[FYI] Changing The Code: Wird die IETF zum Kollaborateur?

["Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>]

[Auf einmal wollen alle den Code und damit das Law des Internet (im 
Lessig'schen Sinne) aendern. Nach der Hollywoodbranche, den 
Politikern nun die Techniker. - Wenn das nur nicht schiefgeht.
                                                         --AHH]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36566-2,00.html

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Who Should Fight Cybercrime?  

by Katie Dean  

3:00 a.m. Jun. 1, 2000 PDT  

As the world's top politicians, lawmakers, and business types argue 
and bleat over what must be done to stop the horrible, world-stopping 
threat known as cybercrime, a group of engineers who built and 
preside over the Internet's backbone are debating whether they should 
get involved.  

At the core of the discussion: Politicians generally don't have the 
technical understanding to make the informed decisions that could 
become law. On the flip side: Engineers are neither politicians nor 
police.  

Hence the debate among members of an Internet Engineering Task Force 
mailing list: Should engineers come up with their own solutions to 
fight cybercrime and push them forward?  

"Technical reality always trumps political blather everywhere that 
matters," wrote Vernon Schryver, setting the tone for the discussion. 
 
Jacob Palme, a computer science professor at the University of 
Stockholm, launched the email debate about a week ago.  

"Should IETF do anything to fight the increasing incidences of Net 
criminality?" he wrote to the list. "Can we do anything? Can the 
protocols, which IETF manages, be modified so as to make it easier to 
fight virus distribution, mail bombing, ping attacks, and the other 
ways in which people are harassing the Internet?"  

His motivation was simple.  

"It's obvious that criminal use on the Internet is becoming more and 
more of a problem," Palme said.  

[...]

For example, Scott Bradner, a senior technical consultant at Harvard 
University, spoke at G8 and came away less than impressed with the 
level of discussion.  

"There was not a small amount of misunderstanding about how the 
Internet works," Bradner said. "A lot of the speakers didn't have a 
clue."  

Added Steven Bellovin, a network security researcher at AT&T who also 
has participated in the email debate: "There's a serious 
misunderstanding in many of the governments of the world in what you 
can and can't do on the Internet."   

[...]

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