[governance] "Oversight"

[David Conrad]

Norbert,

On Jun 4, 2012, at 10:49 AM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> [...] suppose that then Verisign as the
> Root Zone Manager is served a formally valid court order to take down
> that TLD.
> 
> Am I right in assuming that there is nothing that would stop Verisign
> from feeling obligated to comply with that court order?

Yes, although I suspect there would be a number of legal appeals, delaying actions, etc. 

However, if this were done, it would then immediately run into how the root data is distributed to the Internet.  There are 12 root server operators, of which, 3 are not subject to US legal jurisdiction and all but one (Verisign which operates two of the root servers which I believe operates those two servers under contract to the USG) being under no legal or contractual obligation to anyone to do anything.

Given the scenario you describe, I believe it highly unlikely that those non-US root server operators (one based in Sweden, one based in the Netherlands, and the last based in Japan) would accept the modified root zone. I have some doubt that even some of the US-based root server operators would accept the zone. The end result would almost certainly be a splintering of the Internet as various ISPs remove "offending" (in their view) root servers from their resolvers hints files, resulting in the exact thing pretty much everyone has been fighting against since the creation of ICANN.

And note that I'm ignoring the impact of "anycast" on administration of the root zone.  There are a large number of machines in a large number of countries that are serving the root zone.  Given an action as you describe, I have some doubt that all of those instances would continue to serve the same data.  This would be "crossing the streams"-level of "bad" (apologies to anyone not familiar with the "Ghostbusters" reference).

> But maybe someone who is not normally involved in root management, a
> judge who maybe hasn't been given any information on how what this
> action would affect the Internet as a whole, could do it?

I have some skepticism that said judge would not be informed, perhaps stridently, by a vast array of individuals, organizations, and their sainted aunts.  I also doubt it could be done quietly or quickly, thereby giving time for rationality to reassert itself.

So, could Verisign (not ICANN) be forced to "remove a website"? Yes, there theoretically is a way given Verisign is the root zone editor/signer and subject to US law. Would that have the (presumably) desired result of removing that website from the Internet (or even the DNS)?  No.  It would simply create chaos.

Regards,
-drc


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