Not proposing a re-write, just staying abreast

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Unrest continues to be met with Internet lockdown From: Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@abenaki.wabanaki.net> Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 11:44 am To: na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org

Garth,

Again, I never hope to be more than a minority of one, and while I read MENA IT news on NANOG, MENOG, Aljazeera (commercially censored in most North American broadcast/cable media markets) and through S/N feeds from or about contacts in West Asia and North Africa, I find it useful to distinguish what technical means are being deployed to effect some explicit or implicit state policy goal.

I* know that targeted communications degradation was attempted first, affecting S/N data flows, and when either that failed, due to the scale of the S/N participating nodes (thousands of SMS and IPv4 capable devices sourcing audio and video capture data) or the policy goal required degradation of more instances of communications than just S/N, prefix withdrawals were announced by all access and transit providers with the exception of the Noor Group, who's prefixes were withdrawn later.

The mechanism pursued by the Syrian state until last week, and the mechanism utilized by the Iranian state, during the last election, and recently, S/N blocking and rate throttling, and the mechanisms utilized by the Algerian state, the Bahrain state, the Lybian state, are distinct.

The utility of "keeping score by technical means" is that it allows an analysis of whether other technical mechanisms such as deep packet inspection and content analysis, routine in North America and present also in Europe, but requiring high capitalization of the intercept platform, are keeping pace with the repressive state's policy requirements and the liberation social movements and the political organizations means of maintaining internal and external communications.

I see no point in revisiting the recent limited statements of ICANN or ALAC, or their offered rationals, but I do see a point in attempting to know what access models actually exist, and having data sufficient to support predictive modeling of disruptive local policy on the regional and global internet.

Eric

* Some subscribers have attributed other mechanisms, or a lack of data sufficient to make any attribution. ------ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss

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