Statement from Internet Technical Community after #GCCS2015 affirms #coreinternetvalues

Members of the Internet technical community – the African Top Level Domains Organization (AfTLD), Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Society (ISOC), Latin American and Caribbean TLD Association (LACTLD), the Ripe Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), Dr. Michael R. Nelson, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty, George Sadowsky and Andrew Sullivan, have issued a statement following the recent Global Conference on CyberSpace 2015 (GCCS2015) in The Hague.

17 April 2015

We would like to congratulate the Dutch government on an innovative and successful conference. We also wish to thank the conference organizers for inviting governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to contribute to the development of the Chair’s statement.

We welcome the spirit of openness and transparency that has prevailed in the preparations of the Conference.

The Internet technical community

Organizations from the Internet technical community were actively engaged in the preparations for the Global Conference on Cyberspace 2015 and associated meetings, including the Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) and the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) ONE Conference.

Participating organizations and individuals from the technical community come from all around the world. They work with governments, national and international organizations, civil society, academia and the private sector to pursue their objectives in a collaborative and inclusive manner. While each organization has its own mission and role to play, these Internet technical community organizations [1] are motivated by a common vision [2] of an open and accessible Internet that brings shared economic and social benefits to all the world’s citizens, now and in the future.

The Chair’s statement

We welcome the Chair’s statement and believe it will serve as an important guiding statement as the global community works together to tackle cybersecurity issues. The statement notably recognizes that Internet security should be approached from the perspective that the Internet is “an engine for economic growth and social development” as well as the importance of trust. Furthermore, it promotes the notion that security is a collective responsibility and that we need to foster a culture of collaborative security. We are very pleased to see these concepts included in the statement.

One of the examples of such collaborative security is the initiative proposed by the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to foster a smart coalition of interested parties to enhance and expand anti-spoofing efforts across the world – the root cause of large-scale Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. We look forward to active participation in this initiative, and the impact it will have on Internet security and trust.

We are also pleased to see that the Chair’s statement highlights the role of open voluntary consensus-based Internet standards in protecting and improving the security and resilience of the global Internet infrastructure. It also emphasizes that collective action from all relevant parties is needed to effectively implement these standards at the international level. Further, it underlines the importance of human rights, and that protection of human rights and security online are complementary concepts.

Another initiative, launched at the conference, Internet.nl is an example of how adoption of such standards and best practices can be stimulated, by raising awareness and providing a platform where experience is being shared.

Finally, we are pleased that through this statement, participants reaffirmed their “commitment to the multistakeholder model of Internet governance and called upon all stakeholders to further strengthen and encourage the sustainability of, participation in and evolution of this model”.

We applaud the “commitment [of the participants] to the multistakeholder model of Internet governance [who] called upon all stakeholders to further strengthen and encourage the sustainability of, participation in and evolution of this model”. We support the view that “the multistakeholder approach has also been key in facilitating the implementation and realization of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) goals”. We join the call for “this year’s concluding stages of the ten-year Review of the WSIS to be as open and inclusive as possible, ensuring the meaningful participation of all stakeholders”. We would like further to express our support for the renewal of the Internet Governance Forum’s (IGF) mandate by the UN. We also support the inclusive and transparent process currently taking place globally leading towards the transition of the oversight of the IANA functions from the US to the global multistakeholder Internet Community. We recognize the value of the multistakeholder model as a key factor towards an enabling Internet environment.

Global Forum on Cyber Expertise

We are interested in learning more about the initiative of the Dutch government to create a Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE). We hope that the initiative develops to be inclusive towards all stakeholders. As further information becomes available, we look forward to sharing our expertise, especially that related to the development, implementation and deployment of open Internet standards, to the newly launched Global Forum on Cyber Expertise.

Going forward

As the Internet grows and continues to spur economic and social development around the world, the policies and practices of tomorrow must grow from the shared principles and the shared vision that underpin our collaboration throughout this week. It is now essential that all stakeholders, including governments take concrete steps to build together a stable, resilient and trustworthy cyberspace.

To achieve this objective, all stakeholders must ensure that human capacities and fundamental rights are enhanced or enabled by the Internet, including:

a) The ability to connect: The end-to-end architecture of the Internet is essential to its utility as a platform for connecting people, and thus for education, innovation, creativity and economic opportunity. In an information society, to support human development and protect human rights, all people need to have affordable access to an open and neutral network, and to the services that it provides.

b) The ability to communicate: By enabling communication on an unprecedented scale, the Internet is a revolutionary medium for expression and collaboration. Genuinely free communication can only be guaranteed when privacy and anonymity are assured in principle, and where content controls are an exception rather than a rule.

c) The ability to innovate: The remarkable growth of the Internet and its applications follow directly from the open model of Internet connectivity and standards development. Policies must encourage open technical standards and protocols that are developed through open, transparent and accessible processes.

d) The ability to trust: Everyone’s ability to connect, speak, innovate, share, and choose depends on the Internet’s ability to support trustworthy internetworking—ensuring the security, reliability, and stability of increasingly critical and pervasive applications and services.

Conclusion

As leading actors of the Internet technical community, we wish to underline our strong commitment to maintain a safe and stable Internet environment that could further support the worldwide social and economic development in the ultimate interest of all stakeholders.
Logos of organizations endorsing this statement

[1] http://www.internetac.org/members
[2] http://www.internetcollaboration.org/participation/