RE: _[AfrICANN-discuss]_Fadi_Chehadé:_If_We_Fra gment_The_Internet, _'It_Will_Not_Be_The_Interne =?utf-8?Q?t=5FAs=5FWe=5FKnow=5FIt'=5F?=

Tue Feb 4 22:25:24 SAST 2014

Dear All,

I shared this interview of Fadi Chehade on this list because I strongly believe in “One World, One Internet, Everybody Connected”. Thank you all who have been commenting it in a very open and constructive way. 

No nation or “Sovereign” State can really developed by building walls around itself. This is true in the traditional economy, This is also true in the digital economy as well. The history also have two good examples for us: The Soviet Union and China.

To pretend having our own internet, we must ask yourself were the Internet comes from and why It is called the Internet. We are enjoying the Internet today because of the US, we should always have that in mind. It is true, the Internet is today a global and public tool but It comes from somewhere, from the will of a nation, the USA. The Internet is the Internet because It is open, because It allows us to communicate, to innovate with permission, to do good things but also bad things. 

A tool is by nature neutral, people can use it to do good and bad things. When bad things happen, We should blame the perpetrator and not the tool. 

For those willing a fragmented Internet, the can start search for another name because “When isn’t Open, It is not the Internet” as one of the father of the Internet used to said. 

A bad diagnostic almost lead to a bad solution. For those want wanted to shift the surveillance and intelligence debate to an Internet debate, I just want to remind them that nations States have spying on each other’s since centuries not just because of the Internet…

Let’s do want is good for Africa and the next generations rather than doing what the USSR does when the telephone system was invented.

Best regards,

Victor Ndonnang. 

De : africann-bounces at afrinic.net [mailto:africann-bounces at afrinic.net] De la part de Dr Yassin Mshana
Envoyé : Tuesday, February 4, 2014 1:50 PM
À : AfrICANN list
Objet : Re: _[AfrICANN-discuss]_Fadi_Chehadé:_If_We_Fra gment_The_Internet, _'It_Will_Not_Be_The_Interne =?utf-8?Q?t=5FAs=5FWe=5FKnow=5FIt'=5F?=

Any idea how to shelf this anti-development discussion? 

What I see is 'empty' and 'weak' utterances with no consideration of  fundamentals of the 'Internet Phenomenon' for which I can happily state that "Africa would not have a chance to vent a word if the ICANN Policy was not polished about 10 Years ago"?

It is a matter of  'jumping on the train and do good' not to try to lay new rails - What matters is, "How YOU can make a good use of the Phenomenon for the people of this world". Some people may abuse it  while some people do-good business while benefiting the global society.

If one talks about the Internet one should forget the 'purposely made geographic borders' which were etched in before the Internet.

I for One find the Internet Phenomenon the best Democratic System ever - save for some abuses (mainly within our African community :-(( )

Can this discussion not be a cloud to cover the real burning issues in Africa-and-the-Internet-business such as the .africa saga?

Let us sort out our home before shouting out how this are!!

Its me  Yassin - at this corner

On 4 February 2014 16:26, Mukom Akong T. <mukom.tamon at gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting discussion, I replied in another thread, so I am re-posting this to maintain the thread and discussion.

In the spirit of constructive debate, Pierre, could  you paint for us a model of how this alternative countrinets (Internet within a country) will operate and how they will drive economic development? What would make it faster? cheaper? better? than the status quo?

As to your previous message, see comments inline 

NSA in the U.S. and other intelligence services or espionages (Western countries, Chinese, ...) will eventually convince Nations / Sovereign State to have their own Internet. 

Actually I don't think so and here's why.  If you are General Keith Alexander (guy who runs NSA), the first logical deduction you get to make (if you can't, you shouldn't even have that job) is that - the PRISM program's success depends on having one large source of data to mine and gather intelligence from (the whole Internet). While from the perspective of 'securing e-borders', your suggestion might make sense, from the perspective of intelligence gathering, it doesn't and the spy agencies everywhere know that. The big players in this space will be the last to advocate for contrinets (unless of course their pockets are deep enough that they can have a self-sustaining one). If countrinets were viable, am sure France would still have its Minitel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel] running.

Africa will lose nothing, let's not be alarmist, 

Why not ask the African entrepreneurs who have built global companies based upon the Internet what it would mean to them if a large part of the world could not access their service because they happen to be in an Internet block that is not friendly with theirs? Or actually go talk to the aspiring tech-entrepreneurs all over Africa trying to build Internet startups (I think there's one such space in Cameroon - Activespaces based in Buea/Douala).

Africa must understand the issues and adapt itself to survive... 

+1 ... and with that understanding, make its own play in its self-interest.

According to their different strategic interests, Nations / Sovereign States will interconnect their Internet (p2p, multilateral peering, etc ...)

And so long as those strategic interest are driven by basic economic self interest (think trade) a boundaryless Internet is a requirement. And if you sell something, you want their widest market possible for it ergo, you want the widest boundaryless Internet to go with that ...and the ideal of that tedious route will be the open Internet we now have.

The wars in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, CAR, ... reinforce our position with regard to the future of Internet architecture. 

Please could you specify  'our' here? Is this the position of the Cameroon IT regulator (ANTIC) and thus the gov't of Cameroon?  That would be good to know.

And if we go down this road, will we develop our own protocols? within countries? and would the costs of interconnecting make global information easier to access? 

In addition, political unrest manipulated by the major world powers (eg, Ukraine, Thailand, etc ...) are also drawing our attention to the precautions for the benefit of our peoples. 

The Internet is a just a tool, and can be wielded every which way by the person using it. As a farm hand, I cut myself many times with the cutlass or hoe I was using, I bled and swore, I took precautions but never for a moment doubted that the open architecture of cutlass and hoe was instrumental to its affordability to millions of people like me. By all means, let's deal with precautions, I hardly think the benefits of a walled countrinet are out way the loss in value of cutting out huge chunks of the Internet (See Metcalf & Reed's laws on the value of a network)

Globalization has not only the positive effects ...

I agree 100% with you here. In fact, I'll recommend the "Globalisation and its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank chief economist and Nobel laureate. Globalisation - which is well aided by an Open Internet is a weapon - those that master how to wield it will benefit from it, those that don't will suffer but they will suffer not because of the globalisation or the Internet, but because they have failed as persons, organisations, countries or continents to build the capabilities that enable them to produce (not just dig from the ground) and sell products and services to other countries  AND make money. 

./shalom

-- 

Mukom Akong T.

http://about.me/perfexcellence |  twitter: @perfexcellent 
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