Much of the world is taking action against Russia. Added to the economic sanctions are all kinds of extrapolitical actions that make it clear that this conflict should never have occurred, but not all ideas to make things difficult for the Russian government are good. We have an example in the request of Mykhailo Fedorov, deputy prime minister of Ukraine, who has basically requested that we disconnect Russia from the internet. As experts point out, the flashy proposal, which might seem like it makes sense, doesn’t.
What is that of the TLD domains? The Internet works with a system of domain name servers that allow “human” addresses (such as xataka.com) to be translated into equivalent IP addresses (52.85.187.40). In this system, each human address has several fragments, and one of them is the Top Level Domain (TLD), the highest domain category. Thus, .com is a TLD, as is .org or .es. So are the TLDs used especially in Russia, such as .ru or .su.
And ICANN? The Internet is a decentralized organization but it depends on several organizations that guarantee its proper functioning. In the case of domain names and those TLDs, the one in charge is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, better known by its acronym, ICANN. If new TLDs appear, they do so with the blessing of this body.
ICANN please disconnect Russia from the internet. This is basically what Andrii Nabok, Ukraine’s representative at ICANN, and the aforementioned Fedorov have requested. The idea is to disable the .ru and .РФ TLDs used in Russia, but also to revoke the SSL certificates that help ensure that those websites are secure.
Fedorov went further and asked another body, the RIPE NCC, which is responsible for validating domain registration in much of the world, to disable Russia’s ability to use the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses of its domains. This is unprecedented, and is very different from a country voluntarily disconnecting itself from the internet as Russia actually did in late 2019.
Bad idea. Bill Woodcock of Packet Clearing House explained in a thread on Twitter why is this a bad idea. For starters, it would make it impossible to send mail or access other websites from Russia. The internet connection would be erratic in that country, but not for the government and army —Putin has been promoting RuNet, his own internet for some time— but for ordinary citizens. It is likely that Putin and government agencies were precisely prepared for an eventual “disconnection” of the Internet.
In addition, systems that protect the routing of information in Russia would be deactivated. For Woodcok, these actions “would make civilian users much more vulnerable to cyberattacks,” and would also disconnect these people from international sources of information and resources.
ICANN and RIPE NCC want to be neutral. Erich Schweighofer, a professor at the University of Vienna and a participant in the ICANN community, explained that “ICANN is a neutral platform that does not take a position on this conflict but allows states to act according to it, for example allowing to block all the traffic of a given country”. Christian Kaufmann, president of the RIPE NCC, made a similar point, saying “it is crucial that the RIPE NCC remains neutral and does not take a position on domestic political disputes, international conflicts or wars.” Others do not share this point of view: Antony Van Couvering, CEO of Top Level Domain Holdings, stated that “neutrality as a response to a murder is not neutral”.
Image: Miguel Alcantara
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism