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Re: Request for community guidance on issue concerning afuturemeeting of the IETF

2009-09-28 04:39:38

On Sep 28, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Health wrote:

I have enjoy many IETF meetings, I have no discussion viloations of Chinese law.


I'm tempted to ask "Are you sure? Or have they just not arrested you yet?" but that would be far too melodramatic, so I'll let it stand without comment.

many IETFers from China are from some government related comanies.

do you think that Chinese government will allow the chinese participants to join the IETF meeing which often has the violation of Chinese law?


That's actually a very good argument in favor of the point that Ole and Marshall have been making; that the PRC government is very aware of what happens at the IETF and isn't worried about anything we're likely to say or do at an IETF meeting. They know us, they've been there with us, and think we're OK. Thank you for bringing it up.

One might counterpoint, however, with a quote from Shakespeare: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". It's possible that all those IETF attendees from PRC-government affiliated companies have been there to keep an eye on us and to move IETF technology in a direction favorable to the positions of the PRC government.

I suspect (I'm always suspicious) or perhaps even expect that both are true. I believe that the top-level government in China is watching the IETF carefully, doesn't expect any major political issues to come out of a meeting in China, and hopes to influence the IETF's work in a direction favorable to its agenda. This is probably true of the national government in any country hosting an IETF, although I expect the PRC is paying closer attention than most.

It's also possible, but I think extremely unlikely, that the whole meeting-in-China thing is just an exercise to set somebody up for some sort "making of an example". Really, the PRC government has too much at risk for this sort of thing.

What I'm most worried about is involvement by overzealous lower-level of government types, or by hotel management that doesn't understand this relationship between IETF and the government, and that such involvement will cause financial hardship to the IETF. I'm also worried about third parties that might use the opportunity presented by the IETF in China to achieve their own political ends. As I've noted, the IETF (and IETFers in general) are pretty naive about this sort of thing. We'd be easy targets. This might be okay, as long as it doesn't generate substantial financial hardship for the IETF. However, the proposed hotel contract still scares me, as it places essentially no limits on the IETF's liability.

This is aggravated by the escalation of liability across national legal boundaries. For example, the IETF could potentially be held liable in a US court for damages suffered by US participants if the meeting is cancelled by action under the hotel contract, under the basic idea that signing such a contract (or allowing the host to do so) is an act of gross negligence on the IETF's part. This could mean that not only would the IETF have to pay the hotel contract for the missed meeting and pay the hotel for any future damages resulting from the cancellation, but they might have to refund the meeting fees and travel expenses of every participant. That's potentially a LOT of money, in the tens of millions of dollars, and would probably bankrupt the IETF.

So, maybe the PRC government will sign a second contract whereby they agree to indemnify IETF for losses under the terms of the venue contract? That would go a long way towards ameliorating my concern about this meeting location.


Censorship, massive national firewalls, route restriction, web site
blocking, deep packet inspection with filtering,

massive national firewalls, route restriction, web site blocking are technologies, some are also discussed in IETF.


Are you absolutely sure that discussing them in China, perhaps in very heated terms loaded with emotional phrasing, is not illegal?


I am sure that these technolgy is not only used by China.

True. However, it is the PRC government that is most frequently "in the news" for their use of such obstruction technologies. And we're discussing meeting in China. If we were discussing meeting in Thailand (as proposed by Glen Zorn), I'm sure we'd have an entirely different set of worry items. Certainly we worry about different things when a US site is proposed; namely visa restrictions, border-crossing searches of computers, warrant-less wiretaps, and crypto exports. No location is worry free, and new locations bring new worries that may need to be thoroughly discussed.

...


As we have often said, politics influence technology. It is only fair
that technology pushes back where necessary to preserve its own
integrity.

in IETF history, which technolgy is pushed back by Chinse governement?

I have seen none.

you forget the "running code" again.


I perhaps was unclear. The PRC government is interfering with the Internet through imposing operational policies that make the Internet not work as well as the IETF would like. It is therefore the IETF's responsibility to "push back" by developing technology that overcomes the attacks launched by the PRC government's agents. This obviously requires identifying, categorizing, discussing and analyzing the specific attacks, and it requires some analysis of the PRC government's rationale for teach such policy.


But I'm very much afraid that such "pushing back" would be
seen (at least by some parties) to violate PRC law and consequently
the terms of the host's contract, thereby putting the IETF in an
untenable financial position.

if you are truly IETFer and focus on technolgy, I do not believe that you will have a violation of any chinese law.


I hope you are right. Can we get that in a contract?

seeing is beliving. China is totally different to China 20 years ago.
if your idea origins from "COLD WAR", you need downloade the new information to update it.

Quiet true. China is a truly amazing place, and the general level of hospitality is very high. The culture is vibrant, the people enthusiastic, and it is clearly a place where things are "happening". The atmosphere is now very different from what I've been told it was like during the Cultural Revolution of my childhood, a time when many educated people were unfortunately executed or sent to re-education camps. China's progress has in many ways far surpassed that of western countries over the same time frame. I hope every IETF participant gets a chance to visit. On the flip side, it's still a very scary place to be during any kind of epidemic, so I certainly hope nothing like that happens during anyone's visit.

However, I remain unconvinced that it is a good location for an IETF meeting, due to the poorly-defined financial risk and the open question of what sorts of relationships IETF should have with a government that has a reputation of opposition to the proper operation of the Internet. Should we be able to resolve some of those questions (and the IAOC is working on that), my opinion may well change.

And after all, changing opinions and developing a consensus is exactly why we're having this discussion. We question, we examine test cases, we learn, and then we repeat the process. Somewhere along the process, actually having a meeting in China is probably one of the test cases we'll try out, although it may be later rather than sooner.


--
Dean




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