[DG-NSTIC] Mature draft KI NDG Response - v0.1.0

[Richard G. WILSHER @Zygma]

OK folks, we’re getting near to the line.

 

Attached is a mature draft (v0.1.0) of our response.  In this version:

i)                    All changes discussed yesterday during our tele-conf have been accommodated (therefore including inputs from LaurieT and ColinW, and the introductory material Joni and I took on – so not everyone else was relaxing, Colin  ;-);

ii)                   I (and Matthew Gardiner also – another worker) have reviewed the whole doc for consistency and general flow.  This has led to some editorial changes to move text around, occasionally to re-phrase it, and in a very small number of cases delete it because it is said elsewhere.  I do not think that in any of these changes I have altered the sentiments of the groups response;

iii)                 The notion of the KI NSTIC Discussion Group as the responding body has been introduced throughout – remaining refs to KI should be to present structure, not any opinion/response;

iv)                 I have place three embedded comments, where I propose that we remove text, but I wanted to get a consensus on it (so, pls offer an opinion);

v)                  I have added some brand new text (bright yellow highlighting) to reflect a couple of points made during today’s informal stakeholders’ meeting;

vi)                 There are probably other minor changes I’ve forgotten to mention.

 

Also attached is a comment doc for this version of the text.  PLEASE:

a)       submit your comments by Saturday 13:00 UTC (i.e. when I get up, Pacific time;

b)       keep your comments to editorial matters only.  I think we’ve achieved consensus on any discussion topics;

c)       don’t cite a long paragraph of original (i.e. current document) text and then ask for changes and cite another long paragraph of text – I need to see what the changes are so keep it simple just say ‘Replace <minimal text needing attention> with <just what needs to go in>’.  Believe me, this makes it a lot more efficient to combine comments from a number of you;

d)      use the comment doc;

e)      if you want to discuss via the dg list, please go ahead, BUT – if you raise an issue, be responsible for submitting a final proposal for change;

f)       be aware that if you raise a query or make a comment but do not give a clear proposal I’ll ‘Walk on by’ (you know the tune);

g)      forgive me my list of instructions, but your conformity REALLY will make editing a lot more straightforward and less time consuming.

 

Ftr, I attach the final version of disposition v0.0.6, following yesterday’s discussion.

 

Lastly, for those of you harbouring a death wish, I attach v0.0.8, which has all the revisions as TRK.  If that doesn’t push you over the edge, you’re probably not in too bad a state, get over it.  PLEASE DO NOT comment on this doc, unless you harbour a wish to push ME over the edge.

 

Thanks folks – it’s beginning to look like a half decent response, and I really didn’t hear anything from the meeting today which we had not, in some form or other, already captured.

R

Richard G. WILSHER
CEO, Zygma LLC
O:  +1 714 965 99 42
M: +1 714 797 99 42

www.Zygma.biz

 

[Jane K. Winn]

Sorry I’ve missed all the conference calls. This is a very interesting memo.  Especially at the beginning of the memo, I made some technical corrections/editing suggestions that I strongly encourage the group to accept (e.g. exempt from liability rather than exonerate liability, etc).

 

Other comments have to do with style and perception, so I have no idea if they will even be perceived by the other discussion group members as helpful.  Having missed all the conference calls, I have no idea how important it is to try to persuade anyone in the Obama Administration that Kantara as a group should be assigned a leadership role in NSTIC.  Assuming it is important, then there are quite a few things at the end of the memo that must be deleted as a matter of effective advocacy.  Suggesting that the Obama Administration should provide travel subsidies for foreign parties who can’t afford to participate in the development of US national strategy is simply not realistic in the current fiscal environment.  Without regard to the fiscal environment, comments like that undermine the credibility of the other parts of the memo because they are so out of touch with political realities in the US.  For example, there is *NOTHING* in the US like BEUC or ANEC, because direct government subsidies for civil society organizations like that are seen as completely inappropriate, bordering on corruption.  The reaction to the idea of subsidizing foreigners would be 10x more negative than the idea of subsidizing civil society organizations.

 

Feel free to disregard any and all of my suggestions; I won’t be able to participate even in the last remaining conference call so my input into this process is very limited indeed, jkw

[Colin Wallis]

Jane

 

Thanks for those comments. Being on the calls might have helped to better understand where we are, and it is only a flavour of difference in the position you put forward I think..

 

I found many of your comments helpful.

 

As one who inserted the WB text, I'll respond there. I'm happy for it to be deleted, and I was kind of circumspect with it as you might have picked up. Indeed, the WB is not popular in all quarters, and if you look past that, you'll see I was trying to indicate this as a way contributors might feel less aggrieved. Nonetheless..

 

The IETF might be a possible, W3C not. It's pay to play, and not all pay or play. Trying to find others that did not involve extra funding for the US…or for others they may want to engage with

 

Despite what you might suspect it wasn't me who suggested funding for foreign participants:-). But one does need to pause and work out whose need is greater.  So in our case, we have a rudimentary (government scoped at present) identity ecosystem. You might recall it won an award back in 2007. We are happy to share knowledge and experience with whomever, and we do (it was your government that initiated discussions with us regarding our system some years back, as it goes, it wasn't the other way around). But would we pay people and time and money and airfares to contribute to the US initiative? Hmmm... that's more of a political conundrum because my agency (Internal Affairs) would struggle to see the direct benefit (no problem longer term of course..the global ecosystem..federating ours with yours etc etc)

 

I don't think KI was expecting NSTIC to have a complete open slather, but I think it did expect that NSTIC might want to make sure that foreigners who they deemed could materially help, would not be restricted from doing so.

 

Cheers

Colin

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[Bob Pinheiro]

I also made the comment (Q4.5)  that the Kantara NOI response should not propose that the government fund foreign travel by Steering Group members.  My comment was not accepted, with the explanation that "if the government wants international participation, it has to be prepared to fund whatever actions are required."

Although NSTIC is a US initiative, foreign stakeholders are still welcome to participate in the Steering Group, and it's clear that an NSTIC goal is that NSTIC-compliant identity ecosystems be interoperable with other international efforts.   So the government "wants" international participation to the extent that such participation can help to achieve this interoperability.  But there are other ways to achieve interoperability, and to propose that the government should be willing to pay international participants to show up at NSTIC meetings for this purpose is, I still believe, unreasonable.   I'd expect that most of the SG's business would be conducted electronically, so that travel may not be much of an issue anyway.

Can someone tell me what "the remit of the steering group" (Q4.1) means? I can guess from the context of the sentence, just like I can guess what some French phrases mean without actually being able to speak French.  But since we are addressing an American audience with the NOI response, I'll reiterate my earlier comment and suggest that, for the sake of clarity, that phrase be reworded. 
 
bp

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[Jane K. Winn]

Several years ago, Robert Kagan published a short essay called Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (2003) in which he argued that America and Europe (apologies, Colin for treating New Zealand for the moment as within the cultural sphere of Europe) have irreconcilably different ideas about morality, the exercise of international power, and the significance of superior military-technological capacity.  I don’t personally like a lot of the things Kagan said, but I think his essay is very perceptive.  For example, he points out that Americans usually feel entitled to reject the European appeals to justice in international relations because we control most of the advanced weapons and have the fewest qualms about using them.

 

In a similar way, Americans consistently bet on defining global interoperability not through collaboration with foreigners but by pushing global markets toward the US position with the brute strength of our technology industries, our business & legal culture that rewards innovation, and the size of our domestic market.  Except for GSM, I think we’ve pretty much won all the bets.  There is also widespread popular support in the US for strong intellectual property rights and weak privacy rights, no matter what some Americans (like me) and people outside the US think.

 

So what does this mean for NSTIC?  Foreigners with foresight will be given the opportunity to fall into the American slipstream because we are generous to our friends, but no one in American would want to allow any foreigners who don’t already think like the majority of Americans to have any influence in making decisions.

 

That’s the domestic political environment that the Obama Administration must navigate whether they like it or not, and whether we like it or not, jkw

[Colin Wallis]

OK, largely fair and reasonable. So what is it in the KI response that makes you think something else is implied?

[Mark Lizar]

+1 

I made this comment on a call and also think that funding foriegin travel should be removed. 

[Colin Wallis]

..in which case my friends, the olde adage is probably going to hold true in this instance..'you get what you pay for'... :-)

 

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From: ma...@smartspecies.com
To: kan...@bobpinheiro.com
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:38:51 +0100
CC: dg-n...@kantarainitiative.org
Subject: Re: [DG-NSTIC] Mature draft KI NDG Response - v0.1.0

[Mark Lizar]

On 14 Jul 2011, at 09:48, Colin Wallis wrote:

..in which case my friends, the olde adage is probably going to hold true in this instance..'you get what you pay for'... :-)

This I think depends on how one understands how NSTIC will operationally develop. 

I would take the perspective that operationally every international jurisdiction should be invited to provide an assessment for participants to gain admission, be provided with the means to developing licensing and in this way generate income to be involved in the NSTIC ecosystem.  

The NSTIC SG should look at how income generation can be a part of the operational existence of NSTIC.  In a pilot program or initial development of NSTIC travel funds can be included and not specifically ruled out (like it is in Kantara).    I don't think it is a matter of getting what you pay for.  Its a matter of what value the SG develops and NSTIC obtains inherently.

Again, the setup of a governance committee proposal separate from an operational understanding of how NSTIC will evolve seems to be problematic in this regard. 

[McDowell, Brett]

I agree with Bob and Mark that if we ask for this we are "asking for it" so to speak. But to Colin's core point, I think it's entirely consistent to recommend the SG convene itself in such a way as to make attendance mutually (in)convenient internationally.

Brett

On Jul 14, 2011, at 4:48 AM, Colin Wallis wrote:

..in which case my friends, the olde adage is probably going to hold true in this instance..'you get what you pay for'... :-)

________________________________
From: ma...@smartspecies.com<mailto:ma...@smartspecies.com>
To: kan...@bobpinheiro.com<mailto:kan...@bobpinheiro.com>

Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:38:51 +0100

CC: dg-n...@kantarainitiative.org<mailto:dg-n...@kantarainitiative.org>

Subject: Re: [DG-NSTIC] Mature draft KI NDG Response - v0.1.0

+1

I made this comment on a call and also think that funding foriegin travel should be removed.

On 14 Jul 2011, at 05:38, Bob Pinheiro wrote:

I also made the comment (Q4.5) that the Kantara NOI response should not propose that the government fund foreign travel by Steering Group members. My comment was not accepted, with the explanation that "if the government wants international participation, it has to be prepared to fund whatever actions are required."

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[Colin Wallis]

That would certainly help the business cases for travel by foreign organisations because attendance could be bundled in with other things already budgeted for/committed to, rather than finding new money just to attend NSTIC (which as I've indicated, may well not be found).

[David L. Wasley]

I am an example of someone who, if I were so (un)fortunate as to be a "citizen member" of the SG or a WG, would be affected by this issue.  I am retired.  I do not have a corporate patron nor personal wealth that would allow me to attend meetings abroad.  I suggest KI be silent on this particular issue.

David

[Frazier-McElveen, Myisha]

+1

 

Sincerely,

Myisha

 

Myisha Frazier-McElveen

Identity Management Practice Manager

Truestone

13873 Park Center Road

Herndon, VA 20171

 

(O) 703-766-6203

(M) 240-751-7780

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From: dg-nstic...@kantarainitiative.org on behalf of Mark Lizar
Sent: Thu 7/14/2011 4:38 AM
To: Bob Pinheiro
Cc: dg-n...@kantarainitiative.org
Subject: Re: [DG-NSTIC] Mature draft KI NDG Response - v0.1.0