IGF 2022 Day 2 WS #364 Misty Metaverse: Blurring Letter of the Law

The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

***

 

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENCO:  There are legal issues along with those related to the currencies with the Metaverse create uncertainty, that turns it into a gray zone of law.

The question is, how to define and have the regulatory, and or legal framework for Metaverses by the states, international, regional authorities, or what will be created on the way?  Is it necessary at all?  I would like to suggest to think as visionaries and in the next 60 minutes we'll try to find answers to these questions.  Before we start, I would like to ask everyone who has listened to us today, both virtually and on site, do you think a global regulatory framework is needed, for example, for these solutions?  Please raise your hands so those who agree.

We have five speakers, 6 minutes for each speaker, after that we'll have the discussion with the audience both online and on site.  I'm sure that we will have outcome for this session, either it will support your first opinion or you will change it, never mind, it doesn't matter.

The idea, it is to discuss.

Some experts consider that Meta remembers is the first step towards the digital state and the correspondent citizenship, the digital citizenship and as a product of web 3.0, the Metaverse will reverse the role of state.

That means that corporations are establishing rules in the Metaverses and governance, vice versa, they have very little power inside virtual worlds because of the absence of any rules and regulations.

The widespread use of decentralized applications in any area of society within the country actually takes the area out of national legislation.

That's better.  Thank you.

Well, the answer, I would like to give the floor to the first speaker.

Hello?  Do you hear me well.

Sometimes this happens.  Okay.

I would like to go to the next speaker, Milos Jovanovic and before I do that, I'll make a short, let's say review forward.  (Technical issue).  We have deep fakes creating an issue with this problem.  It causes damage, evidence in court can be manipulated and so on.  It can also be used by identity thieves.  As far as we know, Metaverse looks like a paradise for different cyber criminals and the ideal breeding ground for the almighty tech and financial cooperation.  So how to protect the privacy and data for ordinary users in this situation.

>> ROMAN CHUKOV: First of all, thank you for the introduction.  It is an interesting topic.  I come from Belgrade, Serbia, my background is related to information security and information technology as well.

When we speak about such emerging technologies like methane concepts generally, we should understand what is in the back ground, the technologies.  Starting with augmented reality, virtual reality, some concepts related to this, we should understand how we want to use, you know, Metaverse, for what we want to use.

Speaking about DLT, that's the database managed systems, so on, we should firstly understand, you know, all technologies we want to use there.  Regarding Metaverse, data security, if you speak about technology and Metaverse, we should understand that this is free and we should care of how to use technology for humanity or for something that will make a peril world as well.

Regarding data security, there are many confusions now.  We speak about augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, blockchain, et cetera, et cetera.  Many don't understand for what we want to use it.  We speak ‑‑ I will start defining artificial intelligence as one emerging concept, so on, so when we speak about artificial intelligence, who will say to you what is exactly artificial intelligence?  We should understand the concepts behind artificial intelligence is related to data mining, algorithms, crypto mechanism, so on, so on.

Moving further to quantum cryptography, so on, so on, speaking about Metaverse, we should understand that this is based on combining many technologies, which is available, you know, every day, you know, 3D technology, virtual, artificial intelligence, machine learning behind, you know, the data mining, many other aspects.

Moving to your question regarding, you know, security, so on, so we should understand basic principle, you know, behind, you know, cryptology, you know, some mathematical model, how to protect the information flow and channels, speaking about, networks, general, because Metaverse, it is some concept of virtuality and so on.  It is all going through network.

We should understand how we protect networks and our information channels.

This is my point.    we speak about some concept like Metaverse, we should understand that in the background we have many technologies and, you know, basic fundamental principles are the same speaking about any technologies, you know, in information technology as a field.

If you want to go further, deeper into the information security, so on, there are many different aspects in how we want to protect our data.  Speaking about databases, about information channels, the information flow, from clients, service side, advisors, so on, this is really why topics.

I will stop here, because firstly, I think we should understand for which usage we use Metaverse.  You know, we have now confusion as I mentioned before.  Speaking about blockchain technology, which is really good technology, we can use blockchain to advance our security systems and so on, so on.

You know, making confusion, with crypto currency, all other, this is really, you know, tricky.  It is ‑‑ I will not go to deeper explanation right now.  We should understand that there are technologies which are really safe and which are, you know ‑‑ which we can use every day to improve our technological systems in everyday life in the industry, so on.

You should understand that we have some risk with technologies like crypto currencies and I will say, I would conclude that Metaverse for me is also something very risky and, you know, undefined.

Thank you very much.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you very much, Milos.

It is a valuable contribution to our discussion.  Milos is a real expert in cybersecurity field.  I completely trust you.

Of course, Metaverse, it is a risky area, risky field.

All right.  Do we have our online participants, speakers?  Are you with us?

>> OBIOMA OKONKWO:  I am with you.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: My question to you was ‑‑ well, I was talking about the Metaverse as a step towards digital state and corresponding citizenship, laws in the Metaverse, how they're working.

The question was, in which jurisdiction do you think this Metaverse should operate and what is your opinion about Metaverse rules, et cetera?

>> I will refer to what Milos Jovanovic had just started to talk about.

What is Metaverse?  When we talk about Metaverse, it is quite different substance for everybody.  For some people, it is the VR space to cointegrate with each other (Yudina Alena) for some people, it requires blockchain technology and it is decentralized space, like layer X, for some people, it is something else.  If we take Metaverse in its ultimate concept, let's put it that way, let's decentralize the space where everybody can join, and it is certain virtual space where it has its own architecture, own governance, with its own currencies, with its own laws, and it is a parallel world where we can participate, be present, independent on where we actually are located or what we actually are doing.  If it comes to that point, if it is like this one ultimate universe that's virtual., in my opinion, governance should be in there.  Then it is governance of people and it doesn't come towards governance from one state, it is not a State of Metaverse of Switzerland where I am based or Dubai or Saudi Arabia, it is not ‑‑ it is not states, it is the unification of everybody and everything within one technology.  That's the beauty of it.  It gives rights, it gives choices to people with blockchain technology and cybersecurity which Milos just mentioned as well, it can become safe, it can give certain freedoms and it can give choices to people.  Then the governance comes towards decentralized governance, what's decentralized governance and how can it work outside of classical institutions.

That's quite a challenging question.  I think it is very much within the UN's scope of work generally because UN, they unite nation, right!  Without looking at who is based where, what kind of jurisdictions people are under, we are talking about Human Rights and what are Human Rights, what do people want.  In my opinion, when it comes to governance Metaverse, the ultimate concept comes towards centralized governance.

It is challenging.  It is completely going against what we're used to, goes against to governance deciding the governance in one country dinner than other, it comes to people and communities and how they understand each other, technologies and how they respect.  Democracy comes in quite different lights I would say.

So if you talk about Metaverse, then that can be an option.  If we come back to the reality, what we have right now, it is very, very beginning of this whole, huge journey.  Yes, then if the Government of One country or another supports the methane wants to create certain space where the rules and regulations are applicable from that country, then, of course, it would be great.  It would be great to have their local currency, local set of rules, but then everybody who is participating needs to go through the QIC procedure and every kind of transaction should go through that procedure and literally, everything becomes a copy, a virtual copy of what we have right now in the centralized and governed world.

We have options, but I think that one step after another, technologies can prove it can serve all the people and bring really prosperity to the world and give those rights and freedoms that we all dream about for the whole world.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you very much, Alena.  That was an exciting insight.

Indeed, the United Nations is about uniting people and countries you are absolutely right we're at the beginning of the way of the journey, as you said.  I suppose that we're already in the reality of Metaverse, it is already today's reality, not the reality of the future.  A part of the law, health, it is what people are interested in while talking about Metaverse.  Crimes related to health, not what is usually discussed when people discuss Metaverses, bullets imagine that in the virtual world there is some crime which really harms real people.  For example if a cyberattack makes a person suffer, blind, deaf because of the damage to sound or visual effect while using VR tools, so who is responsible in that case?  How can we find real per traitor if he or she is in Metaverse?  How will it transfer to virtual reality, this effect?  So it will be interesting to listen to the point of view of one of our speakers who is a real expert in the field of digital health, the floor is yours, please.

>> DAVID OTUJOR OKPATUMA:  Thank you very much for the invitation to attend this panel.

Digital health, it is part of the toolkit where the World Health Organization offers to the different members of the WHO General Assembly in order to equip the Millennium Goals and then, of course, it's very important resource which should be taken into considerations in order to deploy or to implement a successful healthcare system which here in Africa by the way, there are a couple of good examples.

Yes, you were mentioning two very important issues.  Certainly if we talk about a technological world in which the participants really are in touch with different resources, they're not just in regular life, certainly specifically health problems will address mental health problems, as you already mentioned, visual, hearing, sleep, so on, there are very many different issues which, of course, there are a lot of studies already published, scientifically published and they show how the effects during the lock in mental health, which the effects were from not only Metaverse, but also from video games and exposure to timeless days of television, whatever, then certainly there is a public health issue which we have to address.

We will have to take it in to consideration.

The second area which I think it is important here to address, it is how the Metaverse is going to change the healthcare providing services.

I mean, right now, there are different countries, for example, if you use the UNHS services in England then you are usually exposed first of all to a robot trying to fill out a check symptom, a symptom checker format where they are trying to make something that we call in the healthcare a triage which aptly classifies the problem, the health problem of the patient, of the user, then digital can provide some guidelines just follow‑up the guidelines and it identifies itself as an issue, of course.  If that's the case, then they bring the patient to a real physician, it could be an MP, a specialist, and then he's seen.

Now, if Metaverse arrive, then you have the possibility to get this contact with the patient without changing your place where you are because censors will allow patients to have the consultation as if they were at the physician's offices.  That's going to shift the way how we provide services because it is not necessary for every single case to have a specific physician but this will play a very major role in this cases and they'll takeover activities that we are nowadays used to have from them.

Another area that's not exactly Metaverse, but it is some kind of approach, it is the remote surgery undergoing under robots in which they can through different sources of information undergo an operation which can be controlled by a physician and not physically underwent.  This is something that will be certainly more frequent, more common, cheaper nowadays it is very cheap to buy one of those devices and not every institution can afford.  It will come.

That means that the new format in which the physician will interact with patient at the home care facilities, nursing facilities, remote places, it's going to be certainly virtual.  It is going to be part of the regular healthcare system and maybe I can finalize my intervention by say, also there is a very new area, not very new, but right now, it is really in a very high point of developing, the development, it is the self‑management of care.  It is not only about having censor, not only about an electronic health agenda, an agenda to have some recommendations based on international guidelines, but also how the patients interact with this huge database which will provide information from different sources.  It can include genome databases, gene databases coming up from different institutions, which they are already public.

Some different sources from something which is called protonomics, in other areas of nutrition, health inputs, which will also dramatically change the way how the patient perceives, the way how he can be a partner of the healthcare environment which he has to follow‑up.  Then there are very interesting opportunities by using Metaverse, it is not all about NFTs or a fancy game or fashions, fashion shows, but it is for real practice, real life.  Nowadays, healthcare personnel, is lacking.  Nowadays we have overbooked the institutions and resources are not enough.  Certainly there is a dramatic shift in our paradigm of how healthcare should be provided.

Thank you.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you.

What I understand, Metaverse for digital health, from the point of view of health itself, it is more good than harm, right?

>> DAVID OTUJOR OKPATUMA: Exactly.  The perception from our side, looking forward, the digital sector of the healthcare sector, it taken into consideration and including already the resources that can be found at the new, very, very new environment which is called nowadays methane it is going to be part of our reality, it is not a virtual, a different ‑‑ it will be part of the reality.  Thank you.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: That's great.  Thank you.

As we are talking about health issue, let's move to another related topic.  Metaverse gives the opportunity for disabled people and VR technology can help, for example, with medical treatment or create a space where everyone can be equal no matter what one's health condition is.  How do we make this virtual space inclusive for all people at VR tools are not always designed for People with Disabilities?  I'm happy to give the floor to our next speaker, from the fill penis, Mary Lou Rissa Cunanan.

>> MARY LOUR RISSA CUNANAN: Hey, everyone.  Can you hear me okay?  Yes, I can see and hear you well.

Thank you for joining us at this late hour.

According to a recent Deloitte report, the Philippines is a key source of Metaverse support as a leading destination for business process outsourcing, that was a quote.

The floor is your, please.

>> MARY LOUR RISSA CUNANAN: Yes.  Yes.

It is actually one of the things I would like to talk about, aside from helping people, how Metaverse is able to help People with Disabilities.  Just to give you a brief background about myself.

My background is in cultural diplomacy for almost 15 years based in North America and I'm currently a faculty at the University teaching international business and I'm also the CEO of an educational ‑‑ virtual educational platform born and out of COVID.

Philippines is poised to be one of the largest economies in 2030.  We approximately have about 110 million in population and 65% of that, 110 million people are under the age of 35 years old.  It means a lot of the people in the Philippines, the Filipino, they're used to being online and used to navigating the complexities of Internet technology and Metaverse.

Like you said earlier, we are one of the biggest pole of Metaverse talent, we're the second ‑‑ Milana is the second largest DPO outsourcing company concentration in the entire world and our second biggest city is the 8th largest.  If you can imagine just a huge number of international companies moving to outsource talents to Philippines which brings about ‑‑ because the industry, it is changing dramatically because of the demand, the education system, it is also changing dramatically as well.

So recently we had joined a program, X culture, X culture allows almost 10,000 students from almost 200 universities, from more than 50 countries to get together and have classes from different parts of the world.

This is international companies, discussing companies and case studies of companies from different parts of the world.  This is quite revolutionary because the traditional classroom ‑‑ so even before ‑‑ even during COVID you have the hybrid online and face‑to‑face classes, but this one is revolutionary in a way that now your classmates are actually from an entirely different University, studying an entirely different field, from an entirely different country.

Because that have background and upbringing, this brings about a lot of future changes on the way we do business here in the Philippines.

Philippines, aside from being poised to be one of the largest economies in the entire world, the entire southeast Asian countries are also poised to be extremely progressive in terms of technology and economic aspect as well.  The 10 southeast Asian countries, they have approximately 850 million this large population, many are under 35.  Vietnam is the artificial hub, placing themselves, of Asia by 2030 and Singapore, also is investing a lot of funds when it comes to artificial technology and Metaverse as well. 

When it comes to disability, Philippines is able to come up with ‑‑ we have this organization called Consult the MD, which gathers a lot of different medical professionals to be accessible by different Filipinos from different parts of the world.  If you did not know, one out of four nurses in other countries most likely are from the Philippines just because our healthcare professionals are ‑‑ we export ‑‑ we're one of the biggest exporters of talents in the entire world and professional medical people are one of our biggest exports.

Like one of our speakers have mentioned, we have doctors, psychiatrist, psychologists who are now conducting sessions, consultations, giving medical advices to people without access, who wouldn't normally have access.  It is still quite limited at this time, but I think that the Metaverse is able to be a good equalizer, especially for those People with Disabilities and who wouldn't have access especially to education and to medical help.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you very much, Mary Lou Rissa Cunanan, for the interesting statistics about the Asia‑Pacific area and your country in particular and for this very interesting perspective.

Indeed, I never knew that one of four nurses in the world is from the Philippines.  That's great.  Thank you so much, thank you once again for such a late hour.

>> MARY LOUR RISSA CUNANAN: My pleasure.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: We're discussing today Metaverse sometimes thinking that it is given.  For many people in the world, especially the Global South all those equipment gadgets and tools are still not affordable.  Moreover, Global South is still facing connectivity problems and many speakers have been raising this issue since the very beginning of the IGF and not only these days.

Is the problem of emerging regulation of advanced technologies irrelevant for the Global South?  How can we make sure that the community will hear the voice of the Global South while making decisions on regulations of new technology?  These questions I would like to ask to our next speaker, the floor is yours.

>> Thank you for giving me the floor.  To be honest with you, Metaverse is not really very developed in Global South, particularly in my country, Madagascar.  Some countries in the Global South may have more developed Metaverse but it is not the case for my country.

We must understand that legal framework is still in this phase of discussion for most of the countries in the Global South.  It remains confusing and unknown to many of us.

It brings now a new legal issue and challenge that has been never been before contemplated.

It is important for us to know what laws apply to Metaverse.  It is important to start like in a discussion ‑‑ like in the discussion that we have now at the IGF, it is important to start and take learnings from other countries who have already started to use the opportunity provided by the Metaverse.  How can we inact law to be able to benefit the Metaverse?  Like using virtual classrooms for education, which is still a problem for Global South.  You may have seen in the television, that even classroom is a problem in the Global South, we don't have classroom for children.

For health, exactly the same.  So existing laws may be sufficient to address problems but it may trigger procedures of new laws and regulations adopted to Global South reality.

Global South should explore the opportunities provided by the Metaverse for the development of the country.

For that, we need to have capacity building for the decision makers, for policymakers, and for the parliaments to be able to have a global perspective and to have the opportunity to be heard and to be shared for the learning, to share and to take learnings from the other countries.

I will stop here.

Thank you for giving me the floor.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you very much.  It is useful to hear the perspectives of the Global South taking into account the forum today takes place in Africa, Ethiopia, and I would like to thank the organizers of this hospitable country for this real festival of Internet Governance.

All right.

I would like to ask our online moderator, do we have any questions so far from the online audience?

>> DAVID OTUJOR OKPATUMA: So far, we do not have questions from the online audiences.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you so much, David.

On that case, I would give the floor to all of you, to the audience, you can ask any questions that are related to our topic today, please.

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you.  I'm from Tunisia.  Thank you for the topic.

I want to ask about what is the security solution towards if we deploy Metaverse?

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: That's a very good question.  Thank you very much.  I think, Milos Jovanovic, it is yours.

>> MILOS JOVANOVIC: Thank you very much for this question.  I will give elaboration of the situation.

We speak about Metaverse, we saw Metaverse, it was in futurism, movie, so on, so on.  To deploy Metaverse, you know, we should define what is Metaverse.  Is it a concept of technology that we want to use to help everyday life, you know, for example, colleagues mentioned medicine, you know, disabled people, so on, so on, or it is something very, you know, far away from our real life.  If we speak about Metaverse as something that will help everyday life.  That's okay.  I will answer this.

If you speak ‑‑ if we speak about something which is really undefined, which is really, you know, we don't know what it is or just a concept, we shouldn't ‑‑ I'm not able to answer this.  That's my point on Metaverse.  So speaking about digital transformation, about emerging technologies, about how we can transform our societies, you know, our countries, so on, this is ‑‑ you know, this is a place where we can address the usage of many emerging technologies like concept like Metaverse.  Like the Metaverse concept.

You know, regarding the security issues, I will repeat what I said.  If we use technologies in industry, banking sector, in healthcare sector, and I'm very experienced in healthcare sector because we did the biggest project related to Digital Transformation in Serbia.  We know how it is ‑‑ how it is important for citizens.  There is another question.

You know, people, colleagues mentioned here, connectivity problems.  You need the infrastructure to deploy technology.

Speaking about many countries, you know, in the South, we have connectivity problems as well, especially Africa, Latin America, so on.

Firstly to deploy, you know, emerging technology, to deploy Metaverse as a concept, whatever it is, we need infrastructure.  We need digitalization of countries, governments, you know, of data, there is a big problem how to merge all data in many institutions to make some recourse.  For example, EHR, electronic health records, there is a lot of question about it.  Speaking only about security concept, you know, it's really hard to describe what is it in Metaverse.  I can give you some, you know, comments regarding fundamental principles, how to secure your data using some different algorithms, for example, a good algorithm to use to protect our data, this is very wide topic but I will conclude that we should think about fundamental principles and how we protect data.

Look, it is a paradox, this is the Internet Governance and we should think about minimum common framework, how we'll define Internet in the future with new strategy replaced with the legacy one, what's the minimum common framework on Internet Governance?  This is a question.

If we ask what is, you know, the minimum common framework on Metaverse, how could we define what is minimum common framework on Metaverse if we don't define the minimum common framework on Internet.  You understand?  Metaverse, you know, it works via network.  That's my point.   .

So we should understand very clearly which technologies for which we'll use.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you.

>> Thank you for the opportunity.

I think very important issue, very, very important.

I think we really have the opportunity nowadays to distinguish a little bit between the real and the Metaverse world.  This is something a little bit different.  What I was trying to address were some of the applications that the real world, that means a digital health system will take from the Metaverse.  Had is an application, this is a way to approach, let's say for example the robots mentioned, well it includes, of course, of course, a lot of personal, healthcare data, a lot of parameter, images, so on, which should be stored in place and has to be very sure, very safe.

For these cases, what we consider nowadays is cybersecurity or cybercrime can apply.  We can map a little bit what is going on, if somebody is trying to steal some information, critical information from the documentation department at the hospital or if someone is trying to bridge a server from the Minister of Health here in Ethiopia.  That is something that nowadays we still don't understand.

The point is, if we really approach Metaverse, then we're talking about different roles.  It's not that we are going to map the way how, the society functions nowadays, it is about natural rights, Human Rights, the common law.  This is not ‑‑ this is not applicable at this new environment.  This is going to be very new work in which we don't have to define the new regulation, sufficient like that, it is not only about cybercrime, cybersecurity, it is about how the new concept of property, of privacy, of personality or whatsoever that we're going to have.  This will replace a lot of important questions that I agree with you, IGF is a good place to discuss of how to move ahead.  For a couple of minutes, a conference on interplanetary, right now we're talking about an interplanetary system, Someday it will be able to take us to Mars and we'll have a centre there.  Everything will change.

We will have to start thinking a little bit different about what's going on and what can we really do through these kinds of participations.  Thank you.  Sorry.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you very much.  Did they answer your question?

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: We have two more questions, from the gentleman from the left, please.

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much.  I'm from India. 

My comment is based on crypto which I have been studying for a while.  By definition, decentralized systems were created specifically not to be governed by states, we're self‑governing and this code is long.  It basically means that all of the governance principles are in code, not through documents like charters or Constitutions.  Code is law.  The governance, it is entirely embedded in code.  Crypto Metaverse is a voluntary community and the governance of such community in my opinion is best left to the members of that community and not by the state or decentralized entity that's not part of that community.  The community itself evolves the government by changing code.  Now, I do have concerns on this one, two company, a few companies, monopolizing this place and eliminating competition and what governments can do, ensure that the communities govern themselves through competing services. 

What we could also do is to educate different communities on the risks of participating in these mechanisms.

Finally, I do note that this hybrid version of the IGF would have been a much richer experience had it been on a Metaverse.

Thank you very much.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you, sir, for your intervention.  That's a really interesting point of view.

You had a question I think?

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you.

I don't have a question ‑‑ actually it is just a reflection of the conversation we had here.

As it started about the legal framework, I somehow agree with my colleague here, but code can be designed and the people who are participating in that Metaverse, they can design their laws itself.  Eventually, there is someone who has the control on the code and can you address that or not?  Then there comes another point of view.

Is this a parallel universe, a parallel world or also interfering and interacting with the current world?  At that point, when it is influencing each of the worlds, there may be ‑‑ definitely there will be a need of such a legal frameworks, interactive.

Thank you.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you for this valuable opinion and it contributes a lot to today's discussion.

Any more question, please?

>> Just a comment.  Yes.

I certainly agree a code has to be written as it was by the French Revolution.  I don't know if this will be the basis of the new code of the Metaverse, I'm not sure about that.  I think, yes, we do have to start thinking about which should be the new role which should be guiding the way how we interact.

We see the amounts of money already invested into the new environment.  If the crypto already has some troubles, some struggles, I can't imagine what will happen with Metaverse where there is no rules actually in place.

From the legal frame, I hadn't heard anything from the European community starting to define how it will work.  Of course, in the U.S. we haven't heard anything certainly close to that.  It is something that it also has to come from the society.  I think it is very important that we in society have to define how we do keep the human values no matter the Metaverse dealing in another way and how do we deal with the new sense of interacting in this society through these platforms, through the new environments.  It is not only the environment, it is ‑‑ this session Someday, it is going to be in Metaverse.  We'll have to have a code still how we're going to participate, who is allowed to install.  Today we call it hybrid, it will be in Metaverse Someday.  I think certainly we will have to be very thoughtful in this regard.

Thank you. 

>> ROMAN CHUKOV:  Thank you.

Thank you very much for this, for this ethical question.  This is really important.  I have no doubt, there is an interference with, you know, real world, you know, we speak about technology, applied technology, there is a lot of questions regarding the infrastructure side and how Metaverse works as a concept, of course, the technology and yesterday we talked about Internet fragmentation, about division in our global space, about technological sovereignty.  If we built ‑‑ I agree ‑‑ maybe we'll build Metaverse in a way that's completely out of our reality.  Let's, you know, keep it here.  Talking about sovereignty, who controls Metaverse?  Who will control the infrastructure?  Where will the data be structured?  There are a lot of questions.  Now we have interfragmentation because of many, many things, different aspects, so on, so on.

So you know, I don't see, I don't ‑‑ don't understand me wrongly, I think this is far away.  You know, we should do some really important task if you want to digitalize our countries, our continents.  Look at the situation here in Africa, there are a lot of problems in Europe right now, in euro Asia, we should talk about common standard.

For example, regarding data security, data privacy, so on, we have a different standard in the European Union and the United States and there are some intentions to build, you know, some standard here in, you know, Africa, yesterday I spoke with a colleague from the African Union, he said they're trying to make, you know, one uniform approach of how to deal with data.  There are a lot of questions.

For example, when you visit, you know from the United States to Africa, how they will folk your data?  There are a lot of questions.

When we talk about crypto currency, there is several, is there a super computer?  For example, I don't know the exact word, if you try to get bitcoin, you know, you need the processing power, the computer power, whatever.  If you mean another crypto currency, you need the data storage, something like this.  If you need another, you will need CPU, you know, different type of power.  It is just one super computer.  You know, we should speak about many different aspects.  You know, there are a lot of unclear emerging technologies.  People lost money.

For example, if you visited U.K., the train, a metro, you saw a message, you see the message that national bank can't guarantee for some crypto currencies, so on, so on.  We saw a situation in China, Russia as well prevented transactions with crypto currency, so on.  It is all about national sovereignty, we don't live any more in a unipolar world, we have different technological zones, I mentioned it yesterday.  We have Chinese zone, we have Russian zone, technological influence, we have Western zone of technological influence.  When we visit China, you're not able to use some services like Microsoft, like Google, so on.  If you visit Russia, you know, you're prevented to use Twitter, linked in, so on, if you're in the United States, U.K., there is debates of how to use, you know, equipments and other equipments from China, so on.  There are lots of fragmentation in every aspect.  I think it is too ambitious to speak about Metaverse in something that's not clearly defined for me.

Thank you.

>> YUDINA ALENA: Can I ask a question, please?  Milos, touched on an important question, since you're a specialist in cybersecurity, I would like to go deeper on that.

You said it was very important, the protection, the personal protection and data protection in the online space.  I think that is actually the beginning of cybersecurity protection for all the people in metaverse and even before we're into metaverse right now when it comes to any aspect.  So what ways do you see of protection of every individual in the individual space, I think that crypto currency, cryptography, it can serve quite well on that from the digital identity verification and unique stamps through any kind of technologies connected to that.  What do you think? 

>> MILOS JOVANOVIC:  I will be very short, we're out of time.

I agree on some circumstances.  Definitely, we should understand basic principal, I is it my Ph.D. related to information security and we learned what was real, what is the only way how to protect your data.  If you speak about security, we should know that there is no absolute security, we have many algorithm, ISD, so on, so on, we use commercial available algorithms and security, it is always about, you know, national security, security, technology, sovereignty, technology, security, in the field of technology, it is part of national security, speaking about, you know, how to protect data, I know that in Russia, you have, you have the law which protects data of Russian citizens and there are different laws in the United States, Europe as well, we should be careful when speaking about these as aspects, I know your intention was related to blockchain, I absolutely agree with this.  This is a good technology, can help us a lot regarding crypto, you know, and how to protect our data.  It is very complex topic.  I mention one algorithm, I mentioned here, but it is only ‑‑ it is all at operational level.  So strategically, we should speak about common framework, we should speak about it globally available to make sure all of our data wherever we travel, it will be saith and secure.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: Thank you very much.

We're running out of time.  We started a little bit later.

I would like to ask each speaker to maybe ‑‑ maybe someone has a final remark.

We have a question.  The last one, please.

>> AUDIENCE: Can you hear me?  Thank you very much for this opportunity.

I just had a question on crypto currency and blockchain and NFC.  I don't think there is a total security on data bridge or if anyone here can answer for me, if you develop a very sophisticated system for blocking cyberattack, it is not going to happen.  The cyberattack is in the human mind.

If we build a sophisticated and invest everything and then do sophisticated to tackle dark web or other attacker, it is actually in the human mind.

That is sophisticated at the end of the day, sophisticated software, whatever, hardware, it is operating by the human.  If that particular employees or managers or Directors, that's the keyword, all the persons with the software, that's the end of it.  What we try to do here, it is actually to avoid a cyberattack, each every one of us has to have responsible, accountable, and also discoverable Internet inclusiveness.  How, it has to be effective, accurate, timely measured and also beneficiary.  Not the developed countries, developing all of the sophisticated technology and I have asked the UN to conclude with UN governance law, that's the only way, otherwise the country, they don't have capabilities, they can get attacked every single day because there is employee, they have equaled with law professionalism.  So the end of the day, we need to live in this world of peace, capability ‑‑

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: I'm sorry.

>> AUDIENCE: I will talk about blockchain, I will just add that.

>> VADIM GLUSHCHENKO: We're out of time.

Actually we have talked about methane blockchain and DLT, crypto currency, we could talk for hours and hours, and we're really, really interested about the global UN law and probably about the ‑‑ about the Internet Governance.  The digital compact that all the stakeholders are working on now, probably this document will set some rules that will help us.  Well, we have to wrap up.  I would like to just say a couple of things.

Definitely, Metaverse is something that is not something for the future, it is today's reality, a rather controversial one.

Yes, there should be some rules, rules that would ensure our activities in the Metaverse, safe, secure, beneficial of everyone.

The letter of law, it is not blurring, but a clear one.

I hope that our today's visionary ideas will be a part of the Global Digital Compact that I just mentioned because they are very useful and practical.

All right.

So with this, I would like to thank everyone, first of all our speakers, both on site and online and all those who participated in this very exciting discussion.

Thank you very much.