Ukraine requires The exclusion of Russia from core parts of the Internet was rejected by the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS). CEO Göran Marby of the Internet Corporation for Designated Names and Numbers (ICANN) said the group must “remain neutral and act to support the global internet.”
“Our mandate does not extend to taking punitive actions, enacting sanctions, or restricting access to segments of the internet — no matter how provocative the actions,” Marby said. write in reaction to Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov. “ICANN applies its policies consistently and in accordance with documented processes. Implementing unilateral changes will erode trust in the multi-stakeholder model and policies designed to maintain global internet interoperability.”
Ukraine in Monday asked ICANN to revoke Russian top-level domains such as .ru, .рф and .su; to “contribute to SSL certificate revocation” of those domains; and close the DNS root servers in Russia. Fedorov argued that “the required measures will help users find reliable information in alternative domains, prevent propaganda and misinformation.”
ICANN is “Built to Make the Internet Work”
Experts warn that accepting Ukraine’s request would harm Russian civilians, have little effect on the Russian government and military, and fail to achieve its goal of countering propaganda. Marby agrees with that assessment, telling Fedorov in her response:
As you said in your letter, your desire is to help users find reliable information in alternative domains and prevent propaganda and misinformation. Only through broad and unimpeded Internet access can citizens receive reliable information and a diversity of opinions. Regardless of the source, ICANN does not control internet access or content.
While “ICANN and its global community are aware of and concerned about the monstrous amounts accurately billed against your country,” ICANN itself “has no sanctioning authority,” Marby wrote. “Essentially, ICANN was built to make sure that the internet works, not to use its coordinator role to keep it from working.”
“Devastating” effect on the global system
Regarding requests to revoke top-level domains, Marby wrote that “globally agreed policies do not require ICANN to take unilateral action to disconnect these domains upon your request. You can understand why such a system cannot operate based on requests from one territory or country regarding internal operations in another territory or country. have serious and lasting effects on the reliability and utility of this global system.”
Marby’s response to a request to shut down DNS origin servers in Russia was brief, stating that “the origin server system consists of many geographically dispersed nodes maintained by independent operators.” Regarding another Ukrainian request, Marby writes that ICANN “is not capable of revoking SSL certificates specific to the domains you mentioned. These certificates are produced by third-party operators and ICANN has nothing to do with their release.”
Marby’s refusal to Ukraine’s request cited the decentralized nature of the internet. Marby writes: “No one actor has the ability to control it or turn it off. The main role of ICANN, through the functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, is to ensure the allocation of identifiers. single and consistent internet in line with global policies”.
These policies were developed by a multi-stakeholder community including technical experts, business, academia, civil society, government and other stakeholders, who have collaborated to solve the problem. address technical and policy challenges through consensus,” continued Marby. “This is a model that has enabled the Internet to evolve for decades, and this broad and inclusive approach to decision-making advances the global public interest and makes the Internet resilient to piracy. unilateral decision.”
While ICANN won’t sever DNS links, that doesn’t mean Russians have uncensored Internet access. Russia is reported block Twitter, Facebookvarious news sites and major app stores, because we wrote on friday. Separately, US-based Internet backbone operator Cogent Communications is reported cutting service in Russia in a move that could cause some outages and poor network performance.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
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