AP* Retreat,
Venue: Room CR-405, 4th Floor, Howard Plaza Hotel
Co-chairs: Tommy
Matsumoto, APNG & Kenny Huang, TWNIC
Present: Akira Mizushima, NARO
Atsushi ENDO, JPRS
Ching
Chiao, TWNIC
Hiroshi Esaki, GSIST,
Ian Chiang, TWNIC/APTLD
Izumi Aizu,
James Seng, APEET
Kanchana
Kanchanasut, intERLab/AIT
Kenny Huang, TWNIC
Kuo-Wei
Wu, NIIEPA
Paul Wilson, APNIC
Pensri A., AIT/AP*
Retreat Sec.
Shiori
SATOU, JPCERT/CC
Shigeki
Goto, Waseda University
Tommy
Matsumoto, APNG
Xing Li,
CCIRN
Zita Wenzel, APRUNet
Meeting commenced at 9:15 AM .
Agenda Bashing
The meeting started with
greetings from the Co-Chairs, Mr. Tommy Matsumoto and Mr. Kenny Huang welcoming
all the participants to
1.
Roll Call
The chair then asked all the attendees to introduce themselves. It was followed by review of the day’s agenda by the Co-Chair, Mr. Tommy Matsumoto.
2.
AP* Organization and Meeting Reports
2.1. Introducing
Activities in APAN by Shigeki Goto
The presentation started with a
brief history of APAN by the speaker, Prof. Shigeki Goto
stating that the idea of APAN was born at APEC symposium in
IRNC is the new name for the NSF
projects which connects the APAN network with the
In network engineering, he
informed the attendees that many people in the network operation center were
interested in End to End (E2E) performance measurement and there was some
collaboration globally too. In the applications area, APAN was in collaboration
with some of the big clients including state clients and higher education
clients such as the Belle Collaboration. There was also a joint research and
seminar on tsunami organized by multiple groups in
Before wrapping up the
presentation, Prof. Goto gave brief details of the
last APAN meeting which was held in
Questions and Discussions:
- No questions and discussions held.
2.2. Activities
of APCERT by Shiori Satou
APCERT (Asia Pacific Computer Emergency and Response Team) is a coalition of CSIRTs (Computer Security Incident Response Teams) and CERTs (Computer Emergency Response Teams) across the Asia Pacific region. It was officially founded in February 2003. Starting from 15 teams from 12 economies, it now consists of 17 teams from 13 economies and a few more teams were expected to join in 2005. There are two levels of members in APCERT namely full members and general members and a list of these members representing different countries were shown to the attendees. The procedure for obtaining membership was briefly explained as well which requires fulfilling the accreditation rule, finding a sponsor organization among existing APCERT teams and passing the APCERT SC vote.
Objectives of APCERT:
APSIRC (Asia Pacific Security
Incident Response Coordination Conference) was held in
Questions and Discussions:
-
One of the attendees during this session asked the presenter
the definition of ‘region’ for APCERT and inquired if the organization dealt
with the
- Prof. Goto suggested for a global contact point to which one of the attendees informed that some of the African regions were being taken care of by a few European members but more or less on voluntary basis.
- According to another participant, there would be regional organizations that will be building networks and networks similar to national internet registries going upstream for example there would be an all African network Cooperator’s group meeting (AFRINIC) and that will be the topic that would be covered in that meeting.
-
Further discussions followed on the issue of
- When asked about the definition of RI (Regional Initiatives), it was explained that with the increase in a variety of security threats, it was necessary to promote regional and inter-regional cooperation and RI was an effort to do just that.
- Mr. Tommy Matsumoto later welcomed the attendees to join the APNG camp the following day for the camp hearing.
2.3. APEET
by James Seng
The speaker gave a local update
on the activities of APEET (Asia Pacific ENUM Engineering Team). APEET has a
new member;
Questions and Discussions:
-
Responding to a question, the speaker said that during
the trial period in
- Answering to another question, Mr. James said that Wi-Fi technology was used for the connectivity.
- When asked by Mr.Paul if they would provide any information to people on how to configure and use the software, Mr. James answered that it was available on the APEET website http://www.apenum.org/APAN2005
- In response to a question by Mr. Izumi on what exactly APEET was doing in terms of selling the handsets, Mr. James explained that they were coordinating with the handset manufacturers by making those handsets reach the hands of the engineers and get those manufacturers to sponsor events in return.
- Mr. Izumi expressed that it would be nice to have it work all over the world. The speaker informed that there had been some requests though to provide training support for countries who would like to get onto ENUM but unfortunately he said that APEET had no budget to go forward with these requests.
- Finally after the questions, Mr. James announced that the members of JET (Joint Engineering Team) were starting a new work called “Internationalization of e-mail Addresses”. They already had two meetings. First one in APRICOT 2005 and second meeting in Beijing/China. An IETF draft had already been produced which was the first draft on internationalization of e-mail addresses written by the members. The goal was to form a new working group by IETF, Vancouver on internationalization of e-mail addresses.
2.4. APNIC
Status Report by Paul Wilson
The speaker, Mr. Paul started
with a slide with pictures of the staff of APNIC and mentioned that they come
from diverse backgrounds. More than half of whom come from regions outside
Another area of infrastructural
development is the root servers project. Fourteen of ‘Anycast’ root servers (F, I, K) have been deployed so far
with APNIC support and announcing three new sites in
Winding up his presentation, the
speaker announced the incoming APNIC meetings, the 20th in
Questions and Discussions:
- Answering a question about ECOSOC, the speaker replied that it was the Economic and Social Council of the UN; one of the many UN agencies. Its role is to network with non-government sector who have been involved with economic and social issues and which has a complex sense of recognition process. But once an organization is recognized through ECOSOC, it has a permanent seat to UN meetings as an ECOSOC member.
- Mr. Izumi added to the above discussion that having ECOSOC’s accreditation gives the organization a generally accepted NGO status and it’s a fairly convenient way to get into UN meetings without any hassles.
2.5. APNG
by Tommy Matsumoto
Mr. Tommy Matsumoto, Chairman of
the APNG camp said that one of the big differences between the previous APNG
camp that was held in
One new activity of APNG he said
would be holding the RALO (Regional At-Large Organization) meeting. APNG supports
ICANN’s At-Large membership and works for the
establishment of RALO in the AP region. The speaker then briefed the audience
with the APNG camp fellowship program and the many sponsors who had generously
contributed to APNG and the APNG camp. Mr. Tommy said that because of the
success of the fellowship program, APNG could start some local camps too and he
expressed his appreciation for the active participation of the fellows from
regions such as
Questions and Discussions:
- No questions were put up and further discussions held after the presentation.
2.6. APRUNet by Zita Wenzel
Speaking about the network, the
speaker said that APRUNet http://www.apru.net.org/ was a group of
thirty six leading research universities across the
“In the Distance Learning Partnership Project”, APRUNet deals with high school partners and the faculty mentors of universities who are typically scholars in each field. This is achieved through a small grant by APEC. Projects of real global concern and not only attached to technology are also undertaken in the “Distance Learning Partnership Project”. They also had a Ocean and Marine Biology Focus over the past summer.
APRUNet
has held five “Distance Learning and the Internet Conferences” over the past
years. These are major international conferences on distance learning and the
Internet and the speaker said they have been getting better and better. It is
primarily attended by the APRU Universities but Ms.Wenzel emphasized that it is
open to everyone and encouraged the others to take part in it or pass the
information to their respective organizations that might be interested in
attending it. The next conference is being hosted by Far Eastern National
University,
At the end of her presentation,
Ms. Wenzel said that the need for students who were actively involved in
distance learning activities was felt since they are the end users of such technologies.
She asked the attendees to identify such students and requested them to inform
her if they do find such students and then they will setup a panel to help them
meet with their travel expenses to come to
Questions and Discussions:
- No questions and discussions were held.
2.7. APTLD
Update by Ian Chiang
The speaker started his
presentation with the agenda briefing. APTLD (www.aptld.org)
is an association for Asia Pacific Top Level Domains. It is a regional
organization for ccTLD Managers in
Speaking about the activities carried
out by the association in 2005, the speaker informed the attendees that they
had two meetings. The annual general meeting held in
APTLD’s future plans included major outreach effort in the west of the Asian continent for the next meeting, expand the content available to members through the APTLD website, expand remote participation options for APTLD meetings through better use of Internet technologies, commit increased resources to outreach in areas of the region not covered by the next meeting, working with ICANN to develop their plans for greater regional outreach and permanent training facility for ccTLD managers.
The upcoming meetings would be held in:
Questions and Discussions:
- Responding to a question, the speaker said APTLD acts as a regional organization for ICANN trying to reach out to as many as possible on behalf of ICANN.
2.8. intERLab by Kanchana Kanchanasut
It was felt that a Human
Resources Development Coordination center in the Asia Pacific Region was needed
and AIT being an international institution fitted the requirements. Launched on
Main functions of intERLab (http://www.interlab.ait.ac.th ) are:
There are three research directions that intERLab is focused on:
- Internet Technology and Infrastructure
- Social/Governance and Policy/Legal Studies and
- Internet Applications
In case of Social and Governance
issues, the center is currently working in collaboration with the
The center’s services are broadly categorized into four classes; AP Internet Information Center, Trainings, e-education (e-learning) and Research. The center hosts AP* Retreat Secretariat, APAN Secretariat, functions as APNIC Event coordinator and APNG Secretariat was coming soon. Training activities coordinated by the center in the year 2005 included:
- AIT Faculty and Staff
- 11 Network Operators
- 21 attendees from ISPs and networking environment
- 26 attendees from network operating centers
- Opening ceremony with AIT President’s remarks
- More than 60 participants
- 6 network engineers from GMS countries
- Instructors- ThaiCERT, JPCERT/CC, AIT/WIDE Project and CISCO engineers
Upcoming Trainings in 2005:
Speaking about e-education, Prof. Kanchana informed the attendees that the center concentrates on e-education infrastructure and has developed its own an e-learning platform. It also has a methodology for courseware development and these were used by ASEAN Virtual Institute on Science and Technology (AVIST) and Greater Mekong Sub-region Virtual University (GMSVU). Expressing her enthusiasm to host online courses such as on Internet Governance, she believed that it would prove beneficial to government officials who need this kind of knowledge but do not have enough time to attend real sessions.
Questions and Discussions:
- When asked about the relationship between AINTEC and APRICOT in terms of contents and audience, Prof. Kanchana explained that AINTEC is research oriented, a bit like a network research workshop but more formalized, where graduate students get to submit their papers and selected candidates get to attend AINTEC.
- Responding to a question regarding the funds for AINTEC, the speaker informed that about 15% of the fund came directly from AIT. The rest came from income generated by the center to cover the cost of various activities.
3.
Internet
History Museum Activity and History of AP*’s by Atsushi ENDO
Explaining the need for an internet history museum, the speaker explained that over 10 years had past since the spread of the Internet and the birth of APNG. The next generation children unlike us would be very familiar with the Internet from an early age and would become members of the society. They will bring new point of view to us. The objectives of establishing this activity were stated as follows:
- To record the Pioneer’s efforts as “History”
- To archive the Internet History. For example, “First E-mail”
- To share Internet related history of each country/economy as “property” with whole Asia Pacific Internet community
- To learn Pioneers’ activity and to help create new ideas to enrich the Internet.
The speaker then briefly
introduced the many versions of Internet History in
Questions and Discussions:
-
Mr. Tommy Matsumoto informed that each student/fellow
brings information about his country’s internet history and situation which is
then uploaded on the APNG website by the
-
Mr. Tommy felt that it was very interesting to know the
internet situation of the region. He also informed the attendees that
- Finally, Mr. Tommy suggested Mr. Endo to link the APNG museum site with Prof. Kilnam Chon’s site.
- Future plans included finalizing the draft version of the internet history museum and developing a website where information on the Internet history of the AP region could be found. Constant updating of the site would be done as more information is received.
- Mr. Izumi suggested conducting interviews of the Internet Pioneers and putting the audio files on the website which is much easier than writing. He also said that he would send the materials collected by him about internet history to the speaker. He also suggested discussing the problems and challenges faced in the early days of the Internet and try to discover what happened and how they were solved so that people can learn from history.
4.
Internet
Governance “Voices from the
The speaker informed that he was giving the presentation on behalf of APDIP (Asia Pacific Development Information Programme) which is a UNDP project.
ORDIG is Open Regional Dialog on
Internet Governance founded by the UNDP with support principally from IDRC
(Canadian Government’s International Development and
ORDIG is formed with an extensive
advisory panel representing numerous people from different countries, sectors,
academics, civil societies across the whole region. It did partner with ESCAP
(Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) and also with APNIC (
With the support of UNESCAP, several sub-regional consultations were held. There was an online forum which provided a lot of qualitative inputs; 180 participants; 27 countries; 350 postings. There was also an online survey which had over 1200 responses from 37 countries and that was also done with the aim to maximize its outreach and capture of inputs by language translation and strong promotion. There was also a research commission on numerous issues that were identified during the consultation process.
The main part of the project is finished with the production of an ORDIG paper and a policy brief. They produced some guiding principles in discussing Internet Governance, six key recommendations and main policy recommendations in different dimensions of Internet Governance. The project adopted some of the WGIG guiding principles so governance means more than government and government activities and enabling dimension include organized and cooperative activities between different stakeholders. In line with the UNDP and APDIP missions towards development, ORDIG itself adopted some of the principles towards human development; balance global and local interests and maintain stability and interoperability. The speaker then showed an example of the survey outputs showing the level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with different aspects of internet governance like cyber crime, viruses, spam, privacy etc. The general key recommendations were:
The dimensions and Specific Recommendations were:
- Access costs: ease ISP licensing, liberalize access to international bandwidth, encourage peering between ISPs and so on.
- Voice over Internet Protocol: Legalise VOIP, implement quality of service laws and others.
- Wireless: promote wireless as technology to bridge the digital divide.
- Domain Name System: maintain one and only one authoritative root; promote local authority over ccTLDs etc.
- Internet Protocol Address Management: develop fair and equitable mechanisms for IPv6 allocations.
- Technical Standards: increase participation in international standards-creating bodies; use FOSS to promote open standards.
- Content “pollution” (spam, viruses, spyware etc): ensure legal steps do not diminish openness of the network.
- Cybercrime: promote codes of conduct and self-regulation.
- Cultural diversity: enhance localized software and local content; protect international property rights
- Participation and capacity building: promote multi-stakeholder decision-making.
Speaking about the future plans, the speaker informed that next steps would be to forward the views/recommendations to WGIG and WSIS. ORDIG country reports were also being produced for selected countries who felt themselves to be special cases or different in terms of service spectrums of the dimensions identified in the report. Finally summarizing, the speaker said that Internet governance was an ongoing process which will not end with the end of the working group on Internet governance. So, APDIP would continue with information dissemination, help with capacity buildings and develop Internet Governance toolkits.
Questions and Discussions:
- Responding to a question by Mr. Izumi on the effect and the influence that the project had on the outcomes of WGIG, the speaker informed that the outcomes on WSIS was yet to be seen as there were more upcoming meetings and extensive negotiations had been going on in Geneva. He informed that within the WGIG, along with many other voices, this report had been well taken into account and helps to produce the outcomes of the WGIG.
-
Mr. Izumi commended that ORDIG had done a very good job
conveying the voices from
5.
Internet
in
The speaker began the
presentation with history of Internet in
TWNIC was initially setup as a
2-year project in TANet which was later
institutionalized in 1999 and became financially independent. In 2001, it was
officially regulated by Taiwanese Telecom Act. The presenter then presented
some quick facts about the number of Internet users, Mobile phone penetration,
number of skype users and an estimated number of blogs that existed in
Digital content was thought to be
an area with good opportunities. Content business in
Wrapping up his presentation, Mr. Ching Chiao said that although Taiwan ranked among the top 5 in e-readiness worldwide, they still needed to handle problems like ISP local peering, SPAM/Net Security/Content Rating, Regulation on Convergence Network (NCC), International issues like WSIS, ICANN etc.
Questions and Discussions:
- Mr. Tommy asked the speaker to share how the survey was conducted. The speaker informed that they used a software called CATI, a telecom interview software for the survey samples.
- The next question was regarding the PHS service in Taiwan, to which the speaker informed the attendees that they do have the service in Taiwan which offers roaming service and they had around 200,000-300,000 subscribers. The service provider was now a subsidiary of one of the largest telecom service providers and they had merged together.
6.
WSIS
Report by Izumi Aizu
WSIS (World Summit on the
Information Society) was originally proposed by delegates to the ITU
plenipotentiary meeting in 1998. It is endorsed by the United Nations General
Assembly as a multistakeholder process and is under
the high patronage of the Secretary General. The speaker said that the
background of the WSIS was to help the developing countries to gain information
from ICTs. There are two phases of WSIS in reality;
the
A declaration and a plan of action were passed at the first phase of the WSIS summit which basically put sustainable social and human development at the center and the three-way partnerships (government, private sectors and the civil society) in the information society was reaffirmed. There were some contentious issues though like digital solidarity fund which was opposed. And the second issue was the Internet governance. One of the outcomes of the summit was setting up of a working group on Internet Governance (WGIG) as there was no consensus on the definition of Internet Governance. The purpose of this group was to:
The WGIG was started comprising
39 members with Nitin Desai (Special Advisor to the UN
Secretary General) as the chairman. After a preparatory and four official
meetings, the WGIG report was produced on
The report also discussed and identified the following public policy issues:
Different roles and responsibilities were mentioned in the report for the governments, private sectors and the civil society with the civil society having most of the responsibilities and roles to play as they were active participants.
The speaker said that four models were being proposed:
- Governments as members; private sector and civil society advising.
- No specific oversight organization – possibly enhanced role for existing GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee)
- Governments take the lead role and not anchored with the UN.
- Appoints the oversight committee through ICANN
- Government led. Private sector and civil society are defined as just observers.
However, the speaker informed that there had been diverse reactions to the proposed models. He expressed his surprise that there was no mention of the ITU in the main report apart from a small footnote. Speaking about the next phase, he said that the intergovernmental process would start and the highlights would be the September prepcom meeting but the negotiations would solely owned by the governments. He also said that the forum was wanted by many but there were several hard issues to be solved. However, he said many governments wanted to put it forward so he felt that it would not die.
Questions and Discussions:
- There were no questions and discussions.
7.
AP
RALO and the Business Plan by Kuo-Wei-Wu and At-Large Advisory Committee Activity
Report by Izumi Aizu
The speaker started the
presentation by giving some background information on AP RALO. It started in
the early days when ICANN went through electronic voting. The At-Large study
committee was formed which later came out with the ALS, At-Large Society. Since
then more than 40 members have been registered with the ALS in ICANN and
roughly about 10 of them come from the AP region. It follows the ICANN
structure. The first AP-RALO pre-meeting took place at
The speaker informed that he was
assigned to come out with a business plan to be discussed in the third AP-RALO pre-meeting
in
The structure was yet to be
decided and the speaker informed that it would be decided in the next meeting,
which might take place in
The agenda for the pre-meeting in
Questions and Discussions:
-
Mr. Paul asked the speaker if it was likely to have a
change in attitude among certain people who were not very happy with the
structure of the ICANN At-Large. The speaker acknowledged the dissatisfaction
that existed regarding the structure of ICANN At-Large and said that apart from
the Asia Pacific and
-
Giving more insight into the ICANN At-Large committee, Mr.
Izumi informed that there had been additional members in At-Large since the previous
meeting last year and it was somehow becoming more efficient. He also agreed
that
- Mr. Izumi then threw the question to the attendees asking if they felt there was really a need for ICANN At-Large and welcomed their opinions on it. In response, several comments were delivered with some stating it is very tough for the individuals to understand and get interested about Internet policies and Internet organizations such as the ICANN. Others felt that in order to be scalable, one has to have a hierarchical structure. However, At-Large was a flat structure.
- Professor Kanchana said that the concept of At-Large did not make sense to the public in general. However if they were setting up a model where they have another organization which takes care of other aspects of research community such as security, spam etc, she could consider joining the organization.
- After several discussions and opinion sharing, Mr. Izumi said that by individual Internet user, his target was not the average users or the citizens on the streets but professionals, economists, lawyers and public servants who feel that they were responsible for the public interest. He felt that those people should be invited.
8.
Human
Resource Development for Our Community by Hiroshi Esaki and Kanchana
Kanchanasut
Since Professor Kanchana already explained the activities of intERLab in the morning session of the retreat which also falls under the human resource development community, she requested Hiroshi Esaki to explain the activities of SOI-Asia.
Introducing the SOI-Asia program, Mr. Esaki explained that SOI-Asia was more than four years old program, setup with the aim of imparting higher education for the Asian countries, share experience and resources. The goal of it was to establish a scheme for sustainable educational collaboration programs utilizing IT among Asian Universities. With the help of a diagram showing the environment for sharing classes among universities (Real-Time and Archives), he informed that they use satellite infrastructure using many new technologies that include RO satellite and UDLR technology, multicast streaming, IPv6 and Satellite Internet over C-band (AI3). SOI-Asia has at present twenty partners in eleven countries. The layered structure of SOI-Asia with the associated responsibilities and activities were also explained by the presenter. Speaking about the bottom-most layer, Network Infrastructure and Development he said that they were collaborating with each other to establish and share the network using students as well as faculty members. The human resource development for network administrations started with SOI-Asia Operators Workshop in Keio/Japan in September 2002 followed by successive workshops in various parts of the Asia Pacific region. The educational environment development included designing portable lecturer site, scalable student site and flexible gateway site. The tools used were MTM-Multicast tree mirroring system, student site monitoring system and activity report system. In partnering with other universities, the speaker felt that establishment of multi-lateral partnership and self-operating organization was very important. Speaking about the achievements, he informed that the steering committee has meetings twice a year with tele-conference when needed. The procedure to share the curriculum includes gathering requests for educational content and agreement on schedules. Apart from the Steering committee, SOI-Asia also has an Academic Committee, Operators Committee and a Research Committee. Briefing on the educational program development and implementation the speaker said that there had been several informative and valuable courses and lectures broadcasted which included special lectures by Nobel Laureates from AIT, APNIC tutorials, Tsunami Special Lecture series contributed by several universities and several other courses and lectures.
Questions and Discussions:
- Professor Kanchana thanked the speaker and invited everyone to take part in discussions on how to go forward with human resource development. She felt that a combined infrastructure of both intERLab and SOI-Asia would enable them to conduct all kinds of trainings, workshops and conferences effectively and more efficiently.
- Another attendee said the lectures were really focusing on technology rather than policies and Internet governance, and if they could gather people interested only in technology and establish a course to educate students who could participate in Internet governance in the future, it would prove a very good program.
- Mr. Izumi expressed his interest and willingness to participate but he stressed that the design should be careful and implementation very focused in such a program in order to have a good understanding of what was going to happen.
- Mr. Tommy Matsumoto asked if it was a good idea to provide opportunities and get young people such as those participating in the APNG camp to take part in it.
- Mr. Izumi suggested relying on the experience and expertise of a number of people in the AP region for example Mr. Paul from APNIC and the advisory committee of the ORDIG who were directly involved in the policy areas.
- Mr. Paul from APNIC in response, said that he was keen from APNIC to collaborate.
- Mr. Izumi added that it might be very interesting to involve the camp participants from the younger generation if they need to think about the design of the training program.
- Professor Kanchana proposed to form a task force in which each group would work on a specialized area. They could start planning for the curriculum and try it on SOI-Asia or intERLab training.
- Mr. Izumi suggested that it would be much easier for him and others if someone could write a brief description on what would be the initial program. This would make it easier for them to discuss whether that was sufficient and what kind of topics and subjects can be put into.
- Professor Kanchana said that she would like to start off with the senior government officers who really needed that kind of education and information. She said that Mr. Izumi could start from there and once the course becomes more stabilized, they could think of working on the online version.
- Mr. Tommy Matsumoto said that they never discussed on education in the APNG camps though they had senior speakers always giving presentations. So, he felt that perhaps they could start a working group for education in APNG camp and let the young participants discuss on ways to impart such education back in their own countries.
9.
Others
and Future Meetings
-
After much discussion, it was decided to hold the next
AP Retreat meeting in
- Atsushi Endo and Zita Wenzel were appointed unanimously as co-chairs for the next meeting.
- The meeting adjourned at 5:00 PM.