[ga] The WatchDog Committe: How to do our functions

["Javier Rodriguez" <jrl@mail.lima.net.pe>]

At 11/26/99 2:15:00 PM, Ben Edelman from the Berkman Center 
for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School wrote:

>... we've all come to understand the difficulty of "bootstrapping" --
>that even the act of setting procedures for a process has effects on the
>results, making it difficult or impossible for at least the first iteration
>of a process to be legitimate since its procedure was determined, in a
>sense, arbitrarily. 

>But I
>nonetheless remain concerned by the prospect of arbitrarily-chosen, unknown
>participants on the Committee or in any other office.

I agree about the "arbitrarily-chosen" (ooopps! thats me!) and the
unknown problem that you have worded so accurately.  Lets look go
to the theme and lets look for the best solution that we can find.

Related with the first concern I think there is little that we can do in this
moment, we, the GA, we have been unable to establish a whole
private system in how to elect with security, privacy and so on.  So... maybe
next year we will be able... lets work on it.  I think the NC has choosen
the people that has made the proposals as one of the many ways to
nominate a Surveillance (sp!) committee, or a watchdog committe as it
has been named.  I say that nobody has call me or email me or do 
any consultation about any theme related to the WatchDog Committee.
For the best of my knowledge the NC has do by themselves this
proposal, and I guess is the best way that they have find to nominate
a WatchDog Committe (someone is thinking in doing elections to
find the members of the WatchDog Committe? and who will be the
WatchDog Committe of the elections of the members of the other
WatchDog Committe... lets finish here, is there a better aproach lets
learn it and there will be plenty of years to develop better solutions).

This "initial/interim"... here we go again!!!  ;-)   for the sake of my mind
I will never use those words again! :-)   I think that "this" WatchDog 
committee could  made some proposals about how to elect 
next WatchDog committees...

>the nomination watchdog committee described
>below caught my eye, for it seems to suffer from a "who will watch the
>watchers" problem.

Agree.  But I think that the NC is watching us, the GA members are watching
us, that we (betwen, inside the watching dog committe) will watch each
other.  If there is a better way to "watch the watchers" lets talk about it !

FOR ME THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT: More than wondering "who will 
watch us" I wonder in HOW are we going to be able to "watch" the 
process and guaranty that it will be done according to the established 
rules, or what tools do we will use to get  our task done in an efficient 
way ? Anyway, I accept the risks and I hope  to fill the position with 
the best tools and efforts that I can.

>... but is some additional level of authentication perhaps in order for
>at least the members of the watchdog committee?

Okey Ben is proposing the next methods of authentication for the
members of the WatchDog Committe:

a) "The transmission by fax of government-issued photographic 
      identification to some central trusted facility that would cross 
      check IDs with registration lists... Might we then post their photo
      IDs online, of course protecting key information about each
     (social security number and, conceivably, street address, 
       I suggest, for US IDs) 

b) A "network of trust" (where, if I trust, say, Jonathan Zittrain and he
     says he knows Kent Crispin, then I accept Kent's legitimacy 
     even if I've never met him)

I live in Peru, I have passport issued by the Peruvian Goverment but
any Central Trusted Agency have the way to check in our national
registries that my data is accurate.  Furthermore, I can fax my personal
identification card, but it is too easy that I, or anyone, can change the
data using a fotocopy and a fax machine... so there is no guarantee
that faxed data will be without alteration or it will be an accuarte way
to prove the "identity" of the person.

I agree with the secon method.  Shorter, easier, and it is very used
in the PGP world (Pretty Good Privacy) as the method to sign the
personal digital signatures.  I know you I refrend (sp!) your signature
with my own signature and so on... in this way the "network of trust"
works fine all around the world.

Ok, I will be the first (if there is no better proposal)

I know personally the next people:
- on the NC: Antonio Harris
- on the WatchDog Committe: Roberto Gaetano
- on the GA list: Vany (panama), Patricio Poblete (Chile), Raul Echeverria (Uruguay), Erick Iriarte (Peruvian fellow)
- from the ICANN Directors representing the DNSO: Amadeu Abril
- If it helps I have talked by mail many times privately with our other Director: Alejandro Pisanty
- from the ICANN Directors in general: Vinton Cerf

For sure that there more people that I have met personally but I think this is good enough for a start.

Regards,

Javier


>>       Nomination Procedures for the Chair of the General Assembly (GA)
>>
>>      9. A nomination watchdog committee shall be formed to police the
>>      nomination process to help detect and cure any instances of
>        fraudulent activity in connection with the nomination process.
>>
>>           The committee shall consists of the authors of the
>>           nominations procedures proposals submitted to the GA, which
>>           includes Jonathan Weinberg, Kent Crispin, Javier Rodriguez,
>>           Roberto Gaetano and Bradley Thorton.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Javier Rodriguez                     jrl@mail.lima.net.pe
AXISNET                                    VicePresident
Peruvian Association of Internet Users and ISPs
Other duties: ECOMLAC      ISOC -PERU      IPCE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------