Keyboard Shortcuts
Thread View
j: Next unread messagek: Previous unread messagej a: Jump to all threadsj l: Jump to MailingList overview
Kusumba S: By reading your email, it seems that you have problem with section 3.1 of http://www.apnic.net/policy/nir-criteria.html.%C2%A0 'An organisation wishing to be recognised as an NIR must have formal endorsement at the national level by the appropriate Government body.' However, prop-060 does not address section 3.1 in the proposal. prop-060 'Details of proposal' paragraph only addresses the NIR voting process. It limits the voting to the members from that ecomony that seeks new NIR. Is my understanding right? I think the currect process the decision of NIR approval is the responsibility of EC. yi
----- Original Message ---- From: Vebtel - Kusumba S kusumba@vebtel.com To: Philip Smith pfs@cisco.com Cc: Policy SIG sig-policy@apnic.net Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 3:38:51 AM Subject: Re: [sig-policy] revised: prop-060
Dear Philip and everyone,
Thank you for the comments below and I apologise if I have been not clear in my Policy proposal document. I have clarified several aspects of the same as needed below:
Some comments:
- there is no problem statement in Section 2 which purports to declare what the problem is. Kusumba S >>> Due to the current change in the Political, Economical and Regulatory affairs in several countries, it has been evident that NIRs are more becoming a functional and integral body of any Government represented, controlled or manned agency. Some of these trends may have resulted in the "community" not being able to have "right to resources" for few of their internal reasons. Internet resources are neither owned or belong or can be controlled by any Government represented agency. The same should be under the control of the community and membership (APNIC) represented agency. Also, since NIR is not a "infrastructure" agency that may need Government support, NIRs not necessarily require Government support or endorsement at all. Hence, considering NIR being formed by such agencies shall prove difficult for community, members and shall have impact on various Internet resources affairs in that territory and infringes the very purpose of "Free (not by cost) Access to Internet Resources".
- Section 4, item 2. "Members" is mentioned without context. NIR members? APNIC members? Other members, and if so what of? Kusumba S >>> "Members" here are APNIC members. In a situation where NIR is largely manned by the local Government represented agency, the current Policy does not restrict them to enforce any such policies which will direct the Member to obtain resources only from the local NIR and not APNIC. The current rule-position is only indicative that a member "may" obtain resources from APNIC instead of NIR but that does not restrict the local NIR to constrain the member to obtain the resources only from NIR.
- Section 4, item 3. I can't see how APNIC or anyone else can dictate to any sovereign Government that it will have a minor role in an NIR. If an NIR truly represents the economy it is located in, surely all interested parties in that economy will establish exactly what the representation should be? Kusumba S >>> The situation is not complicated. It is rather this way: If there were no members nor no APNIC, where is the question of NIR ? So, it is obvious that only when there are Members in a country, NIR is possible. But the same NIR cannot be an automatic right of any Government in that country since it is not NIR that came first but the members and APNIC. So, APNIC's community has all reasons to establish a policy that is not taken as advantage by any Government in the region to control the local Members and their resources.
- Section 5. None of the advantages listed are obvious from reading the text as it stands. I can see substantial disadvantages though. Kusumba S >>> The advantages as seen are from the community / membership stand point that they are not either controlled or regulated by local Government agency under the ambit of NIR and refrain them from obtain Internet resources as needed from APNIC or other Membership / community controlled NIR.
I will also appreciate if you can highlight here the disadvantages that you see.
- Section 6. "APNIC members undergo conditional allocations". Please explain. No evidence provided in text. First mention of creation of NIR covering communities in multiple countries - what is the rationale for this? Kusumba S >>> As explained above, the current policy does not restrict NIR that is not community oriented to establish rules that will insist the local members to only obtain resources from NIR and not from APNIC. While allotting or considering the resource request, NIR may impose several conditions that are otherwise not needed for obtaining resources if taken directly from APNIC.
I have the following text that probably explains the other part:
At the same time, membership community in such country, if eligible by this policy, will be able to form NIR that is community controlled rather than any incumbent or Government controlled NIR. - Section 7 I believe is incomplete. This policy proposal has substantial impact on the existing NIRs as it changes the fundamental basis for their existence as it would be entirely feasible for another organisation or group of organisations to establish themselves as an NIR within the existing NIR's operational area. This would quite likely be counter to the existing NIR's rules of association. Kusumba S >>> The policy proposal does not question or change any position of the existing NIRs. It recommends a revised criteria to recognize a new NIR in a given country. Hence, no impact on existing NIRs.
I believe this proposal needs substantial work to resolve the issues I mentioned above. As it stands, it has significant impact on the entire APNIC, NIR and LIR structure and relationship; I feel this needs to be carefully considered and documented. Kusumba S >>> I will be happy to provide additional information / comments / material for the you all to consider here.
Greetings,
Kusumba S
philip --
Randy Bush said the following on 28/8/08 06:46:
Dear SIG members
Version 2 of the proposal 'Change in the criteria for the recognition of NIRs in the APNIC region' has been sent to the Policy SIG for review. It will be presented at the Policy SIG at APNIC 26 in Christchurch, New Zealand, 25-29 August 2008.
The proposal's history can be found at:
http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-060-v002.html
This new version of the proposal contains a shortened section 2, "Summary of current problem" and removes points 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 from section 4, "Details of the proposal".
This revised proposal will be discussed in the Policy SIG this morning. We encourage you to express your views on the proposal:
- Do you support or oppose this proposal?
- Does this proposal solve a problem you are experiencing? If so, tell the community about your situation.
- Do you see any disadvantages in this proposal?
- Is there anything in the proposal that is not clear?
- What changes could be made to this proposal to make it more effective?
randy and jian
________________________________________________________________________
prop-060-v002: Change in the criteria for the recognition of NIRs in the APNIC region ________________________________________________________________________
Author: Kusumba Sridhar kusumba@vebtel.com
Version: 2
Date: 28 August 2008
1. Introduction ----------------
This is a proposal to update the criteria for recognising new National Internet Registries (NIRs) in the APNIC region.
The current criteria are described in the following policy document:
APNIC-104: Criteria for the recognition of NIRs in the APNIC region http://www.apnic.net/policy/nir-criteria.html
2. Summary of current problem ------------------------------
The existing Policy frame work was last published on 1st December 2002 and the same was not re-visited since then. There has been significant change in the Political, Economic and Operational situations in various economies, especially the growing economies. The very structure of Internet and its Resources has changed in several economies. The industry participation has also grown significantly leading Internet to be as ubiquitous as any other resource like Electricity, Water, Shelter etc., In such a situation, it is important that the very industry decides the future and applicability of the Internet resources and also controls them through a community friendly environment. The Government, while taking a neutral position, is required to support such resources but must refrain from controlling the same.
The current NIR recognizing criteria requires any Industry representation to have endorsement of the proposal from the Government agency (Section 3.1) that is responsible for Internet related activities including issuing licenses to ISPs etc in a respective country. APNIC considers any application without such endorsement as "in-complete" proposal and will not forward to the Executive Council for processing or approving a NIR.
However, in a situation where such proposal is originated by a unit or division or department of the Government, such proposal could go through since the Government endorsement is easily or sometimes automatically available to them. This is also applicable for National Information Centers, Internet Exchanges etc., that are largely and many times fully controlled and manned by the Government.
It is not automatic agreement that a NIC in any country could be the "first-choice" to form NIR by the Policy. However, in a situation where it is important for the "Internet" itself to move towards a free-regulatory World, unfortunately in the several growing economies it is noticed that Internet is still largely manned by the Government. The readers may kindly appreciate the difference between "controlling" and "manning". Due to several Security, Economic and Political reasons, it may be required that Internet is controlled in such economies.
Due to this, Government has taken control of Infrastructure networks such as NIC, IXPs etc., with participation of Industry up to an extent that it is a meager contributing-participation and not decisive- participation in certain economies.
1. Government represented agencies will be having control on Internet Resource allocation in the economy, if such NIR is formed by Government controlled agency.
2. Policy only indicates but may not restrict Government to enforce rules to obtain resources from NIR and not APNIC directly.
3. Government under the ambit of National Security may demonstrate the need for the Service Providers to only obtain resources from regional NIR and not from APNIC despite the policy indication.
4. Member or User community may loose opportunity to grow the networks largely due to very reason that they may need to obtain Internet resources only from such NIR and the regulator who is also directly associated with such NIRs or Policy makers, may dismiss or delay such allocation requests against any pending issue or matter concerned to that Service provider and the government or Regulator.
5. Despite NIR proposal being sent through a Government controlled agency, the EC may have right to reject such proposal if it has noticed suitable objections from members. However, in the current policy criteria, the scope of such objections is only "external" and not within the policy framework or work flow.
3. Situation in other RIRs ----------------------------
ARIN, RIPE and AfriNIC do not have NIRs. LACNIC has NIRs but does not have a policy document for the recognition of new NIRs.
4. Details of the proposal ----------------------------
Proposed changes in the policy:
1. Any NIR application must be put on voting process, both through Online Voting and Voting at AMM and must achieve support.
OR
2. Any NIR application must be put on voting process, both through Online Voting and Voting at AMM and must achieve at least 75% support from the members within that Economy. In such a case, voting is open only for members from that Economy.
3. Section 3.2.2 must mention that the Board composition of the NIR must have majority representation from Members, followed by Academic or Research Organizations etc. The Government or its participating agencies must have minor role compared to other representations on the Board of NIR.
5. Advantages and disadvantages of the proposal -------------------------------------------------
There are several advantages of adopting such policy:
1. Neutrality which is inline to "Open Policy" levels while considering a NIR proposal.
2. Mandates Global Policies for creating Free Access to Internet Resources.
3. Improves participation by membership community in Internet Development.
4. Removes the Conditional Policy barriers in several countries where the Governments cannot impose such conditional terms for obtaining resources.
There are no disadvantages by adopting the policy.
6. Effect on APNIC --------------------
APNIC members would be benefited by such policy since they don't have to fear for undergoing conditional allocations of resources. At the same time, membership communities in several countries, if eligible by this policy, will be able to form NIR that is community controlled rather than any incumbent or Government controlled NIR.
7. Effect on NIRs -------------------
There is no effect on NIRs.
* sig-policy: APNIC SIG on resource management policy * _______________________________________________ sig-policy mailing list sig-policy@lists.apnic.net http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/sig-policy
* sig-policy: APNIC SIG on resource management policy * _______________________________________________ sig-policy mailing list sig-policy@lists.apnic.net http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/sig-policy
However, prop-060 does not address section 3.1 in the proposal. prop-060 'Details of proposal' paragraph only addresses the NIR voting process. It limits the voting to the members from that ecomony that seeks new NIR. Is my understanding right?
i am trying to understand this too. please excuse my, possibly over, simplification.
my worry is that this proposal may be vulnerable to the attack (please excuse internet security geek terminology) that 42 people get into a room and vote, unanimously of course, that they are an nir.
please tell me i am wrong. if i am not, then this proposal could benefit from some serious work before folk take it seriously.
randy
Dear Randy / Yi Chu,
Thank you for your comments on the proposal.
Generally, members (members of APNIC in that country) in that particular economy are not having any role in deciding
1) if they want NIR at first 2) if they approve or agree with the proposing company / agency to be the NIR
In the current scenario, NIR is something that any agency in that Country can propose to be and as long as they get an endorsement from the Government (typically, regulator or licensor), members are not consulted and the NIR is approved since they have complied the policy. Under this ambit, any Governmental agency such as NIC or IXPs may apply for NIR that get endorsed by the Government automatically.
We have seen practical scenarios what happens when an NIR is controlled / operated and managed by the Government represented agency. I have explained some of the issues in my proposal too.
The intention here is to primarily give the option to approve or reject an NIR application to the members by way of voting "for" or "against" the proposal. I am not though disputing the current powers of EC but I wish the same should be supported by members consensus in that country.
I will be happy to clarify any portion of the proposal.
Greetings,
Kusumba S
Randy Bush wrote:
However, prop-060 does not address section 3.1 in the proposal. prop-060 'Details of proposal' paragraph only addresses the NIR voting process. It limits the voting to the members from that ecomony that seeks new NIR. Is my understanding right?
i am trying to understand this too. please excuse my, possibly over, simplification.
my worry is that this proposal may be vulnerable to the attack (please excuse internet security geek terminology) that 42 people get into a room and vote, unanimously of course, that they are an nir.
please tell me i am wrong. if i am not, then this proposal could benefit from some serious work before folk take it seriously.
randy
sig-policy: APNIC SIG on resource management policy *
sig-policy mailing list sig-policy@lists.apnic.net http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/sig-policy
hi kusumba,
thanks for the response.
I will be happy to clarify any portion of the proposal.
sure. could you please clarify the following? i could be confused, as usual, but i could not really understand if/how you responded directly to the following:
my worry is that this proposal may be vulnerable to the attack (please excuse internet security geek terminology) that 42 people get into a room and vote, unanimously of course, that they are an nir.
randy
Dear Randy,
I am not sure if I have understood your clause as said. However, let me write here the response from what I understood:
1) If there is an unanimous consensus amongst the members within a country that a specific agency is forming an NIR, I guess even if voting process has to still go thru, the agency would get required consensus in any case.
2) If the agency can campaign for their NIR proposal within that country and reach majority, that situation also will not be a problem.
I will be happy to hear from you on the para you mentioned below.
Greetings,
Kusumba S
Randy Bush wrote:
hi kusumba,
thanks for the response.
I will be happy to clarify any portion of the proposal.
sure. could you please clarify the following? i could be confused, as usual, but i could not really understand if/how you responded directly to the following:
my worry is that this proposal may be vulnerable to the attack (please excuse internet security geek terminology) that 42 people get into a room and vote, unanimously of course, that they are an nir.
randy
hi kusumba,
- If there is an unanimous consensus amongst the members within a
country that a specific agency is forming an NIR, I guess even if voting process has to still go thru, the agency would get required consensus in any case.
by 'members' do you mean existing members of apnic? if so, i am in a small economy with only two apnic members. can we meet for tea and decide that we're an nir?
- If the agency can campaign for their NIR proposal within that country
and reach majority, that situation also will not be a problem.
majority of what? the apnic members in the economy? but above you said it had to be unanimous.
apologies, but i am still confused. and if i can not see it simply, it's hard to help explain it to the apnic policy community.
randy
Dear Randy,
by 'members' do you mean existing members of apnic? if so, i am in a small economy with only two apnic members. can we meet for tea and decide that we're an nir?
I do mean existing members of APNIC in that country. For the benefit of your question, in the first version of my proposal I have mentioned a minimum members criteria for recognizing NIR in a country. However, since the proposal had too many components, I have omitted the same. Preferred situation would be that there are certain minimum members under each category in that country before applying for NIR.
majority of what? the apnic members in the economy? but above you said it had to be unanimous.
Yes, APNIC members in that economy. "Majority" refers to majority of votes being polled towards "Yes" which should define that the members in that economy are agreeing to that particular agency to be the NIR in that economy.
Kusumba S
Randy Bush wrote:
hi kusumba,
- If there is an unanimous consensus amongst the members within a
country that a specific agency is forming an NIR, I guess even if voting process has to still go thru, the agency would get required consensus in any case.
by 'members' do you mean existing members of apnic? if so, i am in a small economy with only two apnic members. can we meet for tea and decide that we're an nir?
- If the agency can campaign for their NIR proposal within that country
and reach majority, that situation also will not be a problem.
majority of what? the apnic members in the economy? but above you said it had to be unanimous.
apologies, but i am still confused. and if i can not see it simply, it's hard to help explain it to the apnic policy community.
randy
Randy Bush wrote:
sure. could you please clarify the following? i could be confused, as usual, but i could not really understand if/how you responded directly to the following:
my worry is that this proposal may be vulnerable to the attack (please excuse internet security geek terminology) that 42 people get into a room and vote, unanimously of course, that they are an nir.
I believe the problem here is that we appear to be trying to solve two problems with one proposal, and accomplishing neither.
Kusumba appears to be attempting to mitigate a situation where a government is a deciding factor in how an NIR is created. There appears to be a suggestion that said government may not represent the majority of either APNIC Members or even Internet users within a given country. With this in mind Kusumba has put forward a proposal to lessen the power that a government would have in the establishment of an NIR.
There is however an opposing view. The view that there may be some countries where a non-government entity establishes and NIR. If this is done with no government involvement, then it also possible that it will lack and credibility, respect or legitimacy from the wider community within that country.
As you can see we have two situations which are not being addressed by either current policy or proposal 60 as it stands. This is not surprising as we live in a region with a large number of different government systems.
I believe what is needed here is not to exclude governments from the NIR establishment process, but the formation of a set of checks and balances to guard against the sort of abuse of power which Kusumba seems to be suggesting exists in some markets. This would also minimise the possibility that a non-government entity could form an NIR with no legitimacy from the local community and government.
If there was no agreement between the local community and the government then the status quo (administration by APNIC) would remain. In essence the process remains failsafe.
All that remains to be done is to develop these checks and balances. I feel that moving forward along those lines will bring everyone to consensus rather than looking to exclude government involvement.
Regards Dean Pemberton
Dear Dean,
Thank you for your comments.
I believe the problem here is that we appear to be trying to solve two problems with one proposal, and accomplishing neither.
Kusumba appears to be attempting to mitigate a situation where a government is a deciding factor in how an NIR is created. There appears to be a suggestion that said government may not represent the majority of either APNIC Members or even Internet users within a given country. With this in mind Kusumba has put forward a proposal to lessen the power that a government would have in the establishment of an NIR.
Kusumba S >>> It is a fact that APNIC members in an economy are independent of local Government. APNIC members need not be only those members who are ISPs or Network Providers. They could be Large corporates, Software companies, Manufacturing units, Universities, Medial companies, BPOs, Call Centres etc, who are not bound by majority of the policies of the Government. In a situation where a particular department or agency represented by Government wish to establish NIR, it is important that the members (APNIC members) in that economy agree to the same consider various local situations and policies.
In the current criteria, as long as the agency / company is able to get government endorsement, they comply to major requirement of forming NIR and if that agency / company is Government promoted, the endorsement is automatic and will never be in the knowledge of the APNIC members also within that economy.
There is however an opposing view. The view that there may be some countries where a non-government entity establishes and NIR. If this is done with no government involvement, then it also possible that it will lack and credibility, respect or legitimacy from the wider community within that country.
Kusumba S >>> I guess, as explained above, members are first members of APNIC then comes the question of NIR. If there are no members, there is no NIR. So, it is those members who need to decide what they want.
As you can see we have two situations which are not being addressed by either current policy or proposal 60 as it stands. This is not surprising as we live in a region with a large number of different government systems.
I believe what is needed here is not to exclude governments from the NIR establishment process, but the formation of a set of checks and balances to guard against the sort of abuse of power which Kusumba seems to be suggesting exists in some markets. This would also minimise the possibility that a non-government entity could form an NIR with no legitimacy from the local community and government.
Kusumba S >>> My policy proposal does not restrict any Government represented agency or Government itself to form NIR at the first place. Irrespective of who proposes to form NIR, the members (APNIC members) within that economy must agree to the same since they are the one who may obtain services from such NIR once established. So, the same can be achieved by an Online Voting process as "for" and "against".
If there was no agreement between the local community and the government then the status quo (administration by APNIC) would remain. In essence the process remains failsafe.
Kusumba S >>> The current policy has no provision to take consensus or view of the members in that economy. So, any Government agency that gets endorsement can also form NIR.
All that remains to be done is to develop these checks and balances. I feel that moving forward along those lines will bring everyone to consensus rather than looking to exclude government involvement.
Kusumba S >>> Ver 1.0 of the Proposal carried some of those checks and balances.
Greetings,
Kusumba S
Regards Dean Pemberton
Activity Summary
- 5493 days inactive
- 5493 days old
- sig-policy@lists.apnic.net
- 4 participants
- 8 comments