On January 1, 1983, not a single one of us noted a very important thing happening: the DoD’s “ArpaNet” network was implementing the switchover to the TCP/IP inter-networking protocols for the then-quasi-experimental “Internet.” You would have had to be awfully prescient to recognize what we recognize today — that the transformative global network was as of that date in place. Something similar might — or might not — have happened this past Thursday, when the US Department of Commerce and ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, executed a strangely-titled “Affirmation of Commitments.”
Unfortunately, this more recent event involved mostly lawyers, rather than systems engineers, and it is therefore almost impossible to know exactly what’s going on. But the gist of it can be summarized as follows (and if you want more detail about the background here, which is really quite extraordinary, have a look at Chap. 10 of my Jefferson’s Moose book). ICANN, a private non-profit corporation, was formed in 1998, and the US government handed over responsibility to it for management of the Net’s “domain name system” — the complex global network of registration services and databases and nameservers that allow the net to accomplish the remarkable task of resolving domain names (“Volokh.com”) into IP addresses (necessary for the correct routing of messages). In the original “Memorandum of Understanding” between DoC and ICANN, the government retained some “oversight” over ICANN — basically, a kind of “If you act in some way we really don’t like, we’ll take it all back” clause. The government also retained final authority to make any changes in the “Root Zone file” — the little file that resides on 13 “Root Servers” around the world that sits at the apex of the millions and millions of interlocking databases that comprise the DNS.
This new “Affirmation of Commitments” appears to be a US government hand-over of its retained authority over the DNS — although the document is phrased in such a way that it is in fact impossible to tell if that is precisely the case. No mention, for example, is made of the Root Zone Files, and whether ICANN is now in charge. But if in fact the government is handing over its legal claim to control the DNS (which I suspect we won’t know for several months or even years), it’s a (small) moment in the history of the Internet that will be noted by future historians.
Small, because the US government’s authority to control the Root Zone files, and the DNS in general, was itself deeply problematic – so it’s never been clear exactly what authority it retained under the MOU (or transferred to ICANN).
But whatever else may be said about it, ICANN is a strange new kind of international organization — nothing quite like it exists anywhere. It’s not the UN, or the Internet Engineering Task Force, or the International Chamber of Commerce, though it takes some features (possibly the worst) from each. And while claims that ICANN “runs the Internet” are wildly off-the-mark — the DNS is not “the Internet,” and ICANN’s power over “the Internet” is constrained by many technical and administrative features of the current system — it is a critical resource on which current operation of the net depends. So if Oct. 1, 2009 turns out to be the day that the US government in fact relinquished its claims to authority to manage the DNS and turned it over to ICANN for good, it’s a pretty big day.
Kevin says:
Why is this is the US national interest?
October 4, 2009, 7:56 amWho authorized this?
Jon Roland says:
There is an interesting article on this at AtlasShrugs2000.
The key issue is how much influence other nations will acquire over internet operations. Will this lead to censorship or vetoing of some functions by some of them?
DNS is important, but what is most important is the assignment of IP numbers. The Internet could survive without DNS, but IP numbers are critical.
October 4, 2009, 8:09 amGordon Langston says:
Can we safely assume health care management is a lesser feat than internet management.?
October 4, 2009, 8:31 amAdam Maas says:
The DNS side of things is mostly irrelevant. There’s at least two other sets of root servers floating around.
What matters is that the 5 Regional Internet Registries are responsible to ICANN and they control the assignment of IP addresses and AS numbers. This aspect can be mitigated somewhat by moving to IPv6 with its pure hierarchical routing model with no non-portable space, but is still the only real control that can be exercised over the internet globally. Controlling IP allocation is controlling access.
October 4, 2009, 8:47 amJon Roland says:
Off-topic: Can any of you recommend a good, inexpensive brief printing and delivery service for US SC briefs? I already know about Cockle Law, but some of us would like options. Thanks.
October 4, 2009, 9:18 amAndy Steingruebl says:
David,
Since ICANN runs the IANA function under contract from the US DOC, and that relationship doesn’t change, they are still bound dby those contracts in how the IANA function is run. IANA is responsible for essentially running the root, in combination with several other entities such as Verisign, and the NTIA itself who is involved, and will continue to be heavily involved, in how entries get added to the root.
October 4, 2009, 12:00 pmPeteP says:
Fricking amazing, this thing we invented and built, ain’t it ?
And we just gave ( partial ) control over it to ‘the world’, and more to come, I’m sure.
What shall we do 5 years from now, when Libya or Egypt is ‘on the board of ICANN’, and they decide that ‘All content that might be found to be offensive to muslims is forbidden’ ?
Great move, Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Thanks, from all of us, for addressing this great pressing urgent priority of America in such a mindful fashion.
Right after you got done embarrasing us in Copenhagen ( not for the first time, I’m sure – December will soon be upon us ).
October 4, 2009, 12:21 pmJoe says:
PeteP’s concern is mine as well. Given the Obama administrations embrace of international declarations banning hate speech, how long will it be before ICANN becomes a spineless UN like organization which caters to the despots of the world?
October 4, 2009, 1:03 pmShane says:
According to Wikipedia, ICANN’s administration of the IANA functions is currently under a 5-year contract from the federal government, subject to annual renewal beginning in 2011.
The document posted here appears to only mention DNS, which, as other commenters have noted, is the least significant (but still significant) function of the IANA. Also, in it both parties (DoC and ICANN) reserve the right to unilaterally withdraw by giving 120 days notice.
I’m not sure what the other commenters mean by saying that giving authority over to a nonprofit corporation is bad for U.S. interests. Frankly, I had thought that in a place such as this blog, most people would be sympathetic towards government functions being handed over to the private sector. In any case, the comments about Libya or Egypt having any influence over ICANN betrays fundamental ignorance of how the internet is controlled on both a technical and organizational level. I will be surprised if ICANN comes under an undue amount of influence by an entity outside of California, much less the United States.
Anyway, at this point in time, regardless of the legal authority a corporation, nonprofit, or government agency may possess, changing the core standards that prop up the internet will result in strong pushback undermining that entity’s authority.
October 4, 2009, 1:52 pmJerryT says:
Much ado about nothing. DNS just isn’t important to function of the net.
October 4, 2009, 2:10 pmOren says:
Laugh when they try to implement it.
The various international authorities cannot even shut down ThePirateBay (still up, even after conviction), which trades hundreds (thousands?) of terabytes of forbidden content every day. Even child pornography, the bans on which are accepted as needful by practically everyone, continues to be available.
October 4, 2009, 2:24 pmMidlantan says:
PaulP and Jake – Of course the primary reason the Obama administration ceded all US control over the intertubes was to serve its fundamental goal of imposing Sharia law on the entire world. I mean – duh, right?
Meanwhile, back on the planet we all actually live on, the Affirmation of Commitments was a document that’s been negotiated since the previous administration, which took essentially the same stance as the current one on all of the issues the agreement addresses. So, whether the document represents a fundamental shift or merely another round of meaningless bureacratese, or something in between, and whether the policies it represents are good or bad, have very little to do with which party/administration/Commerce Department signed onto it.
As David suggests, the agreement is silent on ICANN’s IANA functions, so it doesn’t appear to change (for better or worse) the US government’s power over root server issues. Many believe the US will continue to retain substantial authority, even outright de facto control, over many aspects of ICANN’s functions. I certainly think that the US will continue to exert outsized (that is, disproportionate to its percentage of internet users, servers, etc.) influence over DNS and other ICANN issues, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
What the Affirmation ought to do is to improve transparency in ICANN decision-making, and bring other government’s representatives to the table in a more formal way. As for whether this is what will actually happen, I have much the same “wait and see” attitude that David does. However, I have little fear that the Affirmation will allow Libya or Egypt(?) to commandeer ICANN, either through the GAC or some other means, and start imposing draconian speech regulations. Besides, PaulP, those two countries seem pretty unlikely candidates for the sort of speech regs you’re imagining, don’t you think? Sure, they both might be on the short list to want to impose special anti-defamation rules for criticism of their dynastic authoritarian rulers, but if you’re worried about regulating anti-Islam speech, there are several other states that would seem far more likely candidates. (Saudi Arabia comes to mind.)
October 4, 2009, 4:15 pmJon Roland says:
ICANN and IANA don’t really “control” anything. They enable the cooperation of Internet users and provide a measure of protection from undue influence. If anyone attempted to use them for anything else, the Net would just reorganize itself to shut them out, just as it reroutes packets around disruptions in connections.
The Net seems destined to become the successor lifeform to humanity. We can assist its birth, or stand out of its way. But control it, no.
October 4, 2009, 5:07 pmMax Hailperin says:
At risk of being a pedant, who exactly is this “us” you mention? I sure noticed the switchover, so you can’t mean “the readers and me.” Are you speaking for the conspirators as a collective authorial body?
October 4, 2009, 5:12 pmMax Hailperin says:
Regarding all the comments to the effect that this Affirmation only concerns DNS, be sure not to overlook the idiosyncratic definition of DNS contained in a footnote to the Affirmation:
October 4, 2009, 5:27 pmPeteP says:
“the comments about Libya or Egypt having any influence over ICANN betrays fundamental ignorance of how the internet is controlled on both a technical and organizational level.”
You lack imagination. If they ( and their ilk ) get enough power to start blocking IP’s ( and that is whre they want to go , make no mistake ), free speech on the Internet is over.
” I will be surprised if ICANN comes under an undue amount of influence by an entity outside of California, much less the United States. ”
It was EXACTLY pressure from other countries that motivated THIS change.
To the idiot that suggested ‘the Internet doesn’t need DNS anyway’, you owe me a new keyboard. I just snarfed all over this one.
Oren – I hope you’re right – but look at the models – Pirate Bay is still online because the laws in the host country are enforced. Then look at Canada and the UK to see the path THEy are taking in the arena of free speech.
Look at the case you yourself are donating your time to re ‘internet bullying’, here in the US.
Look at the model of the UN’s HRC. These are many of the same countries who want a greater say regarding control of the Internet.
The only things standing between us and them are our Constitution, our Congress, and our President. I have faith in one of those, and one only.
October 4, 2009, 5:43 pmPeteP says:
Correction “Pirate Bay is still online because the laws in the host country are enforced.”
I meant ‘NOT enforced’, of course. or weak enough to be meaningless, whichever.
October 4, 2009, 5:48 pmMax Hailperin says:
I’ve been re-reading the original 1998 MOU, as well as the 2006 JPA, the expiration of which prompted this Affirmation. I’m not seeing where “The government also retained final authority to make any changes in the ‘Root Zone file’.” As best I can tell, the train David is worried about left the station years ago.
As to what the Affirmation really does mean, I think it is addressing concerns about the post-JPA world that were expressed in public comments in the months leading up to the JPA’s expiration. On the one hand, non-US governmental actors, such as the EU and ITU, expressed concern that ICANN must remain accountable. On the other hand, private-sector actors (such as the NetChoice Coalition) expressed concern that the ICANN retain its independence (or its bottom-up, private sector character), rather than be captured by a government-driven body such as the ITU. The Affirmation seems tailored to walk a fine line between these two concerns: promising accountability without accountability to anyone in particular.
That ICANN solemnly promises to take its responsibilities seriously is of course hardly surprising; nor would it be particularly comforting if taken no further. However, I think it is meaningful that they have come up with more detailed, specific mechanisms than in past documents. More importantly, though, by putting those commitments into a document in which the US government expresses its approval, ICANN has obtained a signal that the US will use its influence to oppose any takeover of ICANN by the ITU or other inter-governmental body. Of course, whether that is a good thing or not depends on how you feel about the ITU. But I do think it is the primary significance of the Affirmation.
October 4, 2009, 6:34 pmTruePath says:
The US government didn’t actually give up anything in this new agreement. We garnered some international good will without actually making any real change.
The new agreement requires that ICANN remain located inside the US. If there were ever a compelling national security reason to make changes to the root zone (say a total war with another major power) we could simply take physical possession of the people and materials necessery to modify the root zone. Of course insofar as some root name servers sit in other countries we’ve never *really* had control over what these servers report as the countries they sit in could always take possession of them.
To some extent this is simply a recognition by the US government that the internet has become important enough to so many countries around the world that other countries would not accept US medelling with the root zone without responding (e.g. by nationalizing root name servers located in their country).
October 4, 2009, 6:51 pmPeteP says:
‘US meddling’ ????
We invented it, we built it, and we freely offered to share what we knew, what we built, with the world, for no charge. We said ‘Come on in to this nice new pool we built, the water’s fine and admission is free’.
And now if we don’t give up control ‘because it’s important’ ( IOW, ‘because they really really want us to give THEM control ‘ ), it’s ‘meddling’ ??
October 4, 2009, 7:13 pmOren says:
Again, you fail to understand how the internet is organized. One cannot “block IPs”.
October 4, 2009, 7:57 pmShane says:
PeteP – Your first comment strongly implied that this is some kind of terrible mistake, whose blame can be placed on the Obama administration. This document really doesn’t state anything new. Perhaps you should be blaming Clinton’s Department of Commerce. Or perhaps you should take a deep breath and realize that you’re fighting a battle that your side lost 11 years ago.
Then you demonstrated ignorance on the legal and technical status of The Pirate Bay – Swedish authorities want it shut down just as bad as anyone else does, but the technical means of doing so are difficult. Copyright laws ARE enforced in Sweden strongly enough that the owners of The Pirate Bay are appealing their 1-year prison sentences. As mentioned above, child porn is probably the better example of something nearly every government would like to stop, but still thrives on the internet.
Finally, using “imagination” to figure out how creative censors will be without using any “imagination” to think of how free-speech advocates would react is intellectually dishonest. The example of Falun Gong’s software engineers distributing censorship-bypass software to Iranians during the recent protests is just one of many ways that censorship would fail. If the IANA loses its legitimacy by engaging in content-based censorship, you’d better believe that Google or someone similarly huge would put up their own root servers to compete with the “official” ones, and that most ISPs in the western world would go with the “uncensored” side of the internet with a seamless transition for its users.
Seriously – Comcast can’t even throttle bittorrent packets without technical users creating and widely distributing countermeasures. The nerds would go nuts if anything resembling content-based censorship showed up in an RFC.
So you’re going to have to explain:
1) How would a country like Libya or Egypt get one of their officials into the decisionmaking body of ICANN? It’s not organized like that.
2) Why would ICANN agree to break the internet in this way, seeing as it is exactly the opposite of their mission and purpose?
3) How would ICANN convince the likes of Google and Verisign not to revolt against them if they were to begin a content-based censorship scheme?
4) How would the likes of the IETF allow this to happen?
I’m not trying to pick on you here, since you’re clearly not the only person who believes this – you’re just the most active one in this thread, and I’m trying to understand how on earth this fear you have makes any sense.
October 5, 2009, 12:57 amInfoBore 60 « UBIWAR says:
[...] A Milestone Day for the Internet – David Post, Volokh Conspiracy [...]
October 5, 2009, 5:09 amPeteP says:
Oren – I phrased it loosely, perhaps. Although IP’s certainly CAN be blocked, if one controls the router tables. It is done routinely, every day, at many levels. A lower level example would be firewalls. A higher level would be control of the Internet’s edge routers. An even higher level would be control of the root servers. I do it here at home in my router, and my firewall software. Businesses do it at their proxy servers, firewalls, and routers. I do it at some of my dozen or so domains via config files. It CAN be done. Yes, my little examples reflect less than a single plankton in the ocean ( a good analogy to my own personal influence ) – then again, I don’t run a major ISP, I don’t control the routers of major backbones, etc. And I certainly don’t control the place they get THEIR control mapping data from, the root servers.
If ‘the powers that be’ decided to erase ( block ) VC ( or Hostmatters, the host ) from the root servers, at the A,B,C, or D block level, or via canonicals, etc, and thus from authoritative DNS, guess what ? Those end points effectively cease to exist.
Perhaps I should have said ‘Foreign interests would like the power to block sites / users ‘. IP address is one aspect of that. Canonical name mapping is another. Router tables are another.
Given the right control, the wrong people COULD censor / shut down the Internet, that is my point. And ICANN is right up there at or near the top of the power structure.
October 5, 2009, 6:02 amJoseph Slater says:
Personally, I’m more worried about when they start transforming the internet into SkyNet.
October 5, 2009, 6:33 amMax Hailperin says:
September 30, 2009 was not only the date the JPA expired. It was also the end date for “Option Year Two” of the IANA Functions contract. The NTIA web site has a posting from September 4, 2008 showing that on that date, the NTIA exercised its option for the period October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009. Similarly, the web site has a posting dated September 27, 2007, showing that on September 24, 2007, the NTIA exercised its option for the year from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008. But there is notably nothing more recent posted there–nothing to indicate that the NTIA exercised “Option Year Three” of the 2006 contract. Does anyone know whether ICANN does in fact currently hold an IANA contract? Or is it simply continuing to play the IANA role without being under contract to anyone to do so? The broad wording of the footnote I quoted earlier, from the Affirmation, makes me suspect the latter. However, so many commenters have made the claim that the IANA contract continues that I wonder if I’m missing something. I did look beyond just the NTIA web site; I looked also at ICANN’s web site and did a generalized search for news. Can anyone point to any concrete source regarding whether NTIA exercised Option Year Three of the IANA contract? Thanks!
October 5, 2009, 6:45 amPeteP says:
Shane – I do believe that it is a terrible mistake, a step down the wrong path. The ultimate end of that path is complete takeover, as someone mentioned, by the UN via the ITU. They’ve been trying to accomplish this since the first packets transitted the first WAN segment. They are content to take incremental micro-steps over decades, if that is all they can accomplish.
re : “Finally, using “imagination” to figure out how creative censors will be without using any “imagination” to think of how free-speech advocates would react is intellectually dishonest.”
I did not intend to suggest that there would no be ‘free lance’ or ‘underground’ movements to get around it, I was saying that giving the types of countries under discussion power and influence, of any scale at any step in the chain, is a big mistake. Look at the UN HRC, what a complete travesty that continues to be, just as its predecessor was.
As to ‘Google going its own way’ – they might, if there was a dollar in it for them. Or even if they ‘just wanted to’, they have the money and infrastructure to do it. Do you want Google running the Internet ? ALthough their politics are different than those of Egypt or Saudi Arabia, do you think their version would be any less influenced by their own personal agendai ?
So you’re going to have to explain:
1) How would a country like Libya or Egypt get one of their officials into the decisionmaking body of ICANN? It’s not organized like that.
Yet. Let enough camels get their noses under the tent flap, and things can change.
2) Why would ICANN agree to break the internet in this way, seeing as it is exactly the opposite of their mission and purpose?
See above. You would agree ( for analogy sake ), I’m sure, that the US is on a very different course in some major areas today than it was 2 years ago ( for better or worse as may be ). How so ? Different folks in charge.
3) How would ICANN convince the likes of Google and Verisign not to revolt against them if they were to begin a content-based censorship scheme?
See above.
4) How would the likes of the IETF allow this to happen?
See above.
This is where I say ‘some folks who don’t see the potential for disaster lack imaginiation’. IMO, you rest too comfortably on assurances based in ‘founding principles’ and ‘that the way it’s always been’.
In 1995, the Republicans ‘rested comfortably on the assumption that they would be in power for a long long time’. Oops. Today, the Dems do the same ( but we shall see what we see shall see in 2010, 2012, etc ).
Last week, Obama ‘rested comfortably’ on his assumptions about the IOC. Oh, dear. He’s still wiping egg off his face.
We lack imagination if we ‘rest comfortably’ on the assumption that ‘The internet will always be free, because it was intended that way’, or ‘because it is today’. Many things happen in this world that ‘we comfortably assumed would never happen’. Nazi Germany. 9/11. Make your own list as you please.
Even your reliance on RFC’s is misplaced. The only reason they are ‘the Bible’ today is because the power structure ( IE PEOPLE ) in charge say they are. Given different people in charge, that, like anything, is subject to change, either evolutionary or revolutionary in scope, incrementally or in ‘nuclear event style’.
Imagine the ‘end game’ desired by much of the world ; the ITU completely taking over control of the Internet under UN auspices. Will it happen today ? No. But can you say with 100 % confidence that it will not ‘end up being that way’ 20 years from now ? With decisions being made by career beaurocrats in Turtle Bay, coupled perhaps with an ocasional vote in the General Assembly ? Or by some new ‘Internet Guidance Council’, where the 70 + OIC states have a majority or near majority ? Where China and Russia have veto or near-veto power over the US ?
Do you think that 50 years ago, anyone imagined that the USA’s efforts to prevent Iran from getting nukes would be hobbled and blocked by China’s interest in their oil contracts ? Was that ‘the original RFC intent of the UN’ when we signed up ?
Was this week’s ICANN decision fatal ? No, I don’t suggest that. Was it even a ‘major huge step’ ? Perhaps not. But is it an incremental step down a path we should absolutely not go down ? Yes, IMO, it was.
I believe a reasonable ( not fantasmagorcial lunatic ) application of imagination shows us where it may lead. Not ‘absolutely will for sure’ ( I’m not a fortune teller ), but ‘may’. And that worries me greatly.
IMO, the USA led the way in every aspect of the Internet, from creating it, to growing it’s roots, to sharing it with the world for free. The fact that it is so great, so revolutionary ( the greatest revolution of its kind since the printing press, a true paradigm shift in human communication, putting a worldwide instant printing press in every hand ) is not a reason that we should then cede ANY iota of control to anyone. We are doing more than enough by letting the world ‘ride our train’ for free, we don’t need to let them be the engineers and conductors, too.
October 5, 2009, 6:47 amOpining Online » Monday Morning Rounds says:
[...] A (small?) moment in the history of the Internet. [...]
October 5, 2009, 7:01 amMax Hailperin says:
I answered my own question by phoning Bart Forbes in the NTIA’s Office of Public Affairs and Media Relations. He informs me that the NTIA did indeed exercise Option Year Three, and that this ought to be reflected on their web page. He promised to look into why it wan’t.
October 5, 2009, 7:27 amOren says:
Correction: and IP can be blocked if you control ALL the router tables between the source and dest.
That works fine for a firewall that is a single point of control for your various networks but doesn’t work on the scale of the internet, which is was designed specifically to ensure that traffic can flow between two points via more than one route.
It takes about 15 seconds to change DNS on my router, so that wouldn’t work for long.
The current DNS scheme is “authoritative” only because they say so and we listen only because they haven’t done anything stupid. That is, there is nothing magical about setting your DNS to a machine that respects the ICANN rules. I can set up my own copy of BIND with whatever wacky system I want.
PS. If these methods are so easy, why aren’t they used to shut down the legions of eastern European child porn sites (many of them offering their wares for sale, no less)?
October 5, 2009, 8:58 amOren says:
PS. Pete, you should look into the wikileaks.org hosting system. Multiple hosts on geographically spread ISPs, no logs, AES256 encryption all around. Can’t be taken down without destroying the internet (not that a Federal Judge in the US didn’t try).
October 5, 2009, 8:59 amShane says:
PeteP,
I guess I’m not nearly as worried about slippery slopes as you are. It looks like you believe that the internet is more hierarchical than I do – the culture of the internet’s tech community seems to be heavily libertarian, and I don’t think the users will allow for any speech restrictions from some authority. Anonymous and the like would develop workarounds and distribute them widely within hours, using Slashdot, BoingBoing, and P2P networks. And if it’s egregious enough of a speech restriction, Google itself will develop browser plugins for IE and FF for ordinary users. Again, the model for this would be the Comcast bittorrent interference and the tools developed to detect and defeat those procedures, as well as the Iranian dissidents earlier this year – only it would happen on a much larger scale with much larger players.
More importantly, I don’t think you are seeing the upside for U.S. interests. It isn’t a zero-sum game, and I can believe that something like this both a) benefits foreign interests more than U.S. interests and b) benefits U.S. interests enough to be worth doing anyway. From the DNS perspective, the US government will still control their TLDs – .mil, .gov, (not to mention controlling more IPv4 blocks than anyone else in the world). And foreign countries will still control their TLDs – .jp, .uk, .ca, etc. And all the while the U.S. government reserves the right to shut down or takeover certain parts of the internet in the event of emergency or war.
I think of this as a landlord-tenant relationship, where the tenant is leasing month-to-month, and the landlord just gave formal reassurance that he intends to let the tenant continue to lease over the long term. It’s good for the internet as a reassurance to its major players that the status quo will be maintained for the forseeable future, but doesn’t appear to fundamentally change anything – that 120 day provision still applies.
October 5, 2009, 9:13 amPeteP says:
Oren – “Correction: and IP can be blocked if you control ALL the router tables between the source and dest. ”
Corrections to your corrections – one need not control ALL of them ( A given packet may transit 5 – 20 – more routers ), only the TOP LAYER of mapping needs to be corrupted to render the rest irrelevant. THAT is what is at stake, IMO. Not per se in this weeks’ change, but in terms of ‘incremental steps over the nest 20 years’.
“It takes about 15 seconds to change DNS on my router, so that wouldn’t work for long. ”
Yeh, so how’s about if the AUTHORITATIVE NAME SERVERS, from which all your other DNS servers get their data, doesn’t list VC anymore ? Or maps it somewhere else ? Guess what – you don’t see THIS VC anymore. As I said – you and I are individual plankton in the ocean, we won’t be missed. So is your LAN or mine, or your ISP or mine, your host or mine. But if ALL the plankton are poisoned ( Root Server corruption ), the whales die.
“The current DNS scheme is “authoritative” only because they say so and we listen only because they haven’t done anything stupid.”
Yeh – what if a different ‘They’ gets enough influence to change ‘what they do’ ??? This is where I say ‘imagination /foresight is required, but not unrealistically so’. What if the ITU gets control ( again in tiny little baby steps, over time ) 20 years from now ? And then the UN is the ‘they’, making the rules ? And the USA has one vote, vs 70+ for the OIC ? I say we must be vigilant NOW, not 20 years from now, about not taking the tiniest step down that road.
” That is, there is nothing magical about setting your DNS to a machine that respects the ICANN rules. I can set up my own copy of BIND with whatever wacky system I want. ”
Yes you can. And then the great power of the Internet, the unifying singularity of it, the thing that makes it ‘one vast global presence’ instead of ‘myriad little feifdoms’ is lost, and thus it is destroyed. Your private BIND config, your alternate personal DNS, is a ‘little feifdom’, one among millions. 900,000 of them may not include VC, and thus VC does not exist for them ( by example ). Being the brave little plankton that you are, you found a way to save 100,000 of your fellow plankton – and the whale died of starvation anyway. The ones who wanted the whale dead won, you lost.
“PS. If these methods are so easy, why aren’t they used to shut down the legions of eastern European child porn sites (many of them offering their wares for sale, no less)?”
Lack of administrative and political will, and intervening laws and politics. Many of which are currently under complete control of the USA. If we start down the road of ceding these things to other countries, and eventually the UN, ‘everything changes’.
A parallel in an area of personal interest to you and I, IANSA, is a relevant model. You have been helping to fight them for a long time, although often not directly by their name. What if they accumlated enough incremental gains to gain control ? IMO, they must be stopped at EVERY turn, because we know their ultimate goal. IMO, the same applies to ceding ANY control of the ‘net, or influence over it, to ANYONE, EVER.
October 5, 2009, 9:32 amPeteP says:
Oren ” PS. Pete, you should look into the wikileaks.org hosting system. Multiple hosts on geographically spread ISPs, no logs, AES256 encryption all around. Can’t be taken down without destroying the internet (not that a Federal Judge in the US didn’t try).”
OK – now, use your imagination. Consider an ideology that leads to such things as strapping suicide vests on retarded 12 year old girls and sending them down to the store for a head of lettuce. This part does not take imagination, or ‘chicken little’ thinking, we know it to be true fact today.
Now, put those people in charge of the Internet. Do you truly think they give a shit ? Do you think there is ANYTHING AT ALL, whether it be ‘changing the entire landscape of the Interenet as we know it today’, or even ‘Pulling the plug’ that they would stop at ?
WikiLeaks works today because of the inherent freedom of speech built into the Internet model, as created and controlled by the USA.
What if other people gained control of the model ???? That is my point, and my concern. What if the current model, on which you rest your assumptions so assuredly, were changed at its most intrinsic level ?
IMO, THAT is the road we must not take a single step upon.
October 5, 2009, 9:41 amTexas Lawyer in DFW says:
A real issue is that ICANN can’t even cut off spam and phishing sites. Which, all in all, I guess is a good thing since it prevents them cutting off other things.
That was the one hope that non-net neutrality offerred (not enough, of course, to go the other way) — large providers would do things to spam and phishing centered areas of the web.
October 5, 2009, 3:21 pmShane says:
Pete – bringing down the internet is probably as difficult as bringing down the U.S. government through suicide bombings. Frankly, you can only cause isolated damage here and there. The culture of the internet will simply not allow for a concerted top-down effort to engage in content-based censorship, especially something as broad as “insulting to Islam.” And the way you lump in the government of Egypt with Al Qaeda-like jihadists leads me to believe that you know very little about the Middle East.
You keep mentioning some kind of path by which the ITU takes control over not only IANA but also the IETF, and manages to unleash some sort of “internet doomsday” scheme by which the entire internet is irretrievably broken. Sorry – I’m not seeing it. You’re also grossly overstating the degree of control that the U.S. government has over internet activity. If some authority were capable of sweeping unilateral changes on the internet, against the interests of the users and the big players, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t see the large botnets, child porn rings, or copyright infringing p2p networks that we currently have. If anything, the U.S. would be able to stop the millions of attempted intrusion attempts on U.S. government or military networks.
It’s not mere lack of political will – the technical organization of the internet makes censorship fundamentally difficult, in much the same way that finding the square root of numbers is far harder than finding the square. Imagine a scenario where a man with a supercomputer was tasked with finding square roots of all the numbers he’s given, and where millions of people with regular computers decide to overwhelm him by feeding him square numbers as quickly as they can produce them. You can’t just say “well he just needs a few more powerful computers” because the game is inherently unfair – he will be bankrupted by any escalation. In the same way, strong encryption, onion routing, steganography, and any number of anti-censorship techniques will overwhelm any potential censor on the internet. So authorities can only focus on small communities with nearly zero public support – child pornographers and organized criminals. And they’re still struggling. Imagine trying to hush “anti-religious speech” or something like that.
October 5, 2009, 6:03 pmpot meet kettle says:
I do find PeteP’s Beckian substitution of any understanding of how the Internet works with powerfully inchoate rage truly impressive. If only we could find a way to tap this kind of apparently widespread sentiment, we can well and truly end our reliance on foreign oil.
October 5, 2009, 9:14 pm