Internet Governance Forum 1 November 2006

 Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the
 The Inaugural Meeting of the IGF, in Athens. Although it is largely accurate,
 in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or
 transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings
 at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

 

 -Summing Up Session Transcript-



 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Good morning. My name is Nitin Desai. I'm the chairman of
 the organizing group which chairs this event. The purpose of this morning's
 session is for people to get to know about what happened in the previous day in
 the events they could not be part of. Because, after all, when you have a main
 session and you have lots of working -- workshops going on, it's difficult for
 particularly small delegations to keep track of everything that is happening.
 And the idea behind this morning's session was essentially a reporting in by
 people and any questions which may arise. It's supposed to be a short session.
 We should try and end, I hope, by about ten to 10:00 so that there is time to
 set the place up for the main session at 10:00. We will begin with a short
 report from the executive secretary, Markus Kummer, who will report on the --
 what happened in the main sessions in a general sense. After that, I will open
 the floor and invite those of you who wish to report in your perceptions of
 what happened yesterday in the main session, if you like, if you feel you need
 to add something, or what happened in the workshops. But the idea here is to
 inform people about what has happened in the previous day so that those who
 could not participate in all of the events can also keep themselves abreast of
 what is happening. So with that, I will turn the floor over to Markus Kummer.

 >>SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you, chairman. Good morning. We had hoped originally
 to have the moderators with us to give also their impressions of the sessions.
 But, unfortunately, they are both unable to be with us this morning. Let me
 start with a few words on the format of the sessions, which is common to all
 main sessions held in this room. There are interactive multistakeholder panels
 with questions and comments from the audience. We also offer the possibility of
 remote participation via blogs, chat rooms, and e-mail. Unfortunately, we had
 some teething problems with the wireless Internet access. But by now, while not
 perfect, it should work. And we hope for more comments today from those who
 cannot be with us in Athens. Please find your point of entry on our Web site,
 www.intgovforum.org. One of our moderators, Nik Gowing, from the BBC world,
 called the panel sessions "a giant experiment" and "a giant brainstorming." He
 also recalled the Secretary-General's comment that the IGF entered uncharted
 waters in fostering a dialogue among all stakeholders as equals. The innovative
 format was generally accepted and well received and some commentators called it
 a true breakthrough in multistakeholder cooperation. The depth and breadth of
 the discussions make it difficult to summarize the sessions. The issues are
 complex and in many cases, there were more questions than answers. The openness
 session was moderated by Nik Gowing from BBC world. It focused on free flow of
 information and freedom of information on the one hand, and access to
 information and knowledge on the other. Much of the discussion focused on
 balance, the balance between freedom of expression and responsible use of this
 freedom, and the balance between openness and protecting copyright. Some
 panelists pointed out that the two themes are linked and that for developing
 countries, issues such as better access to the Internet and access to knowledge
 is more of a priority. One panelist called the possibilities offered by the
 Internet to create content "a new form of free speech." He referred to the
 creative use made by the new medium -- made of the new medium by young people,
 which under today's legislation, can be illegal in some instances. While all
 panelists emphasized the freedom of expression, two of them reminded the
 audience that this freedom is not absolute and that freedom of speech is not
 without limitations and the Internet is not above the law. Hate speech, for
 example, is illegal in both the on- and off-line world. What are the limits of
 free speech? Hate speech, defamatory speech? Are there cultural differences? Is
 terrorism a good reason to limit speech? were some of the questions asked.
 Also, what effect does misinformation on the Internet have on the citizens, on
 the media, and how should this be combated with national laws, with more speech
 contracting the defamatory and hateful speech, with information ranking by
 search engines that gives a grade ranking the reliability of the information.
 The session addressed different types of freedom, different types of freedom
 and different aspects of freedom, such as freedom from government surveillance,
 free access as necessary precondition for human rights, and also necessary for
 social and economic rights. The session also looked at the relationship between
 the laws of the market and human rights and asked the questions of
 responsibility of corporations. There were calls for balance in terms of the
 systems sold and the use of systems to encroach on rights, and points were made
 such as the systems are sold that can be used to repress freedom of expression.
 But many systems are multipurpose and the same systems can be used to protect
 children at the same time. And despite negative use, there is a positive use in
 expansion of the number of people who have Internet access. Any increase in
 Internet access is positive and increases transparency was one of the points
 made by some of the speakers. There was also question with regard to balance in
 terms of content filtering. And the discussion turned to companies who have
 given information that was used in political arrest and prosecution. One
 question related to when the content, and that can be used -- liable for
 breaking national law. And it was also pointed out that companies are complex
 entities and often have conflicting priorities which are supported
 simultaneously. The question was asked whether major corporations should use
 their bargaining power to influence government, and it was pointed out that
 many do, not as a matter of force, but as engagement and enforcement. And also
 the question was asked whether concerns of human rights enter into the sales
 equation or whether it was only a matter of business consideration. The
 Internet, it was pointed out, can be seen as an attack on national authority.
 And it's therefore, in some instances, apprehension about institutional fear of
 new popular empowerment. Even though much of the discussion centered on the
 situation in one country, it was pointed out that freedom of expression can be
 under threat in all countries. Has there been any progress? Top down, there was
 still seen to be still much abuse, but there's also awareness of the power of
 the Internet to promote transparency. And bottom up, there is greater awareness
 and citizen awareness and engagement in public policy discussion as a positive
 aspect. And then questions asked was what the relationship between national
 regulation on speech and the Internet and the trans-boundary character of the
 Internet, and, ultimately, can there be a consensus among states. And that, I
 think it was felt, was almost a thing that was impossible to achieve. With
 regard to free flow of information and ideas of knowledge, there was much
 emphasis on the balance between openness and protecting rights, the balance
 between the citizen rights to information and the rights of the copyright
 holder. Some panelists pointed to the need to rethink copyright. And they asked
 whether it extends too far into the digital world, and pointed -- they pointed
 out that the expansion of the Internet is pushing change in other areas as
 well. It was generally recognized that there are different business models.
 Some required copyright fee in order to maintain and continue production.
 Questions asked included the following:  Do governments have the responsibility
 to enable free use of access of information on the Internet? And the comparison
 was made to libraries, where governments bought books for citizens to allow
 them to gain access to information and knowledge. Thus, should governments
 remunerate creators and owners of content? It also -- the session also looked
 at the effect of businesses protecting their copyrights and combating piracy.
 Questions were asked, was it -- does it restrict openness? Is it necessary to
 protect business innovation? Does it need to take into account different
 cultural traditions, given oral cultures and different notions of knowledge? Is
 there a need to find a business model that works with open information, open
 software and standards? And it was pointed out that open software and protocol
 can also create entrepreneurs. And the example of the South African Ubuntu
 software release of Linux was pointed out as a successful business model use
 open software. As I said at the outset, the breadth and width of the discussion
 makes it difficult to come to a concrete conclusion. But it was also pointed
 out by the advisory group member who summed up the session that the
 capacity-building should be seen as an important aspect of that and the access
 to knowledge the Internet can give in developing countries as an important
 point to be looked at. The security session was moderated by Ken Cukier from
 "The Economist." And there were some key observations, such as a strong link
 between security and economic and social development. There was a generally
 held view that the growing significance of the Internet in economic and social
 activities and in maintaining the openness of the Internet raised continuing
 and complex security issues. Another one was the tradeoff between
 confidentiality/privacy and security. The key issue here is the way in which
 responses to growing security threats are dependent on the implementation of
 processes of authentication and identification. Such processes can only be
 effective where there is a trusted third party that can guarantee both
 authentication and identification. This raised a debate about which
 institutions, the state or the private sector, could effectively act as a
 trusted third party. There was also a debate as to whether a bottom-up model
 centered on the role of users was more effective than a top-down model driven
 by formal government actions. Another key issue was the insufficient attention
 to the perpetrators of crime, their reasons, and their methods. It was widely
 accepted that perpetrators of security breaches are intelligent adversaries, in
 quotes, constantly adapting that behavior in security technologies and
 processes. There was a shared view that insufficient attention was being given
 to proactive and long-term actions to reduce security threats. Whilst there is
 a broad agreement on cooperation at an international level, part of the
 complexity is the lack of agreement at the very detailed level of what is a
 security threat and who are the key stakeholders. It was generally felt that
 security is not a personal responsibility; it is a multistakeholder process
 with a shared responsibility. It was a widely held view that the best approach
 to resolving security issues is based on best practices and multistakeholder
 cooperation in an international context. However, there was also concerns
 expressed about the degree to which information was shared in a timely manner
 and in a common format, in particular, with developing countries. Good examples
 of best practices at regional levels were highlighted, such as those used
 within the European Union. At the same time, concern was expressed about the
 extent to which information and exchange was being achieved in a fully
 inclusive manner. The role of users and the opportunity to exploit the
 intelligent edge of the network was highlighted by many speakers. For some, the
 role of users had been undervalued in the implementation of enhanced security
 measures. Not only were better educational measures required, but user choice
 should be respected more clearly. Thus, for example, the setting of clear
 expectations and principles within a public policy framework could enhance the
 power of consumers to address security measures. Security was also seen as a
 multifaceted problem. There was widespread agreement that security is a
 multifaceted issue and therefore it is necessary to involve coordination
 between different policy communities and actors. For some, this coordination
 needs to include a clear legal framework within which to operate. One example
 cited was the Council of Europe convention on cybercrime. However, others
 raised the issue of jurisdiction and the particular need for intergovernmental
 coordination. It was generally recognized that the lack of coordination in
 developing multifaceted solution was that individual entities, such as firms,
 faced implementing large volumes of complex legislation. The result of this
 could be counter productive in terms of enhanced security. Another key issue
 was the question public goods versus innovation in new security services. There
 was a debate as to whether market-based solution which stimulate innovation, or
 a public goods model would deliver better security measures across the
 Internet. For some, the public goods approach offered the opportunity for the
 widespread adoption of best practice across all countries. The counter view was
 that innovative solutions were required and that these could only be provided
 by market-based activities. There was a wide ranging but inconclusive debate
 about the role of open standards in shaping security solutions. The debate
 focused on the appropriateness of the open standards in the security arena. One
 of the key questions here was the extent to which free open source
 software/standards would enhance the level of security for all users compared
 to market-based licenses for proprietary technology. And last, but not least,
 the session devoted some time to the role of the -- the role the IGF could play
 in security issues. There was a widely shared view that the IGF could play a
 significant and positive role in fostering greater debate and action with
 regard to security on the Internet. The role of the IGF in collecting best
 practices, ensuring the widespread dissemination of information, and breaking
 down silo approaches to the problem were highlighted. And the ability of the
 IGF to support the development of a common language in the policy debate was
 seen as very significant. This ends the report of yesterday's proceedings in
 the main session.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you very much, Markus. I will clarify what you heard
 is the secretariat's report, and it's not in any sense the report which, let's
 say, is something that you should have to approve or any such thing, because
 it's simply a secretariat's report for convenience. I thought the next step
 would be, to be useful, if there were any workshop organizers here who want to
 take two or three minutes just to report on what happened. There's one here.
 Can we have the mike here, please. The mike in front here? Are there any
 others. Two, three. Four. I have four. Just one here, please.

 >> Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I will be reporting, if you allow me, on two
 workshops that happened yesterday. The first one is on capacity-building --

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  If you'd like to stand, because you are reporting to
 everybody, not just to us. So you may want to stand and just report --

 >> I won't presume that I'm the moderator, so I'll just take this out of the
 way. I'll be reporting, if you'll allow me, on two workshops that happened
 yesterday. One is on capacity-building, and with the subtitle on building
 policy capacity. And the second one is simulation exercise that the
 DiploFoundation organized for anyone who wished to sign up yesterday. The first
 one started in the morning, and the concept was to provide a very loose
 environment for discussion on how to best go about building capacity on
 Internet governance. And the participants discussed -- The discussion was based
 around a course that was organized by Diplo, a three-month course, in which
 there were approximately, I think, something like 24 participants.  They were
 there to present their stories, but at the same time, the idea was to give a
 chance to the floor to also give their say in what is the best way to build
 capacity. But it was also important to raise the awareness that Article 72H
 does say that the world does need to focus, to contribute to capacity building
 for Internet Governance in developing countries, drawing fully on local
 resources of knowledge and expertise. The discussion was based on five
 questions, am I speaking too quickly?  Sorry.  The question is what works and
 doesn't work in online building of research communities and online knowledge
 sharing.  How to make research policy topics relevant.  Three, how to bridge
 another emerging divide between capacity building rhetoric and ensuring a real
 impact in developing countries. Four, how to facilitate a multiplier effect by
 having more people benefitting from capacity building.  And five, how to link
 those emerging experts to national and regional policy processes. What came out
 as conclusions is that among the most important things is motivation. So to go
 quickly around them is that motivation is quite important.  That direction from
 the beginning is essential.  Other than that, the participants will not feel
 where exactly this is going.  But maybe most important is the building of
 confidence. In all, it was an approach to walk the talk, to manifest into
 action what has been said in so many different fora on capacity building.  And
 in the second session that I have the privilege here to report on,
 DiploFoundation again organized, something that is the manifestation of that,
 of the aspect and the concept of walking the talk. The simulation exercise
 around which this panel was based was organized and led by professor John Henry
 from the center of political studies and research at Oxford University. The
 participants were divided into eight broad areas or stakeholders, that is.  One
 was U.S, the second G77, India, the E.U., civil society, business, Russia and
 China.  Each were given certain theses they needed to defend and a basic kind
 of scale of how strong each of these stakeholders felt about these theses. And
 what came out was a true understanding of the difficult process of coming to a
 consensus in a very complex situation such as the Internet Governance process
 has been over the past few years. And I think, Mr. Ambassador, the participants
 felt the burden of responsibility that both you, that Ambassador Markus Kummer,
 that Adama Samassekou felt, must have felt, throughout the process. It also
 gave the significance of good direction from the beginning.  If there isn't
 good direction, the process deteriorates significantly. I will end there.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  I look forward to the results of your simulation.  Maybe it
 will help us in real life. Janet.

 >>JANET HOFMANN:  Good morning.  Thank you.  My name is Janet Hofmann.  I am
 with the Social Science Research Center in Berlin and I would like to report on
 a workshop we did on content filtering and freedom of expression, jointly
 organized by the Internet Governance project with UNESCO. The outcome of the
 workshop is that the universal declaration of human rights still provides the
 best framework possible to both enable and protect freedom of speech on the
 Internet, not least because it is very clear and specific about acceptable
 restrictions on freedom of speech.  And also because it constitutes a framework
 for all parties.  Individual citizens, governments, but also corporations.
 However, the difficult question is how to and enforce the principles set out in
 the universal declaration of human rights. What I found quite remarkable about
 the discussion is that there was no strong opinion on the question of whether
 the problem of enforcement can be best dealt with by industry self-regulation
 or whether there is some coordination needed that includes government action.
 That's it.  Thank you.

 >> Thank you, chairman.  My name is Matthew Shears with the Internet society. I
 just thought it would be useful to report out very briefly on the building
 local access workshop that was held yesterday morning, organized by ISOC and
 GIPPE.  We had a very good multistakeholder panel with good geographic coverage
 and I thought it would be interesting to reflect on some of the key points that
 were made with regards to local access. And perhaps just three or four of them.
 The first and most important was perhaps to see government as an enabler, an
 enabler of innovation, of new approaches to addressing access. Another one was
 capacity building.  One of the panelists went so far to say that the cost of
 access is not as important as capacity building.  I thought it was a very
 interesting comment. Political will.  Again, is there a political will?  Is
 there a multistakeholder process for addressing access at the local level, the
 key issue? Commercial solutions may not be the solution in all cases but
 certainly has a significant role to play, and market mechanisms are a very
 powerful tool. Community building.  Again, the community building was seen as a
 critical way of driving traffic, driving local content, and getting that
 infrastructure in place. And finally, infrastructure itself.  IXPs, the role of
 backbone, extremely useful ways and effective ways of reducing costs. And we
 had a couple of questions that may be picked up again in the afternoon session.
  On NGN, what's the role of NGN?  What about Internet as universal service? 
 What's the role of government in providing for that? And more generally, what
 about gender?  Are there issues related to gender that are inhibitors to
 access? Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Would you like to come up?

 >>BOB ROGERS:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Bob Rogers of the Global
 Information Infrastructure Commission, which is a confederation of senior
 executives from ICT companies from throughout the world. We staged a workshop
 yesterday afternoon in collaboration with WITSA, the world information
 technology and services alliance, which, like the GIAC, is a private sector
 organization.  It's an association of I.T. associations from 68 countries
 around the world. The topic of our workshop was enhancing multistakeholder
 participation in ICT policy making.  And our aim was to explore effective means
 by which representatives of different sectors of society, in individual
 nations, can work together to foster adoption and adaption of public policies
 likely to enhance access to ICTs and the Internet. This topic we felt was
 consistent with the capacity building emphasis or focus that has been so much
 at the heart of this first meeting of the IG forum.  And while it would
 probably be an exaggeration to say that we left our meeting with any hard and
 fast rules, recommendations or bursts of new insight, we did hear a number of,
 I think what all of us considered to be very significant success stories from
 Egypt, Bangladesh, Uganda, and Lebanon, about how business people, along with
 public officials, academics, researchers, and other interest groups, have, in
 fact, worked collaboratively to first Al abolish a particular regressive
 policies that were needlessly punitive toward or inhibiting of ICT diffusion. 
 And second, to foster diffusion of new laws, regulations that gave birth to new
 applications of ICTs, particularly in the realm of rural health services, and
 that in other ways resulted in expedited diffusion of ICT capabilities. At the
 end of our meeting, our moderator, a GIIC commissioner Hasham El Sharif {sp?}
 from Egypt commented that it was evident from the case histories that were
 presented that there is power in partnerships.  And I think it was this -- this
 realization, the power of partnerships in changing and shaping the thinking of
 public policy makers that was as overarching a theme as any others that came
 out of our discussions.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  (No audio).

 >>VINT CERF:  Actually, this is not intended as a workshop report, Mr.
 Chairman.  So I appreciate the opportunity to intervene briefly. I have been
 listening this morning and I have been participating and listening for the
 course of this IGF.  And I now conclude that we have the wrong name for this
 forum. It should be the Internet facilitation forum, because everything I am
 hearing is about how to make this thing work for everybody. And so maybe it's
 impossible to change the name because it's been branded into everybody's
 skulls.  But the fact is that we really are all about trying to make this work
 for everyone. So I want to first of all thank you for organizing all of this,
 and encourage everyone to at least think in terms of facilitation, because I
 think that's what this is all about. Thank you very much.

 >>RENATE BLOM:  Thank you very much.  And thank you for having -- putting the
 word on facilitation. I think my name is Renate Blom and I represent the
 conference of NGOs in consultive relationship with the United Nations, which in
 general has as its mandate to see and promote civil society in the U.N. debate.
  So it was therefore naturally that we organized the workshop on how can the
 internet facilitate or help to see that it is a real tool for participation. 
 That it is a harmonizer, to see in which way it can empower people to
 participate more actively in all kinds of political debates, at local, legal --
 local, regional, national and international level. So we have participants from
 all areas.  We had participants from indigenous, from women, from youth.  But
 we also had participants from universities, from research councils, and we had
 participants from governments. And I think the questions we raised, is it
 really the harmonizer which helps to really empower the people to be really
 more effective? I think the potential is there, yet we need to have -- we have
 still a wide road ahead of us. And I think when we talk about some of the
 indigenous knowledge which is not yet deeply in the knowledge which we want to
 create this knowledge society.  So we need to constantly be aware that all the
 people are at the table.  And I think that's where we, as civil society, have
 perhaps a little bit more glueing functions to provide this. At the same time,
 it was quite interesting to see does it really empower people to also be more
 participate in public policy debate at national level? From the government
 point of view, there was definitely a view that, at the moment, we have not yet
 achieved it.  In the European Union they said they have not yet even e-voting. 
 There is a huge mistrust still.  What can it -- I mean for the potentials, it
 could.  But I think we need to see also how can we overcome this.  How can we
 overcome that this potential is really used to such an extent that we want to
 see -- I mean, we have said from the beginning it should be a people-centered,
 really, process, and at the end of the day, all people should be empowered and
 all people should have a possibility to participate at their level in whatever
 they want to come. So there are a lot of questions.  And there was also a
 question on -- I mean, we are here in this new process.  We are now here.  What
 do we do?  Civil society is not lobbying anymore for any outcomes.  We are
 looking -- I mean, to whom are we talking, and with what result? So I think the
 workshop raised more questions than giving answers. We will have a little bit
 more of a better product at the end.  But since it was just this opportunity to
 share some of that with you, I thank you very much.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  I see that I think most -- the workshop organizers, there
 are others who may wish to make a comment on yesterday's proceedings.  If they
 do so -- yes, please, Ambassador. Can somebody -- Why don't you just come up
 here, Ambassador.  It's much easier in this.  There are too many of us.  It's
 easy for you to come up here.

 >> Thank you very much. (saying name) retired Ambassador, now a consultant. I
 listened with great interest to the remarks just made by Mr. Vint about
 governance or facilitation.  I don't see the two terms as antimonous.  I think
 where as facilitation, perhaps, is a more technical approach, the word
 governance, I hope you will not find it as a dirty word, is more inclusive. 
 And, in fact, I think the choice of governance is very significant. Because it
 recognizes the fact that the Internet, although you devised it as a working
 instrument for research, it has gone the powers of what you expected.  And we
 must recognize this fact that it has political content.  And the content
 influences now even the way the world will develop in the future. One point,
 Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make is that last night, just after the general
 session, you gave me a very good piece of advice. You said tomorrow morning,
 that means this morning, people will be called upon to add whatever little bit
 they think they can add, and for after that, they will have to shut up forever.
 So this is my only chance to get a message through.  Actually, two little
 messages. One is that yesterday, when I intervened in the session at the
 invitation of the moderator, Mr. Cukier, I did point out that the scope of this
 IGF conference was, in fact, going way beyond the only realm of Internet. I
 think because chronologically this is one of the first such conferences in the
 world to address a global issue in a multistakeholder way, I think this implies
 that you, we all here, have a special responsibility in being very attentive to
 all the constituencies represented here, including those who have perhaps, for
 various reasons, whether linguistic, or preparational or others, have spoken
 less. So I think we bear the brunt of standing up to this challenge, and what
 we do here about Internet will in some way or another be used or become useful
 in other problems of global governance.  For instance, access to safe water;
 for instance, public health; for instance, energy use in the world, et cetera.
 So my second point was that I would like to express the views that have been
 given to me over the past two days from gentlemen or ladies from Burkina Faso
 or Uganda, and I'm sure what they told me is partly true, at least, from some
 countries Asia or Latin America. I intervened yesterday in the session on
 security, and what I am about to bring up is, of course, you can criticize it
 as not being at the core of technical issues related to security.  But I
 thought I would give voice to this on behalf of my friends. One of the most
 fundamental securities, when you consider yourself as an Internet community
 member, is this fundamental security of having access to the basic services of
 the Internet. For instance, if you are in Burkina Faso, and you are lucky
 enough to be able to connect to the Internet, let's say an hour a day, many
 people less than that, so during that hour the mathematical probability of you
 being overwhelmed by Spam for 60 or 70% of your available time is a very high
 price to pay. And when I say high price to pay, this is not a metaphor.  It is
 really that you are paying about 10 or 20 times the price that you would pay in
 my country, France, for access to the Internet. So I think I just wanted to put
 in this little note that fundamental security cannot be dissociated from more
 mundane preoccupations such as access.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you very much. (no audio). I think we should stop
 there because we need time to organize the room for the next session. We need
 to leave time to organize the room for the next session, so I have three here.
 If you have questions about access and things, please hold them because our
 diversity is coming up today. I would request comments on what happened
 yesterday.  Okay?

 >> Thank you, Mr. Nitin, Markus. From Bangladesh, I am Rafi {sp?} from
 Malaysia.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Sorry, Malaysia.  Not Bangladesh.

 >> Thank you.  I may look like had a Bangladeshi.  Why not? First, I must agree
 the word "governance" is one of the difficulties.  We are struggling with the
 definition.  We all have different definitions.  So maybe that's one of the key
 challenges we have today.  Every one of us have a different understanding, and
 therefore coming here with a different expectation.  That's number one.  So
 maybe we have to think through about this labeling because it makes it
 different to many of us. But moving forward in the spirit of what we were
 talking about yesterday, many of us were struggling on discussion beyond talks
 and what we do in action.  So I would like to propose two things in terms what
 have I hear yesterday in what we can do in terms of organization. Number one
 was think about establishing a working group in a more technical fashion, a
 more focused fashion.  I think we could look at the success of IETF where over
 time it has evolved into an acceptable standard for which we all, by fact of
 using, become an acceptable standard.  However, the IETF was focused largely on
 the technical environment and it was very successful. What we have faced today
 is a challenge on the software side.  What we can use is a model around IETF
 and be part of IGF. So maybe that would work but we  complement the IETF so we
 extend their work and maybe don't have to overlap, but we could probably use
 the concept of RFCs and all of that for many of us to participate and
 facilitate that.  That's number one. I see the IGF forum somewhat like the ISOC
 iNet type environment, because it was more about advocacy and solicitation. 
 But again, the dimension has changed very much because in the ISOC iNet type
 event, we were a bit more technical, although many of us like Vint Cerf has
 always articulated beyond the technological issues, and society, political,
 economy issues.  So I think we have got into that, and I feel as if the IGF is
 more like the iNet. And maybe what we can do is to instead of trying to compete
 one way or another is to try to combine and that would be one proposal for us
 to combine some of this effort. One of all this session of advocacy,
 solicitation, and maybe we can begin to divide one on the technical aspect, one
 on society, one on socio and all of that. And I suggest that we think of that
 one of the key deliverables of ISOC that I felt most beneficial in the early
 stage of the Internet penetration was a tool kit for developing countries. So
 this is something I felt that many of us coming here, like the Ambassador was
 suggesting from BURKINA FASO don't even have connectivity, what more about
 security.  So maybe what we do is have tool kit work session and workshop
 instead of discussions on issues and concept.  So maybe that would be helpful.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you very much.  That's very useful and helpful
 comments. Not more than two minutes.

 >> Thank you, sir. It's not a set of questions but a report of a workshop which
 we held yesterday. This is a workshop tied to exploring of a framework
 convention on the Internet that does attract extreme reactions, but we wanted
 people to talk about the possibility, or innovation over that possibility.  And
 we got he relevant representatives and civil society representatives there. So
 the workshop was in two parts.  The first was whether there is a public policy
 crisis around Internet today.  And second was if you accept that there is a
 crisis or there is an issue there, is framework convention a possible
 institutional response for that. So the first question was first posed to the
 panelists, and there was, again, a whole spectrum of views.  There were views
 which held that there is probably no crisis as such, but most people agreed
 that there are some very important public policy issues which need urgent
 response.  And then we moved on to the second question of what could be that
 response. And again, the responses here were ranging from that of framework
 convention kind of treaty process should be initiated to saying that there are
 existing frameworks which are already taking care of these issues and we should
 try to study them, we should try to pull a framework off frameworks.  I mean,
 somebody compared Internet being a network of networks, so they are already on
 the public policy space a lot of agreements, a lot of frameworks, and we should
 see what are the (inaudible) between those frameworks.  If we are looking at a
 principal overlay, overlay of principals we should look more at the procedural
 aspects and not at substantive aspects.  And all the series of possibilities
 were discussed. It was also noted that paragraph 61 of the Tunis Agenda
 explicitly talks about evolving a framework, though there has been a little
 tentativeness to describe exactly what the process is. And it was left to the
 post-WSIS process to evolve something which would fit that -- fit the bill. And
 this was the workshop report. And a question which I want also to put up is
 that it's -- how easily today the media talks about Balkanization of the
 Internet. And there's -- instead of the media using those -- using that to try
 to create a kind of language for the public-policy response, it may be kind of
 getting used to making us immune to that discussion and saying that there is a
 kind of Balkanization taking place. So we were looking for some kind of public
 policy responses which can come up.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Our last speaker. The last speaker.

 >> KIORA. I followed yesterday's discussion in regards to copyright,
 intellectual property, with a lot of interest. And I felt that one of the
 things that also needed to be brought up was this whole idea of traditional
 knowledge, and, in particular, the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples.
 Because it's like intellectual property but it's not proprietary. And that's
 something that we need to really think of as well. And I think the way that we
 should also think about how we deal with these issues is having some way that
 marginalized groups, and in this case, indigenous peoples, can actually
 participate in all the different sort of governance entities we have around
 here. And it's -- I think it's all very good and nice to have an open-door
 policy, but that open-door policy is not very good if that open door is 2,000
 miles away. Thank you.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you very much. I think this has been useful. It was,
 again, an experiment, like most of this meeting. But I think we've learned not
 from what we could not attend. Let me just mention to the workshop organizers,
 you can have a one-pager of the outcome of your workshop available in print.
 You should contact the secretariat. And it is possible to have that. It will be
 available outside. Not in the room. Not inside the room. No paper distribution
 inside the room, because it makes it very difficult to manage. But there will
 be provision for distributing all of these things outside. Okay? So -- hmm?
 Please.

 >>SECRETARY KUMMER:  A template for the report is available on our Web site, 
 www.intgovforum.org. And if you please send it to our e-mail address,
 IGF@UNOG.CH. We will then print these we receive while in Athens. If you
 receive them later, all of them will be posted on our Web site.

 >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you very much. We now hand this to our facilitator,
 who is already here, Mr. Imai. We will have the same type of session tomorrow
 morning at 9:00, to report and -- on what's happened today. Okay? Thank you. [
 Applause ]

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