Vint Cerf Speaking Out on Internet Neutrality

penciling_in writes "CircleID has reported on a U.S. congress hearing held on November 9th, where "significant focus was projected on 'network neutrality' and a new telecommunications bill affecting the Internet. 'This bill could fundamentally alter the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet,' says Alan Davidson in a related post on Google blog." Vint Cerf was not able to testify because of the Presidential Medal of Freedom award ceremony at the White House, but submitted a letter: "The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings - from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging - that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design." CircleID post includes full text of the letter."

Comments

Neutrality

[Cryolithic]

"What makes a good network go neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a switch full of neutrality?"

Re:Neutrality

[hamburger lady]

All I know is my gut says "maybe".

Re:Neutrality

[tylernt]

You forgot the "obFuturamaQuote" disclaimer.

Wait a second...

[r00t]

He's given a Presidential Medal of Freedom to keep him from testifying before Congress?

It'd obviously be denied, but you have to wonder.

Central Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Central control is happening, and will happen .. like it or not. Simply because people want government to control who uses the internet. For example people branding themselves "social conservatives" don't want porn on the internet. The police want to be able to catch "cyber criminals". As the story on slashdot this morning, the french don't like people blogging certain views on the riots. Chinese want to arrest anyone who says democracy is a good thing. RIAA doesn't want piracy. I don't want spam.

They want to centralize so they can control. Without centralization it is expensive to control. Nobody cares that centralization causes problems for legitimate users. They want to enforce their control, so you can present convincing argument after convincing argument that decentralization is best .. but they will all fail unless you demonstrate how control can be enforced.

OFFTOPIC RANT:
So yeah .. people are advocating centralization so they can solve their little issues. But I say this .. the internet is simply a communications mechanism. Controlling a communications mechanism is only going to cause problems for legitimate users. Everyone should use encryption to communicate. Encryption should be encourage. Hell I'd even support legislation to force everyone to encrypt their communication. I believe it's that important to the survival of liberty.

Even anonymity is being shunned on the net. For example, even the leftist hypocritical website moveon.org takes comments but they dont want you to be anonymous or use a pseudonym. How many letters did Ben Franklin write with the pseudonym "Silence Dogood" claiming to be an old widow? Anonymity and pseudonimity are essential. If an anonymous source spouts out info, you can simply disregard it because they are not staking their reputation. But sometimes they may need the anonymity to avoid persecution, especially when they say something that can stand alone on its own merit.

Re:Central Control

[l2718]

I think there's a difference between regulating people's behaviour and regulating the infrastructure. If it's illegal to sell porn in the street, why shouldn't it be illegal to see on the internet? Conversely, since it's legal to publish anonymous pamphlets on the street (important founding-era right implicit in the First Amendment), it should be legal to publish anonymous websites. It's for this reason that people who own printing presses ("infrastructure") cannot be forced to keep a copy of everything they print, or to provide a sample page to the government for future comparison (this was the case in the USSR -- even for typewriters!).

Indeed the government has always wanted to control the infrastrcture, but it won't necessarily happen. What they mostly want is to ban things that are already illegal -- and we should give them that to keep the infrastructure safe. We can late ask why consensual porn is illegal at all -- but not with the republicrats in power.

Re:Central Control

[rgmoore]

If it's illegal to sell porn in the street, why shouldn't it be illegal to see on the internet?

Because the net isn't the same as the street. It's OK to regulate selling porn in the street because the street is a public place, so putting porn there effectively forces it on people who are offended by it. Web sites, OTOH, are strictly voluntary. Nobody has to visit a porn website if they don't want to, so there's not the same degree of coercion involved. In that respect web sites are like windowless shops; nobody has to see what's going on inside unless they step in through the door.

FWIW, the voluntary/involuntary issue is why I think that it's OK to crack down on porn spam and typosquatting sites. Those are the equivalent of stuffing explicit advertizing into people's doors, or mislabeling a store to lure in people who wouldn't otherwise visit. Neither of those would be acceptable in meatspace, so they shouldn't be acceptable in cyberspace, either.

Text of the letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell,

I appreciate the inquiries by your staff about my availability to appear before the Committee and to share Google's views about draft telecommunications legislation and the issues related to "network neutrality." These are matters of great importance to the Internet and Google welcomes the Committee's hard work and attention. The hearing unfortunately conflicts with another obligation, and I am sorry I will not be able to attend. (Along with my colleague Robert Kahn, I am honored to be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday at the White House for our work in creating the Internet protocol TCP/IP.)

Despite my inability to participate in the planned hearing in person, I hope that you will accept some brief observations about this legislation.

The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings - from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging - that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design.

My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the Internet as we know it. Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others would place broadband operators in control of online activity. Allowing broadband providers to segment their IP offerings and reserve huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need. Many people will have little or no choice among broadband operators for the foreseeable future, implying that such operators will have the power to exercise a great deal of control over any applications placed on the network.

As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online.

I am confident that we can build a broadband system that allows users to decide what websites they want to see and what applications they want to use - and that also guarantees high quality service and network security. That network model has and can continue to provide economic benefits to innovators and consumers--and to the broadband operators who will reap the rewards for providing access to such a valued network.

We appreciate the efforts in your current draft to create at least a starting point for net neutrality principles. Google looks forward to working with you and your staff to draft a bill that will maintain the revolutionary potential of the broadband Internet.

Thank you for your attention and for your efforts on these important issues.

Sincerely,

Vinton Cerf
Chief Internet Evangelist
Google Inc.

Be sure to read the paragraph concerning the bill.

Re:Text of the letter

[hggs]

Sincerely,

Vinton Cerf
Chief Internet Evangelist
Google Inc.

I wish they had a position name _Chief Internet Evangelist_ at my workplace.

Re:What's a Vint Cerf?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> What's a Vint Cerf?

Along with being one of the patron saints of the Internet, he's the current chairman of ICANN.

Control RFC

[nurb432]

Just give me control. No one else is worthy.

Law is law

[a_greer2005]

Many of the common bariors of entry are gone on the net, what he is saying is that any 12 year old with an idea can suddenly be a major software companies worst nightmere for example. He speaks drom an innocvation standpoint

While social speech is more vibrant on the net, and there are those who want to control it, it is no differant than the tug-of-war over cival liberties faced in the real world every day. As is often said here: Nothing to dee, please move along.

As criminals use the net, the law enforcement does need to keep up, I am concerned about possible oversteps, as any citezen should be, but any power granted to step over the line on line would also be applicible in the real world too (If the FBI has permittion to hack your server, they can and may search your home too.)

As to the porn thing, you are right, some people who have hijacked part of conservatisum (FallWell, I am looking you dead in the eye) want a return to puritanisum, but it will not happen -- these people have been fighting and loosing this battle long before internet came about. EXAMPLE: Kroger (a major grocery chain around here) now covers cosmopolitan magazine because a few people found the hotties on the front offencive.

Whatt is real is becoming digital no more no less.

He should have turned down the medal.

[CyricZ]

He should have turned down that medal so he could have consulted with Congress in person. That would have been a true defense of freedom.

See also...(Lawmakers:Do ask law scholars as well)

[D4C5CE]

Half a decade ago already...

The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era

Mark A. Lemley, Stanford (...)

Boalt Working Papers in Public Law

University of California, Berkeley

Let's Rewind Time

[Das_Trench]

If users are so desperate to have someone to protect them online and to tell them what they can and cannot look, why don't we go back to having content providers? There is your centralized system. Bring the users who want to have someone looking out for their best interests services such as what we had in the early 90's. Bring back the Prodigy, AOL, and Compuserv of years ago.

Congress should NOT regulate the Internet

[eyebits]

Does it strike anyone else odd that a group of people who, in general, know nothing about technology are trying to regulate/create laws regarding the Internet? I can't imagine that any discussion held by these leaders would have any merit. In fact, if anyone with a technology background were to listen in it would be like listening to a bunch of grade school children trying to have an informative discussion about Quantum Physics.

You don't say...

[js290]

Lawmakers creating rules to restrict freedom? No way. What's next? Some act that restricts civil liberties on the basis of the war on terror?

Important correction

[A beautiful mind]

"This bill could fundamentally alter the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet"

It should read as:

"This bill could fundamentally alter the USA's section of the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet"

Unless of course you want to give yet another reason for why the USA should relinquish control over root dns to some truly international entity.

Re:Important correction

[RexRhino]

The trouble is that the international entity that people want to turn over control to is even more rabidly totalitarian than the United States.

I mean look at the critism that most Europeans have over the U.S. ... it is too easy to get guns, there aren't enough laws to restrict buisnesses, taxes are too low, "hate speech" is not punished, health care should be nationalized and controlled by a central authority, etc., etc. They are not complaining for the most part that the U.S. restricts freedoms, they are complaining that the U.S. is too free and a "cowboy culture" (actually, there are many European countries that are more free-market and laize faire than the U.S., like Switzerland... but that is not the stereotype that Europeans generally have about themselves and the United States... many Europeans consider being free-market liberals a bad thing, and so would take it an insult instead of a compliment when I call Switzerland free market).

The trouble is, as bad as U.S. starting to regulate the Internet would be, the people who want U.N. control want it because they feel the U.S. has been neglecting the Internet. It is not that they don't like U.S. regulations, it is that they don't feel the U.S. has been doing enough to regulate. In fact many think this drive by the U.S. government to regulate the Internet more is being done as a concession to ease the fears of the people who want the U.N. in control of the Internet... that this is a plan to make big reforms to highly control the internet, allowing cencorship, eliminating anonymity, and showing the world community that the U.S. government agrees with their plans to censor, centralize, and control. It is a sort of peace offering if you will.

Show us the truly international entity that have a deep and abiding love for Anarchy and freedom, and those of us against U.N. control would likely fully support an international system (or, more likely, a truly decentralized system where no-one is in control). But the U.N. is not promising to keep the Internet free, the U.N. is promising the strict controls they feel that the U.S. is negligent in providing.

So while we will work to stop the U.S. government from controlling the Internet, we have no illusions that the U.N. is going to be any better.

Re:Important correction

[A beautiful mind]

The trouble is that the international entity that people want to turn over control to is even more rabidly totalitarian than the United States.

I don't think so. See below.

I mean look at the critism that most Europeans have over the U.S. ... it is too easy to get guns, there aren't enough laws to restrict buisnesses, taxes are too low, "hate speech" is not punished, health care should be nationalized and controlled by a central authority, etc., etc.

The problem isn't so clear cut, restrictions doesn't mean less "freedom" right away. The best example would be looking at the North-European democracies. They ARE more democratic and free than the USA, by several independent measures (I hope I don't have to cite sources for this, they are easily found).

The hate speech part is specific to Germany. I don't think we should generalize from that to whole Europe. They have historical reasons for their stand.

Healthcare is more about efficiency than control. It just works better that way. About taxes, I'm not sure what you mean, but yeah, we have more taxes, because we get more in return, including the above mentioned healthcare.

I don't think "wanting to restrict businesses" is valid. We would be stupid to do so, economically speaking. However, keeping businesses accountable is a completely different case. The problem in the USA about corporations is that they are a legal person, but without the checks and balances, so abuses crop up, to oversimplify things.

They are not complaining for the most part that the U.S. restricts freedoms, they are complaining that the U.S. is too free

This sounds too much like "they hate our freedom" part. No, we don't think the U.S. is too free actually, on the contrary (DMCA, Patriot act, "terrorist measures", etc.).

and a "cowboy culture" (actually, there are many European countries that are more free-market and laize faire than the U.S., like Switzerland... but that is not the stereotype that Europeans generally have about themselves and the United States... many Europeans consider being free-market liberals a bad thing, and so would take it an insult instead of a compliment when I call Switzerland free market).

I think your stereotype about what you think the europeians might think is a off a bit. The "hating free market" part might have been true to the old Eastern-European socialist propaganda, but that is the past and that never been true to Western-Europe. We actually like free market, maybe some monopoly-breaking measures like the anti-media-monopoly laws that prohibit anyone from controlling too much from a particular segment of the media or the case against Microsoft signifies that in the recent times.

The trouble is, as bad as U.S. starting to regulate the Internet would be, the people who want U.N. control want it because they feel the U.S. has been neglecting the Internet.

This is true, although a more appropriate word is mismanaged (the dns system).

It is not that they don't like U.S. regulations, it is that they don't feel the U.S. has been doing enough to regulate.

This conclusion is highly stereotypical based on your false pretenses. It is just simply not true. The Internet needs less regulation, not more. I am concerned by the FBI's latest attempt to mess with pornographic material, for example, but I could also mention ICANN's bad track record managing TLDs.

In fact many think this drive by the U.S. government to regulate the Internet more is being done as a concession to ease the fears of the people who want the U.N. in control of the Internet...

Heh, completely misplaced blame and actually the opposite is the case. Personally, I want an international entity, not necessarily the U.N., in control of the root dns system exactly because I am worried that the U.S. might want to regulate the Internet (apart from the mismanagement issues)!

that this is

He's Against It

[blamanj]

The writeup does a lousy job of telling us what the bill is about. It is apparently legislation to create a statutory framework for Internet Protocol and Broadband Services.

Here's what Cerf says: My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the Internet as we know it.

Anarchy is good

[mwaggs_jd]

lack of any form of control had worked very well, and the internet is a perfect example of anarchy in action. Absolute freedom has led to unthought of inovation, stifling this with government oversite would be a huge step backwards. The internet is a place where people have the ability to do anything, and the requirement of deciding what they will or will not view. This is truely democratic, unfortunately, most people do not want freedom, they want pre-digested content sanitized for thier use. Blah. If they regulate the internet, I suggest we create a new network communication protical. Or, maybe, we can just meet in person.

Deaf ears...

[grasshoppa]

This guy is wasting his breath. The people making the decisions now are motivated by greed.

"A little control won't hurt anybody, and it will line my pockets a bit." That's the mentality we're faced with, only multiplied by a couple 100's of thousand of greedy PHBs.

The only real way to fight that, that I've come up with at least, is spaid or neutering your local politician. Then electronically tag them.

Please, think of the children.

How things have changed

[msbsod]

"No gatekeepers", no "control in the middle of the network"? Unfortunately this is no longer true. Remember why the World Wide Web was developed at CERN (Europe)? Because physicists wanted to exchange documents in a network of computers, their computers. By now the networks of most research labs and universities have been taken over my inept administrators who call themself network managers. Researchers can no longer use their computers as web servers. Now all has to go through controlled centralized machines, run the administrators. Even simple e-mail exchange from computer to computer no longer work. Now we need mail exchangers, which again are centralized controlled systems. Of course the administrators love to point out that this is all a matter of policies and security. Policies made by the administrators and security problems cause by the administors' insecure Microsoft Windows systems. It gets worse. Not only do such centralized gatekeepers limit our freedom as researchers, they also cost money. A lot of money, which is deducted from the research budgets. The Internet is changing, no doubt. It is happening in Europe, the US, Asia, all over the world.

Re:How things have changed

[Baricom]

Disclaimer: Like many other readers, I work in IT, though not in network administration or anything similar.

Researchers can no longer use their computers as web servers.

Most researchers I know don't have the technical knowledge to run any web server, let alone a secure one, and they have no desire to learn. Even if they did, the web is a different place today than it was in the early 90's. When the web was started at CERN, the Internet was still a relatively closed network, where people behaved themselves because it was the polite thing to do. These days, worms, crackers, and script kiddies are run rampant, and having computers with open ports, combined with people who don't know how to secure themselves, is a significant problem.

Now all has to go through controlled centralized machines, run the administrators.

There are significant advantages to centrally controlled machines. They can be optimized and tuned for web serving; they handle unusual loads better; they can be backed up centrally; they are cheaper to maintain and more secure because IT staff can be hired to monitor them 24/7. What is the downside?

Even simple e-mail exchange from computer to computer no longer work. Now we need mail exchangers, which again are centralized controlled systems.

Blame spammers. These days, major universities are getting blacklisted for spam. Imagine the potential problems if instead of locking down one mail server, the IT department had to lock down thousands.

Of course the administrators love to point out that this is all a matter of policies and security. Policies made by the administrators and security problems cause by the administors' insecure Microsoft Windows systems.

Of course it is. IT staff don't tell researchers how to do their work, because they understand that is not their function, and researchers are far better equipped to gather and analyze data than IT. Similarly, I don't see why researchers can't show some understanding for the IT department, which is trying to protect them and their research from the very real problems on the Internet that didn't exist ten years ago.

It gets worse. Not only do such centralized gatekeepers limit our freedom as researchers,

How? I'd honestly like to know. I can't think of a single instance where a legitimate research project or any accompanying data has been censored by IT. What would be the motivation for doing this, anyway?

they also cost money. A lot of money, which is deducted from the research budgets.

If you were using your own resources, you'd be spending about as much money for the servers. You would also need to strongly consider hiring a system administrator, because if the university gets sued because your personal desktop web server is part of a botnet, guess where the settlement money is going to come from? Why not have all the research departments consolidate their system administrators so they can work together to solve problems and allow researchers to focus at what they're best at?

The Internet is changing, no doubt. It is happening in Europe, the US, Asia, all over the world.

Yes, and that change is the cause of the problem, not the symptom.

My inet provider ...

[Empty Yo]

Just announced in their annual industry meeting that they are considering QoS penalties on IP services that compete with their own offerings (phone, inet, tv), so I'm seeing this evolve in Canada first hand. The speaker used the highway metaphor, saying that the company was tired of providing the highway at their cost while others rode on it for free. I spoke to him afterwards and reminded him that my inet packets spend over 99% of their time on the Internet and only a small percentage of time on his company's network, making the more apt metaphor a door instead of a highway. I then asked him whether he considered it fair for the person holding the door to dictate where I went and what I did once I walked through, especially since I had already paid the doorman to walk through in the first place. It turned into quite a lively debate.

Dear Gods....

[barefootgenius]

Give the internet to the universities, at least that way the thing will work, the universities can make money, nerds will be happy, and it might still be able to be saved from business focused ideals.

And I don't mean just the universities in the west, all of them from Iran to Iran (sorry, but it is a sphere). Let them sort it out because if we leave it to any government, its a lost battle.

Don't get me wrong, the U.S.A. has done a fine job of inventing and managing the system so far, but unfortunately now they appear to have turned into a pack of paranoid, power grabbing, business controlled, idiots.

Its turning from, "Government for the people, by the people, and of the people" to, "Government of the people, by the corporate, behind the lobby group".

Re:Congress should NOT regulate the automobile

[RexRhino]

Yes it does. If the government makes something like blogging in favor of a candidate 30 days before an election illegal (which argueably it is illegal), and the politicians don't understand that one can blog anonymously from the server located outside the U.S., then they are not going to know that their law has no effect. If the government requires that all connections between machines be logged (like all telephone calls are required to be logged), and they don't understand that IPs can be spoofed, and that packets cannot be tracked accuratly, they won't know that their law will be ineffective. If the government bans all peer to peer file sharing in order to fight piracy, and they don't know that p2p file sharing is used for completly legit reasons, then they could end up implementing policy that could be disasterous.

There is all sorts of disasterous legislation that the government can come up with if it doesn't properly understand the technology.