FC: Responses to ICANN preserving Net-stability against terrorists

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Karl is on the ICANN board of directors. --DBM]

**********

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:23:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
cc: <rforno () infowarrior org>
Subject: Re: FC: Richard Forno on ICANN and Net-stability against terrorists

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> [ICANN representatives are welcome to reply, of course. --DBM]
>
> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:46:18 -0400
> Subject: Re: FC: ICANN tries to preserve Net-stability against terrorist
>       attacks/RFF Reply
> From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
> To: <declan () well com>, <politech () politechbot com>
> Organization: WWW.INFOWARRIOR.ORG
>
> I was NSI's Chief Security Officer 1998-2001, and had a ringside seat to the
> evolution from the InterNIC to the Shared Registry System and the rise of
> ICANN. I can safely say that the only security most of ICANN's Board is
> interested (or qualified) to address is job security.

I don't agree.

As for myself:

I spent about 8 years doing research, design, and implementation of secure
operating systems and networks back in the 1970's for the US Dept of
Defense, for the RSRE in the UK, and elsewhere.  Because some of this work
was classified I'm not free to discuss all of it.  However, I can say that
I've spent a lot of time dealing with capability based operating systems
(a technology that I believe deserves to be revived), mathematical
expressions of security policy, formal proof of correctness of operating
systems, real-live inplementations of secure operating systems and
networks, cryptographic engines, key management systems, etc.

Most of the document are buried deep in paper archives at the old National
Bureau of Standards.  As for the software and networks: Who know where
they might be these many years later.  Perhaps the most easily accessed
bit of material is a somewhat involved letter published in the Technical
Correspondence section of Communications of the ACM in the January 1980
issue.  (I doubt that it's online anywhere.)

It was during this work that I met Vint Cerf.  He and I spent many a long
day dealing with the issues of integrating security and encryption into
datagram and connection oriented protocols.

And we must not forget that Lyman Chapin is coming onto the ICANN Board.
Lyman's Internet technical credentials are impressive.

And there are others on the ICANN board who have strong technical
backgrounds, although not necessarily on Internet technologies.

And let's put things in perspective.  What we're going to be doing is
looking at many non-technical protections, like making sure that there are
sufficient backups and procedures so that DNS infrastructure can be
repaired.  This involves some rather low-tech things, like good off-site
backups/escrows.  It also involves things that ICANN is merely in a truly
coordinating role - like trying to work with those those involved in the
routing decisions of the Internet (the ISP community) in hopes that they
will be willing and able to shift packet routing should it be necessary to
reestablish root DNS servers at new physical locations.

To my way of thinking, this kind of technical review of DNS and pragmatic
managment of the technologies that have been given us by the IETF and
others is exactly the kind of thing that ICANN ought to have been doing
all along.

                        --karl--

**********

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:58:11 -0400
From: James Love <love () cptech org>
Organization: http://www.cptech.org
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: ICANN tries to preserve Net-stability against terrorist 
attacks

Can we spell, mission creep?

**********

From: "Bridis, Ted" <Ted.Bridis () dowjones com>
To: "'declan () well com'" <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Richard Forno on ICANN and Net-stability against terrorists
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:38:01 -0400

From today's WSJ

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1001643073146154880.htm

Industries That May Be Vulnerable Race
To Boost Security and Limit Disruptions

[snip...]

The Bush administration for months has privately expressed concerns about
the security of the Internet's 13 most important computers, called root
servers, which manage global Internet traffic. These computers, controlled
by universities, corporations, government agencies and research centers, are
located throughout the U.S. and in Tokyo, Stockholm and London. "They are
the most important computers running out there," says Chris Wysopal, a
cybersecurity expert for At Stake Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. "There would be
major problems if they were to go down."

Some of these computers, such as the primary "A" root server in northern
Virginia, operate within secure buildings, but others are far less
protected. When congressional auditors recently checked the security
surrounding them, "one of them was sitting in a professor's office at the
University of Maryland," says Keith Rhodes of the General Accounting Office.
"I would worry."

These computers act as master directories for the Internet, matching
numerical addresses with more familiar Web-site names. The primary root
server periodically sends replicas of the master directory to the other
servers, which act as redundant backups and help prevent the primary server
from being overwhelmed with data queries.

An official of he organization that coordinates the technical management of
the Internet, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
acknowledges there is "obviously a range of security on the root servers."

This official notes that during testing for the year-2000 rollover, experts
determined that even the loss of nine of the 13 root servers would have only
marginal impact on global Internet traffic. However, other experts point out
that each of the root servers runs similar software. "They're redundant in
that if you can bring one down you can bring down all of them," says Peter
Neumann, a security expert at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif.

--Ted Bridis

**********

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:34:38 -0700
From: David Brownell <david-b () pacbell net>
Subject: Re: Richard Forno on ICANN and Net-stability against terrorists
To: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com
Cc: rforno () infowarrior org

>    How  many more years of analysis, studies,
> and research before we see operational
> results and increased security on such systems?

Rhetorical question, right?  The "job security" aspect is telling;
most people now running such systems don't stand to benefit
by bringing in people who can provide operational security.
That's a familiar dynamic, neither Democratic nor Republican.

There appears to be some sentiment that technical mechanisms
are to be avoided, and legal ones are to be preferred.  That
of course is foolish, just trying to offload the heavy lifting, and
will be as effective as privatized airplane security was.

- Dave

**********

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:10:28 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
Subject: Re: FC: ICANN tries to preserve Net-stability against terrorist
 attacks
Cc: farber () cis upenn edu (Dave Farber), freematt () coil com (Matthew Gaylor)

From the zeal with which US security agencies are seeking radically 
expanded freedom to surveil, monitor and record net content, one might 
assume that it has become an invaluable resource for terrorists worldwide.

If so, then it would seem that the world's terrorists would be the LAST 
ones to want to attack their one-and-only most-secure (via globally 
available secure crpto software), most reliable (designed to withstand 
nuclear attack), and best different-time different-place communication and 
coordination system.

--jim

**********

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:32:35 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker () brandenburg com>
Subject: Re: FC: Richard Forno on ICANN and Net-stability against
  terrorists
Cc: politech () politechbot com, rforno () infowarrior org,
        Stuart Lynn <lynn () icann org>, Andrew McLaughlin <mclaughlin () pobox com>
In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010928135313.02283030 () mail well com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
X-UIDL: d5f35a173a7ae9fd6219237b5a2f6906

At 10:53 AM 9/28/2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> [ICANN representatives are welcome to reply, of course. --DBM]

Declan,

I doubt that an ICANN representative will respond.  The problem with your 
invitation is that there is nothing substantive for them to respond 
to.  The only content in Richard's note is a series of generic slanders on 
people and processes.

In fact it is most striking that anyone from NSI would believe that they 
occupy a position of authority, concerning service issues, given their 
overall poor performance on transactions, customer service and, of course, 
DNS and Whois database corruption.  (That is a corruption that they have 
demonstrated to be far more real than the personal slander that Richard 
tosses about freely and without substantiation.)  In fact it was remarkably 
apt of Richard to use the term "ringside" given that NSI's performance has 
so often been a circus.

And the difficulty with these clever volleys is that they ignore the 
serious nature of ICANN's mandate.

The real problem is not that it required September 11 to cause ICANN to 
make operations issues its first priority.

It is that silliness like Richard's attacks have prevented these issues 
from getting attention sooner.

And erroneous comments like Andy Duff's mis-characterization of the planned 
agenda do not help, either.  (Please review the ICANN announcement and tell 
us where it says "all" other items will be pushed off the agenda, or where 
it says anything other than "some might" be delayed.)

Really, it is time to stop treating ICANN as a sandbox for rigid, 
idealistic social and political agendas, and remember that it has a narrow 
focus, and that is to administer some essential infrastructure 
administration and operations.

Part of the reason it has performed so badly as a vehicle for grandiose 
goals is that those goals have nothing to do with its job.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker  <mailto:dcrocker () brandenburg com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.273.6464

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