[kictanet] [Fwd: [AfrICANN-discuss] Internet Governance: ICANN, Security And Nation States]

[alice]

Hi All

Despite our current troubles we  still hope that ICANN will choose Kenya 
to celebrate its birthday at the ICANN Africa meeting scheduled for 
November 2008.
Note dates for this years IGF have changed. Now taking place in December.

alice


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[AfrICANN-discuss] Internet Governance: ICANN, Security And 
Nation States
Date: 	Mon, 4 Feb 2008 20:48:23 +0100
From: 	Anne-Rachel Inné <annerachel at gmail.com>
Reply-To: 	africann at afrinic.net
To: 	africann at afrinic.net



Intellectual Property Watch


    28 January 2008


      Internet Governance: ICANN, Security And Nation States

By Monika Ermert for /Intellectual Property Watch/
The future of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 
(ICANN) will remain an important topic in Internet governance in 2008, 
the tenth anniversary of the private global coordination body for 
Internet addresses and domain names.

Yet Internet governance experts also expect security in its different 
facets to be on the rise in Internet governance debates and point to the 
further growing interest of nation states in exercising their sovereign 
governance rights in cyberspace. And it is increasingly the case that 
governance of the Internet can affect access to online content.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 
<http://www.intgovforum.org/index.htm> organised by the United Nations - 
which in December will hold its third gathering in New Delhi - likely 
will see more issues related to cybercriminality, anonymity and privacy, 
said Jeanette Hofmann, researcher at the Centre for Analysis of Risk and 
Regulation at the London School of Economics, and at the 
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, and member of the IGF 
Advisory Group.

New ICANN Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush announced a "busy year" 
<http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-03jan08.htm> and a 
"birthday party" to take place at the annual meeting of ICANN, which 
will be held not in the United States but in Africa in November 2008. 
The location for the birthday party may be seen as a small symbol for 
ICANN's emphasis on its declared internationality. It has been the 
United States' privileged position in ICANN and root server oversight 
that gave the primary original impulse for the Internet governance 
debate that has evolved so much over the past few years.

Weakening US Influence over Internet?

More and more governments have called for change in the oversight 
structure for this tiny yet core part of the Internet and will call for 
that again in the newly launched consultation of the US Commerce 
Department National Telecommunications and Information Administration 
(NTIA) on "The Continued Transition of the Technical Coordination and 
Management of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System."

The consultation (deadline for statements 15 February) is part of the 
midterm review of the "Joint Project Agreement (JPA)" - the current 
agreement that binds ICANN to US government oversight - and may allow 
the full privatisation of domain name system (DNS) coordination after 2009.

ICANN posted its comment to the NTIA in January, declaring: "The JPA is 
not longer necessary. Concluding it is the next step in transition of 
the coordination of the domain name system to the private sector."

ICANN's Board wrote to NTIA official Suzanne Sene and said the JPA had 
been a necessary instrument in ICANN's formative years. "But now," the 
board said, "the JPA contributes to a misperception that the DNS is 
managed and overseen on a daily basis by the US government. Ending the 
JPA will provide long-term stability and security for a model that 
works." The Board underlined that the JPA would not affect the Internet 
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract that allows the US 
administration to check on changes in the root zone, the heart of the DNS.

The incoming US administration could withdraw from ICANN oversight, yet 
control over changes in the root zone, where vital information on the 
Internet address system is kept, might be too sensitive for any US 
administration. In fact, the US keeps arguing that it has to ensure the 
stability and security of the system that underlies a billion-dollar 
economy and has long become a key critical infrastructure.

"The whole issue of security is drawing more and more attention, not 
only from nation states, but also from civil society," said Hofmann. The 
relationship between surveillance and privacy, data protection and 
transparency remains to be clearly worked out, she added. Identity 
management and authentication mechanisms rose much higher on the 
Internet governance agenda last year, and are expected to continue to do 
so, Hofmann said.

Fight for IP Rights

Intellectual property issues are in some aspects also intermingled with 
security. Whether the registries for country-code domains (such as .uk 
for the United Kingdom) should be granted special rights over new 
country-code-oriented top-level domain address zones, and be able to ask 
to be allocated the right to manage these zones via a fast track 
procedure, is one of ICANN's questions in this regard. Observers warn 
against possible domain islands under strict state control.

At least some observers have followed anxiously developments in Russia 
where some in the administration have been reported to have shown 
interest in walling off the "Russian Internet." ICANN has accepted that 
there is a strong demand for ccTLDs in native scripts from a number of 
countries like China and several Arabic states and a special working 
group has started talks about the possible fast track procedure. But 
ICANN Chair Dengate Thrush spoke of a single procedure for all new 
top-level domains coming up. The introduction of new TLDs is a major 
issue for ICANN this year.

Meanwhile, the longstanding fight over how personal data of individual 
domain name holders should be published in the so-called Whois databases 
of domain name registries and registrars might calm down, Hofmann said. 
ICANN staff finalised the procedure for dealing with exemptions for 
registries and registrars from jurisdictions with strong privacy 
regulation. Even if the United States keeps pushing for open Whois, 
registries and registrars from other countries can point to the need to 
adhere to their own national laws.

Yet according to a representative for the registrars in ICANN's Generic 
Name Supporting Council it is not that easy at all. It was all but clear 
what registries and registrars had to present to be eligible for the 
exemptions as the procedure reads that only a lawsuit or administrative 
procedure against them allowed to apply for exceptional treatment.

Also, settlements of disputes over ownership of domain names will 
continue to be important at ICANN and at the World Intellectual Property 
Organization.

Debate over Governance Structure

Changes may also come in 2008 to the institutional structure of Internet 
governance debates, Hofmann said. While the IGF was established as a 
focal point for the wider Internet governance debate - and ICANN will be 
kept under observation - she felt that there was a shift of a lot of 
discussion to intergovernmental institutions, back from self-governing 
bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force (a peer standardisation 
body for all Internet protocol-related standards) to the UN 
International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU has, for example, 
become more involved in security issues, last year announcing a global 
cybersecurity agenda <http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/cybersecurity/gca/> 
after years of rivalry with ICANN.

More structural manoeuvring on who does what in Internet governance is 
expected this year, according to Wolfgang Kleinwächter, special advisor 
to the IGF Chair Nitin Desai. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation 
and Development (OECD) has invited UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon to 
give a keynote at its June meeting on the "Future of the Internet 
Economy" 
<http://www.oecd.org/site/0,3407,en_21571361_38415463_1_1_1_1_1,00.html>, 
and Kleinwächter said this could be used by Ban for positioning of the 
UN in Internet governance.

/Monika Ermert may be reached at info at ip-watch.ch 
<mailto:info at ip-watch.ch>./

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