[governance] "Oversight"

Ian Peter ian.peter at ianpeter.com
Thu Jun 7 18:01:29 EDT 2012 



> From: Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2012 02:56:19 +0500
> To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> Subject: Re: [governance] "Oversight"
> 
> +1 Parminder and trust me, this dialogue will only illuminate one
> thing that everyone is helpless in front of USG so lets not talk about
> that and lets talk about everything other than that.
> 
> -- Foo


But the emperor has no clothes....


> 
> On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 10:00 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>> David,
>> 
>> I must again thank you for all the authoritative details which have been
>> very illuminating, even if we seem to slip into disagreements when
>> expressing opinions about how actors may behave in different situations etc.
>> 
>> I take form the discussion that you and many of the so called tech community
>> are convinced that US government cannot do anything bad to the Internet's
>> architecture vis a vis what has been called the CIRs and the associated
>> phenomenon. According to you the system is too well distributed for this to
>> happen. Now, let me accept for the sake of my present argument that this is
>> indeed true. If so, why would you and others be against giving a UN body
>> exactly the same role as the US gov has at present, as long as the relevant
>> guarantees that the distributed system will be maintained as present vide an
>> international agreement, which inter alia cannot be changed without US and
>> its allies agreeing to any change.  Can you please specifically answer this
>> question. While as you say, that UN body will not be able to do anything bad
>> to the Internet, as you claim at present US government cannot do, such an
>> arrangement will satisfy so many in the non US world, and then we can have a
>> smooth cordial sail for ever, and much of the acrimony which so regularly
>> arises on this count will be gone. Is it not a worthy goal to seek.
>> 
>> In other words, why does an arrangement looks so innocent when when in the
>> hands of the US government, and the same arrangement when shifted to an
>> international body backed by inviolable international law  becomes the
>> resounding shrill cry of 'UN control of the Internet'.  Can you help me
>> understand this apparent paradox.
>> 
>> And there can be no doubt that US law and exercise of US's executive power
>> is much more liable to arbitrary use and possible sudden changes than
>> international law and its execution. The fact that many US based and pro US
>> actors simply dont accept this simple and patently clear fact is quite,
>> well, bugging to most non US actors, if not outright disrespectful of
>> equality of people, groups and countries, which is a very very serious
>> thing. One should realise that an international law/ treaty based
>> organisation simply cannot but act in strict adherence to the law, and the
>> law cannot be changed without the consent of all, or at least of a very big
>> majority, and certainly certainly not without the consent of US, EU etc. Be
>> absolutely assured of this.... So creating this spectre of a China along
>> with an Iran suddenly starting to dictate how the Internet will be run is
>> such a big a lie and deliberate delusion, and it is also such an affront to
>> people's intelligence. At the same time I am all for civil society to be
>> very watchful of what happens at the UN or ITU etc as we are watchful what
>> happens with the US gov or India gov. But a sense of balance will do us all
>> good.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thursday 07 June 2012 12:51 AM, David Conrad wrote:
>> 
>> We're mixing a couple of threads here.  A clarification:
>> 
>> On Jun 6, 2012, at 7:30 AM, McTim wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I think what drc is trying to tell you  (from his vast firsthand
>> experience) is that IF in the incredibly unlikely
>> event that the IANA created a rootzone that excluded say .in AND NTIA
>> signed off on this change, the TCRs
>> from around the world would have to fly to a rootsigning ceremony,
>> recreate the keys that are used to sign the
>> key that signs the rootzone (a bit of a simplification for ease of
>> readability), resign the new zone and then send
>> it to Verisign for publication.
>> 
>> 
>> As mentioned previously, IANA doesn't create the root zone. In the normal
>> course of events, a TLD admin sends an update to IANA.  ICANN personnel make
>> sure the request comes from an appropriate entity and makes sense, then
>> submits the change requests to NTIA.  NTIA, after making sure ICANN followed
>> documented policies and procedures, authorizes those changes.  Verisign
>> edits the zone, signs it with the Zone Signing Key, and distributes it to
>> the root servers.  The root server operators then publish the zone to the
>> Internet.
>> 
>> If the USG decided .IN should no longer exist in the root zone, they would
>> bypass ICANN and would force Verisign to remove the .IN entry from their
>> database, generate a new zone, sign it, and distribute it to the root
>> servers.  The root server operators would then have to publish the zone.
>> The point being that even in the worst case, there can be no unilateral
>> action.
>> 
>> The TCRs would only be involved if the private keys stored in both sets of
>> the DNSSEC hardware security modules were destroyed or otherwise made
>> unusable.  In such a case, the TCRs, acting together, can regenerate the
>> DNSSEC Key Signing Key private key. That key is used to sign (make valid)
>> the Zone Signing Key used by Verisign.  TCRs were brought up in response to
>> Norbert's idea of having multiple Key Signing Keys, not in the context of
>> keeping the USG from going rogue.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In that incredibly far-fetched scenario, all the root-ops would have
>> to accept that new zone.  I suggest that at least some would not.
>> 
>> 
>> Exactly.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> -drc
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ____________________________________________________________
>> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>>     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> To be removed from the list, visit:
>>     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>> 
>> For all other list information and functions, see:
>>     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
>> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>>     http://www.igcaucus.org/
>> 
>> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>> 
> 
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>      governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> To be removed from the list, visit:
>      http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
> 
> For all other list information and functions, see:
>      http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>      http://www.igcaucus.org/
> 
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t



-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t

More information about the Governance mailing list