ICANN and the Department of Homeland (in)Security
I’m not sure I understand completely the implications of this one, but it feels REALLY ugly and smells like Bush. According to an article in Heise.de, the US Department of Homeland Security has requested a copy of the master key for the DNS Root Zone. Because the US still oversees ICANN, it’s possible that ICANN might comply. What this means is that the US Government will be the only institution that is able to spoof IP addresses and be able to break into computers connected to the Internet without much effort, according to the summary of this article on Slashdot, which was tagged “Big Brother“.
According to the comments on Slashdot, giving this key to DHS will make the DNS Root Zone less secure, especially if they keep it as safe as they’ve kept our Social Security Numbers. It was pointed out that if that key is on one laptop that’s stolen, it could proliferate over the web in a matter of minutes.
Other countries are screaming that this US control is bad. It must be said that at this time they have nothing whatsoever to gripe about, since ICANN has managed the DNS Rood competently. However, this move by the Department of Homeland Security is disturbing.
Technorati Tags: Department of Homeland Security, DNS Root Zone, Icann
