IGF 2017 - Day 0 - Salle 6 - Strengthening Cooperation within the Context of the IGF: Creating a Roadmap for 2018

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  I think we're going to start in a moment.  This is a very large room with a lot of empty seats, so I suggest that everybody comes up as close as possible, because we are going to have a very informal discussion together about some questions that we are going to raise.

So, if you would like to come forward and just sit a bit closer together and not some isolated views I hope.  So, I hope to see people up here up front.

Okay.  Welcome everybody, and thank you for coming.  I think almost everybody had several emails by me, for which I apologize, but then you have to organize a session and try to get people in.

My name is Wout de Natris.  I've been asked by several organizations to organize this Day 0 event called “Strengthening cooperation within the context of the IGF.”

Does it say anything?  Yes.

And, we're a road map to 2018, and why is that this session actually started as a suggestion for best practice forum to the MAG late winter/early spring this year on actual cooperation within the IGF.  And, that session of that best practice forum did not happen simply due to the fact that the budgetary possibilities at the IGF had all been used up and then MAG asked me, can you come back in 2018 with suggestions on this best practice forum so we can consider it again in 2018.

That said, is that this idea comes from a workshop of last year called breaking down silos in cooperation in cybersecurity.  We had 15 or 18 professions in the room and just like now you we had no panelists and it was called working session, and we started talking about the reason of your success.  Why are you successful in your multi stake holder forms of cooperation?  And the word that came up first is trust, and trust came up again and came up again during the whole session, but other words like voluntary, like dedication, like critical mass, like funding, and several others you can find in the report.  But, the fact is that people started looking at each other and started to recognize some things, hey, that's the same within your organization as in mine.  So, people started to look in a different way to each other.

And, when we ended the session, we said is this actually working, a working session like this, and then people said this is the best session I have ever been to at the IGF because finally I was at work instead of just talking.  We tried to find ideas, solutions together, and this is the format that should happen more often within the IGF.

So, that is the core of what we are going to do today.  We prepared some questions on this topic and we is the organizations that are actually making this possible, and I'm going to mention just one, because otherwise we would not be sitting here, it's the Amsterdam Internet exchange, digital infrastructure of the Netherlands, ACP, the public-private platform.  Help me more.  Public Information Society.  Thank you.  But also the host of the NLIGF is the global forum of cyber expertise (?) the SIDN (?) the main name organization and surf net which is university Internet.  So, in other words, these organizations, want this to actually happen and they feel a need that IGF could use some sort of change, and this afternoon is what we're going to do is I'm going to ask you to work together to try and find recommendations on if the IGF is to work in a different way than how should it or nice itself, what sort of topics we should use.  And, that's what we're going to do.

To start, I'm going to get just a show of hands just to warmup.  I just ask you to raise your hand saying yes or saying no.  And, there are four questions actually that I'm going to read to you.  The first one is:  Do you agree that Internet challenges in general take more than one expert group to solve?  Who agrees?  I see a lot of hands.

Does anybody disagree?  So, we have three abstentions I think when I look around (Laughter).  So, in other words, we agree that it's a multi stake holder thing.  And, that's formalized just within this room, at least.

The second one is:  Do you see added value if experts from different stake holder groups were to work together on selected challenges in an ongoing Intersessional session?  Would that be better or worse, basically? 

Who is for yes?  Repeat the question or --

>> AUDIENCE:  Yes. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Okay.  I'm going to put my glasses on, so I can read even better.  So, do you see added value if experts from different stakeholder groups were to work together on selected challenges in an ongoing Intersessional fashion?  Yes?  No? 

>> With qualification.  A lot of this is already happening, and the question is:  Does the IGF offer something that is unique that would add value to the existing set of cooperation initiatives in relationships that exist among us. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Thank you for that.  But, I think, in general we agree that it is already happening a lot of space, but in general, this is the way that -- actually around the Internet that works and we agree on that.

The third one is do you see the IGF as a forum that could potentially facilitate ongoing multistakeholder discussions on critical complex Internet issues?  Yes?  There is one hand.  No?  Two.  Three.  And, no? 

Maybes?

Potentially?  That is an important word that I added, because perhaps that is something that we are going to look at in a later stage.  At this moment there is a lot of so-called Intersessional work in the IGF and the best practice forums, we got connecting the next billion.

Who is at this point in time participating with Intersessional work at the IGF?  One, two, three, four, five hands.

Then the answer is no.

>> AUDIENCE:  (?)

>> That is yes, I think definitely Intersessional.

>> AUDIENCE: I'm putting my hand up, because as of this morning I confirmed I would take part in the dynamic Coalition on Internet governance school.  But, had I not done that I would not have put my hand up, but because I had been doing some work with the (?) best practice forum, which had concluded to the satisfaction of that group.  So, I think that was, yeah, that is something that maybe needs to play into this Intersessional work is this necessarily just ongoing for the sake of going on, the way of looking at Intersessional work that can hopefully be focused on some sorts of targets, some sort of end point that allows it to then be judged successful or otherwise. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Thank you.  I think that is an

 

important thing to conclude. 

 

Basically, there is a lot of work going on, and what I notice from personal experience is that that is a very low attendance, in general, and that most people don't even seem to know that this sort of work is actually being done within the IGF.  So, in other words, what is the true importance of this work, and what we are going to do is try and find out are they doing it around the right perimeter, the right sort of conditions created beforehand, before actually going into content.

So, what we're going to do is I'm going to try and note your visions and ask for your input.  This is an informal session.  I am not going to see you to name yourself.  I see there is something rung up which I didn't know because other rooms don't have it.  We're going to write a report on this but we're not going to say this organization said that or that organization said that.  We just want to have ideas and try to bring them forward.  I think that is more important than saying A or B thinks this or thinks this should not do.  Because, in many discussions I'm hearing over the past months I always hear the IGF should or cannot do this or that and what should the IGF do if it is to receive tangible outcomes of meeting includes level of support and chance of implementation.  So, in other words, we can always say the IGF should or cannot, but what should it do. 

I think that is what we want to focus on today.

So, I'm going to ask you to think about several questions and then I'm going to shut up for a while and let you talk, because that's what we want to do is pick your mind and write a report on that, and that's basically what is going to happen.  It is about you.  So, if this IGF in the future should be doing more Intersessional work actually on what conditions can stakeholders actually work together, what would you need to start working within the IGF, I think that is the first question I want to ask.  So, what conditions do you need to work together?

So, who would like to start?

>> AUDIENCE:  Ask you procedural question.  Before we came in this room you said you had sent out a questionnaire and would present the results of this questionnaire to this working group.  Is that still the case, or are you just reflecting on what you heard putting forward the questions you just did put on the table? 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  The questionnaire was sent around but is not -- the results are presented in the report, and I hope to be getting in more questionnaires, because so far it is not really something conclusive from the numbers I received so far.  So, we think that this is going to be the one major session that will feed into the report, basically. 

So, Jacamo.

>> AUDIENCE:  Yes.  I want to come back to what you asked before, because when I field the question, I am one of the few that you mentioned that field the question.  The question you mentioned before was ambiguous because you said do we believe that the IGF could change things, and the problem is that the IGF is not one IGF.  We are many IGF.  We have one IGF that was before the UNGA resolution, and the next IGF that is not yet there but was one that was decided to be in the NGA resolution.

The past IGF was simply a discussion body with no aim to bring anywhere.  The NGA resolution said that the IGF has to become a place where you discuss with the aim to go somewhere, but we are not start in this phase.  So, my answer is conditional.  If we are going to have the IGF as was pro offered in the UNGA resolution of 2016, yes, it is a tool that could be very efficient to set the frame for getting solutions.  If it remains the previous extent IGF where it is simply a talk, and nobody want to make a step towards the others, there would be never a solution.  I would think that and nobody else would move and everyone would stay in its own position and there would be never a common point.

>> AUDIENCE:  Jacamo probably has a better recall or understanding of exactly what WISIS plus 10 came out with.  I would still cling a little to the pre-2016, what you're describing as pre-2016 as the IGF being a place to talk.  And, I think ideally, and what I sort of took away from the WSIS plus 10 was that that would then lead into other activities that would happen Intersessionally in a more bespoke fashion to attack specific problems.  Yet, the question of whether that remains the IGF at that point is, I think, a bit contentious, and I think possibly what I would say the IGF needs to do better is market that connection between itself and some other bespoke activities that emerge from it or are strengthened by that discussion without necessarily having to say, and this is what the IGF is now, because the IGF, well, it's not this.  This is Day 0.  It's what starts tomorrow.  But, to try and -- I think the challenge that we've always had and the circle that can't be squared, I guess, is to actually turn the IGF into something that is a decision making body that can actually provide specific problems -- solutions to specific problems.  I think it is much better viewed as something that can lead to processes which will lead to specific solutions, but let's not conflate those two things. 

>> I think what this session is about, how to make sure that discussions actually go somewhere once they are discussed within the IGF.

>> AUDIENCE:  Hi.  Thanks.  I wanted to make two remarks.  One is that the regional IGF meetings are very important.  Of course, we have -- there are many, many regional meetings.  I know the Dutch one fairly well, but I also work a lot with people in our -- who are participating in our programs that we fund from the human rights fund in Netherlands that are working towards, for example, the Arab or African or west African or the Asian IGF and all these IGF meetings have a very, very typical dynamic, but these actors all work towards this meeting, and those meetings, the results of these are meant to feed into this global meeting.  So, I think we should think of making use of the events that are already there connected to the IGF to strengthen and follow up on each other every time.  So, you make a big, well, longer running process.  And, indeed, without refraining from analyzing whether it is still necessary or not.

The other remark I wanted to make one of the challenges, especially for civil society people and Governments to engage in Intersessional activities is often money or funding or time that you can get from your employer or for donors to participate in these meetings.  So, that, yeah, that is something that really you can't look over when thinking about intersessional work given the fact that meeting together now here face to face you can say, well, the rest of the work you can do it online, for example, but it never replaces the value of these face-to-face meetings.  So, if you want to have real results, you have to have some moments in the year that you meet each other, and especially for civil society groups, it's often very difficult to fund that. 

>> I'm going to ask for Arnold here, of course. 

>> For the record, Arnold van Rhijn for Netherlands foreign affairs and climate policy thanks to new government.

To respond to your question, I think we have to have a step backwards, because as already mentioned by Lisa, we have to see what is at stake. 

What kind of discussions are going on right now.

We have a best practice forum on cybersecurity.  As was mentioned earlier, we have to be aware that we make the right choices, because Intersessional work means, as I said, extra time, extra work, extra money.  And, this has been a problem for the IGF because there is a proliferation of activities going on, not only intersection null work like dynamic coalitions, but working sessions, other kinds of meetings and so we have to be very efficiently and effectively in order to see whether we can either link to this existing best practice form of cybersecurity or start a new one.  That is what we have to think about.

Apart from that, you have to think yourself whether it is really needed that we should set conditions.  I think if we are talking about conditions, we must look at avoiding the will, duplicating work of existing bodies.  We have the Budapest convention, GSE, we are many international floors doing good work, and my opinion is that if the IGF should be involved, then it should cooperate with these institutions.  It should share information.  Seek the dynamics.  Seek the synergy and share best practices, yes.  That should be one important issue, as well.

That would be my view to start with. 

 

>> Maria.

>> AUDIENCE:  If I can add to that.  My name is Maria, I'm with the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise.  What I hear from discussion now is that it is about timing.  We have once a year a conference.  It is what Lisa mentioned, it's about finding the staying holders, finding the funding for initiatives.  And, I think in return, what, for example, the GFC can offer.  We've been going through a process of defining global good practices on different topics on cyber capacity building.

As you mentioned, there is also the IGF best practice forums, cybersecurity.  So, why can we not link the two since we have gone through a similar process?  So, timing wise what I could offer, for example, is to have the IGF, the outcomes of the IGF best practice forum up till now be presented, for example, at the annual meeting at the global forum on cyber expertise, there by having another annual meeting, whether it's a possibility to exchange best practices.

On funding, that is also the place where you could find other stakeholders and stakeholders with money, because having best practices is one thing, but start implementing is another.  And, that's the other thing I hear from the discussion.  We keep on talking, talking, talking.  Could not be otherwise, because you have a once a year and annual meeting, but then you continue the conversation instead of starting implementing.  So, this is what in return I would give to the group and see if we can come up with practical solutions now instead of started investigating and starting agreeing on yes, we do have an issue here, and how can we strengthen each other, strengthen the two forms.

Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE:  Hi.  I'm Alissa Cooper, the chair of the Internet Engineering Task Torce.  A bit of an outsider here.  Been to an IGF before, but this is not my natural habitat, I would say.  So, you can take my observations for what they're worth.

But, I think there is a thread to be drawn together.  You opened a little bit talking about trust and how, you know, when you ask people what you need to work together in between the meetings, trust is very important.

Then, there was a comment about having better defined goals or milestones, being able to define what is the success criteria and, you know, finishing work when it meets that criteria.  And, then, there has been these comments about the need for resources in order to meet more frequently or in between the meetings.

One thing that I think that we found in the technical community is that if you have the trust, which comes in large part just from knowing each other, from knowing the other people you're working with, and which you can build by coming to the IGF once a year, and you have the smile stones or goals, you know what you're driving towards.  Then actually you can do a lot of the work online in between without having to meet, you know, six times a year in order to get it done.  If you know the other participants in advance and you feel that you have that trust, then it can be made to work.  So, in the ITF, we have a lot of these models where people come together, you know, once a year at an ITF.  We have three meetings every year, but everybody doesn't come every time.  And, then in between we do a lot of work via Email and conference call, and every working group that we have has very well-defined milestones in terms of what we're trying to achieve.  Different output because we're standardizing specifications, but I think the underlying mechanics can be applied more broadly insofar because the people know each other they can get the work done without meeting face to face very often at all. 

>> I think you did a very nice summary for me.  Thank you,

Alissa.

Barbara.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you.  Barbara from Diplo Foundation and the Geneva Internet Platform, and I'm based here in Geneva, which is a really fascinating little ecosystem of Internet Governance, because we have here, for example you remember talking about privacy or talking about ICT for development and the ITU international center organization.  So, we see throughout the year a lot of things happening in relation to Internet Governance that are not necessarily plugged into the IGF.

At the same time, the IGF secretariat is here as well and we see people also meeting the others.  We have every month, in fact, organized by ISOC a meeting in Geneva with all the actors and diplomats that are doing work related to Internet Governance.  So, this is work that is going on and that the IGF secretariat is also involved in.

But, I think what the challenge here in Geneva is, this is a very nice little ecosystem, nice little bubble, but how do we make sure that policies and discussions that are going on here are relevant for people across the globe.  And, I think here the national and regional IGFs are really, really important, to make sure that the policies or discussions that take place here are actually reflecting the needs of people outside of Geneva.

So, that's just my contribution. 

>> Thank you.  I like to follow up with you, ISOC, because they coincide nicely with some questions I had later.  But, let's try to end the first question first.

What I've been understanding from best practice forum is that the MAG decides what the topic is and then basically they look for a volunteer and everybody who volunteers delivers input and the rest doesn't hear a lot about it or they just, like you said, don't have the time or resource toes participate.  But, is that the right sequence?  Because I can understand that within some sensitive topics perhaps some people don't want to discuss just out of the blue at all.  Would you actually define first what this BPF is going to do, under what sort of conditions it's going to work, are the trust levels necessary to work together or can it just happen like it's happening now?  If each of you could just mention one word, and not everybody, but several people would say this is what I would need to participate within the best practice forum another form of Intersessional work and may not exist at this point in time.  What could that condition be?  So just one word.  Who would like to volunteer first?

>> AUDIENCE:  I would like to say something else.  Maybe --(Laughter)

>> AUDIENCE:  -- it's not going to make you happy, but I think what you're trying to do is institutionalize things that should not be institutionalized.  Because, I come from a business where we do fight a crime on the Internet.  I never see one of any policy makers coming across my office any time, and still we're doing it, and we're doing it by the way that Alissa says, by making context and having the same goal, a mutual goal to fight this crime is what makes everybody move.  Except for one bad host who doesn't want to move, and then we have a problem because nobody else wants to move.  So, you will help me to get rid of that bad host, apparently it is not possible to do it all over my Country, or even abroad, even Europe, but for the rest of it, I think you should not institutionalize these kind of processes.  I think you should just let it happen bottom up and make sure there is enough room and space for each other to be able to have these kind of processes and make sure that we can reach each other.  So, yeah, I think it's important to meet at the IGF is one of the best place, I think.  My experience with conferences is always the best things happen outside in the hallway and not most of the time not here, but here is where we meet each other, right?

So, I would just want to refrain from giving a program and say one thing that should be in there, because it's hard to say. 

>> I'm actually addressing people's concerns that people have been telling me that the reason they're not participating because will is no context in which they can participate.  I'm not trying to get a topic in, it's just to see if people start working together, do they need something.  Because you've made some arrangements among each other also, probably. 

This is the way we do this, or this is the way we do that.  That is what I'm looking for.  I'm not looking so much for an institutionalization, but giving people in organizations the comfort to actually be able to participate.  And, that could be resources like these are saying, but it could also be that we need to have an end goal because otherwise we're not going into something which we don't know where it is going to end.  It could be the trust level that you decide on together.  Do you actually need something like this or do you say, I'm happy the way it goes?  Because that is basically what I'm trying to find out.

>> AUDIENCE:  Just to build on what you are saying, the catch-22 here, the meetings that you have in the corridors, the connections that you make that lead to, as I say, bespoke solution and to helping each player actually develop their own solutions based on input from others is very valuable.  I think what you're addressing about is the fact that, again I think it is a sales pitch here, we haven't conveyed that value of the IGF that people feel it is a reason to fund and to attend.  The danger is without people funding and attending you lose all of the benefits that you're seeing in it.  So, I think we're trying to find -- the danger that I would sort of warn against, I guess, is coming up with processes within the IGF that we think we need to convince people to fund and to attend, which aren't necessarily well thought out, other than that.  Or which may be the most effective way to address problems other than that.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you.  My name is Alexander from (?) working at the council of Europe.  Working at the council of Europe cybercrime division.  Just abet of context, I know Laura already mentioned the convention.

We already have convention international (?) who counts 56 member states and 14 observer states with numerous other countries who use it as a guideline for domestic legislation.  We have started a developing process for an additional (?) called (?) to address the new changes of cybercrime and jurisdiction in cyberspace to evidence Internet crimes, and the thing is the current format of IGF works perfectly for what is happening now with the council of Europe and this convention.  So, there is a process undergoing.  The process is based on four years of consultations with different stakeholders, with private sector, Governments, law enforcement, data protection and privacy organizations.  And, in fact, IGF is a good forum to present where do we stand currently with the developing of the additional protocol, to receive feedback to take them back to the protocol routing group and then the next year to come with the current situation.  I think if we transform also the IGF in process of palpable and policy solutions, it can overlap, and it wouldn't represent a good place to come with our work if we go on different path.  So, I think it's a good place to come with current developments and take feedback, including the work of the committee.

Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE:  Name is (?) I'm on the board of Internet and security teams first.  I think one of the problems that I see coming from a supposedly global organization is we're not global at all.  We're missing entire regions in these room.  We miss these regions in most of our meetings.  There's hardly anyone here from Africa, Asia is not really here.  I find it difficult for these regions to participate when we have conferences we lack to participate.  That is not to blame them, it's just a question and a challenge that we have to overcome.  If the Internet does not really respect those boarders and when I'm teaching in those regions I often hear, oh, the (?) is not listening to us.  When we have an issue they're not listening to us.  This could actually be a place where we try to get these people on board, maybe exacting that they have different ideas about currents, about housing should be done.  I think these are really the big challenges that we create trust across trust gaps, across cultural gaps.  This is all a very western kind of mood in here, which is cool, because I kind of like it and I think that is the right way to do, but I must accept there is a lot of people that I have to work together that may not share this, and it's not maybe my role to change those people, because in the beginning I have to work with these people.  I need to talk to them, to understand them and hopefully they understand something from me, so that would be a wish from me.

>> AUDIENCE:  Good afternoon.  I'm Michael Kaiser from the national cybersecurity lines from the United States.

I want to say a couple of observations here since we do this all day long, we do a lot of collaboration.  We do a lot of multistakeholder.  So, here is my question.  There is an enormous amount of collaboration in cybersecurity.  Considering how short it has been around.  You know, I think the technical community does amazing work.  I think policy law enforcement does amazing work in collaboration.  I think -- but what I think the IGF may offer that's different is that a lot of that collaboration is very specific, toward a specific interest that is trying to be achieved.  It is all good.  Not saying it is bad.  All things that absolutely has to be done.  To the last gentleman's point, does the IGF offer opportunity to go over the top of that in some way.  Not to make rules, not to make standards, not to do those kinds of things that are probably being done very well insect tore specific groups, or addressing a big issue like cybercrime itself in general because there is a lot of different ways you could slice this pie, but to bring in that broader participation, because even in all those collaborations, even when they're considered to be broad are not extremely broad, right.  They're not extremely inclusive.  And, so, and they're driven sometimes by, you know, corporate interest, sometimes by civil society interest, so to me, the interest is that maybe there is a possibility on top of all of that to do something, to bring something together.  I'm not sure.  I'm not as familiar with the IGF process as many of you to understand how that might work within the instruct sure, but to me that seems like if there is potential, that is where it is. 

>> One moment, Jacamo.  We had a few examples of this already.  What sort of topic are we then talking about?  Because, I have my own views, but that's not of interest here at this moment.  What would you actually consider a topic that would go over the top, as you mention it, or as the GOC said, we could actually start creating lines that would exchange information, or what Arnold said, we should be creating synergy between projects.

What will actually be sort of topic that the IGF ought to focus on, then, and not to duplicate something like Alexander says, and others.  What would actually be that extra?  Anybody idea?

>> AUDIENCE:  That extra could be a common ground and all the regions and political views feel this is something we can start working together.  Working with your friends and bodies is always easy.  Working with someone that has totally different ideas, I see (?) here.  We have a hard time getting Iranian teams into first because of political issues, yet we need to talk with these people.  Can we find a common ground where we agree despite all the differences this is where we're going to work together. 

>> Yeah.  I want to link various discussion around here.  The first one is that just to remember historically why we are here today.  We started in Geneva in 2003 with the world summit Information Society.  The idea at that time was to create the place for internet governance and eventually an international body that could deal with that.  At that time failed totally in 2030 and then there was another tentative in (?) and again it was (?) because for the first time they were around the table Governments, there were business partners, there was civil society.  There was no agreement at the end.  So, the only thing that was agreed in Tunis was we don't know each other, we don't agree with each other on anything, let's give us five years' time to discuss to better know each other.  This is what we did from 2006 to 2011 when, again, the mandate was renewed for five years the top bring to the end.  Again, we said okay, we know each other better, but we are not still in a point where we can improve very much the things.  Let's give us another five years.

In 2016 we said we know each other since ten years, let's go a little bit farther.  And, what is -- and I think that we need to go to understand, because the more we drag our feet, the more there will be the temptation for several (?).  We have already one strong cyber net enter knelt, the other two separate Internet are going very far, and soon there will be many totally separate Internet if we don't act in order to brake this barrier. 

Not sure that we will succeed, but we have to try at least. 

>> I agree.

>> AUDIENCE:  Then, what is the problem, and why the IGF could be important, for a very simple reason.

Many of the decision-making process are taken by international institutions or move to other or various kind of intuitions that are more specialized and cybersecurity is not the IGF reference in the world, no, for fighting the fishing is not the place, but the IGF has something that the others don't have.  Most of us for our intergovernmental forum or for our technical forum or our business forum, the IGF is multistakeholder and this is the only place where the multi staying holder are on equal footing.  The civil society can at the same time to discuss and to speech to argue, the same number of workshop, the same number of possibility then the business or the government.  And, this doesn't happen at any other place.  So, what is happening now, if you look at this professional organization, they are trying to create multistakeholder window, for (?) to create this own forum for civil society.  But the Internet cannot be a separate discussion.  It has to be a transverse Al discussion, because when you affect something here, the impact is somewhere -- you can solve this very easily, but what about privacy or what about the security, what about the transaction, what about some countries where this is the only way to -- this kind of fails in the system are the only way to communicate.  So, you cannot look at the problem as isolated.  You have to look all together.  And, the IGF is the place where we can do this.  But, if we continue, and we have seen this debate around the polls, I'm ashamed of this debate about the polls within the MAG where we are afraid to ask to the people attending the IGF what is important for the IGF.  Come on, then we don't want to discuss anything.  We want to continue to hide.  If we continue this way, there would be many enter nets, each one who can afford to make his own Internet, others who cannot afford would close their internet and there would be no more Internet for anybody. 

>> We're not going to the poll, Jacamo, if you don't mind, but we do agree.  I think what you're saying, and some others are saying that it is not for nothing that we have asked a lot of the organizations present here that all the different sort of work within the Internet whether from technical point of view, from abuse point of view, from a CCERP point of view, from civil society, cooperation, Governments, they're all here with a purpose, because in the end you are all taking care of a part of the Internet, and is there a way to go over the top, as Michael say, to find those topics that are of importance to all, or a topic that is important to discuss in a much broader fashion.

Just to give an example, when the ITF comes up with a standard, and I from a personal experience a long time over five years of fighting spam I found out that there was this best practice something number 38, which would basically take care of spam for about 80% if it was implemented by (?) and it was, what I understand, invented in 1998.  So, that's about 20 years ago, and most organizations still seem to not have implemented that basic tool that piece of software that was invented in 1998.  So, what does it say to have something like that implemented?  The technical community says this is a standard, it will work, please do it.  Commercially apparently it is a problem to do so, Governments are not aware it even exists, and anti-abuse people are fighting their own companies saying we need to implement this, but it costs a lot of money and then somebody else in the finance department says we're not going to do it anyway.  So, what if that specific example was discussed within the IGF saying we've got this beautiful tool from a technical point of view, how can we actually get this implemented?  Who do you need to discuss this with?  That would be going over the top, I think.  So, in other words, is that the sort of discussion that we should be having together within an IGF context saying, we identified this from an anti-abuse point of view or this from a technical point of view or this from the civil society point of view, but we need to all together to actually make this work.  So, if that is an idea, which I've been hearing here a few times, and I'm just using one example, and it could be any example, of course, from any community, what do we need, then, to actually make that happen?  Because, not everything goes through the MAG, doesn't need to go through the MAG or content people say I want somebody from the IGF secretariat setting up some virtual meetings for us because we think this is important.  Or does it have to go MAG driven or can we do it ourselves?  That's the sort of thing that we could be discussing right now, and that could be recommendations towards the IGF secretariat and the MAG.  What are your thoughts on taking it over the top?  Who do you need, what does it look like and what do you need to actually make that happen?

So, who would like to go first?

>> AUDIENCE:  Yeah, I'm probably going to be a bit of a rain

 

on the parade here again.  I mean, I think it's part of why I

 

think sort of talking about Internet problems, as you did in

 

some of the initial questions, is itself problematic, because I

 

think there a whole range of very different kinds of problems. 

 

As I said, there was a best practice forum on IPB6 adoption.  I

 

think it did good work, produced some good outcomes, I would be

 

surprised or shocked if anyone thought it had a noticeable

 

impact on IPV6 adoption around the world.  For all we do seem to

 

have seen an increase somewhat at the same time, but that's not,

 

yeah, stretched that far.

 

I think the BCP38 thing is probably a similar situation.  If we had sort of the years of the world listening to the IGF then maybe bringing it to IGF would be a useful or have an impact but I'm not sure we have a forum with that kind of visibility at this point and probably the more visible forums are IGF or other sort of operator forums like NANOG or something where that could be highlighted.

I think, as I say, I think the one -- there are many different problems that have very specific solution processes.  I mean, I think the ININ process, steward transition is one where we could probably say that that process that sort of formed and coalesced around that when the opportunity came to actually develop a solution and implement it might not have happened had there not been the history of the IGF there which had brought a lot of those government representatives into Internet Governance processes, and I think that is something that I would say is a sort of success story of the IGF, you know, in a somewhat distant way.  But, I do think, again, it comes back to maybe that is kind of the value of the IGF itself and maybe we set ourselves up for failure if we try and turn the IGF into something more than it can be in its current form.

>> AUDIENCE:  Just to build on that as the last few people were talking I was kind of pondering to myself, what is the set of issues wherein some amount of discussion can cause the actors who you want to act, the operators who you want to implement BPC38, is that an example of something where some amount of discussion is going to change their discussions or the way they evaluate their discussions.  Same thing for the bifurcation of the Internet issue.  Is that an issue where some amount of discussion is going to change the way that certain countries evaluate what their incentives are to go off to try to create their own separate network versus not and I think both of those are really bad examples?  I'm not criticizing --

>> Give me a good one.  This is top of my head.

>> AUDIENCE:  I know.  I didn't mean to criticize in terms of them being brought forward, I was trying to think of, like, what as Chris said, you know, how much work could you put into it and what would you get out of it.  What would you expect to get out of it, and I think being more familiar with BCP38 there has been a lot of work that has gone into trying to convince network operators to implement that and ISOC even has a targeted initiative that they've been pushing for a couple of years around that, and still it hasn't quite crystallized.  Same thing with IBC although it has gotten better recently.

So that is kind of key to think about in term of the type of issue for which this is a useful framework, and not every issue fits into that mold.  I can't come up with one good example for you.  Again, being kind of a fish out of water, but I think that's really important to think about where it's not, you know, it's not going to be different amount of money changing hands, it's not going to be Governments evaluating their strategic objectives, national objectives, right, it's going to be that three multistakeholder dialogue you think you can change someone's mind and that is applicable in some cases and not in others. 

>> I think one of the things we will do is try and identify the right topics in a few moments.  But, I can give one example from the Netherlands where things did change because IP version 6, the discussion of 20 years, and I still don't know why I was at that meeting with six Persians, but I was there, and then they proposed to do exactly the same this is they've been doing for 20 years and put money into that.  I said why are you going to ask the same people to do the same thing which have probably been failing at for 20 years, not meaning it in a derogative way because it's a difficult topic, I know.

Then I put somebody else in place, something completely different started to happen and actually there is now an online thing that people see, hey, I'm not scoring so well because I'm not running IP version 6, and that started to change people's minds.  They're proud announcing we're 100 percent on this Internet score.  In other words, somebody from outside the normal perimeters started evaluating it and something completely different came up.  And, that's, perhaps, what the IGF could do in this sort of topic, because people get convinced that this is a good thing to do, not from your own group, but that's just thinking.

I think George --

>> AUDIENCE:  Thanks.  George Sadowski affiliated with

ICANN.

I have a somewhat different model, and it takes cybersecurity as example.  There are lots of organizations doing work in cybersecurity.  Some of them are represented here.  Most aren't, because there are many of them, and they're doing different things and they have their own mandates, resources and strengths, and their own restrictions based upon the resources they can command.  So, you asked earlier, what would it take to commit to an effort underneath the IGF of some kind?

It really boils down to a series of questions for me.  First of all, I would ask the following:  What's the problem we're trying to solve?  And, can we annunciate specific goals that would -- if we reached them, that would imply success.  Okay.

The second thing is:  Is anybody else trying to solve these same problems?  If they're doing it, and they exist, are they doing it better than we could do it?  Should we just affiliate with them as individuals or organizations rather than try to start something new.  If there is nobody doing it, we should ask, would there be significant value, however determined, socially, economically, technically, whatever, in achieving these goals, and can we do it and then the question, can we do it with the resources that we have.  And, will those resources commit?  And, if all those conditions are met, well, then maybe it's possible that we can do it.  But I don't think that we're going to end up saying yes to those questions very often.  And I would argue that if we are looking for a purpose to exist, that's a very weak position from which to organize. 

>> Thank you.  Yes, some very wise words.  I think that is the sort of question that the IGF has to answer for itself, and that's one of the reasons why we're trying to get these inputs, perhaps some answers can be formulated and presented to the IGF and then we'll see what the MAG does with it.

I have Michael, Arnold, and Serge.

>> AUDIENCE:  So, just my perspective on this, maybe slightly different.  I don't think that this forum is the one necessarily to promote technical solutions, right.  I think there are so many forums that do really good job on that.  I mean, because they come up with the solutions.  Maybe, but, on the other hand, the way I look at this, again, is are there things that we know are helpful that if people did them, and we do mostly education awareness with individuals in small and medium size businesses, where as a global community we agreed to over a period of time make those agenda items that we felt people should be engaging in on a broader scale than they're in right now.  So, I'll give you a couple of examples.

One would be, it is a technical example, but a simple one.  Would this forum, if it came together, say that no matter how you do it, everybody should be promoting things like stronger authentication, right.  And, it could filter down through a lot of groups that don't yet participate in cybersecurity as kind of a motion forward.  It doesn't have to be, you know, some best practice that everybody agrees on it's exactly A, B, C, D, E, right, but it's a concept that we know if it was more broadly adopted across the globe it would make the Internet more secure.

Another kind of topic might be, and by the way, the

 

collective interest here is I don't care what Country you're in,

 

I think most feel protecting their citizens from harm, right, is

 

going to be a priority no matter what.  Maybe not everywhere,

 

but most places.

 

The other would be looking at other issues, like cybersecurity workforce.  There is not going to be a technical solution on that.  There is not going to a specific best practice, but there is going to need to be a collection of the minds, right, that helps the whole globe address what's going to be a huge deficit no matter what they want to do on the Internet they're going to need this workforce.  So, there may be issues that aren't implementing a solution across, you know, I'm just trying to describe some things that I think could, you know, lead to change, where there are people here who influence what happens in other places, right.  Those are just some sort of random ideas. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Yes.  Thanks, Arnold.  Your question or topic should we tackle to get this corporation done reminds me of a meeting I attended last month in Geneva here at the WEFF, the world (?) forum.  That was a preparatory meeting, the main goal was to set up a WEFF global cyber center.  And, I'll give you some information, but please keep it within this room.

There were five tasks --

(Laughter) 

 -- five tasks for seen for this global cyber center.  I will name a few of them.  Implementing already existing form initiatives some of WEFF and two recommendations, and dealing with the public-private corporation committing cybercrime.  The second one, library of cyber knowledge.  Third one, training education.  Fourth, protocols, regulations, advising Governments in setting up new cybersecurity rules, and a fifth one, having a broader look in the future by setting up the future scenarios.

We had an interesting discussion and lots of breakout sessions, and at the end of the conclusion, there was a preliminary conclusion was please lower down your ambitions, because it's too much, it's time consuming, it costs a lot of money, and more important, there are already platforms, organizations, institute dealing with this topic.  So, instead of finding the new wheel, reinventing the new wheel, cooperate with these platforms, international organizations, share knowledge, find initiatives where you can have this added value.  And, if you ask me what kind of topics should we tackle, I cannot answer that question, honestly.  This is my personal view.

I think the answer would be to allow the IGF, as a multi stake holder platform to have these organizations platforms dealing with cybersecurity in this room, or not this room, at the place where the IGF is gathering and share the best practices, share the knowledge, make it possible.  That's not forcing any, any conclusions.  I know there is a best practice cybersecurity, we have on BP6, CCERT, whatever, but it is a forced effort, in my view, and we should allow more efforts to get these relevant organizations, whether it is the Budapest convention or GCSS or GCE on board.

I can tell you one thing, we have an interesting meeting coming up, I think it is on Tuesday or Wednesday where the global forum of cyber expertise is having an open forum.  I ask, please invite you to that forum.  And, they have 17 concrete initiatives going on, best practices, lots of sharing of knowledge will be done there, and will is also an open forum by the Netherlands national cybersecurity council on the latest reports, that is to duties of care in cybersecurity dealing with the issues companies have how to enhance their internal structures, ICT systems.  These platforms are here during this IGF, and we should make use of that and seek the synergy, so we can have for the future more, hopefully more organizations attending the IGF.  I think that would be the solution and not finding some new, well, forced men as to come up with concrete results. Thank you. 

>> Serge going to come back to you in a moment, but I'm going to take this opportunity.  We've basically been moving around the same topic, more or less.

So, if we have all these organizations, and we have, because they're in the room, we have all these organizations here, and probably there are a lot of people with the best minds on specific topics here within the IGF, are they used in the right way?  Because, the suggestion is that the answer is no.  So, is the format that the IGF offers at this point in time to basically have talk shops and which people talk for fifteen minutes and then they go to the next session where they tell the same story, I know from experience, do we use these brilliant minds in the right way or should we be thinking about other formats also next to workshops and Intersessional work?  So, what would your ideas on that be?  How could we use this energy, this brilliance, these ideas, these best practices?

>> AUDIENCE:  Picking up on those two votes, maybe all the present organizations say what are the top pain points and if you find someone else that has a similar one or same one get together and start discussing. 

>> And, not in a workshop forum, but in open.  So, if I get you right, we tap one or two most important topics from different organizations and work from there.

>> AUDIENCE:  Create a platform that organizations follow the same goal and aim at the same goals actually start meeting and work together, so we don't start yet another education initiative or yet another IPB6 initiative, because there is already a lot, but we probably will be much better by joining forces.

>> AUDIENCE:  I think you could improve if you would use some different kind of methods to have your work shop like this, interactive workshop is really nice because you can share ideas that you have.  But, on the other hand, let me be Frank.  I mean, we have this discussion about the IGF for the last couple of years now, and still we're all attending.  So, it's not that bad, otherwise we wouldn't go, right.  I've known other conferences which I attend year after year and every year I would say it's so boring, but again it is the whole way of corridors that makes it worth your while to go.  So, maybe it is something in there.

But, there is one thing that I have learned from other conferences, which is the main difference, of course, and maybe also the main problem at the IGF that we are not working on resolutions or conclusions together.  If we would have to sit here in this room and work on a text to all agree upon, then we would have a completely different dynamic going on, and maybe more involvement.  On the other hand, there may be other ways to go and it may be (?) you don't want to be in there, and I think that is the reason we're doing it the way we're doing it.  Maybe we have to say we can spice it up a little in the workshops but probably will stay the way we are.

>> WOUT de NATRIS:  We have never met, as far as I know.

>> AUDIENCE:  No, Winston Robert.  I'm from New Zealand.  The question that occurs to me, not knowing so much about ICANN.  You have a mandate from the UN.  Doesn't the mandate give you greater authority in this area dealing with some sign you are sign you are security issues, if your mandate is not strong enough to challenge the (?) go back to the UN and ask for a reconsidered mandate. 

>> WOUT de NATRIS:  Jacamo, you commented on that, I think, does the IGF have this mandate?

>> AUDIENCE:  In my opinion, yes, but of course you have something that is completely black or white in the UN.  At the end of the day at the general assembly some left thinking it was white and others thinking it was black.

If you combine the two things where the resolution of the UN general assembly that says the that the IGF is mandated for ten years, and that plan is to take into consideration the proposal of the improvement that was decided in this year's TD and in other flora, if we implement this, we have a different amendment from before.

On the top of that, there was a retreat organized by the Indeza in New York beside the general assembly, which they collected idea on how this improvement could be realized and there are minutes of this proposal and list of topics.  So, we have all the tools.  The matter is simply the resistance, of course, that's normal, and people think that this status quo can last forever and others that think cannot last forever.  So, we may need to go in different direction.

If I may add something, not trying to give an answer to your question before.  I think that what George said is totally right.  Engineer approach is very pragmatic, and I like because it's the kind of things I cannot do in my life because I'm a journalist.  So, I admire this practice.  But I think the life is an interaction between the fragment which is a larger reflection.  I think not necessarily all the problems that can be solved need to be discussed.  Also, the problem today looks like unsolvable.  Need to be discussed in the IGF.  Provided that we can bring something valuable, that there is a stakeholder approach.

For instance, net neutrality, especially after the last week, I think that will not be an issue which we can arrive to consensus very easily, but one day we will be there, but in the meantime, is not negotiable to continue to talk.  But there are talks that continue to take care of the reason of others and there are talks that we can bring to conclusion.  If we go to the proposal that gentleman made before, we need to look for affordable topics that can bring to conclusion and other topic of discussion that can be, in my opinion, continue to be discussed at the IGF once a year just to make the point where we are what is all the parts in the comment and then to see where to go.  So, when you need to lift this -- last point is, I think that one of the concrete implementations that the IGF has achieved in this years is the NRI.  Now we have the national regional IGF, so it means not only we can discuss one topic in one place with the elite of the world that can afford to come to a place and to spend the one week there, easy

for me this year because it was in Geneva because we are based in Geneva, but the other 12 years it was not like this.  But, what with the NRI, if we proper guide this process, this means you can raise the question here and ask the answer all over the chain.  And, having the feedback the next year, or vice versa.  The NRIs could raise a question there, then bring it to the global IGF.  So, this gives a dimension over the space that we didn't have in the past.  This is one of the key elements that could decide the point on which we want to focus our attention on a multi-year plan.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thanks.  I just wanted to come back to the issue of the format of the session.  Because, what Arnold said about the WEFF workshop sounded familiar.  I did a similar exercise in WEFF on the topic of Internet for all more than a year ago, and indeed, the value of such a workshop is really, and the WEFF is very good at it in bringing people together and really picking people's brain without having panel discussions and present tastes and that kind of the promotion of individual egos.  But, at the same time, I think, at least from what I've heard, is that the MAG has actually, please correct me if I'm wrong, that the MAG has actually really tried to encourage interactivity in the format of the sessions at the IGF, as well, but that has not being picked up by the people who are organizing the sessions, or maybe it doesn't fit into the format that it is often part of.  So, how do you -- even when this possibility is there to make more interactive sessions, how do you really encourage these sessions to be more interactive and to really lead to some sort of concrete insight or insights that can be taken further? 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  I think that is a very good comment,

because if you want to have something, which is really interactive, then you need to have the format interactive, and it means that you don't have talking heads behind, except for me, because I'm moderating this, but then you need people to be able to speak their minds and prepare them for a few specific questions.

I want you to comment on this.  And, it worked like a miracle last year, and it seems to be working pretty good this year, because we don't agree on everything, but everybody seems to agree to something could be done, whatever that something is.  And, that is what we're at this moment working on.

So, thank you for that, Barbara.  I think was a good comment. 

    George, I think you want to reflect on Jacamo.

>> AUDIENCE:  Oh, I certainly do.  A lot of points.  He is a friend, so I'm not going to attack him.  But, he mentioned a number of things.  I want to pick up on two of them.

One is, he said well, there seems to be a lack of cooperation in terms of starting efforts like this.

I don't think it is a lack of cooperation.  I think it is lethargy more than a lack, more than an unwillingness to cooperate.

Second thing I would like to explore is the first attempt by the UN to address the issue of lack of cooperation, and that is in the Tunis declaration, the tune I can agenda, there are a couple of paragraphs that refer to something which is called enhanced cooperation.  There has been a concern about what this paragraph really means, and enhanced cooperation folks met for a period of time.  Now it is housed inside the UNCSTD, science and technology for development.  But, in ten years that it has operated, ask yourself what it has done.  And, the only thing I can find of any merit is that when at some point the Governments were asked what were they doing in enhancing their cooperation, they put forward a statement, essentially a self-justification statement, there are many of them all collected in a report about how they are meeting all the requirements of the Tunis agenda, and here is how they're doing it.  And, I would like to raise the question of, in the absence of any pain points that are being identified and being shared, in the absence of any strong example of lack of cooperation, in the absence of any use cases that can be demonstrated, are we cooperating just as we are doing now and is cooperation really the issue that we should be focusing on?

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Thank you for that.  Well, I can point to one thing that they managed to do, that is this session would have been called enhanced cooperation, and we were forbidden to call it that way, so it is called strengthen cooperation within the context of the IGF.

So, that aside, what I would like to go back to is just a little bit of a different topic, but I think if we are talking about trying to strengthen cooperation, I'm wondering whether each stakeholder community has the right issues addressed which they think are important to them.  So, let's leave it open.  I will not explain where it comes from, but everybody may think of that for themselves.  What are your topics addressed at the IGF or are you listening mostly to topics that are not of interest to your stakeholder community?  And I'm going to do a run around the table.

For ICANN, are the right topics addressed here or not?

>> AUDIENCE:  No.  They're generally not relevant here. 

And, our cooperation, we cooperate extensively with certain organizations, and we have no problem reaching out to others.  We have no problem sharing all the data we have.  And, we feel that those cooperation’s linkages we are right.  ICANN's (?) are limited for naming and addressing functions of the Internet.  So, we come here primarily -- I come here because of personal interests, well, because of ICANN interests, too. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  And the technical community.

>> AUDIENCE:  Well, I cannot speak for the whole technical community.  I think most people participate in the ITF don't know the IGF exists, I would say.  It is mostly engineers working on engineering.  So, there is some folks who crossover and are aware of the governance issues and policy issues and so they -- I don't know what they think about whether the IGF serves its purpose, but it's for I think the bulk of the participants, it's not a world that they are exposed to, really.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Okay.

>> AUDIENCE:  The global forum on cyber expertise knows where to find civil society, but we've been trying for the past two years, since our -- we started our existence to find synergies with the IGF.  It's looking good so far, but I think we could do much better. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Okay.

>> AUDIENCE:  You know, mixed.  We do mostly education awareness, so there is certainly an interest in other organizes, countries, and I think there is some of that here, but we hear discussions of different people doing different things, but I guess I would add to that just one little things that I think one of the things that can come out of the IGF is collective action, and maybe that is, you know, a way to look at it as opposed to cooperation.  So, mixed.  

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Martha, you're one of the people who started this whole discussion by making it possible.  What is the drive for IDN to have this discussion?

>> AUDIENCE:  To have an answer to this question.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Right.

>> AUDIENCE:  No.  It's for us, we are registry of a CCTLD.  It's quite difficult to say what the IGF brings for us, it is not to talk about domain names, because we have ICANN already and we have standards ITF.  So, there are different forum for that.

What I've personally, I'm always interested in fields that are a bit away from that, and learn a new thing, see new things, and see the discussions on topics that I'm not really in detail familiar with.  And, what I do like is it brings together a crowd of people that are from really different backgrounds that I don't see in other forums.  So, if I go to ICANN, for example, everyone knows about domain names, or at least a bit.  Some of them.  Well, that's another question.  But, no.  But the IGF, for example, there is a number of people here from the Netherlands that is, it's from really different backgrounds, and have more time to spend on this is helpful, but if it solves things, well, yes, but not very -- not here.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you, Bastian from the Amsterdam Internet exchange, one of the supporters of this session.

I don't think you know, this time during the schedule, IXP specific related sessions.  There have been in the past.  I don't think that is a bad thing.  Maybe by now most of the people know what Internet exchange does and functionality can perform as part of an Internet technical infrastructure ecosystem.

There are a couple of sessions on the local content, so that he might be related to it.

I think for us, you know, the main reason to be here is not only to interact with other people from other backgrounds, other cultures, other nationalities, other stakeholder groups, essentially as supporting the multistakeholder model, so I don't necessarily have something I want to bring or want to put forward.  Always very much happy to talk about why we've been so successful in the Netherlands, and in Amsterdam specifically, but also very much aware that you cannot just take that particular model or the technical side of it and just put that somewhere else in the middle of Africa and then immediately it will turn into gold as well, because that is the way that we did it in Amsterdam.  So, I try to be very much aware where is someone else coming from, what are their background, what are their local circumstances?  You know, also to help me to reflect where I'm coming from myself around organization and operations.  That's the main take away for me to come to the IGF and to support it.

With regard to what people have been talking about here, how can we maybe try to make it more specific and the results more concrete.  I want to compliment with this particular session and the forum and I think other people also did that interactivity and getting people engaged and talking along instead of the very much like the transmitting of a panel maybe at the end of a session there might be five or ten minutes left for some questions, and if the questions are inconvenient then you won't probably even get an answer to a question.  So, I do like that this forum, and it would be very nice if we can see that elsewhere copied and make more interactive.

Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE:  I think we have a little bit of a different angle from Diplo Foundation, because we are a neutral actor and we promote capacity building.  We try, our aim is that every stakeholder has a little bit of a better understanding of what is discussed here and can follow the topics that are discussed here, so whether this year there is a focus on cyber security or artificial intelligence, you know, all of it is relevant for us, we just need to make sure that people can make informed decisions based on what is discussed under the framework of IG.

>> AUDIENCE:  I am just listening, this is my first IGF so I'm just observing every information at the moment.

>> AUDIENCE:  So, from first point of view we are bunt tee full engineers and geeks, too, and they all have the unfortunate property that they think this stuff is boring.  I think it's actually very important, because it tends to influence what we do in the engineering level, so I'm really happy that we have a couple of board members here that kind of try to get the policy perspective in.

For me this, is really very much an exchange.  I think a lot of policy makers need to understand technology, but a lot of the engineers need to understand implications of their technologies and that it's not engineers that are using this stuff, that it is normal people, so I feel this is highly valuable important for me.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Thank you.  I would like to underscore that because I was a consultant of the IGF secretariat for the CCERT best practice forum for two years, and actually that changed the perspective of a lot of people.  One that they realize what the IGF was for, that they could actually have a dialogue with governance on this topic, and on the other hand, Governments started to understand the technical work better because of the things that actually started happening there.  And, the level of reach out to other communities was, I think, excellent, because civil society was brought into the work of CCERT.  So, I think that is a very good example of how best practice forum can work but that is all to do with the drive that one person has, and unfortunately could not make it here, but Matt (?) deserves a very big compliment for his work and dedication to this best practice forum.  So, I would like to have that on the record having said that, but it is a way that you can see that you can influence different communities when the right people get on board.

So, thank you for that comment, Serge.

Now, for government perspective, because we have a few people from government in the room, Arnold, I see are you very busy, but from a government point of view, sorry to interrupt, from a government point of view, are the topics discussed that should be discussed from the government's perspective at the IGF or is it too diverse for you, or whatever?

>> AUDIENCE:  I can't be short on that.  Yes.  Look at what is the topics who are in the top three of this IGF.  It's all about IOT and cybersecurity.  So, the IGF in my view is following the trend on what are the most debated issues to discuss between stakes holders.  And, there are lots of workshops during this IGF coming up which are dealing with those topics, those two topics.  So, my answer would be yes, indeed, as a government we are quite happy with the involvement and the development regarding the agenda of the IGF.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  The other Governments, Mr. Fonseca, would you like to comment on that?

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you.  Good afternoon.  I was fearing you would ask me to do that.

(Laughter)

>> AUDIENCE:  I am chairing the interest group on this cooperation, so my interest was to come to this session to see what angle that would be discussed.

So, in response to your question, I would say yes, and no.  Yes, the topics are important, and as a government representative I follow we have a lot of discussion the discussions in this multistakeholder format.  It certainly is helpful for Governments to be part of that discussion.  So, this is the yes part.

The no is that from the perspective of enhance cooperation, there is a lot of controversy that involves cooperation is contained in this agenda, but if we think about that enhanced cooperation is something that should assist Governments, to deliberate or discuss public policy issues and try to deliberate on those, I would say that no, because what takes place here does not directly assist in that regard.  What we are discussing in the (?) is to what extent, including which topics should be included under these concepts and what will be the mechanisms and I think that's part of -- maybe part of that could be done within IGF, but certainly I think we need some other kind of approach and format because maybe not in all cases, but to something that would lead to more tangible, maybe, binding outs comes.  Something different from what IGF usually does.  So, n a way yes, it is useful, but if we look from the perspective of what we want out of enhanced cooperation, I think it is still insufficient.  And, I think maybe that is the reason that there is, I would say, a lack of participation on the part of government in researching, because there is no clear link between what takes place here and what is, let's say, what to be expected, what government to take out of this in regard to what to be expected from them in regard to public policy issues.

Thank you.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Thank you.  Going to go back to you in about 15 minutes when we try to define some recommendations on what a good recommendation for this angle could be, but also for other people, of course.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you.  So, from my point of view cybercrime and criminal justice in cyberspace are topics that are well addressed in the IGF.

A small minus would be criminal justice authorities.  I would say police, judges, and I think that their voices should be heard when discussing about challenges and about solutions to address cybercrime and to have more effective criminal justice in cyberspace.

Thank you.

 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  How can we get them to the IGF?  Because I've tried in the past to get Europe or Interpol here, but they just don't even respond.

>> AUDIENCE:  I think yes, Europe poll is here, we managed to cover a Brazilian prosecutor for one of our workshops, but everything is related to money and about being able to bring these people here.  And, here is okay, but when you have this type of meetings takes place 3,000 kilometers away, it's difficult for them to participate in.

>> AUDIENCE:  Yeah.  From the European Commission.  I'm afraid I missed much or most of this very interesting conversation, but I do agree partially with, my God, this microphone is far, with my government colleague, government colleague, we are not really government, but anyway.  Yes, that this year actually, this topic, this interest on cybersecurity artificial intelligence, this moving slightly away from the traditional topics of the IGF, those are still important, still relevant and still there.  It's been really appreciated from the west side and actually delegation from the commission and European parliament is quite good.  So, it shows that, yeah, the direction is probably the right one to get the interest in the organization.

>> AUDIENCE:  Hi.  Listening to all the conversation and the work that I've been doing for the past ten years in IGF, one of the things that we always hear is that someone is doing something.  So, I already have a lot of technical forums doing something, but most of the people don't know what the other forums are doing.  So, I think there is a gap for the IGF and for us to discuss ear, and to be somewhere where I can know what IGF is doing, what is the working group, what first is doing.  When the IGF started the best practices forum CCERT, I was bored at first.  I remember everybody was discussing why are they talking about CCERTs in IGF because we're already doing the work.  But the problem is that, like, everyone had a different interpretation of what a CCERT was.  I remember in those two years was a struggle because the civil society thought that we are the bad guys that were there to surveil them.  And, some people think that we were the police because we were doing something.  So, there is still a lot of confusion in cybersecurity about what is cybercrime, what is cybersecurity, what is control, what is privacy.  I think the workshop this morning was wonderful about cybersecurity and human rights.  I still think the technical community miss a lot and the impact what they're doing, the technology proposed how they can be misused and abused, and I think maybe there is a role.  I don't know if it will be to a BPF, or what would be the model, but what could be done to the whole year and everything is really how do we get these different initiatives in touch.  How could the community identify when you have a specific topic that is contentious or that could be being misinterpreted among different communities, and how do you get the stakeholders together?  And, this is, I think, what is complicated, and I see a lot of value here exactly because people are not talking about CCERTs and eastern handling, so I would not come here for this.  So, I am really interested in seeing impact of security, how security is being perceived, and maybe to clarify when people have a wrong interpretation or something, if I can help.

So, I don't know exactly how that could be helpful, but I think it's really where the IGF could fill this gap of having different communities understand each other and maybe working together on their own, not necessarily inside the IGF framework.

>> AUDIENCE:  Answering your question, and I do in a way that gives an example of what I mean.  For the media community that I represent in the IGF world, for instance the priority for us are the media business model disruption, and it's consequence on democracy, that for us as public service is quite essential, that now you call it fake news, but for me it's a lot more than that.  And, this is the right place to discuss this, because it's so multifaceted the discussion, cannot be discussed in you NASSCO or any other forum.  No other place to discuss.  The IP intellectual property for us is very important of course (?) will remain the main area but there is the component of the civil society, the business component we don't find the why.  We discuss with them the government representative. 

These are not the same thing.

There is a privacy issues that for us is crucial when we bring our content on the Internet.  There is the council of Europe, of course, that is one of the main parties we work with, but regional experience while the Internet is a global problem, is there is no other place to discuss this.

Then, the free circulation of content.  This is not an issue I will bring here, there is a censorship about certain number of content.  I don't think that can be solved here or anywhere else.

And, for us the last point is the local content.  How to preserve the capacity to produce local consultants for local citizenship.  This is very important discuss to bring somewhere else.

What I think is there are topics that we are here to

 

discuss, not to pretend to solve, but is important to listen

 

what the other have to say.

 

Issues that can be solved, but not necessarily by the IGF alone, may primarily, for instance, on the IP, this is a wide topic, but I think that we can bring the multistakeholder component that they don't have.  So, we need to have a pragmatic approach to see the value that you can bring into the discussion.

>> AUDIENCE:  Jeremy Malcolm from electronic frontier foundation.  I do support the idea of new more outcome oriented formats for the IGF, and I do think that the IGF does have a role to play in implementing the enhance corporation mandate from the (?) agenda.  I worry, though, that cybercrime and cybersecurity, are A, such sensitive issues, and B such traditionally such government lead issues that it may not be the right place to start, unless is in a very narrow question within those broader fields that, A, should be one that involves all of the stakeholders, not primarily just Governments, and B, it is something that already enjoys quite a lot of broad consensus so that we have a chance of succeeding with producing some sort of output or some sort of, I hesitate to say recommendation, but something like that.  Maybe a really narrow question of Internet things of devices have some way of being remotely upgraded, something like that.  I mean, that's not my area of expertise, but what I mean is something very narrow and something that should not be too controversial and something that there is an equal role for all the stakeholder groups and rather something that traditionally would be something that fall to Governments. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS Thank you.  Seems we agree on that narrowing.  We have about 15 to 17 minutes left.  I want to do a very short poll, and then move into recommendations.

What is for your organization the topic for 2018?  What should really be on the agenda of the IGF next year?  So, just push the button and shout something.

Ora.

>> AUDIENCE:   From my organization, we have a big topic, but I think it is a niche so it's not to be on the agenda of the IGF, but I really think there should be someplace where we can discuss the implications that the way we are developing digitally you have on society, because I think within that coming five to ten years our world will change dramatically.  We have no idea what's happening to us.  We have no way to control it.  And, we're not ready for it.  And, I think we should start discussing that fact and recognizing it before we can act on whatever is going to happen with us.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Very multistakeholder.  Thank you. 

Serge.

>> AUDIENCE:  Yeah, I can only repeat.  I think we need to get all stakeholders on board, also the ones that share very different views from ours on how the Internet should be governed.

>> AUDIENCE:  Cyber secure it too, but it is not the kind of thing that we no normally discuss at the IGF.  We would talk about it in a very specific context of how the name is in numbers that govern our ability to traverse the Internet can be corrupted by people who want to shut the Internet down.

>> AUDIENCE:  Yeah, ours would be a couple of things, is really the basic global adoption of cyber hygiene by everyone, as a starting port across, and then starting to work on sort of looking at the issues of workforce.  We're already looking at it, but in a different kind of way.  And, small and medium size business security which is a tremendous issue in the United States and I assume everywhere else.

>> AUDIENCE:  I would like to jump on that, and I think people from the cybersecurity area, like myself, we talk more about cyber hygiene, and I think we should be talking more not on cybersecurity in terms of someone that will provide you security, that's the traditional way of thinking about, like, public security.  We need to think more in the lines that everyone really needs to do their part.  So, it will go to businesses, big businesses, small businesses.  So, I think this is a big problem, but really to recognize that sign you are security is not something that the government will do for you.  It's something that everyone needs to jump in.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  From government point of view, what are the 2018 topics?  Start with EU.

>> AUDIENCE:  How to put -- putting back the users at the center, so creating a human center Internet, that includes privacy cybersecurity, all those that we discuss here, and then equalities and then divides, et cetera, et cetera.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Arnold.

>> AUDIENCE:  I didn't coordinate with our other departments back home but on a personal basis, I would say for a plenary session, I like the remarks by Arta, the impact of digitalization of society.  If we should choose for workshop, I would focus on SMEs and cybersecurity.  We are currently quite busy setting up a so-called digital trust center and mainly focused on SMEs how to help them in combating cybercrime.  But, I think this could be broadened, but only within the EU, but worldwide.

Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you.  From the point of view from the cyber commission committee, the committee that I intergovernment, the committee that I represent here, I think the main topic would be the effective criminal justice on cyberspace, meaning protecting the rights of individuals against crime on cyberspace, and as I mentioned, the already started work for the additional protocol and its outcomes who probably will be visible in two years are something to address this topic.  And, regarding the inclusiveness of this project, there will be a conference in June, in July in straws Berg called octopus conference, and this will be the first opportunity for all involved and concerned stakeholders to find out what are the first outcomes of this procession, and to contribute to the development of this process.  So, save the date for Julie in Strasbourg.

Thank you.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  For the IGF, what would the topic be? 

Too difficult?

>> AUDIENCE:  I mean, yeah, we have our own set of priorities, but they don't intersect too much.

I mean, one thing I will say is that we have a lot of new security protocols that we're developing that are going to see rapid deployment.  There is a new version of transport layer security, which is the thing that gives you the lock icon in your browser and encrypts Email traffic and so on, so we've been pushing forward very hard and fast on increasing the security of the Internet protocols, and those will have implications for a lot of these topics that have been discussed.  So, it might be a good time to maybe as Chris was saying, market those a little bit, talk about those implications could be a good topic.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  From what we've been hearing, that sort of thing might be very important to identify up front and present to the next MAG when they meet for the first time.

Serge.

>> AUDIENCE:  Especially the new TLS stuff has a lot of political implications because the stakeholders that actually don't like security to be too good for certain vested interests, and so I think these are topics where exactly the engineering actually touches on to stuff that's discussed here.  Very important topic.

>> AUDIENCE:  Yeah.  Maybe adding up to the topic Ada mentioned, how do we create responsible artificial intelligence, what are the boundaries, how transparent must it be, all the topics around it.

>> AUDIENCE:  Yeah.  Maybe I will say something slightly different, because when I look at the agenda of the IGF, I don't think we lack maybe most of the important things or all the important things have been discussed in some way the IGF.  And, I also don't want to be misinterpreted in regard to what I said before.  It is not that we don't value the IGF, and it's not that we see that enhanced corporation is only up to government.  We don't think that's the case.  Part of the discussion in the group is exactly how to make sure that the stakeholders input is there.  What I say is there, at the present format of IGF, it is not clear how it will bring concrete benefit from the perspective of what we want to au cleave through in-house corporation.  So, I would like to maybe to comment that thinking about what should be done in 2018.  I would think more in terms of process than in terms of the topics.  I think it will be important for IGF, as we have done for example, 2015, that we started that process around that document of putting the next billion in line, that kind of cooperative effort that led to some tangible output.  I think working around the teams that are already there, maybe to think about process that could lead to things that would prove the value of the IGF.  Not that we think we need to prove it, but to demonstrate people that are maybe not involved as they should, that there is something worth to be taken out of this process.

Thank you.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Thank you.  Last comment, and then we're going to wind up.

>> AUDIENCE:  It's an observation.  With one exception.  Nobody really mentioned fake news, the corruption of content, the loss of trust.  Along with the exception of one.  I would have thought that would be more popular. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS Thank you.  I think that we heard several things today, and I'm going to try and remember them all, but on the one hand we have a lack of resources to be involved in everything, whether that is money, time, knowledge, or whatever.  On the other hand, we have stay away from topics that are being discussed in a very good way somewhere else that may not need to be discussed here.  And, we have suggestions there are topics that Michael said, go over the top.  And, we've heard several of these hints towards that and suggestions on what sort of topics we could actually try to do that as an IGF.  The question is, then, what sort of recommendation should we be presenting to the MAG?  Because we have a lot of ideas here, which we're going to distill and write a report on, but also going to have an opportunity to present in the cybersecurity, the main session on the main outcomes, but what are your recommendations actually to try to achieve what you have suggested now.  Whether that is on cooperation, whether that is on making -- understand each other in a better way, whether that is really take on a topic that is very, very serious, but also very complex with many stakeholders involved that we need to engage because they are not engaging at this moment on the level that we want to have.  Let's try and formulate a few recommendations.  And, we don't necessarily have to agree, it's just your recommendation and we're going to align them and perhaps we could have a vote saying I agree with this or not, but at least have a few ideas on that.

And I see Jacamo really wanted to say something, but everybody wants to say something, you get the chance to do so, even if we run a few minutes late.

>> AUDIENCE:  Again, I think it is a question a way how to put the question.  I think the question has to be that we don't have any more limits one only shot, because in the past every year was completely something new and you don't know what the future was.  Now we have ten years.  One is gone.  We have nine ahead of us.  We can look for one topic for the next year, if you want but you can have other topics underlining that you

prepare on taking path for the next years, because some of these topics are not things that can be in one shot easily solved.  So, if we look at it in a multi-perspective, I think this is more essential --

The second thing, just for the answer that people will give.  If you see one priority, then you have also to say with who do you think this priority could be built up.  The point is I said intellectual property, but for me is not the top of the priority.  If we are to discuss this I would think with (?) and other places this is an essential issue.  So, we have the topic, the position on the timeline, and with who we want to do it.  If we give answers like this I think is more constructive.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  So, take takes an active reach out component to make sure that the right stakeholders know the discussion is going on and that that's the opportunity to catch on and latch on to it.

Thank you.  Okay.  Just cooperation.  How would you envision that happening?

>> AUDIENCE:  Well, that shouldn't be too difficult.  I would like to extend the invitation to the IGT MAG to come and talk at the annual meeting which will happen halfway next year.  Don't be afraid to look elsewhere, to look over the fence, to see what has already been done.  At the GFC we make it our business not to duplicate.  So, yes, maybe for the IGF pick one topic, as was mentioned earlier, but also look what's out there, what has been mentioned, as well.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Michael, how do we go over the top?

>> AUDIENCE:  I'm sitting here thinking there are topics, technologies, but if you are going to have multistakeholder approach, the first thing you have to convene.  I think part of the problem and IGF doesn't offer necessarily the opportunity to convene in that kind of way sometimes.  I'm not an expert, but you put it in a workshop, it is usually about your program, what you're doing, trying to tell people how great are you or what you think might be applicable to other people, but, you know, those are short.  This is great, this is two hours, but maybe there is a way to figure out another way to convene to get people to the table to start talking about what they are doing, what could be shared, what they have that other people could be using, and maybe from there comes a discussion of a topic or topics that could be done collectively.  But, it has to come out of a convening of some sort, and maybe there is not that -- maybe there is a different way of coming together here, which takes advantage of this -- which from my perspective in security, one of the more diverse communities that you bring together.  We go to RSA, it is all security people.  But here we have some other people that could really add to the mix.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  This is an option, just as a question, and then we go back to you.  ICANN first meets, UGSE meets, the Governments meet, the COE has his octopus conference I attended in the past.  How about using them as spring boards within specific discussion, X amount of people meet at the GSE, X amount of people meet at ICANN.  Put them in the room for two hours and hold the discussion on words and then report to those who were not present and work again from there at a morg meeting or whatever meeting.  Would that be a way forward for people to meet or who have the possibility to meet, might not come to IGF or at ICANN or could be involved in first discussions, et cetera.  Is that a viable way forward that we could recommend?  Difficult?

>> AUDIENCE:  Maybe I could comment on that.  We know where to find each other.  Do not meet for the sake of meeting.  What would be the purpose of that?

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Of course.  See very skeptical.

>> AUDIENCE:  If people want to interact with ICANN, if they see there is something which I can can do for them or they can learn, they're going to come.  So, I would say that the suggestion would be more redundant than wrong.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  What way would we have to work to make sure that topics get to the right people and come back up and go back down?  How should we organize that if we think that is important?  So, how does the discussing to the ITF?  What would you say come from the ITF comes up or from the GSE, the other way around.  Did you actually find each other on specific topics?  How would that need to be organized?  Is that to be spontaneous?  Does it have to be -- I don't know.  I am just trying to find an answer.

>> AUDIENCE:  I mean, as George said, the way that that works for the ITF with other organizations is we have people who are participating in both ends.  That is the best way that it works.  We also have, like, formalized liaison relationships with other organizations, but that doesn't really seem appropriate here.  So, the cross pollination happens because you have people who are already participating in all the fora.  So, I don't know if there is more to do than that. 

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Okay.  Thank you.  Other

 

recommendations from a government perspective for example.

 

>> AUDIENCE:  I like what (?) said let's focus on process and not topics, because that's what we have to do.  Have a good program out with interesting topics.  Of course, that has to be brought forward by the stakeholders themselves.  And, if you go back home after this week, tell your folks and all other people you are dealing with business wise or privately how useful this global platform of IGF is, and if there is a possibility to participate, let's invite them.  And, even further, let's propose to have topics who you are not thinking of on the table and through IGF.  That would be my advice.

There is a lot going on, and there are a lot of international organizations dealing with issues the IGF is talking about.  I see with myself that there are organizations coming to MAG meetings like world economic forum, other GSE.  We should expand this, and that I think should be also the task of the IGF and to participants of the IGF to get those organizations on board and to tell them there is a platform, useful global platform like ICANN, and like the GCSS, like GSE, where you can share your knowledge and experience and it brings you further.  It can help you.  It's for the benefit of all for free and secure.

Thank you.

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>> AUDIENCE:  I think related to this and thinking about the importance of including new communities is very important to have proper channels for e participation and remote participation.  We talked on the one hand that IGF needs to be more interactive but at the same time we need to remember that it should also really gain from input of people who cannot physically be here as, I think, that is also another observation.

>> WOUT DE NATRIS:  I think the point from the NRI has been made very clear, but also, I think, an opportunity to know what is happening in other parts of the world that are not necessarily participating here.  It also needs another sort of organization to make sure that those points are actually brought in to the MAG at the right moment.  And, Arnold, just coming back to your point, is that a role that the MAG should be having more actively, because they represent certain communities?  So the members be reaching out more actively to want to make themselves more responsible for the Intersessional work, for example, that is agreed upon?

>> AUDIENCE:  Well not only to MAG, but all interested parties, of course.  We have an advisory group leading to these issues because we see that.  Other interested groups like journalists are not coming to the IGF.  We are wondering, why is that?  Is it a lack of communication?  Is there something we should improve?  We're struggling with that point.  But, there are other issues, of course, tackling that same problem, how to get more of our other groups to the IGF.

My neighbor I mentioned the law enforcement agencies officials, they should be here, too.  Back home, I'm together with the platform of Information Society, ECP, are working on how to get other than the traditional private sector like the insurance fields, like transport sector, to get them to the IGF as well.  Of course, we often hear their reaction while it costs us a lot of money and time, especially when you are in the (?) in the world, but still, we are pushing to get those people on the table, even politicians back home.  It is a constant fight, but I think it is worthwhile doing that.

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