CircleID

IGF Wacky Math lesson 101a

Borders on Arrogance + Reporters Sans Borders =

Reporters Sans Arrogance

It is important not to misinterpret these remarks by the ITU.

You see, internet governance should not be left to those who merely "border on" arrogant.  The ITU believes that internet governance should belong to those who are completely arrogant.

Might be a good idea to read Utsumi-san's speech as transcribed - http://www.intgovforum.org/IGF-OpeningSession-301006.txt

However, I do not share the perspective of those who argue that Internet Governance is just a developing-country problem. I disagree, because the basis of this perspective is that with just more capacity building, then developing countries will come around to a certain enlightened point of view.  We have heard this often, and it borders on arrogance.

There is a lot more in that speech that I'd encourage you to read first hand. Before criticizing it.

The IGF had plenty of people riding the gravy train (whoops, the salmon and caviar train) - lots of people who came in, did their obligatory grandstanding to justify an expenses paid holiday at a sunny (well, rainy) beach resort, and then resumed junketing. 

Quite a few conferences obey sturgeon's law (90% of everything is crap), with the number of freeloaders and drones far outnumbering the number of clued people.  But the IGF, thanks to its broad scope, had far more thinking and clued people in it, from across the spectrum, than I've seen in any one place before.

People I know and respect from across public policy, network and dns ops, antispam, plus real and committed social activists who do meaningful work (such people tend to fall somewhere between the slogan shouting mob and the caviar and salmon guzzling freeloaders).

If you do want to criticize people there are quite a few you can pick on, that'd deserve it far more than Mr.Utsumi -

The Chinese gentleman from their mission in Geneva, who said that China doesn't censor the Internet at all .. proof being that he could listen to the BBC daily when he was in Geneva (!).

Or the cuban delegate who started off saying how internet deprived his country was, till Bill Woodcock pointed out from the audience that the scarcity was artificial, that Cuba was not buying any internet access, and what limited access there was, was provided through a government controlled and limited proxy server

Or the caviar and salmon guzzling gravy train (though that's there at most conferences and not worth more than an "oh, them again")

I'd personally save my criticism for Milton Mueller - who set up a sad joke of a "panel" to try project his ideas on DNS root zone management, and ended up telling Veni Markovski, on circleid, that he was glad Veni was leaving the ICANN board.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/assault_on_state_censorship_at_the_igf/