[3] Report from INET'96 Part I by Ronda Hauben ronda@panix.com "One of the striking dimensions of the Internet is that it uncannily manages to crystallize the aspirations and hopes of nearly all human beings, whatever their social identity or orientation. This simply marks the fact that the Internet turns out to be a generalized empowering device, a true amplifier of humanity it self, with all its contradictions, conflicts, ambiguities, but also with all its creativity, intelligence and inher entsplendor. The program committee of INET'96 has tried to capture this rich, complex and ultimately exalting reality: all the way from technical progress to human ambiguity." (INET'96 Final Program, p.6) I spent a fascinating week in Montreal, Canada in June, 19 where I attended INET'96 held by the Internet Society. What became clear at the conference was that this is an important time in the development of the Internet. People from around the world attended. Though an emphasis of the conference was on business uses of the Internet, there was a great concern among many of the people I spoke with and heard speak that the Internet be made more available for educational, government, scientific and community purposes. Hitherto, it seemed that the emphasis was on technical or commercial issues at Internet Society conferences, but at INET '96 a broader focus was introduced. The theme of the conference was "The Internet is Transforming Our Society Now." And the conference demonstrated this was true. The contributions of Canadians to the conference which was held in Montreal, Canada established a focus that set a standard for the conference. Canadian speakers like Garth Graham, of Telecommunities Canada, Leslie Shade, and Andrew Clement from the University of Toronto, and Marita Moll from the Canadian Teachers' Federation, gave talks challenging the American efforts to establish hegemonic dominance and a commercialized Internet. Unlike the prevalent activity in the U.S. to get a piece of the pie, as commercial entities are doing or as some of the libraries and non- profits are doing to abandon universal service for the home users,* the Canadians are in battle at the provincial and federal levels, pressuring government officials to help to make universal access to the Net available to all Canadians. This was evident when Keith Spicer, the retiring chairman of the Canadian CRTC, spoke at the conference. He began by saying that Canadian businesses had made a serious mistake. When first trying to profit from the Internet as an entertainment medium, they didn't make the profits expected from the Internet. It was subsequently recognized that the Internet is an education medium. As such, Canadians asked what was being done to make the Internet available to all Canadians. When Spicer commented that among Canadians there was a sense that wherever one lived, they were entitled to the same access to the same communications media, one Canadian in the audience corrected him, observing, "It's in our Constitution." The Conference provided the occasion for a variety of Canadian government officials to announce special initiatives to support the spread of the Internet in Canada. Not only did government officials attend and speak, but other public officials came and presented the variety of projects they are involved with. Educators outlined the need for educa tional policy in Canada emphasizing the importance of the Internet for reforming and improving education. They described interesting projects with students exploring how the Internet could be helpful in their education. Health care workers presented how the Internet was being used to support more efficient and less expensive health care efforts. Foreign aid workers described how they were using the Internet in their efforts. High school students attended and spoke up at sessions explaining how students in high schools are eager to have more access to the Internet, etc. Not only was Canada well represented at the conference, but French Canada was also well represented. Several Canadian government officials from French speaking Canada indicated new initiatives to spread the Internet among French speaking Canadians, and to increase French language content on the Internet. Along with significant contributions by Canadians, there were contributions by people from Japan, Australia, Malta, and other countries around the world describing government supported initiatives . U.S. government officials, however, who spoke, like George Strawn from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF Division of Networking, Communications Research and Infrastructure), stood out in stark contrast. Strawn described how as a U.S. government official, he had decided to call a meeting of 130 service providers to tell them to figure out how to have governance of the Internet. When asked a question as to how he as a government official determined why to call such a meeting and whom to invite to discuss how to govern the Internet, he answered that since the NSF was privatizing the Internet, he thought calling such a meeting was a "good" idea. Such statements by U.S. government officials like Strawn, and Blair Levin, the FCC official who spoke at a keynote session in place of the scheduled speaker Reed Hundt, stood out in contrast to those of the Canadians and their government officials who were working to make access more broadly available. U.S. government officials like Strawn and Levin have demonstrated how the U.S. executive or legislative branches have failed to carry out enlightened or democratic policy regarding the future development of the Internet in the U.S. Early on at a press conference, Internet officials were asked what they were doing to build on the history and principles that had helped create the Internet. The new President and CEO of the Internet Society, George M. Heath, responded that that was something they would try to include in future programs. The theme of whether the future development of the Internet will build on the past principles, continued to be a concern of those in the audience during subsequent sessions. At the Thursday Plenary Session, Vint Cerf chaired a session about "Will the Internet Survive?" Mike Roberts was added to the panel announced in the program. Roberts spoke about how people from the scientific and educational communities felt disenfranchised by the growing commercialization of the Internet. The question was raised as to whether the Internet would be the victim of the tragedy of the commons. Questioning him, Rolf Nordhagen, a Professor from the University of Oslo in Norway, and an Internet pioneer, asked what the Internet Society was doing to prevent the tragedy from occurring. Some commentators spoke about how this was one of the first conferences where people were openly challenging and questioning the Internet Society. At the first press conference, a press representative from Malaysia, which is to host INET'97, asked the Internet Society to realize that there was a need to have people other than company representatives go around to countries to represent the Internet, as company representatives were trying to sell something and thus couldn't be trusted. Other memorable events included a talk by Dave Sutherland, of National Capital Free-Net, describing how Free-Nets provide a helpful and low cost model for connecting the schools in a community to the Internet; Marita Moll's workshop where people broke into groups to discuss their experiences and observations about how the Internet was being introduced in the schools; the discussion in the last session of Track E "Internet and Social Transformation" where people began to grapple with the need for universal access to the Net if it is to truly fulfill its promise; the conversation with Nicholas Luca of the Chilean press about the importance of the Internet because it offers something gratuitous; seeing Internet pioneers Larry Landwebber and Jon Postel talking at the conference and recognizing all the work they along with many other pioneers have done to make the Internet a reality; and wishing I had a camera to take their photo. I met several Internet Society members from Japan and had several long conversation on how to spread the Internet and concerning the problem of having the Internet connect people who speak different languages. It was helpful to hear the efforts of a teacher in rural Wisconsin to introduce the Internet to his students, only to have his principal ask if he was covering the curriculum. Such discussions helped to put in perspective the battles in New York City we have had trying to extend Internet access to all. The story of how a student from a middle school in rural Wisconsin who got access to a fan club newsgroup and was able to interview a prominent musician for a school newspaper article helped to clarify the empowering nature of the Internet. He explained the surprise of some in the newsgroup to the fact that he was only a middle school student and yet had done a substantial interview. Also, I met someone I had exchanged e-mail with three years earlier, talked at lunch with a university librarian who'd come to the conference from Malta to learn how the Internet was going to change the world, etc. During the session on Empowerment, the paper presented by Michael Hauben "The Effect of the Net on the Professional News Media: The Man-Computer News Symbiosis" (See article [2] of this issue), led to the question of whether the effects of the Net are being experienced in political situations off the Net. Those in the session agreed that this was an important question that it would be good to discuss further, and one participant took the names of people at the session promising to set up a mailing list. The Internet Society had originally announced that the conference would provide an opportunity to raise and discuss the hard questions and disagreements among those concerned with the future of the Internet. The conference did indeed provide that opportunity, especially in the discussions one had with people during and outside of formal sessions. One of the frustrations of the conference was the fact that at several sessions speakers announced others not in the program who they then gave the microphone to to give a talk not provided for in the official program. Those who had come to hear the talks listed on the program found themselves in a situation where they were forced to listen to other talks and speakers they hadn't planned or determined they wanted to hear. Another weakness was the process of choosing papers. A number of those whose papers had been accepted for presentation didn't appear at the conference to give their papers, nor were any arrangements made for others to substitute. And sometimes even the session chairpersons didn't know whether particular speakers on the program were going to be present. At least one abstract of a proposed paper was submitted, with no formal acceptance or rejection ever being received about the submission. There is now the request the Internet Society examine how this happened so that it not reoccur. Also, the conference failed to include any papers or discussions providing perspective from the history and development of the Internet so that there could be discussion of the principles that the Internet was built on and how to continue to build on those principles. Instead there was a commercial model of development presented, as in the keynote talk given by John P. Mogridge, Chairman of Cisco Systems, making it seem as if the Internet should and did develop as a corporation and should just continue in that line of development. No comments or questions or discussion were allowed after his talk. While several papers criticizing the Internet were accepted for presentation, other papers documenting the important new development represented by the Internet weren't accepted. And there was a decidedly pro-"commercialize the Internet" focus in a number of the papers or panels, especially in the keynote talks. The high cost of attending the conference excluded many who wanted to attend and who could have broadened the discussion. Also, many whose papers were accepted couldn't afford the price of conference attendance and so couldn't attend the receptions or other events of the conference. Papers on the history and development of the Internet were excluded, while papers documenting the history of other media like cable and public access TV were included, thus denying the importance of an examination of the unique factors of Internet development. The result was that too much of the proceedings presented a pessimistic view of the future of the Internet as a liberating media, and proposed instead a plan for a commercialization of the Internet. Despite these weaknesses, this reporter wants to extend a grateful thank you to the organizers from the Internet Society in particular, and to those who attended from around the world, in general for making the conference such a memorable occasion. The conference demonstrated that the Internet has been produced and is producing a community of Netizens around the world. Though there are battles and difficulties along the way, there are many working to find a helpful path forward for the Net. Next year, the conference will be in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and one can only envy those who will be able to attend. Many of the papers presented at the conference are available online at: http://www.isoc.org/inet96/proceedings/ * The US Telecommunications Act of 1996 promises libraries and non-profits low cost access as replacement for universal service provisions to homes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 7 no 2 Winter 1997 available free via email from jrh@umcc.umich.edu and http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~jrh/acn -----------------------------------------------------------------------