Comments on: Reining in ICANN

By: jim

jim — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 19:50:19 +0000

It is, of course, open to any group or individual, whether a coalition of governments or not, to deploy an alternate set of root servers. But will anyone point to them if you set them up? To deploy an alternate set of root servers doesn’t break the internet. It only breaks the customers of those DNS servers that point to them. And that only if those customers don’t find another DNS server that points to the “real” root servers. It would be very difficult for a nation to force its citizens to only use its approved root. Deciding which port 53 packets to filter at the frontier would be a challenging task.

In a sense, we had this argument already, twenty years ago. Maybe we need to have it every twenty years or so, as all us old farts retire.

The internet works because nothing is imposed as authoritative. Karl Auerbach is often quoted saying the DNS is only authoritative because everyone voluntarily adheres to it. But that’s true of everything in the internet. IPv4 is only authoritative because everyone voluntarily adheres to it. The engineers have been trying to get the net moved to IPv6 for years now and failing, because they can’t get enough people to voluntarily adhere to it. I doubt you could pull an NCP/TCP switch today. There’s simply no way to coordinate with the administrators of every host on the network, which is what brought off the NCP/TCP switch. Getting people to switch to a rival root would be worse.

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”
“Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?”

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 10:34:48 +0000

Interesting, but I wonder just how important is control of the top level of the addressing system, where all users have a clear interest in maintaining central and depoliticised management, as with the development of the TCP/IP protocol. Aren’t the big current issues in Internet governance ones of free speech, privacy, surveillance, and security, where we expect governments to maintain the ruke of law but can’t trust them to protect civil liberties? Is this one really worth worrying about by non-geeks compared to paedophilia, Chinese censorship, US snooping, spam, identity theft, and viruses?

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:40:14 +0000

An interesting potential parallel is Galileo vs GPS.

By: Vittorio Bertola

Vittorio Bertola — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 06:30:30 +0000

Jim, I am a member of the WGIG (which, by the way, is a working group of the UN, not of the ITU) and our last meeting was devoted to finalizing our report, which should become public in the second week of July.

I am sure that the US Government had some way to read our draft final report before it gets out, but (as there’s nothing really groundbreaking in it) I think it mostly is a pre-emption of the discussion, or, in diplomatic terms, a way to strengthen the initial bargaining position in view of the subsequent negotiations.

On the other hand, if the US Government really thinks that it can keep unilateral control of the root zone forever, I think that a likely consequence would be the deployment of alternate root server systems, controlled by coalitions of other governments, in the next few years. In other words, the Internet would break.

By: jim

jim — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 01:01:17 +0000

I took a look at some of the links that Michael Froomkin provided and saw there had been a meeting of the ITU Working Group on Internet Governance scheduled for June 14-17. I wonder if something happened at that meeting to prompt the DoC to put out this memo. At this level the US Government is usually more reactive than proactive. I could find no minutes of the WGIG meeting. Their website said that they met in closed session 15-17 June and their report will be submitted “shortly” to the Secretary General and to all stakeholders on 18 July.

Does anyone know what, if anything, happened at that meeting that might have alarmed the US Government?

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:45:40 +0000

John – there’s no link, but there is some history and legal issues. ICANN is a non-profit body incorporated under Californian law. It administers the relevant bits of the DNS under both the memorandum of understanding, and a contractual agreement (the IANA contract). It would be in a pretty weak legal position were it to try to do this – certainly, I don’t think that any commitment that the US government has given would be binding. In practical terms too, ICANN would be in a very tough position. Several of the root servers, including the ‘A’ server, are under the direct control of the US government. An ICANN secession would effectively involve splitting the root, with resultant chaos. Jon Postel tried to pull (or at least road-test) a quasi-secession back in the day, and rapidly found himself keelhauled for his troubles.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:32:03 +0000

I’m unclear as to how the US power is derived/maintained. That is, if ICANN simply declared that the conditions for a handover of control had been met, and that it would in future regard the views of the US Administration as advisory only, how could the US Administration act to stop them?

Is there a good link on this?

By: cinematic::rain » i-control

cinematic::rain » i-control — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:45:52 +0000

[...] via Crooked Timber (and what isn’t these days?)The U.S is apparently finding it hard to let go of ICANN, the internet’s big daddy in that they give websites names. like cinematicrain.com…. important stuff. contrary to what they were saying recently, the W administration plans to retain oversight. I thought conservatives believed in the government not interfering? [...]