Intertest Draft Preparation

From IUCG - Internet Users Contributing Group

Contents 1 Introduction 2 The new Internet paradigm 2.1 The IAB identified areas for R&D 2.2 National Strategies to Secure Cyberspace 2.3 The ISOC user-centric vision of the Internet 2.4 The WSIS assigned objectives 2.4.1 Global facility for commerce and trade 2.4.2 Person Centric 2.4.3 Trust Protection 2.4.4 Shared information, knowledge, and services space 2.4.5 Sustainable development 2.4.6 Regalian domain 2.4.7 Multiculturalism and Multilinguism 2.4.8 Normative & RD community 2.4.9 Multilateral Governance 2.5 The Semantic extension 2.5.1 Data stratum 2.5.2 Content stratum 2.5.3 Semantic stratum 2.6 Privacy Sensible Technologies 2.6.1 RFID support 2.6.2 Nanoisation 2.6.3 Facilitation Technologies 2.7 Architectural Implications of these objectives 3 The Intertest notion 3.1 The Intertest rationale 3.2 the consequences 3.3 Multiconsensus 3.4 Experimentation Charter 4 The intertesters 4.1 Economy 4.1.1 technology transfer, international cooperation, and capaciry building 4.1.2 a major challenge in sotware development. 4.2 Standardization 4.3 New participants 5 Intertest technical environment 5.1 Careful extension intertesting 5.1.1 Basic principles 5.1.2 Architectural and protocol extension criteria 5.1.3 Extension types 5.1.4 Reserved Fields 5.1.5 Encoding Formats 5.2 Commonly accepted architectural principles 5.3 Security Culture 5.4 Intertest areas of experimentation 5.5 Intertest numbers 5.6 Mediator 5.7 Facilitator 5.8 Technical transition to Operations 6 Intertest Intergovernance environment 6.1 Basic principles 6.2 Intertest Governance Forum 6.2.1 Dynamic Coalition Relations 6.2.2 Enhanced Cooperations Relations 6.3 Intertest Enhanced Cooperation 6.3.1 the WIKIGF site 6.4 = the MULTINIC site 6.4.1 the IRFC Editor 6.4.2 the Intertest site 6.4.3 MDRS 6.4.4 Multicode 6.5 3166-4 = 6.5.1 WECANN 6.6 Intertest Technical Fora 6.6.1 the INTF site 6.6.2 relation with SSDOs 6.7 = World Intertest User Society 7 Intertest open architectural vocabulary 7.1 the Notion concept 7.2 Human Semiotic, Mediatic, and Transmission Processes 7.3 Computer assisted mediation and facilitation 7.4 Multilinguistics 7.4.1 Relational Spaces 7.4.2 Externets 7.4.3 Language Definitions 7.4.4 Linguistic Support 7.4.5 Relational Security (ME/WE) 7.4.6 Communications types 7.4.7 Semantic Security 8 Security Considerations 8.1 Physical Security 8.2 Logical Security 8.3 Semantic security 9 IANA Considerations 9.1 Intertest Registry 9.2 IANA / MDRS relations 10 Acknowledgments 11 References

Introduction

The success of the Internet and the guarantee of Internet stability rest on the cooperative activities of thousands, even millions, of people and institutions collaborating worldwide towards a common end. This extraordinary - even unprecedented - community effort has served to impel the incredible growth of the Internet.

Many of these people and institutions compete intensely among themselves yet agree to do so within a common framework for the overall public good. Their collective efforts provide a policy framework for technical and entrepreneurial innovation, and the advancement of economic, social, and educational goals.

Most members of their global community and most institutions with which they are associated recognize that responsible experimentation is essential to the vitality of the Internet and that it is their best long-term interests to work within community-based testing processes, even if that means foregoing short-term advantages to particular individuals or groups.

This is because the outcome of orderly testing processes based on the wishes and participation of the community is assurance that the Internet will not become captured by the self-interests of the few but continue to function in a stable and holistic manner that benefits the global community, even when it may lead to the introduction of new architectures that may ultimately obviate the current established solutions.

Capitalizing on the Internet success, the World Submit on the Information Society has assigned a new set of objectives for an Internet where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The resulting simultaneous search for ad-hoc governance relations, introduction of new architectures along RFC 1958, understanding of societal, lingual, and cultural implications, convergence with other global technologies, transition towards the future of the Internet, deployment of the semantic strata, nanoisation impact, translation of experiments into production, etc. require such large scale, diversified, and parallel architecture and governance experimentations that they call for the whole global Internet and community themselves to be used as a test-bed in community-accepted real-life conditions.

This is the best tradition of the Internet to carefully consider and organize the conditions of such long, involved, and global experimentations where the Internet becomes its own Intertest, so as not to interfere with the e-commercial operations of the Internet, in operating within community-established norms and a full respect of the personal sphere.

This memo describes these norms and their context. It is based on acquired and community documented experience. It will consider:

• the new required Internet paradigms,
• the implications on design, decision process, testing, and - as a last part - on financing and deployment.
• the conditions to preserve stability, subsidiarity, unity and interoperability of the intergovernance of the resulting networks of the network of networks architecture.
• a terminology attempt for a mutual positionning within the R&D convergence while most of the investigated features are younger than the words describing them.

Such norms should be, in the minds of most, a price worth paying to ensure that community-respectful policies, based upon responsible experimentation and designed to further advance the Internet as a useful, stable, and accessible medium for the public good, can take precedence.

The new Internet paradigm

This part will consider seven sources of evolution of the internet paradigm:

• RFC 3869 by IAB.
• National Strategies to Secure Cyberspace.
• the ISOC vision
• the WSIS objectives.
• the semantic evolution.
• new privacy sensible technologies
• architectural considerations

It will then try to summarise the possible resulting evolutions of the Internet paradigm to be expected.

The IAB identified areas for R&D

[RFC 3869] discusses IAB concerns that ongoing research is needed to further the evolution of the Internet infrastructure. It provides an incomplete set of open Internet research topics to illustrate the breadth of open research topics. Their research is needed on an on-going basis to further the evolution of the Internet.

Areas that are discussed include:

• naming: DNS, New Namespaces, multilevel naming, semantic addressing, IDNS
• routing: Inter-domain Routing, Integrity, algorithm, mobile and ad-hoc routing
• security, formal methodes, key management, cryptography, Security for Distributed Computing, Deployment Considerations, Denial of Service Protection
• network management, Managing Networks, Enhanced Monitoring Capabilities, Customer Network Management, Autonomous Network Management, Quality of Service, Inter-Domain QoS Architecture, new Queuing Disciplines, Congestion Control
• transport.
• layering, and inter-layer communications.
• modeling,
• measurement and statistics,
• simulation,
• test-beds,
• applications, etc.
• etc.

However, the IAB does not intend to be comprehensive. It would be a daunting task presupposing an intensive effort in pure waste as in addition, there are grand controversies between competing proposals or competing schools of thought, and therefore a need for further research, new propositions and comparative testing.

National Strategies to Secure Cyberspace

After 9/11 the US Government has been the first to publish a doctrine for a Secure Cyberspace. It is an implementing component of the National Strategy for Homeland Secruity. It is complemented by a National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets. The French france@large AFRAC project resulted from the Internet Community dot-root experimentation: it particularly worked on national, cultural and proprietary information protection, DNS resilience, reaction to nationwide catastrophes and critical disruptions. Both considered issues like secure routing, DNS data protection, BGP, etc. Every other country (will) share the same concerns, adapt, adopt and possibly extend the same strategies.

The Internet is identified as being at the core of the national information and digital ecosystem. National security, essential services and infrastructures totally depend from a technology which was not designed to be protected from any malicious action. The priorities are to:

• prevent debilitating cyber attacks against critical infrastructures and key economic functions.
• reduce national vulnerability to cyber attacks, espionage, and erosion of the public confidence in information systems;
• minimize damages and recovery time from cyber attacks that do occur.

This leads to a particular regalian role of Governments in securing their national cyberspace.

• public-private engagement, information exchange and cooperation are key component of a secure cyberspace strategy. It may involve awareness, training, technological improvement, vulnerability remediation, and recovery operations.
• en e-regalian area including: forensic and attack attribution, protection of networks and systems critical o national security, indications and warnings, protection against organized debilitating attacks, support of research and technology development or transfers, international cyberspace security cooperation.
• citizen and common good protection, calling for some parts of the Internet operations to be considered as public services.

As a result the Internet technology should develop in order to best support:

• public-private architecture for responding to national-level cyber incidents;
• development of tactical and strategy analysis of cyber attacks and vulnerability assesments;
• everyone's capablity to share a synoptic view of the health of cyberspace;
• cyber warning and information of the government agencies and of the public;
• national incident and recovery management;
• voluntary participation in public-private continuity, contingency plans, procedures and practices;
• a network design for cybesecurity and operations continuity plans;
• law enforcement support and respect of national constitutions.

The ISOC user-centric vision of the Internet

ISOC identifies a range of challenges that could impact the distributed, end-to-end and open nature of its user-centric vision of the Internet. The challenges are related to Network Neutrality, Next Generation Networks, access regulation (unbundling), competition, changes in Internet usage patterns, explosion of content consumption and creation. ISOC is concerned by an insufficent focus of the fundamental user-focused principles the Internet is built upon.

ISOC thinks important that the Internet stays available as a tool (for use) as well as another medium for viewing content. The communication environment is changing with likely implications for the future of the Internet that may threaten the user capacity of choice, so market entry barriers must be lowed. Viability of the Internet call for responses in terms of QoS management and bandwidth provisionning without removing control from the user and the intelligence from the edge. ISOC fears a struggle between a free user-centricity and a consumer oriented closed network-centricity.

ISOC concieves user-centricity as a capacity of choice and control among a set of options it wants to see preserved. It quotes Vint Cerf "give[s] consumers choice and control over their online activities". It does not sees the user as an authoritative system manager freely building his/her system. ISOC believes that the Internet is a unique tool, and a users' ability o wield this tool should not be fettered.

However, it is interesting to compare these positions with:

• IETF RFC 3935 which says that the Internet is not neutral to some different values as decentralized [not distributed] control, edge-user [not user-centric] empowerment and sharing of resources [not open nature] which have little to do with the technology that is possible, and much to do with the technology that it chooses to create.
• the ISOC 2007 Board Book which states: "the genius of the Internet is that its decentralized [not distributed] architecture maximizes individual users' power to chose (or create) and use the hardware, software and services that best meet their needs,and if the Internet is to continue to be a platform for innovation and creativité, its open, decentralized [not distributed] nature must be preserved.

The WSIS assigned objectives

Throughout its four published documents the WSIS shapes the world requirements for the Internet of today and its innovative future.

Global facility for commerce and trade

The WSIS acknowledges that the Internet is a central element of the infrastructure of the Information Society, and has evolved from a research and academic facility into a global facility available to the public. The focus now should be to enhance access and trade, based on an equitable distribution of resources giving access for all. This calls for a stable and secure functioning of the Internet, that will increase competition, freedom of choice and affordability, and enable all stakeholders to evaluate which solution best meets their requirements and leading to technological measures by business and users.

Person Centric

Such a network must be people centered, so governments, private sector, civil society, scientific and academic community, as users can utilize various technologies in accordance with their interests, with the need to access services and implement effective programmes for their people, regardless of the specific underlying technology. This will first take into account the needs of users and consumers and the principles Universal Declaration of Human Rights, permitting them to access, and trust the Internet in their own language worldwide.

Trust Protection

Such a trust will also result from enhancing security to ensure the protection of data and privacy. Information security, network security, authentication, respect of privacy, respect for privacy and the protection of personal informatio, and consumer protection MUST be insured.

Shared information, knowledge, and services space

The target is that people everywhere can create, access, utilize, share, and exchange information and knowledge, along shared best practices. To that end principles and metadata standards to facilitate direct collaboration in science, technology and higher education are to be developped towards an effective use of collected scientific information and data by scientific research.

Sustainable development

The Internet will be development-oriented, taking into account the level of social and economic development of each country, respecting and supporting the deployment-oriented aspects of the Information Society. It will help overcome the digital divide more efficiently and explore new possibilities to alleviate the challenges of illiteracy through affordable technologies with a priority to non text-based computer interfaces to facilitate people’s access to ICTs.

Regalian domain

The Internet will help increasing international cooperation along the Charter of United Nationals, international law and multilateralism, upholding the principle of the sovereign equality of all States: for example, countries SHOULD NOT not be involved in decisions regarding another country’s country-code ccTLD. All governments should have an equal role and responsibility, for international Internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of the Internet. The legitimate interests, expressed and defined by each country need to be respected, upheld and addressed via a flexible and improved framework and mechanisms promoting the development of advanced research networks, at national, regional and international levels.

Multiculturalism and Multilinguism

Cultural diversity is the common heritage of humankind, this is why the Internet MUST help protect and promote cultural diversity, as well as cultural identities. It MUST take into account multilingualism and foster dialogue among cultures and civilizations for the inclusion of all peoples through the development use of local and/or indigenous languages in ICTs. It MUST permit to respect cultural identities, linguistic diversity, traditions and religions. A special attention must be given to the special situation of indigenous peoples and to the preservation of their heritage and their cultural legacy.

The first step in the fight against the linguistic digital divide is to advance in the process of multilingual domain names, e-mail addresses and keyword look-up and in supporting multilingual content on the Internet.

Normative & RD community

Standardization is one of the essential building blocks of virtuality which must foster interoperability in respecting the common norm which describes normality. A particular emphasis is to be put on the development and adoption of international and open, interoperable, nondiscriminatory and demand-driven standards. Research and cooperation between relevant bodies for technical standards and global deployment should be encouraged, as well as promoted awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models, and the means of their creation (including proprietary, open-source and free software). This research and standardization should extend to innovative forms of networking, adaptation of ICT infrastructure, tools and applications, and governance as an on-going research on the Information Society itself.

Multilateral Governance

Internet governance should constitute a core of the Information Society. To that end it must be multilateral, transparent and democratic, and ensure the participation of all. It will call on the full involvement of regalian domain, private sector, civil society, international organizations and technical and normative community. It includes more than Internet naming and addressing. It also includes inter alia, security and safety of the Internet, developmental aspects and issues pertaining to the use of the Internet, assistance and coordination in developing multi-stakeholder and public/private partnerships.

The Semantic extension

The purpose of Human communications is to permit a locutor to best share his own representations with his allocutors. This is carried through the utterance semiotic process and across a wide range of mediums, from light for signs, air for voice, stone or paper for scripts, messengers and ambassadors, posts, telex, cinema, telephone, radio, TV, etc. and the Internet. Each of them has its capacities, constraints and specific advantages that are used through a wide variety of exchange, communication, and relation protocols.

One can distinguish three main strata which mediate utterances as data, content, or meaning. In the digital area, we can historically and technically associate them to telecommunications, datacommunications and metacommunications.

Data stratum

The basic service performed by this stratum is to exchange the data of an object. This may be on an analytic or on a bit to bit basis, through plug to plug/eye to eye/ear to ear transparent connexions.

If one sends an "A" in a squared enveloppe, one receives an "A" in a squared enveloppe. Any difference between what is sent and what is received is an error calling for repetition.

This includes the natural and historic understandings of communications, based upon analogic sound, graph, sign, as well as digital emulating analogic services, like the digital telephone.

These interconnection services are host centric, making the sender authorititative through a monologue process. They convey a centralised master/slave network culture.

Content stratum

The value added service performed by this stratum is to exchange contents on a structured basis: document, file, mail, etc. It adapts the presentation of the content to the practical needs of the receiver.

1. If one send an "A" in a squared enveloppe, one may receive an "A" in an adapted rectangular enveloppe, due to the requirements of the receiver systems and the (tacit) agreement of the sender.

2. Any accidental difference between the sent content and the received content is corrected by the stratum before being delivered, in order to insure a reliable end to end communication service.

This has been permited by the digitalization of the data stratum permitting to aggregate, use and control data packets debuiling/rebuiling the content transfered through the medium. This has lead to an impressive number of specialised and efficient data communications protocols, but has not reached yet the maturity of a network interoperation system.

These interoperation services are controled on an end to end basis. They are by network centric. They make the received content authoritative. They tend to convey a client/server decentralised approach of the network architecture.

Semantic stratum

The target of semiotic exchange is to transmit knowledge and reach mutual understanding. This calls for all the information that a person think necessary to know to be received by another person for a mutual representation comprehension - this means that their two knowledges "comprehend" the same number of informations. It is to be noted that there may be different sources and exchanges of information. This means that there can be various referents, contexts, adjustments, etc. being involved to be determined.

• The data stratum supports a rustic, slow and uncertain protocol to exchange the necessary knowledge support (content) on a bit per bit basis.
• The content stratum makes sure that all the necessary information (the difference between the sending and receiving knowledges) is communicated, inspite of their dissimetries. However, this does not mean the full relation is accomplished, i.e. that the receiving brain has the same grasp as the sending one. Local, contextual, and referential dissimetries in the process of understanding the semantic which has been received (pragmatic) is still to be performed.
• The semantic stratum will have to protect the semantic (meaning) enunciated in the utterance in taking care of the differences of a pragmatic perception.

This means that:

If one brain sends "A", there is the need of a facilitation process to transform it in "B" if the receiving brain understands "A" as "B". A simple example is translation: RFC 4236 HTTP oriented OPES, for example, will provide the content massaging necessary to display in Spanish sent in French.

within relational spaces adjustments may occur which need to be inter-operated. If the sending brain knows that the receiving brain understands "A" as "B", it may want to directly send "B" and ignore that the receiving brain will understand "B" as "B1". There is therefore the need to extend the origin's enunciation process (building the utterance) to the receiving interpretation process.

These services are therefore mutually (sender and receiver) managed (peer to peer), authoritative (person to person) and pragmatic, which means that the exchanged representations dependent from (1) the exchanged semantic, (2) referential (relational space), environmental and contextual (specific relation) elements and of which degree they are shared, the (3) used facilitation services. This is a polylogue process where various natural, human or artificial brains may contribute, which calls for a distributed vision of the network architecture.

Privacy Sensible Technologies

Many countries considers privacy as the heart of their model of society. Technologies will therefore only become successful in these countries, and therefore on a worldwide basis, if they do not call into question the capability of every person to control the use of his or her personal data. This is why these countries expect the industry to assume its responsibilities. This is why particular care for privacy and personal data protection is to be brought to the support to new emerging technologies.

RFID support

RFID tags are far cleverer than traditional bar codes. They have the potential to link everyday objects into an 'Internet of Things' that will greatly enhance economic prosperity and the quality of life. But as with any breakthrough, there is a possible downside - in this case, the implications of RFID for privacy. This is why there is a need to credible safeguards in this "Internet of Things".

Nanoisation

Nanoisation still extends the same need to the "Internet of Life" since nanosystems will most probably be loaded in things but also in living cells.

Facilitation Technologies

This need is further extended by intellectual enonciation and interpretation facilitation technologies since they will deal with the very thought of the persons.

Architectural Implications of these objectives

The SMSI specified objectives which it assigns to the Internet as convergence of the media of the world digital ecosystem (WDE). These objectives capitalize on the contribution of the current Internet and are going to demand the emergence of new conceptions and solutions. These will inevitably:

- result from a transparent evolution of the current system. It should not question the existing infrastructural investment in terms of lines and machines. It should thus mostly be an uncoupled evolution of the logical superstructure.

- require an architectural equivalence to the multilateral, hétérarchical and distributed nature of the supported Information Society by user-centric communication solutions, respectful of the sovereign powers and regalian protections, and thus harmonious interaction, coopetitive solutions, and parallel different practices brought to the resolution of the same need or the same function.

- evolve towards the semantic strata to completely support the exchange not only of knowledges but also meanings), so as to allow inter-understanding in a space of crossed relational exchanges.

- demand an adapted decision process and pertinence control, capable of working in a multilingual research environment, and to be understood and accepted throughout the lingual and cultural diversity.

- personalisation (privacy, empowerment, facilitation). Routing control. Encryption.

The Intertest notion

The Intertest is the notion to use the Internet as its own constant test-bed to experiment in parallel the smooth evolution of the components of the existing paradigm and the additions of new concepts, in order to match the requirements of the new paradigm.

The Intertest rationale

The Intertest propositions consider three fundamental aspects:

• IAB RFC 3869 indentifies that for some research clearly relevant to the future evolution of the Internet, there are grand controversies between competing proposals or competing schools of thought. In order to avoid to take premature positions in these controversies, or to take positions on the nature of the solutions for areas needing further research, competitive experimentation is the best way to compare and help taking positions or offering complementary solutions. Only the whole Internet can mimmick its oneself for such fundamental experimentation.

• the need is also to experiment how proposed solution behave in the environment of the other proposed solutions. This kind of cross-experimentation is necessary to the validation of the robustness and transition capability of the new propositions.

• this multiple coopetitive parallel and cross-testing of a distributed environment cannot be coordinated nor cooperated. It can only be a concerted notion, supported by a progressive adherence to a common axiology. This axiology will become the Intertest paradigm and, possibly, part of the Internet paradigm evolution.

This notion and its supporting virtual open walled garden (or "externet") as it results from the norms documented in this memo is named the Intertest.

The Internet remains a highly dynamic medium and therefore any framework and mechanisms designed to deal with Internet governance should be inclusive and responsive to the exponential growth and fast evolution of the Internet as a common platform for the development of multiple applications. There is therefore a need to consider and intertest a comprehensive Internet, melting topics such as: governance structures, users reactions, requests and suggestions, modeling, standardisation and documentation, naming, routing, security, national protection, network management, military and defense issues, measurements and statistics, semantic issues, service applications, etc..

This Intertest is not to experiment an innovation which could call for complete infrastructural changes, but for innovative, diversified, or specialised progress towards smarter use of the existing infrastructure, as an incitation to its own pragmatic progress. This progress is from a single Internet to a pural Internet in order to prevent its balkanisation into several Internets. This plural is to involve its intergovernance, cultures, languages, architecture, services, engineering, documentation, architecture.

The use of the Internet as its own intertest-bed will not help testing a new Internet. This is the role of projects like GENI. Its focus is to:

• validate proven developments at network level. This is already done by the market itself. Concerting through an intertesting may, however, simplify or speed-up this process. This is something that the IDN Fast-Track ICANN project set-up documents.

• intertest new ways to consider the same Internet, in order to compare their advantage and demonstrate that the transition is seamless in showing that the new visions are transparent to regular operations along the legacy vision.

This has an impact on the way to agree, fund, and experiment.

the consequences

These implications may have a major impact on the ways and processes of the Internet technical community and on its deliverables.

the existing components should be duplicated by open test-beds for their evolution in the Intetest context. This concerns :

• decision process that should extend from rough consensus to multiconsensus.

Multiconsensus

The nature of the world is heterarchical, multilateral, and competitive. Human and technical hierarchies, as well as their rough consensus, can only be local, yet global network interoperations call for global mutual agreements over protocols.

There are two ways of reaching such global agreements:

• constraining the world (this is usually described as "internationalization") to a rough consensus found among "experts". This leads to the technocracy of non controlled leading affinity groups.
• adopting a multiconsensus approach: every proposition gathers the diversity of consensual propositions separately developped and tested among concerned stakeholders groups, and the interoperation solutions they agreed and agreed. Since these solutions can be successive, this also means that this documentation must be kept updated.

The World Submit on the Society of Information (WSIS) has acknowledged the need of a multiconsensual design (interoperable standards), use (concerted governance), and management (enhanced cooperation) among five main poles :

• civil society
• private sector
• regalian domain
• international entities
• normative and R&D community.

Multiconsensus needs a control mechanism. To some extent "rough consensus" can be controlled by the users' or the market response. The complexity of multiconsensus and its dependability on the attitude of each of the stakeholders means that such a response is much slower and paved by conflicts.

This is the role of the intertesting to permit a multiconsensus, the pragmatic interoperability of its solutions, and the resilience to its diversity to be competitively, comparatively and transparently evaluated in common. Until a documented consensus is found about the considered multiconsensus equilibrium and stability.

Similarly, this document is not intended to list the research questions that are judged to be only of peripheral importance, or to survey the current (global; governmental, commercial, and academic) avenues for funding for Internet research, or to make specific recommendations about which areas need additional funding. The purpose of the document is to persuade the reader that ongoing research is needed towards the continued evolution of the Internet infrastructure; the purpose is not to make binding pronouncements about which specific areas are and are not worthy of future funding.

For some research clearly relevant to the future evolution of the Internet, there are grand controversies between competing proposals or competing schools of thought; it is not the purpose of this document to take positions in these controversies, or to take positions on the nature of the solutions for areas needing further research.

Experimentation Charter

To encourage research on the Information Society, including on innovative forms of networking, adaptation of ICT infrastructure, tools and applications that facilitate accessibility of ICTs for all, and disadvantaged groups in particular, must not endanger the regular Internet operations. The security and stability of the Internet must be maintained and protected.

ICANN ICP-3 document underlines that experimentation has always been an essential component of the Internet's vitality. Working within the system does not preclude experimentation, including experimentation with alternate architectures. But these activities must be done responsibly, in a manner that does not disrupt the ongoing activities of others and that is managed according to experimental protocols.

Every technical, governance, usage, legal, political, societal, etc. oriented experiments should be encouraged. Experiments and mutual intertesting, however, almost by definition have certain characteristics to avoid harm. This is why to be labeled as "intertests" and accepted as such by the community, every project MUST document and be able to demonstrate how it complies with obligations of:

1. identification: they are clearly labeled as experiments.
2. reversibility: it is well understood that these experiments may end without establishing any prior claims on future directions.
3. coordination: they are appropriately coordinated within a community-based framework, such as the Intertest framework documented by this memo.
4. concerted: they mutually concert their experiments in the best cooperation spirit based upon the research interest rather that on the size of the experimenters.
5. transparent: they are fully publicized and they openly report their results.
6. multiconsensus dependent: the experimenters commit to adapt to multiconsensus-based standards, supported through enhanced cooperation, when they emerge through IGF community-based process.

This is very different from launching commercial pseudo-tests that could lull users into a sense of permanence without any sense of the foregoing obligations or contingencies.

The intertesters

Economy

Many significant research contributions in networking have come from commercial funding. However, relying on commercially-funded intertesting of scale would not be adequate.

In order to bring significant results, Internet wide testing has to be transparent and the largest number of significant testers to participate. This means Community testing. Such community testing is not compatible with individual or corporate efforts to gain proprietary advantage, this is why if commercial funding was the main source of funding for the Intertest research and operations, it would be perceived as a way to acquire market shares and would be of low interest.

In addition to issues about which intertestings would be funded, the funding sources could also affect the content of the experimentation and collateral research, for example, as IAB mention it in RFC 3869, towards or against the development of open standards, or taking varying degrees of testing care about the effect of the tested protocols on the other traffic on the Internet. Actually, much of today's commercial funding is focused on technology transition, taking results from non-commercial research and lead user propositions, and putting them into shipping commercial products.

There is however an adverse pragmatic: the current free software developpers culture is more interested in application development than in networked projects which call for long preparatory works, testing, and limited changes until stability is reached.

It is believed there are at least two kinds of answers:

technology transfer, international cooperation, and capaciry building

We encourage governments and other stakeholders, through partnerships where appropriate, to promote ICT education and training in developing countries, by establishing national strategies for ICT integration in education and workforce development and dedicating appropriate resources. Furthermore, international cooperation would be extended, on a voluntary basis, for capacity building in areas relevant to Internet governance. This may include, in particular, building centres of expertise and other institutions to facilitate know-how transfer and exchange of best practices, in order to enhance the participation of developing countries and all stakeholders in Internet governance mechanisms

through the promotion of national, regional and international multi-stakeholder partnerships including Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), and the promotion of national and regional multi-stakeholder thematic platforms, in a joint effort and dialogue with developing and less developed countries, development partners and actors in the ICT sector. In that respect, we welcome partnerships such as the ITU-led Connect the World initiative.

Given the wide range of ICT and information specialists required at all levels, building institutional capacity deserves special attention

a major challenge in sotware development.

A major challenge in sotware development leading to a real technical step ahead can motivate public, private and civil investment and free . ==== This is the case of Netix as an open source network interoperating system

• Promoting the development of advanced research networks, at national, regional and international levels, in order to improve collaboration in science, technology and higher education.
• Promoting voluntary service, at the community level, to help maximize the developmental impact of ICTs, including its local standardization and R&D support.

Standardization

Standardization is one of the essential building blocks of the Information Society. There should be particular emphasis on the development and adoption of international standards. The development and use of open, interoperable, nondiscriminatory and demand-driven standards that take into account needs of users and consumers is a basic element for the development and greater diffusion of ICTs and more affordable access to them, particularly in and through development and testing by developing countries. International standards aim to create an environment where consumers can access services worldwide regardless of underlying technology.

Standardization capacity building is a priority. Developping countries demand solutions the entire world may benefit from. This is why intertesting must be equally carried by developping countries, starting with the creation of local volontary standardization organizations if no one already exists. Their first task will be to maintain national metadata permitting to fully include them in international or intergovernance intertesting projects.

New participants

We commit to working earnestly towards multilingualization of the Internet, as part of a multilateral, transparent and democratic process, involving governments and all stakeholders, in their respective roles. In this context, we also support local content development, translation and adaptation, digital archives, and diverse forms of digital and traditional media, and recognize that these activities can also strengthen local and indigenous communities. We would therefore underline the need to:

• advance the process for the introduction of multilingualism in a number of areas including domain names, e-mail addresses and keyword look-up;

• implement programmes that allow for the presence of multilingual domain names and content on the Internet and the use of various software models in order to fight against the linguistic digital divide and ensure the participation of all in the emerging new society;

• strengthen cooperation between relevant bodies for the further development of technical standards and to foster their global deployment.

Intertest technical environment

The Internet and its architecture have grown in evolutionary fashion from modest beginnings, rather than from a Grand Plan [RFC 1958 ]. Its further growth meets four challenges:

• a careful extension of the current protocols,
• an architecturally consistent innovation able to address the world's need
• within a coherent convergence model with the other technologies and their common ways of use.
• a multilingualisation of the Internet development environment permitting an equal access and usage to all, with the development of softwares that renders themselves easily to localization, and enable users to choose appropriate solutions from different software models including open-source, free and proprietary software.

Careful extension intertesting

Internet protocols typically include mechanisms whereby they can be extended in the future, this permits a seamless progression of the existing Internet because well-designed extensibility mechanisms facilitate the evolution of protocols and help make it easier to intertest and intervalidate the roll out of incremental changes in an interoperable fashion.

The coordination of multi-stakeholder implementation activities would help to avoid duplication of activities. This should include, inter alia, information exchange, creation of knowledge, sharing of best practices, and assistance in developing multi-stakeholder and public/private partnership

Basic principles

Extensions to be proposed and intertested should match the following principles as developed by [Draft on versions by Carpenter]:

1. Extensibility features should be limited to what is clearly necessary when the protocol is developed.
2. Protocol extensions should be designed for global interoperability.
3. Protocol extension mechanisms should not be used to create incompatible protocol variations.
4. Extension mechanisms need to be fully documented.
5. Extension mechanisms need to be testable.
6. Protocol parameters should be registered and used for their intended purpose.
7. Extensions to critical infrastructure should not impact the security or reliability of the global Internet.
8. Extension mechanisms should be explicitly identified and should be architecturally compatible with the base protocol design.

Architectural and protocol extension criteria

More generally every project concerning an existing or a new protocol or Internet feature is an architectural extension. Prior to its experimentation project teams and the Intertest community SHOULD have in mind the following interoperability oriented consideration based on the community's experience [DRAFT CARPENTER], as the Intertest priority is transparent experimentation leading to a backward transition interoperability.

1. Having a well-written published revisable specification.
2. Learning lessons from preceding intertesting and deployment.
3. Having an adequate transition or coexistence story.
4. Respecting underlying architectural or security assumptions.
5. Minimizing impact on critical infrastructure.
6. Data model extensions.

Extension types

As per the quoted work it will be made a difference between routine and major extension when considering the introduction, adherence, and support to an Intertest project.

1. routine extension: when a protocol or architectural extension amounts to new data elements of types that are already supported within the data model, and if its handling is opaque to the protocol itself. This typically requires that the protocol silently discard unknown data elements.
2. major extension: when it may lead to a risk of interoperability failure, that may in particular be due to: Modifications or extensions to the working of the underlying protocol, changes to the basic architectural assumptions, new usage scenarios not originally intended or investigated. In such cases an extremely close attention should be paid to compatibility with current implementations and deployments, and to the risk of inadvertent introduction of security or operational exposures.

Reserved Fields

Intertested protocols should include one or more "reserved" fields, clearly intended for alternative intertesting and once adopted for on for future extensions. Similarly, they should carefully specify how receivers should react to unknown values in reserved fields, to ensure protocols to be robust and secure.

Encoding Formats

Using widely-supported encoding formats leads to better interoperability and easier extensibility. To that end, the Intertest environment will include a Multicode project as a root file for the various encoding formats being used.

Commonly accepted architectural principles

The following principles, mostly inherited from RFC 1958 are supposed to be common to the intertesters. If an experiments does not follows them, it is its responsibility to openly document it to the others intertesters and to the public.

• principle of constant change.
• several network layer protocol can be intertested due to a need for gradual transition from one version of IP to another or to support new fundamental needs.
• nobody owns the Internet, there is no centralized control, so intertesting is here to document rough consensus process with running code. Engineering feed-back from real intertesting is more important than any architectural principles.
• Heterogeneity is inevitable and must be supported by design. Diversity is a technical challenge, not an unacceptable constraint.
• if a previous design, in the Internet context or elsewhere, has successfully solved the same problem it is an incitation but not a mandatory technical reason to reject improvements.
• all designs must scale readily from one to very many.
• user and societal expectations, performance and cost must be considered as well as functionality.
• keep it simple. When in doubt during design, choose the simplest solution.
• modularity is good. If you can keep things separate, do so and apply subsidiarity principle.
• in many cases it is better to adopt an almost complete solution now, rather than to wait until a perfect solution can be found.
• options and parameters should be configured as part of a presentation layer axiology or negotiated dynamically.
• at digital strata be strict when sending and tolerant when receiving. At semantic strata be strict when receiving core and tolerant when sending peripheral information.
• only type codes and other magic numbers assigned in the Intertest relevant multilingual distributed referent system (MDRS)may be used.
• all specifications should use the same terminology, format, and notation, and the same bit- and byte-order convention.
• documentation should foresee evolution and an "Evolution Section" provide guidance to future extension and possibly define classes of extension that need little or no review while other classes need wide review.
• good intertesting and further deployment call for a versioning to ensure interoperability, or at least clean failure modes.
• nothing gets intertested until there are multiple instances of polyloguing running code.
• respect the externets principle as they are documented by the Intertest community as a way to mutually protect intertesting environment and public operations from any form of pollution.

Security Culture

A global culture of cybersecurity needs to be promoted, developed and implemented in cooperation with all stakeholders and international expert bodies. These efforts should be supported by increased international cooperation.

Intertest areas of experimentation

The Intertest areas of experimentation include: naming, routing, security, network management, transport, general architectural issues such as layering and communication between layers, modeling, measurement, simulation and sub-intertesting (specialized) test-beds, scientific understanding of the evolutionary potentials and evolutionary difficulties of the infrastructure, governance.

IAB explains in RFC 3869 that U.S.'s DARPA has historically funded development of freely distributable implementations of various Internet technologies in a variety of operating systems. Experience has shown that a good way to speed deployment of a new technology is to provide an unencumbered, freely-distributable prototype that can be incorporated into participating lead user intertesting. This is why intertested projects will have an increased interest and probability of success if the experimentation project teams make their resulting software implementations freely available for both commercial and non-commercial uses and help finding a stable and attractive economic model specific to free communication tools.

Intertest numbers

When experimenting with or extending protocols, it is often necessary to use some sort of protocol number or constant in order to actually test or experiment with the new function, as documented by RFC 3692. In cases, obtaining a new number is straightforward or not even necessary. In other cases, it is more difficult. This may be because the number of available and unassigned values in a name space may be small enough that there is concern that all available numbers will be used up if assigned carelessly, or because it may be undesirable to assign numbers unless the proposed usage has been adequately reviewed by the broader community.

However, in order to experiment with a new protocol, an experimental value may be needed that won't collide with an existing or future usage. This is why BCP 0082 recommends to assign a range of numbers specifically earmarked for testing and experimentation purposes. These numbers are available for intertesting and their within the Intertest will be coordinated under the understanding that they are reserved for generic testing purposes, other implementations may use the same numbers for different experimental uses, and end user must be required to explicitly enable the experimental feature and likewise have the ability to chose and assign which number from the experimental range will be used for a specific purpose (i.e., so the end user can ensure that use of a particular number doesn't conflict with other on-going uses). Once an extension has been tested and shown to be useful, a permanent number could be obtained thru the normal assignment procedures.

As per BCP 0082 protocol documents should consider reserving a small set of protocol numbers for experimentation. Such reservations can be made thru an explicit reservation in an IANA Considerations section.

• IP Protocol Field. Assignment of new values for the IP Protocol field requires an IETF Standards Action per [RFC2780]. For the purposes of experimentation and testing, IANA has assigned the two values 253 and 254 for this purpose. These values have been allocated from the upper end of the available number space in order to make them easy to identify by having them stand out relative to the existing assignments that have been made.

• Existing Name Spaces. Numerous name spaces exist for which no values have been reserved for experimentation or testing purpose. Experimental values for such protocols can of course be assigned thru the normal process of publishing an RFC that documents the details of such an allocation. To simplify the process in those cases where the publication of a documentation just for the purpose of assigning an experimental allocation seems overkill, experimental values can be made thru IESG Approval [RFC2434].

Mediator

OPES shim.

Facilitator

DDDS based.

Technical transition to Operations

ULDs.

Intertest Intergovernance environment

The Intertest intertest-bed is not to be coordinated by any Intertest specific structure since its purpose is to permit the testing of multilateral distributed networking and intergovernance solutions.

The Internet has evolved into a global facility available to the public and its governance should constitute a core issue of the Information Society agenda. The international management of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations. It should ensure an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the Internet, taking into account multilingualism in the societal and architectural consequences of the language empowerment.

Our challenge is to harness the potential of information and communication technology to promote the development goals of the Millennium Declaration, namely the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achievement of universal primary education; promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women; reduction of child mortality; improvement of maternal health; to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and development of global partnerships for development for the attainment of a more peaceful, just and prosperous world.

Basic principles

It is recognized that Internet governance includes more than Internet naming and addressing. It also includes other significant public policy issues such as, inter alia, critical Internet resources, the security and safety of the Internet, and developmental aspects and issues pertaining to the use of the Internet.

It is recognized that Internet governance includes social, economic and technical issues including affordability, reliability and quality of service.

It is further recognized that there are many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by the current mechanisms.

It is accepted that the Intertest Governance Forum would have no oversight function and would not replace existing arrangements, mechanisms, institutions or organizations, but would involve them and take advantage of their expertise. It would be constituted as a neutral, non-duplicative and non-binding process. It would have no involvement in day-to-day or technical operations of the Internet.

The development of multi-stakeholder processes at the national, regional and international levels is encouraged to discuss and collaborate on the expansion and diffusion of the Internet as a means to support development efforts to achieve internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals.

It is acknowledged that the exchange of views and sharing of effective practices and resources is essential to implementing the outcomes of WSIS at the regional and international levels. To this end, efforts should be made to provide and share, among all stakeholders, knowledge and know-how, related to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of e-strategies and policies, as appropriate. We recognize as fundamental elements to bridging the digital divide in developing countries, in a sustainable way, poverty reduction, enhanced national capacity building and the promotion of national technological development. [* Throughout this text, further references to “e-strategies” are interpreted as including also ICT strategies and sectoral e-strategies, as appropriate.]

The target is to improve international, regional and national connectivity and affordable access to ICTs and information through an enhanced international cooperation of all stakeholders that promotes technology exchange and technology transfer, human resource development and training, thus increasing the capacity of developing countries to innovate and to participate fully in, and contribute to, the Information Society.

Governance intertesting should strive to uncover ways to empower the poor, particularly those living in remote, rural and marginalized urban areas, to access information and to use ICTs as a tool to support their efforts to lift themselves out of poverty.

Intertest Governance Forum

By essence the intertesting being a way to use the Internet as its own intertest-bed to experiment a multilateral and distributed approach of the network architecture, it may also concern experimentations at the Internet Governance Forum, where a virtual "Intertest Governance Forum" (noted "iGF") will be the part of the interested IGF. The evolution from a unilateral decentralized to a multilateral distributed vision of the Internet will most probably parallel towards a multilateral and distributed governance, or "intergovernance", of the various Intertest participating projects.

It is therefore expected that it will :

• Discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Intertest intergovernance and the evolution of the Internet Governance in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet.
• Facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different Intertest participating projects cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet and discuss issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body.
• Interface with appropriate intergovernmental organizations and other institutions on matters under their purview.
• Facilitate the exchange of information and best practices, among experts of the academic, scientific and technical communities about the Intertest and the intertested projects.
• Advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet through the use of the results of the carried intertestests.
• Strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Intertest and intertested Internet intergovernance mechanisms, particularly those from developing countries.
• Identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and publics which might help their analysis, solution development, and intertesting, and, where appropriate, make recommendations.
• Contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in developing countries, drawing fully on local knowledge and expertise obtained in participating to the intertest-bet and Intertest intergovernance .
• Promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in Intertest culture and intergovernance as well as in the experimentation of the transition of the Internet governance processes.
• Discuss, inter alia, issues relating to critical Internet resources, and the intertests able to help a positive evolution of the corresponding architectural and governancial issues.
• Help a common debate on the ways to use the experience drawn from the Intertest to deploy solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet, of particular concern to everyday users.
• Publish its proceedings and the Intertest recommandations as Intertest Requests for Comments, noted as IRFCs.

Dynamic Coalition Relations

Dynamic coalition : a progressive coalescence.

Enhanced Cooperations Relations

We further recognize the need for enhanced cooperation in the future, to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities, in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, but not in the day-to-day technical and operational matters, that do not impact on international public policy issues.

Using relevant international organizations, such cooperation should include the development of globally applicable principles on public policy issues associated with the coordination and management of critical Internet resources. In this regard, we call upon the organizations responsible for essential tasks associated with the Internet to contribute to creating an environment that facilitates this development of public policy principles.

The process towards enhanced cooperation, to be started by the UN Secretary-General, involving all relevant organizations by the end of the first quarter of 2006, will involve all stakeholders in their respective roles, will proceed as quickly as possible consistent with legal process, and will be responsive to innovation. Relevant organizations should commence a process towards enhanced cooperation involving all stakeholders, proceeding as quickly as possible and responsive to innovation. The same relevant organizations shall be requested to provide annual performance reports.

Intertest Enhanced Cooperation

The bodies responsible for the Internet's protocols and parameters can be said to steer the Internet in a significant sense

the WIKIGF site

Initial secretariat is organized by Intlnet. A central mailing list. A project registration.

= the MULTINIC site

the IRFC Editor

ORGANIZATION: The RFC document series was initiated by UCLA's Steve Crocker in 1969, and maintained originally at the SRI Network Information Center, then at USC ISI. Jon Postel of USC ISI headed the RFC Editor for decades until his passing in 1998. The RFC Editor is currently a small department operated by USC ISI for ISOC. GOVERNANCE: ISOC appoints an organization as RFC Editor on the recommendation of IAB. The IAB vets the general policy followed by the RFC Editor. MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: ISOC appointees. MISSION/GOALS: The RFC Editor is the organization that edits, manages, publishes and maintains the authoritative archive of the Request For Comments (RFC) documents, which are the Internet's documents of record. FUNDING: ISOC funds the RFC Editor. ASSOCIATED BODIES: ISOC, IAB, IESG, IETF, IANA.

the Intertest site

MDRS

We emphasize that any Internet governance approach should be inclusive and responsive and should continue to promote an enabling environment for innovation, competition and investment.

Cultural diversity is the common heritage of humankind. The Information Society should be founded on and stimulate respect for cultural identity, cultural and linguistic diversity, traditions and religions, and foster dialogue among cultures and civilizations. The promotion, affirmation and preservation of diverse cultural identities and languages as reflected in relevant agreed United Nations documents including UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, will further enrich the Information Society.

• Promote electronic publishing, differential pricing and open access initiatives to make scientific information affordable and accessible in all countries on an equitable basis.

• Promote the use of peer-to-peer technology to share scientifi c knowledge and pre-prints and reprints written by scientific authors who have waived their right to payment.

• Promote the long-term systematic and efficient collection, dissemination and preservation of essential scientific digital data, for example, population and meteorological data in all countries.

• Promote principles and metadata standards to facilitate cooperation and effective use of collected scientific information and data as appropriate to conduct scientifi c research.

ORGANIZATION: The tasks that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) performs began in the early '70s. Those and ensuing tasks were performed, and the organization was led, by Jon Postel for decades. Formally, IANA is said to be a service or set of functions. In practical terms, it is a subsidiary organization of ICANN. GOVERNANCE: In March, 2003, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded its most recent contract to ICANN to perform the IANA functions. ICANN operates IANA under the authority of the U.S. government. IANA works collegially with the IAB, IESG and IETF in carrying out its mission. MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: ICANN appointees. MISSION/GOALS: IANA oversees IP address allocation, manages the DNS (this includes root server system oversight and top-level domain delegation), and coordinates protocol parameter assignment. All Internet domain names and IP addresses are allocated from IANA, either directly or, much more likely, indirectly through IANA's delegation of authority via a worldwide system of Internet registries and registrars. FUNDING: ICANN funds IANA. ASSOCIATED BODIES: ICANN, IAB, IESG, IETF, RFC Editor.

Multicode

3166-4 =

we rededicate ourselves to upholding the principle of the sovereign equality of all States

Countries should not be involved in decisions regarding another country’s country-code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD). Their legitimate interests, as expressed and defined by each country, in diverse ways, regarding decisions affecting their ccTLDs, need to be respected, upheld and addressed via a flexible and improved framework and mechanisms.

Cultural and linguistic diversity, while stimulating respect for cultural identity, traditions and religions, is essential to the development of an Information Society based on the dialogue among cultures and regional and international cooperation. It is an important factor for sustainable development.

We further commit ourselves to promote the inclusion of all peoples in the Information Society through the development and use of local and/or indigenous languages in ICTs. We will continue our efforts to protect and promote cultural diversity, as well as cultural identities, within the Information Society.

WECANN

• reserved classes
• externes
• IP blocks
• intergovernance organisation

ORGANIZATION: In the late '90s, the U.S. government was completing implementation of its decision to privatize the Internet. The implementation called for the continued operational stability of the Internet, including its Domain Name System. In 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was chartered as a California non-profit corporation for this purpose. It can be regarded as a technical coordinating and regulatory body. GOVERNANCE: ICANN is governed by its Board of Directors. The majority of Directors are selected by ICANN's nominating committee. A number of others are appointed by ICANN's supporting organizations. Directors are expected to serve as individuals, not as representatives. The U.S. Department of Commerce gives ICANN authorization to perform the IANA function via a renewable contract which contains a number of reporting requirements. For the more technical aspects of its operations, ICANN and its Board rely on the IETF and the IAB for information and guidance. MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: ICANN has neither individual nor organizational members in the ordinary sense. Its supporting organizations and advisory committees generally provide a great deal of feedback to the Board on the issues of the day, and ICANN regards them as its constituents. They span the globe and cover a broad range of interests: technical, commercial, governmental, academic and user-oriented. Individuals in the Internet community have some opportunity for participation in ICANN, mainly through its advisory committee structure. MISSION/GOALS: ICANN's revised articles of incorporation state that "... the Corporation shall, except as limited by Article 5 hereof, pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet by (i) coordinating the assignment of Internet technical parameters as needed to maintain universal connectivity on the Internet; (ii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet Protocol ("IP") address space; (iii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet domain name system ("DNS"), including the development of policies for determining the circumstances under which new top-level domains are added to the DNS root system; (iv) overseeing operation of the authoritative Internet DNS root server system; and (v) engaging in any other related lawful activity in furtherance of items (i) through (iv)." [3]. The articles further state that ICANN "shall operate for the benefit of the Internet community as a whole, carrying out its activities in conformity with relevant principles of international law and applicable international conventions and local law and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with these Articles and its Bylaws, through open and transparent processes that enable competition and open entry in Internet-related markets. To this effect, the Corporation shall cooperate as appropriate with relevant international organizations." Among ICANN's most demanding responsibilities are the creation of top-level domains and the (re-)delegation of domain registries. FUNDING: ICANN is funded mainly from domain name and IP address registries and registrars. Its budget includes funds for a number of staff, headed by a President/CEO and including an Ombudsman. ASSOCIATED BODIES: IANA, U.S. Department of Commerce, IAB, IETF, W3C.

Intertest Technical Fora

Supporting the “scaling-up” of successful ICT-based pilot programmes ORGANIZATION: Formed in 1989, the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is the management group of the IETF. GOVERNANCE: The IESG operates as an activity of ISOC and is responsible to it. The IESG is led by the IETF/IESG chair. IESG decisions are subject to appeal to the IAB. MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: The members are the Area Directors of IETF, the chair of IETF/IESG and a small number of ex-officio and liaison members. MISSION/GOALS: The IESG vets and approves IETF standards, and generally manages the standards process according to the policies and procedures ratified by the ISOC Trustees. The IESG creates IETF working groups, etc. FUNDING: The IESG is largely self-funded. ISOC contributes. ASSOCIATED BODIES: ISOC, IAB, IETF, RFC Editor, IANA.

the INTF site

Many of the building blocks of the Information Society are the result of scientific and technical advances made possible by the sharing of research results.

We are fully committed to turning this digital divide into a digital opportunity for all, particularly for those who risk being left behind and being further marginalized.

• Promote principles and metadata standards to facilitate cooperation and effective use of collected scientific information and data as appropriate to conduct scientifi c research

• Encourage research and promote awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models, and the means of their creation, including proprietary, open-source and free software, in order to increase competition, freedom of choice and affordability, and enable all stakeholders to evaluate which solution best meets their requirements.

ORGANIZATION: The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) held its first meeting in 1986. It is a loosely self-organized, large, grass roots technical group consisting of network administrators, designers, researchers, vendors, users, etc. In its broader sense, IETF is used to refer to IETF, IAB, IESG, IRSG, IRTF and RFC Editor as a collective. GOVERNANCE: The IETF is not a formal body, and has no board of directors. It operates as an activity of ISOC and is responsible to it. For its technical work, it is divided into broad units called areas, each led by the Area Director(s) (ADs). ADs are proposed by the nominating committee (the Nomcom) of the IETF, and appointed by the IAB. The areas are divided into more specialized working groups (WGs), each with chair(s). WG chairs serve at the pleasure of the appropriate AD. IETF has a chair who is proposed by the nominating committee of the IETF, and then appointed by the voting members of the IAB, not including the incumbent IETF chair. The IETF chair is also the chair of IESG. WG and AD decisions are subject to appeal to the IESG. MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: There is no formal membership. Generally, attendance at IETF meetings and subscription to IETF mailing lists is open to all volunteers. Participants are expected to contribute as individuals, rather than as representatives of companies or organizations. MISSION/GOALS: The IETF concerns itself with the engineering and architecture of the Internet. It is the principal body that develops, tests and implements new Internet technological standards, including protocols. The IETF proposes standards to the IESG. FUNDING: The IETF, including its small Secretariat, is largely self-funded via IETF meeting attendance fees. A relatively small percentage of IETF's budget is contributed by ISOC.

relation with SSDOs

ORGANIZATION: In June of 1992, the Internet Society chartered the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) as one of its components. The ancestor of the IAB was the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB), a technical advisory group formed by Vint Cerf of DARPA in 1979. The ICCB was replaced by the Internet Advisory Board (IAB) in 1984, which became the Internet Activities Board in 1986, which was chartered as the Internet Architecture Board in June, 1992. GOVERNANCE: ISOC has jurisdiction over the IAB but allows it a large degree of independence in its operations. With respect to technology, the IAB is considered to be a committee of the IETF. MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: IAB voting members are proposed by the nominating committee of the IETF, and are then appointed by the ISOC Board of Trustees. The IETF chair, who is chair of IESG as well, is also a voting member. The voting members select one of themselves to serve as chair of IAB. Non-voting members, mainly from associated bodies, also exist. Members serve as individuals, and not as representatives of companies or organizations. MISSION/GOALS: ISOC mandates the IAB to oversee the architecture of the Internet, including its protocols and other standards. IESG decisions may be appealed to the IAB. IAB rulings are final, with the exception that claims that the IAB proceeded unreasonably may be appealed to the ISOC Board of Trustees. The appointment of an organization as RFC Editor is subject to IAB approval. The IAB claims, on behalf of the IETF, to appoint the organization which is to act as IANA (see sections 9 and 10 below). The IAB appoints the IETF Area Directors and the IETF chair on recommendation of the IETF, as well as the IRTF chair. The IAB advises ISOC's Board, and carries out technical external liaison on behalf of ISOC. FUNDING: The IAB is largely self-funded. ISOC contributes. ASSOCIATED BODIES: ISOC, IESG, IETF, IRSG, IRTF, RFC Editor, ICANN, IANA.

= World Intertest User Society

ORGANIZATION: In 1991, the large growth of the Internet, including its commercial sector, and the Internet community's need for a formal organization to provide a legal home for the standards bodies of that time (IETF, etc.) led to the formation, under the auspices of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), of the Internet Society. In January 1992, the Internet Society was chartered as a U.S. District of Columbia non-profit corporation.

GOVERNANCE: ISOC is governed by its Board of Trustees.

MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: ISOC welcomes individuals and organizations as members. Individuals in the Internet community have ample opportunity to participate in ISOC and its component bodies.

MISSION/GOALS: ISOC's mission is "To assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world." [2]. As one of its most important tasks, it "facilitates open development of standards, protocols, administration and the technical infrastructure of the Internet" [2], and so it is the organizational and legal home for most of the groups that are responsible for developing Internet technical standards.

FUNDING: ISOC is funded mainly from organization member fees.

ORGANIZATION: Formed in 1989, the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) is a self-organized research group.

GOVERNANCE: The IRTF is divided into research groups (RGs), each with chair(s). RG chairs may be removed by the IRTF chair, subject to appeal to the IAB. The IAB appoints the chair of the IRTF. The IRTF chair reports to the IAB.

MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: Since RGs are expected to be long-term groups, and to encourage the kind of working relationships such groups may need, membership in RGs may be open or closed, in contrast with IETF WGs, which are always open. Participants are expected to contribute as individuals, rather than as representatives of companies or organizations.

MISSION/GOALS: While the IETF focuses on engineering and standards, the IRTF focuses on research. The IRTF investigates Internet topics that are too uncertain or too advanced to be standardized at the moment. When IRTF produces a specification that is suitable for standardization, it is processed via IETF.

FUNDING: The IRTF is largely self-funded. ISOC contributes.

ASSOCIATED BODIES: ISOC, IAB, IRSG.

6. IRSG

ORGANIZATION: Formed in 1989, the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG) is the management group of the IRTF.

GOVERNANCE: The IRTF chair leads the IRSG. The IRTF chair reports to the IAB.

MEMBERSHIP/COMPOSITION: The IRSG consists of the chairs of the IRTF research groups, the chair of IRTF, and possibly at-large members from the research community.

MISSION/GOALS: The IRTF chair manages the IRTF in consultation with the IRSG.

FUNDING: The IRSG is largely self-funded. ISOC contributes.

ASSOCIATED BODIES: ISOC, IAB, IRTF.

Intertest open architectural vocabulary

The target of the Intertest is to provide a real life full size test-bed for the future of the Internet , the convergence of the technologies, for its transition and their aggregation mechanisms, and their mutual intergovernance. To permit each of the carried experiments to be fully free and to possibly develop in parallel while sharing the same objective with different and possibly opposing solutions, their autonomy must be permitted. From previous experience, it seems that:

• this is possible in proposing a common understanding of the test-bed own structure as a general communication model.
• this is the best manner to make sure that each proposition can transition as it does require a full control of the Internet in any given area.

Such a model is not intended to be a model for the Internet (however it may progressively reviewed from experience and used as such). It is only intended to be a common reference for different experiment to relate in using a common language.

the Notion concept

Human Semiotic, Mediatic, and Transmission Processes

The semiotic process is understood as the way meanings are conveyed trough relations. It includes the mediatic process as meanings are exchanged, which in turn includes transmission process as the way it is geographically transfered.

Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers.

Humans have developed an impressive and complex pile of protocols, technicalities, and artifacts to support these processes. They range from body stances, gestures, signs, sounds and music, looks, moves, signals, dresses, language, natural language, carving, scripts, text processing, interpreters, ambassadors, political moves, posts, telephone, computer interconnect, agents, media, etc. and the Internet. Some are direct, some are indirect using the assistance of third party human or artificial tools.

The semiotic process can be represented as an intricate loop of seven layers:

• meaning: to formalize the intents of the decision of the source.
• semantic: to deal with its relational signification.
• enunciation: to produce its utterance along language genres and mediums.
• emission: to deliver the utterances along the appropriate mediatic modes.
• mediation: to communicate it (accept, transmit, and deliver).
• reception: to accept, translate and organize messages from different mediums.
• pragmatic: to interpret their significations in the receiving context.
• Interpretation
• knowledge: to extract the resulting information for the receiver.

Each of these layers calls on many contributing functions where the meaning may be degraded due to practical constrains or ambiguities, and polluted by third parties interferences. This results into a communication entropy increase that may lead to a final lack of mutual understanding between the source and the receiver(s).

This is why the development and deployment of a mediation technology is to be completed by real operations entropy containment. It may result from a reduction of the noise or restoration of the meaning. This corresponds to the three main phases of every communication system : (1) development and experimentation, (2) deployment and validation, and (3) maturity.

Computer assisted mediation and facilitation

Today mediation is computer assisted in many ways and computers use their own mediation solutions. The resulting extended communications system of the human digital ecosystem spans three main stratas:

• telecommunications that support transmission through bandwidth (layer 0) based plug to plug interconnectivity.
• datacommunications that support mediation through (OSI layers) end to end interoperability.
• metacommunications that support relations through application (layer 8), agent (layer 9), user (layer 10), relational spaces (layer 11) and societal (layer 12) brain to brain/cpu interintelligibility.

The Internet is taken as a major or leading component of convergence of the global computer assisted mediation process technology convergence. It still mostly communicate (accepts, transmits, and delivers) human/computer enunciated utterances on an end to end basis, without considering the communication entropy factor. The Intertest is to be an intertest-bed in order to investigate, study and resolve how to keep that entropy as low as possible, in protecting or servicing messages (envelope and content), semantic and meaning, and contexts.

Multilinguistics

For several years the Internet language issue is disputed (IDNA, langtags). The main reason why is probably due to a confusion in the terms being used and lack of identification of multilinguistics as the science of the simultaneous use of different languages in the semiotic and mediatic processes.

It is expected that practical intertesting will help progresses in that area. It is therefore necessary for each project to introduce its model and terminology framework in order to permit ab initio the interoperability and interintelligibility considerations which are necessary to intertesting.

Notions linguistiques fondamentales

L'on ne doit pas confondre, tout au long du processus d'analyse les notions suivantes:

• langagier : ce qui ressortit à l’activité de langage
• linguistique : ce qui renvoie aux opérations complexes dont les traces sont les configurations textuelles
• multilinguistique : ce qui traite de la diversité linguistique et de son support pratique
• métalinguistique : ce qui renvoie à l’activité du linguiste, lorsqu'il décrit, représente ou simule les phénomènes d’ordre langagier, linguistique et multilinguistique.

Linguistic fundamental notions

Throughout the analysis process one should not confuse the following notions:

• language (adj.) [Fr. langagier]: which concerns language activity;
• linguistic: which refers to complex operations that leave traces which are textual configurations
• multilinguisic: which deals with the linguistic diversity and its pragmatic support.
• metalinguistic: which refers to the activity of the linguist, to the extent that he or she describes, represents or simulates the phenomena in the field of language activity, multilinguistic analysis and linguistic operations).

Relational Spaces

Externets

Language Definitions

Linguistic Support

Relational Security (ME/WE)

Communications types

Semantic Security

Security Considerations

An extension must not introduce new security risks without also providing adequate counter-measures, and in particular it must not inadvertently defeat security measures in the unextended protocol. Thus, the security analysis for an extension needs to be as thorough as for the original protocol - effectively it needs to be a regression analysis to check that the extension doesn't inadvertently invalidate the original security model.

This analysis may be simple (e.g. adding an extra opaque data element is unlikely to create a new risk) or quite complex (e.g. adding a handshake to a previously stateless protocol may create a completely new opportunity for an attacker).

Physical Security

Logical Security

Semantic security

The data stratum brings the receiver a copy of the form : he/she/it sees/listen/perceives the object which is been sent. No imagination applied. This means that the information is objective: to fool the receiver one has to twist the object.

The content stratum brings the receiver the substance of the sender imaginated description of the object. To fool the receiver one has to twist the essence of the received object. For example, the sender sees a house (form), that he/she/is to described the substance through a sum of metadata: text, photo, indication on the size, the price, etc. that are supposed to fit the essence of a house with a roof, walls, windows, etc. It is easy to include in the metadata wrong, additional, or confusive information. Security currently mostly fights that kind of exploits hunting the wrong, blocking the additional, and exposing the confusing information. The sender and receiver imaginations are not directly related, no other imagination applies. One understand that the information is subjective to the sender.

The semantic stratum calls for new terms and notions tobe used.

Semantic security concerns the mutual intelligence of the object in order to fool the intelligence of the receiver. It exercised by a third party or by the environment (exemple: politically correct, errors in a measurement/reporting process, etc.). In this case the sender and the receiver imaginations are related and in agreement over a third party imagination they share the results which is provided by their culture, common referents, contexts, etc. The information they share can be said circumjective as subject to their environment. The resulting information injected in their understanding of the object and surjected to the exotems (external systems) to protect this understanding may detrimentally affect this understanding in a direct or indirect manner. This is widely known and used as influence and disinformation.

A meme is any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. A meme is self-propagating and can move through a culture in a manner similar to virus. To be semantically protected users must both use trusted memes and block the disinformation exploits carried through malignant memes.

IANA Considerations

Intertest Registry

An Interest Registry shall be maintained by the IANA which will document every name and number reserved for intertesting.

IANA / MDRS relations

The MDRS area of experimentation corresponds to the evolution of the IANA.

Acknowledgments

This document is heavily based on RFC 1958, RFC 3869, RFC 2780, ICP-3, hence on the inputs of Brian Carpenter, Thomas Narten, John Loughney, Henrik Levkowetz, Mark Townsley, Randy Bush, Bernard Aboba and many others.

Valuable inputs to the author's thinking and experience have been provided by were made by Jari Arkko, Ted Hardie, Loa Andersson, Eric Rescorla, Pekka Savola, and Leslie Daigle.

References