On 10 January 2014 11:44, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> wrote:
Dear Evan,
I believe the subject would be of interest to all of ICANN and it would certainly be an excellent topic to discuss in an open multistakeholder round table session of the type Rinalia organised and co-Chaired in Beijing and Durban. I would suggest that Patrik Fältström would be an ideal co-Chair for this.
I'm not opposed to this per-se: My main point above, with which I hope you agree, was simply that this issue cannot be easily co-mingled with the 1Net and governance discussions. However I question the potential success of the kind of session you describe, and especially the level of buy-in outside of the SSAC and ALAC. The previous round-table sessions focused explicitly and exclusively on issues within ICANN's remit: notably, IDNs and public-interest issues related to the gTLD expansion. A discussion of TOR, essentially a replacement/workaround technology to the DNS in which ICANN currently has absolutelty zero authority or management capability, seems FAR beyond the traditional remit of such meetings. Indeed, some would argue (and they have) that such discussions are out of scope to ICANN for these reasons. There are three very different facets possible within a session about TOR: a) The mechanics: A tutorial on what TOR is and how it works b) The ethics of a system that protects privacy but impedes legitimate law enforcement c) The challenge to ICANN, both in business and policy, of a potentially viable alternative to the DNS There is an education role to be played before we can even determine if other constituencies consider this within scope for ICANN to address. While ALAC (and especially the FCWG) have broader mandates, It is hard for me to see at all how any discussion of TOR fits into the scope of the GNSO and CCNSO. Many may not see this through any other context than a business threat. Now, there is a broader issue, implied by (c) above, that if ICANN and the DNS are perceived to no longer serve the public interest, the public will seek out alternatives and ICANN can not assume it has monopoly control over the way Internet users find their content. This theme has already been a focus of At-Large, most notably through the White Paper of the FCWG and our additions to the gTLD Consumer Metrics debate. It is one that has routinely caught the interest of At-Large but has not found interest amongst other parts of the ICANN community. So, Olivier, I don't think this will attract broad constituency-wide support. In fact, I invite you to raise it in your next AC/SO chairs call and see what uptake you get. But let me meet you half-way. I propose a public Singapore workshop on the topic: "TOR and Alternatives to the DNS", split into three components as suggested above, each with different speakers. Calling it a public workshop, not in the ALAC room, would address the limits of attendance (but still offers no assurance that the domain industry will care about the issue). The speakers could be found outside of ALAC (ie, Patrick) however I suspect it will not attract broad pan-constituency composition you seek. Whether it's called ALAC or FCWG or something else, I don't care; it will still be the same people involved with organization. I mentioned the FCWG because it has already been broadly concerned with the challenges of DNS alternatives. As you say, the FCWG can be tasked with working on any action items coming out of the workshop. - Evan PS: To read about a real-world use of TOR *today* to circumvent attempts to use the DNS to impede access from end users to content, see http://piratebrowser.com/