January 29, 2020

Archives for September 2005

Net Governance Debate Heats Up

European countries surprised the U.S. Wednesday by suggesting that an international body rather than the U.S. government should have ultimate control over certain Internet functions. According to Tom Wright’s story in the International Herald Tribune,

The United States lost its only ally [at the U.N.’s World Summit on the Information Society] late Wednesday when the EU made a surprise proposal to create an intergovernmental body that would set principles for running the Internet. Currently the U.S. Commerce Department approves changes to the Internet’s “root zone files”, which are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a nonprofit organization based in Marina del Rey, California.

As often happens, this discussion seems to confuse control over Internet naming with control over the Internet as a whole. Note the juxtaposition: the EU wants a new body to “set principles for running the Internet”; currently the U.S. controls naming via Icann.

This battle would be simpler and less intense if it were only about naming. What is really at issue is who will have the perceived legitimacy to regulate the Internet. The U.S. fears a U.N.-based regulator, as do I. Much of the international community fears and resents U.S. hegemony over the Net. (General anti-Americanism plays a role too, as in the Inquirer’s op-ed.)

The U.S. would have cleaner hands in this debate if it swore off broad regulation of the Net. It’s hard for the U.S. to argue against creating a new Internet regulator when the U.S. itself looks eager to regulate the Net. Suspicion is strong that the U.S. will regulate the Net to the advantage of its entertainment and e-commerce industries. Here’s the Register’s story:


[Brazilian] Ambassador Porto clarified that point further: “Nowadays our voting system in Brazil is based on ICTs [information and communication technologies], our tax collection system is based on ICTs, our public health system is based on ICTs. For us, the internet is much more than entertainment, it is vital for our constituencies, for our parliament in Brazil, for our society in Brazil.” With such a vital resource, he asked, “how can one country control the Internet?”

The U.S. says flatly that it will not agree to an international governance scheme at this time.

If the U.S. doesn’t budge, and the international group tries to go ahead on its own, we might possibly see a split, where a new entity I’ll call “UNCANN” coexists with ICANN, with each of the two claiming authority over Internet naming. This won’t break the Internet, since each user will choose to pay attention to either UNCANN or ICANN. To the extent that UNCANN and ICANN assign names differently, there will be some confusion when UNCANN users talk to ICANN users. I wouldn’t expect many differences, though, so probably the creation of UNCANN wouldn’t make much difference, except in two respects. First, the choice to point one’s naming software at UNCANN or ICANN would probably take on symbolic importance, even if it made little practical difference. Second, UNCANN’s aura of legitimacy as a naming authority would make it easier for UNCANN to issue regulatory decrees that were taken seriously by the states that would ultimately have to implement them.

This last issue, of regulatory legitimacy, is the really important one. All the talk about naming is a smokescreen.

My guess is that the Geneva meeting will break up with much grumbling but no resolution of this issue. The EU and the rest of the international group won’t move ahead with its own naming authority, and the U.S. will tread more carefully in the future. That’s the best outcome we can hope for in the short term.

In the longer term, this issue will have to be resolved somehow. Until it is, many people around the world will keep asking the question, “Who runs the Internet?”, and not liking the answer.

The Pizzaright Principle

Lately, lots of bogus arguments for copyright expansion have been floating around. A handy detector for bogus arguments is the Pizzaright Principle.

Pizzaright – the exclusive right to sell pizza – is a new kind of intellectual property right. Pizzaright law, if adopted, would make it illegal to make or serve a pizza without a license from the pizzaright owner.



Let’s apply the Pizzaright Principle to two well-known bogus arguments for intellectual property expansion.

Suppose Alice argues that extending the term of copyright is good, because it gives the copyright owner a revenue stream that can be invested in creating new works. She could equally well argue that pizzaright is good, because it gives the pizzaright owner a revenue stream that can be invested in creating new pizzas.

(The flaw in Alice’s argument is that the decision whether to invest in a new copyrighted work, or a new pizza, is rationally based only on the cost of the investment and the expected payoff. Making a transfer payment to the would-be investor doesn’t change his decision, assuming that capital markets are efficient.)

Suppose that Bob argues that the profitability of broadcasting may be about to decrease, so broadcasters should be given new intellectual property rights. He could equally well argue that if the pizza business has become less profitable, a pizzaright should be created.

(The flaw in Bob’s argument was the failure to show that the new right furthers the interests of society as a whole, as opposed to the narrow interests of the broadcasters or pizzamakers.)

The Pizzaright Principle is surprisingly useful. Try it out on the next IP expansion argument you hear.

Secure Flight: Shifting Goals, Vague Plan

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) released Friday a previously confidential report by the Secure Flight Working Group (SFWG), an independent expert committee on which I served. The committee’s charter was to study the privacy implications of the Secure Flight program. The final report is critical of TSA’s management of Secure Flight.

(Besides me, the committee members were Martin Abrams, Linda Ackerman, James Dempsey, Daniel Gallington, Lauren Gelman, Steven Lilienthal, Bruce Schneier, and Anna Slomovic. Members received security clearances and had access to non-public information; but everything I write here is based on public information. I should note that although the report was meant to reflect the consensus of the committee members, readers should not assume that every individual member agrees with everything said in the report.)

Secure Flight is a successor to existing programs that do three jobs. First, they vet air passengers against a no-fly list, which contains the names of people who are believed to pose a danger to aviation and so are not allowed to fly. Second, they vet passengers against a watch list, which contains the names of people who are believed to pose a more modest danger and so are subject to a secondary search at the security checkpoint. Third, they vet passengers’ reservations against the CAPPS I criteria, and subject those who meet the criteria to a secondary search. (The precise CAPPS I criteria are not public, but it is widely believed that the criteria include whether the passenger paid cash for the ticket, whether the ticket is one-way, and other factors.)



The lack of clear goals for the program is a serious problem (p. 5):

The TSA is under a Congressional mandate to match domestic airline passenger lists against the consolidated terrorist watch list. TSA has failed to specify with consistency whether watch list matching is the only goal of Secure Flight at this state. The Secure Flight Capabilities and Testing Overview, dated February 9, 2005 (a non-public document given to the SFWG), states in the Appendix that the program is not looking for unknown terrorists and has no intention of doing so. On June 29, 2005, Justin Oberman (Assistant Administrator, Secure Flight/Registered Traveler [at TSA]) testified to a Congressional committee that “Another goal proposed for Secure Flight is its use to establish “Mechanisms for … violent criminal data vetting.” Finally, TSA has never been forthcoming about whether it has an additional, implicit goal – the tracking of terrorism suspects (whose presence on the terrorist watch list does not necessarily signify intention to commit violence on a flight).

The report also notes that TSA had not answered questions about what the system’s architecture would be, whether Secure Flight would be linked to other TSA systems, whether and how the system would use commercial data sources, and how oversight would work. TSA had not provided enough information to evaluate the security of Secure Flight’s computer systems and databases.

The report ends with these recommendations:

Congress should prohibit live testing of Secure Flight until it receives the following from the [Homeland Security Secretary].

First, a written statement of the goals of Secure Flight signed by the Secretary of DHS that only can be changed on the Secretary’s order. Accompanying documentation should include: (1) a description of the technology, policy and processes in place to ensure that the system is only used to achieve the stated goals; (2) a schematic that describes exactly what data is collected, from what entities, and how it flows though the system; (3) rules that describe who has access to the data and under what circumstances; and (4) specific procedures for destruction of the data. There should also be an assurance that someone has been appointed with sufficient independence and power to ensure that the system development and subsequent use follow the documented procedures.

In conclusion, we believe live testing of Secure Flight should not commence until there has been adequate time to review, comment, and conduct a public debate on the additional documentation outlined above.

