dr. ehud reiter, computing science, university of aberdeen1 public policy: control of internet l...
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Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 1
Public Policy: Control of Internet
Brief history of Internet Hardware, Software, Standards.
Domain names Who should control the net/web?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance
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Control of Internet
Internet/Web is very important to modern life. Who controls it?
» Specifies protocols» Decides who can use/connect to it» Specifies what activities legal/illegal» Gives out domain names» Taxes it???» etc
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Brief history: 1970s
1970s: US military created first long-distance network, ARPANet, which connected universities, military research labs
US military owned and controlled it.
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1980s: Many networks
Many more networks appeared» VNet: Internal IBM network
– University offshoot: Bitnet, earn
» JANet: UK universities» UUNet: cheap “network” formed using
telephone dialup lines» Etc
Mostly email, not real-time client-server
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1980s: Internet
Connected together all of these networks into a global “Internet”» Virtual network, which combined ARPANet,
VNet, JANet, etc– ARPANet user could easily email JANet, etc
» Mostly based on protocols and conventions from US military
» Ie, everyone else changed to what the US military where doing
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Example: names
ARPANet: [email protected] JANet: [email protected] UUNET: network path, eg
» e.reiter!aberdeen!dundee!edinburgh» Send email first to Edinburgh, then to
Dundee, then to Aberdeen, then to e.reiter Everyone switched to ARPANet style
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1980s: control
Who controlled the Internet in 1980s? No one controlled net as a whole
» IBM controlled VNET» UK govt controlled JANet» UUNet nodes controlled themselves
People switched to ARPANet standards because wanted to, their choice
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1990s: Integration, Web
1980s integration efforts succeed» 1990s internet truly looks like an integrated
network to its users, not patchworrk of hundreds of separate networks.
WWW invented in early 1990s» W3C (international consortium) quickly
established to set standards» Higher priority because Web invented in
Europe, instead of US?
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Commercial Importance
Largely because of Web, Internet became of much greater commercial interest» Dot.com boom» Domain names selling for $$$$
– $7.5M for business,com (more for porn.com)!
» Beginnings of spam
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1990s: Control
Who controlled Internet in 1990s?» Most control still resided with individual
component networks» International organisations (W3C, IETF.
ICANN, ISO, …) increasingly set standards» Lawyers increasingly involved
– Lawsuits on domain names, eg mcdonalds.com
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2000s: Internet essential
Many organisations rely on Internet» Insist that people use it» E-govt, E-commerce, E-Science, etc
Internet needs to work!» Must be fast, reliable, trusted, etc
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2000s: Attackers
Huge growth in spam email» Dominates most inboxes» Makes email less reliable/useful
– Anti-spam systems kill real emails
» Also phishing (con emails) Huge growth in viruses
» Many computers taken over by attackers
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2000s
Companies take security seriously» 1990s: Microsoft treats computer security
as marketing tool, to encourage updgrades– Doesn’t seriously try to make its software more
secure
» 2000s: Microsoft takes security very seriously, tries hard to stop it
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Governance problems
Hard to stop bad guys when there is so little control over the net» Change protocols – slow?» Spamming illegal – no international control?» Blacklist bad guys so cant use – how?
Does global Internet community have a duty to help poor countries?» Eg, help pay for E Africa fibre-option cable
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What is Internet/Web
Hardware: routers, fibre-optic links, … Software: browsers, servers, … Standards: HTTP, HTML, … Domain names
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Hardware
Routers, fibre-optic links, etc still owned by individual organisations, networks» Individuals: you own your wireless router» Organisations: Aberdeen Uni owns campus
Ethernet wiring» ISP/telecom: BT owns copper wires from
your house, switches» Govt: JANET owns link between Aberdeen
Uni and Dundee Uni
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Hardware
Very diverse ownership National infrastructure: LINX (more or
less) provides central hardware for UK Almost no hardware for Internet as a
whole» root nameservers?» Provided by LINX-like national sites
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LINX
London Internet Exchange» http://www.linx.net/» Cooperative of UK ISPs
Interconnect point for UK ISPs, International connections
Support services: name/time server» Service to Internet as a whole
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Control of Hardware
Who can plug hardware into Internet?» Anyone who can convince an organisation
which is currently on the net to link to you– Person/company: convince ISP to connect you– ISP: convince LINX to connect you
» Of course govts can regulate what happens in their countries
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Hardware Anarchy Surprising works as well as it does,
» tribute to tech-support personnel keeping their bit of the Internet going
Lack of control helps spammers?» Always find someone to connect them to
the net
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Software
We need software to use the Internet and web» Web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, » Web server: Apache, Tomcat,» OS support in Windows, Linux, …
Controlled by developers» Commercial: IE, Outlook, …» Open-source: Tomcat, Firefox ,…
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Control via Software
Can a commercial vendor control the Internet through its software» If everyone uses IE, Microsoft can “tweak”
IE to encourage people to use its products– Default search is MSN, not Google– Deliberately degrade browsing on competitor
websites (?????)
» Not ideal…
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Control via Software
Seems less of a problem now, because of blossoming of open-source» Apache, Tomcat, Firefox, etc
Net software becoming more of a shared resource, less of a commercial product» Much harder for one individual or
organisation to control!
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Standards
Standards are essential to Internet» Document formats: HTML, XML, PDF, GIF» Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, …» Low-level: TCP/IP» Other: Java, Unicode, …
Who controls these?
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Protocols
Protocols mostly controlled by international standards orgs
W3C consortium (web)» http://www.w3.org/» Most web protocols (eg, HTTP)
IETF (Internet)» http://www.ietf.org/» TCP/IP, other plumbing
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Document Formats
W3C controls many web ones» HTML, XML, RDF, OWL, ….
Other standards bodies» PDF, JPEG, MPEG, …
Some controlled commercially» WMF graphics: Microsoft
No one controls» GIF: Developed by Compuserve in 1980s, now in
public domain
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Commercial Formats
Is it OK for Adobe to control PDF, which is a defacto standard for the web?» Enables Adobe to sell related software?
Adobe has now made PDF an ISO standard» As of 1 Jul 2008
Trend for most widely-used formats
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Java
Who controls Java programing lang? Sun Microsystems
» Hold trademark» Tried to control/restrict competitors
– Especially MS, who created C# instead…
Now moving to open-source, standards
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Standards
1990s: there was a lot of concern about commercial control of standards» Java, PDF, GIF
Now trend is towards open standards controlled by intl bodies
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Domain names
Who controls internet names?» Which company is business.com?
ICANN (www.icann.org)» Decides on top-level domain names, such
as .com» International body, self-appointed?
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Domain names
Verisign (company) controls .com» Under contract from US govt» Why should US govt control?
Nominet controls .uk» Private not-for-profit company
Country domain names often controlled by national telecomms» http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/
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Domain Name Control
Somewhat bizarre structure Historical artefact
» Eg, US has top-level control because we use ARPANet names
Being rationalised?
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Who controls Internet?
Hardware: anarchy… Software: increasingly open-source Protocols: increasingly international
standards bodies Domain names: mixture
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Who should control net?
No one (anarchy)» Govts control within their country» No one controls net as a whole
Self-appointed committees (eg, W3C) UN body?
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UN Internet Agency?
Should an international body be set up to exercise global control over the Internet» Control standards, domain names» Provide open-source software» Under UN control?
– 2005 working group, set up by sec-gen Annan
Good idea or bad idea?