A real name registration policy for mobile users in China was issued on September 1st, 2010, requiring people to show their national identification card and complete a registration form when purchasing a new SIM card to activate mobile services.
09.2010 Building a new governance hierarchy: RPKI and the future of Internet routing and addressing
[Abstract] Drafters: Milton Mueller, Brenden KuerbisConcurring: Michel van Eeten This paper attempts to broaden awareness of routing as a site of Internet governance. It sheds light on the historical processes and policy issues raised by the resource public key infrastructure (RPKI). The paper will explain why the RPKI has important...
Challenges facing the US in global cybersecurity and governance
The US General Accounting Office has released a new report which provides an overview of US government involvement and the challenges it faces in global Internet security and policy. Cataloging the breadth and scope of departmental and agency efforts to engage in multiple issues and institutions, it paints a picture of a government struggling to identify a cohesive strategic approach to Internet governance.
“Kill Switch” Bill: Ramifications for the DNS root zone?
S.3480, The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, introduced by Sens Lieberman, Collins and Carper quietly passed committee last week on a voice vote and is now scheduled for debate on the US Senate floor. The controversial, nearly 200-page bill which amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 has been criticized by civil liberties and industry groups alike, who say it grants the President the ability to order operators of “covered critical infrastructure” to disconnect parts of the Internet. Our reading of the bill agrees with these general criticisms. We are also concerned with specific effects on the Internet’s DNS and possible extraterritorial effects of the legislation.
NTIA's NOI on signing the root goes mostly unnoticed
Perhaps it's summertime blues, DNSSEC-fatigue, or simply recognition of fait accompli, but the comment period for NTIA's notice of intent to proceed with the final stages of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) implementation in the authoritative root zone has passed with only a handful of comments submitted. (although there seems to be some fishing going on for support) Root server operator Autonomica, registry operators Nominet and Neustar, AT&T, as well as Paypal and Connotech were generally supportive of the action and congratulatory toward NTIA, VeriSign and ICANN. However, one commenter criticized that the “US government crypto culture tainted the detailed arrangements.” Paypal offered its support, but with a caveat.
The Magnificent Seven
They were seven – And they fought like seven hundred!
With less than a week to go before the opening of ICANN's DNSSEC root key generation ceremony, there is a roaring debate occurring among the technical community whether or not the list of Trusted Community Representatives (TCRs) should be publicly revealed in advance. The TCRs were selected by ICANN to participate in the generation of the keys that will be used to digitally sign the DNS root zone file keyset, providing a single trust anchor for authenticating a global, secure DNS.
Threats “everywhere:” A review of Cavelty’s “Cybersecurity and Threat Politics”
This is a book that deserves to get much more attention in this country. Cyber-Security and Threat Politics: US efforts to secure the information age by Myriam Dunn Cavelty provides a valuable historical and analytical perspective on the debate over cyber-security in the U.S. Cavelty links the cyber debate to securitization theory in political science; in this approach, what matters is how the threat is defined, how and when did a particular understanding of the threat gain acceptance and prominence, who promoted it, and what are its implications for policy and actions? Cavelty offers some important insights into the political, legal and economic implications of the way we define or frame cyber-threats.
Is the London Action Plan effective?
In a recent empirical study correlating botnet activity with ISPs, academic researchers (Michel van Eeten, Johannes Bauer and Hadi Asghari) used participation in the London Action Plan and adherence to the Cybercrime Convention as variables. The London Action Plan (LAP) is a loose transnational, multi-stakeholder network of public agencies responsible for enforcing laws concerning spam. It spans 27 countries and also includes a few industry and NGO members. In political science these are known as Trans-Governmental networks (TGNs). Could such a loose, nonbinding governance form have an appreciable impact?
Finally, a public comment on root zone signing implementation
The US government has pushed back the date of DNSSEC implementation at the root zone by two weeks. The announcement, made at ICANN's “Root DNSSEC” web site, was vague about the reasons, saying only that it was “for further analysis” and to “finalize testing.” In a more important move, which may or may not be related, ICANN said that:
“the U.S. Commerce Department will issue a public notice announcing the publication of the joint ICANN-VeriSign testing and evaluation report as well as the intent to proceed with the final stage of DNSSEC deployment. As part of this notice the DoC will include a public review and comment period prior to taking any action.”
The existing plans for signing the root and deploying DNSSEC at the root zone were imposed on ICANN and its community by the U.S. government as a product of closed negotiations between the Commerce Department, VeriSign and ICANN.
Senate Commerce Committee passes Cybersecurity Act
Late last month the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by Sen. Jay Rockefeller who also serves on the Intelligence Committee, unanimously passed an amended Cybersecurity Act of 2010. With regard specifically to Internet governance issues, the bill has changed dramatically, but it still provides some interesting language around defining critical infrastructure and setting a future research agenda.
