| webarchive 2nd Dec 2002ISOC-England: ISOC-E Digest Thursday 31 January 2002 Volume 1: Issue 01 “The Internet is for Everyone”
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———————————————————————- Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 12:00:00 -0000 From: Christian de Larrinaga <cdel@firsthand.net> Subject: Introduction Dear members, I am delighted to welcome fellow members, and the Internet community in England and our friends to this inaugural newsletter of the ISOC England chapter. I want to thank all the volunteers behind the newsletter in particular Dr. Olivier Crepin-Leblond who has taken on the arduous and possibly thankless role as editor, and Richard Francis who has worked tirelessly as the Newsletter’s publisher as well as all the contributors. This newsletter and the major upgrades in our web presence and services currently being rolled out are part of a series of initiatives being developed for the chapter which establish firm foundations for further developing the role of the Internet Society in the UK. I commend this Newsletter as an essential part of our mission promoting the open evolution of the Internet for everyone, and look forward to reading and participating with this new ISOC publication during 2002 and beyond. Best regards, Christian de Larrinaga ———————————————————————- Date: Mon, 0 Jan 2002 00:00:00 -0000 From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> Welcome to the first issue of the ISOC-E Newsletter. This monthly newsletter is distributed freely to all members of ISOC England as well as other interested parties and serves to provide a two- way channel for interaction between your Internet Society and you. In this month’s newsletter, we introduce the Board of Directors,the people behind the enigmatic board@england.isoc.org email address. Who are they? Why are they there? The answers are provided below. Have you ever wondered how the Internet, the first ever truly global project, came to be what it is today? How did it all happen ? Is the Internet some kind of self-motivating anarchy and chaos, or are we seeing the growth of a carefully controlled organisation? The first feature article of this newletter, penned by Christian de Larrinaga, provides an insight at a possible reason for the Internet’s global growth. He argues that the reality of the Internet arose from the sharing of a group of “mutual beliefs” by a growing community. There may be lessons to be learnt there. Our second feature article this month is from Rianne ten Veen, President of ISOC Flanders, who looked at one of the most irritating by-products of the universal communication medium: SPAM. Have you ever received SPAM – unsollicited e-mail advertising ? Chances are that you have, and you will have seen a note within the message telling you that you can opt out by replying to the address with the word REMOVE. Is this all legal in Europe ? Rianne C. ten Veen looks at the EU view on opting in or opting out with respect to Internet e-mail advertising. We would really like to receive feedback from everybody, so if you have suggestions, comments, or would like to contribute an article to the ISOC-E newsletter, then please write to: editor@gih.com Happy Reading! —————————— NEWS ISOC AGM – 10 AUGUST 2001 The ISOC AGM was held at University College London on 10 August 2001. Minutes of the AGM are located at: The Board was re-elected to hold their positions for another year. INTERNET SOCIETY MASTER ENGINEERING LECTURES The Internet Master Engineering Lectures are archived online, and can be found on: http://www.england.isoc.org/event/melectures.rhtm These are a set of exciting technical presentations held by experts, some of whom have been part of the Internet’s early pioneering days. The presentations were held at University College from the 5th to the 9th of August 2001. For those who could not attend in person, we recommend consulting the ISOC England Web Site at the above location. ISOC-E ACCOUNT BOOKS KEPT ONLINE ISOC E accounts are now available to members thanks to Grant Thornton Oxford. This probably makes ISOC England the ISOC chapter with the most up to date accounts. The books can be consulted by logging into your member’s account: ISOC INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP BECOMES FREE Effective 1 January 2002, there will be new class of universal membership of the Global Internet Society. Universal membership will be free of charge. All current individual members will be automatically enrolled in this class. For more information: —————————— INTRODUCTION OF THE BOARD Who is who on the ISOC-E Board of Directors ? What is their background ? Christian de Larrinaga – Director and Chairman Christian de Larrinaga passionately promotes the Internet for everyone. He is Chairman of Design Intelligence, Internet Standards specialists, and the founder of prestigious ICT and media businesses and not for profit organisations. Christian has an award winning background creating electronic markets in financial services, computer aided design, unstructured information and project management software over twenty years. He currently holds the posts of Chairman of the Internet Society of England, director of the Domain Spring Clean Project, European Union IPv6 Task Force and is a participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force IPv6 working group, and past secretary of the Internet Societal Steering Group. He is a regular conference chair and speaker. Tricia Drakes – Director and Chairman Advisory Board Tricia is an entrepreneur whose vision is to help build a truly connected society for the benefit of all. Director – The Internet Society of England; Past Master (1999) The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; Trustee YouthNet (www.TheSite.org and www.do-it.org). Non executive directorships include The University of Surrey Seed Fund, Nascent Form and elancentric.com. Certified Accountant; Founder/CEO of IBIS (International Banking Information Systems Limited); Controller & Company Secretary Italian International Bank Plc (1972-1987); early career Unilever and Shell. Chris Yapp – Director and Membership Secretary Chris Yapp is a Director of the Internet Society of England. He joined the IT industry in 1980 from the FT. After 7 years at Honeywell he moved to ICL till 2001. He has had many roles specializing around networking and strategic and management issues in Information and Communications technology. He became an ICL Fellow in 1997 for his work on the National Grid for Learning. He is a frequent public speaker on the Knowledge economy, lifelong learning and e-government. He has contributed to a number of books and pamphlets on these matters. He has been a member of many Government Advisory Groups and think tanks on these matters. He is an Associate of DEMOS, a think tank, and a Trustee of the School for Social Entrepreneurs. He is a Trustee of the Educational Charity MIRANDANET. A graduate of Magdalen College Oxford, he holds an honorary doctorate, D. Tech from Glasgow Caledonian University. He is a Fellow of the RSA. Richard Francis – Director and Secretary Richard Francis is a founding director of Internet Governance Consultants. He chairs ISOC’s Legal and Regulatory International SIG. A Cambridge graduate, Richard practiced as an international dispute resolution lawyer for 16 years with City of London firms. He trained and worked with Freshfields for nine years, before joining the Coudert Brothers team establishing an English law practice. Since 1996 Richard has acted for Nominet, as chief external counsel and then as a consultant. Nominet is the .uk Internet Domain Registry. He built an international practice in Internet governance and e-commerce with Manches, in London and Oxford, before establishing iGC in 2000. Richard advises national Internet top level domain registry managers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East on a range of governance issues. Richard is involved in the international debate on innovation in out of court settlement of domain name and eBusiness disputes. He is a member of the International Bar Association and active in the Legal and Regulatory WG of the Council of European National Top level domain Registries. Alan Butler – Director and Public Policy Alan is one of the UK’s most respected public affairs practitioners, and Director of Public Affairs at the London Office of Burston-Marsteller, having held directorships at a number of leading consultancies. A lawyer by training, Alan spent some time as a stagiaire in the European Commission as part of his dissertation on ‘Property rights in Information’. After graduation in 1995, he worked as a consultant on post-privatisation regulation before joining a specialist government relations company. Alan has advised several leading companies on the regulatory and societal implications of the internet. The Board can be contacted under one address: The ISOC England Board thanks Dr. George Siemieniuch, ISOC-E’s past treasurer, for his extensive work in bringing the ISOC-E books up to date. Dr. Siemieniuch has submitted his resignation at the last ISOC-E Board Meeting, and thiswas accepted by the Board. Heartfelt thanks also go to Angela Simmons, ISOC-E’s volunteer administrator and bookkeeper, with thanks to Grant Thornton, Oxford, for managing to computerise all ISOC-E account details thus allowing them to be published on the Internet. —————————— FEATURE STORY: THE INTERNET EVOLUTION The mutual beliefs at the centre of the Internet evolution. The Internet offers a different opportunity for mankind. An opportunity that requires new rules that need to find different balances to those achieved by existing societal institutions pre Internet. Having said this we have to face the reality that we don’t really know what impact the Internet evolution will have over the medium to long term. This makes much of the dialogue on eCommerce and Government highly speculative and subject to hyperbole. Indeed even bodies close to the core evolution of the Internet such as the late Internet Societal Task Force find it hard to accurately define even the right questions that we should be asking. However what we do know is enough to suggest the need for a new global dialogue on what constitutes government, authority, organisational structures and representation of our interests in an Internet enabled environment. The basis of that dialogue must include an understanding of what is happening in terms of the Internet’s own evolution. This is both a technical issue but it is also societal. The societal sphere has been crucially important to the Internet’s evolution. This is because the Internet’s technologies have been defined by a loose collection of people who have worked together co-operatively. It is what underlies this co-operation that indicates that something even more profound has been happening than a normal technical standards creation activity. The community of people involved in this project like to describe their activities as ostensibly “chaotic” even “anarchic” (in its true sense), but somehow as if by magic it seems to work. This is of course inaccurate. The chaos is really a form of anarchy but this is structured both by the methods as well as the definition of the product of this “chaos” by the application of a set of “mutually shared beliefs” held by this community. Lawrence Lessig shows his legal roots when he attributes the rise of Internet to the development of a “commons” in which the Internet’s founding participants have created a shared world resource that in part depends on its survival on the continuation of a shared ethos and network geography. However even below this analysis there must be a deeper reason as to why this “commons” was able to develop in the face of both the standard American dream and apparent interests of short-term outlook of shareholders that characterised corporate investment governance during the fourth quarter of the Twentieth Century. This reality is the sharing of a group of “mutual beliefs”. The concept of “commons” is one such mutual belief. The Internet community have many such mutual beliefs which are described as “engineering principles”, “open”, “rough consensus and running code”, “protocols”, “open source” and so forth. As in any diverse community we find these beliefs are not shared by all the people, all the time. However sufficient are shared to have so far ensured closure in the continuing evolution of the Internet. These beliefs have allowed a communication to occur across amorphous and self-defining group of people that is both targeted but also carries with it an idea of what qualities this project of the “Internet” embodies. When Steve Deering talked at the Internet Engineering Task Force’s plenary in London in August 2001 about the “hourglass figure” of the Internet or Brian Carpenter wrote about “connectivity is its own reward” what we witness is a manifestation of a more deeply held vision of what the Internet embodies. If the Internet Architecture board is defining this vision in terms of an “architecture” even when some in the community do not believe there is an “architecture” the reality is that underlying the purpose of an Internet Architecture Board and the Internet Engineering Steering Group through to the root server administration and application of open data structures as XML and even the emergence of semantic context in diverse data resources, we are witnessing the manifestation of something deeper. It is not just about how the Internet needs to work but about what the Internet embodies to exist at all. When Manuel Castells in Internet Galaxy talks about the Internet as “Created as a medium for freedom” is he reaching an understanding of this process? I don’t think so. He seems to be talking in intellectual terms of the eighteenth century, of the enlightenment not of the Internet and twenty-first century and not about the emergence of a new and fascinating consensus building process that we term “rough consensus”. All consensus starts with shared belief. Indeed almost all the societal response to Internet so far have been knee jerk reactions based on the existing “mutually shared beliefs” of their respective communities. What we have been witnessing is the Internet is whatever you want it to be approach whether it be in government, business, commerce or politics. We also see societal research programmes so focused that they effectively treat Internet as a closed data network of the 1980’s. The similarity between a closed network and an Internet is much more than the sum of the technical parts deployed. I am becoming more convinced that none of these societal spheres will really benefit from Internet until the “mutual beliefs” that started in the engineering community begin to be understood and applied successfully in other spheres. What we are witnesses to is I think a change in the zeitgeist. We are part of a new evolution in the human mind, a shared appreciation with the intellectual and technical tools that made Internet possible. The Internet is itself a cause and result in a leap in the shared beliefs of a group of people but its physical pervasiveness can also be the cause of creating and escalating the development of new mutually shared beliefs in other spheres. In brief and to paraphrase “we think differently therefore we are different”. This is a tremendous opportunity to join in a balanced and open way technical and societal processes through a shared language of Internet as much as through a sharing of a free flow of information that Internet enables. The implications of this are very profound as the Internet community is not just defining technologies for a network but have a process to evolve and implement technologies on a shared basis for everyone. As these resources start to empower new opportunities for people around the world an understanding and empathy with the “mutual beliefs” that are underpinning this evolution offer a way for all of us to bridge the gap between the pre Internet world and the world of the inter-network. What is now needed is no less than a leap of the imagination by mankind to understand and adopt how “engineering principles” are in fact based on societal principles and this is what makes “Internet” such a dynamic and powerful force on the structure of our society and future. Christian de Larrinaga After a post to the ISTF 18th December 2001. References: “Hourglass Internet” Steve Deering at Internet Engineering Task Force Plenary August 2001. http://www.england.isoc.org/ “Architecture of the Internet” RFC 1958, Brian Carpenter Lawrence Lessig : The Internet Under Siege Manuel Castells : The Internet Galaxy, Oxford University Press —————————— FEATURE STORY: OPTING IN AND OPTING OUT Internet and opting out…or in…or was it out? Introduction Internet offers great opportunities and an easy way of communicating, for instance with potential prospective clients. But, can companies just go ahead and send everyone an e-mail telling about the great goods and services they have on offer? Well, that depends. This article intends to give an overview of the debate on this topic in the EU. The two main systems that could apply are an ‘opt-in’ or an ‘opt-out’ system. In an opt-in regime unsolicited commercial messaging is prohibited unless the consumer has expressly consented; under the opt-out option sending someone commercial messages is prohibited only if the consumer has signalled his objection. Currently, some 5 EU Member States have more of an opt-in system, whilst the other Member States have more of an opt-out system. Proponents of the opt-in regime Proponents of the opt-in system (e.g. European consumers organisation BEUC) state that in case of electronic commercial messages it is the recipient who bears most of the cost. It should therefore be up to the recipient to opt-in should he be interested in certain messages. Proponents of the opt-in system realise that with an opt-out system a large quantity of recipients is indeed easy to gather, but they doubt whether the quality is as high. According to a survey, the response to an opt-in mail is 70%, whilst with an opt-out mail only 2% reads it. Proponents of the opt-out regime Proponents of the opt-out regime (e.g. direct marketeers, CBI) say that it is difficult to find out about someone’s consent before sending him a message, so state that an opt-in system sounds nice, but is hardly feasible. Proponents of the opt-out also state that responsible direct marketing activities will very much be cautious about just sending around mass mailings, including to many people who are not the target group of the service or good. Responsible companies don’t want to aggravate their (potential) customers. Furthermore, they state, most spam comes from outside the EU from those who would not be likely to respect the law anyways. Now, what system is heading our way? Current state of play suggests: it depends. According to the EU e-commerce directive and the general distance selling directive it is the opt-out regime that should guide senders of commercial messages. Main argument is the consumer’s right to privacy. On 27 September 2001 the Council agreed on a text for selling financial services over the internet: Member States may choose between opt-in or opt-out. Main argument is that financial services are a special kind of service and consumer trust should be the guiding principle in each Member State when deciding on what regime is applicable. This choice means all 15 EU countries can each implement one of the two systems and that there is an EU -wide framework, but no harmonised rule on what regime is applicable. On the draft directive on electronic communications (processing of personal data, protection of privacy) the European Commission decided on an opt-in system for unsolicited commercial e-mails (spam), the European Parliament on 13 November 2001 voted for a ‘national choice’ system, which means that every Member State can decide on whether to introduce an opt-in or opt-out system (although in first instance it was more inclined to go for an opt-in system). The EU Council was expected to come with a common position in October, then December. Official agreement is now expected “probably sometime in the coming months”, although it did come to some political agreement in December: opt-in, but with exceptions and precision (‘soft opt-in’). Conclusion It is more and more difficult for policy makers to come with a clear and complete framework that satisfies all stakeholders. But even if they could come to a perfectly satisfactory framework, it would only have effect in the EU, not in the countries where most spam so far comes from. The best way to survive this spamming issue? As a sender: think of the recipient. As a recipient: don’t think about the sender and trash spam automatically via options your e-mail software offers. Rianne ten Veen ****************************** Rianne ten Veen is president of ISOC Flanders in formation and owner of Multiplicity, delivering intelligence on EU Affairs in the field of Information Society and Innovation. Main client is EurActiv.com, the portal on EU Affairs. Rianne ten Veen can be reached by sending an e-mail to rtv@multiplicityonline.com —————————— From: Dominic Pinto <dominic.pinto@ieee.org> Happy New Year! Members will have seen that various changes are happening at ISOC. Where should we go now with ISOC-E? What are your priorities for you, your ISOC membership and for this Chapter of ISOC (if an ISOC-E member)? Here are 10 possibilities. Please spend a little time and mark them on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 for no importance, 10 for most importance) If you have additional ‘wants’ please add them and write them in, and indicate how you rank them as part of your overall priorities. Please return your answers to me: dominic.pinto@ieee.org You may want to reply by just giving the question number, and its rating. For example: A. 1 Mick Farmer and I will analyse replies and post findings in next month’s ISOC-E Newsletter. The questionnaire should take less than a minute to complete! Questions start here: Name: ISOC-England member? Y/N ISOC- Member? Y/N A. to meet fellow members in my locality regularly – once a Answer: ____ Specify frequency: ___________ B. to meet with other users – in business, public sectors – in my locality and across the net, to find out what people are using the net for (profitably, to individual satisfaction, to organize, to manage work, to find telework, to be on the inside track to find work) Answer: ____ C. for channels to contacts and connections, to showcase and promote business, similar ideas, views, philosophies, both directly and via the Web. Answer: ____ D. for knowledge development and training opportunities. E. for regular newsletters, with information on, insight into, the internet – at a number of levels – technical, business, public policy, international policy, commercial and so on. Answer: ____ F. for information – access to cheap, good, solid, explanatory seminars, workshops, and conferences, that really inform. Answer: ____ G. Associating and linking – for networking, promotion of meetings, bringing known and attractive speakers and issues to audiences thatmight otherwise not be aware of the opportunity to hear/question/debate these. Answer: ____ H. To associate with like-minded organisations (national and international – e.g. the RSA, IEE, IEEE Communications Society, IBTE, FITCE), to promote use of the net, share their meetings, etc. Answer: ____ I. To debate and develop public policy in areas that interest me (e.g. higher education, science, etc.) Answer: ____ J. As a means and channel for contributing to and influencing gov’t and public policy. Answer: ____ Please add what your additional wants (if any) are: K. _________________ L. _________________ M. _________________ N. _________________ etc. Do you wish to help organise an ISOC-E activity ? If so, how? ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Thank you for your help! Dominic Pinto dominic.pinto@ieee.org —————————— WORKING GROUPS Several working groups (WG) are being set-up or re-launched. A working group or “temporary committee” can be formed by any ISOC England member with a minimum of four participants. A short proposal needs to be made to the board that establishes the purposes of the working group, how it will operate and its proposers. This needs to be authorised by the chairman through the board. Working groups members must abide by the Rules of the Chapter and instructions of the board and are not authorised to enter into contracts. So if you have an interest that you would like to develop into a working group, please do not hesitate to do so! The next issue of ISOC-E Newsletter will include details about the current working groups, and will call forthe formation of new working groups, should anyone wish to create one. —————————— EVENTS DIARY Last year, ISOC-E participated in many events taking place in London and Oxford. The next few months will see an increase of Chapter meets in order to get ISOC-E members to interact with each other to a greater extent. Networking in person in the Digital Age is still very important * Deploying IPv6 – Brussels An opportunity to learn the IPv6 Task Force findings at IIR’s Deploying IPv6 in Brussels.
ISOC England endorses the IIR Deploying IPv6 conference where the IPv6 Task Force announces the results of its working groups. Don’t miss a presentation from Jose-Joaquim Fernandez of the European Commission, who will be announcing the results and findings of the European-Commission-led IPv6 Task Force, and defining their strategy for moving forward with IPv6 deployment. For more information and registration: http://www.iir-conferences.com/ipv6 * NDSS – Network and Distributed System Security Symposium Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, California 6-8 February 2002 – Symposium The ninth Annual Symposium on Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS’02) brings together researchers, implementers, and users of network and distributed system security technologies to discuss today’s important security issues and challenges. For more information and registration: For a full schedule of future meetings and events, —————————— IN NEXT MONTH’S ISSUE Governance of the Internet at the Crossroads The 1994 Bangemann Report to the EC identified information and communication technologies as generating a new industrial revolution, leading Europe into the information society age. In 2002 have these new technologies yet established the foundations of a new international legal and regulatory architecture? Law and regulations for the Internet exist in Europe. Will the instruments used to establish future regulations be found in European directives and legislation enacted by national assemblies, or new Internet industry codes of conduct? In next month’s ISOC-E newsletter, Richard Francis from iGovernance Consultants in Oxford will shed some light on the highly politicised and controversial issue of Global Internet Governance. ISOC-E survey results What do ISOC-E members want out of their membership? Dominic Pinto will be able to tell us all about it, from the answers you have provided to his questionnaire. In his contribution, he will summarise what you are looking for, and how ISOC-E can achieve these goals. —————————— Date: 01 Jan 2002 (LAST-MODIFIED) ISOC England is a full chapter of the Internet Society in the UK. ISOC England is a voice of the future, creates awareness and promotes the Internet in the UK as a centre for business, government and cultural activities by working in partnership with many of the leading institutions, in government, academia, society and business. Our mission statement is: To assure the beneficial, open evolution of the global Internet and its related internetworking technologies and applications through leadership in standards, issues and education in England. For more information about ISOC England CONTRIBUTIONS: letters to the editors, suggestions etc. should be sent to editor@gih.com with a clear subject line. We reserve the right to amend and publish any letter sent to this address. ISOC England does not necessarily endorse the views contained in this newsletter which are the responsibility of their original poster. All contributions are considered as personal comments. Usual disclaimers apply. ARCHIVES: Newsletters will be archived From Feb 2001 onwards. For more information about ISOC England, consult our Web site: Copyright (C) 2002 The Internet Society of England —————————— End of ISOC-E Digest 1.01 ************************ |