Cooperation Working Group session
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28th October 2020
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2 p.m. (CET)
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JOHAN HELSINGIUS: We have a very packed programme so I guess we should get started.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: Good afternoon, we are the co‑chairs of the Cooperation Working Group, we have a very tight schedule so we'll be quite fast.
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First for the minutes of the previous meeting, I'm not sure we had sent an e‑mail to the mailing list of the work group, but the minutes were published already in June. If you have anything, please flag to us, otherwise we can go on.
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One very quick announcement probably from Julf and myself, this is now four years that we are chairing the group. So, we are very happy with that. If there are other people that think that they might be suitable for the job, we would be happy to discuss further for that in the mailing list, during this winter, and would be happy in a way to take a third person and train them as co‑chair for this purpose.
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Let's start ‑‑ I don't know if, Julf, you want to add anything or we can go directly to the first presentation for today? So the floor to Maxim of RIPE NCC who is going to talk about sovereignty as a regulatory trend in Russia. Maxim.
MAXIM BURTIKOV: Since we're tight on time, let's cut to the chase. We're going to be talking about the sovereignty as the regulatory trend in Russia.
And this is basically the table of contents of my presentation for today. We are going to be covering some of the recent initiatives and proposals. Unfortunately, we won't have time to speak about all of them, so I'll be covering only the first three dots that you see here.
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Then we'll try to talk about what it all means.
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So, let's start with the oldest on our list, that's the regulation from four years ago, but it's still going on implementation. So what does it all mean?
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The operators in Russia must store metadata for three years, that's basically everything that happens on the Internet every connectivity between, let's say, your device and some web server, then it goes more interesting, because also, all electronic communications must be stored for six months, and that includes basically almost all the Internet data that is sent, received, includes voice images, texts, audios, videos and all type of information, so as you can imagine, that's a huge amount of data that needs to be stored for six months, and, to do that, that has to be stored locally using certified data storage equipment. It doesn't have to be produced locally, it just has to be certified and it has to be locally stationed. And the capacity must be increased by 15% every year. And that's where the operators are asking the government right now to postpone the deadline when this needs to be implemented, because as you you will imagine, the Covid has a serious impact on the economy right now, and of course the Internet industry is not exempt from that impact.
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So basically, that's a huge expense on their side. So this is what's being discussed right now to postpone that deadline.
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And, of course, since this, all that we're discussing right now, what I'm talking about right now was part of the anti‑terrorist bill, so the point is for the LEAs to have access to that, direct access. So basically, the data is stored and gathered by the ISPs, by the Internet companies and so on and so forth and law enforcement agencies have direct access to that whatsoever, and if the traffic is encrypted, then the decryption keys must be provided to law enforcement agencies.
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So if you remember the blocking of telegram, that was ‑‑ that provision was used to make it official because telegram was now providing digiencryption keys and by saying the encryption is end to end, so it happens on the user device and they are not able to comply with that legislation.
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The next one and this is from last year, and I think it's ‑‑ you might have heard about that, it had a couple of media splashes. The headlines were saying that Russia is testing the isolation of itself, or cut off from the Internet. Maybe that's not exactly the intent of it, so let's try and cover the main points of that legislation. So everything needs to be reported. If you are holding an AS number or IP block or if you have a network infrastructure you have to report that, including your routing policies. It's basically a special database is set up and run by the regulator and, right now, everyone is receiving mails from the regulator asking to provide all that information to fill that database. That's not it.
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IXPs must register as well. Peering is only allowed via the officially registered IXPs, and if the direct peering is happening, that agreement also must be reported to the regulator.
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And the big novel, of course, is that, in case of a threat, there is an opportunity, an authorisation for the regulator to manage traffic routing directly, or provide the obligatory routing policies to the ISPs.
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That's a very interesting and novel provision, and we, of course, still don't know how it's going to be implemented at the end, but the law also provides a legal background for the so‑called Internet drills, so basically it's the regulator plus the biggest ISPs, they do these testing of how these can work out.
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And the final is that, the final big one, I guess, is that there is special equipment provided by the regulator and must be installed on the network of an ISP. That will be used to block illegal content. Previously the illegal content is blocked by the ISP on its own. This is what's changing that now this special equipment is provided.
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This is a new one. It's only from the last month. We proposed then of encryption protocols, so basically the protocols that mask DNS queries, and the rationale for that is that these protocols help access a content that is officially blocked. So any resource to be confirmed uses these protocols will be banned within one working day after such discovery. And of course the industry is voicing a lot of security concerns, because if we implement that directly, then basically all encrypted traffic on the Internet must be filtered out.
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So, the more important question, I guess, is, what does it all mean? So is Russia alone in that? And the answer is ‑‑ the simple answer is, the bird's eye view answer is no. This is a global trend. This is a trend to get digital sovereignty, and this is not something we expect to happen in the future. This is today's reality. So we need to stop thinking about this in future terms, because a lot of this is actually already at best, and the underlying thing is that Internet's trust model that Internet is based on, built on, is under scrutiny. Trust is not enough any more, and industry also knows that. Building all kinds of services and products to not simply rely on trust. And also, trust is diminishing from the users' perspective, so should you trust social media with your personal data? Should you trust an online shop with your financial data? Should you trust that lovely prince that's emailing you with that awesome financial opportunity? Should you take that? Or that article that is very convincingly proving that the Covid is caused by 5G. So if your trust is broken, are you going to be coming to the Internet industry to step up and fix it for you? Or will you be forwarded to company's disclaimer disclaiming all responsibilities. So trust is not any more sufficient for political systems. There is all that, EU versus US partnership, but there is also all kinds of anti‑trust, privacy and tax legislation issues that are happening at the moment. And even within the same country, we know that from last week I think, it's US versus Google antitrust case or the already‑mentioned Russia versus Telegram case and so on and so forth, it seems that the regulation is winning over as a method to handle what matters other trust and the ‑‑ there are more examples of demands for local control and sovereignty that we see everywhere. It's digital services acts, it's the case of US versus TikTok and WeChat, maybe it's ongoing, maybe we'll see more implications coming up next, and of course, this is an example of China doing a lot of heavy lifting on it's own territory, but also successfully exporting its it can al approaches on Internet regulation to other countries to implement.
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What does it all mean? Basically we're here witnessing two very different and sometimes conflicting mentalities of borderism versus the distributed nature of network, and we kind of see the borderism and localism prevail at the moment and this is not just in the Internet field, I think the globalism as an approach to deal with matters unitedly is being tested and the Internet is part of that current swing. And it's, I guess, always like that, If a new product arrives, a new industry happens, at the beginning it's all unchartered territory, it's all really free, no one knows what's going on, everyone is just keep enjoying playing it; no rules or the rules are just established as we go.
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And as the product or industry is mature enough, as they cover more and more stuff and they absorb more and more stuff we see that the rules appear, and it's a balancing act between freedom and rules between usability and security.
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So Internet is now being inside that trajectory and before finding the balance, the Internet governance might take a few swings whatsoever. But also, I think we all understand that Internet is not useful if it's over regulated and if it's, does not do what it does best. And it does best making things move fast, information services products and so on and so forth. It's good for us to always remember that it's a balancing act and at some point I guess we will find that balance, but before that, we can expect a few swings on the road.
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And what I am describing is basically the need the requests from the governments to have more control, more sovereignty over basically everything, over information, over user data, over Internet usage as a whole, over infrastructure, over finances, and all of that is actually being regulated with the old analogue approaches, which sometimes work with the digital world, sometimes doesn't. So we're talking about the legislation on logistics, transportation, mail and telegraph, taxation of physical goods, citizens' registration, all of that is ‑‑ well, some of that is virtually hundreds of years old, and unfortunately, some of the new technologies are getting ‑‑ or inheriting these old regulatory approaches. And this is where a lot of implementation hazards are, because, like I said, those approaches do not always apply to the new digital reality. So this is where the state and the industry must work closely, otherwise the regulation might not be achieving intended results, and I strongly believe that the best practices can only come from such cooperation.
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And unfortunately, this is a vicious circle, so the more developed the Internet becomes, the more regulation we face. Also, the more regulation appears, the more regulation appears. Because every new piece of regulation adopted in the EU, or anywhere else, does and can inspire, it doesn't go unnoticed, it does inspire regulatory talks in Russia, US and China, and vice versa. Also, another example of vicious circle is, the more the vacuum the industry leaves, allows, in terms of it protection and security for users, the more ‑‑ the higher the chances that the spectrum is going to be filled by other stakeholders. So which brings me to the final question where I'm going to leave us.
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What responsibility does the industry actually bear? This is where I want to finish by asking you a few questions that we need to the thinking about. So how fit is the current Internet governance policy‑making process in sustaining the self‑regulation? What is the balance of interests of companies between the protection of its users and its commercial interests? And how fast, or was the industry to admit and accept the influence it has over the non‑technical side of things?
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And that's seven minutes to go. I did it. Seven seconds, sorry. Sorry, that's it.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: Thank you. Questions that are not only valid for us, but globally, I would say. Julf, do you have any questions?
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: We have one question from Patrik Torpey asking: If Russian services block your services by Tor or VPNs by running on non‑standard ports? Actually, sorry, and Patrik continued his question of: Also, have you observed Russian regulatory requiring the blocking of X509s and CRLs ROSCP or other SSLD‑related infrastructure?
MAXIM BURTIKOV: I'll start by saying of course VPNs are being used, are being known, especially since some of that regulation, especially in terms of content‑blocking, has been in place for quite some time, that's more than six years, I think. So, yes, especially in the beginning, it was all over the Internet how to use VPNs and of course it was educational I guess for a lot of people. But, also, using VPNs require well at least some technical skills, some. And so, I would not say that this is super widespread in terms of usage.
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But also, the governments does have, from time to time, initiatives an how to then VPNs or at least regulate is at some ‑‑ to a certain level. So, yeah, that's part of the VPN question. Unfortunately, I don't think I can answer the second part of the question. Maybe that's a bit too technical for me, or... I actually don't even remember what was the question about since I don't have it in front of me.
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: Fair enough, and I think we need to move on, but thank you.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: So, we'll go onto the second item of the agenda. So, the floor with Andrei Robachevsky from the Internet Society who is going to talk to us about the Internet ‑‑
ANDREI ROBACHEVSKY: Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Well, good afternoon, good evening, good morning, everyone. I'll make a very superficious presentation on Internet impact assessment toolkit that was developed by the Internet Society. Not the organisation alone by the Internet Society and its community, and that was released back in September this year.
Let me start with this picture, and just to say that when a significant construction project is planned, say building a highway or a new regulation is proposed like changing speed limit, it's unthinkable to imagine something like this can go further without a proper impact assessment. Maybe an example closer to us all when policy is introduced in the RIPE community, the RIPE NCC is usually asked to do the impact assessment as well. When it comes to the Internet in general are there sufficient tools and practices to ensure the impact on the global Internet is well understood? Or does this impact assessment happen a tool?
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Of course before we approach this question, we need to ask, what is the Internet? What makes the Internet the Internet and what defines its success?
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Looking back, there have been several technological inventions that started this successful trajectory, such as moving from a circuit switching technology of transmitting data to packet switching that led to an enormous simplification of the network.
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Or the architecture that enabled innovation at the edge without the need to coordinate or ask permission from the underlying networks.
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We also must admit that the Internet owes its success not only to technology but also to the way it operates and evolves. The way independent networks interconnect and operate forming a high performance resilient infrastructure without a grand plan for a need of a central network cooperation centre. The way technologies are being designed and deployed based on wide community participation needs of its users and benefits it brings to those who use it.
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Someone said, no one can engineer the Internet. I think that's very true, as the Internet is a true ecosystem operating by its own rules. That's what we at the Internet Society call the Internet way of networking.
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Understanding these rules is important. As we have other ecosystem ‑ well, take forestry, for example, assuming a rational intervention and proposal may have long‑lasting negative consequences affecting the future of the system. At the same time, it doesn't mean that we need to freeze the Internet. It's constantly evolving. There is something constant in the Internet; as was said, it continuous change, and regulatory requirements are an integral part of this evolution.
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So, what are these rules?
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So when we are developing this Internet way of networking framework, we ask ourselves a slightly different question and the question was: What are the critical properties of the Internet that persisted over time and that underpinned its success? The IWN, or Internet Way of Networking, defines five critical properties.
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We see those properties as foundation pillars but they manifest themselves in the benefits and in economic social benefit it brings to the users. And they are put in in any particular order, none of them is more important an another. You can think of them of legs of a table and one leg is broken or damaged, the table becomes less stable, at some point when you lose too many legs, the table falls and there is no table any more.
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So, extending this analogy can think of the Internet the same way. When those critical properties are eroded, we may lose the Internet all together.
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Let me very quickly walk you through those properties.
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Accessible infrastructure was a common protocol that is open and has a low barrier to entry. In fact, the bearing computer equipment, links and all other stuff, that real technical requirement to connect to the Internet is being able to speak IP. And the IP layer, this is a very thin layer that spans globally, it's a really common denominator in operability that makes the Internet global.
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Open architecture of interoperable and reusable building blocks based on open standards that are voluntarily adopted. This is architecture forced interoperability among the blocks and across the networks, that is very important. It's like a league, a tool allowing you to build any kind of things, various kind of things, we're using the same technologies.
The centralised management and the distributed routing system that ensure scaleability, resilience and agility. Every participating network independently makes their own decisions based on local conditions, and with minimum coordination and yet, it ensures that most cases packets go from sources to desired destinations. Of course, common global identifiers and IP is the most prominent but there are other main spaces, DNS, of course, which are unambiguous and mapping these two spaces to IP is consistent and coherent, which protects us from being fragmented and fractured.
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Last but not least, the Internet is a technology neutral general purpose network. Adaptable not designed for specific application, not maybe doing a great job for specific application, but that's what makes the Internet fit for future, although we don't know the future yet.
The scope of this analysis is limited. I think the scope is what we call the Internet infrastructure. So if we look at some of the issues that are happening at the upper layers, like, content and fake news and this kind of stuff, I think it's probably difficult to use this framework to assess those developments.
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But, it's also not the ground rules. I think it's a way the Internet Society looks at things, right. It comes from our mission, from our values. It also represents a beautified version. You can say, are you sure those properties really exist? Because I think some of them in some of places are pretty much eroded, but this is a sort of stable, global, absolute if you will, reference point, against which we can measure developments and trends and evolutions.
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So they are two sort of you know facets of the work I presented here. The first one is the narrative itself. So, defining the Internet is a fools err rand, it's probably not possible and certainly not useful, but describing the Internet in those critical properties we found it useful building this powerful narrative of the Internet with a capital I.
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And another thing is the assessment toolkit that allows you to look how specific development affects those critical properties. So for instance, if we have Internet we aspire to this sort of purified version with the Internet with all these properties present and then it stops becoming, at least in some parts, open, accessible, stops using common protocols, introducing gateways, common identifiers being fractured, it stops being special purpose, it stops consisting with specialised networks. Networks lose their independence in making routing decisions for instance. Maxim just made a presentation on sovereign rules which might interfere with those decisions, for instance, and ultimately losing its interoperability, can we call this network the Internet still?
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Well, with all these limitations, we believe that the Internet Way of Networking could be used as a lens through which analysis can be done. Technology, policy developments can be analysed by a wide community to see what kind of impact it might have. I put here a few screenshots from the inter graphics we use and I also invite you, if you are interested, to read the document itself because, as I said, my presentation is really a very touching the surface, not going into much detail. But those are simple questions. But also did some more in‑depth analysis, we published three use cases applying this framework to some of the developments and one of them is, again, what Maxim presented about digital sovereignty, we looked at the routing and inter‑connection development in China, Russia and recent proposals in the US and analysed them on how they affect those critical properties.
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I hope I sort of build up some appetite and you are interested. This is the URL you can ‑‑ you can look at this framework and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Thank you.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: Thank you, Andrei. Are there any questions.
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: We actually have lots of questions. So the first one from Pele Vexel from Swedish national police: Do you want to completely open the Internet with no rules? Is there any regulations that can be safe?
ANDREI ROBACHEVSKY: Yes. Well, I mean, this narrative and framework is certainly not anti‑regulatory. It's also not just focussing on regulation, as I said, and that's what we plan also to do. We plan to look at some of the technological developments and see if they are affecting the properties. Now, it's a tool that a regulator can use, we hope, to look if their regulation passes those questions. If the answers to those questions is yes, yes, yes, I think that's ‑‑ at least you can be sure that the policy proposal or regulation doesn't affect the foundation. It doesn't mean that it doesn't affect other facets of the Internet. As I had said, the framework has a limited scope, but at least the foundation is intact and that might be useful.
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: Okay. We have a two‑part question from Alexander that I would ‑‑ Alexander, if it's okay, I leave it to the end of the session, as we are very tight in time, so if we have time at the end, so, would you be okay leaving that question? And instead I would ‑‑ has a quick question about how we can adopt the architecture of the Internet as inclusion by Internet does not prevail because seclusion is the first steps to the censorship.
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That's not a simple question, but maybe you can just quickly comment on it.
ANDREI ROBACHEVSKY: This is a question that spans many layers, right, it certainly goes above the framework we're capturing but on a very technical layer if you start fragmenting the Internet on a technical basis, I think it will, you know, promulgate upstairs and cause all sorts of problems.
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Now the mission of the Internet Society's open globally connected secure traffic Internet is a very positive mission and that's the perspective that we are looking at the Internet. Again, as I said, what I describe in this framework is not the Internet of today unfortunately, in many cases it's far from being the Internet of those critical properties, but that's probably what we should strive for.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: Thank you very much. Maybe we can go onto the last presentation of the day. So thank you very much.
So, the last presentation of the day, regulation or self‑regulation? Peter Koch of DENIC and Marco Hogewoning from RIPE NCC, the floor is yours, thank you.
PETER KOCH: Thanks, Achilleas and Julf, and good afternoon everybody.
So, a couple of people in the room might have seen the mails that we sent to the list to prepare a bit for this short conversation that Marco and I are going to have. I'll summarise very quickly, so, I came across once again the EU regulation on net neutrality that had been a topic in this Working Group I think four years ago, 2016, when BEREC, the Board of European National Regulators, worked on their guidelines for interpretation of the regulation, which is where legal text more or less gets into technology and operations a bit.
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I didn't look for the part I found, which was that v6 is on the radar of national regulators and therefore bar he can in the context of net neutrality. How might that come? That is, if you go back to the material, there is lots of mentioning of v6 or Carrier‑Grade NAT, how it prevents end users from providing their own services under a fixed address and what could or should be done. There are also been complaints at one way or another about the inavailability of v6 at the access level for end users, and all this is then covered in the NAT neutrality regulation and the mandate of the national regulators.
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So they would assess these things and then put it in their report. The reports will be collected and then BEREC is issuing a summary report mentioning a lot of those cases. As I said, v6 is on the radar, my impression, well that's not news, we knew that, but some of the assessments might be interesting to this community, especially when it comes to assessing the necessity at the access level for v6. And maybe this is also because the regulators are a bit constrained by this net neutrality regulation. That looks at it from a, say, consumer protection level, it's not about infrastructure and security, and it's also not market and competition when it comes to survivability of ISPs or other players in the game.
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Marco, could you add a bit of the activity that the NCC has done or the engagement in that direction and then we could probably discuss how to get a more operational, a more RIPE community like inputs into these discussions?
MARCO HOGEWONING: Yeah, sure. There is a lot, as you say, and it's certainly not new and we have also been following the discussion with better he can as we mentioned on the list, we have also talked to national regulators and even to the BEREC group that producing this report. It's not a new question. Can you use net neutrality, should you use net neutrality and there is even predates sort of the European legislation, I know because I was part of that conversation, it was brought up in the Dutch first implement, or came up with a net neutrality proposal so that predates European. Some people in the consultation already said, hey, this is a way to sort of motivate people to do IPv6?
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There is a lot to be said. I might actually come back and write a blog about this or come back to you in the list.
Whenever we enter these conversations, our mantra has been, and always will be, stimulate where you can, regulate where you must, and that is also generally what we get back from basically the whole of Europe, all the regulators kind of work from the principle it is very fundamental to the whole European framework.
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With that said, and I'd like to jump ahead a bit. It's sort of like, okay, if you would then ask the question, can net neutrality play a role or should net neutrality play a role in sort of motivating people to deploy IPv6? There is kind of three angles you can take in answering that, and sort of trying to give what we think and analyse and also then usually it is reflected in what we give back to the regulators when they ask the question.
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And first of all, it's like, it's a really difficult one because if you say okay, we can use this, then we say IPv4 and IPv6 are equivalent, right? The whole idea of net neutrality all traffic flows are equal.
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If you make that decision, what then happens to IPv4? Because if we say, okay, you must do IPv6 or there is a violation of net neutrality, where does that leave us with IPv4? Should I then also then always deploy IPv4 or what happens to, for instance, an IPv6‑only network that has a NAT64 gateway at the edge? Is that then enough?
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Jumping on, if you say, okay, NAT64 is okay, yeah, but what about other forms of NAT, NAT 44, other middleware? Because we always come back and say like, yeah, you know, there are consequences in doing that. Things get slower, there are sort of inhibiters innovation, some protocols might not work. So you quickly get into a gliding scope okay, what is net neutrality then per se and what is it not?
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So the current level where it's very high level, very technology‑neutral might actually be better, but the second part and that's also done is sort of to go along the political and legal access. As you say, people are looking into what DE‑CIX are doing, but ultimately you have to enforce it, ultimately whatever the regulation, if the regulation says you must do IPv6, otherwise it's a violation of net neutrality, you have to do that. So that also opens up a whole can of worms legally on how to fit it in, is this a way to objectively assess, enforce violations, can you enforce it, because it will end up in a court of law. You have to explain this to a judge at some point and say, like, okay, these guys are not doing IPv6. Tough luck, that's a violation, and now we come in with a penalty fine.
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And that's why, and jumping a head a bit, as we are ‑‑
PETER KOCH: Maybe I can just intervene here, so what you said is very much in line with what Andrei just explained in terms of evaluating potential regulation against the properties or in variance of the Internet, and permissionless innovation. Also, I think we have made all the experience that if you enforce things or you are threatened, you get a compliance culture and don't necessarily achieve what you want. However, so, looking at this just from the 2120, which is the number of the regulation angle, is of course not giving the whole picture. So what could we add, we as the RIPE community, to bring a bit of a broader focus in? And by the way, also maybe bust some of the myths or, say, enhance the understanding at various levels. If you look into the report, and you have done that, I know, you see that some assessment is oh, well, there is only 25% penetration of v6 in the global Internet, so this is not of concern at the access level.
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Now, given that we know this is a two‑player game, that might be not a very scaleable approach. Again, in the context of net neutrality, that might be okay, but there are other levers that are available.
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The other one is the interesting question about NAT that you mentioned, where already some of the regulators have identified that, well, they didn't call it that way, but in the light of the previous presentation, the end‑to‑end principle might be an interesting fact to bring into the game. What do we have in hand? The RIPE NCC has had a couple of country reports on v6 and other things. Is that something that the community could engage in?
MARCO HOGEWONING: Yeah. Of course there is other ways to do it, net neutrality is not the only one but I want to sort of stay at the high level and that's the point and I read the blog this morning and I might convert that into an article. The question is: Do we really need to engage or should we engage? This is a start. It's sort of our mentor is stimulate where you can, regulate where you must. And once we cross the line, once we start talking about, okay, are there ways to regulate here, we come into very dangerous area, we come into a slippery slope, because where does that leave us as a RIPE community where we say self‑governance, the multi‑stakeholder model. We generally don't need regulation, we can do it ourselves. So, once we start looking into like, okay, do we then need regulation? Is there a must to have regulation? Or kind of also implying that our self‑governance is failing. And I think, in that sense, if you say, like, what can we do from a community perspective to engage here? The best way to engage here is not to give any reason for the engagement. If you just go home and deploy IPv6 and be done with it, we wouldn't have this conversation here, because the moment we have this conversation, we have to look at ourselves and really sort of look into the mirror and say, like, okay, are we, as a community, we as an industry, still doing what we can? And to put it ‑‑ it's kind of a silly question to ask ourselves is, like: Okay, what if somebody comes up with regulation saying, I must do IPv6 rather than make me do IPv6? Because if that's the case, why am I not doing it right now? Why are we so desperate in sort of let's talk about how big the stick can be and who is wielding the stick? I know we're out of time and I see two chairs... maybe we should take this to the list.
PETER KOCH: We should definitely continue the discussion whether there is any self‑regulation or self‑governance in the deployment of v6 and what the criteria for success and failure are, and, even then, we probably can still engage in a discussion with the involved parties not asking for regulation, but in some cases regulation isn't all bad if it provides a level playing field, and we might want to find out with the community whether that level playing field is asked for by anybody.
MARCO HOGEWONING: That's, indeed. Do we still have a level playing field and if we refuse to do IPv6, as some of us apparently do, is that still a level playing field? That's a good conversation. That's a good conversation to have, but again reminder, be careful, because if we cross this line and regulation becomes a must, then we probably have a bigger problem.
PETER KOCH: Smart regulation will not just make that, but.
MARCO HOGEWONING: Stimulation, stimulate, please.
PETER KOCH: I think the chairs are encouraging us to come to a close here. Thank you.
MARCO HOGEWONING: Let's talk later.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: I was saying that there were also from the commissioner side the financial incentives for IPv6, quite important ones before thinking anything about regulation. But thank you very much, very interesting discussion, and, as Marco said, we can continue in a way with a blog and maybe also on the list.
Julf, what do we have?
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: We have sort of two things from Alexander, and the first one is basically thanking the RIPE NCC for noticing the existence of other regulatory domains other than the EU and hope this will continue to cover the whole region.
Then there is actually a question which kind of first was on the sort of Russian regulatory thing but also on this discussion, which is unfortunately government do not like to cooperate with the industry, and a lot of them laws are not executable especially with the Russian ones, so how do we ‑‑ the RIPE and globally cooperate against digital stupidity, as he mentions?
SPEAKER: I think that one of the issues that we are facing is that we still think in terms of digital stability the government has, this is an approach that will not lead us anywhere in this dialogue. And in my opinion, we, first and foremost, need to change our old mentality, change the way we see that inclusiveness and openness happening. So, I do understand that there might be a perception that this dialogue is not happening, that it's going to be a top‑down model, top‑down approach, but I can say in terms of the Russian legislation, what was happening is that we, as RIPE NCC, were taking part actually in the consultations and our feedback was included in the, well, official feedbacks and from the industry to the government.
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Of course, some of that was not taken into account, some of that was not ‑‑ did not become part of the final legislation, but it doesn't mean that it's always going to be the case, because some of that is ‑‑ was actually taken into account.
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So, I think this is where the better cooperation lies. We need to stop thinking in these terms, and the only way that we actually have is to continue that dialogue, continue to provide that technical knowledge and expertise, because there are no other ways and there is definitely not a way to fight ‑‑ to even think about fighting in these terms. That's from me.
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: I think we need to give Daniel the last word.
DANIEL KARRENBERG: I latched onto the RIPE service region ‑‑ the RIPE NCC service region and the RIPE community is bigger than the EU. I think that needs to be said, especially these days, very forcefully and multiple times. We have to avoid the impression that, especially in Working Groups like that, that we are only sort of EU‑focused. We have never been, from the start, we have seen RIPE as a bigger than that, and the RIPE NCC service region as bigger than that. So I would encourage everyone who has issues sort of for this Working Group, that may be only sort of national, to speak up and to join the discussion and to get the help of this community in dealing with these things. RIPE is bigger than the EU or whatever, you know, amalgamation of countries in our service region. Thank you.
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: Hear hear! So, I guess that's it. So, any final words?
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: Just many thanks to our ‑‑ we have, in a way, Alexander that wants to talk again very quickly. We can give the floor.
SPEAKER: Continue to talk between Marco and Peter, I think that we should actually step in the land of the regulation, but we have to form, as RIPE community, not as RIPE NCC, as Maxim suggested, as community, we have to start lobbying our interests. Unfortunately government stepped on our land of self‑regulation and now we have to unite in some form just to avoid digital stupidity which governments, not European unions ones, but some of regions wants, so maybe it's a game we have to think how to provide examples of good self‑regulation, to all governments, not only to EU. Thank you.
ACHILLEAS KEMOS: Here we come to an end. Many thanks to all our presenters. Many thanks to all the participants. Many thanks to our support team, Martina, Andrea and Razvan mainly, many thanks to stenographers, and hope to see you live next time.
JOHAN HELSINGIUS: Thank you.
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(Coffee break)
