[bestbits] India to push for freeing Internet from U.S. control

[Guru गुरु]

source - 
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/india-to-push-for-freeing-internet-from-us-control/article5434095.ece?homepage=true

In view of its growing cyber security concerns, India has decided to 
challenge the U.S. government’s control over the Internet and ensure 
that the trio of the U.S., Russia and China does not ignore India’s 
concerns while developing an international regime for Internet governance.

India will also push for storing all Internet data within the country, 
besides ensuring control and management of servers.

“The control of Internet was in the hands of the U.S. government and the 
key levers relating to its management was dominated by its security 
agencies…Mere location of root servers in India would not serve any 
purpose unless we were also allowed a role in their control and 
management. We should insist that data of all domain names originating 
from India…should be stored in India. Similarly, all traffic 
originating/landing in India should be stored in India,” says an 
internal note prepared after the meeting of Sub-Committee on 
International Cooperation on Cyber Security under the National Security 
Council Secretariat (NSCS).

Notably, the key function of domain name system (DNS) management today 
is in the hands of the U.S. National Telecommunication and Information 
Administration and the Department of Commerce. Though after persistently 
putting pressure on companies, India managed to get root servers 
installed in the country, it wants a say in management of these servers. 
India is also seeking a key role in policy making on Internet governance 
at the international level, said a senior government official engaged in 
India’s cyber security preparedness.

“It was important that management and control of the DNS should be 
supervised by a ‘Board’ consisting of technical experts nominated by 
governments and India should be represented on this Board. We should 
seek a larger determinate role for the GAC [Government Advisory 
Committee] in ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number] 
a U.S.-based non-profit organisation that coordinates global Internet 
systems, which we should be effectively represented,” the note adds.

Significantly, under the ‘Affirmation of Commitments’ between the ICANN 
and the U.S. Department of Commerce, the ICANN committed that it would 
not shift outside of the U.S. without the concurrence of the U.S. 
government and the process of Internet management would be led by 
private sector. At the meeting, held last month and headed by Deputy 
National Security Advisor and NSCS Secretary Nehchal Sandhu, it was 
decided that the Ministry of External Affairs along with the Department 
of Electronic and Information Technology (DEITy) and the NSCS, will 
develop a position paper, highlighting India’s concerns regarding 
representation and management control in the Internet governance domain.

India is also concerned about the proximity of the U.S., Russia and 
China while deciding on issue of Internet governance. “There was a 
possibility that the U.S., Russia and China may work out an arrangement 
that met their concerns and this arrangement was thereafter forced upon 
other countries. We need to guard against this possibility and ensure 
that India’s concerns were also accommodated in whatever international 
regime for Internet governance that ultimately emerged,” the note adds. 
Notably, today India has third largest Internet users in the world at 
over 15 crore, only after China (56 crore) and the U.S. (25 crore).

Similarly, India has also decided to favour a pre-dominantly 
multilateral approach on issues related to Internet governance rather 
than multi-stakeholder approach which is mainly being advocated by the 
West. “India feels that the very term multi-stakeholder was something of 
a ‘misnomer’. A small unrepresentative group of certain individuals, 
supported by vested interests, appear to have arrogated themselves the 
right to present certain views in discussions relating to Internet 
governance. It was not clear as to who they represent and whether who 
they claimed to represent had in fact nominated them. These persons 
undermine the positions of the government and were really spokespersons 
of certain Western interests,” the note says.


-- 

Gurumurthy Kasinathan
Director, IT for Change
/In Special Consultative Status with the United Nations ECOSOC/
www.ITforChange.Net  <http://www.itforchange.net/>  | Cell:91 9845437730 | Tel:91 80 26654134, 26536890
http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Subject_Teacher_Forum  

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