1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:15,200 *33C3 preroll music* 2 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:21,420 Herald: “On the internet you decide what you do, right?” 3 00:00:21,420 --> 00:00:27,509 This is a question that I found on your website RespectMyNet.eu. 4 00:00:27,509 --> 00:00:31,050 And well, I don’t know what you think, it sounds quite plausible. 5 00:00:31,050 --> 00:00:35,810 But the answer that they give is: “Maybe not!” So, who that is, 6 00:00:35,810 --> 00:00:39,829 who actually decides what you do on the internet and 7 00:00:39,829 --> 00:00:44,470 what consequences that has, and what you can do against that – 8 00:00:44,470 --> 00:00:48,390 these two men will tell you now. They are Thomas Lohninger 9 00:00:48,390 --> 00:00:53,289 who fought against data retention in Austria – and successfully – 10 00:00:53,289 --> 00:00:56,590 and he has been very active in that politics ever since. 11 00:00:56,590 --> 00:01:01,909 He is here with Christopher Talib, Campaign Manager for LaQuadratureDeNet, 12 00:01:01,909 --> 00:01:05,430 the French NGO fighting for civil rights. Welcome! 13 00:01:05,430 --> 00:01:08,580 Together they say: Make the Internet neutral again! 14 00:01:08,580 --> 00:01:10,450 Please give them a warm applause! 15 00:01:10,450 --> 00:01:16,910 *applause* 16 00:01:16,910 --> 00:01:21,280 Thomas Lohninger: Thanks, everyone! Is the microphone working? Yeah, great. 17 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:25,280 So, first I have to say something for that title, 18 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:30,720 if the slides could come up?… 19 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:34,200 Okay, we don’t have slides so far. Christopher Talib: Yes we do! 20 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:37,930 Lohninger: So. “Make the internet neutral again”. When we decided to have this title 21 00:01:37,930 --> 00:01:43,590 for our talk this was of course before Donald Trump became elected. 22 00:01:43,590 --> 00:01:47,960 Most of our talk will be about how to enforce net neutrality, how to really 23 00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:52,470 keep the internet free and open. But of course we also have to talk about 24 00:01:52,470 --> 00:02:00,719 what will happen in the US. We both worked on the savetheinternet.eu campaign. 25 00:02:00,719 --> 00:02:05,869 This common effort of various NGOs around Europe started three years ago 26 00:02:05,869 --> 00:02:09,979 when the Commission proposed a very disastrous law on net neutrality 27 00:02:09,979 --> 00:02:16,320 that would basically abandon the principle. And we followed this law 28 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:20,030 throughout the legislative process on all stages, and then even through, 29 00:02:20,030 --> 00:02:25,040 with the regulatory implementation. And this… 30 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:31,550 you can all see on savetheinternet.eu there’s now an archive page. Because… 31 00:02:31,550 --> 00:02:35,750 let’s talk a little bit more about this campaign. What is unique here is 32 00:02:35,750 --> 00:02:40,500 that we really open-sourced every line of code that we wrote for this campaign. 33 00:02:40,500 --> 00:02:44,930 Including the tools that we used for contacting your representatives, 34 00:02:44,930 --> 00:02:49,900 the Members of the European Parliament as well as the regulatory agencies. 35 00:02:49,900 --> 00:02:54,730 And here you see the traffic graph because we also have visitor statistics from Piwik 36 00:02:54,730 --> 00:02:58,170 throughout these three years. And there you can see that we had huge success 37 00:02:58,170 --> 00:03:03,380 from various players around Europe. From the Netherlands, from… a huge 38 00:03:03,380 --> 00:03:08,480 shoutout to the Reddit community, they were awesome! And also change.org, 39 00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:12,400 netzpolitik.org, and Alexander Lehmann helped us a lot. 40 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:18,080 As well as Firefox which ran a snippet for savetheinternet in the last parts 41 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:23,610 of the campaign. And in the final stages of this fight for net neutrality in Europe 42 00:03:23,610 --> 00:03:27,370 we really brought the protests to the streets. There were demonstrations 43 00:03:27,370 --> 00:03:33,290 in Barcelona, Riga, Bonn, Brussels and Vienna. And this was really 44 00:03:33,290 --> 00:03:38,790 a group effort. At the end this coalition grew more and more, and we had 23 NGOs 45 00:03:38,790 --> 00:03:44,840 from 14 countries that joined us in this. And, ultimatively, we 46 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:50,100 achieved almost half a million submissions to BEREC, the “Body of European Regulators 47 00:03:50,100 --> 00:03:55,210 for Electronic Communications”. And this is really a historic number. Because 48 00:03:55,210 --> 00:04:00,030 all previous consultations of the regulators in Europe had a maximum of around 49 00:04:00,030 --> 00:04:06,400 100 comments. So, no, in all that process they had so much public interest 50 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:11,950 and engagement. And this really changed the landscape within the regulators 51 00:04:11,950 --> 00:04:16,570 because suddenly they were observed by the public, and before that they were basically 52 00:04:16,570 --> 00:04:22,259 hiding behind some processes, and not really having to engage with 53 00:04:22,259 --> 00:04:26,630 their own constituency. If you look at the submissions by country you can see 54 00:04:26,630 --> 00:04:30,190 that Germany has the largest share. This is of course because the debate 55 00:04:30,190 --> 00:04:33,379 here in Germany is a little bit more nuanced and widespread 56 00:04:33,379 --> 00:04:38,580 than in other countries. But still we also had the UK and France, and Spain and Italy 57 00:04:38,580 --> 00:04:43,319 that contributed a lot through this campaign. But I also, being an Austrian, 58 00:04:43,319 --> 00:04:47,960 want to point out that a few small countries disproportionately contributed 59 00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:53,710 with submissions. Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium really kicked ass, and that’s 60 00:04:53,710 --> 00:04:58,719 probably because they had very good NGOs that, although most of them only run 61 00:04:58,719 --> 00:05:04,050 with volunteers could really mobilize in their local language to get the word out, 62 00:05:04,050 --> 00:05:10,520 and get people engaged for net neutrality. So. We now have this law. 63 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:13,649 And we also have the regulatory implementation. So what does it 64 00:05:13,649 --> 00:05:17,639 actually say? What type of net neutrality do we have now in Europe 65 00:05:17,639 --> 00:05:22,360 for half a Billion people? It is no longer possible to just 66 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:26,529 block or censor content based on commercial reasons. So you can 67 00:05:26,529 --> 00:05:31,960 no longer prohibit users the use of VOIP, or messaging, or file sharing 68 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:36,880 in the Terms of Services. There can still be blocking for legal reasons. If you have 69 00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:42,490 a law, if you have a Court order. But an ISP can not arbitrarily start blocking 70 00:05:42,490 --> 00:05:47,419 parts of the internet. This is clearly prohibited. We have a new right. 71 00:05:47,419 --> 00:05:51,780 We have a ‘device freedom’ now. That means that you can connect any type of device 72 00:05:51,780 --> 00:05:57,129 to your internet connection. And your ISP can no longer charge you e.g. for using 73 00:05:57,129 --> 00:06:02,490 your phones internet on your laptop, tethering. That’s really cleared (?) and 74 00:06:02,490 --> 00:06:07,279 absolutely clear. Also on “specialized services”, I’m particularly happy 75 00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:12,599 that we reached this result because this was maybe 60% of the whole debate 76 00:06:12,599 --> 00:06:17,969 in the European Parliament and throughout the legislative process: what should we do 77 00:06:17,969 --> 00:06:21,680 with “specialized services”? And originally, they were intended to be 78 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:25,840 the loophole for net neutrality, to circumvent the whole net neutrality 79 00:06:25,840 --> 00:06:30,550 by just making some service a specialized service. But now we really 80 00:06:30,550 --> 00:06:36,129 limited this danger to something that is handleable, and now a specialized service 81 00:06:36,129 --> 00:06:41,389 can only be something which could technically not work over the open internet. 82 00:06:41,389 --> 00:06:46,689 And you can see this clear here, I mean, that’s a picture from the video 83 00:06:46,689 --> 00:06:51,590 that Facebook shows you when you have your birthday. And I found this so telling, 84 00:06:51,590 --> 00:06:56,220 because this power plug with a Facebook sign is exactly what a specialized service 85 00:06:56,220 --> 00:07:01,169 in the bad reading would be. It is no longer a universal connection 86 00:07:01,169 --> 00:07:05,469 that allows you to use every device with this network. Instead, it’s just 87 00:07:05,469 --> 00:07:11,460 for one service. And if we go down that road we lose the universal character 88 00:07:11,460 --> 00:07:16,180 of the internet which allows us to do everything with it. Every invention, 89 00:07:16,180 --> 00:07:21,009 every idea on equal footing. With this model it is one Facebook plug, 90 00:07:21,009 --> 00:07:25,809 one Google plug and so forth. Another important issue that is still ongoing, 91 00:07:25,809 --> 00:07:30,830 and not as clear as the previous ones is Zero-Rating. Zero-Rating is the practice 92 00:07:30,830 --> 00:07:36,080 of exempting certain services from your data cap. So you have your 2 GB 93 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:41,939 but Whatsapp does not count towards those 2 GB. The new rules say 94 00:07:41,939 --> 00:07:46,009 this has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. So it’s quite dubious to see 95 00:07:46,009 --> 00:07:49,770 how this will play out. We have a few rulings now, from Austria, Sweden 96 00:07:49,770 --> 00:07:54,470 and one from Hungary. But this is really an ongoing process. 97 00:07:54,470 --> 00:07:59,110 What is clear is that you can not technically discriminate stuff with Zero-Rating. 98 00:07:59,110 --> 00:08:04,111 So you cannot, say, after you used up your data cap and the rest of the internet 99 00:08:04,111 --> 00:08:09,240 is blocked, you can still use the zero-rated application. This is clearly prohibited. 100 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:13,270 But about the Zero-Rating itself – it’s an ongoing process. 101 00:08:13,270 --> 00:08:18,320 Traffic Management – the last issue – is the day-by-day operations of a network. 102 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:22,809 So what do you do when you have a congestion, when there is too much traffic 103 00:08:22,809 --> 00:08:27,559 and the pipe is not big enough, how do you handle these? And we have a principle 104 00:08:27,559 --> 00:08:32,349 that says Traffic Management has to be application-agnostic, so everything 105 00:08:32,349 --> 00:08:36,680 has to be treated the same, but you can have exceptions, 106 00:08:36,680 --> 00:08:43,280 for class-based traffic management, based on Quality-of-Service characteristics. 107 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:47,790 But the burden of proof here lies with the ISPs. If the ISP wants to manage 108 00:08:47,790 --> 00:08:51,920 their traffic they have to really have a justification why this is necessary 109 00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:57,330 and in line with the new law. And we will closely monitor how ISPs 110 00:08:57,330 --> 00:09:01,420 make this transparent and how NRAs will handle this. We’re not really happy 111 00:09:01,420 --> 00:09:04,750 about the result on this one, but it’s still a workable text. 112 00:09:04,750 --> 00:09:06,680 And now I’m gonna hand over to my colleague. 113 00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:10,560 Christopher: Thank you Thomas. You hear me well? Okay. 114 00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:15,870 Basically, RespectMyNet is a grassroot tool we use for campaigning 115 00:09:15,870 --> 00:09:23,300 for net neutrality. It was built to try to see what kind of infraction 116 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:27,230 and violation you could see on net neutrality. It’s an old tool, it has already 117 00:09:27,230 --> 00:09:32,990 a few years. We rebooted it for the last campaign for the BEREC 118 00:09:32,990 --> 00:09:37,910 that Thomas told you about. And, basically, what it does… what we will use it now 119 00:09:37,910 --> 00:09:43,440 is to try to see how ISPs and operators are going to implement net neutrality 120 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:48,770 regulation in Europe. So, you know what we have it’s a law, we have, 121 00:09:48,770 --> 00:09:54,460 as Thomas could say, different concepts that allows good things and also 122 00:09:54,460 --> 00:09:59,380 bad things. However, the question is that, to know how those things are going to be 123 00:09:59,380 --> 00:10:04,800 implemented. So what it is now: We’d like to crowdsource the search 124 00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:10,310 for net neutrality violation. Basically, this tool allows you to input 125 00:10:10,310 --> 00:10:17,900 and to see if there are net neutrality violations, or in your country, 126 00:10:17,900 --> 00:10:23,040 or by your operator. 127 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:29,401 It could have crowdsourced documents of all types of net neutrality violation 128 00:10:29,401 --> 00:10:34,610 in Europe. And also it could be… we have a “Me, too!” button that allows you to say 129 00:10:34,610 --> 00:10:38,290 if you experienced this as well. And so you don’t feel alone in front of your 130 00:10:38,290 --> 00:10:42,840 internet connection, having problems and wondering if this is your connection, 131 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:47,880 or if this is a contract-based or general complication from the operator. 132 00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:53,870 You could see that if other people already have it. 133 00:10:53,870 --> 00:10:59,090 But crowdsourcing most of the net neutrality violations is not enough. 134 00:10:59,090 --> 00:11:03,290 What we’ll do if all those violations, when you just say: “Ah, they’re doing 135 00:11:03,290 --> 00:11:08,410 bad stuff, well.” As you say in French: “That makes a good leg.” 136 00:11:08,410 --> 00:11:14,510 But yeah, that joke, that cannot be translated, really. *laughs* 137 00:11:14,510 --> 00:11:20,750 Basically, we will be using that to fix those violations. And to arouse people 138 00:11:20,750 --> 00:11:27,100 to actually see… that’s… pinpointing and to notice all types of violations 139 00:11:27,100 --> 00:11:32,910 that allows you to fix them. When the BEREC will review the regulation 140 00:11:32,910 --> 00:11:37,870 on net neutrality, and he will do that, periodically. We can go and arrive 141 00:11:37,870 --> 00:11:43,920 with huge documents, saying, there are problems here.. here.. here and there. 142 00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:49,750 So, I’m already skipping in front, of my clicking ‘Next Slide’. And it’s a huge 143 00:11:49,750 --> 00:11:54,680 documentation, and in our activist world of internet where everything is very, 144 00:11:54,680 --> 00:12:01,070 very quick, and we are very quick on new information, it's hugely important 145 00:12:01,070 --> 00:12:04,290 to have good documentation and to remember what happened before, and 146 00:12:04,290 --> 00:12:09,630 so it does not happen again. Especially on net neutrality, as this campaign has been 147 00:12:09,630 --> 00:12:15,180 ongoing for several years now. The second thing that’s interesting 148 00:12:15,180 --> 00:12:22,060 for that type of tools is to allow telecom regulators to be accountable. So e.g. 149 00:12:22,060 --> 00:12:26,560 French National Regulation Agency really likes this tool because they can see 150 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:34,030 what private companies are doing more or less behind their back. To give an example: 151 00:12:34,030 --> 00:12:39,420 Belgium Telecom operators, e.g. Belgacom or Proximus waited for the publication 152 00:12:39,420 --> 00:12:44,260 of the net neutrality regulation. And when they saw that Zero-Rating was more-or-less 153 00:12:44,260 --> 00:12:49,910 accepted but only will be blocked on a case-by-case decision 154 00:12:49,910 --> 00:12:56,000 they published and they issued a lot of new contracts on subscription with Zero-Rating. 155 00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:03,230 So e.g. you have that one also in Germany, if I recall well, that you can use 156 00:13:03,230 --> 00:13:09,120 your data caps on your mobile device until a certain amount. But when you 157 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:14,451 reach that amount everything is down-speed except Whatsapp. And that’s seen 158 00:13:14,451 --> 00:13:17,450 as a net neutrality violation. And that’s a really good example of 159 00:13:17,450 --> 00:13:22,880 what Zero-Rating is. And that actually should be illegal. And that’s why we have 160 00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:28,640 RespectMyNet. It’s fairly easy to use and very low cost of time because when you see 161 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:32,050 what issues you have on your computer and you can check it out if you have 162 00:13:32,050 --> 00:13:37,370 a violation. Usually you can see that already in your contract. And that’s why 163 00:13:37,370 --> 00:13:44,030 we created a fairly easy form. 164 00:13:44,030 --> 00:13:48,340 As you could understand this is a very complicated issue and that involves 165 00:13:48,340 --> 00:13:53,300 a lot of different elements, especially when there are elements from law, 166 00:13:53,300 --> 00:13:58,110 there are elements from telecom regulation… But we try to make it as simple as possible. 167 00:13:58,110 --> 00:14:02,770 And so you can see the different points on country, type of operator, the contract 168 00:14:02,770 --> 00:14:09,850 you have, is it a fixed or mobile line you have, and also the type of discrimination 169 00:14:09,850 --> 00:14:14,990 you can see. Here you have just Zero-Rating because that would be the biggest type 170 00:14:14,990 --> 00:14:19,180 of discrimination we will experience in the next years. However, you still have 171 00:14:19,180 --> 00:14:25,090 throttling, class-based, contract-based etc. 172 00:14:25,090 --> 00:14:32,970 When you input that kind of discrimination on RespectMyNet.eu, 173 00:14:32,970 --> 00:14:37,850 behind the scene on the backstage we have a team that will review cases, and to see 174 00:14:37,850 --> 00:14:44,850 if there is enough information to use that as a good case. E.g. if you just tell us: 175 00:14:44,850 --> 00:14:50,470 “My internet is slow”, that is not enough. That’s why we try to make enough questions, 176 00:14:50,470 --> 00:14:58,570 enough place for you to describe, to give as much information as you could 177 00:14:58,570 --> 00:15:04,610 to develop that. And that have to return on the web page. And after that 178 00:15:04,610 --> 00:15:09,570 we gathered all that information which is no personal identification information, 179 00:15:09,570 --> 00:15:15,370 that were just identification on the type of cases. RespectMyNet.eu is a tool that 180 00:15:15,370 --> 00:15:22,520 has been ongoing development because we’re trying to use it for something 181 00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:30,190 that it has not been programmed for. And now we’re using it (?) to be fixed. E.g. 182 00:15:30,190 --> 00:15:36,790 to have a fixed type of sign flag, 183 00:15:36,790 --> 00:15:44,540 let’s say, on that it is searching a violation. We are going to develop 184 00:15:44,540 --> 00:15:49,130 linguistic admin groups because e.g. I don’t speak German, and when you have 185 00:15:49,130 --> 00:15:53,750 an input from a German speaking it’s difficult to understand what it is. 186 00:15:53,750 --> 00:15:59,490 Especially when it’s linked to the contract. And we’re trying to develop visualization 187 00:15:59,490 --> 00:16:04,320 of cases, so if you are a graphic designer or data visualizator, Affissionador (?) you’re 188 00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:10,270 welcome to help us. Basically, RespectMyNet, as everything most of us do 189 00:16:10,270 --> 00:16:15,580 it’s free like in Free Speech and like in free beer. It’s easy to use, 190 00:16:15,580 --> 00:16:21,870 it’s crowd-sourced database. So if you like databases come play with us 191 00:16:21,870 --> 00:16:26,210 and really get involved with that because there is a tremendous amount of work 192 00:16:26,210 --> 00:16:32,380 on a subject that does not involve terrorism which lately very scares. 193 00:16:32,380 --> 00:16:37,080 We have everything of the information on our Git lab. You have the address here 194 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:41,700 at git.laquadrature.net. You’ll have, anyway, that on the front page 195 00:16:41,700 --> 00:16:48,140 and you have information on our wiki, it’s wiki.laquadrature.net. Now, we’ll 196 00:16:48,140 --> 00:16:52,460 speak now on the future thing, and I’ll let… this thing.. to Thomas. 197 00:16:52,460 --> 00:17:00,160 Thomas: Thank you Chris. So, how can we use this tool? How can we use RespectMyNet 198 00:17:00,160 --> 00:17:05,039 because we now enter a stage on net neutrality as well as with 199 00:17:05,039 --> 00:17:11,480 the new general data protection regulation in Europe where we have quite good laws 200 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:15,619 but now we have to deliver them to the people. Because it’s now of much value 201 00:17:15,619 --> 00:17:21,559 if you have privacy in principle but your data actually is in the hands of someone else. 202 00:17:21,559 --> 00:17:26,659 And the same with net neutrality: it doesn’t matter if you are not allowed 203 00:17:26,659 --> 00:17:31,240 to block services when, in fact, your internet is restricted by your ISP. 204 00:17:31,240 --> 00:17:36,230 And what we will do, particularly as epicenter.works is our organization 205 00:17:36,230 --> 00:17:42,720 we have the high priority to really work on delivering net neutrality to the people. 206 00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:47,580 There is this concept of strategic litigation which is well in place in the U.S. 207 00:17:47,580 --> 00:17:52,389 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation 208 00:17:52,389 --> 00:17:58,120 pick their cases really litigate for fundamental rights in a strategic way. 209 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:03,549 And we want to apply these concepts now to net neutrality. And we’ve already done that 210 00:18:03,549 --> 00:18:10,940 in one case. We looked at the violation of an Austrian mobile operator, 3/Hutchinson 211 00:18:10,940 --> 00:18:16,519 and dated exactly this type of Zero-Rating that I explained earlier as clearly prohibited 212 00:18:16,519 --> 00:18:20,889 where you have this one graph [curve], which is the violet one, which is 213 00:18:20,889 --> 00:18:27,259 the public broadcaster in Austria, and when you reach the data cap, 214 00:18:27,259 --> 00:18:33,299 the 2130 seconds, it goes down to a flat line. But free mobile TV service, 215 00:18:33,299 --> 00:18:37,790 their in-house television service, continues to run without interference. 216 00:18:37,790 --> 00:18:41,499 So that’s a classical technical discrimination between applications 217 00:18:41,499 --> 00:18:46,630 which is clearly prohibited. We submitted a case, it was successful, they cancelled 218 00:18:46,630 --> 00:18:52,070 this type of violation for all new contracts and they changed the landscape 219 00:18:52,070 --> 00:18:56,330 of all their contracts. Because they could no longer give their own services 220 00:18:56,330 --> 00:19:03,100 a competitive advantage, they quadrupled up to 17 times the amount 221 00:19:03,100 --> 00:19:07,980 of volume that you can buy with this operator. And this is not a singular phenomenon. 222 00:19:07,980 --> 00:19:12,929 We have similar cases in the Netherlands as well as with Slovenia. Once an ISP 223 00:19:12,929 --> 00:19:17,289 is no longer allowed to give preferential treatment to their own service 224 00:19:17,289 --> 00:19:22,299 they start giving more volume to all their subscribers which is, of course, 225 00:19:22,299 --> 00:19:28,540 a really good thing. But, as I said, Zero-Rating is one of the biggest problems 226 00:19:28,540 --> 00:19:34,929 that we have and if you want to put it in numbers: ca. 40% of all internet providers 227 00:19:34,929 --> 00:19:39,470 in Europe currently zero-rate at least one application. So this is really 228 00:19:39,470 --> 00:19:44,279 an endemic problem that you can find in almost every network and country, 229 00:19:44,279 --> 00:19:48,679 and so we really have to do something about it. Because there are drastic scenarios 230 00:19:48,679 --> 00:19:53,419 that are in front of us. Mark Suckerberg announced two times already that he wants 231 00:19:53,419 --> 00:19:59,679 to bring his walled garden, called ‘Free Basic’, previously ‘internet.org’, 232 00:19:59,679 --> 00:20:05,059 also to Europe. He recently also announced that he wants to bring Free Basic 233 00:20:05,059 --> 00:20:13,129 to the U.S. and in the U.S. we have quite a hard time ahead. 234 00:20:13,129 --> 00:20:16,679 Donald Trump is not really a fan of net neutrality, from the few comments that 235 00:20:16,679 --> 00:20:20,649 we could analyze so far. And if you look at the three people that he appointed 236 00:20:20,649 --> 00:20:26,201 to his Transition Team for the regulator, the FCC in the U.S., there is 237 00:20:26,201 --> 00:20:31,270 a quite horrible outlook. Jeffrey Eisenach as well as Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton 238 00:20:31,270 --> 00:20:37,309 are hardcore telecom lobbyists. And you can really get a picture of what’s coming 239 00:20:37,309 --> 00:20:42,389 in the U.S. if you look at the paper “Beyond net neutrality” from Mark Jamison 240 00:20:42,389 --> 00:20:48,100 and Roslyn Layton from June of this year. What they propose here is to basically 241 00:20:48,100 --> 00:20:53,650 replace all net neutrality rules with a multi stakeholder concept. 242 00:20:53,650 --> 00:20:57,980 But they have a very unique interpretation of what ‘multi stakeholder’ means. 243 00:20:57,980 --> 00:21:02,499 They only limit this multi stakeholder group to the 20 biggest industry players. 244 00:21:02,499 --> 00:21:07,809 They explicitly say: “No civil society, no consumer protection, no scientists”. 245 00:21:07,809 --> 00:21:12,690 So it’s basically the industry making their own rules. They also propose new barriers 246 00:21:12,690 --> 00:21:17,249 for every type of ex-ante regulation of the FCC. So that’s basically 247 00:21:17,249 --> 00:21:21,519 putting net neutrality in the bin in the U.S. which would also risk 248 00:21:21,519 --> 00:21:25,929 their competitive advantage that the U.S. has right now as the power house 249 00:21:25,929 --> 00:21:30,409 of all startup innovation. If this really comes through then only the startups 250 00:21:30,409 --> 00:21:35,779 that partner up with existing monopolies have a chance to compete. 251 00:21:35,779 --> 00:21:42,309 In Europe we also have a quite worrying proposal. Part of the legacy 252 00:21:42,309 --> 00:21:49,169 of Guenther Oettinger. He proposed in September of this year a new regulation 253 00:21:49,169 --> 00:21:54,260 for BEREC. Who here knows what BEREC is? Hands up! 254 00:21:54,260 --> 00:21:59,090 Oh! Actually quite a few, that’s good. BEREC is the umbrella above the European 255 00:21:59,090 --> 00:22:03,919 regulators for the internet. And it’s an agency that has done quite a good job 256 00:22:03,919 --> 00:22:09,320 on various occasions. They are voice of reason, they have quite a good model 257 00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:15,070 to really incorporate different views and what the Commission is proposing 258 00:22:15,070 --> 00:22:22,209 with this new law is basically replacing this agency, making it into an independent 259 00:22:22,209 --> 00:22:28,320 legal personality, and having that complete control on all levels from the Commission. 260 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:35,269 So in this law you can find the Commission writing itself into this independent agency 261 00:22:35,269 --> 00:22:38,920 on many, many occasions. And the most obscure outcome of this is 262 00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:43,219 the Executive Director as well as the quite powerful Board of Appeals 263 00:22:43,219 --> 00:22:48,039 they will be chosen by regulators, but only from a list precompiled by the European 264 00:22:48,039 --> 00:22:55,119 Commission. And that’s quite a communistic tradition of democracy. 265 00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:58,770 And we have to follow this dossier closely. It is now entering 266 00:22:58,770 --> 00:23:04,179 the legislative process in the EU and if this would go through as it was proposed 267 00:23:04,179 --> 00:23:09,480 this would basically mean that the agencies in task of enforcing net neutrality 268 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:13,909 are under complete power grab of the European Commission which has proven, 269 00:23:13,909 --> 00:23:18,179 times and times again, that it is mostly interested in industry policy 270 00:23:18,179 --> 00:23:23,370 but not really in the citizen’s interest. 271 00:23:23,370 --> 00:23:27,169 For all of that we need you to put the violations that you come across 272 00:23:27,169 --> 00:23:32,390 in your daily internet experience into RespectMyNet.eu as well as write to 273 00:23:32,390 --> 00:23:37,210 team@epicenter.works because we are also very interested in learning 274 00:23:37,210 --> 00:23:41,009 about the violations that are out there. And about really finding partners 275 00:23:41,009 --> 00:23:46,710 in various countries before we can submit cases to the regulators in that country 276 00:23:46,710 --> 00:23:52,070 and really keep the internet free and open. You can put it like that: 277 00:23:52,070 --> 00:23:55,389 with this new net neutrality law we now have a tool box to really keep 278 00:23:55,389 --> 00:24:00,379 the internet open. And with RespectMyNet we have a crowd-sourced todo list 279 00:24:00,379 --> 00:24:05,809 of all the violations that we have to get rid of. Thanks for your attention! 280 00:24:05,809 --> 00:24:11,529 And as a last word: we were previously THIS organization, now we are THIS organization, 281 00:24:11,529 --> 00:24:14,360 we changed our name. Thanks! 282 00:24:14,360 --> 00:24:26,590 *applause* 283 00:24:26,590 --> 00:24:32,009 Herald: I think we have time for a few more questions. So please step up 284 00:24:32,009 --> 00:24:42,270 to the microphones if you have one and I’ll call your number. 285 00:24:42,270 --> 00:24:46,240 Nobody so far, is there a question from the internet? 286 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:51,100 Also not. So you answered all open questions exhaustively. That is great. 287 00:24:51,100 --> 00:24:52,830 Christopher: No, there’s a question there… Herald: There is a question? 288 00:24:52,830 --> 00:24:55,490 Oh, up there! Well then, number 5. Please, go ahead! 289 00:24:55,490 --> 00:25:02,970 Question: Hi, my question as an IT guy is: 290 00:25:02,970 --> 00:25:11,759 do you think about automating the process to file these complaints? 291 00:25:11,759 --> 00:25:18,280 So, I’m thinking about people who run out [of] their quota per month and, 292 00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:26,340 say, can easily start an app which checks about 50 different services to see 293 00:25:26,340 --> 00:25:30,029 which service is performing good, and which not, and automatically 294 00:25:30,029 --> 00:25:35,619 do a complaint on your side? Something like that? 295 00:25:35,619 --> 00:25:39,160 Christopher: If I understand well your question that if we are planning to automate 296 00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:44,640 the system of inputting subscriptions… input in[to] RespectMyNet? 297 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:45,840 Question: Yeah! 298 00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:51,909 Christopher: The thing is that that would only cover a certain type of violation. 299 00:25:51,909 --> 00:25:58,100 It won’t e.g. – don’t think in what I understood – it won’t be able to cover 300 00:25:58,100 --> 00:26:03,049 e.g. contract-based violations. 301 00:26:03,049 --> 00:26:05,940 But that could be an idea, why not. 302 00:26:05,940 --> 00:26:09,580 Thomas: Maybe, if you go to RespectMyNet.eu you’ll find a list of the measurement tools 303 00:26:09,580 --> 00:26:14,739 that are out there right now. The software that you can use on your own computer 304 00:26:14,739 --> 00:26:20,350 to test if your internet connection is open and neutral. But most of the software 305 00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:27,320 is abandonware. Sadly, it has not been updated in quite a few years. And then 306 00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:33,159 we need more developers to actively engage in those software tools. And I hope now 307 00:26:33,159 --> 00:26:38,429 that more people will do that because the threat in the U.S. is quite real and 308 00:26:38,429 --> 00:26:44,679 we need better software. Automated testing happens as part of some Bittorrent clients 309 00:26:44,679 --> 00:26:50,759 e.g. which upload their data to Measurementlab. And there are 310 00:26:50,759 --> 00:26:56,289 some programs like that but none really on a wide scale. 311 00:26:56,289 --> 00:27:00,299 Herald: Okay. So, the next one is the person on microphone no. 3, please. 312 00:27:00,299 --> 00:27:07,509 Question: Yes, I have a question regarding the regulation to reform BEREC. 313 00:27:07,509 --> 00:27:12,909 Are you planning to fight this regulation, and if so, and if not, are there 314 00:27:12,909 --> 00:27:17,140 any ways to fight it for the rest of us? 315 00:27:17,140 --> 00:27:23,299 Thomas: Thanks for being eager! Yes, we are now… this is just the beginning 316 00:27:23,299 --> 00:27:30,590 of this dossier. So it has been proposed September 14, 2016. 317 00:27:30,590 --> 00:27:34,789 And now the Parliament and the Council are just slowly starting to work on it and 318 00:27:34,789 --> 00:27:40,259 it’s part of a much bigger package of legislation called the Telecom Code. 319 00:27:40,259 --> 00:27:46,139 And we are in ongoing conversations with the legislators and the various 320 00:27:46,139 --> 00:27:51,809 political parties to see what is the best strategy. And if we think that there is 321 00:27:51,809 --> 00:27:56,149 a reason to really have a campaign then we will have one. But right now it is 322 00:27:56,149 --> 00:27:59,240 too early to say. Question: Thanks! 323 00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:04,059 Herald: Okay, thank you very much! And the next person on microphone no.3! 324 00:28:04,059 --> 00:28:08,769 Question: Thank you very much for an excellent talk. For Savetheinternet 325 00:28:08,769 --> 00:28:16,250 there was a lot of national NGOs active. And with this proposed power grab of BEREC 326 00:28:16,250 --> 00:28:22,350 how can we at a national level help support the telcom.. tel-regulators nationally 327 00:28:22,350 --> 00:28:25,669 to save the net neutrality? 328 00:28:25,669 --> 00:28:30,749 Thomas: The best thing to do right now would be to speak with your telecom 329 00:28:30,749 --> 00:28:37,230 infrastructure ministry, whoever is responsible of this in the European Council 330 00:28:37,230 --> 00:28:41,949 because they are the ones that are now forming their opinion. And I know from 331 00:28:41,949 --> 00:28:46,100 quite a few countries where this is really an open situation, so they are welcoming 332 00:28:46,100 --> 00:28:50,610 input from citizens. And they, of course, speak with the Members of the European 333 00:28:50,610 --> 00:28:55,519 Parliament from your country. They are the ones ultimatively voting on this. 334 00:28:55,519 --> 00:28:59,600 I’m not aware if we already have a Rapporteur on that but there will be one 335 00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:01,600 soon, and… Christopher: On the Telecom package? 336 00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:03,600 Thomas: Yeah! Christopher: Del Castillo. 337 00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:08,179 Thomas: Del… Oh my god. *laughs* The worst Rapporteur that we could 338 00:29:08,179 --> 00:29:12,940 possibly have. It’s the same that we had for the net neutrality law. 339 00:29:12,940 --> 00:29:18,540 But speak with your local ministry and your Members of the European Parliament. 340 00:29:18,540 --> 00:29:25,330 That’s the right answer for that. And I hope that also a few countries and 341 00:29:25,330 --> 00:29:30,840 as well as the regulators will see this power grab as what it is. Because the 342 00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:36,959 Commission is not really in the position to insert itself on all levels of government. 343 00:29:36,959 --> 00:29:40,129 That’s just the wrong approach. 344 00:29:40,129 --> 00:29:44,459 Herald: Okay, there’s time for one last question. Please, a short one! No.4. 345 00:29:44,459 --> 00:29:47,070 Question: Thank you very much for the talk. I was wondering, do you think 346 00:29:47,070 --> 00:29:53,080 it’s possible to actually convince telecom companies to be on our side, so to say, 347 00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:58,629 and to get rid of all of those Zero-Rating things, and convince them that 348 00:29:58,629 --> 00:30:03,120 net neutrality can be a good argument for customers. Or do you think the only way 349 00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,329 is through litigations and going to courts? 350 00:30:06,329 --> 00:30:11,009 Christopher: I think, both. The problem with telecom operators is 351 00:30:11,009 --> 00:30:16,750 that you go against their business model. Zero-Rating can increase their sales, 352 00:30:16,750 --> 00:30:20,980 they’re increasing their quinta (?) percentage etc. and net neutrality can not, or at least 353 00:30:20,980 --> 00:30:26,419 not in the way they see it. There is two things: on one hand you have 354 00:30:26,419 --> 00:30:31,679 customer protection, on the other hand you have private profits. So I think we’ll be 355 00:30:31,679 --> 00:30:37,859 very welcoming any type of arguments, of advocacy that could link both, and saying 356 00:30:37,859 --> 00:30:41,639 that we’re making a better world, but also we’re contributing to capitalism. 357 00:30:41,639 --> 00:30:45,870 So, that’s a tricky one. But, you know, we can discuss it. 358 00:30:45,870 --> 00:30:48,029 Thomas: But it’s doable. I mean there are a few ISPs that are fierce (?) 359 00:30:48,029 --> 00:30:51,929 pro-net neutrality advocates. Because they’ve realized that net neutrality 360 00:30:51,929 --> 00:30:56,309 is good for their business model. Because this open platform creates the demand 361 00:30:56,309 --> 00:31:01,049 for the only product they really have, which is internet access. 362 00:31:01,049 --> 00:31:05,309 About… it is really a question of their understanding of their own business model. 363 00:31:05,309 --> 00:31:11,080 And for the most part, they would either cannibalize the revenues 364 00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:17,559 of other companies that run on their network, instead of just being mere pipe. 365 00:31:17,559 --> 00:31:20,339 But please try to convince them. We do as well. 366 00:31:20,339 --> 00:31:22,759 Question: I will. Christopher: If you want to discuss more, 367 00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:26,771 we’ll be around the tea house of LaQuadrature upstairs, so 368 00:31:26,771 --> 00:31:28,519 you’re welcome there. 369 00:31:28,519 --> 00:31:30,880 Herald: Thank you very much, Christopher and Thomas. 370 00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:36,290 *applause* 371 00:31:36,290 --> 00:31:39,479 *postroll music* 372 00:31:39,479 --> 00:31:59,896 *subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2017. Join, and help us!*