[WSIS CS-Plenary] Why not :) "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?

[Joe Baptista]

Its happening already folks - old news.

> It would be interesting (and perhaps useful to WSIS delegates heading
> to Tunis) to get IPers' reaction to today's Wall Street Journal
> editorial board recommendation ("Breaking Up Is Hard to Do") that the
> least worst solution to the dispute about the future "control of the
> Internet" is to allow national root servers ("split root").  Excerpts
> from the article:

Thats what Peter Dambier and I have been predicting as the most logical
step forward.  Creates alot of promblems - but it should be fun to watch.

Definately can be done - and it's in the best interests of many nations
that it be done.  Privacy issues and operability gurantees - etc etc.

Unfortunately not many root operators around who understand root.

> > The U.S. is making apocalyptic predictions of what the U.N. would
> > do if given control. Those predictions are probably optimistic;
> > U.N. control would be a disaster. But there is a third way, as Mr.
> > Gore might say. That alternative doesn't serve the interests of
> > either the U.S. government, which enjoys the control it currently
> > exercises, or its critics, who would much prefer to do their
> > censoring under a multilateral umbrella. But if the U.S. continues
> > its Internet brinkmanship, the third way will become not only
> > likely, but inevitable.

Already has happened on numerous occassions for many reasons - namely
namespace expansion.  The National Governments of Turkey and China live on
non U.S. Government roots.  The China Root is government run and the
Turkish Root is more a display of government incompetence.

> > That alternative is a fragmented Internet, without a single "root
> > file" that describes the locations of everything on the Net. The
> > U.S. government has led many to believe that this is equivalent to
> > dismantling the Internet itself. But it is bluffing.

It is a bluff.  The issue is not defragmentation - but who do these roots
get their data from.  There is also the issue of public-root systems which
have existing TLDs, outside the well known IANA namespaces.

Defragmentation has already happened and I expect for purposes of national
security and the integrety of user data within a nation state, as has been
the case with the china and turkish root systems.

There is however a downside to defragmentation.  The network is
interdependent on naming resources.  This is due to propogation of
information and the DNS reliance on zones under the administrative control
of others.  This means there has to be some agreement as to the allocation
of data elemenets to support the overall infrastructure.

That agreement should be structured around a simplified core.  That has
usually been the way to organize the network - keep it simple in the
middle so as to allow lots of latitude to the complex edges.  Have a look:

http://www.nma.com/papers/InternetParadigm.pdf

Root operations are also a not so well known science.  The high priests of
Root are few.  Countries like Turkey who jump into a contract with an
entity whos background would not survive the test to provide government
services to turkish citizens show us that there are going to be many
mistakes down the information superhighway.

Co-operation will be a must - however I expect it won't happen and that
will contribute to increased technical error.  The internet only allows
you to remain relevant if you co-operate - don't co-operate and you
balkanize.

Its possible to balkanize your namespace successfully, but in the end, and
compounded by time, other systems are affected negatively is they don't
see your namespace.  Its a catch 22 situation.

> > Root servers could spring up in France, or Cuba, or Iran. In time,
> > the Internet might look less like the Internet and more like, say,
> > the phone system, where there is no "controlling legal authority"
> > on the international level. More liberal-minded countries would
> > probably, if they did adopt a local root-server, allow users to
> > specify which server they wanted to query when typing in, say,
> > Microsoft.com.

Yup that could be done - root service tailered to user need.  I don't see
a problem with that.  Users may very well want to go down that road.
Users will go down the road that is easiest to navigate.  In other words
these users won't be showing up in Tunisia anytime soon.

But the only viable means of keeping the infrastructure together - is to
give control of that infrastructure directly to the end user - which in
this case would only be a matter of public education.

My main concern is what happened over at the Public-Root, UK Ltd. which is
actually located in the Netherlands.  In that case a deal was made between
the turkish government and the public-root to use it's services.  As part
of that deal a representative of the turkish government was appointed to
the INAIC Council which is a body representing the democratic wing of the
public-root concept.  Incidentally INAIC has to my knowledge only one
member.

The Turkish government has some control over it's pblic namespace.  So an
order was issued for turkish ISP's to change over to Public-Root UK
namespace.  Now that namespace is in ruins.  The resolution of several
IANA ccTLDs are failing.  Yet Turkish nationals and the users of Tiscali
representing just under 4 million users are in jeopardy.

This is why governments must be very careful when they enter into a
contract with a root operator.  They should make sure the claims match the
products.

In this case the Public-Root UK Ltd was a snow job.  The Turks and Tiscali
management purchased a good idea - the ideas founding the public-Root are
basically good.  The issue is there was no infrastructure in place to
support democracy.  This unfortunately resulted in the embezzelement of
funds from the Public-Root UK Ltd. purse to the tune of 75,000 to 125,000
euros.

Root operations are a mystery to many ISPs and definately to governments.

I just hope that the WSIS takes this opportunity to ask questions of the
Turkish delegates.  How could they of allowed this to happen.  How could
the turkish national government allow this travisty to happen to turkey.

And we can learn from this if not enjoy a giggle at turkeys expense.  The
government of turkey has through it's own negligence let down it's users,
but on the bright side what happened to turkey crystalizes how important
it is to have good solid roots.

In the end - surfing the turkish Internet these days may be a joke - but
what happens on the day the U.S. Goverment decides to play a little joke
on some unsuspecting nation.  No one would know.  Thats the power of the
root.  So if countries don't move towards root infrastructure - the day
the jokes on them is the day I say I told you so.

We must learn from our mistakes - and asking Turkey what standard of care
they took is essentiall.

Also the WSIS should ask the chinese about their experiences with
alternative root systems.  They run one of the largests root systems and
provide internationalized domains - including top level domains.  Those
delagates should be asked what their experiences are.

And is the Arabic root still alive and well?

> > Would it be better if countries that want to muck around with the
> > Net just didn't? Sure. But they do want to, and they will, and it
> > would be far better, in the long run, if they did so on their own,
> > without a U.N. agency to corrupt or give them shelter. It's time to
> > drop the apocalyptic rhetoric about a split root file and start
> > looking beyond the age of a U.S.-dominated Internet. Breaking up is
> > hard to do, but in this case, the alternative would be worse.

Not really - the reality is that as root fragment thereis a need to
co-operate to come together.

Think of the evolution of the network this way.  Yes - breaking up is hard
to do - but making up is so much better ;)

Cheers
Joe Baptista