February 2015 - Ccwg-accountability4

[CCWG-ACCT] Another Stress Test to discuss
by Steve DelBianco Feb. 24, 2015

Feb. 24, 2015

Per a request from Adam Peake, we applied another of our stress tests against the draft package of proposed accountability measures. This is for stress test #17, shown below and on page 2 of the attached document. Stress Test: #17. ICANN attempts to add a new top-level domain in spite of security and stability concerns expressed by technical community or other stakeholder groups. Consequence: DNS security and stability could be undermined, and ICANN actions could impose costs and risks upon external parties. Existing Accountability Measures: In 2013-14 the community demonstrated that it could eventually prod ICANN management to attend to risks identified by SSAC (security certificates and name collisions such as .mail, .home, etc.). NTIA presently gives clerical approval for each delegation to indicate that ICANN has followed its processes. NTIA could delay a delegation if its finds that ICANN has not followed its processes. Not clear if that would/could have been a finding if ICANN attempted to delegate a new TLD such as .mail or .home CCWG Proposed Accountability Measures: One proposed measure is to empower the community to force ICANN’s board to implement a recommendation arising from an AoC Review – namely, 9.2 Review of Security, Stability, and Resiliency. Another possibility is to empower the community to force ICANN to respond to recommendations from advisory committees like as SSAC. If the board took a decision to reject or only partially accept SSAC recommendations, the community could be empowered to challenge that board decision and/or refer to IRP. Preliminary Conclusions: This threat is partially related to the transition of IANA stewardship Existing measures were adequate to mitigate the risks of this scenario. Proposed measures enhance community’s power to mitigate the risks of this scenario.

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Updated document on Applying Stress Tests
by Steve DelBianco Feb. 17, 2015

Feb. 17, 2015

Cheryl — attached is an updated version 4 of our stress test document. Give it a look and you may decide it’s worth circulating before our call Tuesday. First, I made the updates that came up during our working session Thursday morning in Singapore. Second, I added application of stress test #18 in Category IV (see page 3). This is a stress test regarding GAC Advice: 18. Governments in ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC) amend their operating procedures to change from consensus decisions to majority voting for advice to ICANN’s board. Consequence: Under current bylaws, ICANN must consider and respond to GAC advice, even if that advice were not supported by consensus. A majority of governments could thereby approve GAC advice that restricted free online expression, for example. Existing Accountability Measures: Current ICANN Bylaws (Section XI) give due deference to GAC advice, including a requirement to try and find “a mutually acceptable solution.” This is required for any GAC advice, not just for GAC consensus advice. Today, GAC adopts formal advice according to its Operating Principle 47: “consensus is understood to mean the practice of adopting decisions by general agreement in the absence of any formal objection.” But the GAC may at any time change its procedures to use majority voting instead of consensus. CCWG Proposed Accountability Measures: One proposed measure is to give the community standing to veto a board decision. If ICANN board acquiesced to GAC advice that was not supported by GAC consensus, the community veto could enable reversal of that decision. Another proposed measure is to amend ICANN bylaws (Section XI 1j) to give due deference only to GAC consensus advice, and add a definition of “consensus”. The GAC could change its Operating Principle 47 to use majority voting for formal GAC advice, but ICANN bylaws would require due deference only to advice that had GAC consensus. Best, Steve — Steve DelBianco Executive Director NetChoice http://www.NetChoice.org<http://www.netchoice.org/> and http://blog.netchoice.org<http://blog.netchoice.org/> +1.703.615.6206

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Re: [ST-WP] Updated document on Applying Stress Tests
by Samantha Eisner Feb. 17, 2015

Feb. 17, 2015

Listening to our call today, I think we need to add in a stress test addressing the situation where a community veto results in the overturning of a board decision that is consistent with GAC advice (assuming consensus advice, etc.). That has the potential for a crisis point in the organization that we need to consider. From: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco(a)netchoice.org<mailto:sdelbianco@netchoice.org>> Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 4:42 AM To: Cheryl Langdon-Orr <langdonorr(a)gmail.com<mailto:langdonorr@gmail.com>> Cc: "ccwg-accountability4(a)icann.org<mailto:ccwg-accountability4@icann.org>" <ccwg-accountability4(a)icann.org<mailto:ccwg-accountability4@icann.org>> Subject: [ST-WP] Updated document on Applying Stress Tests Cheryl - attached is an updated version 4 of our stress test document. Give it a look and you may decide it's worth circulating before our call Tuesday. First, I made the updates that came up during our working session Thursday morning in Singapore. Second, I added application of stress test #18 in Category IV (see page 3). This is a stress test regarding GAC Advice: 18. Governments in ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC) amend their operating procedures to change from consensus decisions to majority voting for advice to ICANN's board. Consequence: Under current bylaws, ICANN must consider and respond to GAC advice, even if that advice were not supported by consensus. A majority of governments could thereby approve GAC advice that restricted free online expression, for example. Existing Accountability Measures: Current ICANN Bylaws (Section XI) give due deference to GAC advice, including a requirement to try and find "a mutually acceptable solution." This is required for any GAC advice, not just for GAC consensus advice. Today, GAC adopts formal advice according to its Operating Principle 47: "consensus is understood to mean the practice of adopting decisions by general agreement in the absence of any formal objection." But the GAC may at any time change its procedures to use majority voting instead of consensus. CCWG Proposed Accountability Measures: One proposed measure is to give the community standing to veto a board decision. If ICANN board acquiesced to GAC advice that was not supported by GAC consensus, the community veto could enable reversal of that decision. Another proposed measure is to amend ICANN bylaws (Section XI 1j) to give due deference only to GAC consensus advice, and add a definition of "consensus". The GAC could change its Operating Principle 47 to use majority voting for formal GAC advice, but ICANN bylaws would require due deference only to advice that had GAC consensus. Best, Steve - Steve DelBianco Executive Director NetChoice http://www.NetChoice.org<http://www.netchoice.org/> and http://blog.netchoice.org<http://blog.netchoice.org/> +1.703.615.6206

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Re: [ST-WP] Our current 'state of play' regarding applying stress tests to a sample selection of our catagorised contingencies for your receipt and action.
by Cheryl Langdon-Orr Feb. 8, 2015

Feb. 8, 2015

Dear CCWG Chairs and Grace, As you all know Steve, late yesterday released on behalf of our WP, a draft for final edit of a document that you requested we have available for the CCWG at this meeting, where a sample set of our identified risk scenarios' were subject to 'stress testing. Please be advised that as of our deadline this morning we received no further edits from the WP team, and therefore we request that you now consider the .PDF distributed to you all late yesterday, as the current 'state of play' for application of these 'stress tests' to our sample set, and we would request that this document be now distributed to the wider CCWG. Additionally, we would particularly like you to note and give to recognise our thanks for the prompt attention and edit contributions to our starting document, that were contributed by our ST-WP members over the last 24 hrs. We would also appreciate your advice on when during this meeting will you wish to discuss or use this WP output, and what if anything you wish our WP to do to facilitate this. Thanks On Feb 7, 2015 10:13 PM, "Steve DelBianco" <sdelbianco(a)netchoice.org> wrote: > Many thanks for fast feedback today from James Bladel, Samantha Eisner, > Malcolm Hutty, Greg Shatan, Tony Holmes, and Cheryl Miller. > > Cheryl L-O and I met at 5:45 and reviewed comments and edits received > today. Attached are clean v2 and redline from v1. We had to reconcile > conflicting edits and did not address every comment made, but are happy to > discuss with each of you. > > We are now open for further edits, but would need them by Sunday morning > if the CCWG chairs ask us to present Stress Testing during Sunday’s CCWG > session. > > — > Steve DelBianco and Cheryl Langdon-Orr > > > From: Cheryl Langdon-Orr > Date: Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 11:20 AM > To: "ccwg-accountability4(a)icann.org", Mathieu Weill, Thomas Rickert, León > Felipe Sánchez Ambía, Grace Abuhamad, Brenda Brewer > Subject: [ST-WP] 1st take from Steve and I on applying stress tests to a > sample selection of our catagorised contingencies for your rapid review and > comment ASAP please... > > Hi team (et.al.) Steve (bless him as he has done all the heavy > lifting here) and I met briefly earlier today to draft up some sample > exercises of applying Stress Tests and responding the the questions the > CCWG wants to have posed and of course most importantly our charter... > > The attached is a start, and I have separated each tabulated exercise so > that there is 1 issue per page so we all have lots of room to make comments > and contribute edits... > > Steve and I believe this (providing as many of the ST-WP as possible can > read, and respond as required, as soon as possible) can be a basic > contribution from our WP to the upcoming CCWG meeting(s) here in > Singapore. So please take a quick look and get back to this distribution > list which you should note at this early draft stage does NOT include the > full CCWG list... > > We would also like to propose that for those of you in Singapore , and > able to attend, we take a few minutes to huddle and review this draft > before sending to the full CCWG later today... We believe that we can take > a small time slot at 1745 to 1800(15) at the seats outside Sophia and > Olivia rooms (GNSO and ccNSO meeting rooms). After that I will transfer > our updated work to our wiki and of course have a link for a PDF to be able > to be downloaded for local view and print etc., > > Then we can forward to the CCWG for further review and discussion >

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1st take from Steve and I on applying stress tests to a sample selection of our catagorised contingencies for your rapid review and comment ASAP please...
by Cheryl Langdon-Orr Feb. 7, 2015

Feb. 7, 2015

Hi team (et.al.) Steve (bless him as he has done all the heavy lifting here) and I met briefly earlier today to draft up some sample exercises of applying Stress Tests and responding the the questions the CCWG wants to have posed and of course most importantly our charter... The attached is a start, and I have separated each tabulated exercise so that there is 1 issue per page so we all have lots of room to make comments and contribute edits... Steve and I believe this (providing as many of the ST-WP as possible can read, and respond as required, as soon as possible) can be a basic contribution from our WP to the upcoming CCWG meeting(s) here in Singapore. So please take a quick look and get back to this distribution list which you should note at this early draft stage does NOT include the full CCWG list... We would also like to propose that for those of you in Singapore , and able to attend, we take a few minutes to huddle and review this draft before sending to the full CCWG later today... We believe that we can take a small time slot at 1745 to 1800(15) at the seats outside Sophia and Olivia rooms (GNSO and ccNSO meeting rooms). After that I will transfer our updated work to our wiki and of course have a link for a PDF to be able to be downloaded for local view and print etc., Then we can forward to the CCWG for further review and discussion

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Updated document for ST-WP: Stress Test Work Party
by Steve DelBianco Feb. 3, 2015

Feb. 3, 2015

Cheryl and James, Just trying to maintain momentum for our new work party on contingencies/stress tests (ST-WP<https://community.icann.org/display/acctcrosscomm/ST-WP+--+Stress+Test+Work…>). As discussed, we start with the consolidated doc we developed in Frankfurt. On page 1, added excerpt from our charter, regarding our required deliverables for Stress Testing. On page 2, added a table showing how the original 25 stress tests mapped to the 5 consolidated categories. This captures the narrative and consequences developed by Work Team 4. On page 4, added Enterprise-Wide Risks identified by the ICANN Board Risk Committee (27-Jan-2015). The chairs asked us compare to our list and see if changes are suggested. I mapped these items to our 5 stress test categories, noting in red those that are not covered. 2 risks that are not explicitly listed in our categories include loss of confidence in M-S model as practiced by iCANN, and lack of capacity to accommodate new stakeholders. I think we can add those to categories IV and V. Agreed? Before we get to Singapore, we should draft another action item from the chairs: Add a specific contingency. I think of this as example application of stress test against recommended accountability mechanisms. Could do this after we have sufficient consensus around accountability mechanisms to evaluate. Alternatively, we could perform stress test analysis on the Requirements we developed in Frankfurt. I can take a stab at that during the long trip this week, if folks agree. —Steve On 27-Jan call<https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=51414998>, the chairs tasked us with: Contingencies : organising further work (inc. feedback from Board committee) Agreed on a list of 21 contingencies. Agreed to provide additional analysis to these by responding to a list of questions, after discussion of an appropriate lists if questions. Request to the Board Risk Committee of the contingencies they use as part of their risk management, a communication has been received from the committee. Comparison shows a couple of items to be updates. Next steps to answer the various questions: Are there existing remedies in place ? How robust are these remedies ? Could addressing the contingency be achieved through amending existing accountability mechanisms or is creating new ones necessary ? How relevant is the threat to the transition of the IANA stewardship ? ie how does the transition affect the likelihood of the threat, or the severeness of the consequences ? Reframe the questions and ask whether contingencies from Board Risk are either in WS1 or WS2 based on our Charter. Action: Add a specific contingency part to the communication materials that we'll edit in Singapore. — Steve DelBianco Executive Director NetChoice http://www.NetChoice.org<http://www.netchoice.org/> and http://blog.netchoice.org<http://blog.netchoice.org/> +1.202.420.7482

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WA4 list repurposed to + Call for Volunteers
by Grace Abuhamad Feb. 2, 2015

Feb. 2, 2015

Dear all, Per chairs' request, I have repurposed the WA4 list (ccwg-accountability4(a)icann.org) for the Stress Test Work Party [ST-WP], which is a natural evolution for the work. The archive will reflect this change, since the new subject line prefix will be [ST-WP]. The current ST-WP includes: Coordinator/Rapporteur: Cheryl Langdon-Orr (member) Volunteers: * Steve DelBianco (member) * * James Bladel (member) * Samantha Eisner (member) * Jonathan Zuck (participant) * Alan Greenberg (member) * Leon Sanchez (member) * Eberhard Lisse (member) * Mathieu Weill (member) * Thomas Rickert (member) * Carlos Raul Gutierrez (participant) * Camino Manjon-Sierra (participant) * Adebunmi Akinbo (participant) If you would like to join the group, please let me or Brenda know and we'll add you to the mailing list. The Wiki page for this group is here: https://community.icann.org/x/UAEdAw Best, Grace

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