Although WCIT is over, the ITU journey continues, and a fascinating post by Anthony Rutkowski on the CircleID Web site gives us a glimpse of where exactly it's heading -- and it doesn't look good. The ITU's "Internet/cloud" Study Group 13 is convening soon, and as Rutkowski points out, the provenance of the contributions submitted to this meeting reflect what is happening to the organization: 70% of them are from China or Korea.

Almost everyone has fled the organization except for a few established participants from China and Korea and their partners. Pretty much all of industry together with the G55 nations [who refused to sign the WCIT treaty] have left.

Alternatively, the G89 nations who did sign the WCIT treaty may decide it is more important for their sections of the Internet to be firmly under their control than for there to be a single, unified set of Internet standards for the world. The schism would be formalized, with a more open G55 Internet linking up as best it could with the more closed G89 network. That would be a tragedy for humanity, but on the basis of the WCIT conference and the developments since then, it's certainly not something that can be ruled out.

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"It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the US must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form," said US Ambassador to WCIT Terry Kramer. "The Internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation. We candidly cannot support an ITU Treaty that is inconsistent with the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance," Kramer added.

I couldn’t imagine they wouldn’t sign it. I especially was surprised by the reasons that were put in place. I had made it clear from the opening that [Internet and content were not a part of the discussion]. I invited ICANN to show that we want to build bridges. The telecoms society and internet society need to work together. I made an appeal to please help us build bridges. The fighting will not help the consumer that we are trying to reach here.

I have been saying in the run up to this conference that this conference is not about governing the Internet. I repeat that the conference did NOT include provisions on the Internet in the treaty text. Annexed to the treaty is a non-binding Resolution which aims at fostering the development and growth of the internet – a task that ITU has contributed significantly to since the beginning of the Internet era, and a task that is central to the ITU’s mandate to connect the world, a world that today still has two thirds of its population without Internet access.

The word “Internet” was repeated throughout this conference and I believe this is simply a recognition of the current reality – the two worlds of telecommunications and Internet are inextricably linked. I demonstrated that from the very beginning by inviting my friend Fadi Chehadé, the CEO of ICANN, to address our conference at the beginning.

History will show that this conference has achieved something extremely important. It has succeeded in bringing unprecedented public attention to the different and important perspectives that govern global communications. There is not one single world view but several, and these views need to be accommodated and engaged.

WCIT has shown us this truth and we have worked hard together to find a way that is acceptable to all. Let WCIT be the beginning of this dialogue. As our two worlds increasingly converge so must we increasingly converse and find a common way.

But we should not confuse telecommunications infrastructure with the information that traverses it. The global consensus for a free and open Internet is overwhelming. Millions in the United States and around the world have already added their voices to this conversation, and their position is clear: they do not want the WCIT to govern the Internet or legitimize more state control over online content. Our Administration could not agree more – and will not support a treaty that sets that kind of precedent.

"The majority is with having the resolution in...The majority agreed to adopt the resolution as amended."

"In the true tradition of the ITU, we will not vote on any issues," Toure told reporters over the summer. "Voting means winners and losers, and this is not simply acceptable. And we believe that we'll come to an agreement on all of the issues." Toure had said last week that the summit "is not about Internet governance."

But after Spain objected, al Ghanim responded by saying, "no, it was not a vote," and that he had instead been looking for a "feel of the room."

The Internet Society came to this meeting in the hopes that revisions to the treaty would focus on competition, liberalization, free flow of information and independent regulation - things that have clearly worked in the field of telecommunications. Instead, these concepts seem to have been largely struck from the treaty text. Additionally, and contrary to assurances that this treaty is not about the Internet, the conference appears to have adopted, by majority, a resolution on the Internet. Amendments were apparently made to the text but were not published prior to agreement.

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In the past few days, a small number of media reports have characterized the United States as “threatening” to withdraw from the WCIT negotiations. These speculative reports are inaccurate and unhelpful to the Conference. The United States has made no such threat, and it remains fully committed to achieving a successful conclusion to the WCIT.

"What is so bad about the ITU?" Mr. McLaughlin asked in a speech to the New America Foundation in Washington on Nov. 29. "It's just simple things like the nature, structure, culture, values and processes of the ITU. They are all inimical to a free and open Internet, and they are all inconsistent with the nature of the technical infrastructure that now characterizes our communications networks." Voting rules let repressive governments "engage in horse trading that has nothing to do with the technical merits of the decisions under consideration."

Sir Tim is director of a standards body himself - the World Wide Web Consortium. He said that governments can already influence changes but should resist further interference.

"I think it's important that these existing structures continue to be used without any attempt to bypass them," he said.

"These organisations have been around for a number of years and I think it would be a disruptive threat to the stability of the system for people to try to set up alternative organisations to do the standards." Accelerating access

[...] "A lot of concerns I've heard from people have been that, in fact, countries that want to be able to block the internet and give people within their country a 'secure' view of what's out there would use a treaty at the ITU as a mechanism to do that, and force other countries to fall into line with the blockages that they wanted to put in place."

Lined up against this measure [of expanding the coverage to everyone] are Canada, CEPT, Citel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Poland and the United States. For it are the Arab States, African States, Brazil, India, Iran, Philippines and RCC.

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, should continue working to implement the position of the United States on Internet governance that clearly articulates the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet today.

On the eve of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), we believe that it is the right time to reaffirm the U.S. Government's commitment to the multistakeholder model as the appropriate process for addressing Internet policy and governance issues. The multistakeholder model has enabled the Internet to flourish. It has promoted freedom of expression, both online and off. It has ensured the Internet is a robust, open platform for innovation, investment, economic growth and the creation of wealth throughout the world, including in developing countries.

[....] The Internet's decentralized, multistakeholder processes enable us all to benefit from the engagement of all interested parties. By encouraging the participation of industry, civil society, technical and academic experts, and governments from around the globe, multistakeholder processes result in broader and more creative problem solving. This is essential when dealing with the Internet, which thrives through the cooperation of many different parties.

The global community has many serious topics to discuss with respect to the Internet. Collectively, we need to ensure that these matters are taken up in suitable multistakeholder venues so that these discussions are well informed by the voices of all interested parties.

Our commitment to the multistakeholder model is based on the fact that transparency, inclusion and participation are the 21st century standards governing discussions related to modern communications.

We have and will continue to advocate for an Internet that is not dominated by any one player or group of players, and one that is free from bureaucratic layers that cannot keep up with the pace of change. We will work with everyone to ensure that we have a global Internet that allows all voices to be heard.

The possible extension of the telephone system’s “sender-pays” rule to the Internet is a contentious international political issue under consideration at the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT). This paper examines whether higher international telephone rates support or impede telecom sector growth in the receiving country. It uses data on international telephone rates from the US from 1992-2010 to explain growth in foreign telecom sectors during the same period. I find that higher international calling rates are correlated with slower growth in the telecom sector, which suggests that countries are not primarily using higher charges to finance additional expansion. These findings cast doubt on proposals that would extend sender-pays to the Internet sector.

Against that background, a story published by the Center for Democracy & Technology about the ITU's work in the area of standards takes on an extra significance:

The telecommunications standards arm of the U.N. has quietly endorsed the standardization of technologies that could give governments and companies the ability to sift through all of an Internet user's traffic -- including emails, banking transactions, and voice calls -- without adequate privacy safeguards. The move suggests that some governments hope for a world where even encrypted communications may not be safe from prying eyes.

But probably most worrying is the following aspect:

Several global standards bodies, including the IETF and W3C, have launched initiatives to incorporate privacy considerations into their work. In fact, the IETF has long had a policy of not considering technical requirements for wiretapping in its work, taking the seemingly opposite approach to the ITU-T DPI document, as Germany pointed out [doc] in voicing its opposition to the ITU-T standard earlier this year. The ITU-T standard barely acknowledges that DPI has privacy implications, let alone does it provide a thorough analysis of how the potential privacy threats associated with the technology might be mitigated.

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In response to the anti-WCIT “campaign,” according to the September retreat’s preparatory materials, the ITU reluctantly launched a “counter-campaign,” which the agency believes “has been fairly successful outside the US and somewhat successful even in the US,” where “some of the statements made to denigrate ITU and WCIT are so extreme that they were easy to challenge and rebut.”

Going forward, the ITU focused at its meeting on the possibility of an “intensive anti-ratification campaign in OECD countries, based on the so-called lack of openness of the WCIT process, resulting in a significant number of countries refusing to ratify the new ITRs.” The ITU calls this possibility “the so-called ACTA scenario,” referring to sometimes violent protests against the secret ACTA treaty that took place this year.

To develop the next phase of its “counter-campaign,” the ITU hosted speakers from leading PR and advertising agencies to advise them on the use of social media. For example, Matthias Lufkens, Head of Digital Strategy for global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, gave a presentation on how his agency helped the World Economic Forum leverage tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr to fend off “occupy”-style protests that occurred both physically in Davos and on the Internet.

“There is a risk that [the ACTA scenario] will happen, but our communication campaign can mitigate this,” the internal document says.

Here’s the unvarnished truth, which no PR agency can help the agency talk, tweet, or prevaricate their way around: The commercial Internet emerged and matured entirely since the treaty was last reviewed. It developed in spite of the ITRs, not because of them.

There is a familiar pattern here of ambitious regulators who have no expertise and little experience with the Internet proclaiming themselves its benevolent dictators, only to find the peasants revolting before the coup has even started.

The ITU is no different than the sponsors of ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, and other attempts at regulating the Internet, its content, or its users by governments large and small. Like the media lobbyists who continue to see the successful fight to kill SOPA and PIPA as a proxy war waged solely by Google and other Internet companies, the ITU simply can’t accept the reality that Internet users have become their own best advocates.

"The brutal truth is that the internet remains largely [the] rich world's privilege, " said Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union, ahead of the meeting.

"ITU wants to change that."

The internet works, it doesn't need to be regulated by ITR treaty. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

1. Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure that any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations are compatible with the EU acquis and further the Union’s objective of, and interest in, advancing the internet as a truly public place, where human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly freedom of expression and assembly, are respected and the observance of free market principles, net neutrality and entrepreneurship are ensured;

2. Regrets the lack of transparency and inclusiveness surrounding the negotiations for WCIT-12, given that the outcomes of this meeting could substantially affect the public interest;

3. Believes that the ITU, or any other single, centralised international institution, is not the appropriate body to assert regulatory authority over either internet governance or internet traffic flows;

4. Stresses that some of the ITR reform proposals would negatively impact the internet, its architecture, operations, content and security, business relations and governance, as well as the free flow of information online;

5. Believes that, as a consequence of some of the proposals presented, the ITU itself could become the ruling power over aspects of the internet, which could end the present bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model; expresses concern that, if adopted, these proposals may seriously affect the development of, and access to, online services for end users, as well as the digital economy as a whole; believes that internet governance and related regulatory issues should continue to be defined at a comprehensive and multi-stakeholder level;

6. Is concerned that the ITU reform proposals include the establishment of new profit mechanisms that could seriously threaten the open and competitive nature of the internet, driving up prices, hampering innovation and limiting access; recalls that the internet should remain free and open;

However, it is important to point out that WCIT is inclusive of 193 national delegations which are participating in WCIT-12. Private sector companies and civil society organizations have also registered to attend WCIT-12 in large numbers.

Everyone attending WCIT-12 is free to lobby for their specific positions.

Added to this, in the run-up to the conference, the ITU Secretariat created a platform to allow any individual, civil society player or company to make its views known.

The very thorough and inclusive preparatory process leading up to the WCIT-12 has been completely transparent. Every European parliamentarian could have obtained all the documents from their own government, or from the European Commission.

At ITU, transparency is achieved at the national level, through national consultations in national languages. Surely this process is far more inclusive than just posting an English language text on a web page?

This indicated the U.S. decision to retain ultimate control over the global Internet, which enabled it to unilaterally close the Internet of another country. A suddenly paralyzed Internet would definitely cause huge social and economic losses to the country.

More and more countries are beginning to question the U.S. control over the world’s Internet as the international resource should be managed and supervised by all countries together. However, the United States has conducted a pre-emptive strike, and refused to give up control over the Internet in the name of protecting the resource. The refusal reflects its hegemonic mentality and double standards.

The United States controls and owns all cyberspaces in the world, and other countries can only lease Internet addresses and domain names from the United States, leading to the U.S. hegemonic monopoly over the world’s Internet.

The leaked proposal would strongly endorse national control over those parts of the Internet that reside within a country's borders, including ISPs, traffic, and engineering. One suggested change to the treaty, for example, declares that "Member States shall have the sovereign right to manage the Internet within their national territory, as well as to manage national Internet domain names."

Russia is also calling for a major revision to the multi-stakeholder governance process that has long-presided over domain names and Internet addressing, which it calls a "critical transnational resource." Under a proposed revision, the treaty would be amended to make clear that "Member States shall have equal rights in the international allocation of Internet addressing and identification resources."

Today, oversight of domain names and IP addresses is delegated to ICANN, a nongovernmental organization, which manages key Internet resources through a complex mechanism. According to ICANN, its model is "bottom up" and includes "registries, registrars, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), intellectual property advocates, commercial and business interests, noncommercial and nonprofit interests, representation from more than 100 governments, and a global array of individual Internet users."

The ITU, by contrast, allows only its member nations to vote. Private organizations can participate in its proceedings by paying a large annual fee but cannot propose amendments or vote.

Curbing the Internet is a priority for these countries that goes well beyond the WCIT process. China, for example, recently hosted its first annual "Internet Roundtable for Emerging Countries," attended by Russia, Brazil, India, and South Africa. According to observers of the meeting, the participants agreed that "The Internet must be managed by governments, with a particular focus on the influence of social networks on society."

The Russian proposal, however, is the most audacious power grab to date. And it comes as little surprise to observers of the ITU, which has deepened ties to Russia in a bid to demonstrate its relevance in cybersecurity. Last year, during a meeting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure, Putin bluntly told Toure that Russia was keen on the idea of "establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capability of the International Telecommunications Union."

A link directed readers to the WCIT 12 "Public Views and Opinions" page, which, since it was created in July, has received only 15 posts.

But perhaps that's because the ITU required commenters to first register, provide extensive identifying information, and agree to a lengthy terms of service agreement before they could "express their views" on the contents of a single, and highly redacted, early draft of the proposals the ITU decided to release. (The complete document, as well as many more recent versions, are available on WCITLeaks.)

Or perhaps that's because, as one of Wired's reader's pointed out, the "Public Views and Opinions" page had actually been shut down before Toure's editorial was even published.

Weeks ahead of the conference, and just as some of the worst proposals are leaking out of the ITU's information fortress, the public comment page now reads solemnly: "We inform you that the WCIT-12 Open Consultation process is now closed."

That statement captures, in a nutshell, everything that's wrong with the WCIT, and the ITU's pathetic effort to spin it.

Governments are looking for more effective frameworks to combat fraud and other crimes. Some commentators have suggested such frameworks could also legitimize censorship. However, Member States already have the right, as stated in Article 34 of the Constitution of ITU, to block any private telecommunications that appear "dangerous to the security of the State or contrary to its laws, to public order or to decency." The treaty regulations cannot override the Constitution.

Many authorities around the world already intervene in communications for various reasons – such as preventing the circulation of pornography or extremist propaganda. So a balance must be found between protecting people's privacy and their right to communicate; and between protecting individuals, institutions, and whole economies from criminal activities.

An important and influential factor is network financing, so the conference may consider strategies around sharing revenues more fairly, stimulating investment, mainstreaming green ICTs, and expanding access as widely as possible to meet booming demand.

1 - First, the was an overwhelming lack of support for action at the ITU by the participants. I’ve been to many international meetings over more than two decades. You can tell, through the often exaggerated politeness in which positions are inevitably couched, when a group is willing to continue to discuss an issue and when it is not. It was completely obvious long before the end of the day that there was insufficient interest in the room to take forward the discussion – at the ITU, at least.

2 - Secondly, the ITU had clearly decided in advance what was going to happen, and expected the participants to rubber-stamp their conclusions. This was obvious when an ITU official read out a pre-prepared speech at the end of the meeting, including the following:

“I believe that providing market players with clear, transparent, effective and up-to-date patent policies works for the benefit of the industry as a whole…As the Secretary-General stated in the opening, ITU has a determination to take a leading role in the development of effective RAND based policies in the ICT sector…”

Followed by this bombshell:

“I will therefore request the TSB Director’s Ad Hoc Group on Intellectual Property Rights, which will meet tomorrow, to begin work on a recommendation aimed at providing high level principles clarifying the meaning of reasonable, and the issue of injunctive relief, in the RAND context.”

In other words, ‘we’re going to do what we want and we expect you to go along with it.’

I recall only one of the 100 participants asking the ITU itself to do anything as an outcome of the meeting – though a few did suggest that standards organisations in general – of which the ITU is one of many – could usefully look at various technical issues (such as transparency of ownership of SEPs).

So why is this ITU security history relevant today? Because its Secretary-General's new draft of an unneeded and worthless treaty instrument called the International Telecommunication Regulations mentions the word "security" no less than 36 times. Although the term "security" is never defined, the draft leaves the impression that the ITU is competent to deal with the subject of network security.

The reality today is that almost all work relating to network security occurs in myriad other public-private global bodies where it is pursued on a significant scale among expert communities. It is that array of work in other venues that is used worldwide. What purports to occur in the ITU is basically irrelevant and involves a relative handful of people who appear at meetings or workshops in ITU-T, ITU-D, or the General Secretariat for the purposes of maintaining largely website-based fictions to appear responsive to some political mandate of its conferences or leadership. Although a few knowledgeable and dedicated individuals participate in its work, the ITU as an institution has not possessed in modern history, and today does not possess the competence to deal with the subject matter of network security; and treaty mandates will not alter that reality.

Any treaty-based reliance on the ITU's network security competency would be perilous for the global infrastructure and irresponsible for nation States to recognize. I should know — I was the designated leader of the ITU-T cybersecurity work for the past four years who had to deal with these realities.

Join me and make a difference. 303,000,000 Americans have just been offered access to the notoriously secret ITU WCIT documents. Just join ITAC, the State Department International Telecommunications Advisory Committee, and enjoy access. “It takes a simple email with a request to be placed on the ITAC listserv, based on some material interest in a given topic,” Paul Najarian of State writes. Simply send an email to join ITAC_Listserve_Requests@state.gov and you automatically have access to ITAC.

First, we welcome all interested stakeholders to participate in our WCIT preparatory process and help the U.S. Government form positions in advance of the conference. We solicit this input and feedback through the United States International Telecommunications Advisory Committee (ITAC). I believe that the ITAC process is critically important in helping the U.S. Government convene the type of open, public, and necessary consultations from all stakeholders that helps strengthen our positions in advance of the WCIT. The ITAC has advised the Department of State on U.S. participation in international telecommunications treaty organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union for decades and has, accordingly, been critical in the preparation of prior U.S. positions for meetings of international treaty organizations, developing and coordinating proposed contributions to international meetings and submitting them to the Department of State for consideration. For the WCIT, the ITAC will continue to serve this critical role. Therefore, we welcome any person and any and all organizations, whether corporate or non-profit, to participate in the ITAC if they would like to assist with the WCIT preparatory process.

Second, all WCIT preparatory documents – including revisions of the TD-62 compilations of Member States proposals, the final report of the Council Working Group, and Member State proposals – have been and will continue to be made available to interested ITAC member. It is imperative that we ensure full consideration of a WCIT proposal’s impact on economic growth, the Internet’s openness, and the world at large and this is best done through the adoption of open and transparent processes that allow for wide consultation. Thus, we will continue to share these WCIT documents with stakeholder so that they can provide more informed views and help us develop positions that reflect the input of the diverse range of interests in the United States.

Starting this week, I will proactively communicate our positions on participation and document availability to underscore the US Government’s commitment to transparency.

The ITU itself, meanwhile, is stepping up the rhetoric in its campaign to defend the transfer of at least some Internet oversight from today’s multi-stakeholder process to the U.N. Dr. Toure, for example, says that he hopes the WCIT negotiations will address issues “of real import,” including Internet security.

But “security,” in ITU jargon, is a loaded term, relating more to perceived threats to national security than to the security of network communications.

In that regard, the ITU has become dangerously close to associating itself with the overtly repressive goals of Russia. Last year, at a meeting between Dr. Toure and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Putin was characteristically blunt about his country’s aspirations for the ITU. Putin told Dr. Toure that he was keen on “establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capability of the International Telecommunications Union.”

The ITU’s clumsy response has exposed just how uncomfortable the agency is in dealing directly with Internet users worldwide—a sure sign of the ITU’s inability to regulate a technology it doesn’t even know how to use.   The agency’s flurry of releases read like weird dispatches from Dickensian England, with lots of extra “distinguished guests,” “plenipotentiaries” “directorates,” and references to “civil society” thrown in for good measure.

In an unprecedented number of interviews and public speeches, ITU senior officials have tried to dismiss their critics as “scaremongers” and “paranoids.”  Dr. Toure has even called out FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who first brought the threat of a free-for-all WCIT to the attention of Congress.

The agency also keeps the media at arm’s length or better.  Any journalist who wishes to cover the WCIT conference, for example, must first satisfy the ITU that they are “a professional journalist or analyst with a proven track record of reporting for bona fide media.”  Online journalists must be “registered to a media organization with a verifiable non-web address and telephone number.”  Bloggers can just stay home.