[governance] UN controls the country code part of the Internet root, not US
Daniel Kalchev
daniel at digsys.bg
Sat Dec 14 03:09:52 EST 2013
On 13.12.13 19:25, Kerry Brown wrote:
> I think the people in this discussion are failing to distinguish who
> “owns” the ccTLD and the process by which the DNS zone for the ccTLD
> is inserted into the root.
Again, to cite from RFC1591:
3. The Administration of Delegated Domains
[...]
2) These designated authorities are trustees for the delegated
domain, and have a duty to serve the community.
The designated manager is the trustee of the top-level domain for
both the nation, in the case of a country code, and the global
Internet community.
Concerns about "rights" and "ownership" of domains are
inappropriate. It is appropriate to be concerned about
"responsibilities" and "service" to the community.
This pretty much sums it all up, in rather condensed language.
> I would argue that most ccTLDs would agree that the government of the
> country involved “owns" the ccTLD.
A government, in any "civilized" country owns nothing.
The government is a group of individuals elected to do certain work for
the public benefit. When you employ someone, they don't obtain ownership
rights to (your) property they are hired to look after.
We can of course say, that a ccTLD is assigned to a country/territory
(as long as it has the appropriate association in the ISO-3166 list).
That pretty much defines the "ownership" of the ccTLD by the country
(but not government).
Ownership of the ccTLD database, DNS zone file, etc by the ccTLD manager
is an completely unrelated issue. In most countries, this is defined as
property and transfer of such property from one party to another is
considered a property sale. Making that property public, so that it can
be managed (not owned) by the government is known as "nationalization".
Property transfer is not something IANA has ever claimed to deal with
and so RFC1591 leaves that to be resolved as "local matter".
> I can’t imagine IANA not changing the delegation after receiving a
> legitimate request from a UN recognized government.
I can't imagine a reasonable government making such a request in the
first place.
I have discussed this with our own government officials of the day, who
at various times (we operate the registry 22 years already, a lot of
governments with different agendas came and went away) desired to
re-delegate the ccTLD (without being able to explain why). Their primary
problem was finding a way to ask an private foreign entity to do them a
favor, and do this publicly. There is no law in my country, and I
believe in most countries that permits such activity. The government
also cannot pay such an foreign private entity any "membership fees"
etc. Yet, our government has tried this several times. Going back to the
times where Jon Postel was still around and ICANN was not even a dream.
These attempts have always been politely refused.
So facts point that IANA has not changed the delegation after receiving
a legitimate request from a UN recognized government.
What is more important, in recent years the GAC came to the
understanding this is not even necessary or desirable. Perhaps because,
it was demonstrated few times already how a new government can wreak
havoc in an country's economics, yet not influence it's DNS/Internet
infrastructure.
> The repercussions would be profound. Another point that hasn’t been
> brought up is that many ccTLDs do not have any contract with
> IANA/ICANN and pay no fees to have their zone in the root.
There have never been written contracts. On the other hand, most ccTLD
managers take their responsibilities very seriously. I would trust any
"old-time" ccTLD manager without contract more, than I would trust any
newcomer, be it Government "approved" (contributed to their campaign?)
with a contract. But that is me. Anyone else is free to trust contracts
more.
>
> The above not withstanding I have always considered that IANA is under
> control of the US government and would accede to any instructions from
> the US government regarding delegation.
Any change in the DNS root is subject to authorization by the USG.
Therefore, the process is a bit different. IANA is pretty much
independent in processing the request. It then may, or may not be
implemented. I have no knowledge of the USG refusing to approve an IANA
root zone change request, but I may be wrong.
> I don’t like this but I believe it is the reality. So far to my
> knowledge the US government has never intervened but in a time of war
> I could certainly imagine that it might happen. I can also imagine a
> powerful lobby group (copyright) convincing the US government to alter
> a ccTLD zone. Both of these cases would probably be the end of one
> root. I would very much like to see the root moved out of US control
> but I am at a loss as to how this could be accomplished without
> eventually fracturing the root into several forks.
I believe the current informal trust relationship suits the US
government and they feel no need to intervene. They use the current
model to dampen the push of any special interest groups (who often
include governments). If ever contracts are enforced on ccTLDs, or more
formal procedures are established, the USG will be forced to act and I
can see how easy the situation might become ugly. It could be even worse
if the final say on root zone changes move out of the US, a situation
commonly referred to as "shared irresponsibility".
If you will remember 1998, an experiment was made back then to move the
IANA out of the US (control)... which only resulted in the creation of
ICANN.
Daniel
>
> Kerry Brown
>
> From: Joanna Kulesza <joannakulesza at gmail.com
> <mailto:joannakulesza at gmail.com>>
> Date: Friday, December 13, 2013 at 2:58 AM
> To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>>, Kerry Brown
> <kerry at kdbsystems.com <mailto:kerry at kdbsystems.com>>
> Subject: Re: [governance] UN controls the country code part of the
> Internet root, not US
>
> Thanks for this example Kerry.
>
> I think it all boils down to the language of the RFC 1591 where in
> pt. 4 it states that "4) Significantly interested parties in the
> domain should agree that the designated manager is the appropriate
> party." Who decides on the scope and legitimacy of the
> "significantly interested parties in the domain"? IANA? Is it also
> IANA who asseses that there is "agreement"? Or is it "the
> community"? Meaning who?
>
> I believe there is no doubt that states hold no particular role in
> assigning the ccTLD manager, even though ccTLDs are perceived by
> some as manifestations of nationality. States are to be considered
> one of the "significantly interested parties" and seek consensus.
> With IANA/ICANN being the judge of the consensus in place. Just
> for the record - I am not saying it's a bad thing, just seeking
> confirmation on the facts as I see them. Will appreciate any
> comments or corrections.
>
> Thanks,
> Joanna
>
>
>
> 2013/12/13 Kerry Brown <kerry at kdbsystems.com
> <mailto:kerry at kdbsystems.com>>
>
> As a current director of CIRA who are delegated to run .ca as
> designated by the Canadian government I too find the
> discussion fascinating. I was not on CIRA’s board when the
> relegation from UBC to CIRA took place. John Demco who had the
> original delegation at UBC is on our board and I’ve had many
> discussions with him about the process. Here is a link that
> outlines the process IRA went through.
>
> http://www.iana.org/reports/2000/ca-report-01dec00.html
>
> My understanding of the process for delegation into the
> IANA/ICANN root is that the government of the country can
> request the delegation be changed to another party. It is then
> up to IANA to determine the validity of the request and
> providing it is valid the ccTLD will be delegated to the
> entity specified by the government.
>
> Kerry Brown
>
> From: Joanna Kulesza <joannakulesza at gmail.com
> <mailto:joannakulesza at gmail.com>>
> Reply-To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>"
> <governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>>, Joanna Kulesza
> <joannakulesza at gmail.com <mailto:joannakulesza at gmail.com>>
> Date: Thursday, December 12, 2013 at 3:25 PM
> To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>"
> <governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>>
> Subject: Re: [governance] UN controls the country code part of
> the Internet root, not US
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> as much as this is my very first post on the list, the
> discussion is so riveting, I had to chip in, with a
> question rather than an opinion really.
>
> Would the ICANN "power" you were discussing not also be
> visible in the delegation/redelegation policy? Not "taking
> the country offline" but redelegating the management of
> the ccTLD to an entitiy more... willing to colaborate with
> ICANN/US? The case that always come to my mind when we
> speak about ICANN "power" over the online reflections of
> state sovereignty, that is the ccTLDs, is the 2004 Haiti
> case:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/14/haiti_kisses_icann_ring_rewarded/
> or
> http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/0138212.Just
> for the sake of objectivity, here's the IANA take on the
> case: http://www.iana.org/reports/2004/ht-report-13jan04.html
>
> My question to the members of the list, should they choose
> to answer it, is simple - was this a stricly technical
> decision or would you consider it a politically influenced
> one? Does the Haiti case stand out? Are there any other
> examples of redelegation decision viewed as controversial,
> like this one? Is this a state sovereignty issue? Or not
> at all?
>
> Thank you,
> Joanna Kulesza
>
>
> 2013/12/12 George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com
> <mailto:george.sadowsky at gmail.com>>
>
> All,
>
> Adam makes good points.
>
> I want to add something important that arises from the
> case of Palestine.
>
> As you know, the ISO 3166 list, maintained by the
> German National Statistical Organization, takes its
> input from the Un Statistical Office (UNSO), which has
> the authority to decide when an entry should be
> included. I worked in the UNSO from 1973-1986, and at
> one point was designing a data base for county
> statistics where the underlying country structure was
> dynamic and changed over time as countries merged
> and/or divided. The issue was how to improve
> statistical analysis when the underlying units of
> observation changed composition.
>
> The specific case of Israeli statistics came up, and I
> queried why Palestine was not considered to be a
> statistical entity so that the statistical profile of
> each entity could be more meaningful for analytical
> purposes. I was told that the decision of what was or
> was not a state of territory was political and not
> technical, and was communicated from the political
> authorities at the UN. That is why Palestine was
> blocked and had to wait until 2000 to be added to the
> root as a legitimate territory.
>
> So there you have it. The UN has the ultimate power
> of deciding what 'country codes' go into the root, not
> the US, and the UN uses it.
>
> George
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> On Dec 12, 2013, at 8:22 AM, Adam Peake wrote:
>
> > Comment below:
> >
> > On Dec 10, 2013, at 6:20 AM, Jovan Kurbalija wrote:
> >
> >> Here are a few comments in line with JK
> >>
> >> So what you are saying is that the UN could tell
> the US to stop
> >> serving the records for a ccTLD and the US could
> then tell VRSN (by
> >> court order?) to delete that ccTLD?
> >>
> >
> >
> > This potential of the U.S. deleting a ccTLD has been
> worried over since the earliest days of WSIS. But
> there have been wars and ccTLDs haven't been touched
> (.iq/Iraq). North Korea .KP works ok
> <http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/>. Palestine, .PS
> delegated in 2000 and redelegated 2004. U.S. hasn't
> edited them out of the root zone, so it seems we
> shouldn't worry too much. However, whatever we think
> the U.S. might do or not do, this issue is unlikely to
> go away. It might be helpful to codify what looks
> like de facto policy, something like: 'The U.S.
> government will not unilaterally remove any TLD from
> the root.' (Write that up in nice language).
> >
> > This could be one of the topics for the meeting in
> Brazil next April, discussions that might kick-off a
> process to develop and agree a policy statement on
> root operations. Not going to agree anything much in
> two days, but might be able to agree on a charter of a
> working group to come up proposals/recommendations. A
> working group that reports progress and outcomes
> within the IGF process: first in Istanbul a few months
> later, then back to Brazil for the IGF in 2015 where
> any agreement might be reviewed by a broader
> community. Might make it part of a larger effort
> looking at the Internationalization of the IANA, if
> that's a topic for Brazil next year -- and I think it
> should be one of the topics. More on this in another
> email.
> >
> > Adam
> >
> >
> >> JK: Sanctions cannot be adopted without the US
> support. Any action under UN Chapter VII, including
> sanctions, must be agreed by the all 5 permanent
> members of the Security Council
> (http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml).
> >>
> >>
> >> If that is the case, and VRSN complied (which I
> think they would fight
> >> BTW) then it would be a UN "power" and the US would
> just be an agent
> >> of the UN?
> >>
> >> JK: If the USA, like any other state, adopts
> certain UN convention or policy, it has obligation to
> implement it. If the USA supports decision on
> sanctions against certain country, it should implement
> the sanction regime.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
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> --
> Joanna Kulesza
>
>
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