Richard Sexton
29 January 2019 ·
I C Venezuelan ISP's are going dark. This is a failure of "Internet Governance". Just like the failure of every other aspect of "Internet Governance".
Care to see the lists of winners and losers?
It's rather one sided. Half the world had it's name pulled so some other asshole could sell it; half the world sees the same two dozen fat cats running around telling them to buy more names.
Tihs is no wat to ru na permanent addressing system. So, we concede this one is dead, killed by the greed and commercialazation the network was not able to route aroud.
So, what next?
cf Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
33 23 comments
Rogerio Mariano No photo description available.
Rogerio Mariano No photo description available.
Reg Levy badge icon This is horrible (and appropriately BA) but how is it a failure of internet governance. It’s a failure of government and a win for IG: the internet is seen as an agent of information, which is considered dangerous. 7
Barry Shein In 2014 it was confirmed that Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world (discovered in 2007.) Larger than Saudi Arabia, roughly the size of the US and Canada combined. The rest has just been Kabuki theater to control that oil. 3
Carlos Marcelo Martinez-Cagnazzo Maduro mismanaged the country into oblivion. That is the story here. 2
Barry Shein I thought that was Chavez. But if by "mismanaged" one includes "didn't seem to know how to capitulate or to whom" we might agree.
Carlos Marcelo Martinez-Cagnazzo Barry Shein Maduro carried on Chavez “work”. Mismanaged means just that. Destroyed the private sectors, ruined PDVSA etc. He also sent opposition leaders to jail and held elections not even other socialist leaders consider democratic. Three million people have went into exile, some of them walking thousands of kilometers to reach Colombia or Peru. Conspiracy theories about X or Y power “wanting the oil” are silly and hide as well and mock the massive human catastrophe that is happening there. 1
Carlos Marcelo Martinez-Cagnazzo I fail to see how this is an IG failure. What do you believe IG could do better? 2
Richard Sexton Author Stop saying it, stop doing it, stop pretending it's anything other an episode of Yes Minister then put safeguards in place to the US can't pick on poeple like this just because it controls the internet. This is a political and not a technical problem. 2
Barry Shein Maybe it's just me but you've responded with this "Yes Minister" reference in a few threads and TBH I have only the vaguest notion what it is, some sort of British satirical TV show probably about politics? Is it current? Is it BBC? Whatever but it's mostly lost on me. 1
Richard Sexton Author Oh dear. It's only 2 years of "Yes Minister" and two years of "Yes Prime Minister" and 4 episodes of an awful series in 2013 of the same name only worth watching because of the last episode. There were few episodes per season and they're all on the bay. It's the show that In the Thick of It was crafted from which begat In the Loop and The West Wing, all the same guy. It's a comedy that explains how ICANN works. Well that all are really. I think you'll like them. 1
Barry Shein Hmm, now I think I know less about "Yes Minister" than I did when I asked. 1
Nicholas Harland Barry Shein it streams on SpaceFlix if you’ve got IPv8.
David Cake Richard Sexton you mean Veep, not the West Wing. But I’m not sure that the line from Yes, Minister to the Thick Of It is that direct, even though both are UK comedies about politics.
Martin J. Levy Richard - I think you use the wrong words. You state: "I C Venezuelan ISP's are going dark" and yet I don't see any proof in our traffic (or DNS) numbers. We clearly see day-to-day traffic that's consistent with regular Internet operations. So ... I think you misspoke; the Internet is clearly working in Venezuela. Or: did you mean that Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or Google or some such application running on the Internet has gone dark? For that; I have not data; but I see Rogerio data above, and hence could agree there's something afoot. However, the Internet is not dark". 4
Richard Sexton Author Routes were pulled, mmmkay? That part is the soft underbelly of the net. Look how well the net works when the US is pissed at you. 1
Barry Shein For better or for worse the internet is composed of voluntary connectivity, often tho not always relying on state cooperation (other than most states can intervene by some force.) The idea of a higher power which deals out only justice has been a theme in all of human civilization but in practice it's been a bit difficult to realize. I think it's fair to say that the US is one of the more diffuse in terms of int'l internet connectivity. For example there's no incumbent, monopoly carrier. 2
Barry Shein I think I meant "doles out only justice" BUT WHATEVER!
Rogerio Mariano IMHO…I think there is a worrying trend of Internet shutdowns in countries with limited connectivity (like Nauru, Burundi, Yemen, for example), but this was not the case in Venezuela. We do not see here in Brazil an outage in the interconnection infrastructure or a break in the system for Venezuelan domain names. What we noticed was that between 01/20/2019 until 01/23/2019 there was a blockage of services of applications such as OTTs/Web-Scale that could perpetuate strong influence on the current regime of government that this pressure of the international community . Still in time this kind of attitude and fragmentation is lousy for the end user and shows an unreasonable authoritarianism that who wants to keep in power. As for the Internet Governance process in this case, there is nothing to do, for the most we could see would be a note at a GAC meeting or be a topic at a GGE meeting. 1
Richard Sexton Author "As for the Internet Governance process in this case, there is nothing to do," So stop calling it "Internet Governance". It is not. It's a sales strategy meeting for a rent extraction scheme that's 404'd half the net. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. 1
Rogerio Mariano Exactly now! 02/12/2019
No photo description available.

Richard Sexton Author
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmywwiZth5E
I'm shocked. Shocked! YOUTUBE.COM