Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53 () columbia edu>
Date: November 12, 2005 7:42:13 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?

Dave:

It would be interesting (and perhaps useful to WSIS delegates heading  
to Tunis) to get IPers' reaction to today's Wall Street Journal  
editorial board recommendation ("Breaking Up Is Hard to Do") that the  
least worst solution to the dispute about the future "control of the  
Internet" is to allow national root servers ("split root").  Excerpts  
from the article:
> The U.S. is making apocalyptic predictions of what the U.N. would  
> do if given control. Those predictions are probably optimistic;  
> U.N. control would be a disaster. But there is a third way, as Mr.  
> Gore might say. That alternative doesn't serve the interests of  
> either the U.S. government, which enjoys the control it currently  
> exercises, or its critics, who would much prefer to do their  
> censoring under a multilateral umbrella. But if the U.S. continues  
> its Internet brinkmanship, the third way will become not only  
> likely, but inevitable.
>
> That alternative is a fragmented Internet, without a single "root  
> file" that describes the locations of everything on the Net. The  
> U.S. government has led many to believe that this is equivalent to  
> dismantling the Internet itself. But it is bluffing.
>
> Root servers could spring up in France, or Cuba, or Iran. In time,  
> the Internet might look less like the Internet and more like, say,  
> the phone system, where there is no "controlling legal authority"  
> on the international level. More liberal-minded countries would  
> probably, if they did adopt a local root-server, allow users to  
> specify which server they wanted to query when typing in, say,  
> Microsoft.com.
> Would it be better if countries that want to muck around with the  
> Net just didn't? Sure. But they do want to, and they will, and it  
> would be far better, in the long run, if they did so on their own,  
> without a U.N. agency to corrupt or give them shelter. It's time to  
> drop the apocalyptic rhetoric about a split root file and start  
> looking beyond the age of a U.S.-dominated Internet. Breaking up is  
> hard to do, but in this case, the alternative would be worse.


--
***************************************
Robert C. Atkinson
Director of Policy Research
Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI)
1A Uris Hall, Columbia Business School
3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027-6902

212-854-7576
cell: 908-447-4201
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