Internet Engineering Task Force Open Forum | IGF 2023 Town Hall #32

Dhruv Dhody

In a series of discussions, Dhruv Dhody and the IAB outreach coordinator emphasise the importance of increasing participation and diversity in the ITF (Internet Technical Foundation). Dhruv Dhody specifically focuses on the need for more participation from India, particularly from multinational corporations and large network operators. His experience in implementing and designing Request for Comments (RFCs) has made him aware of the potential that India holds in contributing to the ITF. With the support of individuals like Suresh, Dhruv and others have been diligently working to encourage and enhance participation from India.

On the other hand, the IAB outreach coordinator discusses the various efforts being made to improve access to the ITF and increase diversity. They highlight the role of education and outreach in achieving these goals. As part of the ITF’s education and outreach team, the coordinator focuses on making it easier and more successful for women and individuals of diverse genders to participate. Their efforts have resulted in positive changes within the ITF since their involvement began around 2010.

The discussions indicate a positive sentiment towards increasing participation and diversity within the ITF. It is evident that both Dhruv Dhody and the IAB outreach coordinator recognise the significance of broadening the participation base and promoting inclusivity within the ITF community. By encouraging multinational corporations, large network operators, and individuals from underrepresented groups to actively engage and contribute their expertise, the ITF can benefit from a diverse range of perspectives and ideas.

Overall, the detailed analyses of Dhruv Dhody and the IAB outreach coordinator shed light on the ongoing efforts to create a more inclusive and diverse ITF. Their observations and insights emphasize the positive changes observed since their involvement began in 2010. These discussions serve as a call to action for increased participation from India and a concerted effort towards improving diversity within the ITF.

Colin Perkins

Colin Perkins, an esteemed member of the University of Glasgow, is highly involved in the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), where he serves as chair. He has actively contributed to both the IRTF and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) since the 1990s and has successfully led various IETF working groups.

The IRTF plays a crucial role in conducting long-term research, complementing the near-term standards work performed by the IETF. Perkins, as the chair of the IRTF, acts as a bridge between the research community and the standards development community within the IETF, facilitating coordination and collaboration between the two.

Perkins values his role in coordinating research and standards communities, considering it an essential aspect of his work within the IRTF. He believes that such collaboration is pivotal in driving innovation and growth within the industry.

One notable outcome of the collaboration between the IETF and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the development of the next version of the web transport protocol, known as HTTP3. This significant advancement in web technology was accomplished through joint efforts. Furthermore, the collaboration between the IETF and the W3C has also led to the creation of the WebRTC protocols for facilitating video conferencing.

Throughout his involvement in the community, Perkins has had a positive experience, finding the process to be remarkably straightforward. This observation highlights the effectiveness of the community in fostering a conducive and efficient environment for collaboration and development.

In conclusion, Colin Perkins, a highly regarded member of the University of Glasgow, serves as the chair of the IRTF. His active involvement in the IRTF and IETF, along with his expertise in coordinating research and standards communities, contributes to the advancement of long-term research and the development of standards within the industry. The collaboration between the IETF and the W3C has yielded significant results, such as the HTTP3 protocol and the WebRTC protocols. Perkins’ positive experience in the community further reflects the efficacy of the collaborative process.

Suresh Krishnan

Suresh Krishnan’s work on IPv6 is driven by his goal to bridge the digital divide between developing and developed countries. In the late 90s and early 2000s, it became evident that developing countries, such as India and China, lagged behind developed countries in IP address allocation. This discrepancy posed a significant challenge for these countries in terms of equal access to technology and communication.

IPv6 emerged as a new technology that was seen as a solution to this problem. It provided a much larger number of IP addresses compared to the limited supply of IPv4 addresses. By implementing IPv6, developing countries could access a larger pool of addresses, enabling them to expand their connectivity and reduce the digital divide. Recognizing the potential of IPv6, Krishnan dedicated his efforts to advancing this technology, with the aim of creating a more equitable digital landscape.

Krishnan is actively involved in the IETF community, which is known for its open and supportive approach. The community has made significant progress in promoting inclusivity in participation and collaboration, which plays a crucial role in addressing challenges and finding effective solutions. The IETF facilitates remote participation, allowing individuals who are unable to attend meetings in person to engage and contribute to discussions. Financial waivers are provided to those facing financial constraints, ensuring equal opportunities for participation. The community has also made provisions for childcare at meetings, demonstrating their commitment to supporting young parents and promoting inclusivity.

Krishnan emphasizes the importance of inclusivity in problem-solving through collaboration. Inclusivity ensures that diverse perspectives and ideas are considered, leading to more comprehensive and innovative solutions. His advocacy for inclusivity aligns with the belief that collective intelligence and diverse experiences contribute to more effective problem-solving.

The multi-stakeholder approach, which involves engaging various stakeholders such as governments, civil society organizations, and the private sector, has proven successful in problem-solving. The experience of the IETF community highlights the effectiveness of this approach in leveraging expertise, fostering cooperation, and achieving common goals.

In conclusion, Suresh Krishnan’s work in IPv6 focuses on reducing the digital divide between developing and developed countries. The IETF community promotes a supportive and inclusive environment, encouraging collaboration and inclusivity in problem-solving. The multi-stakeholder approach holds great potential for driving future development through collective efforts and diverse perspectives.

Lars Eggert

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is highly regarded for its open and inclusive platform that enables individuals to participate and contribute to improving internet protocols. This open participation model does not require a membership fee or any formal sign-up process, making it accessible to anyone interested in contributing to the development of the internet.

One example of the positive experiences individuals have had with the IETF is shared by Lars Eggert, who joined as a PhD student and contributed to the improvement of the TCP protocol. This highlights the opportunity for young researchers to get involved and make a meaningful impact on internet protocols.

Protocols such as IP, DNS, and TCP have been continuously evolving over the years. Despite carrying most of the bytes on the internet, these protocols have undergone significant changes since their inception. It is worth noting that despite sharing the same name, these protocols are vastly different than they were in the past.

The IETF’s unique process of designing technical specifications plays a crucial role in the development and maintenance of the internet. This process, which closely resembles maintaining an aeroplane in flight, has been in place since the inception of the internet. Discussions and developments within the IETF occur in a collaborative manner, allowing for the continuous improvement of internet protocols.

The IETF also shows a strong commitment to enhancing internet security and privacy protections. Two years ago, they published version 1.3 of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, which added significant security and privacy measures. This effort was intensified following the revelations made by Edward Snowden, which prompted additional work towards strengthening the security of the internet.

A notable development in internet traffic has been the introduction of QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections) with HTTP 3 and TLS 1.3. This combination has dramatically transformed the model of internet traffic. In fact, it is estimated that QUIC with HTTP 3 and TLS 1.3 already accounts for close to half of all web traffic. This serves as further evidence of the IETF’s ability to drive significant changes in the internet landscape.

The IETF has also taken steps to address the problem of stalking through devices like AirTags. They have initiated a Birds of a Feather session (DALT) to discuss this issue. Moreover, major device vendors have come together at the IETF to standardise measures and find solutions to prevent stalking incidents.

Overall, the IETF acts as a suitable platform for standardising measures for device tracking. It embraces an open and inclusive approach, allowing everyone to participate and contribute without any membership fees or restrictions. The clear rules established by the IETF ensure that the working process is understood by all participants.

In conclusion, the IETF’s open platform, dedication to evolving internet protocols, unique process of designing technical specifications, commitment to security and privacy, ability to drive change, and efforts to address emerging challenges make it a crucial institution for the development and maintenance of the internet.

Andrew Alston

Andrew Alston, one of the three routing area directors in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), highlights the importance of increased operator participation in the IETF. He firmly believes that operators must actively engage and contribute to ensure that the internet functions in a way that benefits them. Alston acknowledges the critical role that operators play in maintaining and improving internet infrastructure, and their expertise is invaluable in shaping internet standards and protocols.

Additionally, Alston advocates for greater African representation and participation within the IETF. As a representative of Kenya in the IETF and the head of the Research and Development department for Liquid Telecom in Kenya, he emphasizes the significant discrepancy between Africa’s population of 1.2 billion people and its limited representation in the global internet standards body. Alston sees the IETF as a platform to address the unique needs and challenges of the African continent regarding internet protocols and standards. By encouraging increased African involvement, he aims to ensure that the development and governance of the internet are inclusive and responsive to the African perspective.

According to Alston, the IETF welcomes participation from operators, vendors, and governments, making it an open community. He believes that the IETF’s strength lies in its ability to bring together diverse perspectives and cultures, contributing to better decision-making and more robust internet standards. Alston recognizes the importance of a multi-stakeholder model in achieving these goals and acknowledges the IETF’s commitment to diversity.

However, Alston acknowledges that the IETF could do better in terms of diversity and inclusivity. While the organization embraces diversity as a core principle, there is still room for improvement. Alston’s admission reflects an understanding of the ongoing challenges faced by the IETF in ensuring equitable and inclusive representation.

In conclusion, Andrew Alston, as a routing area director in the IETF, advocates for increased operator participation and greater representation from Africa in the internet standards body. He emphasizes the crucial role of operators in shaping the internet and highlights the unique needs of the African continent. Additionally, Alston recognizes the IETF’s commitment to diversity but also acknowledges the need for further improvement in this area. His insights shed light on the importance of inclusivity and diversity in internet governance and the ongoing efforts to achieve these goals within the IETF.

Jane Coffin

The analysis reveals that the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has limited representation of the technical community, as highlighted by audience comments. Efforts are being made, however, to address this issue. It is predicted that there will be increased participation from the technical community in the future.

Jane Coffin, in agreement with the audience’s observation about the lack of representation, indicates efforts to remedy this. She acknowledges that there was more participation from the technical community in the early years of the IGF. Coffin also points out that the IETF, IEB, and RERTF were present at the session, indicating some level of technical community involvement. She predicts that there will be even more participation in the future.

Furthermore, Coffin emphasizes the need for more valuable input on technical aspects in the IGF discussions. Specifically, she mentions internet exchange points, BGP, and IP addressing as areas where more input could provide valuable contributions to the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG). She advocates for bringing back a past practice of focusing on these technical aspects.

In addition to technical input, Coffin appreciates the potential of the Internet Society (ISOC) and recommends its Japanese chapter for potential workshops. She used to work at ISOC and believes they have strong potential in helping with workshops.

Moreover, Coffin encourages engagement with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). She expresses gratitude and encourages the audience to stay in touch with these technical bodies, highlighting their importance in the context of networking, digital cooperation, and sustainable development.

Overall, the analysis indicates the need for increased representation of the technical community in the IGF. Coffin’s arguments and recommendations provide valuable insights into how this can be achieved, including the focus on technical aspects and collaboration with relevant technical organizations. It is crucial for the IGF to involve the technical community to ensure comprehensive discussions and effective decision-making on internet governance issues.

Audience

During the event, speakers highlighted several key points. One major concern raised was the lack of diversity in standards bodies, with limited participation from women, civil society organizations, governments, end users, and the tech sector. Only around 10% of participation in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is from women, indicating a significant problem. This lack of diversity can have negative consequences for both the standards themselves and the broader industry.

On a positive note, it was argued that diversity is crucial for improving organizational culture and the quality of output. A diverse range of perspectives and experiences leads to more innovative and inclusive solutions. The importance of diversity in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing inequalities (SDG10) was also emphasized.

The existence of unintentional barriers hindering diversity in standards bodies was also discussed. These barriers affect both entry and ongoing participation, making it difficult for certain groups to get involved. Identifying and addressing these barriers is essential for promoting diversity and ensuring equal participation.

There is also a need to extend web standards to rural communities and remote locations, as highlighted by a question from a worker in a rural area of Bangalore, India. The speaker argued that web standards should go beyond urban areas and be accessible to everyone, including those in underserved areas. This aligns with SDG9, which focuses on industry, innovation, and infrastructure.

The positive impact of the IETF was recognized, particularly in the area of privacy. Danko Jevtovic, a member of the ICANN board, commended the IETF’s work on privacy standards. The open and free standards of the IETF, based on Internet Protocol (IP), were also praised as a successful strategy against closed systems.

However, there was concern over the lack of representation of the technical community in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It was argued that the technical community should have more involvement in the IGF to ensure balanced representation and better decision-making.

The challenges of transitioning from legacy technology and protocols to newer ones were also discussed. It was pointed out that some government systems, like those in Japan, still use outdated protocols such as FTP. While there is recognition of the need to move away from legacy technology, there are challenges that need to be addressed for a smooth transition.

Finally, the audience expressed the need for longer sessions and workshops to allow for more in-depth discussions and learning. While Jane Coffin’s moderation was appreciated, it was felt that more time was needed to fully explore the topics. Additionally, a preference for on-site work was mentioned, indicating a desire for physical presence and collaboration.

In conclusion, the analysis revealed various challenges and opportunities in the field of standards bodies and internet governance. The lack of diversity, unintentional barriers, the need to extend web standards, and the importance of the technical community’s representation were key concerns. On a positive note, the impact and effectiveness of the IETF’s work, as well as the benefits of diversity in organizational culture and quality of work, were highlighted. The event provided valuable insights and called for actions to promote diversity, address barriers, and ensure wider participation in shaping internet standards and policies.

Mallory Knodel

Mallory Knodel, a professional associated with the Centre for Democracy and Technology, actively participates in various technical communities and organisations. She serves on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), alongside Dhruv Dhody and Suresh Krishnan, where she chairs a research group on human rights and collaborates with Suresh on a working group. Her work demonstrates a commitment to evolving and promoting ethical practices within the field.

Mallory’s involvement in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) began almost a decade ago when she worked at the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). During her time at APC, Mallory discovered interesting and useful experiences within smaller tech communities, such as independent or NGO-operated community networks and web or email hosting. Recognising the value of these experiences, she strives to incorporate them into larger standards bodies.

In addition to her work with community networks, Mallory has expertise in digital security and journalism. She has conducted training sessions for journalists and activists, equipping them with crucial skills in digital security. Mallory acknowledges the challenges of teaching advanced concepts like PGP encrypted email but believes that by changing the Internet at the IETF level, it is possible to better serve individuals in vulnerable situations.

Furthermore, Mallory recognises the need to extend web standards to rural communities. While the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) primarily establishes web standards, there is some overlap between the work of W3C and IETF. Mallory’s organization actively promotes diverse web standards, emphasizing the importance of catering to the needs of different communities.

In terms of Internet governance, Mallory sees an opportunity for the W3C to contribute to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Unlike the IGF, which primarily focuses on policy matters, the technical communities represented by organizations like the W3C can bridge the gap between policy and technical aspects. Currently, the W3C has limited presence at IGF, but their participation could significantly enhance the forum’s effectiveness.

Additionally, Mallory notes a decline in participation within technical institutions over the years. She agrees with Jane Coffin’s observation regarding the decreasing attendance at sessions held by organizations such as the IETF, IEB, and RERTF compared to a decade ago. Mallory and other members of the technical community are making concerted efforts to restore participation levels to their former heights, demonstrating a shared commitment to fostering a thriving technical landscape.

In conclusion, Mallory Knodel’s contributions and experiences within various technical communities and organizations encompass a wide range of significant areas. From her involvement with the IAB and efforts to incorporate smaller tech experiences into larger standards bodies, to her training of journalists and activists in digital security, and her recognition of the importance of extending web standards to rural communities, Mallory consistently exhibits dedication to promoting ethical practices and inclusivity within the rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Mirja Kühlewind

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an influential organisation that drives internet standards. They focus on creating high-quality, industry-wide standards to promote interoperability. The success of the IETF is measured by the voluntary deployment of their protocols.

The IETF’s decision-making process, based on “rough consensus,” ensures that decisions are made by the community. This inclusive approach allows for progress even amidst differing opinions and concerns.

The openness of the IETF is crucial to its impact. They keep barriers low to encourage participation and promote transparency. This fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange.

However, engaging with the IETF can be overwhelming due to the complexity of information and tasks involved. It is a dynamic platform for knowledgeable individuals, but newcomers may find it challenging.

The IETF values diversity to ensure quality standards. They strive for inclusivity, recognising that not everyone has the same resources to participate. The freely accessible standards enable anyone to enhance them.

The IETF actively reaches out to policy stakeholders, explaining their work and establishing dialogue. They recognise the importance of updating old protocols to maintain internet health and security.

In conclusion, the IETF is an influential organisation driving internet standards. Their commitment to high-quality standards, inclusive decision-making, and knowledge sharing make them a dynamic platform. While engaging with the IETF may be challenging, their focus on accessibility and inclusivity ensures the continued development of internet standards.

Mirja Kühlewind:
IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and we would like to talk about the importance of interoperability and the multi-stakeholder model of the IETF. My name is Mirja Kühlewind. I’m the chair of the IAB, the Internet Architecture Board, one of the two leadership groups in the IETF. I will quickly, and this is why you’re seeing some slides in front here, I will quickly go through like a handful of slides and give you some kind of the most important things about how the IETF works, a little bit also what we’re doing, but on a very high level. And then afterwards, we will have a little panel. We brought some of our leadership members here, so Colin, the IRTF chair, and Mallory is also an IAB member, and we have four more leadership members online. Lars Eckert, the IETF chair, who unfortunately couldn’t come here in person, then Suresh, another IAB member, Suresh Krishnan, then Andrew Alston, the routing AD, and Dhruv Dhodi, another IAB member. However, they will also introduce themselves during the panel, and I will just quickly run through the slides, and then I will hand over the discussion to Jane Coffin, who’s moderating the panel, and I hope at the end we have a lot of time for you to ask questions. Okay, so this is also just, you see us here in person, but you know, so you can actually see the names and some of the acronyms I just mentioned, and I will explain these acronyms a little bit in the next couple of slides. Again, I’m the chair of the Internet Architecture Board, Colin, the IRTF chair, and Mallory, an IAB member, and this one is probably more important if you’re not locked into Zoom, and so you also see the faces of the people online. Lars Eckert, the IETF chair in Finland at the moment, I think, early morning. Andrew Alston, our routing AD from Kenya. Dhruv Dhodi is based in India, and Suresh Krishnan from the US. So this is a short slide which, however, has like some of the important messages about how the IETF works. So very important point about the IETF is openness. Everybody can participate, and I think we try to be really as open as possible, so we don’t have membership feeds. Like, everybody can just subscribe to any mailing list and enter the discussion at any point of time. Anybody can come to a meeting. We have good online support for our meeting, and this openness is kind of in the heart not only of our organization, but it’s also something that is reflected on the Internet, because that is really one of the goals of the Internet, and we try to run the organization in the same way. And openness also means not only everybody would be able to participate, because there’s no, like, we try to keep barriers for participation as low as possible. It also means that the things we are producing, the standards, the protocols, are free for use. So there’s no fee for, like, accessing our documents. They are all online, and, like, again, this is like the spirit of the Internet, where you just need to, like, implement a standard, and then you are in the Internet and you can participate, and that’s also, I think, what has driven the success of the Internet. Another thing to notice is really that we are a very technical organization. Our meetings are focused around solving technical problems, sometimes very, very detailed, and what we’re trying to do is to make good judgment on the technical level, and that’s also why we can drive a consensus-driven process, because in a lot of cases you can actually come to compromise on the technical level and move forward. Of course, not everything we discuss in the ITF is only technical. There are implications that we need to be aware of, but our focus is really on doing good technical work that then gets adopted by companies because they get a value out of it and it improves the Internet. And that’s the other point. We are actually measuring our success. Did we do a good job based on, kind of, the voluntary deployment of our protocols? We cannot directly tell anybody to use our protocols or to, like, do a certain thing, but what we’re trying to do is to do good technical work to make the protocols as reliable and secure as we can in order that they actually address the needs people have and they get deployed because they are good and they improve the Internet. This is the slide where I very quickly explain some of the acronyms I already mentioned. So the IETF has actually two leadership groups. One is the Internet Engineering Steering Group and the IETF chair, Lars Ecker, is chairing that group. And this is a group that is looking at the actual standard process. So they approve and review all standard documents, they manage the working groups, the meetings, and their goal is really to make the standards process as good and as productive as possible. And the other leadership group is the Internet Architecture Board. And the Internet Architecture Board has also some kind of admin roles. There are little things we need to care about. But as the name said, there’s also a point about architectural oversight and what that means is that we’re trying to look at the work that’s happening in the IETF at a more higher level. We’re trying to understand are there any gaps that are important in order to follow the principles that the Internet is built on? Is there a discussion that doesn’t have enough attention that we need to drive forward because there’s an issue? And these kind of things. And then at the same time, we also do outreach and liaison management. So we are basically the Office of Foreign Affairs of the IETF, if you want to put it that way. And so we try to talk to other SDOs whenever there’s an overlap. But we also, and that’s also why we’re here, we’re trying to look what happens in the rest of the world. What are the important topics that we need to consider and that may impact the Internet and our standards work? And then I also would like to mention the IRTF. So this is the sister organization of the IETF. It’s the Internet Research Task Force. They have a very similar structure. They also have research groups. They have different processes. But they are in a sense integrated in the IETF that like we meet together in a common meeting. It’s all integrated and it’s very useful for two things. First, they look at the more long-term things. They look at the things that are not ready for standardization yet. They look at the things where we see a trend that we need to keep an eye on. And it’s also good for actually providing more diverse input. So this is a way to get researchers into the IETF and get an exchange between engineers, researchers and all the stakeholders and have a discussion. So I can just say from my own perspective, I’ve started as a researcher in the IETF and I could always provide some more neutral, different kind of input and was well received in the discussion. So I think this is a very strong point about the IETF. To give you a little bit of an idea, you know, like how big the IETF is, just a couple of numbers here and like you can mostly read them yourself. We currently have 130 working groups. This is changing a little bit more or less. Like for example, last year we created eight new working groups. We are closing some. We have some long-standing working groups that are there for many years but take up new work all the time. So there’s a lot of happening in the IETF. We are reaching the mark where we have nearly 10,000 RFCs. RFCs are our standard documents. But also RFC 1 goes back before the internet and before the IETF. So at the moment, or last year, we published nearly 200 new standards documents or documents that went through the standardization process. The participation numbers, you know, actually depends on like kind of how you define participation because there might be people who are only on mailing lists. There might be people who come only to some of the meetings or all of the meetings. People who write documents and whatever. And as we don’t have a membership, we cannot give you like this one number. So depending on how you look at this, it’s a couple of thousand people. There’s a lot of people who engage in discussions and who come to meetings to understand what we’re doing who might not be active authors or active, very active in the discussion. So, you know, it’s the people who probably write the standards are in the range of whatever, two to three thousand, something. I don’t know. You can read the numbers here and make your own conclusions. Okay, this one, this slide is a little bit crowded and I hope you can at least read some of it. But the reason why it’s crowded is because it has like a bunch of acronyms on it and I won’t explain all of them. I might not even be able to explain all of them and you don’t have to map all of them. It’s more to like give you a chance if you know some of the acronyms to figure out, you know, what the IATF, where to map it. But what you can get from this slide is that we are really working on maintaining, extending and developing the core protocols of the Internet. So we don’t do like the lower layer things. So we don’t do kind of any kind of radio or Wi-Fi or radio messaging or whatever or like Ethernet cable standards and so on. And what we also don’t do is like the very up layer, the application layer, the web itself or the things where like the user actually interacts very concretely with an application. But kind of everything in between. So and this is also how we organize ourself. We organized ourself a little bit in these layers to make sure we can we can coordinate correctly. And so we have the application layer where you have, for example, HTTP protocol. That’s what your browser is using. But also the protocols that are used for video conferencing. We have the transport. We have the routing. We have the Internet area. So this is where IPv4 and IPv6 lives and get further developed. But also DNS, for example. A lot of the infrastructure stuff. And then we have two more important areas. We have an operation management area. And that area is also working on protocols to manage the routers on the Internet, the devices on the Internet. But it also provides guidance and best practices about all the other protocols when you deploy them. So that’s why it’s shown here on the side. And then, of course, there’s security. And security is not a layer. Security is a function that you need everywhere. And you need to consider everywhere. So that is a very important part. And the people in security area are very busy. Okay. I have two more slides. This one is also just to give you a grasp about what the IAB is doing. The Internet Architecture Board. And as I said, we’re trying to figure out what are more kind of high layer topics that might impact. And this is just a list of topics that we’ve been discussing over the last whatever one or two years. There are also some references if you want to see some of the outputs. Not all of the discussion actually to documents or actions. But it leads to awareness. And you can see that like some of these topics here do map to discussions you have in this forum. Like fragmentation, censorship, security, of course. And then governance on the slide as well. So we’re trying to engage with these discussions and understand and create awareness about these discussions. But I also would like to note that I think when we discuss this topic in the IETF, it’s a different discussion than here. Because we really try to understand how does it impact our protocols? How does it impact the technology? Or the other way around, how does technology impact these topics? And how does it impact the internet architecture? And this is this is my last slide. But I really wanted to talk about this point a little bit more. Because it’s very important. And it’s openness. I was mentioning this at the beginning. And when I talk about openness, it’s really two things. It’s the openness of our standards. They are they are available at no charge. Which really fosters deployment and adoption of the standards. And it’s really is kind of one of the keys for interoperability. And why the internet has been so successful. Because all you need to do is really to kind of confirm to the standard. Implement it. And then go and connect to the internet. And that’s why we have a global network. Because everybody relies on these standards. And we can then talk to each other and create this one big network that we call the internet. And and and again like the more of our our work gets adopted on the internet, that’s how we measure our success. And for like some of the things we are doing, we actually see very good deployment. Sometimes it’s really hard for us to measure that for us. So this is kind of also where the focus is. And then the other part is really openness about the process. And like feel free to please ask later on any kind of questions you have about both of these things. Because I think like some of the aspects of the of the IETF work actually differently than other organizations. So maybe there’s worth the discussion. So we really don’t have a membership. Everybody can come. We have three meetings a year. Of course you have to pay a fee for the meeting. Because the meeting itself has cost, right? Yeah you get you get we have the rooms and and all the things you need for a meeting. But there’s also ways to support people if they don’t have the capabilities. We we make our whole process is extremely transparent. We not only make the documents our products at the end available for free. But also all the stages in between. Everything on the mailing lists. All the meeting minutes. And we have our own too which actually has an interface where you can get a lot of statistics about what’s happening. And there’s actually a bunch of researchers who do really interesting work. But trying to figure out you know how the dynamics are. And trying to figure out and things about you know driving forces and so on. On a more objective basis. Also something that is a little bit special for the ITF is that the whole decision-making is based on rough consensus. And that means we don’t have any kind of votings. And also we don’t have it’s not like the leadership that is deciding. The role of the leadership is to judge consensus. And decisions are taken by the community. And the way the reason why we have rough consensus is because that means that we can also move forward without even if there are you know if there are still concerns. Which doesn’t mean we are ignoring the concerns. We are we are trying to discuss all the concerns. Take them into account. But then if we if we see that like we have agreement between a good set of people who also want to apply the protocol and move forward. And then at some point we have to move forward and accept this roughness. Fortunately we don’t have a lot of roughness. I mean like for some topics for sure. That’s why we have the process. But in a lot of cases we have very good consensus. Because we can get like agreement on the technical level. And that’s where I want to stop. We have the panel discussion coming up. We will go into like a little bit more into some of the aspects. And I hand over to Jane.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you Miria. My name is Jane Coffin. I’m a co-chair of GAIA which is one of the IRTF research groups. Along with

Mirja Kühlewind:
Curtis Heimerl. I’m gonna do some quick rounds of questions with all of the panelists. So it’s Lars, Andrew, Suresh, Colin, Miria, and Mallory. You each have one to two minutes to tell our guests here and the participants online. How you’ve engaged with the IETF in the past. And what are your current work areas of focus. I’m gonna start with Lars. Go to Andrew. Go to Suresh, Colin, Miria, and Mallory. So get your answers ready. Lars you’re up.

Lars Eggert:
Hi. Good morning. I hope you guys can hear me. Okay. Excellent. Hi. So my name is Lars Eckert and I chair the IETF as Miria said. Greetings from Finland. It is 7.17. I really wish I could have made it to Kyoto. I’m sorry that that wasn’t possible. I hope I’ll see you next year. I thought I’d give you sort of maybe a little bit of a personal story. So to make it a bit more sort of personal about how somebody would start in the IETF. So I was a PhD student and I worked on this thing called TCP, the transmission control protocol. You might have heard of it. It carries most of the bias on the internet still. And so we worked on it. We did research. We came up with an improvement. And the question is how do you actually get that improvement out there onto the internet? And so you know you start looking you know so where does TCP come from? And you quickly sort of Google or at the time you used Lycos I think is what we used. And you quickly come across the IETF and specifically there’s a working group that works on this protocol right. And so you figure out there’s a mailing list and you figure out how to join the mailing list. And then you send an email that says hey you know we have this idea about an improvement to TCP. What does the group think about this? And in our case that change was sort of not uncontested let’s say. But the thing is they’re you know the experts participating typically in these groups. And so through these engagement we actually realized there’s a much better change that has a much broader impact. And it has some avoid some of the downsides. And so we revised our proposal and we discussed it. And eventually somebody said you know you should write this up so we can like you know put this forward towards publication. And then you learn about how you like format a document correctly so it can become an RFC and all of that. And then you also learn how does it get processed through the process that Mia just described. And in the end like there’s an RFC. And then if you’re lucky and the change is actually good implementers will pick it up and it’ll get deployed. So that is sort of an example of some of my work that started to come to the IETF. And as Maria said it is extremely open and it’s just possible for individuals to start participating. We don’t require a membership fee. We don’t even require any sort of formal sign up. So we have no notion of that. It is you know capable individuals that either come as individuals on their own time or obviously a lot of our participants are sponsored in some way by companies or other organizations like universities that sort of donate their time or their employers time to help improve the internet protocols. And there was a slide of me as it is with this hourglass slide that talked about the different areas that we’re working in. I often come across people that sort of think you know the internet architecture has is stale and isn’t changing and you know we need to have this you know complete revamp of how the internet worked technically. And that might be true if you look at the 10,000 foot level because we still have protocols like IP and the DNS and TCP. But these protocols have evolved constantly over the three to four decades of the internet’s existence. And all of them are very very different than they were 10 years ago 20 years ago or even two years ago in some cases. But the acronyms are still the same and they still fulfill more or less the same role in the architecture. And therefore it’s it’s easy to sort of assume just because there’s still a thing like the DNS the domain name system that you know the internet hasn’t really evolved when in reality it’s evolving all the time. So one analogy that I sort of use is we are basically maintaining an airplane in flight. We’re constantly changing everything about this airplane while it’s up in the air. And we take great care that it doesn’t crash. And that’s why it looks like nothing’s ever changing, because the plane just keeps flying and keeps rising. But we’re replacing the engines. We’re replacing the landing gear. We’re replacing the cabin interior. We’re replacing everything about this plane constantly. And this is sort of the power of the IETF, right? If you think about how would you actually do the technical standards for a global commons like the IETF, it needs to be done in a forum that is like the IETF, that is open, where everybody can participate no matter where they’re located or what time zone they’re in or what their background is. If they have the technical competence and the interest and the time to help us out, they can very easily do that. And our executive director, Jay Daly, is often saying that if we didn’t have the IETF, we couldn’t invent it now. But because the IETF was born together with the internet and the way of designing the technical specifications really is unique in the world. And if you think about the IETF, multi-stakeholderism is a very important concept that the IETF has. That actually probably originated with the IETF. This whole concept that we need to have different stakeholders participating in the standards process is something that the IETF had already in the 80s and 90s of last century. Because we had university people. We had the operators. We’ve had the equipment vendors. We’ve had various other constituents that came to the IETF to discuss the technical problems that the internet had to make it grow better. And the IETF has a really unique role and is a really unique organization. And those of you who are in a position to send engineers our way or participate as non-engineer stakeholders, please do. We have a few upcoming meetings that will be in Prague in the Czech Republic in November.

Jane Coffin:
We’re going to be in Brisbane in Australia in March of 2024. If I remember correctly, we’re going to be in Vancouver in the summer of next year, the northern summer, I should say, in July. And my memory is hazy from then on out. I hope we’re going to get some questions. I’ll pass it on to the next person. Thank you very much for your interest. Thank you, Lars. The next step is Andrew. Andrew, one to two minutes on what you’re doing and what we can learn more about what you’re participating in.

Andrew Alston:
Thanks very much. My name’s Andrew Alston. I am one of the three routing area directors, which means I basically handle the routing area and handle the standards coming out of the routing area as my primary responsibility in the IETF. When I first came to the IETF, it’s actually, I think, illustrates a little bit about the multi-stakeholder approach. So I live in Africa. I live here in Kenya. I was originally from South Africa, but I’ve been in Kenya for about 12 years. And as we were developing things, I hit up the R&D department for Liquid Telecom on this side of the world. And as we were developing things, we started to see that, firstly, we were facing certain challenges on the ground with regards to distances and other interesting issues that we find in running networks in Africa, as well as political changes which made us need certain things in the routing landscape that weren’t really catered for. And so that’s what brought me to the IETF originally. And I showed up and have never left. But I came in there as an operator. And the one thing that I would say is that I do believe that operators, we need more operators at the IETF. Because one of the things that I learned as I walked into the IETF is that if you want the internet to work in a way that works for you, you need to have your say. You’ve got to have your voice. And one of the things I spent quite a bit of time doing is trying to promote African participation in the IETF as well, to try and grow the participation from the continent. Because we’re sitting at the moment with 1.2 billion people on the continent, but the voices aren’t participating. And the IETF gives people a place to come and to participate and have their say and make sure that the protocols that we are deploying on the continent are not just a retrofit from everywhere else. It’s a consensus-driven approach where we can make our needs heard. And I think that’s really important. So yeah, I really hope to see a lot more operators, a lot more people at the IETF. And yeah, thanks very much for having me.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, Andrew. Suresh, you’re up.

Suresh Krishnan:
And so with that. Thank you. Hey, my name is Suresh Krishnan. I’m an IEB member. And my thing is similar to Andrew’s. So I started working on IPv6. So IPv6 was a new technology in the late 90s and early 2000s. And it was part of an inclusivity issue. So if you look at the developed world, most of them had large blocks of IP addresses. And countries like India and China are really behind. We didn’t have that many addresses to go around. And a lot of us started doing work on IPv6. And if you look at Japan, Japan was really leading the stuff. Mori Sensei and Ito Jinsan, they were really ahead of the whole world in doing the IPv6 stuff. So that’s where I started. When I went in, I thought it would be this formidable thing and nobody would talk. And I found the experience very similar to last, that all these people you’ve seen in the standards and in the books and everything, they were all amazing people, totally willing to help out. So it was a really nice experience to come in and come up with your problems and solve them, like collaboratively with other people. So that thread has stuck around. And there’s also been a lot of things that we’ve done on the inclusivity front in the recent times. I think the remote participation is one. We always had good remote participation. It’s really ramped up quite a bit during the pandemic. And we continue it. And Nidia talked a little bit about the waiver. So we don’t want to have financial barriers for people to participate. So if you want to participate remotely and you’re not able to afford it, you can certainly get a waiver for that. We have, for people coming to meetings, we have childcare so young parents can continue doing the work on that. And we’ve done quite a bit to get people around from different constituencies, like academia, like Nidia said, with IRSE and IRTF work and operators who come in as well. And so like we are trying really hard to reach out and we would love to hear from people like about your problems, come work with us collaboratively so we can solve things together because as Lars said, the multi-stakeholder approach has really brought us this far and it’ll take us further going forward. Thank you.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, Suresh. I’m right on time. Dhruv, you’re up next. One to two minutes.

Dhruv Dhody:
Thank you. I’m speaking here from Bangalore, India. I started participating in ITF as a software developer. So I was a consumer of RFCs for a long time. I have been reading RFCs, implementing them. And during that implementation process, you do realize that, oh, this feature is missing or something better can be done. And, oh, I wouldn’t have done it in this way. This is stupid. Let me come and fix this. So that’s how I got involved with my first document. And I wrote an internet draft, came to the first document, luckily got support. But then kind of did realize that it’s not like many people in my part of the world who are very active with RFCs, who read, who implement, but they never participate. They always thought of it as it’s something somebody else does. And we are the software arm of the company and we are going to go and implement things, but somebody else does the actual standard development. And this, I wanted to break. And with the help of, in fact, people like Suresh and other people, we started working within India, which has almost every MNC, every big vendor and huge operators in India, which managed really big networks. So started working with them and how we can increase participation from this part of the world. And over the years, yes, the participation has increasing. Remote participation has helped a lot, but still there is a long way to go. And yes, the journey is not over. I am also the IAB outreach coordinator. I’m part of the education and outreach team in the ITF as well. So this is very important for me as well. And I’m personally trying to put more and more effort in making ITF more accessible for people. I myself can see a lot of change has happened in the years that I started participating in, which is around 2010. So it’s been a while now. And when new people come in, how we can make it easier for them to participate in ITF has been very important. And with various programs as well, we have been doing it. As a non-binary person myself, making sure that the participation from women and other genders is as easy and as successful at ITF is also very key. And we have been focusing on that as well at ITF. Thank you.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, Dhruv. That was really important to also note about the inclusion part. Colin, you’re up, one to two minutes.

Colin Perkins:
Okay, thank you, Jane. My name is Colin Perkins. I work at the University of Glasgow in the UK. I’m the current chair of the IRTF, the Internet Research Task Force. As Maria said earlier, the IRTF is a parallel organization to the IETF. And we focus on longer-term research to complement the near-term standards work in the IETF. And we try to act as a bridge between the research community and the standards development community in the IETF. I’ve been involved in the IETF and the IRTF since the mid-1990s. I had a somewhat similar experience to that of Lars when starting, I was doing research. In my case, it was multicast video conferencing rather than TCP. And we brought some of the ideas into the IETF community to try and get them standardized. And they got a surprisingly, for me at the time, a positive welcome. I thought this would be a big and scary thing to do, but it turned out to be surprisingly straightforward. And the ideas got some take-up and I got sucked into the process and have been involved ever since. Since then, I’ve continued to work on transport protocols, both in the research community and in the IETF. I’ve chaired a number of IETF working groups. And for the last five years or so, I’ve been sharing the IRTF, coordinating between the research and the standards communities and looking into the dynamics of the IETF standards process. Thank you.

Jane Coffin:
Excellent. Maria, over to you. How have you engaged with the IETF in the past and what’s your current work area of focus?

Mirja Kühlewind:
So I already talk a lot, so I will try to be very brief and we have enough time later for questions. My story is actually very similar. I also started as a PhD student, even working on TCP. And the one thing I wanna mention is that my first meeting was very overwhelming. There’s so much things going on and there’s a lot of things that you don’t understand from the first minute, but that would be a wrong expectation. But the one thing that I felt at the very first meeting I went to and whenever I engaged with the IETF was that there’s a lot of energy, there’s a lot of things happening and there’s a lot of smart people, there’s a lot of those people still there who kind of invented the internet or has been working on the very early protocols who have a lot of expertise, but also knowledge about the history and this whole spirit of having a network to openly connect people and to exchange freely information that’s still there. It was still there when I started and it is still there. And that is also for me the motivation why I keep engaging with the IETF beyond just my technical work, also taking over leadership positions and why I’m sharing the IAB at the moment. Just to give you a little bit more background, I’m an engineer, I’m working for Ericsson. I’m still working on transport, not TCP anymore, but like a new fancy transport protocol, so we’re actually doing some work there. And that’s a large portion of my time. And then the other portion of my time is sharing the IAB. And again, that is not driving my company’s interest forward, but it’s driving the internet and the IETF forward and I think this is really important.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you. Thank you, Miriam, that’s perfect. And Mallory, over to you.

Mallory Knodel:
Yeah, last one to go to introduce. Yeah, I’m Mallory Nodal. I work at the Center for Democracy and Technology. It’s my day job and I’m, as Miriam mentioned, I’m on the Internet Architecture Board with Dhruv and Suresh. Also, I chair a research group on human rights. So I guess a few other roles. I’ve chaired a working group with Suresh a little bit and I’m a reviewer for the general area. That’s another thing that folks can do at the IETF is you can review other people’s work. You don’t always have to be writing it. Something that I find really valuable and helps me follow what’s going on. My first meeting was almost 10 years ago, surprisingly. It was when I was working at the Association for Progressive Communications and I found it a really interesting place for two reasons. The first was that we at APC at the time were really fostering implementation of technology but not the way big tech does it. We were really tiny, sometimes independent, sometimes NGOs that were either running community networks or web or email hosting. And so I found it really interesting to try to infuse those views and those experiences into the larger standards bodies because I think it is often perceived as dominated by big tech and the problem space is just so wildly different. So I found that interesting and useful. And then the second thing that I found really fascinating and impactful about it and why I’ve really stuck around all these years is for a while at APC and then in previous positions, I was a trainer for digital security for like journalists and activists and people who are really at risk in authoritarian regimes and during protests and things like that. And it’s so hard to teach some of those concepts back then like PGP encrypted email, you could spend three days trying to teach journalists how to use it and they still would not always get it right. And you were worried about their security and whether they understood their threat model and things like that. And you still only trained like a handful of people after a week. And at the IETF, what I thought was really interesting is you could actually maybe start try to change the way the internet works for everyone so that you would have a lot more impact and keep keeping people safe online and keeping them connected because the internet itself would change and meet those needs of the most at risk people. And so anyway, that’s what I find really fascinating about working at the IETF level and yeah, looking for the discussion.

Jane Coffin:
Excellent. There’s a question I’ll ask Lars now and Lars, could you let us know what some of the hot topics are in the IETF that participants might want to learn more about? If you could take two to three minutes on that one so that we can get a couple other questions in and then have open it up for Q&A. Thank you.

Lars Eggert:
Yeah, sure. So there are obviously a lot of things happening at the IETF. We have around 120 different working groups that work on different areas of the internet space and all of them are doing something or most of them are doing something but I wanna like maybe hit on a few points. So one of the current themes that have been happening ever since the Snowden revelations over 10 years ago is that the IETF is really serious about strengthening the security of the internet and the privacy protections that users have. And we’ve done a lot of work there. One of the core protocols in that space is TLS, the transport layer security protocol. And we’ve recently, I think two years ago or something like that published version 1.3 of TLS which has significantly simplified the protocol and has also added to the security and privacy protections that are offered to users. And that is widely deployed now all major browsers, all browsers really implemented all servers and CDNs implemented and TLS 1.3 really has upped the game for online security. So that’s a thing we recently did. TLS 1.3 is also part of the QUIC protocol that you might’ve heard about which is another thing that the IETF has recently shipped. QUIC is not quite replacing TCP but at least providing similar features in terms of data transport for the new version of the HTTP web protocol which is HTTP version 3. And that is also a massive effort that I think by some counts QUIC with HTTP 3 and TLS 1.3 is already close to half of all web traffic within just a year or two or three after initial deployment. So that illustrates that work in the IETF sometimes takes a long time because it’s complicated and we need to get it all correct. Because remember maintaining the plane while it’s flying. So we don’t wanna crash it. But once something is ready and if it solves a need it can get global deployment very, very quickly. And so the internet is dramatically changing because of things the IETF is doing every day. And sometimes the entire model of the internet traffic is changing from within a few months from mostly HTTP 2 with TCP and TLS 1.2 to now QUIC and TLS 1.3. So that is sort of demonstrates the power that the IETF really has in terms of driving change in the internet. I wanna maybe mention one last topic which isn’t quite in part of this sort of core set of internet protocols but it’s very important. So there’s a way in which the IETF starts new work when we don’t have a working group that already fits that proposal which is called a birds of a feather session. had one, the acronym for it is DALT. I must admit, I forget what the expansion is. But never mind. The problem DALT is trying to solve is all of us now have like AirTags and various other Bluetooth trackers, location trackers in our luggage, or our backpacks, or a keychain, or a car, or somewhere else. And stalking through these devices is a huge problem. So AirTags and other devices like that work great, except when somebody slips you one of these things into your purse, or into your car, or somewhere else. And then they can track you. And obviously, that is a very real threat model. We know where people’s personal privacy and bodily harm is at stake. And DALT is an example where the big vendors of these devices have tried to come together and have looked for a forum for where they can all standardize on how can your Google Android phone alert you if someone has slipped you an Apple AirTag? Because there are two different ecosystems in terms of devices. But they need to cooperate around the standard for making sure that your phone, your Android phone alerts you if somebody has slipped an AirTag into your purse, although it’s an Apple device. And the security modeling and the solution space is very complicated. But it’s very, very, very important, given the vast amount of tags that are out there. And this is obviously just the beginning, because the more tags are out, the better the tracking works. And that enables new uses for yet more tags. This is a new work. So there’s not an ITF standard on it yet. It’s not even a working group yet, although it’s very likely that by the meeting in Prague in two or three weeks, we’ll likely start a working group. But it demonstrates that the ITF is sort of a natural home for some of these technical areas that are adjacent to the overall internet. Because these tracking networks become enabled because the internet exists. And so organizations that look for a home that has open participation, where it’s free to use the standards. Because we want everybody to be able to integrate this into their tracking networks. So we don’t want to have a solution that requires somebody to pay revenues or pay membership fees so they can participate in the setting of the standard or deploying it. And so they have chosen the ITF as a home, because we have clear rules about how we do our work. Everybody understands them. Everybody understands you just participate individually. There’s no membership fees. There’s no restrictions on the use of the outcome technology. And we’re hoping that that will get deployment very widely as well once the technical work is done.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you very much, Lars. We’re going to open it up for some Q&A in the room and online. Does anyone have any questions for any of our panelists about the IETF or the IRTF? And Dhruv is our online moderator. And Dhruv, I don’t see anything online. Do you? I might have missed something.

Dhruv Dhody:
No, none so far.

Jane Coffin:
OK, we have a question here in the room. Please, and if you could keep the question short so that we can give you a short answer.

Dhruv Dhody:
Sure.

Audience:
Yeah, hopefully this is on. Andrew Campling, I run a public policy, public affairs consultancy. And I’m an ITF enthusiast. We sort of touched on but haven’t really expanded on diversity in standards bodies. When we consider diversity on whatever axis you like, whether it’s geographic, ethnicity, age, or gender, it’s a big problem. So for example, the IETF is about 10% female participation to give one example. It’s not a multi-stakeholder process. So there’s very limited involvement of CSOs and those that do engage with relatively narrow perspective or represent relatively narrow points of view. Governments and their agencies are largely not involved. And equally, end users are not present. And as I think Andrew mentioned, the tech sector representation is pretty narrow. So we don’t have many network operators, for example. If we accept that diversity improves the culture of an organization and the quality of its output, what are the unintentional barriers to both entry and to ongoing participation that affect that diversity? And how can we fix them so that we get much better diversity of thought and therefore better standards?

Andrew Alston:
So Andrew, I’m going to ask you to answer that question. And could you do that in about a minute to two minutes? Yeah, sure. Andrew, the diversity question is always an interesting one for me. And we’ve had some quite extensive debates about this at the IETF. I think you’ve got to look at it as, what does diversity mean in the context of the IETF? Because I think that it goes so much deeper than when you start looking at what I would consider your standard diversity metrics of gender, race, et cetera. It comes down to, what is the diversity of technical thought and bringing that into the IETF? For example, I think that sitting here in Africa, I bring an African perspective, which is diverse. And I think that to say that the IETF is also not a multi-stakeholder engagement model, I think that that’s actually fundamentally inaccurate. Because there is a lot of multi-stakeholder engagement. You have the operators. You have the vendors. And the participation is open for anybody to come and participate. Be you an operator, be you a vendor, be you a government. I know that I’ve done a lot of presentations to various government entities saying, we need more involvement from Africa. It’s about encouraging people to come. But I would definitely say that the IETF is a multi-stakeholder organization. And we welcome that participation and actively encourage it. But I think on the diversity question, as I said, it comes down to, how do you define the diversity? And for me, that diversity is about bringing cultures. It’s about bringing different perspectives, different views from different segments of the industry, et cetera. And in that sense, I actually think the IETF is, it has a lot of diversity in that sense. We could do better. But I do think that it is there. So I hope that helps.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, Andrew. We’re going to turn it over to Miria. But I would also want to just put out there, for those of you that may not know this, there is a policymakers group where ISOC funds that. And you’ve brought people from all over the world, from the governmental sector, from parliamentarians and others. It’s a quiet group. They meet with different people from the IETF and the IAB and the IRTF. And I would just say that there’s probably more going on on a multi-stakeholder level than some people would know. Miria, over to you.

Mirja Kühlewind:
Yes, I would like to add quickly a few points. And one point is that we totally understand actually engaging actively in the IETF needs resources, right? And the IETF also depends on these resources. We don’t have staff members who are working on the standards. Actually, the participants that voluntarily come to the IETF and do all the work. So if you want to engage on that level, that is a big commitment. And we totally understand that not even in the private sector everybody can afford that. But on the other hand, it’s important to have a certain diversity in order to ensure quality of our standards and then make sure everybody, even those people who didn’t have the resources to participate in the creation of the standards can freely use the standards and can engage if they want to enhance the standards. And this is a really important point where it’s not only about bringing people and taking the pen up, but reaching out and making sure people are aware about what we’re doing. And that’s something we try to do a lot more, including with policy stakeholders where we try to reach out and have a dialogue and try to explain what we’re doing, how it works, where touch points are, also bridging this information back into the IETF. So there are challenges in active participation. But I think to have a dialogue and to understand the requirements, we also need other ways to do that.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, Mirja. And thank you for your question. It was an important question. Someone else in the room who has a question, please. OK, well, Dinesh, please.

Audience:
My name is Dinesh. I’m from Bangalore, India and working in a rural area. So my question is a little bit of segue, but I am starting with Maria. Maria, right? No, no, her. OK. Yeah, Mallory. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. So what you said, like you’re coming from APC background and then you’re coming from web background and then you’re doing IETF standards. My question for the whole conference has been in almost everywhere I’ve been, why is not anybody working on web standards, extending it to the communities out there? Is the internet done? You know, when it comes to web protocols, web standards, and all that, we need to push it.

Mallory Knodel:
That’s what I’m kind of trying to say. Absolutely. Well, the World Wide Web Consortium is largely responsible for the web standards, right? W3C. It would be great to have the W3C at the IGF more, I think. As someone who also engages there, my organization is really invested in the web standards, a variety of different standards that aren’t just about the web and all the other ways that it faces the users more. I think, yeah, it would be great to have them more. So it’s not necessarily a question for the IETF. There is some degree of overlap, right, between what happens there and we also have an established, IETF has an established liaison, or no, do we have an established liaison? We do, we have an established liaison relationship with the W3C. That’s what I was worried about. We had a recent conversation in which that has confused me. But no, so that’s important and that happens already. But in fact, yeah, it would be great to, in the IGF, which I think is mostly seen as a policy space, to actually have this bridging role where the technical community comes as well. So while this is our first, the IETF’s first time doing an open forum, we know ICANN has done one for a while, we know ISOC has been involved, maybe we can convince W3C to come next time as well.

Colin Perkins:
And just to follow up very briefly on that, Lars mentioned HTTP3, which is the next version of the web transport protocol, which was developed in the IETF very recently. And in collaboration with the W3C, we also did the WebRTC protocols for video conferencing, which I think we’ve all put a lot of effort into over the last few years with the pandemic. Yeah, as a follow-up on that, John, from the Yale Foundation, the main difference would be the membership system that they have in W3C. So participation is quite more difficult unless you can actually afford the fees. So there has to be a more reflection on how to proceed with that, thanks.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, over to you.

Audience:
Thank you, I actually have a comment, not a question, but my name is Danko Jevtovic from ICANN board, and I would first like to forward the best from our chair Tripti Sinha, but she’s an bilateral, so couldn’t be here, and thank the AIB for sending Harald to us. I think he says always his role is to protect us from breaking the internet, so he’s very good at that, and thank you. But most of all, thank you for the standards you’re making and your work on privacy. This is the key underpinning of the technical layer that we are all working on together. I still remember my reading of the first RFC that was SMTP protocol when we were trying to connect in Serbia BBS system to internet to exchange our emails and writing code to read it. And for me personally, it was a shock how easy it was to read that document and how enabling that was to help in the internet. So ICANN obviously supports IETF and your specific multi-stakeholder model, and we often looking at the whole ecosystem of standard organizations. Sometimes there is discussion also about standards that are developed inside different organizations, but for me, it’s the clear that IETF is the key for the technical layer of the internet, and the strength is the openness and free standards that are based on IP and voluntarily accepted. So this is kind of the reason for the win of open networks against closed systems. And we often hear even in the IGF and other fora about ideas for changing the basic protocols in the kind of old ITU style way of thinking. But I think given this tremendous success of the internet, it’s clear that the way how IETF is doing is the way forward, and we are grateful for that. Keep on doing it, and we support you, thank you.

Jane Coffin:
Thank you, and thank you very much for what you do on the ICANN board. Is there anyone else? Okay, lovely, we’ve got about two more questions in the, we’ve got five minutes. So if you have a minute to ask it, we’ll get a minute to answer it and see what we can do.

Audience:
This is Ignacio Castro from Queen Mary University of London, and I chair a research group at the IETF. I’ve heard quite a few times here that certain groups are not represented in the technical community, but to be frank, I have been quite surprised to see how little representation of the technical community is in the IGF, and I’m wondering what would be the way to bridge that gap, because it looks like both communities are seeing exactly the same problem on the other side.

Jane Coffin:
I’ll just quickly say, I couldn’t agree with you more. There was more participation in the beginning 10 to 15 years, and it’s been, and this is one of the reasons the IETF, IEB, RERTF is here today and has this great session, and I think you’ll see more in the future.

Mallory Knodel:
No, I just wanted to say that, that I think there’s a recognition of that, and it’s certainly something that everyone I feel like I’ve spoken to today and this week from the technical community, even those that aren’t here, RERs and others, are aware of and think there’s a concerted effort now to shift that back to where it used to be, like Jane said.

Mirja Kühlewind:
I do want to acknowledge the point you make about challenges, because this forum is also very broad. I found it very interesting to be here. I learned a lot, also, just for me personally, caring about the internet as a citizen, but identifying the parts of the discussion where we can provide valuable input is challenging for us.

Jane Coffin:
And that’s a really good point, Mirja. We may want to see if we can talk to the MAG or make more input on a technical track, right? Which, because we used to come and do internet exchange points, BGP, a little bit of IP addressing, so maybe we bring that back. We have room for one more question if you ask it quickly. I don’t see any, oh, Bravo, go ahead.

Audience:
My name is Makoto Nakamura from the local government of Nara City, Japan. Now I fight against legacy technology or legacy people, and today’s government system in Japan often use FTP, still use FTP, or old protocols. Would you have any idea to quit the old protocol or legacy protocol into the trash? I know that the RFC backed obsolete, I know, but it’s a replacement of the new protocol or almost all of six cases. So how would you step up or move to new technology and push from the IDF? This is my first questions.

Mirja Kühlewind:
So, I mean, gladly, even so, these old protocols are still there, the internet doesn’t break, so that’s part of the architecture, and that’s the good news. I think a lot of these protocols, like there has been a lot of focus on security, for example, and sometimes that’s, unfortunately, a harder selling point than performance. If you have a protocol which gives you direct benefits that shows your investment on a short-term payback, then it’s easy to convince people. If you have to update your new protocol and you have to invest money, manpower, knowledge, and you don’t get a direct payback, that’s a challenge, but I think we need to just go and explain the importance of updating these protocols and the impact on the long-term to keep the internet healthy and to protect your own services you’re providing by getting a more reliable, more secure, and a better network. So I think it’s an education task for us all, and I understand the challenge.

Jane Coffin:
There’s also, just another shout-out to ISOC, I used to work there, I don’t work there now, just a disclaimer, but there’s a really strong Japanese chapter, and they may be able to do some workshops with you. They’re really great. I think we’re at time, and I think it’s time to just say thank you to everybody for participating, for everyone in the room, everyone online, thank you, Drew, for being the online moderator, and everyone else here, so give yourselves a round of applause, thank you very much, and stay in touch with the IETF, IAB.

Audience:
Thank you, Jane, that was crazy. I was thinking, how about we get a two-hour session into 40 minutes? I feel like it’s time to get into a recession. I don’t think we have time for a recession. No, for the open forum, there was only one hour with the only options. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, probably, yeah. Maybe, yeah. I think it was good, but it was scary. It’d be nice if we could. Virtual on-site, working really fast. It’s really good. It’s really small. It’s regular. It’s good to go to the on-site.