Documentary coverage of IGF-USA by the Imagining the Internet Center

Brief description:

Lee Rainie, founding director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, gave a morning keynote talk at IGF-USA 2011. Pew Internet is a non-profit, non-partisan “fact tank” that studies the social impact of the Internet. Since 1999 it has published more than 250 reports examining how people’s Internet uses influence their families, communities, health care, education, civic and political life and workplaces. All of this work is available for free at http://www.pewinternet.org.

Details of the session:

The grass, it appears, isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. In the case of the American public’s perception of various Internet issues, there’s a notion that while individual digital access and experiences are progressing swimmingly, the conceptualization of the Internet as a whole is strikingly more negative.

This break in perception is dubbed “I’m OK, they’re not” by Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. As the lead of the non-partisan, self-proclaimed “fact-tank,” focused on reports gathering information on attitudes and activities online, Rainie sits at the heart of this contradiction.

JULY 18, 2011 - Lee Rainie from PEW Internet was the keynote speaker for the Internet Governance Forum-USA 2011.

In his keynote address at the Internet Governance Forum-USA, Rainie noted the persistence of “I’m OK, they’re not” throughout all aspects of society.

“It is a pretty common phenomenon in people’s evaluations of the world,” Rainie said. “They like their own congressman, but they don’t like Congress. They appreciate the school their children attend, but they think the education system is a mess. Our findings show they think their own use of the Internet is beneficial, but they are worried that others are not doing good things online and not getting good things out of their Internet use.”

A stagnant, thriving web

Accompanying these observations, Rainie cited statistics hinting that the standard perception of the Internet has reached a user saturation point, at least domestically. The number of Internet users in the United States has remained stagnant since 2008, never moving outside of the range of 75-79 percent. Broadband access has fluctuated only between 61-66 percent. The use of basic e-commerce has remained at about 70 percent of Internet users. And the blogging community has sat around 14 percent since 2007.

That’s not to suggest that stagnation in the Internet’s domestic reach and in certain areas of the digital world speaks for the web in its entirety.

“At the same time, other metrics show growth in some online behaviors,” Rainie said, listing social networking, job searches, video use, online phone calls and online banking as areas with particularly strong growth trends.

In addition, mobile access has continued to grow, with a recent Pew poll indicating that 59 percent of Americans are connected either through a smartphone or a laptop, and 25 percent of smartphone users use their device as their primary access point to the Internet. Along with mobile growth comes the emergence of location-based services, with 6 percent of Americans online using check-in services, 9 percent allowing location awareness through social media and 32 percent of cell phone owners providing locational data in exchange for directions or recommendations.

Happiness is a warm modem

With the emergence of new digital entry points, public experiences with the Internet remain positive.

“In terms of their own use of the Internet, they don’t seem to have concerns about the way things are proceeding. To the degree that any ordinary users think about governance issues,” which Rainie admitted is probably not great, “they like what they have and they probably wouldn’t want it messed with.”

The individual, in his/her own immediate sphere, is pleased with the Internet. But there’s a paradox lurking alongside this placidity. Rainie’s keynote was, after all, titled, “I’m OK, They’re Not.” While studying American attitudes during the 2010 midterm elections, Pew found a series of inconsistencies.

A majority agreed that the Internet exposes people to a wide range of political views, but they find it difficult to disseminate those views and to discern which are true and which are false. A majority find the Internet makes it easier for them to connect to those with similar political views, but they also believe it provides a larger, and perhaps disproportionate, stage for those with radical views.

From this public belief that individual Internet experiences are positive, but can take a turn for the worse when drawn out to the whole of society, Rainie outlined three couplets of American, and arguably global, desires.

They want liberty and security. They want transparency and confidentiality. And they want free expression to be allowed to flourish, with concern paid to tolerance and civility.

The bipolarity, of sorts, is a clear implication for IGF and its hopes for multistakeholder discussion bringing about a universally-beneficial future for the Internet.

“The appeal of the Internet to most users comes from the panoply of possibilities it brings to their lives,” Rainie said, and the role of IGF is to figure out how to reconcile the duplicitous opinions of users and the multitude of stakeholders to ensure that appeal endures.

– Morgan Little

Brief description:

The opening plenary session of the third IGF-USA featured general remarks from Pablo Molina CIO of the host institution, Georgetown University Law School, Chengetai Masango, a representative of the United Nations Secretariat for the Internet Governance Forum, and Ambassador Philip Verveer of the U.S. State Department.

Details of the session:

JULY 18, 2011 - Ambassador Phil Verveer, US Coordinator for the International Communications and Information Policy, address the audience, highlighting the importance of internet governance and IGF's multistakeholder approach.

U.S. Ambassador Phil Verveer emphasized the importance of keeping the Internet free of what he called “intergovernmental controls” across continents so that ideas and information can continue to flow openly and freely at IGF-USA. Certainly, he said, it’s the U.S. view that the Internet not be used as a means of oppression or repression.

“It’s equally clear that we—all humanity—are better off if the Internet remains as it is, free of intergovernmental controls,” Verveer said. “In the view of the United States this is critically important. (An open and free Internet should be) open to new ideas and uses and to the kinds of organic change it has served so well and also free of censorship and other tools of political oppression.”

Verveer said intergovernmental controls involve Internet lag times and attempts at coming to a consensus about important issues, which ultimately results in locating the “lowest common denominator.” And all that is inconsistent with today’s version of the Internet, he said.

An excess of rules and regulations, too, are problematic because of the fretful future they could bring.

“There’s a great danger that we’re going to end up in a situation where some administrations can claim the assistance of all other administrations with respect to things like censorship and greater political control that we in the United States feel very, very strongly should be avoided.”

One way to avoid unnecessary rules is through communication, and that’s where the Internet Governance Forum, a multistakeholder organization, enters the picture, said Pablo Molina, campus CIO and AVP of Georgetown University.

“Communication is a fundamental human right,” Molina said.  “The ability to communicate with others and exchange information is critical for human development.”

Individuals who send and receive money across borders and immigrants who use the Internet to bridge the gap between their foreign and origin countries must rely on communication, he said.

And with communication comes the right to education, according to Molina. More and more students and professors are working at colleges and universities form other parts of the world and opening up countries to engage in international initiatives, Molina said.

JULY 18, 2011 - Panel members for the Internet Governance Forum USA 2011 opening plenary session (L-R), Ambassador Phil Verveer, Pablo Molina, Marilyn Cade and Chengetai Masango, each addressed the participants to kick off the day's events.

These important initiatives is why the private sector, all countries, governments, private organizations and academia are all on equal footing while at IGF, said Chengetai Masango, United Nations Secretariat of the IGF, who discussed the history of IGF during his opening remarks and will speak later in the afternoon about the national Internet Governance Forum this September in Kenya.

This allows for open and honest discussion without the fear of something being held against a speaker because no policy decisions are made at IGF, he said. Instead it is a chance for people to learn, share and bring back new ideas to help shape their various groups.

Some have criticized IGF’s approach as a soft form of government, yet Masango stressed the forum is meant to spur discussion and open dialogue to increase cooperation in the technological field.

“The Internet is the largest and most successful cooperative venture in history,” Verveer said.

And it has produced many multistakeholder organizations, including ICANN and IGF, with many more cropping up every year.

Marilyn Cade, chief catalyst for IGF-USA, welcomed more than 100 members of civil society, academia, government and the private sector to the third IGF-USA and laid out the busy day ahead.

“We focus on IGF-USA by taking a national perspective with a global view,” Cade said. “And you will see that in the workshops and sessions today.”

The workshops and sessions will focus on youth Internet stereotypes, regionalization of the Internet, cloud computing and the changing landscape in the domain name system.

To read more about the global IGF, click here: http://www.intgovforum.org/

- Anna Johnson

Brief description:

Marilyn Cade, head of the IGF-USA 2010 Steering Committee and president of ICT Strategies, leads the final plenary discussion.

Marilyn Cade, chair of the IGF-USA Steering Committee, led a closing discussion that also included remarks from Markus Kummer, executive administrator for the global IGF Secretariat; Larry Strickling, assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce; and Deimante Bartkiene, a representative of the Lithuanian Embassy, invited IGF-USA attendees to the global IGF, taking place in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sept. 14-17.

Details of the session:

Marilyn Cade, president of ICT Strategies, asked the gathered audience during the closing session of IGF-USA 2010 to suggest at least five ways the IGF process can be improved in the future. She received more input than that. Here are a few of the ideas:

• The “users reign” scenario isn’t based in reality right now. The only way the scenario can come to fruition is if the people involved in global IGF efforts help design it and make it work.
• People should not demonize innovative companies that make mistakes. When companies take risks, let them fail, call them out but don’t overreact or issue calls for new laws to stop an experiment from ever happening again.
• The people involved with IGF should embrace transparency, inclusion and collaboration. Inclusion, in particular, means reaching out to parties that don’t show up to participate in opportunities like IGF-USA. The IGF effort should increase awareness, extend more outreach and have broader information available to people.
• The organizers of IGF should extend participation, particularly remote participation (ability to “attend” virtually, online), to the conferences.
• The Internet is inherently not like real life, and the more we try to make it like real life, the less appealing it will be to users. The people participating in the discussions at IGF should to keep this sentiment in mind going forward.
• The IGF organizers should more clearly articulate the roles of the different Internet stakeholders and organizations, define and implement a funding model for IG and enact some form of output for the IGF itself.
• The IGF should have more voices from emerging markets and the private sector at the table.
• A final piece of advice: Make sure what the people involved in IGF ask for is going to gain the best result. Don’t change the mandate, just renew.

(From Left: Deimante Bartkiene, Markus Kummer, Larry Strickling) Panelists wrap up the IGF-USA 2010 conference with closing remarks.

Strickling said in his closing remarks that the U.S. government is committed to the continuation of the IGF in its current form. He said allowing a multistakeholder discussion will only enhance the accessibility of the Internet.

“Internet stakeholders across the globe are committed to this type of forum,” he said. “We want to make sure IGF is not just about dialogue. We need to make sure lessons learned from these discussions are put into action. I don’t imagine I am alone in thinking that open dialogue in IGF is an ideal way to enhance trust in these stakeholders.

“Changes that place one group above another in IGF would ultimately undermine this model.”

Kummer closed by saying that the IGF mandate will be up for a vote in the United Nations’ General Assembly later this year, and he added that the general assembly should almost certainly vote to extend the IGF mandate. But he’s concerned about what kind of changes might be suggested.

“Now we will have to find synthesis between two tendencies: the Internet will stay with us and nation-states will stay with us,” Kummer said. “We see the IGF as a synthesis between these two tendencies.

“I hope they will not do much tweaking moving on. All of you can have a role to play in this by reaching out, talking to governments.”

Click here to go to the main site used by

the organizers of IGF-USA: http://www.igf-usa.us/

-Colin Donohue, http://imaginingtheinternet.org

Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy Chief Technology Officer of Internet Policy for the White House, spoke about the importance of the openness of the Internet in a solid democracy.

Brief description:

Andrew McLaughlin, deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy at the White House, worked as a top policy expert for Google before joining the administration of President Barack Obama. McLaughlin talked about transparency and democracy in his keynote.

Details of the session:

U.S. government leaders believe that a wide-open Internet promotes growth, innovation and democracy, according to Andrew McLaughlin, the deputy chief technology officer of Internet policy for the White House. He talked about openness, transparency, innovation and democracy during his closing remarks at the IGF-USA conference July 21 at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C.

He said President Barack Obama and the leaders of the federal government want to keep the Internet transparent and decentralized because they believe openness spurs creativity and discussion online.

“We’ve been trying to advance those policies,” McLaughlin said. “Openness is a normative value, which is to say a good in and of itself, but also an important network value. It helps everyone connected to the network understand what’s going on in the network.”

McLaughlin drew a strong distinction between the regulatory model developed for telephone services and the policies being established for the Internet, warning that the latter communications entity is definitely not simply a successor to the former. He said the public-switched telephone network was a closed system that was centralized, tightly controlled based on proprietary technologies and vertically integrated.

In contrast, he said, the Internet is an open, decentralized network that’s built around layers where power really rests in the edge of network, rather than its core. McLaughlin said the government needs to find a way to take advantage of this “ever more cheaper, ever more powerful technology” to help promote transparency.

“Transparency can be loosey-goosey term,” he said. “It can be related to openness in one sense. (It also) means the thing you put in is same thing that comes out at the other end. I think transparency in the network needs to come with transparency in policy making.”

McLaughlin said the first memorandum President Obama signed on his first day of office centered on the transparency of government, and one clear example of governmental openness is the digitizing of the Federal Register.

“We took the Federal Register and started publishing it in XML format, and when we did this, within about 24 hours a group of people at Princeton threw up a simple online application that allows you to type in search terms, and you can get e-mail or an RSS feed that pops up in your inbox any time something is published in the Federal Register that you’re interested in,” McLaughlin said. “That’s great because it’s 70,000 pages a year. It’s inscrutable. Now it’s all freely available.”

So yes, the Internet inherently spurs innovation, creation, growth and global dialogues. But it can’t be a staid resource. McLaughlin said its continued positive evolution is integral to its future success.

“We all have an interest in keeping the Internet global,” McLaughlin said. “The Internet should be open, and the Internet should be decentralized. It is and should be treated as a layered stack.

“The Internet governance work we are doing needs to recognize that and treat each of those layers differently. The Internet needs to evolve. We need to be open to that kind evolution and not let the Internet be hardened into its current structure. It’s breathtaking that in my lifetime this communications network has opened possibilities, enabled change and presented encouraging new horizons for the culture and for the practice and performance of democracy.”

-Colin Donohue, http://imaginingtheinternet.org

Jennifer Hanley from Family Online Safety Institute and Stacie Rumecap from Stop Child Predators discuss the risks that young people face when using the Internet.

Brief description:

Danny Weitzner, associate administrator for the Office of Policy Analysis and Development in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, led this session. In June of 2010 a new report was provided to the U.S. Congress: “Youth Safety on a Living Internet.” Topics addressed in that report were covered in this session. They include: the risks young people face; the status of industry voluntary efforts; practices related to record retention; and the development of approaches and technologies to shield children from inappropriate content or experiences via the Internet.

Details of the session:

Braden Cox, policy counsel for the NetChoice Coalition, shared an anecdote: While driving to the IGF-USA 2010 conference he was listening to a traffic report. The reporter complained about his long commute from Fredericksburg, Md., to Washington, D.C., each morning. A traffic engineer then came on the air and explained that long commutes are often caused by people who choose the wrong routes.

“You know what?” Cox said. “D.C. traffic is a lot like the Internet. There are a lot of different options, people can become overwhelmed and it can be slow. But all it comes down to education.”

Education is something the panel and respondents in the “Best Practices Forum: Considerations on Youth Online Safety in an Always-Switched-On World” IGF-USA 2010 session discussed extensively.

Panelists included Cox; Jennifer Hanley of the Family Online Institute; Michael W. McKeehan, the executive director of Internet and technology policy at Verizon Wireless; and Stacie Rumenap from Stop Child Predators.

There to respond were Jane Coffin of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; Morgan Little, a research associate with the Imagining the Internet Center; Bessie Pang, the executive director of the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace; and Adam Prom, an intern for the law firm of Akerman Senterfitt.

The session leader was Danny Weitzner, the associate administrator of the Office of Policy Analysis and Development at NTIA.

The 148-page report, “Youth Safety on a Living Internet” (available as a PDF download here: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/2010/OSTWG_Final_Report_060410.pdf) was provided to the U.S. Congress in early June. Cox and McKeehan were part of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group that prepared the report. Cox said the findings indicate that while issues such as child predators and “sexting” are minor problems, the main worry online today in the United States is cyberbullying by peers.

Cox said the report includes four recommendations to fight this trend:

• Avoid scare tactics. Instead, promote social norms and good etiquette on the Internet.
• Promote digital citizenship, e-literacy and computer security in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade education.
• Focus online safety programs on risk prevention, including interventions with high-risk youth.
• Create a digital literacy core on Internet safety.

“The Internet is living,” Cox said. “And much like in everyday life, we operate without truly understanding the risks.”

Many lawmakers have tried to crack down on cyberbullying, Rumenap said. Forty-four states now have some sort of law about it. But she said most of the laws are ineffective.

“What’s the best way to prevent cyberbullying?” Rumenap asked. “Don’t be a teenage girl,” McKeehan responded. Rumenap said the majority of cyberbullying consists of teenage girls being teenage girls – gossiping and saying mean things to one another. “Criminalizing a 14-year-old for saying something mean probably isn’t the best result,” Rumenap said.

The panelists discussed attitudes online. The best method for cutting down on cyberbullying, the group affirmed, is education. “We have to inform minors about the permanence, about the implications and about what they are posting online,” Little said.

Hanley said that starts with teaching kids accountability. “We’re building a culture of responsibility,” she said. “We’re trying to move rights and responsibilities that we take for granted in the offline world to the online world. We have to make sure we’re teaching them new social norms.”

Participants in the discussion agreed that there is only so much public policy can do. “You can’t legislate cyberbullying away,” Prom said.

The opportunity for Internet education exists on every level, Little agreed. “It’s nothing that can come from the top down, it’s nothing that can come instantaneously, and I don’t think it can come from schools,” he said. “They’re stretched too thin as it is. It has to come from all around.”

The message is simple, McKeehan said. “The No. 1 recommendation: Teach your kid not to be a jerk online,” he said. “Don’t be a jerk in the real world, and don’t be one online either.”

While a lot of this education can start at home, it should be present everywhere in kids’ lives, especially when they are relating with their friends, Rumenap said.

“It’s a conversation,” she said. “It’s a conversation at home. It’s a conversation at school. It’s a conversation in after-school programs. And it needs to be a conversation with their peers. It needs to become a social norm.”

-Sam Calvert, www.imaginingtheinternet.org

Daniel Castro, a Senior Analyst for ITIF, talks about the promises and challenges of cloud computing.

Brief description:

Cloud computing holds great promise for customers and entrepreneurs in the United States and around the world. It offers users – including governments and enterprises – the opportunity to pay only for the computing they use rather than maintaining all their computing needs and resources themselves. For innovators, the cloud offers a greatly reduced cost of entry into a market heretofore dominated by big players. However, there are policy challenges to be addressed. Fully realizing this potential requires unprecedented cooperation between industry, consumers and governments to ensure individual privacy and data security and ensure confidence in the remote storage of critical information. Not all are optimistic about the future of cloud computing because of the centralization of personal information, concentrated threats to security and the questions it raises about national sovereignty. This panel, moderated by Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, explored opportunities and challenges of “the cloud.”

Details of the session:

There is a need for discussion about the opportunities and challenges of cloud computing in the public policy arena because of the popularity of platforms like Flickr, Facebook, fantasy sports leagues, Google and Amazon, according to panelists in a cloud computing workshop at the IGF-USA conference July 21 in Washington, D.C.

Panelists included:

• John Morris, general counsel, Center for Democracy and Technology
• Dan Castro, senior analyst, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
• Jack Suess, vice president of information technology, University of Maryland
• Evan Burfield, chief executive officer, Synteractive
• Marc Berejka, policy advisor, office of the secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce

Cloud computing offers users — including governments and enterprises — the opportunity to pay only for the computing they use rather than maintaining all their computing needs and resources themselves. This allows innovators to have increased access to the market at a reduced price, increasing competition in the market.

“There is a definite trend to using cloud computing,” Castro said. “There are much lower start-up costs because they don’t have to pay for the infrastructure. It gives you the ability to scale up or scale down. “

A common question is if data posted on cloud computing platforms is secure. The risks to data security and integrity rise with transnational cloud computing. Cloud users often do not know which law enforcement rules apply to their data.

“They don’t even know for sure where the data is; they don’t know exactly what country the data is in,” Morris said. “The challenges of being a cloud computing service provider and how to respond to law enforcement requests are very significant.”

If a cloud customer lives in the United States, but her data is stored on a server in another country, does that make her data more or less secure? Will the laws of the other country alter her rights regarding the actions she takes online?

“I think we will move to seeing risks to free speech on the Internet due to cloud computing,” Morris said. “I think that cloud computing could lead to repression.”

The panel also discussed issued tied to cloud computing and intellectual property.

“As we do move into the cloud there is a question about if we want to protect copyright protection,” Castro said. “Can service providers do a better job? We have a lot of intellectual property in the United States that we care about.”

Panelists noted that cloud computing presents completely new challenges in regard to cybersecurity, copyright protection and free flow of information on the Internet. “In the 1990s, during the version 1.0 era, the government philosophy on the Internet was ‘hands off,’” Berejka said. “We are now truly globally interconnected; it’s not a theory any more. Our philosophy is still to do no harm, but that might not necessarily translate into doing nothing.”

Higher education is one industry that has found a way to take advantage of cloud computing platforms. The outsourcing of student e-mail is becoming common, broadband and advanced networking are available to many more participants and vendor and government support for federations like InCommon is increasing.

“A lot of universities are coming together and thinking about community cloud services,” Suess said. “Higher education likes to collaborate with one another but one of the things that is holding the cloud back is stability. And trust is another question.”

Small businesses are also able to take advantage of cloud computing platforms. Burfield’s company, Synteractive, has 45 employees. He said they have no servers, conduct all their e-mail business in the cloud, use Skype for meetings and use Facebook for marketing. His company created recovery.gov for President Obama’s administration. They built the platform on an Amazon-provided server in about a week, creating the entire platform in the cloud.

“For a small business like ours it’s a great competitive advantage that never existed before,” Burfield said.

Panelists listen as Daniel Castro discusses his perspective on cloud computing.

Cloud computing is allowing small businesses to be competitive, but there are still limits to what cloud computing services can do.

“For the cloud computing revolution to really work for consumers we need for the industry to move to a world of robust data portability,” Morris said. “The real promise of cloud computing for consumers is innovation and competition. I hope that there is data portability so when a new service comes online I can take my data and try the new service.”

-Rebecca Smith, www.imaginingtheinternet.org

Panelists (From Left Dr. James Galvin, Bobbie Flaim, Garth Bruen) discuss e-Crimes and the malicious use in the DNS in a workshop format.

Brief description:

The online world and the Internet are continuing to expand at exponential rates. As more and more users and more applications move into the online world with the expansion of broadband and mobile, concerns about online crimes and malicious threats to the Internet and to users also grow. This workshop was established to examine the range and scope of online crimes and malicious use of the Domain Name System. For instance, scam artists host websites with false information or a phisher registers a domain intended to resemble a famous brand. Consumers and businesses can be victims of abuse, and legitimate service providers are seeing crime and fraud in the network. The use of DNS security (DNSSEC) is part of a mitigation strategy.

Details of the session:

Every time an individual pulls up a webpage or website, the Domain Name System is used.

Moderators and industry leaders met at an IGF-USA 2010 workshop titled E-Crimes and Malicious Use in the DNS: Implications and Observations.

Panelists participating in the discussion noted that malicious use and criminal behavior in the DNS is not acceptable, but they did not come up with any clear conclusions regarding new ways to better control these problems.

The moderator of the event was Jim Galvin, director of strategic relationships and technical standards for Afilias. Panelists included Garth Bruen, founder of KnujOn; Doug Isenberg, attorney at law with GigaLaw Firm; Shaundra Watson, counsel for international consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission; John Berryhill, intellectual property lawyer; Bobbie Flaim, special agent with the FBI; Margie Milam, senior policy advisor for ICANN; and Matt Serlin, senior director of domain management at MarkMonitor.

The panelists agreed the abuse of the DNS is not a regional issue nor is it confined to a particular sector of the Internet. The crimes occur across multiple jurisdictions and affect a variety of individuals.

Some shared anecdotes about incidents where collaboration with other entities gave way to resolving a major DNS violation.

-Anna Johnson, http://www.imaginingtheinternet.org

Moderator Audrey Plonk, a Global Security and Internet Policy Specialist for Intel Corporation, opened the workshop with comments addressing the multi-faceted issue of Cyber security.

Brief description:

Cybersecurity is a multifaceted issue that requires attention to various strategic and operational efforts to make progress. Five overarching areas for focus are 1) development of a national strategy; 2) collaboration between government and industry; 3) cybercrime; 4) incident response; and 5) building a culture of cybersecurity/awareness. This session was scheduled to explore how the U.S. is addressing each of these, where there are opportunities for improvement and obstacles to progress, where the U.S. needs to work with international partners, and how cybersecurity contributes to Internet governance globally. Session moderators were Liesyl Franz, vice president for information security and global public policy at TechAmerica, and Audrey Plonk, global security and Internet policy specialist at Intel Corporation.

Details of the session:

Panelists and moderators discussed cybersecurity at one of the first morning workshops at the 2010 Internet Governance Forum-USA at Georgetown University Law Center. Co-moderator Liesyl Franz introduced the workshop and set the scene by presenting the session’s five overarching areas of focus, including national strategy, collaboration between government and industry to foster cybersecurity, combating cybercrime, incident response and building a culture of cybersecurity and awareness.

Developing a national strategy

The United States’ national strategy for cybersecurity has constantly evolved over the past 15 years. In the 1990s, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board was created to address issues tied to cybersecurity. A few years later the United States created the Department of Homeland Security. These organizations worked to create the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, which was put into place in 2003.

“We’ve moved even beyond the 2003 strategy towards a more comprehensive strategy that is really trying to encompass all the departments and agencies in the United States federal government and deal with the international aspects,” said co-moderator Audrey Plonk, global security and Internet policy specialist at Intel Corporation. “Having a high level of strategy is very important.”

The Obama administration conducted a “clean-slate” review to assess U.S. policy, strategy and standards regarding security and operations in cyberspace in the summer of 2009. That report, aimed at addressing economic, national security, public safety and privacy interests can be found here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Cyberspace_Policy_Review_final.pdf

Collaboration between government and industry

The panelists noted that a national strategy is dependent on the collaboration of many people, including industry bodies and government agencies.

Cheri McGuire, director for critical infrastructure and cybersecurity at Microsoft and chair of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council, said that the public/private partnership relies on several key principles.

“One principle is trust,” McGuire said. “There is a long history of lack of trust between industry and government. This adds a unique factor to when government invited industry to the table to work collaboratively on cybersecurity issues.”

She noted that many public and private partnerships from the past can be used as a lesson on how to conduct successful partnerships today. “There is no one right model, there is no one right way to do this,” McGuire said. “There are a lot of lessons learned – that the many of us who are involved in the public and private debate have learned – that can be used to create the framework for these partnerships.”

The IT-SCC was established in 2006 to encourage cooperation between tech industry entities in addressing infrastructure protection, response and recovery. To read more, see http://www.it-scc.org/.

Combating cybercrime

“Cybercrime runs the gamut of most of the bad things that humans do to each other,” said Don Codling, unit chief at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Think of everything from slavery, to human trafficking, to embezzlement, to fraud. You can even hire a hit man online.”

Codling said the domestic approach of the FBI regarding cybercrime almost instantly turns into a global effort. Due to the nature of the Internet, how records are stored and how financial transactions are performed, almost all major crimes become global instantly.

“We are members of the global community,” Codling said. “The global law enforcement community has coalesced rapidly and said we have similar problems. We need to work together.”

To read more about the FBI’s cyber mission, see: http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/cyberhome.htm. For background from the U.S. Justice Department on international aspects of computer crime, see this page: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/intl.html

Incident response seen as vital

Scott Algeier, executive director of the IT Information Sharing and Analysis Center, said it is important for there to be open communication in order for people to share their expertise. He noted that when industry partners share information people are able to analyze the different trends that many different companies are experiencing.

“By sharing information, we give each other a larger capability,” Algeier said. “We are able to say ‘this is a neat trend we are seeing,’ and analyze all of the information that we are receiving.”

Computer emergency readiness teams work to assess attacks and vulnerabilities. The US-CERT site is http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/intl.html.

Building a culture of cybersecurity and awareness

Franz said the five overarching elements covered in the session are all dependent on each other.

“I don’t want to focus on five elements and that they each do their own thing,” Franz said. “But instead emphasize that it is important to collaborate between these elements.”

“Cybersecurity means preserving this open, free Internet that we have learned to value so much,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel and director at the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology of the Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org/about). “We are only just beginning to realize what it would be like if it was all taken away. Security allows you to use the Internet freely.”

Nojeim said correctly balancing the needs for security and privacy online is important. He added that an increase in transparency could make people really understand the need for security.

“A lot of the cybersecurity efforts necessarily have to take place behind the scenes, but I think that openness is one key to a successful program,” Nojeim said. “It builds trust, it helps companies know what happens to the information that they share.”

All panelists agreed that there will never be a time where there is no cybercrime.

“I don’t think there is a perfect system – what we have to find is what is reasonable security and the proper balance between privacy and freedom of speech and safety and cybersecurity,” said Adam Palmer, Norton lead cybersecurity advisor for Symantec Corporation, a security systems company.

-Rebecca Smith, http://www.imaginingtheinternet.org

Elon Communications Fellow Kirsten Bennett and Phillip Bond, President of TechAmerica discuss the outcomes of the scenario stories at IGF-USA 2010.

Brief description:

Earlier in the day at IGF-USA, participants divided into three groups to discuss potential-future scenarios for the Internet in 2020. At this session, moderators briefed the plenary crowd on the discussions and a panel of respondents weighed in with their observations. You can find the one-page descriptions of the proposed scenarios here: http://www.igf-usa.us/page/scenario-stories

Details of the session:

Moderators for the three futuristic scenarios presented for discussion earlier in the day recapped their respective sessions at the end of the IGF-USA conference. Their summations were followed by some observations from a final set of panelists representing business, academia, civil society and government who shared their perspectives on the different models.

The “Global Government for the Internet” Scenario: Presented by Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice Coalition

This potential-future scenario described a world in which governments might take up citizens’ call to clean up the Internet after it has become dominated by crime and dangerous content.

The panelists and moderators determined a “perfect storm” might result from three factors: a loss of consumer trust in online content and e-commerce, business owners find they can no longer suffer the losses from fraud and lawsuits, and governments have proven themselves capable of successfully using electronic monitoring to halt terrorist attacks.

“Converge those forces together and it has people asking government to come in and take charge,” DelBianco said.

In a “global government” scenario there would likely be strict oversight of online content and e-commerce. There would be required biometric identification for online users, and online publishers would be liable for user-generated content and conduct. All users would have to apply for an “online license” to use the Internet.

The IGF-USA panelists and audience who discussed this potential scenario came to one conclusion: avoid this at all costs. Court systems raise complexity, the barriers raised by governmental control would block entry and innovation, the bad actors are likely to ignore new rules or find ways around them, the digital divide would probably widen and it is not likely that governments would possess the competency needed to manage a large network like the Internet.

While this scenario was found to be deplorable by people attending the IGF session, it also seemed all too plausible. Governmental control is already occurring to varying degrees in some areas of the world; for the most part, people are already no longer able to operate anonymously online; and good intentions to close the digital divide might be a force that could drive the change to this less-than-ideal outcome.

Group members brainstormed ideas to avoid this scenario. They noted that government officials should simply enforce the existing laws and seek solutions without overreacting. They said the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) should involve more higher-level government representatives in its Governmental Advisory Committee.

They said people involved in the IGF process should continue to discuss Internet issues as they emerge and work with industry, government, civil society and technical groups on targeted solutions. And perhaps most importantly everyone has to recognize that the natural inclination of those in governments will always be to think that they have to regulate the Internet. They said this must be avoided when possible.

The “Internet Islands” Scenario: Presented by Andrew Mack, principal of AMGlobal Consulting

In this scenario, subtitled “The Rise of Digital Fortresses and the End of the Digital Republic,” it was proposed that by 2020, corporate, government and individual entities will have established the means to fence off Internet Islands, keeping inhabitants safe within the fortified walls and keeping “dangerous” — and new — voices out.

The small group of listeners and panelists who discussed this potential-future scenario pointed out that this is already a reality for the people online in some regions of the world and the leaders behind such “walled gardens” all claim to have legitimate reasons for the separation they maintain from the open Internet.

Discussants of this scenario said it is best to avoid a tipping point where we go from having a few scattered Internet islands to isolating nearly everyone in separate spaces online.

“The multi-stakeholder model is absolutely critical (to avoiding this),” said Leslie Martinkovics, director of international public policy and regulatory affairs for Verizon Communications.

The group described four types of islands: totalitarian, liberal, corporate and cultural. The discussants of this scenario also came to the conclusion that users appear to trust the private sector more than the government when it comes to their activities on the World Wide Web.

“There is a lot of trust in the private sector on the Web,” Mack said. “Even though we know in our heart of hearts they have shared information with government.”

Audience participants who discussed this scenario noted that non-governmental organizations will continue in their traditional role as bearing witness and representing those who are unable to represent themselves and they noted that NGOs also serve as an important resource for government and corporate entities.

The scenario discussants determined that the threat of making more Internet Islands can’t be solved by one group but instead it must be addressed by many organizations and entities. They said the IGF should remain a place for open dialogue and it should not get into the business of making policies.

Other practical ideas discussants suggested to help prevent this sort of scenario included expanding regional participation, working to make meetings more substantive and promoting best practices.

The “Users Reign” Scenario: Presented by Pablo Molina, CIO of Georgetown University Law Center

This potential-future scenario anticipates that thanks to major breakthroughs in language translation and the proliferation of cheap easy-to-use mobile devices, billions more users begin to use the Internet — especially through social networking sites. And these new users become the people who are generating — and controlling — most of the content on the Internet.

Two words that filled the “Users Reign” session, Molina said, were “Facebook” and “privacy.” He added that other issues raised by the discussants of this future scenario included autonomy, identity, user-generated content, freedom of expression, censorship and editorial control.

This discussion group noted that the general public is not appropriately represented in Internet governance, directly or through intermediaries or via markets. They considered the idea that with billions more people coming online from developing nations that the Internet may change and they asked if Mandarin Chinese may become the dominant language. They said participants in the IGF process should focus on education, awareness and best practices.

They said a goal of 100,000 attendees, most in the virtual form, should be the target for the 2020 IGF. They said smart user engagement, including crowdsourcing and social research could be implemented to incorporate collective intelligence in the processes of IGF. And they added that those attendees should better represent the diversity of the users of the Internet.

Respondents comment on the scenario panel discussions

After the moderators of the three future-Internet scenarios presented information on their individual sessions, a panel of IGF-USA participants commented on their findings.

The group of respondents included Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC); Rebecca MacKinnon, a co-founder of Global Voices and visiting fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University; Milton Mueller, professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies; Michael J. Nelson, professor at Georgetown University; Phil Bond, president and CEO of TechAmerica; Leslie Martinkovics, director of international public policy and regulatory affairs for Verizon; Richard Beaird, senior deputy United States coordinator for international communications and information policy for the U.S. Department of State; and Kirsten Bennett, a communications fellow at Elon University and student research assistant for the Imagining the Internet Center.

Most of the respondents agreed that the most desirable future of the three scenarios presented is the one in which “users reign” on the Internet. They also agreed that the current trend is not headed in that direction.

They don’t see any of the scenarios as perfect, however. Bennett said while she finds personal value in her participation in popular social media and networking sites online there are some negatives that need to be addressed in the “users reign” model.

“You are broadcasting what you want people to think you are but you are not experiencing the world as you would have before the cameras were on,” Bennett said. “… (You) changed your personality. As soon as you put on that camera you’re acting.”

- Anna Johnson, http://imaginingtheinternet.org

Panelists discuss the scenario of Internet Islands as a possibility for the future of Government control over the Internet.(From Left: Iren Borissova, Andrew Mack and Garland McCoy.)

Brief description:

IGF participants broke into three different rooms to discuss three different, possible potential-future scenarios for the Internet in 2020. In this session, the brief description given to the discussants was: By 2020 the Internet as we know it in 2010 is no more. Concerns over national security and cybercrime led to calls for “safe zones” on the Net. Governments taxed e-commerce as a way to address budget deficits and trade barriers were constructed, closing off markets for goods and information. Mega-companies constructed their own walls to keep criminals out and customers in. At the same time the digital divide grew quickly as poorer nations and smaller companies could not afford to keep up with new security requirements and the entry fees needed to access the secure parts of the Web. Large parts of the world have found themselves “outside the wall” and left to fend for themselves, facing a combination of rapacious criminals, radical groups and bottom-feeding enterprises. For those on an Internet Island, life goes on, but in a more limited way than before.

Details of the session:

A small group of telecommunications leaders and advocates of human rights and privacy met to discuss the Internet Islands potential-future scenario at the Internet Governance Forum-USA 2010 at Georgetown University Law Center. They were led by Garland McCoy, founder of the Technology Policy Institute, Andrew Mack, founder and principal of AMGlobal Consulting, and Iren Borissova, senior manager for international public policy at VeriSign.

This scenario sets up a closed-off future for the Internet. Metaphorical islands have crept in, developed by businesses and governments to limit the flow of outside information while keeping users on the islands secure. You can read the one-page PDF used to launch this discussion here: http://api.ning.com:80/files/OVKwetXFSDRrq4nfkx0duSjNpXJLGlyyKV0S4i2A1FVDA4WwNCN3fHRTtQr5eq7L286HdzHWVJjsf0uynsER71dCuDBn4G8M/InternetIslands.pdf

Scenario facilitators McCoy, Mack and Borissova and other discussants described the Internet of 2010 as a mainland with some islands and more continuing to bubble to the surface. They proposed that having multistakeholder conversations is the way to avoid a more fragmented future and prevent future islands from cutting off the rest of the digital world.

“One of the major antidotes we could take to fight against it is having multistakeholder dialogues like those that we are engaged in now,” said Leslie Martinkovics, director of international public policy and regulatory affairs for Verizon.

The group imagined four island types: totalitarian, culture, liberal and corporate. The totalitarian islands are the governments who limit access and regulate what users are viewing. In some cases government officials require users to identify themselves in order to oversee what is being viewed.

On the liberal islands, while there are good intentions, countries or groups set up virtual trade barriers to gain revenue. Some participants likened this to the fees on rental cars at airports, where visitors are taxed instead of the voters.

A corporate island is one where companies provide a safe haven for their customers while providing additional security measures to prevent criminal breaches. And the cultural islands are created by countries and groups who wish to preserve their culture. The French mandate to resist the incursion of other cultures and focus on local content was used as an example of a cultural island.

But are these really islands, asked McCoy, or are they peninsulas with chokeholds to the mainland’s information. And Courtney Radsch, senior program officer at Freedom House working on the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign and the Southeast Asia Human Rights Defender Initiative, reminded the group that increased access does not always mean increased information.

The scenario participants agreed that international groups like the IGF must continue to meet and bring experts and interested individuals together to discuss the future of the Internet to prevent these islands from continuing to surface.

-Anna Johnson, http://www.imaginingtheinternet.org