U.S. won't cede control of Internet's key computers

[Newsjock]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3248337

By ANICK JESDANUN
Associated Press

NEW YORK — The U.S. government will indefinitely retain oversight of the main computers that control traffic on the Internet, ignoring calls by some countries to turn the function over to an international body, a senior official said today.

The announcement marked a departure from previously stated U.S. policy.

... The computers in question serve as the Internet's master directories and tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world interact with them every day, likely without knowing it. Policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable.

... "It's completely an about-face if you consider the original commitment made when ICANN was created," said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor who has written about policies surrounding the Internet's root servers.

... Some countries, he said, might withdraw support they had for ICANN on the premise it would one day take over the root servers.

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[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[htuttle]

5. Not really that hard

Most DNS servers will do automatic root updates anyway. If you change the server IPs on the root server lists, any DNS servers that update from your server will use the new root servers.

Assuming everything was already agreed upon and set up, it would be a few days of net chaos (maybe less) after they distributed the new root.* files before everything started working again.

http://www.root-servers.org/

[woosh]

10. Very difficult in my humble opinion

While theoretically possible and simple, the logistic of getting all of the computers in all of those countries updates is virtually impossible. You just need to take the example of some of the worms and viruses that are still around and the small fixes to operating systems that have not been installed that would render them ineffective, and you can imagine the problem. It's human nature to set something up and leave it alone.

Now on the other hand, a country could concoct a plan to "masquerade" their own root servers, in essence setting up impostor root servers that aswer for the real ICANN ones. I'm sure their would be limitations, and it could spark of a cyber war of "black holing" whole areas of the net, but it's also theoretically possible.

[Mairead]

12. Zero difficulty

Setting up a nameserver comes practically for free when you install the operating system. There's some garnish and hoop-jumping to go through, but it's not like having to build something from scratch.

The really NICE part is, that with the semi-non-deterministic nature of Inet routing, the second-tier nameservers worldwide could simply stop talking to the current primary nameservers and start talking to internationally-owned ones instead. It would be a perfect move, really: it would completely isolate the Bush regime's tame ones.

[dArKeR]

14. Okay, you've convinced me. Let's do it!

Put aWol up Shit's Creek!

[bemildred]

16. Yeah, piece of cake.

The only difficulty would be agreeing on what to do.
I have half a suspicion this is intended to cause trouble.

[Mairead]

22. Yes, the main thing would be agreeing the solution

And getting donations of space, hardware, and support to set up root nameservers in, say, Geneva.

I, too, suspect that this move is an attempt to start up...they still need a distraction from DSM, and a lot of the DSM drum-beating (95%?) is coming from us nerds on the web.

[wli]

17. re: zero difficulty

I see no reason for this not to happen. The internet is not the US and there is no reason to kowtow to belligerent participants. I would even go so far as to recommend advocating this to concerned governments.

[Richard Steele]

18. Welcome to DU, wli! My two cents on this issue:

If the 'Internets' are to remain FREE,
it will eventually evolve into a 'redundant cellular micronode' type of system.

With constant improvements in CPU speed and cheap storage,
the WWW doesn't need to depend upon the "central server" idea;
that's just the way things evolved because
"it WORKED for the Telegraph & Telephone Service since 1850,
so why fix it if it ain't broke?"

Truth is, we no longer NEED "central trunk servers",
they are just the ghosts of an old habit.

Eventually, EVERY box with a modem will become a micro-server,
and the entire WEB 'infrastructure' will be evenly dispersed
amongst all the millions of privately-owned PCs across the planet.
Once that happens,
the only way to 'control' the net will be
to turn off the electricity to an entire continent!

We HAVE the technology;
Every one of us has the necessary hardware sitting in front of us.

Now, It's just a matter of time and DETERMINATION
until the "Open-Source Community" writes and distributes
the applications!

They have already accomplished more difficult tasks!
I have 'OpenOffice' and 'CinePaint' on this little iMac,
and I'm using MOZILLA to view DU right now,
so: 'nuf said!

[rman]

19. moreover,

Any kind of centralization in the net is counter to the primary goal of redundancy of the internet (take out one part, the rest can keep functioning).
Arguably there already is not enough redudancy at the level of high end backbones, but that's another matter.

[Richard Steele]

20. Exactly correct! Netvolution will soon overcome! (n/m)

[Mairead]

21. Yes, the backbones are the real weak spot in the US

I have no ideas at all about how to get around the power of the government to put a clamp on the backbones.

We could go back to UUCP (peer-to-peer pass-around) for underground communication, but if they did decide to clamp the backbones it'd be only a small step for them to selectively degrade the phone system so that it could still be used for voice but data would have to drop to 110 baud or something essentially unusable.

[bemildred]

23. Yes. "Central Trunk Server" == "Bottleneck, Single Point of Failure".

Or "bad design".

[Deja Q]

2. China might offer a price we can't refuse...

:evilgrin:

[ScrewyRabbit]

3. Full Spectrum Dominance, baby.

Welcome to Bush foreign policy.

[unhappycamper]

4. This move makes it easier to shut down the US internets whenever

our war criminals decide "enuf is enuf."

[eleny]

7. I have to wonder if * dare mess with shutting down the net

Given how much commerce is conducted, ie banks and government business, shutting it down for any reason at all would result in chaos.

the thought of them cutting us off still make me shudder. But he would be messing with the entire world and I don't think he has the guts for it.

[Jim Sagle]

15. The corporations would be happy to do it. Then there wouldn't be any

chaos at all - just the acceleration in middle-class misery.

[bpilgrim]

6. what IF they went around us

and created their own?

they've already abandoned M$ in favor of OPEN SOURCE & it's not 'rocket science'

:evilgrin:

peace

[aion]

8. Why should the USA control the directory servers for non-USA domains?

Ignoring the .com, .edu, and .net for a moment, the root servers also serve to map out .uk, .mx, etc. Why shouldn't people in Mexico and the UK handle all the .mx and .uk mappings respectively?

[woosh]

11. It's not why should they, it's more like why do they?

If I'm not mistaken, the internet is the child of a US military grant.

[Igel]

13. Or, there's always the idea that we agree with the government

on this.

"Gallagher noted that Commerce endorses having foreign governments manage their own country-code suffixes, such as ".fr" for France."

[satya]

9. PNAC: "Control the new 'international commons' of space and 'cyberspace'"

All part of the plan:

http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf