AW: [governance] Milestone Agreement Reached Between ICANN, and F Root Server Operator, Internet Systems Consortium

Mon Jan 7 05:05:01 EST 2008

The issue of formal or informal agreements/contracts with root server operators played an important role during the discussion within the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) in 2004/2005. In the beginning representatives from Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia, Cuba, China and other countries critisized very strongly the informal arragements among the US government, ICANN and the root server operators and called for a system of legally binding contractual relations under inter-governmental control. They also critisized that ten of the 13 root servers are based in the US.

Other WGIG members argued that the existing arrangements of the "voluntary system" by private entities - with all the weaknesses - guarantees both stability and flexibility and organize a pressure of self-discipline which does not need a legally binding duty. One argument in favor of the "voluntary system", among others, was that the informality could be used also as a shield against a misuse of the role of the US government (which decides which TLD root zone file should be published, not published, deleted or changed in the Hidden Server/the former A Root Server). Some of the above mentioned countries feared that the US government could - under certain political circumstances - use their power over the Hidden Server to "punish" a country by deleting the ccTLD root zone file from the Hidden server. In such a (hypothetical) case - as an example - the Swedish I-Root Server would have much more flexibility to ignore such a politicially motivated change if they do NOT have a formal arrangement or contract which would oblige them to guarantee to follow the instructions from the Hidden server in the daily update of the data. 

With regard to the 13 root servers the counter argument here was that the number of the existing root servers is limited for technical reason but that the system of Anycast (root) servers (now more than 100 all over the world) would also reduce the capacity for "political misuse" of the root server system by one single government close to zero. 

As a results the WGIG reports included two recommendations into the final report: "76: ...Noting that the number of root servers cannot be increased to more than 13 due to protocol limitations, carry out a requirements analysis to determine the appropriate evolution, including possible restructuring, of the architecture to meet end-user requirements and clarify the institutional arrangements needed to guarantee continuity of a stable and secure functioning of the root system during and after a possible period of governance reform."

It would be helpful to get as soon as possible the details of the announced arrangement among ICANN and the F-Root Server (which is also host for about 50 anycast root servers) and to learn what does it mean for the relationship with the other 12 root serrver operators and the IANA contract with the US govenrment (which is not part of the Joint Project Agreement/JPA, now under mid-.term review).

Wolfgang

________________________________

Von: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl at cavebear.com]
Gesendet: So 06.01.2008 00:08
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Betreff: Re: [governance] Milestone Agreement Reached Between ICANN, and F Root Server Operator, Internet Systems Consortium

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-04jan08.htm

> (there
> have been a few papers by Karl Auerbach and that's all).

Back in 2005 - Towards the end of
http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000192.html one can see some
suggested terms for such an agreement.

(It's amusing that I have so often been told by various people that I'm
living in the past and keep resurrecting older (aka "inconvenient"?)
issues.  Seems like the past still has some life in it after all... )

It is also amusing that ISC's principal (Paul Vixie - a person who
deserves a permanent internet halo) is also involved in an alternate
root system - ORSN http://european.ch.orsn.net/ )

Will this agreement provide for third party beneficiary rights -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_beneficiary -  so that it can
be enforced even if ICANN, as it and its ombudsman have a tendency to
do, look the other way if things go awry?

Anyway here's the list:

     * Servers must be operated to ensure high availability of
individual servers, of anycast server clusters, and of network access paths.

     * Root zone changes should be propagated reasonably quickly as they
become available.

     * User query packets should be answered with dispatch but without
prejudice to the operator's ability to protect itself against ill formed
queries or queries that are obviously intended to cause harm or overload.

     * User query packets should be answered accurately and without
manipulation that interferes with the user's right to enjoy the
end-to-end principle and to be free from the undesired introduction of
intermediary proxies or man-in-the-middle systems.

     * Operators should coordinate with one another to ensure reasonably
consistent responses to queries made to different root servers at
approximately the same time.

     * There should be no discrimination either for or against any query
source.

     * Queries should be given equal priority no matter what name the
query is seeking to resolve.

     * There should be no ancillary data mining (e.g. using the queries
to generate marketing data) except for purposes of root service capacity
planning and protection.

     * The operator must operate its service to be reasonably robust
against threats, both natural and human.

     * The operator must demonstrate at reasonable intervals that it has
adequate backup and recovery plans. Part of this demonstration ought to
require that the plans have been realistically tested.

     * The operator must demonstrate at reasonable intervals that it has
adequate financial reserves and human resources so that should an ill
event occur the operator has the capacity (and obligation) to recover.

                --karl--

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance