ICANN’s plan to open up the domain name space to new top level domains is scheduled to begin January 12, 2012. Now there is a cynical, illegitimate last-second push by a few corporate interests in the United States to derail that process. That group’s demands must be rebuffed, unambiguously and finally. ICANN must start implementing the new TLD program on January 12 as scheduled. ICANN must keep its promise to those who participated in its processes in good faith.
Iran, Israel and DPI: The misdirection of resistance to surveillance technology Part 2
A new article by Bloomberg exposes the presence of bandwidth optimization equipment in the network of an Iranian Internet Service Provider. The equipment comes from an Israeli company, Allot Communications. This is treated as a perfect example of how governments need to crack down on the sale of threatening technology to dictatorships by Western companies. But when the actual facts of the case come out, you will find that it proves the opposite.
Technology as symbol: Is resistance to surveillance technology being misdirected?
Activists and investigative journalists are highlighting the linkage between modern surveillance technologies and repressive governments. The emerging narrative around surveillance technology provides the perfect frame for public activism. You have a clear bad guy – a Gadhafi, an Assad, the Iranian theocrats, the Chinese Communist Party. You have a symbolic token, a technology, which links the bad guys and their bad actions to reachable actors – the corporate vendors – who are part of our own society and jurisdiction. You can then campaign on a simple moral impulse – the reachable actors must not be allowed to aid, abet or profit from the violence and political injustice of the bad guys. This in turn leads to what seems like a simple and effective policy response – to sever the link between reachable actors and the bad guys by somehow banning or regulating the transfer of this technology on a global basis. This blog post offers a critique of this budding movement, turning a critical eye upon a righteous cause.
US Senate Plays Game of 22 questions with NTIA
A powerful Senator is starting to ask NTIA questions about IP addressing. On October 4, 2011, The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee's chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller, sent a challenging but private letter to the administration official responsible for overseeing ICANN, Lawrence E. Strickling. IGP has obtained a copy of the letter through the US Freedom of Information Act. The letter, which poses 22 tough questions, focuses not on the old controversies related to new gTLDs, but on the IANA contract.
In Important Case, RIPE-NCC seeks legal clarity on how it responds to foreign court orders
An international law enforcement action against a large botnet that used the DNSChanger malware is making pathbreaking Internet governance law. A lawsuit initiated by Regional Internet Registry RIPE-NCC may set an important legal precedent. At issue is the extent to which an IP address registries can be used as tools of transnational law enforcement. It has significant implications for RPKI and secure BGP deployment as well.
The new IANA: An important milestone
Is there such a thing as a Freudian typo? If so, the new IANA contract certainly contains one. On page 9, it requires the Contractor to promptly notify the NTIA of “any outrages.” They meant outages, of course. But we like the proposed language much, much better. IGP has been almost solely responsible for ICANN's outrage notification function for the past six years, and we would be happy to share that duty with others. All kidding aside, the new IANA contract solicitation, which was posted by the U.S. Commerce Department November 10, represents a milestone in ICANN's relationship to the U.S. government.
Milestone for civil society representation in ICANN
The Dakar meeting was an important milestone in ICANN’s development. It marked the completion of the reform of the GNSO and the finalization of the new Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG). If you support the “multi-stakeholder” model of Internet governance and you think representatives of business interests should be balanced with representatives of public interest groups and nonprofits, then the fate of the NCSG should be important to you (however boring the bureaucratic details may be). Just before the Dakar meeting the NCSG concluded the first Stakeholder Group-wide election for its Chair and for 4 GNSO Council seats. the GNSO Council has now – finally – been rebalanced and reformed. While most of the progress is irreversible, some of the old controversies are still brewing.
A United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies? A fair assessment
The government of India has taken the next step in evolving the IBSA proposal for a new UN body on Internet governance. It has proposed a “UN Committee for Internet-related policies” (CIRP). Of course, the CIRP is highly controversial, and is raising fears that the “UN is out to take over the Internet.” Given the inherent tension between networks and states, that is not a threat to be taken lightly. Nevertheless, it is important to understand precisely what was proposed, and careful description seems to be lacking from some of the current dialogue. So this article tries to provide an unbiased analysis of what CIRP is, and isn't.
Full responses to the Hindu on the IBSA Proposal
A reporter from the Indian newspaper The Hindu recently solicited my reaction to the India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) proposal for a new UN-based oversight body for Internet governance. The questions he sent were very well drafted and stimulating, so my responses far exceeded what he could use in the article he wrote. So I am publishing my full answers here.
Of canaries and coal mines: What happened at VeriSign?
Too many techies still don't understand the concept of due process, and opportunistic law enforcement agencies, who tend to view due process constraints as an inconvenience, are very happy to take advantage of that. That's the lesson to draw from VeriSign's sudden withdrawal of a proposed new “domain name anti-abuse policy” yesterday.
