IGP's Milton Mueller and Jeanette Hofmann have been invited to attend a European Commission Hearing on Internet Governance Arrangements to be held in Brussels on May 6. The agenda focuses attention on the international dimension of “security and stability” as governments continue to use the “critical infrastructure” rubric to position themselves for a stronger role. For example, it asks whether “self-regulation for critical infrastructures and services [should] be more closely monitored by governments and relevant public authorities?”
Commerce Department: Headed toward ICANN 3.0?
The NTIA has published a Notice of Inquiry, Assessment of the Transition of the Technical Coordination and Management of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System, in advance of the expiration of the Joint Project Agreement in September 2009. The document outlines the history and evolution of the MOU between the DoC and ICANN, and the questions posed cover fairly standard territory. However, one caught our attention.
The simple solution to the .SU problem
Discussions within ICANN are underway about what to do with the .SU top level domain. The .SU TLD was a country code when the Soviet Union existed. Obviously, that political entity no longer exists. There is now a debate about whether to close down the TLD or not. In the meantime, the people who run it (in some place called “Russia,” which already has its own TLD, .ru) are registering new domains like mad. ICANN is in a conundrum.
Upcoming Event: Congressional Seminar on “ICANN & Internet Governance: How Did We Get Here & Where Are We Heading?”
IGP's Milton Mueller will be a panelist at a Congressional Seminar, "ICANN & Internet Governance: How Did We Get Here & Where Are We Heading?," hosted by the Progress & Freedom Foundation on April 24, 2009 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in Room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office...
Mueller wins 2009 ITERA Outstanding Researcher Award
Mad props to IGP's Milton Mueller, who has been selected to receive the 2009 International Telecommunications Education and Research Association (ITERA) Outstanding Research Award. ITERA presents the award to individuals who have demonstrated excellence in academic research related to the telecommunications disciplines through publication, peer-review, and international recognition over time....
Field Guide to ICANN Reforms (Part 4): Results are in on Noncommercial Stakeholder Group charter proposals
[Editors Note: This is the fourth installment in our series looking at the ongoing ICANN reforms. If you haven't already, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3]
Public comments are in on the charter proposals that will shape the reformed GNSO. The politics of GNSO reform are now abundantly clear. Noncommercial organizations and individuals from a surprisingly broad swath of transnational civil society have participated in ICANN's GNSO reform proceeding, sending in comments. And virtually all of them are supporting the Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) charter proposed by the NCUC.
GNSO Reform: Analysis of the two NCSG charter proposals
The impending reform of the Generic Name Supporting Organization (GNSO) at ICANN, and specifically the approval of a charter for the new Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) is now in full swing. Last month, IP Justice's and current NCUC Chair, Robin Gross submitted the NCUC's proposed charter (and accompanying executive summary and chart) for the NCSG to the ICANN Board. According to Gross, the proposal was developed with the input of numerous noncommercial organizations (including IGP), as well as consultations with ICANN Board members and other stakeholders. In contrast, a small band of supporters of the censorship oriented group CP-80 sought to upset this consensus effort by submitting a competing charter proposal. Now IGP's Milton Mueller has submitted comments to ICANN analyzing the two charter proposals, identifying the shortcomings of the CP-80 proposal and addressing their critique of the NCUC proposal.
Crypto-politics creeps into DNSSEC
While the fight over using cryptography to protect personal communications was allegedly “won” during the late 1990s, the battle over using it to protect critical Internet resources is just heating up. News from the recent IETF in San Francisco and RANS conference in Moscow suggests that national crypto laws are now complicating efforts to secure the DNS.
Specifically, supporters of .ru have noted that while they are interested in deploying DNSSEC, there are legal and operational constraints surrounding the current crypto specs in the standard (i.e., RSA signature and SHA digest algorithms) that could make it difficult for Russian based organizations to deploy the protocol. There are now efforts being made to introduce the Russian developed GOST family of algorithms into the protocol.
[Update: An Internet-Draft on producing GOST signature and hash algorithms DNSKEY and RRSIG resource records for use in the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) has been submitted for adoption by the DNSEXT Working Group.]
A more detailed look at the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009
The Rockefeller-Snowe bill emerges from an environment of blind hysteria around cyber-security problems that has developed in recent months. Section 2 contains 150 lines of silly hyperventilating that exaggerate the threats – but more importantly, misconceives the nature of Internet-based threats and the best way to respond to them. The bill succumbs to the tendency to take a national, hierarchical and centralized approach to problems that are best met through the organic evolution of decentralized, flexible, adapative and transnational, private sector-based cooperative solutions that leverage the peer production capabilities of the Internet.
Still, it is not as bad as it could have been. The bill does not turn over cybersecurity responsibilities to the NSA, nor does it completely centralize authority in a single government agency. Instead, it creates a multistakeholder Cyber-security Advisory panel appointed by the President. Here is a section-by-section review of the most outstanding parts of the proposed law…
ICANN gets “securitized”
This is no April Fool's joke: here is a bill that is almost a caricature of what the rest of the world fears about U.S. control of the Internet DNS root and ICANN. Legislation unveiled today by Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, would require...
