Re: Department of Homeland and Security wants master key for DNS

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Levine <johnl () iecc com>
Date: March 31, 2007 6:17:52 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Department of Homeland and Security wants master  
key for DNS

> The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created after
> the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a kind of overriding department,
> wants to have the key to sign the DNS root zone solidly in the hands
> of the US government. ....

> As a result, the DHS's demands will probably only heat up the debate
> about US dominance of the control of Internet resources.

The only thing surprising about this is that DHS was so ham-handed
about it, although since DHS is ham-handed about everything, I suppose
we shouldn't be surprised.

ICANN has an institutional fantasy that someday the US Government will
cut them loose and they will be a free floating international
institution.  As the US Department of Commerce, which manages the
ICANN contract, made clear last year, they're never going to let go.
Other governments dislike this arrangement in principle, but in
practice DOC has been scrupulously neutral and has never, for example,
put pressure on ICANN to mess with Cuba's .CU domain.

In view of ICANN's chaotic management, I expect that a lot of those
governments are quietly happy to have ICANN under adult supervision,
and although they may say they want it independent of the US, short of
handing it to the ITU or some other institution with international
legitimacy, the USG is going to stay in charge, in which case it
really doesn't matter whether the master key belongs to ICANN, IANA,
DOC, or DHS because it all amounts to the same thing.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl () iecc com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for  
Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.



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