Submitted by Karl Auerbach, Apr 11, 2007 21:02

I too have been expressing concern about the lack of oversight of the technical stability of the internet - for example see "Would NTIA or ICANN Know Internet Instability If It Smacked 'em Upside the Head And Introduced Itself?"

Unfortunately the existing internet governance body (ICANN) and those future bodies being discussed in ITU and UN fora seem to have been seduced by the desire to engage in the sexy business of social and economic engineering rather than the dull business of making sure that the net runs.

ICANN was created to ensure that the upper layers of the internet's domain name system runs reliably, efficiently, and accurately 24x7x365 with no prejudice for or against any query source or query subject. Unfortunately ICANN has never undertake that role, and has become a white knight for the trademark industry, and left no one to watch the store except for a small number of independent root server operators who are responsible to no one but themselves and who are under no particular service obligations. (Indeed some, such as those that are part of the US military, have overriding mandates that could supersede their obligation to serve the internet in general.)

The internet depends of the smooth intermeshing of machinery that we call "protocols". Even if there is substantial redundancy of pathways or information the internet is vulnerable because that same protocol machinery that makes the net work so well, if destabilized by just the right kinds of sand in the gears, can be a very efficient means of overwriting and contaminating all that redundant information or making those redundant pathways seem invisible or unusable.
As you say - and with which I strongly agree - the internet has become a utility and people depend on its reliable operation for not only their business but also for health and safety. And the lack of responsible oversight of issues that really matter to the continuous, reliable, and accurate delivery of packets across the internet and of critical services such as DNS is a matter of great concern.

To a large extent, the internet is standing naked while those who were brought in to protect it (ICANN) have abandoned their posts and are entertaining themselves elsewhere. We have been lucky so far. How long will our luck hold out?

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