ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is an international
ID: 3879712 • Letter: I
Question
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is an international non-profit organization with full control over the Domain Name Service (DNS). Since its inception, ICANN operated under the oversight of the US. This has caused contention between the international members, specifically Russia and China, afraid that the U.S. will manipulate DNS for its benefit ahead of the needs of the international community. On October 1, 2016, the US ceded oversight of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to an international governing body made up of representatives from 160 countries. Do internet research on this transfer and analyze and explain the transfer, the new oversight committee and how, or if, it will affect how we access the internet.
Examine the points of view surrounding the decision to transfer ICANN control to the international community.
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Explanation / Answer
ICANN, the US-backed internet overseer has admitted that it must postpone a planned crypto change to the Domain Name System (DNS) because the internet can't deal with it right now. This is a blow for Icann, which was looking to make a radical change with the cryptographic switch.
ICANN was created in 1998 to take over the task of assigning web addresses. Till then, that job was handled by one man - Jon Postel. He was known as the “god of the internet”, a nod to his power over the internet, as well as his research work in creating some of the systems that underpin networking. Mr Postel was in charge of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Administration of the IANA was contracted to the newly-formed Icann, but the US's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the Department of Commerce, kept its final say over what it was able to do. This is set to change. No longer will the US government - through the NTIA - be able to intervene on matters around internet naming. It rarely intervened. From October, the “new” Icann will become an organisation that answers to multiple stakeholders who want a say over the internet. Those stakeholders include countries, businesses and groups offering technical expertise. It marks a transition from an internet effectively governed by one nation to a multi-stakeholder governed internet: a properly global solution for what has become a global asset. Technically, the US is doing this voluntarily. If it wanted to keep power of DNS, it could. But the country has long acknowledged that transferring its control was a vital act of international diplomacy.
Other countries like China and Russia had put pressure on the UN to call for the DNS to be controlled by the UN'sInternational Telecommunication Union. The US, along with the UK, Canada and Australia, refused, citing concerns over human rights abuses that may arise if other countries had greater say and control over the internet and its technical foundations. Instead, the US has used its remaining power over DNS to shift control to Icann, not the UN.
In response to worries about abuse of the internet by foreign governments, the NTIA said it had consulted corporate governance experts who said its the prospect of government interference was extremely remote.
Changing the key involves generating a new cryptographic key pair and distributing the new public component to the Domain Name System Security Extensions(DNSSEC)-validating resolvers. Based on the estimated number of Internet users who use DNSSEC validating resolvers, an estimated one-in-four global Internet users could be affected by the KSK rollover.
The changing or "rolling" of the KSK Key was delayed because some recently obtained data shows that a significant number of resolvers used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Network Operators are not yet ready for the Key Rollover. The availability of this new data is due to a very recent DNS protocol feature that adds the ability for a resolver to report back to the root servers which keys it has configured.
There is no new rollover date yet, but ICANN will be hoping that it will be sooner rather than later. The important thing is that it feels that to force a change now would be bad for internet users and that is not the business that it is in.The security, stability and resiliency of the domain name system is their core mission. They would rather proceed cautiously and reasonably, then continue with the rolling.It would be irresponsible to proceed with the roll after they have identified these new issues that could adversely affect its success and could adversely affect the ability of a significant number of end users.
They are tentatively hoping to reschedule the root KSK roll for the first quarter of 2018, but it will be dependent on more fully understanding the new information and mitigating as many potential failures as possible.Users of the web will not notice any difference. That's because ICANN has essentially been doing the job for years anyway. But it’s a move that has been fiercely criticised by some US politicians as opening the door to the likes of China and Russia to play with a system that has always been “protected” by the US. The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet.
The transfer involved the internet's domain name system, or DNS, which translates the Web addresses you type into your browser, like "cnet.com," into the numerical language that net-connected computers use to communicate. Under a plan that's been in the works for years, the US Department of Commerce shuttled control of the DNS to a nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), whose multiple stakeholders include technical experts, as well as representatives of governments and businesses.
This transition was envisioned 18 years ago, yet it was the tireless work of the global internet community, which drafted the final proposal, that made this a reality. This community validated the multistakeholder model of internet governance. It has shown that a governance model defined by the inclusion of all voices, including business, academics, technical experts, civil society, governments and many others is the best way to assure that the internet of tomorrow remains as free, open and accessible as the Internet of today.
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