[governance] Could the U.S. shut down the internet?

Sat Feb 5 15:12:07 EST 2011

Dear Karl,

You have provided me a lot of food for thought but at the same time,
my confusion is not finding a starting point to think a possible
solution....the questions that are running through my mind at the
moment do touch new name systems for the internet but that may not
really be practical because it has a major risk of isolation on the
network....it may be otherwise but I cannot determine this isolation
on the network at this point.

What I need to understand now is (and this is truly an ideal dream
situation) whether this
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=1 can
reach some kind of form where all governments sit together with
Private Sector and CS, Technical Community, Academic reps etc and
reach a possible consensus before carrying out such an abrupt decision
at a single country level on a global DNS/Root?

>  - Start your your root, populate it with pointers to your favorite TLDs (including TLDs not recognized by ICANN)

I see network isolation a possible threat here?

>  - Utilize the legal and political systems within that country to ask whether it is adhering to things like is constitutional requirements of due process and its rules of jurisdiction.

Right now the crack down is happening at the end of the creator of the
Internet..............is it a legal owner's hegemony and will it
remain that way that even after 9 years since the WSIS, the world is
where it was on Internet Governance?

 > - With a bit of technical juggling one could use either DNS proxies
or packet inspection/alteration to patch-back any data that was
altered by the registry.  I would recommend against this, however, as
it is probably going to end up a very deep swamp populated with very
hungry techno-crocodiles.

How would the above be done in reality and what would be the
short/longterm risks?

 - Ask whether you can legally clone the TLD.  If you can, or if you
are willing to pay $$ for the right to make a clone, then you can set
up your own version of the TLD.  Again, I do not like that approach as
it tends to violate my own rule that says that if a TLD exists then
the data in that TLD ought to be consistent and that users should shun
any TLDs that are in dispute and give different answers to the same
query.

Legally? Who defines the law? One country or a need for the
formulation of an international body to do so with which stakeholders
and what interfaces? This space is empty and legal hegemony exercised
by one country continues to be practiced at the cost of the global
network?

> I'd also strongly urge that one consider in those yet-to-be-invented systems that one clearly face the question whether the names should carry human semantic meaning - we all know the dangers that arise when human semantics are introduced.

Can you share an example because my experience has not encouraged me
to think in this direction? Human interfaces over the Internet for
domain names and addressing?

-- Fooo

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 4:16 AM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:
> On 02/04/2011 12:05 AM, Fouad Bajwa wrote:
>>
>> The question remains, in case of any country or website not complying
>> to what the US approves, will face a shutdown?
>
> If one objects strongly enough to US (or any other country) hegemony over
> the DNS root then there is a clear technical answer:
>
>  - Start your your root, populate it with pointers to your favorite TLDs
> (including TLDs not recognized by ICANN)
>
> That does *not* deal with the current issue, which is US (or any other
> country) sitting on top of a registry to get that registry to alter a record
> within a TLD.
>
> In that case there are a couple of options:
>
>  - Utilize the legal and political systems within that country to ask
> whether it is adhering to things like is constitutional requirements of due
> process and its rules of jurisdiction.
>
>   Also ask a question that is rarely asked: does the government body that is
> doing the sitting on the registry have the authority to do that?  Here in
> the US things like ICE are administrative agencies that have only those
> powers given to them by legislation enacted by Congress or via treaty or via
> an Executive order; and all of those must meet constitutional limitations.
>  Does ICE have the power via legistlation to sit on a registry to answer a
> trademark complaint that is cast in terms of in import that violates a US
> trademark?  In this case the answer is probably "yes".  But does the US
> Dep't of Commerce or NTIA have the legislative or other source of authority
> to ask for a trademark based "kill switch" or even to charter an ICANN?
>  With regard to the latter question the US Congress' own GAO has *twice*
> said "we can't find any."
>
>  - With a bit of technical juggling one could use either DNS proxies or
> packet inspection/alteration to patch-back any data that was altered by the
> registry.  I would recommend against this, however, as it is probably going
> to end up a very deep swamp populated with very hungry techno-crocodiles.
>
>  - Ask whether you can legally clone the TLD.  If you can, or if you are
> willing to pay $$ for the right to make a clone, then you can set up your
> own version of the TLD.  Again, I do not like that approach as it tends to
> violate my own rule that says that if a TLD exists then the data in that TLD
> ought to be consistent and that users should shun any TLDs that are in
> dispute and give different answers to the same query.
>
> There is another answer to all of this - which is to consider new name
> systems for the internet.  I personally find this approach attractive,
> particularly given that DNS fails terribly with regard to persistence and
> does readily handle the kind of replication and proximity that obtain with
> application entities living in "the cloud".  But unlike others, I advocate
> retention of DNS names and the DNS system as the tokens and machinery upon
> which such new naming systems (plural) would be based.
>
> I'd also strongly urge that one consider in those yet-to-be-invented systems
> that one clearly face the question whether the names should carry human
> semantic meaning - we all know the dangers that arise when human semantics
> are introduced.
>
>                --karl--
>
>
>                --karl--
>
>
>
>
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