IGF-USA 2012

IGF-USA will be held on Thursday, July 26, 2012 at Georgetown Law Center

For a downloadable version of the agenda please click here.

 

The IGF-USA engages with individuals from civil society, government, and business, as well as technologists, researchers and academia to discuss topics being deliberated at a global level and in multiple fora regarding the governance of the Internet.  Topics under discussion include the role of the UN and governments in oversight of the Internet, issues related to Critical Internet Resources such as top level domains and IP addresses, cyber security and cyber-crime; openness/freedom of expression, Cloud Computing,  youth in an online world.

Through participation in the IGF-USA, participants will help to broaden the understanding and identify possible best practices that can inform global decisions that affect the Internet and its governance. IGF-USA’s activities and discussions are provided to the IGF in Baku through participation in the Inter-Regional and National Roundtables, and through provision of a Report. 

8:15 a.m.: Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:45 a.m.: Welcome and Introductory Remarks – Marilyn Cade, Chief Catalyst to IGF-USA 

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.:  Opening Plenary: Ambassador Phil Verveer, US State Department: Remarks

Introduction of Ambassador Terry Kramer, U.S. Ambassador, WCIT 

9:30 – 11:00 a.m.: Opening Plenary Session

Setting the Stage and Emerging Issues Roundtable: Governments or Governance

This Panel will discuss the current state of play with various proposals ranging from the WCIT; the UN Commission on Science and Technology and Enhanced Cooperation; areas where more government may be called for from their perspective, or strong improvements in ‘governance’.  One panelist will discuss her views on the dilemma of multi stakeholders.  Panelists will be offering a range of perspectives about government and governance.

Moderator:  Marilyn Cade, Chief Catalyst, IGF-USA

Panelists:

Rebecca MacKinnon, New America Foundation

Marc Rotenberg, EPIC

Jacquelynn L. Ruff, Verizon Communications

Paul Brigner, ISOC

John Curran, ARIN

Kristen Peterson, Inveneo

Fiona Alexander, NTIA/Department of Commerce

11 a.m. – 11:15a.m.:  Morning Break

11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.:  Concurrent Workshops:

Workshop:  Next Challenge – How to Handle Big Data in the Cloud

The dramatic reduction in the cost of computing and storage made possible by Cloud computing services; the spread of easy-to-use, open-source analytic tools; and the growing availability of massive data services from government and the private sector (e.g. Google Maps) have enabled thousands of start-ups, hackers and others to create exciting new tools for business, entertainment, government, and other sectors.  A variety of government policies can help (or hinder) development of new databases and Big Data apps:  (1) open government data policy, (2) IPR protection, (3) IT research, (4) technology test beds, (5) education, (6) law enforcement access and, perhaps most difficult, (7) privacy regulations.  This workshop will explore these challenges and opportunities through the different lenses of business, government, civil society and academia. This diversity of the views will ensure an engaging debate of this cutting edge issue for all stakeholders.

Organizer: Dan O’Neill, GIIC

Moderator: Mike Nelson, Georgetown University

Panelists:

Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T

Paul Mitchell, Microsoft

Lille Coney, EPIC

Jules Polonetsky, Future Privacy Forum

Katherine Race Brin, Federal Trade Commission 

Workshop:  The Changing Landscape of the Domain Name System: New Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and their Implications for Users:

Early in 2012, ICANN launched the process to introduce vast numbers of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) — allowing, for the first time, the customization of Internet addresses to the right of the dot.  Few people understand that there are already 22 existing gTLDs and 242 country code TLDs, with a total of 233 million registered second level names across all TLDs. In the coming years, these existing TLDs will be joined by numerous new gTLDs, likely resulting in the registration of millions of new second level domains. Some of them will use scripts that are unfamiliar to English speakers or readers.

How exactly these new gTLDs will impact the world of users and registrants is yet to be determined. Will they add significant new registration space, cause confusion, provide some unique innovations, or, most likely all of the above to some degree?

ICANN received a wide range of applications — including brand names, generic terms, and geographic and regional terms. The process to arrive at this vast expansion was lengthy, and as is typical of multi stakeholder processes, included much debate.  Not all stakeholders were satisfied with the process itself or with the protections afforded to users and registrants.  While many questions are still in play, the expansion plan marches forward, and the Internet’s landscape will look very different in the next two to three years.

This workshop will explore how this vast expansion of new gTLDs will potentially transform the landscape of the Internet. Issues and questions such as changes to how domain name registrants and users may organize and search for information online; how defensive registrations may impact existing registrants; whether ICANN gave a sufficient focus to Internationalized Domain Names; how applications from potential registries from developing countries were supported; whether fraud and abuse that exists in the existing gTLD space will migrate easily into the new ‘spaces’ or even be compounded; and how conflicts between applicants from noncommercial sector will impact the users of the Internet will be explored.

Governance of gTLD space is a topic of discussion not just within in ICANN but within regional and international governmental organizations.     The IGF-USA 2012 panel will provide insights that will broaden and deepen the understanding of a diverse set of participants, and continue to highlight various perspectives on ICANN and the new gTLD program.  Panelists and respondents will provide perspectives from suppliers; new gTLD applicants; non applicants; domain name registrants; the ICANN GAC; and law enforcement. Workshops on this topic will also occur at the IGF in Baku.

Co-Organizer:  Brian Winterfeldt

Moderator:  Ron Andruff

Panelists:

Laura Covington, Yahoo!

Bobby Flaim, FBI

Suzanne Radell (NTIA – US GAC Representative)

Elisa Cooper, MarkMonitor (Remote Participant)

Alan Drewsen

Andrew Mack, AMGlobal

Krista Papac, ARI

Respondents:

Dan Jaffe, ANA

Jeff Neuman, Neustar

A Scenario Story: Two Possible Futures for Copyright: Anarchy or Totalitarianism 

Today we find ourselves in a “grey area” where the line between fair use and copyright infringement is blurred.  The laws of copyright were introduced before the Internet, before MP3’s, before rap music and before file sharing. Activities such as sampling and mashing (ways of creating a remix) are at odds with the copyright legal system, which protects the performance of the music as well as the composition. “The Grey Album,” produced by DJ Danger Mouse, gained notoriety as it challenged the structure in-place, by mashing two legally protected albums in a flagrant violation of copyright law.  Danger Mouse created the album strictly as a limited-edition promotional item (only 3,000 copies), but it immediately went viral and caught the ear of many people in the music industry and all over the US, making the “cease and desist” request technically meaningless.  This example illuminates the incredibly complex and nuanced existence of copyright law in America today.

This scenario planning exercise will explore the divergent sides of America’s copyright future: One where regulations surrounding copyright law are lax to the point of anarchy, and the other where the regulations increase at an exponential rate creating a totalitarian industry.

During this session the moderator will ask for Participants active engagement and insight on the scenarios in the above paragraph. Scenarios are intended to spark discussion and not to ‘predict’ any future.  The scenarios will be described initially and there will be a round-table discussion about how you see copyright affecting the world of creators in these “possible” futures.

Organizers: 

Pablo Molina, Georgetown University Law School

Dorothy Fang Peng, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Ariel Leath, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Kalyah Ford, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Jennifer Walker, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Rosalind Koff, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Kendra Kirk, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Lexi Xi Li, Georgetown University Graduate Student

Moderators:

Ariel Leath

Kalyah Ford

Panelists:

Thomas Sydnor II, ACT (Association of Competitive Technology)

Matthew Schruers, CCIA (Computer & Communications Industry Association)

Brandon Butler, ARL (Association of Research Libraries)

Best Practice Forum: ICTs for Disaster Response: How the Internet is Transforming Emergency Management

Recent man-made and natural disasters around the globe have highlighted the importance of ICTs for connecting public safety officials, coordinating response operations, and keeping citizens informed.  Additionally, new and emerging Internet-based tools, mobile applications and social media have transformed disaster relief efforts, providing real-time data for first responders and empowering citizens to access and share life-saving information and locate loved ones.  Enhanced situational awareness via multiple platforms offers almost instantaneous and ubiquitous coverage about implications for life and property, individuals impacted by natural or man-made risks and threats.  As Internet-based communications are increasingly relied upon both in daily life and to support disaster response and recovery, what consideration is needed to ensure resilient infrastructures and continuity of operations so that the Internet is available to support disaster response requirements, including keeping citizens informed?  How have these new tools changed traditional approaches in managing a disaster response?

This best practice workshop will offer panelists an opportunity to share recent experiences and lessons learned on the role communications, Internet and Internet-based applications have been playing in disaster response and recovery operations – and on what challenges these technologies are presenting as disaster response is transformed.  Panelists will offer perspectives and lessons learned from recent disasters and help to identify recommendations for collaboration among stakeholders in preparing for future disasters.

Moderator:  Joe Burton, Counselor for Technology and Security Policy, Communications and Information Policy, US State Department

Co Organizers:  Kelly O’Keefe, Access Partnership and Garland McCoy, Technology

Education Institute 

Panelists:

Garland T. McCoy, Founder & President, Technology Education Institute

Kristin Peterson, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Inveneo

Keith Robertory, Disaster Response Emergency Communications Manager, American Red Cross

ESRI (invited) 

Workshop: Can an Open Internet Survive: Challenges and Issues

This workshop focuses on the challenges of keeping the Internet open while simultaneously maintaining a safe and secure environment for individuals, businesses and governments. Governments have a wide ranging set of issues and concerns that can limit an open Internet. For developing countries, this includes concerns about cost of connectivity; spam/malware; IPR; Human Rights and content that some object to, which may, in the US, be freedom of Information and free expression. It is a very complex world for the Internet’s openness.

Businesses may make decisions for practical purposes that are contributing to closing the Internet.

Users may voluntarily/but without full understanding accept ‘closing’ the Internet. Citizens who strongly support an open Internet may be quietly accepting actions and decisions that affect the ‘openness’ of the Internet. Parliaments, including the US Congress and counterparts around the world may be planning legislative solutions that actually close the very openness of the Internet that they strongly support. And citizens themselves may seek solutions that indirectly imply a ‘closed’ Internet.

In short, it is not all that simple to maintain and protect an Open Internet.

Important issues to be discussed
are policy developments to promote and protect privacy, intellectual property and security online, including the role of the user.

Discussion Topics:

  1. Define – key characteristics to an open Internet.
  2. What are key challenges nationally & internationally that threaten the existence of the open Internet as defined above
  3. Challenges that have taken place in 2011 – 2012 in regards to an open internet. Did the outcomes advance the debate, stall it, or move it to other fora?
  4. Initiatives that have been pursued to advance an open Internet in the US and abroad.
  5. Challenges  on the horizon over the next year at a national and international level
  6. Points of common interest and diverging views that might exist with other stakeholders at a national and international level – Other proposals for more government/more IGO involvement/how does that work for an Open Internet?
  7. The value of multi-stakeholder engagement to develop policy and promote an open Internet

Moderator/Organizer:  Robert Guerra, Principal, Privaterra & Senior Advisor, Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs

University of Toronto

Panelists:

Ellen Blackler, Vice President, Global Public Policy, The Walt Disney Company

Thomas Gideon, Technical Director, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation

Andrew McDiarmid, Policy Analyst, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)

Julian Sanchez, Research Fellow, Cato Institute

Paul Diaz, Director of Policy, Public Interest Registry

John Morris, Office of Policy Analysis and Development. National Telecommunications and Information    Administration (NTIA)

12:45 – 1:45 p.m.:  NETWORKING LUNCH – HART AUDITORIUM RECEPTION AREA 

1:45 – 3:15 p.m.: Concurrent Workshops:

Critical Internet Resources (CIRs): Evolution of the Internet’s technical foundations

Since the initiation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Critical Internet Resources (CIR) and the evolution of the Internet’s technical foundations have been a central focus of the ongoing Internet governance debates   Many misunderstandings influence the views of different groups of global stakeholders, and different views exist about how to advance CIRs.  International governmental approaches are proposed by some; while others strongly support the present bottom up, consensus models.

Three foundational technological changes – IPv6, secure DNS (DNSsec) and secure routing – will frame the discussion in this workshop.  Deployment raises significant challenges to stakeholders, operations and governance arrangements. Experts from the business, government, academia and technical communities will explore how actors’ roles may evolve over time to ensure the continued growth of the global Internet.

Moderator: Walda Roseman, ISOC

Co Organizers: James Galvin, Afilias and Paul Brigner, ISOC

Panelists:

Steve Crocker, Shinkuro

John Curran, ARIN

Richard Jimmerson, ISOC

Comcast – INVITED

Vernita Harris, NTIA/DOC

 WORKSHOP: Cyber Security: Channeling the Momentum at Home and Abroad

In the U.S. the momentum that has been steadily building on cyber security policy has hit a high note: the U.S. House of Representatives has passed four cyber security bills, and the U.S. Senate has indicated an intent to consider cyber security legislation any day now.  The U.S. Department of State is working with their global partners on developing relationships, collaborative action, and norms of behavior for cyberspace.  The U.S. Department of Commerce has spearheaded a government initiative on botnets and is working with industry on botnet mitigation measures.  The Department of Homeland Security is increasing their cyber security staffing for both strategic and operational concerns.  And, the White House transitions its team on cyber security policy with a second cyber security Advisor to the President.

Stuxnet and Flame attacks capture the international media and attention. Cyber Security remains a key theme for the United Nations, the International Telecommunications Union(ITU/);  the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC);  ICANN, and the annual Internet Governance Forum ( IGF).

What are businesses, countries, and the technical community doing in this heightened era of cyber security concern?  What should they be doing?  What are the considerations for individual users here in the U.S. and around the world? How can all these pockets of activity help protect – and not hamper the protection of – the very medium that provides for productivity, communications, efficiencies, innovation, and expression?

This session will address the implications of current proposals and consider ideas for new ones that help further cyber security that helps provide trust and confidence in the Internet and global networks.

Co-Organizers: Liesyl Franz, Consultant in CS issues and Audrey Plonk, Intel Corporation

Moderator: Audrey Plonk, Global Security and Internet Policy Specialist, Intel Corporation

Panelist:

Tom Dukes, Senior Advisor, Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues, U.S. Department of State

Jeff Greene, Senior Policy Counsel, Cyber Security and Identity, Symantec

Clete Johnson, Counsel, Office of Senator Rockefeller

Kendall Burman, Senior National Security Fellow, Center for Democracy and Technology

Patrick Jones, Senior Director of Security, ICANN

Turning Principles into Practice – or Not: Case vignettes: Internet Governance/ICANN; Consumer Privacy; Cyber Security; Dialogues about Lessons Learned

Principles, Principles, Principles:  This workshop will examine the role that Principles are playing in framing debates, achieving consensus and eventually affecting change – or not.  Principles are rampant in all sorts of fora – from national to regional and global discussions, and on a wide range of issues. Myriad proposals for policy principles exist, from many different organizations.   In 2011, IGF-USA examined a number of principles in “A Plethora of Principles”, and participants pointed out even more that had not been addressed in the wide ranging analysis.  But beyond developing principles, the question of ‘what else”, or “what next”, or “so what’ remains a valid discussion in many settings.  Are Principles actually turning into ‘practice’ and if so, what does that mean? New voluntary codes of conduct? New regulations at a national level? New laws? Or simply being adopted and put into practice by business and thus changing the experience and support to the user?

Principles are often the baseline of gaining high level agreements.  They are usually aspirational and may go farther than legislation or regulation ever would.  So, some argue that principles must only remain aspirational. Others call for legislation or regulation or enforcement mechanisms to ‘hold industry accountable’ to promises made in principles commitments.

This workshop will examine three case vignettes:  how the Principles of the White Paper were incorporated into ICANN’s formation and what the status of these principles are today within ICANN’s mission and core activities; how consumer privacy principles have fared in global and national settings in terms of ‘turning into practice’, and how Cyber security/botnet ‘principles’ are faring and the activities that are set in play to turn into practice.

This is an effort to understand how principles can, or do turn into practice, but it is also a discussion on what ‘practice’ means: law? Codes of conduct?  Voluntary activities? NGO led initiatives? Awareness campaigns?  And what the present ‘state of play’ is in these three areas.  Are principles enough?

Co-Organizers:  Iren Borissova, Jonathan Zuck, Marilyn Cade

Moderator:  Shane Tews, Verisign 

Panelists:

Becky Burr:  Turning White Paper Principles into Actuality in ICANN

Menessha Mithal, FTC:  Consumer Privacy Principles

Eric Burger, Georgetown University: Cyber Security and Botnets

Respondents:

Carl Kalapesi, World Economic Forum: Cyber Resilience and Personal Data – a WEF Perspective

[This will be a highly interactive session with audience participation highly encouraged.] 

Youth Forum: Youth in an Online World: Views and Perspectives of Youth as Users

People under the age of 30 constitute the largest population of Internet users in the US and worldwide. This generation, many of whom grew up with mobile networks and the Internet, is the primary driver of the cultural, political, and economic activity online. Yet, they are also mostly absent from the Internet governance debates. 

This workshop will bring together a group of college-age young adults to talk about how they experience the online world, how they think about online information, and what is important for them within a broad range of Internet-related policy areas.

Organized and led by the young people themselves, this workshop will discuss questions such as their use of social networks and their perceptions of privacy and security; the culture of sharing and their willingness to exchange personal information or pay for content; their views about online literacy and the responsibility for consequences of online behavior. The discussion will be in a form of an open forum with a number of participants and resource persons from a range of institutions of higher education.

Organizer:  Dmitry Epstein

Facilitators: Ali Hamed, Cornell University and Morgan Beller, Cornell University

Youth Participants:

Chris Higgens, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Dan Spector, Cornell University

Derrell Frazier, Daniel Webster College

Ken Bradtke, University of Colorado Law

Kimberly Wang, Cornell University

Kyle Simms, Morgan State University

Lindsey Bohl, Georgetown University Law Center

James Day, Christopher Newport University

Mary Delcamp, University of Miami Law

Rebecca Charen, University of Michigan

Reed Semcken, University of South California

Samantha Smyers

3:15-3:30 p.m.: Afternoon Break

3:30-4:15 p.m.:  Plenary:  Summary Reports from Workshops

Workshop Moderators/Organizers will present mini – reports from the observations from their workshops/Best Practice Forums.

4:15-4:45 p.m.: Plenary: Larry Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and                                                                            Information/Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration

(NTIA), US Dept. of Commerce 

4:45 – 5:15 p.m.: Plenary Discussion – Defining the Future for Internet Governance: Meeting Evolving

Challenges

A small panel of respondents will share their observations on the future for IG and the evolving challenges, and interact with the Participants to discuss the Future for Internet Governance and the multi stakeholder model.

Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T

Chris Wolf, HogansLovells

Danny Weitzner, OSTP/The White House

5:15 p.m.: Closing Remarks

Invitation to Baku IGF

Recognition of Sponsors and Contributors

Invitation to Reception

5:30 p.m.-7:15 p.m.: Reception

 

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