[785] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] ICANN touts DNSSEC as tool to fight "Internet
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Wed Jul 28 22:20:07 2010
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:02:44 -0700
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ICANN touts DNSSEC as tool to fight "Internet Criminals"
ICANN said the DNSSEC would eventually allow Internet users to know
"with certainty" that they have been directed to the Web site they
sought. "This upgrade will help disrupt the plans of criminals around
the world who hope to exploit this crucial part of the Internet
infrastructure to steal from unsuspecting people," ICANN President and
CEO Rod Beckstrom said in a statement."
http://bit.ly/aQ4Vmr (Tech Daily Dose)
- - -
While the implementation of DNSSEC is certainly important, and the
avoidance of DNS cache poisoning attacks is clearly very useful,
ICANN's "Dragnet-esque" pronouncements about fighting crime strike me
as highly ironic.
The simple fact is that "Internet criminals" have a vast array of tools
in their arsenal to misdirect users, and few of these depend on cache
poisoning or DNS manipulation.
Much of the crime is enabled by the fundamental design of the domain name
registry/registrars ecosystem, which enables crooks to easily create and
abandon completely valid "disposable" domains that are only used for short
periods of time and cannot be reasonable tracked to their owners.
In fact, through their plans to unleash vast numbers of new Top Level
Domains (TLDs) on the Internet -- perhaps hundreds in the first
year -- ICANN will only be increasing the confusion of consumers and
providing fresh juice for criminal operations. Most Internet users
aren't calling for new TLDs -- they mainly think in terms of dot-com
and that's unlikely to change any time soon. The main push for new
TLDs is from would-be registry operators and their registrar cohorts,
who see the promise of big bucks from the rush of purely defensive
domain registrations that occur when every new TLD opens.
So as far as I'm concerned, ICANN isn't winning the "Joe Friday"
crime-fighter award any time soon.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility): http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad): http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance):
http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz
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