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Re: A sort of council of elders for the internet

2013-11-08 21:43:24
I think it was a sort of reference to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg

Gordon


On 9 Nov, 2013, at 00:03, SM <sm(_at_)resistor(_dot_)net> wrote:

From the Economist [1]:

 "On November 6th a meeting in Vancouver of the Internet Engineering
  Task Force (IETF), an organisation which brings together the
  scientists, technicians and programmers who built the internet in
  the first place and whose behind-the-scenes efforts keep it running,
  debated what to do about all this. A strong streak of West Coast
  libertarianism still runs through the IETF, and the tone was mostly
  hostile to the idea of omnipresent surveillance. Some of its members
  were involved in creating the parts of the internet that spooks are
  now exploiting. "I think we should treat this as an attack," said
  Stephen Farrell, a computer scientist from Trinity College, Dublin,
  in his presentation to the delegates. Discussion then moved on to
  what should be done to thwart it.

  As a sort of council of elders for the internet, the IETF has plenty
  of soft power. But it has no formal authority. Because its standards
  must be acceptable to users and engineers all over the world, it works
  through a slow process of consensus-building. New standards, guidelines
  and advice take months or years to produce."

There is a sort of council of elders of the internet around here. :-)

Regards,
-sm

1. 
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21589383-stung-revelations-ubiquitous-surveillance-and-compromised-software/comments#comments