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Comments to the ICANN-CCNSO-DRDWG Public Consultation On Potential Issues and their Classificiation

  • To: drd-analysis-report@xxxxxxxxx
  • Subject: Comments to the ICANN-CCNSO-DRDWG Public Consultation On Potential Issues and their Classificiation
  • From: Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:04:45 -0400

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this issue.

The objective of the paper is to seek input and comment from the community, accordingly, I offer the following.

While the destruction of the network infrastructure interior to Iraq via aerial bombardment was taking place, discussion of the reduction of reachibility and resolvability took place in the North American Network Operators Group mailing list.

At the time, for my personal use and as a guide to an eventual resumption of nameservice for the .iq zone, I operated a .iq namespace as a public 3rd-level domain.

I participated in this discussion, and followed with interest the process by which the destruction of the .iq namespace, then operated from Richardson, TX, was accomplished, and its delegee taken into US custody.

Eventually I was contacted by an individual who sought my assistance in obtaining a re-delegation of .iq for the purposes of monitizing the association of "intelligence quotient" and the two letter string "iq". I politely declined, but point out that the repurposing by iso3166 code points to private parties is widely practiced and absurdly defended under the principle of subsidiarity.

At a later point in time I was contacted by a representative of the Occupation Forces who sought my assistance in obtaining the re-delegation of .iq to an agency of the "government" created by the Occupation Forces. The request was to locate the authoritative .iq servers in a building with only a few hours of electricity servers per day, and little or no external to the building connectivity, and also without the consent of the current delegee, in custody.

I declined the request for assistance, for two reasons. First, no delegation should be made without the consent of the current delegee, and second, the proposal was technically indistinguishable from leaving .iq with no functioning authoritative nameserver.

As some subsequent point in time .iq was redelegated, without the consent of the current delegee.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the DNS has been the military target of a belligerent state.

The seizure and/or destruction of ccTLD operator assets, and the persons of the delegee, has been without response, other than approval, by the body entrusted with the independent custodial care and coordination of addressing and naming resources.

This is probably not something that should ever occur again.

Redelegation requests supported by arms alone should not be granted, whether made by the United States, consequent to illegal belligerency or any other State, or non-State militarized actor.

I fully appreciate that even now it is not easy to comment on the conduct of the United States in 2003. At the time these events occurred, only one member of the United States Congress was on record opposed to the use of armed force. Then, and now, there is little opposition to the prosecuting of Palestinian-Americans making donations to charitable and religious institutions in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza on terrorism charges.

However, the Delegation and Redelegation Working Group does not have to pass in silence over an unfortunate redelegation, and it can take note that a redelegation was accomplished by means that should not be used again. Addressing and naming registries are not legitimate military targets.

The methodology developed and employed by the DRD WG was not adequate to inform the DRD WG of a redelegation made consequent to an act of war.

The policy statements in rfc1591 do provide adequate baseline to evaluate the actual practices of the IANA and ICANN Board relative to most delegation, redelegation and retirement of ccTLDs, except the one, and potentially others, arising from an act of war.

There are other policy statements which are applicable to the work of the DRD WG, specifically those dealing with the relationship of civilian infrastructure and the Geneva Conventions concerning the conduct of States engaged in belligerency.

The documentation identified did not provide an adequate representation of the actual practices of the IANA function and the ICANN Board, as the redelegation of .iq (and the earlier nearly redel of .pn) are absent from the report.

Clearly, the .iq case should be included for analysis.

Documentation of the .pn redelegation, and the .sh non-delegation, are applicable to the work of the DRD WG and should be analyzed.

Until nonconsenting redelegations are included in the study, the methodology is not properly applied.

Thank you for the opportunity to place in the record something which has been troubling me since March 2003, and more so since July 2005.

Eric Brunner-Williams


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