Purpose Our weekly Live Session is focused on an in depth discussion on the module topic with ZOOM The GROUP H Youtube Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHeYfhcpf4QRURPXSzD1OyiC00NoHy7q1 All sessions reserve 15 minutes of the one hour session for questions. Please post them in the Chat and we will read them out Upon conclusion please complete the online short survey https://forms.gle/aqbdhsxdwaKPPF72A

Welcome to our weekly Session Three LIVE Session Actors

Jothan Frakes

Monday, Jan 30, 2022

Welcome to our weekly Session Two LIVE Session History

Dr. Stephen Wolff Monday Jan 23, 2023

A Little History, and Some Thoughts on Internet Governance Stephen Wolff

Early days – pre-T1 NSFNET ●

“Governance” = “Who may use the network and for what purpose?”

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ARPANET, ESNet, NASA Science Network: Agency grantees and contractors only

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Farber-Kahn agreement permitted CSNET traffic on ARPANET

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56 kb/s NSFNET 1986-88

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- AUP from DNCRI Division Advisory Panel -

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Academic R&E traffic only

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- “It’s so congested nobody uses it any more.”

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- … despite early QoS

The T1/T3 NSFNET 1988-1995 ●

Increasing commercial usage on the regional networks attached to the backbone, as well as on emergent commercial ISPs

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“Boucher amendment” (1992, H.R.5344,

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102nd Congress) authorized commercial

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traffic on the NSFNET backbone

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1995: NSFNET decommissioned after a

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failed attempt to privatize the backbone

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and replaced by vBNS. 34 universities

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founded Internet2 to serve US higher ed

Communications revolutions Wired telegraph & telephone ●

Enabled “1 to 1” two-way communication

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“Cold call” sales

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Robocalls

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Communications & politics inextricably linked

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AT&T became a regulated monopoly ●

ITU 1865

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US FCC 1934

New York City, 19th century

Communications revolutions Broadcast radio and television

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Enabled “1 to many” communication

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Supported by advertising (in the US)

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US FTC and “truth in advertising” (count peas)

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Legislated limits on ad time

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Radio & TV became instruments of state power

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- Demagogues and propaganda

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… but also “fireside chats”

Communications revolutions Internet ●

The final member of the increasingly inclusive sequence

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- enables “many to many” communication

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Social media, information, misinformation, disinformation

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Concentration of economic power

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- Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tencent, …

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National responses differ among nations

Tencent Seafront Towers

Communications revolutions So what’s the point?

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In deciding how to respond to the societal challenges raised by the Internet, it may be useful to know and understand how society – people and their governments – have responded to earlier revolutions in communication technology and practice. However, none of the earlier technologies were as determinedly global as the Internet. Hence “copy and paste” may work at the national level, but its effectiveveness globally is at best uncertain. We need a global model for the global Internet...

Global model? “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” ●

DFI is an expression of liberal Western culture

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Signed by representatives of 61 countries, including Hungary...

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- not including China or Russia

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Is the Internet a beneficial resource for an informed citizenry? ●

OR

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Is the Internet a powerful tool to help govern a country?

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I believe we must accept both views, and act accordingly

Global model? ●

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Are there any other global resources that, like the Internet, must be shared by many nations with different – even competing – worldviews? How about the oceans? International ocean commerce is governed by the Law of the Sea, which has evolved over the centuries by agreements among seafaring nations, and is generally (but not always) observed The UN codification is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. UNCLOS has been signed by 167 nations and by the EU - the US has not signed