by Dr. Piyush Mathur

Aiming to ensure universal, egalitarian access to ‘the opportunities the open, borderless Internet brings', the Internet Society (ISOC) finalized its 'Action Plan 2024' late last year and posted it to its members’ listserv on December 18, 2023.

The document includes brief descriptions of ISOC’s rationales for its targets this year as well as mentions of the specific steps it will take to meet them; the plan indicates that it has either already identified or will identify 'five emerging threats to the Internet' that it will fight this year while also resisting conventional threats to the Internet 'in five countries' via collaborative advocacy.  The document does not mention these latter threats specifically nor does it name the five countries that are to get ISOC’s attention in this regard.

Utilizing its Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit and Internet fragmentation explainer (among other instruments), ISOC also promises to resist governmental attempts anywhere to fragment the Internet, and 'advocate for the single, global Internet' on relevant United Nations platforms (especially at 'five regional preparatory meetings').  Specifically speaking, the society would attempt to persuade '10 country delegations to adopt pro-Internet language in public documents' while aiming to weaken '75% of critical fragmentation threats at key preparatory processes and ITU conferences.'

A focus on E2EE, via pro-activist reference to child safety

Against the backdrop of governmental as well as commercial resistance to end-to-end encryption (E2EE), ISOC remains resolved to advocate for and promote the same this year.

While governments tend to consider E2EE 'a barrier to law enforcement and public safety', and businesses resist it citing their need to collect user data, ISOC undertakes to spread the message 'that encryption is vital for online safety—especially for children.'   

To that end, ISOC will rely upon its partnership with the Global Encryption Coalition (GEC) while also contributing to E2EE awareness campaigns. Specifically, ISOC aims to weaken '75% of encryption threats'; bring on board 'two child safety-related organizations to promote strong end-to- end encryption as a digital safety tool'; and persuade policymakers to generate 'six voluntary public statements and/or favorable policies in support of strong encryption.'

Operational updates and legal interventions

The document also reveals that ISOC would update its 'policy framework for protecting Internet intermediaries' and also host the Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium.

In terms of its operations, ISOC will transfer the secretariat and the observatory for the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) project (which it incubated a decade ago) over to the Global Cyber Alliance; it will, however, continue to execute MANRS' training programmes and promote better routing security.

Looking to strengthen the future of its legal activism (including by attracting new lawyers to its cause), ISOC will ‘[f]ile at least two amicus briefs in important Internet-relevant legal cases and controversies'—and discuss issues covered by them with relevant technology policy communities and other stakeholders.

Community networks, IEPs

The document states that this year ISOC will work on or toward 'six community networks' as part of its efforts to 'create and sustain local connectivity solutions.'  These efforts have conventionally included the society’s Do-It-Yourself (DIY) toolkit, Community Network Readiness Assessment, and online training about building wireless networks; in 2024, though, ISOC would also upload ‘a new policy and advocacy toolkit' for communities to help them pursue or consolidate their own networks.

Perhaps most critical of ISOC’s efforts to make the Internet more seamlessly efficient through local trafficking of data and coordination of data flows, the plan for this year includes its commitment to building or improving six Internet Exchange Points (IEPs), necessary to facilitate relatively more direct routes for data exchange among participant Internet Service Providers (ISPs). 

Aside from contributing to a range of activities intended to strengthen peering infrastructures and practices, ISOC would also attempt 'to determine whether the majority of Internet traffic is local' at two countries it would select for a study; moreover, as the organizer of the annual African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AFPIF), it promises to sign an agreement with the African IXP Association (AF-IX) toward letting the latter take over that role from 2025 onward.

Concluding notes

As regards its broader outreach this year, ISOC shall be 'training journalists on the technical concepts behind Internet shutdowns' and advising governments of countries with conspicuous frequency of these shutdowns of their adverse economic and other effects. Toward those objectives, the society would also utilize its Pulse platform—which generates and disseminates key data regarding the Internet; popularization of that platform itself is also on the agenda for this year.

Thoughtfox readers might be interested to know that ISOC’s agenda for 2024 is its first step toward its addressing its priorities approaching Year 2030. The society had conducted online surveys of its members’ opinions earlier in 2023; on December 1 of that year, the results of those surveys had been shared on its member listserv.

In that December 1, 2023 email, ISOC had claimed that, having received 33% of the total votes cast by over 3000 registered members, a '[l]ack of trust of the Internet' had topped the list of their four key concerns or challenges. That concern/challenge was followed closely enough by that of '[r]ising global inequality' (regarding Internet access)—which had received 30% of these members’ votes—in turn followed closely enough by '[g]overnment imposition of control over the Internet', which had received 27% of the votes.  Coming at the bottom of the list of the survey participants’ priorities was the challenge of consolidating and centralizing the Internet (given that conflictual situations in many parts of the world have been  fragmenting it), which had received only 10% of the votes.

That having been said, ISOC had generated a shortlist of these four concerns (out of many others previously fed into its online survey forms by the registered members who had responded to that survey) ahead of putting them to this final online vote among its (global) registered members—which include organizations. In other words, even the fourth of the above four priorities has great significance for those who care about the Internet or are affected by it.

A US-based nonprofit advocacy group founded in 1992, ISOC projects Total Unrestricted Revenue of Thirty-five million two hundred eight thousand US dollars for this year; it also hopes to raise USD 6.2 million. The society has chapters worldwide and is committed to Internet access for all and the betterment of the global Internet system.

ISOC received some unusual attention in March 2022, when Andrew Sullivan, its President and Chief Executive Officer, strongly objected to interfering with Russia’s access to the Internet in the wake of its attack on Ukraine.

(All the quoted excerpts in the above report are from the Internet Society’s ‘Action Plan 2024’, which can be accessed in portable document format here.)

Dr. Piyush Mathur, a member of the Internet Society and a Research Scholar at Ronin Institute, is the author of Technological Forms and Ecological Communication: A Theoretical Heuristic (Lexington Books, 2017). If you wish to contact him or Thoughtfox, drop in a line using this form.