That was the eye-catching subject line in a recent note from Randy Bush to the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) about secure Border Gateway Protocol (S-BGP). His note critiqued a paper, Let the Market Drive Deployment: A Strategy for Transitioning to BGP Security, which was presented recently at SIGCOMM and NANOG meetings. The paper argued that under certain conditions, the transition to secure Internet routing could be driven by ISPs' incentive to increase their revenue-generating traffic. But as Bush noted, focusing on the economic incentives affecting ISP routing decisions in light of S-BGP may be missing the point. For him, the problem of secure routing deployment is grounded in economic and institutional issues around RPKI, something we identified in a paper earlier this year. While there certainly is a need to understand the micro-foundations surrounding adoption of Internet security standards like RPKI, S-BGP or DNSSEC, understanding and resolving the institutional problems must happen simultaneously.
The Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet), in co-operation with the Research ICT Africa (RIA), is seeking submissions of research about Internet Governance to be presented at the Sixth GigaNet Annual Symposium, held on 26 September 2011, one day before the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The recent Nortel bankruptcy proceeding provided some clarity concerning the legacy space holders property rights in IP addresses. Another transfer likely involving legacy space is in the works. CenturyLink, which became the third-largest telecommunications company in the United States after acquiring regional bell company Qwest in April 2011 for $12.2 billion in stock, has agreed to acquire Savvis, Inc. for $2.5 billion in stock and cash. Savvis has substantial v4 address space and data center assets, much of which it got in a 2004 acquisition of Cable & Wireless. According to ARIN's Whois, about 60 of Savvis's 130 address blocks indicate registration dates prior to ARIN's formation. Looking at the Quavvis [Qwest + Savvis] deal and the recent acquisition of Global Crossing by Level 3, Renesys blog suggests that companies are waking up to the scarcity of IPv4 addresses and demand for those resources could be a reason behind acquisitions.
Declaring Independence in Cyberspace tells the story of the struggle between governments and the global Internet community over control of the Internet registries (IANA). It offers new insights into a pressing question with profound implications: is state sovereignty the immutable foundation of global governance, or can new technological capabilities change the model?
“This is a book that needed to be written, and no one is better placed to write it than Milton Mueller. This full, rigorous account provides researchers and policymakers with a precious resource on global internet governance.”
Jan Aart Scholte, Leiden University