Brenden Kuerbis, Author at Internet Governance Project

Global Internet Governance: Research and Public Policy Challenges for the Next Decade

Posted on April 11, 2011May 18, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisGeneral

The Internet’s status as a communication medium that is decentralized, scalable and global continues to pose challenging new problems in governance and regulation. GigaNet, an international scholarly community created in 2006, holds a two-day conference to explore issues such as IP address scarcity, ICANN accountability, the role of social media in toppling dictatorships, censorship, privacy online, and the tensions between national security and Internet freedom. Assistant Secretary for Commerce Larry Strickling (NTIA) will provide the keynote speech during lunch on Thursday, May 5.

Date: May 5-6, 2011

Location: American University School of International Service, Abramson Family Founders Room, Terrace Level (Washington, DC)

View the program and register for the event

No joke: .com zone is DNSSEC signed

Posted on April 1, 2011November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisCybersecurity, Internet Identifiers

As expected, VeriSign placed its key material in the root zone yesterday (click on the picture below to view more detailed key information, etc.). Secure resolvers can now authenticate the .com key starting from the root zone and validate DNSSEC secured domains in the .com zone. Certainly a big accomplishment for the technical community. But a big question still remains – is there any incentive for resolvers to validate?

IGP comments to NTIA on the IANA Functions

Posted on March 31, 2011November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisInternet Identifiers

Comments of the Internet Governance Project on the NTIA's “Request for Comments on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions” (Docket # 110207099-1099-01)

For better or worse, the IANA contract is perceived as one of the linchpins of global internet governance. For that reason, our comments begin by assessing the role of the IANA contract in the overall Internet governance regime. Currently, ICANN performs both operational and policy making functions (e.g., running the L root), and the IANA contract unnecessarily concentrates multiple functions in the hands of a single entity. We believe therefore that NTIA should use the next cycle of the IANA contract to prepare the way for unbundling the protocol parameters, IP address resources and DNS root zone coordination functions, aiming for the eventual delegation of those separated functions to appropriately accountable non-state actors, such as the IETF for protocol parameters.

ARIN says “No!” to competing registries, independence of legacy space holders

Posted on March 25, 2011November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisIG Institutions, Internet Identifiers

While last week's IG news was dominated by the ICANN meeting in San Francisco, including the Board's watershed moment approving .xxx, other important IG decisions were occurring elsewhere. In accordance with the ARIN Policy Development Process (PDP), the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) held a meeting on 17 March 2011, deciding on some important policy debates we've recently covered. All of the proposals focus on the relationship between legacy space holders and ARIN. While abandoning the proposals short circuits any attempt to arrive at mutually agreed upon policy, the AC's actions certainly clarifies the position of ARIN.

Call to Action: Say No to the GAC veto!

Posted on February 21, 2011November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisFree Expression Online, Internet Identifiers

If you've been following our coverage recently, you'll want to sign the petition telling the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that you oppose a U.S. Commerce Department proposal to give the world’s governments arbitrary power over the Internet’s domain name system.

The proposal would give national governments the right to block the creation of new web site addresses. Proposals for new top level domains could be vetoed by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN “for any reason.” This means that governments could object simply because the name is controversial, or because one or two governments don’t like the applicant, or because an authoritarian government wants to suppress the kind of content that might be published under a specific top level domain name.

The proposal will be discussed at the upcoming ICANN Brussels special meeting on Feb 28. Don't waste a second, sign the petition today!

Upcoming Event: “NCUC@ICANN: Internet Governance and the Global Public Interest”

Posted on February 18, 2011November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisIG Institutions

Public Interest Groups to Discuss Controversial Plans to Add New Domains at San Francisco ICANN Meeting Pre-Event

craigslist Founder Craig Newmark to Keynote Internet Policy Conference

(San Francisco) ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) is pleased to host a policy conference “NCUC@ICANN: Internet Governance and the Global Public Interest”on Friday 11 March 2011 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel at Union Square in San Francisco.

The all-day civil society policy conference will be held immediately before the 40th International ICANN Meeting and is targeted at international Internet governance participants, as well as Bay Area law and policy experts, digital rights activists and other civil society actors concerned with Internet governance policies.

Panelists will explore a number of Internet policy issues in which NCUC is engaged, including panel discussions on censorship, privacy, intellectual property rights and domain name take-downs. The conference will also examine the appropriate role for national governments vis-à-vis other stakeholders in Internet governance, and consider ICANN’s ability to address the concerns of developing countries and serve the global public interest.

Will Cisco Products phone home to ICANN?

Posted on January 31, 2011November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisIG Institutions, Privacy & Surveillance

IGP has spent a lot of time trying to get people to appreciate the massive global governance issues caused by adding security to the Internet's core infrastructure. We just didn't expect them to become this obvious so quickly. Case in point: various technical lists are abuzz with news that Cisco, the world's largest router manufacturer, is discussing the possibility of making every one of its products do DNSSEC validation by default.

Call for Papers: Global Internet Governance: Research and Public Policy Challenges for the Next Decade

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Brenden KuerbisGeneral

May 5 and 6, 2011
American University, School of International Service, Washington, DC

Building on the success of its first four regional workshops in Paris, France (2008), Brussels, Belgium (2009), Seoul, So. Korea (2009) and Montreal, Canada (2010), the purpose of the Washington, DC regional GigaNet workshop is twofold: Day one (May 5) is dedicated to outreach sessions exploring issues in global Internet governance among policy makers, academics and civil society at large. Day two (May 6) features presentations of scholarly research based on a rigorous peer reviewed selection process.

Deadline for abstract submissions has been extended to February 25, 2011! Submissions can be made through the Easy Chair web site.

Decisions will be made by March 15, 2011.

Manuscripts expected by April 18, 2011.

Upcoming Event: “Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance” at NYU, December 14

Posted on December 8, 2010November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisGeopolitics of IG

ISOC-NY is delighted to present Milton Mueller’s first full exposition of his new book Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance at NYU on Tuesday December 14 2010. Prof. Mueller is a co-founder of ICANN’s NonCommercial User’s Constituency and a renowned cyberlibertarian. His 2002 book Ruling the Root...

Congress should heed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's observations on DNS censorship

Posted on November 19, 2010November 20, 2017 by Brenden KuerbisFree Expression Online, Internet Identifiers

Early yesterday the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its 324 page annual report to Congress. The lead story in the press has been an April 2010 BGP incident. While the underlying technical problems of BGP are well known and similar situations occur frequently, the incident is being painted ominously as a routing “hijack” that affected traffic to U.S. government websites – something which China Telecom is denying and which Renesys and Arbor Networks have done a good job of refuting. Another incident in the report, not mentioned in the press, was the March 2010 tampering of DNS responses from an i-root instance located in Beijing, which resulted in some Internet users from outside of China being blocked from reaching certain websites that are censored inside of China. Congress, which is now considering the Combatting Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (COICA), would be well served to read how using the DNS to implement a domestic policy agenda is a bad idea.

Brenden Kuerbis

Declaring Independence in Cyberspace