Seminar given 26/2/09 at the James Martin 21st Century School as part of their global governance challenges series

1. THE REALITY OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE Ian Brown, Oxford Internet Institute

5. Encryption control timeline 1976: New Directions in Cryptography , Diffie & Hellman 1978: A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems , Rivest/Shamir/Adleman: c = m e mod n ; m = c d mod n 1990: PGP software released via Usenet. Author Phil Zimmerman pursued through courts for 3 years 1977-: NSA attempts to ban publication of cryptographic publications; to control funding of cryptography research; and to ban export of cryptographic software 1993: Al Gore leads US attempts to mandate key escrow 1992: AT&T announce DES phone Matt Blaze

8. Encryption control unravels 1995: Netscape adds encrypted links, enabling e-commerce boom 1997: OECD rejects attempts to mandate key escrow in its Guidelines for Cryptography Policy 1996: IETF declares: “Cryptography is the most powerful single tool that users can use to secure the Internet. Knowingly making that tool weaker threatens their ability to do so, and has no proven benefit.” 1997: European Commission declares key escrow should be limited to that which is “absolutely necessary” 2001: US essentially abandons export controls

21. Comparison Encryption control Anti-circumvention Identifier management Policy objective Maintain intelligence and law enforcement intercept capability Maintain excludability of information goods Maintain a stable and secure addressing system Stakeholders SIGINT agencies, law enforcement (US: NSA, NSC, DoJ), software co s Copyright holders, trade and IP agencies, consumer electronics firms Registrants, registrars, trademark holders Legitimacy Source; little transparency Source, some process Multi-source, extreme process, result Framing Terrorists, paedophiles Piracy is killing music Private-sector innovation Sites COCOM/Wassenaar, OECD, G8, special envoy WIPO, US-EU-Japan coordination, FTAs, special 301 procedure The travelling circus Counter-framing Anti-Big Brother, US business interests Defective by design, anti-innovation, anti-competitive, anti-fair use Anti-democratic, US-dominated Main challenges Open source software, 1 st amendment, economic espionage, consumer preferences, campaigners Open source software, P2P networks, consumer preferences, Apple market power, campaigners Finding consensus across extreme range of stake-holders; legitimacy