forward to our industry. And I'm actually working very hard with Chris and everybody inside of the RIPE NCC actually to figure out how we can bring this understanding forward. Because, you know, one point that kind of ?? didn't really surprise me but I don't know what to do with the information now, is that when you look at the stakeholder survey that we had, the ER, the outreach area for this particular kind of stuff scored the lowest. I thought great, Paul, that's your work. It scored the lowest. But I don't think it scored the lowest because people don't think we're doing a good job, but they think what is this, I'm not touching this. This is not important for me. This is important for anybody that goes to any of those rooms. I'm not expecting everyone is going to jump on the internet governance band wagon but we have to find a way to bring the information here so people have an understanding.
Nurani Nimpuno: It sounds like such a cliche, but it is a two?way street. I think in the beginning of this process we were a little bit arrogant and maybe naive, we are the technical community, we will educate you, and he said things like well you can come and participate in our processes. In reality that's simply not going to happen. A lot of governments aren't even comfortable participating in the IGF because this thing of equal footing is such a fortune concept to them. And the last point is the other thing we have to realise is that, you know, is that we can be skeptical about the IGF and it's got ?? it's certainly not a perfect thing, but if governments don't get what they want out of that, they will find other avenues and this is what we see. So somehow, you know, we can't just say we will state our position and then we don't care. We have to try to speak to these people.
CHAIR: Thank you very much, and it comes back to actually understanding each other role's, the technical community, the business society, have their roles and the government has their role and here you have to understand what kind of responsibilities and roles you have. But I would like to give the floor to Niall.
Niall O'Reilly: You mentioned there's a tendency for people to report to each other, and this is a bit sterile, or that's what I took from what you said. What do we need to be able to do back home in our own countries to keep the ball rolling?
Nurani Nimpuno: As the expert of this ?? no, obviously I don't have a magic bullet. I actually think we need to keep the discussion in this community going to start with, because we don't actually do that. We have a mailing list and then, you know, we meet here and we give reports and everyone hears what great work we do and then we go home. I mean, I think one thing that you really can do is to actually try to start these type of processes these multi?stakeholder processes at home. In Sweden, there was this ?? and I guess it sort of grew organically, some sort of reference group created where the regulator and the government actually regularly talks to the industry. I think if you can get that going, not just here but in different countries, that would be a fantastic step.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: High. Paul again. Actually, that's great, Nurani Nimpuno and that's an initiative I would suggest you run and do. Sweden does that very well. I have come and spoken to other people in Maria's administration actually we've gone there as RIPE NCC actually. The Norwegians did something fashion forward, they got themselves, together, ministry, tell communications, regulator body, they contacted industry, ISPs, banks enterprise and they pulled them all together and invited industry experts from the internet and played together. RIPE NCC was invited. They were so happy to go. We're also discussing this with some of the other governances is taking hold. That's something you can do. Maybe you want to speak to your local authoritys and be someone who can drive that from the technical community that can help them put something like this together.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: But Paul, it cannot really be the case that scales, RIPE NCC that you go to all these ?? just to make sure I understand, that you're happy to listen to these meetings, round table, what kind of material and support the rest of the members working group might need to be able to do more efficient work at home? Is that what you're asking, what I hear between the line is his you ask for information on what people would like to have from you that helps them at home, right?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Exactly, it wasn't scale and we're overwhelmed from all the invitations, Council of Europe and god knows. It doesn't scale. We do need to know if somebody wants something from us, definitely materials, we cannot make a presence ourselves, what do you want to us? And we can hand that to somebody from the technical community that can use that data when they go to the meetings or whoever they speak to. Very good point, Patrik.
Nurani Nimpuno the RIPE NCC could have more of a coordinating role, they don't have to be at all these events but coordinating between ourselves you could identify good speakers in the community that could go and represent us. You had odd one last point I actually just recently met with the UAETRA and during the meeting that I had, each point they brought up, you know what Paul it's so great because we know you know people in the industry and we've got this issue and this issue and this issue who should we talk to and it's great for them to ask us because we have this community of experts.
CHAIR: Now.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you. I think it's a very necessary discussion. I can tell you how I started here, how was my touchdown. The first time I came to the RIPE meetings and I had that idea, will I be expected or what's coming up? So I learned it's a very good place to learn, to see and to transport in the political view, and I go home and that's the point you said, I have to do my home work and I tried. So I learned to ?? about the IGF meeting and the role and of my role. So I went to that meeting ?? or to these meetings and I go home and I try to set up a process and ?? to find out what are the next steps, and to the industry, my bosses the leadership about that, and we are going steps I hope in the right direction. We have new structures, new ideas, new strategies, so the process is going on. And I'd like to inform you that or other governments, that we have to use all the instruments that we have. And it's so necessary to go there, to the IGF meeting, to the to all the meeting to play our role and bring in our needs. Nobody knows about what we want to have. And this is a clue for the industry. So we need to talk about that. So it's necessary to do this.
Nurani Nimpuno: Thanks.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. The next speaker.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I'm Paul from APNIC. Can you hear me? Just a few points here. Thanks to Nurani Nimpuno for the presentation and to Maria for the session. I'd like to acknowledge the work that RIPE NCC staff are doing in this field, particularly in the IGF and the wider intergovernance context. This working group is a really important thing. It's something that the APNIC point of view we haven't been able to achieve or translate quite into our region. I think this is really a new thing and leading initiative that is good to see and it's a good example, I think, for those of us in the technical community and in the governmental communitys to see this happening as an extension of and our own implementation in the stakeholder process. I really think that RIPE NCC's work has been a fantastic investment and quite a vision ear thing here. The same thing goes for yourself, Nurani Nimpuno and the members of this technical community that are involving themselves in this process. NCC has been a great collaborator as well in the RIRs and I'd like to acknowledge that. We are actually all working together here on a global system that actually doesn't really respond so well to selfish regionalized or smaller finer grain approaches and it also takes that approach ?? the investment that APNIC, ARIN, the other RIRs, are making is substantial, in some sense it's an overhead that has not helped in any way for us to do the jobs we're traditionally here to do and in some ways I think there's been some resentment or hope that we would be able to lower that investment, but it's a change in the nature of the environment and I'm an afraid it's going to go on. What we need to recognise is the global nature of what we're doing here, so the investment, the serious investment that NCC and APNIC and ARIN has made is not much less in the developing regions, AfriNIC and LACNIC, I do not envy them the challenge of trying to cover the same ground in their regions and it's in their regions that many of the countries that are very influential are very active, so I'd remind us here that the investments that we're making here aren't just for the region, but they need to be a bit more global in scope. And I think ?? I'm not trying to point out any weakness. I think NCC's approach, as I said, has been really vision ear and really very collaborative. It's really a reminder to the NCC, to the RIPE community, for the importance of that work.
The IGF, as Nurani Nimpuno said, it was widely regarded as a successful meeting. But again, it's something that's going to go on for many years. And it really kind of needs to go on for many years because there is no other venue for this to happen. If we want to maintain the internet as a kind of extra governmental kind of institution or environment or however you want to call it, there needs to be some extra governmental forum for that to happen in. The IGF isn't going to come and go away. If it does go away it needs to be replaced by something with the same task. But there's not an alternative now. It's a big expense and I think the threatening sort of withdrawal of government funding for IGF is something that we need to be recognizing as well because, again, the IGF needs to be considered by us as partly our responsibility. So the need to find money and increase funding for IGF is a real need. And I think we all have to recognise in this community that the IGF is helping to protect something that we're all working on, working towards and benefitting from, it's our common responsibility. So I think the question of IGF funding and the funding being available from alternatives from the business community, in particular, is something that we do need to seriously face. The IGF ?? I'll finish in a second. The IGF is highly efficient, if you look at the scale of what it's safeguarding, even in terms of RIRs and they need to get out and reach the governments, it's a damn good way to do that and the cost of it is substantial but in the scheme of things it's important and we should recognise that and also recognise that we all have to pay for it.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. Do we have anymore questions?
PATRIK FALTSTROM: And the next person that goes to the microphone, from being a person active in the RIPE region, we'd like to thank APNIC for everything you're doing. So thank you.
(Applause.)
PATRIK FALTSTROM: One thing that had been ?? that is sort of discussed in Twitter at the moment has to do with a representation from different member states or different not only member states in the EU but all countries here in the region and one thing that was brought up here and I heard it before, is, for example, let's use as an example, we have several active RIPE participants from Ireland, but when asking around, we don't see anyone in sort of none of the discussions that is actually coming from Ireland. And the issue ?? Ireland doesn't have a member of GAC, or you don't know that on the top of your head? No. So this as an example. Of course you're coming up.
CHAIR: Yes, we do.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: No, you don't. One of the Interpol rep who goes ?? attends the GAC, happens to be Irish and is paid by the Irish Government, but he is not the Irish GAC rep. At ICANN meetings, I borrow the US GAC rap, possibly the EU GAC rep, but I don't actually have any representation from my own government, which is rather amusing considering our government likes to pride our self as building up Ireland as a center for internet, ecommerce activity and has attracted plenty of big companies, Google, eBay, PayPal and plenty of others, but when it comes to internet governance they're not there, I don't think they go to the IGF either.
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Question to you then: Is there anything the rest of the RIPE community do interest them have you tried so many times and given up and we have to ??
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I don't know. Some of you might have better contacts in government than I do, or other Irish people who happen to be here, there's a few of them sitting down there. But for me, I'm busy trying to run a business so I don't have time to be chasing politicians around the place.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Brian Nisbet. Not to turn the Working Group into the discussions of Irish politics at the moment, because there are many, we, as the NREN, obviously running multiple contacts with government departments, but I remember when we were looking for ?? when the discussion was happening about the ITU a few RIPE meetings ago, we were trying to find out who the Irish ITU rep was and we couldn't figure it out. They seem to be interested in a variety of things, but I think there's ?? there's a problem there as regards international awareness. And your question of what can we do, well, I don't know of any part of the government as a RIPE NCC member. I don't know if they've ever come across anyone. Our problem is that we don't know who to talk to, and it's not obvious. So I don't know if the NCC has spoken to anyone. I don't know if the IGF has spoken to anyone. And if there was ?? if there was anyway even ?? I'd almost be tempted to suggest trying to get some sort of contact list, something where we could say for all of the countries in the region, if you want to lob bi?your government on something to do with this, these are the people we know have interacted in some way with it, to move from the specific to the general case, he says trying to get the NCC to do some work.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: We have such lists.
BRIAN NISBET: Can you share such lists?
PATRIK FALTSTROM: Microphone, please. Microphone.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: We have, we have such lists. We do keep a record of anybody we've spoken to or anybody that's bothered us or whatever the case would have been, from regulators and law enforcement and government. We have these contacts. I think that we ?? we can share them, they're email addresses of people with functions.
Nurani Nimpuno: I think that would be extremely useful. What I find with the IGF, I've seen that it's created a place for people to make those contacts, people who can't find out who they should speak to in the government, in their country, they come to the IGF and they see one of their own politicians there and for the first actually get to meet them and speak to them. But I think that ?? and in the IGF, there's some of an increased effort as well to reach out specifically to government and to arrange sessions for parliamentarians, et cetera. So I think that would be a great thing the RIPE NCC could do to coordinate those and to convey those contacts.
CHAIR: Additional to that one, actually, I was just trying to go into that site, for some reason it doesn't work, typically. But on the ICANN website, if you go to the GAC website, you have the list of all the countrys and the representatives, the GAC representatives and then you can take contact with that person and that person probably knows who has responsibility for IPv6 or whatever, because normally there are several people who has responsibility for different things.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: That sort of hooks into something that I don't know how to express, it's basically confusion from my side.
Nurani Nimpuno we're all confused.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Today we're talking about the IGF tomorrow the OECD, then the Council of Europe, then GAC, then ?? there is so much going on, everyone wants to govern the internet. That makes for a good Tweet, doesn't it? And for a simple layer 9 interested techie, as myself, it is sometimes very hard to weed through where to pay attention, where is the next fire? And to some extent, I sometimes hope that this might be a forum where we sort of discover that kind of little fires, where we could help, or not help, talk, dialogue.
Nurani Nimpuno: I agree. I mean this is part of what ?? it's not my daytime job really, but part of what I do and like you, there are ?? even if you understand the issues, you simply don't have the time to cover them all. I mean, I think ?? ISOC does a pretty good job there in providing little snippets of information and little updates. It's something I would, again, giving you more work, but it's something I'd really like the RIPE NCC to do as well, not to give long presentations but snippets, this is happening, these were the outcomes here, little things like that, that would help us all to keep up to date. It's fine if a controversial issue goes on somewhere if I know that Olaf will be there. But if no one is there, and if I know that I'll get a report or a quick update after it.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. We need to wrap it up a little bit here. But I would just additionally say that this ?? I agree with you Olaf, it is frustrating that so many things are going on, that's what I started by saying. I think the multi?stakeholder process is not only going to the IGF meeting, going to the other meetings, being here at RIPE, I'm fully convinced that it has to go on in a day to day business, meeting, having dialogue, so it doesn't have to be a fire, every time we have to go to the Cooperation Working Group otherwise I'm not involved. We need to put it in our day to day business. Anyway, Patrik does like this, I better hurry up. But I would like to say one word, before welcome to the euro dig which is the European dialogue on governance. So this is going to place in Stockholm the 14th and 15th of June and it's hosted by PGS, whether you want to know, have any more details, contact her. I hope to see you in Stockholm to discuss the internet governance things.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Maybe I should just add something that I just sent to the Tweet. It is really true that we have so many paralegal meetings or meetings taking place in parallel and although it does seem like it's disorganise and had difficult to focus, it is appreciated if we would get a picture about these other forums where people leaving the IGF are going to try and set up policies, let's say in the due course of 2012, like WTCA, and in addition to that, because we're witnessing national policies are taking shape, they're somehow like passing ships while the internet governance and IGF is trying to coordinate all these efforts. So if anyone is interested next Thursday and next Wednesday, there is an Oxford internet institute session that has invited members of the internet community, businesses and governments, to come in and discuss further some of their ideas of the improvements. If you cannot be there in person, you can send in your position paper, it's on the OII's website. You're all welcome if you want to come. Thank you.
CHAIR: Do we have any last question or statement from the floor? Otherwise, I would like to wrap it up. And I think thank you very much. We could have continued to discuss this over a long time. It's a lot of things that we should discuss more. Let's do, actually, off this meeting and forever, actually. Thank you very much everybody.
(Applause)