Subject: Most bogus news story of the week

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:24:43 -0800 (PST)

(except it's not a joke)

Chinese proposal to meter Internet traffic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8417680.stm

China wants to meter all internet traffic that passes through its 
borders, it has emerged.

The move would require international agreement - but it is being 
discussed by the United Nations body in charge of internet standards. 

....

"An ITU spokesman said: "The ITU has no plans to modify the BGP 
protocol, which is not an ITU-T standard."

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:34:45 -0500

> discussed by the United Nations body in charge of internet standards.

Are they referring to the ITU ?

Marshall

> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

---

From: "Richard L. Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:39:03 -0500

Here's (what the ITU claims is) the specific proposal that has been  
made to the ITU:
"
An ITU spokesman said: "The ITU has no plans to modify the BGP  
protocol, which is not an ITU-T standard.
"A proposal has been made, and is being studied, to use BGP routers to  
collect traffic flow data, which could be used, by bilateral  
agreement, by operators for billing purposes."

"

Is this disingenuous or has the ITU really not heard of netflow?

--Richard

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:39:29 -0800 (PST)

> Are they referring to the ITU ?

Yes. The ITU-T which is "the United Nations body in charge of internet 
standards." We have a standards body, they have a standards body...

I think we should be happy that they have no plans to modify BGP :-)

Ole

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:41:02 -0800

>> protocol, which is not an ITU-T standard."

and the article's explicit reference to the IETF makes clear that the article 
isn't clear about basic details.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:42:26 +0100

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:39:03AM -0500,
 Richard L. Barnes <[email-masked]> wrote 

> Is this disingenuous or has the ITU really not heard of netflow?

This is the IETF, use RFC 5101 instead :-)

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:41:28 +0100

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 07:24:43AM -0800,
 Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]> wrote 

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8417680.stm

In France (translated by me):

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/politique/20091217.OBS1017/un_depute_ump_propose_de_nationaliser_le_reseau_interne.html

A member of parliament (UMP, the party of the president) wants to
nationalize Internet

"Today, Internet is completely rotten", says Jacques Myard. "We have
to nationalize this network, as the Chinese did."

---

From: Florian Weimer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:54:23 +0000

> to nationalize this network, as the Chinese did." 

FWIW, Germany has got an established legal framework for covert
keyword-based screening on all international data links.

-- 
Florian Weimer                <[email-masked]>
BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
Kriegsstraße 100              tel: +49-721-96201-1
D-76133 Karlsruhe             fax: +49-721-96201-99

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:19:13 -0500

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard L Barnes <[email-masked]> writes:

    Richard> Here's (what the ITU claims is) the specific proposal that
    Richard> has been made to the ITU: " An ITU spokesman said: "The ITU
    Richard> has no plans to modify the BGP protocol, which is not an
    Richard> ITU-T standard.  "A proposal has been made, and is being
    Richard> studied, to use BGP routers to collect traffic flow data,
    Richard> which could be used, by bilateral agreement, by operators
    Richard> for billing purposes."

    Richard> "

    Richard> Is this disingenuous or has the ITU really not heard of
    Richard> netflow?

What's so bogus about wanting to charge for traffic?  I mean you might
not want to have your traffic go somewhere where it's going to be
expensive, but governments have been charging for and taxing things for
a long time.

If the technical details of how to accomplish this are bogus (and
changing BGP to include flow data would be), then perhaps that should be
fixed.  However judging something on all the things a spokesperson says
it is *not* seems counter productive.

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:54:08 +0100

On 18 dec 2009, at 17.19, Sam Hartman wrote:

> What's so bogus about wanting to charge for traffic?

Not bogus at all.

But, there is a big difference between having A Country asking for agreed upon settlement structures and the current structure where the peers negotiate how the money is to flow. I.e. I do not personally think it would be good for the Internet of today to have fixed settlement structures. The changes in flow, traffic pattern etc will make it completely impossible to find a mechanism that "works".

  Patrik

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:10:29 -0500

> What's so bogus about wanting to charge for traffic?

Where I would raise a flag is, charge whom ?

This sounds very much like the way that international long distance  
used to be done. That the Internet does not support that is to me, at  
least, not a bug but a very desirable feature.

Marshall

>  I mean you might

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:26:57 -0500

--On Friday, December 18, 2009 12:10 -0500 Marshall Eubanks
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> This sounds very much like the way that international long
> distance used to be done. That the Internet does not support
> that is to me, at least, not a bug but a very desirable
> feature.

But, from the perspective of many of the participants in the ITU
(and some of the countries), that old regime was profoundly
attractive: easy to regulate, easy to tax, easy to decide who
gets to carry traffic in and out of the relevant country, etc.
This goes hand-in-hand with nostalgia for various forms and
properties of circuit-switched networks, especially wrt QOS,
emergency services, and network management.   Probably that
means that precisely the things that contribute to your seeing
it as a feature are things they consider bugs... or at least
appropriate only for research networks.

And then we wonder why we have trouble communicating with the
ITU and assorted bellheads :-(

     john

---

From: Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:55:29 -0500

> least, not a bug but a very desirable feature.

And you can get into transit charges. How much does Country B charge for 
data from Country A going to Country C?

Oh such FUN!!!! Shades of X.25 gateways! Oh, oh, and Teletypes. Oh yes 
it was SOOO much fun working out the best way to route messages back in 
my Automotive days... We need X.400-style routing tables back!

YES!!!! More jobs for all of us! Just skim a little of those mega bucks 
off to pay for our meetings....

---

From: "Richard L. Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:10:16 -0500

> properties of circuit-switched networks, especially wrt ...
> emergency services

This one at least we have a story on:
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/ecrit/>

---

From: Steven Bellovin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:19:46 -0500

> protocol, which is not an ITU-T standard."
"Bogus" because it's a bad idea or because the reporter significantly misunderstood/misrepresented what the suggestion is actually about?

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:45:57 -0800

> <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/ecrit/>

The emulation is perhaps better than we would like.

How many years has the IETF been working on this topic, and how much real-world 
deployment (and use) is there, so far?

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Robert Moskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:56:44 -0500

Dave CROCKER wrote:
> How many years has the IETF been working on this topic, and how much 
> real-world deployment (and use) is there, so far? 

Meanwhile check out:

http://www.ieee802.org/ecsg/

I am working on getting approvals to attend this.

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:04:25 -0500

> to nationalize this network, as the Chinese did." 

Van Jacobsen used to have a slide set titled "Circuits: The Search for
the Cure".

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:48:36 -0800

> Van Jacobsen used to have a slide set titled "Circuits: The Search for

See: 

   http://www.sigcomm.org/about/awards/sigcomm-awards/vj-sigcomm01.pdf

Bob

---

From: "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:10:39 -0000

> (except it's not a joke)

As someone who has confronted some of these gentle people at IGF, let me 
tell you it is not a joke.

I am always flabbergasted about what I hear, and never understand whom they 
get their information from. It is often full of inaccuracies, cognitive 
biaises, generalisations, misunderstandings and old world thinking, which, 
would you believe it, actually makes up for a rather "amusing" view of the 
Internet.

Kind regards,

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 18 Dec 2009 20:36:51 -0000

>"Bogus" because it's a bad idea or because the reporter significantly
>misunderstood/misrepresented what the suggestion is actually about?

I read the story, and I think the reporter understood the discussion
pretty well, except perhaps for the distinction between capacity and
traffic.

We all know that networks in the US and other developed countries are
rarely willing to peer with networks in less developed countries, so
transit money tends to flow from the LDCs to the US.  The LDCs have
always hated that, since it is the exact opposite of the phone system
where they carefully track the minutes in each direction and the
settlement money has historically gushed from the developed countries
to the LDCs.  So they want the ITU to make rules that the Internet has
to work like the phone system, at least financially.  The Chinese,
being sophisticated, would presumably also like detailed traffic stats
so they know who's talking to whom.

I don't understand ITU politics well enough to know how much of an
issue this is likely to be in practice.  I know the US has some
carveouts in its agreements to implement ITU standards, e.g., our
phone system signalling is entirely different from theirs, and have no
idea how that would affect an ITU decision that might apply via the US
to ICANN.

R's,
John

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:43:46 -0500

>>>>> "Olivier" == Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <[email-masked]> writes:

> (except it's not a joke)

    Olivier> As someone who has confronted some of these gentle people
    Olivier> at IGF, let me tell you it is not a joke.

    Olivier> I am always flabbergasted about what I hear, and never
    Olivier> understand whom they get their information from. It is
    Olivier> often full of inaccuracies, cognitive biaises,
    Olivier> generalisations, misunderstandings and old world thinking,
    Olivier> which, would you believe it, actually makes up for a rather
    Olivier> "amusing" view of the Internet.

A few years ago I was going to the airport from an IETF and happened to
be in a shuttle with some BT folks talking about NGN.  It was very
amusing to listen to their descriptions of us and our bogus thinking,
lack of understanding of critical issues, and how serious work on the
NGN could not take place in such an environment.

Really though, listening to this discussion, I still cannot bring myself
to describe the Chinese desire as "most bogus ever."  They are wanting
to map an existing world view onto something new.  It is, as several
people have pointed out a very problematic mapping, and one that for
various technical, social and political reasons we oppose.  That doesn't
make someone at a high level "most bogus ever," for having the idea,
even if we believe we have enough information to conclude they are
wrong.

We can point and laugh at how wrong-headed someone is, sure in the back
of our minds that they are doing the same about us, or we can understand
where they are coming from and try to engage.  Some days, I'm not sure
which option is better:-) Pointing and laughing, is easy and if you're
in a group that mostly agrees with you can use the mob mentality to make
you feel good and important.  Engaging on the other hand often feels
like fighting an up-hill battle that never really seems to make as much
progress as it must.  It does, however, in my view have the moral high
ground.

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:55:25 -0700

The work in ECRIT has certainly helped the state of deployed E911 over VoIP to be much better today than it was in say 2000. More importantly, the progress that the industry is making in various SDOs, including the IETF, has been the primary factor that has caused regulators to not pass some regulations over E911 and VoIP. In my opinion they type of regulations that would have been passed at this early stage would probably have been overall harmful. 

When you have a case like what happened in Canada where a child is dead and probably would be alive had a PSTN phone had been used instead of a VoIP phone, well it's not easy to convince regulators not to "Do something" about the problem. Obviously I think we ought to be doing something about better emergency calling but I believe a well thought out global industry based approach is superior to a knee jerk driven reaction done on a country by country basis. 

Cullen 

On Dec 18, 2009, at 11:45 AM, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> How many years has the IETF been working on this topic, and how much real-world deployment (and use) is there, so far?
> 
> d/
> -- 
> 
>  Dave Crocker

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:11:26 +1300

>> that is to me, at least, not a bug but a very desirable

Maybe, but charging per byte and charging more for offshore bytes
are both entirely feasible for ISPs to do, and have been for many
years. Therefore, it's entirely feasible for governments to tax
such charges. So I'm not sure there is actually any news here.
Whether you'd be willing to trust IPFIX as the way to measure
traffic is another story, but really a detail.

What somebody (ISOC?) should do is counter the absurd meme that
the ITU is "the United Nations body in charge of internet standards."

> appropriate only for research networks.

Absolutely. Charging was at the root of the old PTT monopolist's
hatred of IP and their love of X.25. But that war was over many
years ago. Apparently a few soldiers have just emerged from hiding
in the forest, thinking the war is still in progress.

    Brian

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:15:31 -0500

> the ITU is "the United Nations body in charge of internet standards."

I suspect that came from the reporter.

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:46:25 +0100

On 18 dec 2009, at 21.55, Cullen Jennings wrote:

> The work in ECRIT has certainly helped the state of deployed E911 over VoIP to be much better today than it was in say 2000.

Sweden 911-service evolution (SIP based signalling directly to the PSAP) is very closely following what is happening in ECRIT.

   Patrik

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:42:44 +0100

On 19 dec 2009, at 01.01, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> The current structures give a huge advantage to US and European
> providers.

Yes and no.

The trick here is that the question is not so simple (or the answer to the question is not so simple). I was myself working with launching Internet in Europe from -87 and sure, we had to pay quite a lot to get our first connection to ISPs (then only in the US) so I am pretty sure I have been in the situation you talk about. "That we thought the situation was unfair."

But, the question is much more complicated than that. And specifically when (lack of) deregulation and other regulative mechanisms comes into place. That it might not only be a question of market negotiations that is the problem. Getting "landing rights" in a country if you do not have operations there is extremely difficult. Including in the US, and very hard in many of the countries that today need better Internet Connectivity.

> The rest of the world was essentialy allowed to connect up
> to the Internet provided that they paid the cost. As a result the
> settlements tend to reflect precedent rather than actual benefit to
> the parties.

I agree with you only if you include also "existence of old regulation, and lack of interest in deregulation".

> ITU-T is not an illogical place to take that type of complaint, it
> surely isn't an IETF/ISOC/ICANN issue.

It ends up an IETF issue to the degree that IETF should at least say it is *NOT* an IETF issue, and changes to our protocols do not solve the problem.

> But as usual it is rather easier to throw up a smokescreen and suggest
> that this is a control/censorship issue rather than admit that there
> might be a basic fairness issue.

What is currently happening is also that all organisations (private entities, countries, public entities, incumbents etc) is extremely conservative, and if any of these find an argument they can try to bend in their favour (to some degree create a smoke screen) they will do it.

Some entities even bring up "international disputes must be resolved" when in reality the problem is a domestic regulative issue. A dispute between incumbent and competitors.

I.e. the question and problem space is large, extremely large, and what is needed is that discussions about these things do include all issues, and for example not the "number of $$ that someone have to pay" but also "why is the $$ so high".

   Patrik

> 2009/12/18 Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>:
>> 
> New Website: http://hallambaker.com/
> View Quantum of Stupid podcasts, Tuesday and Thursday each week,
> http://quantumofstupid.com/

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:46:57 +0000

> The trick here is that the question is not so simple (or the answer to the question is not so simple). 
> I was myself working with launching Internet in Europe from -87 and sure, we had to pay quite a lot to 
> get our first connection to ISPs (then only in the US) so I am pretty sure I have been in the situation 
> you talk about. "That we thought the situation was unfair."

Back in 1988, the cost a 64kbps connection between the south of France and New Jersey was about $50K per year. The price of the connection between the south of France and Paris was about the same. Technology drove down the cost of the transatlantic connection. Deregulation drove down the price of the French connection. Deregulation also boosted the availability of the Internet in France.

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Steven Bellovin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:02:09 -0500

On Dec 18, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:

>> This sounds very much like the way that international long distance used to be done. That the Internet does not support that is to me, at least, not a bug but a very desirable feature.
> 
> And you can get into transit charges. How much does Country B charge for data from Country A going to Country C?
> 
> Oh such FUN!!!! Shades of X.25 gateways! Oh, oh, and Teletypes. Oh yes it was SOOO much fun working out the best way to route messages back in my Automotive days... We need X.400-style routing tables back!
> 

I think this is at the heart of it, and why I'm taking it very seriously.  This isn't about netflow or netflow++.  As we all know, pairwise (peerwise?) settlement payments are quite common.  But the only reason to put charging information into BGP is to enable -- and require -- much more complex payment regimens.  From a government perspective, it might about about setting prices high for traffic from, say, an AS that hosts content they don't like.  From some folks perspective, it might be "the" answer to the network neutrality debate: they don't discriminate, they just want to be paid by the sender.  It would discourage folks who host or post too much content, or run services like Tor for free.

I don't think this idea is coming from people who don't understand the Internet or its current economic models.  I think they understand it all too well.  I think this is a thoroughly bad idea that really should be stopped dead in its tracks, both for policy reasons and -- see rgm's comments -- technical ones.  (Here's another amusing thought.  Imagine that a charging rate announcement is denominated in Elbonian zorkmids.  Do you want to download foreign exchange tables into your BGP preferences configuration?)

---

From: Danny McPherson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:31:51 -0700

> I don't think this idea is coming from people who don't understand the Internet or its current economic models.  I think they understand it all too well. I think this is a thoroughly bad idea that…

FWIW, operators already use BGP attributes (primarily communities
that denote intra-pop, on-net, off-net, trans-oceanic, SFI v. 
transit, etc..) today for distance-sensitive billing models.  
Between current flow-based telemetry data and BGP attributes such as 
communities, no new standards work required, methinks...

-danny

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:41:39 -0800

> protocol, which is not an ITU-T standard."

	and this is different than the Swedish law that requires
	all traffic that crosses their border to be monitored?

--bill

Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and
certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise).

---

From: Florian Weimer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:45:14 +0000

> Is this disingenuous or has the ITU really not heard of netflow?

I can understand if people are not too happy with best-effort
accounting and billing.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:01:07 -0500

The current structures give a huge advantage to US and European
providers. The rest of the world was essentialy allowed to connect up
to the Internet provided that they paid the cost. As a result the
settlements tend to reflect precedent rather than actual benefit to
the parties.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:26:33 -0500

> the ITU is "the United Nations body in charge of internet standards."

That depends on how you parse the sentence. If you interpret 'in
charge' as being globally exclusive then it is nonsense, if you
interpret it as being the part of the UN with responsibility in that
area then it makes sense.

But remember that the first rule of the Internet is 'You are so not in
charge (for all values of you)'.

I agree that the underlying issue here is that the current settlements
ensure that there is a net flow of cash from the LDCs to the US and
Europe. But there is no way that there is going to be anything like
the telephone situation being repeated with the LDCs receiving net
flows of cash. That only works in the telephone world because the
communication is person to person and each person is located in one
place at a time. On the Internet it is pretty easy to move a server to
a cheaper locale.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:30:46 -0500

Changing the BGP specs is easy, whether they have IETF 'permission' to
do so or not. At worst just declare a BGP4, there is no real
disadvantage to doing so as the move to a different charging regime
would require all participants to upgrade in any case.

That is the place where the scheme falls apart with or without IETF
involvement. If they had the political organization to get people to
agree to charges then putting together a mechanism to collect them is
going to be simple in comparison.

And as with all these schemes, ascribing them to a country is
ridiculous. They will be the brainchild of some mid level
engineer-functionary with a bee in their bonnet. Probably someone who
is engaged in the ITU process. So another mid level functionary goes
to the House of Lords technology committee to describe the proposal in
the most hyperbolic terms possible.

Given all the nonsense folk have attributed to my motives over the
years, I am pretty skeptical when others infer the motives of
technical proposals beyond the immediate purpose. In this case it is
hard to see how the proposal, or indeed any routing level proposal
would enhance the already formidable censorship capabilities of the
state.

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:58:08 -0500

Given the circumstances, it is probably premature to assume that many
ITU people are aware of the proposal at issue here, it indeed it is a
formal proposal at all.