It's a pretty shocking development. It's one thing to nobble a single network under the IP Act to interfere with equipment but to use a neutral exchange to nobble shared infrastructure used across US and UK and ... is a completely different can of worms. I don't exercise a vote anymore at LINX but I do hope members will pause and consider this very carefully indeed. Christian
Brandon Butterworth <mailto:brandon@rd.bbc.co.uk> 17 February 2017 at 17:38 On Fri Feb 17, 2017 at 05:19:32PM +0000, William Waites wrote:
So instead of saying, "we have this new spying law in the UK and we need to rejigg the decision-making at LINX so we will be ready in case we are required to do something that must be kept secret"
Yes but "hey government, swivel on this" isn't going to be an effective secret weapon, they'll neutralise it before you use it
what was proposed to the membership was, "we have embarked on this long governance journey and this is what we have come up with as the best way to run LINX". Those are two very different propositions
A big winking eye emoji was needed
brandon William Waites <mailto:wwaites@tardis.ed.ac.uk> 17 February 2017 at 17:19
On Feb 17, 2017, at 16:46, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net> wrote:
There is one problem: The article is factually incorrect on multiple points.
It would be interesting to know what points those are, it reads mostly accurately to me.
The proposed constitutional changes are in the public domain.
The main problem, though this point may have gotten lost in the very long discussion on the LINX members list, is that the reasoning and motivation for the changes was not made clear. Even when explanatory materials were belatedly provided, they weren’t especially clear.
So instead of saying, "we have this new spying law in the UK and we need to rejigg the decision-making at LINX so we will be ready in case we are required to do something that must be kept secret" what was proposed to the membership was, "we have embarked on this long governance journey and this is what we have come up with as the best way to run LINX". Those are two very different propositions, especially for busy people who don’t have time to read in detail and understand all the implications.
All that I suggested is that the members be properly informed so that they can make this choice with their eyes open. It is important to have this discussion in the open, and explicitly mark the transition where Internet Exchange Points re-organise themselves to accommodate spying laws and gag orders.
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