 We're back, this is Dave Vellante, and this is theCUBE's Silicon Angle Wikibon's production. We're here at MIT, at the sixth floor of the media lab, talking about cyberspace, the impact on international relations. I'm here with my co-host for this segment, Charlie Sennett. Fadi Shahade is here. He's the president and CEO of ICON. Fadi, thanks very much for coming to theCUBE. Welcome. Thank you. So who runs the internet? I thought it was Google. That's a good question. So actually, let's start with ICON. You were talking this morning about what a complex organization it is. It took you a while when you came in. You're the president and CEO. There's a poster out here which sort of describes it. So for our audience, maybe not familiar with ICON. What's it all about? ICON is responsible for two key aspects of the internet. The first is to manage all the naming system of the internet. So every time you type www.wikibon.org, that name and how it is used globally and how people reach it is all established and managed through ICON policies and operations. Our goal is to ensure that when somebody types wikibon.org, they don't end up at ICON.org. They always get to you and the reliability of the naming system is critical. Moreover, if there is a single naming system, then we have a single internet. If you remove the single naming system, we actually have thousands of networks. So what makes the internet one is the naming system. That's one thing. The second thing we do is numbers because every time a device, if you have a phone or a Mac or a PC or any device that talks to the internet has an IP number. You want to also make sure that the IP number is unique globally. Anyone using any device needs to be identified as a unique entry point into the internet. This is guaranteed through ICON's management of the global IP system. And that has allowed tremendous growth of the internet. But so now what's the relationship with the US government? Can you talk about that a little bit? Traditionally, ICON has a function called IANA, which is the function that really manages the core identifiers of the internet, the names and numbers. And that function is under contract with the US Department of Commerce. It's been like that from the beginning. It was always envisaged that that contract will go away at some point. In fact, it was envisaged it will go away in a couple of years, many, many years ago. But it didn't. But I think, as I said today earlier in another form, the time has come for that contract to be sunset. And for ICON and the global community, ICON is accountable to the global community to actually take that responsibility in full without US government oversight. And you pointed out this morning that just can't happen overnight because there are legal issues, there are security issues. But I mean, will it happen over a decade, over two decades? How fast can something like that occur? I don't want to put a specific timeline, but I will tell you that a decade will not work for the world. The world is seeking some answers on the issue. And until we are ready to engage with the US government on an actual timeline, I will refrain from setting one, but I can assure you a decade won't do. The world is more anxious to see an independent, globally accountable ICON, with where no one government, no one organization, no one individual has oversight or rights higher than the others. And that's important. And that's fundamental to the spirit of the internet as well. Equal footing for all stakeholders engaged in the management and governance of this global resource. A lot of people might be surprised that a former entrepreneur, CEO of venture-backed companies, former IBM-er, might be saying these things. I mean, essentially a lot of US companies, it could be argued, the deck was somewhat stacked in their favor, do you believe that? And do you believe that the outcome of a more balanced adjudication system will result in a more balanced internet power structure in terms of the companies that participate? Look, Dave, I will wear for a moment my hat as an entrepreneur and as someone who made great strides in the world of business and building value and in building jobs on the internet. I think the real danger we have is in fact, in letting the world down on the issue of making ICON truly a global organization. Because if we let the world down, there is a danger that the internet will become fragmented. Fragmented at the policy level, fragmented at the economic level, and fragmented as well potentially at the physical level. And if that happens, then there will be so much friction between countries and entities to do commerce and to exchange information that the cost of doing business on the net, the cost of promulgating products and services on the net will go up significantly. So it is actually in our advantage right now to find a governance model that is acceptable to the world to keep the internet as one net. If it breaks down, the frictional cost is going to be high. Buddy, you said that the current system of governance is unsustainable. Yes. Why is that? It was born from a reality that was based in the US. The internet has since become vital to the world's economy, to societies, to the political life, to the cultural life of the world. It is no longer simply a tool we use to do some things that were frankly envisaged 20, 30 years ago. As such, the governance mechanisms for the internet need to also evolve and become equally global and equally inclusive. And how do you become global and inclusive? Well, two things. One, we need to make sure anyone in the world, from any stakeholder group, governments, businesses, industry, civil society, academia, technical groups who wish to participate in shaping the policies and the standards of the internet need to have easy equal access. And we need to facilitate that. That's the first thing we must do. The second thing we must do is ensure that everyone has equal access, that the access is not measured by how much money you have, how much knowledge to have, how good is your English, how deep is your ability to muster legal and policy resources. We need to equalize the access. It doesn't mean everyone must participate, but we should never be under the scrutiny of being exclusive. These things seem to be contradictory though. You're saying, on the one hand, that we can't allow the internet to fragment. Yes. And on the other hand, we have to be inclusive and global. Aren't those things running right into each other? Look, fragmenting the internet is a very specific thing I want to talk about to clarify what I mean. The internet is obviously many, many, many networks, tens of thousands of networks. It is not a single network. What makes it one is the logical layer on top of the physical layer. And that logical layer includes what ICANN manages, names and numbers and protocol parameters. So that layer has to remain strong and intact in order for the physical infrastructure to be unified before we get to the application layer and the content layer. If we lose that, and suddenly governments start saying, for example, oh, ICANN is controlled by one entity versus the other. Therefore, you know what? We're going to create our own numbering system or our own naming system. So it could emerge that a country, I don't know, like China, would introduce to the world a Chinese internet route. Yeah. Is that in the works? I don't know. But I would not be surprised if some of this is already maybe in motion. And therefore, it is critical for us to, A, make sure governments as well as stakeholders around the world understand what they will lose if the internet is fragmented. We just commissioned a study with the Boston Consulting Group that will be issued shortly in Davos that will show how a fragmented internet will impact the GDP of specific economies. We picked 16 countries, and we're going to start with them and we'll expand the study further. The second thing is to continue our effort to make the current logical layer governance global so people do not have a pretext to go divide the internet. And that's what we're doing. Does the distribution of route servers have to change? Look, we make more out of the importance of the route servers than, frankly, we should. But it's become, if you think, a Trojan horse for the discussion. Oh, 10 out of the 13 route services are in the US. Therefore, the US controls the internet. I do believe that because the route service business is, frankly, shouldn't be taken and used as a political discussion, I think we should solve that. How to solve that, in my opinion, is not by rushing and distributing the 13 in some kind of formula to the world. But rather in technically rethinking why these route servers exist, what do these services do and how could we change the formula? And this is why I brought back to my team the inventor of the domain name system, the person who wrote that whole system and introduced it to the planet, Paul McCaptors, who's coming back to do some research and thinking with us as to how we can evolve that as well. So it's not just the governance, but potentially also how we manage the system. You were telling a story off camera about, I guess you were talking to John Chambers at the time, right? Talking about a little pinhole in a pipe in the bottom of a home that destroyed a home. Talk about the internet's infrastructure and relate it to that story without necessarily telling the whole story. Well, I mean, I was simply making the analogy of all of us businesses, industry, building, great products, great services, great content on the internet, but we do not pay enough attention to the logical layer that enables the internet to offer the services it does today that enables all these businesses to flourish, this content to flow, these economies to prosper. And therefore I was making the analogy of a pinhole in a pipe underneath a house. It all it takes is a pinhole and I have a friend who suffered that for the entire bottom of the house to come rotten and to come apart. If we do not pay attention in the next 18 months given a calendar set by global events to the issue of internet governance, I think we may have a pinhole that will jeopardize some of the great business plans and ideas we all have on the internet. Why 18 months? What is the deadline in the future that you see? You see the wisest process that the UN started in 2005 has a 10 year review process that ends in 2015. So leading up to that in the next 18 months there will be many conferences and much focus on how does the, how did the information society evolve since Tunis? Has the governance evolved? Is everyone in the world engaged as they should be? That's one issue. The second issue that is a fact, I think the revelations by Snowden in the last few months have also raised the issue of who governs the internet to the highest level agendas of heads of state. As a result, many heads of state, as we've heard President Rousseff of Brazil at the UN. We heard from Merkel in Germany several times. We heard many other presidents for the first time actually speak publicly about the issue of internet governance. Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke about ICANN twice in the last 30 days and about what we do. So this was not the case, only a few months ago. So we're heading for an intersection that really feels imminent. I mean, 18 months is just around the corner. It is. Are these world leaders prepared to actually take on and tackle the complex and very, very, very layered information they need to understand to help think through a new model for governance? They're scrambling. Most countries are scrambling. Few countries are prepared, but the majority are scrambling because the issue of internet governance or the topic of internet governance has been divided within most governments across multiple agencies and multiple groups, frankly vying for different interests. Now that the head of state is paying attention, for example, I saw two countries in Latin America in the last three months alone move the issue of internet governance from the ministerial level to the president's office. Because there at least they can raise it and look at it across all the departmental interests and agencies. So I think the world is scrambling to come to terms with what all of that means. And I sincerely hope that those of us who have been at that for a while and who are committed to an open, inclusive internet for everyone. And to one internet, not to multiple internet, I hope those of us who are committed to that pay attention and invest time and effort to communicate to the world why it is important to avoid the breakdown of the internet into fiefdoms and into long national boundaries or regional boundaries. It is a gift for the world as well. It is a tool for peace in many ways, not just for business. But do you think these world leaders who are scrambling now can figure this out within 18 months? We are, I'm hoping that through engagement by all people of goodwill, and myself I'm doing my share, I'm pretty much in three, four countries a week now visiting ministers, visiting with presidents who are possible to explain that there are good alternatives and opportunities to do that. I just assembled a commission headed by the president of Estonia, a country in Europe that has done great things with the internet for their people along with the last Prime Minister of Norway and many other dignitaries. We are trying to raise the level of attention to a way forward to keep the internet. You said that Brazil is going to play a very critical role in the future in terms of your search for the middle, as you called it. Maybe you could explain the middle and why Brazil is your target point for the middle. This is a result of the conference in Dubai last December called the Wicket. As a result of the Wicket, we emerged polarized. On one end, you had the US government with its close allies, standing firmly around a position of multi-stakeholder internet governance, internet governance that involves all stakeholders. On the other end, you had Russia with its usual allies, standing firm around a model of internet governance that is intergovernmental or otherwise called multilateral. In between, to my immense surprise as an observer, most governments, most countries, frankly, didn't know the facts they needed to know to make a decision. So many of them made decisions to go one way or the other, frankly, based on other agendas and other alliances, rather than on what's important for internet governance and for their own people. So we left the Wicket with a very clear understanding that we need to spend the next year, two years, three years reaching out to these middle countries and sharing with them what is working and how to move forward. And we couldn't stay either all multi-stakeholder or all multilateral and there is no nuance to all of that. There's a lot of nuance to this. Now, we determined very quickly that the middle of the middle could be led by Brazil. And what gave you the basis, the metric for that determination? This is quite an analysis that took place and I involved a few political scientists in it. But Brazil, first of all, has the gravitas and the depth and the size to become a force as opposed to simply a vocal middle, but rather a forceful one. Secondly, I think after the Snowden revelations, Brazil's president went into the fray of this discussion in a very personal way. So in discussions with some world leaders, I also came to the conclusion that she took a risk by speaking for many when she spoke up at the UN and therefore she could be a good leader for the middle. We also knew that Brazil, and this is very important, is the only big country in the world that for the last 18 years has actually managed its national internet policy based on a multi-stakeholder body where the government does not have majority called the CGI. It's very important. And so we went to her and we said, what you've done in Brazil should be a model that we could use for the world. And she agreed. And so she moved away from her position at the UN speech in September and said, I'm willing to explore with you that middle ground you're proposing. And very quickly we agreed on a conference and now we're bringing other middle countries as I call them. I see Turkey in there, I see South Korea in there, I see Germany, I see Ghana, I see many other countries that are what I call middle-minded countries that are looking for a solution that have influence over their own space to come together and birth hopefully not a system that replaces what we have. But a thoughtful and meaningful evolution of what we did because what we did worked. We built an amazing value to the world, the internet and everything on it. We just need to evolve the governance model and then address the open questions. You see, this is the other thing I want to make sure people appreciate. It's not just about evolving what we've done, it's also about thoughtfully and with wisdom thinking, how do we answer people when they say, I need a best practice on setting cyberbullying policies in my country, where do I go? Where is the source of that information? Today it's all over the place. We need to give people something like a router, a gateway to solution, not necessarily a new institution, but maybe a router or a gateway that helps a government or an institution or an individual find out how to live on the internet safely and to grow economically, socially and politically safely on the internet. Yeah, whose job is that today? I mean, it's maybe sometimes Google, sometimes Facebook, sometimes Twitter. It's all over the place. And we all need to check on each other, Dave, right? I mean, Google, Facebook, these are all good companies, but in the world of governance, it's very important that we have checks and bankers. Accountability. Fatty, I want to ask you about the, shift gears a little bit, talk about the data angle. So I can't sit on a corpus of data that has value. How will, to the extent that this becomes a multi-stakeholder environment, how will it affect the data angle and who has access to that data? What do you envision there? So just to clarify, the only data that we have at ICANN is the registration data for all the people who register websites. But that data is not at ICANN, as much as it is at our accredited registrars. An example of these could be GoDaddy. They have the data. We don't keep the data. So the data is distributed. The data is totally distributed. And we are working very hard in the last year to raise the quality of that data because the who is data was originally really done between engineers, so they know who is on the other server. It was not done really as a directory, right? But with the rise of crime, with the rise of issues that frankly affect, in my opinion, the value of the internet, we need to raise the quality and the accessibility to the who is data. Is there a public API to that data? Yes, there is. Okay, and who manages that? We do, we do, we do, yes. It essentially does own the protocol. We opened it, we made sure that there is a mechanism to get to it and ICANN is very, I mean, everything we do. So that's open today, obviously. It's open. So no change there. The second question I have related is when you think about the ascendancy of US company, we had two great monopolies in this business. IBM, showing at one point at two thirds of the industry profit and then Intel and Microsoft and the internet was supposed to level that and in many senses it did, but it didn't affect the power of US based companies. Still predominant. Do you feel that in part that was, that the deck was stacked in their favor and will that change over time? Or do you feel that there are other factors whether it's venture capital, Silicon Valley, competitive realities, technological innovation, agility, et cetera, that allowed these US companies to maintain their balance of power? It's the latter, it's the latter. I think that... Spoken like a true entrepreneur, which I, better way I agree with you. It's the latter, it's the latter. And I think there is nothing stopping great Brazilian entrepreneurs and great Uruguayan entrepreneurs to get into the fray. Yes, there is, they have to catch up, but we're seeing this happen in Africa today. Africa is leading in mobile innovation, good for them. Mobile banking, I mean so much so that in East Africa they are now regulating telephone companies and telecommunications providers as banks because banking has pretty much moved to the mobile phone platform. So I think innovation can happen anywhere. And this is, we call it permissionless innovation. We mentioned Bitcoin a few times today. Yeah, yeah, and I think this, we should keep saying the story. As an entrepreneur who arrived, I mean to this country with nothing. I didn't even speak English. And this country here, the US enabled me to achieve what I did without permission. I didn't have to take anybody's permission. Just learn and get on with it and build value. And I was in Cairo recently. I visited the American University in Cairo Venture Lab. I met 20 young Egyptians who were all innovating on the internet and building value. One of them is about to be acquired by US company and growing his business. And you're actually seeding some of the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in your approach in Egypt, is that right? In Egypt and in other places. We just started an India Center on Research on DNS Security so youth could learn about that and grow and build value. I think this is the great incredible value that this internet has brought to the planet. Permissionless innovation. So let's not look at where some of the US companies have arrived as companies that had a unique advantage. Maybe they were at the right place at the right time and they took advantage and good for them. What's wrong with that? Let's just encourage everybody to have the same opportunity and to not believe that the game is over. The game just started. Fadi, we're out of time and I know you're not done yet at ICANN, but if you had to put a bumper sticker on your tenure, what would it say? It would be changing ICANN from a fortress to an oasis. Making it open and attractive and a place to solve problems and getting the people inside the system who sometimes feel they should protect it to actually believe so much in it that they'd open all the doors and let everybody come in. All right, we'll leave it there. Bigger economic pie for everybody. Obviously, that brings risks, but always does. So that's the trade-off. Fadi, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate it. All right, keep it right there, everybody. We'll be back. We're live from MIT in Cambridge. This is theCUBE.