PacINET 2006 Day 4

Today began with the sad announcement that Keith Davidson's (InternetNZ) father had passed away so Keith had to return to NZ. Our thoughts are with Keith and his family.

As Keith was supposed to be first up today, I had to put in something else to fill his slot. My victim was John Crain, CTO, ICANN. I asked John to come to PacINET quite late - a last minute thing and kudos to him for making the effort to come down. I also got him to do several pretty much impromptu presentations through his stay, including filling Keith's slot with a presentation on DNS. The morning was spent on discussing Internet issues. Desiree Miloshevic also came down to Samoa and she covered Network Neutrality, which was an interesting perspective. The net neutrality debate is rearing its ugly head in the Pacific as well and is a worry. Resistance must not be futile.....

This morning I received confirmation from ISOC on funding for a project I want to run - a baseline survey of Internet in the Pacific. I shared the news first with Vint Cerf which resulted in a bit of happy back-slapping where I was the victim. My project will be available on www.pacificit.org

Harry McConnell was kindly back with us this year and we did a video link-up with him in Brisbane and 2 of his colleagues in Los Angeles. The session was interesting and we hope to continue this as a regular part of PacINET.

Next was an impromptu roundtable where I chose 2 teams (one for, one against) of 3 members from the audience present to debate a topic of my choice (which I provided after selecting the teams). Six brave members were given the topic "Censorship on the Internet" to debate. After some intense statements and a round of rebuttals my winning choice (in terms of the arguments presented) was the for team, however I personally do not condone censorship of the Internet and am against it.

I spent the afternoon on some PR visits and meetings with Vint so missed the PacINET sessions, but I understand the presentations were well received. The evening was spent at a private dinner with conference sponsors and the private sector. Some interesting discussion ensued on local politics, the Pacific and with lots of diversity in the range - we even covered global warming, melting ice shelves, wine, and, naturally, ICT and Internet issues.