IGF 2010
Vilnius, Lithuania
14 September 10
INTERNET GOVERNANCE – SETTING THE SCENE
10:00
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Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MARKUS KUMMER: Please be seated. We'd like to start early. We have two sessions this morning. Let me start by welcoming you all to Vilnius. I am Markus Kummer, the Executive Coordinator of the IGF Secretariat. This is a curtain raiser event. It's not the official opening of the IGF meeting. The official opening will take place this afternoon. As we will have the President of Lithuania who will give us the honour to be with us, we have been asked to make sure that all participants will be seated by 14:45, by quarter to 3:00.
Please make sure that you're in the room early enough to allow for a smooth running of the Opening Ceremony.
This morning is also a bit of a test run. We have all the facilities in place. But as you all know, the first time, things are bound to go wrong so we count on your indulgence. Let me also give you a few practical hints. We have interpretation in all U.N. languages, simultaneous interpretation, in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. And we also have realtime captioning as you can see, IGF veterans are used to this but miraculously all what we say comes up on a big screen.
Our captioning team sits right at the back of the meeting, and I have to thank them already now for their efforts. I think it is a very good help for participants to follow the meeting. This will also be streamed over the Web so people can read wherever they are what is happening, the proceedings in this room. And of course, all the meetings will be webcast from the workshop rooms.
Back to the captioning, it's important that the names, for the names to appear, that speakers give us their name in writing, preferably, so that there are no spelling mistakes, and the names will be in our record spelled correctly. And also speakers are asked to identify themselves when they are given the floor, so that the captionists know who they are, and all the this is especially important for remote participation.
We have a team of volunteers. They are the ushers. They will go to whoever puts up a hand. Give them a little leaflet and you're asked to write down your name and affiliation and if you have a question or a comment, it would be helpful if you write down what you are planning to say, so that can be a little bit coordinated, so we know who plans to say what so the discussion is not all over the place.
We have, as you can see, fixed microphones. If you want to speak, you can just stand up and be behind the microphones. Then we know there's somebody who would like to say something. Again, the volunteers will come to you, the ushers, and ask you to give your name so that we know it in advance, and you can also stay seated, if you prefer, speaking from your seat. And then we have roaming microphones the ushers will hand over to you.
Lastly, a word about remote participation. We have over the years stepped up our efforts to facilitate remote participation, and this year, we have, for the first time, made sure that all sessions, not only the main sessions but all the workshops, have a moderator who will focus on remote participation. We call it a Remote Moderator. Some of the volunteers took it very literally and are actually remoting it as remotely so the remote moderators are not in the room themselves. Whether that will work, we will see.
We have the remote moderator is here on the side, I think it is Ginger. This is, we will change the setup. It's rather difficult to see her where she is but we will
[ Off Microphone ]
Very good. That's a pragmatic approach, but in future sessions, we'll put you to left. I think it's easier to see you there. We have two volunteers from Multistakeholder Advisory Group who will sit there who will collect the questions and try to bring order into these questions we will receive. On the programme, the schedule basically is more or less as it is, but please check on our website. There were a few changes after this was printed. But it is, as I said, more or less as it will be during these next to speak.
Now let me turn to the substantive part of the session. We have started this curtain raiser session, I think was in Hyderabad if I'm not mistaken. It was felt that there was a need for newcomers to give a little bit of background. This year, we have also had at 9:00, shall we say, a basic IGF introduction explaining what is what.
This one is more substantive, and it is I would say almost a book launch. You have received a book when you registered that is the third book we published with the proceedings of the last year's meeting. The editor of the book, Bill Drake, is sitting next to me, and so are some of the authors. I go very quickly through the list, their bios are all up on our website to the very left is Olga Cavalli. Then Jeanette Hofmann. Then to my right is Ravi Shanker, Joint Secretary for the Ministry of ICT and Communication in India. He's not an author of the book, but he will comment.
Next is Alejandro Pisanty, who is an author, and then he will give our private sector perspective on the book. Next to him an author again, Hong Xue, and also and Anriette Esterhuysen. With this I think I have fulfilled my function. I will leave the moderation to Bill Drake. It is my main function to make sure we finish in time so that the other panel can go ahead. Bill?
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Markus. Good morning, everybody. As Markus indicated, this is a now standard part of the repertoire of sessions that we do in the IGF but this year, we're doing it a little bit different and taking advantage of the fact that we have in the book that you have in your bag that we put together for the Sharm meeting some background papers by a variety of authors and the idea there was fairly straightforward.
At the time that we were organising the book project, it seemed that with the IGF's renewal being a topic of discussion, and people trying to take stock of what had been achieved by the IGF, and a growing discussion about what, if any, improvement might be made, it was time to perhaps reflect on what contributions the IGF has made to the discourse at the international level and mutual understanding around the issues that have been its main themes. During the first four years. And to do that, we put together an international set of authors, most of them coming from an academic sort of background, but all of them having fairly rich array of links to all the different stakeholder groups that make the IGF what it is, and as I say, it is an international group.
Of the 8 authors, there were three Europeans, two Latin Americans, two Africans, one Asian and one North American who lives in Europe, and what I asked the authors, the 5 people who are on this panel today, to do was to look at the themes that we have talked about across the first 5 IGFs in particular, critical Internet resources, openness, access, diversity, and security, and do essentially 3 things in about 15 page paper each of them wrote.
First was essentially to describe how the dialogue on each of those topics had evolved from Athens through Sharm el Sheikh, what had been sort of the main points, recurrent themes the people had raised about openness, access and so on, just to give a flavor of where the discussion has been.
Secondly, to try to, if they could, assess the progress that might be visible to see whether there's been any sort of growth in convergence of perspective, or at least identification and clarification of the points of difference in a way that would be useful to promoting greater mutual understanding at the international level, around these issues.
And then finally, third, to offer some recommendations of their own for how one might take the issues forward in a little bit more robust and fruitful way. So we have chapters, then, by, first and I will they will each make presentations then in this order, by Jeanette Hofmann from Germany on critical Internet resources. Secondly, Olga Cavalli from Argentina will speak about openness. Third, Hong Xue from China will speak about diversity. Fourth, Anriette Esterhuysen from South Africa will speak about access. Fifth, we will have Alejandro Pisanty from Mexico who will speak about security. And then as Markus indicated, we will have two respondents from Government, Mr. Shanker and from the private sector, Art Reilly. So I think we have the grounds for an interesting and useful discussion that will help to set the stage as it were for people about how the IGF discussions have evolved and where we are today.
So that's the background, that what we're trying to do. Each speaker will talk for about five minutes. The main highlights from their chapter and then we'll go to a discussion with you all. So with that said let me then begin the panel by turning to Jeanette Hofmann to talk about critical Internet resources, Jeanette?
>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Good morning, everybody. I was asked to write about the way the IGF approached this in many ways really sensitive topic management of critical Internet resources is about the management of the Domain Name System, the Internet address space, it's about ICANN but also about political oversight by the U.S. Government. This is a very sensitive topic because it became such a major controversy throughout the World Summit of information society. And in several ways it was also I would say the founding conflict of the IGF.
The fact that WSIS, the World Summit on Information Society, turned out to be unable to resolve the issues, the ideological issues, about critical Internet resources provided for many observers evidence of the need of a global Forum, a public space, where people could discuss the future management of the Internet. And this is also why it's so interesting to look at what the IGF has achieved over the last 5 years.
Was it able to sort of resolve the conflict? How did it approach this very sensitive topic? To begin with, the IGF had serious problems to talk about Internet Governance at all. Many people who were involved in organising the IGF were very afraid that the IGF would mainly sort of reproduce the conflicts we had through WSIS and would thereby undermine the whole process of establishing this global Forum.
So for the first two years, this topic was hardly touched at all, but then starting with the third meeting, the management of critical Internet resources became subject of two main sessions, and it turned out that the IGF was very well able to talk about these issues without getting into deadlocks, ideological deadlocks that would just divide people.
The difference between WSIS and the IGF was that the IGF approached the management of critical Internet resources in a much more practical and also pragmatic manner. The focus was less on matters of principles. It was more on practical matters, and often even operational matters.
One of the reasons for this changed focus probably is the different composition of the audience that attends IGF meetings. There are lots of practitioners from the private sector, but also from civil society who are in the audience, and they bring to the fore their own perspective on Internet Governance which differs in many respects from an intergovernmental Forum as a U.N. World Summit.
But I think a second reason why the IGF was able to approach this topic in a different and much more constructive way is that the IGF is not a decision making place. There was no need to find consensus on specific wording. The audience could tolerate differences of view to a much higher degree than it was possible throughout WSIS. So people are now much more confident to address topics where it's well known that people have different views, and they're also more confident of addressing topics where no convergence of views is in sight.
I think thanks to the IGF, we discuss these issues in a more educated manner, and also in a way that is less threatening to many people who feel they have to defend their views. One of the major achievements of the IGF is, as one observer once described it, to have created a non threatening environment where people can express their views, and are willing to listen to other people's views who might differ from their own views. That's one major, I think, achievement.
And the second achievement is this mutual capacity building, capacity building not in a way where experts educate lay people, but rather in a way where many experts with different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds talk to each other so that everybody who attends these meetings learns a lot. Even controversies over issues relate to critical Internet resources can gain an educational dimension because we learn about other people's views and thereby about pros and cons of various options of managing the Internet. Thank you.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Let's turn then to Olga for openness.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you very much, Bill. It was very challenging trying to summarize the chapter, much more than what I thought. And I want to congratulate the Secretariat for having captioning not only for main sessions but also for workshops, which I think it's a major achievement. Having that in mind and also knowing that I have translation into my mother tongue in Spanish, I will give my speech in Spanish so you can either hear the language if you know it, read the captioning, or just hear the channel in Spanish.
I'm going to talk about openness in the Internet and protection of freedoms. That's the chapter of the book. Openness and freedom of expression are key factors in the overall Internet exercise and at the same time they have turned into one of the topics with the greatest discussion and challenges in terms of their control. So they are relevant for all of the stakeholders in this meeting, and they're fundamental for the future of the Internet.
Basically, in Athens in the first IGF meeting, the concern for freedom of expression in the network and their relationship with human rights was one of the relevant topics. There was a fear about the censorship of online content especially the involvement of users who are now actors who are generating content, in other words. A good part of the attention paid to the meeting in Athens was about the role of the major enterprises that could use their technological power, and that they could block certain contents, and the role of Internet providers was also seen with some degree of fear as if they could maximize their control and filters in countries that have restrictive laws and present obstacles for free movement of information.
Intellectual property copyright and how to defend the rights of authors were discussed, and the consumers, as well, who wish to use this content. The Internet was seen as a huge library which would be available to one and all especially for countries that are very far from the centres of information in Rio at the second IGF the focus changed somewhat and added to the production of culture and the production of content which is related to scientific knowledge, especially in particular the interoperability is fundamental for a developing country to be able to use the Internet as a tool for development, and the topic of search engines came up as key elements to be able to find information.
And therefore, they have to have a neutral role in this quest for information. Now, coming up with legislation that is modern that can be adapted that is flexible for this cyberspace world began to be seen as one of the major challenges of this new Internet.
In Hyderabad, the third one, there are topics that are closer to privacy and security which begin to can come in with openness. How can one strike a balance? And that became one of the main themes. How can one strike the proper balance between security on the one hand and privacy? National security and privacy of individuals, in other words.
Risks to free movement of information and use of technology filters blocking system servers, tariffs, taxes, all of these are barriers that stand in the way of access and freedom.
Finally, in Sharm el Sheikh, we went a little beyond this and began to talk about social networks, openness and privacy. The right of people to express not only their ideas, their culture, their traditions, their languages and their right to reproduce all of this content without any limitations whatsoever and without any censorship turned out to be one of the very important topics. The only limitation that there could be would be to protect a superior, higher human right, because there is something greater that needs to be protected.
Having said all of this, and after 4 years of dialogue and listening and participating, what have we actually learned? Well, we've learned that copying digital content is easy, simple, no cost practically which has new regulatory challenges attached to it, but there are new negotiation areas where one can that developing countries all agree that interoperability is necessary to be able to use the Internet as a tool of development. The operators of the network have to be able to monitor the traffic, but at the same time they have to act in a neutral way when they provide their services.
They also say that they have to control this to be able to provide good service to their clients, and that's a very important discussion in developing countries but that's not relevant to this panel. Some content, such as reference to certain cultures or religions, can be problematic for certain countries. It depends very much which country you're talking about, how the content is taken on, how it impacts, and we know that there are several cases of censorship of social networks and exchanges of information, and in some cases, content may be legal in one country and not in another.
So the key appears to be for all of this that we have been able to talk about over these 5 years of dialogue is to strike a balance between all of these forces that act jointly. The only way to do this is through dialogue and an exchange of information that allows all of the stakeholders to have ideas and solutions to problems that appear to be key in the open structure, open architecture, of Internet. And in addition, they have to be practical solutions and practical problem related to certain problems. Very complicated, complex solutions make some people uncomfortable and it's important to remember that one of the important there are 2 laws that came out in Chile recently for example.
The law has just been prepared on the neutrality of the Internet, and also fair use of content in Internet, that's a second law in Chile. I don't want to take up more time for this, but to have a multiparticipative environment and to have the synergies exchanged is a part of what we want to achieve in the IGF and the community has a right to protect its culture and its image in the Internet content but this protection shouldn't prevent others from being able to communicate and use this technological platform. This is why we're here, to come up with solutions like these. Thank you.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you also to the translators for the excellent translation. Next we go to Hong Xue from China talking about diversity.
>> HONG XUE: Thank you, Bill, and also thanks to Markus for his kind introduction. I'm going to talk about diversity, including language diversity, and I hope I could do as my colleague Olga did to present in my mother tongue. That will be in Chinese. But it seems that most of you haven't got your head sets so I'm going to present in English.
Diversity has been talked about at IGF for all their meetings as being stated very clearly at every IGF meeting that diversity to Internet is just a diversity to the nature. Internet is inherently diversified. At IGF meetings we can see very diverse stakeholder groups present die verse will from the diverse perspective. They have a common belief that Internet is for everyone. Whether you are very capable knowledgeable technician of the Internet or you are indigenous people with disability in a very remote place, Internet is for you.
You should be equally benefit access and utilize Internet. Diversity is one of the principles highlighted in the WSIS process. And the WSIS principle it's stressed that diversity for culture for language and also for media are important for our culture creation and production on the Internet. At IGF meetings, diversity has been our main session topic. All through these meetings we can see generally the following four subareas on diversity. The first one is the content access create in both international and local languages. Here we can see from meeting to meeting from Athens to Sharm el Sheikh, our understanding on diversity has been deepening. From Hyderabad, we actually linked diversity to another main session topic, that is access so diversity by itself is important but of small importance is to enable access in a very diversified environment.
The second subarea is application rules for the Internet usage. Diversity is important, but diversity by itself cannot work without the facilitation of both hardware and software so people talk about the facilitation too such as keyboard for multilingual input, the search engines for local content search and navigation. The third subarea is enter fashioned Domain Name. IDN has always been a key issue discussed as IGF diversity workshops.
Both IDNs as top level and IDNs at other levels. We can see there are interesting dynamics between IDN discussion at a diversity discussions and IDN discussions at CIR sessions. It's been talked by my colleague Jeanette and we can see equally the people's special attention to the accessibility in native scripts as the Domain Name System.
The last but not least subarea for diversity is how to facilitate the people with disabilities on the Internet. Of course, these four areas are co related and they involve technical standards, social policies on culture and languages and even legal issues such as copyright protection and trademark protections. This has been improved through all four years.
Of course, I have a long list in my chapter but here I can summarize two key points. One is truthfully multistakeholder participation, this is really the spirit and the heart of IGF process. For diversity discussion we can see a couple of very diversified groups such as internationalized, intergovernmental organisations, UNESCO and WIPO, the new stakeholders ICANN, technical community, private sector and civil society equally join the process of discussion. And each stakeholder shows their strengths and limits. This is a very interesting phenomenon.
For example UNESCO has been playing a leading role in the global diversity initiative. They actually introduced several international conventions. However, UNESCO is quite new to the Internet Governance. IGF provides such a stage for this IGO. And ICANN of course is a very big stakeholder and critical interns resources management. However, ICANN's policy has hardly been scrutinized in its global policy Forum so IGF is also new for ICANN. For the technical community, they have been very powerful in the management of Internet resources, and IGF discussion actually helped them to think out of the box how to make technical settings comparable and interoperable with the social engineering, with social purpose, with public good.
Another progress I can see is the capacity building. The indigenous people, the people with a disability. It would come to present the will to join discussion and to debate with other stakeholder groups.
This is very important for these people to be able to communicate, to be able to participate. And to contribute to the global policy. And we are happy to see some Dynamic Coalition has been formed through such discussion particularly to DC. One is DC on disability and accessibility. Another is DC linguistic diversity. Any improvement for the future, what I can see is we need more concrete output, more deliverable things. It's being emphasized by many colleagues and I want to echo their wills. IGF is not only a process for discussion. It is also important for IGF discussion to highlight the key issues, to bring them to the public attention, and most important of all, to make recommendations. Actually, all through 4 years, IGF diversity discussion we can see some very deliverable concrete proposals emerging from different perspectives. They could be used for the basis of recommendation. For example, people have raised the issue whether we need the culture policy to facilitate the generation of local cultures in native scripts.
And whether we should develop the copy right policy whether we need to release the copyright materials for local language and to enable the disabled people to access that. For example, in the current international copyright regime, there's a copyright use is permitted. It is really literature for blind people but on the Internet these dot literature will not work. And people have been using the audible books for people with visual disability. However, whether it is an audio book could be a new exception, globally accepted in the international copyright law is an issue. It's been discussed if this message could be delivered to the World Intellectual Property Organization it would be tremendously helpful for people with a visual disability.
So that's my brief summary. I hope the IGF process would be improved, there would be more concrete output to facilitate Internet in all areas, in all countries.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: So thank you for that, Hong. We noticed we had a little hiccup with the transcription but it is rolling again now so that's good.
Okay, we now turn to Anriette Esterhuysen to talk about access. Anriette?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Bill. Olga mentioned that it was difficult to summarize the chapter, but I think it was even more difficult to produce these chapters, because to summarize all the number of workshops and main sessions on access was very challenging, because there was so much richness.
Access has been a primary concern from the outset of the IGF. It was a primary concern during the WSIS, affordable access for all.
And it's identified in the IGF mandate as a priority for us to consider. I'll do a quick overview of what was discussed and then try and present a summary because it's interesting to look at the change over time. In Athens, we talked primarily about international interconnection costs, a topic that eventually slipped off the agenda, and IXPs, Internet exchange points, a topic that developed very richly within the IGF with a lot of capacity building, as well.
And in Rio we talked about more fundamental issues around policy and regulation and roles of different stakeholders, how do Governments, public sector actors, communities and the private sector collaborate to address access? And what type of policy framework can enable that effectively?
In Hyderabad, we talked about the failure of this to work. We talked about market failure. We talked about efforts to address competition that's failing in many countries, and some speakers suggested that that was the root in that problem lies in Governance and many policy and regulation reform processes were grafted on to old Governance systems that weren't actually working.
And the point was made that to create an enabling policy and regulation environment for access you need to develop it locally and organically, not just pay consultants. And Sharm el Sheikh was interesting because there we looked more at mobile, so there was less discussion of some of the fundamentals of access, and more of a focus on what is seen as the solution of the future.
An overview, just to read some of the reflections that we developed in the chapter, we do feel that the access issue has been explored broadly from the last mile through international backbone. We also feel that there's been some consensus, there's agreement or there was largely agreement that access is not just about the supply of cable, or physical infrastructure. It's about building capacity to use networks, to develop local content and local languages, and to build demand for access.
It's also about the freedoms needed to use the access for personal expression and to support democratization and more inclusive societies. Dialogues on access at the IGF started at the height of a boom in 2006, and then continued right into the global financial crisis. And that's also quite interesting, because I think it did influence what people found were the primary solutions to the access gap.
It's interesting to see that repeatedly, many of the points hone in on the proper role of public and private sectors, so this is clearly an issue which I think we've not exhausted, but we've reached much more consensus on it. And competition and the value of competition has been acknowledged but it's also been recognized that competition doesn't just happen naturally, and there's still a lot of distortion, and you need strong policy and regulation to make sure it works.
I think as one speaker said at one point, the problem in Africa is not that markets don't work, but there are no working markets. And the way forward, we think, is to continue to explore this dynamic of how to create an appropriate, effective regulatory environment and to try and push access beyond the final Frontier, which is where there is access for all.
Strengthening development agenda in IGF can make it a valuable Forum for looking at many of these issues. We also think that the IGF could do well by focusing more on different forms of access, public access for example, access in libraries, access in public institutions, access in marketplaces, bus stations, places where people are, and where people who do not have individual access and probably never will can easily access the Internet. There's been very little focus on that in the IGF.
We also think that looking at access more from the perspective of social and economic and cultural and civil and political rights would be valuable. A pitfall that the IGF should avoid at all costs is to make the assumption which certainly many people are, I think, that equitable access is no longer a priority. Just the fact that there are more technical solutions available to us through mobile broadband does not mean that we've solved the problem.
In fact, we can look at the broadband divide and other divides. This also the importance of looking at access as a means to be an engaged citizen, as more economic and political and social transactions take place on the Internet, access does become a means to participate in society at large.
The dialogue and diversity of discussion enabled by the IGF format has been very valuable. The main sessions have been the workshops that draw down. And I think as Jeanette has said, there's been a lot of informal capacity building and learning, but there's also been gaps. Lack of competition in international fiber and satellite connectivity has never, to my knowledge, really been addressed at the IGF, nor has the impact of vertical integration in the mobile industry, where, in fact, there's a reduction of competition when we are told that competition is the primary solution.
There's also an assumption sometimes that any access is better than no access, and that assumption should be explored more carefully. There's also the fact of exclusion, on going exclusions and old exclusions but also new exclusions based on age, gender, ability and class and that also should receive attention. A rights approach to access has not been given much consideration. Many participants appear to be to feel threatened by the language of rights, when we talk about access, even though some Governments participate in this Forum have now declared Internet access a right.
In fact, they should view the IGF as an opportunity for discussing how we can strengthen public interest to Internet Governance and a rights based approach is a way of doing that. The primary weakness, we think, with regard to access has probably not been in the discussion. The discussion has been very rich, but more in who has been the participants, who have been the participants in the discussion, and we're going to reach a ceiling in discussing access if we don't bring the people that really suffer the consequences, who experience the daily reality of not having affordable access into the debate so that is definitely something we should address.
The development agenda can help us do that. But we with also need to hear the voices, not just talk about development. We also need to hear the voices of the people who experience the consequences of not having sufficient access.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much. And now we turn to our last author on the panel for a brief story of his paper on security issues, Alejandro.
>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Bill. Thanks everybody. I'll spend a few seconds first acknowledging the extraordinary hard, smart, brilliant focused work that Bill Drake made as an editor for this book. He coached me through a huge improvement in writing, whatever is left is wrong is still my fault. But you should see. And for Markus and others who are responsible for this year's book, which I find particularly useful and attractive. Security is of course a huge concern on the Internet. It's very, very important issue from the very early design of the Internet. It's usually said that security was not a concern in the design. It was -- I've been able to document this in detail with some of the initial authors of the protocols. Some of the assumptions they made were not totally warranted. They didn't pan out. But there was consideration from the start. And it has been, of course, all along. Security has been dealt with in the IGF in particular as a concern to allay some fears that were expressed during the WSIS process, and to try to build some solutions, at least to build some understanding of the process and solutions. This has happened at different levels of understanding, at different degrees of aggregation, the key to some of the most enlightened discussions has been when security has been understood as a key for trust on the Internet and the fact that even the perception that the Internet could have some insecurity will keep people away from using it exhaustively like for ecommerce and so forth. Some of the issues that have been discussed along the years have been cyber crime, where there's actually something called cyber crime, whether there are new crimes invented or created around the Internet or as many believe and has been expressed during the sessions, it's old forms -- old crimes taking new forms because there are new tools to commit them. Large weight of the discussion has been carried by the co-existence of the issues of security, privacy, and openness. There are views where some -- according to which some security measures actually impinge on -- negatively on freedoms of access, on openness and speech, or on the privacy of people. And countervailing discussion has looked at the enhancement of privacy through the use of security or retechnology. These are open issues that have been discussed in a lively way during the IGF sessions. And sometimes have been brought together. There have now been some requests in some -- some proposals in a few of the regional preparatory meetings to again have sessions in some of the future IGF meetings that are concentrated on security. But co-existence of these issues make it very important to discuss them together. There have been discussions about malware, its origin, its spread, the ways to confront it. Not at the technical level maybe, some of the workshops, but in ways that have been enlightening in two directions that would say there's basically two sides to this. Which would be the technical community and the policy-making participants of the IGF. One can expect of course that there has been some capacity-building for the policy makers by listening and discussing what the technical community has to say. But there has also been a lot of growth and understanding by the technical community of what are the policy I shall you autos that affect most importantly the policy makers, the decision makers and their voters in many governments, how this works. One interesting aspect of the evolution of the security issue during the previous four years of the IGF has been the emergence of the word "cyber security" which is very scarcely iced by the technical community and by the practitioners of Internet operations and security. Cyber security was introduced in some workshops in the second IGF meeting. It spread out and then became more of a generic. It came up again -- it linked to a category of public security, but also it became very interesting for a time in the previous IGFs as an issue of national security, the protection of assets, of information assets through the Internet that are relevant for national security of countries. This came to the highest point in the third IGF meeting where there was a speech calling for a cyber treaty, a treaty for managing acts of war, understanding and managing what could possibly be acts of war in cyber space. This issue faded completely away from the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh. This was almost not mentioned. We have seen this issue of a cyber treaty and cyber ware emerge now in national context in some countries and in the UN general assembly context without being a plenary issue. I think there's also something very important about what authority is being delegated to the IGF by some significant governments. It's definitely not -- I mean, the authority delegated to the IGFs, to IGF continues to be important to discuss Internet issues. But key national security issues, forks, are now being taken to other forum. The other important finding while preparing this chapter was that I mapped the issues that were being discussed in the technical and practitioner communities and technical setting and technical communities, and during the IGF sessions. It's very striking. It's really incredibly clear to see there's a time lag between issues becoming important in a technical community then becoming important in the mainstream Internet communities, and then becoming issues for let's say a main session in the IGF. This timeline is generally of about two years. And one can start to see also what happens on the way back, what happens with people who come to the IGF, come in contact with an issue, and then go back to their countries or organizations or companies or civil society and get some work done -- I mean like legislation started and stuff like that. And again, it's about two years. And this for me is one of the most significant reasons to add to the fact that we have this freedom to discuss in the IGF that's very hope, that doesn't try to leave to a cyber treaty or anything close to that, together with the fact that discussions are defaced several years from what's happening in the technical and operational communities. Tells us that discussions in the IGF are extremely valuable, but they can only stay extremely valuable if they are kept in this very open, very free context where people can act upon them at different base, different stages in time depends on where they stand. So unless you have any further questions, that's it.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much for the nice summary of your paper. Those are the five thematic papers that we have in the book. I would be remiss if I didn't point out just briefly there are three other papers as well on emerging and cross-cutting procedural issues. One by myself on the notion of Internet governance for development and how to carry forward a development agenda in the IGF, from my personal perspective. And then a piece by Wolfgang on the notion of multistakeholder and how that works in the IGF, context and global governance more generally. And finally a piece by Bertránd, about how the IGF process as its being processed, why it's distinctive and important. Those are the chapters of the book. And I invite you to have a look at them. It's in your bag. We're going to start to move towards the discussion session now. But first before we go to our two respondents, we wanted to do a brief opening of the floor: Because we have one person from the Brazilian government who wanted to make an interjection and he has to leave in a few minutes. So I wanted to give the floor to Lucero. Are you here?
>> EVERTON LUCERO: Dr. Drake, I will be brief. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. First of all, I'd like to congratulate all of the efforts that you have put in preparing for the book and the coordination efforts. I know it's an important achievement. And it's an important contribution to setting the scene for our further debates. I just would like to make a brief comment regarding the first presentation by Jeanette Hofmann on critical Internet resources. If I understood well, she mentioned that the first time this issue was taken up after a plenary session of the IGF was at the third IGF. And in fact, as those who were there will recall -- and it is also registered in the proceedings of the meeting -- that after lengthy discussions and an effort inside the multistakeholder advisory group, we will able to include the discussion in a plenary session of the IGF on critical Internet resources at the second IGF held in Rio de Janeiro in 2007. I haven't had the opportunity to read the book yet. So I hope that this mistake is not in print also. But I would like to seek some clarification on that. And since I have the floor, I just would like to add a little bit more on that by saying that the notion that the IGF was able to resolve the conflict that previously existed in WSIS, yes, I can agree that to a certain extent, but not fully. If you take into account that the IGF promoted discussion, engagement, and therefore lowered the barriers of the debate, yes, that's an achievement and that's very helpful. But the -- the action on the issues that were brought up during WSIS is still lacking on behalf of the mechanisms for Internet governance in general and unfortunately, at the IGF we haven't been able to proceed with such action as most of -- some of us think are deemed important for the future of governing critical resources.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you. Jeanette, would you like to reply?
>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you. I write for the transcripts of all the give meetings. I'm fully aware that critical Internet resources were addressed at the meeting in -- when you look at how it was approached in Rio, compared to Hyderabad, you see a major difference. In Rio, it was addressed because the host decided it should be addressed. But what was lacking at that time was a consensus among all who prepare at the meeting and attended the meeting that there should be a main issue and that we should talk about it. Addressing critical Internet resources in Rio was controversial. And there wasn't a controversy anymore at the meeting in Hyderabad. And you can see this in the quality of the discussion we had in Hyderabad, which was much, much better. That is the point I make in the book. I mention that it's taken up in the -- Rio. But I cut this short because I wanted to do a brief presentation. Regarding your second point, as I said, I think there is no convergence of views yet, the views on how the Internet should be managed still differ fundamentally. But we talk about it in a different way. And what I end up with in the book chapter is that personally I think unless we have a common vision of where we want to go, there cannot be any practical action. We need to have a broader consensus of how the future of Internet governance -- what it should look like in order to really agree on action. And the IGF is not a place to decide anything anyway. So I think unless we have that common vision, we cannot expect the changes that many people asked for throughout WSIS.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Okay. Thank you very much, Jeanette, and I think that was an interesting exchange. And I hope we're going to have more of those. Before we go to a broader floor discussion, though, we do have two respondents on the panel who would like to offer their thoughts about the topics that were covered in the chapters. So let me turn briefly first to Mr. Ravi Shanker, from the Indian government.
>> RAVI SHANKER: Thank you very much. The book captures and capsules the process of IGF in a manner which could be stated as continuity in change. Continuity in change for the simple reason that the core issues that were discussed at Athens -- access, diversity, openness and security -- continue to be discussed further ahead at all the IGFs. We had had the introduction of the management of critical Internet resources which feature prominently at Rio, and that also has been discussed subsequently. Hyderabad was an inflection point in that since that the theme of Internet for all encapsulated all the previous discussion points of access, diversity, openness and security as well as the management of critical Internet resources, and sort of moved towards a development agenda, if you can say so. The article by Bill in this particular book does talk about the development agenda as a focal point. We further had progress in this direction at Sharm El Sheikh where the opportunities for all was the theme of Sharm El Sheikh. And today we are converging here for developing the future together. I think this reflects a very important aspect of the idea about continuity and change. And I would think if there is one particular facet of this IGF, it's less high tech and more high touch. The sense that we are more and more involved in the developmental process. Technology is definitely an aspect that is being discussed. But it's the process of cooperation that is being sought, be promulgated. While the development agenda in the broad gambit of what we would call the UN MGDs are something which need to be looked at even within the context of the UN IGF, we recognize the fact in an it does not have an outcome orientation. Notwithstanding the fact that there is no outcome orientation, countries have choosen to take the issues that have been discussed at the IGF forum as an important benchmark or transiter to see what can be done in the ICT arena in the respective countries. Regional ideas and national ideas have sprung up. That all goes very well for this particular aspect of the continuance of the IGF per se. The fact that several regional ideas and national ideas have come about, and they have decided to draw up an agenda. It sort of indicates that a nonoutcome-oriented body has given birth to several institutions who seek to have outcome orientation in their respective arena. I think that is an important aspect. The fact of the matter that we come to this forum to have consensus and also respect differences I think is the key factor of the IGF. I would like to recommend that all of you who have not had the opportunity of glancing or reading the book should definitely read through it. Every line is interesting. And there will be many lines which would leave you with a lot of thought for many days to come. Thank you.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Ravi, and thank you also for the best quote of the day so far, the IGF is high touch. That's a new one for us. Okay. So we finalize our discussion up here with Art Riley.
>> ARTHUR REILLY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And good morning friends and colleague, it is a pleasure to be with you at this fifth IGF and participate on this panel. First on behalf of all of us I would like to extend our appreciation to the members of the panel, to the authors of this book that provide us all with a reference that can be used not only today but for years to come in terms of understanding the issues and the proceedings of the Sharm El Sheikh IGF, plus having appreciation as to how these issues have evolved over the last four years. I'm taken, as I listen this morning, to the various discussions on the topics that those four topics from Athens are still very relevant today. And as -- but as I listen to the various discussions on each one and how each topic has evolved over the four years, I'm also struck by the fact that there's been a recognition within each one that it cannot be looked at in isolation. But rather is part of a broader fabric, and that the IGF represents an opportunity for not just an isolated discussion of one stake holder group, but for all stake holder groups. And not a discussion of one issue, but many issues, any issue that we would like to discuss. And not even all issues, but to look at them in terms of their interrelationship. And the interdependencies that exist. And so you heard today about how we started with the discussion of openness, and then openness linked to security, and it linked to issues of privacy and how all of those had to be looked at in their relationships. And it may be that within different cultures you come to different conclusions with regard to how that interaction -- what's the best operating point for each one. But recognizing that interdependence and the relationship I think is very important and the panel has brought that out. As one of the strengths of the IGF, a place where you can literally discuss any issue. And I think Jeanette's point of the process here at the IGF in terms of what we -- introducing a topic during the WSIS and during the first IGF seemed to be something that people were, you know, very reticent to engage in, the issue of critical Internet resources. But it was put on the -- on the table at the second IGF, and it's been a continuing subject for discussion at subsequent IGFs. And even though it was very controversial and there were concerns about introducing it, we learned quite a bit. We learned, I believe, that it's the nondecision-making nature of the IGF, it's the frankness and openness of discussions at the IGF that allow us to do that. If we had a situation in which we were going to have negotiated text on a subject that was controversial, the nature of that discussion would be much more inhibited. If we want to in fact have a frank discussion to allow for the fact that we have here in this room, and in the halls surrounding it, leaders from all of the stake holder groups within the Internet governance universe, the information society. So we have the opportunity to engage them to learn from them, and to provide our views to them. And the best way we could take advantage of the next several days is to have that open discussion. And that is only possible if we have a situation in which we do not have to worry about negotiated text and the decision-making is not part of the process. I think as our colleague Hong indicated, does that mean that we do not have people who make proposals provide their ideas? Because those are all important to us. As leaders, as we go back into our individual communities, to be informed over the next year on what we think will be the important issues and how those might best address the issues as we've learned about them here. A couple of closing points that I would make. One is the fact that over the last year -- well, if we go back to the WSIS to 2005, there were about a billion users on the Internet. And today there are about 1.8 billion users. In 2005 at the time of WSIS there were 2 billion mobile subscribers. And today there are about 4.6 billion mobile subscribers. Tremendous growth in those. Almost doubling in the sense of the Internet and more than doubling in the case of the mobile subscribers. Over the last year we have added another 200 million Internet users and about another 400 million mobile users. So we can reasonably expect over the next year to have comparable sorts of growth. An additional 200 million Internet users and 400 million mobile subscribers. And so as we are here today and over the next several days discussing the issues, we have to recognize that given that this is the collection of the leaders within the Internet governance community, the organizations that are involved in it, we have the opportunity to shape how those additional 200 million Internet users and 400 million mobile subscribers, the kind of services, the kind of environment, the kind of information society that they will have in years to come. And so I think that's a unique opportunity for us. And so the capacity-building that we do here and that you've heard about, I think is critically important to each of us, to provide us not only a chance for us to share our view, but to learn from others. I -- one final point that I would like to make. And there have been several mentions of the remote participation. And I think we had the point that perhaps during the access discussions we didn't have all the people in the room who might have contributed to that. And it would be helpful as we go forward to have that. At this session we do in fact have, as mentioned, access to each of the workshops in the main sessions remotely. And perhaps each one of us, as one of our activities today, we might take to go back and send information to colleagues around the world and encourage them to take advantage of that capability. So that we do in fact build not only upon those who are in the room, but actually draw upon that larger community so that by virtue of our remote participation we can actually as part of our process here, this session is setting the stage. Maybe we can set the stage by setting expectations and actually contributing to having a more inclusive Internet governance forum by taking advantage of that. And that's something that's within our hands. With that I will turn it back to the chairman. Thank you, Bill.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much, Art. And thank you for your nice comments about the book and also for putting things into a holistic and historical perspective. I think that's very useful. We now have some time for discussion with the audience. And we very much welcome your engagement here, whether you have questions to the individual authors about their chapter or you want to offer your own views on how the themes have evolved or if you want to offer a more holistic perspective that tie us together to the different themes as Art just did. Whatever you have in mind. And that offered to both the people here in Vilnius and to people on the remote participation. We have several people who have already asked for the floor to raise a question. So why don't I recognize them first. And others do you want them to just get in line behind the mic? However you'd like to do that. So we have Mike Sax, are you here? And ask for the floor. Mike, can you get a microphone?
>> MIKE SAX: This is my very first time at IGF. I am from Belgium, but I have a software company in the U.S. and I have been reading this book and the problems and challenges that lie ahead. In the middle of that I wanted to share that for a number of years my company has been working with a software developer who is based in Cape Verde in Africa. And over time this person has become one of our primary business partners. And the software created by this person in Africa has been used in thousands of businesses all over the world. And as the quality of the Internet connection improved, through partnerships between governments and the private sector, our partnership became closer and now this software is being used all over the world. So whatever you're doing, this magical process really seems to work. And I want to thank you and let you know that this process really touches real people and makes things possible that we could only dream about before. So keep doing it. Thank you.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much, Mike, for that. We go now to Steve Del Bianco. Steve, are you out here somewhere at the mic? Steve never has trouble finding a mic.
>> STEVE DEL BIANCO: Thank you, Bill. I wanted to address Jean El Hofmann's chap particularly a comment made by Everton. He expressed disappointment that IGF hasn't resolved the crisis in managing CIR. And we're always going to be disappointed about a process that doesn't actually resolve and make everything go away. I'm reminded as a parent, I can never really resolve managing the critical resources that my kids need. Because their needs change continually. And they get more expensive. So I'm always having to manage the critical resources my kids need over time. That's an evolving process. We'll never actually arrive at solving CIR. The second point I think that Everton made was he expressed disappointment that the IGF had not taken action on creating new mechanisms. And yet I share your optimism. Especially during the Hyderabad IGF when at the time we called upon governments, private sector and all stakeholders to use the mechanisms that we already have as well as creating new mechanisms. I was very concerned, I remember expressing in Hyderabad, that not enough governments were sending high level and technical personnel to participate in places like ICANN where we were actually working on policy, for who is -- or policy for new TLDs. I'm happy to say to Everton that -- and ICANN's independence we have had phenomenally greater participation and deeper participation of governments at a place like ICANN to work out the policies around new TLDs and IDS. So we can always look at IGF and say it's not all that it can be, but let's realise it will never actually finish the job on resolving all issues, and let's realise that it's really made phenomenal improvements in just the last couple years. Thank you.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Steve. Is Jonathan Zuck in the room? You got the mic.
>> JONATHAN ZUCK: My name is Jonathan Zuck from the association for competitive technology. We represent small businesses all over the world. I think the IGF has been incredible in bringing about a discussion in a wide range of issues. I want to echo Miss Hofmann's ideas about the deep politicalization. A lot of the issues -- again, surrounding the critical Internet resources, that shift from a political discussion to a practical one I think is critical. And I can't be emphasized enough. There are so many challenges facing us, the Internet and bringing on the next billion users, et cetera, that we don't have the luxury to prioritize fixing problems that don't exist or fixing things that aren't broken. Because there are so many things that still need to be done. And so I think depoliticizing the issues and focussing on access and infrastructure development, which is the more critical Internet resource has got to be the priority of the IGF.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you for that Jonathan. There is another person in the room who's provided a written question. And Markus can read his handwriting better than me.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Yes, indeed. Professor Muami, and he asks about access for people with disabilities. He asked the question of where we are in terms of applying the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and the WC3, access initiatives. To that I would just like to point out we have an extremely active dynamic coalition on this issue and access for people with disabilities. There are a number of workshops devoted to this issue and also the dynamic coalition. And I would certainly like to promote that initiative. It is very worthwhile. And it's very important that we recognize the rights of these people. We had a special session on this issue in Sharm El Sheikh, and the dynamic coalition will further push this. And everybody who is interested in this issue is invited to come.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Markus. Do we have any questions from the remote participation people, or no? I'm not -- I'm looking.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Why don't we can ginger to sum up.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Ginger, has there been any commentary? I don't know where ginger is. There she is. Ginger, has there been anything?
>> MARKUS KUMMER: She needs a microphone. Can somebody give her a microphone that works?
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Just come to the -- come up to the podium.
>> GINGER PAQUE: Thank you very much. We do not have any questions right now from the remote participants. But they are very appreciative. We do have a group of individual participants. And we have two remote hubs from Islamabad and Jakarta, who are participating and present as much as anyone here. Thank you very much.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you for that. Good to hear it. Do we have more questions in the room, then? Anybody like it take the microphone? Is there -- please put your hand up so I can see you. Can we -- and then after -- we'll take her and then you. Okay. Please. The microphone for -- does somebody have the mic? Where are the people with the microphones?
>> It's a trial run.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: There we go. Please say who you are.
>> SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: My name is Salanieta, I'm from Fiji. I wear many hats. I work for telecom Fiji, and I also am part of the local media of the international bar association. So I'm fascinated with the subject of security. However, my question is directed on -- to Miss Anriette Esterhuysen. Completely fascinated by the chapter you wrote. I haven't had time to read the whole book. I agree with what you said in terms of there's a increasing need to address vertical market forces, competition. Because they have a direct impact on universal service on access. And on a lot of the subthreads that sort of are linked to Internet governance. The question I have is for the -- is for the entire panel. Directed to you, but you stimulated my thought process. And it's this: If we are to begin to engage in increasing dialogue in that particular aspect, how do you propose that's going to be done? Do you suppose it's going to be a need for comparative study first? Or would there be some sort of sequence order? Because I think -- as most of you have alluded to, it's -- it's a complex phenomena that requires -- and yes, I'll leave it to you, then. Thank you very much.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much. The gentleman in the front, did you want the microphone? Did you want the microphone? And then we have two more questions towards Anriette. Where's the mic? Could you bring it down here, please?
>> CHAPAN: Association with the Internet. I thank you for that. As for Internet management, enriching the book this year, once again, speaking of important things, major questions. These issues on 2010 developing the future together, this is an argument for future generations. It is of great importance that the forum focus on young people, young Internet users. And 2010 is the international year of youth. Young people are concerned by the issues raised during these discussions. They are affected by the management of the Internet. And freedom of expression as well as diversity. And openness of the Internet. Access to the network. Young people are also concerned by cyber crime. And these issues are raise bid our association and the civil society throughout the world. And February 2010 in Tunisia, we are had an international form rum on young people and the worldwide Web and legal protection and ethical borders. This forum loans the appeal 2010 to protect young people. It has 10 points of appeal. And from 23rd to 25th of February 2011 there will be forums that -- to protect young people from cyber crime throughout the world. We have invited all organizations and institutions. And once again, I emphasize our slogan. We're building the future together. We wish to have participation from all social categories and classes, and particularly young people who are so crucial in this field. These issues must be examined in detail. And we must create an international network to create young people from cyber crime throughout the world. Thank you.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Within two minutes -- we have two other questions to Anriette. Make you can manage a response. Ivar Hartman asks what are if any of the different principles and issues additionally including the next 2 billion people as compared to the first 2 billion? And then we also have a question from Andrew Cushen, who would like to hear you say something about mobile access and the balance between consumer prices and investment, if you feel that you can address all three of those questions in a minute and a half or so. That would be fantastic. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I want to start with vertical integration in the mobile industry. And what we mean by that is that you have the same providers providing voice and banking and entertainment, transactions with local authorities or the government. So there's this education voting. Who knows what's next and just that there's -- the complexities around this, the right issues and the lack of competition issues. We have on the one hand mobile Internet and to some extent that hopefully addresses the last question as well. Which is a new frontier. And could in fact create opportunities that have been limited because of the high investment cost. And -- but these opportunities are being restricted because you have relatively few, very large corporations becoming the primary providers of multiple services. So I think you're right, I think there is a need for research. I think we need to look at the social impacts of that as well as the economic impacts. And particularly the impact on diversifying and strengthening the ICT industry and business at a local level. Opportunities for local -- local business and small businesses. Opportunities for content producers. For example, opportunities for local language, cultural production. And -- which is really being affected by changes in our industry. I think that the challenge is having background research, but I think sometimes these topics are complex. And to raise them in the IGF you need to organise a workshop, you need to have relatively good knowledge, they're technical. And I think that can be quite difficult. But I think it's definitely something that needs to be done. So perhaps people that want to do that should get together and we can do that. I think on the question about the principles of the next billion as opposed to the first billion, when I think it has a lot to do with how -- what technology, how the next billion is going to be connected. And we need to look at policy and regulation that is going to concept -- protect consumers and also maximize access. And so there are new things. But then I also think there are some of the principles that have not been sufficiently applied already such as access as a basic right. And I think that could also be a very useful way. So there's a right spaced approach that we need to look at and also the very specific policy and regulation approaches that has to look at approaches like net neutrality in the mobile industry. Just two comments quickly on remote participation -- these will be my closing comments as well. I think we don't just need remote participants remotely listening and asking questions, we need them setting the agenda and we need them speaking. So I think we need to make it this remote. And just a question on -- there was a point made about ability and access for people with disability. I think it brings up the challenge in the IGF. We discuss these issues, but where do we take them next? If we actually want policy decisions made about access for people with disabilities, we don't want to make them in the IGF, it's not its role. But can we more effectively make that leap into the spaces where policies are actually made? That's a question I'd like to put to the participants.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you very much for that, Anriette. Unfortunately we're out of time. I would have liked to give all the speakers an opportunity for one last round but we had a lot to cover with a lot of people and not very much space to do it in. So my apologies to you all. And we have to get the next session up here on the stage. And I need to go moderate a workshop. So thank you all. And you have the book, so you can certainly read the chapters that were discussed. And I hope you enjoy it. Markus?
>> MARKUS KUMMER: I would also like to thank the panel gists and stay in the room while we rearrange the podium and invite the panelists for the regional perspective onto the podium thank you.